Anton Bagdonov was clearly a professional. He had left almost no digital footprint, but with some effort Aiden was able to cross-reference the small amount of data he had managed to extract from Abramov's computer with what was available on Bagdonov online, and before long he had a lead.
That lead took him to another one, and by the end of the day a trail of leads and only half-reliable information had brought him to a Bratva safe house in which Aiden hoped he would be able to find Anton Bagdonov. He hoped, because if Anton Bagdonov wasn't inside then he was about to go through an awful lot of trouble for nothing.
There were guards everywhere around the safe house, and Aiden had already seen what Bagdonov was capable of given a half-decent security system. Trying to hack into the safe house's systems would probably be little better than waving his hands above his head and announcing his presence at the top of his lungs. Trying to take on the many Bratva guards that surrounded the complex was probably only a little saner than that.
None of which meant that Aiden was going to simply back down and slink away with his tail between his legs. A pile of rusted metal that had, once upon a time been a car gave him the extra height that he needed to climb over the chain link fence that surrounded the safe house.
He crept a little further in, picked his target and then struck.
Luckily the Bratva that had been assigned to guard Bagdonov did not seem to be particularly well trained. While it would have made more sense to take the guards down quickly and quietly, Aiden had a lot of pent up rage that he needed to dish out on somebody and the guards' ineptitude meant that he could take his time, leaving bruises and broken bones before finally knocking them unconscious.
He knew that he was being reckless. He knew that he shouldn't have been able to get as far as he did, and that it was only the guards' obvious lack of experience and a great deal of luck that allowed him to make it as far as the ramshackle old building that Bagdonov had set up as his base.
The base itself was hidden in the back of an industrial complex, and the building that Aiden suspected Bagdonov had set up in did not look at all capable of housing the systems that Aiden hoped were inside. He had resisted the urge to hack into any of Anton's systems yet, knowing that the Bratva hacker was sharp enough that he would probably notice even the most subtle of intrusions.
There was another guard standing just outside the building itself. Aiden suppressed the urge to beat the man into a bloody pulp, instead sneaking up and choking the man into unconsciousness.
He then stepped inside the small central building. It appeared to have been an office of some description before the Bratva had taken over. There was one enclosed office near the back of the building. It was the last one that was large enough to actually house Bagdonov and the sort of operation that Aiden had been hoping to find.
Aiden drew his gun and approached the door to the office.
The first thing that Aiden saw when he opened the door to the office was the gun that was pointed right at his face. The second was the man that was holding it. It was Anton Bagdonov, which was probably good, but somehow he had clearly worked out that Aiden was coming, which was a lot less good.
Aiden cursed himself beneath his breath. He should have known, or should have at least checked before barging into the room. He had been too loud, or Bagdonov had been watching him. He didn't know what exactly had gone wrong, but he knew that it was his fault. He hadn't been cautious enough or quiet enough. He had let his emotions get the better of him. He should have known that Bagdonov would be prepared and that the Bratva wouldn't make things easy, especially after what had happened at Abramov's.
"You," Bagdonov said, gesturing at Aiden with the pistol in his hand. "You're Aiden Pearce."
Bagdonov's accent was still strong. Aiden wondered how long he had been in America, and whether the Bratva might not have brought him over from Russia specifically to help them out.
"You know my face," Aiden replied.
"Of course," Bagdonov said with a shrug. He did not lower the gun, and Aiden was already sick of having it pointed at his face. "Every hacker worth their pay knows you. Why do you follow me?"
"You're working for the Bratva," Aiden said.
He caught a glimpse of the room beyond Bagdonov, of a room relatively empty aside from a cot, wardrobe and a few other essentials. The only technology in the room was a laptop on a bench nearby. Aiden cursed beneath his breath. He already knew that whatever Project Streamer was, it required a lot more power than what one single laptop could provide.
This was just a safe house, and not where Bagdonov and Project Streamer was based. Damn it. He really had been stupid.
"I'm working with the Bratva," Bagdonov corrected him, "and we do not like you coming after us Aiden Pearce. We do not like it at all."
Aiden was given no further warning before the gun in Bagdonov's hand went off. With such a short distance between them there was no way that Aiden could dodge the shot.
He flinched in shock as the bullet hit home, but one bullet would not be enough to take him down; not one that had been aimed as poorly as Bagdonov's had. If the Bratva hacker had really wanted Aiden dead then he should have aimed for the head and not the heart.
Aiden brought his gun up and fired a couple of return shots in Bagdonov's direction. Bagdonov ducked back inside the room, and Aiden heard him shouting, probably into a phone or a radio of some description.
"Damn it," Aiden muttered.
At first the adrenaline and pure shock of being shot had dampened the pain, but now it was arriving in full force, almost paralyzing Aiden with its intensity. He pressed a hand to his chest and sure enough it came away covered in blood.
He heard Bagdonov end the call and groaned, both from the pain and from the realization that he was in serious trouble. Bagdonov had probably just summoned reinforcements. Aiden needed to get away from the safe house, and quickly, otherwise he was a goner.
Aiden cursed beneath his breath as he began to retreat from the small building. He hadn't been able to achieve anything; not really. He hadn't learned anything or taken Bagdonov down. He had at least wanted to barge into the office and take care of Bagdonov before slipping away, but it was too risky, and no matter what the Bratva were up to, or how reckless Aiden was feeling, it wasn't worth Aiden losing his life.
A sharp burst of pain shot up through Aiden's entire body at that moment, and he stumbled to the ground right outside of the building. He wasn't going to be able to make it far; not like this; but he could hear the sound of several men running towards him. He needed to move.
With a much-needed burst of adrenaline he pushed himself to his feet and started to run away from the Bratva hideout.
He didn't make it far before he heard someone call out behind him, and he heard a bullet whizz past his ear. It had been too close, and Aiden ducked down behind an old, abandoned shell of a car. He heard another couple of gunshots, as well as a cry from at least one of the men behind him.
"Come on out of there you asshole!" someone screamed. "We know you're hiding behind there."
Aiden pressed his hand to the gunshot wound again, knowing that he wasn't going to do much to stem the flow of blood but instinct guiding him to do it anyway. He peeked up over what had once been the hood of the car, and spotted at least four men that were now coming after him, and that wasn't even including Bagdonov.
He needed a way out, and he needed it now.
He hacked directly into the local CTOS, and with one swift hack it all shut down. It was a desperate move. His enemies would lose communication, and with all the lights down it would be difficult for his enemies to see anything in the shadow of the nearby overpass and the larger buildings of the industrial complex, but Aiden would be subjected to the same darkness, and he wouldn't be able to hack anything either.
The system went down with a shudder and a low, loud 'thump' that reverberated in Aiden's bones. Everything suddenly fell unnaturally silent as all around them a hundred electrical systems all went silent at once. Aiden heard a car screech somewhere in the distance, and heard at least one of the men that had been shooting at him curse loudly.
Aiden took the opportunity and ran. He heard another couple of gunshots following him. One grazed his arm, but luckily none of the others managed to hit.
He ran as fast as he could, heading towards the middle of the industrial complex and hoping that he might be able to lose any pursuers in a maze of warehouses and shipping containers. Eventually, when he could look behind him and neither see nor hear any sign of Bratva members, he ducked into an open and empty shipping container and practically collapsed against the side of it.
Now that he had stopped, the exhaustion and pain hit him all at once. He gasped as he tried to recover his breath.
Aiden looked down at his chest. Oh god, he really was losing a lot of blood. It was streaming down from the wound freely, staining his jacket and dripping onto the floor of the shipping container. He checked outside and realized he had left a small but clear trail of blood behind him. He had to move, or stop the bleeding somehow or do… well… something. He could only hope that the trail hadn't started until he had been a safe distance away from the Bratva base.
He tried to reach up behind him to check whether or not the bullet had made it all the way through; if the bullet was still stuck inside him then he was completely fucked; but trying to twist his arm in any way that would allow him to touch the back of his jacket was too much for his injured chest and he found himself crying out in pain.
He let his arm fall uselessly by his side for a moment and then, with some effort and more whimpering than he would ever admit, he managed to undo his jacket and shrug it off.
He breathed a sigh of relief when he spotted the hole in the back of the jacket. The bullet had gone clean through, which removed one complication. He was still bleeding heavily though, and the wound showed no signs of stopping any time soon.
He tried to tear the sleeve off his shirt, but he was growing too weak and he was in too much pain, and he ended up giving it up as a lost cause and flopped back against the container wall with an exhausted sob.
He didn't know what to do. He knew that he needed help, that he wasn't going to get out of this one on his own. Hospitals were out of the question though; travelling half way across the country hadn't changed that.
He was growing fainter and fainter with every breath and knew without even trying that he wasn't going to be able to get back to his feet.
He grabbed his phone, and with his right hand slippery with blood and his left shaking he somehow managed to call Jordi's number.
"Please answer," he whispered to the empty shipping container.
Jordi picked up on the third ring.
"What the fuck do you want Pearce?" Jordi answered, sounding more tired than angry.
"I… I need help," Aiden said, struggling to even say the words. He must have sounded as bad as he felt, because Jordi's tone immediately changed.
"What's wrong?" he asked. He could hear the sound of Jordi leaving a building and making his way onto a busy street.
"I went after the Bratva," Aiden said. "It didn't end well."
Jordi cursed beneath his breath and Aiden heard the slamming of a car door.
"Where the fuck are you?" Jordi yelled across the phone line.
"An industrial park in Oakland," Aiden replied. "In a… in a shipping container."
He was growing even fainter now, his eyes threatening to close with every breath that he took. He couldn't pass out yet though. He needed to wait until Jordi could find him.
"All right," Jordi said. "I'm on my way but you're going to have to give me better directions than that when I get closer Pearce. You haven't given me much to go on."
Aiden's phone fell out of his hand and went clattering to the ground beside him. He could just hear Jordi's frantic calls on the other end of the line.
"Pearce!" Jordi screamed. "What the fuck!? Answer me you asshole!"
Aiden found himself smiling despite the pain. It almost sounded as though Jordi was actually worried about him. The last thing he heard before he passed out was a string of curses coming from Jordi's side of the call.
Aiden hadn't been entirely sure that he was ever going to open his eyes again, but when he did he found his field of view mostly taken up by the rather concerned features of Jordi Chin.
"Congratulations Pearce," Jordi said, his relief palpable. "Despite the best efforts of both yourself and those Bratva assholes you went after, you aren't dead."
"How did you find me?" Aiden asked, finding the words getting stuck in his throat, which was surprisingly dry and sore. He wondered how long he had been out.
When he looked around the room he discovered that he was not, as he had anticipated, inside the lackluster hotel room that Jordi had hired out, but in what Aiden quickly realized was an abandoned shipping container that Jordi had retrofitted into a safe house. He supposed that even the shittiest of hotels would have something to say if Jordi brought a man bleeding and near death back to his room.
"It was pretty damn easy once I found the trail of blood you left," Jordi replied. "You're lucky none of the Bratva found you Pearce."
Aiden stayed silent. He knew that he had been lucky; reckless and stupid and lucky. By rights he should be dead.
"So what happened?" Jordi asked. He was sitting on the edge of the bed that he had fashioned for Aiden out of what felt like wooden crates and a cheap, thin mattress.
It wasn't too uncomfortable, but Aiden knew that his experience with this sort of set up was a lot more than most people had, and, judging by the fact that he could barely feel the pain from the bullet wound any more, there was probably a cocktail of painkillers coursing through his bloodstream, so his judgment in such matters probably wasn't the most reliable.
Jordi shifted closer to Aiden as he spoke, one of his legs pressing gently against Aiden's side.
Aiden swallowed and discovered that it was surprisingly difficult.
"Water?" he prompted, and Jordi immediately reached down to grab a large bottle that was resting on the floor near his feet.
He helped Aiden sit up and take a drink without so much as a single complaint. He even waited patiently and silently for Aiden to get settled back in before he said anything. Jordi's eyes glared at Aiden the entire time though, and Aiden couldn't help but feel as though they were glaring a hole right through him.
Slowly but surely Aiden told Jordi what had happened; about his investigation into the Bratva in San Francisco, about Anton Bagdonov, and about how the Bratva's asshole of a hacker had managed to get the jump on him.
Jordi's eyes stayed fixed on Aiden the entire time, observing him intently and clearly taking in every single word that Aiden said. When Aiden finally finished Jordi sat back, took a deep breath, and then turned to Aiden, clearly even more upset than he had been before.
"What the hell were you thinking, going off after that lot by yourself?" Jordi said, raising his voice for the first time since Aiden had woken up. "And while angry? Pearce you idiot! Anger makes you stupid. You do not try to take on that many people when you're emotionally compromised. No wonder you got shot!"
Aiden went to shrug, but then immediately regretted it as his shoulder and his entire torso reminded him that he had recently been shot and he almost doubled over in pain.
Jordi's anger immediately dissipated.
"Shit," he muttered, reaching out for Aiden. "You're bleeding through your bandages again. I'll have to change them. Lean forward dumbass."
The 'dumbass' was said with more affection and respect than Jordi had previously used when calling Aiden 'babe'.
Still not sure I like it as a pet name though, Aiden thought to himself as he nevertheless leaned forward and allowed Jordi easier access to his back and shoulders.
"Lift your arm up," Jordi prompted, and Aiden did, although that hurt even more than shrugging had.
Aiden found himself staring at the other man in an attempt to distract himself from the burning pain that was travelling all the way up and down his left arm and most of his torso.
"I uh…" he fumbled. "I didn't realize you knew what you were doing when it comes to this sort of thing."
Jordi sighed as he finished removing Aiden's old dressing.
"I'm no expert," Jordi conceded. "No formal first aid training or anything like that, but I've picked up a few things on the job. You never know when the ability to stitch someone up is going to help keep either you or a valuable hostage alive."
Aiden stared down at the fresh stitches on his chest. They were neat and clinical, just about as perfect as anything Jordi did when he actually gave a damn about the task in front of him.
"Damn it Pearce," Jordi said as he replaced the blood-soaked dressings on Aiden's front and back with fresh ones. "You lost a lot of blood."
"Don't worry," Aiden said, looking away. He couldn't take facing the look of open worry and annoyance that was present on Jordi's face for any longer than he absolutely had to. "I know the drill. Plenty of fluids and resting up. This isn't the first time I've been shot."
Jordi was already wrapping Aiden's torso back up, and manipulated the hacker's arm a bit more roughly than he had needed to.
"Fuck you Pearce," he muttered under his breath. "It doesn't fucking matter how many times you've been shot. If I wasn't there or if I didn't find you in time then you probably would have died. Asshole…"
They were both silent for a while as Jordi finished what he was doing. Aiden couldn't bring himself to look at the other man. Jordi's hands on his wounded body were a confusing mixture of perfectly gentle and cruelly rough, designed to hurt but not to damage, as though the fixer was only barely keeping his emotions in check.
"Thank you," Aiden eventually found the strength to say once Jordi had finished and he himself was lying back against the makeshift bedding once more.
"Yeah, yeah," Jordi said, waving the sentiment away. "Don't mention it. I mean it Pearce. Don't fucking say you're sorry. Just do me a favor and don't go running off half-cocked like that again."
Jordi made himself comfortable on the floor beside Aiden's bed, leaning over so that he could run one slightly blood-stained hand down the side of Aiden's face. Aiden wondered if he should object, but he wasn't sure that he had the strength to.
"Here you go," Jordi said, leaning down to grab a large bottle of something that was bright orange and was, judging by the label, very proud of how many vitamins, minerals and electrolytes it contained. "Drink up."
Aiden did as he was told, and was quite conscious of Jordi watching him the entire time he drank. Aiden still couldn't get over how somber and serious the fixer currently looked. It wasn't just the black on black either; Aiden wasn't sure he had ever seen Jordi look as tired and unhappy as he had over the past few days.
"I like…" Aiden began, but he didn't get any further before Jordi was interrupting him.
"Don't you dare fucking say it Pearce."
"… it better when you wear light suits," Aiden continued his original thought. "This whole black thing doesn't really suit you."
"Really?" Jordi asked, raising an eyebrow at Aiden. "Are you, Mister Aiden giant-fucking-jacket hobo-chic Pearce really giving me fashion advice? And right now? Of all the fucking times…"
"Might be," Aiden said.
"Well, you might get your wish Pearce," Jordi said. "You can't really see it on this shirt because it's black and all, but you got blood all over my fucking suit. You completely ruined it you asshole."
Aiden found himself smiling despite himself.
"I didn't really bring much in the way of a change of clothes either," Jordi continued, "so now I'm going to have to go out and get new clothes with your blood all over me. It's a great image Pearce. Very professional."
Aiden wondered if he should say sorry. He didn't say anything though. He just lay there, watching Jordi hide his worry with very real annoyance. At least Aiden thought that was what was going on. The thought that Jordi might actually be worried about him was still a difficult one to process.
"Here," Jordi said, waving some sort of tablet in front of his face.
"What is it?" Aiden asked, screwing up his face.
"A roofie of course," Jordi said, completely plain-faced. "I know you're injured Pearce but I'm horny and heaven knows I'd never stand a chance with a fucking catch like you otherwise."
Aiden rolled his eyes at the other man's terrible sense of humour.
"It's a fucking painkiller," Jordi continued. "What do you think it is? Completely legal but the potent, high-quality stuff. Picked it up when I was buying the bandages and shit. Clearly the last one isn't working anymore. Come on, open up."
Aiden rolled his eyes again but swiftly conceded, washing the pill down with another mouthful of orange sports drink.
"I've thrown out that gross old jacket of yours too," Jordi said once Aiden was finished. "Suppose I can buy you some new stuff while I'm out."
"Do you know how much that cost?" Aiden groaned, finding himself too tired to actually summon any real outrage. "And it was comfortable."
"It has too many fucking zips and buttons Pearce, and now it has big old blood-stained bullet-holes in it as well," Jordi complained. "Besides, you'd look a lot hotter if you actually gave a damn about your appearance. You know that right? Beneath the hobo-chic you're… well…"
He leaned over and ran a hand down the side of Aiden's face. Maybe it was just the painkillers talking, but when Jordi looked at Aiden in those moments Aiden could actually see how much the other man loved him; the rare openness and vulnerability that showed in his eyes.
"You're actually pretty fucking cute Pearce," Jordi admitted, "in a pathetic, 'I'm lost, please take me home', puppy dog eyes sort of way."
It was probably a mistake, but Aiden felt completely safe and relaxed in that moment. At least he did until Jordi started to get up, looking very much like he intended to leave.
"Hey," Aiden called out, reaching out and grabbing the tail of Jordi's jacket.
"Stay?" Aiden asked, trying not to wince at the fresh pain in his torso that the simple act of reaching out for Jordi had caused. "Just for a bit longer?"
Jordi stared at him for a moment. Aiden tried to work out what the other man was thinking, but for once in his life Jordi's face was completely blank, leaving Aiden completely unable to read him.
"All right," Jordi eventually said, and sat back down on the side of Aiden's bed.
Neither of them said anything for quite a long time, and for once Aiden didn't feel as though the silence between them was awkward.