Hi people! This fic used to belong to Crowlows19, but I adopted it. Yay me! Anywho, on with the story!
Disclaimer: Don't own, never will, no matter how hard I keep wishing.
Wolf sat in the lobby of the Royal and General Bank waiting to be called up for whatever it was he was there for. Although he would never show it, the man was nervous about being in the headquarters of MI6. It didn't really help that they'd asked him not to use the front door as a new 'safety precaution'. Wolf was stuck on the keyword of 'new' and was trying to figure out why they suddenly needed it. What had happened?
Wolf pushed these thoughts from his mind with a heavy sigh. He was feeling both bored and frustrated over the long wait. He'd been sitting in the lobby, as per the instructions of the cute and cranky secretary, for over an hour. They'd called him earlier that morning asking him to come in for a special job. It was common for the SAS to act as 'bodyguards' for high security agents and witnesses so he wasn't overly surprised to hear from them. He was, however, quite surprised when the elevator dinged to announce its arrival and out came the deputy head of SO herself, Mrs. Jones. The dark skinned woman was sucking on her usual peppermint and she had a rather pleasant look on her face as she approached Wolf.
Wolf stood up, slightly confused at the sudden presence of such a high ranking person, and shook the hand she offered him.
"Wolf," she greeted simply.
"Mrs. Jones," he replied.
"Follow me," she said and then turned back to the elevator. They rode up in a silence that wasn't comfortable but wasn't uncomfortable either; it was just silence. He followed her through a maze of generic and boring corridors before she reached an unmarked door and opened it without knocking. He followed her inside the grey office instantly registering the calculating look he was receiving from the grey man behind the desk.
"Wolf," the man greeted stiffly and Wolf nodded his head in return as he sat down in the stiff back chair facing the desk.
"Wolf, this is Alan Blunt, Head of Special Operations," Mrs. Jones said unnecessarily. Wolf already knew who the man was, even if he'd never met him. He couldn't, for the life of him, understand why the Heads of MI6 would want to personally speak to him about this job he'd be doing. Usually he was briefed by some nameless desk job guy and got on with it. Was it really that bad?
"What am I doing here?" Wolf asked cutting to the chase and not caring if it sounded rude. It's not like these people really cared about pleasantries or anything.
"We have a favor to ask you," Jones told him and it was testament to his training that his look of shock was only fleeting. These people never asked for favors, especially when they could just order you to do it.
"A favor?" he asked and Jones nodded. Blunt was still giving him that calculated look.
"Yes," she replied simply and Wolf fought his urge to sigh in frustration. Just spit it out already!
"What is it?" he asked not able to keep the bite out of his tone.
"I believe you are familiar with Alex Rider," Blunt said Wolf felt his eyebrows rise a fraction. Alex Rider? As in Cub? The man had only heard his real name briefly at Point Blanc when Jones had been talking to him, but it had been enough to remember it. He'd probably never forget that name. He doubted Cub even remembered this little tid-bit; he'd been a little out of it at the time.
"What about him?" Wolf asked stiffly.
"So you are familiar with him," Blunt said. Wolf was quickly getting angry at this game. He hated talking to MI6 and he could already feel a headache coming on.
"Yes, I know him," Wolf snapped. "What about him?"
"Are you aware of his family situation, Wolf?" Jones asked.
"Uh, no," he replied honestly. What the hell? How was he supposed to know anything about Cub's home life?
"Well, Alex, who is an orphan, only recently lost his uncle. Ian was the last of his family and he's currently being looked after by one Miss Jacqueline Starbright," Jones told him and Wolf instantly felt guilty. Orphan? He hadn't known that. Wolf had a fairly large family himself and while he didn't talk to them much, as his job didn't really allow it, he'd be devastated if something happened to any of them.
"Oh," was all he said wondering why they were telling him any of this.
"Yes, and here's the problem," Blunt continued. "Miss Starbright is leaving the country in a few days and Alex's current situation leaves him very few options."
"Why is she leaving?" Wolf asked.
"Miss Starbright's younger sister, along with her husband, was killed in a car crash about a week ago," Jones told him. "She's going back to help with her three nephews."
"Okay, but what does that have to do with me?" he asked missing the reason for him being there entirely.
"Alex's situation is unique," Blunt informed him. "The nature of his job keeps most simple solutions from even being considered. He cannot leave the country along with Miss Starbright and a foster home doesn't provide the security we would like for him to have."
"Alex has many enemies," Jones continued. "A foster home or an orphanage could potentially risk his safety, not to mention he would probably refuse to go."
"Okay, again, how does this involve me?" Wolf asked.
"We need Alex somewhere relatively safe and with a guardian we, as well as he, can trust," Blunt replied staring at Wolf head on. The soldier's brow crinkled in confusion until his eyes grew wide in shock a moment later as he finally caught on.
"You want me to be his guardian?" he half shouted.
"Yes," Blunt replied simply.
"Are you insane?! I can't take him," he exclaimed.
"Why not?" Jones said. "You're currently off active duty, as is your Unit, you have the room, and you know him."
"Yeah, for eleven days in hell. We're best friends," Wolf said sarcastically. "I don't know how to take care of a kid."
"You have younger brothers do you not?" Blunt asked. Wolf didn't even bother asking how he knew that.
"Yes, but that doesn't make me a parent," he said harshly then winced at the word 'parent'.
"Alex is very independent," Jones said. "I doubt you'll have to do much 'parenting'." Wolf couldn't tell if she was mocking him or not and it only made him more frustrated.
"Then why make him have a guardian at all?" Wolf asked clinging at straws. "Why not let him live as an emancipated teen?"
"He is only fifteen," Jones reminded him.
"So?" Wolf said with his customary glare, not that it affected her in the slightest. "He's old enough to go into battle but not live by himself?" He was, of course, referring to Point Blanc. Wolf had fought hard against the decision to take Cub back into the school. If he was that needed set the kid up with a radio and let him talk the SAS through the school. It would have worked just as well and the kid would have been out of danger.
"He's fifteen," Jones reiterated. "He's independent, not an adult." Wolf fought his urge to tell her that, that statement didn't go with their earlier assessment of the boy.
"So why not put him in a regular foster home?" Wolf asked.
"In the unlikely event that a past enemy of Alex's were to appear," Blunt said. "It would be best to have a soldier, who is aware of Alex's job, be the one to handle it rather than a civilian."
"Oh, so now I have to worry about avenging terrorists?" Wolf said his sarcasm evident and bitter. "That's just great."
"You worry about that now," Jones said. "You are a member of the SAS."
"So I've been told," he replied then sighed in frustration. "Can I have some time to think about it?
"We can give you up to twenty-four hours," Blunt said by way of agreement.
"Fine," Wolf replied getting up to leave. Jones stopped him.
"Wolf," she said and he turned his attention towards her. She handed him a business card with a phone number printed on it and nothing else. "Let me know when you've made your decision." He nodded to let her know that he would, turned, and left.
Wolf barely remembered making it home, he was so lost in his thoughts. He remembered when he'd first met Cub; he'd thought it was a joke. A fourteen-year-old schoolboy? At Brecon Beacons? Cub had proven himself to K-Unit time and again throughout those eleven days despite all the shit they'd given him. Wolf hadn't liked that Cub was there, not because of pride (okay maybe a little bit) but because the kid was a kid. He shouldn't have been there, whether he could do it or not.
No kid deserved to go through what he was sure Cub had gone through. MI6 were hardly a walk through the park. The only way Wolf could fight the order of Cub's training was to get him binned and sent home where he belonged. It hadn't worked and all he'd really done was make himself look like a prick.
Cub had gotten his revenge though and in the process had saved Wolf's career. He owed him for that if nothing else, but guardianship? That was pushing it. He may not have wanted the kid to be MI6's secret weapon but that didn't mean he wanted to take care of the boy.
By the time Wolf reached his one-story, two bedroom home it was well past 10 o'clock. He'd been at MI6 HQ longer than he'd thought and with his car in the shop he'd had to take the tube, then walk a good two kilometers. He had bought the home with his younger brother but he'd long moved out having found himself a wife. Now Wolf lived alone in the small, bare house. Even he sometimes found it pathetic and depressing.
As he opened the door his phone began to ring and he hurried to the kitchen to answer it.
"Hello?"
"Jaime!" came the excited shout of his older sister, Maria. "You actually picked up!"
"Hi, Maria," he said with an eye roll.
"Don't give me that tone," she snapped. "And don't roll your eyes either and you need to call mama and tell her you're not dead." Maria had always been like a second mother to her siblings. As the oldest, she felt it her duty to boss them around. Wolf found it increasingly annoying and sweet the less he saw her.
"I will," he promised and she gave a noise of skepticism. "I will!"
"Mmm, Hmm. I'm sure you will," she placated. "How are you Jaime?"
"I'm okay, I guess."
"You guess?"
"Yeah, I kinda got a weird request today," he told her and he could practically see her eyebrows rise in question.
"What happened?" she asked thoroughly interested.
"Well, child services called me," he lied easily. He hated doing it but there was no way he was telling the full truth because, one, he didn't want to put her in any kind of danger and, two, he didn't want to listen to her ranting and raving.
"Child services called you?" she asked disbelieving. "About what?"
"About maybe taking in a foster kid," he told her and felt distinctly annoyed at her sudden burst of laughter.
"You can barely keep your plants alive, how are you going to keep a child alive?" she exclaimed.
"I told them it wasn't a good idea," he said.
"Have you accepted?" she asked growing serious again.
"I haven't decided yet," he told her with a sigh.
"Are you planning on accepting?" she asked.
"I don't know," he said honestly. "They said I was basically his last option but I don't know anything about taking care of a kid."
"I know," she agreed easily. "But what about the boy?"
"I don't know what would happen to him," he replied.
"What do you know about him?" she asked.
"Not much," he said truthfully. "Really just his name." He heard her sigh at the lack of information. Maria had always been good with taking things in stride but she loved to gossip and hated not knowing.
"Are you honestly this boy's last chance?" she asked.
"I said option, not chance," Wolf said not wanting to make Alex seem like some problem child.
"Same thing," she told him. "Now answer the question." He thought over what he'd been told about Alex that afternoon. An orphan, last of his family, and a guardian who'd be leaving in a few days for who knew how long.
"Yes," he said.
"Then do it," she said simply.
"But-"
"No," she interrupted him. "No but's or what if's. It sounds as if this boy has no where to go. I don't know if that's true or not, you never tell me anything, but that's how it sounds. If you can help him, and I know you can, then you should."
"I don't know how to take care of a kid," Wolf repeated.
"You'll learn," she told him. "I know you Jaime, you'll be fine." She hung up quickly after that and Wolf was left to his own thoughts again. He could honestly say he had no idea what to do. He was tired and he didn't want to think about it anymore that night. Opting to worry about it in the morning, he went to bed.
The next morning saw Wolf waking up as tired as before he'd gone to bed. It had taken him hours to get to sleep and even then it wasn't peaceful. His mind was on overload with everything he'd been told and the decision he was supposed to make.
Maria had said he could do it. Could he? Could he really take care of this super spy kid? Of course, MI6 had made it sound as if the boy just needed a place to crash for a while and that all he'd be doing was providing a little room and board. But somehow, Wolf didn't think it'd be that simple.
Cub wasn't an ordinary fifteen-year-old, there was no denying that, but there was also no denying that, despite the maturity and the training he knew this kid had, Cub was only fifteen. Wolf didn't care how well Cub had done at Brecon Beacons, it didn't sit well with him that he was working for SO. It hadn't sat well when they'd first met, it hadn't sat well at Point Blanc, and it didn't now either.
MI6, while being pretty nonchalant about the whole thing, had said Cub was out of options. What would happen if he said 'no'? Would Cub go to some other soldier or would they stick him where no one wanted him to be? And if he said 'yes' would he be Cub's guardian or would he be Cub's 'guardian'? Would he be a puppet to make it look legal or would it be legal? Wolf wished he could talk to Cub's soon-to-be old guardian and ask her what the hell was going on.
But he still hadn't decided. Wolf owed Cub his career even if the kick had probably only been an act of revenge if anything. Wolf had been a little bitter over being kicked out of a plane and had planned on smacking the boy upside the head only to find he wouldn't be returning. At the time he'd thought, "Good. He shouldn't be here anyway," and shoved Cub from his mind. He'd received quite a shock on finding him, bloodied and unconscious, at the bottom of a mountain. Point Blanc had opened his eyes to the fact that Cub hadn't simply gone home when he'd disappeared from Brecon Beacons and that MI6 weren't about to let him stop, no matter what the risk.
Wolf wondered briefly about what Cub had been doing since Point Blanc, then decided he'd probably be better off not knowing. There was nothing he could do and he would more than likely only get angry over whatever information he was given. However, he was still curious to know, who wouldn't be?
He sighed heavily. Either way he was affecting not only his own life, but Cub's, and in a pretty big way. He got off the couch and turned off the TV. He'd attempted to distract himself for a little while longer but, of course, it hadn't worked. He went to the phone in the kitchen and picked up the card he'd left there the night before. As he dialed he wondered if he was doing the right thing.
"Royal and General Bank."
"Yes, I need to speak to Mrs. Jones."
"Name?"
"James Alvarado," he said figuring Jones would know exactly who that was.
"Please hold," the woman said and, this time, he waited for less than a minute.
"Good morning, Wolf," she greeted.
"Morning," he replied politely.
"Have you made your decision?" she asked and Wolf paused. He wasn't sure why; maybe just to collect his thoughts; maybe to give himself a chance to change his mind.
"I have," he said tightly.
"And?" she prodded. Again a pause. Why was he hesitating so much? He wasn't normally like this. When he made a decision he stuck by it, usually only backing down for a damn good reason. Maybe it was because he was in completely unfamiliar territory. Maybe it was because he wasn't sure of what he was doing and if this was the right decision. Again, he wished he could talk to someone about this; someone who had even the slightest idea of what they were doing. Hell, he'd even take Eagle at this point. He took a calming and mostly silent breath and gave his answer.
"I'll do it."
