A/N: wow, i sure love emerging from the dead once every seven months ish to publish something (I'm just happy I finished this tbh). also in my head this is kinda part of the same series as "storms" but you don't have to read that to get this. enjoy and happy spyfest!
Ben has stopped being surprised when Alex Rider stumbles through his door. He's made it no secret that the teenager is welcome any time, whether Ben himself is home or not.
He is, sometimes, however, surprised by the frequency of these visits. Alex doesn't come by much - Ben has no idea where, if anywhere, he stays when it's not with him - but more and more often he's been coming by without even being injured (or pursued, or sick, or almost too exhausted to stand). Ben doesn't object. Every night Alex spends at his apartment is a night that he knows the boy isn't spending on the street or who knows where else.
Ben wishes he could do more for Alex. Every extra bit of time he spends with the boy reminds him just how...not okay he is. There are little things, lots of little things, that constantly worry Ben.
Alex never seems to eat quite enough for a boy his age. He definitely doesn't get enough sleep. He doesn't always wear a jacket when it's chilly out, and Ben knows for a fact that he has seen Alex cross the street without looking both ways - or either way, or at all.
They're all small, and they seem like they should be relatively unimportant, but when they're all combined, it makes Ben wonder:
If Alex is like this when life is as normal and calm and safe as it gets for him, then what is he like on missions?
This time is easy. Alex is just tired, mostly, and a little beaten up, but nothing serious. Of course that doesn't count any injuries from the last time around, which almost definitely aren't healed, if Ben had to guess.
Alex accepts an ice pack and nothing else.
"I have to go," Ben says. He feels pretty helpless, as always. "You can stay as long as you want, okay? And we can talk when I get back. If you want."
"Okay," Alex says quietly. He takes the ice pack and heads to the hall without saying anything else.
Ben isn't really expecting Alex to still be there when he gets back from work (almost exclusively desk work and occasionally helping with training, nowadays, an arrangement that Ben suspects MI6 put into place as soon as they became aware that he was, in actions if not in legality, acting as Alex's guardian - he guesses that he's more valuable to them safeguarding their greatest asset than he ever could be in the field.) However, Alex is still there, dozing on the couch, a book in his hand. Ben doesn't want to wake him, but the teen's eyes snap open as soon as the door closes.
"You doing alright?" Ben asks. "Does your head still hurt?"
"I'm alright," Alex replies. "I got off easy this time."
"Yeah, you did," Ben agrees. He sits next to Alex on the couch and briefly inspects the bruise on the boy's cheek, which is already looking a little better. "I'm glad."
Alex snorts. "Yeah. Yay for needing basically no recovery time at all before they can send me back out." His voice is laced with bitterness, as well as a despondence that definitely does not belong in the voice of a seventeen year old.
"I can try to talk to someone, or maybe-"
"No," Alex interrupts, sounding very defeated. "Please don't. If you make too much trouble they might...you know…"
He doesn't finish the sentence, but Ben can guess at any number of possible endings. Might put an end to this arrangement. Might relocate Ben somewhere else entirely. Might make Alex stay with a stranger, or at the bank itself.
Might decide Ben is too much of a liability, what with his being worried about Alex's basic wellbeing and all.
"You're right," Ben says sadly. "I just wish I could make things better."
"You do," Alex says, "they just excel at making things worse."
Well, Ben thinks, he can't argue with that.
"I'm going to bed," Alex says abruptly. It's early, but Ben doesn't comment on it. Heaven knows Alex needs sleep.
"Alright," Ben says. "Rest up. I'll see you in the morning."
Alex walks out of the room with slumped shoulders and a haunted look in his eyes.
(Alex isn't there the next morning, nor for nearly a month after that. Ben, as always, just hopes that he's safe.)
The next time isn't so easy: Alex has a terrifyingly deep slash in his arm (roughly bandaged), a badly sprained ankle (crudely braced), and a mild cold.
"What happened?" Ben asks as soon as he assesses the injuries, not really expecting a response.
Alex coughs several times, then winces. "I landed badly on the ankle jumping out of a building," he says with a scratchy voice. "Caught the knife in a fight with my guy twice my size."
"Picking fights with guys twice your size? I thought self preservation was supposed to be the first law of intelligence," Ben says, trying to cover his concern with gentle teasing.
It seems to make Alex shut down. "I'm still alive, aren't I?" Alex replies flatly. "Besides, we both know that's bullshit."
"Alex," Ben says reprovingly.
Alex rolls his eyes, though the effect is slightly ruined by a sniffle. "Fine, we both know that's...nonsense."
"That's not what I meant and you know it." Ben hands Alex a cup of water and an apple. "You have to take care of yourself. You're just a kid, Alex, and you deserve better than this. Don't forget that."
"Yeah. Okay. Thanks," Alex says in an uninterested monotone. He takes the proffered items as well as a box of tissues and goes to his room - well, the room that's his in all but name - leaving Ben to wonder what exactly he's supposed to do here.
(He has no idea.)
Alex stays for six days this time. He gets over the cold in two, after which he's much more sociable than he was before. He talks to Ben, although never about anything particularly important, and even cooks a couple of times.
Sometimes - when he's napping on the couch, when he's absorbed in a movie, when he's animatedly recapping a football match - he could even pass for a regular seventeen year old. Those moments are bittersweet for Ben. They give him a glimpse of what Alex could have been, maybe, if this hell of a life hadn't been thrown upon him.
But there are other things that remind him that Alex can never be a regular seventeen year old, and that hurts.
And it hurts even more to know that Ben can't do anything about it, not really, can only try to address the symptoms without ever touching the root cause.
At the end of the six days, Alex leaves, this time with a proper goodbye.
"Take care of yourself," Ben tells him.
Alex turns away so Ben can't see his face, but his voice trembles ever so slightly. "I don't know if I can do that," he says, and he's out the door before Ben can reply.
The next time is so bad that MI6 actually acknowledges it, which worries Ben more than anything else.
Alex appears on his doorstep accompanied by an agent, a pair of crutches, and newly haunted eyes. Ben promptly ushers them in, shooting a slight glare at the agent as Alex settles himself gently on the couch.
There's a brief silence, broken by the agent. "Mister Rider has been in the hospital for several days now," she says, matter-of-factly, like it's something very unimportant. "Seeing as he made no secret of his desire to leave, the decision was made that he would be better off here than...elsewhere."
Alex rolls his eyes, which Ben, watching in his ever-present concern, doesn't miss.
"He can stay as long as he needs," Ben says.
The agent nods. "Two weeks off have already been arranged for you. And here's the medical report," she adds, handing Ben a paper. "Rider will be expected back when he is fully recuperated. Have a lovely evening."
She lets herself out as Ben skims the medical report. Badly bruised ribs, two broken, caused by some kind of beating. A mild concussion, likely caused by the same. Fractured tibia, caused by unknown. Shallow gunshot graze to the side.
The list goes on, but Ben has seen enough.
"How did all of this happen?" he asks.
Alex shrugs. "Guess I didn't much care to stop it."
"And what does that mean?"
No reply.
"What is this, Alex?" Ben demands, forcing himself to keep the volume of voice reasonable. "Suicide by mission? Because that's sure what it looks like to me."
"The mission comes first," Alex says coolly. It infuriates Ben. Alex has no heat, no bite in his voice. He should be getting angry - should at least be feeling something instead of sitting around like an empty shell all the time.
"No!" Ben exclaims, shaking his head in sheer frustration. "Just...no! Alex, you are seventeen years old and you come first. There's no way they've managed to...to brainwash you this badly!"
"I'm not brainwashed!" Alex snaps.
"Then explain to me why exactly you keep coming back like this!"
"Like what?" Alex snaps back.
"Broken!" Ben says without thinking, and he regrets it immediately, but it looks like it makes Alex feel something so he may as well keep going. "Seriously injured! Deeply traumatized! Less yourself!"
"I'm fine!" Alex insists, sitting up straighter and clearly wincing as he agitates his ribs. "I still get the job done, don't I?"
"Whether or not you're able to get the job done is not necessarily a good indicator of your health!" Ben is mad, approaching furious, but not at Alex. "You're more than MI6's pawn, Alex, and you are not okay and one of these times you're not going to come back and then what am I supposed to do!"
"I don't know, not have to worry about taking care of some kid all the time?" Alex shoots back. "I'm really fine. Got some real live medical care this time and everything. So soon I'll be all fixed up and ready to go back out and do some more of their dirty work." He practically spits the last phrase, clearly disgusted. Ben isn't sure if he's disgusted with MI6 or with himself. Maybe both.
"Alex," Ben starts, trying to choose his words carefully despite his frustration, "I'm really worried about you. You're like…like…like the little brother I never had, I guess, and you keep getting hurt and it doesn't seem like you care! But I do! You've been really...I don't know, self-destructive, I suppose, and aren't there enough things in your life already trying to kill you?" Ben looks at Alex, whose slightly shocked look only encourages him to keep going. "I don't agree with your definition of fine," he continues, "and I'm really, really worried that one day soon it's going to kill you."
There's a pause.
"I'm fine," Alex eventually repeats, softer, a little sadder, "so please stop worrying."
"Alex, you're not fine," Ben says gently. "And you can admit that. You can trust me. And I'm never going to stop worrying about you."
Alex makes a strange sound, and Ben's very first split-second, panicked thought is that he's choking on something, and then-
Alex starts crying.
It's so unexpected that for a moment Ben just sits there and stares. Alex doesn't cry. Alex rarely shows any emotion, ever.
Ben sits next to Alex, puts his arm around him. "Whoa, Alex," he says softly. "What's the matter?" It's a stupid question, and he knows it. There are so many things the matter in Alex's life. He just wants Alex to actually address some of them, express his feelings, maybe just get angry at MI6.
Alex doesn't say anything for awhile, just cries. Ben doesn't mind.
Finally, the silence is broken. "I just...h-hate it," Alex says, still crying, but lightly now. "I hate it and I don't want to do it again and if I get hurt badly enough or die then I won't have to anymore." He laughs, briefly and bitterly. "Though if that sniper shot didn't get me out, I don't know that anything will."
Ben doesn't know what to say, so he doesn't say anything, just holds Alex and lets him work out his thoughts.
"I don't want to kill myself," Alex says softly. "I really don't. But if something or someone else kills me, I don't know if I'd be too upset about it. I mean, of course I wouldn't be. I'd be dead. But I wouldn't be working for them anymore."
The pain and disgust in his voice is heartbreaking, and Ben feels a sudden resolve form inside of him. "I'm going to make this better," he tells Alex.
"You can't. You've tried," Alex says. "No one can."
"Well, I'll try again," Ben insists.
"Even if I could get out, where would I go?" Alex wipes at his eyes. "My education is shot. I don't have widely marketable skills."
"I don't know if you can get out," Ben says honestly, though he hates it. "But maybe...maybe it can be better? You're supposed to get time off and better medical support and psych evals and...I don't know, I can talk to Jones about it."
"I'm too valuable for them to give me time off," Alex says.
"You're too valuable to die. To them and to me," Ben replies. "I'm not going to let you take yourself to pieces like this."
Alex doesn't say anything.
"I've let this go on for too long as it is," Ben says. "And I'm not going to stop until either you're getting the support you need or I am literally actually dead."
Alex laughs, just a little, even though his face is still drawn with pain both physical and emotional. "Okay."
"But I need you to start taking better care of yourself," Ben says gently. "I can't help you with MI6 if you die from sheer exhaustion."
Alex pulls a face but nods his agreement.
"And you're allowed to be your own first priority, you know," Ben tells him firmly. "And you need to eat something."
"I can do that," Alex says. "I'm sorry. And thank you. And…I hope you can help."
"I'm going to do my best," Ben says as he gets up to get food, and he means it, one hundred percent. He's going to fix this, help Alex live his life in peace.
Whatever it takes.
A/N: again, I'm just proud I finished. tbh, I'm not sure how proud I am of anything else. I don't feel like I got the flow quite right. but I finished it! I did it! and I would love to hear your thoughts :)