Well, finally, I've updated this. I'd really appreciate it if you told me what you thought!
DISCLAIMER: Surprisingly enough, still not mine.
Alex knew, from the moment he saw him, that Matt Hargreaves didn't have it in him to be a spy.
It wasn't that he was stupid, or even that he was unfit – just that he wouldn't make a good spy. Alex couldn't have said how he knew that, just that he did. He lacked the instinct that had saved his own life so many times, Alex could see it. He was an ordinary school boy – maybe with some special talents, maybe he was an exceptional schoolboy – but he was going to take time to learn the rigid, unbreakable willpower and the unflinching determination which made a good spy.
Wolf had it. Ian Rider had had it. Alex had it. Yassen Gregorovich, Sabina Pleasure, to a certain extent. Even some of the truly evil people Alex had met had had it – Julia Rothman, Dr. Grief. Matt Hargreaves did not. And he didn't have the time to learn it, either.
The first time Alex met him, he was wearing his combat clothes from the SAS camp – the huge camouflage trousers, the blistering boots. Alex's eyes narrowed to see that Matt had been allowed to keep his own T-shirt, a leniency which Alex – two years younger than this boy – had been denied. But he kept his mouth shut. He wasn't going to talk to this boy, not even to complain. He didn't want to look like he was accepting this in any way at all.
"So you're the kid." Matt said, his voice stiff with arrogance and condescension. Alex watched him with passive dislike. "The kid who's supposed to be as good as me."
"Yeah." Alex didn't bother correcting him. "That's me."
"So," Matt turned to the muscled black sergeant Alex remembered from his own time at boot camp. "What do we do first?"
"Combat." The man said, shortly, looking piercingly at Alex. Alex stared back, blank-eyed. "You're both black belts – I think, Alex, that you're Second Dan by now, aren't you?" Matt flicked him a brief, disbelieving glance. Alex nodded, still silent. "Then you may have a slight edge on Matt. Don't get too cocky, though." They stood there for a few seconds longer. "Well, what are you waiting for?" the man snapped, "Go and change!"
Alex stared at himself in the mirror of the changing room in the large manor house on whose ground the SAS training camp was based. In his white suit, large to allow ease of movement and pristine to show purity of intention, he looked very small and very young. He was also, surprisingly enough, slightly nervous.
It had been nearly six months since he had sparred against anyone in his age group, of a lesser ability. Everyone he had fought against – even those against whom he had won – were more skilled than him, stronger and older. Matt might, therefore, turn out to be a problem. Alex had no idea how to gauge how hard to fight against him.
It took him a full minute to decide not to go full out unless the other boy did, and by the time he had made that decision, the sergeant was banging on the door.
"Hurry up, Cub, we haven't got the time for you to make yourself look beautiful!" the man yelled, and Alex sighed, and followed the man down to the training hall.
The fight was an ugly one from the word 'go', even though it was blessedly short.
After bowing to each other, touching hands and assuming the ready position, Matt was the first to lash out. The strength of his kick assured Alex that the other boy wasn't fighting flat out just yet, so his answering block, though prompt, wasn't at full strength either.
"Come on, boys!" the sergeant shouted at them, "Fight like this is the real world!"
Matt took this more to heart than Alex, and his palm-heel strike would have knocked Alex's teeth out if it had made contact – but Alex, seeing the other boy's palm coming towards him, allowed years of training and a year of real combat to take over, dodged, and sank a fist into his gut.
Matthew doubled up, and Alex wasted no time in bringing his knee up so that the other boy's face connected with it, breaking his nose and spreading blood on the younger boy's white trousers. Matt's face shot up, and Alex delivered a round house kick to his chest which sent him flying. Then, determined to end this as quickly as possible, he grabbed the front of Matthew's top, and pushed him backwards onto the floor. When the other boy was lying, completely vulnerable, on the floor, Alex placed his foot gently over his neck, keeping him there with the threat that Alex could easily strangle him or break his neck.
"Fight over!" the sergeant said, looking at Alex in surprise. "You've improved, Cub – I'm impressed. As for you," this last was addressed to Matthew, "You'd better go and see the doctors, get stitched up. You two are running the assault course next."
Matthew staggered off – Alex was surprised that he made no complaint, but assumed that he'd been given the same sort of training he himself had had, and had been taught not to complain. The sergeant ordered him to go and change again – "And don't take so damn long about it this time!" – and meet him out by the assault course.
When Alex arrived, Matt was apparently still with the doctors, and it was just him and the sergeant there. They waited in an uncomfortable silence for a few moments, until the sergeant said, disinterestedly,
"So, what you been doing, Cub?"
"What I'm told to do." Alex replied, shortly.
"They send you on a lot of missions?"
"Whenever they need cover." The boy said, quietly, "Terrorists and anti-English governments don't expect children to come in with the spies, so I'm the perfect cover. Family."
"So what sort of thing have you been doing, then?" the sergeant looked at him for the first time, and Alex smiled sarcastically.
"You want me to tell you so that you can tell me that I'm not allowed to tell you. But I know I'm not allowed to, so I'm not even going to try."
"Very good, Cub."
They waited in silence for Matt to arrive. When he did, the sergeant, giving no thought for the other boy's injuries, placed them side by side at the beginning of the course, and sent them off.
The course was a kilometre and a half long, including tunnels to crawl through, ropes and walls to climb, pits to swing across, and rough terrain to cross.
Alex had done this course in seventeen minutes after a week of training; a combination of grim determination, resignation and fitness had got him across it, and he had enjoyed it about as much as he would have enjoyed his own funeral. On the other hand, the only thing which the last year or so had done was increase his determination, resignation and fitness, so he was perfectly capable of doing this course.
He had faced challenges worse than this, and he was surprised to realise that this wasn't something which bothered him any more. When he'd been training before, this had been his inanimate nemesis (Wolf being the animate one). Now, something as simple as this held no fear for him.
He got across it in just under nineteen minutes, and found Matt waiting for him, panting but smug, at the other end. He sighed. Matt had a point to prove with him now, and he wasn't going to let it go.
They slid through the rest of the tests, tactical, linguistic and physical, in a sort of one-sided competitiveness, where Matt desperately tried to beat Alex, and Alex just let him get on with it. It must have been infuriating for Matt, Alex reflected with an inward smirk, that Alex often managed to do just as well as him – or better – without appearing to really try.
They were driven down to London that evening; Alex slept, while Matt fumed on the other side of the car. Just before they parted, in front of the Royal and General, Matt grabbed Alex's arm, and muttered,
"You're not better than me."
"I never said I was." Alex told him coolly, wrenching his arm away.
"You act like it." Matt told him, the faint hint of a whine in his voice, and Alex was reminded once again just how young Matt really was – even if he was physically older than Alex.
"We're not supposed to competing against each other." Alex reminded him, softly. "I'll see you whenever we're sent on a mission together, Matt."
He left the other boy standing in front of the bank, and didn't think about him again, until two weeks later, when the summons from Alan Blunt finally came.
Well? What'd you think?
Thanks to:
Sara Phoenix, Carline, musicsage, ShadowSpy, Isilthrar, Mpro1, soldierx, and Sootsprite. Your reviews meant a lot.
I'm done. ami xxx