Dangerous Games

by eirabach

Summary:

In which Penelope plots, and lives to regret it. Possibly.

But then again, possibly not.

[Or, Pen and Ink vs The Cham-Cham.]

Chapter 1

There is a peculiar sort of etiquette to tea. 

Penelope prides herself on knowing all the funny, fusty old rules that most of her generation have no idea ever existed. The rules she’d learned at the knee of a paper-skinned grandmother, her bony hands holding Penelope’s shaking ones as black lace had blurred her vision, and her mother’s teapot had seemed unbearably heavy in the shocking finality of her absence.

“Careful now, Penelope. A lady must not be seen to tremble.”

Of course according to her dear departed Grandmother, a lady ought not do a great many things.

Ought not make a scene, nor involve herself in politicking. Ought not wear a skirt above the knee, nor ingratiate herself with men whom she’d do better to avoid. Ought not to smile beguilingly. Ought not to welcome such overtures in return.

At least Penelope has always obeyed her in regard to tea.

It comes as easy as breathing; the perfect four minute steeping of the leaves, the gentle six o’clock folding in of the milk, the way she lifts the porcelain to her lips and sips delicately. She’s a study in ladylike composure and British reserve.

If her grandmother knew how hard her heart was beating, how she struggled to keep her hand steady, if her grandmother knew why -

Somewhere in the distance, she imagines she might hear the sound of the chapel’s flagstones rippling as her grandmother’s bones spin wildly in the vault beneath.

A giggle bubbles helplessly up from behind the rim of her teacup. 

“Something funny?”

“No I - Would you believe I was thinking of my dead grandmother?”

“Oh yeah? Hilarious. Almost as funny as this - thing . What is it?” Gordon holds up one of the delicate little crustless sandwiches, the ones she’d made herself after sending Parker and the cook away, and peers at it with a disdain she finds offensive.

“It’s Coronation Chicken,” she says with a sniff. “It’s a classic filling.”

Gordon drops the sandwich back on the plate and nods solemnly “Of course it is. Mind if I stick to cake?”

She giggles again. Giggles , for goodness sake. The chapel shudders around her grandmother’s post-mortem assault. “Not keen?"

Gordon appears mortified, shaking his head frantically. “No it’s - I mean - This is, nice? You know. The tea, it’s nice.” He pats his belly and leans back like a man truly satiated. “Really great tea, Penelope. Really.”

Penelope hums politely, sets her teacup down with a final sounding clink , and takes a moment to observe her guest. 

Sat on the little velveteen loveseat Gordon looks awkward, cumbersome, in a way he never usually does. His eyes are bright, his mouth as quick to smile as ever, but there’s a tenseness in his jaw she doesn’t remember from before the incident. A twitch in his fingers that she’s never noticed before.

And if there’s one thing Penelope has become good at in recent months, it’s noticing Gordon Tracy.

He might be free of the casts and braces now, but he still holds himself as though his body might betray him at any moment and send him sprawling at her feet. She’s heard the stories. Been pre-warned. She knows it might.

(She doesn’t know if his heart is racing like her own. Doesn’t know what she's supposed to do if it isn’t.)

He’s fiddling with the tea cup now, back ramrod straight in a way that absolutely cannot be comfortable but is surely demanded by the shades of older brothers and a military father when one is invited for tea with a Lady . And maybe she knows the etiquette, but Gordon is following the rules.

Penelope makes her own rules.

She takes a breath and reminds herself that she’s not the only one out of her comfort zone here. If they can take down international criminals and rescue recalcitrant Frenchmen they really ought to be able to manage a civilised cup of Assam.

“Well that is a relief,” Penelope sighs, and sits back a little in her seat, feet crossing and uncrossing at the ankles. “I am rather an expert at afternoon tea.”

“Really?” Gordon sounds genuinely surprised, but quickly schools his features into something that he probably thinks looks neutral. Penelope doesn’t think Gordon could wear a neutral expression if his life depended on it. 

“Surprising, is it?”

Gordon shrugs his good shoulder. “I thought that was what Parker was, y’know. For.”

“Never let him hear you say that,” she scolds, only half joking if that. “And to be perfectly frank with you he’s rather a philistine when it comes to tea. Would you believe he puts the milk in first?”

“ No ,” Gordon gasps, mock scandalised. “The audacity .”

He leans forward then, closing the distance between them and casting a shadow over the now neglected cups. “Bet I know someone worse.”

Penelope raises one eyebrow. “Indeed?”

“Ever met my Grandma?”

“Touche.” 

He grins. "Thought so.” Then, slightly chargrined, “Don’t tell her I said that.”

“I’ll never tell,” Penelope agrees.

“Thing is -” he picks up another piece of Victoria sponge and studies it as he speaks, “she’s been great recently. She really has. And it must be boring for her stuck following me around all day - or not. I mean she can’t even follow me half the time I’m just sat there. Beached. And I love her and all but jeez - ” he puts down the cake and looks at Penelope like a man condemned. “I can’t eat anymore of her cooking, Pen. I’ll die.”

“Somewhat dramatic, don’t you think?” 

“Have you ever eaten her meatloaf, Pen? Have you? No - “ he holds up a hand “no you haven’t, because if you had you’d understand.” He sighs dramatically, picks the slice of cake back up, and stuffs it in his mouth.

Penelope watches him chew with narrowed eyes, the germ of an idea forming in her mind. 

It’s probably not a good idea.

It’s objectively a terrible idea. 

Gordon’s still healing.

Her heart rate still won’t settle. 

Her superiors will be furious .

His superior will lose his mind.

But Penelope is Penelope. And Penelope lets the words fall from her lips regardless.

“Gordon, have you ever been to Geneva?”

----

Last time Gordon had been to Geneva, Scott had helped drop him into the centre of the supreme hadron collider.

Scott’s got a case of deja vu.

“Geneva. With Lady Penelope.”

“Yeah,” Gordon grins at him from the other side of their father’s desk. “Pretty awesome, right?”

“Pretty,” Scott agrees, eyes wandering over to the half drunk bottle of scotch he’s going to need after this conversation. “Is it uh, a personal trip?”

Gordon’s ears flush pink, and Scott finds himself wishing for a full bottle.

“Penelope’s working.”

That’s not exactly an answer. It’s probably the only answer he’s going to get.

“And you’re going along for the scenery?”

“She asked me,” Gordon says, as though that’s all that could possibly matter. To him, it probably is.

Not for the first time Scott wonders if there’s anything Lady Penelope could ask of Gordon th.at he wouldn’t agree to in less than half a heartbeat. Not for the first time he sends a silent prayer of thanks that she’s on their side.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea, Gordon.”

“Why not?” Gordon’s smile fades into a scowl. “I’m no good to anyone here. You’re sick of the sight of me”

“That’s not true,” Scott says, reassuring. False. Because the truth is Gordon is grounded. And a grounded Gordon is a bored Gordon. And a bored Gordon is little better than a menace. But a Gordon halfway around the world and embroiled in what Lady Penelope calls work sounds a lot worse.

There’s only so much Colonel Casey can cover for them. They need the GDF onside.

And it isn’t that Scott doesn’t trust his brother, it isn’t, but he’s been Gordon’s big brother for twenty five years now, and the kid has form . Form and a fractured spine. Form and legs that can’t quite hold him steady on the other side of the desk.

When it comes to Gordon life is entirely heart over head, and that’s a risk Scott just can’t take.

He shakes his head, watches Gordon’s face fall, and swallows the guilt as he speaks.“You can’t -”

“No.” The venom in Gordon’s voice is enough to stop Scott in his tracks. Gordon leans forward, pressing his weight into his knuckles where they’re curled at the edge of the desk. “No, Scott. Just listen to me ok? I’ll tell you what I can’t do. I can’t sit here any longer just - just watching . I need to do  something. Be useful .”

“You can be useful here!”

“Can I?” Gordon rocks back on his heels, and Scott can’t help but notice the unsteady little sway that follows the action. “Because all I’ve done for the past six weeks is sit on my ass , Scott. Grandma won’t even let me run dispatch for God’s sake. You let EOS run dispatch.”

“EOS isn’t injured.”

“EOS isn’t even human!”

“Fine, you want a job? I’ll find you a job.” 

“I’ve got a job. Penny’s - “

“ Penny .” Scott half scoffs. “Listen, what Penelope gets up to is only as much of our business as it absolutely has to be, I can’t have you compromising International Rescue’s reputation.”

Gordon’s eyes narrow dangerously. “Penelope would never -”

“No.” Scott stands, and the height difference between the two of them is suddenly as pronounced as it was ten years ago when the rows were over innocent things that felt so dangerous at the time. “She wouldn’t. Which is why I can’t figure out why the hell she’s invited you along.”

This time the sway is more pronounced, a bodily ricochet from words that Scott already regrets. “I didn’t -”

Gordon brushes off the hand reaching for his shoulder, eyes suddenly darker than Scott remembers seeing them in years. That would have meant tears once, he remembers. Now it’s the herald of something far worse.

“Right,” Gordon says, voice unnervingly steady. “I hear you. Loud and clear.”

“Gordon I didn’t mean -”

“Mean what?” the false jollity is somehow worse than the anger he’d expected. “That I’m not the obvious choice for a covert op? Well jeez, Scotty, the thought hadn’t occurred to me!”

“That isn’t what I mean and you know it. ”

Gordon twists his mouth into an approximation of a sneer that sets Scott’s teeth on edge. Somewhere beyond them he can hear the chime of an incoming call, but he can’t quite bring himself to break from Gordon’s glare to answer it. John will redirect it. Scott has his own situation to deal with.

“Isn’t it?”

“I just don’t like the idea of it, Gordon, You’re not a spy. It could be dangerous.”

Gordon does laugh then, a great belly laugh that has him clutching at his knees and wheezing from damaged lungs. “Dangerous. You’re funny, Scotty. You should be the funny one, you’ve a real talent.”

He turns to leave, and Scott tries not to wince at the stiffness he sees, the mental load he’s dropped on already physically pained shoulders. 

“Gordon, wait.”

To his credit Gordon does, but he doesn’t turn around and Scott is forced to deliver his next words to his back.

“If you go, just swear to me you won’t over do it, okay?”

Gordon’s shoulders drop as he turns and throws Scott an exasperated look.

“It’s just a party, Scott. I’m great at parties. The best. It’ll be fine .”

Yes, Gordon is great at parties. Really great. Too great. International news making great. That is a further complication he hadn’t wanted to dwell on. Scott sighs.

“Penelope’s parties are never just parties , Gordon. Remember that.”

Gordon clearly takes this for the implicit permission that it is, throwing Scott a distinctly poor salute and - if not beaming, exactly - smiling more broadly than he has since he woke up in hospital blues.

“Scouts honour!”

“Weren’t you expelled from the Scouts?”

The grin’s a little wider, now, and Scott’s heart a little lighter for seeing it. “I’ll never tell.”

Scott watches him leave, still leaning a little on the railing to help him up the stairs, then flicks the comm on his father’s desk over to the secure line. Penelope doesn’t take kindly to either instruction or demands, but if she wants to drag Scott’s wounded brother out of his sight she’d better get a handle on both.

She must be expecting his call, the comm chiming out only once before she’s hovering above the manila file that contains Gordon’s hospital discharge papers and the details of Tracy Industries latest bequest.

“Scott.”

“Lady P. I expect you know why I’m calling?”

One perfect miniature eyebrow rises slightly. “I assure you, I haven’t the faintest. Business or pleasure?”

Her Ladyship loves to play this game. Normally there’s some urgent disaster relief effort or international criminal conspiracy that prevents the two of them from taking pot shots at each other. But occasionally she’ll get in a dig about old money versus new, or he’ll cast aspersions on the validity of the English aristocracy in the twenty first century, and their conversation will devolve into the sort of sniping battle of wits that only two people with their history and connection can enjoy. 

It’s been months, though, and maybe Penelope has forgotten that Scott can play this game too.

“You tell me,” he says, “what exactly are your intentions toward my little brother?”

And maybe Scott’s forgotten the rules, because small and blue tinged she may be, but Lady Penelope is absolutely hovering above his father’s desk and blushing .

“Jeez, Penny,” he says, somewhat taken aback by her reaction but somehow also not altogether surprised. “Did I strike a nerve?”

Penelope’s face fades back to its normal porcelain and she sniffs in that haughty fashion that she only ever uses when she’s trying to get one over on Scott.

“Nonsense, Scott. I have no nerves, you know that. I simply thought Gordon could do with getting off that island for a little while.”

“He came for tea, didn’t he? He’s not a prisoner."

“No?” There goes that eyebrow again, and even though she’s looking up at him Scott has the distinctly uncomfortable impression she’s actually looking down on him. Penelope makes him feel uncomfortable a lot. It’s a skill not many people possess, and one that she has in common with the brother in question. “I don’t think the realities of Gordon’s current situation are entirely in line with how he feels about it. He came for tea and quite frankly he was such a misery I didn’t know what to do with him. He’s bored witless, Scott.”

It’s Scott’s turn to raise an eyebrow, but Penelope doesn’t rise to the bait.

“So you thought you’d involve him in a little light espionage?”

“Well yes,” Penelope says in that gleeful sort of tone that means she’s got an idea and Scott is about to agree to it. “I thought it would do him good. Exercise his mind.”

“Yeah his mind , Pen. You know he’s nowhere near 100%. If it comes to a fight -”

“I’m perfectly capable of dealing with any threats that may appear.”

“And if you need back up?”

Penelope smiles, small and secret. “I’m perfectly capable, Scott.” Then, harsher. “Don’t you think Gordon can look after himself?”

“That isn’t the point."

“Actually,” Penelope says, not unkindly, “it rather is. Let him feel useful, Scott. I’ll keep him out of trouble.”

Scott doesn’t even know why he’s arguing. Gordon has already received his tacit permission and will no doubt be already be throwing his belongings into a case with as much joyous abandon as a half healed broken arm and fractured cervical vertebrae will allow. It’s as much of a waste of breath as Penelope thinks it is, but he tries anyway.

“I’ve been attempting that his entire life, Pen. Current events notwithstanding, my success rates have been pretty poor.”

“Then let me try.” Penelope crosses her arms and lifts her chin in that way that always means that she considers the conversation finished. Her rule, law. “I will return him to you in no worse condition than I receive him.”

“How encouraging,” Scott deadpans. “All right. Fine. You can have him. On two conditions.”

“I’m listening.”

“One, you keep an open comm to Thunderbird Five at all times. If anything goes wrong we will extract you both and we won’t care about your cover, understood?”

“Unnecessary, but understood,” Penelope says. “And the second?”

Scott takes a moment to think how to phrase this oddest feeling of requests. More than hospital next-of-kin, more than field commander, this feels most like a job that Dad should have had and he feels a brief frission of irritation with Penelope for not just waiting until Dad was back to do it. He takes a deep breath.

“When I say look after him, I don’t just mean don’t let him get into a bust up with some mafioso. I don’t pretend to know what’s going on between you two, and frankly, I don’t want to, but -”

Penelope holds up her hand.

“If this is the part where you threaten to have me killed if I break your brother’s heart then, please, stop there. You have nothing to fear in that regard, Scott. I promise you.”

Her tone is cool, her words more so, but that faint pink flush is on her cheeks again and Scott can’t help but test her one more time.

“You know for a good spy you’re a horrible liar."

The scoff and the snapping off of the comms link is really all he needs to prove him right.

----

It really ought to have been Scott.

If it were to be any of them, of course, and perhaps in a different world it wouldn’t have been. Perhaps there would have been someone else, if she’d been someone else. If she hadn’t been his daughter, and they hadn’t been Jeff’s boys. If the world was kinder, perhaps, and hadn’t taken them all for its own. But she wasn’t and there wasn’t and it wasn’t. And it really had ought to have been Scott.

He’s six feet plus of all-American primogeniture topped with blue eyes and dimples and filled with a sense of duty so finely tuned that sometimes it makes her teeth itch to hear him. And she, well. She’s old money to his new. Pretty and pink cheeked and connected. A perfect little love story boxed up and beribboned and really not a love story at all.

Love stories aren’t for the likes of them, after all. Much better to be practical than romantic, when one distracted moment might get you killed.

It makes sense. Scott. Her father had thought so, and his. Parker still does, and her refusal to agree is a needle in his side.

( “H’I won’t live forever, M’lady,” all too often muttered under his breath as they wave Thunderbird One off from the manicured lawns, though she suspects he will, regardless. On purpose, even. Determined to see her down the aisle on the arm of someone he deems h’ppropriate .)

It isn’t Scott though. It was never Scott.

As long as it’s been anyone, it’s been him.

Which makes this all the more inauspicious a beginning.

Penelope is used to travelling under the radar as and when required. The economy seating and stretch polyester are a small price to pay for the anonymity they can afford her on the flight from London to Geneva. Any faintly curious glances sent her way are soon dissuaded from further investigation by her day-three hair and shiny leggings. That girl might look like Lady Creighton-Ward, but she wouldn’t be caught dead looking like that. Simple. Effective. Utterly depressing when Gordon turns up looking like that.

He practically bounds out of arrivals, all bright yellow glee, his case swaying on the trolley as he drags it along behind him, and the dreadful Swiss grey neutrality of the airport brightens like sunshine at his approach. If no one looks twice at her they crane their necks to look at him, and maybe she hasn’t quite thought this through.

Gordon has never really been one to blend in.

“I’ve never seen anyone look so happy after an economy flight,” she says wryly as he sweeps her own cases up and balances them precariously on top of his own. “Doesn’t your back ache?”

The smile shifts into a grimace, followed by a one shouldered shrug.

“I’ll live.”

“So you’ve said.”

She really hasn’t thought this through. Not when she was talking her superiors into allowing him to accompany her, nor when she was trying to convince Scott of the same. At no point in her appeals to his bravery, his quick wit, his need to do good , had she outright considered the truth of the matter.

Penelope hasn’t the faintest idea what is supposed to come next. Outside, of course, the clinical and satisfying success of a job well done. This - whatever this is - is a mystery.

And the other passengers filter away, leaving the two of them standing, silent, three feet apart and breathing the same recycled air.

“So,” he’s still grinning at her, waiting for her. Always waiting for her and she with no clue how to proceed. How inconvenient. “You ready?”

----

There’s no FAB1 waiting outside Geneva airport. No Parker to glare meaningfully into the rear view mirror and set her at ease with his usual maudlin complaints about Swiss road systems. Instead the two of them make their way toward the long line of automated taxis provided for the airports regular clientele.

There’s a long and rather embarrassing moment of confusion when it turns out that neither Penelope or Gordon have the faintest idea how to program one. Money, it seems, does not buy everything, or in this case perhaps it has brought them both a little too much.

After much poking, prodding, and occasional language unbecoming to a Lady, they eventually pull away from the airport and away from the beaten track. The car makes its way through twisting mountain passes, the low afternoon sun barely visible through the peaks until they begin their final descent. The valley before them is lit up as the little vehicle makes its way along a narrow, rock-strewn path before veering left into a cleft that had lain hidden in the shadows. The ride through the narrow little crevasse is less than comfortable. Gordon turns paler with each jolt of the suspension and Penelope winces in sympathy.

“It isn’t much further,” she offers as helpless reassurance, but he doesn’t answer beyond a tight nod and gritting of teeth. She wants to tell him that it will all be worth it but that seems like an arrogant presumption, at least that is until they emerge from the crevasse into a secret pocket of unutterable beauty.

Then, at least, it feels more like an observation than a promise.

“Now, wasn’t this worth the trip?" 

The car stops a few dozen metres from the shore of a crystalline lake, its waters liquid gold in the sunlight, the mountains rising around it pink as rose quartz. At the Northern shore stand a cluster of traditional alpine chalets, the largest of which is built into the mountainside and rises above the others capped with a blanket of undisturbed snow. It is, Penelope concedes to her own satisfaction, truly lovely.

Perhaps this whole thing may work our rather well after all.

“Wow.”

“Wow, indeed.” Almost without thinking about it she takes him by the hand and tugs him behind her until they’re stood at the foreshore, the setting sun burnishing the edges of the mountain above them. “It feels like we might be a million miles from anywhere.” Then, at his hummed agreement. “Not that you’re not used to that, of course.”

“I dunno.” Gordon leans forward for a better view of the water. “No rockets taking off during swim practice? No Scott hovering around like a bad smell? No John in charge of the TV repeats?” He straightens up and grins at her. “Sounds like paradise to me.”

“Am I to assume that my company is preferable to Scott’s?”

“Penelope I mean this in the nicest possible way, but I would rather spend a weekend caged with starving piranhas than spend another ten minutes watching Scott give himself a hypertensive crisis every time I sneeze.”

“Is it truly that bad?”

“It’s worse .” Gordon swings their joined hands and she tries to relax into the motion, but this sort of easy affection is as alien to her as the good-natured way that Gordon scoffs, “he’s a goddamn nightmare when he’s worrying. I don’t know how Alan puts up with it.”

Penelope, who rather suspects Alan quite likes being smothered in affection no matter how oddly expressed, lets go of Gordon’s hand in order to tuck her arm through his.

“I’m afraid I did have to promise Scott I’d look after you.”

He wrinkles his nose. “Like a pet?”

“Like someone recovering from a rather ghastly accident, which -” she holds up a finger to silence him before he can begin to protest, “I am afraid that you are .”

“I’m practically better!”

“Practically won’t get you back in that submarine and it won’t wash with me either. Now come along, it’s cold.” 

He mutters indictments under his breath, but allows her to keep her arm tucked through his until they reach the door of the smallest chalet.

“Better bring the cases,” she tells him as she enters the keycode, “these automated taxis run strictly to time and we wouldn’t want to send all our clothes back to Geneva. 

He opens his mouth. She raises an eyebrow.

“Fine, okay, but I thought I was an invalid? You’ve brought enough cases to clothe most of Switzerland.”

“And I thought you were practically better, and a gentleman.” She shoos him off, he rolls his eyes, and the little chalet that will be their temporary home is revealed just as the taxi begins its lonely journey back to the airport.

The two of them stand alone at the threshold, cases piled at Gordon’s feet, and a little warm flame of satisfaction grows in Penelope’s belly and spreads to her hands, her chest, her face. 

Perfect.

She steps into the room, turns to him, and smiles.

“Well? What do you think?”

 -----

 Gordon does not read romance novels. Doesn’t read much of anything if he’s being totally honest, not unless Brains’ manual updates and John’s debriefs count. And even if they do - well, John’s couldn’t be further from romantic if they tried. Brains’ gushing prose is usually directed towards things beyond Gordon’s personal proclivities. So he doesn’t read Romance novels. He never has.

 Grandma loves them.

 And maybe it’s by osmosis, or maybe it’s because he seems to have spent an alarmingly large period of his life confined to bed and her tender mercies, but Gordon knows quite a lot more about romance novels than he’d really care to admit.

 He’s rich. She’s feisty. There are love children and doctors and sheikhs and vestal virgins with the sexual appetites of extremely rampant rabbits. There are misunderstandings and malicious exes. Elevator breakdowns and holiday romances and office politics.

 There’s only ever one bed.

 There isn’t an induced coma on Earth that could stop him from figuring out where that particular plot point goes.

 There is, however, a non zero chance that he’s still unconscious somewhere on the seafloor or battling his way out of a coma, because there’s no way, absolutely no possible way that this could actually be happening. This must all be some sort of dying man’s daydream, albeit one with a depressing amount of physical therapy and way too many annoying brothers.

 Penelope’s still standing there, waiting, and she probably thinks he’s gone insane and that’s okay because he probably has and he knows that Alan must have set this up somehow. Someone is bound to come bursting through the curtain at any moment and did you see his face, Lady P?

 Gordon? Are you quite alright? You look like you may be about to have a stroke.”

 Oh, beautiful . What phrasing. It gets better.

 "I uh - I think there might have been some sort of mistake?”

Gordon stutters his way through the question, frozen in the doorway with nothing between them but the mound of cases and a signal fundamental fact: the bed is not a mistake.

Penelope Creighton-Ward doesn’t make mistakes.

“Hardly, darling,” she says, sashaying into the room proper and pulling a small black box from the front pocket of the leading suitcase. “We are supposed to be playing a couple, you know. Separate rooms lead to gossip. Gossip leads to suspicion.” She presses a couple of buttons on the little box and the room is bathed in a soft blue glow and a high pitched sound that fades away to leave ringing in Gordon’s ears.

Or maybe that’s just his brain finally disconnecting from reality. There’s no way this is actually happening. This is a prank. The worst prank. He’s going to kill Alan. Kill him.

Penny looks at him with an expression of pinched concern.

“Are you sure you’re alright?”

No. Yes. God he didn’t think this through. Scott was right, this is a dangerous game.

He doesn’t think he can manage to answer, so instead he nods at the black box.

“What was that?”

Penelope slips the device back into her suitcase and busies herself with the bedside holocomm.

“A broad spectrum communication blocker,” she says, turning the holocomm over and examining the base. “It will prevent anybody listening in on us.”

Gordon’s mouth goes dry at the implication that there might be an us to listen in on, but Penny seems unfazed. She concentrates on peeling a small silver disc from the bottom of the holo comm and pockets it swiftly.

“There,” she says, “much better."

She drops to sit at the edge of the bed, folds her hands in her lap, and smiles up at him beatifically.

“Well?” She pats the bed beside her. The ringing in Gordon’s ears is starting to sound like the emergency alarm. “Are you going to stand there the whole time?”

Gordon doesn’t move. Can’t. “Probably, yeah.”

“Gordon.” She’s stern, but not unkind. “I feel fairly confident a lady has invited you to sit on a bed before now.”

Oh, sure, yeah. Ladies. Plural. Several . But a Lady? Capital L? Penelope ?

“Not as often as you’d think,” he says, then wonders why the hell he said it. This is going to be a hell of a long weekend if he can’t even get a grip on his mouth. 

But Penny laughs, and when Penny laughs his own inability not to humiliate himself feels slightly less of a burden. “I promise, your virtue is safe with me.”

Penny bounces slightly on the bed, the springs squeaking beneath her, and smiles wickedly when he groans.

“I’m fucking all this up already, aren’t I?” 

She unfolds her hands and smooths them over her knees.

“Stuff and nonsense,” she says, not quite meeting his eyes. “I have every faith in you. You only have to pretend to be utterly devoted to me, how hard could it be?”

He doesn’t even begin to know what to say to that, but luckily she doesn’t seem to expect an answer - just shakes her head a little bit and reaches out to pat him on the knee. 

If Virgil ever found out how close he comes to falling over at that moment he’d never ever live it down. Ever.

“Oh, Gordon. Honestly. I’m just teasing you.” She stands and moves to drag the cases onto the bed. This at least reminds some primordial part of Gordon’s brain that he’s supposed to be a gentleman. 

“I got it -”

Penelope lets him take the case from her, but watches him hoist it onto the bed with a furrowed brow.

“I don’t think you do, actually.” She catches hold of his sleeve as he turns for the next case. “Sit.”

“Not Sherbert,” he grumbles. She twitches a single eyebrow. He sits.

“We have until tomorrow morning to make sure our cover is air tight, and to do that I need you to listen to me.”

“Just as well I’m great at taking instruction.”

“Is that so?” And she’s blushing, just a bit, just at the crest of her cheekbones, and this is better. This Gordon can do .

“Ask John, oh, wait,” Gordon grins and holds up the holocomm. “You can’t. Guess you’ll just have to take my word for it.”

“Hmm,” Penny taps her fingers on her hip bone and holds up the tablet between them. “Speaking of situations.”

“I thought we were speaking of John?”

“Is there a difference?” They grin at each other, and the hysterical butterflies calm, just a little bit. Okay, so he’s sat on a bed with Penny. So he might be sleeping with Penny (the butterflies mount a resurgence just at the thought no matter how literal), but it’s Penny, and it’s him. They can do this. They’ve been beating around this particular buddleia bush for years. Nothing’s changed.

Then Penny scoots just a little bit closer, lays the tablet across both their thighs, and - maybe. 

Maybe things are changing, just a little bit.

“Here.” Penny opens a file and the room is bathed in soft green light. Above them hovers a man on the wrong side of middle age, head polished to a gleaming shine, moustache bristling above unsmiling lips. “Recognise this gentleman?”

Gordon squints up at the image, a tickle of recollection at the back of his mind.

“I think - yeah, maybe. I think I’ve seen him before. Hey,” he lifts his chin and peers a little closer. “Wasn’t he at that shindig you took Scott to? The one with the Russian incident?”

“The less said about that the better,” Penny mutters, but then, “Yes. He was there. He’s Colin Vishkin.”

And Gordon might not be too great at faces and he might spend most of his life forty thousand leagues under the sea, but he doesn’t live under a rock .

“As in -?”

“As in,” agrees Penny, and skips to another file. This is a news report, looming over them with Vishkin’s still unsmiling face projected over the anchor’s shoulder.

Mr Vishkin, who manages some of the music industry’s brightest talents, was unavailable for comment after today’s revelations. Sources say -

“Hang on.” Penelope pauses the playback and looks at him expectantly. “ Colin Vishkin is coming to this party?”

“Gordon, you really should know by now, my parties are rarely ever just parties .”

“That’s what Scott said,” Gordon says, begrudgingly. “But he’s just some showbiz guy, he’s not a spy. Is he?”

“If he was, you wouldn’t know,” Penelope says with that small secretive smile that she always seems to wear when it comes to her work. “But no. No I have no intelligence to suggest he’s working for any governmental organisation. I’m very much afraid Gordon, that Mr Vishkin is our bad guy.”

That makes him sit up a little bit straighter, sends the butterflies into retirement as Gordon Tracy Lovesick Idiot is pushed to the side by the somewhat more capable Thunderbird Four.

“Bad guy how?”

Penelope flicks through another few files. News reports, mainly. The odd magazine article lifted from the cloud. Vishkin’s artists, all falling out of one bar or another. All caught with powdered noses. Glassy eyes.

Dead at twenty five .

And then flight logs. Hundreds of them. Bogata. Kabul. Los Angeles. London. Sydney. Jakarta. Concert venues interspersed with trips in the dead of night. No overnight stays. Land and go.

“See a pattern?”

“He’s running something, all right.”

“Oh, certainly,” Penelope agrees, but then she flicks over again, and this time it’s an image created to tug on Gordon’s heartstrings. People. Dozens of them. Young and younger still with wide desperate eyes, crammed into a container the like of which he hasn’t seen since commercial shipping was done away with. “Not just some thing , though. Some ones .”

“People smuggling?” Gordon practically spits it out. “It’s the twenty first century, Pen!”

“Indeed it is.” Penelope is looking at the picture, lips pursed in concentration, but there’s none of the rage in her expression he feels in his heart. 

“How can you just -” he waves his hand at the image. Wills it to disappear under his touch. “It’s inhumane!”

“Man’s inhumanity to man is nothing new, Gordon. It’s been here as long as we have as a species, and it will remain until we are all gone.”

“Why hasn’t the GDF taken him down?”

“The GDF have neither the evidence or the jurisdiction.”

“That’s bullshit.”

Penelope turns to him and he expects a rebuke for his language, but instead she’s just looking at him. Considering.

“Indeed.”

Ah. There’s a stiffness in his spine now that has nothing to do with compound fractures or economy seating.

“So that’s where we come in? Catch him at it?"

“He’s highly unlikely to bring a crate full of human cargo on an alpine holiday, Gordon.” She smiles again, and this is a new one. A cold one. “But don’t fret. After all, there’s more than one way to skin a cat.”

“Care to share?”

“Certainly.” She flips to another screen, and this person Gordon does recognise. He lets out a low whistle.

“Margot Mearns.”

“The very same. Did you know it’s her birthday this week?” Penny flicks through a few more screens until she settles on the one she wants. It’s a mass of words and letters that make minimal sense to Gordon. “Hence the little trip out here. Vishkin was convinced that a nice holiday might be all she needs to begin work on another album.”

“I thought she’d retired years ago?”

Penelope mouth narrows grimly. “So did she. But if Mr Vishkin wants you to do something, you usually do it.”

Gordon looks again at the tablet’s projection, notes the flight times interspersed with dates. Places. ‘MM’ over and over and - “You think he’s blackmailing her?”

“I think she may be willing to share a few secrets if the price is right,” Penelope says, swiping the file closed and dropping the tablet onto the bedside table. “These people can always be brought, Gordon. Always.”

"But Vishkin is rich as hell, he can -”

“I don’t mean with money.” Penelope sighs, and tilts her face up to look at him. “This is why I wanted to bring you,” she says. “You’re just so terribly good . You remind me what I ought to be, perhaps you will be more successful than I in appealing to Ms Mearn’s better nature." 

“Don’t be stupid,” he scoffs, “you’re a good guy. The good guy. Capital G’s.  Good Lady? You’re the best, Lady P.”

“If you say so.” Penny seems to concede the point, but then, “I’m afraid there’s more, and this part I suspect you really won’t enjoy.”

----

He takes it surprisingly well, the lengths they are expected to go to to keep Vishkin from realising he’s been led into a trap. He accepts the case full of bulky skiwear and acrylic sweaters with good grace, even though the palette is rather muted for his taste and they both know he won’t be going anywhere near the slopes. He does grumble just a little when she pulls out the hair dye, 

What’s wrong with holotech, Pen? 

(Pen, for goodness sake. Pen. Penny . Like he’s already ten pages ahead of her. Already crossed the rubicon into something that Penelope herself is only just beginning to name.)

Dampners, remember?

However, he disappeared off to the bathroom without any further complaint. He’s still there now, she can hear the shower running, which is advantageous in that he’s not witnessing what might be the closest thing to a panic attack Penelope has ever had.

That’s not quite true, of course. She’s felt worse, trapped in safety on the deck of the Solar Explorer. In the belly of ancient mine. Curled up on the back seat of FAB one en route to the hospital.

These events all seem to have one common denominator, and now he’s turned off the shower and is shouting through the door.

“It’s okay! I still look amazing!”

“Of course you do, dear,” Penelope mumbles, eyes fixed as they have been for the past ten minutes at least, on the silver bands in her palm. 

“Dapper as hell !” He bursts out of the bathroom, arms outstretched in a tada ! Gesture, and really, really this would have been just a touch easier if he’d at least put his clothes on.

“Really Gordon?”

He does have the grace to blush then, she can see the way it spreads down his throat and along the ridge of his collarbones.

“Sorry, got excited.”

She doesn’t think she could formulate an answer to that if she tried.

“Looks good though, right? I could totally have been a ginger. Except for the sun thing, that would suck. I reckon that’s why John chose space. Keep him pale and interesting.”  He spins on the spot to show off his new hair - auburn, a shade or two darker than his brother’s - but does at least hold on to the towel as he does so. “Well, interesting-ish, I suppose.”

It’s a small mercy. Penelope closes her fist over the rings and steels herself as best she can against the assault of his smile as he turns to face her again.

“Will I do?”

A terribly pertinent choice of phrase, that.

“Lovely,” she says, hoping against hope he doesn’t notice the crack in her voice. “Now be a dear and put on a shirt.”

“Spoilsport.”

He snatches up one of the sweaters from where he’s dumped them unceremoniously across the top of the dresser, and disappears back into the bathroom long enough for Penelope to physically shake some sense into herself.

This mission is shaping up to be far more dangerous than she might have expected. Or just as dangerous as you ‘oped , pipes up a familiar little voice in her head. One that has had far more to say about this trip than is warranted, in her opinion.

But then Gordon is back, and she can’t keep a neutral expression to save her life, and God knows if she’s fooling anyone anymore but she certainly isn’t fooling herself.

He looks ridiculous in knitwear. Utterly ridiculous. It is entirely too unfair that a man she sees so often in skin tight neoprene can look like that in a cable knit sweater that isn’t even cashmere. 

Gordon frowns.

“Penelope? Are you okay? You’ve gone a bit pale.”

Well. Isn’t that just smashing.

In for a penny, as Parker says. She goes in for a pound.

“I’m afraid you have to marry me.”

It’s Gordon’s turn to go a rather odd colour now. In his case it’s a rather fetching shade of puce that clashes horribly with his newly dyed hair.

“Uh.” He says. Freezes. Then, “Are you asking ?”

 “I’m afraid GCHQ have beaten me to it.” Penelope finally unfurls her fist and holds her open hand out between them. Gordon stares at the two slim rings as though they might, in fact, be tiny metallic alligators. “Not the nicest quality,” she says, both by way of breaking the silence and genuine apology. “Budget cuts. I’d have brought some myself, but I don’t think my cover and I have similar tastes.”

 Gordon’s head snaps up then. “Right, yeah. The cover. So we are?”

 Penelope lets out a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding, and slips the smaller ring over her finger before holding out the other for Gordon to do the same. He hesitates only a moment before doing so, then turns his full attention back to her as she begins to unpack the minutiae of their cover lives.

 She has a wig, brown contacts, a collection of extremely frumpy fair isle sweaters, and a passport in the name of Pauline Jones. Pauline is a strict vegetarian, an excellent cook, and well known in the hospitality business for her professionalism and discretion. 

 Pauline’s husband is a ski instructor turned chalet host, banished from the slopes after a nasty accident the season previously. Very much the junior partner in their rental business, he’s still learning the ropes. 

His name is Greg, and he has three juvenile convictions for possession of narcotics and terrible taste in music.

 (“ Hey!”

 "I don’t make the rules, darling.”)

 Penelope piles up the belongings of these people who don’t yet exist, and atop it all she lays a holopad already pre-loaded with photographs they’ve never taken. There’s a wedding dress in there, she knows that. A hideous meringue affair that Penelope would never be seen dead in.

 She tells herself that’s the reason she bats Gordon’s hand away when he goes to open the files.

 “Time for that later,” she says, only too aware that she’s been the one insisting on getting their cover straight. “Are you hungry?”

 “ Are you an accomplished chef?”

 He has the good grace not to call her on the change of subject, at least.

 “I’m whatever I need to be,” she tells him truthfully, and gestures to the far wall of the room where an understated metal box protrudes from the wall. “but at least in this case I do have a little back up.”

 ----

 The replicated food is warm and tasty enough, but it doesn’t do much to help the unsteady lurch of his stomach as he watches Penelope tidy away her - sorry, Pauline’s - clothes into the room’s only dresser.

 "Why Greg?” he asks her, mostly for lack of anything else to say that won’t lead to more extremely awkward silence. “Greg’s an old man’s name.”

 Penelope pauses her folding and rolls her eyes.

 “Says the man called Gordon .”

“Hey, could have been worse.” He smiles, and she turns from the dresser to face him properly. “Could have been Deke. Or Wally. Or Virgil .”

Penelope tilts her head very slightly to one side and crosses her arms.

“You look nothing like a Virgil.” 

“Nah you’d have needed a different dye job for that one,” he agrees, taking both their plates to the automated kitchen module and dropping them in for recycling. “And maybe some stilts.”

“I don’t think they’d have fit in the case,” she murmurs, attention back on the dresser, her palms smoothing over fabric.

“Hey, I brought my own case,” he nods over to the Tracy Industries industrial number that’s still lying where he dropped it by the door to the room. “You could have saved yourself the effort, you know.”

“And what did you bring?” Penelope arches an eyebrow. “Hawaiian shirts and Neoprene?”

“Long sleeved Hawaiian shirts,” Gordon says, mildly offended. “It’s cold here. I’m not an idiot.”

She looks at him as though that may be somewhat debatable.

“And I look great in Neoprene. Really makes an impression.” He risks a wink because, well, he’s still not sure exactly what’s happening here but he’s pretty certain she won’t mind .

She pauses, as though considering, then, “Rather depends on the impression you want to create. I’m not sure the bright blue skin tight wetsuit is the most subtle of disguises, Gordon.”

He hums, and nods solemnly. “It is tight.”

Penelope blushes, a bright, fierce red that clashes with her pink sweater, and Gordon’s heart soars.

“Distracting.” He emphasises the consonants and watches with disbelieving fascination as the blush spreads down her throat.

“Oh hush,” she splutters eventually, balling up one of ‘Greg’s’ ugly sweaters and launching it at him. “Parker will have you shot."

Gordon grins and drops back on his elbows, kicking his stockinged feet off the floor.

“Worth it.”

“You’re incorrigible.”

“You invited me.”

“And I so rarely make decisions I regret.” Penelope lays the final item of clothing in the drawer and turns to him with narrowed eyes. “But there’s a first time for everything.”

Gordon bites back the urge to ask is that so , and sits up straighter.

“Seriously, though,” he says. “I don’t -” he flails about for the words to say what he means without offending - or worse getting an answer he won’t know how to live with. Not that he knows what that answer might be. Not that he knows anything , and Scott’s never been more right and he can absolutely never know. Whatever Penelope says next he will have to carry to his grave. A place, that going by the thudding in his chest, he’s approaching sooner rather than later. “What is it you expect of me, exactly? Because Pen I swear whatever it is, I’ll do it, you know that. Whatever you want. I just -” he shrugs, and she’s frowning, and he feels small and stupid and young .

He doesn’t feel like a Thunderbird. He definitely doesn’t feel like a spy.

He feels like a boy faced with the girl of his dreams, and only one bed.

“Think of it as a rescue,” Penelope says, and that’s enough of a non sequitur to have his head spinning again. “We don’t know what will happen with Vishkin, it’s better to follow my lead and -”

And oh god. Oh god she thinks he’s talking about Vishkin.

He ought to be talking about Vishkin.

She’s stopped. That funny little frown right between her eyebrows again and he decides then and there that he hates it. Hates it directed at him and hates even more that he’s put it there.

“You keep calling me Pen.”

“I - what?”

“You keep calling me Pen.” She’s shaking her head and that little frown hasn’t shifted and wow, wow he’s bad at this.

“I’m… I’m sorry?” It’s his turn to frown now. “I hadn’t realised.”

“It’s quite alright. I quite like it.” She smiles again, still small, still secretive, but nothing like the cold twist of her mouth from earlier. “Don’t tell Parker, will you.”

“I wouldn’t dare.”

And then she’s laughing, and then he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’s really, truly, fucked.

“Hold on a moment, let me introduce somebody.” She pads her way into the bathroom carrying a small pile of clothes and a little black bag with a golden zipper and shuts the door behind her. He doesn’t hear the click of the lock. If she decides to get her own back and appears in a towel, he will absolutely, definitely die on the spot. 

When she does reappear what feels like half a lifetime later, Penelope is transformed. Dark where she was fair, lips chapped and nose pinked like those of a woman who spends her life on the slopes, and it doesn’t so much impress Gordon as it terrifies him.

“There.” Penelope steps back from the mirror to admire her handiwork and holds out a hand to him. He takes it and rises to stand beside her as though he’s on autopilot. Maybe he is. He certainly doesn’t feel like her has any control of his limbs or the thundering of his heart as her fingers wrap around his.  “Now look, Greg meet Pauline.” She beams up at him. “Don’t we make quite the pair?”

Gordon reaches up to adjust his new red locks, but Penelope bats his hand away and turns him to face the mirror. Two strangers look back at him - one reminds him of John, though not as tall or as scrawny but just as badly dressed, and a girl with dark hair and dark eyes rimmed thick with kohl and crinkling at the corners from Penelope’s smile. Almost ordinary, he thinks, except for that smile. 

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, we do.”

----

It’s getting late. 

It’s getting late, and it isn’t that Penelope has a habit of retiring early - quite the opposite in fact - but they’ve an awfully busy day tomorrow cosying up to international criminals and the flight had been so very terribly uncomfortable and -

And Gordon is clearly so very uncomfortable with the idea of sharing her bed that she isn’t quite sure yet whether she ought to be offended.

She’s packed away Pauline’s belongings, and usually she’d have packed Penelope up right along with them, but she’s not quite ready to let go of herself yet. With Vishkin still comfortably settled in his London abode, she has time to indulge herself just this once, surely?

But it’s been rather a long time, and she's rather embarrassed to admit that she’s somewhat out of practice.

There is a distinct possibility that she hasn’t had any practice at these particular sort of bedroom shenanigans. For fun, for information, for something to do after another interminatible gala perhaps, then yes, plenty. But she’s becoming more certain by the day that whatever this thing is between Gordon and herself it doesn’t fall into any of the categories she’s comfortable with.

Gordon sits on the edge of their soon-to-be shared bed wearing Greg Jones’ pyjamas and socks with goldfish on and smiles at her. A new category indeed.

“Something funny?” she asks. He shrugs, still favouring his right shoulder.

“Nah, not really,” he huffs out a laugh. “This is weird, right? I feel like this is pretty weird.”

“Rather the usual for me I’m afraid,” she says mildly. “International drug-dealing people smugglers are my bread and butter.”

“Yeah, that isn’t what I meant though, is it.” 

She stiffens slightly, unused to being called out in such a way, but then she sees the way he can’t quite meet her eyes and maybe she isn;t the only one skirting at the edge of their comfort zone tonight.

“It’s a little weird,” she admits. “Do you prefer the left or the right?”

“Eh?”

“Side of the bed.” 

He shrugs again, but he meets her eyes this time. “Rarely get the choice. International Rescue only supplies singles.”

“Well we wouldn’t want you boys to get a reputation would we.” He grins, and she drops down next to him and rests her hand on his knee. “If that’s the case, I’m afraid I really must insist on the right.”

“Your wish is my command.”

“Is it?”

She would be proud of the way she can strike him silent, but it’s not exactly helping the awkwardness of the situation so instead she squeezes his knee and says seriously, “I’m also afraid that I snore.”

“Really?” Gordon shakes his head, but the smile’s back and that’s what matters. “Lady Penelope, a snorer ? Whatever would the tabloids say.”

“They’ve never been so fortunate to find out,” she leans up toward him and lowers her voice conspiratorially. “I trust I can rely on your discretion?”

 She watches the bob of his throat as he swallows. “Scout’s honour.”

 “Weren’t you expelled from the Scouts?”

Gordon sighs dramatically, “One time. You flood a hut one time .”

“Then I’ll allow it.” She rubs at the edge of his hairline where a little of the dye has sunk into his skin and left a bruise-like stain. “Are you sure you’re ready for all this?”

“That’s a loaded question.”

“It’s just a bed , Gordon.” 

“Oh,” he’s smiling though, a dangerous smile. She likes it. “And here I thought you were talking about the whole being a spy thing.” 

She lets her finger run down the side of his face and then taps it against his mouth. His eyes follow it and her breath hitches.

“I have every faith,” she says, the words catch in her throat and come out as whispers. “In your complete and total professionalism.”

That wicked little smile feels like a promise against her skin. “Shame.” 

“You know Scott would be utterly horrified if he heard any of this conversation, I do think he’s afraid I might be out to corrupt you, you know.”

“Did you tell him about the one bed?”

“Need to know basis, darling.”

Gordon laughs then, drawing back and letting the moment drift away into something less like a promise. 

“No doubt John will fill him in, he’s probably having kittens right now.”

Penelope is a spy, and spies are liars by habit, so it hardly even feels like one when she says, “And how would John know?”

“Thunderbird Five? The all-seeing eye?” Gordon waves up to the ceiling. “If he hasn’t got a line in this room right now I’ll eat Greg’s woolly hat.”

“No one gets a line in unless I want them to, that I can promise you.” Penelope says, ignoring the gnawing feeling in her stomach as she follows his gaze. “Can’t have my sleep habits disseminated to the media, it wouldn’t do at all."

“Really?” And luckily she doesn’t have to answer, luckily because she doesn’t want to take away from the way Gordon relaxes next to her, all the stiffness and nervous energy draining from him. “You know, I don’t know if I can remember a time one of them wasn’t watching me? I’m pretty sure Scott had tabs on me in the womb.”

“They love you.”

“They’re terrified.” He stretches his arms out in front of him, then twists his neck and winces. “I give them plenty of reason, I guess.”

“You do have a terrible habit of chasing down danger,” Penelope agrees. “It’s most inconvenient, you know. Does awful things to our blood pressure.”

“Tell me about it.” He drops his hand on top of hers. “I would say I don’t do it on purpose, but -”

“But,” she agrees, and winds her fingers between his. “I think it’s time for bed, don’t you?”

“Jeez,” and he’s smiling, squeezing her fingers between his, “I thought you’d never ask.”

----

Morning breaks, bright dawn light making its way through the gauzy curtains and alighting on Penelope’s back as she sits at the dresser.

Sorry, Pauline’s back. Penelope had been gone before Gordon opened his eyes, her side of the bed smoothed flat and cool to the touch, and he’d been half convinced he’d dreamt her by the  time a stranger exited the bathroom.

Gordon sits up in bed and watches as she puts the finishing touches to her transformation, the wig and contacts and polyblend sweater topped with enough makeup to fool even her own father and practicing a fake French accent so convincing that it makes his skin crawl. 

It’s all just a little too good. A little too sharp a reminder of what Penny actually does day to day. Of what he’s about to do alongside her. Gordon Tracy. Spy .

Wherever dad is, he hopes he’s laughing.

Penny blots her lipstick and tucks the wig’s dark curls behind her ears.

“There,” she says, “lovely.”

“You are really, really good at this,” he tells her. “Scary good.”

“I do aim to impress,” she says and okay, okay it’s pretty weird to hear Penelope’s voice coming from someone else’s face. Maybe the accent isn’t so bad after all. “Vishkin’s flight arrives at fourteen hundred hours. Feel free to familiarise yourself with the files and be ready to meet me in the main chalet at thirteen thirty.

She smiles at him, that last lingering vestige of the Penelope he knows, and leaves him alone for the first time since he’d boarded his flight in Sydney.

“Fucking hell,” he tells his reflection - red hair and redder eyes because God as if he could ever have actually slept next to her - “fucking fucking hell.”

And he opens the file, because what else can he do but dwell on the feeling of her breath on his neck until he curls up on the spot and dies ?

Because it turns out that Gordon, when it counts, has absolutely no game whatsoever and if his brother’s ever find out - 

If his brothers ever find out, Greg Jones might just be a better guy to be.

Luckily, Greg’s life has been that of a pretty average guy. The sort of guy Gordon might have been, he supposes, if his mother hadn’t been dead and his father hadn’t been rich as fuck. Greg’s father had served in the military during the war. He has an obnoxious overachiever for an older brother with whom he apparently does not have to live with on an isolated island. Sure, he had a  misspent youth, but Gordon thinks Greg’s version sounds a hell of a lot more fun than spending High School in training for the Olympics and then nearly dying a bunch .

Greg Jones is emphatically not a billionaire.

Greg Jones has married the girl of his dreams. 

Gordon Tracy doesn’t know whether the roiling in his stomach is nervous nausea or bitter, bitter jealousy.

“Get a grip,” he tells his reflection regardless. “Do not fuck this up.”

Despite the impossibility, he almost thinks he can hear John’s long-suffering sigh in his ear.

“Alright, alright.” He swats at his imaginary earpiece and turns his attention to Vishkin’s file. There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of people out there relying on this guy being taken down, and this, this Gordon knows he can do. “Lets get on with the rescue.”

---

It’s a bitter cold morning, the mountain air sharp in her lungs and against her flushed cheeks. The lake is a flat blue with ice glittering at its edges, the sky cloudless perfection. 

Coward. Coward. Coward.

It rings through her, up through the soles of her heavy boots as she stamps through the snow, in every ridiculously loud thud of her heart.

Somewhere up above she imagines John, bagel in hand, judging her and finding her wanting.

A coward and a fool .

By the time she reaches the great hall of the main chalet she may actually be able to catch her breath. Which is just as well, because as she steps through the door she’s greeted by the hustle and bustle of her undercover team running final checks. She’s pleased to see people she’s worked with before and found to be reasonably competent. There’s Lester, tapping tiny screw-head bugs into place along the edges of the wooden bar, and Verne, his erstwhile partner, running loops of false footage on the large holovision screen. A few others too whose names escape her - a young girl she’s seen in the corridors of GCHQ, a chap she knows to be on his first mission wiping the bar top over and over with a dirty cloth - but they all stop and turn as soon as they see she’s entered the room.

She takes a deep breath.

This, she can do.

“Ah, good. You’re all here. I imagine everything is in order?”

“Absolutely Ma’am,” Verne assures her,  flicking the screen over to some newsreel footage. “False flags in place.”

“Excellent. And our guests’ facilities?”

“Only the best, Ma’am,” affirms Lester, tapping the bar top. “All top quality.”

“Lovely.”

A light knock at the door, and Gordon peeks his head around. When he sees her he beams as though he hasn’t laid eyes on her for months rather than minutes. Her heart stutters, and she finds herself fiddling pointlessly with the ends of her wig. 

“Hey,” he says, slipping into the room. “All ready for launch?”

“Hey, yourself. You look… warm.” He’s wearing a neon yellow ski jacket that she’d chosen as a nod to his own rather garish taste. It’s bulkier than she’d imagined. Much bulkier than the t shirt he’d slept in, the one that stretched over his shoulders and made her fingers twitch against the covers. 

“Thanks, I think.” He looks around at the gathered staff in their borrowed uniforms, and waves. “Hey guys, how’re you doing?”

Lester and Verne look at each other, then at her. 

“Uh,” says Lester. “Alright, sir?”

Okay, perhaps there are reasons Penelope rarely socialises with her undercover teams.

“Good, good.” Gordon claps his hands together then sways back on his heels. “Do we get discount at the bar or -”

“I should bleedin’ hope not!” It comes from the shadows, from a man who she’d barely noticed upon entering but now can’t believe she’d missed. A man, she’s fairly certain, she left behind in London with very specific instructions regarding Bertie’s feeding schedule and her father’s upcoming meeting with the Princess Royal. A man, she’s even more sure, hadn’t looked like that .

“Parker! What on earth have you done to your face?!”

---

“Fancied a change, M’Lady.”

Parker’s moustache bristles magnificently beneath that giveaway nose. It makes Gordon’s face itch just looking at it. It looks uncannily like something Brains might use to unclog Four’s inlet pipes. Perhaps, he thinks with a grimace, it is. 

“Parker,” he says in lieu of greeting, “I didn’t think you were coming.”

Parker’s answering glare could cut glass. In fact Gordon’s sure he hears a distant tinkling from the back of the bar as he replies, “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean Mr Gordon, sir .”

Gordon shrugs. “Not really your scene? I thought you were dog sitting?”

“Wherever ‘er Ladyship is my scene ,” Parker hisses. “And when she’s insisting on putting ‘erself in danger -”

“Penny can handle Vishkin.”

“Ain’t ‘im I’m worried over.”

“Hey! What’s that supposed to - “

“That’s enough,” Penny snaps and both men stand a little straighter. “Parker, there will be time to discuss why you felt inclined to disregard my request after we’ve brought Mr Vishkin to justice. Gordon? Are you ready?”

Gordon blinks, looks down to where she’s rested her hand on the fist he hadn’t even realised he’d clenched. Beyond the doors he hears the tell tale thrum of engines, the sound of grit under tyres. He nods, and Penny motions to the man behind the bar.

All at once the men and women scatter, disappearing almost as swiftly as they had appeared, until it’s just Gordon and Penny and the lurking figure of Parker in the shadows of the furthest corner.

“Honestly,” Penny mutters under her breath as the engine noises cut out. “Men .”

A heavy knock at the door, and she steps forward to fling it open her scowl shifting into such an expression of rapturous joy on her face that Gordon almost gets whiplash. Again. 

“Ms. Mearns !” she cries, Pauline’s accent bell-like in the echoing room, “such an honor!"

That is, Gordon thinks, one word for it.

In the brief few months young Gordon had had to be a regular teenager between swimming and WASP and agony, he’d had a terrible crush on Margot Mearns. An international singing sensation, she’d been the entertainment at one of Tracy Industries annual fundraisers - one that dad had allowed him to come to in one of his occasional, brief efforts to ‘bond’ with his most unimpressive son. (Although Alan had still wet the bed at that point, so Gordon may have had a brief rise in the rankings). His main memories of that night are of the constricting nature of his first ever penguin suit, and the glorious sight of Margot Mearn’s thighs gyrating within thirty centimetres of his spotty, flushed cheeks.

It had been a defining moment, alright. Even dad had listened to his teenage gibbering afterwards with good natured indulgence and cheerfully purchased a lifesized poster that young Gordon had hung in every closet he’d owned ever since. It had even come to the island with him, afterwards. A reminder of a time before IR and sleepless nights, when pretty girls with pretty thighs had been something he’d had time to dream about.

Now Penny - Pauline - is taking the hand of his childhood crush and shaking it gently, and it’s an awful long way from any kind of dream. More of a nightmare really, because Gordon has been in the rescue business all of his adult life. He knows desperation when he sees it, and it's written all over Margot Mearns's face.

Penny is slim, but the bones beneath are steel, her grip firm, all lithe muscles shifting beneath a porcelain shell. Margot seems brittle in comparison, delicate, her veins blue beneath translucent, clammy skin.

Her smile is too tight and her forehead is too smooth, and when she walks she seems to half fall from one foot to the other, lurching along like something undead from one of Alan’s favourite games.

He thinks of that poster, still hanging behind years worth of outgrown neoprene, and feels suddenly, terrifyingly, old.

“Christ,” he mutters. “Penny, Christ .”

Penny isn’t looking at Margot anymore though. Penny has much bigger fish to fry.

The man at Margot’s side isn’t the type to draw many second glances even in those with far more time to spend on celebrity gossip than Gordon ever has, but Penny makes a beeline for him, cooing greetings in that voice that he hates and snapping her fingers until the ‘staff’ reappear and begin busying themselves with the guests’ coats and luggage.

Vishkin.

He reaches for Penny’s hand and lifts it to his mouth sending a visceral shudder through Gordon’s body even as she slips free and beckons him forward.

“My ‘usband,” she says, and he wishes he hated that accent a little less because honestly he could dwell on those words forever. “We are so very honoured that you have chosen to stay with us Mr Vishkin, sir.”

Mr Vishkin, sir, looks down at them from his stacked heels with rheumy eyes set in a face like cracked leather. He wears enough gold to drown him in six feet of water, and this is a fact Gordon tucks neatly away in the back of his mind for safe keeping.

“I demand discretion,” he says. “Complete and total. Do you understand? I have guests attending who the media would just love to spread tall tales about. I would hate to think any came from you.”

“Of course! We pride -”

“Total ” He turns his watery eyes on Gordon, and smiles coldly. “I have heard about you Mr Jones.”

Ah, right. Drug dealers. Misspent youths. Gordon isn’t yet quite sure how Greg Jones reacts to veiled threats, so he channels John Tracy instead.

“Honoured, I’m sure.” Vishkin’s eyes become slits, and Penny glares at him over his shoulder. Maybe not John, then. Maybe Alan. “I’m like - such a big fan,” he gushes and if the change of tone is enough to make him dizzy Vishkin at least doesn’t seem to notice. “A guy like you coming to stay here? Wow. Really. Amazing.”

“Yes well, we wanted somewhere a little off the beaten track as they say.” Vishkin puts an arm around Margot’s shoulders and pulls her into his side. She wobbles at the action, as though her legs can’t quite hold her up. “Isn’t that right Margot dear?”

Margot says nothing. 

“‘Ow lovely,” Pauline coos. “Please, anything you need, we are absolutely at your service. Anything at all.”

Vishkin lets Margot go, and puts one gold-bedazzled hand on Penny’s cheek. “I’ll hold you to that,” he says.”Tell me, do you sing?”

Pauline blushes prettily and looks at Vishkin through lowered lashes. “Oh no, Mr Vishkin, I am - ‘ow you say - a strangled cat.”

“Shame, and so pretty.” He tugs at one of her curls as he moves his hand away. “A little hair dye darling, and I could make you a star.”

“She’s already a star.” Gordon reaches out and grabs Penny’s hand. “To me at least."

Pauline’s mouth twists into a scowl, and Gordon has a sinking feeling that it’s actually Penelope’s. “Greg! Don’t be rude!”

“Nonsense.” Vishkin pats him on the shoulder - the bad one - hard enough to make him stagger. “Good to see a bit of loyalty, you don’t get much of that in our line of work, eh Margot?”

Margot smiles, a fragile little thing, and speaks for the first time, her voice barely more than a whisper. “No, Colin.”

“Let me show you to your chalet,” Pauline says, disentangling herself from Gordon’s grip. “Come, come, I ‘ope you will find it all to your satisfaction, I followed your particulars most closely…"

She leads them both from the hall and out into the winter air, the frigid gust she leaves in her wake makes Gordon shiver even through Greg’s neon yellow ski jacket. 

“Great start, Mr Gordon,” Parker mutters sardonically as he follows the rest of the staff into the chalet’s backrooms. “Very subtle, that.”

“I was being a gentleman,” Gordon grumbles after him, but it’s too late. The staff have all disappeared like the spooks they are, and Gordon is left alone with a stack of cases and the sinking feeling that Vishkin’s about to be the least of his worries.

He takes the closest case in his good hand, and heads out into the storm.

---

He’s been watching all afternoon. He hasn’t said much - which, honestly, is starting to feel like a blessing - but he’d lingered in each room as she’d shown Vishkin around, neither as subtle nor as comforting a presence as Parker would have been in the same situation. Instead he makes her feel off-kilter. Pauline’s laugh is too loud, her accent too harsh. Penelope is trying too hard and it shows. The truth is that she’s hardly slept, the bed both far too large and not anything near large enough, and instead she’d lain awake counting the cracks in the ceiling and letting her imagination run away with her.

It’s stupid. It’s ridiculous. 

It is, she decides, all his fault.

“You are risking our cover!” she spits after hours of his nonsensical glaring, the door to their chalet locked behind her before she turns on him. 

Gordon scowls right back at her, his arms folded across that stupid ski jacket she’d insisted on packing. Its cheerful brightness is giving her a headache.

“Don’t talk bullshit!” Gordon growls, “So what, ‘Greg’ lets idiots like Vishkin throw his weight around, does he?”

“‘Greg’” Penelope’s finger quotes are even more violent than Gordon’s, “knows that his wife can look after herself perfectly well, thank you very much!” She stops. Jabs him in the chest with a  finger and the polyester jacket crackles like static between them. “I thought you’d remember that. If I wanted a bodyguard I’d have married Parker!”

“Maybe you should have,” Gordon snaps back, “I thought you said he wasn't coming? He your back up for when I screw up is he?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, I didn’t even know he was coming, he shouldn’t have come!”

“Well he has, and if I’m gonna be accused of breaking cover what the hell was all that muttering about? Does he think Vishkin’s deaf?”

“I’m not privy to the inner workings of Parker’s mind, Gordon. And it hardly matters anyway, not if you insist on all this stupid manly posturing -”

“I don’t posture!”

“Oh no? Then what on earth was all this about?” She grabs at his hand and tugs it toward her. “Pauline is not Greg’s possession .”

“It’s not - that isn’t what I meant! He’s a nasty piece of work, Penelope!”

“Yes,” she keeps her grip tight. “Yes, I know that Gordon. That’s the point. But he can’t know that we know that, that utterly defeats the object. He has to believe that we are star-struck by him, he has to believe that he has some sort of power over us. It’s arrogance that destroys men like him, Gordon. Your father knew that.”

“And look where that got Dad,” Gordon mutters, and pulls his hand free. “I don’t like it. In fact, I hate it. A whole bunch.”

“You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t,” Penelope agrees. “But sometimes we must do whatever is necessary for the greater good. And if you think Mr Vishkin’s flirting is the worst thing I’ve put up with in the pursuit of justice, I very much hope you never read any of my other files.”

Gordon’s face twists unpleasantly and he turns away.

“I’m going to get some air,” he mumbles, and disappears through the french doors. Penelope watches his back as he hunches over the balcony railings. Takes one breath. Two.

This wasn’t the plan. None of this was in the plan. She’s going to have to have some firm words with Parker at the very least.

She’s probably going to have to have a few with herself while she’s at it.

“I’m sorry,” she says, moving into the doorway and speaking into the night air. “This is all terribly strange to you, I’m sure.”

“I’ll play nice.” He doesn’t turn to look at her though. “I won’t like it, Pen, but I swear I’ll play nice.”

“Pax, then?”

He nods, and she takes it as an invitation to join him on the balcony. The air is bitter, the sky above nothing but a carpet of stars.

She lets out a long sigh and leans back against the railing. Gordon’s hands dangle over the edge and his face is turned to the canopy of stars above them. It changes him, this light. Washes the colour out of his hair and casts his features into sharp relief. He watches the stars silently for a moment, and in return she watches him, watches the rise and fall of his chest and the bob of his throat as he swallows. The pull of the hideous jacket across his shoulders as he lifts an arm to the sky and waves.

Penelope follows the line of his gaze then, turning and wrinkling her nose as she squints up into what, honestly, is to her usually little more than a brightly glittering backdrop to her much more interesting plans for the evening.

“See the little blinking thing up there? Just left of the pleiades?”

It’s not an apology, but then she isn’t sure if she wants one. Not now. But she doesn’t want to fight, doesn’t want to spend another night lying in that too big, too small bed listening to his breathing and sinking in regret.

So she hums, twisting her head to try and better follow his finger. “If I say yes will you believe me?”

Gordon’s mouth quirks up at the corner and he grabs her hand, lifting it to follow his own. “There, look. Don’t tell me you didn’t study astronomy in your fancy schools?”

“I suspect our fathers had somewhat differing educational priorities,” Penelope says wryly. “Mine had ambitions for me that were rather more down to Earth.”

Gordon looks at her then, the starlight reflected back at her in his eyes. She’s so terribly glad she decided against giving him the contacts.

“Guess they were both disappointed then, huh?”

“Perhaps,” she says, loathe to spoil whatever passes for a moment. “Or perhaps we simply exceeded expectations. We are rather exceptional, after all.”

Gordon doesn’t answer that, only tightens his grip on her hand, his palm warm against the lakeside breeze.

“Do you see it?” he says, and for a moment she pretends not to know what he means, her gaze fixed on the side of his face, his upturned towards some invisible star.

But the silence draws out a moment too long, so she murmurs something he must take as assent, because he lowers her hand to rest gently against the railing and stuffs his own into his pockets.

“Thunderbird 5,” he says. “Weird."

“How so?”

“Watching John, when he’s not watching me. Doesn’t exactly happen often, you know?”

There’s a nasty sick little ache somewhere under Penelope’s breastbone, the sort that usually proceeds asking Parker to do something he’s spent most of his adult life trying to leave behind. 

“Do you -” she pauses, and looks for a word that conveys what she means without risking another argument like the one that had seen them driven out here. “Do you miss it?”

Gordon looks at her. “John?”

“Not John specifically.”

“IR, then?” Gordon furrows his brow, his nose wrinkling. “I mean, yeah. Yeah of course I miss it. Them. My ‘bird. The sea. I could write a book full of all the things I miss right now.”

The ache intensifies and she swallows hard, pushes it down to her belly and tightens her grip on the railings. 

“Of course. It was a foolish question, forgive me.”

“I like it here, though.” He smiles at her, and the honesty makes that ache just a little sharper. Penelope doesn’t think she’s ever been as honest with anyone in her life as Gordon is with everyone he meets. “It’s kinda fun in a weird way. And the company’s not bad. Plus, privacy. Kinda in short supply on Tracy Island.”

Penelope scoffs, and pushes herself back, away from the railings and toward the low light of the bedroom. “Is that your idea of an apology?”

“Dunno.” Gordon moves to follow her, his hands still stuffed in his pockets but his expression cheerfully neutral. “Did it work?”

She doesn’t grace that with an answer straight away, just lets the blind swing back into place behind her and lets herself smile at the muffled curse that follows.

“Oh, I’m sure you could do better.”

She heads to the bathroom to remove the worst of Pauline’s makeup. The wig will have to stay at the bedside in case of late night calls, but she’s determined to remove enough of Pauline to remove any doubt as to who is spending the night. Gordon doesn’t have quite as many accoutrements. He’s already sitting cross-legged and barefoot on the bed when she returns, two plates of something green gently steaming on the nightstands.

“An apology,” he says, holding one out. “Don’t ask me what it is, though. I leave the kitchen module to Virgil.”

“I’ll consider it,” she says, sitting next to him and bumping him with her hip, then, after a mouthful of something heavy on basil and light on carbs, “apology accepted.”

“That’s a relief,” Gordon says, swallowing. “This could have been awkward .”

“Heaven forfend.” She smiles at him and he smiles back then stretches, grumbling slightly as he turns his neck. “Are you in pain?”

“Nothing a good night’s sleep won’t sort out, if my bedmate could refrain from snoring like a wild bear.”

“Rude.”

“Accurate .”

Penny bites her lip. If she’d had an hours sleep that was more than it felt, certainly not enough to impress her sleeping habits upon him. She doubts very much it was her snores that had kept him awake. She’d hardly considered that he may have been just as unsure as she last night. They’re anathema to her, these nerves, how much stranger must they be for Gordon who spends his entire life leaping from one adrenaline high to another.

“I could sleep elsewhere,” she says quietly, a genuine offer though one she’d rather not have to follow through on. “You need rest.”

“God, no.” He rests his hand on hers, food forgotten. “It’s fine. You’re fine. Anyway the cover -”

“Wasn’t originally going to be this,” she admits. “I could revert - “

“Penny.” Gordon pushes the plates away, turns to face her fully and pulls her hands into his lap. “This is weird. Really weird. Let’s not - let’s not make it even weirder, yeah?”

“I’ll try,” she says, and squeezes his hands. “I will certainly try.”

Chapter 2

Summary:

In which a lot of things happen that make minimal amounts of sense. To anyone.

Thank you to anyone still reading. I love these (CANON!) idiots with my whole heart.

 

He sleeps, which surprises him. So does she, and that surprises him even more.

He wakes up to find that she’s tucked herself against him in the night, her hand pillowed under his shoulder, her cheek pressed into his chest, and every muscle is screaming at him to move, move goddamnit, but there’s a pretty solid chance he’ll never move again.

Penelope shifts in her sleep, her brow furrowing, her other hand coming up to twist in the cotton of his t shirt, and honestly if he died right now he’d be a pretty happy guy. Maybe a touch too happy. He tries to shift his hips away without waking her, but she just tightens her grip, her leg curling around his, her nails sharp where they scratch against bare flesh.

Aw, shit.

He squeezes his eyes tight shut and mentally recites Four’s start up sequence until he starts to lose all feeling in his arm. And, luckily, elsewhere.

“Pen?”

Nothing.

“Penny? Lady P?”

He opens one eye and squints down at her. Her face is soft in sleep, her lips gently parted, and he feels real bad but his fingers are starting to turn blue.

“Penelope, we have a situation.”

“Wh - Gordon?”

“The very same.” She blinks up at him for a moment, then sits bolt upright, her elbow making solid contact with his stomach as she does so. “Ouch! Damn, Penny!”

“Oh! Oh, I am sorry.” She looks around, hair sticking to her cheek. “What’s the situation?”

“It’s morning?” He nods toward the windows where dawn’s red light is filtering through the voiles. “I uh - thought you might want to know.”

“Well thank you for the alarm, I think.” She moves to get out of bed, then stops and turns back to him. “I’ll be out with Vishkin most of today. He wants to go skiing.”

Gordon balks at this for at least half a dozen reasons, foremost amongst them being that he has no particular wish to have Penelope out of his sight when Vishkin is around. Of course if he dares to tell her that he’ll be subject to another possibly well-deserved tirade, so he decides to go for wounded pride instead.

“Oh come on , you know I’m a better skier than you!”

“ Alan is a better skier than me. You cheat.”

“I don’t!”

“Gordon, snowball fights?”

“Strategy, Pen.”

“Well.” She huffs, and climbs out of bed. “Once was enough. And anyway, look at you. I can’t let you out on the slopes.”

Gordon follows her eyeline to the exposed skin of his stomach. The bruises are yellow and green now, fading away at his hip, but they’re still enough to have Penny folding her arms over her chest, her eyes fire.

“I’m -”

“Don’t. Even. Try.” She reaches for Pauline’s wig and heads for the bathroom. “Besides, I have another use for you.”

---

 

A Saturday morning spent propping up a free bar in a beautiful location. It would have been perfect, pretty much, if it weren’t for the company.

Parker grouses at him from the end of the bar, a constant litany of displeased muttering, and the other staff aren’t exactly up for a chat. He tries to watch the holovision, but the news is barely worth the name and every panel show is a repeat.

He gives up, wanders into the kitchens around lunchtime and makes a couple of sandwiches. They’re tasteless and sit heavy in his belly. He hadn’t expected this to be so boring

He had expected Penny to check in

“You look cheerful.”

He almost drops the remnants of his sandwich as he hops to his feet, brushing crumbs off his sweater vest before he holds out a hand to Margot Mearns.

“Ms Mearns! I - is everything okay? Can I - do you want a sandwich?” 

“Tempting,” she drawls, looking down at the remains of his, “But I’m fine.”

She’s nothing like the nervous, quiet creature who’d arrived on Vishkin’s arm. She drapes herself over the bar and clicks her fingers in the direction of Parker who drops his glass cloth with all the altricity of a man used to following demands.

“Gin and tonic,” she tells him, then, with a sideways look at Gordon and a little smirk. “Make that two.”

“Oh I really - “ But Parker’s already sliding two glasses along the bar and glaring balefully at Gordon over that stupid moustache. Ingratiate yourself, Penny had said. He may need the lubrication. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me.” She takes one of the glasses and knocks the drink back in a single gulp. Even Parker’s eyes widen. “I’m not paying for it.”

She signals for another, then eyes Gordon’s drink, the bubbles having barely settled. “You going to drink that?”

“Uh,” Gordon nods quickly and takes a sip. Parker hasn’t been stingy with his measures and he’s not used to much more than the odd light beer, so it’s not really surprising that he struggles to hold back a cough. “Uh - wow.”

Margot looks down at him along the length of her precision perfect nose. “Your wife says you’ve hurt yourself.” 

“Yeah - yeah, a bit. I need to stay off the slopes, take it easy, y’know?”

“Colin will be delighted .” She takes a solid gulp of her second drink. “She’s very pretty.”

“Pardon?”

“Your wife, Paula?”

“P - Pauline.”

“Very pretty. Colin will be pleased to have her to himself for a bit.”

“I uh -”

She pats his hand and knocks back the rest of the gin.

“Oh don’t panic, he never keeps them.”

“Sounds like a real swell guy.”

“Where are you from, Kansas? Yeah he’s a swell guy alright.” She takes a compact from her purse then pulls a little wrap of white powder from her bra and empties its contents on to the mirror. “Want some?”

Gordon’s pretty sure that if his dad has a grave he’s spinning in it.

“Uh -”

She shrugs, and moves to cut a line. “Your loss.”

Yeah, in more ways than one. “I was a big fan, by the way. When I was a kid.”

She looks at him then, suddenly shrewd. “You still look like a kid to me. Tell me, Gerald -”

“Greg.”

“Gerald. Tell me. What do you think my manager and your wife are up to right at this moment?”

International espionage , or at least he very much hopes so.

Stick to the script, Gordon. He shrugs, tries to keep his expression neutral. He’s not too sure how Penelope wants him to play this game, but he’s going to have to pick up strategy as he goes along.

“I mean, I’m pretty sure, skiing?”

Margot’s smile grows wider, something cat-like in the narrowing of her eyes.

“Uh huh, come here. Let me tell you a secret.” She grabs a fist full of his sweater and pulls him to her. Her breath is hot against his ear and he struggles not to recoil. “Colin has never skied in his life .” She sits back, satisfied, and cuts another line. “Why on earth would he start now.”

“She’s not that sort of girl.”

“Do you know how many times I’ve heard that? How many times I’ve said it? Lemme tell you, if Colin wants you to be something, you become it. And sharp, too.” 

“Not Pauline.” He shakes his head. “She’s one of a kind.”

Margot’s smile is full of pity, and topped with a tiny smear of white powder.

“He used to say that about me, you know. Funny thing is, when you say it, I almost believe it.”

“Hey, I’m an honest guy.”

She grimaces, bitterness suffusing her every word. “No such thing.”

“Hey.” He rests his hand lightly on her wrist before she can return to the dregs on her mirror for a third time. “If you want to talk…”

She laughs, and for the first time it actually sounds like genuine amusement.

"You're cute, Gavin. I can see why she likes you."

---

 

Penelope has never been jealous in her life. She’s never had any need for it having never coveted anything that she couldn’t have in a heartbeat, but there’s an unwelcome seething in her stomach at the way Gordon’s hand rests on Margot Mearns’ wrist. It’s uncouth. Unbecoming. Unacceptable.

“Parker? Be a dear and escort Ms Mearns to her room will you? She looks a little overtired, and we have so very many things to arrange. Mr Vishkin is waiting."

Gordon’s leaning forward, speaking lowly enough that Penelope can’t make out the words, and Mearns laughs, high and clear. Parker raises an eyebrow.

“She looks right enough to me, milady.” 

“As requested, please Parker. And tell Greg that I require his assistance post haste.”

Parker looks down his nose at her, and she stiffens her spine in the face of his obvious disapproval.

“At once, mi- Mrs Jones.”

He slopes off to do the deed, but not before Mearns leans toward Gordon and drops a kiss to his cheek. Gordon looks gobsmacked. Penelope feels her stomach turn to stone. 

Some of the tension slips from her shoulders as Mearns follows him from the room but it only fades completely when Gordon approaches, waggling his eyebrows, his eyes sparkling for her. Mine , her heart snaps. Mine.

“‘Sup? I hear I’m wanted.”

She doesn’t bother replying to the innuendo, only nods after Parker’s retreating back.

“You seemed to be getting along swimmingly.”

Gordon grins. “It is my strong suit.”

“Undoubtedly. Did you discover anything about our erstwhile guests?”

"Plenty of trouble in paradise by the sounds of it. How were the slopes?"

"Powdery. Trouble you say?"

"Seems old Vishkin isn't treating his lady as well as he ought to be."

Penelope suppresses a shudder at the memory of Vishkin's hand against her lower back. "Well that is a surprise."

"I know right? Who'd have thought. But Pen, do you think we could use that?"

Before she'd decided to bring Gordon, using Vishkin's sexual inconstancy against him had absolutely been in the plan, but that doesn't make her any less shocked to have Gordon be the one to suggest it, especially after his reaction the previous night. It stings a part of her she rarely bothers to notice.

"Gordon you don't like him touching my shoulder, I can hardly expect you to keep up the cover if -"

" Whoa whoa Whoa, wait, what ? I absolutely did not mean, Jesus Pen. What do you take me for?"

And of course the thought wouldn't have occured to him. That's why she - that's why she cares so deeply for all the Tracy boys. Those ridiculously big hearts and fantastical belief in the goodness of others. She's never been entirely sure she quite fits in.

"I'm teasing, darling," she says, bright smile to hide the shadow of the lie. "Now how about I fill you in on our guest's current business plans. Would you believe he's practically bankrupt?"

---

 

Gordon doesn't have much to do with Tracy Industries finances. As long as there's enough  money in the pot to fixup his sub every time some crazy guy smashes it to smithereens he's more than happy to leave that to Scott. Or John. Or Grandma. Anyone else.

Ten minutes in Penelope's company and he knows the ins and outs of every disastrous business deal and musical flop that Vishkin has faced in the last six years.

It's a lot. Penelope's a lot. Her face is flushed and her smile is wide and there's a horrible little slug of jealousy crawling up behind his breastbone and into his throat.

"You got all that from skiing with him?"

She beams up at him, eyes shining. He feels a bit sick. "I'm terribly good at my job, darling."

"I knew that."

"Did you indeed." She seems to find it funny. He wonders if it is. "We have fifteen guests flying in for tomorrow night. They're private charters so I need to ensure their pilots have all the correct paperwork."

"You mean make sure they're on your payroll."

She pats his cheek fondly. "You're catching on!"

"So what's the plan?"

Penelope furrows her brow, attention on something over his shoulder. There's noise in the distance - raised voices followed by the splintering of glass. When she speaks again her voice is hushed and urgent.

"What do you think about poor Ms. Mearns? Do you think she's the type to open her heart to our dear Greg?"

Gordon grimaces slightly. The whole thing is starting to leave an unpleasant taste in his mouth. "I can give it a try. I'm probably not going to - well - y'know."

Penelope wrinkles her nose in distaste. "I should hope not. Verne!" Verne, a tall dark haired guy who's been casually painting the same six square feet of walk for the past hour and a half, trots over to Penny with the sort of alcracity that only ex members of the military possess. "Verne will you be a dear and keep an eye on Greg's virtue? We are very recently married, you know. It would be a shame to spoil it."

He stares at her. Verne doesn’t seem perturbed in the least. Gordon isn’t entirely sure Verne would know how to look perturbed if his life depended on it. It’s weird. This whole thing is super weird. "Are you asking him to spy on me?"

"Gordon, darling," she says with the sort of pained patience he usually associated with Virgil after six hours out. "That is literally his job."

"It is, sir," says Verne, staring at a point three inches above Gordon's head. "If it helps sir, I think she likes you."

Gordon scoffs. "Everybody likes me."

"I don't like you," mutters Parker as he passes by, dirty glasses in hand. "I think you're a bleedin' liability."

Penny scowls. "Nonsense. Parker do keep your nose out . Gordon is doing exactly as I'd hoped."

"You hoped I'd get wasted with pop stars?"

The room seems to be spinning. Parker mixes one hell of a drink.

"If she trusts you, she's our in. You only need to encourage her."

Parker snorts. Verne's lip ticks upwards at the corner. And Gordon knows better, he does, but there’s a part of him - deep and dark and buried - that just can’t help himself. It’s the part of him that pranks Scott, that dives, that holds his breath that little bit longer, that just wants to try it and see .

"Is that what you've been doing, getting Vishkin to trust you?"

Penny goes to answer - something glib, he expects, a casual brush off - then stops. Scowls.

"I've been doing my job." She lifts her thumb and rubs at the mark Margot's left on his face. Frosted pink stains the pad of it and she looks down at it in distaste. "Parker? A word."

She stamps back outside, Parker morosely following, and Gordon is left standing in the great hall with Verne, silent protector of his virtue.

He wonders if Verne will be any better at it than Virgil ever was.

He hopes so.

 

---

 

It doesn’t take a genius to see the difference in Margot Mearns whenever Vishkin is around. They return to the bar together, Vishkin’s ruddy cheeks and booming laugh in stark contrast to the silent, wraithlike Mearns, and it’s enough to give Gordon whiplash. Where she’d been snide and bitter and a little bit scary she’s cowed and quiet and he hadn’t really liked her before, but now he really doesn’t like Vishkin one bit.

Whatever kind of person Margot really is, it’s not the person she is on Vishkin’s arm.

Verne has stopped his painting and moved to hanging great curtains of fairy lights around the bar itself - a ruse, Gordon suspects, to keep an eye on Gordon himself as he shuffles behind it and puts on what he hopes is his most ingratiating grin.

“Can’t get the staff these days I tell ya! What’ll it be, folks?”

"A hit, if you don't mind!" Vishkin laughs, his belly shaking, and Gordon notes the way Margot cringes away from the movement.

"Gin," she breathes. Vishkin deflates. Gordon does as he's told.

"Margot, sweetheart," he soothes, his big hand covering hers before she can reach for the drink. "Just try won't you? For me? I do so much for you."

Margot grabs her drink with her other hand and throws it back.

"Fine," she half whispers in a tone that suggests anything but, "you need to leave."

"Margot -"

"Now!" It's a shout do incongruous that both Vishkin and Gordon start in shock. Vishkin recovers quickly enough to eye Gordon suspiciously.

"I guess I'll go see if I can find my lovely ski instructor. Don't drink too much. You know how you get."

Margot says nothing, but mulishly finishes her drink. Gordon busies himself making another and Vishkin leaves only to be replaced almost at once by the big bald guy who appears as if from nowhere, brandishing a piano stool. Gordon wonders vaguely where they're hiding - how many of them are listening in to his every word. Still, bald guy sets the stool down and scuttles back off to god knows where, and Gordon is left to play gentleman.

"Take a seat. You wanna - you wanna talk about it?"

Margot drops heavily down on the stool and glares at the piano as though it’s mortally offended her, a single crease between her eyebrows. “I’m trying to write. I can never write when I try.”

“Oh,” he says. “Okay. Why?”

“Why?” She laughs bitterly. “Because Colin is determined to have another album out of me. That’s the whole point of this little trip. Spoil me, show me off. Remind his friends that I exist. Like anyone in the music business cares about a woman over forty. Like I can even remember how to play . God, it’s been years. Years.”

Her anger and her breath all seem to escape at once and Margot rests her fingers on the keys ever so lightly, as if to touch them would break whatever spell she’s fallen under. It’s an opportunity, he thinks, though he isn’t quite sure for what. Only that Margot Mearns looks in serious need of rescue, and well, that’s kind of his job.

“You know my brother plays the piano. He’s pretty good.”

And just like that, he breaks it for her.

“That’s cute,” she says but clearly doesn’t mean, and reaches for her drink. A discordant noise echoes through the hall. “Does he want a job?”

“Nah - I mean. He’s got one of those. Like, really got one. I guess he plays to relax. He always says you can’t force music. It’s a feeling, y’know?”

Margot snorts. “Quite the philosopher. I bet he’d be crazy annoying on tour anyway.”

“You think he’s right though? Maybe you just aren’t feeling it.”

“Do you know how I do feel? Too damn sober, that’s what.” She throws back the drink and Gordon winces. 

“No offence, Ms Mearns, but I kinda don’t think that’s likely.”

She doesn’t really answer him, only clicks her fingers and points at the piano lid. Big bald guy obligingly sweeps her empty glass away and leaves a margarita in its place.

“I mean - when Vi- when Victor is feeling kinda shitty he hammers out all these old tunes my mom used to play us. Like all this folk revival stuff from when she was a kid? Maybe - I don’t know, is there something you could play to maybe… loosen those emotions up a bit?”

“I don’t know if you’re trying to help or if you’re always this annoying.”

“Pretty much both.”

“I bet you do yoga.”

“I’m very flexible.”

She sighs, and shuffles over on the piano stool. “Sit.”

“Um -”

“ Sit .” Gordon does so, and Margot hovers her hands over the keys. “If you’re going to be obnoxiously positive you can sit here and play muse to me for a bit. Your wife won’t mind. Colin’s keeping her busy.”

“Thanks for the reminder.”

She turns her head, her eyes narrowed. “You know, you really don’t act like a host. I could buy this place. I could buy you .”

Gordon knows for an absolute fact that that isn’t the case, but he attempts to look chastised anyway. 

“Sorry? This isn’t really my strong point. Pauline’s the expert, I’m just here for the ride.” And that, that’s not even a lie.

“No.” Margot lifts one hand and idly tugs at a lock of hair behind his ear. Gordon’s heart rate ticks up, just briefly, and he wonders if Penny’s spies will report this back too. “No, it’s okay. I like it.”

“Maybe that’s where you should start,” he hazards. “With what you like.”

“And what will that achieve?” she half snorts.

Gordon risks a smile. “How will you know unless you try?”

“Try being happy and you will be?” She laughs. “Spoken like a true innocent.”

“Yeah, “ he says as she turns back to the keys. “Yeah. Maybe.”

---

 

Penelope cooks like she was taught by a cordon bleu chef, because she was. 

Supper consists of a tiny tartlet drizzled in something unctuous, sides of gently grilled vegetables neatly stacked like cordwood on the fine bone china plates, and an atmosphere you could cut with a knife.

Mearns picks at her food, turning it around and around on her plate. Her eyes are bloodshot, her fingers shake, and there's a dusting of white powder in the ends of Gordon's hair. He's trying to keep up a conversation, bless him, but Mearns has nothing to say with Vishkin in the room, and Penelope is keeping Vishkin busy.

His tablet flashes constantly on the table in front of him, messages gently curated and occasionally created to ensure he's never allowed to forget even for a moment his precarious financial position. He's sweating, his food forgotten, and he speaks only to snap at Mearns as she requests another, expensive, drink.

Vishkin is getting desperate, and desperate men get sloppy.

“Colin, please -”

He stands, shoving his food away, his tablet crashing to the floor  followed by half a bottle of good wine that splatters over his too shiny shoes and up the legs of his too cheap trousers. “Please? Please? Haven’t I - Don’t I do enough ?!” 

“Hey!” Gordon’s on his feet now, and Vishkin’s got six inches on him but righteous anger makes him the bigger person in the room by far. “Don’t speak to her like that!”

“Who the hell do you think you are!”

“Mr Vishkin! I’m so sorry -” Her turn, her role to lay a restraining hand on Gordon’s thigh and turn a beseeching expression on the other man. She beckons to Parker, who hovers, like all good staff, just at the edge of the drama. “Let my man clean that up for you.”

“Forget it,” he spits, turning on his heel. “For get it! Margot, come.”

He leaves, all bile and dripping wine stains, and Mearns stays. Her eyes are wide and adoring as she looks up at Gordon, and Penelope buries the sickness it brings beneath the thrill of success.

“Margot?” She lowers her voice. Confidential. A confidante. Gordon turns to her, but Mearns doesn’t. Mearns has eyes only for Gordon. Penelope can see the cracks spreading across her surface.

“Do you - did you mean what you said earlier?”

“About what?”

“Being happy.”

Penelope knows this - she’d been listening, down in the little boat shed by the lake, listening through the old-fashioned radio hidden in the old boat as the man she - as Gordon told Mearns stories about his mother that she’s never heard, as he laughed along to songs she doesn’t remember. So she knows, what he said about being happy. About how you have to just try , no matter what the odds. She knows. She doesn’t know if it’s worked on Mearns the way it has worked on her. She can feel Gordon watching her but she keeps her own eyes fixed on Mearns, waiting for the opportunity to turn those cracks into a fissure.

“Does he make you happy?”

“What do you think?” It’s scoffed out, a half sob, and if Penelope could allow herself to feel anything right now it might be pity. “I can’t get away from him, Greg. I can’t.”

“Maybe,” Gordon’s voice is cautious, so she allows herself a tiny nod. Go ahead. Ask. “Maybe, we can help you?”

“You? How ?”

“Tell us, Margot. Tell us about the people. Let us help them. Let us help you .”

And Margot looks up at Thunderbird Four,  her big eyes wet with tears, and Penelope -

Penelope smiles.

 

---

 

That night in the half breath before sleeping she tells him, "You know I think she's half in love with you."

"Who isn't?" he says, cocksure. Then, "She's not the one for me, Pen."

"No. No I should hope not."

It feels a bit like she might be trying, then.

 

---

 

The guests arrive in a series of private cars all with serious faced drivers who nod at Penny as they pass. The guests themselves pay them no mind, instead falling over themselves to greet Vishkin who holds court in the chalet's hall like a king.

Knowing what he does about the state of Vishkin's kingdom it reminds Gordon of the mass frenzy of little creatures that descend on the sinking corpse of a once great whale. 

Penny watches too, her eyes narrow. Her hands folded neatly in front of her black satin dress, her posture perfect.

Knowing her as he does, Gordon can sense the nerves coming from her in waves. Margot had told them between sobs of a shipment due to be dropped off tonight in the midst of the Indian Ocean, and from there to be ferried to those prepared to pay for an ounce or more of human flesh. He’d been disgusted, Penelope had been calm, Margot had asked for nothing but their secrecy - a promise he still doesn’t know if Penelope intends to keep.

"Remember. Secure the shipment, keep Vishkin distracted, notify Headquarters. Understood?"

That's all this is, now. An exercise in time wasting until the shipment is safely in GDF hands and GCHQ give permission to swoop in on Vishkin and put him away for good.

"Oh, totally. Got it. You look beautiful by the way."

She pats at the skirt of her dress, her nose wrinkling. "I'll do."

She sweeps away, the perfect hostess, and Parker appears at his elbow, a silver platter on his arm. 

"Canapé, Mr Greg?"

Penelope approaches Vishkin, her arms outstretched, and Gordon's stomach sinks like lead. Distraction.

"Suit yourself," mutters Parker before stuffing one in his own mouth and disappearing into the glittering crowd. He’s caught by Margot, resplendent in sequins, and Gordon watches as she pulls him down to whisper urgently into his ear. Music strikes up from the speakers, staff whip guests coats away and return with trays of drinks, and it begins.

---

 

It's strange, the way there are two parties going on in one room and with Gordon both at the centre and absent from both of them. It reminds him uncomfortably of the weeks of missed calls, of mission briefs given over and around him, and it makes his heart ache for island air and the roar of engines.

Penny dances at the edge of his eyeline, delivering drinks and instructions and all with a glint in her eye that smacks of a purpose Gordon misses with half his soul. The other half is lost to him, hanging in the spaces between her laughter and caught in the touch of her hand. 

They've succeeded, Margot's evidence and the shipment they're to intercept enough to get Vishkin tucked away for many years, but there's still a sense of something lingering. Unfinished business.

Squid sense on high alert and a room full of liars to test it on, Gordon makes the executive decision to go get a drink. He's probably going to need it. 

Luckily it's the big bald guy who makes it since his heads too much of a mess for any of Parker's overdone cocktails, and luckier still he knocks it back just as the music pauses, Penny moving toward him as Vishkin hands Margot the mic to polite applause.

She smiles like a shark, all teeth and no eyes, and he wonders if anyone else in the room even notices or if they're all too busy hiding their own secrets behind makeup and glitter and the greater good. She's good, hell give her that. She holds the room in the palm of her hand and it's hard to believe she's been dragged into this against her will.

Margot beams that liar's smile around the room and sweeps her skirts aside to sit at the piano.

"If you'll forgive me the indulgence," she says, "this is an oldie, but - ah." She laughs her tinkling laugh. A showgirls laugh, blisters and pain hidden behind the sparkle. "Someone told me it was a goodie. What would I know." 

The staccato hits, and Gordon feels his heart lurch uncomfortably.

Heaven help a fool who falls in love, indeed.

Penny's half a step behind him, champagne flute in hand, and he barely even registers he's taking it from her before it's gone and her lips are pursed as though she's trying not to smile.

"Do you mind? I rather think I earned that."

He isn't denying it, but this feels like a moment and he's not letting this one pass him by.

"Dance with me?"

She's looking at him like this is definitely a moment. His heart skips once, twice… 

And then his hand is in hers.

 

---

 

It would be a lie to say she thought he'd never ask; patience isn't one of her virtues.

She takes him by the hand and leads him, not to the centre of the dance floor where the guests mingle and sway, but to a shadowy corner hidden from Parker's prying eyes by the mass of the crowd. In her heels it's barely a stretch to rest her forearms on his shoulders and press her chest against his.

His eyes flicker downward at the motion and she treasures the little thrill that runs through her. Jeff Tracy raised his boys to be gentlemen, not monks .

"My team are tracking the package as we speak," she half whispers, "as soon as we have a location we'll have Vishkin."

"And Margot?" Gordon's hands hover either side of her hips, and really must a girl do everything herself? She lets her arms slip from his shoulders and run down his biceps. A gentle squeeze and a shift of her weight as the tempo changes and she rather loses her train of thought.

"Hmm?"

“Is she gonna be okay?”

Okay is a loaded term. Privately, Penelope thinks not. Margot Mearns has spent most of her life around Colin Vishkin or men very like him. Powerful men who made her powerful in turn. Covered her in diamonds and compliments and cold, hard cash. Penelope has seen enough in her own life to know that Margot’s propensity for little wraps of white powder may be the easier addiction to break.

“We will look after her,” she says instead, loathe to bring the mood down any more than she needs to. “Will that do?”

“I guess.” A beat, and his hand is firm against her lower back, drawing her closer as she allows herself to melt into him. “She tried to do the right thing in the end. That ought to count for something.”

Penelope sighs, and lets her eyes drift shut as they sway. “You do insist on thinking the best of everyone, don’t you."

A smothered snort of laughter is followed by the gentlest of pressures on the crown of her head. “That’s me, the eternal optimist.”

“And do you find that your faith pays off?”

“I dunno.” He releases her, spins her around and pulls her back in to face him. “You tell me.” 

The final notes of the song die away and leave in their wake a silence that seems to shudder within her, the ringing in her ears louder than any music. Champagne bubbles linger, tart on her tongue, and Gordon’s hand is warm and solid in hers.

From across the room, Parker gives her a nod.

Finished.

It’s finished.

And then Gordon’s squeezing her hand and Vishkin is cheering drunkenly and she thinks, no. No, it’s not. 

It is, however, highly unprofessional the way she throws herself into Gordon, crushes her lips against his and swallows the shocked little sound he makes as she knocks all the air from his lungs. There’s bound to be a lot of paperwork. She does hope Parker’s taking notes.

Someone's hollering, wolf whistles echoing around the room, and if the way she pulls his tie loose serves to encourage them all the better, because he's kissing her back as though his life depends on it and she needs to get out of here.

Secure the shipment. 

Create a distraction.

Call headquarters.

Two out of three is a solid start.

Gordon groans against her mouth and moves to cradle the back of her head in his hand.

He's going to pull her wig off. 

She needs him to make that noise again. 

"Get a room!" someone bellows, and there's a mumble of scattered laughter as she finally pulls away.

She's breathing heavily, but Gordon looks like he might faint. Oh well. In for a penny.

The music starts up again - recorded, now, Margot seems to have disappeared - and the guests turn away to look after their own interests again.

"Come with me?" 

"Anywhere."

She beams. "The bedroom will do."

She half expects him to whoop, but instead there's just some little half sigh half whimper that makes her dash for the door just a little quicker.

Not quite quickly enough, unfortunately.

Parker clears his throat from the shadows, and Penelope tightens her grip.

"Pardon the intrusion," he says in a tone that suggests no such thing, "but the shipment?"

"Call it in," she says, "I'll -"

"I'll deal with it," Parker says, his expression one of abject misery. "You have… other doings, I h'xpect "

She releases Gordon just long enough to sweep Parker into a hug he has no time to return.

"Thank you, you darling man."

"Hmmph," he mumbles, expression unchanged. "Shall I tell them you were urgently called away?"

"Oh yes!" She calls over her shoulder, pulling Gordon behind her into the night as Parker disappears back into the party. "Very urgently indeed!"

---

 

It's bitterly cold outside, she's sure,but she doesn't feel it. The two of them stumble the hundred yards or so to their chalet in a tangle of limbs, practically falling through the door and slamming into the dresser with enough force to take Penelope's breath away - if she had any to spare.

She's torn his tie lose, shoving the jacket from his shoulders as his fingers fumble with the tiny buttons on the back of her dress.

"S'ok?" he manages as the first one comes loose and his jacket hits the floor. "Wanna stop?"

She doesn’t want to stop. Doesn’t have any intention of doing so - not now. Not when it’s taken so very terribly long to start. Not with his mouth at her throat and her hands in his hair and God but hasn’t she wondered what his laugh would feel like, puffed out in unbelieving breaths against the line of her collarbone? Hasn’t she dreamt of curling her fingers in sunbleached waves and daring him lower?

But the hair between her fingers is all wrong and it makes her hot blood freeze instantly. There's something she's forgotten, something terribly important, and she doesn’t want to stop, but she has to. She has to. Damn it all though, she just wants to try .

“Gordon -”

The worst part is how she doesn’t even have to say it.

The tiniest shift in her body, the merest trace of distress in her voice and he’s away from her in moments - half a room away and flushed the colour of Thunderbird Three. He rubs at his hair, that stupid hair, and stares, determined, at a point somewhere in the vicinity of Penelope’s left foot.

In that moment, she’s reasonably sure she feels her heart crack.

“Shit, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Pen - Lady Penelope - I really -”

“Don’t apologise.”

“But - I - “

“I believe I grabbed you . It ought to be me apologising.”

“Don’t.” He shifts his weight from foot to foot and scrubs at his eyes with a shaky hand. The half laugh he lets out makes her want to cry. “Jesus. Don’t apologise.”

Well now, of course, she must. And in doing so she must admit the truth of all of this - to him, even if not to herself.

Girlish nonsense, her Grandmother would have called it.

Would that it felt like it. Nonsense, she can laugh off. She cannot laugh off the look in his eyes, nor the pang in her chest.

“We mustn’t -”

“Yeah,” he holds his hands up. Surrender. She hates it. “Yeah no I super got that part, it’s fine, it’s - I mean -” he laughs again, and she hates that even more. “God I’m an idiot.”

“You’re not.”

“I really, actually think I am. It’s pathological, apparently. Ask John.”

“I could,” she says. Whispers, actually. “That's the problem you see. I could.”

---

 

Gordon’s spent the majority of his adult life submerged in icy water, but it’s never hit him as hard as this.

“What?”

Penny wrings her hands together, hair falling in her face, sweater askew, and he’d be amazed at seeing her so discombobulated - at having done that - if only he had the faintest clue what was going on.

“John’s watching,” she says again, and she won’t meet his eyes and she won’t make any sense because John isn’t watching. In fact Gordon can categorically state for an actual fact that John would rather blind himself with a rusty spoon than watch any of the events likely to unravel following a kiss like that. They’d hear his shrieks through the vaccuum.

Gordon knows this.

And Penny promised.

"It was the only way, you see."

" What was the only way?"

She reaches past him to the bedside table and tips up the communicator. A small green light flashes up at him.

"The disruptor?"

Penelope bites her lip. "Isn't.  Not entirely."

Gordon's brain stops. Reverses. Replays the night of their arrival.

"You lied about it?"

"I didn't think it would matter. It was Scott's preference." She just out her chin, and the action sets the confusion and stymied desire bubbling in his belly until the coalesce into something like anger.

Of course it's Scott. Listening in. Probably Virgil, too. Definitely Alan. 

God, they'll have been taking bets.

“So, what? What are you telling me? That we’ve been on an open comm link to the island all this time?” Gordon looks around wildly. “Are they watching now? Am I starring in one of Grandma’s Space Operas? Hey, Grandma!” He cups his hands around his mouth and calls up to the ceiling. “Hope you didn’t burn the popcorn!”

“Gordon, please - “

“Gordon please what?” his voice is cold, colder than he meant it to be, but he takes a certain grim satisfaction in the way she winces as it hits her.

“It wasn’t intentional.”

“Penelope, you astound me on a minute by minute basis, but even I can’t believe you’d accidentally keep a secure communication line running when you’ve blocked every other transmission in or out of this place.”

“No - No that was - the lie wasn’t intentional. I didn’t set out to deceive you. I was going to tell you but you seemed so happy - it's not the island. It's only John.” Penelope wrings her hands together, her eyes darting between him and the holocomm as though undecided which offers the greater threat, and Gordon’s anger deflates into something close to defeat.

Only John, she says. Like the guy running the most effective communication monitoring device in the galaxy isn't an absolute gossip hound. As though he will ever, ever let Gordon live this down.

As though there was going to be anything to live down.

“Of course I was happy. I was here with you .” He shakes his head. “Shit, Penny. It isn’t rocket science. You don’t need Brains to figure this one out.”

“You said - about John -”

“Yeah, well.” Gordon drops into the wicker chair by the window. “Yeah, it was nice to think we’d actually get to spend some time alone. You know how I feel about you. If you didn’t - if you don’t - all you had to do was say so. You don’t need John to chaperone .” He laughs bitterly. “You’ve got Parker for that.” 

“He shouldn’t have come. I don't need a chaperone. I don't want one."

Gordon rubs his hand across his eyes. He’s suddenly exhausted, tired beyond measure of all of this, but mainly just tired of pretending. Scott was right. Again. He isn’t cut out for this.

“I can’t even figure out what that’s meant to mean, Pen. Not everything has to be all intrigue and secrets. Some things are just better if you just let them be .”

“I don’t know if I know how to do that.”

There’s something in her voice, something beyond guilt or unhappiness or denial or any of the dozen other things he might have expected to hear. It’s honesty, real and searing and shocking.

“Sure you do,” he says without thinking, then, as he watches her, “don’t you?”

“That’s the thing about you, Gordon,” she says, stepping up to the chair and reaching for his hand. “You’re - everything is so horribly straightforward with you. You know who you are. You know how to - you’re just so much better at this than I am, darling.” She sniffs, and he realises with dawning horror that she’s barely restraining tears. "So much better.”

"I really feel like that's not true."

Penny smiles weakly and he can't help but smile back.

"No?"

"Nah I mean - for a start if I was any good at this we really wouldn’t need this much of an excuse."

Penny looks up at him through her lashes. 

“Is that what this is? I thought we were bringing down an international smuggling ring.”

He stands up, moving close enough to tangle the fingers of his left hand through the ends of her hair. He taps the side of his nose with his other hand.

“What a cover, eh?”

Penny sways into him, his wedding ring catching in the carefully constructed curls.

“A double bluff, then?”

“Something like that.” He thumbs gently at her chin. There’s a smear of lipstick at the corner of her mouth. He wonders if he has it’s twin. “Gotta play both sides to guarantee a win.”

“Spoken like a true middle child.”

“Yeah, well, in my family the middle child is John .” 

“I wouldn’t do this with John.”

Penny drops the communicator to the ground and he hears the crunch of electronics underfoot, but he hasn’t the time to worry about that - not when her arms are round his neck, her mouth hot against his own.

She pushes him back towards the edge of the bed, only pulling away as his thighs hit the mattress. Pauline’s wig is discarded in a heap at her feet, followed immediately by the little black dress.

Oh. 

Oh shit .

She doesn't want a chaperone.

“Well uh - no I mean - you’re not really his - “ Penny slides one pale knee onto the bed, and pushes him back with two fingers. He’s still mostly dressed in Greg’s penguin suit, the tie loose around his neck. She’s still moving, coming to hover above him to rest a single finger against his lips and Jesus Christ is he still talking? He isn’t sure how he’s still breathing.

“Darling, I ask only one favour from you tonight.”

“Anything.” Anything, God, anything.

“Be quiet.”

He mimes zipping his mouth shut, and throws away the key.

---

 

Gordon isn't sure when, exactly, he'd fallen asleep. He remembers pulling the sheets up over their heads to form a soft, white cocoon, and the way Penny had pressed her laughter against him as he'd sworn never to leave, ever. He remembers that her hair had tickled his nose and his side had protested, but that it had been worth it - more than worth it. He remembers thinking that he'd happily never sleep again if it meant missing a single moment of her skin against his.

Guess his body has been betraying him a lot recently.

Still, he's awake now, wrapped in a curtain of white cotton and blonde hair and wondering, just a little, if this is what heaven would have looked like. Penny's hand twitches on his belly, her head pillowed on his shoulder and he figures yeah, yeah,it probably is.

There's a full moon tonight, pouring through the open curtains and bleaching everything a stark, otherworldly silver. Penny is bathed in it, beautiful and glorious, and he's absolutely fucked. Literally, figuratively and decisively. Forever.

Still, he really ought to at least close the curtains and retrieve Pauline's wig from its Ignoble resting place on the floor. If anyone were to approach the chalet -one of the staff, Margot, Parker - they'd get an eyeful of a while bunch of things Penny would probably rather they didn't. 

Penny sighs and shifts against him just enough for his ribs to protest and yeah, he should probably get up.

Just the mental image of Parker's doleful face at the window is enough to get him moving. He extradites himself from her grasp as gently as he possibly can making certain to replace his shoulder with a pillow and patting her hand gently as he lays it on the mattress. She mumbles sleepily as he drops a reassuring kiss to get forehead.

"Nothing to worry about," he whispers against the crease between her brows. "Be right back."

He pads over to the window and is reaching for the curtains when a movement catches his eye.

"Shit!" He makes a frantic grab for the curtain to cover his dignity and peers out into the night. The moon casts the valley in sparkling white and blackest shadows, and the darkest if them all is the single figure at the edge of the frozen lake. Gordon squints against the windowpane.

"Margot?"

The uneasy feeling he'd managed to quash beneath the thrill of Penelope's affections returns tenfold, hurrying his efforts to pull on a pair of pyjama pants and grab the closest coat. It's pink and smells faintly of apricots. It absolutely does not fit and he doesn't really have time to care. Instead he stuffs his feet into unlaced boots and lurches out into the cold.

It’s really goddamn cold.

He's not quiet as he stomps down to the edge of the lake,but the figure out on the ice pays him no mind, their back to him even when he calls out.

"You okay out there?"

She doesn't turn to face him, but it's definitely her. She's still dressed for the party, her beaded dress trailing from her thick jacket.

"Margot? Margot come off the ice."

At first he thinks she hasn't heard him, but then she looks over her shoulder and smiles. It's a black slash in the moonlight. Her teeth gleam.

"No, I don't think I will."

"Oh for -" Gordon toes at the edge. It's solid, but probably only a couple of inches deep and best and he has no idea whereabouts the spring that feeds it might be. "It isn't safe."

"Then go back." Harsher, "I didn't ask to be followed."

"I -"

"Oh don't bother." She laughs and the mountains seem to laugh with her. The ice creaks. "Thought you'd take a nighttime stroll in your pyjamas and a woman's coat did you? Men always take me for an idiot."

"I really don't." He hesitates, then takes one step onto the ice. Another. Another. She watches his approach with that slash of a smile. "I know this must be difficult for you."

The ice shudders, the vibration reverberating up his spine.

“You don’t have to do this.” He holds out his hand, dares to let his body weight shift ever so slightly toward her. “I can help, just -”

The answering laugh ricochets around the valley and hits him full force in the solar plexus.

“You?” She sneers, dawn breaking behind her and setting the valley aflame. “Gordon Tracy, what possible use could I have for you ?”

Oh.

Oh, now that is a turn up for the books. Swallowing hard, he wills his heart rate to kick it down a notch, concentrates on keeping his voice steady. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Really? Because you can blame your father for it, you know. So many photographs .” She bares her teeth like a shark coming in for a kill.. “Enough to drive a girl mad . A pathetic little dye job might work on an idiot like Vishkin, but it was never going to work on me. I’d have thought your little spy friends would have known that. Tell me,” she folds her hands together as if in supplication or prayer. “Oh do tell me that you love her again, it was utterly adorable. She's got you wrapped right around her little finger hasn't she? Just like another  little lapdog.”

There’s a lot to unpack, there. Like a whole lot. But the ice is snapping in the space between them and it won’t matter who Margot Mearns thinks he is when they’re both drowning in the depths.

“Margot, I swear, if you want to talk we can talk but we need to get off this ice -”

“And there’s that, of course. Dear, heroic Tracy boy. Trying so hard to fix me. Tell me, International Rescue , what’s it like to keep trying to save someone who doesn’t want to be saved?”

“Why wouldn’t you want to be saved?”

“Well, sweetheart, because I intend to save myself.” She opens her folded hands to reveal a little silver box. It’s pink in the dawn light. Innocent. He’d thought Margot was innocent, too.  “It’s a shame. It worked so well for years. No-one looks at a woman next to a powerful man, and Vishkin was a sap and an idiot. He's outlived his usefulness. It’s no loss." She sighs as she runs a finger lightly over the detonators surface. “But you, you were cute.”

He has time for one deep breath before the mountainside explodes.

---

 

Penelope bolts upright, her heart thundering, the remnants of her dream skittering away from her before she can even begin to get it under control.

She isn't usually one for nightmares.

She blinks sleep from her eyes and casts her bleary gaze around the room. It's darker than it was, the curtains drawn, and although the sheets beside her are rumpled they're empty and cold. She swings her legs out of bed and eyes the discarded clothes and shattered comm innards with a professional's seasoned eye. She didn't dream him, then. Not this time.

She's a little unsteady on her feet as she picks her way through the aftermath of her decision, muscles protesting slightly after months of under use. She peeks between the curtains to see a still,perfect night, bright moonlight diffused by the frost patterns on the glass. Almost dawn, then, and Gordon can't have gone far. She swallows the rising feeling that he shouldn't have gone at all and dresses swiftly and warmly. Someone, she certainly hopes Gordon, has lain Pauline's wig on the dresser but instead she reaches for one of his hats, pulling it low over her ears. In fact when she looks around she realises almost all of his ski wear is still in the chalet. Wherever he's gone he's likely wildly under dressed. Not that she minds that, of course, but she can hardly have him getting frostbite. 

It’s that blue hour before the sun rises fully, and the valley feels like holding its breath, still, watchful. There are boot prints hidden beneath the frost, and a hushed, urgent whisper that carries across the lake. She can’t make out words, only the crisp, harsh tone of breath gritted out from too-cold lungs, and she finds herself wishing she’d had the forethought to bring Gordon’s ski wear with her. A prickle down her spine, a creak slam of a door, and she wishes she’d had the forethought to bring her gun.

Fifty yards from the edge of the lake, she comes across the source of the sound. The little boat hut door is hanging slightly from its hinges, swaying to and fro beneath its own weight. She’s about to walk by - she will send the carpenters round when this is all nicely concluded - when she spots the slick stain on the ice.

Blood.

She approaches as quietly as she can, back to the wall of the little hut, her ear pressed against it for any sound of movement. She hears nothing, but still she only peeps around the corner, fists ready, and into hell.

There’s a pool of gore glistening black in the moonlight between the old boat and the doorway, and at its centre - at its centre lies realization. 

Penelope steps forward until the pool, dark and sticky, laps at the toes of her boots. Colin Vishkin smiles up at her through bloodstained teeth, his unseeing eyes turned toward the faint glow of Thunderbird Five, and for the first time in her life Penelope Creighton-Ward is faced with the terrible truth.

She’s got the whole thing wrong.

She’s failed.

It hits her at the same moment the world goes dark.

 

---

 

It's been a long day. Most of John's are. He doesn't really have the time for this.

“Say that again, Parker?”

“‘Er Ladyship ‘as been unexpectedly distracted.” Parker is hissing, his face far too close to his watch, and his one huge eye seems to float, Sauron-like, above Thunderbird 5’s central conn. “Most unfortunate it is, at that. Hi'm reportin' on 'er behalf such as she wishes but if you ask me she'd be better not -”

“Yes, I got that part.” John’s eyes flit over the other readings. Nothing unusual. No sign of any of IR’s personnel alarms being triggered. “Does she need help?”

“Not ‘arf,” sniffs Parker. “Brought the wrong bleedin’ brother if you ask me.”

“Are you - are you calling me because you want me to…” John fumbles for the words then settles on, “extract Gordon?”

Parker blinks. Considers.

“Leave ‘im. Damage was done there years back. Send Mr Virgil out to recover this cargo is what ‘er ladyship said.”

“Lady P wants Virgil to fish some cargo out of the Indian Ocean. Got it. Any particular reason, or?”

“And ‘ere’s me thinking you were the smart one.” The giant eye rolls, and John barely resists the urge to cut the feed. “‘Taint just any cargo this. Ms Margot Mearns 'erself asked me to call you not the GDF. ‘Er Ladyship doesn’t muck about with small time smugglers.”

“Just employs them,” mutters John, reaching for the link that’s been kept open to Penny and Gordon. He’s not bothered to test it since their arrival  - hasn’t really had the stomach for it to be quite honest - so it isn’t a complete surprise when it doesn’t immediately spring to life at his touch. 

“EOS? Patch me in to Gordon. Signal disruption must be messing with the link.”

A pause, then, “I can’t do that John. The link is disabled.”

John frowns. Turns back to Parker. Somewhere beyond his great disembodied face he hears a sickeningly familiar crack and then -

Shit.

Scott’s going to lose his mind .

----

 

That first time, Sally heard it on the radio.

It wasn’t a radio, she knows that. Even back then there were a hundred newer, stronger, better technologies than she recalls from her twentieth century childhood. Her boy invented half of them, or paid the man that did.

Still, in her memory, she heard it on the radio.

In the chalet the little ones were tucked up, snoring, and Grant had left the supper to simmer while he headed out to the slopes to call the others home.

Supper burned, and she was on the wrong side of the mountain. 

This time, she hears it from John. This time she’s on the other side of the world, tropical sun at her back, but in her heart, oh in her heart she hears it on the radio . 

(And the avalanche swallows her whole.)

“Grandma? Grandma are you getting all this?”

"Loud and clear. Scott's on route."

"Scott's here ." Her eldest grandson barrels into the room, hair standing on end, shoulders stiffer than her hip. "Status, Five."

"Unknown. Communications are blocked. I've been unable to raise Parker."

"Anyone on the ground?"

"GDF won't get involved without consulting GCHQ."

" And? "

"GCHQ won't compromise the mission."

Scott presses his knuckles into the desk. Sally can feel the way his body trembles through the wood.

"Compromise the mission, " he scoffs. "Like Penelope's a soldier. "

Sally tried to keep her voice soft, her own fears tamped back in the face of Scott's furious terror. "In their eyes, she is."

Virgil appears in the doorway,and Sally shakes her head briefly. Extra voices aren't likely to help when Scott's in this state of mind. His head dips and when he lifts it all that anger is directed at John.

"Why weren't you watching . Damn it, John! If you're not watching what's the point ."

John's expression darkens, his fury, so rare but so brutal, radiating from words muttered from behind clenched teeth.

" I'm not a spy, Scott."

"None of us are goddamn - " he runs a hand through his hair and pulls. "I shouldn't have let him go."

"You couldn't have -"

"Stopped him? I could have had him grounded on medical grounds - I could have locked him in his room - I could have- "

"No. No you couldn't." Virgil speaks slowly, tilting his head in an attempt to make eye contact with Scott as he paces. "He's an adult, Scott."

"As his commanding officer I -"

"Enough!" Sally slams her palms down onto the desk and waits for silence to follow the reverberation. "Enough."

"Grandma -"

"Grandma, nothing. We have a situation. Pull it together. John, play the call and raise Alan. We haven't got time for all this posturing."

“I’ll suit up,” says Virgil, already heading for his station, but John stops him with a single shake of his head.

“No can do, Virgil. Two is needed to pull some cargo shipment out of the Indian Ocean.”

“Excuse me, what?” Scott pauses with his shoulders already halfway into their supports. “A cargo collection?”

“It was what Parker was calling about,” says John. “This cargo, whatever it is. It’s what Lady Penelope was after.”

Scott blinks. “Will it be any use to her if she’s dead ?”

“I don’t know , Scott,” John grumbles. “All I know is -”

“If it matters enough for Parker to call it in, then it matters enough for us to do as he asks.” Her three eldest grandsons turn as one to face her. She hears Alan stumbling his way through the kitchen. “Have a little faith, boys. Virgil?”

“On it.”

He disappears. Alan blinks owlishly at her from the other side of the room.

“We go, Grandma? Scott?”

“You’re go,” she tells them, and lets their take off hide her fear.

---

 

"Scott, stop panicking."

Scott Tracy is the Field Commander of International Rescue, and the Field Commander of International Rescue does not panic.

"Scott?"

John, who clearly doesn't know what he's talking about, floats above One's console with his arms folded like a pissy school teacher.

"I don't panic," Scott grumbles,pushing One just that bit harder. "I'm just busy."

"Busy panicking."

"Busy looking for our brother , or have you forgotten he's already injured and now he's lost somewhere near avalanche central? Cause I'm not panicking, but you could do with looking a tad more concerned."

John's lips narrow until he's wearing what Gordon calls his 'detention face'. "We don't even know that Gordon's involved in this. All we know is that Parker was in the vicinity when -"

"Spare me the hope speech Johnny, please." Scott leans forward into the throttle and One roars in reply. "You and I both know that when Gordon's in the vicinity disaster is pretty much guaranteed."

"Where's Alan?" 

"Securing the spare exosuit, why?"

"Because I don't want him listening in while I call you a prick."

Scott scowls. "Glad you're concerned about one of your baby brothers."

"Annnd there we have it." When he's feeling smug John taps his fingers again his upper arm just like dad did - does. Scott hates it. "Gordon isn't a kid, Scott."

The snow-capped peaks of the Alps appear in One's view screen, tinged pink with the dawn light, and Scott knows Gordon isn't a kid - not on paper and certainly not in Four - but in Scott's secret heart Gordon will forever be fourteen, waving his brother off to boot camp while wearing braces and sporting a recently broken nose.

Scott's last act before leaving Kansas had been to ensure the boy who broke it never, ever forgot Gordon Tracy's biggest brother.

He wishes taking vengeance on the world was that easy.

"He nearly died , John."

"But he didn't."

" John ."

" Scott ." John sighs, and Scott finally sees a little of his own fear in the way John scrubs at his tired eyes. "We get into situations like this all the time. We haven't died yet. He won't."

"No," Scott agrees, "he won't." And powers into the dawn.

----

When Gordon was five years old he’d started lifesaving classes down at the Y, and he’d decided very early on that pyjamas were a terrible piece of equipment when a life was at stake. It hadn't helped that mom had sent him with John's and they'd dragged three feet behind him as he'd tried to twist them into floats. He'd ended up tying himself into knots.

They’re not a fat lot of use now, either.

He strikes for the surface by instinct, fighting against the drag of his pants and the searing cold. His shoulder seizes from the exertion and he breaks the ice with a cry he sincerely hopes Mearns doesn't hear. Stupid body. Stupid cold. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

He gasps, and chokes. The air isn't cold, it's thick and acrid and sending red embers fizzling through the ice around him. Somewhere he’s sure he hears rotor blades, but that could just be his heart trying to batter its way from his chest. He scrambles from the water, and, still on his knees, twists to scan the spot where he'd last seen Mearns.

She's gone, and in her wake the world is on fire.

The chalets have gone. Only shards of wood like dead trees and sheets of battered roofing remain, flames licking at the sky between the rivers of snow and ice that pour, even as he stares, down the mountainside to swallow them whole.

Fire. The mountain is on fire. The mountain is falling, and Gordon is running, pyjamas freezing against his skin, to try and hold it back.

He’s gotta hold it back. He’s gotta. He’s gotta -

The burning remnants of his chalet - their chalet - disappear beneath the snow with a terrible, hideous crack .

Penny.

Oh fuck, Penny.

The world burns, and Gordon Tracy burns with it.

 

---

 

Penelope has always been a great proponent of taking stock of one's surroundings. A strong believer that one should always endeavour to be thorough no matter how perturbing the circumstances might be. Her current circumstances are certainly that. The place she finds herself is dark and cramped. Further observation shows that there appears to be the majority of a wall supported millimetres from her aching head, and, perhaps most distressingly, she appears to be nose to nose with a corpse.

It is fair to say that given the choice this is not her preferred manner of spending any morning, least of all this one.

Cautiously she takes note of her limbs - attached and without any obvious sign of injury - and then of her faculties. Penelope Creighton-Ward. Lady. Twenty six years old and apparently trapped in a boatshed cum mausoleum by forces unknown.

The facts don't necessarily make her feel any better but they're always nice to have.

Vishkin’s glazed eyes peer unseeingly and unsettlingly into her own as she struggles to free herself, what little light there is casting eerie shadows over his livered skin. He’s been dead for hours, his belly swelling, the skin taut and cold as she finally manages to shuffle into a half crouch.

He’d bled to death in this boat house while, yards away, she and Gordon had seen fit to celebrate their victory .

There’s no justice in death. It gives Penelope no pleasure to look down on those black-red teeth as she struggles to steady herself against the sticky ground. And she knows, as surely as she knows her own name, that if Vishkin was already laying dead in this shed, that whatever has trapped her here with him was meant to kill them all. Parker, her team, herself.

Gordon.

Gordon, who had left their bed, under dressed and utterly unprepared for whatever Machiavellian forces awaited him. Gordon, who has no way of reaching his brothers. Gordon, who would be safe at home were it not for her own selfish wants .

It won’t do. None of it.

The air in the tiny crawlspace is thick and growing thicker, and when she dares to rest her cheek against her temporary ceiling she feels the chill of ice right down to her very bones. The only light source seems to come from a cracked wooden panel that hangs over Vishkin’s right shoulder. The air, such as it is, seems to be coming from that direction too.

“I am so very sorry,” she tells the dead man, shuffling on her knees as best she can. “Truly, I am.” 

Then, niceties disposed of, she plants her elbows in his distended belly and gets to work.

---

 

The alpine range covers a huge geographical area, so even the limited information that John does have - they flew into Geneva and now somehow all hell has broken loose - is being rendered utterly useful by sheer scale, both of the mountains and the red tape.

"No luck, Eos?

"I have received no response to your transmission, John. Would you like me to send it again?"

He sighs, watching the little blue blip that represents Thunderbird One flicker in and out of whatever disruptor field is scrambling their communications. On the rare occasions he dies manage to reach One Scott's testy and getting worse. It's been almost an hour since Parker's call had been interrupted by the cracking of the mountainside,and neither John not Scott need a reminder of exactly how long a human being can survive being buried under a glaciers worth of ice.

It's not long enough. 

He needs another plan.

"John?"

"Yeah, no. No, they're not interested."

Eos flashes. "We could increase their interest,"

They could. They absolutely could. They could have GCHQ on their knees in ten minutes flat. Four, if Eos helps him compile the code. But.

"I suppose that would be unethical?"

"You suppose correctly, plus we don't want to rescue Lady Penelope only to have to tell her we've lost her her job."

That's when it comes to him. A flash of inspiration that has his fingers skittering over the controls with a speed that makes any human companions gape, wide eyed. Eos doesn't gape. Eos understands. 

"I will attempt to open the line to Scott. Co-ordinates are -"

"Close as they're gonna be," he mutters, Five's processors battering their way through the disruptors code. "Ready?"

"Scott? Thunderbird Five to Thunderbird One, Scott, come in."

Static crackles through the unit, and Scott, when he answers sounds as though he's at the bottom of a trench on a planet half a galaxy away.

"-me -n. Five. Ov- go?"

"Scott, I'm sending you my best guess coordinates. I've triangulated from Parker's call and known geographical features of the area, but it's a big area. You'll need to send the drones. Do you copy?"

More static, then "-AB"

One's symbol flickers again, and doesn't return.

John turns his attention to Virgil's progress over the Indian ocean, and watches over the only brother he has left.

---

 

Armageddon, or something like it.

And Gordon’s dealt with end-of-the-world before plenty of times. It’s his job. It’s his life . But this - 

He has no idea what to do. 

Thing is, fourth of five. You kinda forget how to be alone.

Because the other thing is, he pretty much never is, not even in the depths of the ocean. It makes no sense that he would be alone here, on semi solid ground.

No Four, no Brains, no John or Eos in his ear. No reassurance from Grandma or nagging from Scott. No Virgil hovering overhead, no jokes from Alan to lighten the mood. Nothing but him, the sagging, burning, frozen chalets, and the absolute certainty that if he doesn’t do something there's a good chance he'll never not feel alone again.

It makes no sense that he's drowning on dry land.

His hair is frozen. There’s bile at the back of his throat. There’s -

There’s a man. A man clambering between shattered, blackened walls. A man with a truly awful moustache.

“Parker?”

The man coughs bitterly and scowls the scowl of the recently and extremely put-out. “The very bleedin’ same.”

And he’ll never admit it, not to anyone , but Gordon suddenly feels hope spark somewhere in his frozen, aching chest.

He runs a rescuer's critical eye over Parker. There's ice in his moustache and his colour is high, but otherwise he seems unharmed.

"What happened?"

"'arf the bleedin' mountain 'appened!" Parker shrugs balefully further into his coat. "Ran for me bleeding life."

“How the hell did you outrun an avalanche?”

Parker narrows his eyes, his gaze fixed on one particular spot just above Gordon’s collarbone that Penny had also been oddly - if pleasantly - drawn to.

“Seems it’s been a night of unlikely successes Mr Gordon, sir.”

“Is that what you call this? Cause I think we have very different definitions.”

Parker glares at him for a moment longer, then peers over his shoulder.

“Where’s her ladyship?”

And every word Gordon’s ever known sticks in his throat. His expression must say them for him.

“Holy Christ,” spits Parker. “Fucking buggering hell. What ‘appened?”

“Bomb,” he manages, because that’s all he can imagine it could have been. “Set off an avalanche. Mearns… probably wasn’t actually the good guy.”

“You don’t fuckin’ say.” Parker grits out. “Blown up and bleedin’ buried an’ all. You go south, I’ll go north. There were ten left on site with you an’ me.”

Gordon wouldn’t know, of course. Gordon wasn’t paying attention. Gordon is a goddamn hopeless idiot.

“Communications?” 

Parker just glares.

“Right.” He turns to the spot where he’d last seen Penny. It’s a smouldering, wet smear on the landscape. His feet are too cold, they won’t move. None of him moves, only his heart, every beat echoing in his ears and his throat and the tips of  his burning fingers.

Penny. Penny. Penny.

“Gordon! Gordon over here!” 

At the edge of where the main chalet had stood Parker is frantically pulling at pieces of plasterboard, scrabbling around until he reveals a faintly familiar bald head.

The guy. The guy with the piano stool. He can’t remember his name. He can’t remember -

“Now hold on Mr Lester, International Rescue is on the way!”

It doesn’t matter what he can remember. International Rescue. That’s him. He’s it.

Gordon skids across the snow to land on his sodden knees. “Lester! Hey, hi, can you hear me?”

Lester blinks up at him. His face is free, one hand pillowed against his cheek, but the rest of him is buried beneath a mixture of snow and ash. He’s as grey as his surroundings, his lips stained scarlet. “Lady - Lady -”

Gordon swallows, afraid to risk a glance at Parker.

“It’s me, it’s Gordon. Can you tell me where you’re hurt?”

“Every - fire.”

Lester’s eyes are unfocused, his pupils dilated. Blood runs from his nose and the corner of his mouth. Gordon slips his cold fingers between the other man’s cheek and palm and feels the way bone grinds against bone.

“Yeah we sure had some of that, and some of the other too. Can you squeeze my hand?”

He knows he won’t. This isn’t his first rodeo. He smiles encouragingly anyway.

It feels like even more of a lie than usual.

“Verne?”

“Gonna get him right out too, don’t you worry. Everything’s gonna be okay, just hang tight.”

Over the creaking and crackling of the suffocating building comes a new noise. A faint, distant thrum that gets gradually louder until -

"Looks like company." Parker sniffs, looking up. "Knowing our luck it's the bleedin' Hood."

"Hey!" Gordon jumps up, pointing to the sky, the shittiness of the whole situation momentarily forgotten as the drone buzzes it's way overhead. "I know that drone! Hey! Hey !"

The drone stops and hovers overhead long enough for both men to get a good look at the bright IR emblazoned on her side. Gordon almost collapses with relief. 

"Son of a bitch, they found us."

A signal relay drops from her belly and Scott’s voice echoes around the valley.

“Gordon Tracy! What in God’s name have you been doing?”

Parker mutters under his breath, but Gordon’s too busy trying to keep his knees from buckling.

“Scotty, I swear, I’ve never been so happy to be yelled at in all my life.”

"I'm not yelling!"

"Totally yelling, but that's okay. Got at least eight trapped here and this fire and ice thing is no fun for any of them, you on it?"

"On it," then a pause. "You okay, Thunderbird Four?"

The use of his call sign makes his shoulders feel a little higher, makes the churning in his belly easier to ignore.

"FAB, One. Now get down here and help ."

“Gordon?”

Parker’s voice is quiet, small. 

Lester is quieter still.

“Oh god damn .”

He drops straight back to his knees, takes Lester’s face between his hands and hovers his cheek over his slack mouth.

The only breath he feels is his own, sour and sick and far too quick. Far too quick.

Thunderbird One was too damn slow.

---

 

It is a truth universally acknowledged that when Scott Tracy enters a room people take notice. When he arrives at a disaster zone, Thunderbird One descending from the heavens like some super shiny Messiah, Gordon is always vaguely shocked if people don't start cheering.

Truth is, it's hard to cheer anything with a dead man's head in your hands.

"I've got this, Mr Gordon," says Parker, gently replacing Gordon's hands with his own. "You go on lad."

Gordon watches the ice crystallise on Lester's parted lips for a moment longer, and then he's running. Running like his life depends on it which, honestly, it probably does.

"Scott! Scott over here!"

Scott, to his credit, does actually engage his jetpack rather than just leaping from the cockpit but it does look to be a close run thing.

"Status?" It's snapped out, Field Commander to Operative, but his hands are already patting Gordon's shoulders, frantic blue eyes scanning him for any more injuries than he'd left with.

"Absolutely fucked," is his first answer, then, as Alan makes a more traditional departure from One's belly, "explosive brought an avalanche down on the top here. We've got at least seven missing." He looks back at Parker. "One deceased."

"Whoa," Alan is lugging the spare exosuit behind him. It's almost twice his size. "An explosion ? How did - and what are you wearing ?"

Gordon grimaces. "You know how they say never meet your heroes? Well really, really don't. "

"All right," says Scott, and whatever worries he must have had about Gordon's own safety must have been assuaged because he's finally stopped pawing at him, "Thunderbird One to Thunderbird Five. Come in John. John?"

"No signal," Gordon says, "like seriously none. Parker managed to call GCHQ but -"

"He didn't call GCHQ," Scott interrupts. "Or they didn't tell us if he did. He called us."

"Oh. Well. Lucky then, I guess "

Scott rolls his eyes. "I guess . Come on, we need lifesign readings stat. Where's Lady Penelope? I assume she set this communication blocker up so she ought to be able to turn it off."

Summoned, Parker rises to join them.

"No 'ope of getting a signal out of here at the minute. Had to climb halfway up a bleedin' mountain to call Mr John, and that was on a temporary line. When we find milady…"

"Whoa, hold up." Scott turns to Gordon with wide eyes. " Penelope's missing?"

It's not a phrase Gordon particularly wants to dwell on, the dam he's thrown up between IR calmness and hysteria creaks unpleasantly under Scott's pitying gaze.

"Yeah, I mean if… if you mean I don't know where she is then yes. Yes, she's missing."

“What are we waiting for!” Alan clamps his feet into the exosuit and stretches for the arms. “We gotta find her, right Scott?”

“Right,” says Scott, because that’s Scott’s job. Keep Alan on task. Co-ordinate. Encourage. Stop staring at Gordon, because Gordon is staring into the abyss. Say something. Do something. He has no John, no Virgil. No Dad. Only a brother who’s never failed a rescue, and one who he cannot possibly fail. “And the others, too. Gordon?”

Gordon, and the abyss, stare back. Alan casts a nervous glance in Scott’s direction.

“Gordon? You okay? Thunderbird Four, do you copy?”

“Christ, okay, yeah. I’m on it. Come on Al,” he moves toward the splintered remains of what was obviously once a chalet. There’s blood on the snow where Parker had been kneeling and a scarf carefully laid over a still, wet lump. Scott doesn’t want Alan anywhere near it, but the youngest trots after his elder brother and god, ain’t that always the way.

He wonders how much Gordon remembers of the night their mother died. He wonders if he knows how much of their father Scott sees in him now.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Peachy,” it’s a snarl said with a smile, the sort of smile that precedes hysterics. “We’ve no way of searching for life signs and no way of reaching them if we did. That exosuit is useless without Virgil - we could crush survivors without even knowing they’re there.”

“I’m not gonna crush anyone!” Alan protests, “Come on, we gotta try!”

Scott remembers. He remembers his father’s hands, shiny red and black at the tips. He knows what trying looks like, how futile it can be. 

Gordon knows too.

Alan will learn.

God he doesn’t want Alan to learn that today.

Scott looks up to the sky, wishing desperately that he could somehow will Thunderbird Two into existence, then pulls on his gloves, and tries.

---

 

Thunderbird Two isn’t as quick as One, not as streamlined. She’s built for strength, not speed. Virgil chases Scott’s trails regardless, until they disappear over the horizon and he’s left scouring the ocean below.

Pick up a package. This had better be a hell of a delivery.

John’s floating above the dash, his hands busy with things Virgil can’t see. He assumes John means to be there, he doesn’t know. He’s not said a word since Two was left lumbering over the ocean in Scott’s wake.

“See anything, Five?” he asks, just in case John’s forgotten the connection. “It’s a big ocean if I’m doing this by sight.”

“Working on it,” John says tersely, and Virgil knows that’s probably not true because if John was working on it he’d have solved it by now. 

“Not sure what I’m looking for.” Virgil pretends to talk to himself. Lets John off the hook. Whatever hook he’s on. “Did Parker -”

“Fifteen miles to your two o’ clock. There’s something in the water. No engine.”

“Right.” Virgil sets the controls, spares John another glance from the corner of his eye. He’s testy. Stressed. “Scott?”

“Out of range,” comes the semi-spat reply and yeah, that’ll do it. 

“Hell of a disruption Lady Penelope’s set up out there.”

“Tell me about it,” John grumbles. “Kayo is going to have a field day with this one.”

Half a mile below, Twos radar picks up something small and metallic. “John?”

“Could be, hang on Two.” In moments the HUD shows the bobbing motion of a shipping container as it floats benignly between two large inflatables. It looks pretty battered. Rusty. Nothing like something Lady Penelope might need. Nothing like something worth dying for.

“You sure, Five? It looks…” like a goddamn waste of time . “Old.”

“It’s the only thing out here without a call sign or an engine.” John looks distinctly unimpressed too. “I can’t imagine what else it could be.”

“I’ll take a look.” Virgil’s already firing the magnetic grappler, already lowering the pod to reel it in. “Like tin can fishing, right?”

“Right,” says John, but his eyes are far away. “Virgil, whatever it is… what’s your eta to Geneva?”

“Forty minutes.” He rises from the pilot’s seat and heads down to the pod, waiting only to hear the metallic clang as the door shuts. John makes an unhappy sort of noise, but Virgil doesn’t hang about to listen. He’s got to check he’s picked up the right package. Could be rusty old car parts. Could be fifty thousand rubber ducks. Could be...

He opens the container with the handheld laser, and keeps it in front of him as he peers inside.

Nothing. Why would Penelope send him after nothing?

Why would she waste their time? Why, when he should be out there at Scott's back and -

Oh.

Oh, crap.

He slaps his baldric, doesn’t even wait for John’s response before he’s saying;

“I’ll be there in thirty.”

 

---

 

Her fingers are raw, stinging and bleeding with every splinter she manages to tear away. Sweat drips into her eyes and her lungs ache, but it's okay. It's okay. Gordon's here.

He's a flash of blue and yellow in the corner of her eye, his voice a whisper that scrapes along her breastbone and settles heavy on her heart.

Did you find me Pen? I think I'm lost.

"Not a chance," she spits through the smoke, "not now. I won't allow it. I won't ."

Penny? Penny?

A shove, a tumble, and she leaves him behind in the dark.

 

---

 

Nothing Alan says makes any sense.

Gordon hears him okay, he’s using that Super Chipper Here To Save You voice that he always uses when he’s scared on a rescue. Gordon knows that voice. Gordon taught him it.

Gordon doesn’t know when Alan started using it to speak in tongues. It’s irritating. 

“You’re being irritating,” he tells Alan. Alan stares at him. Says something in Dutch. “Fuck off.”

Alan doesn’t take the hint. In fact, he’s worse, tugging on Gordon’s jacket, yelling something in Swahili to Dad. Jokes on Alan, Dad can’t speak Japanese. 

Hallucinations. There’s something important about hallucinations. Something he ought to know, and really, really he’s going to punch Alan if he doesn’t stop yelling and this coat is too tight and what the hell is hypothermia anywa-

Ah. 

“I’m okay. Alan, Alan I’m fine.”

“You’re really not,” says Alan, and it might be in Klingon but that’s okay cause Gordon can speak Klingon. “We need to get you into One and warmed up.”

“We need to get Penny.”

“I’ll get Penelope, Gordon, I promise.”

“I dun- I don’t think you will.” A smile. People like smiles. Smiles get you your own way. “See, she likes me .”

“Gordon -”

“Gordon!”

And then, there she is. The prettiest hallucination of all.

She’s crawling out of a hole in the ground, wet and filthy, and he’s probably going insane but she’s looking at him like he’s the whole world and he’d rather have that than any grasp of his faculties. She scrambles to her feet and Alan stops grumbling in German and bolts toward her.

“Don’t.” She holds up a bleeding hand. “Alan, dear. There’s no-one to save in there. Get…” She stops. Stares. “Oh, my poor team.” 

There’s a tragedy here, even his poor addled brain knows that, and Gordon’s told a lot of people about tragedy. He doesn’t want to tell Penny.

“I’ll go help Scott,” Alan says, taking jerking steps backwards in his borrowed suit. “It’ll be okay, Lady Penelope. We got this."

Alan has not had to tell a lot of people about tragedy. He won’t be the one to tell her, either. Even though Penelope speaks perfect French.

“Vishkin’s dead,” she tells Gordon. “Murdered, I believe.”

Gordon tries to hold the words in his mind, rearranges them until they make sense. His tongue is too big for his mouth, but he tries to reply anyway. It feels important. Like Penny needs him. 

“Yeah that’s - that’s pretty much the theme of the day. Was he -”

“Under there? Yes, I’m afraid so.” And she shudders, just a tiny little thing, but he can’t help himself any longer. He pulls her in as tight as he dares, and buries his frozen face in her damp neck. 

---

 

Whatever has changed between his brother and Lady Penelope, Scott’s glad it’s Parker and not him who has to interrupt their reunion to retrieve her Ladyship’s compact and send the codes for the disruptor to EOS.

What GCHQ will make of one of their own sending their data to a sentient AI with a known habit of holding a grudge, Scott doesn’t especially care. Not when his baldric lights up like a Christmas tree as every comm line seems to burst into life at once. And over them all, clear and unfathomably welcome;

"Thunderbird Five to alpine site, communications have been restored. Do you read me? Repeat, do you read me?"

Scott slaps his communicator before John even manages to draw breath

"Thunderbird One requesting immediate assistance. We still have five missing, John, scan for life signs."

"FAB," John says, all business, then, "your flock accounted for?"

Scott risks a glance over to One where Gordon, encased in half a dozen aluminium blankets, is wrapping a similarly attired Penelope's hands in gauze. She looks down at him with an expression of such fondness that Scott can't help but feel a little bit creepy.

"Yeah, the black sheep's here all right, he's currently - well.  I'll tell you later."

"I strongly suspect I don't want to know. Got them! All five, but Scott some are very weak."

"Patch them through. I don't know what we're going to be able to do with the equipment we've got but -'

"Hold that thought."

"Virgil!"

Scott doesn't quite run for Thunderbird Two with outstretched arms as she lowers herself to the ground a safe distance from the danger zone,but it's a very close run thing.

"The very same. Send me those details, John. Scott, tell Alan to get out of my suit and grab a pod. We've got some digging to do."

---

 

Trying is one thing when you’re sharing a bed. It’s quite another when you’re barely sharing a planet. Penelope sits in her parlour, her compact set next to the cooling tea on the occasional table, her still sore hands resting in her lap.

Mearns is gone. No sign of her on the GDFs patrols. No word through MI6’s impressive grapevine. It feels more personal, somehow, to be the collateral in someone else’s game plan. So Mearns is out there somewhere and Lester and Vishkin are dead, and Penelope has nothing to show for it but a palm full of scars and the way Gordon looks at her, small and transparent, from the edge of her teacup.

The worst thing is how she can’t quite bear to think it wasn’t worth it.

He moves as though attempting to peer around her. “Parker’s not there is he?”

“Not in the immediate vicinity, no.”

Gordon lets out a relieved huff and settles back against the headboard. “Good.”

“You can’t possibly be frightened of Parker."

“Plenty of people have very good reasons to be frightened of Parker. He sent me down the sewer, remember?”

Penelope dismisses him with a wave of her hand. “That was before. ”

“Yeah, exactly. I bet it’d be a whole bunch worse now. Now he’ll put me down there in pieces. Really tiny pieces, Pen. Like those damn canapes he’s so fond of.”

She grins. “Calamari?”

“You can go off people you know.” 

Penelope hums, tilting her head to one side. “I’ll take your word for that. Your hair’s back to normal.”

“Yeah.” He ruffles a hand through sleep-flattened curls and Penelope’s fingers twitch reflexively in her lap. “John said he found it ‘deeply troubling.’”

She laughs, quiet and low.

“Poor John.”

“Yeah.” And now Gordon’s not quite looking at her. “I think I’ve stressed him out a lot recently.”

“It isn’t your fault, you know,” Penelope tells him. “None of what happened is your fault.”

“I let her blow up the building, Pen. Vishkin’s dead. You could have died.”

“But I didn’t.”

Gordon huffs. “Does that work on you when I say it?”

“Not at all, no.”

They stare at each other, half a planet apart, and Penelope is horrified to find tears pricking at the backs of her eyes.

“I’m so sorry I lied to you.”

“What, about the communications? That saved us, Pen. If John hadn't failed to get through -”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

Tiny blue Gordon balks, fizzling briefly out of existence against the edge of her teapot.

“Oh. Okay. Uh - what do you mean, then?”

“That I lied about why I wanted you to come.”

“You mean you didn’t need my impressive spycraft skills?” He presses a hand against his chest. “You wound me.”

“No I -” she shakes her head. “I was a coward. A terrible coward. I should have just told you from the start.”

He drops his hand then. Tilts his head to one side, voice soft.

“Told me what?”

“A hundred things.” She takes a deep breath. Lets the not-quite-right words fall from her on the exhale. “I miss you.”

His image crumples then reforms closer and when he smiles, oh when he smiles it’s like they’re back in their chalet, cocooned in the white sheets with nothing between them but lives built on secrets and lies so much less frightening than the truth. 

“Yeah,” he says, always so very much braver than her. “Yeah, Pen. I love you, too.”