So no doubt by now you are all wondering about our newest cast addition and her less than sympathetic views on Alex if not actually dreaming of feeding her to the crocs-if what some of my reviews are anything to go by-, but not to worry there is a very good reason for it so don't go cutting deals just yet.
Chapter III: Do I Know You?
Alex sullenly maintained a fingertip hold on Niki's jacket as the landscape flew past unseeing eyes. After leaving the wreckage of their pursuers she made a beeline for the edge of town, their only stop being when he asserted his refusal to continue without proper safety. Despite the rather colorful language used and his general aura of dislike she simply shrugged, double parked at the nearest store, and bought him the first helmet he tried on that fit even though he'd purposely picked the most expensive one available.
Outside the city proper she started in no general direction, taking multiple side roads and just plan going in circles until Alex was truly and utterly lost. Even if he managed to leave he had not idea which way to go seeing as he'd kept his eyes closed for the most part since she drove well above the speed limit and took corners like a barrel racer. Finally he noticed a slowing of the bike enough that he was able to crack an eye and take notice of their surroundings without thoughts of crashing into a wall filling his head.
They were in an upper end suburb with houses on private plots that looked like they belonged in a Christmas movie set. In fact most of the homes still sparkled with ornaments and lights that had yet to be taken down once the residents children got over the seasonal spirit. They passed through several such streets before pulling up to one of the more remote residences. Niki brought the bike to a stop and again nudged him with her elbow which seemed to be her preferred way of communicating. He slid off and this time managed to stay upright as he took in details of the place.
The property was surrounded by a head-high evergreen shrubs that hid it entirely from the street, matter of fact he wouldn't have know it was there if the wrought iron gate and matching green fence hadn't been artfully strung with small white Christmas lights. It also seemed to be situated at the edge of the residential area as all he could see further down the road was forest and lots of white. His attention returned to the gate as Niki finished punching the code in a box hidden at the base of the gate.
"C'mon." She turned and flashed a smile bright enough to match the landscape that he was taken back for a moment. In the end all he could do was follow her as she pushed the bike through the double gate before it rolled back. The Chris Cringle home planning continued inside, artfully rumpled snow yielded to a fort and snowman- complete with hat, scarf, and carrot nose- on a lawn with several pine trees that had a rope swing hanging from the branch of one in the corner of the property.
If all this hadn't been at polar opposites too what he had been expecting than the house was half way across the universe. Two stories in black and woody brown complete with double sitting room window, porch, and wreath on the front door. All cheerfully decked in gay seasonal décor.
Alex's was alerted to the fact that his jaw was red carpeting the walk when Niki giggled and reached over to push it back in place. "You're not gonna make plumes if all the hot air gets frozen on your tongue." Still grinning she led the blushing boy around the side too a garage she buzzed open with a beeper on her key chain. Somehow the normalcy of that shocked him back into the right state of mind.
"Where are we and who are you?" Once again Nike just smiled and parked her bike next to a Savrin. He made use of the moment she took to check it over to observe his surroundings. It looked like a perfectly ordinary private garage, stuffed with basic odds and ends, with one corner dedicated to vehicle upkeep equipment. The only thing he could poke a finger at was the place was large enough to hold a second car which was a sparkling new Lamborghini Aventador.
"You can explore later," Niki brusquely ended his visual tour. "Right now there are some people who I am sure are dieing to see you. Shoes off in the house."
Holding her own boots and the backdoor open, Niki grinned another one of those smiles that would have been more suited on an overactive twelve-year-old than a cold blooded killer. Alex somehow managed to ignore that fact and pushed past her. His shock returned in force upon discovering himself in a brightly light kitchen filled with tempting smells wrapping his senses like a warm elixir. Niki must have noticed because she chuckled, dropped her gloves on the counter, and prodded him between the shoulders in the direction of the front hall.
"Honey! I'm hooooooooome!" This said in exaggeratedly loud tones had Alex jumping almost out of his socks. He was pretty sure if he were a cat he would most likely be hanging from the ceiling fixture fur on end.
"WHERE IN THE NAME OF LENIN'S LEPROUS SKULL HAVE YOU BEEN?" The bellow followed by a long string of fluent curses in several languages had Alex wincing while Niki remained perfectly casual with hands in pockets and smiling sweetly. Footfalls booming from the stairs at the end of the hall heralded the person's decent. With one last line that Alex thought sounded like German, but wasn't fast enough to pick up on, the source came into view and barreled to a halt.
The Alex and the newcomer stared in shocked silence at each other for about three-quarters of a second before the later turned on Niki.
"Care to explain?" he stated in a neutral voice that somehow still carried heavy undertones of anger.
"Hi Yassy." Niki chirped and shrugged her jacket off one-handedly while using the shoe-hand's last two fingers to levy open the coatroom door. The two males blinked dumbstruck at the girl who pointed at Alex's shoes and held out her hand for them. Alex had no idea what to do so simply opted on following Niki's lead for now. Carefully watching the man as if he were a crouching tiger, Alex was easily induced into handing over his own coat and scarf to the Cheshire Cat resembling girl.
"Niki, what is going on?" The softly broached question froze Alex like a deer in headlights.
That voice…no, there was NO way…
Almost afraid of what he would find Alex inched his head to look behind him. His body caught up much faster.
"Alex?" The question was all he had time to process before he was caught up in a crushing hug. Before he could even begin to register this fact he was let go and held at arms length where his brain barely managed to confirm that his eyes were not wrong and in fact the arms did belong to the one person he was sure he would never again see in this life.
This last bombshell in a long day of stressful surprises was finally too much for him to handle. Suddenly the world tilted on its axis and started fading away. The last thing he was aware of was panicked hands catching and clutching him to a warm chest.
"Well," Niki wise-assed, "that went well." Her comment earned her twin killer glares. "What? 's not my fault," she grouched.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"….ex…Alex!" Alex groaned as light filtered back into his world and immediately coughed at the scent assaulting his sinuses that brought his body fully up to speed. He was lying on what felt like a couch with sunlight coming from somewhere in front of him.
"Good you're awake. How do you feel?" Alex frowned and followed the hand that held the small satchel of smelling salts up the arm to see who was talking. His brain almost shut back down but then went in the opposite direction as it realized another possibility.
"Am I dreaming?" he frowned.
"No," was the reply, "you're very much awake." That had only one logical explanation.
"Ian!" he cried, flinging himself at the man and hanging on like his life depended on it. "You're alive!" he relaxed and buried his face deeper in his uncle's shoulder, trying not to choke on the emotions clutching at his chest. "It was all just a really bad dream after all."
Someone cleared their throat awkwardly behind him. "Um, Ian, perhaps you should tell him before we have to deal with unnecessary emotional fallout from that assumption." Alex jerked out of the hug as his heart dropped through the floor when he saw who was talking.
Yassen Gregorovich sat perched on the arm of a single couch behind Ian, somehow managing to look both serious and awkward at the situation presented to him. Alex slowly pulled back and eyed the man suspiciously. "What are you doing here?"
"Easy Alex," Ian soothed as he tried to push the boy back down. Although Alex was awake he hadn't missed the tension lines in his jaw, clear indication that only the possible threat the other man might be presenting was keeping him from collapsing again.
"Why is he here and how are the two of you alive?" He demanded, backing cautiously away from his uncle.
Ian sighed and shoved the end of the blanket covering Alex toward the boy, leaving him a clear seat at the other end of the couch. He had known this wouldn't be easy but why did Niki go and have to screw it up royally like she was wont to do on occasions like this. He could swear she shut off her tact out of the field just for the fun of driving him insane.
"It's a long story but the main points are that Sayle hadn't counted on my loyalties lying elsewhere when he ordered me to dispose of your uncle. I was wearing a vest when Cray shot me, so beyond a cracked rib that had the bad luck of grazing my lung it was mostly just a flesh wound." Yassen provided and shrugged. Emotionalism was more Ian's department and right now he was to busy playing the guilt theme to be of much help to the situation.
"Ian?" Alex turned to the man for confirmation.
Ian sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. This was most certainly not the family reunion he had planned but he couldn't say he was totally unhappy with the situation. He just wished he could have told Alex in his own way and time but Niki had decided otherwise, as usual.
"It's true, and like he said a long story. But he got it in one." Seeing Alex's questioning gaze he elaborated. "Yassen has been working as an informant for MI6 for a number of years thanks to your father and has been one of our main sources of intelligence on Scorpia. He saved my life."
Alex looked the man like he had grown another head when another thought took up residence. "How do I know you're real and this isn't some elaborate setup?"
Ian nodded in approval at the boy even though the blatant distrust hurt. But he really shouldn't have been surprised given what Alex had gone through. "Ask me something only the real Ian Rider would know."
Alex rooted around in his brain for a bit as he tried to think of something MI6 and Scorpia might have overlooked or wouldn't be able to know despite their persistent digging.
"When I was nine you came back from a trip in Japan, what did you bring me and Jack?"
"I got Jack a silk embroidered fan and you a little stuffed dragon. You dropped salsa on it when she tried to wrestle it from you so you could eat her tacos that night." Ian smiled at the memory; it was one of his favorites since it was he who had to show Alex how to get the stains out before he let the boy sleep with it, the end result being them both getting wet in an all out suds fight.
Alex didn't give any outward sign if the answer had been correct but passed another question. "The year before that what happened at Christmas?"
Ian actually had to laugh when he recalled the incident. "I told Jack I wanted you to learn how to lie and she took great liberals when I told her she could do it any way she wanted.
"She took you to a mall and between the two of you convinced the toy section manager a shelf had collapsed on your head and she intended to sue. With the result of you being offered free charge for everything you bought there that day." Ian almost laughed at the memory of Jack lugging in a beaming Alex under a half mile high load of toys of every possible description.
"After that?" Alex wanted the whole list since the only thing in there an outsider couldn't have known was the part where Ian wanted him to learn how to lie.
Ian's grin adopted a slight grimace. "She made us camp in the living room with the airbags she got and a sheet tent. And you," he pointed an accusing finger at Alex, "ate half the s'mores she made for the movie we watched before bed which meant we had to chase you around the house until the sugar rush finally wore off at 2AM."
Alex still did not acknowledge Ian's answers but turned his attention to Yassen. "What is the last thing you told me before you di… passed out?"
Yassen bent his head to stare Alex in the eye. "I told you your father was an assassin. I told you to Venice and find Scorpia. That that was where you would find your destiny."
Alex slumped back in shock. For a year, a long, mentally and physically painful year, he had thought his last living family member dead, only to find him still alive and in the company of a man he believed responsible for Ian's death. The sudden weight of this reality left him drained and dizzy.
Ian immediately noticed the faltering in his nephew's demeanor and took advantage of it to help him lay back against the cushions before he collapsed again. "Damn it what did Niki do to you?"
"Nothing," the wounded protest announced said tormenter who entered carrying a frosted glass and mug topped with foamy white.
"Nothing?" Ian said in disbelief. "He has a sprained shoulder."
"I told you he fell off his bike and banged it up before I got to him," she pouted.
"And the fact that he almost got hypothermia from riding on that bloody bike of your's?" Alex had never really seen Ian seethe but somehow watching his uncle being overly protective gave him a warm feeling he hadn't realized he'd been missing all along.
Niki managed to look appropriately guilty. "Sorry but I was over exited and wasn't paying attention.
"And besides," she huffed in self-defense, "you're over exaggerating again. I was in front so if anyone had a remote possibility of freezing it would have been me." Setting the mug of the coffee table she held the glass out too Alex who was doubly reminded of afore mention injury when he leaned on that arm to accept the cup. Ian immediately caught the grimace and slid a hand behind him to help him sit while Niki grabbed two pillows off a stack on the two-seater and tucked them behind him.
Once he was settled Niki dangled the glass in front of his nose with a too bright smile. "Up and at'em Cubby." Alex scowled at her but accepted it and sniffed the contents hesitantly.
"Whiskey!" he looked at her in shock.
Niki bobbed her eyebrows cheerfully. "Best nerve meds God ever pissed up."
"I just fainted and you're trying to get me drunk." Niki rolled her eyes and parked on the table corner nearest him. "It ain't that much." She stopped and gave him a look. "Unless you're seriously that light a weight."
Alex wrinkled his nose and caught Ian frowning at the girl in disapproval. She simply shrugged and looked bored. Inwardly sighing he held his breath and gulped as much as he could in the first go. It was a good thing he didn't try holding it in his mouth but drank it straight down because it only took half-a-second for the alcohol to hit his taste buds. Coughing violently he couldn't even muster breath to swear as the liquid burned its way down his throat and mad his teeth feel like they were melting.
Ian immediately swiped the glass from his to-tight grip and patted him on the back till he breathing eased up. Scowling he thrust the offending object at Niki who shrugged and took it before picking up the mug to offer to Alex. Ian glared at it prompting Niki to roll her eyes and huff. "It's just cocoa, geez. Nothing stronger than caffeine."
At the mentioned possibility of something hot that wasn't going to make him cough up a lung Alex was far from hesitant to accept the second drink which he immediately took a healthy sip off. The thick creamy liquid was just a degree or two over his general comfort zone but still felt wonderful as the rich flavoring of sugar and chocolate with hints of vanilla coated his mouth, wiping away the sting of the last few remaining traces of alcohol. Taking another eager sip with a generous helping of the cream topping he sighed and relaxed back into the pillows as the warmth expanded from his core through his limbs and up to his head to create a pleasant floating state of being.
"Do I get some?" The question in an unmistakable teasing manner snapped the spell and Alex was once again treated to a shock when he realized it was Yassen who had asked. The assassin was grinning at Niki who just regarded him like something on her shoe.
"I think you're perfectly capable of making your own drinks Yass." Yassen feigned hurt then pulled a pouty smile with…. puppy eyes? Niki snorted and stood. "I was making Irish coffee but it you'd rather I…"
The Russian was quick to spring after the girl who had started moving toward the door and tried to put her in a headlock but missed when she ducked and came back up to grab the arm as it sailed harmlessly overhead. Applying a bit of body weight to his momentum she redirected his motion to the floor where she twisted the arm up behind his back. "Coffee," Yassen laughed, "I'll have the coffee." Niki maintained her hold and pulled a little higher. "Please."
Alex stared in almost equal shock to earlier as he watched the ex Scorpia assassin plaster on a boyish grin and attempted to look innocent. Niki huffed and released him. Pointedly keeping her nose up she stomped away, making sure to step on Yassen's other hand on the way.
Ian smirked as at the other man's discomfort. "Still haven't learned I see." He chuckled as Yassen ruefully rubbed the injured limb and shot him a death glare.
"It's not my fault she's got more moods than an iguana does colors."
Alex was sure he was starting to hallucinate. Yassen Gregorovich, Scorpia's best agent, the man most feared by MI6 operatives, was sulking! And at being slapped down by a teenager!
Wait! Teenager?
Alex suddenly grasped at something he hadn't quite realized earlier. Out on the road in biker gear and enough firepower to play 'I Spy' with Goldfinger on radioactive crack she had looked to be in her early-to-mid-twenties. Now dressed in dark jeans, a slightly to-big sweater with sleeves rolled up, rumpled hair, and cheesy weezy attitude she definitely looked like she could be nineteen or less.
"Just who is Niki anyway? And what is she doing with you two?" Ian turned surprised eyes on him.
"You don't remember?" Alex shook his head so he didn't have to answer through a mouthful of cocoa. Ian shrugged, "well it has been awhile I guess..."
"She's demonic hell spawn the gods decided would make a nice form of penance for whichever poor bastard got stuck with her." Yassen groused as he returned to his previous seat.
"I don't see what you're whining about since you're the one who raised her." Ian pointed out cheerfully.
Yassen glowered daggers. "She was already like that when you lobbed her off on me. So technically it's you're fault!"
"Still unwilling to admit there's not a god bleedin' thing they could do about my personality blueprint if their immortal souls depended on it." Alex gasped and looked around meet Niki's twinkling eyes. He had been too absorbed in the cat fight in front of him to notice her slip back in until she'd bent over to whisper in his ear.
She smirked and came around to place a tray of mugs and cookies on the table. "Knock it off already you two," she ordered and handed each man a glass before taking her own to curl up on the single couch who's arm Yassen was perched on. "So what were you spattering about this time?"
The two men glared at each other and gulped their drinks before the temptation to restart the argument got the better of them. "Uh, answers in a drought spot or something?" Niki raised an eyebrow and reached for a cookie.
"It seems Alex doesn't remember you." Ian poked random patterns with his spoon in the cream on his coffee he suddenly found rather fascinating.
Niki raised both eyebrows as if to say 'uh huh' and shrugged. "Well it has been eight years, so not much of a surprise."
She smiled at Alex. "Don't worry. I'm sure you'll remember soon enough, little brother."
Yes warm and fuzzies on the horizon, so you may want to get your riffles in case you have cuddly allergies like I generally do when the other 80% if my brain isn't marinating in Abbot Ale.
Plot bunny decided to be nice this week so I managed to get this in before my other fic's characters kidnap me again and Loki has just pulled the puppy eyes on me so I may cave and torture Thor for him, the possibilities are giving me many ideas and none nice or relevant to this story.
REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW… pretty pwease.