Disclaimer: I don't own Alex Rider.
Eagle
Wolf was grinding his teeth so hard that Eagle was beginning to feel sorry for his dentist. He glanced around himself to see Snake and Fox with stony looks on their faces, the MI6 woman that smelled so strongly of peppermint that Eagle was tempted to ask her for one (they looked delicious, if the rate in which she stuck them in her mouth was anything to go by)…his gaze landed on the sergeant who had a grimace on his face, and coming from him it could mean anything from loathing to constipation. Further on he could see practically everyone else in camp, from the recruits flinching from the sergeants 'glare of doom'™ to the poor bastards on scrub duty – who looked at the same time hesitant (for the risk of more punishment)and too curious to actually leave, and were currently trying to blend themselves to the trees to become smaller targets. The other instructors in the field looked so confident that one would actually think they were invited by the peppermint lady herself.
It was unnerving as much as it was amusing to Eagle seeing them all gathered in the field waiting on the kid, it felt like everyone was holding their breaths somehow, like they were waiting for Gregorovich senior to appear with a hacksaw the moment junior stepped foot in the grounds, and although the possibility of Gregorovich appearing with an actual hacksaw was both horrifying and awesome, it was also highly improbable; Gregorovich was the careful type, the kind of guy that liked to keep himself at a distance (probably with a sniper rifle), nonetheless, the units spent last night and this morning patrolling the grounds, and the sergeant had commanded a few units to stay positioned around the higher grounds of the property to keep a lookout.
The sudden thought of Gregorovich invading Breacon Beacons like some kind of Russian Rambo made him snort, and he could practically feel the air moving as the heads of his unit and the sergeant turned to stare at him, Wolf would have rolled his eyes if the act was not so disgustingly undignified, and the others just huffed and looked back at the entrance; Eagle was the kind of person that laughed in tense situations, and the way the sergeant kept glaring at him like he could set him on fire was not making him any calmer, if he could just stop his lips from twitching he might be able to escape this with just the 'glare of doom'™.
Eagle was one of the few with relative immunity to the glares, once you get acquainted with the Wolfman in the mornings, there's not a scowling face in the world that could scare you anymore.
Fortunately the van chose this moment to make an appearance, and saved Eagle from what would probably be two weeks of cleaning toilets (the sergeant seemed to think he wasn't getting through to Eagle by simply sending him to scrub the floors), and then it was show time.
Maybe the brat could liven up this place a bit; there were way too many scowling faces here already.
Eagle found he was wrong the second the kid stepped out of the van, with a death glare of his own, like he was daring everyone to try and touch him (which was probably the right idea in Eagle's book; Scorpia aside, most of them had had late night shifts for preparation for his upcoming arrival, and those who had slept the total amount of maybe 4 hours last night probably wanted to introduce the kid's face to concrete), but Eagle couldn't help but wonder if it was all an act, like a newbie on their first trip to prison, trying to look tough and unafraid, like maybe that would keep the big dogs off their backs, and suddenly Eagle felt an immense sadness when he remembered that this kid was just a kid, seventeen years old. He remembered being seventeen – school, worrying about math that was kicking his arse, being on the soccer team, trying to figure out a way to ask out Cathy Mason from English lit class, driving his dad's beat up chevy, and he wondered if Gregorovich ever enrolled his son in school… he doubted it, though he was sure this kid drove cars with his dad that he would have given his right testicle to drive at that age.
The kid was tall, he supposed, for a boy his age; had blond hair that had recently been under the care of the standard military clippers, a sharp face, with high cheekbones and large brown eyes, no acne, unlike himself at that age; handsome, the kind that would have all the pretty girls at the school making eyes at him.
The sergeant and the peppermint lady – Mrs Jones, his brain supplied, approached the youngster and his 7-foot-tall MI6-issued babysitter, and started talking in low tones with the boy, who was divided between glaring over her shoulder or glaring at her; after about a minute of talking, Mrs Jones apparently couldn't press a reply out of the boy, and turned her attention to the Sasquatch next to him, a couple of seconds and some nodding later, Sasquatch got back inside the vehicle and left. Mrs Jones introduced the sergeant, and sarge spoke to the boy for some time, probably the usual if-you-step-out-of-line-I-will-drive-your-skinny-ass-so-low-into-the-ground-you-won't-be-able-to-find-your-way-back-up-again speech, though with probably more fancy words and veiled threats as opposed to his usual bluntness with the MI6 woman right next to him. The boy said nothing, though he did stopped glaring, and simply looked straight at the sergeant in a dispassionate way.
The sergeant started back to where Eagle and his unit were standing with the youth and Mrs Jones in tow.
"Mr Gregorovich, this is K-Unit, you'll be staying the remainder of your time in here with them, you'll share all their activities, you'll sleep when they sleep, you'll eat when they eat, you are not allowed to wander the grounds unsupervised during any free time, if your unity is unable to accompany you I'll provide someone who will, otherwise you are to stay within your unit's cabin. Do you have any questions?" The boy kept the stony silence. "This is Wolf, the leader of your unit, next to him is Fox, Snake and Eagle, we maintain relations in codename basis in the SAS, as I'm sure you know. Mrs Jones tells me that you'll be able to perform alongside your unit…that remains to be seen, I'll be receiving progress reports about you on a regular basis, and you'll be assigned a standard SAS psychiatrist" The boy continued silent, but the glare returned full force, looks like the kid enjoyed the idea of visiting the shrink just about as much as the rest of them did. "You'll be Cub." If it was possible the glare doubled in force and the boy had an expression that was somewhere between incredulity and indignation, much to the amusement of the sergeant. It made Eagle wonder what his codename with Scorpia was; probably something awesome like Magnus or Wolverine.
"My codename is Hunter." Said the boy. It was the first word he spoke since arrival.
The sergeant actually looked a little startled that the boy addressed him at all, more surprising still is that the subject would be his poor choice in codenames; though to be fair 'Cub' was not near the worse that the sergeant could do, there were guys in here named Frog and Rat, and judging by his sadist streak alone the kid was lucky the sergeant didn't just pick 'Kitten' and left it at that, though he had to admit, Hunter was a pretty cool codename.
"Not in here it isn't." The sergeants tone suddenly became cold, and he administered a little of his own patented glare for good measure.
Gregorovich schooled his expression and looked at each them in turn in an assessing and disinterested manner, before looking at the rest of the inhabitants of Brecon Beacons in the sidelines. Eagle looked around himself to see that the soldiers were slowly trickling out, their still pressing duties to attend to coupled with their initial curiosity about their new member satisfied for now. Then Mrs Jones stepped in.
"You may be returning to your activities gentlemen, Alex will be in your cabin when you return tonight and will start accompanying you as of tomorrow" She spared the barest of glances at to Eagle and his unit and then turned to the sergeant. "I would speak with Alex privately Michael, shall we retire to your office?" He nodded wordlessly and the three of them made their way to the sergeant's quarters.
Eagle, as always, decided to throw in his two cents.
"He looks nice."
The rest of his unit turned to stare at him again, Wolf grumbling incomprehensibly as he cuffed him in the back of the head.
A/N: Hello. *ducks in fear* I apologize to all of you profusely for the absence, but I shall not prolong myself in excuses, however these past years have been pretty hectic and a lot of change happened in my life, among them university and other unexpected responsibilities, I never abandoned fanfiction (for it is one of my passions), but I have always been more a reader than a writer, and through it all I lost the will to go back to this story, but your reviews and messages and favorites and alerts brought me back to it and I don't plan on abandoning it. I intend on writing more fanfics in other fandoms that have caught my interest, but I have every intention to keep updating this one as often as I can, and not leave you waiting again all this time between chapters.
I thank again each and everyone of you for your amazing reviews and messages, and because I don't have the time to message all of you individually, I dedicate this chapter and all chapters to follow to you.
flyingdutchman08