"This is going to sound really clichéd, but it's too quiet." Lizard muttered, finger twitching towards the trigger of his gun as they swung around a corner, aiming around the room before asserting that the room was clear.

"Cool it Liz, you're freaking me out." Albatross muttered back, swinging into the next room before softly calling out a "Clear" to the group that was surely a few feet behind them. Except there was no answering echo of copy, rodger, or clear. Albatross and Lizard stared at each other for a moment before turning around quickly and moving their guns up to chest level of-

"Shit Panther, you scared the crap out of us." Lizard breathed, glaring at the smaller man and glancing around a bit paranoid. "Where are Seal and Shrew, I thought they were with you?"

"They were, but I sent them back five minutes ago, you know how they are, Seal almost knocked Shrew through a wall before I told them to get out of here." Panther said, rolling his eyes and bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet, muscles tense as if ready to run at any second.

Albatross huffed, "You'd think they'd know better during a mission, lord, how those two managed to get into the SAS I'll never know." They shared a comfortable moment before looking around them warily.

"I don't like this." Panther murmured nervously, "I don't like this one bit."

Lizard might have responded with an affirmative, Albatross might have told both of them to knock it off, or another group may have joined them in glancing around afraid to move and afraid not to but at that moment a door flung open causing them all to fling their guns up and pivot towards it.

A youngish man stumbled out of it, eyes wildly moving around the room, arms thrown up in surrender, "69683542805." He gasped out before collapsing, Panther quickly snagging him out of the air before he hit the ground, quietly swearing when he noticed the man's condition.

"Liz, get HQ on radio, I can't remember whether that was the right string of nu-"

"It was." Panther said shortly, taking the man's pulse and swearing again. "Stay with me Be- Fox. Come on man, stay with me."

"Fox? Fox from K-Unit? MI6 Fox?" Lizard gaped, trying to find any resemblance between the man he had met at training and the bloody mess lying on the ground.

"Yeah; now shut the fuck up and get me that med evac." Panther growled, ripping the wounded man's shirt and pushing it against the man's stomach, trying to stop the bleeding there.

Suddenly Fox opened his eyes, and although still looking completely out of it managed to focus on Panther. He shook his head as if trying to clear it, "Al?" he groaned, trying to sit up. Panther pushed him back down.

"Albatross is over there Fox, I'm Panther. We're going to get you out of here, hang tight okay?"

Fox merely continued to try to pull himself up, "No, Alex. Alex Rider. I know you are, you can't lie to me Al."

"Fox, calm down you're delusional, you've been shot I need you to lie back and relax until the med team gets here."

"God damn it Alex you know me well enough to know that won't work! This isn't funny, where the hell have you been?" Just then the medics ran in, pulling him onto a stretcher despite his weak attempts to struggle against them.

Panther watched as he was loaded onto the helicopter with a sigh, walking out of the building towards where his team was standing, gathering up equipment or starting up vehicles. Albatross came up behind him, "You knew that Fox wasn't talking about me when he said Al didn't you?"

Panther sighed again and ran a hand through his too short hair, "Yeah, I did."

"And that Alex Rider guy he was talking about, you know him too?" he asked curiously, motioning to his team mates that he would be over in a minute.

"Yeah, I did. A long time ago." Panther replied, suddenly looking incredibly young as he watched the evac helicopter disappear.

Albatross stood awkwardly next to him for a moment before clapping him on the shoulder and smiling as best he could, "Your unit's waiting on you, you should probably head out."

He nodded and started towards the three other men sitting in a vehicle a few yards away from Albatross's unit. "Hey Panther!" the man called after his friend who turned slightly towards him, "One more success to go on that spotless record eh?" This drew out a small smile from the soldier as he started walking towards his unit again.

"Yeah, one more for the record." Ian Johnson murmured as he rejoined his unit who were already yelling at him to, "Get over here before our clothes go out of style Pan!" and "Oh is the kitty-cat taking time out of his busy schedule to come sit with his unit?"

He allowed himself a small hidden smile, Alex Rider had never been able to gain easy acceptance like this, but then Ian Johnson always had been the lucky one.