Set between Season 2 and Season 3: Michael gets busted
Alex was certain she had looked everywhere for her mentor. She was sure she was still around here. It was really early for her to have gotten home already. She circled around the corridor towards the locker rooms for a second time and noticed another door. She doesn't remember there ever being a door there. She walked in and saw a few rows of lockers and a few benches to the side. By one of the lockers, she spotted Nikita.
"What is this? I never knew there was a second locker room?" Alex spoke startling Nikita a little bit. She was just confused. Alex was sure she knew every corner of that hellhole. Nikita made sure of that when she was training her.
"Cause you didn't have a high enough clearance of a top agent." Nikita simply stated while still paying more attention to her task. She threw a quick glance at Alex and saw her still confused face so she explained.
"Agent locker rooms and recruit locker rooms are separated for obvious reasons. However, most agents don't have business here unless they've been activated for an op so they don't really need this space. Percy's so-called "top agents" do though." Nikita shared with her best friend. It wasn't really of importance so she wasn't surprised that she had forgotten to mention it in their training.
"Top agents?" Alex had never heard of that. Yes, she knew some agents were superior because of their experience but she thought all agents were roughly on the same level.
"It was around when I was an agent. Basically, all the handlers, techs and most active agents for ops were named by Percy as 'top agents'.They had higher clearance because they had all the insights of every op going on. Sometimes we would spend days locked up in here" Nikita continued. She remembered spending countless nights and days doing mission preps and reports after. It had its perks but it took away from that agent freedom sometimes.
"Wait, you were one of those agents?" Alex was trying to take it all in. She couldn't believe that Nikita never told her about this. She was even more confused on why they hadn't worked on her becoming a top agent. She would have been able to help Nikita so much.
"I don't know if I should be offended by that or not?" Nikita joked. Alex then realized how her question came out and laughed as well. " No, I meant - I mean how come we never tried to make me one?"
"It stopped being a thing a little bit before I escaped. Percy was getting paranoid about too many people walking around knowing too much. It made him vulnerable to his enemies. He kept the group of agents that remained though. He just never added new ones to his secret club." Nikita explained and finally busted the locker open. Alex then focused on what she was doing.
"So why are you here and couldn't you just get the keys?" She wasn't surprised I mean this was Nikita but still, not everything had to be such a task.
"Michael has no idea where they are and he doesn't really care. I was the one that was curious." Nikita revealed while puling a few boxes out and some files.
"Is this Michael's locker?" Alex guessed. She knew Nikita wouldn't have left anything in here that would have helped her on the outside. If she had her mentor would have definitely made her retrieve it. So the only logical thing was that those were Michael's things.
"Yeah. We were talking the other night and somehow this got brought up. He never managed to clear it out and was surprised to find out that no one had touched it ever since he escaped as well." Nikita used her locker as a closet mainly. A few formal outfits along with some for training and usually something to keep her entertained while working long hours trapped underground. Michael on the other hand used it as a file cabinet on whatever he was working on. Nikita would spot on occasions though a few books thrown in there or his own little stash of prefered weapons - a handgun and his favorite knife (which he had given to her. She somehow managed not to lose it and still has it.)
"So you decided to break into his locker?" Alex still didn't understand Nikita's motive. What could Michael have in there that was so interesting?
"I'm sorry that I prefer breaking into a locker than organizing paperwork" Nikita quipped. She was bored out of her mind and was looking for any excuse to not go through reports. She passed the locker room and decided to hide there for a bit while snooping a little bit.
Alex couldn't help but laugh. The work that had to be done in order to get this place running was hideous. They all had different tasks every day to help speed up the process but that still didn't make things less tiring. They were all looking for some kind of escape at some point during the day.
"Let's see" Nikita started pulling stuff out of the boxes. It was everything she expected. Some old mission reports, weapons. There was a file full of information on Kasim and everything that could be linked to him. Nikita wasn't surprised. After all, that was what he had as the main mission in his life. She was glad that they were able to get the son of a bitch. Michael wouldn't need that file anymore.
She also found the pile of books that she had been eyeing years ago "Classics of course"
Michael and Nikita had similar tastes for the most part but one thing they did disagree on was classics. Nikita wasn't a fan of them at all. In a lot of the motels they had stayed in there was a small collection of books in that genre. Michael would read to her on occasions before bed. She agreed only because she loved having that kind of strange intimacy that she found with him in those little moments. Even though she still didn't like the books they started to hold some kind of value so she planned on taking them home.
Alex was going through a metal box that she pulled from under Nikita's pile. It had random stuff in it. One thing that caught her attention was a shooting target. Just one. It looked like the ones they used when training to shoot with sniper rifles. It was a straight shot right in the target but still why would he keep it.
"Your boyfriend is boring but weird. Why would he have this in here?" Alex showed it to Nikita holding it up and was shocked to see Nikita smirking.
"Let me see that?" her smile grew even bigger. She was pretty sure she knew what it was but wanted to check. Her suspicions were confirmed. It was her recruit ID number at the back. "I can't believe this bastard." she gasped
Flashback"And what makes you think you're getting this bad boy" Michel smirked"I'm the better shot" Nikita stated"Oh, I knew you had gotten rogue I didn't know you had gotten delusional" - M" I'm - I'm sorry I remember somebody who set the distance shoot record at Division in her first year of eligibility. Who was that? - N"No respect for the man whose mark you broke, huh? - M" Sucks to be you" - N
The memory made Nikita giggle. They have come so far since then. She knew Michael always cared about her more than the other recruits. They developed a special connection. Yet she was still surprised. She was going to have great fun with that one.
"Care to explain?" There was obviously a story behind this Alex thought. Otherwise it wouldn't have brought such a reaction from Nikita.
"I don't know if they mentioned this to the recruits after I left. Probably not. Michael had set the distance shoot record in Division. No one was able to break it until-"
"You came along" Alex instantly knew where this was going. She could imagine Michael's reaction to a recruit breaking his record and busted laughing. "Oh, I could just see his face when you took that shot"
"I thought the same thing actually. I mean I did make it a goal of mine. But I mainly wanted to get close to it just to tease him. I didn't expect to actually set a new one." Nikita couldn't stop smiling "I remember looking at him. He was just stood frozen staring trying to figure out what had just happened. But then he broke for me. He might not admit but I saw that smile creep up.''
"So he kept the shooting target that you broke his record with. I swear you guys are something else" Alex joked. It was weird but Michael and Nikita kind of weird. She found their antics adorable and touching. Although she constantly teased them their love was something out of this world. She hoped that one day she could have something even close to it.
Nikita laughed along "I can't believe he actually kept it all this time. And I know he isn't one to just shove things in there and forget about them'' It made her heart burst. Her sneaky Micheal. She couldn't wait to bring this up.
"Are you serious?" Alex couldn't believe her. She wished they could have seen themselves back then. He was constantly drawing parallels between her and Nikita not to menntion him 'failing' to capture her. Nikita restrained from asking Alex too much about Michael but the young agent caught on pretty quickly that there was history there.
"You guys are so whipped from the start. I'm surprised he hasn't kept everything you left behind. You did say you were never enemies so why are you shocked"
Nikita blushed a little bit "We weren't that bad"
"Yeah, of course not. I mean it was definitely better than having to watch you guys all over each other" Alex groaned "Oh, the things you can't unsee"
"Okay, okay I'll try to remember to check every corner when Sean comes around. You know I think Ryan and Birkoff are still a little traumatized" Nikita threw it right back at Alex.
"Okay I think we can go now" Alex quickly started putting everything back in the boxes trying to hide her flushed cheeks.
Nikita smirked but decided to let it go for now and help her out. She took the more personal things with her and left the files. They could deal with them later. She was eager to get home to a special someone.
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