Archive of Our Own ^beta

 

Everything had been fine an hour ago.

Danny catches himself on a tree trunk. His heart is pounding in his chest so hard it hurts, and he hates having to get used to it over and over again. 

He’s burning up from the inside, and when he reaches for the cold, it fizzles into nothing.

The woods echo with the sound of boots snapping over twigs. Further, distant shouts ring out—harsh and short, like dogs barking. He curls his fingers against the rough bark, not caring about the dull pain it dredges up. 

Fuck the Foundation, fuck their Mobile Task Forces, and fuck whatever they shot him with. It hurts—burning fingers coursing through his side, winding under his skin and blocking off his core.

He forces his body to move, stumbles over a tangle of roots. His limbs are heavy and uncooperative, but he has to keep going. Keep as much distance between him and them as he can. He has a big enough lead that he should be off their infrared scanners. 

They aren’t looking for him—not like this. 

Tree branches snag at his clothes as he pushes through, scraping across his face. His chest is tight, growing tighter; whether it’s because he can’t access his powers or because he’s sure there’s a box with a number on it just for him, he doesn’t know. 

If he’s honest with himself, it’s both.

He just has to make it into this town and try to blend in… with any luck, whatever this is will wear off and he’ll be a hundred miles away this time tomorrow. 

When he breaks the tree line, his hands and cheeks are stinging against the cool evening air. It’ll be dusk within the hour. 

The shadows are long languid shapes that creep along the ground. They whisper to him—a call he can’t answer. 

Danny hauls himself over a chain-link fence. The metal digs into his hands, and the effort makes his vision swim. Why didn’t he steal more from the last convenience store?

Whatever. Hindsight’s twenty-twenty and all that shit. He doesn’t have time.

The fence rattles against the poles as he drops down on the other side, wincing. His knees feel like they might buckle. It won’t take the task force long to comb the woods and realize he isn’t downed. 

He yanks his hood up over his head and cuts across a parking lot towards the closest building. The orange of the sky reflects in its windows. He skirts the outside, stepping up onto the sidewalk. He looks both directions. There’s a park down at the end of the street, occupied by a smattering of people and their dogs. Someone has a guitar, strumming and singing a song he can’t really hear. 

Danny knows a thing or two about small towns like this. The sleepy but always-watching type. 

He turns away from the park and towards what looks like the main drag. If he’s lucky, he’ll find a comic book store or arcade—somewhere he hopefully won’t look too out of place. 

He feels the absence of his powers like a gaping wound. Or maybe a lock box he can’t pry open. 

Dull, burning pain echoes down his arm at the thought, and he trips over his own feet, bumping into an empty chair outside a restaurant’s outdoor seating. People a few tables away turn to look at him, a mix of curiosity and suspicion. 

Shit. 

He says nothing—hunches his shoulders and pushes away from the restaurant. The smell of food begs him to come back. 

He clasps his right hand around his left wrist inside his hoodie’s pocket. He’ll worry about being hungry later. 

As he goes, he glances down alleys, but they’re offensively well-lit. Tidy, even, with murals painted on the walls. Fucking well-off little artsy towns. 

There’s a small women’s clothing store with racks set up outside the door. Sweaters and floral button-ups twist on their hooks in the evening breeze. The sound of car engines purr up and down the streets—crawling past him, gingerly parallel parking across the street. 

It’s all so mundane. 

An unmarked white van stops at an intersection two blocks ahead of him. 

Fuck. 

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Time to get off the street. 

A tremor goes through his hands. He glances left and right—down on the corner is a 7-Eleven. It’s better than nothing—better than the women’s boutique. His chest tightens and he keeps his head down. There’ll be cameras. 

He’s probably ended up on enough already. 

Hot dread soaks through him. He glances over his shoulder as he walks, hopes the van doesn’t turn this way—hopes they don’t have more cars—knows they do. 

Is it too much to hope that they can’t track his signature with his powers offline? Probably.

He picks up his pace across the street and pushes into the convenience store. The door chimes when he walks in and he casts a glance at the person behind the counter. They’re a middle-aged lady with wiry hair and dark makeup, looking like she’d rather be watching paint dry. There’s deep frown lines around her mouth. She says nothing to him when he comes in, but when she catches his eyes her shoulders hunch as if to protect her from a cold wind. 

He sidesteps the heavy door and tries to force himself to relax. Is he breathing too much or not enough? He has no idea. 

The fluorescent ceiling lights hum above him, washing everything in bleak too-bright light.

“—109.9 The Fox. The best place to listen to your favorite Top Forty Pop Hits—” the radio crackles down from the plastic ceiling speakers. A song starts that Danny’s never heard before.

He picks a middle aisle, staying away from the windows. The store is laid out like a hundred others; the fridges are at the walls, so he avoids them too. Would’ve gravitated towards their comforting chill otherwise.

Here, there’s dried goods. Packages of mixed nuts, beef jerky. Energy food. Danny stares numbly at the labels. Mango Habanero, Barbeque Mesquite, Aloha Hawaiian…

God. He’s hungry.

The cashier is looking out the window when Danny sneaks a glance. Follows her gaze. No vans pulling up on the curb.

Alright then. Not like he has any cash on him, but that shouldn’t be a problem. He reaches out—

The teriyaki beef crinkles gunshot loud as his left arm spasms and smacks it off the shelf. He sucks a pained breath through his teeth as his core contracts in protest. 

The lady at the counter looks up sharply.

He shoves the jerky back into place and tries to remember how to breathe. The radio station briefly spits static.

Right. No powers. No fucking powers, and no fucking money, so no fucking food. He ducks behind another shelf to break the lady’s line of sight. He can feel her eyes boring into his back now.

Fine. Screw it. He can starve a little while longer, so long as he can get through this—

He stops a few steps in when he sees he’s not alone. It’s a boy with brown hair, circles under his eyes and a stud in one earlobe. About his age, if Danny had to guess. Shorter than him, but sturdier. Even his stance is square.

He nearly backs away down a different aisle, but the stranger turns to glance at him, holding a colorful package of candy. 

Danny freezes as he looks him over. The stranger’s head tilts ever so slightly. He looks down at the candy in his hands and then back to Danny. He lifts an eyebrow. 

“Gummy worms?” he asks. 

For a second, Danny has to remind himself that this is real. That this person is talking to him. He doesn’t remember the last time he spoke to a living person. Actually, he doesn’t remember the last time he spoke, period. 

The stranger gives him a look. “Not a fan? What about gummy bears?”

“Huh?” he forces out. 

“Instead of the gummy worms. They’re basically the same thing, just smaller.” He stops to consider the candy lining the shelf. “Or, actually, d’you want peach rings, maybe?” 

Danny blinks. 

“…Y-you want to buy me candy?”

“Psh, sure. You look like you could use it. It’s not my money, anyway.” 

Danny just stands there. He almost wants to laugh. 

Here he is, one more malfunction away from spending the rest of his pitiful afterlife in a white box, and this guy wants to buy him—peach rings?

In the space where Danny fails to respond, the stranger goes back to browsing. His fingers skim over the bags, making them rustle. All Danny can think of is dry leaves. Packaged candy feels like something from another lifetime.

“Well, I’m getting gummy worms,” he muses, securing them in the crook of his elbow. He invites Danny’s input with another glance. “You gonna make me guess what you like?”

“Uh.”

“I’ll just close my eyes and grab something, and whatever it is is what you’re getting.”

“But—”

“Any allergies?”

“I…”

Danny takes too long to answer, so the stranger makes good on his threat of random selection. Knocks over several packets of Werther’s Original in the process. 

Danny flinches as they scatter to the ground, but miraculously, the bored lady tending the counter doesn’t manifest to start yelling.

“Congratulations,” the guy says, opening his eyes with a wry smile, “I hope you like Andes.”

Danny should say something. He doesn’t know what. “You can’t…”

“The twenties in my pocket say otherwise.”

Danny shakes his head. “I mean it. Don’t spend it on me.” 

He can’t buy anything himself, and stealing is off the table. That much is obvious. But he’ll be fine, as long as he can avoid them long enough for his powers to come back online. 

He only needs food when he’s human. The last year has had few enough human days that he doesn’t even need two hands to count them. 

He doesn’t plan on changing that any time soon.

So he just has to get through this.

Right. He just has to get through this.

“You’re not the boss of me,” Andes Guy says. Adding insult to injury, he snags a second bag of Andes, and after a moment, a duplicate bag of gummy worms, too.

“Hey,” Danny starts, but the guy pinches the edge of his sleeve between two fingers, and puts another finger to his own lips. 

Danny nearly jumps when he feels a chocolate bar soundlessly slipping into his hoodie’s pocket.

“Distraction,” Andes Guy mouths at him, lifting the chocolate mints and the gummy worms. “Prize,” he mouths after, pointing at Danny’s stomach. Out loud, he says, “It’s cool, man. I’ve got you covered.”

“Th-thanks,” Danny says, trying to play along.

Andes gives him a wry little smile. He speaks in a low tone, but his body language doesn’t change. “Pull your hood down and relax your shoulders. You’re a normal customer.” Presses a bill into his hand. “You pay for some, you pocket the rest.”

Danny feels the need to glance around the store for eavesdroppers, but resists it. “You—you’re helping me steal?”

“Uh, yeah, basically.” 

“Do you always encourage people to break the law?” he whispers.

Andes grins like a devil. “Only sometimes.” His smile softens. “When it looks like they need it.”

Danny looks over his shoulder once. No agents or vans through the window.

He tries to smile back. “Thanks? But—listen, I… I don’t need to add getting caught for petty theft to my rap sheet.”

Danny winces, withdraws.

Andes snorts softly. “Just worry about living long enough to have one at all.”

Danny is, quite literally, out of his element. As if he needed any more confirmation that he was out of practice with this stuff. 

Andes must attribute his hesitancy to the concept of stealing—as if Danny could still hold any moral high ground about that.

Andes pockets another slim chocolate bar and moves on to consider and subsequently disregard a packet of Five Gum, before sliding an impressive number of granola bars, one after the other, into the pockets of his own cargo pants. 

Danny represses the urge to look over his shoulder for the second time in less than a minute. Andes told him to look normal.

Andes is good at this, maybe too good.

“…Should I be worried about your rap sheet?”

“Oh, yeah. Definitely. It starts with arson and ends with second-degree murder, so you should be real intimidated.” Andes pauses. “Wait. Does blowing shit up count as arson?”

“You mean like… terrorism?”

“No, like—” Andes stops short, then groans. “Aw, fuck. I guess like terrorism. Damn.” Mutters to himself. “Not arson. What else starts with A?”

“…Aiding and abetting?”

“The Queen of England formally forgave those charges, actually.”

Danny stifles a snort. The Queen of England?

“I don’t think you have any criminal record, then.”

“Pity.” Andes sighs dramatically, spreading his arms. “Here I was, ready to start my supervillain origin story.”

“Dude, being British is a crime in and of itself. If you’re on speaking terms with the Queen, I think you’re already part of the way there. But…” Danny trails off. Something catches his eye. “We could cross arson off the list pretty easily.” He snags a misplaced lighter from between two Pringles cans and waggles it at Andes. “Check it.” 

Andes laughs, sudden and bright. “I like the way you think!” 

He holds a hand out and Danny smacks the Bic into Andes’ palm. For a moment, they grin at each other over it. 

There’s the prickle of something almost warm in Danny’s chest. It’s not unpleasant. 

Of course, like everything else, it doesn’t last. 

The door chimes, breaking the fragile bubble of calm Danny had found himself in. He turns towards the sound and his stomach bottoms out.

Walking into the store is a man with stiff posture and a slim tranquilizer gun strapped to his hip, along with a can of bear mace.  

“Sorry to bother you, ma’am, but have you seen or heard anything strange in the last half-hour or so?” 

“Fuck,” Danny hisses, backing up further into the aisle. 

The lady’s response is lost to the white noise buzzing through his eardrums.

He needs to leave.

He needs his invisibility, because the field agent—clearly a field agent, couldn’t be any more obvious about it if he was wearing a neon sign—is planted squarely between Danny and the way he came in. 

Should have checked for a back door. A window. An anything. His eyes dart sideways and all he clocks are solid things. Shelves, walls. Ceiling.

Never in his life has Danny felt more trapped. He envisions himself as a rat in a cage. A fox in a snare. 

An entity in a tidy white box.

He ducks his head, tugs his hood more closely around his face. His hands shake. Every inch of him is sickeningly heavy. Slow and clumsy. Human.

“Woah. You good?”

And he’s not alone.

The guy he’d been talking to has a worried crease between his eyebrows. Danny can’t focus on that. Instead, he attempts to watch the agent from the corner of his eye as he edges back, and tries to think.

The only thing his brain sees fit to provide is a vague nostalgic desire to say goodbye to the first living person he’s spoken to since—since. Doesn’t know what he’d say even if he tried. 

Thanks for the laugh, maybe.

The guy follows Danny’s gaze. Narrows his eyes on the agent, or maybe on the lady with her dark makeup as she twirls her hair around her finger and pretends to think. 

The distraction won’t last long; to anybody that’s not Danny, the agent probably looks inconsequential. Danny readies himself to bolt. If he’s fast enough, maybe he could make it out the door…

Instead, Andes mutters, in a very sudden and very British accent, “Aw, shite. That’s not good.”

And when he looks back at Danny, his expression is… considering. Gauging.

For a thunderous heartbeat, Danny just stares back. Deer in the headlights.

Andes jerks his head over his shoulder. “We should get out of here,” he says, sounding perfectly American again.

“What?” Danny can’t make himself move.

“Come on,” he says in a low tone, “follow my lead and keep your head down.” He nudges Danny’s elbow. Somehow, his feet unglue from the floor.

Andes leads them to the back with minimal noise. His eyes discreetly flicker to the windows, though his face is impassive. 

They make good headway away from the agent, who’s still questioning the lady, but then Andes slows midway through and appears to browse the products.

“Dude,” Danny whispers unsteadily, “what—”

Andes puts a quick hand on his elbow before looking back at the chips. “Chill, man.” He inclines his head slightly behind him.

Danny looks over his shoulder and his throat closes up.

There’s another suited agent on the street, visible through the windows at the end of their current row of shelves. She’s flipping through a notepad, questioning someone. The beady red eye of an ecto-meter stares at him from her belt. So does an ecto-gun. 

On the opposite side of the street, a white van rolls to stop.

If he’d run out the door, it would’ve been over right then and there.

He gets nudged again. Andes is moving towards a door marked ‘EMPLOYEES ONLY’. Danny starts to follow. Hope wells up in him—neither of the agents had spotted them yet, and they’ve almost disappeared out the back—

Tendrils of hot poison squeeze his core. His left arm spasms and he hisses through his teeth.

Through the window, the red eye starts blinking.

Andes looks at him, brows pinched, but it smoothes into a kind of glacial blankness at the tapping of polished boots behind them.

“Excuse me—” the agent calls out to them. Andes grabs Danny’s good arm and yanks him through the door.

It’s heavy and old, shrieking on its hinges as it swings open. Danny stumbles into a tiny break room. There’s another door across from them.

“Hey, you two, stop!”

Andes slams the door shut, flicking the lock on the knob. A second later, the handle rattles and the agent’s voice filters through.

“Open the door, kids. No one is in trouble. We’re just trying to help.”

Andes scoffs, grabbing a chair and tucking it under the knob. Then he makes a beeline for the other door and shoves it open.

Danny sees the alley beyond. He doesn’t need prompting this time: he’s right on the heels of his unlikely new friend. They both slip out and the door closes behind them. 

The smell of garbage and cat piss permeates the air. On their right is a chain-link gate held closed with a heavy padlock. Danny has never hated fences like he hates fences today. 

He turns the other direction, back to the street. That is, until the lady agent rounds the corner. 

“I’ve got eyes on ‘em,” Danny hears her say. 

Andes grabs the sleeve of Danny’s hoodie as she gets closer. She has her hands lifted, showing her lack of a weapon. 

“Everything’s okay, alright?” She looks between the two of them. “Did you see something? You can trust me—we aren’t here to hurt anyone, just here to help. ” 

Something in Danny loosens. 

They don’t know. His hands are shaking and the adrenaline burns through him. 

They don’t know, and it has to stay that way.

She draws closer to them, slow. 

“Like hell we can, lady. Kindly fuck right off,” Andes snaps, and then he’s throwing Danny towards the fence behind them. Andes takes a running jump at it and scales it with ease. 

Holy shit. They’re really fucking doing this. 

Who the hell even is this guy? 

It takes Danny a few seconds longer than his mysterious companion to get up over the fence and drop down on the other side. 

“Stop!” the lady shouts, making it to the fence a moment too late. “Dammit,” she spits. Her partner comes around the corner of the store behind her.

They don’t wait. They start running.

“They’ve seen something—still no sign of 6377,” Danny hears her say to whoever she’s connected to over her comm unit.

He feels sick, mercury sloshing in his stomach—heavy and killing him from the inside out.

6377.

Something about hearing it makes it more real.

That’s all he is now.

It’s all that’s left.

⫷ ⫷ ⨳ ⫸ ⫸

Alex thinks this is just his luck. 

He thinks something to the tune of: old habits die hard. 

So, here he is, breath drying the back of his throat and the familiar heat of adrenaline flushing his skin.

All he wanted was some sugar to take the edge off his latest three hours of sleep. He should know by now his life is never that simple. 

Yassen is going to be thrilled with him.

Alex skids to a stop at the mouth of the alley, his new friend stopping right next to him. There’s no one waiting to cut them off yet, but they’re on borrowed time. 

He’s only gotten a rudimentary understanding of the area, but here they’re a little way out from the main street, and the buildings are smaller, more gerrymandered together. Ramshackle. The sort of architecture that lends itself to creating narrow pockets of space: damp corners and weird crevices, tucked away from touristy eyes.

His options as of now are painfully limited: a few short-term hidey-holes. A mottled cat slinking out from a bush. A bag of Andes shoved into his pocket, probably melting. 

They need to get to the heart of town.

“C’mon.” He darts across the street and toward another alley. 

Hoodie, as Alex has been thinking of him, keeps pace, though he’s a bit clumsy. Definitely hasn’t had as much practice as Alex. 

He yanks Hoodie’s telltale hood off his head before he can protest. “And fix up your hair. We gotta blend in.”

Alex only pays half attention as Hoodie starts tugging his fingers through his hair. He wonders when this dude last had a run in with a hairbrush. It looks like it’s been a while. 

Alex leads them up the sidewalk, keeping his eyes on the road signs. Johnson Boulevard’s sign looks bigger—a larger road. He hangs left, relaxing a bit when he sees more people, more cars. Beside him, Hoodie fiddles with the cuff of his sleeve. 

A plan isn’t the only thing on his mind. There’s something bothering him. A lot of somethings, actually. Chief among them: neither of those agents recognized him. Not even the barest flicker. 

At first, he thought they were MI6, but they definitely aren’t. Not the FBI either, even if he and Yassen were traipsing around on American soil. And from how sloppily they operated, they’re clearly not Scorpia. 

None of that tells him who these people are or why they think they’ve “seen something”. Or how Hoodie fits into it.

He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t worried. 

The candy in his pockets crinkles as they walk. It’s the only sound beside the civilian cars and their breathing. For the time being, there’s no sirens and no footsteps rushing them. 

He can’t decide if that’s good or bad. Local law enforcement are clumsy and incompetent. In a way, he’d prefer that, but Alex doesn’t exactly want more eyes on them. 

No cops could also mean whoever these people are, they either don’t play nice with others… or they want this done quietly. 

Fantastic. 

He hops off a curb and jay-walks across another street. Hoodie follows after him, hair only slightly less of a mess. 

Hoodie glances back over his shoulder. “Do you think we lost them?” he murmurs. 

Alex snorts. “Let’s not bet on it.” 

Up ahead is a movie theater, the old spire lit up with neon, glowing in the fading daylight. A group of high schoolers bustle past.

Perfect.

Alex jerks his head towards them. He picks up his pace to catch up, tagging along to the back of the group. 

He watches Hoodie from the corner of his eye. His breathing is uneven, face pale and flushed, littered with tiny scratches, and his body stiff. His eyes flick around their surroundings like a feral cat waiting for the smallest gap in a window or door. 

Bloody hell, maybe this dude isn’t as used to being hunted as Alex thought. No way he’s been doing this for long. He didn’t even know how to steal from a convenience store. How he could spot an agent at a glance is beyond Alex.

Hoodie jerks a little when Alex says, “Just take a deep breath, yeah? Remember what I said about being relaxed.”

Hoodie doesn’t say anything back, but Alex hears him inhale. 

The teens around them fall over themselves, laughing at some dirty joke made at the expense of the movie. Alex smiles lightly but stays upright, keeping pace. Can’t let Hoodie stick out too hard. 

Following the kids takes them on a path further downtown, artsy street lamps flickering on as the sun sets below the horizon. 

No white vans—and white vans? Seriously? Not exactly subtle—and no suits. The coast looks relatively clear.

He fingers the burner phone in his pocket. Feels the pilfered candy next to it. Looks at Hoodie, who’s studying the ground like it has the answers.

He fishes out the Andes package. “Hey man, want some?”

Hoodie stares at it like he forgot they even stole them in the first place. 

“Um, sure,” he rasps, reaching for the candy. A twitchy wince cuts the motion in half. Hoodie sticks the hand into his pocket to conceal the way it keeps jittering and switches to his right. 

Alex doesn’t comment, just shakes a number of green foil-wrapped chocolates out for him.

Hoodie is in the middle of one-handedly unwrapping the candy when Alex sees the same pair of agents step out onto the sidewalk dead ahead. 

He slows his pace, catching the fabric of Hoodie’s sleeve again. The agents haven’t seen them yet.

The teens start pulling away down another street. He and Hoodie duck behind the dumpster of a promising alley—hidden from view by the garbage, but the other end of the alley opens up behind some shops and broadens out onto another street between the shop fronts. Plenty of room to lose anyone if they get made. 

Around the corner, he hears the rangers calling a few questions at the stalled teens.

He wishes he could pinpoint what organization they’re from; as it is, he’s got no idea what kind of manpower they’re up against.

These kinds of odds never phase Yassen. Then again, Yassen always has a gun and a plan—one that usually involves putting lead between people’s eyes. 

But Yassen isn’t here. Not yet. It’s just Alex, and what he needs is intel. Intel, or a reliable means of escape. He’d take either. 

The town is built on slopes and cliffs; the whole thing flows roughly upwards. It’s a mountainous area. Height would give him a better view of the available escape routes. Plus, if they’re cornered there, they can bail through the back pass between the mountains. The weird organization after Hoodie might have people stationed that way, but it doesn’t look like they have those numbers. 

So far.

Higher ground it is, then. If they can lose their tails in a crowd, even better.

The brick of the building is cool to the touch and Alex shifts so his back is flush with the wall. He feels eyes on him, but not from the street. 

Hoodie is studying him closely, looking like he has something to say. Alex lets him chew on it.

Finally, Hoodie manages to find his words.

“Why are you helping me?”

For a second, Alex is at a loss. 

Why is he?

This guy and his apparent issues with some mystery agency isn’t his problem. He doesn’t have to help. In fact, it’d be smarter if he’d left well enough alone. 

“I just thought I could, so I did,” he says eventually. 

Hoodie reads between the lines, eyes burning into Alex with a nebulous mix of sudden fear and hope, so intense that Alex blinks back.

Hoodie’s fingers dig into the forearm of his left arm—the injured one he’s been favoring—and twist.

“…Is the Foundation after you, too?” 

You, too?

Hoodie had told him as much by spotting that agent who’d been casing the corner store, but hearing it from the horse’s mouth still makes a familiar anger curdle in the pit of his chest. Caustic. Eating him away from inside.

You, too.  

“The foundation?” He knows he sounds bitter but can’t help it. “You’re gonna have to be more specific.”

Hoodie tilts his head, drawn up short. “You know… the Foundation?”

Alex can hear the capital letter. “Yeah, which foundation? I mean, I don’t wanna brag, but there’s at least three after my head right now. Maybe four.”

Hoodie coughs on a laugh like he’s out of practice with that, too. “Wait. Seriously?”

Alex shrugs. He should laugh too, play along, but the anger is too acute. “At least one of them is a terrorist organization.” Scorpia dislikes the term, but it’s true. MI6, on the other hand… “Eh, let’s say two of them.”

Hoodie laughs again. This one’s the better take. “Christ, dude. And I thought I had problems.”

Alex breaks and laughs, too, even if it feels sharp on the way up. 

“Seriously, I’d trade with you. Why not?”

Well, for one thing, the assassin who’s gonna take his head off for getting involved in whatever this shite is. “I can think of a few reasons—”

The banter dies in his throat when Hoodie stops breathing.

Pupils dilate to pinpricks swamped by the washed-out blue of his irises as Hoodie staggers, barely keeping himself from thudding against the dumpster. His left arm is jackknife rigid, fingers scrabbling hard at his thigh; his other hand clutches the limb so hard his knuckles turn white. A thready, reedy gasp makes its way past his lips.

“H-hoodie guy? Hey, are you okay?”

A choked sound. Hoodie visibly tries to relax one wire-tense muscle at a time.

Alex steps closer, slowly reaching for his shoulder, but he flinches even harder.

From the street, a shrill beeping rings out: high and frantic, getting quicker. Getting louder. Alex’s heart jumps a gear, his pulse hot in his wrists and throat. It sounds like a Geiger counter. Maybe the death throes of somebody’s decades-outdated smoke detector. Not relevant to them. 

He measures an exhale, forcing his heart back to baseline. 

They’re fine. 

Alex has this under control. 

But somehow, Hoodie makes it possible to go even more ashen.

“It’s 6377!” somebody yells, too close; it echoes strangely through their concrete alley—from a rooftop? “We’re locking on its signature—yes, triangulating now—”

“Shit.” Hoodie sounds strangled, sandpapery. “Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck.”

“Plan,” Alex says quickly. Pushes his spine straight to affect confidence, a calm he hasn’t exactly felt since the last time he got a good night’s sleep. “I have a plan. Promise.”

“You can’t have a plan for this,” Hoodie’s voice goes a note higher. “You don’t even—you didn’t know—”

Alex’s eyes snap to the tip of a gun taking the corner of their hideaway. He barely manages to tug Hoodie out of his rigid, pained position before the weapon sprouts an armored soldier at the other end of it.

Alex realizes it’s not a normal gun the minute it swings into full view. The shape and material are unfamiliar, almost sci-fi; jet black, blocky angles, with a bright green indicator on the side. 

It doesn’t matter; the gun flies out of the surprised soldier’s grip all the same once Alex gets in range. The soldier swings, trying to put space between them again, eyes wide through his dim green visor.

“This is Alpha, it’s not 6377, it’s childr—” 

An uppercut finishes his sentence for him. Alex manhandles his stunned opponent over the lip of the dumpster and slams the lid on his torso. 

The soldier chokes brutally under the force of plastic wedging metal into his chest before Alex shoves him, ass over head, into the bin. 

Alex snaps focus to the fallen gun. In his hands, it’s far lighter than it looks. The weight distribution is all wrong, centered somewhere too high behind the barrel before cool shiny plastic slides into an unnervingly comfortable grip.

“Wh—what the fuck.”

Hoodie.

Alex looks at him. 

“What the fuck,” Hoodie says again, putting his hands up. Alex is baffled for a second before he realizes what it looks like.

“Oh,” he says, “no, shit, put your hands down, I’m not going to shoot you.”

Hoodie puts them down falteringly. Alex winces. Wonderful. He got maybe five minutes of talking to another teenager like a normal person before the reality of being Alex Rider set in.

Not like Hoodie’s exactly normal, either, but…

“Look,” he says, “when I said I had a plan, I meant it. Trust me.”

Hoodie’s gaze darts down to the gun Alex is still holding.

Alex finds the safety. Flicks it. The green indicator on the gun’s flank cuts out to a flat gray. He tucks it barrel-first against the small of his back. Lets Hoodie see he’s disarmed himself.

“I can get us out of this. Please trust me.”

He holds Hoodie’s gaze.

A long second passes.

Slowly, Hoodie nods. “…Okay.”

Whatever relief Alex might have felt evaporates as the lady agent and her partner from the 7-Eleven appear between the slats of the crates piled up where the alley spills into the backlot. 

Hoodie sees them too, swallowing. “What was your plan again?”

“Step one,” Alex says, “run.”

Alex chooses the faux park rangers over the armed SWAT guys that are, presumably, still on the street. He still has the element of surprise; the agents startle backwards when the first crate topples towards them, and the second is flung with more directionality. The guy’s breath audibly leaves him when it hits his ribs, but the lady manages to sidestep it. 

She has only a split second to look shocked before Alex plants a foot in her stomach. She doubles over, and Alex chops the flat of his hand into the vulnerable side of her neck. Down she goes, spluttering. Alex is forced to shift his attention when a vice-like grip circles his bicep.

“Hey, we’re not going to hurt you boys,” the agent says cajolingly. “We know you’re scared, but we’re just here to ask some questions and help you.”

Bullshit. His hand is creeping towards an ill-concealed weapon. 

Alex snarls. “Don’t condescend to me.” A vicious twist breaks the agent’s grip. A knee to the groin sends him to the ground. He’s distracted just long enough for Alex to snag his weapon. 

The gun is strangely slim and long. Probably weighs less than a can of pop. Alex leaps out of the agent’s grabbing range—because, boy, that guy is still trying—and makes for open ground. 

There’s a shout and a tremendous clatter. Alex makes a quick check and finds Hoodie stumbling three steps behind him. Whatever crates had still been stacked have now been toppled over the agents, who are doing some pretty good impressions of bugs flailing on their backs beneath them.

Alex can’t help whooping a laugh at the sight. He catches what might be a half-smile from Hoodie, but doesn’t contemplate it long.

“Hey, take this.” Alex offers him the new gun handle-first but doesn’t pause his stride. “You’ve earned it.”

Hoodie’s expression twitches, then shutters, but he slides it from Alex’s hands nonetheless. Like second nature, his thumb immediately checks the safety.

Alex spares a heartbeat to feel gratified—Hoodie does know some things—but only just.

The backlot is flat concrete penned in by unpainted brick walls with dark, unfinished, recessed wood doors; the kind of thing that isn’t supposed to be seen by anybody but employees. Three other alleys branch out between the buildings—Alex had known the 7-Eleven agents had approached from somewhere—and he’s about to lead Hoodie towards the nearest one when he realizes that all potential outlets are just as compromised as the one they came from, and not by fake rangers. 

No. More fully kitted-out SWAT guys, swarming their exits like ants.

Alex had made the wrong decision. But this time, it wasn’t just himself he’d screwed over. This time, it wasn’t just him rattling down a dark road in the back of a truck towards Cairo. 

This time, he had the nameless Hoodie, clocking their noose just half a second behind him. Hoodie didn’t even have the luxury of knowing what kind of life Alex usually led, like Jack or Kyra or Tom.

He fucked up. He shouldn’t have tried to catch their breath to begin with. They were surrounded and outnumbered. There was no way out, left, right, or center that he could see—

Alex stops thinking. His eyes go in the direction that nobody looks first.

A crane looms overhead.

Alex grins.

Eyes go to the building walls. Handholds everywhere, window ledges and jutting pipes, but none he can trust Hoodie to be able to take advantage of. He spots what he’s looking for.

“Um, Andes—” Hoodie starts, but Alex is already making a ninety-degree turn.

“This way.”

Hoodie doesn’t have to say anything. Alex can practically feel the doubt and anxiety the guy’s shedding like a fur coat in summer.

Alex takes his second running leap of the day.

Metal screeches a protest at his body weight, and he hangs for a heart-wrenching second before the ladder starts to give properly, unfolding a fire escape that switchbacks up the building.

The ladder has drawn low enough for him to kick off the ground with one foot, leveraging himself towards the second rung. Then another, to give Hoodie the room to follow. “Need a hand?” he grunts.

Hoodie sets his jaw. “I can climb.”

The SWAT team’s strides are eating up the pavement at an alarming rate. Alex all but jumps off the ladder as Hoodie grabs the first rung.

The fire escape has clearly seen better days. The first landing shrieks under the impact of his trainers, and the stairs rattle like they’re about to work themselves loose from their bolts, but they hold. He makes it up several flights and crouches just before the lip of the roof, waiting for Hoodie, who gets to the first landing and—smart bloke—pulls the ladder up. It protests rustily.

Alex knows he shouldn’t, but he looks down anyway. Swallows against the swoop of vertigo that worms through his stomach.

There’s two SWAT guys watching them, almost directly beneath the fire escape, a third further back. Their visors reflect the sun, making them faceless as they approach the fire escape. The one furthest up looks like they’re going to make the same jump Alex did as Hoodie clambers up the rest of the escape.

None are aiming. Fingers aren’t even on triggers.

That’s… not a good sign. At least when people are shooting, he doesn’t have to wonder what trick they’re hiding up their sleeves.

Alex mutters a curse and hops over the edge, onto the building’s flat rooftop.

He comes face to face with a new soldier.

Well, that answers at least one of his questions.

“Stand down.” The soldier is trying to sound authoritative, but all it does is piss him off more. “There’s nowhere to run. Just put your hands above your head and nobody gets hurt.”

Behind him, Hoodie startles and ducks out of sight, staying on the fire escape. Good.

Alex darts sideways. A lateral move to buy time, some diagonal distance. He gets maybe ten paces, then skids to a stop. He takes a furtive glance around, like he’s realizing there’s really no way off the roof here. The soldier’s words were at least partially true, after all. The roof is empty but for a boxy A/C unit complaining loudly on the far end. A wary glance over at the SWAT guy seals the portrayal, a facsimile of distress painting his face. 

The soldier takes one solid step.

Alex tentatively puts his hands at shoulder height, letting them hover, making him look uncertain. It’s an invitation to draw close.

Of course, the soldier takes it.

“See? Nowhere to go. Let’s calm down and—”

This time when Alex disarms him, the gun flies too far to grab—a shame—but the soldier quickly draws a simple baton and swings. Alex barely manages to deflect the blow along his arm, gritting his teeth at the redirected force. The next is the same, but Alex gets more distance before the third.

The soldier aims at his knee; Alex jumps back, drawing the gun at his waist. The soldier’s eyes widen, but Alex doesn’t shoot; he brings it home under the chin of the soldier’s helmet. His head flings back; the helmet flies off.

“Bravo, confirm receipt,” crackles the busted earpiece. “Apprehend and amnesticize—”

Alex doesn’t wait to hear anything else. Plants his feet wide and reverses the soldier’s momentum in a way that’s clearly unexpected. Sends him careening into the open air, bare-faced and shocked.

Below, there’s an audible thump half-buried beneath sudden shouts and commotion. A quick peek confirms that Bravo is splayed out in the same dumpster Alex had used to dispose of his predecessor—who’s now tangled there too, both of them groaning. Shame. He’d wanted at least one of them unconscious. But they’re still down for a few minutes, at least.

Alex rolls his shoulder, tests his arm. Both are going to bruise, thanks to that baton.

They bruise a little darker when he throws himself to the ground at the sound of gunfire.

But—it’s way too quiet. It takes half a second for Alex to realize that he’s not wearing ear protection, and the sound should have been near-infinitely louder, more percussive. 

It’s Hoodie. He’s claimed Bravo’s fallen handgun.

He looks tense, but no more tense than he’s been since Alex met him. He checks the indicator and resets his aim. It looks like an extremely familiar gesture.

Hanging half off the edge of the roof in a way that makes Alex feel sick, Hoodie squeezes out a second shot. A third. A fourth. The muzzle flares with each like a flashbulb stained with copper arsenite.

And each shot connects not with the piercing power of a nine millimeter, but with nothing less than an explosion, ones that crackle sparks and ozone.

With a jolt, Alex realizes he’s targeting the weak bolts of the fire escape. Two more, and the entire thing starts groaning in a way that overtakes the rickety A/C unit and the abandoned headset that’s still crackling commands. 

A gloved hand grabs for Hoodie’s arm. Hoodie jolts back, aims, fires. The hand—and the entire fire escape—vanish in a tremendous crescendo of screeching metal.

Alex can feel himself gaping. “Dude.”

Hoodie winces. “Sorry, I—”

“Don’t you dare,” Alex cuts him off. “That was really fuckin’ cool.”

Hoodie huffs a laugh. “You’re weird.” Then he jerks away from the side of the building. “Shit, they’re parkouring up the fucking sides.”

“What? Oh, hell,” Alex says, walking towards the edge— “Get down!”

He tackles Hoodie. Two darts whiz past his hair, the lady agent adjusting her aim to follow them. He rolls the both of them further away from the edge as another shot goes wide over their heads.

He doesn’t even know what’s in these. Tranqs? Poison? Something else?

He spots the dart gun that he filched from the other agent—that’s what it was, too lightweight for bullets—a little ways away from the fire escape. Hoodie must’ve tossed it aside to take down the fire escape.

Why not find out?

He picks up the dart gun, peeking over the rooftop for just a second to shoot a round at the lady agent. She yells in alarm, immediately moving to sidestep it. 

The nearest soldier on the rooftop isn’t so lucky. First shot goes wide, but the second hits that pesky thin mobility fabric between the bulletproof vest and the rest of their shoulder. Easy shot at close range. They jerk and fall like a stone, but before Alex shoves himself back to the tenuous safety of the roof, he sees them sit up and hold their head in both hands.

A clatter. Behind him, two soldiers breach the lip of the roof, grappling hooks retracting. He aims the dart gun again. Jams. “Son of a bitch.”

“This is your fantastic plan?” Hoodie mutters.

“This bit might be, uh, improvisation,” Alex says. The neighboring building is close, a distance Alex could jump with ease, but he hesitates. Could Hoodie make it?

Hoodie’s voice strangles on a yell. Alex whips around. 

One of the grappling hook maestros has trapped Hoodie in a bearhug. 

He catches Hoodie’s eyes. They’re wide, blue like the surface of a frozen lake. Viscerally afraid, before the light behind them dims.

Hoodie goes limp. The soldier’s grip is so tight he barely falls.

It’s a horrible thing, to watch someone give up. 

The instinctive part of Alex’s brain screams at him to get over there, but the second soldier who’d rappelled up has other ideas. Closes in on him almost instantaneously with the clear intent to subdue him; the glimpse Alex gets through his visor tells him that these guys aren’t into verbal reasoning so much. Alex drops to a sloppy roll to avoid being brained but is still boxed in on the other end of the move. 

This guy—Charlie—comes at Alex again. He’s built like a truck and moves like one too. He reminds Alex a bit of Wolf. 

Alex tries to keep the others in his line of sight. It looks like Delta, holding Hoodie like a sack of potatoes, is trying to reach his comm without dropping his suddenly unresponsive load. 

Charlie barely gives Alex a chance to think, let alone disengage. Alex angles a strike for the chin, where he’d found a gap in the SWAT gear just wide enough to knock off Bravo’s helmet, but Charlie preempts him. Blocks. Then nearly takes his arm off as payment.

Alex bites back a pained sound, but the tail end escapes anyway. 

He needs a new strategy. There are precious few vulnerabilities in Charlie’s black-and-white getup, and the bastards learn fast.

The blows smear together. Alex takes more hits than he’d like to admit—more than he gives. As he’s forced back, he loses sight of what’s going on with Hoodie and Delta. 

It’s brutal hand-to-hand until it’s not, Charlie brandishing a baton like Bravo’s. Alex thinks it might not be a normal stick, just like their guns aren’t normal guns, but doesn’t get to consider it long. It still bruises like a baton, whether or not it’s been souped up.

A third soldier materializes by the clattering A/C unit. That’s, what, Echo? How many guys can they spare for two kids?

…Probably however many they need after the show he and Hoodie have unwittingly put on. 

Shit. He’d thought he’d learned his lesson about the benefits of subtlety.

He takes a nasty baton blow to the ribs in the process of avoiding an arm lock, but somehow still has the air left to yelp when Echo makes himself a true threat with something so cold it burns. 

His eyes catch the afterimage of light so neon green it makes his teeth hurt. He can’t help but grit them as he winces back, cradling his hand against his chest. Charlie backs away from the friendly fire.

The shot had only skimmed him. He’d been lucky, probably, but it’s ghastly, like no other bullet he’s taken before. The pain doesn’t just bite. It lingers, sinks, then flares anew. Warbles through his vision as the wound brushes against the fabric of his jacket.

The gun in Echo’s hand is the same sci-fi plasma beam number as the others. There’s a finger curled against the trigger like a promise. The muzzle’s eye finds his heart. 

He stops breathing. Phantom rain patters his neck. Phantom rain pours, and he doesn’t have a gun this time— 

Delta howls. It’s a strange one. Equal parts surprise and pain. 

Echo’s aim and Charlie’s head swing towards Hoodie, who eels out of Delta’s grasp with a lithe, vicious twist. He shoots Delta in the foot, downing him with another squeal. 

And then it’s like Delta has been rendered completely inconsequential to Hoodie. His gaze snaps lightning-quick to Echo, followed by the barrel of his nicked plasma pistol.

Cold fear chokes his diaphragm. His ribs are bruised. For a moment, Alex can’t breathe.

For a moment, he’s staggeringly lightheaded.

Hoodie is—

Dangerous.

Now, Alex can see why there might be half a dozen SWAT-geared guys trying to sniff out one teenager as awkward and scraggly as Hoodie. He has this air in the limber set of his shoulders, the easy length of his arms, the lidding of his eyes—had they really looked so lifeless ten seconds ago?

It’s the air of someone who’s not afraid to make people pay.

Somehow who knows exactly how.

It’s a look Alex recognizes.

When Hoodie fires again, it’s at Echo’s head. The searing green of it slams into the side of his helmet with a sound half percussive, half static, but Echo keeps his footing, swinging to return fire—his beam goes high, just barely missing Hoodie’s shoulder.

His movement gives Hoodie a clear shot directly to his visor. This one tosses Echo’s head back more violently than the first. Blinded, he stumbles and goes down.

Hoodie’s steady through every recoil. He makes it look easy. Alex knows from experience that you can never predict the power of a gun’s kickback without handling that model at least once.

Alex unlocks his frozen knees as Charlie prioritizes Hoodie over Alex, drawing his own gun and taking a potshot. Hoodie dodges it fluidly. The motion makes Alex think of a doll lolling its limbs. His eyes are glacial as he answers Charlie’s fire, peppering the soldier’s feet; Charlie dances. Corralled away from Alex, he realizes.

Charlie’s revenge clips the hood of Hoodie’s sweater, barely missing his ear. Hoodie narrows his eyes and takes cover behind the A/C unit. Nails Charlie squarely in the chest. But whatever armor the SWAT guys have shields him—Charlie only stumbles back before his next shot nearly blinds Hoodie.

Alex remembers his own plasma pistol, tucked against his back. 

Charlie grunts when Alex snipes his knees from behind. Hoodie takes point, downing the arsehole with a concussive headshot right to the visor. 

It’s over, and just in time. The indicator on Hoodie’s plasma pistol begins to sputter, dims, then goes out entirely. Flat gray. The only glow left is an afterimage on Alex’s retinas.

Hoodie scowls and discards it like a battered toy. “Worth a try…”

Staying put is begging to be overpowered again, and more thoroughly, whenever reinforcements arrive. “Let’s go!”

He jumps roofs without waiting for Hoodie to ask questions.

Hoodie lands sloppily after him, but keeps his footing. When Alex reaches to steady him, he instead finds Hoodie already leaning towards him, concern writing his brow into knots.

“Are you okay?”

Alex blinks. Hoodie’s open face has no trace of the icy languidness he’d used to aim a gun at someone’s head. None of the rigidity that had crept into his eyes. Almost like it was never there, but Alex knows better.

“Y-yeah, yeah, I’m fine, totally fine, thanks to you.”

“What about…” Hoodie fidgets, glances at Alex’s hand. Prompts Alex to look at it for the first time himself.

It doesn’t look like a normal burn. Black and green at the edges. Pain screams through the wound if he flexes his hand, but the adrenaline is doing a decent job washing the worst of it away. He grits his teeth, clenches his fist, and shoves the pain aside. “Minor.”

Hoodie just shakes his head. “We need to treat that, it could get, like—frostbite,” he says. “We need something warm—”

“Later,” Alex urges, ignoring the question of how Hoodie knows these things. “We’re still surrounded and outnumbered. We’ve gotta keep going.”

Hoodie closes his eyes momentarily. Asks, “Where?”

There’s some shouting from below. If they stay here any longer, the noose will be too tight to escape.

“Not far,” Alex promises. Points. “Up.” Moves his finger. “And over.”

Imposing black and red machinery hangs overhead. Hoodie tilts his chin up to take it in. From here, the crane blots out the sun.

“Construction site,” Alex elaborates, scanning, until— “There. We should be able to get across.”

“Across?”

“What? You said you can climb.”

Hoodie makes a disbelieving noise. 

They scale a maintenance ladder to a cramped landing; scooting to the far edge puts the jib just about eye-level and conceals them, at least momentarily, from the chaos on the rooftop and backlot. 

It’s not meant to be used as a balance beam, but there are wide metal rivets at regular intervals, which will make better footholds than Alex has made do with before. It’s going to be harder with his burned hand and Hoodie’s unreliable arm, but it’s a small crane; they only need to get a few meters, at a gentle downward slope, before they reach the cabin. 

“The jib will hold,” Alex says, gesturing to the thick beams. He’s done worse. “Think you can do it?”

“…This is a bad idea,” Hoodie says. He’s looking down.

“This is a fantastic idea,” Alex corrects, gazing resolutely forward. Solid metal. Plenty of footholds. “Don’t look down.”

“Looking down isn’t the problem.” Hoodie sounds breathless.

“Is that a no?” Alex asks. If they can’t get across the crane, they’ll have to go back down the maintenance ladder and find a new way out of the soldiers’ perimeter; downing the three on the roof would only stick so long, and Alpha and Bravo were surely long since recovered. Not to mention the faux-rangers were certainly on the move, and—

“I’m fine,” Hoodie says. “I can do it.”

Alex looks at him. There’s a determined slant to the corner of Hoodie’s mouth. A desperation that verges on hope in the way his gaze flickers between Alex, the jib, and the way they came.

“Just across to the cab? Then we’re free of—them?”

“If I’ve got anything to say about it, yeah.”

“I can do it,” Hoodie repeats.

Alex nods, draws a sharp breath, then pulls himself up, staunchly putting aside the way every movement makes the burn on his hand throb. He steadies himself with his knees and helps Hoodie up. 

They make their way down and across, shifting their footholds one at a time. Alex resolutely keeps his eyes on the cab, and does not think about how far they are from the ground. Does not think about how utterly exposed they are. Does not think about one of those neon green blasts coming their way. 

Does not think about the shouts still echoing up in the distance behind them. 

Only that they’re halfway out of the noose.

Only that the cab’s getting closer.

The tone of the commotion below shifts suddenly, then spikes to a fever pitch. Near Alex’s head, Hoodie’s foot slips off a rivet, scrabbles for a moment, regains purchase. Alex thinks Hoodie is holding his breath.

“The crane!”

They’ve been spotted.

They drop onto the roof of the cab and both fall into crouches to reduce their visibility. The cab is older than the jib; there’s rust crawling the seams. Hoodie looks ready to jump off and bolt, but he looks to Alex. 

“Wait.” Alex puts out a hand. “While we’re here…” 

He eases himself onto the small footbed just outside the cab door and jimmies the handle. After a bit of work, it opens. Thank god for old shit. Alex grins. “Let’s have some fun with this.” 

“What?”

“Don’t worry, I know how to operate a crane.”

“Why?”

Alex shrugs. “It’s come in handy once or twice.” 

Despite the crane’s small size, the cabin is roomier than the one he’d played drug-boat-claw-machine with last year. Fortunate, because it lets both of them cram inside. Alex finds the power beside the radio and anemometer, and two joysticks: left for the jib, right for the hoist. 

The crane sputters to life, the smell of diesel and oil leaching into the air. The joysticks have a healthy amount of resistance, but they move as he applies the pressure.

Good thing he doesn’t need finesse for what he’s about to do.

The jib veers under his command, the hoist swinging belatedly after it. With little ceremony, he sends it crashing through a billboard and watches the wood and metal rain down. Doesn’t see where it lands. On the backswing he takes down a variety of construction equipment: bags of sand piled on the edge of the half-built roof, trussed up planks and sheets of flooring.

The world beyond their little bubble is muffled. There’s just two sets of ragged breathing as Alex puts as much shit as he can between them and those agents.

For a moment, it’s like there’s no rain on his neck. There’s no Scorpia, trying to find their most promising yet wayward recruit. No MI6 after their runaway golden boy.

It’s peaceful.

“Do you hear that?”

A second later, he does. Something is buzzing.

Alex shoves his uninjured hand into a pocket and extracts the burner Yassen had pressed on him three days ago. Swipes it open. The ringing cuts off. 

“Sup.”

“Where are you?”

Yassen certainly has a way with words. That way is usually ‘minimal’.

“Look for a crane. Red and black—near there. Good timing, by the way.” Alex jams the phone between his ear and shoulder. The controls need both hands; the right joystick is starting to drift and taking the jib with it. “I need you to pick us up in—hmm. Less than five minutes.”

A pause. “Us.”

Alex doesn’t address the thinly veiled question-threat combo. “Yeah, I made a friend. Don’t worry, he’s cool.”

“Alex—” Yassen’s voice is taut.

“I said don’t worry,” Alex hurries to cut him off. “I’ve got everything under control.”

This time Yassen exhales. Alex imagines he’s forcing himself to reign his composure in. Sure enough, he sounds infuriatingly stable again when he says, “What’s going on?” 

“We’re compromised. Or at least we will be, probably. There’s agents and armed guys all over town.”

There’s the sound of movement over the line. “Scorpia?” 

“Definitely not.” He clenches his teeth as his hand stings sharply, the burned skin stretching too far with his fingers curled around the joystick. He backs off momentarily, but the hoist begins to drop almost immediately. Nearly takes out that geriatric A/C unit, too isolated to do them any good, not when he’s just zeroed in on a bigger threat. “Shit. I gotta go. See you in a few, yeah?” 

“Alex—” 

Alex hangs up. He doesn’t have time to try and get the phone back in his pocket. He spares a second instead to shove it at Hoodie. 

“Hold that for me real quick.” 

Hoodie blinks but takes it anyway. “Who was that?” 

“Uh. You’ll see. Now, let me concentrate.”

“On what?”

“This is more complicated than it looks,” Alex grits out. “And we’ve got company.”

White vans all look the same, but it’s still no question where this one came from, idling at a corner with eyes on them. 

On his first attempt, the hoist swings high, and he jolts the joystick to drop the unwanted elevation. The hoist hits home on the way back, blowing the doors of the van concave and rocking the vehicle violently on its suspension. The shock of the hook driving into the metal reverberates through the length of the crane. Rattles the walls of the cab.

Alex keeps forcing the joystick until the entire van goes sideways and skids. He drags it along, doesn’t ease off until the entire thing is overturned mid-intersection. Oncoming traffic swerves to a screeching, honking standstill.

“Right, there she is.” Alex pops the cabin door—then pulls back immediately, hunching down with a groan. “Again?”

There are agents swarming to right the van. Some blockade that turned out to be.

“We were supposed to be done with them,” Hoodie mutters.

“I know.” Alex presses his forehead against the door handle. He has to think. Has to plan. But he still has only the faintest idea of what—of who—they’re up against.

Suddenly Hoodie is tapping his shoulder with the back of his hand.

“Hey, do you still have that lighter?”

“What? Oh. Yeah.” Alex roots around for said lighter, pulling it free. “Fat lot of good it’ll do us.”

But Hoodie shakes his head, a smile growing on his face. “Throw the lighter and then shoot it,” Hoodie says, motioning towards the gun Alex swiped. 

Alex looks at the pistol in his hand. It’s not rocket science. Shooting an energized bolt at an accelerant is bound to do something. Right?

Hoodie shifts, more urgent. “It’ll work. Trust me.” 

Alex looks at Hoodie for a second—his eyes are clear and earnest. Hoodie hasn’t given him any reason not to trust him. Which Alex can’t say for most of the people in his life, so… Fuck it. 

“Alright,” Alex says and hefts the lighter in his hand and throws it over the cabin door. 

“Well—as long as you’re a good shot, that is.” 

The lighter skitters across the tarmac.

“Pf, please.” He aims through the partition of the cabin and its door. He ignores the way his hands start to shake. Not now— 

 

—He doesn’t want to be thinking about this now. 

Sweat slicks his palms and he tightens his grip until it hurts. He lifts his hands and tries to line up the shot with the target but his arms tremble. He sucks in a choked breath. 

A hand gun. Why does it have to be a hand gun? 

He hears rain. He hears rain and another breath crops up just behind the last. He can’t do this—the grip feels like hot coal, eating away at his skin. He feels cold— 

A hand moves into his vision, pushing the gun down with a firm but gentle force. Alex looks up at Yassen, feeling his stomach clench. It’s so stupid—he knows it is but—Yassen slips off his own ear protection, expects him to follow suit. 

He moves one side off his ear. 

“Take a deep breath,” Yassen says. “Finger off the trigger. Safety.” 

He swallows the burning embarrassment and inhales. It’s harder than he wants to admit. 

He flicks the safety.

It’s not raining. It’s not raining. This is Malagosto, not Cairo.

The cold gray firing range pieces itself back together and all Alex can think is how much he hates it. 

“They are paper targets, little Alex. No more. No less,” comes Yassen’s voice again.

“This is stupid,” Alex spits. “I know how to use a bloody fucking gun. I—”

He wants to throw something. He wants to scream. He wants to fucking sleep.

“I know,” Yassen says. 

He must seem pathetic. 

“Take another breath. Try again. The faster you finish, the faster I can check this box. Then we can leave.”

Alex glares at Yassen. 

He looks back, blue eyes still like water. 

Alex grits his teeth. He hates when Yassen is right. It’s been happening a lot lately. 

“Fine. But you better give me high marks.” He fixes his ear protection, snaps the safety back off, and lifts the gun. It’s easy, lining it up with the paper target at the end of the range. 

It’s not raining. 

He moves his finger over the trigger and takes a deep breath. 

 

He exhales slowly, and only once he’s steady does he pull the trigger, just like Yassen showed him. 

The shot connects with the lighter and the whole world goes incandescent. 

Hoodie yanks him down before his eyes can be burnt out by the searing jade. Through the cab door, the arctic shockwave hits them like a train, stealing Alex’s breath from his lungs. The hair along his arms stands to attention and gooseflesh crawls up from his stomach.

Hoodie’s thrown his head between his arms, fingers clasped together in his mess of black hair like he’s praying. Alex gives the dust a moment to settle, then drops a hand briefly on Hoodie’s shoulder as he unfolds himself. Realizes the cab’s windows have shattered when he feels the glass covering Hoodie like a fine misting. Some falls out of Alex’s hair as he moves. Peers out where the window should be, and finds—

Total wreckage.

The ground is scorched green and black; a nearby tree has been reduced to tatters, with shreds of brown leaves still drifting to the ground. The van is twisted almost beyond recognition, warped into a lump of metal more black and gray than the previous stark, clean white. The swarming agents that had been working to right the vehicle have either taken shelter or been knocked unconscious, bodies slammed into buildings or parked cars like puppets with cut strings. He can see one moving, haltingly reaching for comms, but… 

All that from a little butane and—

And what?

“Bloody hell,” Alex murmurs. He glances at Hoodie. 

He hasn’t even looked at the fallout, but he’s at least sat up. He’s shaking slivers of glass from the folds of his jacket. “That’ll keep them busy for a while.”

“No shit,” Alex says, but watches out the door anyway. Some of the ones who’ve taken shelter are regrouping, and they look angry.

A compact four-door slams to an abrupt halt half a dozen meters from them.

Alex locks eyes with the driver. Can’t help but grin and wave.

The driver lifts one unamused eyebrow.

Alex grabs Hoodie and darts towards the car. “C’mon!”

“What’s—”

“Our ride.”

He rips the door open, and before Hoodie can hesitate or say anything, Alex is shoving him in. Hoodie scrambles across the back seat to the far side and Alex follows, yanking the door shut after them.

“Drive!”