A/N: Happy Monday, everyone! Okay, okay. Enough high cowboy shenanigans. Back to the plot!

O

Alex officially hated stake outs. If you'd done one, you'd done them all. Nothing interesting ever happened, yet it required absolute attention. He sighed. Studying literature had been less boring because at least occasionally the teacher would put on a film.

Being trapped in a car with Yassen was normal now, but at least when it was moving, there were slightly different landscapes to look at. Las Vegas wasn't nearly as exciting or glamorous as he'd been led to believe by years of television and movies. Perhaps it was because he'd come in the daylight, but instead of gleaming buildings and flashing neon lights, all it seemed like was a dusty metropolis trying to oversell itself. If a city could have a character, Las Vegas would be a girl he sat next to in maths back at Brooklands. Danielle was loud, brash, and uninterested in any serious topic. Instead, she cheerfully cracked jokes and disrupted class, providing entertainment and demanding attention in equal spades. As much as Alex didn't mind her most of the time, her antics had gotten old when he realized she hadn't done much more than help everyone pass time with little to show for it: if anything, it just meant there was less time for the lecture.

Maybe adults needed that and that's why this city existed.

He kicked his feet up on the dashboard, refusing to lower them even as Yassen swept a dislodging hand at him. A niggle of anxiety threatened to grow within him which he stubbornly shut down.

Just because this was the first time in weeks that they'd done anything besides aimlessly drive didn't mean anything. New identities were the only thing standing between them and starting over in Russia. Change was on the horizon.

Knowing it wasn't the same as feeling it. Alex had grown used to their little routines and his stomach felt like someone had upturned a bucket of ice inside it. He took another swallow of smoothie. "No, it's more like those Facebook naming games. Or at least, that's what I was thinking of when I came up with it."

Yassen raised a single eyebrow, hardly looking up from his flip phone as he hammered it with his fingers. "What?"

"Oh, come on. Don't tell me you've never seen one. The ones where you find out your 'whatever' name based off of the street you grew up on or your birthdate or some other fact about you. Pirate name. Stripper name. Wrestling name." Alex rolled his eyes. "Don't look at me like that. They're stupid, but fun. Anyway, that's kind of how I've been picking food places."

"By using Facebook naming games."

Alex groaned. "By using the idea. I could write it down if you like. First, I look at the name of the city. If it's got one part, we find a place with a drive thru or take away, but if it's got two parts we go inside. Las Vegas has two parts, see. The color of our current car determines the cardinal direction we should drive in: white is west, black is east, silver is south, and red sends us north. After that, my most recent hallucination determines the cuisine, but that's more complicated to explain. Tie-breakers are to match the first letter of the town name and the name of the restaurant."

Yassen's brow furled, looking up from his screen. "We're in Las Vegas driving a silver car. How we ended up at a Jamba Juice drive thru on the west side of the city for breakfast?"

Actually, they'd been driving past and Alex had been in the mood.

He hurriedly gestured at the building across the street. "Are you sure this is the right place?"

"It is." Yassen set down his phone, finally completing another seemingly endless series of texts with his unspecified 'contact'. They'd gone shopping for more clothing, only this time the assassin had insisted on changing appearances yet again. His short hair was now ash brown. Combined with his new manner of dressing in a neat button up sweater, thin metal glasses, and a pair of gray slacks, Yassen looked like a librarian with a gym habit rather than a fitness trainer off the clock.

Alex's own transformation was about as jarring. According to Yassen, apart from dressing in a radically different style, the best thing you could do was change your age: Alex now sported a close fitting gray long sleeved shirt and a pair of cargo shorts that fell to his calves. Emphasizing how short and small he was, something about the outfit also felt a little bit kiddish to him when he looked in the mirror- which Yassen insisted was the entire point. Much as Alex hated looking like a tall twelve-year-old, it did make them stand out far less. Yassen had essentially aged himself while subtracting a good year or two from Alex.

They'd fought over his hair, of course. It was freshly dyed to match Yassen's, yet remained stubbornly uncut.

Kicking his feet against the dash in a steady drumming motion, Alex picked at a stray thread on his sleeve. "So what are we waiting for?"

Yassen's lips thinned, eyes on the small storefront. Instead of a copier shop, this identity broker seemed to be in the business of personalized art prints. Alex spotted several advertisements in the window for t-shirt and blanket designs. A load of anime-style posters hung on the walls of the interior, surrounded by other examples of fabric printing- caps, totes, etc. The shop seemed as gaudy as it did cool. "It's just a precaution. There are many people looking for us. Carelessness will get us killed."

"Like when the Scorpia guys found us on the ship?" Alex hummed as Yassen's look essentially confirmed it for him. "So you think they found us through the guy who did our original fake identities."

Yassen gave him a half nod. "They may know this city is our destination, but not when we'll be here and why. After all, Ferri moved out here to obscure himself from Scorpia. San Luca wished to cut ties as well; unless they interrogated him, I doubt he'd tell them anything about what we discussed."

Alex studied him. "And you think they haven't?"

"He's an outside contractor," Yassen told him. "Pressuring those when your organization is weak is just asking for others to suddenly make themselves unavailable. Scorpia can't afford to burn that many bridges at once. Not at the moment."

"So this is just a precaution against the odds that they bribed him instead?"

Yassen raised his eyebrows. "That's not a bad guess. Yes, partially against that. There's also the chance that Scorpia is watching all major identity brokers I've worked with, regardless of their knowing cooperation. A tall order but not an impossible one."

Alex went back to sipping his smoothie, wrinkling his nose slightly at the taste. He'd let Yassen persuade him to have wheatgrass, ginger, and kale added to the mix of frozen yogurt and fruit. It damn near ruined the flavor. The stomach medication Yassen had given him this morning alongside his opiates seemed to be helping; he hadn't thrown up since and his throat had even begun to hurt less. Eating well was an eventuality he was just going to have to face sooner or later.

Yassen turned to him suddenly. "I think it's clear. Do you have your phone?"

Alex nodded and fished it out of his pocket to show him. Yassen had bought it for him on the way to the Grand Canyon and given him strict orders to never lose track of it again. After Kingman, Alex didn't need to be told twice.

"And your gun?"

A touch more reluctantly, Alex nodded and lifted his shirt to prove he had it on him. Despite warming to his body temperature, the metal of the petite .22 caliber resting near the small of his back still prickled against his skin. He'd been equal parts baffled and unnerved when Yassen had bought it for him this morning. Did Yassen not realize how often Alex was high or did he just think the risk of outside danger that great?

It was funny, really. MI6 had knowingly sent him into danger more times than Alex could count, yet had adamantly insisted against arming him. Yassen's goal was for Alex to live and die safely behind a desk somewhere, yet insisted he "be prepared" just in case. Safety wasn't a feeling he even remotely associated with the weight digging into his back anymore. He knew his own limitations, or at least, knew enough about them to fear what finding out otherwise would mean.

Julius giggled behind him.

"Good. I'll enter first and ensure everything is safe," Yassen told him, checking his clip discreetly out of view of anyone walking by the car. He tucked it into the holster under his sweater and glanced at Alex. "Follow when I text you."

Alex glanced around the street and nodded. "How long will you be?"

"I'm not certain. Assume an hour," Yassen said. With one final glance at the road, he got out of the car and crossed the busy street, disappearing into the darkened interior of the store without so much as a nervous twitch. Either he was extremely confident that he wasn't walking into a trap or was a brilliant actor.

Alex let out a sharp exhale. It was probably fine. Yassen was a pro at this sort of thing. If he didn't think there was a threat, then there probably wasn't one. That didn't stop the surge of anxious adrenaline, however. What if Yassen had miscalculated? What if they missed something? If Scorpia attacked them while they were split up, there was little Alex could do. Kingman had given him hope as to him still being able to handle himself, but that had a pretty swift time limit. He was almost entirely dependent on Yassen for help. Even if he had strict orders to respond to a panic text by finding the third coffee shop to the east of his current location and waiting there, that didn't mean Alex had many options should Yassen fail to handle the situation on his own. What if Yassen got arrested and Alex didn't? He'd certainly try to break the man out, but doubted he'd succeed. What if Yassen got shot again?

It wasn't an actual panic attack, but Alex counted to four anyway. Trouble wasn't here to distract him, so it was back to controlling his breathing and outright denial.

Feeling a bit better after a handful of minutes, he leaned back in his seat and watched people trickle by on the sidewalk beside him. His phone vibrated, disturbing the silence.

All clear. Come inside.

Alex took another deep breath before shoving open his door and stepping out onto the street. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he took a deep breath. Glanced around wide eyed and bit his lip. Just a timid kid in a big city for the first time.

Yassen waited impatiently for him at the entrance to the shop. Holding the glass door open for him, he led Alex towards the far counter and into a roped off hallway without a word. For his part, Alex tried to match his silence as he walked past the various browsing patrons, refusing to betray his anxiety where anyone else might see.

A tall man with caramel hair waited for them in a back room, dressed in a crisply tailored suit and scribbling something on a digital tablet with a stylus. He seemed remarkably proficient at it, despite being in his late forties. Alex returned his polite nod, not bothering to conceal his curiosity as he looked around. Unlike San Luca's office, which had been packed full of various size printers of varying ages, Ferri's workshop was spacious, tidy, and ultra modern. Black casing seemed to be the norm for all of his equipment, contrasting sharply with the sterile white walls; Alex's head spun trying to guess what each machine did. Inks and dyes were stored in clear containers against the wall, each stacked neatly atop each other and clearly labeled.

A woman with Cleopatra-like hair darted past them without giving them a second glance, tattooed arms laden with fluffy blankets printed with Dragon Ball Z characters.

"Nicole," Ferri called out in French without glancing up from his tablet. "Don't forget to close out register four before you leave for lunch." He glanced up and fixed Alex with a considering look. "How tall and natural hair color?" he asked Yassen, still in French and otherwise behaving as though Alex had all the intellectual capacities of a statue.

Alex stifled the urge to respond peevishly in the same language, letting Yassen do the answering for him. Like with San Luca, Alex intended to listen in unobserved.

Even if the temptation to stick out his tongue was overwhelming.

Ferri finished typing something and nodded to the assassin. "It shall not be as complicated as I feared to establish your records and procure the proper documents, but it will still take about a month to push through my channels. Quality is king, especially if you intend for this to last him his lifetime. I wish I'd gotten a month's notice to get this started."

Yassen folded his arms. His face was impassive, but Alex had gotten good enough at reading him to know that he was annoyed. "I tried to contact you weeks ago. You're a hard man to reach these days."

"So are you." Ferri scoffed and waved a hand at their surroundings, lips twisting in a light show of resignation. "I'm not thrilled either. This is a tacky city full of tacky people, but at least I don't have Scorpia agents nearly exposing my operation every other day."

"Oh?" Yassen asked, voice light.

The man fixed him with a scrutinizing look. "I assumed this was why you'd left."

"I retired for other reasons," Yassen said easily. Alex pretended to be enamored with a nearby printer spitting out YuGiOh! posters. "It seems I chose an opportune time to do so. I'm always interested in gossip, though."

Ferri snorted, a thin smile tugging at the corner of his lips. Evidently, so was he. "Well, there won't be much left of Scorpia for very long, I should think. The authorities seized several key operations and records. Malagosto is shut down. Twenty separate operatives were nearly apprehended on my doorstep before I decided to cut my losses and stop accepting Scorpia contracts. I only deal with independants now."

Yassen raised his eyebrows. "Twenty? That many?"

"Incredible, yes?" Ferri consulted his tablet and shook his head. "They used to be my biggest client and now? Practically gone." He shot Yassen a careful look. "You're lucky you found me at such a slow time. I would have turned you away just for being associated with the former board. Nothing personal, of course. You've always been reliable."

"I do appreciate it," Yassen said, in a voice that conveyed the bare minimum of gratitude. He leaned against the blank stretch of wall behind him. "If the organization was so crippled, why does it still exist? Surely the remaining gangs would have fractured back into splinter groups around their original leaders."

Ferri snuck a glance at Alex, who was allowing his gaze to wander as though the adults were discussing nonsense and he was too bored to even pretend to pay attention for the sake of politeness. He turned back to Yassen and stated, "Now, I have been avoiding direct contact, but I still hear things. Gossip of the most speculative variety. Nothing verified, but quite interesting."

At the obvious disclaimer, Yassen waved a hand. "I understand."

Ferri shrugged, clearly warming to the topic. "There's been talk of new recruits to the executive board. Fresh blood was the intent, but it seems bringing in outsiders did no one favors. Two of them have already been arrested after failing their assignments and the others don't seem to be faring much better, despite the full support of Dr. Three and Chase. At least, those operatives that I spoke with mentioned a lot of internal resentment, especially towards the remaining acting board. Why look outside during these trying times when there are many eager for promotion from within? Even those loyal operatives preferring to remain followers balk when asked to trust leaders without established histories. Combine that with the occasional power grab and what's left of the organization is in upheaval."

Yassen's gaze didn't so much as flicker. "How interesting."

"It really is." Ferri raised an eyebrow, risking a quick glance at Alex before shifting his focus back to the contract killer. That was probably wise. He waved a hand. "I was surprised to hear that you hadn't made your own play. You'd make a natural fit. Many expected it, given your popularity. In fact, I'd say several of the operatives I've relocated have expressed disappointment."

Leaning against a table, Alex remained ever careful to show zero interest in the conversation. So most of Scorpia didn't know that Yassen had been in prison. Perhaps the board simply hadn't wanted to make their failings public. That was why they had agreed to leave Alex alone for so long, after all. Why hadn't anyone else noticed Yassen was missing for so long though? He was a top operative, according to Blunt and now Ferri. Important.

Had no one reported it?

Alex bit his lip. Assassins worked alone, almost by definition. Yassen seemed to have a lot of contracts, at least from what Alex could tell, but had never mentioned any partners. His stories about his dad were entirely oriented around training. Maybe he moved around so often that he was only known by reputation even within Scorpia itself? If he was, that reputation had to be impressive if what Ferri said was true.

Yassen himself shrugged, his disinterest obvious at the implied question. "I'm retired," he repeated. "At my age, I have little desire to put up with the demands of clients."

Ferri scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Hardly. Maybe you'd prefer to let some foolish twenty-year-old take your place on the other side of a rifle, but you'd be the youngest board member in Scorpia's history apart from Julia Rothman." He paused, before tapping the screen of his tablet sharply. "It wouldn't be a hard case to make. You're one of the longest standing members, apart from the training staff. Most of them were arrested anyway. You have a long history of success. There would be a lot of support among those loyalists unhappy with the recent changes."

"Having support isn't the same as having an interest," Yassen pointed out, crossing his arms loosely in front of him. Something hard entered his eyes. "And I have none. What else have you heard?"

"Nothing substantial," Ferri admitted, gesturing Alex towards a dropcloth and snapping a quick picture with a tiny digital camera he pulled from a nearby container. Tucking away the device, he added, "Everyone in and outside of Scorpia is keeping an eye on that situation with the Russian Mafia, though."

"Oh?" Yassen didn't sound more than passingly interested, but Alex noticed him stiffen.

His stomach sank. If Scorpia had ties to the Russian mob, would this complicate Alex's already strained history with the Ark Angel project? That was a lot of overlap to ignore. Of course, that was on top of the Sarov issues too. Perhaps Russia wasn't viable after all. Yassen couldn't be very happy about it; he'd seemed sold on going to Russia since day one of their escape.

Not that Alex blamed him. He missed his home too.

Ferri raised an eyebrow. "You haven't heard?" At Yassen's silence, he went on. "Just whispers, of course. Unmet obligations. Shackell closed that deal with them a few years back to handle their international affairs; I had to do a flood of Russian passports for the organization because of it. Apparently, Scorpia's coverage has been slipping and the Russians are very unhappy with the results. There's talk of them declining to renew their contract. It's not surprising, with half the organization locked up and agents defecting right and left."

Yassen shifted slightly on his feet. "I suppose not."

"Since you're headed to that region, I thought you may want to know. Perhaps there will be freelance work for you if you decide against retiring permanently." Ferri gave a dismissive wave of his hand before handing Yassen a plain white card, suddenly all business. "Here's my new routing and account number. Payment is half upfront and you have until midnight to complete the transfer, same as before. Normally something of this depth would take about ninety days, but for you, I'll put in a rush order. Text me the rest of the health details you'd like established sometime this week. Russian medical histories take only a few days, so if it takes you awhile to find the time, there's no need to fret. The dual citizenship is the tricky part but it can certainly be accomplished. Give me thirty days total."

Accepting the card, Yassen nodded politely and gestured Alex over to him. "Very well. I'll be in touch."