In 26

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. This story is written for entertainment purposes only. No copyright infringement intended.

Dirtier by the Dozen

Purdey alighted from the rope ladder dangling from the helicopter with exaggerated care, giddy from a mixture of the adrenaline singing in her veins and the champagne fizzing in her throat. Safely on terra firma, she took a few steps away from the ladder and waved the champagne bottle at Steed to let him know it was safe to pull it back up into the cockpit. She could just make out his thumbs up before the ladder retreated back into the heavens and the whirlybird swept away, taking its buzz with it, off to hunt for any errant soldiers who might have decided to take their chances and make a run for it.

"Purdey!" The voice was loud and boisterous and carried, and Purdey identified the speaker long before she turned around and saw him striding toward her with the effortless authority of an officer. Her foreknowledge did nothing to reduce her elation when she finally caught a glimpse of him. After the day she'd had, Purdey was more than happy to see Colonel Elroyd Foster.

"Hello, Uncle Elly!" she greeted, quickly closing the distance between them and, still punchdrunk, sweeping him into a tight bear hug, champagne glass and bottle clinking together as her hands met behind his back. "You're a sight for sore eyes. What are you doing here?"

"Steady on, my gel," Foster chuckled, sounding much more pleased about her gesture than his words let on, patting Purdey's back in the reassuring way he had since childhood. "Your friend Mr. Steed told me there was some rum business going on with Colonel Miller, asked if I might lend a hand. Mentioned that you were mixed up in it as well. Naturally, I thought I'd better have a look for myself, see what's what."

"Really, Uncle Elly," Purdey chided gently as she pulled away. "I'm perfectly capable of looking after myself. And it's not as though I'm working on my own. Gambit and Steed are here, too."

"Of course, of course. You're a very capable young woman, just like your mother." Foster put his hands behind his back with the snappy, officious movements of a seasoned soldier and looked her up and down as though he was inspecting one of his troops. "Still, can't fault an uncle for worrying after his niece, can you?" He seemed to notice the champagne bottle and glass clutched in her hands for the first time and arched a bushy eyebrow. "Although I must say you seem to have come through it handsomely. I didn't think the spy business was as cushy as all that."

Purdey looked at the bottle, then smiled and shrugged carelessly. "Consolation prize," she quipped. "It's been a very long day." She glanced around at the parade ground, swarming with soldiers of all stripes from a handful of different units, some in custody, some doing the arresting. "Judging by your operation here, I expect it's about to get even longer." She had a sudden, alarming thought. "General Stevens?" she inquired, rounding on her uncle with wide, concerned eyes.

"Found locked up in the cells. Dignity a bit worse for wear, but otherwise safe and sound," Foster assured, then leaned in conspiratorially. "Still too old for you, though."

Purdey smirked at the recurring joke, and was about to say something clever about how locking the General up in a cell was a bit of an over-reaction if her uncle wanted to prevent a highly unlikely romantic entanglement, when another clutch of soldiers arrived on the scene, escorted by her uncle's troops, who had corralled them neatly into formation. The unhappy posse filed past, and Purdey picked out a few familiar faces, including some of the men who had been entertaining her in the pub when she'd been captured. Bringing up the rear, with a face like granite and boots covered with mud and blades of damp grass that spoke to the fact that he'd walked the whole way back with them, was Gambit. As the soldiers were herded toward one of the trucks dotted around the parade ground, Gambit fell back, along with the man in charge of the escort. The pair held a brief conversation that included much gesticulation, before the man saluted smartly. Gambit returned the gesture with obvious weariness, and watched the other man march off briskly, double-time, to rejoin his troops. Gambit was left looking very alone, and somewhat bereft, in the middle of the tarmac.

"Uncle Elly, I hate to rush off, but I've just seen someone I need to talk to," Purdey apologised, bundling both bottle and glass into her uncle's arms without ever taking her eyes off Gambit. "Would you hold this for a moment?"

Foster sputtered something in response, but Purdey was already sprinting toward Gambit, her uncle's words lost in the wind at her back. "Mike!"

"Purdey!" Gambit's eyes flicked toward the sound of her voice instantaneously, didn't leave her for a second as she jogged toward him, then swept over her with obvious concern when she finally reached him. "You okay?"

"Of course. I've just had a bird's eye tour of the area, complete with in-flight refreshments." She got her first proper look at him, and abruptly came down from her adrenaline-and-champagne-induced high. "Are you?" Someone who didn't know Gambit the way she did might have mistaken his stoic composure for confidence, but Purdey knew better, knew that it was when he was at his most unreadable that he most needed reading.

Gambit laughed a little, but there was no humour in it. "I didn't blow you to kingdom come, so I ought to be."

His breath was coming out in short, rapid bursts, as evidenced by the little puffs of condensation that hung briefly in the crisp autumn air, a visible sign that he was distraught. Gambit was a master of the martial arts, of which proper breathing was a core principle. If Purdey hadn't already realised that something was wrong, the little clouds would have betrayed him. "Mike Gambit, you and your excellent marksmanship saved me from being blown to kingdom come," she reminded, just a touch sternly. Gambit was succumbing to his masochistic tendencies, which, without exception, involved blaming himself for not being able to protect someone from something that any rational human being would realise was well out of his control. The torture was amplified ten-fold—no, a hundred—when the person in question was Purdey. Typically, that fact brought Purdey a certain amount of satisfaction, but at that moment, standing there and actually feeling Gambit's distress radiating off of him, she was determined to put paid to any sense of responsibility he might feel about her former predicament. "Anyway, the only reason I wound up in that minefield in the first place was because I decided not to listen to you and to play distraction."

Gambit didn't look convinced by her attempt to absolve him of responsibility. "Speaking of distractions," he muttered, digging in his pocket and pulling out the corner of something white and lacy that she recognised as her bra-cum-double-barrelled-slingshot. "You, uh, might need this if you're going to spend the afternoon with a bunch of soldiers without feeling…exposed." He glanced briefly over her shoulder at where Foster was standing a few metres away, deep in conversation with one of his men, who was now looking rather beleaguered as he attempted to keep up his soldierly demeanour while juggling Purdey's off-loaded champagne bottle and glass. "I didn't count on making the handover in front of your uncle, though."

Purdey stepped in close, breasts pressing, unfettered, against the weave of his thick army sweater. She remembered the sensation of her fingers tangling in the garment less than an hour ago as she trusted Gambit to guide her through the perilous terrain of the base's grounds. "What you need, Mike Gambit, is a little diversion," she said softly, repeating the words she had said to him as he laid beneath her, awe-filled and dumbstruck, still unable to believe that she'd flipped him and was now leaning over his prone form, wondering what she had in store for him next. Just as she had at that moment, she was filled with an overwhelming urge to kiss him. And just as before, Gambit's breathing was rapid—she could feel his chest heaving against hers, his heart pounding. This time, it wasn't out of guilt or fear, but something much more pleasurable. Something that made her own heart hammer in anticipation, too.

"I think this qualifies," he managed, voice rough from shouting-and desire. Purdey felt the autumn chill give way to an inner warmth.

The bra was passed between them surreptitiously, concealed by their melded bodies. Neither of them watched the transfer, Purdey's head tipped back, Gambit's dipped, two sets of eyes locked, two sets of lips parted.

"Think anyone noticed?" Gambit's mouth sounded dry, voice slightly strangled, and Purdey realised that they were locked in a moment, on the brink of something momentous that would still somehow be momentous even if it came to nothing. And it had to come to nothing. Purdey wasn't brave enough for it to, no matter how much she wanted it. Not yet, at least. Not yet.

"No." She closed her hand around the balled-up brassiere. "But it wouldn't matter if they had. If today has proved anything, Mike Gambit, it's that I'm safer with you than anyone else in the world, minefield or no minefield."

The message seemed to get through this time, two messages if one counted his realisation that the moment wasn't going to turn into something else, but from the easy acceptance in his eyes, she could tell he'd been expecting the anti-climax. What he hadn't expected was the sentiment. "Do you mean that?" he asked, and it was obvious that the answer meant a great deal to him.

Purdey nodded ever-so-slightly, still in something of a trance. "Even if you don't have a helicopter," she added, as though that was the final proof he needed. She took one, sanity-inducing, step back, felt herself breathe more evenly, schooling herself not to think about heaving bosoms with her bra still balled up in her fist. "I'm going to find someplace to put this on. You'll be here when I'm finished."

It was a statement rather than a question, but he answered it anyway. "Purdey, where else would I be?"