Hey guy! So I really enjoyed writing about Tom and Alex so i decided to continue with it in a series of different scenes. Basically a bunch of one-shots. Let me know what you think of this.

It had been a nerve racking twelve hours for Alex Rider. Of all the enemies to come back for revenge, Alex hadn't quite expected this one. Roger Patterson was the very angry brother of a man Alex had taken down a few weeks prior.

The brother, Mark, had been using the students of his elite boarding school to smuggle illicit items across the globe in private jets. The rich kids were bribed or scared into complying and the operation had reached such a level of success that it quickly caught MI6's attention.

So Alex had disappeared from school with 'pneumonia' and sent to stop it. In the end, Headmaster Patterson had been thrown down the main stairs of the school's historic and beautiful front entry by some highly disgruntled students; he cracked his head on the marble stair before Alex could do anything.

He hadn't given it much thought. Mostly because he didn't have much pity for Patterson. The man had, after all, tried to blow him up in a 'vicious science prank gone wrong'. Alex had ended up doing what he always did: report to MI6, go home, calm Jack down, go to bed, take a day, back to school. He'd told Tom a little more detail about the mission than normal. As far as missions went, it hadn't been the worst.

But Mark Patterson had managed to pass on some very important information to his brother before he'd died. Roger never knew that Alex was working for MI6, just that he was a nosey teenager in a position to ruin their entire operation. So it was Alex Roger blamed, and Alex he sought revenge against. It came in form Alex really should have expected.

Tom was home alone that Saturday afternoon when Roger Patterson broke in, tying the black boy to a chair at gunpoint. Tom's parents were in America visiting his ever migrating brother. The 'temporary guardian', really a hired nanny, had gone to the store. The man proceeded to call the number he believed to be Alex's, which had been taken from the boy's fake file at the boarding school. The number was the usual fake in his files and was rerouted through the MI6 switchboards. Unfortunately, Patterson had discovered that the file was indeed fake and had spent close to a fortune, tracking Alex down through the hospital and then through London's public records.

The "answering machine" clicked on, recording the man's threat to kill Tom Harris if Alex wasn't handed over immediately. The machine was connected to a program that would scan the recorded messages for certain keywords. Since Tom Harris was on the list of Alex's closest friends and thus a potential target, his name triggered an alert.

The alert went straight to Mrs. Jones's personal mobile and it was she who mobilized the rescue. Since Patterson believed he was dealing with a fairly normal boy, it was decided to keep the ruse going for as long as possible. The police were called with various MI6 operatives moving discreetly among them.

K-Unit, who just happened to in London on guard-the-important-people-in-the-unnecessary-government-convention duty, was put on point as they knew both boys personally. Well, maybe not personally, but enough for it to matter. With Eagle having the most negotiations training, he was the one to talk to the Perpetrator.

Alex was driven down to Tom's house to play whatever part he needed to play.

"He has him tied to a chair, and they're barricaded in the panty," Wolf told him.

"So there's no way of taking him down without Tom being hurt," Alex replied, taking the offered seat in the large police van.

"No," Wolf said. "Is there anything you know that would help?" Alex shook his head.

"Everything I know about the Pattersons is in the file," he said, pointing to the file in Fox's hands, who was once again playing the part of MI6 liaison.

"I meant about the house and you're friend," Wolf said. "I've already read Patterson's file."

"Well, I assume you've got the blueprints to the house?" Wolf nodded. "Then there's not much I can tell you other than to move fast. Tom's bound to be a terrible hostage."

"What makes you say that?" Snake asked, glancing away from a monitor that was currently displaying the back door leading to the kitchen from the outside.

"You've met him," Alex said vaguely. He saw Eagle wince.

"I couldn't jump a fence for a week, they were so bruised," he said darkly, referring to the time he'd been shot in the balls with a paintball by Alex and Tom. Despite the severity of the situation, Alex found himself fighting a smile.

"Why are you doing this?" Tom asked. Normally when a hostage asked that question, their voices were filled with terror and/or despair. But Tom had been tied to his mother's antique, stiff back chair for hours now. Whatever terror he'd felt for being held hostage at gunpoint for the first time in his life had long passed into boredom. His tone conveyed that boredom.

"You're best friend killed my brother," the man spat. Tom didn't even know the guy's name. He knew what the guy was talking about, but Alex hadn't given any names. He was sure that if he looked it up he'd find plenty of names, dates, and locations in some article. After all, it wasn't very often that the Headmaster of an elite boarding school got thrown down a set of marble steps by some very pissed off students. But Tom just couldn't be bothered to find exact details; he was more concerned with Alex's most recent set of bruises and that he was breathing fine. He just cared that his best friend had made it back in one piece.

"Your brother tried to kill my best friend," Tom shot back, much to his kidnapper's surprise. He clearly hadn't expected the boy to know such things.

"He deserves what's coming to him," the man spat. He spat most of words, Tom noted. He decided to call him Spitter.

"Do you think he'll do anything stupid?" Wolf asked.

"He's tied to a chair," Alex reminded him.

"Yes, Cub, we're aware of that," Fox said, reverting to Alex's codename in his annoyance.

"Well, then he won't do anything," Alex snapped. "Tom is a normal kid. He has no idea how to get out of situations like this. At least, not on the physical level."

"Physical level?" Snake asked confused.

"He might try to talk his way out," Alex said, biting down on a thumbnail in frustration.

"Do you think he can?" Eagle asked, looking a little worried at the potential of having to talk down an unstable man from killing a hostage who'd just pissed him off.

Alex gave a shrug already lost in thought. If he had to compare Tom to something from his spy world he'd say Jones. Tom wasn't anywhere near as cold as Blunt but for a fifteen year old, he was fairly manipulative. He was also pretty smart and just by listening to Alex he knew more about the dangerous games people play than most their age, even if he had yet to live it.

Alex was banking on Tom's innate ability to know exactly what to say (a rare gift indeed) to keep himself from getting killed. It also helped that Tom wasn't the one Patterson wanted, it was Alex.

Spitter had brought Tom's cordless kitchen phone into the pantry with them. Yet, the man had only made one phone call and hadn't answered the dozen or so phone calls in the last few hours. Tom was sitting fully back in the uncomfortable chair, every now and then shifting his ankles and wrists. His head was leaning back and his eyes were closed.

He wasn't tired or even trying to give off a false aura of casualness; he was simply trying not to look at the food. After the fifth ring of what seemed to be the thousandth call, Tom's eyes snapped open.

"Just answer it already," he snapped, not registering the fact that he'd just ordered around the man threatening to kill him. "They aren't going to stop calling."

Spitter glared but said nothing. The man let the phone stop ringing, then five minutes later actually answered it when it started up again.

Listening to the one-sided negotiation process was nerve racking as Spitter went from calm to guarded to agitated to angry and back. Tom wondered if somebody had stupidly handed the phone to Alex, or worse, his mother. Both could easily elicit such a wide range of reactions in so short a conversation.

Tom was startled out of his worry when Spitter held the phone to his ear so he could talk.

"Hello?"

"Hey Tom, its Alex."

"Al! What the hell have you gotten me into?"

"Sorry, dude, didn't think this would happen. Are you okay?"

"I'm hungry."

"You're in a panty."

"True, but we're all out of Ramen and the cookies we got from Maddie are spoiled." He didn't get the chance to say anything else as Spitter took the phone from his ear and hung up.

"What the hell was that?" Fox said after Patterson hung up. They'd all listened in while the conversation was being recorded. Alex couldn't help but give a small laugh at his training Unit's complete confusion over the short conversation with Tom the Hostage.

"That was a code," Alex said.

"Code?" Snake probed. Alex nodded.

"Yeah, after I got back from a, uh, nasty mission," he began, choosing to leave the name of SCORPIA out of it, "We decided to come up with a code in case there was an emergency and we couldn't talk freely."

"Oookaaay," Eagle said, drawing out the word to show he wasn't quite catching on. "What's the code?"

"It's all in the last sentence," Alex answered.

"Where he sounds insane?" Fox interrupted.

"Yeah, Tom doesn't think like normal people so I thought that if he came up with code it would be more natural for him to use and he'd remember it easier. I think he was thinking about food when he made it," Alex said with a shrug as Wolf rolled his eyes.

"Just tell us what it means," he ordered.

"Well, 'Maddie' means 'the crazy person'," Alex said.

"Patterson," Eagle confirmed, jotting it down on a notepad in front of him.

"'Cookies' means 'gun' and 'spoiled' means 'old'," he continued, ignoring the Unit's strange looks.

"So, the guns you got from Patterson are old?" Eagle asked, eyebrows bunched in confusion. "When did Patterson give you guns?"

"No," Alex said, rolling his eyes. "Patterson is using an old gun. His brother kept a case of old handguns in his private rooms. I didn't think they were serviceable."

"What kind were they?" Wolf asked.

"I don't know," Alex said. "I think they were custom. But they looked like old revolvers, hold like six shots each."

"He said cookies, as in plural," Eagle pointed out. "Does that mean more than one gun?" Alex shook his head.

"No, if there were multiple weapons, he would have said 'sprinkles'," Alex informed them. Eagle nodded with a weird look on his face and the group fell silent for a moment before Fox spoke.

"What about the Ramen?"

"I honestly don't know," Alex said mulling it over.

"You don't?" Snake asked and Alex shook his head.

"There are two possibilities," he said. "Either Tom made up a new codeword and forgot to tell me."

"Or?" Wolf probed when Alex paused, trying to figure out a way to make his friend sound less crazy.

"Or, they really are out of Ramen," he said.

"Is there something wrong with your friend's head?" Wolf asked suddenly after a brief moment of silence.

"No, why?" Alex asked forcefully, feeling defensive.

"Well, you said yourself that he was supposed to be a normal kid," Snake said. "Normal kids wouldn't be reacting like this. They'd be freaking out."

"What's your point?" Alex asked, arms crossed.

"Is he insane?" Eagle deadpanned.

"No," Alex answered. "He just wants people to think he is."

"Why?" Wolf asked.

"It lets him do what he wants without having to explain himself." They didn't have an answer to that.

"It'll never work you know," Tom said to the pacing figure in front of him. Granted there wasn't much room to pace in his pantry, but Spitter was managing it. His gun was held loosely in his hand and he was ignoring Tom.

The boy was talkative by nature and with Spitter doing little to keep him holding his tongue, Tom talked. The man barely said anything and held the gun awkwardly, like he didn't quite know what to do with it. But the man was stubborn and was refusing to give in. Tom wouldn't be surprised if there were cops just beyond the panty door, waiting for the first clear shot they got.

Despite the severity of the situation, Tom couldn't help the mind numbing boredom that had somehow settled on him. He idly wondered if Alex felt like this too when he was captured.

"We're going in," Wolf said when he stepped back inside the van.

"I thought it was established that going in wasn't the best option," Fox said.

"They think they've got a sure fire plan," Wolf said.

"Where's Cub?" Eagle asked. The boy had stepped out nearly an hour ago to "take a leak". When he still wasn't back after twenty minutes Wolf had gone to look for him, muttering something about cocky teenage spies who needed GPS and backup to go from the bathroom to a fucking chair.

"Finalizing the plan," Wolf said stiffly.

"Thought he was going to the bathroom," Eagle said sounding amused. Wolf just shrugged, not even bothering to show his annoyance with the boy anymore. Over the course of the now eleven hour hostage situation, K-Unit had come to realize that showing annoyance at the things Cub did and said was ultimately a waste of time and energy while all but encouraging the boy to continue.

It had been made fairly obvious, rather quickly, that the man they were dealing with wasn't a professional or even fully crazy as Tom had so subtly tried to point out. No, he seemed more confused than anything.

Eagle stayed behind to monitor cameras and after Wolf's quick briefing of the plan, the other three prepared equipment, checked weapons, and left.

"It'll never work," Tom repeated trying to draw Spitter into a conversation. He'd just seen the small camera probe slither under the door but glanced up quickly so as not to draw attention to it. He hoped that meant they were moving in. He was tired, hungry, and had to pee.

The emotional rollercoaster that came with being held captive for the first time had left the normally energetic boy exhausted. Spitter also hadn't allowed him to eat anything even though they were sitting in the damn pantry staring at food for hours on end. Tom considered it torture. He'd also had a fairly large bottle of Gatorade when he'd come home from practice that day. That meant he was currently holding 36 fl. Oz. of sports drink in a 28 fl. Oz. bladder.

He didn't even have the luxury of bouncing his leg up and down to help hold it in because the ropes around his ankles were so damn tight. The boy hoped whatever they were planning wouldn't scare him at any point as he was likely to wet himself.

"You keep saying that," Spitter said, surprising Tom out of his thoughts. The boy had mostly been talking to himself during his stint of captivity in his pantry. It was a pleasant surprise to hear another voice, even if it was just Spitter's.

"It's true," Tom replied. When Spitter just looked at him with his balding hair all rumpled and the sweat dripping off his face, saying nothing, Tom continued. "They're not just going hand over some kid for you to kill because you're threatening another. They can't. Even if you do shoot me, you won't get away. You've talked to the cop; you know they've got the place surrounded. Just give up man. It's over."

"I can still use you," he said with a tone that suggested he was grasping at straws. Tom shook his head and forced a look of sympathy.

"Not for long," he said. "They'll come for me eventually, even if we are in tight quarters. If you hurt me, it'll only make it worse on you. People get real uptight about kids getting hurt."

Tom would have continued had his eyes not begun to sting so painfully he had to shut them as tight as he could. He let out a grunt of pain and didn't even bother to feel stupid as the tears rolled down his cheeks. He clenched his teeth as he heard Spitter fumbling around and cursing.

He snapped his eyes open in surprise when the door slammed open. He saw several men in combat gear all but tackle Spitter to the ground. The pantry was filled with a white smoke and the men had gas masks on. Tom slammed his eyes shut again as he felt the ropes around his ankles and wrists slide off.

"Let's get you out of here," a man said and Tom was pretty sure he'd heard that voice before. The man heaved him out of the chair and helped him stumble out of the house to a police van parked at the curb. He heard the neighbors applauding and cheering but took no notice. He was too busy trying to rub the sting out of his eyes.

He was also too busy feeling relieved that he was alive. He didn't know how Alex Rider could do this all the time.

Alex felt his shoulders sag in relief when Wolf helped Tom stumble into the van. His friend was still teary from the gas they'd pumped into the ventilation system of the house. It was the only way Alex could think of to get the gas into the pantry without Patterson noticing it too soon. Negotiations had been going nowhere and Alex knew they had to get Tom out of there before things spun out of control.

Once the man had been sufficiently blinded, Snake and Fox had all but dog piled him if Wolf's story was to be believed. The two were still dealing with Patterson when Tom blinked the last of the gas from his eyes.

"Oh god," he moaned. "Ow!" The three SAS trained people in the van just laughed.

"You okay Tom?" Alex asked, his smile never leaving his face.

"No I'm not okay!" Tom snapped irritably. "I've been a hostage for who knows how long!"

"Twelve hours," Eagle informed him. Tom grunted as he stood again.

"Where are you going?" Wolf asked. "We have to debrief you."

"It'll wait," Tom said, opening the van's door. "I have something important to do."

"What?" Wolf growled. Tom, undaunted, jumped to the street.

"Pee, eat, nap," the boy replied. "In that order." Tom disappeared as Wolf gave an annoyed huff and Alex shook his head at his friend.

Tom would be fine.