Chapter Text
Professor Yermalov compressed his lips. There was no way in hell he was going to be convinced by MI6 or Scorpia to track down his wayward student. “I refuse.”
Tulip Jones, Joe Byrne, and Doctor Three exchanged a look. It was strange to think that they were all allied now. Then again, there was a bigger threat. Finally, Doctor Three spoke up. “Why?”
Yermalov felt his lips part into a savage smile. The answer was simple. He wanted to survive. “Because this excursion will fail. You will be worse than decimated. I do not want to die.”
There was an odd hush that fell across the room. Yermalov knew that he was still dead to rights, given his Scorpia past, whatever the government may claim.
“And why do you think that?” It was Joe Byrne who asked. It was almost funny.
Yermalov felt the mad, mad, smile pass across his face again. Alex would kill them for interrupting his solitude. He knew the boy had been changed after the deaths of Starbright and Harris. Mostly because Alex had found him for training. “I taught the boy. You will not take him so easily as you took the rest of us.”
“EASY?!! YOU CALL THAT EASY?!! NOW LISTEN HERE, YOU SICK SON OF A-”
Joe was cut off by Doctor Three’s raised hand. Yermalov wondered if Jones and Byrne knew or cared that he was slowly chipping his way to the top. “ Professor Yermalov , did you or did you not contradict the ban we placed on teaching your private tactics, traps, and sabotage class?”
Yermalov’s blood froze at Doctor Three’s tone. It had been a risk, but a calculated one. You did not back down from this line of questioning. “On the contrary, the board stated I was banned from teaching it at Malagosto. The board did not state that I was banned from subcontracting nor did they dictate my curriculum in any fashion while I was under alternative employment.”
It was an excuse Alex had come up with. It was also the kind of crap most board members pulled out of their asses a few times a year. Contract sharking was contract sharking.
“Holy fucking shit.” Gordon Ross looked uncharacteristically pale. His colleagues were under the impression that his classes made monsters. Yermalov preferred to think of it as unleashing and polishing what was already there.
The Doctor’s lips compressed. “Very well. Gordon. You will take three senior operatives into the field to retrieve Rider from his Siberian sabbatical. You will be accompanied by a combined force of a hundred soldiers. You will behave . Yermalov will run the operations and communications.”
Gordon groaned. Yermalov almost smirked at him. “Fuck my life.”
They were being scowled at. Mostly by Byrne. “Will someone please explain what you’re all fucking talking about?”
Yermalov shrugged. A cursory explanation would do. And this would be something to behold, at least. “I occasionally take a single student for an apprenticeship period as a separate contract. Alex was one of those. He was an excellent trapper and creative tactician.”
Joe gave him an incredibly flat look. Yermalov raised an eyebrow at him. “Why do I get the impression that I’m missing a clue?”
Yermalov smirked slightly. He could almost feel the ropes of Alex’s last trap around him. A ghost of the cold steel Alex had pressed against his throat. The flinty glare as he ran into the wild. “Oh, there’s always a clue you’re missing, Joe.”
The tension in the room visibly spiked. Yermalov itches for his combat knives. Sadly, they had been banned. As had throat-punching uppity deputy directors of the combined intelligence force.
Joe rolled his eyes. Yermalov was promptly flipped off. “Fuck you too.”
Yermalov was going to consider that a win. He had no sympathy for the man who had personally overseen the torture of himself and a third of his colleagues. Besides, the sooner they got out of this, the sooner his next one to two meetings would start and end.
The meeting, like all meetings, had devolved into bickering after the mention of Alex Rider. Yermalov leaned back as Byrne ripped into Jones for not even posting a single guard outside the residence of said employee. Doctor Three was overseeing the entire scene with pursed lips and pointed looks at varying places in the conversation.
Jet and Gordon were giving him death glares. Yermalov would claim that their concerns were entirely unfounded. After all, the boy had treated them nicely during their last interactions. The meeting began to wind down as they hit time. Alex Rider was only so important when there was a planetary war ongoing.
A look from Doctor Three summoned him to the unofficial Scorpia meeting after the official joint committee meeting. Yermalov was fairly certain that every department that had joined the combined forces did something roughly similar.
“Explain.”
Yermalov sighed. It was complicated. “You requested that Alex Rider be removed from the field. I simply…used a non-traditional method. Teaching him survival skills and telling him to allow himself time to mourn was far easier, cheaper, and less convoluted than your colleagues' little plans. By any metric, this was a success. Rider has been in Siberia, alone, and not interfering with any plans made by your esteemed selves for the past seven years.”
Doctor Three mulled over his words for a few minutes. Yermalov watched the clock tick by. “Very well. I expect your full cooperation, Professor .”
The man’s purr sent shivers down his spine even as they were all dismissed.
Yermalov knew that he was about to be grilled by not a few people. Jet and Gordon were most certainly among them. He made it about three steps into his quarters before he nearly tripped over a new graduate. Yermalov resisted the urge to facepalm as he turned on the lights to a crowd that was a good thirty people past the fire code restrictions. “This is a fire hazard.”
The new graduate, Wren, who had been one of the last class before the war broke out and they had all joined forces visibly cringed. He was also only five years Alex’s senior. “Sorry.”
Yermalov hit him upside the head. Students. Yermalov felt a good five years under his tutelage would fix a lot more. “Why are the rest of you here?”
“We’re um…volunteering for the mission?” Wren looked exceedingly nervous. A glance around the room told him that the usual suspects were there. Klaus. Walker. Amanda.
Yermalov let out a sigh. He was surrounded by idiots. And he was going to have to de-bug and sterilize his room. “You will likely die. Or be gruesomely hospitalized. Like Nile.”
Wren piped up. Yermalov was starting to think that maybe he’d had one too many training concussions. “Better than the frontlines.”
Interesting. Most operatives who were numerate didn’t see it that way. Then again, Yermalov was pretty sure they graduated far too many idiots. “Very well. Consult with Gordon. As your field commander, he gets to pick.”
Most of the crowd dispersed and wandered out his door. Yermalov hid another smirk as Gordon stomped up to him with a glare. Jet seemed to be attempting to set him on fire through sheer force of will.
“Why would you do that?!!”
It was difficult to answer questions that you didn’t yet know the answer to. Yermalov shrugged. It was…well, Alex had asked. The fact that he bore a striking resemblance to Yermalov’s youngest son shortly before his death was between him and whatever God was out there. “Alex asked.”
Jet and Gordon exchanged a look. Yermalov knew he wasn’t about to win any popularity contests among the staff anytime soon. It did not matter. That had been more D’Arc’s scene anyhow. Jet and Gordon left him alone. And with a room to clean.