Chapter 1: The Spot Nobody Earned
Chapter Text
Alex knew something was wrong the moment the headteacher smiled.
It wasn’t a bad smile. It wasn’t even a fake one. It was the very specific, brittle kind of pleased that only ever appeared when something impressive had happened that absolutely should not have happened to them.
“We’re proud to announce,” the headteacher said, hands folded over the podium, “that our school has been selected to attend the International Youth Policy Summit in London this term.”
The room exploded.
Cheering, clapping, someone in the back actually whooped. Tom Harris twisted around in his seat to stare at Alex like he’d personally orchestrated the entire thing.
“Mate,” he mouthed. London.
Alex didn’t clap.
He didn’t breathe, either. Just sat there, very still, as the noise washed over him and the familiar, cold certainty settled in his gut.
They did not win that.
They weren’t a political school. They weren’t an international feeder academy. They barely qualified as “academically ambitious” on a good day. This wasn’t a lottery win. This was a placement.
A placement.
MI6.
The assembly dragged on with logistical details—travel dates, accommodation, “what an honor this is for our institution”—and Alex mechanically wrote everything down even though he already knew the dates would be cleared, the risks assessed, the escape routes mapped. By the time the bell rang, Tom was vibrating with excitement.
“International summit,” Tom said, throwing his bag over his shoulder as they spilled into the hall. “Alex, this is massive. World leaders! Diplomats! All-you-can-eat hotel breakfast!”
“Mm,” Alex said.
Tom squinted at him. “You’re doing the thing.”
“What thing?”
“The quiet thing. The ‘something horrible is about to happen’ thing.”
Alex didn’t answer.
He didn’t have to. He just had to survive the rest of the day until Mrs. Jones summoned him—which she did, precisely at 4:17 p.m., in the most boring possible email imaginable.
Tea?
Her office looked the same as always: tidy, unremarkable, entirely forgettable by design. She poured with careful neutrality, the steam curling between them.
“So,” she said mildly. “You’ll be going to London.”
Alex stared into his cup. “You arranged it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
A pause. Fractional. Measured.
“We identified a potential vulnerability in the summit’s private security arrangements,” she said. “Nothing conclusive. But enough to justify placing you on-site without alerting outside agencies.”
Alex closed his fingers around the mug. “So my entire school just got dragged into this because I was convenient.”
“Because you were necessary,” she corrected.
He didn’t look up. “That’s not better.”
“That is politics,” Mrs. Jones said quietly.
He left without saying goodbye.
The first person Alex saw when the buses pulled up outside the summit complex two weeks later was Sabina Pleasure.
She was laughing as she stepped down from her own school’s coach, phone in one hand, hair loose in a way Alex remembered far too well. For a second, the noise of the street dropped out entirely.
Then she looked up—and saw him.
The smile froze. Flickered. Then returned, careful and real and complicated.
“Alex,” she said.
“Sabina.”
There were a thousand things neither of them said. About deserts and floods and lies and almost-dates and long silences. Instead, they stood there like two normal teenagers on a normal trip, surrounded by luggage and shouting teachers.
Tom appeared instantly at Alex’s elbow. “You did not tell me she was going to be here.”
Alex didn’t take his eyes off Sabina. “I didn’t know.”
Her gaze flicked between them. “Hi, I’m Sabina.”
Tom beamed. “Tom. Best mate. Survivor of multiple Alex-related disasters. Lovely to meet you.”
Her laugh was soft and surprised. It hit Alex harder than he expected.
They were shepherded inside by staff and security, the wide glass entrance swallowing up street noise and replacing it with polished floors, low voices, and the hum of something far bigger than a school trip. Flags lined the atrium. Screens scrolled names of attending delegations. The air felt tense with importance.
Alex catalogued everything automatically.
Camera placements. Guard rotations. Distances between exits.
And the blind spots.
He didn’t like how many there were.
On the second evening, during a formal reception none of them technically had any business attending, Alex slipped away.
He told Tom he was going to the bathroom. Tom told him to steal pastries. Sabina gave him a look that said she knew better—and let it go.
The restricted corridor was three turns past the main hall, unmarked, softly lit. Alex moved without sound. The security camera at the junction completed its rotation exactly when he expected it to. The locked door at the end wasn’t locked.
He stepped inside and felt the world tilt.
The young head of state was standing less than three metres away, studying a framed photograph on the wall like they had all the time in the world. No visible guards. No weapons. No panic. Just a person, alone, in a place they should never have been alone.
Their eyes met.
And then everything shattered.
The shot wasn’t loud. It was suppressed, precise. The assassin came out of the side doorway Alex had just passed, arm extended, movement fluid and rehearsed.
Alex moved before thought could catch up.
He drove forward, slammed into the shooter’s wrist, redirected the barrel into the wall. The second round buried itself in plaster. The assassin swore and twisted free, but Alex was already inside their reach, momentum ruthless and fast. They crashed into the opposite wall as footsteps thundered from both ends of the corridor.
The head of state didn’t scream.
They stood frozen, wide-eyed, as security flooded in and the attacker was pinned to the floor. Tom skidded into the scene behind a group of guards, white as chalk. Sabina followed him—and then she saw Alex, breath heaving, knuckles bleeding.
“Alex—?”
He shook his head sharply. Not here. Not now.
The leader looked at him with something close to awe.
“Who are you?” they asked softly.
Alex didn’t answer.
They didn’t take him back to the summit floor.
They took all three of them somewhere else.
It was the head of state who insisted on the truth. It was the head of state who said, quietly and furiously, that they would not accept another word of explanation until they knew exactly what kind of world let a child stand between a gun and a president.
So Alex told them.
Not everything. Just enough.
And in the silence that followed, something fractured.
“Children are not assets,” the leader said at last, voice shaking with controlled anger. “They are not weapons.”
Alex stared at the floor.
Later, in a sealed conference room that smelled of glass cleaner and power, Sabina and Tom signed the Official Secrets Act with hands that weren’t steady. Joe Byrne stood by the door like a statue carved from violence. Mrs. Jones watched Blunt argue with a world leader who had just learned how nations really paid their debts.
“This was gratitude,” Blunt said coldly. “You were protected. A threat was neutralized.”
“This,” the head of state said, eyes burning, “was exploitation.”
And Alex, sitting between them, understood something shift.
Not in MI6.
In the world.
Chapter 2: Nothing Happens
Chapter Text
Nothing happened.
That was the problem.
The day after the assassination attempt arrived bright, orderly, and nauseatingly normal. The summit continued exactly as scheduled. Security was tighter—Alex could feel it in the way the guards stood, the way their gazes tracked movement instead of drifting—but to everyone else, it looked like nothing more than sensible caution.
Panels resumed. Students filed into conference rooms with tablets and lanyards. World leaders delivered speeches about cooperation and shared futures beneath banners that promised unity in five different languages.
Alex sat in the second row of a policy forum on renewable infrastructure and gripped the edge of his desk like it might slide away.
Every instinct screamed that this was wrong.
Tom leaned over and whispered, “So if someone leaps out with a gun in the middle of this, I’m just going to—”
“Don’t,” Alex murmured without looking at him.
Sabina sat on Alex’s other side, notebook open, pen moving steadily. From the outside, she looked like the most composed person in the room. Alex knew better. Every few minutes, her knee bounced once against the leg of the table. Controlled. Reined in.
The head of state entered midway through the session.
The room rose in a ripple of polite awe. Applause followed. Smiles turned radiant. The leader acknowledged them with a small, graceful nod and took their place at the front as though their life hadn’t almost ended in a forgotten corridor less than twelve hours ago.
Alex watched their hands.
They didn’t shake.
By afternoon, normality was exhausting.
They broke into discussion groups. Tom was thriving on the attention of international students. Sabina debated fiscal responsibility with someone from Denmark like this was just another school competition. Alex responded automatically when addressed, nodded when appropriate, smiled when expected.
Inside, he measured distances relentlessly.
During a break, Sabina finally caught his wrist as he moved toward another exit scan.
“Alex,” she said quietly. “It’s over. For now.”
He met her eyes.
It wasn’t the kind of lie either of them needed to say out loud.
The head of state didn’t speak to Alex again until the third evening.
They didn’t summon him. They simply appeared beside him in the edge-shadow of the reception hall, where the light softened into something more private. Tom had been abducted by a group of enthusiastic policy students. Sabina was cornered by her school’s advisor.
Alex was alone.
“You watch rooms like a soldier,” the leader said gently.
Alex didn’t flinch. “Occupational habit.”
The faintest smile. It didn’t reach their eyes.
“I’ve been briefed more fully,” they continued. “About the structures that placed you here.”
Alex waited.
“They called it discretion,” the leader said. “They called it necessity. They called it protection of the state.”
“And?” Alex asked.
“They did not call it what it is.”
The noise of the hall pressed in around them—laughter, clinking glasses, hopeful voices discussing futures they believed they were choosing freely.
“I accepted their scholarship package today,” the leader said.
Alex’s stomach tightened. “You shouldn’t—”
“I know.” Their gaze sharpened. “And now I also know exactly why they offered it.”
The silence between them shifted—no longer raw shock, but something colder and more focused.
“They wanted access,” the leader murmured. “Influence. A future debt they could quietly call in when it suited them.”
Alex exhaled slowly. “Yes.”
“I will accept their help,” the leader said, calm and resolute. “And I will remember what it cost.”
Their eyes softened then—just a fraction. “And I will not forget what it cost you.”
Before Alex could respond, a delegation swept in, and the moment vanished.
But the alliance had already formed.
The medals were awarded two days later.
There was no stage. No press. No ceremony announced in any official program. Just a small, private room adjacent to the diplomatic wing where the light came in soft through frosted glass.
Tom stood stiffly in his borrowed suit, looking like he was attending his own sentencing. Sabina’s posture was perfect. Alex felt oddly detached from his own body, as though he were watching the scene through someone else’s eyes.
The head of state held three small cases in their hands.
“For bravery,” they said. “For intervention. For lives preserved beyond the reach of politics.”
They placed the first medal in Tom’s shaking hands.
Tom swallowed. “I didn’t—I mean, I mostly just tripped into a guard.”
“History is often changed that way,” the leader said mildly.
Sabina received hers with quiet solemnity.
Then Alex stood.
The medal was heavier than it looked.
“For you,” the leader said, meeting his eyes steadily, “there is also the educational fund. The one arranged through…British channels.”
Alex nodded once.
When their fingers brushed as the medal passed between them, the leader spoke so softly that only he heard.
“This does not bind you. Whatever they intended.”
Alex closed his hand around the medal.
“I know.”
The inquiry began in whispers.
Mrs. Jones didn’t confirm it directly. She never would. But Alex heard it in the way certain handlers’ names went unmentioned. In the way Blunt stopped appearing at briefings that mattered. In the brittle edge beneath MI6’s usual confidence.
Tom noticed the tension without understanding it.
“They’re jumpy,” he muttered one evening as they were escorted back to the hotel. “Your boss people. Like they’re waiting for something.”
Alex didn’t answer.
He had learned a long time ago what predators looked like when they sensed weakness in another predator.
Home didn’t feel real at first.
Alex stood in the kitchen of their rented house and stared at the microwave like he’d forgotten what it was for. Jack was still abroad on a project. The silence felt wrong in a way missions never had.
Tom dumped his bag and collapsed on the couch. “I swear if I hear the word policy again, I’m switching to a life of deep-sea welding.”
Alex dropped beside him with a remote.
They played for half an hour without talking.
Then Tom muted the game.
“They shouldn’t be allowed to do that to you.”
Alex kept his eyes on the screen. “No.”
Tom swallowed. “I mean it. Governments. Agencies. All of them. You’re not a tool.”
Alex felt the weight of weeks, of years, settle in his chest.
“I know,” he said.
This time, it was true.
Sabina’s text came later that night.
If you’re not too wrecked—coffee? Just us.
Alex stared at the message for a long moment.
Then he typed back.
Yeah. I’d like that.
Chapter 3: The Pressure and the Quiet
Chapter Text
The first real sign that something was changing came in the form of a cancelled briefing.
It should have happened three days after Alex got home. It was routine, as far as MI6 routines went—decompression, debrief refinement, a quiet threat assessment dressed up as concern. Alex sat on the edge of his bed with his jacket already on when Mrs. Jones’s message arrived.
Stand down. Stay home.
That alone was wrong.
Blunt did not cancel briefings. Blunt used them.
Alex waited for further instruction.
None came.
By evening, the silence had grown loud.
By the end of the week, MI6 felt…unsteady.
Alex only noticed because he knew what steady looked like.
It was in the way surveillance tails rotated too frequently, like someone was rearranging pieces without a clear plan. In the way certain handlers suddenly avoided eye contact. In the way Mrs. Jones started appearing in meetings—when they did happen—with lines of fatigue drawn deeper than usual.
Blunt was absent.
No official explanation. No visible authority shift. Just a hollowed-out space where his presence should have been.
“You feel it too,” Alex said quietly one afternoon as Mrs. Jones walked him out of a briefing room.
“Yes,” she replied, not pretending otherwise this time.
“Is the inquiry real?”
She hesitated. That alone was an answer.
“Alex,” she said at last, “you did what you were sent to do. Everything beyond that is larger than you.”
He stopped in the corridor.
“That’s what they always say.”
Mrs. Jones didn’t argue.
The first attempt at retaliation came two days later.
It was subtle. It always was.
A financial review into Jack’s overseas contracting work. A reassessment of Alex’s “living arrangements.” A polite inquiry into Tom’s parents’ business affairs that was deliberately framed as routine.
Alex shut it down the only way he knew how—fast, precise, and at personal cost.
By the next morning, the financial review vanished. The living arrangement inquiry was quietly withdrawn. The “routine” background check on the Harrises was scrubbed without apology.
The retaliation stopped.
Not because Blunt was defeated.
But because the balance had shifted just enough for him to be cautious.
The world, meanwhile, kept moving.
News from the head of state’s country filtered in through international channels—measured speeches about reform, careful diplomatic realignments, a new anti-corruption coalition forming in parliament. On the surface, it all looked hopeful.
Alex read between the lines.
They were playing the game now.
But they hadn’t forgotten who taught them how.
The coffee shop was three streets away from where Sabina was staying.
Alex arrived twelve minutes early and immediately chose the most strategically sound table without thinking about it. Old habits died hard. He wrapped his hands around a paper cup he hadn’t yet drunk from and tried to breathe like this was just a normal thing.
This was supposed to be normal.
Sabina arrived on time.
She spotted him instantly, smile hesitant but real. No guards. No handlers. Just her, a jacket slung over one arm, hair pulled back loosely.
“Hi,” she said, like there weren’t six months of unsaid things between them.
“Hi.”
They ordered. They sat. There was a strange, fragile quiet between them—not awkward, exactly, just careful.
Then Sabina smiled faintly. “You look like you’re waiting for someone to crash through the window.”
Alex huffed once. “Working on it.”
They both laughed, soft and surprised.
The tension eased a fraction.
They talked about nothing important at first.
School gossip. Tom’s stubborn refusal to admit that he’d almost died. Sabina’s university applications. Alex’s non-answers about his future that were only partly lies.
Eventually, she looked at him over the rim of her cup, expression serious again.
“You don’t get to pretend it didn’t change you,” she said quietly.
He met her gaze. Didn’t deflect this time. “I know.”
“Good,” she said. “Because I don’t want a version of you that’s pretending to be fine. I want the real one. Even if it’s messy.”
Alex stared into his coffee.
“No one ever asks for that.”
“I am,” she said simply.
Silence stretched between them—not heavy, but full.
Then Alex spoke.
“They offered scholarships. Medals. Quiet rewards.” His voice was low. “It wasn’t gratitude. It was leverage.”
Sabina’s mouth tightened. “And the leader?”
“They figured it out.” A pause. “They’re still idealistic. Still angry. Just…not naïve anymore.”
Sabina studied him. “And you?”
Alex swallowed.
“I think I stopped being naïve a long time ago.”
Outside, traffic passed. Somewhere down the street, someone laughed loudly enough to be careless.
Sabina leaned forward. “You don’t owe them.”
He looked at her.
“The government. MI6. Any of them,” she clarified. “Whatever they tried to make you feel. You don’t belong to them.”
For years, Alex would have shrugged that off as impossible.
Now, he didn’t.
“I know,” he said quietly.
And for the second time that week, it felt true.
Later, when the sun had dipped low enough to soften the world, they walked without planning where they were going. Just side by side. No rush. No shadows following. No van at the end of the street that meant orders.
“For the record,” Sabina said after a while, “this is still a date.”
Alex blinked. Then smiled—small, real.
“I was hoping it was.”
She bumped her shoulder lightly into his.
They didn’t promise anything. There was too much history between them for easy certainty. But they didn’t pull away either.
And for Alex Rider, that was already a victory.
That night, Alex sat on the couch with Tom, controllers in their hands, game paused indefinitely.
“So,” Tom said carefully. “World done trying to kill you for this week?”
Alex considered it. “Tentatively.”
Tom nodded. “Cool. Because I cannot go through another near-death experience before midterms.”
Alex snorted despite himself.
They played.
No alarms sounded.
No phones rang.
And for the first time in a long while, the quiet didn’t feel like the aftermath of something terrible.
It felt earned.
Fin
fredbassett on Chapter 2 Tue 09 Dec 2025 09:03PM UTC
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Anonymous Creator on Chapter 2 Thu 11 Dec 2025 05:15PM UTC
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