When Ben stops the car on the curb outside Alex's house, there's already a white sedan parked in the driveway. Alex knows that none of his neighbors own a white sedan, and furthermore none of his neighbors would bother to park in his driveway instead of their own. Alex's heart rate slows and all sense of fear or anxiety dissipates. His senses pick up and he starts to look around for signs of danger. The front door is
"Is that your car?" Ben's voice is serious and hard, coming from the front seat. He seems to have picked up on Alex's trepidation. Alex suddenly realizes the difference between Fox, the soldier he met at Brecon Beacons, and Ben, the spy who saved his life in Australia. Fox, the special air forces soldier, was hard and determined, focused on getting thought selection and being the best he could be. Fox didn't have time for Alex's mistakes. Like the rest of K-Unit.
Ben Daniels, the MI6 agent, is kinder. He laughs more and usually carries a bit of mirth in his eye. He seems to carry his heart on his sleeve at times. Strangest of all, Ben Daniels acts like he wants to be Alex's friend.
He doesn't have time to dwell on that right now though. "It's not." Alex's voice is firm. He doesn't wait for Ben's response, pushing the door open and sliding out of the car. As soon as his feet hit the ground, he pulls a gun out of a holster on his waist. When Ben comes around the other side of the car, his own gun in hand, his eyes nearly bug out of his head.
"Jones told me that they don't give you guns!" He exclaims quietly.
"They don't." Is Alex's simple response.
He makes his way towards the door, scanning his surroundings. The front door isn't quite closed, it's obvious that someone has pulled it shut behind them without bothering to make sure that the latch catches. Alex pushes the door open slowly and tries to make his way in, but gets stopped by Ben. "I've sent a signal to MI6. Go get in the car and wait, I'll handle this."
Alex narrows his eyes. "Hell no. I'm the senior agent here, or have you forgotten?" Alex waves his gun. "You can go in first, but I'm not waiting in the car."
Ben opens his mouth to protest, but Alex cuts him off before he can speak. "My house, my rules. Go." His tone is very no-nonsense. Ben sighs, but doesn't argue. He knows firsthand that Alex is capable of taking care of himself, but he's still reluctant to let the teen put himself in a possibly dangerous position.
Ben enters the house quietly and Alex follows. As soon as they're both through the door, a bullet whizzes by and embeds itself in the wall above Alex's head.
"What the fu-" Alex manages to get out before another bullet comes his way, this one landing in the floor by his feet. He holds his gun up in front of him, looking for any sign of the shooter. He starts to slip into what Tom refers to as 'superspy mode'. When Alex finds himself in these sorts of situations, he loses almost all sense of self-preservation in favor of saving the people around him. Tom figured that out when the two friends were out late one night, both trying to escape the demons in their homes. For Alex, it was the oppressive silence. For Tom, the endless noise.
Alex takes a deep breath, refocusing himself. He scans the house, trying to pinpoint the location of the shooter.
There. A woman, behind the bar in his kitchen. "Ben," Alex says, "Shooter to your left. Ten o'clock." Ben fires two bullets in the direction of the woman. Alex thinks for a moment that MI6 is going to have a lot of trouble covering this up with the neighbors.
Ben makes his way to the kitchen, gun at the ready. As soon as he steps over the threshold between foyer and kitchen, a second body comes flying from the left, taking Ben to the ground in the blink of an eye. He drives the butt of his gun into the side of Ben's head, and the older agent groans in pain as he falls unconscious.
The perpetrator is a man, roughly 6'2", black hair, well muscled. Ben is strong, but there's almost no way he can get this guy to move from where he's kneeling on his chest. Especially not with a gun pointed at his throat.
Alex feels a bit helpless, standing against the internal wall of his front foyer. He's one teenager with one gun, going against two grown adults with more experience and more preparation than he's got.
"Rider," The man's voice is deep. His accent is from somewhere in the Eastern Block, but the exact country is hard to pinpoint. "You have made a lot of enemies. More than any other boy I have ever met. This is impressive, you know that?" He says.
"No shit." Alex deadpans, "I've been noticing that recently, but I've got no idea what I did. I mean, you take out a couple of terrorist organizations and everyone acts like you're a bloody spy or some shit!" Maybe he should know that sarcasm isn't a great idea, especially when someone has a gun pointed at his co-worker's throat.
"You are going to upset someone with that mouth of yours someday." The woman laughs. Her accent is also noticeably Eastern, though it's exact location just as vague as the man's.
"Oh, what're they going to do? Shoot me?" Alex asks, raising his gun a bit higher and firing a carefully aimed shot at the woman. The bullet hits its intended mark, digging into the shoulder of her dominant hand. She hits the ground, screaming and cursing. She turns her gun over to the other hand, but it's obvious she's ill-practiced with it. She fires three shots in rapid succession. The first two miss horribly. The third bullet, however, scrapes Alex's left arm, leaving a cut to bleed sluggishly. It's not deep, just a small wound that will heal over quite easily. It still stings like crazy though.
The man laughs maniacally. Alex is reminded of a villain in a cheesy horror movie. The woman stands up, gun in hand, seemingly ready to fire off another shot when the man barks out an order in a foreign language. She seems angry, but lowers her gun.
"We have been told not to harm you. My… acquaintance… has disobeyed this rule, and I assure you that our boss will be most displeased with her," The man takes his sweet time explaining things, especially considering he's still holding Ben at gunpoint. "But there is no rule against harming your friends." He laughs, staring down at Ben with malice in his eyes.
"Who do you work for?" Alex asks, lining the sights on his gun up with the man's head. One shot, and he'd be dead. One shot, and he wouldn't be a problem anymore.
One shot and Alex would lose his chance on learning which psychopath of the week wants his head on a platter…
Alex doesn't pull the trigger. Not yet.
"I can't tell you that, now can I? That'd be ruining the surprise, and I could never do that. Could I, Detenysh?" The nickname sounds familiar to Alex. He doesn't know when he'd heard it, or who it had been from, but he knows that it's important.
Sacred, even.
Anger swells in him. It starts in his gut, pulling and tugging and crashing like waves. It rushes through his body. It pools in his chest, right above his heart, and grabs hold.
Alex moves his gun down slightly and pulls the trigger.
The slug rushes out of his gun, and he feels a surprising calm wash over him. Curiosity still pokes at his brain, but he feels at peace.
The bullet strikes the unknown man right in the side, piercing through skin like Jell-O and, judging by the way the man starts to shout, ripping through at least one vital organ. He rolls off Ben, shouting obscenities. The woman watches with impartial gaze before turning and running towards the back foyer. Alex knows that he should go after her, but his primary concern is making sure that Ben is okay.
The back door slams at the same time the front door comes bursting open. Agents fill Alex's house and he starts to feel lightheaded, the aftermath of what he's experienced catching up to him quickly.
He spots Crawley walking towards him. "You're late." Is all he says before the ground comes rushing towards him.
When Alex wakes, he's in a dark room, in a bed that isn't his own. He squints in the dark, barely able to make out the outline of a door. He swings his legs over the edge of the queen size bed, sinking his toes into a surprisingly plush carpet.
No kidnapper has carpets this nice, he thinks. That's a boost of confidence.
He stands up warily, remembering the events that had transpired earlier in the day. His gun is nowhere to be found, but that's not a surprise. MI6 probably confiscated it earlier.
Alex walks over to the doorway, feeling around blindly on the wall in search of a light switch. He flips it to the 'on' position when he finds it, blinking hard as the room is bathed in light. It's a midsized room, smaller than his room at home but still a decent size. The walls are light cream, the bedspread is a dark wine color. There are three suitcases stacked at the end of the bed, each one slightly smaller than the one below it.
This is probably his new guardian's house, then. Alex groans mentally, thinking about all the things that could possibly go wrong here. And it's a lengthy list.
Alex opens the door as slowly as possible, trying to delay meeting his guardian as long as possible. There are muffled voices coming from down the hallway. One of them has Ben's Liverpudlian accent (Alex breathes a sigh of relief, knowing that the other agent is okay), but the other voice is unidentifiable, though vaguely familiar. Mrs. Jones did imply that Alex already knew his new guardian, though.
As he pads down the hallway, Alex can make out some of the conversation.
"The heads think this could be good for you. Both of you."
"What's good for me is none of the bloody SO's business."
"I said both." Ben says flatly.
"What's the brat even need protecting for anyway?" The unknown voice huffs. Alex peers around the corner, thankfully still unnoticed by the two arguing men. He can see Ben's face, looking frustrated, but the other man's face remains unseen. He's buff, Alex can tell. He looks Hispanic judging by his skin tone, but it's impossible to tell.
"Diego, you know I can't tell you." Ben looks apologetic, but Alex can tell that at least some of it is intended to placate the angry man.
"Bullshit you can't fucking tell me. He's the kid of some diplomat, right? Some fucking Mama's boy whose Daddy got caught up in something he shouldn't have?" Alex decides he's bored of just listening in. He takes a step out into the living room, but pauses again when Ben starts speaking.
"We got attacked earlier. Went to pick up his stuff, there were two people with guns waiting. One's in MI6 custody, one got away. SO thinks it might be-" Ben spots Alex standing by the hallway and stops talking.
"Good morning, sleeping beauty." He teases good naturedly. If Alex was in a better mood, he might joke along. But his entire mind is occupied with finding out who broke into his house. "SO thinks it might be who?" He asks, a hard look in his eyes.
Ben looks uncomfortable. "Alex, why don't you come meet your new guardian?" He says quickly, trying to redirect Alex's attention. "Alex, this is Diego Morales. Diego, this is Alex Rider. You might know each other better as Wolf and Cub, though."
Wolf turns around with a glare in his eye. Alex glares right back, then looks at Ben.
"I think I want to be kidnapped now." He says plainly. Ben starts to laugh, a snicker at first but eventually evolving into full blown guffaws.
He's still laughing when he walks out the front door, climbs into his car, and drives away.
Wolf and Alex stare each other down, neither of them willing to break eye contact. In the end, it's Wolf who looks away. A glimmer of hope dares to rear its ugly head in Alex's chest. Wolf was a Grade-A dick at Brecon Beacons, but that was almost a year ago. He saved Alex's life at Point Blanc, he sent that get-well-soon card all the way from Baghdad. There's a chance they might get along, right?
"You've already seen your bedroom. My room is across the hall. There's a bathroom at the end of the hallway. If you go in my room, I will kill you. If you use all of the hot water, I will kill you. If you get into any trouble with the cops, you deal with it yourself. I'm only here to make sure you don't get killed." Wolf says.
The glimmer of hope is crushed and replaced with cold indifference.
"If you're here to make sure I don't get killed, wouldn't killing me yourself be kind of counter-productive?" Alex questions. Wolf closes his eyes and takes several deep breaths and repeatedly clenches and unclenches his fists.
"I don't want to deal with you. You're what… Nineteen? Twenty? You can handle yourself. I'll leave money on the coffee table. I don't care what you do with it. I'm out of the house a lot, I don't care if you bring friends over when I'm gone. Don't make a mess and stay out of my room. You're not my kid. You are not my problem. Understand?"
Alex nods.
"Perfectly, sir."
Chapter three! Alex and Wolf, finally united! Oof. This chapter is 2000+ words, which is honestly super exciting for me. I'd like every chapter from here on out to be roughly this length, but I also want your input! Do you guys, as readers, prefer longer chapters like this or shorter ones like the last two?
I finally have (some semblance of) guidance as to where this fic is going to go, so hopefully that kind of came out a bit more in this chapter. Big ol' cookie to whoever can figure out the significance of Detenysh ;)
Please, please leave me some reviews to read! Honest to god, nothing motivates me more. And thank you, to the people who have reviewed on past chapters, followed/favourited this story, or have just given it a chance in general. You guys rock!
