Chapter Text
Alex was no longer fond of London. It was full of bad blood and worse weather that staved off any warm memories of his childhood. In the time since his departure the city had changed: skyline striking up higher, roads more busy. But in spite of all the tourism ads’ insistence, the view from the latest addition – the Millennium Bridge – was not a particularly compelling one. Especially on a day like today. Alex supposed it was polite for the weather to match his mood. The sky was sullen, dark, and close to bursting with static electricity. The consensus among all the pedestrians was to hurry about their business with their heads down. He too wanted to be done with this day and on a plane back to safety.
He paused for a moment, steeling his nerves against the mounting anxiety of being back in grabbing distance of MI6 and softly asked: “Status?”
Alex had no interest in recreating the Albert Bridge catastrophe, but intel exchanges over water seemed to be an MI6 tradition. If Alex had had his way, the meeting would have been on neutral ground, at a secured location. Something safe. But the job had mutated rapidly over the past weeks and forced Orion back onto his home soil for an unwilling collaboration. So here he was, poised to make the handoff halfway over the walk (and not an inch farther) so that this operation could finally be finished.
Someone, somewhere, would be made to pay for this indignity.
“All clear,” said Marcus into the earpiece. “Eyes on you, eyes on Jones.”
The corners of Alex’s mouth pulled tight.
That had been one of the stipulations set by both parties. If SCORPIA was putting Orion on the line for a hand-off, then MI6 had to put some skin in the game too. Each organization was betting that the other wouldn’t be willing to trigger a retaliatory strike. Mutually Assured Destruction was a standby of the intelligence world, but it hadn’t made the thought of seeing Mrs. Jones again any easier to swallow.
“...free to continue.” Alex knew that his commander was too professional to let any doubts show in the field, but he liked to imagine that Marcus was as happy about this as he was. At least Alex had a full team with him.
Ivey and Aranda had already cased the structure itself and were now poised on the Blackham and Southwork bridges, looking for any signs of sabotage. Not that there were many places to hide explosives – even before it opened, the Millenium Bridge had been praised for its sleek, modern design that left it largely exposed to the naked eye.
Backpack heavy on his shoulders, Alex took his first steps onto the walkway. Foot traffic was light, and everyone around him seemed eager to finish their business before the rain started in earnest.
He only made it as far as the first pylon. Then, before he could take the next step, the bridge shuddered.
It wasn’t a bomb.
That much registered on an instinctual level. There was no explosion, no shockwave, no blast of heat or burst of shrapnel. Just the ear-rending shriek of metal straining against itself as the bridge in front of him began to twist unnaturally. It left his ears ringing as the noise pitched louder and louder joined by terrified screams all around him.
Pandemonium. Those unfortunate enough to be on the main span threw themselves onto the sides holding on for dear life, the rest were sent stumbling and lurching and then stampeding toward him as best as they could. The ground had yet to stabilize, writhing back and forth as if the concrete and steel had turned to slurry.
Instinct alone carried him through the first moments. With no understanding of what had just happened Alex could only join the press of bodies, shifting his weight to maintain his balance as the bridge rocked left and then swung dangerously to the other side. The screaming heightened as the crowd tripped and grabbed the railings, trying to pull themselves to safety over the bodies of the fallen – a tangle of desperate limbs and fear.
Then, almost hidden beneath the din, came a deeper and more concerning noise. Less a shriek, and more a groan. The sound of something large about to give way.
He needed off this bridge now .
He bolted as well as he could on such unstable footing, but Alex wrenched himself to a halt a few meters from where the crowd was compacting at the exit and tried to assess his options. Passage that way was impossible; the panicking bodies made an effective blockade even without the threat of a stampede. To each side, the ground below was uninviting concrete. It was an unpleasant but easy choice. It would be a hard fall, but going down with the bridge would be worse.
To punctuate that thought, a knife-sharp keen joined the deeper rumbling of the bridge.
Mind made up, he started to move toward the buckling edge. Before he could jump, the air split with a crack as one of the cables came loose, the ragged end whipping out into the crowd. Alex ducked just in time, the warm splatter of blood and body fluid making it clear his neighbor had not been so lucky. He looked up to assess damage only to dive back down to avoid another piece of shrapnel hurtling through the air as the strut near him strained and then tore off. The force sent blocks of cement as large as a sedan slamming into the ground, jagged rebar jutting out and abruptly bottlenecking the exit to the harbor front.
He was trapped. The way forward was a crush of people. Off the edge would put him in the way of the snapping cables. And to stay on -
That thought was punctuated by a final snap and groan. He risked a look around to see the entire span behind him arch and then give way crashing into the water below.
Underneath his feet, the remnants of Millenium Bridge shuddered and finally went still, millions of pounds worth of infrastructure just… gone.
Vanished in minutes.
For a moment, Alex could only stare, caught in the same shock as everyone else. But then he had to act.
Any disaster brought a certain amount of chaos with it - this time, Alex just had the misfortune of being at the center and without any immediate protection or intel as to what the hell was going on.
The comm crackled in his ear, his team trying to get in touch, but under the crying of shocked civilians he couldn’t make out anything useful. Probably just his men reacting to the sudden collapse of the bridge, the same as anybody else.
He licked his lips, suddenly parched. It was a credit to his training and his own nerve that his hands didn’t tremble as he drew his gun.
What kind of weapon could do that , and why didn’t SCORPIA have it. The physics didn’t make sense, and neither did the thought that MI6 would bomb their own operation. Not without good cause.
That thought landed heavy on the back of his tongue, metallic with fear.
This was London.
He’d never thought that he would be safe here, but SCORPIA had contingencies. Arrangements with Blunt for security in response to Orion’s gesture of extremely strained good faith in meeting with Jones. By every analysis that Alex had poured over, first with Yassen and Three and then with a scowling Marcus, the operation he’d just overseen was the first step in rebuilding bridges. Ha.
At least he hadn’t bowed to ‘6 when they requested he come unarmed. Confused and armed was a hell of a lot better than confused and naked, and the gun in his hand was comforting in its reassurance that he could take out an attacker.
Or, risking Yassen’s eternal fury, himself.
He’d meant it when he said that he was never going back to Blunt’s control.
In front of him, the screaming had died down as more people managed to shove through the bottleneck. With the ground finally still beneath his feet and most of the civilians out of the way, maybe the worst was over.
“I’m alive,” he said, pressing his hand to his ear to try and isolate the comm. Just because he couldn't hear them very well didn’t mean he was as alone as he felt. “Requesting evac-”
Something whistled past above his head, large and dark and bleeding smoke that left no scent in the air.
Once Alex got back to Dubai he would be taking a pound of flesh from R&D for letting them get blindsided by weapons like this. This was something new. Again.
Before he could dwell further on it, there came light, like someone set off a flare.
An almost phosphorescent blue bolt, arching towards him.
Alex threw himself to the ground, unwilling to find out just what that was. From the way that the ground parted behind him where it hit, that had been the correct reaction. He glanced up to see another unearthly bolt hurtling past, something distorted and amorphous behind it. That same black smoke.
He took the shot before he could second guess himself.
It was moving fast, but not fast enough. His bullet caught the tail end of the… thing, but it was enough to disrupt it. Smoke coalesced into a human form mid-air, then crashed against the side of the bridge and fell with a final, meaty crunch against the ground below. Alex didn’t give it (him?) good odds. The dark arterial spray across the concrete said plenty.
At least these things could die.
Another bright light, this one red, streaked past him from behind. Shit. Multiple angles of attack was a bad position to be in, and Alex scrambled for cover, tucking himself into a crag of the former bridge span that had been yanked away, the extruding rebar pressing uncomfortably into his skin.
This time, rather than a lightshow, the ground in front of him simply blew apart. He squinted against the sting of debris and searched for his next target, or anything that could give him some clue as to what was going on.
The dust and smoke from the last explosion cleared enough for him to spot an older woman on the other side of the span. They locked eyes, Alex taking in bright red hair coated in a fine layer of dust from the attack. Clutching a stick and a tattered handbag. Civilian. Not a threat. And no way to help her, so for now he just had to hope she had enough sense to keep down.
Clear even through the chaos, he heard the crack of a gunshot. The first since his own.
“Ours.” Shale’s tinny voice in the comm was calm amongst the storm.
Good. Alex let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and ventured a look back up the bridge but was stopped when he caught the woman’s wild stare again. He shook his head, gesturing with his gun for her to stay put.
His ear crackled again - Marcus. “Hostiles are - - - cloaked - - - black - - - unsure about weapons.”
“Didn’t have this tech at MI6,” Alex assured, bringing back that awful question of just who was behind this. He could worry more about that later. “ETA?”
“Fifty yards - “
Alex’s attention was ripped from Marcus’ reply by movement to his right: the woman was running across the gap toward him. A sickly orange light burst near her feet, tripping her up but desperation lent her speed. There wasn’t enough room in his makeshift shelter for both of them, but now he would have to adapt. Reluctantly, Alex caught her, using the momentum to push her past him and against the remaining edge of the bridge. He needed to be clear to run for transport when he got the chance.
It might have been wishful thinking, but Alex was sure that he could hear the sounds of an armored SUV making its forceful way through a crowd.
Another gunshot cracked through the air, followed by the unmistakable sound of a body hitting concrete. It skidded to a stop just within their line of sight. Moderate build, black robes. Some sort of white mask obscuring the face.
“Ours,” Jarek's even voice said.
Alex didn’t know how many more of those smoke people there were, but ranged weapons seemed to be doing the trick at picking them off. It was a good thing, too, since there was no predicting what variety of effects the lights had up close.
He inched out further to try and spot any further identifying details on the one Jarek had just downed, but stopped cold when he felt a pull on the back of his shirt. Tugging him backward. Civilian, he reminded himself, shoving down the instinctive reaction towards violence. A firefight was not the time to be restrained but there was nothing he could do without turning his back on the combat zone.
…but as panicked hands landed on his shoulder, throwing off his aim, that was exactly what he was going to have to do.
“Stay down, ” he hissed, angling himself to face her as another explosion rocked the ground.
“Where are your parents?” She yelled over the noise, and Alex shook his head, holding a finger to his lips. She was undeterred. “Your parents? ” She repeated, still loud and frantic. “Are you alone?”
Alex stared. The last thing either of them needed was more attention to their position, and her sprinting across an open war zone had brought enough already.
She started to yell again, eyes wide. “Your par-”
“Dead,” Alex growled, pushed into honesty in the hope that shock would keep her quiet.
And it worked. Her expression froze, hands losing their grip on his arm.
He shook her off, re-focusing on the threat in front of him. He didn’t see any more hostiles, but since they could apparently turn gaseous that was less reassuring than it normally would be.
“Thirty yards,” Marcus said in his ear. “Two - - - airborne - - - contact - - -”
The connection to his team had never shorted out like this, and Alex added that to the growing list of things he despised about this day.
“Repeat,” he requested.
“ - - - yards. Hostiles - - - sights - - -”
Movement on the edge of his vision distracted him from the rest. The woman was frantically searching her dress’ pockets for something and Alex swung the gun on her, eyes narrowing. He really, really didn’t want to kill a civilian by accident, but he wanted to be dead even less.
Instead of a weapon, she produced a scrap of paper.
A note. Not ideal, but better than shouting.
She didn’t write anything though, just shoved it toward him beseechingly. “Read it,” she pleaded. “Please read it.”
Alex hesitated, searching her ashen face for any sign of ill intent. All he got back was desperation. Framed by bright red hair, it reminded him achingly of Russia. He took an assessing look around for any more immediate threats and then grabbed the paper. He unfolded it with one hand and glanced down at what was so important to her.
An impression of thin, slanted cursive.
‘The Order of The Phoenix is located-’
Before he could understand what it was he was looking at, her hand closed around his wrist, the world going horribly silent as something hooked him in his guts and yanked.