A/N if you haven't read scorpia rising this might not make so much sense. Alex survives an assassination by a sniper and uses a fire extinguisher to take down their helicopter by firing it from a rooftop into the blades using an antenna. Blunt and Jones come to debrief him in Ian's house on his request.
He'd wanted to meet them in his own home. He wanted a bit of control. But now, with them sitting on his couch he wished he'd gone into the bank, he felt a little more vulnerable with his baby pictures on the wall.
As for Egypt... Another mission to get him out of harms way, an easy one... But then they all had been easy. you wont be in any danger...
After Blunt and Jones had left Alex sat on the couch for a long time with Jack saying nothing then he got up purposefully before sitting down again.
"Fuck."
"What is it Alex?"
"Just… I don't know what to do, it all seems so… convenient that MI6 would have a mission that they want me doing just as another assassin tries to take me out. And how the fuck did he miss?"
"I don't know Alex."
The phone rang and Jack went and answered it.
"hello? Yes, oh he's right here. Alex, it's the hospital about Tom."
He got up and took he phone. "Hello? This is Mr. Ovarb calling from Brixton general hospital, can you write down my name and the number I am about to give you please because it is I who will be handling the updates for Tom's condition. This is because of the press interest in the circumstances of your friends condition." The guy had a ridiculous Indian accent.
"Okay, what's the number?"
"0787654330."
"A mobile number?"
"Correct, and my name is Mr. Ovarb."
Alex wrote it down. "So how's Tom?"
"He is fine he has already come out of surgery, he would very much like to see you if you could make it over here without alerting the press to where he is being kept, we think that, due to the circumstances the family should have some respite from the story chasers at this time."
"Yeah, I'll come over which room is he in?"
"Lemur ward, room 516."
Lemur! Alex looked at the name he'd written down, ovarb – Bravo.
"Okay, I'll be right over. Which wing is Lemur ward in?"
"How about I meet you at the entrance to wing two, its one street over from the hospital proper."
"That sounds good, I'll ring you if I cant find it."
"Okay, I'll see you when you get here."
"Bye."
"Bye."
Alex put the phone down.
"What did they say?" Jack asked and Alex just stared at her and pulled out his phone and turning on the bug finder app.
"They want to keep the press from harrying Toms family for details." Alex scanned the room and swallowed. There were bugs everywhere, he'd checked about three weeks ago when he'd first got the phone and found none. "They asked if I wanted to go to the hospital, do you think you could drive me there?"
She nodded. "Okay, do you want to go now?"
He nodded and she grabbed her keys. As soon as they were in the car he checked it as well but found none.
"Jack we're not going to the hospital, that was someone else on the phone. The house is bugged."
"What do you mean."
"I haven't got time, stop the car, I need you to drive to the hospital anyway and park in the underground car park for a while until I ring you. No, they might have bugged your phone too. Wait in the underground car park for an hour and then drive back, I'll meet you at the end of this street."
"Why? What's going on? Who was that on the phone?"
"It was Yassen,"
"He sounded Indian."
"I know, just listen to me; I need to see him."
"Why?"
"Because the house is bugged, so are the phones, something's going on."
"Does he know something?"
"I think so."
"How did you know it was him on the phone?"
"A code word."
She looked uncertain rubbing her thumbs over the leather of the steering wheel. "How do you know you can trust him?"
"I don't… but if there's something going on I want to know it. I don't think I can trust MI6 anymore."
Slowly she nodded. "Okay, so I drive to the hospital and stay there for an hour."
"Yes."
"Is Tom actually there?"
"I don't know."
"I'll find out. Be careful Alex..."
"I will. Thank you," Alex got out the car and ran down smith street, she drove away. There were a few parked cars but as he made his way down to about opposite to where his house was there was a silver Nissan with it's engine running.
Yassen got out the front passenger seat and he was surprised at just how relieved he was to see him, he wrapped his arms around him, face in his jumper and felt himself relax as he held him.
"Yassen are you an idiot? Get in the fucking car." French accent, Vyacheslav was driving.
He said something Russian over his shoulder and closed the passenger door opening the back one. Alex jumped in and he got in beside him looping an arm around his shoulders and holding him against him. Alex looked up at him and pulled him down for a kiss with his head cushioned by his bicep. He felt him smile against his lips and pulled him close with his other hand on his ribs.
"You're alright?" he asked softly.
"Fine, just angry. Why's the house bugged?"
"Scorpia." Vyacheslav said.
"Was it their assassin?"
"Probably."
"They heard my conversation with Bunt and jones then."
"Yes. How long do you have?"
"an hour and a half."
"How?"
"I told her that I had to see you, she's going to drive to the hospital and wait for an hour before coming back. What do you know?"
"Something big is happening with Scorpia and, obviously, I'm not involved. Which would suggest that they know about us and that it is to do with you."
Alex blinked. "When you say know about us?"
"I don't know how far it goes, but they know they can't trust me concerning you anymore."
"So you don't think I should go?"
"Go?"
"MI6 want to send me on a mission in Egypt to get me out of the line of fire."
"Why didn't they want to do that before with Werber?"
"Precisely, I thought it was far too convenient that they have something lined up for me."
"You think it was MI6?" Vyacheslav asked from the front as they stopped in a dark street.
"I don't know."
It took them twenty minutes to get to wherever Vyacheslav was taking them. Somewhere in Brixton. Alex walked with Yassen behind Vyacheslav up the street and into an alley that twisted left and right and finally went underneath a road. Here he opened up and door that led into maintenance tunnels and let the two of them in before leading them down dimly lit cabled walkways deep into the road and then into a locked side room.
There were two chairs and a small table placed underneath a dangling light bulb, the walls were covered in posters of naked or semi-naked women. Yassen leant against the table while Alex and Vyacheslav took the chairs. It was cold and damp in here and Alex had misjudged what he'd worn, his leg was beginning to ache.
"If its MI6 then why is scorpia involved?"
"Maybe the mission is against scorpia." Alex supplied. "Maybe they're playing MI6."
"For what?"
"I don't know, I'm not that important in the grand scheme of things… It can't just be about revenge."
"It must be up at the top level, board level only." Vyacheslav said
"Board level?" Alex asked.
"There's been a few major reshuffles in the last few weeks, I knew something big was happening but I've been… preoccupied." Yassen was looking at him. "I didn't realise at the time that they hadn't called me up."
"All the signs point to it being about you." Vyacheslav said dropping his eyes over his body and saying bitterly. "Though I can't imagine what they'd want."
Alex narrowed his eyes but said nothing, he couldn't quite work out what the man was getting at, if he was trying to insult him or not.
"You shouldn't go to Egypt," Yassen said looking at Vyacheslav who met his gaze for a moment before turning away. "Whatever it is it sounds like you'll be playing into their hands."
"How do I get out of it? They're supposed to be trying to protect me how can I say no I'd rather be in danger."
The two Russians were silent for a long time but then Vyacheslav spoke. "If it is what you think, that MI6 are being played, then the violence will escalate till you have no choice but to go."
"So I have to go."
"What's the assignment?" Yassen asked.
"Go to an international school and see what I can find out."
"Is that it?"
"Yeah, they said the security advisor might be in on something. That scorpia wants one of the pupils."
"Blunt's getting old, this whole thing is just like the big set up they did in Moscow ten years ago except they were on the other side of the coin." Vyacheslav sighed.
"What do you mean?" Alex asked.
"You set up a misson only one agent, the agent you want, can do. You make it appear easy and then once their sent in you do what you want with them, interrogate them… kill them… expose them."
"MI6 wanted information from the guy the kremlin sent in… what do Scorpia want from him? He doesn't know anything."
"Revenge?" Alex said. "I lost them a lot of money."
"It's not really their style… and it's too high powered, revenge is usually fairly low key."
"Like rothman." Alex said rubbing his chest.
"Yes."
Yassen sighed. "Have you got anything on the two men in the helicopter?"
"I put out some feelers, if they're still alive then I should be able to find out who they are and if they're MI6 but we're still missing Scorpia's motivation."
"I suppose I'll only find out when I've got there."
Both men were silent for a moment and then Yassen's phone began ringing.
"I'll be back in a second." He said answering it and going outside.
Alex and Vyacheslav sat in silence listening to Yassen speaking outside in Spanish then Alex swallowed and spoke.
"What did you say to him?" He must have said something...
"I told him to come back and end it."
Alex swallowed again. "Because I'm fifteen?"
"No." His eyes were narrowed. "You can forget what he told you, he left because you made him realise how much he loves you. And how much you don't love him back."
There was a challenge in the man's eyes, he was almost daring him to rebuke him, to say that he did love him but Alex was silent.
"Why are you with him?" the Russian asked. "Give me an answer."
"I don't have one."
"Why?"
"Because I try not to think about it too much, everyone I ever love dies."
Was that it? Was that the reason? Or was it that he felt like every time he kissed yassen he was betraying his uncle, betraying his country and he was scared that it was no longer enough to stop him.
"Or maybe I'm just waiting for him to call me John by accident." He said softly.
Vyacheslav's eyes widened and Alex wished he hadn't said it, he stared at the floor and heard Yassen wrap up the conversation and hang up.
He spoke to Vyacheslav. "When's your meeting?"
"Ten minutes in here, take the car."
"I'll see you in Prague."
He nodded and Alex got up stiffly and followed Yassen out.
"What did you talk about?"
"He hates me."
"Your father and him never got on."
"Why?"
"It's complicated. He just doesn't know you, once he does he'll change his mind."
"Seems doubtful. We have to start heading back, it'll look suspicious if Jack stops…"
"Okay."
Alex got in the car massaging his leg with the heal of his hand through his jeans.
"Does your leg hurt?"
"Yeah, does it when it gets cold."
Yassen started the engine pulling away, he headed for the main road switching to third gear and reaching over putting his hand where Alex's had been on his leg and rubbing it. The spy sighed and let his head fall backwards onto the headrest running his fingers up Yassen's forearm and remembering the first time he'd done this.
"You know you're a manipulative bastard…"
"Why do you say that?"
"I was just thinking about the first time you decided to give me a leg massage and then you aimed a gun at me."
"And after that I kissed you…"
"Mm, no you gave me a present so good my British need to be polite didn't allow me to push you away."
"So what about all the other kisses?"
Alex grinned. "I realised I liked them."
He looked at Yassen's hand, the ring on this third finger and the small scars, one that ran over two fingers and a line on the back of his palm. He'd killed people with this hand, defended himself with it also and now he was providing relief with it. An instrument that worked both ways.
He realised how much he loves you… Vyacheslav had told him to come back and end it, had he been intending to? He couldn't ask… moreover he didn't want to, their relationship was balanced on a tripwire, any more baggage and it would explode and any turbulence and they'd fall off.
Why am I with him? Is it because it's exciting and he knows where to put his fingers? Is it simply because I'm not allowed to be with him?
Yassen coasted up to a set of red traffic lights near where he lived and looked over to Alex who swallowed.
"I'm sorry."
"About what?"
Not loving you? "About the set up, it was stupid and I shouldn't have done it."
The assassin took his hand back to change gear into first and then second, silently replacing his hand on Alex's leg fingers rubbing at the material of his jeans. Alex laid his hand over the top and squeezed it hard.
"It scared me that you still had some of your innocence intact." Yassen said the words slowly, perfectly, it was almost rehearsed. "I thought all that… all that was because I was male. Or perhaps I was lying to myself. Then I was angry that you took the risk, mostly because you don't seem to believe me when I tell you…"
"That you love me?"
"Yes."
"I'm sorry." Alex couldn't look at him. "I always thought, in the back of my mind…" he trailed off unable to continue the sentence.
"What?"
Alex ran his other hand through his hair. "I always thought this was because of my father, that once you realised I wasn't him that'd be it. But even then that didn't make sense, because he betrayed you… You thought he was dead."
"You never asked."
"I didn't want to hear the wrong answer."
Yassen pulled up one street over from where he'd dropped Alex off, where they'd see Jack pull up in her mini, and turned off the engine.
"It's true you look a lot like your father Alex but not to me. You have no idea how different you are. The way I loved him was different, I was young and there were too many lies and I was so bitter from being in Russia I wanted to kill everything. No one had ever done anything good for me until he laid down next to me in the shooting range in the middle of the night and taught me how to shoot, how to forget my anger so I could see the target properly. I was desperate." He shook his head. "With you it is bigger."
Jack's car pulled up and Alex sighed. "When can I see you again?"
"I will find you in Egypt."
He nodded and released Yassen's hand getting out of the car, just as he was about to round the bend Yassen called him back and he stopped watching him approach and allowing himself to be pressed into the wall behind him, firmly in the shadows. For a moment the assassin just stared at him, looking almost fearfully in his eyes, he looked reckless as he cupped the side of his face.
"Come with me?"
Alex stared back shocked.
"Get back in the car, we can disappear, we can go anywhere."
For some reason his eyes were filling with tears as he glanced towards Jack's car heart rising in his throat.
"You can visit her, like I visit you, and she'll be safe, she can go back to her family in America."
Alex curled his fingers in Yassen's jacket. Jack could go and see her sick father. He'd never go on another mission, never gain another scar, he could just disappear and stop watching people die all he had to do was get back in the car.
But toppling on the edge of it he found he didn't have the courage to jump into that unknown abyss. The whole world would be looking for them, they'd make enemies on both sides.
"I can't Yassen."
Yassen swallowed.
"I want to but I can't."
The assassin ran his fingers through Alex's hair and kissed him and the spy tried to kiss him back as ferociously, tried to tell him that he cared. He did care dammit.
"I'm sorry." He whispered.
"I love you."