Sunken yacht off the coast of Malta, sure. Classified documents in the safe in the stateroom, all right. Yeah. No big deal. Trusted, reliable, scuba-certified diver required to retrieve them-well, obviously. A pair of big blue eyes and oh-so-perfectly-English please, Gordon? Gone, sold. See you at the aforementioned coordinates, Lady P, be there with bells on.
Sixteen inches of carbide, steel-tipped spear through the meatiest part of his thigh-rather not, actually. No, kind of not in the contract. Kind of actually really awful. Definitely not part of the plan. Assassins? Scuba assassins. Yeah. Yeah, no. That hadn't been taken into consideration upon agreeing to a leisurely midnight dive off the Maltese coast, with Penelope and Parker waiting at the surface in a non-descript little sports cruiser.
He's not in his usual kit, or he'd have a proper helmet instead of a mask and a rebreather, have his radio, and would have already called the surface about the presence of scuba assassins. Not that there's any help possible from the surface, but still. Scuba assassins. Bears mentioning. Gordon's in a rented set of diving gear, and if his teeth clench any harder, he's gonna bite the tabs off his regulator and that'll come out of the deposit. Can't have that. The suit's already a write off, what with the big damn hole in the thigh, blood leaking around the plugged up edges of what's going to be an ugly, ugly wound when that spear comes out.
He's not really enthusiastic about the thought of the spear coming back out.
The pain's bad enough to fall into the category of blinding, which is less of a problem than it could be, as the first thing he'd done upon catching two shadowy figures moving at the doorway of the yacht's stateroom had been to flood his own light in the direction that the spear had come from, hopefully ruining the nightvision of whoever'd seen him first, and then he'd switched it off. The next objective had been to fumble for the angle of the cabin wall, and to pull himself hand over hand to a remembered broken window, out onto the deck and then up, up for the surface. It's impossible to orient himself in the dark, absent his dive light to illuminate the wreck below. The world below the surface is pitch black, the only way to go is up, towards the faint lightening of the water beneath the cloudless night overhead.
His leg's gone numb with agony, right up to the hip, not like he'd notice if he caught or scraped on shattered glass on his way out. He's pretty sure he hasn't, although swimming with only one good leg is fun and different and he can't maneuver at all like he should be able to. Lookit me now, coach! Probably that's only funny because shock is starting to set in. Probably he should be paying more attention to his rate of ascent, though the wreck hadn't been deep, not more than a hundred feet. He's probably going slow enough that he doesn't need to worry about it. Though he's pulling as hard as he can through water that's starting to feel more like syrup, he's probably not rising fast enough that he needs to worry about the bends. Probably.
Still, it seems to take forever to break the surface, and by the time he does, everything else breaks too. Gordon spits out the mouth piece of the regulator he's had clamped between his teeth, and finds his voice is broken, his jaw stiff from clenching against hot, rising pain, his throat spasming with gasping, short breaths, trying to claw past the desire to sob out loud. There's a strobe light clipped to the strap of the bag that crosses his chest and his fingers are trembling as he fumbles it on.
There's a searchlight mounted on the back of the boat-not the sunken boat, the surface boat, the boat with Penny and Parker and light and first aid and salvation aboard-and it blinks on, entirely too far away, then swivels in Gordon's direction, a long, broad path of white light shining off dark water.
It's probably not actually more than about thirty feet. He'd had the sense to sort of aim at what he thought might have been a dark shadow between him and the moonlight, he just hadn't quite made it. The sound of the water laps against the gunwales of the cruiser, and Gordon imagines he can catch voices at the very edge of his hearing, but can't tell what they're saying. He manages a feeble few strokes, covers maybe a couple yards down that bright avenue of light, but coherent thought and movement are starting to drift apart from each other. Just treading water is beginning to be more than he can manage.
There's the sound of a jackknife cannonball, and then a series of brisk strokes through the water, the sort Gordon probably would have loved to watch, if it hadn't been alternatingly pitch black and brilliantly white, and if he hadn't half-way passed out anyhow. A hand, surprisingly strong for the delicacy of its fingers, has him caught beneath the chin and he's all tangled up in the desire to gush to Penelope about the fact that she knows what she's doing! He never would've guessed, never would've pegged her for knowing any kind of lifesaving stroke. God, she's just-she's really impressive, is what she is. He's pretty sure he can hear her breathing. Or hear one of them, anyway, probably Penelope's not breathing nearly as loud as he is. Or as hard. Or with that little hitch of pain in the middle.
It's not Penny's hands who haul him out of the water, and it's a good thing too, because there's just an embarrassing amount of watery sobbing, before he hits the deck and starts to get a hold of himself. Of course, what there is to get hold of is a leg full of spear gun shaft, wicked as hell, and with a barb on the end that's going to need a surgeon. Absolutely going to need real, proper medical attention. Shore, ambulance, paramedics, hospital hospital hospital. Captital H, Hospital. Capital D, Drugs. Capitals A, S, A, P: ASAP. Just continue to throw letters at the problem.
There are flashlights playing over his limbs, hands touching him, fingertips probing through neoprene. Gordon wants his words back, he's got Scuba Assassins on the tip of his tongue, but that'll take some explanation. All the words that aren't lost in the hazy place where pain is eating into his consciousness, instead are swallowed up in the bitter, metallic taste of adrenaline.
Actually, probably the spear speaks for itself, with a barbed, razor sharp sort of wit. The very soul of brevity, no explanation necessary. Who would employ a spear gun? Scuba assassins. QED.
Letters are not helping.
It's Parker who pulls him upright off the deck and it's not much of a trip to the boat's small cabin, but it's still an exercise in agony. But then there's a bed and real light, and Gordon's aware that he's still soaking wet, that the cowl of his wet suit's been pulled down, and that there's water from his hair running into his ears. Parker's gone, with the words "bolt cutters" left hanging in the air where he'd been, and for the first time since he'd given her a little thumbs up and a wave before ducking beneath the waves, Gordon catches sight of Penelope again, as she sits beside him on the bed and leans over, blonde hair in a wet rope over her shoulder, and blue eyes lashed with seawater diamonds.
There's a towel in her hand, and probably it wasn't red to begin with, but it's red now, and she pulls it away from the hot-numb-hurty-horrible-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-awful place where Gordon can see twelve out of sixteen inches of carbide shaft sticking out of his thigh. He's losing track of the number of things he has to excuse the fact that he really just wants to faint dead away and let this be a problem for everybody else.
Only half of everybody else is Penelope and the other half is Parker, and the prettier part of that pair presses the towel against his thigh again and leans over, peers intently into his half-lidded eyes.
"Oh! Oh, darling. Gordon, love, if you haven't quite left us yet, do try and hold on a little longer. Do you suppose you can do that for me? Oh, you poor dear thing, they must have been-oh, I don't even know, damned overconfident of me. Should've expected they might have people waiting."
Her hand is on his chest and he remembers-pulls her fingers away from where they're blocking a zippered pocket in the strap of the bag that crosses his chest. Gordon rummages around for a moment then pulls out a flat, black hard drive, sleek and small and solid and exactly what she'd asked for. A little clumsily he butts it against her fingers and watches her sapphire eyes go from concerned to delighted as her hand closes around the small object, then her fingers find the spaces between his, lace tightly through, and sandwich the cool little rectangle of metal between his palm and hers.
There's pure astonishment in her tone when she exclaims, softly, "Gordon, I hadn't thought-certainly I didn't expect you'd have...but, oh. Oh, this solves everything, you absolutely precious creature. You're quite simply after my heart, aren't you?"
Her wrist turns and she pulls his hand to her chest and leans that little bit further over, kisses him. Really kisses him, the sort of kiss that makes a guy forget he's got a spear through his thigh; makes a spear to the thigh seem like a silly thing to be bothered by, really. Not even that big, just a little sport fishing thing, hardly substantial enough to punch through a halibut. The hand that isn't holding his trails up his arm and catches his jaw, tilts his face just-so, just so that the tip of her tongue along the backs of his teeth makes the entire boat feel like a sudden swell has dipped it beneath him.
Gordon can't help but wonder if the same education that teaches rescue swimming also teaches a girl to kiss like that.
There's a rusty ahem, and what might be a slightly disapproving tut from Parker. "Pardon the interruption, m'lady." He clicks a pair of bolt cutters and clears his throat again. "Won't be a moment."
"Oh, of course. Do excuse me, Parker. Gordon, dearest, this may smart a bit." She shifts and leans her weight across his chest, pats his cheek gently.
Possibly the same school that teaches rescue swimming and fantastic kisses also teaches massive understatement.
At least Parker's the sort of guy who's good with a pair of bolt cutters. At least he knows exactly how to position them, exactly where to cut the length of the spear shaft short. The tension and pressure on the shaft of the spear only lasts a bare moment of screaming, back arching agony, before there's a snap, and he's downgraded back to the slightly lower tier of pain he'd occupied before. Yay. Parker leaves a bare three inches or so sticking out of his thigh, instead of a whole foot. Presumably that's better.
Eventually he realizes that Penelope's no longer pinning him to the mattress, and that she's rested a bright red first aid kit on his chest. There's also a snip-snip-snip sound of scissors, and then fingertips gently pulling the black fabric of a written off wetsuit away from the skin. Near as Gordon can tell, she's not bothered in the slightest. He can't actually lift his head to look-wouldn't even if he could, puncture wounds elicit a certain sort of nauseated dizziness that isn't exactly a credit to a first-responder. Maybe that's why she's got a first aid kit blocking his view.
Gordon twitches the fingers of the hand near where she sits at the edge of the bed, brushes the still damp fabric covering the curve of her knee. She spares a moment from unwinding a roll of gauze to take his hand and squeeze his fingers. "Parker's taking us back to the mainland, love. Won't be long. Straight to the hospital, darling, and we'll have you sorted out as soon as possible."
"Mmmm. Mmmmoww. Ow. 'Kay."
Probably she wants her hand back, but if he keeps it then she can't do anymore poking and prodding, even if it's necessary. Her other hand is still applying pressure, high enough against the inner curve of his thigh that it would be thrilling, if there weren't the business end of a spear stuck in the muscle.
She gently pulls her fingers away, but instead of getting back to work, reaches up to brush his hair out of his eyes and stroke his cheek, thumb lingering over the line of his jaw. "I'm going to have to insist that you stop agreeing to do things for me, Gordon," Penelope says, with a sad, fond sort of smile. "You seem to attract trouble in the worst sort of way, can't seem to get anything done without getting yourself perforated somehow."
"Scuba assassins." Hah. There. Finally got it out.
"Yes, darling, you attract scuba assassins. I'm afraid they're simply a hazard in this line of work." She smiles and turns back to the matter at hand, tight, precise work with tape and gauze, careful to avoid pressure on the shaft of the spear.
It still hurts. Still hurts like hell, but he's started to acclimate to it, managed to get his voice back, at least. And, since it needs to be stated, "Ow."
Penelope smiles slightly. "Putting it mildly, I imagine."
"Fff. Fucking ow."
"Too fucking right, I'm sure."
It's impossible not to crack a grin at that kind of language out of this calibre of lady. Really gonna need to find out what sort of finishing school teaches situationally appropriate cursing. "Watchyer mouth. Pen. Penny. Language. Shame on you."
"Oh, hush." A pause and then her fingers come trailing up his side, across his chest and brush lightly over his lips. "Really, dearest, do hush."
"Mmm. Make me."
An arch of a golden eyebrow and a faint smile in answer. And then leaning over again, smelling of seawater and blood, and another sweet, lingering kiss that might just last as long as it takes to get back to shore.
Paramedics in Malta sure do know what they're doing.
Of course, it's more than likely that they're plenty experienced in matters of idiot tourists, the sort of people who are stupid enough to go spearfishing at night, and that a spear through a scuba diver's thigh is just par for the course, really.
It's a necessary pretext, but what Gordon had wanted to say, in the ambulance-holding Penelope's hand while a pair of uniformed medics chattered at each other in Maltese and went about their business-was that he's a paramedic too. And a professional diver, on a level with the best this tiny little postage stamp of a country has to offer, and beyond. Hell. Maltese is an ancient, bastardized mishmash of romanicized Arabic, and Penelope has just enough Italian and just enough Arabic to bridge the worst of the linguistic gap and get a hearty laugh out of the two of them. Gordon had been left in the dark, imagining what there might have been to laugh at, except the answer's obvious. Long-suffering English lady and her dumb American boyfriend, and a pair of Maltese paramedics, wondering just what sort of moron goes spearfishing at night.
What gets said in English is all light-hearted and jovial, that he's gonna be fine, that there are some of the best doctors in the country at the hospital that's their destination, and that he'll be patched up in no time. Gordon, being a paramedic, knows this. But he gives the appropriate relieved nods and weak smiles and the token "gee thanks fellas, real sorry I had to waste your time" that's expected of the sort of humbled victim of a stupid accident.
There's a cascading series of events out of the back of the ambulance, into the ER, quick triage and then an exam room, the promise of an overnight stay and then one of the best doctors in the country, who certainly knows his way around the barbed end of a spear. Which is pretty impressive, really. Penny's hand has been replaced by an IV full of lovely, lovely drugs and there's enough local anesthetic from his knee to his hip that when the doctor who pulls the spear out of his leg asks him if he wants to see it, he says yes just because he doesn't believe it's actually been pulled out. It is, as anticipated, an ugly enough sight that the next thing he sees is the squeamish, swooping black of passing right-the-fuck-out at the thought of having had such a thing sticking out of him only moments ago.
Malta's hospital rooms are as nice as its paramedics are knowledgeable.
But then, maybe that's just Penelope's infamously sharp pull at work, and it's entirely typical of her to have ensured a private room, the sort of quiet, safe place where she can close the door and dictate the rules. If the rules outside the door discourage after-hours visitors, especially the sort of after-hours visitor who'll climb into bed with a patient and cuddle up close and warm-well. Penny's got pull. Penny's currently pulling her fingers slowly and gently up from the roots of his hair, and there's dawn creeping into the sky out the window.
She's humming to herself, something soft and sweet and lovely, something that makes him turn his head before he opens his eyes, rest his forehead against hers for a moment. There's the nuzzle of her nose against his and then a little peck of a kiss. Gordon wonders if he's missed any kisses in the time she's been here. Probably. There's the taste of her lips a little deeper than would be justified by a chaste little peck.
A quick re-inventory of the current situation has him searching for a relevant topic of conversation. What he manages instead is a jumble of consonants and a couple well-meaning vowels, tripping over a tongue that's missed the memo that the rest of him is awake now. "Hhhpnn. Hh. Hi. Penny."
"Yes, hello again, darling. Much better than last time." The bed's propped up at a gentle angle, and Penelope shifts her lovely self to sit upright behind him, stretches in a way that would be coquettish, if Gordon weren't just a hideously biased observer in the cases of what looks flirty when Penelope does it. She scoots herself around to sit cross-legged, facing him, and pulls his hand into her lap, holds it in both of hers. "How are you feeling?"
"M'okay." And then, because it's the last train of thought he'd had and because there are still painkillers wending their way through his thoughts, "I'ma. I'm a paramedic. I got...got like, six licenses. International. And ISDA certifications, rec and commercial. CMAS standards're international. I've got more letters after my name'n anybody in this building, doctors and...and everybody. And I'm not stupid."
Penelope's brows quirk upward, get that little crinkle in the middle that tells when she's been confused, which isn't often. "Gordon, darling, of course you're not. Who would say that, no one's said that."
Okay, so no one had said it, but he'd still felt like everyone must be thinking it, and the sound of laughter in the small, confined space at the back of an ambulance hasn't quite left him. "Well, I'm not." A pertinent fact bubbles to the surface of his brain. "I did the WASP qualifications last year, just for laughs, and I could've got in. Totally could've. 99th percentile."
"Sweetheart, no one thinks you're stupid." Penelope's hands are cool against his skin, she's always had terrible circulation in her hands. Which he knows, because he's a goddamn paramedic. "Gordon. Darling, I am absolutely the first person who'll make myself very unpleasant if anyone-you included-were to suggest that you're stupid."
"Spearfishing at night," Gordon answers, as though it's an explanation, and he pushes himself to sit up, groans a little at the pull of leg muscles that aren't quite as numb as they were before. Penelope just blinks at him and tilts her head. Oh. Well, maybe she's a little bit in the dark here, so Gordon's obligated to explain further, "I'm your dumb American boyfriend."
There's a way her eyes get a little wary whenever he employs the word boyfriend, and he's certainly not stupid enough to miss it. "No," she answers softly, "No, you're not. Dearest, please. Do calm down. I don't know what's brought this on."
It's something she'd said, something he only barely remembers her saying. "You don't...wanna do this anymore. With me. Said I attract trouble."
"Oh!" Moments of genuine, unfiltered emotion are rare from Penelope. Gordon doesn't know to flatter himself that he's one of the only people who elicits them from her. One of her hands presses cool against his cheek and she's just so earnest when she protests, "That wasn't at all what I meant...oh, Gordon. No, not at all. This whole night is entirely my fault. What I meant was-oh, hell. I mean I keep taking advantage of you. I mean that I enjoy your company and I love that I can trust you...and I find reasons to make use of you in ways that aren't fair. You can be as qualified as you like, and I've no doubt you are, and if someday you want to take me through every last qualification and certificate, it would genuinely fill my heart. But you're entirely too sweet for my line of work. It's Venice all over again."
Gordon's not really mad, per se, just a little bit ruffled, and it's very hard to be ruffled when her big blue eyes are catching the soft light of pre-dawn through the window and his grogginess gradually diminishing. "Except with scuba assassins," he suggests, pointing out a salient difference between Malta and Venice. "Venice was scooter assassins."
Penelope's most salient memories of Venice aren't the same as Gordon's. She remembers danger and fear and her own stupid, stupid mistakes. Gordon remembers a deeply seductive glimpse into her thoroughly romantic world of secrets and espionage. So, okay, also he'd gotten a little bit shot by the mafia and nearly drowned in a canal. He'd still had fun, though, even if it hadn't technically been a date. More of a favour that turned into a bit of a mishap and ended with pneumonia and kissing. That's fine. Penny's never been one for labels. It's something Gordon's getting used to. He hopes she doesn't object to "boyfriend" quite as vehemently as she objects to "dumb".
"It's an unbearable run of bad luck we seem to have in the Mediterranean," she comments, biting her lower lip.
"Aw, it's okay.
"Is it? I really don't know." Penelope sighs and leans over, folds her arms and rests them on his chest, and her chin on top of them. It's an open invitation for his hands to close around her back, to slide slowly upwards and rub her shoulders and to weigh the balance of what it takes to be part of a life like Penelope's. The truth is, Gordon probably doesn't know either.
It's not a problem for a hospital room at five in the morning, so he changes the subject. "Put a pin in it. So, hey. Since you asked, lemme start with the North American standards. 'Cuz I've got the equivalent of IDSA's level four, so I can work with a modern diving bell, but I don't usually need to do that, what with TB4 and all. Most of the US only certifies up to a level two and the recreational standards are mostly compliant with CMAS, but things get a snarlier when you start talking about commerical certification. Now, the UK standard is broader, but we've also wrangled a classification that gives us the same permissions as are generally the military standard."
Penelope blinks up at him. "Good heavens."
Gordon can't help a grin, because it might just be that this is exactly how he feels when she starts gabbling on about various intelligence agencies and foreign policies and the squabbles and tiffs between assorted nation-states. "That's just the diver stuff. It's mostly boring, I like the EMT stuff better. I mean, we've all got the basics, but me and Virge went a bit further, and I went probably twice as far as Virgil did. If we're both on a scene with casualties, I'm the one with MCPIC, so technically I'm in charge."
"I quite like it when you're in charge." There's a little wiggle of her body against his, a very definitive settling in. "Tell me what you think ISDA is, because in my parlance it's the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, and it's mostly to do with high-finance."
"ISDA is your finance thing. IDSA is the International Diving Schools Assocation."
Penelope waves a hand, as though swapping two letters doesn't derive a completely different acronym. As though that's not the point of acronyms. "Well, I don't remember, it was all very complicated. I broke up a white collar crime ring in New York once, you know."
"Mm hmm. I pulled a salvage operation for a leaking fuel tank off a ferry that sunk in the Hudson River. So I guess we're both experienced with oily bastards in New York."
True dawn chooses to occupy the same moment as her laugh, sunlight just as soft and warm and golden as she is, if not even half as beautiful. The sun starts to rise as he gives her a little tug to pull her closer, further up, and make the suggestion that a break in the conversation merits some kisses. Penelope's maybe not great with acronyms, but she's fantastic at bodylanguage, and her kisses are the kind that make a guy really have to think about his life and how she fits into it. So, okay. So he's been shot or shot at 100% of the times he's tagged along on one of her adventures. So there was South America and a trap riddled temple, so there was Venice and a run in with the mafia. So scuba assassins in Malta are just par for the course.
But...
So she doesn't think he's stupid. So she doesn't like labels, but enjoys his company and if she won't use the word *boyfriend, she also isn't afraid to throw the word love around the fact that she can trust him. So he'd dive to a wrecked yacht off the coast of Malta in the dead of night because she'd asked him to. So even with sixteen inches of steel tipped fishing spear stuck out of him, he still lives for the moment where he can give her what she wants and get that shocked and delighted smile.
So something about this is real.
Yeah. Yeah, okay.