Chapter 5
The man crumpled to the ground, blood pouring out of wounds in his head and chest.
Damien checked Stuart and Sam to see if they had been hit and saw that they were fine and as bewildered as he was about the sniper shot from the helicopter. Either the sniper had missed or he had hit the dead man.
He didn't dawdle another moment. In a matter of seconds, he was at his son's side, snatching him up and running with him to better cover.
There, praying to a god he'd never believed in, he looked Danny over for injuries.
. . . . .
One of the helicopters - the one with the sniper - was landing.
Victoria Winslow, Agent 003 of MI6, jumped down from the aircraft and strode across the corpse-littered lawn.
The wind caused by the whirring rotors blew her blonde hair wildly about her face.
She looked around at the places where the three men (and the child) had hidden and raised her hands to show that she didn't have any weapons in them. It would be stupid to assume that she was unarmed, but she didn't want them thinking she'd shoot them first, either.
"We got the mole," she announced. "All clear at headquarters now. You can come home."
"Who was it?" Stuart Thomas called out.
"Philby from Crypto."
She gave it another minute. The men would need to decide if they believed her or not.
Thomas emerged, followed by Carmichael, who was limping.
"Knew there was something off about that slimy little bastard," Stuart spit out. "He still alive?"
Victoria smirked. "Of course," she drawled. "Wouldn't want him to die too quickly, would we? There's enough left for you to play with."
Stuart's face twisted into a vicious grin. "Good."
Victoria glanced at Damien's hiding place. "Drake," she called, "Aren't you coming out?"
Stuart blanched. "Oh god," he muttered, and ran.
"Danny," Sam said in answer to Victoria's silent question, thin-lipped and tense. He followed as quickly as he could on his injured leg, and Victoria went along with him.
Damien Drake was sitting on the ground with his son clutched tightly to his chest.
Heart thudding, Stuart knelt down beside them. "He alright?"
Damien swallowed hard and nodded. "He's fine. Frightened out of his wits, but fine. Cuts and bruises."
Danny hiccupped against his shoulder. There was a small cut on the side of his neck where the knife had nicked him, and he would have bruises later from being thrown to the ground. His face and eyes were red from crying, and he sniffled and whimpered pitifully.
Damien glanced up as the others rounded the corner. "Victoria."
"Damien." Then she wrinkled her nose in distaste. "Your child is leaking."
Indeed he was. The tiny jeans that the toddler was wearing were soaked with urine.
Damien huffed in exasperation. "Yes, thank you, Victoria. They tend to do that when they're frightened," he said sarcastically.
He looked down at his son's unruly curls with a small smile. "I think, however, we'll call this particular instance a well-timed use of a biological weapon."
He patted the small, shuddering back gently and kissed Danny's temple. "We're alright now, baby. It's all over. We're alright."
Danny mewled and clutched at him with an even tighter grip.
Victoria grimaced. Small children were so...sticky and messy, and there was so much snot when they cried. She had no idea why Damien would want to quit his job to deal with a baby. There were such things as nannies, after all, if one simply had to give in to biological impulses and have a child.
"M wants to see you," she said instead.
Damien glared at her. "He can wait. I've got more pressing matters to take care of."
With that, he got up and walked back into his ruined house with the sobbing toddler in his arms.
. . . . .
"Well," Stuart exhaled and looked around him at the carnage that had been wreaked in the space of less than an hour. "This will have the neighbors talking for sure. Probably the most exciting thing to have happened here since the Norman conquest."
Sam surveyed the scene, too. "Pity. It was nice. I suppose he'll have to find somewhere new to live."
Stuart pursed his lips thoughtfully. "I'm not too sure about that. Damien's...a bit of an odd duck. He might decide to stay."
Sam looked at him in surprise. "Really."
Victoria was examining what had been a vegetable garden. "Are these cabbages?" she asked incredulously. "He's been growing cabbages?"
Stuart snorted. "Among other things."
He walked over to the helicopter on the ground and radioed HQ to send in clean-up. He also requested that they leave anything that could be fixed, or that seemed sentimental. It was the least he could do for his friend.
Victoria joined him and gave orders for all helicopters save two to return to London, and for the remaining aircraft to await further orders.
As they made their way back to the house, he fixed her with a look. "What does M want with Damien? Not going to ask him to come back, is he? Because he won't. M's got no call asking that of him, either."
"I don't know," Victoria replied with a shrug. "He didn't say."
Their conversation was interrupted by a shout from inside the house.
"Damien! Your toaster is smoking. I think Danny made another bomb!"
Stuart and Victoria ran inside to the kitchen, where Sam was eyeing the toaster suspiciously. It was spitting out small puffs of grey smoke and fizzing.
"Unplug it!" Damien shouted from upstairs, thudding down the staircase with a half-naked toddler in his arms. "Unplug the bloody thing!"
Victoria raised her eyebrow. "The baby makes bombs?"
"Yes," Stuart grated out, shooing Sam aside so he could see if he could do anything with the now-unplugged toaster.
"How delightful!" the female agent exclaimed without a trace of sarcasm, suddenly warming to the child, sticky and snotty as he was. He'd grow out of it eventually, hopefully sooner rather than later.
Sliding into the kitchen, Damien shoved a bewildered-looking Danny into Sam's arms, even as he demanded curtly, "Danny, same as last time?"
"No…" Danny warbled, biting his lip guiltily.
"Stuart, call Q," Damien ordered, "Fast, before this thing blows. The rest of you, get out."
"You don't have to!" Danny cried from Sam's arms, recovering himself. "Sodium bicarbonate! It'll neutralize the compound."
"Baking soda?" Damien repeated incredulously. "What, just toss it in?"
"Yes."
Damien dug the box of white powder out of the pantry and threw its contents onto the smoking kitchen appliance, cursing under his breath the whole while. "Is that enough?"
"It should be."
"Should?!"
"It is enough." Danny rattled off a string of chemical formulas and the calculations he had made according to how much of each chemical he had added…
"Danny!"
"It stopped fizzing, didn't it?" the child said sullenly, pouting.
"How do we get rid of it?"
The sulky expression shifted to sheepishness. "Erm…"
Damien looked weary. "Stuart-"
Stuart nodded, the kitchen phone pressed against his ear. "I've got him on the line. Q, it's me. Your godson made another toaster bomb. Different chemicals or something, this time. Danny said to put baking soda on it and it stopped fizzing. I don't know; I'm not a bloody genius, am I? Here, I'll pass you to him so he can tell you what he did."
"Uncle Geoffrey?" Danny chattered to the quartermaster for a minute before passing the phone to his father. "Daddy, he wants to talk to you."
"Q?" Damien sighed, leaning back against the kitchen counter. "How do I get rid of it? That's it? Are you absolutely certain? Alright, alright, I'm not doubting you. Thank you."
Damien hung up and walked over to the toaster, grabbed it with his bare hands and began pouring the liquid contents down the kitchen drain.
Sam tensed, prepared to take off with the baby, just in case the toaster decided to blow, regardless of Q's assurances. Q-Branch tended to be a rather volatile environment, and he was beginning to find that Q's definition of 'safe' had a rather different meaning than that of the rest of the world. Ironic, considering Sam's choice of career.
"Is that safe?" he ventured to ask. "Won't it eat through the pipes or explode down there?"
"Q said the soda should have broken it all down into safe chemicals. Water and salts and the like." Damien tossed the broken appliance into the trash can, then turned to his disaster spawn.
"No more bombs," he said tersely, putting his hands on his hips. "Danny, for god's sake, why did you make another one after what I told you last time?"
"I wanted to help!" Danny protested, pouting mightily.
"Help! I told you to stay in the safe room, Daniel Geoffrey Drake," Damien said, skewering his son with a stern look.
Danny squirmed guiltily at the use of his full name and bit his lip.
"Daniel."
"There were so many," Danny said, "I thought...I thought maybe…" His bottom lip wobbled and tears filled his eyes.
Damien sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He lifted Danny out of Sam's arms and put him on his hip.
"Danny, sweetheart," he said gently, not wanting to set off another fit of tears but also wanting to make sure his son heard and understood him, "when I tell you to do something, especially in a serious situation like this, I need you to follow my orders. I need to know that you're safe so I can work without having to worry that you're going to get caught in the crossfire like today. Do you understand?"
Danny nodded miserably, not meeting his father's eyes.
"Danny," Damien said, "Look at me."
Teary green eyes flicked up to meet a pair just like his. "I'm not angry. I-" Damien sighed. "I was afraid."
Danny blinked in surprise. "Afraid? You were afraid? You're not scared of anything, Daddy," he said with all the faith and innocence of a child.
"I'm terrified of losing you. I've never been so afraid in my life," Damien admitted with a soft smile, running his fingers through his son's wild curls. "I thought- I thought I'd gotten you killed. And I never-" His voice broke, and he closed his eyes. "I never want to…" His voice, choked with emotion, trailed off.
Danny put his small hand on his father's jaw, turning his face towards him. "I'm sorry, Daddy," he whispered, and pressed his face into the rough cheek. "I'll listen. I promise." He nuzzled against him and grabbed a handful of his father's shirt, as though to anchor them both.
Damien stood there in the middle of the ruined kitchen, holding his little boy against his chest, his face buried in the small shoulder, and oblivious to the three agents watching them with varying expressions.
Stuart looked at his old friend, glad that he'd had this second chance at a real life. He was relieved, too, that both father and son had made it through the day relatively unscathed.
Sam looked at the pair, and wondered what it would have been like, if...if things had gone differently...if...He wondered if he still had a chance to have that too.
Victoria looked, and wondered where cold, cool Damien Drake had hidden this tender part of himself for all the years she'd known him.
Presently, Damien sighed and stirred. He focused on his child, though he was conscious of the stares of the others.
"Well, luv, I suppose we'd better finish getting you cleaned up, hm?" he said lightly.
Danny bit his lip and looked down. He was wearing only his t-shirt and nothing else, as they had been interrupted in the middle of a change of clothes after his potty accident.
"I made a mess," he mumbled, his lip quivering again. Such an occurrence was normally not a cause for tears, but he had had a very trying day, and he had been so close to finishing a week without an accident.
His father tipped the trembling chin up with a warm finger. "You've made a mess, have you? Look at the mess I've made of the house," he said, smiling and gesturing to the wreckage of their little home. He winked. "I think I win."
Danny giggled.
Damien raised a brow at him. "What do you think Q will say?" he asked conspiratorially.
Danny laughed delightedly. "He'd say- He'd say-" He put on an over-exaggerated expression of absolute vexation and put his hands on his hips. "'Now look what you've done, Damien Drake! I hope you're proud of yourself!'"
Stuart and Sam snorted at the incredibly accurate impression of the old man and even Victoria cracked a smile.
"And what should I tell him?" Damien asked, grinning.
His disaster spawn giggled gleefully. "We'll say, 'Yes, yes we are! We are very proud! Because we're Drakes!'"
Damien kissed his son and hitched him higher up on his hip. "That we will. Alright. Let's go get some pants on you, and then we'll be off to London."
"London?"
The three active agents heard Danny babbling excitedly about London and helicopters as Damien carried him back upstairs.
Victoria pushed a hand through her hair and swore.
The two men looked at each other and smirked.
"We know exactly how you feel," Stuart said confidently. "Wait until he starts talking about amino acids and Bogart."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Danny," Sam said, as though it explained everything. "He's quite literally the most intelligent and disarming person I have ever met. No wonder he's got his proud papa tied in knots around him. He's got Stuart, too, and I'm afraid I'm also compromised. I only just met him yesterday."
"Bloody hell."
. . . . .
Note:
Reference: Kim Philby was one of the Cambridge Five, a group of Soviet spies during the Cold War.
Reminder that Sam is also the Pierce Brosnan character from Mamma Mia, but this takes place before the movie. That bit at the end was a small reference to what he could have had.
Also, I don't know what chemicals Danny used to make his bombs. After all, he's much smarter than I am.
Review reply to Anon: A fic where Bond's daughter gets kidnapped? Hmmm. I'd have to think a bit about that. Right now, I'm being kept busy with this 'verse. Do you have a preference as to age, if I were to write it?
