The Caper
Disclaimer: I don't own The New Avengers, nor the characters of Mike Gambit, Purdey, and John Steed. They're the property of The Avengers (Film and TV) Enterprises. I don't own The Avengers, either, or any of its characters. They belong to Canal+ (Image) International. This story is written for entertainment purposes only. No copyright infringement intended.
Timeline: Takes place late in season one, in the autumn of 1976. This story fits into my Arc series of stories. For more information about the Arc, please see my profile.
"Throw it out the window!" Gambit advised urgently, and Emma nodded, lifted her arm to do just that, but was stopped short. She twisted around, found a small strap attached to the back of the box. She followed it with her fingers, only to find that it was well and truly lodged in the tangle between the wardrobe and bed. "What are you waiting for?" Gambit demanded, voice betraying his rising alarm.
"It's stuck," Emma shot back, yanking on the strap without success. "I need a knife."
"We don't have a knife," Gambit pointed out, voice tight. "Or any more time." He grabbed Emma's arm and started to drag her across the mattress. "If it can't go out the window, then we'll have to."
"There isn't a handy drainpipe this time," Emma protested, as Gambit kicked away the last few fragments of glass left behind in the frame by the man he'd sent through earlier. "Or a fire escape."
"No," Gambit agreed, peering grimly over the edge and into the black.
"Then how do you propose we get down?"
"Jump, and think soft thoughts," Gambit advised, just before he pulled Emma to him and launched them out into space.
It was a shock, the sudden sensation of being in midair. But Emma was a diver, and her body knew how to rearrange itself as she fell, how to brace itself for impact, without any conscious effort on her part. She felt her hands stretch out in front of her, her legs rearrange into the ideal pose. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Gambit doing the same, could see the muscles flex under the confines of his shirt, preparing for landing. By mutual agreement, they let the chain slacken between them, allowing for maximum flexibility when they landed. The last thing they needed was either of them winding up with a dislocated shoulder or another joint wrenched out of true, all down to an unceremonious yank on the chain caused by a particularly clumsy somersault.
They tucked and rolled like experts as they hit the ground, the soft earth soiling clothes and hair alike as they tumbled out of the sky and onto terra firma, the breath leaving Emma's body as it was knocked from her from the impact. Gasping, Emma found herself deposited a mere foot away from the body of the man Gambit had thrown out of the window, whose neck was canted at an unnatural angle. Emma stared dazedly at the lifeless eyes for a moment, before she was unceremoniously dragged to her feet. She blinked and found herself looking into the determined eyes of Gambit, who was pulling her along despite her stumbling steps, putting as much distance between them and the house as possible. She opened her mouth to ask what the hurry was, but Gambit seemed to read her hazy mind. "That bomb's going to go off any second," he reminded, and Emma realised that what had seemed like an eternity as they tumbled through thin air had been mere seconds, seconds that they couldn't afford to waste by dawdling. She picked up the pace to match Gambit's stride rather than being lugged along in his wake. They made it as far as a small clutch trees a little ways away from the house before the building exploded spectacularly. Gambit and Emma half-leapt, were half-thrown forward by the force of the blast, tumbling into the foliage. Their enforced connection aside, Emma couldn't help but notice that Gambit instinctively shielded her from the blast, body half-covering hers as they lay amongst the weeds and dead leaves, while bits of debris rained down from above.
They lay there for a moment, ears pricked for any follow-up explosions, or the shouts of Rogers' men, but there was nothing. All Emma could hear was the pop and crackle of the flames, and the pounding of her own heart in her ears. She was half-convinced she could hear Gambit's heart as well—at the very least, she could feel it, pounding against her back where Gambit's chest was pressed protectively against it, along with the arm curled around her ribs. All told, it wasn't an unpleasant experience—Gambit exuded a comforting physicality, a protective warmth, reassuring in its solidness and its decency. There was never a hand placed wrong where Gambit was concerned. As she laid there trying to convinced her heart to slow down, Emma mused that Gambit had probably held Purdey in a similar fashion on more than one occasion, wondered if she took the same level of solace and security from it. Perhaps Gambit had temporarily forgotten he wasn't with Purdey when he'd assumed the position. Emma didn't mind if he had. It was simply further proof of how he felt about his partner, regardless of his occasional reticence in talking about her. And it wasn't as though Emma had anything to boast about in the emotional honesty stakes. But Gambit understood her plight, just as she understood his. It was no longer the basis of their relationship, Emma knew—they'd since formed a friendship based on their own merits and mutual regard-but it had been much of the impetus for the start of it. A sort of support group that perhaps only they could ever properly be members of. But there was definitely much more to it now, as that evening had proved. Gambit's friendship and loyalty had been worth their weight in gold throughout the whole of this caper.
After a long moment, Gambit shifted slightly, as though trying to look over his shoulder at the burning building behind them. "You okay?" His voice was low and laced with concern.
"Yes," Emma confirmed, rolling onto her back to allow their cuffed arms to move more freely. Gambit followed suit as she did so, grunting a little as he flopped onto his spine. "Are you?" she asked worriedly.
"I'm fine," Gambit murmured, with the slightest hint of a groan in his voice.
Emma turned to look at him accusingly, but the flickering flames were behind him, and cast his face in shadow. "You don't sound fine," she said sceptically.
"Just bruises. Aches and pains," Gambit dismissed with another grunt. "Nothing broken."
Emma's incredulity deepened. "How can you be sure?"
"Experience," Gambit muttered, easing his way into a sitting position. "I've broken a lot of bones over the years. Remind me to tell you about them sometime."
"I suspect I already know how those stories go," Emma opined, groaning a little herself as she sat up beside him. She didn't think anything of hers was broken either, but she wasn't going to let Gambit know that the question had even crossed her mind. They sat for a moment in silence, nursing their various aches and pains, watching the fire flicker and dance before their eyes as if in a daze. "Do you think any of them survived?" she asked dully.
"Rogers and his men?" Gambit shook his head. "They didn't have enough time to make it to the door. They would have had to go out the window with us." His eyes flickered with memory. "I did throw one of them out earlier. He might have made it."
"No." Emma shook her head, remembering the mangled corpse that had been there when she hit the ground. "He's just over there. Neck broken."
"Oh." Gambit took a moment to digest that information. "If we'd been able to deal with the damn bomb, we might have been able to save them," he sighed. "But we ran out of time."
"They were about to make us, and the rest of the country, run out of time," Emma reminded, starting the long, arduous climb to her feet. "So they rather had a hand in their own fate." She straightened up and looked around vaguely, dusting off her hands as she did so. "I wonder what they did with my car?"
"It's probably around here somewhere," Gambit hypothesised, getting himself vertical and running a hand through his hair to dislodge a few dead leaves and some pieces of wood that had formerly been part of the house. "They wouldn't leave it on the road where it could be found." He nodded at a clutch of cars parked nearby, a little down the driveway from the burning building. "I'll bet they have radios. I'll call in. You go looking for the Lotus."
"All right," Emma agreed, holding up her chained wrist. "But first, we'll need a divorce, or at the very least, a trial separation."
"And I thought we were getting on so well," Gambit quipped.
"It's the venue you picked for the honeymoon that turned me off," Emma teased. "Very unsuitable."
"I can't fault you there," Gambit agreed wearily, matching Emma's half-smile with one of his own. "Come on, then. Let's see if this lot has anything to dissolve an arranged marriage in their nasty bag of tricks."
vvv
"You really do beat all, Michael." Sara Lynley stood with her hands plunged deep into the pockets of her trenchcoat, belt unevenly-knotted, as though tied in haste. Her long, black, curly hair was clipped up at a lopsided angle, visibly askew, adding to her harried-looking appearance. "You ring me at two in the morning, from a number in the middle of nowhere, asking me to meet you, and making me promise not to breathe a word to anyone. And I find you out here with a handful of dead bodies and a burning building. You're not on assignment, you have a mysterious co-conspirator whom you won't name and who has apparently gone on walkabout, and I'm not even going to ask about the cuff." She nodded at the chain still dangling from Gambit's wrist. The other half of the chain was still with Emma, who had gone searching for her car somewhere on the grounds. Their enforced 'marriage' had dissolved as quickly as it had been made, thanks to the discovery of a hacksaw in a nearby toolshed. "Are you trying to be difficult, or do you just stumble into these things by-the-by?"
Gambit grinned sheepishly. "I, uh, was doing a favour for a friend. It sort of…escalated."
Sara regarded him through heavily-lidded eyes. "Do you know, I'd be surprised, except this feels eerily similar to some of the stunts you pulled when we were kids."
Gambit's grin broadened to something more mischievous. "At least it kept things interesting, eh?"
Sara shook her head in fond disbelief. "I could have done with a bit of boredom, to be honest." She pulled her hands from her pockets and massaged her temples with her fingers. "Right. Anything else I should know, other than about what Klizan's people were up to, their true allegiances, and the connection between all this and the doings at the Klizan Aerotech factory?" She regarded him with an intentionally bland expression. "I assume that was also you?"
Gambit looked sheepish again. "Well, me and my friend."
"The nameless one, of course." Sara changed tack and buried her head in her hands. "I don't suppose he or she would be willing to go on the record about any of this?"
"Not with names attached," Gambit confirmed, sucking his teeth. "And about that, if you could keep my name out of it as well, that'd be brilliant. Like I said, I'm on leave right now. This is…extracurricular."
"Yes, of course," Sara muttered, voice muffled by her hands. "Any other miracles you need doing while I'm at it? A foolproof recipe for world peace? A way to turn dross into gold? A number for a good psychiatrist?"
"I know it's asking a lot," Gambit admitted, stepping forward to rest a hand on his cousin's shoulder. "But I appreciate it, more than you know. And so does my friend." He smiled at Sara as she pulled her hands away from her face. "But that friend saw something that needed to be dealt with, and she asked for my help dealing with it. I couldn't say no."
Sara sighed, and smiled for the first time since she'd arrived. "I know, I know. You're too noble and self-sacrificing for your own good. I'm just worried it'll come back to haunt you one day." She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tight. "I'll take care of things here. You and your friend make yourselves scarce."
Gambit hugged back. "Thanks," he said gratefully. "I owe you one."
Sara snorted. "You owe me for the next five years, you mean. You really are an infuriating idiot, do you know that?"
Gambit grinned. "I love you too, Sara."
vvv
"How did it go?" Emma inquired, striding into the living room just as Gambit returned her telephone's receiver to its cradle. She'd given Gambit a modicum of privacy while he made a follow-up call to Sara that would keep Emma—and hopefully Gambit—out of the subsequent investigation, and taken the opportunity to change out of her catsuit and into a pair of trousers and a figure-hugging long-sleeved shirt.
Gambit picked up the glass of Scotch he'd poured for himself in her absence and toasted her with a certain amount of cockiness, which could only mean that it had gone well. "I've talked to my cousin and she's says everything's in hand. That should keep both our names out of it, so you don't have to worry about any Ministry types beating down your door." He eyed her meaningfully. "Unless you were hoping to have some Ministry types beating down your door? Or one Ministry type, in particular?"
"Subtlety is wasted at this time of night," Emma said archly, pouring herself a measure of Scotch since Gambit had already brought out the bottle.
Gambit's eyes were still twinkling. "I didn't think I was being subtle."
"You weren't," Emma confirmed, sipping her drink and letting it linger on her tongue for a moment. Scotch wasn't her tipple, but it was still good. "But as we're talking about Steed—or not talking about him—have you given any thought to how you're going to explain where you've been? Steed is bound to hear about this extracurricular venture, and he might just put two and two together and work out that it's too much of a coincidence that you just so happened to take a day off when it happened."
"He might," Gambit acknowledged. "But he won't ask unless he's worried. Steed tends to let sleeping dogs lie unless he thinks there's a good reason to disturb them."
Emma arched an eyebrow. "So you think he will suspect, but he won't say anything unless it's important?"
"Sounds like Steed, doesn't it?" Gambit said with a wink.
"It does," Emma said wistfully, then a thought occurred to her. "Hey, that'll take care of Steed. What about Purdey?"
Gambit made a moue and suddenly took great interest in his glass of Scotch. "I don't think that Purdey's too concerned about what I get up to," he sighed. "Not enough to keep pushing once I give her a plausible explanation, anyway."
Emma cocked her head to one side. "Do you believe that?" she asked incredulously.
"Yes. No. I don't know," Gambit admitted, looking into his Scotch glass as though he might be able to divine some sort of mystical answers from the great beyond in its amber depths. "It's what I keep telling myself, in any case. That way I can keep myself from getting disappointed. Can't have your hopes dashed if you never got them up in the first place." He shot Emma a heartrendingly vulnerable smile.
"That's a sensible strategy, but not a realistic one," Emma said, not unkindly. "I know it's none of my business, but from the little you've told me, I think Purdey's shown signs that she cares about you more than you're letting on."
"Sometimes," Gambit said wistfully. "Sometimes it seems that way. But sometimes it doesn't. Don't get me wrong. She's a friend, a good friend. That's never really been in any doubt. But whether it goes beyond that—I just don't know." He shrugged and took a sip of Scotch. "And until and unless I do, I have to keep myself sane and believe that we're nothing more than…" He trailed off and smiled sheepishly. "Sorry we're getting sidetracked, aren't we? We should be celebrating your triumph."
"Our triumph," Emma corrected.
Gambit wagged a finger at her. "It was your hunch that got us here. I was just the help."
"You were a help," Emma asserted, "and I'm extremely grateful for it. You're selling yourself short, Mike. On several fronts. And I won't stand for it. Not in my flat."
"Is this the circle of truth?" Gambit quipped. "Because whenever I bring up Steed—"
"We're not talking about Steed. We're talking about you."
"Appealing to my ego is clever but it'll only get you so far," Gambit teased, tongued-in-cheek.
"I know my subject well," Emma quipped back. "But really, you ought not to sell yourself short. You and Purdey are very close and work well together. That doesn't happen unless there's a deeper feeling that informs it. It doesn't have to mean something more, but it often does. And I'm willing to bet there's more to get your hopes up for than you're letting yourself recognise. And I think the same goes for Purdey."
Gambit laughed self-consciously. "I might take that bet."
"I don't think you could afford it," Emma said lightly. "But I will say that there is a tendency in this business for people to play their cards close to their chests, and they often reveal more by what they do than what they say. It'd be a great pity if you quit following the path before you saw where it led." Emma's eyes turned wistful, and Gambit knew she was no longer talking about Purdey. "I don't believe in regrets, but giving up on something before time can be a very difficult burden to live with."
"Yeah," Gambit agreed softly, unsure how to respond now that the waters had become infinitely deeper. "Well, I'm not planning on going anywhere. Not yet, anyway. I just wish I had something more solid to hang onto. Just to know where I stood."
"That's the trick," Emma agreed, sipping her drink ruefully. "And people can be very difficult to pin down."
"So how long do you wait?" Gambit wanted to know. "How long before you're just playing the fool, living in denial, and making it worse for both of you?"
Emma shook her head, long fingers caressing the curve of the glass absently. "Only you can answer that. It depends on how long your heart can live with the ambiguity." She levelled her gaze at Gambit, steady, suddenly defiant. "How long you can put your life on hold. Whether there are other offers worth pursuing."
Gambit swallowed hard, knowing they'd drifted well beyond the point of no return. "It's never easy, is it?"
"No," Emma agreed, "but that's what keeps life interesting." Her face cleared, and her smile was suddenly free and easy. "It would be very disappointing if everything was straightforward and uneventful, wouldn't it?"
Gambit grinned back, a genuine grin. "Yes. Yes it would."
Emma raised her glass. "To keeping things interesting."
Gambit leaned forward to clink his glass against hers. "Cheers."
