Burning Bars and Other Extreme Sports

Yassen had built the bar as a nice retirement business. It was considered a neutral meeting area for all who knew of such things. He preferred it this way. No pesky loyalties to pretend. And he could now boot offending customers instead of putting up with their insanity. It was also a fairly decent income and he had bartenders who handled most of the interpersonal interaction. Woe betide anyone who tried to talk to him about anything frivolous. His staff knew that he was a man of few words. There were clients he put up with just because they bought full rounds for the bar. Bills were paid on time by him. Yassen leaned back in his chair as one of his waitresses stormed up to his office on camera. "Boss! If one more of these over-muscled idiots asks me out, I'm throwing them out!"

Yassen sat up. "That is the company policy, Darla."

The woman looked quite relieved. Yassen leaned back in his chair. "Why don't you take your break early?"

Darla sat down on the couch he had in his office. Yassen had tried to sound warm and personable but felt like he had failed miserably. The minutes ticked by in relative silence. Darla seemed to be taking some sort of over-the-counter headache medicine. Yassen stretched as he waited. The woman sighed. "If it was anyone else, I'd be worried about the couch being in here."

Yassen gave her an amused look. "I think we're past the hiring stage."

Darla snorted and then looked at him. "So you do have a sense of humor."

Yassen felt his lips twist into a faint smirk. "Occasionally."

Darla didn't seem to mind him being quiet. Yassen didn't care about how attractive his baristas were, as long as they did their jobs. He knew that this was not always the case, especially in areas with less demand for bar staff. "Are you ever going to tell us what you did before owning a bar?"

Yassen leaned in. "If I told you, I would have to kill you."

Darla seemed to sense that he meant it and blanched. "Never mind."

Yassen was not quite sure what to say. He poured himself some water. "Apologies for scaring you."

Darla sighed and muttered something about thinking she had finally gotten away from the mob. Yassen huffed. "I am retired."

Darla looked about ready to retort when Yassen heard the all too familiar sound of the roof supports squealing. He silently sprang from his chair and grabbed Darla. "Do you have weapons?"

Her New York accent was rather thick when she got nervous. "Oh, we're quite covered. We need to move now."

Darla clung to his arm as he briskly escorted them to the back fire escape. She all but ran down the stairs as Yassen followed her. The woman looked up and gaped as she glanced up. Yassen dragged her a little further before glancing up to see that a train had somehow been dropped on his bar. A fucking train. There was exactly one culprit responsible for these sorts of events. "ALEXANDER JOHNATHAN RIDER!"

Alex had never heard Yassen yell before. He normally just shot the offending party before it got close to making him that angry. Of course, in this case, he was the offending party. Perhaps it was a good thing that Yassen had retired from his trigger-happy ways. Alex kicked the door out of the train. "Hello, Yassen!"

Alex was on the receiving end of glares from a multitude of mercenaries. "I thought you were retired."

Yassen scowled at him. Alex glared right back. "I am. I run a bar now. Or rather, I ran a bar before some young upstart dropped a fucking train on it."

Alex grinned. There was an easy solution for that. He whipped out one of Crawley's business cards. "Here you go! They'll pay to rebuild your bar! And if they don't, let me know. I can always threaten to wreck another national monument."

Yassen looked like he'd eaten something foul. Alex kept right on smiling. Yassen needed more excitement in his life. "You will what?!"

Alex crossed his arms. "Oh, don't be like that. I've only destroyed a police station, smashed the roof of the science museum, and accidentally injured two politicians. Well, three, but they don't count."

Yassen just continued attempting to smite him via the power of evil glares. Alex began to slide out of the train. Yassen muttered swears under his breath and approached to help him. "If this train explodes on the wreckage of my bar, I will snap your miserable neck."

Alex shrugged. "Don't worry, I already used all of my explosive ordinance before I got here."

Yassen cuffed him. "You are the worst child I have ever encountered."

Alex was unceremoniously lifted out of the train compartment. "Have you met any other teens in your line of work?"

Yassen set him down. Alex was surprised the man didn't drop him on his head at this point. "Not really."

The man known as John Reese sat watching the exchange with interest. The machine had indicated that the bar owner was in danger, though he had no social security number to speak of. The man his number had belonged to had died some time ago. They had checked it out. This was a new identity that had been given to the blond man by the CIA - a dual citizenship. Of that, John Reese was sure. The case had become more complicated when they had realized that the man's bar was a neutral meeting point for any two parties who normally would not get along. John had eyed several former colleagues meeting with terrorist groups. John had chosen a table near the door when the…train crash…had occurred. Was the blond boy trying to kill the blond man? It would be an interesting and ostentatious murder method. They seemed familiar with one another. Neither the boy nor the man was reaching for weapons of any kind. Finch was texting him. John smiled slightly as he reassured the man that he was doing alright. The train had missed him, after all. Would the blond man want revenge for the wrecking of the bar? Things were usually a bit more complicated than that. The blond man rolled his eyes and sat the boy next to the barista, muttering Russian swears under his breath. John sighed and moved to help pull everyone else from the wreck. So far, it looked like there were no deaths. It was actually kind of shocking. The train appeared to be empty. Odd. At least the kid seemed alright. He seemed to know better than to try to help. Yassen seemed to be struggling with words. John felt his lips twitch as he saw several other people getting yanked out of the wreckage by their colleagues. Just about everyone's suits were ruined. John shrugged. Finch was the one who chose and paid for his attire. Something, something, he had the taste of a hired gun. Finch had not been amused at his cracks about being a hired gun for the US government. Mr. Reese. Reese grinned. "Yeah, yeah, don't worry Finch. The POI and everyone else is alive, so far. If they're smart, they'll get checked for concussions."

The man's tart tone filtered in through the earpiece. "Should I call one of ours?"

John debated fishing his drink out of the broken window. It was probably best to head to another pub in London. So far, absolutely nobody had moved to call the police, ambulance, or fire department. John wasn't exactly surprised. It was rather entertaining watching all of them dance around trying to be normal and not calling an ambulance. "No. One of the few times I don't get tapped in the head. We should watch a show together, Bar Rescue."

John lived for the long sigh of exasperation on the end of the line. "Very funny, Mr. Reese."

John decided to get up and join the normal-people-charade dance. It could be fun.

Michael Weston, currently known as Michael McBride, began checking on his current group under observation. "Is everyone doing alright?"

The Irish accent still felt incredibly rough on his tongue. He supposed he would get used to it. "Aye."

Michael helped Fiona out of the wreckage before moving to assist his rather grumpy Irish compatriots. They had been meeting here for some sort of weapons deal. "Some little blond British shite crashed a bleeding train into us!"

Michael was somewhat impressed. That topped his youthful property destruction by a good mile. "Maybe we should offer him a job."

Fiona laughed. "Michael!"

Michael smiled back at her. Fiona ruffled his hair. Their illustrious leader seemed to be considering it. He had been joking. "Eh, he's Brit."

Michael was relieved that they were not recruiting another teenager. He'd had enough of kids and espionage mixing badly to last a lifetime. Fiona gently touched his arm. Michael groaned. Well, he may as well use the hospital check-up time to check-in. "We should get checked out. Not here, of course, but…"

They all nodded and began to clear off the scene. Michael let out a mental sigh of relief as they made their way to the train station. Not a single officer had shown up to the scene by the time they left. Michael's mind kept going back to the slightly manic British kid. Crashing a train into a bar at his age was…not normal. The fact that he had been so eerily cheerful about it was also alarming. It could have just been the shock, he supposed. Some people had weird reactions to stress. They had done a training course on all the different reactions people might have and how to manipulate them. Michael sat down on the train and ignored the looks that everyone was shooting at them as they rode back to Ireland. British people would never be so impolite as to say something about the state of their attire. Michael was sure that the new wreck would be on the news tonight.

Fiona was tapping them all every few minutes to make sure that they didn't fall asleep. Michael made sure to shoot her warm looks. He liked Fiona. It was fairly dangerous to fall in love with someone you were spying on, though. It tended not to end very well for one or both parties. Michael was dragged into the clinic first by both Fiona and his boss. He was being 'almost too quiet.' Michael had resisted a snort at that. It would almost be sweet if they weren't a terrorist cell. He managed to message his SO back while he was waiting in the hospital gown. The line was one-way for security reasons. It always unnerved Michael when that was the set-up. Fiona burst into the room, yelling at the doctor in nearly incomprehensible English. "Easy, Fiona, they're probably swamped."

Fiona's nostrils flared as he pulled her into a hug. She immediately sunk into the hug. "It's going to be okay, Fiona."

Written for Prompt #77 by mediaboy. This is the 43rd 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 :) Want to discuss? Leave a comment beneath, or join the discord (Link on AO3 Fics or just PM me, lol).