Mick was awoken by the sound of the cheery bell that signaled an equally chipper flight attendant's announcement, though the bell was by design while her voice was coffee induced to cover her exhaustion that matched the passengers after a 15 hour flight over the Pacific Ocean.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we are ten minutes from our destination, please return to your seats-"
At this Mick stopped listening. He dropped his head against the closed window, feeling his neck scream at him in protest at the action. Curse his forgetful mind in forgetting a vital travel pillow. That aside, he felt like he was deprived of any rest, even though he fell asleep twenty minutes after take off. All he had to do was put on his sunglasses, tip his hat low, slouch down, lean his head against something, and he was out. The flight was a pleasant one, which he was thankful for. He never drank or ate anything in the entire duration, sleeping though it all. Never even needed to use the restroom. Mick was against using the restroom on an object in motion. Thus, he took measures to avoid it.
That didn't help his rumbling stomach, however. He frowned at the sound and resolved to find something small in one of the cafes an airport no doubt had. Maybe even get a coffee. But not that Starbucks junk. They opened one of those abominations in the town thirty miles away from his home in the nearest town and it closed within a year*. Honestly, if they didn't jack that stuff up with fake syrups and overly priced whipped cream, maybe they wouldn't have failed. What was it about Americans and Starbucks? The stuff was disgusting! Overly sweet and syrupy, it killed the natural flavors! Insult to coffee, that's what Starbucks was.
Back to the present, the flight attendant hung up the radio and all was quiet minus the whirring of the plane engines and a few murmurs from passengers. Mick reached into his pocket and thumbed his ticket for the train to Teufort, making sure it was still there. All had gone well so far; didn't want to let that record slip now.
This was his chance. His chance to finally be himself and not worry what others would think of him. In Australia, he was always the odd one. Even in his family, he didn't fit in. He never looked like his parents, other than the long face she shared with his father, but that was hardly a trait that wasn't common among people in general.
He had blue eyes; his mother and father had green and brown, respectfully. He was tall and lanky, more leg than torso. His mother was a short squat thing and his father was perfectly proportional. His mother and father admonished violence, while he thrived in the bush, hunting more than just animals. And worst of all...
His father had a mustache. Bushy, strong, and full of character, the 'stache was magnificent and upheld the Australian science to it! Mick tried to grow one, but even with his thick dark colored hair and copious amounts of it elsewhere, the hair on his face refused to grow any longer than a stubble. This was more or less something that other adults picked on him for. Here he was, a skinny and abnormally tall oaf that stuck out like a sore thumb in all family reunions.
Honestly, he never felt more alone than being in a room with all of his supposed perfect cousins and other members. His dad never made any comment in front of the family members, nor did he respond to any of the unintentionally cruel comments that people made towards his son. and he never defended him either. His mother, however, did.
She was a woman that had a loving disposition and had the countenance of a grandmother, though her one son of 33 never even kissed a girl before, much less have any kids. If they lived in a neighborhood instead of the middle of the outback desert, Mick was sure that she would be the that woman who would bake goods and have all the kids over until the house was full of life and children. She would be the go to person for emotional support, tea, gossip, and maybe a second mother or grandmother.
His father, however, was a man who liked to keep to himself. There wasn't too much of a romantic bone in his body. He was a man's man, and unfortunately, in this case, supporting his son was not among the things he considered to be a part of his parental duty. That was his wife's job. His job was to toughen his son up.
This caused a bitter seed to be planted in Mick, and right before he left for the airport, his father exploded on him, calling him a crazed gunman. Mick took great offense to that, and the argument lasted all the way from dinner till he had to leave. It was never resolved, and resulted in Mick slamming the front door and not looking back.
But because he never looked back, he didn't see his mother sobbing on the couch and his father crushed with worry for the safety of his child, muttering sadly, "a father isn't supposed to bury his son."
Mundy nearly cried while waiting for his plane, but swallowed his pain and regret. There was no turning back. Not now.
The plane landed smoothly and without problem. His bus left on time, a black coffee was in his hand, and he had a train car all to himself. That was literally the best feeling he had in a while.
Mundy smiled to himself and slinked down in his seat, the sun over the desert canvas that was his window. It was summer here in the northern hemisphere, dry and hot. Two things he was used to. Another nap was in order, he thought.
When he woke up, the train was pulling into the station. He stood up and cracked his back, making sure his clothes were in order and didn't make him appear that he was a bum on the street. He stepped off the train with a confident stride, where he met miss Pauling. He had spoken to her twice over the phone; once for the job, second for details of the flight and how to send things overseas.
She was exactly as he pictured her. Not necessarily correct in features, but more of stature and attitude. To him that's all that mattered in a person. He was judged too often by his appearance that he promised himself to never do so to others. And he kept that promise.
This Miss Pauling introduced herself primly, but was friendly, nevertheless. He had to say, he liked her truck. It was worn with use and wasn't one of those spiffy luxury cars that people babied and worried over all the ruddy time. If there was a scratch on his vehicle, Mick wasn't concerned. So what if he had a stain on his seat? That was life, and a stain was just a memory.
The building they arrived at had the same disposition of a stagnant multimillion cooperation. Mick felt small and unimportant next to it, even though he was 6'3". He followed the small and non talkative woman into the lobby, where Mick was smacked in the face with titanium, steel, chrome, and silver.
Everything was so god damned grey! Shiny, but grey. Oh look, they threw in a couple of shrubs and a fountain. How natural. This was just one reason Mick could never take an office job. It was so closed in, and nothing about it embraced the wonderful earth he was put on. Was that hippyish just now, yeah. But he wasn't into all the "take this drug to expand your mind" or "peace! Make love, not war! Free love!" or "save the trees!" No, he was just outdoorsy. However, their sense of style wasn't all that bad. Leather, and tassels weren't horrendous. Neither were vests. However, brightly colored bell-bottom pants and T-shirts with peace signs? No thank you.
Two men were in the lobby other than a very freaked out receptionist, who seemed to be overworked and very new. She was hiding behind the tall counter that she sat in front of, eying the two males near the entrance with trepidation.
One male was in a WWII helmet that covered his eyes and was shouting about the other male. Said other man was a black Scotsman with one eye in a kilt. Mick knew that usually nothing went under a kilt, and prayed that was not the case.
"You are cheating! You are disgracing Sun Tzu with your despicable treatment of a noble game of war!" The American man shouted, throwing his fist into the air, his helmet bobbing around in his head.
"This isn't a game of war, lad! IT'S GO FISH!" The Scotsman argued back, pointing at the pairs of cards sitting on the floor between them to reiterate his point. Miss Pauling strode around the pair, ignoring them. Mick did the same, deciding that the two sitting on the ground were...er...special.
The petite female in purple showed him to the elevator, pressing the button for up. It didn't register, so she pressed it again. It still did nothing. A small groan, and she slammed it with her fist, her perfect bun loosening up with a few fly-aways and her glasses tilting as a result. The button lit up from her threatening blow. Mick backed away a little
The door opened with an eerie grown of protest, and Mick wasn't so sure about getting in that thing. Despite what the building initially looked like, he was sure if he got in that thing, it was going to fail. It was his type of luck. So far the day was fine, but the stars above him just loved to mess with him.
Pauling eyed him curiously.
"Mister Mundy, is everything alright?" She asked, straightening her glasses. The tracker let out a huge sigh and nodded, gaining some sense. He had no idea where he was going, and if she was taking the elevator, she couldn't lead him. Besides, the floor they were going to may be rather high.
As he predicted, they were heading to floor 16. While Mundy could climb stairs, he highly doubted he could make it to level 10, much less 16. He sighed and waited as the elevator moved steadily up the shaft, the floors passing by at a solid speed. At floor 7, it gave a shudder, but kept going. Miss Pauling didn't flinch. Mick assumed it was normal. It didn't help his nerves, though. He felt cramped in this small space with this woman, small as she was.
When they reached the destined floor, Mick practically ran out of the silver death box, Pauling following him. He glared at the offending miniature traveling room, before being led into a meeting room.
"Wait here while I get the files, Mister Mundy." She said, closing the door. He sighed and sat in a chair. So, he got to be alone for a while.
Back at home in the outback, he had the privilege to be a tracker, and because of that, he was able to have a life of almost complete solitude with nothing to comfort him but nature himself. He was at home in the woods and desert, and could find a man in just two hours on a good day. Three on a bad one.
This job was to be entirely different. He was going to find a nest and sit there while picking off enemies. What was the point of this war again? Something about brothers? Whatever, the money was a sweet deal, added onto the fact he could write to his parents and keep in touch. Furthermore, he had a set of woods nearby with untouched game for nearly 10 years. It was perfect.
Pauling entered the room and placed all the files in front of his seated form.
"Sign here" she said, pointing to a dotted line and producing a pen. He did so and was about to leave when she stopped him.
"Hold on, Mister Mundy. We are not finished, I'm afraid." She said, flipping the page. Mick sighed and sat down again.
"Fine, but don't call me Mr. Mundy. That was me dad." He muttered, flipping though and signing every dotted line that said "signature" prior to it. It took a while, but not so badly that his hand ached.
She gave him a set of papers, and told him it was the particulars of his job. The rules and restrictions, if you will. He sighed and walked away. Reading was not his strong suit, but it would have to do. If there was one thing that his job as a tracker taught him, it was that he always should read the fine print.
You never knew when a client might put it into the contract that you have to die once the deed is done.
He found a set of stairs and frowned at the blaring red warning sign.
"If opened, alarm will be triggered."
Mick grumbled under his breath and resigned to take the damned box. He tapped the button a couple of times before it worked. Surprisingly enough, the elevator opened as soon as the light came on. He entered and rested his back against the wall, praying that all would go well.
As the elevator doors closed, he got the same feeling he had before of being too cramped in one space. However, he was alone in this silver box, so why-
There was a violent screech, a jolt of the car, the sound of two bodies hitting the floor, and the lights died. For half a second, Mick panicked and thought he had gone blind, but then the emergency light turned on, it painting everything in crimson red light. He heard a groan and his head whirled to the side, seeing another man sprawled onto the floor, his neck bent at an awkward angle at the juncture between the floor and the wall.
He was dressed in a fairly expensive suit and dress pants. His shoes were polished and proper looking. He would've looked like a business man, a client that may hire Mick, but the only thing that killed the image was a balaclava over his face, hiding his features, but not his expression of pain and shock. His eyes were squeezed tightly shut as his teeth hissed in pain as he tried to turn his head.
"You alright, mate?" Mick asked, concern bubbling in his stomach. The masked man squinted open his eyes to stare up at the bushman awkwardly.
"Nothing broken, I think." He murmured, the French accent taking Mick by surprise. Yet again, if they hired men from Australia, what was to stop them from hiring others from France, Italy, or China?
The stranger made a move to try and get up, but Mick placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Stay there. Take your time, mate." Mick said, climbing to his feet and checking the buttons to see what worked. None of them did, and the Aussie let out a large breath through his nose.
"Power outage." The Frenchman muttered, sitting up and rubbing his neck. Mick glanced at him before collapsing down next to him.
"I knew I should've taken the stairs." Mick said to himself. "Alarm be damned."
"Not exactly the day you had in mind?" The Frenchman asked eyeing him curiously.
"Nah. Just got hired, my flight was good and I had a train car all to myself. Not a bad day, if you ask me." He avoided the subject of his parents. He wasn't ready to talk about them just yet. "I just had a funny feeling about this elevator." He murmured. The European shook his head.
"I was hired as well, though my day has been less than satisfactory." He confessed, leaning his head back against the wall behind him.
"What happened?" Mick asked curiously. The European glanced his way before closing his eyes.
"A series of bad flights and airport management, and being attacked by an idiotic American in the lobby." He sighed out, the exhaustion oozing out from every pore. The marksman nodded in understanding.
"Yeah, I met him too. Him and his Scottish pal." Mick said, playing with a sniper bullet that he left in his vest pocket by accident. How he wasn't stopped in the airport security, he had no clue.
"Last I saw of them, they were discussing The Art of War by Sun Tzu, the American sounding like a demented Neanderthal." The masked man said. He glanced over at Mick's hands.
"Sniper?" He inquired, his eyes glancing up to the man's face.
"Yeah." Mick turned to the other male. "And you?"
"Spy." He said.
"That why I couldn't see you at first?" Mick wondered aloud.
"Perhaps. I was just testing my cloaking device." The spy said, taking out a cigarette case and removing a cancer stick from the holder. Mundy frowned.
"Mate, if you want to take a durry, please don't do it here. It's a closed space, and I'd like to breath." The Aussie asked politely. The spy sighed and put it away.
"You're rather eloquent for a bushman." He commented.
"Bushman?" He murmured. He raised his voice to normal volume. "I have three rules. Be polite. Be efficient. And have a plan to kill everyone you meet. That's what it means to be an assassin."
"Assassin." The Frenchman scoffed.
"What, you think that being an assassin-"
"You are not an assassin, mon ami. You are a bushman. A reclusive individual that hides in the brush and shoots people five miles away, rather than accomplishing anything." The spy cut him off. "A professional has standards indeed. However, your standards are below par. What about never being discovered? What about finding out their secrets and using their weaknesses against them?"
"That's called stabbing people in the back, and that's not polite. Breaks my code of conduct." The Aussie snapped. The spy had practically smushed his career under those overly fancy shoes of his. Honestly, just because the bloke could talk fancy and probably disrespectfully bed women in the process, doesn't mean his job was any better.
"And what does your mother think of your code of conduct?" The spy asked, smirking when he heard the tracker growl and turn away.
"None of your damned business."
"I suppose she didn't take it well." The spy continued.
"Shut up." Mick growled, remembering his mother's pleas for him to stay home and not get involved.
"A mother worries for her babies. A good mother raises them better."
That was it. Mick lunged at the eloquent male in this crimson red cell that was an elevator, pulling him to his feet and shoving the spy up the side of the wall, holding him by his suit jacket. Instead of scaring the gentleman, the spy merely grinned triumphantly.
"Are you going to hit me, bushman?" He jeered. "Come now, I thought your rule was to be polite."
"You keep me mum out of this." Mick warned in a low voice. "She's got nothing to do with this. You want to insult me, fine. But keep me family out." He shoved the spy against the wall as a reiteration of how serious he was before letting him go. He made a promise to never hit or get into fistfights. He intended to keep that promise, no matter how much he itched to take a swing at the Frenchman. The spy straightened his suit with a huff.
"You aren't even using proper grammar. 'Me mum, me family'...did you even pass high school?" He paused before smirking. "On second thought, I know the answer. Only one more year, Michel, and you would've graduated." The sniper glared at the spy.
"Let me guess, you snooped into my file and read that?" Mick decided to turn the tables with a sneer. "Congrats. I'm not mad. Anyone can know that. I admit it. I ain't ashamed. I just didn't see the point in staying if all I had to know was how to shoot pompous bastards like you."
"Perhaps if you graduated high school, you would know what that word actually means." The spy countered, undeterred by the new attitude.
"What?" Mick questioned.
"You claim to be polite, and kindly asked me to keep parents out of it, yet you insult my parents as a reward. Bastard means a child born under unwed parents." The spy explained with a triumphant smirk.
The sniper looked down at his shoes and sighed, recalling what he meant, and knew the spook was right.
"I'm sorry, mate." He murmured. "And don't call me that French name. It's Mick."
The elevator shuddered and the light turned back on. Both men finally got a good look at each other.
The spy really was elegant, but had a self-satisfied air that irked the living daylights out of Mick. He hated men like this spook. He was a rogue, but handsomely mysterious. Women fell flat on their faces for this man, no doubt. What was even less doubtful was that this guy probably tossed them aside like trash. Spies often didn't care about anyone but themselves, and so far, as much as Mick could see, the spook fit that perfectly. He was so busy glaring at the masked man that he missed the appreciative stare that the spy was giving him, his eyes wandering over the Aussies form and face in chaste admiration.
The car moved downwards, steadily reaching ground floor. The spook and sniper turned to the metal door in front of them, not daring to look at each other for totally opposite reasons. One feared he would loose control over his fists. The other feared his eyes would give away the tumbling emotions inside.
"Don't flatter yourself, bushman. I looked at everyone's file, not just yours." He said coldly, betraying how he really felt towards the man. The sniper grunted, his eyes staring at his reflection. When they reached the bottom floor, the spy stopped Mick from leaving.
"Just so you know, my parents no longer exist. You cannot insult them." The spy said with a flourishing smile, disappearing on the spot. Mick opened his mouth to yell at the man, but the masked individual was gone. He growled in frustration instead and parked his ass on a bench, opening his file with a grumbling mutter.
The two men that were in the lobby prior were beating each other, cards abandoned, and now wrestled in the fountain.
Mick decided to get busy reading. As he read the contents, he found himself in several states of horror from each sentence. He signed his life away for five years. There were no take backs. He was stuck with the spook as a teammate.
This would be agony.
* Starbucks opened over 80 locations in Eastern Australia only to have most of them shut down. The reasons stated in the reports were because of over building with not enough consumers and poor pricing. That, and the cafe culture in Australia was already doing well, there just wasn't enough room for another line, and a foreign one at that. I also took a little too much liberty for this, because Starbucks didn't open in Australia until the year 2000, and this fic is in the 1960s. Oops. As for Mick's bashing of the stuff, this is just Mick's personal opinion, and does NOT reflect all Australians' opinion of Starbucks products. I, however, fit the American stereotype and live off Starbucks coffee.
* The Australia depicted here is mostly to fit the Team Fortress 2 universe, and DOES NOT in fact reflect the people there. I'm so SO sorry, my Australian readers. I promise, one day I'll go to your fabulous country and apologize in person if I offend anyone. I'll go cry in a corner now.