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Ryan crouched in the long outer hallway of the building, his dark stealth suit making him invisible in the shadowy corner. A group of guards rounded the corner, postures relaxed yet alert. Even though the men were unarmed and had no identifying uniform, they may as well have had a neon sign pointing at them saying that they'd been hired to protect something.
"Gavin. Status update. How much longer?" His voice was pitched low as he spoke with one hand pressed to his earpiece.
"Um, just over five minutes to go," Gavin replied, fingers flying over the data pad in the palm of his hand.
Ryan swore quietly. The guards were approaching Gavin's location, and if Ryan didn't intervene, Gavin wouldn't be able to finish the hack. The whole thing was time sensitive. The programme built into the data they were trying to retrieve would shut everything down if the complex procedure Gavin was performing was interrupted, and the room was too empty for Gavin to continue the hack from a hiding place while the guards passed through. Ryan took a deep breath and made an executive decision.
"Agent Free." Ryan's voice was urgent, businesslike, and he saw Gavin's back straighten unconsciously. "I need you to listen carefully. Whatever you hear from my mic, ignore it. Finish the hack and don't worry about me. Come get me when you're done. Understood?"
Gavin's fingers slowed slightly, and Ryan could see him frown. "Ryan? What're you doing?"
"Just trust me, okay? Get the job done," he urged.
"...Okay." Gavin's tone was dubious.
"Good. See you later." Ryan paused, then decided to pull out his earpiece and crush it underfoot. If Gavin heard what would happen next he'd likely abandon the hack to help, regardless of what Ryan had told him. Also, not having an earpiece would lend credence to the idea that Ryan was working alone.
He stepped purposefully into the light off to the side of the guards as they neared, quickly flitting through the shadowed doorway of an adjacent room. The ploy worked - a few of the men noticed him, and quickly pointed out the intruder to their comrades. A smug smile crossed the agent's face as the entire group turned and took chase after him, not having a clue that they'd very nearly stumbled upon the man actually downloading the data they'd been hired to protect. He slipped through another doorway and darted around a corner, forcing himself to go just slowly enough that the guards would see the movement. He'd studied the layout of the dilapidated building extensively before going on this mission, so he knew that he'd just turned in to a dead end. In fact, he'd been counting it.
Whirling around with genuine-looking expression of concern and surprise on his face, Ryan was backed against a wall with half a dozen smirking guards blocking his access to the hallway. "End of the line," the closest man sneered, thin lips pulled back over straight white teeth, brown eyes hateful.
Ryan's pistol flashed from its holster, but the men were way too close now for him to fire it before they swarmed him, gun clattering to the ground as they kicked him in the shins and twisted his arms behind his back.
"What do we do with him?" One of the men asked uncertainly. The question was directed at the brown-eyed man, who was obviously the leader.
"Find a chair and some rope. We'll find out who sent him before calling this in." Two of the men broke off to scavenge for the requested items, the remaining four escorting Ryan to a spacious but poorly lit and dusty room. They forced him to his knees, and he made a show of struggling against their grip, despite being capable of actually breaking free.
The other men returned, one carrying two lengths of rope and the other a somewhat rickety-looking wooden chair, the middle slat missing from its back.
"Is that really the best you could do?" The leader snapped, gesturing angrily at the damaged piece of furniture.
"Sorry, boss. All the others we found were even more broken."
The leader scowled and told them to set the chair down, directing the men holding Ryan down to drag him to the chair. Ryan's hands were quickly tied to the back supports of the chair, fingers brushing against the chair's legs. He tested his bonds with a light tug, but for all his captors' shortcomings, they did at least know how to tie a knot.
Puffing his chest out, the leader looked down his nose at Ryan and sauntered towards him. Ryan had to resist the urge to roll his eyes at the man's self-importance.
"I don't know why you're looking so smug." He sneered nastily. "I'm sure you've noticed we've got you in a bad spot."
"Sorry." Ryan shrugged with a sympathetic expression on his face. "You're just not very intimidating."
"You're going to tell me who sent you. I'm giving you one chance." The man beckoned the two closest guards to join him, and they formed a semicircle around Ryan's chair, trying to look as threatening as possible.
Ryan smirked. "Nice try. But fuck you."
The taste of copper filled his mouth as one of the guards punched him across the jaw. He grinned. "See, you're doing it all wrong. You're gonna break your hand if you just keep punching me like that. You've got to use the side of your hand, like a chopping motion, or jab your fingertips into soft areas, like the stomach. Actually, the last one is more useful in this situation, the first is more when someone has the capacity to fight back."
With a quick, slightly confused glance at his companions, the man followed the captive's instructions, driving his fingertips into Ryan's body, just below his ribcage. He doubled up around the blow as much as he could whilst being tied to a chair, and his smile dimmed slightly before growing even wider.
"That's the stuff!" he praised, voice slightly strained and his posture a little hunched. "Well done, you'll be beating the name out of me in no time." He glanced around the room, at the guards leaning against the wall with their arms folded. "Although I have to say your presentation is kinda lacklustre. I mean, you guys don't even have any weapons on you. Not even a tiny little pistol!" He sounded disappointed.
"We could have concealed weapons," the youngest one replied uncertainly.
Ryan snorted with laughter. "Kid, I've been at this for years. Trust me, if you were packing heat, I'd be able to tell." He tilted his head curiously. "You guys haven't had much experience questioning trained operatives, have you?"
They remained silent, some of them shifting their feet awkwardly. Realisation dawned on the spy. "Oh, I'm your first, am I? Good, I've got myself some serious interrogation virgins! That's always a lot of fun." He beamed sunnily at them, even as one of the bolder men cautiously struck him across the face again.
The guards were taken aback. They'd never seen somebody respond so cheerfully to being questioned - though admittedly, they hadn't done many interrogations before. But they'd definitely never had a captive give helpful tips on how to improve their interrogation methods.
"But anyway, where was I?" Even though his hands were tied to the chair, everyone else in the room could easily imagine him rubbing his hands together. "Oh, yes! Weapons! Since it's obvious that none of you have been properly trained how to inflict pain with your bare hands, why don't one of you go fetch some nice pointy knives or something?"
One of the men scurried off to the building's kitchen, wondering why he was even letting himself be ordered around by their prisoner. The remaining men shuffled uncomfortably, tense and ready for Ryan to try and spring at them. But the agent sat stock still, lips curled up at the corners.
Ryan bit back a laugh as the man returned and nearly dropped the small satchel he had brought back with him. Red-faced, he handed the bag to the team leader.
The leader glared at Ryan hatefully. It was his first day leading a squad, and their captive seemed to have more sway over the men than he himself did. This was embarrassing, not to mention unfair - it was supposed to be any easy gig. No one was even supposed to know about the data being stored in the facility, how the agent in front of him had found out was beyond him.
He tore the bag open to look at the collection of kitchen knives and sharp utensils that the guard had managed to scrape together. Gleefully, he selected the largest knife from the bag, making a show of testing the blade against his finger. It was rather blunt, but that was beside the point.
He was going to enjoy this.
~* * *~
Panting slightly, Ryan sat slumped in his chair. His suit was ruined - it was torn in several places, and had been sliced through more than a dozen times over his chest, blood staining the rent fabric. Despite what he'd told them, he'd been punched across the jaw a few more times, and he spat a small red puddle onto the floor when the leader stepped back to appraise him, taking in the bloodied suit and bruised face.
"Ready to talk now?" he snarled.
Ryan laughed in his face, loud and genuine. "Seriously?" He snorted. "I'm kind of insulted that you'd think this was all you'd need to do to get me to talk. Maybe ask me again after you've cut off some of my fingers or something."
The man glared at him, then noticed a small light pulsing on a device around Ryan's wrist, almost hidden against the chair leg. "What's that?" he snapped, gesturing at the device.
Ryan glanced down, forcing himself to keep the smile off his face. "Ah. That. Well, there's another lesson for you here - you should have tied my legs to the chair, too." The man's eyes widened and he started to step back, but he wasn't quite quick enough. Ryan's right leg snapped up, heel catching on the edge of the leader's jaw. His body crumpled to the floor, unconscious, as Ryan stood, using the fallen man's back as a springboard to launch himself into the air. Back arched, he flipped in midair, landing on the closest interrogator, driving him to the ground and shattering the chair. With a slight groan, he rolled to the side, avoiding the hands grabbing at him. "You should also invest in sturdier furniture," he added as he snapped one of the broken chair legs over another man's head, sending him to the ground. He shook the splintered pieces of wood out from underneath the ropes around his wrists, taking a defensive stance as the few remaining men advanced on him.
The door burst open, followed quickly by four muffled pops of a silenced pistol going off. Ryan grinned at the new entry as the remaining men collapsed.
"Good timing, Agent Free."
Gavin holstered the weapon, crossing the room in quick strides as Ryan swayed. "Jesus, Ryan, you're a mess! How did you even get caught, these guys are clueless." He hoisted Ryan's arm over his shoulder and led him out of the room. Ryan shrugged.
"They were going to catch you unless you abandoned the hack, and both would have resulted in a failed mission. If I'd led them on a chase for too long, there was a chance of some of them breaking off and finding you anyway. You needed the time."
The younger agent's eyes went wide. "You went and got yourself tortured on purpose? Bloody hell, Ryan!"
He shrugged again. "I wouldn't really call it torture. They didn't know what they were doing - didn't even try to cut off my ears or fingers or anything. Even after I told them to." Gavin's face grew even more concerned at the faint hint of disappointment in Ryan's voice.
"You told- Jesus, Ryan," he repeated, scanning their surroundings as they headed down a set of stairs on the exterior of the building.
Ryan waved his hand affably. "Ah, I knew they wouldn't actually do it. Like I said, they didn't know what they were doing." He chuckled as they turned the corner, hugging the building. "I had to tell them to go get some knives, that's how hopeless they were. Although I guess I didn't really expect any better, their bosses had no idea how valuable the data they had was. They would have locked it down tightly and hired security with actual weapons if they had."
Gavin muttered a mild expletive under his breath. "You're bloody insane, you know that?"
"It's come up before." Ryan grinned as they exited the compound.
Gavin swore again, more loudly this time. "Oh god." His voice was high and panicked, worried eyes on the front of Ryan's tattered suit. "That's a lot of blood."
"What? It's not th- oh. Shit." He looked down and saw the damage. During the brief scrap in the interrogation room, the cuts adorning his chest had registered as something of an inconvenience to movement, but he hadn't paid much attention to them beside that. What he hadn't realised was several of the lacerations had been torn wider and deeper as he fought. When Gavin arrived, Ryan's injuries hadn't looked quite so dramatic, but blood had been steadily seeping from the wounds as they walked. Now, the front of Ryan's stealth suit was practically soaked. Ryan had felt his knees starting to tremble as they'd left the room, but had just assumed it was from the adrenaline leaving his system.
"C'mon, the trucks' just around the corner. We'll get you back to HQ in no time, Caleb'll patch you up, you'll be fine." Gavin spoke even faster than usual, picking up the pace as they headed for the alleyway where they'd stashed their vehicle. He wrenched the passenger door open, trying to put Ryan in the seat as quickly and gently as possible. His hands fumbled briefly at the seatbelt buckle before Ryan waved him off.
"Get the car started, I can buckle myself up." He smiled wearily. "I'm injured, not invalid." Gavin gave him an anxious look before scurrying off to the driver's side. Ryan frowned, having to concentrate more than he'd like to in order to line the buckle up with its slot, wincing as the belt rubbed against his chest.
Gavin clambered into the driver's seat, slamming the car into first gear and screeching out of the alleyway. "Oh no, the agents won't need backup on this mission," he muttered sarcastically, foot pressed down on the gas. "It's a quick data hack, they'll be fine, they won't need a link back to HQ in the field for this one." He angrily punched a few commands into the control panel for the car's onboard computer, sending a request for a medical team to meet them when they arrived back at the headquarters.
Ryan glanced out the tinted windows, buildings rushing by at far over the legal speed limit. "Gavin. Slow down. Last thing we need to happen now is to get pulled over by the cops."
With a visible effort, Gavin eased up on the accelerator. His knuckles were white around the steering wheel. "I'm just... I'm really sorry, Ryan. This shouldn't've happened. We should've had backup. I... I should've been able to finish the hack faster."
Ryan sighed. "Gavin, I know you're still fairly new to this whole 'out in the field' shtick, so you need to understand something: this is a very dangerous job." His hand gripped onto the side of the door, teeth clenched, as Gavin took a corner a little too tightly. "Of course, if you and whoever you're working with do the job properly, generally you'll be fine, but sometimes stuff happens." He gestured vaguely at his injuries. "Besides, it isn't even that bad. Sure, I'm a little woozy, but I'd need to loose a lot more before I'd actually be in danger. It's touching that you're so concerned, but you don't need to be. I can handle a few cuts and bruises." He paused. "...Look. I know a lot of people at the agency don't like the way I work. It's less covert than most operatives are comfortable with, and it can get messy. I can understand if you want to be reassigned to a different partner, but for what it's worth - I think we work well together."
The corner's of Gavin's mouth managed to twitch up into a half-smile as they drove through the main entrance to HQ. "Me too. Just... promise me one thing?" He gave Ryan a serious look as he killed the engine. "Don't ever do this to yourself again. At least not on purpose."
A grin crossed Ryan's face, and he winked as the medical team that had rushed towards them began to ease him from the vehicle. "I never make a promise I can't keep."