Work Text:
Selena's phone buzzes while she and the rest of the band are in the middle of a press junket for the album.
billyraycyrus: A Lady bug tatoo on the neck ??? Good idea!!!!
She squints at it for a second, counting, and aw, crap.
She whispers to Joey to tell her publicist she isn't feeling well. When he tries to follow her, she puts her hand on her stomach and makes a face. He makes a face back, but lets her go without any more questions.
Once she's out the door, she smiles to herself. Works every time.
**
There's a car waiting for her outside. She hates bailing on work-related things, but Billy Ray's tweet means there's trouble, so it's not like she really had a choice.
on my way she sends, relaxing into the seat as the car speeds down the road. She scrolls back to Billy Ray's message, trying to figure out if there are any more clues in there. It had been a hard code to learn at first -- counting the spaces before his punctuation sometimes takes more time than she has, but hey. He needs to get the message to all three of them as soon as possible, as discreetly as possible. So, counting spaces it is.
When Disney'd first approached her for this they'd called it a "super secret mission" for her and Miley and Demi. Selena'd totally thought it was, like, a secret movie with an all-star cast that they didn't want leaking. Instead the three of them got sent to black-ops training in the Middle of Nowhere, New Mexico. It was -- the whole chain of events was insanely surprising. Not that she doesn't love it it. Sure, it's a lot on her plate, having to work on the show and movies and press and her album and like a million other things during the day, but it's awesome because hello, she's pretty much a spy.
Well. Not a spy. Because it's not like she's Jennifer Garner, breaking into labs to steal red bouncy balls or whatever. They're more like... crime fighters? It's probably a good thing Selena has to keep it a secret, because she doesn't really know how to explain it. Also, it sounds crazy when she thinks about it for a long time, and if she ever tried to tell anybody they'd probably lock her up and chalk it up to "exhaustion" or "dehydration" or something. Which she might not mind, entirely, because she could use a few days of uninterrupted rest. David's always making fun of her for being so exhausted.
"Late night?" he'd said just last week, after they'd been out all night dealing with another Robert Pattinson situation, and she'd said "Oh, you know, saving the world," and he'd laughed even though she hadn't really been kidding. His fans are crazy and Selena had to learn how to diffuse a bomb in the car on the way there! But whatever. At least she has Demi and Miley, right?
**
They're already at HQ by the time Selena gets there.
"Took you long enough," Miley says.
"Not all of us sit around eating sushi and counting the tank tops in our closets," Selena shoots back.
"Guys," Demi starts to say, but Miley's taking the bait all, "Hey! First of all, that was WEEKS ago, and second --"
"Angels, seriously," Joe says, walking into the office and standing in the middle of the three of them. "I don't know why you fight like this all the time. I keep telling you there's enough of me to go around."
Miley and Selena both roll their eyes, but Miley stops whatever she was about to say and Selena drops onto the couch. When Joe had been assigned to them as their handler Selena had thought it'd be a disaster, but he's actually really good at it. It's like some really awesome outlet for his energy, or something. Selena doesn't understand it, exactly, but as long as it's working out she's not going to ask any questions.
"What's up, Joe?" Demi says, leaning forward in her seat.
"Yeah, whadaya got for us, Jonas? Daddy's distress call sounded bad."
"It is bad." Joe tosses each of them a flash drive. Miley leans over and tries to read the post-it wrapped around Demi's, but Demi peels it off and crumples it into a ball before Miley can get a good enough look. Miley raises her eyebrows at Selena, who shrugs. She doesn't want to know.
"We're calling this one Kilo Niner," he says.
"God, can't we use a different alphabet?" Miley says.
"Like maybe one that isn't totally lame?" Selena adds.
Demi laughs. "Seriously. Kilo? What are we, Canadian?"
They start throwing around K words that aren't completely boring -- kitten, kickass, Kit-Kat, kerfuffle ("Kerfuffle? You want to call it Operation Kerfuffle?" Joe says, and there's three full minutes of them saying "kerfuffle" until it stops sounding like a real word), Kermit -- and Joe's glaring at all three of them now, his phone in one hand, his other hand on his hip.
"Ketchup!" Demi says, high fiving Miley before she notices the look on Joe's face. "Right, game faces," she says, swiping a hand in front of her face and going from smiling to serious. "What's the scuttlebutt?"
"Hee, scuttlebutt," Selena says, and Miley cracks up, too.
Joe rolls his eyes and sighs heavily.
"Right," Selena says, "Kilo Niner, you were saying?"
Joe sits on the edge of his desk and leans forward, elbows propped up on his knees. "There's been an incident with Kanye," he says seriously.
"But --"
"And this time he has a hostage," Joe continues, ignoring Selena. "And it's Taylor, which, I know, is a total conflict of interest but I still think we all need to dig deep and work together --"
"Wait," Miley says, "Taylor Taylor? Taylor Swift Taylor?"
He nods.
"Oh my god!"
"Seriously?"
"Wait, what?" They all say at once, and it takes a good thirty seconds for Joe to reign them back in and another five minutes for him to explain the whole situation.
"I mean, Beyonce's video was pretty good. OW!" He glares at Miley and gingerly rubs his bicep.
"Sorry," she says sweetly, "It slipped."
"Your fist?" he says. Miley stares at him until he says, "Whatever. Alright. Here's some extra stuff for the mission." He tosses them each a package.
"Ooh, new in-ears, FINALLY," Demi says. "I think a dog chewed my old one that time it fell out at Chateau Marmont." She makes a face. "It was so gross."
Miley fits in her earpiece and says, "Ten-four, come in, Drag -- dragon? Wait. Am I Dragon or are you, I can't remember."
"Oh my God. Not again," Selena says, rubbing the spot between her eyes where she can feel the headache coming on. They do this every time. Even after Billy Ray'd freaked and told them they had to stop using the code names because some people couldn't remember when it was okay to use them and when it wasn't, even after they all had to sit through an entire meeting about Things That Are Not Okay To Say On Twitter.
"Seriously," Miley says. "Let's clear this up. I'll be Nighthawk."
"Okay," Demi says, laughing. "And I'm D for Dragon. Good?"
Miley nods and tests out the comm link while Joe says, "Okay, what's mine?"
"What's your what?"
"My code name."
"We don't have code names," Selena says, folding her arms across her chest. "No one. Has. Code names."
"Oh, right," he says, winking exaggeratedly. "Okay. I'll be Danger."
Miley rolls her eyes. "Yeah, because you're the one putting yourself in danger all the time, Joe, sure."
"Um, I'll have you know I'm in danger all the time, Destiny," he says. "Just by meeting you here I'm in danger."
"Call me Destiny one more time and I'll show you danger," Miley says, taking a step forward, and Selena throws up her hands and says, "So should I just call David and have him help me with this or are we actually going to save Taylor any time soon?"
Luckily that snaps them all back to reality. Joe hands Selena a black duffel bag and explains a few more essential details and then says, "Alright, I'm sure there's more, but you needed to be on the plane," Joe checks his watch, "five minutes ago."
He pulls the door open, holding his hand out for a high five as they all file past him. "Good luck, Angels," he says.
"Pssh, luck, Jonas?" Miley says, grinning at Joe over her shoulder. "It's like you don't even know us at all."
**
Miley calls shotgun on napping and falls asleep almost immediately after they board, which is kind of exactly what Selena wants to do -- this new press tour plus filming plus band rehearsals is close to killing her. She has no idea how Miley's done it for so long -- but they have a team rule that only one of them gets to sleep at a time, so she plugs in her flash drive and reads the case file instead.
They've been fighting Kanye for forever it feels like. There are like a brazillion archived records in the file documenting all the times they've faced off against him, case reports about the time he hijacked a telethon and that time they had to talk him down from the ledge of a building because someone on TV had made fun of him. It seems like at least once a year he does something that requires their immediate attention. This time he's got an entire theatre held hostage. Well, had -- the police talked him into letting a lot of people go, so now it's less than a handful of people being held hostage. But still.
"It looks kind of bad," Demi says, sliding into the seat next to Selena. "Poor Taylor."
"Yeah." Selena sighs heavily as she zooms in on her screen, studying the layout of the building. The report doesn't say anything about Kanye having henchmen or whatever guarding the exits, but she's pretty sure that's only because they know like, zero things about the situation. "What'd the thing say?" she asks, tilting her head in the direction of the video screen Demi'd been watching.
She sighs, frowning. "The usual. There's two, maybe three people left inside. No discernible exits." She shrugs. "Plus, it's already a media circus, people outside filming, prayer circles for Taylor. Prayer circles for Kanye."
"Great," Selena says, because that's exactly what this situation needs. More innocent bystanders.
"He probably didn't rig the place with explosives. I mean, I watched a bunch of YouTube videos from people live at the scene and it doesn't look like it was a premeditated situation."
Which, okay, on one hand that's good because it means no bombs in the basement or whatever, but on the other hand it means SERIOUSLY MENTALLY DISTURBED PERSON TAKING OTHER PEOPLE HOSTAGE. Ugh. Some days she hates her job. This is so much more stressful than being a teen wizard.
Selena sighs. Miley needs to wake up and find a way to get them in and out of this place. Selena's horrible at that part. Deadly aim? She's your girl. But finding a window big enough for them to squeeze through? God, no. That's all Miley. Miley's their breaking-and-entering girl. Demi's all over the tactical stuff, surveillance and cover stories and and talking people off the ledge. Yeah, they mostly keep Selena around for her aim.
Demi rests her head on Sel's shoulder and points to the screen. "Did Joe include the ducts for this?"
"Um... Yeah, here." Selena presses a button so a map of the heating and cooling vents for the whole building appears. Demi traces a path through one of the vents like it's a maze.
"We go in here," Miley says suddenly, jabbing her finger onto a completely different spot from where Demi and Selena had been looking. "Well. I'll go in there, and then I'll shimmy this way and pick you guys up here, easy as pie."
Demi and Selena tilt their heads, assessing the situation. "Sounds good to me," Selena says, looking from the blueprint to Miley to Demi.
Demi nods. "Me too."
"Sweet!" Miley says, dropping into the chair behind her. "So." She cracks her knuckles. "What's the sitch?"
Selena presses a series of buttons on the console next to her; a screen lowers opposite the three of them. A few more buttons and the key points for the mission appear. Selena starts to speak, but Miley waves her hand and shushes her. "I got it," she says, and then, when she's done, "So where are we?"
"Well, you found our Point A, so I guess tactical," Selena says. "Dem says there aren't many people left inside."
"Him, Taylor. Maybe one or two more on his side," Demi confirms.
"Yeah, but the longer they're in there..."
"Exactly," Demi says when Miley trails off. Selena nods. Kanye's been in there for too long already; his breaking point's barrelling down on them like a runaway train and that's never a good thing. Obviously. "So this needs to be --"
"Smash and grab," Miley says.
"Quick and painless," Demi says pointedly. "We can't just go in there guns blazing and --"
"Uh, the last time I checked, we totally could. This is us," Miley says, gesturing between the three of them. "Guns blazing is what we do. Awesomely."
"The last time we tried a smash and grab you almost gave Mischa Barton a black eye!"
"That was her fault and you know it."
"It was," Selena says. "And she totally would've deserved it."
Miley laughs while Demi shakes her head at the two of them. She taps at her computer, transferring something onto the screen Selena's intel is on. "Here," Demi says, "Joe just sent this; he said it's important."
It's a message from Billy Ray. "Hey there, chickadees," he says as the wavy audio lines on the screen bounce around. "Joseph here told me y'all're up to speed and that's good. Real good. Just don't go makin' any rash decisions -- we don't want a repeat of last time." Miley makes a face at the screen and leans over to whisper something to Selena, but Billy Ray says, "I don't want to hear it, Miley," and she freezes, looking around the room.
"Oh, he's good," she says.
"I just wanted to remind you girls to stay out of the spotlight -- no runnin' through the streets with your guns out or givin' interviews to that Anderson Cooper fellow or bein' crazy, ya hear? Now don't roll your eyes at me," he says, just as they're all rolling their eyes and Miley's right, he is good, "There are a whole lotta people talkin' about this already. Priority number one is saving Taylor, not any of that flashy splashy whoop-dee-do, alright?"
There's a long pause, and then he says, "Alright?" and they all answer, even though he can't hear them. Well. He probably can't hear them.
"Good girls," he says. "Now get 'er done."
The message ends, the voice lines flattening on the screen until Demi closes the file.
"You know, one of these days he's gonna figure out Skype and then we'll all be in trouble," Miley says.
Selena ignores her and pulls the blueprints back up on the screen. "Alright," she says, "here's what we're gonna do."
**
"Ready?" Miley says. Selena checks her waistband, pockets, wrist, and ear; Demi does the same. They both nod. Miley winks. "Catch ya on the flipside."
In a flash she's pulling herself up and into a tiny vent in the side of the building. There's a series of bangs and then she's gone. Selena tries not to hold her breath. Miley's done this a thousand times before. She's fine. They'll all be fine.
"Oh my God, these vents are huuuuuge. I could like, live up here!" Miley's voice is scratchy over the comm link. Selena breathes a sigh of relief; next to her, Demi does the same. "You guys this is going to be so easy, y'all don't even know."
"Yeah, well, don't jinx it," Selena says, hoisting the duffel bag onto her shoulder. "Meet at the rendezvous in five," she says into her wrist. "Gomez out."
**
Miley's waiting for them at the door. "Let's go, lazybones," she says, gesturing at them to hurry up. "We got lives to save."
It's quiet inside. Selena can still hear the crowds outside, the cops on their megaphones trying to control the crowds, people on one side of the street playing "Love Lockdown" and "Single Ladies" against the other side of the street's "You Belong to Me."
"Anything?" Demi asks Miley.
She shakes her head. "Nah, it was all clear on my way here, but. You know." She points to the open vent above the door. "Not a far trip." She takes the duffel from Selena and unzips it. While she loads her gun, Demi runs through the building's layout one last time, pointing them in the directions they're going to go.
"And then we'll come in from the sides of the stage and Selena, you'll approach from the mezz --"
"I'll distract, Miley'll disarm, you'll extract, got it."
"Good," Demi says.
"Let's do it," Selena says, but Demi says, "Wait, hang on," and they have to wait while she pulls her hair into a ponytail.
"You seriously couldn't have done that outside? On the plane? Anywhere else?"
"Oh my god, it's five seconds, Selena, calm down."
"Yeah, it's not like Taylor's going anywhere," Miley says. "Take a chill pill."
Selena clenches her teeth and bites back a frustrated scream. "Can we -- are you ready now?" she asks Demi.
Demi nods, and with that they all head in separate directions. Selena makes it about five steps before she hears, "Hey, Sel," and Demi's stopping her with a hand on her arm. "She'll be okay. We'll get her back."
"Yeah," Selena says, exhaling. "Yeah, I know."
Demi smiles and squeezes her arm. "See you in ten," she says, and then she's gone, running down the hallway in the opposite direction.
Selena takes a deep breath. Demi's right. It'll be okay.
**
They run into a slight problem at the board. Selena's supposed to... hit some buttons? That make the lights and music go all crazy? So they can bust into the room. Basically. It sounded simple enough when Demi explained it on the plane. But now that she's staring at it, it's a lot of buttons.
"Okay," she tells herself. "Focus."
From the booth she has a clear view of the stage, which means she can see Kanye holding a mic, gesturing wildly, and Taylor standing barely two feet away from him. Oh, great, that's not gonna help her focus.
"How's it going, Eagle Eye?" Miley asks, and her voice startles Selena enough that she jumps.
"Don't call me that," Selena says automatically, and then, frustratedly, "Um. I just... need a minute. There's a lot of buttons up here. I need to figure out how to work it and then we're good to go."
"Can't you, like, hack into the mainframe?"
"No, I can't hack into the mainframe," Selena hisses, fingers skimming the panel. "I don't even know what a mainframe looks like!"
"Well sor-ry," Miley says, "I guess I just thought --"
"Oh my God, seriously!" Demi's voice crackles in her ear. "She said she needs a minute! How is she going to --"
"Would you two let me think?" Selena says, and they're both quiet until it clicks and Selena slides the buttons into place, twisting and pressing until she's certain they're correct. "Got it," she says, "On my count. One. Two. Three."
It all happens in one swift motion: Selena cues the lights, music starts, Kanye jumps and Selena slings herself over the railing, rappelling from the balcony to the main level. She can see Miley and Demi in front of her, on stage already, taking advantage of Kanye's disorientation, and then Selena takes her shot and yeah, in the end, it's totally easy.
**
"S-Selena? Miley?" Taylor says, confused. She looks like a deer in headlights. "What are you doing here?" and God, they do NOT have time for this. It's a relief to see her and all, but seriously, looneytunes rapper on the stage, now is not the best time for questions. Plus Selena's got, like, five gallons of adrenaline rushing through her; all she can manage is a shaky "Hey, are you okay?" and a quick hug before she heads over to help Miley pack up their gear and take care of Kanye.
Behind them, Demi's whispering soothingly to Taylor, who kind of sounds like she's a wreck, but when Selena glances back she's stopped trembling and she's smiling a little, so that's good news. Kanye's fine, too. He'll wake up in five minutes or so thinking he was super drunk and hopefully he'll apologize to Taylor for being a giant jerkwad and that'll be that.
"We're clear, here," Miley says. "Target has been neutralized."
Selena and Miley high five and then hug Taylor one more time.
"How'd you guys get here?" she asks. She sounds so stunned, still, and they all kind of look at each other, chewing on their lips, until Demi says, "Here, I'll do it," and Selena and Miley tell Taylor they're glad she's okay and head out the door.
Demi comes through alone a few minutes later.
"The usual?" Miley asks.
Demi nods and mimes wiping Taylor's memories. "Told her she waited until he passed and then made a break for it. We're all set." She wraps one arm around Selena's shoulders and the other around Miley's as they head for the back exit. In the distance they can hear the crowd cheering as Taylor presumably walks outside, free, and then the rush of feet as the police head for Kanye. Once they're outside Selena smiles to herself and Demi says, "Excellent work, ladies. I think this deserves at least some French fries."
"Godddd, I would kill for a milkshake," Selena adds, wrapping her arm around Demi's waist, right under where Miley's arm is looped.
"Yes," Miley says, "Both those AND... I don't know. What do I want?"
**
On the flight back, after their milkshakes and fries and burgers and sodas and nine thousand other things that Miley ordered to-go that they never even got around to eating, Selena falls asleep curled up in one of the captain's chairs. She wakes up somewhere over the mountains when Miley won't stop poking her.
"Can I get an AMEN?" Miley hollers when she straightens up. Selena checks her phone and yup, there it is:
billyraycyrus: Can I get an amen for a room full of THRILLBILLYS!!! I thank God for nites like this. We came together in a celebration of music!!!!!
Selena snorts. "Celebration of music," she says, holding up her phone and laughing. "Miley, your dad is amazing sometimes."
"I know, right?" she says, grinning. "Mission accomplished, WOOOOO!" She presses play on her iPod and pulls at Demi's arm, "C'mon, Dragon, let's rock this. You, too, Eagle Eye."
"Don't call me that," Selena says, mostly out of habit, ignoring Miley as she starts to list all the reasons it's the perfect code name for her.
"You're our sharpshooter, which means you have great eyesight. You are super fast, like an eagle."
"She loves Shia LaBeouf, and he was in that movie, Eagle Eye," Demi adds.
"YES, good one," Miley says, high fiving her.
Selena rolls her eyes and curls up again. Just as she's about to fall back asleep there's a text from Taylor.
OMG CALL ME ASAP
So she does.
"Taylor, oh my God, I saw the news," she says. "Are you okay? That was INSANE."
Across the plane, Miley and Demi are miming sneaking around corners with their guns drawn and Selena bites down on the inside of her cheek so she won't laugh.
"No, no, I have time. Tell me all about it," she says to Taylor. She kicks her feet up onto the chair next to her and watches Miley and Demi dance around while Taylor talks. She knows she's going to be tired when she gets back, that she'll have like an hour to shower and change before she has to be on set, and that tomorrow night they'll have a debriefing with Joe where he'll probably tell them that they need to be more careful because they almost got caught like seventeen times, even though they totally didn't, and that Billy Ray thinks they need to be more discreet, even though they're super discreet already, and it'll probably be at least two days before she gets any actual sleep, but whatever. Worth it.
"He said WHAT?" she asks Taylor. Miley spins Demi in a circle and then dips her, both of them laughing hysterically. Selena presses her forehead to the window and watches the sky turning pink over the Rockies. "Remind me to kick Kanye's ass the next time I see him. I could totally take him. I'm scrappy!" she says, laughing a little. "He's the one who should be scared. Shut up, of course I'm serious."