Snake felt like a coward. Drugging a 5 year old. Hesitantly he picked up the milk.
Then he put it down again. Indecision rolled around in his mind. It would stop the emotional stress of the situation wouldn't it? Yes it would. But then again… no, he had too.
Picking up the glass, his hands shaking, the man slowly crept back to the lounge. He opened the door to find Eagle holding Alex, rocking him gently, just as when he left them. However there were no tears anymore. And the kids thumb was firmly locked in his mouth, his eyes closed, body slumped.
"Is he?..."Snake asked, praying the answer to be…
"Yes, completely out for the count" Eagle stated warmly. Adoration and relief was clear in his clear blue eyes.
Snake could've chucked the glass out of the nearest open window in happiness. Conscience once again clear, the Scotsman emptied the contents into the kitchen sink and dumped the cup in the sink, along with the ever growing pile of dirty plates, glasses, bowls, knives, forks and spoons. 'I'll get Eagle to do the washing up later' he thought to himself as he returned once again to the lounge.
Wolf, Fox and Eagle were all in the lounge as Snake returned. Eagle had laid Alex on the couch so he could put on his jumper.
"Okay. Let's go, might as well get this over and done with." Wolf commanded, and the unit absentmindedly followed his orders. They were tuned to Wolf's commands, as often their lives were based on his commands when they were in places such as Iraq, fighting a war. They followed them; or they die.
Snake went over to Alex and picked him up, pulling him to his chest. Once again, little arms wrapped around his neck and clamped onto his shirt, and the blonde head buried into his neck. It was almost becoming a normality for Snake, something else he had never expected.
"Fox can you go and get Alex's jumper from his closet?" Snake asked. Fox looked up and nodded, before running up the stairs. The others made their way to the car. Wolf slid into the driver's seat, Eagle in the passenger. Snake normally sat there, and started to argue, but a glare from Wolf stopped that. He placed Alex into the car seat, strapping him in, before sitting down to the left of him. Fox came then, chucked the jumper at Snake's head and sat down.
Snake rolled his eyes at Fox as they pulled off the drive and began the short, but traffic filled journey, to the Royal and General Bank, the one place that they could say they almost feared. MI6 were heartless and cold, and if something wasn't done soon, Snake feared that they would suck Alex into their systems one way or another and he would become one of them.
Their journey was uneventful. Rain drizzled; Wolf drove purposely slow but still swore when they got caught in the London traffic, Eagle laughed, Fox and Snake rolled their eyes, Alex didn't stir.
It took them an extra half an hour to get there than it normally did, not that they had any objections even if it did make Wolf even more frustrated. He even put his middle finger up at the lady who pressed the button for the crossing, earning a well-placed glare from the man next to her and laughter from his unit, despite him telling them to shut up and threatening to knock them out and dump them in the Thames. Which actually made them laugh harder, although when Alex stirred Snake slapped a hysterical Eagle round the face to get him to be quite.
Parking the car, the unit slipped out of the car. Snake undid Alex and lifted him into his arms, and they all walked together to the main entrance, Wolf only lifting his arm behind him to lock the car. They moved as one.
Once inside the, as usual, cold foyer, they moved to the receptionist's desk. The person behind it was a man, probably in his early twenties, wearing a dark blue suit and forcing a smile. He looked up at Snake approached the desk, a little blonde boy in his arms. He had been expecting them.
"I'm David McCarthy, here to discuss my account" Snake stated, emotionlessly, a scowl on his face, and the faces of the three extremely burly men behind him.
The receptionist felt like he had just shrunk. "Y-yes sir, if y-you would like to wait in the w-waiting area, one of our em-employees will be with you mom-momentarily" he stuttered, earning sly smiles from the k-unit as they made their way to sit in the waiting area.
5 minutes later Mrs Jones came down, her face as blank as a plain piece of paper.
"Good morning, would you like to accompany me to Mr Blunts office?" she asked, as if they were 5 year olds themselves. Snake nodded curtly.
Once inside the lift, Alex started to shuffle a bit.
Eagle, who was standing right next to Alex's head, noticed that his eyes were fluttering and he murmured in Snake's ear "I think he's waking up."
Alex lifted up one eyelid sleepily. First he saw Eagle, who was frowning slightly until he saw Alex smile, then he turned that frown upside down, but the smile was forced. Looking around more, he saw the blank face of Mrs Jones, who didn't even look at him; she seemed very interested in the buttons on the lift. Fox was keeping his eyes fixed on the numbers that kept climbing higher and higher towards Blunt. Wolf, of course, was scowling.
Wiggling, he slid to the floor, out of Snake's hold. The mad didn't fight him, but did keep a hand firmly gripped on his shoulder: it wasn't uncomfortable, in fact Alex didn't mind, he just stood there, leaning slightly on Snake's leg, content.
Fox was surprised by this. He had assumed that Alex would try and shake him off, and stand away from them. The boy didn't seem to be very comfortable around them, and they all wondered why.
Mrs Jones, on the other hand, knew perfectly well why Alex was content on leaning against David's (snake) leg. She once had children of her own, but they had died in an accident. The reason he was happy was that Ian Rider had used to have a shoulder on Alex's shoulder and let him lean on his leg. Blunt had made Ian bring Alex to the bank several times, and she had always been the one to escort them up, to watch at Ian showed no emotion to Alex, to watch Alex not really notice. Blunt's plan for Alex disgusted her. She tried not to think about it by staring at the button panel and keep a straight face.
The tension was building. Every adult but one had almost sighed in relief when the doors opened. Eagle didn't count as an adult really as he didn't act like it; in fact it was him that they were sighing in relief about. All the men had secretly been worrying about what Eagle would burst out with to the deputy head of MI6, who had almost sighed in relief as well. She thought she would burst with the near pain of seeing Alex, who reminded her of her long dead son Greg.
The 6 briskly walked to the office. Mrs Jones entered without pausing, knowing that Blunt was expecting them that very second. As it finally clicked in Alex's brain where he was, he turned around and made to leave. His ankle was practically painless now, but Wolf still caught him, picking him up silently, despite his protests, and handing him the near-panicked blonde.
"Alex it's alright. Calm down, we'll be leaving soon, I promise." Snake soothed, rubbing his hands in soothing circles on his back. Once again, Alex slid to the floor and nodded, allowing Snake to drag him into his own personal version of hell, to see the emotionless devil himself.
Blunt sat behind his polished oak desk, emotionless and grey as ever, not a crease in his suit. His lifeless eyes followed Snake as he walked into his office, dragging Alex behind him. Blunt had a plan, one that would destroy Scorpia. He knew it would work, given time. But he had a long time for his plan. And little to the knowledge of the 4 SAS men, or the boy they were protecting, the plan was just beginning.
"Welcome back K-Unit. I hope that the assignment hasn't proven too difficult?" he asked, no hope in those words.
"No sir" they all replied, at exactly the same time. They were in work mode now.
"Good, well let's get straight to it then" he looked pointedly at Alex, who was sitting on Eagle's lap, as he was furthest away from Blunt.
"Sc-" Blunt started, but Jones interrupted.
"With all due respect, I'm not sure you should be saying this in front of Alex…" she said, her tone saying exactly what came out of her mouth.
Blunt frowned but none the less agreed for Eagle to take him down to see Smithers, which they were uncomfortable with but they did argue, and then come back. Less than 5 minutes later he returned and Blunt continued.
"Scorpia have stopped threatening to kill him, but as I hoped wouldn't happen, they are planning to kidnap him, and most probably turn him into a weapon against us. I think that it is possible for him to become maybe even the world's best. It is in his blood."
"So you're saying that the crazy, but world's biggest organisation responsible for his parents, and millions of peoples deaths, are going to kidnap him and turn him into a weapon?" Wolf asked bluntly, summing up what he had just been told.
"Yes…but we have an idea" Snake saw the glint in his eyes, and suddenly he knew what the plan was.
"You can't!" he exclaimed. His unit looked at him like he was crazy.
"Mr McCarthy, it is the only way. He will be prepared for it, and we both know that when the time comes he will want to kill the people responsible for the death of his parents" Blunt countered.
"Hold up, what's this idea that Snake's so wound up about?" Eagle asked, truly confused. Wolf and Fox both silently thanked him for asking the question that they both needed to know but could not bring themselves to ask, as it was a wound to their pride. But Eagle was just Eagle, he didn't care.
"Prepare him now for what's to come" Blunt replied.
"What he means is train him so when the time comes for them to be able to use him, they can because he will already be fully trained, then they can get rid of their Scorpia problem, probably something that will send him to his death" Snake replied bitterly.
The unit were silent as they absorbed the new information, before it turned to pure anger and hatred.
"What! You can't do that we won't let you! You can't train a 5 year old for his future, signing his death warrant before he can ever ride a bike, even if he can already because of his Uncle!" Wolf growled, exploding.
"Wolf. K-unit. We can and we will. It is for his own good in the long term. And if you don't agree to help then we can easily have him moved to a place where they would be more than happy to train him…and then some" Blunt threatened, even if his voice never changed once.
K-unit swallowed the lumps in the back of their throats and stared bloody murder at the man they hated. He wanted to train a 5 year old to become a spy, before he could even ride a bike, they assumed, but you never know when it comes to what 5 year olds under the guardianship of Ian Rider would have been taught to do! It was monstrous, but this was Alan Blunt, the head of MI6 and basically a ruthless, emotionless bastard. That was what he was. A monstrous bastard. Using everything to his advantage, including them.
"But that's like blackmail!" Eagle squealed. He wanted to squirm in his seat when he was sent a cold glare from the man he had addressed.
"No it's not. Help us and you will be helping yourself…and Alex. Otherwise we will just place him under the protection of someone…who probably won't care for his welfare, just train and train him. But you couldn't let that happen, you care about the boy, couldn't let him be taken away to that. If you're there then you can make his life as normal as possible and give him what he wants." Blunt said, tugging on their heartstrings.
Snake had already considered what he would do when the 2 month protection job was done, and admittedly he was thinking about adoption. However much he was against training him, setting his future and death in stone, if he were the one to raise him, then he could help and hope that he would fight MI6 when the time came, regardless of what they were and the lengths they would go too, to get what they wanted. It would give him enough time to come up with a plan, something that could help Alex. But he knew Blunt was right. It was in the kids blood to be a spy. And another thing, he was balancing his future in the palm of his hand, deciding the rest of his life right there and then. How could he choose.
"Sir I think we need time to think this over. But what do you have for us?..."Snake left off.
"We have a schedule of where and when this training would be to take place, and a school in mind." Jones handed him a piece of paper. It read:
Monday-5:15 to 6:30, London Road hall, Karate.
Tuesday-after school French till 4:30
Wednesday-Scouts Hall, Cambridge Road, 5:30 till 7:30
Thursday- after school Spanish till 4:30
Friday-London Road hall, 5:15 till 6:30, karate.
Saturday –Chelsea active centre, 2-3 swimming
Sunday-Chelsea active centre, 11-3, outdoor activities.
And then he was handed a leaflet for some private school, which looked incredibly high class.
Snake stared in disbelief at the two things.
"You'll run the kid to the god damn ground!" Snake near-shouted.
"Mr McCarthy, children are very adaptable, especially this one, within a couple of weeks he'll get used to it" Mrs Jones answered him with authority.
He shook his head and stuffed the papers in his pocket.
"Am I taking that as a yes then Mr McCarthy?" Mr Blunt asked, innocently.
Shaking his head in disbelief at what he was just about to say, he muttered "yes." The k-unit stayed silent, waiting, for their dismissal. In truth they were eager to see Alex again. They didn't trust the bank at all.
"Then you may go. Mrs Jones, will you kindly take them to Smithers and Rider?" Blunt asked her, already knowing the answer. She nodded curtly and walked out of the room, knowing they would follow suit, which of course they did.
Just as they were leaving, Wolf paused, shook his head and muttered "His name is Alex" gruffly, before hastily leaving the room, shutting the door behind him with a `slam`. Blunt pretended to not hear him and moved to the next task on his list, Alex already pushed to the back of his mind.
….. ….. …..
K-Unit walked into Smithers office to find him holding a pen. He was standing on a desk, a target roughly 10m in front of him. He was holding the pen like you would a…javelin. Before it registered what he was doing in their heads, he had thrown the pen as he had watched Smithers do before him.
It sailed through the air. All adults watching, holding their breaths absentmindedly.
It hit the target, bulls eye. Dead centre.
"Yay I hit it!" he exclaimed in excitement. Smithers grinned at him "well done young chap!"
Jones was watching him with great interest, and the camera hidden in the corner of the room, which would've caught that and sent it to Blunt. She looked at her phone in disgust, and walked back to Blunt office.
K-unit was just standing there, mouths ajar, staring at the happy blonde boy in awe. This meant that he had a good aim…but it's also meant that Blunt will want to use him even more, and Fox knew that they had probably caught that on their CCTV and sent it to Blunt. In fact, that was probably why Jones left, he thought to himself.
Eagle shook his head in amazement, and walked into room, closely followed by Snake and Fox. Wolf stood in the doorway, hesitant. He was very angry right now.
"Alex, you ready to go home now?" Snake asked, approaching him and Smithers.
The boy looked at him, his eyes filled with proudness, with a grin that ran from ear to ear, exposing a row of straight, white teeth. "Yeah please" he put his arms up as a sign that he wanted to be carried. Snake noticed that he was comfortable with him now, something that made him very happy indeed. He picked him up and rested him on his hip.
"Thanks for watching him Smithers?" Snake said, shaking the fat man's hand.
"No problem, it was fun. That kid sure has a good aim. Just like John…." He trailed off. He had known John personally and had considered him a friend, a rare thing in the world of espionage. It was his friend's death that made him pull out of being a spy and instead become a gadget master.
"Yes, well we should be going, bye" Snake said turning to leave, as Alex's head was now resting on his shoulder, and he was yawning.
"Goodbye"
The unit left the building, got in the car and set off for their home, guilt and sadness rapidly building on their consciences. Every now and again each member would flash a look of pity for the half asleep boy in their car.