Walk Among the Flurries
Chapter Text
An hour later, Bond found himself walking purposefully down the sidewalk, hunched into his navy topcoat against the biting wind and blowing snow. He had no real destination in mind, only that he needed to escape his hotel room and the parade of visitors and their less-than-flattering impressions of him. He had been, in the briefest expanse of time, been accused of being both a sexual predator and then little more than a prostitute. This on top of the informal opinion at MI-6 that he was untested, unreliable, and probably broken. It would be humorous if it wasn't so depressing.
So he set off with no real destination in mind, simply the desire to walk and let the frigid winter air peel the sense of disgust and self-loathing off him. He headed uptown on Ninth Avenue—a plain, unpopular strip which was home mostly to storefronts, apartments, and small unremarkable restaurants that would be out of business a year from now.
New York still retained some of its magic, even in the midst of a weather pattern such as this. The skyscrapers' lights projected from behind a veil of clouds and snow flurries like indistinct sentinels in the night. A message to its residents: this city will always be here, even through this. It gave Bond a small sense of companionship as he trudged through the accumulating snow, the sting of winter chill biting through his loafers. He should have brought winter footgear, but hadn't anticipated climbing through snowdrifts in New York City.
Traffic was light—Manhattan drivers being unsteady on snow accumulations greater than eight centimeters or so—and so when the dark SUV came up behind him, he was already aware of it and edgy before it ever entered his field of vision. His gloved hand curled around the grip of the P99 riding in his coat pocket. He tilted the gun, ready to shoot from the pocket if need be, a first shot to buy him time to get into a better shooting stance or fighting position. He didn't bother trying to guess who might be trying to assassinate him—there would be time for analysis later, but only if he survived. Instead, he simply rode the tide of his adrenaline and his instincts.
The passenger-side door swung open, and Bond took the slack out of the trigger, felt it hit the wall before he recognized the handsome features of the man who called out to him.
"Why don't you hop in, get warm," Peart said. "We got a lot to talk about."
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