/AN/

First of all, I'd like to say sorry for not updating for sososo long. Time really just slips away. However I would also like to say Thank You sososo much for 100+ followers! I never thought I would even reach 10 when I first started out on this site and it is quite surreal to think that I managed to con 100 of you into thinking my story was worth following, so thank you. To celebrate this benchmark, I have finally decided to publish another chapter. I've been sitting on this one for a while and it still isn't perfect but I just really wanted to get something out.

Thank you for reading!

/

Alex felt like death. All he wanted to do was sleep but Tom was being an ass and nudging him every time he threatened to pass over into the land of nod. Honestly, could this presentation be any longer? Forty minutes had passed since the hand to hand combat spectacle and Alex's interest in what his former unit had to say had steeply declined since then. He was pretty sure his "fucks given" level was in the negative by now.

Eagle's voice buzzed irritatingly in his ears and had been doing so for a while now. Begrudgingly, Alex dragged his eyes up to watch the young man as he dramatically explained some of the general happenings in the camp back at the Brecon Beacons. Nothing of any substance was said but that didn't mean that the man didn't have over half of the students hanging from his every word. Even with his generic descriptions, this was the most animated Alex had ever seen Eagle and Alex thought that it didn't really suit him. Although that could have just been Alex's cynical teenage mind talking. He noted that he really needed to stop with the internalised sass at some point.

Alex spent the rest of the speech flicking through his phone. In true spy style, none of his teachers noticed the small device that was hidden by his leg as he proceeded to play a dupe version of flappy bird for the majority of the hour. It was a welcome distraction from the dull throb that was present in both his head and chest. Of course Tom noticed but when he tried to copy, the ever present Mr Jackson was quick to snatch the offending technology away.

Snake had been watching Alex for a while before the teenager finally noticed. His gaze was steady but slightly off to the side and Alex was unsure as to whether the man had actually been looking or not. It was only when his sharp eyes momentarily flicked back to Alex that he became certain that the soldier had been watching him till now. It made him somewhat uncomfortable to be under the direct scrutiny of the SAS soldier but Alex tried not to let that show through his body language as he righted himself in his chair. His leg was beginning to go dead from the awful plastic he was sitting on. He abandoned flappy bird. It could wait for another day.

Alex was very aware of the slight dampness on his sleeve as he dragged his eyes over to the clock on the wall. He was startled to see that there were only five minutes to go before the end of the "lecture". Finally! The SAS unit had definitely taken their time to monotonously drone through their heavily censored descriptions of missions from years ago. A quick text was sent to Smithers. With any luck, Alex would be gone from this stuffy hall and be away from his former unit in less than ten minutes. That thought alone was enough to raise his spirits somewhat.

A polite round of applause suddenly thundered to life around him. Alex instinctively joined in and watched in relief as Wolf, Snake, Eagle and Rabbit filed out through the large doors behind them. He noticed that Snake kept his eyes on him until the moment he left. That was a bit strange. And slightly creepy.

Within a few minutes, the teens in the hall had followed the soldiers outside and were loitering in the courtyard. For some reason, the coaches that were meant to be waiting outside to take the crowd back to London were nowhere to be seen. Neither were K-Unit for that matter. This didn't particularly bother Alex, but the absence of one Mr Smithers was irritating. As he swept his eyes across the courtyard a ringtone blaring Rick Astley started up, causing everyone in the vicinity to turn and stare at Mr Jackson. A look of pure panic crossed his face as he realised that it hadn't been on silent this entire time and he aggressively took it out of his pocket then stabbed a button.

"Hello, yes that's me- I- oh. Really? Right now?... Why wasn't I told earlier? No, he cannot! This is ridicu- Yes…yes of course, I'll send him right away…Alex!"

Alex had a pretty good idea of who had just been on the other end of that call, but he had no idea what had been said. It must have been strange because Alex had never seen anything even remotely close to the worry that was on his teacher's face right now.

"Yes, sir?"

"That was a man from the hospital- Dr Smith. He said that a blood test has come back positive and you're needed urgently back in London."

Alex had no knowledge of any blood test but decided to play along. Of course MI6 would once again get him out of school with the classic "Alex is deathly ill."

Clapping a hand to his mouth, Alex widened his eyes. "Oh no…They said it wasn't going to be so…so soon." Alex knew he was being an ass but it was amusing to watch Mr Jackson's face as it morphed from anxious to horrified.

"They said they were sending a- uh, social worker to collect you early- you should recognise him. Do you want me to come with you? You're looking a little pale."

Alex shook his head and quietly thanked the man. He could feel his eyes following him as he walked through the gates that opened the courtyard onto the main street with Tom close behind. He had obviously seen the entire exchange and was finding it difficult to hold back his laughter. Tom hated Mr Jackson as much as Alex and it was fun to see him flustered.

Safely out of view, Alex cracked a smile at his best friend and cackled like the evil child he was.

"He must really have been rattled. I'm pretty sure it's against the law to just let a student waltz off during a school trip."

Tom snorted. He was about to say something when a pale green car pulled up next to them on the road. It was fairly small with tinted windows, one of which had a young man hanging out of it.

"You should have told me you'd been demoted to social worker Smithers." Alex greeted for the second time that day.

"This is definitely not the worst job I've had to pretend to do, kid. One time in Moscow I had to pose as a barman- don't ask why, but it was hellish. Anyway, you good to go?"

"Sure, just give me a second." Alex turned to Tom. It was strange to actually have time to say goodbye before a mission. Normally things got going so quickly there was barely time to breathe before he found himself whisked halfway across the world. It was a nice change for once.

"I guess I'll see you in a few weeks," he shrugged. "This time I'll probably actually be able to text you once in a while, but no promises."

"Yeah, make sure you do. It's nice knowing my best friend isn't six feet under, even if it's only temporarily."

They both chuckled and Alex swung his rucksack into the back of the car.

"I'll go tell Jackson that you got into a car with a strange man."

"Thanks man, I know I can always count on you."

There was an awkward silence before Tom dipped his head and began making his way back to their classmates. He was walking backwards and watched, grinning as Alex dipped into the back of the car with his bag. He was worried and they both knew it but Alex did enough fretting for the both of them. After all, Tom would always be just a bystander. As much as he wished he could, there was nothing he could do to help his friend other than smile and support him as he watched MI6 tear his life apart once again.

Inside the small car, Alex watched as Tom mingled back into the crowd then disappeared. Smithers revved the engine and suddenly they were away. The traffic was light with a mixture of bikes, busses, trucks and cars around them as they made their way down into the centre of the city.

Alex and Smithers made light conversation, and for a little while, Alex managed to convince himself that he wasn't back on a mission. He just sat back into the slightly moth-eaten seats of the car enjoyed the sights. That was until Smithers flicked the indicator and turned into a gravely driveway.

A small block of flats stood in the gravel

"Alright Alex, this is where you'll be staying whilst you're here. I can't stick around but I'm sure you'll find your way there just fine. The room number's 12, second floor and `6 have been kind enough to give you an allowance this time."

There was definite sarcasm in the Irishman's voice as he said that last bit. It was nice to know that someone was as exasperated with MI6 as Alex was. For a moment, Alex thought that that was it, and Smithers was just going to leave him there but then the man reached into the glove compartment and retrieved a small bag. Gadgets.

A little bubble of excitement floated up in Alex's stomach and he suddenly felt 14 again. If there was anything he had missed during his year free from espionage, it was the gadgets. Smithers must have noticed the gleam in the teen's eye because he smiled a little.

"Alright son, I have a few small things that might help this time. They were a bit rushed but I'm sure you'll find a use for them somewhere. First up, we have this."

He held up a small blue piece of plastic with a large black strip running down the side of it. It looked like a generic credit card.

"This right here does multiple things. It's your debit card from MI6 primarily, they've given you around £400 but of course, they'll monitor what you're spending the money on- so no splashing out on whatever you kids buy these days! However, this can also be used as an access card. Most key card locks use the same software, especially in this area so you can more or less open any door with this. It won't work for every door, but I've done what I can. It's also fingerprint sensitive-right here, which will come in handy because pressing this button," he gestured to a tiny red dot on the side of the card, "will send a distress signal out to MI6. Your finger has to be over the fingerprint sensor for any of the functions to work. We've had some problems recently with agents setting off distress signals from inside their pockets and that's always a pain…"

He handed the card to Alex who pointedly slid it into his front pocket.

"Secondly, we have a little bug device."

Out of the bag came a packet of ladybug push pins.

"These are some of the smallest bugs we have and they're very easy to operate. All you need to do is stick the pin into a wall or board and it will be activated. Or you can twist off the pin and stick it to the bottom of a table or something like that- you just need to put pressure on the pin beforehand; this switches it on."

Alex slid the 12 pack of ladybugs into his rucksack. Of course there would be a pun somewhere.

The third gadget was a sleek black phone case. Of course MI6 knew the exact model of phone he had. It let him intercept text and Wi-Fi signals that were being used in the vicinity so that he more or less had the ability to hack into anyone's phone around him, provided that they were using the internet or had just sent or received a text.

"And finally, this is something MI6 were hesitant to let you have. Especially after what happened in Egypt. If you don't want it you don't have to take it but I thought that you should at least have the choice."

A small hand gun was produced from the bag. Alex's mouth went dry. The last time he had used one had been with Juliu-no, that was a year ago. He was over it.

"I know how you feel about these but you've been alone without protection so many times now, and one day your luck is going to fail. You're not fourteen any more- I just want you to be prepared. It is safe enough for you to carry around and it won't be picked up by scanners in museums."

Alex nodded. With a hand that was only slightly shaking, he took the weapon. It was remarkably light, barely weighing more than a few tens of grams. It was small too. It looked more like a toy than the lethal weapon it was. He waited for Smithers to continue, to tell him that there was a secret use to it or that it only fired stun bullets, but he remained silent. Alex slid the tiny gun and extra ammo into his bag with the ladybugs before nodding goodbye and slipping out of the car.

The gravel was still wet from the rain that morning. Little shines of water glinted off of the coarse stones which grated and crunched as Smithers reversed the green car back out onto the main road. He gave a little wave then was gone once again, just like Tom, mingling with the rest of the traffic. Alex was left standing outside the small apartment block that was to be his home for the next few weeks.

His room was on the second floor. It overlooked a small street that lead out either onto the main road on the right or a small field on the left. There were three more floors above him which all housed university students, Alex assumed. One look around the tiny apartment told Alex that he would be extremely cramped living here. The bed took up the majority of the space and a small desk occupied the rest, leaving a mere two metres of floor space empty. Even the balcony was tiny. There was only just enough room to stand on it if he kept his back flat against the wall, still, it offered a small respite from the claustrophobic interior. If he was ever ambushed, it would make a viable escape route. That thought made Alex frown slightly. Here he was thinking about ambushes and he still had no idea what the mission even was!

He left the balcony and shimmied his way over to the bed, pulling his laptop out of his rucksack as he went. He quickly assessed it for damage since it had really taken quite the beating today and was pleased to find only one tiny dent in the lid. Alex had accidentally left the laptop on standby for the whole day, so it was rather low on charge by the time it booted up. He couldn't be bothered to go on a hunt for his charger right now, which was no doubt buried in the deep, dark recesses of his bag by now, so he made short work of opening his email and opening the website with his mission files on them. Smithers had probably protected the files so that he couldn't screenshot them but there was no way he could stop Alex from taking pictures of them on his phone. He would delete them later but right now his computer was about to die and he had a personal rule to keep his phone as out of MI6 business as possible. That included opening emails from them. His phone was something he kept on him at all times so it made him feel more secure to keep it separate from his line of work. Alex knew it was a bit paranoid and that if Mrs Jones wanted to access his phone, she could do it at the push of a button, but if he could fool himself into thinking he had even a bit of control in his life, he damn well would.

Just as he finished taking the last photo of the five page document, his laptop screen went black. Alex pushed away the laptop then flopped back onto the bed to read.

The mission was actually very simple. Alex was immediately suspicious and read the page again.

Alexander J. Rider

Mission file:

March 18th

Recently, there has been a sharp increase in the supply of class A and B drugs in the city. There has always been a small amount of drug use which we loosely monitor, especially by students but this spike is much larger than normal. What is especially worrying is that we cannot pinpoint who is producing them because we believe they are coming from within the university. We don't want to get the police involved yet because we want to take the problem down quietly and without public knowledge. If we start taking people in for questioning more than we already have it is highly likely that the supplier(s) will lay low or even run and we need them brought in at any cost. This needs to be done quickly and efficiently.

As part of your cover you have been entered into the "Asian and Middle Eastern Studies" course- you will be studying Arabic and Persian along with Spanish whilst you are here.

Your name will be Alexander (Alex) Renaud. French father, English mother. Both work in banking in Nice. You have come to England for six months to study whilst your parents are away on business and chose a course which is less competitive.

You will use your time here to track down the drugs supplier and also improve your language skills. The lecturers won't ask questions; we have made sure of that. If you need more time, contact us through our other operatives in the area who will be assisting you in this mission. As we have reason to believe that the supplier may be dangerous, K-Unit have been placed in the apartment next to yours for your protection. Three members have recently been injured so they were given leave from the SAS for the next few months.

Alex stopped reading from that point. He just lay on the bed for a while, feeling a confusing mixture of emotions whirl through his head. The most prominent was anger- why did MI6 think it was necessary for him to have backup now? Why K-Unit of all people? And what was Mrs Jones not telling him? There was obviously more to this than just some drug trafficking otherwise the police would be in there quick as a whip. This mission could definitely have been done by someone else, so why did they need him specifically?

Alex's thoughts were interrupted when there was a sharp knock on his door. He was startled enough in that moment that he managed to drop his phone on his face and it hit him just below his eye. Alex spent a moment rolling around on his bed, clutching his new wound and waiting for the initial pain to subside before sliding onto his feet and staggering to the door. There was no peep hole but Alex had a pretty good idea of who was going to be standing there. He wasn't surprised in the least when he saw exactly what he had suspected. Wolf and Snake.

In perfect synchronisation, Alex and Wold both rolled their eyes.

"I fucking knew it!" The older man huffed.

"I see you're just as happy with this arrangement as I am." Alex replied flatly. For some reason, the only thing that was bothering him right now was the fact that he still wasn't as tall as either of the SAS men yet. He wasn't sure why but made a mental note to never bring that up in conversation.

To make it clear that he didn't want either of the men to enter his room, Alex leant heavily on the doorframe, blocking their view inside as bet he could.

"So what brings you two here anyway?" He asked as nonchalantly as possible. "I'd have thought you'd still be down at the hall taking care of the children." The question seemed to irritate Wolf further and Alex decided to make a game of seeing how far he could push him. With any luck, the whole unit would get the message and leave him alone as much as possible.

"We came here to confirm my suspicions. MI6 never told us who this "agent" was that we were sent as backup for. Now I know why." Wolf snarled. "When I saw you there in the hall, I fucking knew and now I'm pissed off. Of course '6 would send us on some fool's errand as soon as we were available. This is bloody intern work!"

"I'm glad to see that we're on the same page with this Wolf. Since it's pretty clear that neither of us want to spend any time together why don't we just call it quits here? You get a six month holiday, I finish up this business here in a few weeks without you guys, it's win-win really. Waddya say?" He wiggled his eyebrows a bit at the end to further get his point across and could have sworn he saw a vein pop in Wolf's forehead but before the man could could say anything, Snake spoke up.

"Yeah, as nice as that sounds kid, not gonna happen. Mrs Jones really likes you…" He looked Alex up and down pointedly. "…For some reason. Basically, if anything happens to you whilst we're here it's our necks on the line. She made it very clear that she could destroy our careers if you end up dead or something so it is in all of our best interests to keep you safe."

Alex groaned and let his head fall back. So close.

"I can look after myself." He snapped

"Apparently not."

Alex glared at Snake. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Before he could react Snake had stepped forward and grabbed his arm, roughly digging his nails into the wound which was still aching from hours ago. Alex cringed and let out a small yelp of pain. He tried to wrench his arm out of Snake's grasp but there was no room to move in the confined space of the hallway so he made a swing at his chest in an attempt to loosen his hold. This proved to be a mistake when Wolf caught his fist mid-swing and bent it back until he cried out again.

"Don't go swinging at my teammate kid. You're not one of us anymore. You never were."

Snake ignored Wolf and slowly let go of Alex's arm. He stepped back deliberately before speaking.

"Look kid, I'm not doing this because I want to. I get that you don't want us here and we don't want to be here either but I'm not sacrificing my career for your temper tantrums. I don't know what you did to get that cut but it's pretty deep and if it's still soaking through your sleeve it must be pretty bad. Just let me look at it and we will be out of your hair for at least a few days."

"I can do it myself. I've dealt with wors-" He was cut off by Wolf, who was still gripping his fist, twisting his arm back until it was nearly as far as it could go. Alex's ribs screamed in protest and a single black danced in his vision for a moment. It was a warning. This was obviously a fight that Alex was never going to win so he let his body go slack.

"Fine, fine. Do what you want." He muttered. Thankfully, Wolf let him go a couple of seconds later. For some reason the whole interaction had left Alex a bit light headed so he discreetly leant against the wall as he made his way back into his tiny room with the two SAS men in tow. Out of nowhere, Snake produced a small bag with medical supplies in it and ordered Alex to sit on his bed.

Alex obliged and watched silently as Snake rummaged around in his bag and withdrew with a roll of bandages, a bottle and a small plastic box.

"Roll up your sleeve." He said in the distant tone of a medic.

Gingerly, Alex pulled up his sleeve to reveal the rushed tissue-sock bandage he had made earlier which was the unpleasant reddish brown colour of semi dried blood. He pulled that off as well and deposited it in a bin then looked at how his arm was holding up.

To Alex, it didn't look that bad. The edges of the wound were a light greyish-pink and the area around it was an angry red. He had seen better, but he had also seen a lot worse and in the grand scheme of things, this didn't seem like anything to worry about. Snake's face told a different story.

"How the hell did you do that?" Snake asked incredulously.

Alex shrugged. "I jumped into a truck. It had some scrap metal rolling around in there and I guess I was just unlucky."

Snake muttered something under his breath that Alex didn't catch then reached for his bag again. This time he pulled out a small syringe which Alex raised an eyebrow to.

"It's infected, Cub. Pretty badly too but this should clear it up mostly. I'm still baffled as to how you managed this but let's not get into that right now. Wolf could you get me some water from the bathroom?"

Wolf nodded then left. Snake sat down and began working on Alex's arm. He first cleaned it off with some fancy wipes then picked up the syringe. As he carefully took it out of its casing he cast a look back at Alex who was sitting unnaturally still.

"Got anything else you want to tell me? I noticed you had some difficulty moving during your fight with Rabbit earlier."

Alex couldn't be bothered to try to skirt around this question, especially when the man asking had a syringe. Nodding, he used his free hand to lift up the edge of his shirt to reveal a large purple and black bruise forming on his side. Snake gave a low whistle and gently prodded the area around the bruise.

"Yeah, that looks like a couple of broken ribs to me. There isn't really much I can do for you right now except give you a prescription for some pain meds, but that will be in a bit because I'll need to get to my computer first. All I can recommend is that you put some ice on it and don't do anything too strenuous for a while. Sleep upright tonight as well, that should help with the pain."

"Wonderful. That sounds fun." Alex was about to say something else when Wolf re-emerged from the bathroom. Alex quickly pulled down his shirt and Snake thanked him for the water. He dunked a wipe in it and then carefully continued to clean the inside of the cut. He did his best to avoid the deepest parts but it still stung like hell and Alex couldn't help some of his sharp inhales through his gritted teeth. The injection came next which wasn't as bad as Alex had anticipated. Then Snake picked up the little box and pulled out a sealed packet with a short curved suture needle in it. Alex felt like he had shot himself in the foot at that point because he distinctly remembered thinking that he would need stitches for his arm. Today really was his lucky day.

Half an hour later, Alex's arm was deemed acceptable by the K-Unit medic so he and Wolf packed up their things and left with a forceful promise to check how his arm was doing the next day. By then, Alex was knackered so he sent a quick text to Tom then flopped down, still fully clothed and was asleep in minutes.