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“I’ll be back in a few hours,” Alex says, tilting his eyes down to meet Misha’s.
The child is unrecognizable to anyone who might have known him before, adorning clean clothes and a haircut on account of Alex’s skills, pale skin flushed.
Although his face, concealing barely healed scars, and his eyes, always in pain, betray the image of a boy who has never known the world in its cruelest form, Misha looks alive.
His face twists into a frown, “Why can’t I come with you?”
“You know it’s not safe to leave right now. It’s better if I go alone, but I need to do this, Misha. And I wouldn’t leave you with someone I didn’t trust with my life.”
Smithers stands a few feet away, silently watching the scene that unfolds in the doorway of his home.
The child echoes his words, “But you’ll be back, right?”
“You have my word.”
With a nod to Smithers, Alex leaves the house, doubting every moment that he takes a step towards the station, an hour away from Cookham.
An hour towards home.
—
MI6 was momentarily off his back while the Sergeant waged his administrative war on its department heads, and Amell Fischer was too worried about losing his job than to send a search team after Alex.
So he bade his time in his assigned quarters, and left soon enough, taking Misha with him.
It was funny how easy it was at the end, to walk away.
It benefits him now, the lack of the need for secrecy, although the Scorpia threat looms on the horizon. Although Alex doesn’t feel like he’s being watched, he keeps an eye out.
He boards the train, looking the part of an unsuspecting university student. After an hour, nobody having bothered him, he gets off the train and leaves the train station with one goal on his mind.
He knows that going to see L-Unit could put them in danger same as before, but he takes the opportunity temporarily being off MI6’s surveillance. And he’s going to leave, he is. Misha wouldn’t forgive him if he wasn’t back, and he’s not going to put his family in danger.
But he owes them a goodbye, if not anything else.
There is an inexplicable need to see them again, in the wake of the mess he left behind.
To see Lion, blood running through his veins, far from pale and still in a hospital bed - alive. To see Tiger lose his prickliness (eventually), his soft spot shining through for Alex. To laugh at Bear’s jokes, breathe in his affection.
Alex Rider had long since proved to the world that he could go at it alone. He would survive. But living was a whole different struggle.
—
Alex stands in the corridor of L-Unit’s flat, wondering how he got here. He doesn’t know what to say, he doesn’t even know where to begin.
All he knows is that he needs to keep his distance, or he’ll never leave again.
He debates whether to knock, or turn tail and run. It’s not like anyone would know he was here, Smithers wouldn’t ask how it went and Misha would believe every word he said.
Alright, he thinks. He’ll go to the coffee shop that Tiger likes, and think on it. If he doesn’t want to come back within the hour, he’ll leave Cookham. Standing here staring at the cracks in the door isn’t going to help him anyway.
He moves to turn around and -
“Who are you?” Brash. Angry.
- Alex freezes.
Tiger, probably on his way back from the very coffee shop he planned to go to.
He realizes his hood is up, and Tiger doesn’t know. But his time is up.
“I asked you a question, you-”, his voice cuts off as Alex turns around, the nervousness plain on his face. All he’s faced, and he’s still deathly scared of Tiger’s disappointed anger.
He takes a moment to stare Alex up and down in disbelief. “Fucking hell, Alex.” He can’t parse whether the expression is of relief or ire, but before he can think too much, “Get the fuck in,” as eloquently put by Tiger ushers him forward into the next warzone.
Home.
He gathers his thoughts while Tiger locks the door behind him, not saying a word. Alex follows him into the living room, and Tiger sets down his coffee. He straightens.
Now, his gaze is fully focused on Alex.
Alex swallows. Tiger isn’t one of few words. In fact, he has choice words for all occasions. But he looks stumped, even more so than him.
But there’s a look in his eye and Alex knows what he’s going to do before he opens his mouth to protest. Without breaking eye contact, Tiger calls out, “Henry, I’m back,” loud enough for him to flinch.
So it’s going to be like that then. Double-edged attack.
He looks to the side to see Lion’s room door open, Bear emerging from it. “Do you want to-,” he stops. Stares. Alex is really tired of all the staring.
Bear’s face breaks into sheer relief. It had always been easy to read him from look alone.
He crosses the room in seconds. With his hands on Alex’s shoulders, “Can I?” he asks. He’s nodding before he knows it and is enveloped in Bear’s warmth.
A different kind of attack then.
His forehead is pressed into Bear’s shoulder and arms fully surrounded, unable to hug back. It reminds him of the desperate comfort Bear provided the morning of the day he tried to kill himself. Only now, Bear’s face is buried into his hair and he kind of seems like he’s crying or close to it. He wonders if he should be the one to provide comfort now. He doesn’t quite know how.
When the hug has gone on for too long yet far too little, he hears a shattered, broken, “Alex.”
He lifts his head to look over Bear’s shoulder to see an exhausted Lion leaning on the doorframe, awoken from sleep. He looks fragile, far from the immovable object Alex had made him out to be.
He wants to sink into the floor. If at all, Lion deserves the brunt of his apologies.
He pulls away.
“...hey, Lion.”
“Hi,” Lion breathes. The rest spills out of him like a tidal wave, “I’m so sorry, Alex. I wanted to come look for you but Tiger and Bear are supposed to be looking after me in case I keel over, so they wouldn’t leave, and I can barely walk, and Sarge said he was doing all he could, but I’m sorry.”
No, Lion, I’m the one who’s sorry. The words ring in his head, a recent memory that feels as if so long ago.
His eyes are burning.
Bear cuts in, “Sit down, you buffoon, before you fall over,” and Tiger finally moves, to help Lion over to the couch.
“I’m sorry,” Alex says to the still room. It’s desperate, and all the things he promised he’d never feel for others again. “To all of you.”
“I didn’t mean for you to get hurt. I never wanted that,” he says, directing himself at Lion. “And I didn’t want to leave, you know that,” he looks up at Bear and Tiger. “But you know that I had no choice either.”
Bear nods, but Tiger still looks angry.
“It wasn’t your choice to make. You get that, kid? I said you didn’t crash the bloody car and I meant it. It didn’t mean you had to up and martyr yourself without an indication. And to think you said fucking thank you before leaving.”
“Tiger.” Lion looks weary, but his tone is reproaching. “Lay off him.”
Alex doesn’t agree, “No, no, you don’t need to defend me anymore. Let him say what he wants to say.”
And Tiger says, “But I missed you. And I’m so glad you’re home, Jag.”
It’s all he wanted to hear but it still hurts to breathe, “You don’t need to say that. You agreed I’ve been nothing but trouble. You’re safer when I’m not around.”
“Then why did you come?” Bear.
“I- I don’t know. I have no idea why.”
Lion says, and it’s a quiet plea, “You’re lying. Fuck, Alex, what’s it going to take for you to admit we’re your family? You didn’t disagree with us on that before this happened.”
“And then you almost died!” Alex yells. “Everyone I’ve ever considered family ended up on the other side of that event, so forgive me if I’d rather have you guys six countries away from me than six feet under.” He’s breathing heavy.
Lion closes his eyes for a moment. Gathers himself. When he opens his eyes, his voice is drained, and he extends his hands as if asking for salvation, “Just come here, will you?”
Alex takes a step back. He knows that if he falls into this trap, he’ll never escape. “I shouldn’t have come at all.”
But Lion says, “Alex,” and it’s just one word, just his name.
Maybe it’s the weight of the universe that pulls him into Lion’s arms.
And Alex breathes.
Bear joins in, arms slung around the both of them, and Tiger lays a hand on his shoulder, the touch as meaningful as the others’ smothering.
They’re all near tears in some way or the other, huddled on the couch shaking in each other’s hold like there’s no one else in the world. And while Alex feels the safest he has in his life, he whispers into Lion’s neck, “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you.”
So there they go again, falling over their feet to apologize for things that they never needed to ask forgiveness for.
—
“They don’t know you’re here?” Bear asks.
“No. I left.”
Alex and Lion are on the couch, shoulder to shoulder, with Tiger on an opposite armchair while Bear paces the length of the living room.
“Wasn’t aware one could just leave the MI6 headquarters through the front door,” Tiger says wryly.
“Believe it or not, I did it with a twelve year old. They weren’t really… looking.”
Bear breathes out a laugh, “Only you, Alex.”
“Are you hurt? After the mission.” It’s Lion, concern bleeding through his every action, just the way he was before.
He remembers Plizetsky standing over him, glass lodged in his back and his hands bound. Maybe some lies are forgivable. “Just a few scrapes,” he says faintly.
“Where’s the kid? Misha?” Bear.
“I left him with someone… someone I trust.” Alex realizes that the need for secrecy has ended among them. There’s nothing they don’t know about him, or shouldn’t know. He elaborates, “From MI6. He always looked out for me, from when I started out.” He looks sideways at Lion. “He’s the one I got that watch from. Saved my life plenty of times otherwise.”
“Which is good, we owe him for it. But you’ve got to realize, Alex, that this man stood by and watched while a government agency used a-” he stumbles over his words, face dawning in realization,”- a sixteen year old to do their dirty work.” Lion goes white in the face.
“...you said you were seventeen when you started. That was a lie, wasn’t it?”
Lion knows it was a lie, and Alex hears the question underneath. How old were you really, when they sweeped the ground from under your feet and ruined you? How old were you when they stole your childhood?
He exhales. “I was fourteen.”
Tiger swears loudly. Bear closes his eyes, “Jesus, Alex.” And Lion just looks devastated.
He’s touched by their protectiveness.
“Does this mean we’re finally going to talk about the elephant in the room?” Alex puts it out there.
Earlier, he was blinded by fear that they would leave him stranded when they found out his age. He did everything to stop it, and now that it was over and done and his life was ruined ten times over, they were still here. He might as well bring it up. The conversation was long incoming.
Surprisingly, Bear speaks. Even more surprisingly, his tone is confrontational.
“Yeah, Alex, let’s talk about that. You’re sixteen years old. And it’s not even that the world has lent you the shittiest hand I’ve seen that makes me the angriest. It’s that every time I close my eyes, I think about how I left you with Hollis. How I left a sixteen year old kid about to go into septic shock in the hands of a predator, just because he told me to. You could’ve died, you know,” his voice breaks. “I failed you.”
Alex won’t stand for it. “That’s just it, Bear. I told you to leave. I joined the SAS to be a soldier, even if temporarily, and you respected my decision as a soldier. What difference would it have made if a teenager died in that forest instead of an adult?
“You think you failed me? You saved my life within the day. We would’ve both died if you stayed and you know it.”
Bear is cowed hearing the intensity in his voice. He says anyway, “Still. I am sorry, kid.”
“Nothing there to forgive, Bear,” and it feels like a step towards reconciliation.
Lion speaks up, “You asked what difference it made that you’re a teenager.” He looks straight at Alex, holds his gaze, “It doesn’t change a thing. Not to me,” and it’s everything he wanted to know.
“You’re still my friend, still my brother. And we’re going to work our maximum to make sure you don’t have to step on a battlefield again like you’ve been doing for three years, but nothing else changes. You’re family, Alex. If you’ll still have us.”
It was not too long ago he begged in a hospital for his older brother to come back. Left to stop the others from the same fate.
If you’ll still have us. Like he’d ever want anyone else.
Tiger interjects, “It was a nice speech and all, but yeah, what he said. A lot of things we need to iron out, but it doesn’t change anything. Nineteen or sixteen, you’re still my brother.”
There isn’t much left to say, when his emotions are written on his face for them to see. There’s only one thing he needs to say.
“Thank you."
—
“I should leave,” Alex says, but it’s pained, “Misha’s expecting me back.”
Tiger’s mouth tightens. “And will you be back? Because I’ll let you know right now that if you cut contact and run away again with some misplaced idea of protecting us, I will drag you back.”
Alex closes his eyes. It was selfish of him to want them so much, when they live in constant danger because of him. But if there’s one thing he realized today, it’s that he can’t live without them.
Whatever he did, they kept coming back. It had to mean something.
When he opens his eyes, he meets Lion’s gaze, full of warmth. It tells him, Be selfish.
Stay.
Alex’s voice is rough when he promises, “I’ll be back.”