He doesn't remember getting into the hotel, or into the room. He remembers hitting the bed face-first and starting to shiver uncontrollably, as lights come on and Lady Penelope moves around the room, checking the locks on the window and double bolting the door. She moves out of his field of view and for a minute or so he forgets she exists, hazy with pain and flirting with unconsciousness.
There's that shooting pain in his left side to worry about, and the way his back is all scraped and torn from pushing through the gate in the storm drain. He's bruised and battered, but mostly exhausted. If it weren't for the same training that had pulled him through the ordeal, Gordon would have given in to weariness and the creeping certainty of shock by now. As is, he's taking deep breaths and staying calm and conscious, despite the relentless pull of sleep, cold and dark like the canal water. The canal. The vespa crash before that. And before that, the restaurant. Gordon manages to lift his head at the sound of water running in the bathroom, and remembers- "...Penny?" He isn't supposed to call her Penny, but she comes back anyway, her arms full of towels and an ice bucket of water from the bathroom.
"Gordon. I'd like you to be very still, please. You've been shot." Her voice is calm but her eyes are reddish and her hands are trembling as she comes to sit beside him on the bed, where he's curled up on his right side, flat on the mattress. She's pulled his shoes off and propped his feet up on every pillow in the room, and he hadn't noticed before now. "I need to have a look."
"First aid," he comments, aware of how stupid it sounds, and grinning weakly at her. "That's my job."
She shifts her weight on the mattress and reaches over to squeeze his fingers, her answering smile is faint, but it helps. "You can follow along and tell me how I'm doing."
Gordon tries, he really does. It's not that he doesn't trust her to know what to do, but that he doesn't want her to be so worried. But he can't help a low groan of pain through clenched teeth as she folds over a hand towel and presses it tightly to the wound in his side. Beyond that he can barely focus on what she's doing, and time seems to stutter and skip as Lady Penelope works, and the next thing he's aware of is the sound of tearing fabric. She's making a bandage out of some sheets. Clever.
The pressure has eased off the place where he'd been shot-this is still a piece of reality that he can't fully get a grasp on-but the bleeding seems to have stopped, even if there's an alarming amount of blood soaking the towels she'd pressed against his side. "Penny, they're gonna charge you for that," he mumbles, his voice thicker and slower than he expected. "Lady Penelope. Trashing hotel rooms. Shame on you. You'll get a reputation."
"It went clean through, darling. It isn't as bad as I thought," she answers, glossing over the observation as she continues to work. Her attention is careful, almost expert, and soon she's pressed another pad of clean towels over his hip, and passed a triangular bandage like a bandana beneath his uninjured side. She knots this tightly and examines her work for a few moments, before heaving a sigh and gathering up bloodied towels and torn sheets. The blood on her fingers is dry as she reaches over and touches his cheek. Then she gets up and vanishes into the bathroom again.
Gordon drifts off to the sound of running water, comforting the way it always is, even after what he's been through.
The call comes directly through to TB5's secure line. What John can't work out is what's making it. It has none of the usual data signatures, it's not coming from any device he recognizes. There's no GPS data to triangulate, no IP address-nothing he recognizes. It's raw audio, a basic digital signal beaming from a nearby satellite. An old satellite.
Baffled, and partly expecting a wrong number (it wouldn't be the first time) he authorizes the connection, with a brief note to the onboard AI, "EOS, put up ancillary firewalls. Incoming call."
He opens the channel. "Uh. Hello?" Well, that's unprofessional. John clears his throat. "This is International Rescue, you've reached Thunderbird Five."
"John, it's Penelope. I've had an assignment go wrong, and-"
John winces. Gordon's date. "...oh, is it going that badly?" He misses the urgency in her tone, and sighs sympathetically. "Poor Gordon. Still, I'm glad you gave him a shot, maybe now he'll shut up..."
"John. We were caught at the drop-off point, our cover was blown. It was just supposed to be an exchange of intelligence, but the mafia in this town were warned, I was expected, and Gordon-"
Oh. Oops. John's tone grows crisp, professional, interrupting, "FAB. I've got Virgil available, and Kayo's in reserve, I'll have her suit up and deploy as soon as I have your location-I just can't seem to-this isn't your usual call signature, my system doesn't recognize the network-what in the world are you calling me with? A potato?"
"A land line. We're in Venice, the city is old. It's a little hotel, I don't know the name or the street, we-Gordon's hurt, John. I've done my best, but-"
He finally recognizes the uncharacteristic panic in her voice and pauses. "Can you get to a hospital?" he asks, tone softening. "How bad is he?"
There's a shaking sigh over the line. "I-without being sure of the threat, I don't want to risk breaking cover. I've done what I can, he-he was shot. Nowhere vital. It's not as bad as it could have been and I stopped what bleeding there was, but I don't want to move him far. I know this isn't International Rescue's usual purview. These are dangerous men, and I don't-I wasn't prepared for this."
John's voice grows reassuring, in full emergency dispatch mode. "Virgil's loading the medical module. He'll be en-route shortly. He'll airdrop Kayo for secure extraction, just sit tight. I'll...uh. I'll see if I can work out this phone network, and get your precise location. I've never seen anything all snarled together like this-" He stops himself again, aware that he's rambling. "Gordon's tough, Lady Penelope," he offers. "He'll be all right. Were you hurt at all?"
"No. No, I'm fine. Thanks to Gordon." There's another soft sigh and then briskly, covering some softer, more vulnerable emotion, "I should get off the line and check on him. Thank you, John."
"Take care, Lady Penelope. They'll be there soon."
Gordon's fallen asleep, one arm tucked beneath his head, the other wrapped around his chest. His ribs are almost certainly bruised, hopefully not broken. There's still that graze on his forehead, darkened with dried blood, to say nothing of the bandaged bullet wound, just above his hip. She checks this and is relieved to find it's not started to bleed again. The bed's a mess, a tangle of torn sheets and blood, with Gordon nestled in the middle. Gently she pulls a blanket up, snug around his shoulders.
Lady Penelope doesn't sit back down on the bed, but on the floor beside it, resting her head on the mattress and sagging slightly. She's tired too, and still chilled and damp, but mostly she's sorry that any of the evening's events happened at all. It had all gone so wrong, and she should have known better. Should have known what to look for, should have been more cautious. Should have known better than to drag Gordon into the middle of it, in absence of Parker. She and her driver are both trained for this sort of thing. Gordon knows about watercraft and rescue protocols and deep sea diving. He doesn't know about mafiosi and machine guns and high speed chases.
And his brown eyes have blinked open and it's a moment before Lady Penelope feels him watching her. She lifts her face to rest her chin on the edge of the bed. He grins that slightly crooked grin again and she shakes her head, utterly unconvicned that she deserves even the suggestion of affection. "I'm so terribly sorry, Gordon. Virgil and Kayo are on their way."
"S'fine. Don't be on the floor, Penny."
She shakes her head again, but then he grunts slightly and shifts, stretching his hand out for hers. Immediately she feels awful for having made him move and gets up to sit beside him. "Oh, darling, do lie still. Gordon. Please."
"C'mere."
Several insistent tugs and nudges later and she's resting with her back against the headboard, and he's nestled his head in her lap. The skirt of her dress is still damp and he winces as he settles down, but eventually he lets out a slow breath and relaxes again. It's awkward for a few moments, but then Lady Penelope and gives in, burying her fingers in his hair and taking his hand. "You keep calling me Penny," she comments idly.
"Sorry, your ladyship." He opens one eye and arches an eyebrow at her. "You keep calling me 'darling'."
"It's a codeword for danger. I did tell you."
"All three times?" He squeezes her fingers, gentle pressure. His fingers around hers are warming up, but his eyes are falling closed again, and her heart just about breaks for how tired he sounds, still flirting with her. "I counted."
"If you'd counted, darling, I think you'd find it was four. But you've lost rather a lot of blood and you've had a very dangerous evening." Lady Penelope allows herself a small, sad smile, and dips her face down to lightly kiss his forehead again, her damp blonde hair falling over her cheek and brushing his. "Now hush."
