A/N: Hey guys! I know you're probably gonna roll your eyes and say "Oh come on, no more drama!" I know I would, but if you're annoyed by this, you'd HATE me if I stuck to my original idea, so bear that in mind, kay?

About the whole "taking Alex to his bedroom" thing, you guys just leapt on that, didn't you? I thought you would when I wrote it and I wasn't disappointed. This is not an action movie that is desperate to slip in some nudity, folks! They just admitted their feelings, give 'em some time! ;)

And again, I know I said no answering anonymous reviews, but I REALLY have to answer this one, the author of which simply gave their name as "Sorry". I won't put his/her review here because I don't want to cause any embarrassment or ill feeling, but here is my reply:

A) Sorry, I thought I made it clear, but Sarov was pretty much in the beginning of a mental breakdown when he shot himself, so his aim wouldn't really be good, would it?

And B) Alex didn't survive because the bullet "ricocheted off some bone that only kids have". To quote Ark Angel chapter two, the bullet ricocheted off of one of his ribs and exited out from under his left arm and he survived because "a young person's artery will automatically shut itself down when cut – doctors can't explain how or why – and this limits the amount of blood loss." Sarov survived because, as I said in chapter one, his most loyal soldiers were able to remove him from the field and give him emergency treatment until they got him somewhere safe, so yes, he could in fact survive as I said he did. Not that I'm offended by your skepticism or anything, but I knew it would be a wild claim to make, so I checked the beginning of Ark Angel thoroughly as I was writing the explanation.

On with the fic!

Alex felt wonderful; warm and cozy and snug. Something was tickling his cheek, though and the sensation was steadily permeating through his consciousness. Not in an irritating way, just in an I-want-to-know-what-that-is-and-it's-gradually-waking-me-up-way. Alex's eyes slipped open slowly and it only took him a moment to realize that Wolf was gently stroking his face, sitting up in bed and looking down at the boy. A smile lifted his lips as he stared up at the older man, who, bizarrely for him, looked almost bashful.

"Sorry," he said apologetically. "I didn't mean to wake you up."

"That's okay." Alex said, happily leaning his head back into the pillow as Wolf rested the offending hand on the padding beside his ear. A thought occurred to him. "Did you watch me sleep?"

"Only for about ten minutes." Wolf paused. "Is that romantic or creepy?"

"A bit of both." Alex frowned a little as Wolf's gaze moved away from him. The man shifted so his back and neck were propped up by the headboard, his arms loosely crossed over his stomach and his eyes looking out at nothing in particular. His face was devoid of expression. "Um, are you . . . okay?" he asked hesitantly.

"Hm?" Wolf murmured, blinking and glancing at his ward and away again quickly as the boy sat up properly. "Yeah, I'm fine. Your phone buzzed, by the way. I think you got a text or something."

"Ah. Okay." Still frowning, Alex rolled over and picked his jeans off the floor where they'd fallen off the bed the night before, fishing around in the pockets until he pulled out his phone. Wolf's guess was correct, he did indeed have a text.

Everything okay? Are you still coming today?

"Who is it?" Wolf enquired casually.

"It's Tom, he wants to know if we're still going to play football in the park today." Alex said, still looking at the phone.

"What time?"

"Noon, we said." Alex glanced at the time on his phone and gave a little start of surprise. "Jesus, it is ten already?!"

Wolf chuckled lowly. Alex looked at him in surprise. There was an edge to the sound that he couldn't quite make out. "Well, we were up quite late last night, weren't we?"

Alex ignored the tingling running up his spine, still recalling the feel of Wolf's fingers gliding over his bare skin and focused on upping his frown to a slight glare. "Wolf?"

"Yeah?"

"The nonchalant thing? Not buying it."

Wolf looked at his sharply out of the corner of his eyes. Alex met his gaze frankly, arms folded and silent. After a brief staring match, Wolf gave in and breathed a heavy sigh. "Alex . . . we really do have to talk about this."

Alex internally commended himself on keeping his jaw from dropping and his panic from erupting. Shaking his head softly, he looked away, down at the duvet again, his insides suddenly feeling all cold and uncomfortable. "I don't believe this . . ."

"Alex, it's important – "

"But after what we did last night?!" Alex cried, his head turning swiftly against his wishes to meet to man's eyes again. "You can't be serious – "

"What we did last night makes it even more important!" Wolf paused for a moment and closed his eyes, breathing shallowly. When he had regained his composure, they opened again and met the teenager's head-on. "I know it's uncomfortable but we have to be practical. This is a . . . serious issue we're dealing with here."

"What? It's not like we had sex or anything!" Alex countered and to his horror he felt his blood rush to face, heating up his cheeks. He was slightly consoled by the fact that Wolf's skin had flushed as well, but only a little. He certainly wasn't as red by comparison.

"I know that! I'm bloody sure I would've remembered if we'd – but that's not the point. The point is that we've done . . . " Wolf trailed off, searching for the right word. "Things – to each other . . . and we've discussed our feelings, I think we're both perfectly clear on that . . ."

'I'm not feeling too damn sure of where I stand with you at the moment,' Alex thought but did not voice this doubt. It would only cause a fight and that was the last thing he wanted. Meanwhile, Wolf blustered on, getting redder with every word. ". . . But what we haven't discussed is, well, where do we go from here?"

Wolf broke off his mild rambling to stare at Alex for a very long time. Just as he was beginning to squirm from the scrutiny, Wolf sighed again and ran a hand quickly through his short black hair. "Look – maybe it's a bit too soon to bring this up. Sorry. Um, why don't you – go have a shower and I'll make some tea, yeah?"

Alex paused for a second, wondering if there was more. When the elder man didn't say anything, Alex got up and did as he suggested, feeling just a tad bewildered by the odd way the conversation had progressed.

XXXXX

Forty minutes later, Alex was walking along the pavement towards the park. Wolf was at his side; despite Alex's protests, the man had insisted. "Consider me your bodyguard for the time being," he'd joked. Alex assumed he still felt guilty for letting Alex run out on him the other night, so he didn't push the issue. What he had pushed was leaving for the game nearly an hour and a half early; he'd argued that he could always call Tom when he got there and ask him to come early or just walk over to one of the many restaurants open during the day and get a drink or something, he'd be safe. That and he felt that they both needed some space from each other after the less-than-stellar results of the attempted heart-to-heart this morning, a view which Wolf, thankfully, concurred with. So reluctantly, the man escorted his ward to the park.

They were approaching the underpass, the sounds of London traffic beeping and thundering nearby when Wolf broke the uneasy silence between them. "When you're ready to come home, just give me a call and I'll meet you here, okay?"

"For another talk?" Alex asked sardonically before he could stop himself.

Wolf didn't seem annoyed, however. "Yes, another talk."

Alex nodded ruefully. "All right." He hovered for a moment, then turned to proceed to the green by himself when Wolf's hand seized his arm just above the elbow and dragged him back. His head whipped around to gawp at him. "What – ?"

He got no more than that out as that was when Wolf's rough lips collided with his own. He barely registered being pushed into the shadow of the underpass walls, virtually invisible to anyone who was not looking closely. His hands flew to the man's shoulders, gripping tight as he was pushed to the hard, cold wall, their bodies pressed flush together. A burning began to build between them when Wolf suddenly detached himself, forcing a breathy, barely-there sigh of loss before his lips connected with his cheek, then travelled over his jaw line, down his neck where they lingered on his pulse point. Alex bit his lip to avoid making another embarrassing sound when he felt those lips part and a heavy moist tongue glide over the sensitive spot, followed by the lightest scraping of teeth. Alex felt a moan bubble up in his throat but Wolf brought their mouths together in another hard kiss before it was released. He moved his hands up, releasing his grip on Wolf's shoulders and tried to wrap his arms around the man's neck when he lurched back abruptly, putting a foot of space between them and holding his hand up as if to keep Alex at bay.

They stood there, panting, for several long minutes. Finally, Wolf, straightened up, cleared his throat a tad awkwardly and said, "Okay, um, have fun. With Tom. I'll see you later."

Alex stared at him blankly for a beat of time, then let out an incredulous little laugh and nodded. "Yeah. See you."

XXXXX

Twenty minutes had passed since then and Wolf was weighing the pros and cons of bashing his head against the wall in frustration. Despite the cons being considerably heavier than the pros, Wolf still felt very tempted to do it. He'd paced a route around the entire flat four times already and was no closer to an answer than he was when he'd returned home. The question was a relatively simple one: did he enter into a relationship with Alex or not? The answer . . . was not so simple.

As with the to-bash-head or not-to-bash-head options the cons far outweighed the pros. Alex wasn't legally old enough to enter into the kind of relationship they both obviously wanted, if last night was any indication. Even if MI6 didn't care about breaking the law when it came to Alex's activities, an attitude he was sorry to see his ward had begun to pick up, Wolf certainly cared. What if things went wrong? He was a full-grown man and had felt his share of heartache, but he couldn't bear the thought of Alex suffering that. And the idea that he himself could be the cause was too abhorrent to contemplate. What if his first assumption was actually correct and Alex was confusing feeling of respect and friendship for love? Knowing Alex, if he ever realized that, he'd keep up appearances just to spare Wolf's feelings and out of a misguided sense of gratitude. Forcing Alex into that situation, however indirectly, made Wolf's insides squirm and wriggle like snakes.

No matter how you looked at it, there was a very high probability that someone was going to get hurt because of this – and not just the two of them. Wolf was under no illusions that he team members would be horrified if they were to figure it out, for all the reasons that Wolf himself agonized over. And that wasn't even considering the consequences should his superiors somehow discover it. Abusing a child, even one who was more mature than half the adult population of Britain . . . he'd be lucky just to be chucked out of the SAS. A court-martial wasn't improbable by any stretch of the imagination.

But some reason, that prospect seemed less important than the fact that Alex would be taken away from him. There was no way MI6 would allow him to remain under Wolf's care, they may even go as far as revoking Jack's custody and forcing the boy to live in their thrall. Wolf had the sinking feeling that Alan Blunt would relish the idea of morphing Alex into the future spy he could easily become all the sooner.

Wolf blinked and realized he'd somehow wondered back into his living room. He fell heavily on the couch, leaning forward so his elbows were on his knees, rubbing a hand over his eyes. "Oh God. They are not going to react well . . ." he muttered aloud.

"Screw 'em."

It took all of Wolf's self-control not to yelp in shock as he bolted half-way of the couch, turning as he did so. He paused and then sank back down as he saw Eagle standing in the living room doorway, staring at him with raised eyebrows.

Forcing his face into a scowl Wolf snapped, "What the hell? How did you get in here?"

Eagle procured a key from his pocket and held it aloft. "With a key?"

"That's Bens'."

"Picked his pocket." Eagle stored the stolen key back into his jeans and strode further into the room, gesturing vaguely with his hand at the leather couch. "Budge up."

Mutely, Wolf complied. Eagle spun and dropped onto the cushion beside him with a plop. Lazily, he turned his head to meet his friends eyes, "So, I take it you're still agonizing over this mystery bloke we were discussing the night before last, yes?"

Wolf glared at him before bitterly turning his face away. "Yes."

Out of his peripheral vision, he saw the other man nod. "Thought so." There was a beat of silence. "What are you going to do about it?"

"I don't know, damn it!" Wolf was nearly shouting and had to force himself to lower his voice. "What do you think I was talking to myself about? I have so many bloody things to think about and deal with and – and I – "

"You're scared." Eagle said. The way he said it, so simply, so casually, without any inflection, somehow sapped all the strength and anger from Wolf and he felt himself collapse more deeply into the couch, his head lolling back against the head rest.

". . . Yeah. Yeah, I am."

He felt more than saw Eagle shrug beside him. "Don't be."

Wolf turned incredulous eyes on the man. "Don't be? Don't be? That's your advice?" He threw his hands in the air. "Well thank you very much, mate, that's just what I needed to hear! For God's sake . . ." He fumed for a moment before realizing Eagle hadn't moved. He sat still on the couch, staring at his friend while he vented. Perfectly calm, he asked, "Are you done?"

Wolf grunted irritably. "Suppose so."

"Good. Now shut it and listen." Before the indignant soldier got the chance to slap his team mate on the back of the head for the way he said that, Eagle carried on. "I know you're scared, but so is everyone when they go into a relationship that they want to make something of. Something permanent. But I saw the look in your eyes when you were asking me about it and when you agreed to take that woman home." He stopped for a moment to give Wolf a piercing look that sent shivers of guilt through his gut. To cover it up, he affected impatience and made a gesture for Eagle to continue. "To put it plainly, this is not simple attraction; you're in love, Chris. Don't hide behind any of the issues because you don't want to deal with it because, let's face it, you're straighter than a stripper pole," his lips twitched momentarily when Wolf pulled a face at his choice of simile, "so if you of all people are jumping the gender barrier, you're only going to do it for someone very special."

He sat up straight and his face took on a certain serious aspect that Wolf was unused to seeing on him. The effect was somewhat disconcerting. "And we're both aware that this particular person is very special indeed. More importantly, we both know that he loves you too, despite your misgivings."

Terror coursed through Wolf. "You know?" he asked in a near-whisper, peering intently at the other solider.

A secretive, mischievous smile appeared on his face, his amber eyes gaining a distinctive sparkle. The unit dreaded that look in training; it always meant a lecture from the sergeant about decorum or other such things. But now, Wolf felt a wave of relief as his team mate, still with that same smile, said, "I don't know anything, Wolf. Isn't that what you and the guys are always telling me?"

He got to his feet and got to the doorway before he paused, then turned back. "I'm not going to lie to you, mate, there are going to be some serious issues thrown your way because of this. There's something you have to decide before you go through with this: Is it worth it?"

With those words of wisdom, he turned his back on his team leader and walked out. From the creaking of the floorboards, Wolf estimated he was about halfway down when he finally called out to him, "Evan?"

The squeaking stopped. "Yeah?"

". . . Thanks."

He could almost hear the satisfied smirk he was sure was working its way across Eagle's face, "Don't mention it."

The door slamming echoed through the flat. Wolf sat, unmoving, still slumped in the embrace of the worn-down leather couch for some amount of time, he wasn't sure how long, Eagle word's bouncing around his skull continuously.

Is it worth it?

And then, at last, he had his answer.

XXXXX

He didn't even see it coming; a detail which would considerably piss him off later, as would the fact that he didn't send Tom a text and ask him to come sooner. A man walking his dog; why had he swallowed that? Why hadn't he seen the purpose in the way he moved, the rippling energy along the animal's spine that only those specifically trained have? Why had he not questioned why a man with a big dog and the entire park shared between the two of them chose to walk so close?

Curiosity may kill the cat, but distraction works just as well. Alex Rider found himself tackled, knocked unconscious, lifted into the car that came screeching over the road onto the grass and taken away in less than five minutes.

A/N: Uh, I hate dialogue, I really, really hate it! Trying to find different ways to write "he paused" may be the worst mental torture imaginable.