Lost Boys
By J. Ferguson a.k.a. Timeless A-Peel
Disclaimer: I don't own The New Avengers, nor the characters of Mike Gambit, John Steed, and Thomas McKay. Sadly. They're the property of The Avengers (Film and TV) Enterprises. Tara King belongs to Canal+Image. This story is for entertainment purposes only. No copyright infringement intended.
Timeline: Zero in a series. Takes place in June, 1975, a full ten months before the start of the TV series. Those interested in the rest of the series are invited to read the subsequent stories in the arc, Aftermath, Dance With Me, The Anniversary, Merry Christmas, Mr. Gambit, and Brazil.
For more information about the series, please see my profile.
Author's Note: Oh, wow. It's been awhile. Busy, folks, and not liable to get less so for some time yet, but I'll do my best to keep updating. I'm really interested to see how this story goes over because I've never seen anyone try a pre-TNA fic before, so I'm motivated.
For those who haven't checked in lately, I concluded Brazil awhile back, and the next story in the series will surface just as soon as things slow down. This is the stop-gap in the meantime. Enjoy!
Steed was actually feeling a bit better by the time he reached the Ministry. After all, there was nothing particularly pressing today, and he could have a nice relaxing morning reading the paper in his office, maybe take an early lunch, and put in an hour or two before going home and putting the horses through their paces. There were some perks in having the top job, he had to admit.
The girl at reception desk smiled at him as he signed in, but her colleague, phone to her ear, gestured for him to wait. She crisply informed the caller on the other end of the line that she 'understood,' and hung up before turning to the senior agent.
"McKay would like to see you," she told him, and Steed nodded in reply.
"I'm sure he does. Tell him I'll be there just as soon as I've the time."
The girl shook her head. "You're to see him immediately. Straight there. Do not stop at your office."
"Do not pass go. Do not collect 200 pounds," Steed quipped, but the girl was a humourless sort and simply arched a well-tended eyebrow. Steed doffed his bowler and turned to stride toward the lifts, widening his eyes and breathing our dramatically as he did so. McKay had the tough ones on the front lines, now. Even the imposing Rhonda hadn't possessed a stare quite like that.
Steed did as he was told, which was a rarity. He took the lift straight up to McKay's floor and made for the man's office without dallying. A quick knock on his door, and the voice of his old friend beckoned him to enter.
"Ah, Steed," Thomas McKay greeted from behind his desk, eyes flicking up from a stack of paperwork. "Thank you for being so prompt. I was expecting you to take a good fifteen minutes' grace."
"I thought about it," Steed admitted, taking a seat across for the Ministry's top man and plopping his newspaper onto the desktop. "But I doubt the lady manning the fort would have approved."
"Ah, yes, Lydia," McKay replied with a certain degree of self-satisfaction. "Yes, she's quite good. Keeps our younger boys in line. I'm thinking of putting her up for interrogation duty."
"Bit unsporting for the other side," Steed mused, removing his bowler and letting it join the paper and his brolly on McKay's desktop. "Now then, what did you want to see me about?"
McKay leaned back in his chair. "I want to ask a favour, John," he revealed.
Steed arched an eyebrow. "If I recall correctly, you asked me a favour back in 1973. It got me an office."
McKay smirked. "Yes, I know you've been less than thrilled with your lot of late, and believe me, I sympathise. But I think this favour might redeem me in your eyes, at least a little. I want you to do a job."
Steed felt his heart leap, tried his best to maintain a calm exterior. "Field work?"
"After a fashion. Surveillance. I know. Terribly elementary stuff. But it's not so much who I want you to watch as who I want you to watch it with."
Steed's eyebrow climbed higher. This was getting interesting. "Oh? Anyone I know?"
"Possibly." McKay slid a file toward him. "Are you familiar with Mike Gambit?"
"Gambit?" Steed took the file and opened it, pulled out an 8x10 of dark, curly-haired man, early-thirties, with piercing eyes and an intimidating line of a mouth. "Slightly," he told McKay. "I've encountered him in one or two training classes, and I know several of my men have worked with him at one time or another. By all accounts a very talented agent. Keeps the typing pool amused." He'd heard almost as many murmurings about Gambit's love life as he had his assignments, and Steed had wondered how long it would be before the man's discipline cracked and the job started to suffer. Then again, Steed wasn't one to talk when it came to the female of the species. "He joined up a few years ago, didn't he?" he added, trying to keep the grin off his lips.
"Late in '73, yes," McKay agreed. "A very talented applicant. Possessed an impressive array of skills long before he went anywhere near one of our training courses. Deadly, efficient, quick off the mark…"
"He sounds like quite a find. Why do you want me in the picture?" Steed wanted to know.
McKay sighed, leaned forward and laced his fingers. "He has a tendency to be a bit too…how shall I put it? Rambunctious? There are times when he would benefit from taking a step back and analyzing the situation. Instead he steps in and takes the consequences, or should I say, his body does. He needs to learn a little more patience."
Steed put his head to one side. "Surely his partner should be a stabilizing influence?"
"That's the other problem," McKay said tiredly. "He doesn't want a partner. Oh he's worked with others, worked a great deal. And he works well. He gets on fine with many of the other agents, some of yours included. Many of them like him, have a friendly spar in the gym. No, he can work with a partner. But the point is he doesn't want to. He's reluctant. If you order him to collaborate with someone, he'll do it dutifully, but he'll take every opportunity to run things solo. He liked his solo missions in his early training days, and he's learned how to pick up assignments in such a way that he has to follow as few orders as possible. You may never get a chance to fire them off." McKay sighed. "He's a good agent, John. I think he could be one of our best. Perhaps the best in, oh--"
"Fifteen years?" Steed supplied, well aware McKay was doing the math in his head. "Since me, in fact?"
"Don't get the wrong idea, John. I know better than to try and replace you, particularly if I want to live to collect my pension. But he's got great promise, and if he only had someone to smooth out the rough edges, I don't know that anyone else here could match him."
"And you want me to play mentor?" Steed inferred. "Just like with Tara?"
"More than with Miss King," McKay corrected. "Tara King was completely new to the game, fresh slate, young and innocent. Gambit's not innocent. That's half the reason he's as good as he is. In our job that's usually a good thing. Keeps a man from falling apart. The problem is, Gambit's already done that."
Steed sat up a little straighter, suddenly intrigued. "Oh?"
McKay sighed, leaned back in his chair. "You know as well as I do that our agents' biographies are top secret, and only divulged to anyone on a need-to-know basis?"
Steed nodded. "Of course. I presume I need to know?"
"Just the basics. You see, Gambit didn't come to us without a price. All those skills, they filled out his repertoire. But he didn't come to us whole."
Steed sucked his teeth, mind already dancing over all the possibilities. He knew men who had encountered more than their fair share of hardship. In some ways he counted himself among them. "Go on…"
McKay cleared his throat. "Gambit suffered a severe trauma a few years ago. It left him physically and mentally drained. I won't say it broke him, because if it did we wouldn't have accepted him, but he spent over a year rebuilding, and when he came to us he was still suffering some of the side-effects. Our resident psychologist ran the usual tests. He came up clean. He's not psychopathic, not irrational, not prone to fits or blind panic at the first sign of stress. But it has changed him. He's come to rely on himself because for a very long time he was all he had to rely on. And that makes him shrug off fellow agents, and occasionally, I think it pushes him to take the confrontational route when subtlety might be better. He's pushing himself, John, but not always in the right ways. He's pushing to survive, to prove to himself that he can do it."
"And you want me to push him the right way?" Steed mused. "What makes you think I'm the best choice?"
"Oh, you have more in common than you know, John," McKay said darkly. "Much, much more. If anyone can make him believe it's better not to take this job on alone, it's you."
"I see." McKay's expression made Steed uneasy, but clearly the man wasn't going to divulge the source of Gambit's upset. "What do you want me to do?"
"Take him on surveillance. Talk to him. Get into his head. See if you can't persuade him to listen to you, and maybe, to stick close. If you can get him into a partnership, willing to work with someone, to listen, I'll be happy. You work well with partners, John. I think you're his best chance."
"I may fail," Steed pointed out, although he was interested now, and determined that he wouldn't. Gambit was a challenge, and Steed needed one of those badly. But he wanted to know just what it was about him in particular that McKay thought the younger man would connect with. "What happens then?"
McKay sighed. "If you can't help him, then I give up. Let him play things his own way. Tell him I'll quit pushing for him to find a partner. But he has to work with you until you're satisfied that he's a lost cause." He smiled wryly. "Don't bother playing hard to get, John. I know you want a mystery and a ticket out of the office. This is it."
Steed looked back at Gambit's picture, smiled at the defiant eyes. "Where can I find him?"
McKay's grin widened. "Exactly where he doesn't want to be."