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“I’m telling you, Liam, it’s not working!” Zayn shouted. He would know, since he’s been sat in front of the stupid door for well over five minutes—which was way too long when there were literally people trying to kill him hot on his trail.
“But it says—”
“I don’t bloody care what your computer says, Liam!” Zayn winced as his voice echoed off the corridors walls; he was alone for now, but not if he kept shouting like that. “It isn’t the one whose typed in the wrong code seven fucking times. I don’t exactly have all day here.”
Liam let out a rushed breath, followed by a soft swear that sounded through Zayn’s earpiece. Zayn couldn’t help but agree with the sentiment.
“Okay, okay. If the code I gave you isn’t working that means that there’s most likely a problem with the program. I could probably…” Liam continued muttering to himself in Zayn’s ear, but movement down the hall drew his attention away from whatever Liam was saying.
A red head in a sequin mermaid dress that Zayn vaguely recognized from the party was walking towards him with a tall—and fairly intimidating—man on her arm. Zayn felt panic start to claw its way up his throat, but he forced himself to keep his calm exterior. Nothing was going to blow his cover faster than letting any of his fears show. So instead of running for the end of the hall, Zayn leaned against the wall behind his back, trying for all he was worth to pretend that he was supposed to be there. He doubted it would work because, well, what wasn’t suspicious about a guy by himself in a corridor that was decidedly off limits.
“Excuse me!” A shrill voice called out. Fuck, Zayn was so fucked. “What do you think you’re doing? This area is off limits to guests.”
Zayn looked up, pasting on his most charming smile and cocking his head in mock confusion. “It is? I’m so sorry, I had no idea.” Zayn racked his brain to come up with an excuse—any excuse—as to why he was lurking in a private hallway, but his mind was depressingly empty.
“Tell them you’re meeting someone.”
Zayn’s mouth opened, ready to ask Liam what the fuck he was talking about before he realized how shady—and dumb—it would look for Zayn to speak to Liam when the couple standing in front of him didn’t know there was even a Liam for Zayn to be talking to.
“Well, like I said, it’s private. Leave. Now. Or he’ll escort you out by force.” The red head pointed to the man next to her, flipping her hair over her shoulder for added effect.
“Zayn,” Liam hissed. “Tell them you’re meeting someone. I’m sending back up.” He heard a flurry of movement crackle through the speaker before Liam came back, speaking in a rush, “And please, for the love of God, don’t get your ass kicked.”
Zayn snorted, more than a little offended at Liam’s lack of confidence in him. He probably would have told him off, too, if he hadn’t been standing in front of two very pissed off looking strangers. Zayn’s snort probably hadn’t earned him any favors.
“I, uh, I was actually supposed to meet someone.”
The red head rolled her eyes. “Meet them somewhere else, then.”
Wasn’t she just a ray of sunshine? “Yeah, yeah. See, I would, but we kinda agreed on here, y’know? Don’t want them showing up and wondering where I’ve run off to, yeah?”
Zayn didn’t realize it was possible to piss the girl off anymore than she already was, but apparently he was wrong.
“I really don’t care. I want you out of this area. Now.” And shit, Zayn was so screwed. He knew it’d be unlikely they’d get a chance to run this mission again. He could feel Graham slipping through his fingers, and it pissed him off. Their team had been chasing this guy for years and all that stood between him and serious jail time was a bratty red head and her side kick, Muscles—Zayn was ignoring the fact that he couldn’t even get passed the fucking door. That wasn’t the point.
“I’ll leave, I promise. But maybe you could help me first, yeah? Maybe you could tell me if you’ve seen anyone wandering around? Um, maybe—”
“I haven’t,” the red head interrupted. “I’ve only seen you and I shouldn’t be. I have lost my pati—”
“Hey! There you are, I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”
Zayn’s eyes darted to the end of the hallway where Liam was happily making his way towards the three of them. Zayn’s stomach dropped, his nerves flaring up in full force. What was Liam doing here. He said he was sending backup, not that he was the backup. Liam was their tech guy; even if he did have to go through the same training field agents did, he didn’t have any experience on a mission. The last thing Zayn wanted was for Liam to get hurt.
Zayn had to swallow against the sudden nausea that surged through him. Fuck, he couldn’t watch Liam get hurt. He had to get him out of here.
Zayn’s eyes swung back to the couple in front of him. Both of them were watching Liam with twin expressions of mistrust, but Liam was acting completely oblivious to the two as he quickly closed the distance. When he reached Zayn, he wrapped him in a hug, subtly slipping something into his pocket.
“It’s a decoder,” Liam whispered. Zayn felt a shiver run down his spine as Liam’s lips brushed over his ear. “Plug it into the system and it should, in theory, give you the correct code.” Liam pulled away then, smiling up at Zayn.
“Is this where we agreed to meet?” Liam giggled. He fucking giggled. “I’m sorry, I so bad with directions, you know me. Get so turned around all the time.” Liam turned to face the red head and Muscles, his face open and warm. His smile was so sincere and inviting that the red head melted a little; some of her icy exterior slipped away now that it was faced with actual sunshine.
“Oh, hello, there,” Liam continued. “Are you two guests? This is such a great party, isn’t it? It’s so extravagant. I hardly ever get to come to things like this, not that I don’t want to. I’m more of a behind the scene man, y’know? But I’ve gotta say, this is pretty fascinating.”
Zayn thought Liam was fascinating. He was literally standing here rambling about nothing, yet Zayn watched as a smile started to spread across the red head’s face. A fucking smile when all Zayn had gotten was a sneer and harsh words. Liam was really something else.
Zayn tuned back into the conversation in time to hear Liam say, “But I’ve no idea where it is, yeah? I wasn’t kidding when I said I was useless with directions. Oh! You said you were one of the organizers of this party, didn’t you?” This question was directed at the red head, and Zayn wondered how Liam had actually gotten her to say something that wasn’t ‘leave now.’
“I am, yes,” she agreed.
“That’s fantastic!” Liam said. “Maybe you could show me where it is then, yeah? I know I’d just get lost and wander around until I stumbled across something interesting if I don’t have someone show me the way.”
This seemed to send a shock of fear through the red head because she was quickly agreeing and assuring Liam that there was no need to wander around when she knew right where to lead him. Zayn barely held back his snort because yeah, he was sure that was the reason Liam didn’t need to go wondering around.
“Yeah? Wicked. Thanks so much.” The red head smiled before turning around to lead the group of them down the hall, and Zayn was so amazed. Liam had done that seemingly effortlessly while Zayn managed to do nothing but piss her off.
Zayn followed them a few steps behind, wanting to make sure they thought he was coming with them until he could make a subtle escape.
He never got the chance to, though, because once they go halfway down the long corridor, a man turned the corner. It wouldn’t have been a problem if Zayn hadn’t known the man all too well. He was one of Graham’s henchmen, and him and Zayn had had quite a few run ins.
The lot of them froze for a moment, the man’s eyes locking with Zayn’s before, “Hey! I know you!”
From there it was a flurry of movement—the man pulled his gun out to point at Zayn while the red head let out a high pitch scream and cowered into the wall. Muscles reached out to grip Liam and Zayn’s heart leapt into his throat because no, Liam couldn’t fucking get hurt. Zayn moved forward, more concerned with freeing Liam than the man with a gun—and wasn’t that something he should worry more about. Everything in his training had taught him to defuse the most dangerous situation first, yet here he was going after an unarmed man while another had a gun trained on him, and all because of Liam.
Zayn reached forward, grabbing Muscle’s arm to drag him away from Liam. The guy reared back, swinging at Zayn with full force. Zayn was a lot faster then him, though, and easily dodged his blow before taking him down in a practiced move. Zayn didn’t even have time to register that he’d taken the man down before he was staring down the barrel of a gun, the ominous click of the safety echoing in his ears.
Zayn swallowed roughly, his pulse racing through his body and white noise filling his ears.
It happened almost in slow motion, one moment Zayn was wishing he’d gotten just one more moment with his mom, with Liam, then he blinked and Liam was pulling the guns man back, quickly disarming him before landing a blow to his gut. The guy recovered shockingly fast, rearing back to deliver a harsh punch that never met its target. Zayn watched in shocked fascination as Liam caught his fist—just full on reached out and grabbed the guy’s fist in his own—before using it as leverage to twist the man around until he was facing away from Liam. Zayn’s jaw went slack when he watched Liam grip his other hand into the back of the man’s shirt and swing him up and away from Liam. Liam just fucking vaulted the other man half way across the hall. Zayn knew Liam was strong—he had fucking muscles everywhere—but he didn’t know he could throw a man that was easily twice his size. Jesus.
Liam seemed to be just as shocked as Zayn by his actions. He swiveled to face Zayn, his face lax in his surprise, before a blinding grin took over his face.
“Zayn!” Liam gasped out. “Did you see that? I’m like the hulk!”
Zayn let out a startled laugh because, yeah, he kind of was. That was impressive. They definitely needed to get Liam in the field more often—fuck his lack of experience.
Their excitement was short lived, however, when they realized Muscles gained consciousness without either of them noticing. Zayn felt a throbbing pain in his forehead, and the only thing he could focus on was Liam’s terrified expression before everything went black.
–
Zayn came to slowly. He wasn’t entirely sure where he was at, but he knew he wasn’t at the party anymore. The lights definitely weren’t this bright, and that hallway definitely wasn’t this small.
He was also fairly confident he wasn’t in the hospital, either. If he had to guess, he’d say he was in the back of an ambulance. What he couldn’t figure out, though, was why it wasn’t moving. Weren’t they supposed to do that.
“—finitely only a concussion. We could take him to the hospital if you’re too concerned, but all of his vitals are normal and there isn’t any other indication of trauma.”
Zayn groaned; the last thing he wanted was to go to the hospital.
“No,” he croaked out. “No hospitals. ‘M fine.”
Zayn heard a gasp to his left, and suddenly there was a very large, very warm hand wrapped around his own.
“Zayn,” Liam said. His voice was laced with worry, a tremble running through it that reflected the one running through his hand. Zayn blinked his eyes open, wanting nothing more than to see Liam’s face right now. Liam was looking down at him with equal parts worry and fondness. If Zayn didn’t know better, he’d almost say that Liam was gazing at him with love in his eyes. But that wasn’t possible, was it?
“Zayn, you idiot.”
And, okay, he definitely wasn’t expecting those words to fall from Liam’s lips. Before Zayn could rasp out a shaky ‘what’ Liam was opening his mouth to yell at him.
“What were you thinking? There was a gun on you, you should have diffused that situation, first!”
Zayn grinned dopily up at Liam. This sounded an awful lot like a lecture borne more out of worry than anger.
“Yeah, but if I would’ve done that you wouldn’t have gotten to pull your sick hulk move.”
A look of disbelief crossed over Liam’ face, like he couldn’t believe Zayn would make a joke in this situation, before he broke down in a series of giggles that pushed his cheeks up, his eyes practically disappearing. God, Zayn really, really loved when Liam laughed like this.
“Was pretty sick, wasn’t it?” Zayn nodded, adjusting his grip on Liam’s hand to he could interlace their fingers.
“You’re pretty sick, Liam.” Zayn would probably blame it on the concussion later, but, “I really, really like you Liam. Like, a lot.”
Liam’s grin softened, that same loving look coming back. “You’re concussed, Zayn.”
Zayn shook his head, pulling on Liam’s hand a little to make sure he got it (the fact that it brought Liam closer to him was just a bonus, really).
“I’ve got news for you, Liam. I thought you were proper amazing before I got knocked in the head. I’m pretty sure I’m gonna feel the same way once I’m unconcussed.”
Liam laughed above him, bringing his head down to rest against Zayn’s.
“Yeah?” Liam breathed.
“Yeah,” Zayn agreed right before he surged up to capture Liam’s lips.