2: John/Hunter

Fire is never a gentle master.

- Proverb

He's forgotten how different Yassen is now.

John's expected it, of course. After Russia, after what he'd done to the Sharkovskys...there's no way he could ever be the same after that but still. To think that this was the same kid who'd been hesitant to shoot an unknown target in the back of the head in a public park in New York, was...surprising.

John knows something is different when Yassen comes from Russia, the last soft lines of his teenage years suddenly harder and sharper, eyes colder, movements languorous and lazy looking to the average civilian, though to John's own eyes (or rather, Hunter's), he can sense the quiet energy in the other man's gait. The reports come in later, that the Sharkovsky's are dead, save for Maya and the Mrs., who'd managed to get out. It's not what he expects from Yassen; loose ends like that were dangerous but he'd never asked and if Yassen gives any indication that he knows that John knows, he never says it.

Perhaps the biggest change of all is the way in which Yassen looks at him. Gone is the adoration, the admiration, the tiny looks Yassen always gives him underneath his eyelashes when he thinks that John isn't looking. All of those are replaced with cold, polite indifference. The same kind of polite indifference with which Hunter himself had treated his teenage apprentice with, though John had known it was wrong, that the kid leaned on him for support, and that it was fundamentally just wrong for him to exploit their relationship like that.

Hunter may not have cared much, but John senses the distance growing day by day, the way Yassen walls himself off so well that even he has a difficult time getting a reading of the rare moods he has. He senses that something is off. Wonders for a brief moment if he's been figured out if Yassen is trying to make himself this way to cut any associations he has with John's betrayal. SCORPIA wouldn't take too kindly to it, and surely Yassen would get caught up in the collateral damage, at worst getting killed, and at best, being tortured for information he doesn't have. Hunter rears his angry head at the knowledge, but John manages to placate him, reminding him that this was Yassen they were talking about. Yassen would never sell him out like that.

Though he's armed with this knowledge, he sweats it out day by day with Yassen as his sole company, eating with him, sleeping in the same rooms as him, and going through his routine with him. Any day now, he expects to feel the cold ax of the Board's judgment come down on his neck.

It never happens. Yassen continues to ignore him, save for when they have to conduct business or make small-talk to maintain their cover. Soon, the bad feeling settles back into something like unease and John lets it go, slipping back into the role of Hunter, the mentor, teacher, and guide. Yassen clearly doesn't want to talk about it, and the kid's had a rough time as it is. It might not even have to do with him, after all. How would Yassen figure it out anyway without the Board finding out too? It's not like he has a reason to suspect John in the first place. The story of a disgraced soldier was an all too common one in the intelligence community; one of the current Board members was in fact an ex-disgruntled agent of the CIA who'd decided to employ their talents elsewhere amidst recent budget cuts in the agency.

And then Mdina happens.

Not a hard mission, standard procedure, laughably easy for someone of his reputation, of Hunter's deadly prowess. No, the mission is more for Yassen, more to test him, let Hunter see for himself if the kid's finally got it in him.

What SCORPIA doesn't need to know is that it's also the mission that would officially extract him out of his cover. A set-up, of kinds, with John getting "arrested" and Yassen getting away. There would be nothing he would be able to do except escape by himself, and if John has taught him well (which he knows he has), Yassen will cut and run as soon as he senses the first hints of danger.

They enter Mdina around 10:45, both of them carrying guns, though Yassen should only need one shot. The streets are silent and empty, and the pace of the two is unhurried. John adjusts the cap on his head, turning it once to the side to make the blue color all the more visible. It would be the signal to let them know that it was them, and of course, that it was John that they wanted, not Yassen. Yassen would get away and not get caught up in this mess. He was a good kid, and John had come to genuinely like him, despite their shared profession.

He can sense eyes on him, well-concealed, and easy to dismiss as paranoia if he didn't know that there were MI6 agents in the houses, watching their approach.

A glance at Yassen shows that he too, is cautious and alert, though it's a quiet alertness, none of that nervous jumpiness he had when John first met him. His hair is getting longer again, barely noticeable except to those who knew how short it had been in the first place, but it suits him. Makes him look more like an adult rather than the bony, malnourished teen he once was.

Still is, John corrects himself. It's easy to forget how old Yassen is sometimes. Physically, he's filled out, reaching his final adult proportions of lean muscle and delicate features, but there's still a sort of freshness to him that makes him innocent. Not quite as innocent as he'd once been, yes, but still cleaner than SCORPIA, and certainly much cleaner than John himself.

Yassen seems to sense his gaze and his eyes flicker over, eyebrow raising in question, but John just shakes his head and half-smiles.

A solitary waiter is in the square when they arrive, but a quick once-over from John reveals that he's not carrying any kind of weapon nor some kind of phone to call for backup quickly. Next to him, Yassen shifts, barely perceptible, but there's an added tension to his walk now that hasn't been there before.

Caxero is seated right near the edge of the square. To his left, if John takes the time to look closely, he might see the scope of a rifle or a pair of binoculars watching their progress. He doesn't though; his companion was perceptive and even one wrong glance could get the whole thing discovered.

Yassen's walk slows. He's right in front of Caxero when he pulls out the gun, and Caxero looks up with wide watery eyes, bloodshot, and half-blind in one eye from years of drug use. A bang. A red hole right in the middle of his forehead before he slumps down, forward. They don't even need to check for a pulse.

They turn, no need for words, and exit the same way they came in. John braces himself for the carnage that's to follow.

What he doesn't expect is for Yassen to turn suddenly, for his hand to come up and fire at someone. A moment too late, he realizes that the figure looks suspiciously like Ash. The figure crumples, Yassen having missed the first two times, and then the gunshots begin.

Instinct takes over, and John lets himself go over the motions, pretending to fire but never hitting any of the men, which are 6's own. Ash is still lying down but he's wearing body armor, so it's likely just a bruised rib or two rather than a punctured lung like Yassen's shot should have done.

Eventually, he pretends to surrender, and someone pushes him into the ground. He feels his hands being wrenched behind him, firmly cuffed, and then they turn him around and start hoisting him up to move towards the triad of armored vehicles that will carry him away from Yassen and SCORPIA. He feels a pang of something like loss or grief (without him, Yassen has virtually no one in SCORPIA willing to look out for him), but the thoughts of Helen and his unborn child strengthens his resolve somewhat. If not now, sometime in the future, he'd have to leave Yassen anyway. It would do no good to dwell on regret. Still, he twists his head, just one more time, to look at Yassen. It might very well be his last; he has no idea where the young assassin will end up, or whether he'll survive his first year (or even his first five) as a graduate of Malagasto. Mortality rates were high and SCORPIA specifically calculated the exact amount of investment needed in their students, how much they would need to make a profit rather than a loss off them.

He has promise, John thinks, as they start to move away. He sees Yassen turning tail (good), nearly out of the square (even better), heading towards the most direct path that would take him to one of the pre-appointed SCORPIA vehicles. He thinks his last glance of Yassen might be his back turned, running with the silent grace and speed of a wildcat, the gun in his hands glinting like a vicious claw swipe. It's not a bad view, as far as views go.

What John doesn't expect is for him to pause, turn around, and start firing.

His accuracy is lethal (always has been). All of his shots are either head or throat. John squashes the approval threatening to rise in his throat. Three men go down and yet, it doesn't look like he's finished. His eyes flicker, briefly, very briefly, over to where John is, so sudden and short that no one would have noticed unless they'd been looking for it. John realizes what it is. Yassen is looking at him the same way he does (did) after every training exercise or operation. Satisfaction, first and foremost, with approval and maybe a hint of a smile or nod.

Right now, he isn't looking for the first two. He's looking for the last, blue eyes calm and steady, searching but still politely cold and distant. Nothing like the nervous, wide-eyed eighteen year old who'd have thrown his hands up as soon as the shooting had started, despite John screaming at him to run (despite it, too, the bravado and loyalty an admirable trait, but in their world, that kind of naivety and consideration was beaten out quickly). At nineteen, he knows that Yassen is more than capable of taking out the entire square if he wants to. It's John's word that he wants on it.

So John gives it to him. A grim shake of his head, lips pressed in a thin line. From this distance, he can't convey the sorry he wants to, but he tries, spreading his palms slightly, shoulders shrugging, eyes trying to convey his regret.

He's not sure if Yassen gets the message he wants. Or at least gets the full message but a moment later, he turns his attention away, towards one of the last men left. A shot in the legs (unnecessary and sadistic, a voice whispers in John's head, he's really become like you) and then one more in the head to finish it off.

There is no second-guessing this time. Yassen leaves, blending into the shadows. The square goes almost silent again.

A moment later, a figure is stumbling up, going the same way Yassen has. There's no one to stop him (how can there be when Yassen has shot them all dead?) John feels the dread rising, sees the shock of dark hair and beard, and knows it's Ash. His conversation with Mrs. Jones comes flashing back to him, like badly timed deja vu.

"First time giving command to Anthony…" Mrs. Jones muses over the phone. John had called her from a secure line someplace outside the hotel he and Yassen were staying at. "Are we sure it's a good idea?"

"Confident," John grins the kind of smile that made it particularly difficult for people to refuse him, making sure it injects into his voice, his very breathing if it meant getting what he wanted. Helen called it a bit sleazy. He preferred to call it a regular Tuesday afternoon with Rothman. "He's done this kind of thing before with me when we were in the Paras. Out of the entire list of men you gave me, he'll understand the situation the best."

"Anthony has proven himself to us, but John, are you sure it's him you want for this?" Mrs. Jones pauses, like she's hesitating, bordering on the edge of saying something. "He's not the most...dependable of our agents."

"Don't worry, Mrs. Jones. You have my word for it," John says. Something (he can't remember what) catches his eye. "Listen, I have to go now. I'll call you sometime tomorrow if I can. Otherwise, best of luck to Mdina and Ash."

"Goodbye, John."

"Goodbye, Mrs. Jones."

He hangs up.

Emotion had clouded his judgment. There were no other explanations for how irrationally he'd acted. Emotion, of all things. He wants to laugh. He'd survived the Board's sadistic mind-games, the grueling missions that had stripped away his humanity, little by little, the distance from Helen, and it was a rare moment of sentimentality that was going to ruin it all.

Emotion was deadly. He couldn't afford to have emotions, not right now when he was so close to getting out of SCORPIA. Hunter doesn't have emotion. Hunter only has rational thought. Hunter knows that he shouldn't go after Ash, that he should stay where he is and let MI6 deal with the rest (as they were supposed to if the whole thing hadn't gone arse over tits, anyway).

Hunter usually wins these arguments. Hunter is rational and ruthless and deadly. He squashes John on good days, and on bad days, beats him mercilessly to the point that it's hard for him to even look at himself in the mirror and remember that his name was John Rider and that he was not in fact, a disgraced soldier from the Paras gone rogue, that he was not as available as he advertised, that he was not a double agent for MI6, doing the dirty work needed to bring down one of the world's most dangerous criminal organizations.

Not this time.

John jerks himself free, barely giving himself time to explain what he's trying to do. The handcuffs clatter down uselessly; he'd picked them easily while he'd been on the ground. The agents behind him shout at him, but he doesn't stay to listen. He's already pursuing Ash and Yassen, slipping down the same dark street that they'd gone.

By the time he gets there, Yassen is nowhere to be found, though Ash is standing there, hand touching his chest blindly. John yells out his name, and the other man turns. Hunter comes roaring back with a fury, wondering why the hell Ash was just standing there in the open like an idiot, touching his chest-

Oh. Oh.

Ash pulls his hand away, and it comes back bright crimson. In the moonlight, it looks uncomfortably too much like Rothman's lipsticks for John not to make an association of the woman. He turns, and there's the hilt of a knife, buried deep in his abdomen.

Yassen. Yassen had done this. The same Yassen that couldn't-never mind about that now. He pushes the thought out of his mind as he runs toward Ash just as the man in question collapses onto the ground.

John lets instinct take over, putting pressure on the wound, telling Ash to stay still. Not like the man seems to be listening anyway; he's passed out by the time the others get there, but John keeps the steady pressure anyway, his own hands soon becoming slick with blood.

The damage is extensive. He doesn't need Helen's medical expertise to know that. If Ash doesn't die from this, he was going to be in a hell of a lot of pain when he did eventually recover. His field agent career was pretty much destroyed. John grimaces. Knowing Ash, his life itself was pretty much destroyed.

John watches in sadness as one of his closest and only friend is taken away on a gurney for emergency surgery in Valletta. Hunter watches with satisfaction, knowing that he's taught his apprentice well, that this corpse will just be another insignificant bloodstain on a wall painted with them. Hunter purrs with the knowledge that his influence will stretch long after he's gone, that Yassen Gregorovich would carry on his deadly legacy and teachings long after his death.

Written: October 28th, 2020

Edited: October 29th, 2020