Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Over the new few days, Cub slips easily into the cracks in Wolf's life. He forgets the kid is there a few times (thank God Wolf isn't one of those people who sleep naked; his mother always told him it was dirty), but after a couple of awkward moments, he quickly adjusts to Cub's presence in the flat.

In all fairness, it doesn't really take much adjusting. Cub isn't the picture of a messy teenager. If anything, the kid is a little too clean – Wolf can never tell when he's been in a room, not even when he's used the shower, which veers a little into the unnerving, because it's definitely a spy habit. Cover the tracks; get rid of the evidence. Wolf wonders if the kid knows he's even doing it or not.

What's more, Cub deflects questions with the ease of an experienced agent. He parries "How old are you anyway?" with "Too old to call social services but too young to flirt with, I'm afraid" and a wink. "Do they even pay you?" is met with "Oh, yeah, they pay me so much - I'm so expensive, Wolf, you have no idea…" until Wolf actually begs him to shut up.

Wolf still hasn't been called in by HQ, despite the yellow alert, so he spends his days trying to make himself busy. He runs errands, keeps up with his workouts, and goes on a few runs. But he mostly tries to stay around the flat. Not that he's getting attached to the kid, or anything. No, he's just looking out for himself, more than anything. If someone showed up at his place… well, it would be hard to explain, wouldn't it? Why exactly do you have an injured agent sleeping on your sofa, Corporal? The last thing Wolf wants is to get in trouble with Intelligence.

On the third night, when him and Cub finally get sick of watching re-runs of awful American soaps, Wolf fishes out a pack of cards from the back of the sofa and lays them out on the coffee table. He thinks it's a good idea (brain stimulation and all that, right?), until he loses the first two rounds of poker.

"You're cheating," he accuses, when Cub looks set to win his third. Wolf can't tell how he's doing it, but he knows that Cub has to be. Eagle used to cheat atrociously back in training. Fox too, only he was more subtle about it (probably why Six snapped him up and left the rest of them).

Cub plasters a Who, me? look on his face, but sure enough, when Wolf throws down his cards, the kid has pulled a full house out of nowhere. He scoops up their playing chips (a handful of old bottle tops that Wolf has been meaning to toss in the recycling) to add to his growing hoard.

"Who taught you to do that?" Wolf asks, glancing down at his phone. Not that it's any use: the internet is still playing up, which is irritating, but he can't complain about it because he knows that Cub would take the piss. The big bad SAS soldier can't handle a little shitty WiFi? Besides, Wolf has his pager; if K Unit is called in for an assignment, he'll know about it.

Cub's hands move deftly as he shuffles, weaving the cards in and out, in and out. "My uncle taught me a little. And I picked up some tricks along the way."

Wolf snorts. "Very Casino Royale of you."

Cub pulls a face. "That movie is so overrated. The way he gets back up and carries on playing after he's poisoned? Unrealistic. I was poisoned once and I was out of it for weeks."

Cub is so casual about these things, but the words hit Wolf like a slap. "Who the fuck poisoned you?"

Cub freezes for a moment, and Wolf thinks it's the first time he's actually caught the kid off guard. But then he shrugs it off, making a vague gesture like it hardly matters. "Just someone I pissed off."

"You say that a lot." Wolf picks up a fresh card - a jack. "Was it the same people you pissed off enough to put a knife in you?"

"Nah. Different crew."

"Sounds like you're making a lot of enemies."

And a habit of leaving loose ends, Wolf thinks. That isn't the way Wolf was taught to go about assignments. In his book, when you leave a mission, you make sure every bad guy is accounted for, or it isn't over yet. Cub's way of doing things sounds a lot messier.

Wolf thinks of the nightmares he keeps overhearing. The way Cub tenses in his sleep.

"Are you telling me how to do my job?" asks Cub, glancing up with an unreadable look.

"I just don't want you to get yourself killed, kid."

"Well, you don't need to worry. I can take care of myself."

Shut up, James, whispers a voice in his ear, Let it go. But he's never been good at that – at backing down from an argument once it's been kindled. "Really? Because you didn't see yourself the other night, Cub. You looked half-dead already."

Cub puts his cards down. "I didn't come here for a lecture. You're not - you're not my guardian, or my fucking keeper, or whatever. So mind your own business, won't you?"

But who is his guardian? Some "foster family" who he hasn't mentioned once, except to inform Wolf that they existed?

"You broke into my-"

"Yeah, yeah, your house. So you keep saying. Next time, I'll just bleed out on the pavement, shall I?"

"From the sound of it, there might not be a next time if you carry on like you are!"

Wolf knows he should shut up, because what does he know about it, but he can't help it. Poisoned, stabbed… what the hell is Cub getting himself into?

Cub's laugh is cold and cynical; for a moment; he sounds nothing like the teenager that he's supposed to be. "I wouldn't worry too much, Wolf. If I were going to die young, it would already have happened. Enough people have tried, believe me."

"It almost sounds like you're trying to get yourself killed."

Cub jerks like Wolf has hit him. And - okay, yeah, that was a low blow. Wolf half expects the kid to tell him to go fuck himself, half expects some cold remark that's sharp enough to slice him in two. But he gets neither. Bereft of the opportunity to make a typical teenage exit - with no bedroom to storm into - Cub throws down his cards and stalks off into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

"Game over, I guess," Wolf mutters.

He's pissed off, torn between wanting to kick himself and wanting to kick some sense into the kid. It's not like he said anything that isn't true… even if, admittedly, he wasn't very tactful about it.

As Wolf puts the cards away, he is surprised to see that Cub's hand wasn't actually that good. If they had kept playing, Wolf would have won.

Cub is sulky with him for the next day and a half. It's impressive, how he manages to avoid Wolf in a flat that only has three rooms. When Wolf comes back from the gym the following evening, there's no immediate sign of Cub, and for a second, he thinks the kid has left. Slipped away into the darkness.

But then he sees a light on in the bathroom, and breathes.

Cub hasn't closed the door properly. When Wolf approaches, he catches a glimpse of the kid as he twists in front of the bathroom mirror, trying to re-tie his own bandages. He must feel Wolf approach because his eyes snap up, meet Wolf's gaze in the mirror, and he scowls.

Ugh. Wolf hates having to be the bigger person, but enough is enough.

"Give me that," he mutters, pushing into the bathroom and plucking the roll of bandages from Cub's hand.

Cub glowers for a second, but he lets Wolf take charge, as Wolf knew he would. Over the last few days, Wolf has learnt enough about the kid to gather that he's a stubborn son of a bitch (unfortunately, they share that trait), but he's also figured out that Cub is ruthlessly practical (they all are, spies) and he'll know that Wolf can do a better job of this than him.

Cub slides up onto the counter, giving him access to the wound. As Wolf presses antiseptic into the gash, his brow draws into a frown. The knife wound looks much the same as it did four days ago. The edges of the wound are still red and raw, nastily tender… Not signs of a full-blown infection. But Wolf assumed it would look a bit better by now. Cub hasn't complained about it hurting - but this is the kid who climbed two stories while bleeding out rather than knock on the door. Wolf is starting to suspect that Cub would sooner perform open heart surgery on himself than ask for help.

Don't overthink it, he tells himself. He's not the team medic, after all; he only has standard first aid training. What does he know about stab wounds?

And then something else catches his attention, anyway.

When Cub first broke into his apartment, and Wolf was patching him up, he was too focused on keeping the kid from bleeding out or passing out to notice much else. But as Wolf is wrapping the wound this time (traditional bandages; he doesn't want to put anything sticky near that just yet), there isn't an immediate danger this time, and Wolf's attention is not so hyper-focused on the knife wound. This time, he notices things.

Wolf has his fair share of scars. Run-of-the-mill ones, in this line of work; cuts and stitches that have faded to dim white lines, old brushstrokes. And Cub has those kind of scars, too, which gives Wolf a little shake at first (he's a teenager), but shouldn't be surprising, all things considered. Workplace hazards and all that.

No - it's the other kind of scar that Wolf can't unsee, and he can't resist saying something, either.

"That looks pretty nasty." He nods at the pale bundle of scar tissue that looks awfully close to Cub's heart. He doesn't even know what to think about the ones on the kid's shoulders – blotchy discolouration; skin that has burst through skin.

Cub follows his gaze. "Yeah. That one stung a little." Then Cub shifts slightly. "Just so we're clear, I don't have a death wish. Okay?"

Wolf pauses. "Good. Because I don't need that on my conscience, alright? Even if you are an annoying little shit."

Cub raises his eyebrows. "Careful there, Wolf. Almost sounds like you actually care or something."

"Well, funerals depress me." He ties the first bandage in a neat, tight knot. "And I don't know how they'd fit your big head into a regular-sized coffin."

Cub smirks.

Wolf rubs his eyes with the crook of his elbow. His muscles are still aching from the gym; he might have gone a bit too hard on the weights. "Look, if I ask you some questions, will you answer honestly? It's just that - since you're staying here, there are things that it would be easier for me to know straight up, so you don't just spring them on me out of nowhere. And I've signed the Official Secrets Act and everything; I'm not going to sell you out to the tabloids."

Cub's head cocks. He looks at Wolf for a long second.

"Alright. But within reason, okay? And only – only – if you do the same."

Wolf grunts. He supposes that's fair.

"So where did you grow up?"

"Same as you."

Wolf frowns for a second, before realising the kid probably means London. His accent is a bit more polished than Wolf's, but they're both Londoners; anyone could tell.

"Can't ever answer a question straight, can you?"

"Nope."

"Okay. How old were you when you came to Brecon?"

"Fourteen. How old were you when I was there?"

"Twenty-two," Wolf answers, a beat too late, because fourteen? Shit.

"Young for an SAS recruit," the kid comments, like he isn't practically fresh out of the womb. "I thought they only recruited after three years of service?"

"I dropped out of college to join up. And you've got no right to talk. What, are Six picking them out of the fuckin' nursery now? Jesus Christ."

The kid looks amused.

"What?" Wolf says defensively.

"You're funny when you get angry, is all." Cub shakes his head. "I can't believe I ever thought you were intimidating."

Wolf's hands stop in surprise. His sister said almost exactly the same thing, once. You look like steam is gonna come out of your ears, James, she had cackled. Wolf tries to ignore the odd feeling in his chest. Cub isn't his little brother, he reminds himself. He hardly knows the kid - and he's a spy, besides. But the feeling does not go away.

"You didn't answer my question. How did you end up with Six so young?"

Cub shrugs, like it's an unimportant detail. "I was a special case. All my family were spies."

"Were?"

Wolf knows he said his parents were dead, but surely he must have somebody, right?

"Yeah. Were."

Ouch, Wolf thinks. That answers his next question: Why haven't your family objected to what you're doing with MI6? Clearly, they're not in a position to be making objections.

"So this foster family—"

"Have absolutely no relation to me. They're a couple - desk workers at Liverpool Street. You know about Liverpool Street? Yeah. One of them used to be Jones' PA a few years ago. They're a convenient choice, to be honest. Both of them work for Jones, so there's no need to be all secretive about who my real guardian is or where I go when I'm not at their place."

There is no animosity in his tone. But no affection, either. He said "their place" and not "home".

Wolf is no bleeding heart, but - well, his heart may be bleeding a little for the kid. Just a little.

"My turn. So, do you have any family, or are you a poor little orphan Annie like me?"

Wolf's mouth twists. He doesn't like talking about his family - not with people in his line of work. Stories like what happened to Jones' family… they're rare, but they tend to stick with you. He can't exactly refuse to tell Cub, though. They made a deal.

"I have a sister. And a nephew."

"No parents?"

"We moved to London when I was eight. The rest of my family stayed in Argentina, and my mum died of cancer when I was sixteen."

Instantly, Cub sobers. "I'm sorry."

"It was a long time ago." Wolf pauses. An idea occurs to him. If you tell him some really personal shit, maybe he'll do the same? It's a bit of an underhand move, but Wolf swiftly decides that it's worth it. Cub is a spy; his kind deal almost exclusively in low blows. "It got me into some trouble, though. My mum dying. I, uh, I didn't really know how to deal with it. The grief. For a while, it mostly got turned into anger. I think if I hadn't joined up… well, I don't know what I might have ended up doing, or where it would have led me."

Cub is looking at him very closely. Wolf wonders if it's worked. Is Cub going to open up in return? Tell him what happened to his family – or how he ended up working for the British Intelligence before his voice dropped? Is this our emotional bonding scene?

"Sorry I had a go at you," is what Cub says, eventually, when Wolf has finished with his bandages and he's pulling his t-shirt back on. "It was shitty of me. Especially when you're letting me stay here, and - and looking out for me, and everything."

Not exactly what Wolf was hoping for, but... there's something there. Is Wolf reading this right? Is Cub avoiding his eye because he's embarrassed? Embarrassed to admit that he needs someone to look out for him - even when it's just someone to bandage his literal knife wound and let him crash on their sofa (aka: the bare bloody minimum)?

"Don't be stupid," says Wolf brusquely. "Like you said, you were bleeding out. You'll just have to-"

"Pay you back for the milk?"

"Pay me back for the milk."

Cub grins. Maybe Wolf should leave it there - end on a good note, rather than stick his neck out and risk starting another fight. But there's one more thing that he needs to know about.

"Cub… I know you said that the people who you, uh, pissed off, wouldn't be able to track you here. But I have to know. Do you have a plan for dealing with them in the long term?"

The grin fades. "What, worried I'm gonna get stabbed again and ruin more of your carpet?" Cub looks down, and Wolf notices his fingers curling against the granite of the bathroom counter. "Yeah. I have a plan."

"Are they… big? Powerful?"

A ghost of amusement passes over Cub's face, nothing like his smile from before. "You could say that. Yes, they have pretty terrifying amount of influence. I actually don't think their core ideals are all bad… but the way they operate is wrong. They've gone unchecked for a long time, and I-" He stops abruptly, his mouth closing, as if realising he's said something that he shouldn't have. "Anyway. Yeah. They're powerful. But there are bigger fish in the ocean, you know? And now that I'm out of there, they're not getting me again."

"How can you be sure of that?"

"Because I'm gonna make friends with the bigger fish."

Wolf remembers how Cub said, yesterday, that it was his uncle who taught him poker. Was it this same "uncle" (who must be dead now, Wolf realises) that taught him this kind of strategy? How closely did he distinguish between the game and reality? And how old was Cub when those lessons started?

"I could have sworn we were talking about spying a minute ago, not fish."

"Not my fault you don't know how a metaphor works."

Wolf glares, but there's no real heat behind it, just like there's never any bite in Cub's insults. "Listen, kid. I know you don't need anyone to tell you how to do your job - but you don't always have to do it on your own. You know that, right? If there's anything me, or, or K Unit can do to help-"

"I appreciate that," Cub cuts him off. "But I don't need anyone's help. I work best alone."

Really? Wolf thinks of the wonky bandages, tied in front of the mirror. He thinks of Cub, pale and unresponsive, in those awful few minutes the other night when Wolf thought he wasn't going to wake up. He thinks of Cub when he talked about his foster family. A convenient choice. I don't trust them.

"There's a reason they train us in units, kid," he says softly. "Sometimes you can't do a job on your own, and you shouldn't try, even if that's how you'd prefer to do it."

But Cub is shaking his head. "I don't need anyone else," he repeats, not looking Wolf in the eye but down at his hands. "And I've got the luck of the devil. Didn't you know?"

Wolf thinks it's supposed to be sarcastic, but to his ears, it just sounds sad.

And later that night, something finally happens.

Wolf always keeps his SAS pager in his pocket. He has it linked to his phone alarm as well for when he's sleeping, but the shrill ringing would probably be enough to wake him anyway. It certainly catches his attention now, as evening is sliding into night, making him wince until he manages to hit the accept button.

Wolf glances down at the screen, and sees a string of words. Orders.

Go immediately to 89 Sagittarius Lane, Surrey. Position outside target location. Wait for the rest of your unit there.

"Oh, here we bloody go," Wolf mutters. That address is almost thirty miles away, and apparently he's expected to make his own way there. Fantastic. He gets to his feet and grabs the holdall from his wardrobe, where it has been ready and waiting for days.

Cub barely glances up when he hears Wolf's been called in for an assignment. "Don't get yourself killed," he calls as Wolf is on his way out, and the last Wolf sees of the kid, he is sprawled out on the good sofa, feet on the coffee table. I'll give him hell for that when I get back, Wolf thinks, and swings the door shut behind him.

Wolf drives a fraction over the limit, but not enough to get himself in trouble. It has rained, and the streets are shimmering with it, a second city reflected upside-down in the puddles. Wolf is gliding down a thankfully-minimally-congested road when his phone buzzes on his dashboard. A call. Wolf glances at it, and accepts.

"You alright, Eagle?" He assumes that Snake and Eagle will be making their way to the same location, from where they've been stationed on yellow.

A moment of crackling silence, then, "… Wolf?"

His teammate sounds surprised to hear him, like he didn't just ring his number.

"Yeah." Wolf tilts the steering wheel as the road meanders left. "What's up?"

"Didn't expect to hear from you, mate. Have they cleared you for duty, then?"

Wolf frowns. "What d'you mean? I was never taken off duty."

Suddenly, there is a bad feeling stirring in his gut. Eagle's next words don't make it any better.

"Uhh, yeah? You were? One of the higher-ups suspended you from field missions a few days ago. We got a phone call from HQ saying you'd be sitting this one out. We - me and Snake - we thought it must be pretty serious, since you weren't even picking up the phone..."

Wolf swerves the car to the side of the road. A bit dramatic, maybe, but alarms are going off in his head. "Eagle, when exactly did you get that call?"

"I dunno – a few days ago? Shouldn't you know that yourself?"

"Just fucking tell me, will you!"

"Okay, okay, sheesh." A pause. "I'm pretty sure it was Saturday. Some time in the evening? Yeah, 'cause I was round at Snake's, and we were gonna try that new pub next to the one that closed down…"

Wolf stops listening. He counts back the days. Cub turned up on Friday night – or the early hours of Saturday morning, to be exact. Wolf stayed up the rest of the night after he showed up, but in the afternoon… Cub persuaded him to get some sleep. And when he woke up, the phone lines were shot and the internet was disconnected.

"Shit," Wolf breathes.

His brain is firing off possibilities now, and boy, are there a lot of them. Cub has had access to Wolf's whole flat - including his computer - for four days. Could he have gotten into the SAS database? Yes. Almost definitely… in fact, he already admitted to doing it once before. I hacked into your files a while ago. Sorry. Taking Wolf off duty would mean that he wasn't getting any alerts. And it would be even easier for Cub to cut him off from the rest of the world. He's Six – he could definitely get his hands on a signal blocker, or something similar, to take out the internet and the cell signal.

And now, being paged today, to this mystery location…

It's lured Wolf out of the flat. Almost lured him all the way out of London.

"Fuck!"

Wolf slams his palm into the steering wheel. The kid has played him like a fiddle.

"Uhhhh, you okay there, James? You sound a little—"

Wolf ends the call. All he can think of is turning the car around and going straight back to his flat. But he's not driven more than half a mile when Eagle's name flashes up on his screen again. Wolf tries to ignore it, tries to focus on the grey asphalt, on going as fast as he possibly can without killing anything, but eventually, on maybe the fourth call, the buzzing becomes so annoying that he picks up.

"Really not in the fucking mood right now, Eagle."

He cuts off a seven-seater to a chorus of angry shouts. Wolf doesn't care; doesn't give a single shit. His mind is full of scenes from the last few days… Cub, bleeding out on the living room floor. Sleeping on Wolf's good sofa with his hair askew. Sitting on the bathroom counter, skin sliced open, grinning. He trusted the kid. He liked the kid. Was it all just a ploy?

Or is Wolf wrong about this? Could it be a mistake? Wolf hesitates, even now. Maybe he shouldn't jump to that conclusion. Maybe it's nothing to do with Cub at all…

"Neither am I, you prick," Eagle snaps. "James, what the hell is going on? And don't hang up. I'm your bloody teammate, so whatever's happening, you need to tell me about it, because it affects me too."

Wolf is going to hang up again – but something in Eagle's words catches at him. Wasn't he saying the same thing to Cub, just a few hours ago? There's a reason they train us in units, kid. Sure, in the time since then, Cub has (might have? Already had?) turned on him, but it's still true. Eagle's his teammate. Wolf resists the urge to shut him down again, albeit with a scowl.

"I'm just dealing with something right now. I don't need any of you to get involved."

"… Okay. Alright. Sure. I don't understand how you're not able to come on the assignment with the rest of us but you're able to get mixed up in your own shit… but alright, James. Whatever."

Wolf is ready and raring to snipe back, but—

"What do you mean, the assignment? I thought we were on yellow alert."

"Yeah, we were. Then yellow turned into red."

Wolf tries to swallow the lump in his throat. "What happened?"

"Mate, have you not read the news at any point this week? Most of the units have already been called in. We're just waiting for our turn."

Wolf's stomach is doing Olympic-level acrobatics.

"Some Six agent has gone rogue. The whole bloody country is looking for him."

James San Luca, you truly are the dumbest bastard alive.