Hey everyone!

Yes, I know I have a few other stories I need to finish but I just couldn't help myself. I rewatched Red 2 the other day and was struck, once again, by what an interesting character Han is and also by how hot Lee Byung-hun is. I hope you enjoy!

Rating T: for language, violence, a lil bit of creepiness and gore.

None of the characters (except for Harper) or this universe are owned by me, I do not make a profit from this, this is a work of admiration and love, nothing else.

Chapter One

The antique grandfather clock that was at least two hours behind chimed sunnily in a series of high-pitched bells that threatened to deafen the lone occupant of the room.

Harper lifted her head from where it had been resting on her arms and glared at the clock with bleary, sleep filled eyes. Wiping the drool crusted to the corner of her mouth with the sleeve of her jumper, she patted the desk, fumbling around clumsily for her phone. She eventually found it and hissed at the bright light it emitted, squinting down at it to read the time.

"Fuck," she groaned, rubbing a hand over her forehead, "three AM again." She started to stand, stretching her back in a long arch like a lazy cat and stuffing various bits of paper, books and small objects into a worn bag. "I'm not even getting paid for this bullshit."

Stomping over to the door, she turned back around, checking to make sure she hadn't left anything behind. The office looked the same as it always did, messy and cluttered at a first glance and yet there was a sense of order to the chaos upon closer inspection. The teetering piles of paper and books that covered every surface wound around the room in alphabetical order, dirty dishes lined the windowsill while clean mugs were packed precariously in a glass cabinet that also housed a variety of priceless ancient objects from stone axes that dated back to thirteen thousand years ago to intricate bronze statues of religious deities.

Despite it not being her office, Harper was intimately familiar with it. She knew that the grandfather clock came from an eighteenth century French lord's estate and that at every five minutes to the hour the smallest hand stuttered in a double tick. She knew that there was a small, deep chip on the top right hand corner of the mahogany desk that once supposedly belonged to Queen Victoria. She knew that the top drawer of the filing cabinet only opened if she jiggled the handle twice while kicking the bottom corner exactly four times. She also knew that the crumbling old door next to the fireplace, that once, centuries ago, would have allowed servants access to the musty old room did not open anymore. Could not open anymore. So, why the fuck, she asked herself, is it open now?

She froze, breath held, eyes wide, staring at the door with a deep frown. She rubbed her eyes once, twice, but it still appeared to be open. She was mostly sure she wasn't dreaming but she was also sure she would have noticed a sealed door miraculously becoming unsealed.

It was a dark night and the only light came from the silver glow of the moon and the harsh, painful light of her phone. She held it up higher, trying to cast a beam across the room to get a closer look but all she could really make out were vague shadows that seemed to creep and slither closer. She shuddered as a low buzzing sound started in what felt like the base of her skull. Her limbs started to go numb and icy tendrils began to wind their way up her spine. It was only when a low click disturbed the still air, almost silent and almost unnoticed, that she recognised what she was feeling. Fear.

The first gunshot missed her by mere millimetres. The second grazed her arm. She didn't feel it. The noise was unnatural and wrong, wrong, wrong. It didn't belong. Harper had never heard a gunshot outside of the TV before and was distantly surprised at how different it sounded. The noise was searing and painful, punching through her eardrums with a startling brute force. It left a strange echo that drew the sound out for an impossible amount of time, making a few short seconds feel like hours. There was an odd, smoky smell in the air, cloying and suffocating, sliding up her nose and wrapping almost tenderly around her throat.

Harper watched the scene unfold like it was a movie, like she was observing everything through a window with a detached mild interest.

Blood dripped from her wound in a dazzling stream of crimson that shone in the grey and black, colourless night. Splinters of wood cracked and flew through the air in slow motion as the bullet hit the doorframe. She watched as one embedded itself in her hand, piercing her skin as easily as a needle pierces cloth. How odd.

The hallway blurred past her as an endless tunnel, the once grand, airy space now a constricting mass of darkness that seemed to squeeze tighter and tighter. Was she running or was she flying? She didn't know. She didn't know anything anymore. What way was the exit again? It didn't matter. Just keep moving.

The stairs stretched out before her seemingly without an end in sight. There was a slight breeze floating along the air and she had the sudden sense of standing on the edge of a cliff, of being hundreds of feet away from the safety of solid ground. The steps that only a few hours before were a short, familiar sight now felt like an impossible obstacle she had to cross. They spelled danger and trouble. She ran down them anyway.

She missed her step. She seemed to be frozen in middair for a few seconds, suspended by time before she felt her ankle fly through nothing then smack into the floor, twisting at a strange angle.

The world slammed into focus again. Pain. She was in pain. Everything burned. She couldn't breathe properly; her chest was collapsing. Had she been shot in the abdomen? Was she dying? Yes? No? No. Panic attack. She was having a panic attack. It didn't matter. Keep running.

All she could hear were the echoes of the gunshots, like there were hundreds in the air flying around her, and her own frenzied breathing. She was being too loud. She needed to be quieter. Her muscles ached. She didn't think she could keep going for much longer when she couldn't breathe properly. Oxygen. She wanted oxygen. Too slow. She was running too slowly. Her ankle, it felt sprained; she was limping now. She wasn't going to make it.

Harper turned a corner too quickly, banging her hip against the wall and the momentary distraction cost her. From the darkness to her left a pale, deathly white hand shot out of the shadows and slipped around her mouth, dragging her backwards.

Her oxygen supply already limited, Harper could only thrash in panic, trying to rain futile blows on the person behind her.

"Shh," her assailant whispered, almost soothingly, into her ear. "It's all right."

Fuck. The person trying to kill her was a psychopath.

She let out a muffled whimper and tried harder to wriggle away but her struggles were getting weaker by the second and soon she was pretty sure she wouldn't be able to fend off a fly, let alone an assailant with a gun.

"Stop struggling, we're here to help you," the voice said in a heavy American accent.

Like I'm falling for that bullshit, Harper thought, mentally rolling her eyes and kicking backwards in a hard strike to her kidnapper's knees.

To the surprise of both Harper and her assailant, Harper landed a blow. Her attacker immediately released her as their breath rushed out in a pained, "oomph."

In an instant, Harper was on the run again, aiming for the front door. If she could just get outside, onto the main road, where there were people and streetlights then she would probably get out of this alive.

She could see the orange glow of a streetlight, shining through the glass window and under the crack of the door, reaching for her, beckoning for her. She was so close. Just not close enough.

All the air was forced from her lungs as she was body slammed to the side by someone much bigger and harder than her previous kidnapper. She hit the ground hard, wheezing, dizzy and close to passing out. Was she really going to die like this? On the dirty, dusty floor, coughing and hacking, terrified and desperate?

She bared her teeth in a furious snarl, scrambling under her attacker and fighting with renewed vigour. If she was going down, she was going down swinging. She reached blindly, trying to find some strands of hair she could viciously yank on but all she found was a smooth, bald scalp. She growled in frustration, reduced to her most basic, primitive state in her fight for survival.

"Stop, we're trying to help you, idiot," a man's voice whispered angrily to her as she was grabbed under the armpits and hauled up off the ground from behind. Someone grabbed the back of her neck in an unrelenting grip and forced her forwards, easily dodging her wild, flailing efforts to escape.

Harper was forced into a small cupboard lined with wrinkling coats that smelled of mothballs and mould. She choked, bringing her jumper up over her mouth. Someone else got in with her. They smelled of raspberries and rain and had a slim, soft frame. Definitely a woman.

"Just stay quiet. It will all be over soon. You're safe with us," the woman said in a low murmur, pressing closer to Harper in an effort to be heard.

Outside the cupboard, the muffled sound of scuffling could be heard, followed by a loud thump and a whimper. Light suddenly flooded the small space Harper was crammed into, instantly blinding and disorienting her. She held an arm up to cover her eyes and crawled out on her hands and knees, gagging, sobbing and confused.

The smell of rain and raspberries engulfed her again as the woman from before gently tucked Harper's hair behind her ears, wiping away her tears with a soft tissue. Harper was helped to her feet and in the harsh, fluorescent light of the energy saving light bulbs they had just installed in the decrepit, old building last week, she got her first good look at the people who had either tried to save her or tried to kill her.

The woman who had helped her was beautiful in a quiet, sweet kind of way, with wide, brown cow eyes that held a softness her companions lacked. She was in the arms of a tall, well-built bald man that looked to be a bit older than her. He was fussing over her, checking her for injuries and signs of distress as she murmured soothing reassurances that were too quiet for Harper to catch.

A gentleman in a long puffy coat, with wild white hair and even wilder eyes stood next to them, looking a little unsure as he tucked a hand gun into a holster on his waist.

Harper swallowed at the sight of the gun, taking an unconscious step back that he picked up on. He rolled his eyes at her.

"Don't you think I would've shot you already if I was going to kill you?"

Harper inhaled deeply. "What. The. Fuck. Is going the hell on?"

A horrifically familiar laugh sounded behind her. It was more of a cackle, twisted, manic; a shrill, wheezing noise that would forever haunt Harper's dreams. Slowly and with dread making her feet almost too heavy to move, Harper turned around.

The sight that greeted her made her feel sick to her bones.

An old woman lay sprawled on the ground. Her hair, which was always in a neat, tightly coiled bun, lay in a tangled mess around her face, draped limply over her elbows. Blood dripped from her mouth, staining her teeth an unmistakable scarlet as her frothing mouth drew back in a skeletal grin.

"Harper, my dear, be a good girl and help me up," she said before howling with laughter, rolling back on the floor in a pool of her own blood.

Tears making her vision blurry, Harper could only stand there and watch. "What? Dr. Hammond? I don't –"

"Understand?" The old woman asked before tutting mockingly, still on her hands and knees. "I thought I taught you better than that."

Harper's legs gave out and she collapsed back to the floor, her ears ringing. There was that buzzing again, at the base of her skull.

The woman crawled forward, a wet, slapping sound following her as her dress splashed in the puddle of blood, her nails clacking against the floorboards. "Still confused, my lovely?"

Harper scrambled back, eyes wide and darting around the room, desperate for an escape.

The man with the wild hair sighed, striding forward he whacked the woman on the back of the head. She was knocked out cold with a sickening crunch.

"We told you, we're here to help."

The safe house, once they eventually reached it, was old but warm. It was a small cottage in the middle of nowhere, decorated with hideous seventies wallpaper. It had that old people smell that seemed to belong in the foundations of every house built before 1950 but Harper didn't mind as long as it kept her protected.

Harper made a beeline for the kitchen, immediately filling the kettle up with water and digging out a few mugs from the cupboards. Her ankle ached but it was a distant, dull pain that was easily ignored – she was lucky it was just a sprain. The biggest injury she had was the bullet wound but it was just a scratch from where the bullet had grazed her, easily tended to with some antiseptic cream and a plaster.

"The British and their tea," the bald one sighed, settling into an awful orange armchair.

Harper ignored him, filling her mug with hot water and swirling the teabag around with a spoon, watching as the water went a satisfying black. Once the tea was ready, she joined the others, choosing to sit on a rotting old stool instead of on the sofa next to the one with the gun.

They sat there in an awkward silence for a long few moments before Harper cracked. "Who the fuck are you guys?"

The bald spoke first. "Frank Moses. Retired CIA. You're welcome for saving your life."

"Marvin Boggs. Also retired CIA. Can I have some of your tea?"

Harper gave him an irritated look. "There's a cup on the counter - no sugar in it, though."

He left. Harper turned to the only other woman in the room.

"Sarah Ross. Retired customer service telemarketer." She smiled.

Harper blinked several times in rapid succession. She opened her mouth and then closed it again. "CIA? It's that bad?"

Frank sighed. "We said retired. The CIA has nothing to do with this. We're here to save our own skin and just happened to arrive in time to save yours."

Marvin sat back down, this time with a mug of tea and a few biscuits. "Don't act stupid. You must have some idea of why we're here."

Harper squirmed. Her hands hadn't stopped shaking. They said it was the adrenaline and that it would stop in time but it didn't feel like it would.

Frank gave her searching look. "Did you or did you not at 15:00 hours yesterday afternoon attempt to publish an article online about corruption and terrorism in every English academic centre?"

"Yes."

"Well, there you go. That's why someone tried to kill you, genius."

Harper glared, shifting on the too small stall. "How are you all connected to this? You said you were retired right? What's a bunch of retired American agents doing in London saving some random PhD student?"

Frank sighed, rubbing his head. "The terrorist organisation that infiltrated your university are after us. They think we know something we don't. Again."

"We need you to tell us everything you know," Marvin piped up, his voice a shade darker, more threatening.

This time Harper sighed, fiddling with a loose thread on her jeans. "I don't know much."

"Doesn't matter – it's still more than us," Sarah said, shrugging apologetically when Frank shot her a look.

Harper supposed she ought to get it over with. "I'm a history student. I'm researching the routes used on the Silk Roads and what goods were traded through them. When looking at some statues from what is now modern day Bagdad, I found small, coded notes, memory sticks and computer chips inside them. I'm not stupid. I work part time with a newspaper - I know terrorist groups like to sell all the artefacts they have plundered from historical sights and museums on the Black Market to raise funds. It wasn't too much of a stretch to think they were using it to smuggle communications as well." She continued to fiddle with the loose thread – she should probably get new jeans. "Obviously I was freaked out but – but what bothered me more, or, scared me more, I guess, was that they had to have had an inside contact."

Marvin nodded. "That's how it always work."

Harper's breath shuddered out of her. "Right, well, I figured that it had to be someone at the airport. I wanted to go to the police but I was worried they would arrest me for it. I couldn't prove that it wasn't me smuggling everything. So I looked deeper but the deeper I went, the more I realised how, how connected they were? They had to have an extensive network of people inside the UK and, this is just conjecture, but not just in universities – in the police, in the newspapers – everywhere. Ironically, I had the evidence to go to the police but found that I just didn't trust them. I thought publishing the article and everything I had online, in a public space, would be the best thing I could do, that once it was all out there they would have no reason to come after me." She laughed bitterly, "stupid."

"Yes, that was dumb of you," Marvin said.

"The worst thing was that it didn't publish. The site I tried to post the article on just wouldn't download it? Like an idiot I didn't think of anything of it – I just thought the Wi-Fi was bad. Those offices, that building, it's old – we have connectivity issues all the time. I was just going to wait it out, wait for the Wi-Fi to connect again but I fell asleep and when I woke up…. When I woke up… You saw what happened." She tried not to cry.

"It wasn't connectivity issues that stopped you from publishing that article. I'm surprised they didn't kill you sooner," Frank mused, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

"That's a good point, Frank, they should have killed you sooner. They never would have let you get this far unless you were useful to them somehow. What else do you know?" Marvin leaned forward, his gun now in his hand, resting on his lap but pointed in Harper's direction.

She jumped back. "Nothing! I told you everything I know! Do you really think I'm working with them?" Fuck this, she thought, I've had enough. She marched forward, towards Marvin, only stopping when he lifted the gun higher. "Go ahead and shoot me then – it won't change the fact that I'm innocent and in way over my fucking head. I have no idea what I'm doing, what's going on or where the hell I'm going to go from here!" She started to cry, big, ugly, embarrassing sobs that wracked her whole frame. "I just want my life to go back to the way it was before."

"Jesus, Marvin, put the gun down," Sarah hissed, jumping up to comfort Harper, making soft noises and guiding her back to her seat. "Of course we don't think you're working with them, honey, but you have to admit that something doesn't add up here."

"I think I can help you there," A soft voice said from the kitchen.

Faster than anyone could blink, three guns were pointed in the direction of the doorway.

"Fuck, Victoria, we could have killed you!" Frank said, sighing in exasperation and sounding very put upon.

The woman, Victoria, laughed - a tinkling, elegant sound that didn't match the large machine gun swinging daintily by her waist. She strode forward, designer coat swishing behind her and Harper caught a whiff of expensive Chanel perfume. "Please, like you could get anywhere close to touching me. You're getting soft Frank – it was really no challenge for me to get in undetected."

"Shut up."

"Anyway, I think I can fill in some missing pieces of this puzzle." She gracefully perched herself on the sofa. "Firstly, didn't anyone think it strange that it wasn't a professional that tried to kill our budding journalist here – it was her mentor." She paused, inspecting her nails.

Harper froze. She didn't want to talk about this, she didn't want to think about this.

"Yeah it was kinda weird," Marvin mused.

"Well," Victoria began, "I knew Dr. Hammond personally. We went to the same boarding school as little girls. She was a jealous, petty little thing but was good at hiding it." She settled the gun down on the floor next to her, giving it a small pat like she was petting a beloved pet instead of a deadly weapon. "We met for a small reunion brunch the other week and I could tell straight away something was off. At first I thought she was just going senile – she had that manic look in her eyes but then I smelt her jacket. I've known the smell of gunpowder since before I could walk." She brushed some imaginary flint off her skirt. "I did some digging. I was getting a little bored – hadn't killed anyone in weeks, not to mention I hadn't been invited on any of your little adventures for months," she sniffed indignantly. " A girl gets lonely, you know." She pouted. "Anyway, I looked into it, found what Miss Ainsworth here was working on and knew I had stumbled onto something big. I haven't saved the world in almost a year now, it was well overdue."

"Wha – saving the world?" Harper gulped, feeling like a tidal wave was looming over her head while she was already drowning in the rip current.

"Don't interrupt, just listen, dear. I'm sure you have a lot of questions," she gave Harper a pointed though not unkind look. "As I was saying, I know Dr. Hammond and I thought it strange that Harper was still alive. I have no doubt that she wanted to kill you long before she was told to, like I said, she was always jealous and petty. She wasn't going to let a young, pretty little thing like you outdo her in her own research, which you were well on your way to doing."

"Are you going to get to the point or not?" Marvin said, rolling his eyes.

Victoria gave him a hard punch to the arm without even needing to look. Harper was deeply impressed. She wanted to be Victoria.

"I don't know for sure but the only thing that makes sense to me is that this organisation, for whatever reason, was interested in your research, Harper. I think that's why you are the only student Dr. Hammond personally tutored and why she let you get so close, why they let you live for so long. Then, obviously, you got too curious, stumbled onto to something you shouldn't have and then became a liability. I bet Hammond was just begging to be the one to put the bullet in you. Thank God they let her, otherwise you would be dead as a doornail right now, darling."

Harper swallowed. "Thanks," she said sarcastically.

Victoria ignored her. "That doesn't explain why you're here, Frank."

Frank nodded. "Well it's a long story but to make things brief, we may have stumbled onto something while we were vacationing," he gave Victoria a meaningful look, "in Spain. Then it was the usual – some people tried to kill us, we killed them, traced them back to the building Dr. Hammond worked in and got there just in time to find her trying to kill this young lady here."

There was a long silence.

"Well, I'm glad that the band's all back together in any case," Victoria said. "Let's take a look these very interesting objects you found, Miss Ainsworth. I assume you didn't leave them behind?"

Harper scoffed, "no, I am completely stupid and incompetent." She rolled her eyes, lifting up the small, raggedy bag she had packed earlier. "They're all in here."

"Well," Frank smiled for the first time, "let's get to work then."

Thank you so much for reading! I know Han wasn't in this chapter but I have to ~set the scene~ and establish a plot first.