Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Mary: “Do any of you have some ideas that won’t get us killed?”

The answer was no. Of course it was no.

“What time is it?” Catherine asked.

“Five in the morning,” Alexander said.

“Great,” she said sarcastically. “Time to wake up now.”

“I’ve still got another three hours at least,” Alexander said.

“Lucky you.”

“We have a situation,” Cyrus announced as he barged into the room, then thought to ask, “You’re not dead or anything, right?”

“No.”

“Good. Now get up.”

Some helpful advice from Cyrus: “Don’t puke on the president.”

“We can’t just wait and hope their plan self destructs,” Erica said.

“Of course we can,” Catherine said. “And that’s what we’re going to do.”

List making...

“Ooh! What about smoke bombs?” Chip asked. “Ben, write that down.”

“And typos!” Zoe exclaimed.

“And spilling stuff on documents,” Trixie added.

Since Catherine was out of the let’s-say-vague-things-to-reporters-so-they-won’t-think-we’re-completely-mismanaging-this-crisis equation,  the press conference was now Cyrus’s job. His strategy was roughly the same as David Stern’s: a round of practice in mastering the art of the vague reassurance.

The consensus from the kids’ deliberations seemed to be that arson was a very good idea. After all, the building you’re in catching on fire is bound to be a distraction from business as usual.

“Are there bunkers or something where we can go in case of emergency?” Mike asked. “Didn’t we build something for this during the Cold War?”

“Of course not,” Erica said. “We were too busy hiding under desks to do anything like that.”

“But they’re the bad guys,” Chip said. “They aren’t supposed to have morals.”

“Yeah, but the CIA and MI6 aren’t exactly the good guys here, though,” Mike said.

Cyrus glared at Mike, so he quickly added, “I wasn’t talking about you, though. Of course not. You have lots of morals. Whenever anyone thinks of you, the first thing that comes to mind is always how good and kind and moral you are.”

“I’m sick of planes,” Chip said.

“Suck it up,” Erica said.

“I want to go home,” Chip said.

“We all do,” Erica said. “But then you’ll get killed and lead the enemy straight to your family.”

(After these two incidents, Catherine did tell Erica to try to be more understanding. In response, Erica said Chip ought to be the one showing empathy.)

“Uh, are you sure this car was built to go this fast?” Alexander asked nervously.

“It’ll hold up,” Erica said.

“It says we’re going 150 miles an hour!”

“Those are kilometers,” Erica said. “Now be quiet. I need to focus.”

Chapter Text

"Right. Alexander. You're the guy who fainted over a paper cut last time you were here."

"Er, yes. But that was a long time ago."

"That was last month."

From something where Jawa wasn't leaving the doctoring to the doctors:

"Have you been off reading medical textbooks again?" Mike asked.

"They weren't technically books," Jawa said.

"What do you mean by that?" Mike asked.

"I found some PDFs on Alexander's phone-"

"That's the same thing!" Mike interrupted.

"Actually, this was vaguely illegal..."

Mike sighed. "You are such a nerd."

"I am just trying to prepare for every possibility," Jawa said.

"Yeah, but I think this is overkill," Mike said.

"I don't even know what her blood pressure is," Jawa said.

"Probably through the roof from having to deal with you and your let's go through every single thing that could go wrong here attitude," Mike said.

"Just be glad we're not in the middle ages, or we'd all be dead like ten times over by now," Jawa said.

"I'll be sure to keep that in mind," Mike said.

"Nothing like a little human experimentation to start off the day," Erica said.

"She's not serious, is she?" Mike whispered to Ben.

"... I hope she's not," Ben said.

"You see," Murray said. "I don't like dying."

"How would you know?" Erica asked. "You've never done it before."

"I'll be telling my lawyers about that comment," Murray said.

"No offense, but London sucks," Murray said to Catherine. "I felt like I was going to get infected by some ghost of tuberculosis there. But enough about me. How are you?"

"I would be doing much better if you were back in MI6 custody in London," Catherine said. 

"Half the work of solving a problem is identifying it," Erica said.

"Really?" Alexander asked.

"It seemed like something you might respond to."

"I guess it was. I just didn't expect to hear it from you."

"Well, Mom's not here right now," Erica said. "It just feels natural that I would have to step it up in the weird assurances department."

"We have to go!" Erica yelled.

"Why?" Mike asked. "Ashley's unconscious, and Joshua left. Plus, I have to go to the bathroom."

"Mike, Joshua didn't leave yet," Ben said.

"Oh. Well, I still have to pee."

Chapter Text

Tech Issues:

Cyrus: throws computer out window

Catherine: tells computer encouraging things

Alexander: claims computer must have been hacked every time there's a typo

Trixie: gets reasonably frustrated, but eventually figures things out

Erica: makes someone else deal with it because she has more important things to do

Mary: actually is able to solve the problem right away / doesn’t have tech issues

"I should be in the prime of my life for bladder control!" 

Where Alexander is attempting to boil water to make tea:

"Do you really trust Dad to do this?" Erica whispered to Catherine.

"Well, no, not quite, but he's making an effort. I want to see what happens," Catherine whispered back. "Besides, there's a fire extinguisher in the hallway in case this goes south."

"Can you catch water on fire?" Trixie asked quietly.

"He could find a way," Erica said.

Erica had a very serious look on her face as she neatly arranged her notecards on the conference table. However, since she was only six, none of the other people around the conference table were taking her very seriously. Not that Erica noticed this; she was just happy to be there.

Erica was only at this meeting because her grandparents were out of town, and what kind of normal baby-sitter would be willing to sit for her? That's a pretty big liability. And who really cared about a six-year-old hearing classified information? Really, what was the worst that would happen?

At least Erica was pretty good at keeping secrets. 

"Why is Dad still unconscious?" Trixie asked.

"Because he's Alexander," Mike said. "That's just the sort of thing he does."

Erica sighed, walked over to Alexander, and kicked him.

He just rolled over and began snoring.

Catherine laughed.

"You try," Erica said.

"Sure," Catherine said. She got up and went over to where Alexander was lying, then lightly tapped the back of his head.

He woke up.

"Your husband snores. And talks in his sleep."

"First of all, he's not my husband anymore," Catherine said. "And second of all, I know."

"Where is Alexander anyway?"

"He's coming," Jawa said, pointing down the street to where Alexander had paused to catch his breath.

Cyrus groaned. "Those are the genes you chose to give your children," he told Catherine.

"And where did he get those genes?" Catherine asked.

Cyrus rolled his eyes.

Mike spent the plane ride attempting to open a can of peas. This would have been much simpler if a can opener was available, but since this was not the case, he was making do with spare weaponry parts.

"Did you pick up any groceries?" Catherine asked as she stood looking into the refridgerator.

"We aren't out yet," Alexander said.

"Yes, because that one bottle of Gatorade will definitely work so well for dinner."

"I think I have laryngitis," Alexander said.

"You sound fine," Catherine said.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

Chapter Text

“You know how to open cans with your bare hands?” Ben asked.

“Of course,” Erica said. “What else are you supposed to do if you get stranded without a can opener?”

“Mr. Hale, how do you plead?”

“Uhh, not guilty.”

“Are you a CIA agent?”

“Er, yes,” Alexander said.

“You work for a spy agency but plead not guilty on charges of espionage?”

“Well, yes. You see, I wasn’t really spying. I was, uh, failing to spy. I tried to spy, but I wasn’t actually able to do it. So I didn’t really do espionage.” Alexander then smiled, like this wasn’t a total misstep, even though he knew he had probably screwed up.

“Worse things could have happened,” Zoe said.

“Right,” Mike agreed. “They could have murdered us.”

“See, Ben?” Zoe asked.

“This is still awful!” Ben said.

“Well, yeah,” Mike said. “Jumping in the water gave me wet underwear.”

“That’s really not the issue here,” Ben said.

“Maybe for you,” Mike said. “But I’m really worried about chafing. It’s the kind of thing that can make your day miserable faster than anything else.”

“I’m- well, actually, you’re CIA. You probably know my life better that I do.”

“I clearly just have a superior brain,” Murray said.

“Yeah, compared to a lab rat,” Zoe muttered under her breath.

Svetlana was the kind of person to dutifully clean up her yard the day after it had been toilet papered. Erica was the kind of person to try to light just the toilet paper on fire while not burning anything else because she thought it was a fun challenge. They were both the kind of people that avoid getting toilet papered in the first place, but that detail makes this contrast a little useless.