Hi!
About two hours after Alex left the team in their silence, Tony went down to Abby's lab via the stairs, to his surprise there was no music.
"Abby?" Tony asked as he poked his head in the lab to be quickly shushed by Abby who was sitting at her main computer.
"He's sleeping." She explained as she pointed to the corner under the window to see a sleeping Alex.
"Any problems?" He asked in a whisper.
"Nope, but its amazing how he actually looks like a teenager when he's sleeping. What's up?" she replied whispering.
"Nothing, the men have been transferred. I was going to ask if you could look something up for me."
"What?"
"Something called the Portuguese Man o' war jellyfish." Abby typed away until she got a bing, she quickly read it before relaying it to Tony.
"Says here '(A/N: Look it up for yourselves if you haven't already)' why are we looking this up?"
"Because Alex mentioned it earlier, and I wanted to see what he was up against."
"You mean he seen one of these?"
"He said he was put in a tank with one, a big one."
"How could he have gotten out?"
"By using a metal corroding creme to break the tank," Alex said and the two jumped, Alex didn't even open his eyes. "It was a gadget I had on that mission, and that stunt resulted in Sayle's assistant being attacked by it and stung to death. And even with you whispering I heard everything, I can be a light sleeper when I need to be."
"What does that mean?" Tony asked and Alex opened his eyes.
"When I feel safe I go into a deeper sleep; when on missions, which includes this, I sleep light so if anything happens I can react quickly." Alex responded.
"That's a bit unsettling..." Abby said.
"I'm lucky because on this mission I can actually sleep, most of my missions in the past have been time sensitive or too dangerous to sleep, so this is a nice change of pace."
"I honestly don't know how to reply to that." Tony admitted.
"That's fine I tend to confuse people a lot or shut them up one way or another." Then Gibbs walked in with two cups, his coffee in one and a cup with tea in his other hand.
"Good, you're awake. Here." Gibbs gave Alex the tea before turning to Abby and Tony. "And what are you two doing?"
"We were looking up that jellyfish Alex mentioned earlier, and it ain't a squishy either." Tony said.
"Did you seriously just make a Finding Nemo reference?" Alex asked questioning Tony's maturity.
"What about the jellyfish?" Gibbs saved Tony from answering.
"Well it can be very dangerous and apparently stung it's owner's assistant to death, as what Alex just told us a moment ago." Abby answered. "As well as telling us on some of his missions he doesn't even get any real sleep," she tried to glare at Alex, reminded him a bit of how Jack would react, frowning at the thought that she really did die and they made him watch her explode. Noticing his slight display of emotions, Abby stopped glaring. "Oh, Alex I didn't mean to be rude."
"Oh, no you just reminded me of someone close to me before they were killed." Alex protested seeing Abby upset with herself.
"How did they die, mind my asking?" Gibbs said.
"Explosion in Cairo, she escaped and they blew the car she was driving to a fiery inferno." Alex tried to speak without any emotions in his voice or in his thoughts of Jack.
"Jeez, that must have been hard on you, if it makes you feel any better, someone tried to kill me by blowing up my car, as well as tried to kill me with the Plague." Tony said with an attempt to sound upbeat.
"You mean the Bubonic Plague?" Alex asked. "I would've taken that over some of the missions I had to do in the past few years." Alex tied to sound humorous but honest at the same time.
"That tough?" Tony asked while thinking back to his time in quarantine, how awful it was and how little hope he had.
"I do have the Devil's luck, which could be synonymous with the my surname." Alex joked.
"You did mention that most of your missions would be considered suicide missions, and had a 100% success rate." Gibbs noted.
"WHAT!" Abby yelled in shock. "Suicide?! Who would send a fourteen year old on suicide missions? I will wring their necks myself!"
"I think you would be stopped before you could even get in ten meters of Blunt, besides I already called dibs on that, one of the reasons I have only seen him once since Cairo, he knows I can easily follow through with my threats. Ask any of my enemies. I only talk to him through phone calls or video chat, other than that I go through Mrs. Jones, Deputy Head of Special Operations."
"You must scare the crap out of him then." Tony said.
"I scare the crap out of most people, even Gibbs flinched, and have most intelligence agencies as my allies, willing to do anything for me."
"Wait, you made the great Leroy Jethro Gibbs flinch? When and how did that happen?" Abby asked with worry.
"Before I came down here, and I glared at him." Alex shrugged.
"Well your eyes were a bit disturbing."
"I've heard that, the Sergeant himself said so when I was back at Beacons, but your glare might match his, better than Wolf possibly."
"What about his eyes?" Abby asked.
"You just don't want to be on the other end of it is all I'm saying." Tony warned her.
"Any way, what's up?" Alex changed the subject.
"Ziva offered to accompany you to the training area for a real assessment, we might want to know what you are capable of if you're going to be here for a while."
"Sound like fun, is she up in the bullpen?"
"Yeah," Alex turned to leave. Once he was in the elevator Gibbs turned to the other two people in the room. "What else happened down here?"
"After finding out what that jellyfish was he surprised us by waking up, apparently he has two sleeping modes; mission mode and safe mode. Then you showed up. What are going to do with him?" Tony said.
"If he wants to be treated like an agent, maybe that's what we'll do." Gibbs said knowing they would try at least.
"Hey Ziva," Alex said as he reached the bullpen."
"Hey Alex, are you ready for an assessment?"
"Ready as I'll ever be."
They headed to the elevator to go down to the training floor. When they got to the training area, they took off their shoes and started stretching.
"Okay before we start what training have you already had?" ZIva asked.
"A first dan in karate, basic SAS training, use of weapons like knives and guns, stuff like that."
"Is there any place you want me to avoid? Like your shoulder, how did you dislocate it anyway?"
"I fought one of my targets to make it look like a mugging and he got my shoulder. But in the end he died."
"So what should I avoid?"
"I'm fine, just come at me."
"Alright," Before she could start Gibbs walked in. "Oh, Gibbs would you mind being the referee?"
"Sure, begin." Gibbs said and the two took their fighting stances. They circled each other, waiting for an opening. Ziva was the first to lunge at Alex.
By the time the called the spar to a stop, both fighters were slightly panting. There were no real injuries as a result of the fight, just a few bruises from lucky shots and the soreness settling in their muscles as the adrenaline was fading away.
"You did really well, Alex." Ziva said as she cooled down, but she was truly amazed of how well he fought. She wasn't that good of a fighter at that age, he seemed to know all of her moves before she executed them, then countered them with complete ease, she only got a few shots past his guard, but seemed unaffected by them. While he got a lot more past her than she would have liked.
When they first fought at the crime scene, his eyes went blank and emotionless but this time he seemed to put a bit of willpower to remain in control as he fought, making her assume that he was holding back to a degree so he wouldn't seriously hurt her.
"Thanks, you were an excellent opponent. But if you didn't notice, I was holding back a bit. I didn't really want to hurt you since your bruises from our last fight might still be sore." He was right, her bruises did throb a bit as they were fighting but she ignored it since the adrenaline rush pushed it aside, now that is was fading she felt it pulsing again.
"I did. But why would you?"
"I didn't want to severely hurt you, like leave you unconscious or with broken bones."
"Well, that was some top notch fighting, Alex." Gibbs said.
"Thanks Gibbs, I'm going to take a shower so I don't stink for the rest of the day." Alex walked away towards the showers. Gibbs turned to Ziva. "How do you think he did?" He asked.
"Really well, its amazing that he can fight with that much skill at that age, someone taught him for a long time to get that good. What did you find out from when he was with Abby?"
"He has two sleeping modes, mission and safe, missions he is a light sleeper, when he feels safe he can sleep deeper. And that jellyfish he od us about is deadly if big enough, which he said it was. And someone he knew was blown up and they, whoever 'they' were, made Alex watch."
"Pretty gruesome torture right there, making people watch those close to them be in pain or die and can't be able to do anything to help. What do you have planned for the kid?"
"To treat him like the way he wants us to, like an agent."
So sorry the wait, school has taken over again and midterms are around the corner. As well as girl scout cookie sells being back again. So my school life has interrupted my author/fanfiction life once again. Hope you understand. Hope to post again sooner, but can't promise anything.
Love all my reader! Review and PM if you have any questions.