#whatbilbohates

Still, they had nothing if not time, and as she stripped off a pair of tights in the back of a car, she chattered away happily to her companion, who was driving and keeping his eyes very fixed on the road.

 “It’d probably be best to go by the back entrance, right? I don’t want to be seen arriving late,” she explained, pulling a pair of shoes out of a bag and pulling them on with very little ceremony. It took her a little longer to fix her make-up, shake her hair out and peer out of the window at the high-rise apartment buildings. “Thanks, Alex.” (Not the same Alex she preferred working with, unfortunately.) “Hey – and make sure that they do get the case on time, yeah? I won’t be able to watch the drop.”

Alex grunted in response. Kit flashed him a wan smile, but was pleased when he finally rolled up to the back door of a hotel. Checking she looked acceptable, she gave him a final wave and left for the large ballroom that the hotel has procured particularly for this event; it took her less than five minutes to arrive at the room in question, one minute more to scan the room, and then she was happily linking her arm with her husband’s and kissing his check.

 “Hi,” she greeted, losing all every last feeling of spy and replacing them with loving and devoted wife – which didn’t require any skill at all. She was very proud of Jasper for managing to get here, it was a fairly big event for many TV personalities, and he had only just left college. “What did I miss?” she continued, glancing around the room. “Who did I miss?”

 “No one, really,” was Jasper’s always taciturn answer, but he at least seemed pleased to have her around at last.

 It gave her enough time to look around the room and realise something was terribly wrong. Something about the entire picture didn’t fit. And while she told herself that she should leave the spy at the door – that this wasn’t a job, and she had nothing to worry about – she figured anyone would be worried about the fact that some of these security members weren’t wearing badges, that they were jumpy and twitchy, hands flicking constantly to their waists and away again, no doubt reassuring themselves that they had weapons.

 Kit tilted her head.

 She counted out how many, collectively, were in the room.

 She glanced up and at the various exits, back at the door she had entered through, and then turned back to Jasper.

 “We should probably go,” she suggested quietly, trying to give him a look that told him this wasn’t a game – that she knew something bad was about to happen, and her responsibility was always to keep him safe from her world. It was always hard to make sure she could give out convincingly significant looks.

 But Jasper got it. He nodded, clearly wary, but he got it. “Sure,” he said. “Let’s –”

 And then a young woman wafted over, taking Jasper’s hand and shaking it, congratulating him on the excellent animation work he had done, and asking if he had a moment. Kit paused, glancing between them, certain that they could not say no, and forced herself to relax; regardless of the potentially dangerous situation, she had to be calm. She smiled up at him, allowed herself to be introduced to the woman – ‘This is my wife, Kat’ – and so she was still there for the first gunshot.

 --

“Well, Violet wanted to stay in America for our holidays, but I thought that was ridiculous – so we chose South of France. Yachts? Yes, we’ve got plans for that tomorrow,” Stefan continued, his usual charming smile on his face as he nodded and charmed the man in front of him. Only when the elder man left did he turn to his wife. “I don’t even know who that was.”

“I think he’s related to one of your uncles, actually,” was Violet’s smooth reply, as she carefully fussed over Teddy’s crooked bow-tie. He didn’t seem particularly interested in having his bow-tie fixed, and kept giving his dad pleading looks to save him.

“How unfortunate for him. Are you done?” Stefan sighed, watching as she straightened the bow tie, and then as it slowly started to become crooked again. Violet frowned at it. Stefan frowned at her. Teddy frowned at them both.

“I don’t think it’ll stay,” said a familiar French-accented voice; a shadow fell over them and Violet straightened up to say hello the newcomers politely.

When she realised it was Rémy and Grace, she smiled properly and the four of them greeted each other warmly enough. There was appropriate cooing over Theodore, who seemed to be attempting to remember who they were.

“This is Sophia,” Rémy added at least, as though the fact that he was carrying a two-year-old with him had been forgotten all this time. Her dress was a little too expensive to allow her to run around, and was mostly happy to be toted around and occasionally introduced to very old friends. “And it won’t stay,” he continued, nodding at Theodore’s bow tie. “My mother had the same problem with me.”

“Should’ve gone for the tie, Violet,” Stefan suggested.

“Thank you, Stefan,” she replied sweetly. “That’s such a good idea.”

“Can I have a drink?” Teddy piped up, looking between his parents expectantly – which was really fortunate, because none of the adults really were small-talkers. Stefan took his chance.

“Yeah, come on, Teddy,” he started, taking his son’s hand, and pulling him away from the group. The remaining three shared a little more small talk, making plans to maybe meet the next day if they could all be free and were still distracted when, of course, there was that loud bang.

There was a pause while the whole room froze, mid-conversation, ears ringing. Then, slowly, a few people turned to see where the noise had come from, Grace amongst them. Rémy glanced down at his daughter, trying to gauge if she would start crying. Violet glanced in the direction her husband had gone, attempting to see her son through the crowd. A group of people, having realised what had happened, bolted for the door, only to pause when it slammed shut. There was a distinct sound of it being locked.

Grace, before she even knew what was happening, still knew what she had to. She dug around in her purse – some impossibly expensive thing, something she felt was ridiculous for the price – to find her phone, and she spent a few seconds waiting for her menu to load. When she looked up, she realised that Rémy was right in front of her, blocking people’s view of her. Did he know what she was going to do?

It didn’t really matter; no sooner had she sent the message, someone was pushing her husband out of the way. She glared, regardless of the circumstances they were in, before meeting the eye of – well, who? She didn’t know what the situation was yet, but it didn’t look good.

“Your phone,” the man said, holding out his hand. His face wasn’t covered; he was still in the pristine suit that every member of security would wear. But he held a gun. She didn’t argue – she handed it over before something else happened to her family, certain that she could take these men by surprise; admittedly, she was married with a promise to never go back to her old life, had had a child, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have the skills to get rid of one attacker.

It took her a moment to realise he was speaking with an American accent; another to discern that there were seven  attackers in the room, and on another glance around the room, note that one particular attender of the event was missing a wife. And yet, next to her, she couldn’t change the fact that Violet was still trying to peer around for her son and husband – it was almost alarming to see her so worried.

There was a stage at the head of the room, set up to presumably allow people to give speeches and talk about the changing industry. One of the men stepped up there, still waving the gun, and tapping the microphone as though he might be giving the speech on changing industry. His handling of the gun, Grace noted, was all wrong. But he spoke anyway, something about ransoms and everyone keeping calm. Grace’s French was still in progress, but when she turned to Rémy for an explanation, he shook his head at her. He was more pre-occupied with keeping Sophia calm.

Across the room, Jasper had frozen appropriately; it took him far too long to realise that there wasn’t anyone holding onto his arm and that Kit, if she was still around, had gone to work. He understood that it was a job – and one she was very good at – but it was always nerve-wracking, staying behind and only hoping that she was safe, that she didn’t act too quickly. She did that a lot, he knew.

And the girl in question, having realised that she had been pressed against a door, had opened it and disappeared before someone could stop her. She didn’t need to hear what happened next; she just had to neutralise a threat (specifically, the one threatening her husband. She wouldn’t have it).

There were other problems. Like people would recognise her. She didn’t want to ruin Jasper’s career for her own, but she didn’t have a wig or anything. She managed to pull her hair up in a messy ponytail, but that was such a poor disguise, she almost felt ashamed of herself. Maybe she’d have to hope for a D-notice. She pulled up short when she realised there was someone waiting at the end of the corridor for her, prepared to fight back. And then realised they had a child.

“Who are you?” she asked at last, frowning at the man and child. It was a strange thing to see in the middle of a hostage situation.

“An American agent,” the man replied. “This is my son. We got locked out of the main room because he wanted the toilet,” he added, sounding almost amused at this.

It wasn’t actually the reassuring thing she wanted to hear. She wanted it be Alex, really, leaning up against the wall and telling her she had taken long enough to get out of there and she couldn’t possibly run in those heels. It was not Alex. It was just some guy. But an American agent sort of guy, the sort that might have contacts for this sort of thing, the sort that could help her. She didn’t have a plan yet - she didn’t do the plans, Hera did that.

“And who are you?” he finally asked.

“Dionysus.”

“That’s not a name.”

“It’s a rank,” she explained, approaching. “And a description of my skills. Do you have a gun? Anything? A phone?”

He shook his head. “I do have a son. He needs his mother,” he explained, gesturing a little vaguely at the boy in the crooked bow tie.

She knelt down and straightened the bowtie, fixing the band before she knew what she was doing; it stayed in place. “I don’t get it,” she told the man, before she gave the boy a bright smile so that he would smile back. (She liked kids. In an objective sense. They weren’t always well-behaved, but they were cute and didn’t know about all the terrible things in the world. Objectively, she realised that babies would one day happen to her and she’d have to go to parents’ evening and school plays and send them on school trips. But she was warming up the idea now. She thought she might even be good at it, and kids were sweeter now that she could have them without worrying about where she might fit in. Alex might laugh at that, Kit being a mother. Jasper wouldn’t.)

“He needs to go to his mother. There’s nothing to get, I can’t bring a kid along,” Stefan sighed, as though this was obvious.

She rolled her eyes at his sighing, but eventually nodded. “Okay, fine, you get the kid to the mom and I will see how we can manage it. There’s seven, you know,” she added, conversationally.

As Stefan ambled off with the child in tow, she glanced up and down for the corridor in case someone else turned up. She didn’t have to wait long; she heard heels and she attempted to find a place to hide, eventually turning into the next corridor and waiting to see who it was.

“I know you’re there.” Kit’s first impression was that the voice was way too British to be here, and second that she was offended to have been found. Maybe she was losing it. But she stepped out anyway, hoping she wasn’t going to get shot.

“Am I that obvious?”

“No. But I saw that kid looking confused and thought you might be here,” Grace replied calmly.

“Right,” Kit said slowly, wondering how confused Jasper could look. He didn’t ever really get lost unless she started talking about her time in Finland or whatever. “Look, we need a distraction. And then we need to get into that room and sort out all these guys with guns, frankly. [i]And[/i] call the authorities.”

“I’ve done that,” Grace answered. “But fine. Do you have a gun?”

“No. But American Agent does,” Kit nodded over Grace’s shoulder, assuming she would have seen Stefan leaving to return a child to their mother. “You can kind of see it, under his jacket. But it’s fine. I’ll take one from one of those guys,” she added, gesturing in the vague direction of the hall just in time to see American Agent return. He was childless. They could continue.

As they headed towards another entrance of the room, Grace decided: “I’ll distract if you two get rid of the others.” And like that, the plan was set.

There was a set of double doors at the end of the corridor and Kit thought back to the layout of the hotel. They’d had maps in the little packet sent to everyone attending the map and Kit, unable to break old habits, had memorised it. “This is the south set of doors. It’s by the bar, I think. We’ll need to unlock the door,” she added, but didn’t wait for an answer before she was pulling hair grips out of her hair and kneeling down in front of it.

Behind her, Grace and Stefan gave one another mystified glances, mostly to pass the time and also, frankly, because they were being bossed around by someone who looked like they had not yet left college.

The door clicked open. Kit stood up. She gestured Grace in and left the door ajar, peeking in to see what was happening; she could see Jasper, at least, he looked fine. Then she focused back on the scene in front of her, Grace approaching one of the men from behind and then attacking out of nowhere. The gun in his hand fell on the floor, and she kicked it towards the door. Kit scrambled for it, just in time to see Grace push the poor man into the centre of the room (everyone focused on him and then on the blonde woman).

Kit snapped the door shut.

“Let’s go,” she told Stefan quickly, checking the gun over. She wasn’t much of a gun person, frankly, too small and light to bother with anything heavy, but she had learnt about them all the same (in the desert in the middle of nowhere, identifying the various types, putting one together at three in the morning, seven years old, flashlight shining in her face, fumbling with the pieces, promising she’d be faster next time – God). There were six bullets in there although, now that she thought about it, she had been taught to use no bullets.

“I’ll go in first,” Stefan suggested.

“As if, they’re going to shoot first. And I’m tiny, they won’t hit me.”

“But  –”

“Your wife is pregnant,” Kit blurted out, some last ditch attempt to get American Agent to realise that she knew what she was doing. Stefan shut up, at least, although she didn’t know if he was going to agree. She hadn’t even meant to say it, wasn’t sure if he needed reminding. She thought he knew already though.

They didn’t have anything to say when they reached the doors behind the stage. How long were people going to stare at one lady, right? This door was unlocked though, to Kit’s surprise; she had reached for the handle only for it to give way and before Stefan could argue, she had darted in.

A second later, she thought she should have taken her heels off.

But then two seconds later, she was listening to the man at the microphone say he wasn’t going to hurt the people there, had made her best unimpressed face just in time for him to turn and see her. He didn’t have time to raise the gun; she had pointed hers at him and warned him, in passable French (she was rusty. She had never worked in France), that she was a better shot.

He scoffed at her, and she was well aware that there were five others in the room, six if she counted the man whom Grace had disarmed. Maybe, though, it didn’t matter; they were all amateurs and she had been doing this for seventeen years. She was faster, darting across the stage and using one practised move to get him to drop the gun. It landed on the stage loudly, and although she flinched at the noise, she kept her own gun focused on the man in front of her.

Up close, she could see that he was already nervous, sweating madly, and she wondered who had dragged him into this.

It wasn’t that bad that five other guns were focused on her – but just before she had started to wonder if Stefan had fallen asleep, something whizzed by, ruffling the hair of one of the men with a gun and burrowing into the floor. Kit glanced up briefly, just long enough to ensure that Stefan was on the upper section of the room, before she focused on the man in front of her.

“Tell them to drop their guns,” she ordered, with her best glare. When the man managed to look a little insolent, she glanced back up at the sniper as a warning (“He’s a better shot than me”). The man paused before he barked out an order. Kit had no doubt that they were still dangerous without guns, but at least she didn’t have to worry about immediate death.

One of them, however, looking even more crazed than the rest, didn’t do so; instead, he headed over to the side of the room, waving the gun madly and yelling something. Kit wasn’t sure what she could do; her own prisoner was telling him to stop, but he didn’t want to listen. Maybe American Agent couldn’t hit a moving target.

It was fine in the end. Just before he managed to grab someone, the very snazzily-dressed man, clutching a child (who bought a child to this sort of thing? And was that kid asleep?), had hit with a right hook. The attacker staggered back, dazed, and the woman next to him – she was the mother of American Agent’s kid, she realised – had kicked him squarely between the legs. Kit almost felt bad; he didn’t seem to have realised what happened yet, but when he finally drop the gun, the room became chaos.

Not, one might suppose, because of the collapsed man and his buddies, but because, behind Kit, the door swung open and the police seemed to take over the room. One of the police officers took the gun from Kit and handcuffed the guy on stage. Kit finally relaxed, looking up to find that American Agent had disappeared, and that someone was asking her who she was. After a brief conversation and some ID showing that confirmed that she wasn’t intending to take anyone hostage, she finally managed to escape the crowd, searching desperately for Jasper despite being too short for the crowd. Somewhere else, she spotted Grace and the man with the sleeping child meeting up, the man was laughing at something.

“I can’t believe she fell asleep,” Rémy complained, looking down at Sophia was indeed drooling on his shoulder. They shared an amused look before Rémy added, “Who did you text?”

“Oh, just Genevieve.”

“You texted your sister? To say what?”

“That I loved her.”

“Aw, that’s nice,” Rémy said, smiling at the thought.

“Yes, it’s our code for ‘everything has gone terribly, please call the police’,” Grace explained, nodding and helping Rémy through the corridors to their car; she had no desire to be stopped by anyone.

“That’s… less nice,” Rémy decided. “But okay.”

Kit was still searching somewhat desperately for Jasper. She knew he’d be around, it wasn’t like he was going to angstily stalk off and complain that the event had been ruined, and anyway, he was too tall for her not to find him. Eventually, she stopped him waiting by the wall for her, peering over the crowd, and she linked her arm in his like nothing had happened.

“Hi,” she greeted, pulling him away from the wall. “Let’s go. Maybe we can get take out or something,” she added and was pleased to find him nodding in agreement. It wasn’t until they got outside, blinking in the sun, that she realised that she had to do something. She stopped mid-stride to explain to Jasper, and they got out of the crowd to find the person she was looking for.

Finally, she spotted him not too far away, and she headed over, well aware that Jasper was going to watch. That was fine; if he didn’t, she’d lose him in the crowd again. But, ignoring American Agent’s wife and child, she stopped right in front of him.

She held out her hand for him to shake. “Wilder.”

He paused. He glanced over her shoulder at the young man watching them. He looked at the hand before he shook it. “Hastings.”

“Think I’m going to be seeing you,” she said, looking amused at this possibility.

“Probably,” he agreed, seeming a little unsure at having this young adult around.

“Alright. Well, we’re going now,” she explained. “But have fun with your new kid and all.”

“And you, with your,” Stefan paused, putting the pieces together, “new husband?”