An Anticipatory Awakening

Nile woke up wrapped in bandages. He stared at the ceiling with a building feeling of panic. Was this MI6?!

"Oh, good. You're up. I guess I didn't mess up too badly."

Nile recognized that voice. His chest hurt with every breath. "Alex? Where am I?"

Speaking hurt. Nile wanted to know, though. "You're at my house. I may have…smuggled you in and treated you myself?"

Nile attempted to raise his hand and immediately regretted it. His chest pulsated sharply. "...what was your score in Three's class?"

Nile coughed. Spasms ran through his chest. And he had thought that breathing hurt. Alex's face came into view. He was holding a glass of water with a straw. Nile took a few sips. He was pretty sure coughing more would be agonizing.

"Eighty-seven."

Well, that was something, at least. He probably wasn't going to die. Alex at least sounded apologetic. "Sorry, but MI6 has me under pretty close watch. I was afraid that if I took you to a hospital…"

Nile paused in his water drinking. His throat felt moderately less dry, but he suddenly felt a chill at the implication. "I get it. Don't worry. What's the damage?"

Alex's wide brown eyes were disarming. Then again, he was fourteen. That was probably why MI6 had grabbed him in the first place. "Uhh, your operation kind of failed and Mrs. Rothman kind of got crushed by her own satellite?"

Nile barked out a laugh before he could quite stop himself. Alex was looking very concerned as it turned into a groan of agony. Right, laughing hurt. "I meant to me, but thanks for the update, Alex."

Alex flushed slightly. Nile vaguely remembered the terrifying duel at the top of the building and on the balloon. "You got burned pretty badly and your ribs are broken. I'm pretty sure you would be dead if anything punctured your organs by now, though."

Nile was pretty sure that there were a few holes in the kid's medical knowledge, but at least somebody had tried. He let out a sigh. "Just check for anything suspicious next time you look at me."

Alex was looking alarmingly lost. Nile gave him a soft grin. The kid let out a squeak. "Um, sorry for almost murdering you?"

Nile resisted a laugh. Ordinarily, it would be funny as hell. However, broken ribs were a bitch. "I mean, I tried to murder you first. We're just going to call it even, okay?"

Honestly, it was probably a miracle that Alex "it was an accident, I swear" Rider hadn't smothered him in his sleep after that little incident. Nile was pretty sure his body count was higher for his first three missions than the average number of people a Malagasto graduate killed for money in their first year after graduation. "Why didn't you just drop me at the hospital?"

Alex let out a little huff. Nile was sure it was some sort of petty reason. It wasn't like he had been either fake or real recruited by the board for his stable personality and scintillating dry wit. "Blunt was being mean again. They found a sniper on the roof opposite the bank and then I got stuck in there for hours. And then they wouldn't let me take the tube home."

Nile thought that sounded like a reasonable reaction to the discovery of a sniper attempting to assassinate a key asset, but wasn't about to draw Alex's ire by saying so. Normally, he would be able to pin Alex with no problem, however, the broken ribs put a damper on a lot of his physical advantages. "Sounds awful."

Alex beamed at him. Nile figured that meant he'd sounded sympathetic enough. "It was. All he did was just sit there and stare at me, too. He could've at least asked me how school was going or something."

Nile refrained from pointing out that Blunt probably got copies of every last school report Alex wrote. The kid was already pouting. Steiner had been focused on his motivations for murder and petty was one of them. Nile did not want the kind of gruesome death that petty Alex Rider got you.

"Anyways. This is Ian's room. I've got plenty of Ian's clothes you can borrow since he doesn't need them anymore. I haven't had time to go through his stuff, so be careful with the pens and watches, they might explode or something."

Well, this wasn't creepy at all. Just sleeping in a dead man's room, on a dead man's bed, surrounded by a dead man's possessions. A man who had been killed by a Scorpia assassin, no less. Nile half expected to be haunted. "Thank you, Alex. I probably won't be moving a lot for the next few weeks with the ribs."

Alex patted his hand. Nile was morbidly curious as to what sort of things Alex thought were comforting. The kid grinned and handed him a TV remote. "It's not arson and hookers, but I didn't think you'd be up for it."

Nile rolled his eyes and turned on the television. Alex was perched on the edge of his bed like Nile was some sort of sick pet. "Do you have homework or something you should be doing?"

Alex shrugged. Nile would take that as a no. "I finished all my double homework while I was waiting for you to wake up."

Nile muted the TV. That didn't mean his job wasn't taken care of. "What about your report?"

Alex grinned. "Crawley writes those since I have no idea how to write an MI6 report."

That little rat. Nile knew full well that Alex could write a damn report. "Really?"

The brown eyes widened at him and went all shiny. Nile felt a stab of guilt before he remembered that Alex was a goddamn professional con artist. "Yes."

Nile rolled his eyes. Motherfucker didn't have to write reports. "I can't believe they bought that."

Alex's laughter bounced off the walls as he rose from the bed and headed towards the door. He was kind of cute when he did that. "I'll be back in a few hours with dinner."

Nile could live with that. It was nicer than Scorpia hospitals, anyway.

Fin

Based on a prompt by Zyzyax (see story summary). This is the 255th work in the Winds of Change 2022 Alex Rider Prompt event, where a new prompt (plus a short 1-3K work) is posted every day. For more details, see the AO3 collection. We have an index of all the prompts used in this event so far and going forwards - join the discord to get access to the online index (and to take part in our events, chat about everything and anything, and meet a load of awesome people!