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Hunter opened his eyes on instinct, evaluating and processing his surroundings before he had full feeling back in his hands. He felt cold and unusually flushed- on verge of vomiting without any accompanying nausea or sweat. His feet tingled a bit- lack of circulation likely from sedentary posture for an extended duration of time. His eyes focused, straining a bit on the peripheral while muscles struggled to stretch and contract to properly adjust.
Hunter remembered a fair few things, but his immediate memory felt hazy and indistinct like after a generous use of tranquillizer or anesthetic. He hadn’t been shot recently, there was no lingering burn or fresh pain to suggest a severe laceration or surgery. He hadn’t gotten drunk in- well, years now. Hard to do that with an impressionable young Great white-footed Russian gosling pawing through his bag every other week.
Hunter wasn’t injured (or he couldn’t locate an injury at this time) and felt fairly capable. Disoriented and baffled, but that subsided once he found someone who could answer his many questions.
“You’re awake!” a man on his right shouted. Boisterously, looking both awed and proud like...a very unsettlingly proud man.
‘Late forties, early fifties. Isolated or exiled, little regard for personal appearance. Stains on clothing and secondhand ill-fitting shoes. On the run then, or shit style.’
The man trembled in poorly restrained excitement. “You’re awake. Oh- oh! How Bethany will weep at my feet! I’ve done it! I’ve finally done it! You’re alive!”
Hunter blinked twice, distantly remembering a cheap movie with fake lightning strikes and Helen trying to get popcorn down a teenager’s shirt three rows down. It’s alive!
“Am I supposed to be roaring?” Hunter asked a tad bitterly. His throat sounded like he had been dead, so maybe the comment was justified.
“You speak,” the man said and began to cry. “Oh, oh this is wonderful. Here! Here I have procured everything I can think of…”
‘What person uses ‘procured’ in normal conversation?’ he wondered. The weapons looked shit quality and on further examination, were indeed shit quality. Used, old. One gun had a barrel rusted clean shut and the other didn’t have any usable ammunition. There was a jousting lance leaning next to a handful of decorative throwing knives with no edge.
“Take what you need!” the man enthused, pawing at his station and visibly sweating. Hunter investigated each weapon with increasing incredulity. One gun, one, was potentially operable.
“I’m so proud of myself,” the idiot whispered in a trembling voice. “They said it couldn’t be done...but I did it! I am the master of life itself!”
“Where am I?” Hunter rasped, rubbing his throat with the back of his left hand. He didn’t see any injuries on the careful mental inventory of his body, although his clothes were applied carefully. He didn’t want to believe this idiot dressed him but one tactical belt (had he gotten this at a sporting goods store? ) had a price tag rubbing on his leg.
“Oh, yes!” the man said, standing straight and proud. “I am Doctor Lekensburg! You are in Istanbul, my legacy! I have brought you here to-”
Hunter rolled his eyes and promptly shot the man. He flopped to the ground, twitching a bit on the floor. Thankfully only a few spots and backlash spray got on the notes and weird shaped computer.
“Reanimation, right,” he scoffed. Flipping through the notes, the scribbling writing turned more elaborate and medically advanced. The theory Hunter personally couldn’t read but maybe Helen could translate if she had a rosetta stone and a strong drink. “Istanbul, Turkey.”
He hadn’t been in the city in a while, but Roman roads didn’t change once built. The city had a good harbour, lots of boats he could peruse to get to a safehouse or- if he needed supplies- Italy.
He tore out the insane gibberish and used the blunt throwing knives to chop the pages into fine scraps. Once impossible to patch together, he cast an eye to the metal laboratory that felt unnecessarily gaudy. Surely the man didn’t actually conduct chemical mixing only a few meters from where Hunter had been unconscious. No wonder his head hurt and memory felt scrambled, he likely had been high on fumes.
A monitor pulsed red, turning everything an eyesore crimson. “Jesus, have you never heard of sepia?”
Hunter’s frustration melted at the new revelation. He wasn’t alone. There were guards outside the stairwell, which were actual bloody metal suits of armour rigged with tripwire and landmines. The guards, standing politely at attention, were being dismantled rather efficiently by a young man in a hat with a bobble. He wielded a folding multi-tool pretty well, dismantling the tripwire and finding the deactivation switch within a few minutes.
Hunter felt both ashamed at the quality of megalomaniacs in the world, and also very compelled to laugh.
He checked his gun, only a couple sure shots left before the weapon became a wild card of shrapnel. He could handle a single operative with two shots.
The door burst open and someone screamed with an ear-piercing cry, “ Tuque this!”
Hunter on instinct adjusted his aim and lodged two bullets into the source of the movement- which partially exploded and flopped to the ground. A very wool explosion, considering he had in fact, shot a tuque. A beanie. The infiltrator kicked down the door and threw his hat at Hunter.
Hunter looked at it, knowing his gun was sure as useless now. He said, “aren’t Tuques only Canadian hats?”
His enemy, maybe in his twenties, shrugged and looked at his hat with open misery. “Yeah but puns are really important to me in crisis situations.”
Hunter almost paused, “... puns?”
“Wool, that was anticlimatic.”
Hunter put the gun on the nearest table, deciding not to use it as a throwable weapon. “Jesus.”
The other scoffed, looking visibly upset. “Oi! Fuck ewe.”
Okay, this kid had to die.
The kid clearly perceived the moment Hunter made up his mind. The boy shifted his weight, visibly ready to run. He lifted both hands, unarmed, and said pretty chipper: “hey now, let’s not do anything rash.”
Hunter didn’t know anything about hat-making. Or tailors or knitting or- fuck, was that using two needles or the little hook thing?
“Was that another pun?” Hunter demanded coldly, something deep and primal urged him. “Was that another goddamn pun?”
The boy blinked quickly, visibly startled and somehow very pleased. “Uh, sorry I’m more of a sewer. I’m a master at being a prick when you least expect it.”
“Do you understand I am a professional killer?”
The kid shrugged one shoulder and smiled so wide his eyes lit up and his face brightened. “Good, you should stick to that. Your jokes suck.”
Hunter breathed calm, he didn’t allow his body or mind to waver. His tongue on the other hand…”I am going to kill you, very painfully.”
“Sorry darling, get in line. My twink booty-call is on the stairs and he has first dibs on shooting me.”
Backup on the stairs, but a hostile? Was the kid an unaffiliated agent? Presumably, the building had multiple levels to it, giving them some time. “I can’t imagine why anyone would want to shoot you.”
“Shoot your shot,” the boy said immediately, driven by a strange feral instinct. “College athletes, no break no sleep. All sweat, no tears. Emoji emoji.”
What the fuck, was an emoji?
The kid scanned the room quickly and efficiently. He had no weapons on him but that meant nothing if you used your environment properly. Hunter knew this well, there was a reason he lasted long enough to bash someone’s face in with a decorative marble egg. Weird foreigners.
“So, I don’t think we’ve met before and I have a feeling I’ll be seeing you around,” the kid said, waving one hand towards the macabre lab and oozing corpse in the corner. “Oh, wow. Did you shoot Doctor Frankenstein’s-doctor?”
“Frankenstein? The monster?”
“No, Jesus, the monster deserved so much better. I wrote a book report on it. Asshole doctor went all crazy and wanted to reanimate the dead then the monster went and roasted his ass.”
Hunter could see the similarities then. He could have sworn the movie had gone differently. “I shot him.”
“Good for you,” the kid said glibly. “My name is Alex, but lots of people like to call me their preferred death threat. Nice to meet you Mr. SCORPIA’s-badass-agent-man.”
Hunter paused. The kid- Alex, apparently knew about the situation. As well as SCORPIA which generally wasn’t well known. He shot the insufferable doctor before he could pry out any information, but a younger relatively sane child could easily crack under interrogation.
“Well, Alex. Want to tell me where I am?”
Alex showed no visible hesitation before he grinned crookedly and said, “Istanbul. But since you’re an old guy, it may have been called Constantinople for you.”
“Rude little smartass, aren’t you?”
“I just comment on the grey hairs when I see them, sir.”
It startled a laugh out of Hunter, so unexpected and outright cheeky. It reminded him a bit of another wide-eyed bratty child chasing him around. Although this one seemed much more stupid to walk into a gunfight with a pair of pliers.
“So, do I get a name back?” Alex asked, going so far as to push out his lower lip and pout. He walked, looking casual if not for his intended target. Not the stack of weapons like any sane man would inch towards. The kid was slyly sneaking himself towards the chemistry portion of the open floor, where the large unlocked cabinets stored beakers of chemical compounds.
“Anything you want to call me,” Hunter said, following with equally careful steps. Alex paused, recognizing his movement and their subtle migration.
“Careful, you may get some nasty things.”
“I’ve heard worse.”
Alex huffed, pillowing out his cheeks before exhaling in a rush. “It’s rude to push someone out a window without knowing their name!”
Hunter smiled, a little crooked and a little too sharp, but something nonetheless. “Then John.”
Alex hummed, bobbing his head and trailing his fingers along the melamine countertop of the chemistry station. He said, “well then, my John Doe, time for a stag party!”
Then the kid vaulted himself by one hand over the table just as John would have done. The kid snatched the largest glass pipette, as long as John’s leg, and bashed the end onto the ground. He lifted and held it defensively (a much more reasonable spear than the cosplay-reject at the weapon’s table) and shouted, “en garde!”
John jumped onto the table. Simultaneously kicking a small but heavy canister of oxygen gas as well as shouting, he said, “what sort of fencing pose is that?”
Alex ducked with a loud eep! He rolled under the table John was standing on, crawling out to chuck the glass spear at his back.
John bashed it aside with the inner flat of his knee and broke it underfoot to prevent any other messy exchanges. “Now a javelin thrower, eh?”
Below the table, Alex said a bit offended, “my track coach said I was very talented!”
John looked around the lab, trying to form a rough tactical plan. The chemicals were too dangerous to mess with, he didn’t know if they were properly labeled and making a bomb without knowing if there were floors above him was just stupid. The kid though may be crazy enough to try it.
John reached up, managing to snag the long extension cord suspended from the ceiling. It took a few tries to drag it down and release it. It was a fiddly little toy just like Helen’s damn blinds. Once the latch left, John was hauling it down with excessive length and a nice bulky power outlet box on the end.
Alex appeared again, staring at him with a careful look. He lifted his new weapon.
“That looks like a fire hazard,” the boy said semi-seriously, lifting his fire-extinguisher higher. “Can’t have that happen here. Chemistry lab best behaviour.”
John started to test his coil and makeshift bludgeon. He hadn’t ever used a legitimate ball and chain, but this would be adequate enough. “You look like the kind to set the lab on fire.”
Alex opened his mouth then closed it. He looked pained, nostrils flaring. He confessed in a partially strained voice, “okay, that was totally Julius’ fault-.”
John swung the power box and smashed it into the ground just shy of Alex’s right foot. The kid squealed, rushing to hide behind any nearby object as John wound back and slung it around like an axe. Alex cursed, sliding under the table to pop up the other side and grab the cord from John’s feet.
John expected this, and with his preemptive movement, managed to kick Alex in the face.
Alex recoiled with a high pitch yelp, aiming up and activating his fire extinguisher which bellowed an ashy cloud of dust into John’s face. He cursed, hacking with both eyes watering, and danced away from the kid’s reach.
“My nose,” the kid moaned, voice completely legible which meant it hadn’t broken. The kid rubbed it with a scowl, huffing loudly and holding the damn fire extinguisher protectively. “Maybe you got me mixed up with the other guy who has a fetish for plastic surgery. I know, it’s an easy mistake-.”
John grabbed a nearby vial, uncaring of what was inside, and threw it like a dart. Alex used his extinguisher to break one vial before he realized unknown chemical splashes were probably a bad idea. Then, it was target practice for John.
“This is so unfair!” Alex shouted as he ran and dodged admirably. “Only one person gets to fire at me! And he has better aim than you!”
The insult shouldn’t have bothered Hunter but it did. That or the fumes were starting to really get to him. He threw another vial, this one entirely off the mark. Alex lunged towards him, noticing his ammunition supply was quite low and used the electrical cord as a rope swing to bash both his feet into John’s neck.
They staggered back and the ceiling collapsed. Alex shouted something about his weight but the complaint was swallowed by plaster and dust. Hunter gagged, wiping away fire extinguisher dust and ceiling dust with a new resolve to break the kid’s femur.
“Let’s get out of here,” Alex wheezed, coughing so hard it dropped an octave and bordered the lower limit of vomiting on the ground. “I checked around, no guard hyenas here thank god.”
John, a little dazed and a little impressed asked, “Is that a common problem?”
Alex said a bit miserably, “we don’t talk about the hyenas.”
They did continue fighting because the kid recovered first and bolted towards the stairwell. John followed, knowing the original room was well beyond salvation. The next floor wasn’t much better, but the stairwell shaft suggested they were maybe 14 floors above the ground. No sign of the mysterious backup-hostile.
“Okay,” Alex said, panting into his knees and straightening with a sloppy fighting stance. John recognized it a little, something Ian had been playing with between missions but never brought up since John always won in spars. Alex said, “let’s dance.”
John looked out the nearest window, kicked it open and snapped the flagpole on the sill. The Turkish flag hung around its length. John tore that off with one hand and held his makeshift weapon at the ready.
Alex, for some god unknown reason, looked at him with poorly restrained rage. Outright offended, he said under his breath seethingly, “...but that’s my style.”
Maybe the kid really had loosened something in him, because Hunter found himself quoting Helen a tad dryly: “I wear it better.”
Alex looked at him, vibrating, and scanned around for any weapon. He picked up a desk lamp, tore off its shade and cracked the bulb gingerly on the desk. The filament glowed bright and hot. Clever, John’s flagpole was metal and would conduct on impact.
“Careful, kid.” John walked forward slowly and taunted him halfheartedly, “didn’t your parents warn you not to mess with high voltage?”
“Don’t worry,” Alex said, baring his teeth a tad feral. “Most people are shocked when they find out how incompetent I am with lamps.”
Well, that was a clear threat and warning. John slowed his advance and stood at a standstill.
The moments ticked on, each winded and tired and at risk for mesothelioma. Alex was sweating and Hunter felt his left knee creak a little.
“You’re talented,” John admitted slowly, briefly nodding to the lamp. “Not many would think of that.”
“Thanks,” Alex said sharply. He chewed on his lip, asking suspicious, “why are you using a flagpole and nobody else uses a flagpole?”
“Because I’m better than everyone else.”
Alex rolled his eyes, scoffing a bit. “Yeah, clearly you were so good you went and got yourself killed to be revived by a freak.”
John froze. “Frankenstein?”
“No! I told you! Frankenstein is-.”
‘You went and got yourself killed to be revived-’
John’s head swam a bit. The flagpole felt heavy in his grip, but he didn’t dare let it wander. “Explain. Right now.”
Alex blinked, looking at him startled and very wide eye. The broken lamp flickered, looking very dangerous so close to his face. “Oh, uh, my name is Alex. I like long walks on the beach and I don’t like being impaled-.”
“The dead thing!” John snapped, raising his voice sharply. Alex flinched back, looking at him oddly.
Then, his face softened into a weird expression of apology and pity. “Oh, oh shit you don’t know. Uh, okay so. I was told that this doctor was going to revive the most uh, ‘dangerous assassin’ and SCORPIA was pretty mad I heard, so we thought that meant the most dangerous SCORPIA assassin. But, that seemed odd to me because-.”
John took three sharp inhales and let it out slowly. He calmed himself, letting his blood pressure lower and his heart level soothe itself. “I’m dead.”
“Well, not right now,” Alex offered weakly. “I mean, you look pretty good for a dead guy.”
“I’m dead,” he repeated. ‘Where the fuck is Helen?’
“That’s rough buddy,” Alex said with an anxious lilt to his voice. “Can we start over? You kinda shot first but I’ll admit, the hat joke wasn’t my best.”
“It was bloody retched.”
Alex tilted his head curiously like Ian did sometimes. “You’re British.”
It wasn’t a question, it was a knowing statement. John shrugged one shoulder, letting the flagpole tip to rest against the ground in a less hostile posture. “You’re young.”
“I wish I could say I’m the best but I think I’m just hardy.”
John snorted quietly. “Something in the damn water.”
“I think it’s tea bags,” the kid said, smiling himself and placing the lamp on the table, although not removing his grip. “I’m really sorry about the dead thing. It must uh, must be a touchy topic.”
John stared at the broken lamp, at the glowing burn of its filament. “I don’t remember it.”
“Oh,” said Alex.
They stood there for a few minutes, Alex tapping his fingers along the lamp. It was a steady rhythm, normally trained out of agents. Another oddity.
“So, uh,” Alex said awkwardly. “Are you going to try and kill me? You’re probably really confused. Oh shit, was Princess Diana alive when you were?”
John blinked rapidly, “I killed Princess Diana.”
“You absolute-,” Alex said, cutting off his words with a muffled broken noise. “I can’t believe- she wasn’t hurting anyone!”
“I’m dead! I don’t get to feel bad!”
“Yeah well, Princess Diana is dead now too! I wonder why!”
John couldn’t explain why, but he started to laugh. A little bit in shock and confusion. The information slowly starting to catch up with him. “I’m going to burn this building to the ground.”
“Okay, I’ll help with that,” Alex agreed, completely exhausted. “Did you really have to kick my face?”
“Did you really have to drop the ceiling on us?” John asked.
“It was a calculated decision,” Alex said, “but God, I’m bad at math.”
John snorted, setting the flagpole down. Alex set down the lamp entirely, the two looked at each other entirely worn down. Something about the kid made John want to muss his hair, shove him with a shoulder like his own little Russian bird.
“So like,” the kid says a bit high pitched, “were you really going to throw me out a window?”
John frowned at him. “Of course I was. You were a threat. You haven’t done the same?”
Alex scrunched his face in thought. “I...flung a snowmobile into a helicopter and they fell? Kinda like being pushed out a window?”
John nodded at that, “how did you get the lift?”
“Ski jump?”
“Innovative, well done.”
Alex perked up visibly. “Really? People said it was a bit too much.”
“No such thing if they’re still kicking.”
Alex pointed one finger at him seriously. “You. I really like you. God, where were you all my life?”
“Apparently rotting in a grave,” John said dryly. “I’d have liked knowing you, Alex. You seem fun.”
“Hell yeah I am,” Alex beamed with all his teeth showing, a bright expression with dimples a bit like Helen’s. “I heard SCORPIA has an optional checkbox for if I’m on a mission because I fuck them up so much.”
John looked at him with a different light. It took a lot to get mission briefings and informational reports to be catered to a single individual. “You don’t collaborate with SCORPIA?”
“No I uh, we don’t get along,” Alex said. “Things tend to blow up when I’m involved. Sometimes people. Or buildings.”
John smiled again, the kid was interesting. There may be a benefit to snatching him up, maybe run some tests on him. “When was that backup of yours getting here?”
“ Backup?” Alex looked at him perplexed. “I don’t get backup. If you mean my Russain potato who wants to kill me or kiss me from that built up tension? Yeah, he’s like, right outside the room.”
John didn’t bother moving his body towards the door, he just picked up the flagpole. If he was shot, he could still kill two men with a metal pole and escape. Just like Prague.
The door opened smoothly and with no hesitation, the mark of an expert agent. There was a gun cocked and loaded, accompanied by the secondary sounds of another firearm. They were certainly prepared, holding two weapons at the ready for both John and Alex.
“Hey!” Alex said, waving cheerily on the other side of the desk. “It’s all cool now! Please don’t shoot me I’m too pretty to die.”
“You used that excuse last time,” the man snapped the smooth calm voice.
‘Trained. Older, the early forties maybe. There’s an accent dropped, trained out of him. SCORPIA or high-level Special Forces.’
“You,” they said. There was no indication that the gun was pointing at him, but John knew it was leveled to face his skull. “Turn around, leave your weapon.”
Hunter breathed through his nose and lowered his weapon to the ground. He bent his knees to follow the movement, peering out of his periphery. The man was no more than three feet away, SCORPIA tactical boots that were well worn, but well maintained.
Hunter had been revived as the best agent in SCORPIA. There was a reason.
People always underestimated the power stored in the legs, an upward lunge against a forearm always redirected a gun and left you close enough to incapacitate a foe. The man grunted at the hit but accepted it, dropping the gun to better bash his palm into Hunter’s face.
Hunter always won, there was a reason.
“No!” Alex shouted, springing closer just as Hunter managed a fair forearm block along the man’s upper arm and used his right knee to bash into the lateral ribcage ( ‘-just be fast with it. Knock them down, pin them if you need to interrogate, otherwise take that damn penknife and cut their- ). The man went down with a heavy thud, already kicking out with well-rehearsed and commonly trained moves- then more desperate wild ones which left Hunter reeling and his vision spinning. Alex cried something again, but the threat grabbed Hunter’s arm, rolled them over to pin him-.
And Hunter scrounged his strength and frustration and outright piledrove him into the fucking cheap carpet. Something crunched, not loud enough for bones to splinter, but enough to maybe snap a tendon or pop a half dozen vertebrae.
Hunter got up, prowling to where he abandoned the metal pole. Alex rushed at him, grabbing the other end and yanking it, attempting to break his grip. “No no, John don’t-.”
“Step the fuck back,” Hunter growled, shoving Alex with his shoulder. He hoisted the rod, adjusting it to stab where the target had managed onto his knees and was coughing with a rattling wheeze. ‘Dislocated jaw? Trachea damage? Doesn’t matter.’
“John! Stop!” Alex barked loud and demanding like a little Yorkie dog. Hunter ignored him and wound back- and the little target lunged like a slippery little mink and dove a fair size knife into Hunter’s thigh.
“Fuck,” Hunter hissed under his breath, parrying another hit with his pole before ripping the knife out ( ‘angle suggests only muscle laceration, no vessel damage-’ ) and trying to stab into the bastard’s throat.
“Alex!” the target hissed, Moscow accent slipping free with the adrenaline haze, “get out-.”
“Both of you, stop!” Alex shouted at them. “Stop fighting!”
Hunter wriggled and the target bashed his elbow into Hunter’s ribs, trying to take him down. Hunter returned the favour and broke his right cheekbone- and maybe part of his eye socket with his skull.
BANG.
“Jesus-” Hunter wheezed, reeling and scrambling back at the gunshot. The target did similar, pressing against the wall and floor in basic cover as one hand covered his eye to protect it from further damage. Any marksman needed their eye and would leave them open further after.
“Both of you!” Alex bellowed, having shot the ceiling with both guns, “knock it off! Stop!”
John grunted quietly, hand staunching the blood oozing through his shitty pants. The target looked at Alex, hand shrouding the half of his face John could see. No blood yet.
“I’d make you two apologize,” Alex seethed, “but I think that level of primary school education is beyond you children.”
John opened his mouth to argue, and Alex pointedly cocked the one gun again. “I can, and will, rupture all of our eardrums. Don’t think I won’t. Actually, I want you to. Try me. Try me, I dare you!”
“Don’t,” the target said, Moscow accent receding, “he will.”
“I know, he brought down the ceiling above,” John muttered sourly.
The man scoffed, “just one?”
“Okay, shut your face right now,” snapped Alex. His nostrils flared in his frustration and anger. “John, are you going to bleed out?”
John did not sulk. He shook his head.
“And you,” Alex said, turning his wrath on the Russian. “ Is your eye going to fall out if you don’t hold it?”
The man stilled before offering a stiff and cold, “perhaps.”
“Well fucking fantastic,” Alex said, wilting now that the adrenaline had worn off. “Optometrists are so expensive nowadays. Okay, I’d make you two kiss and makeup but I don’t think-.”
“Wait, this idiot is your booty call?” John asked incredulously.
“I’m his what?” the man asked, voice turning sour and startled. “I am certainly not.”
“Okay, that’s not fair,” Alex wilted, “I’ve seen you watching my ass-.”
“I was trying to shoot you.”
John felt very tired and old. “Isn’t he old for you?”
“No, we met when I was fifteen and he saved me from death,” Alex informed him. Too genuine to be a lie. What the fuck?
The man grumbled quietly, “Sayle wasn’t- he outlasted his use-”
“Uh-huh,” Alex said with a thoroughly unimpressed look. “Keep telling yourself that, Yassen.”
John froze.
He thought of many things. He knew that name, the stupid name that was blatantly made-up Russian. The name of an idiot who jumped into everything and doubted his ability to kill with a knife ( good ) and fucked up a shot ( good ) and managed to take down Rothman’s little project even with all the knives (good, Yassen ).
And John said very calmly, “you’re a fucking cradle robber? You- you turned into a goddamn cradle robber?”
“Uh oh,” Alex said quietly, but not quite enough. “Mummy and daddy are fighting.”
The man ( Yassen Yassen Yassen ) looked at him with a half-obscured face, damaged by John’s own hands. The eye exposed looked at him glacially before freezing on his face.
“Alex,” Yassen said rather calmly, “give me a gun. Now.”
“No, I don’t trust you with it,” Alex argued.
“Alex,” Yassen said again, and now John could hear it under the layer and mask of age and weariness and a potentially broken windpipe.
Alex looked between them, then seemed to realize the problem. “Oh, I get it. Did you two know each other? How did he die, Yassen?”
John was about to say he didn’t remember, then Yassen said quite coldly, “betrayed, and explosively.”
That...checked out enough.
“Yassen,” John repeated,. Something flickering desperately at the corner of his brain. “ Yassen. Where’s Helen-.”
“Alex. Gun. Now. ”
“No, we don’t shoot friends,” the youngest informed them both, then pointedly disarmed the guns and put them on the ground amidst bullets. It wouldn’t really stop either SCORPIA agent, but it was a nice gesture.
“Yassen,” John repeated, a tad mesmerized by the fact he was here. “You...grew up.”
“Stop talking,” Yassen said to him, then turned to face only Alex. “Are you injured?”
“Uh, no but-.”
“Yassen,” John repeated, not willing to let it go. “How old are you? How long has it been-.”
Yassen closed his visible eye and took a deep breath. “Is it a clone. Or an experiment.”
“Uh,” Alex looked quickly between the two rather confused, “no? I mean he seems pretty legit, packed a mean punch and came at me with that flagpole.”
Yassen shuddered and muttered, “of course he did.”
“I’m real,” John said, feeling a bit strange to be saying it out loud. “I don’t know how I got here. I just woke up. You’re alive, you’re actually alive-.”
“You can’t be,” Yassen hissed, looking wild and ready to murder John with a single hand. “You are dead. I watched you die!”
John twitched a bit, looking perplexed and feeling small. “Yeah, well. I don’t...You’re alive. I suppose there is one miracle in this then-.”
Yassen snatched the knife previously held in John’s thigh, flipped it around and pounced on John before Alex could shout. He held it secure, bloodied and all, to John’s throat with one hand still clasped over his eye.
“You’re dead,” Yassen hissed, overcome with such rage John had never seen before. “I don’t know how you did this, but you will pay-.”
“Yassen, Yassen,” John repeated, feeling metal cut the first layer of his skin. “Don’t.”
Yassen’s lip curled back sharp and cruel. “What’s my name?”
John swallowed, the movement drew blood. He said calm and certain, “Yasha.”
Yassen drew back as if he had been shot. He flinched, skittering back on his heels and curling protectively on the side where his face had been wounded. The movement tugged down on his shirt, and John could see a scar that hadn’t faded even after all the years.
“It’s you,” John repeated, a tad mesmerized, “It- I knew but-.”
“Stop-,” Yassen said, jaw clenched and eyes tight, “just...stop.”
Alex said quietly, “uh, Yassen-.”
“Alex, don’t,” Yassen said in that pained noise he couldn’t decipher. “Please.”
They sat there, a dusty bloody mess until Yassen could breathe without shuddering. Although nobody cried, John could attest that it had been a very close thing.
Alex took the metal flagpole and combined with a gutted office chair fashioned a disgusting crutch. John didn’t especially need it, but it was a cute gesture he appreciated.
He hobbled down the stairs fairly slow, Yassen entirely mute even as Alex chattered away and asked him questions.
John looked between the two, clearly unsure of the relationship. Yassen shook his head and John knew better than to ask.
“I just realized,” Alex said around the third floor, “what am I going to do?”
“Blow up the building?” Yassen offered dryly. His voice had a minor tremble in it, nobody addressed that.
“No! I mean, what do we do with John? Like, is he...is SCORPIA going to…”
“Oh,” Yassen said, now recognizing the problem. He turned to look at John as well, sharing a blank expression. “I imagined you wished to stay with Alex.”
“Me?” Alex blinked quickly, “I mean, I’m touched and sure, but my flat is pretty small and Tom won’t be happy...Do you have a life insurance plan?”
Yassen looked at Alex like he heard the most ridiculous thing. “Why would you remain in a...shared living space?”
Alex blinked, “because I have to pay rent?”
Yassen stopped walking, then looked between John and Alex with a startled expression. “You-...you didn’t tell him?”
“Tell him what?” John asked. Alex tilted his head curiously.
Yassen inhaled slowly and let it out in a rush. “Your stupidity. Is genetic.” He said something in Russian that Alex couldn’t understand but left John looking offended.
“This,” he said, using his free arm to point to John, “is Hunter. This,” he then gestured to Alex, “is Alex Rider.”
Alex blinked and processed faster, “Hunter? Wasn’t that the guy who saved your life and died and was my dad- oh.”
“Oh,” John said dumbly. “That’s why you have Helen’s dimples.”
“ That’s why you wanted to burn the building,” Alex realized with a timid growing smile. “I’m sorry I tried to kill you with the ceiling.”
Yassen pinched the bridge of his nose and said something suspiciously like a curse.
(“Let’s not burn the building. I’m getting my fucking wife back.”
“Oh fuck yes, two Riders? This is gonna be amazing.”
“Two- you and Ian never hung out?”
“Ian sucked. Yassen shot him.”
“Eh, probably deserved it.”
“I need. Eternal patience to survive with the both of you.”
“...wait, Yasha, you’re with my son?”)