There are only three guards monitoring the basement, which is such a stupid choice that Allison seriously considers taking the time to send a text to this latest villain they’re facing to point out how ineffective his scheming truly is because seriously? Three guards? And this guy thinks he can somehow be a challenge to world safety? Men are so ridiculous. If women were in positions of power, the world would run a lot more efficiently. The female villains they face are always smarter and more difficult to defeat.
Needless to say, she doesn’t actually text Voriega. Not only is he not worth her time to try to advise on better ways to defend his evil fortress, but there’s also the reason she’s here in the first place. Stiles is in the cell these morons are guarding, and he’s been captured for nearly twelve hours, which means time is of the essence. With Stiles’ habit of mouthing off to the bad guys, she’s going to be lucky if she finds him in one piece. Allison makes quick work of the three guards, not even breaking out in a sweat as she kicks, twists, and punches the men into unconsciousness.
There’s a ruthless part of her that’s whispering it’s better to be safe than sorry so she needs to kill them, just in case, but Stiles’ voice reminds her that incapacitated bad guys are usually harmless. Of course, Stiles’ voice in her head also rambles about the ways these bad guys could become a threat again before finally deciding that it’s self-defense if someone is killed in combat but it’s murder if they’re killed while knocked out. They don’t do murder, not outright without provocation, and that’s one Stiles only sticking points really because of promises made to his dead father.
Allison doesn’t have that type of connection to a moralistic past because her parents were killed when she was a child by her own grandfather, who raised her to become a killing machine with no emotions or hesitancy to carry out his orders. Stiles reminds her of all the good things in the world. He’d been the one who saw something worth saving the first time they met when he’d been supposed to kill her, and he’s the one who has helped her become the woman she is by helping her learn about herself without ever trying to control anything about her.
Not becoming murderers is a sound argument, one that Allison would refuse to listen to if she felt these men were actually a potential threat to her mission because, really, she’s already a murderer, so she’s mostly working on balancing the scales back to make up for the innocent lives she took while under her grandfather’s control. Having someone as morally compromised as Stiles as her conscience doesn’t often help her make the most ethical decisions sometimes, but it works for her regardless.
Stiles is her voice of reason, even if his voice occasionally goes for the extreme prejudice necessary to defend the safety of the world, especially when it’s personal, in a way that those with black and white viewpoints of good versus evil don’t understand. Of course, it’s his habit of living in shades of grey that appealed to her in the first place, and she knows it’s why they make a great team, albeit a deadly one who is usually sent on the more dangerous missions.
After debating kill or not kill for a moment, she finally pulls zip ties out of her pocket and secures the wrists of the three guards behind their backs. There’s a voice in her ear reminding her that they have a window that is getting smaller. She rolls her eyes as Kira tells her to hurry up because really? Does Kira think she’s just taking her time and admiring the artwork on the walls? Allison doesn’t even bother to respond, just removing the earbud and letting it hang down as she unlocks the door.
“I turn my back for one minute, and this is the trouble you get into?” she asks as she steps inside, kicking the guard who comes at her with a well-placed foot to the gut. She fights him for a few seconds before she’s able to knock him out, tossing her hair out of her face as she looks at Stiles.
He looks terrible. There’s a dark bruise under his left eye, his nose looks broken, his lips are busted in three places, there’s blood on his leg around a bullet hole in his pants, and his arm is twisted at a painful angle. He grins at her, blood on his teeth and a gleam in his eye. “Took you long enough, Aly. I was starting to wonder if you’d forget about me, which was making me sad.”
“You’re lucky I even came for your scrawny ass,” she tells him as she crosses the small room and jumps onto his lap, straddling him as she kisses him hard. There’s the taste of copper on her tongue as she licks at his teeth and mouth, and the taste of Stiles is beneath it, so she keeps licking until she tastes him. Resting her forehead against his, she softly growls, “Do this again and I’ll shoot you myself.”
“Can we stop with the empty threats and see about untying me? They dislocated my shoulder, and I really want to scream, but who am I to give them that satisfaction?” Stiles scoffs. “They haven’t earned it. Did you take out Voriega?”
“No. He escaped before we could reach him, but Scott and Danny have gone after him.” Allison slides her knife out of her boot, slicing through the rope binding Stiles’ hands behind the chair. “Rope? Did they take their prisoner techniques out of an old eighties action movie or something?”
“Possibly. They did seem rather agitated when I hummed ‘Eye of the Tiger’ while they were punching me,” he muses, grimacing as he moves his arms. “Fix my shoulder before you worry about my feet. It’s fucking killing me.”
“Got it.” Allison holds onto him as she shifts, pulling hard, listening to his hiss of pain as she resets his shoulder. Voriega better hope Scott and Danny reach him first because, if not, Allison is making him pay for trying to break something that belongs to her. Stiles moves suddenly, grabbing the gun out of her thigh holster and shooting twice.
“We’d better move out,” he says, glancing at her when she stares at the guard who is now lying on the floor in a growing pool of blood. She’s annoyed that she didn’t hear him, but she trusts Stiles to always have her back. She belongs to him just as much as he’s hers, after all.
“Can you walk?” She looks at the gunshot wound in his leg, poking it with her finger to see if the bullet is present. It’s not, and the blood looks slightly congealed. Shot a while ago, missing any major areas, should be good with a bit of medical attention.
“It was a warning shot when I started discussing the finer points of women’s wear and how my lovely guards might enjoy getting in touch with their feminine sides,” he says, shrugging his good shoulder. “I foolishly assumed they were as confident in their masculinity as I am and might enjoy wearing panties or stockings for their lady friends sometimes. I mean, my girl happens to love seeing me in pretty panties and silk stockings occasionally, don’t you?”
“Your mouth is going to get you killed one of these days,” she warns him, frowning at him until he realizes she’s serious. “I don’t like Deaton, so I’d be very unhappy if I were forced to ask him to bring you back from the dead so that I could kill you again myself. So don’t die, and we’ll all be happy.”
“Got it. Don’t die.” Stiles nods even as he leans in to kiss her. “You better take your own advice, too.”
Allison grins at him, flashing her dimples before she slides off his lap and cuts the rope from around his ankles. “If we didn’t have a small window of time in which to escape, I’d suck you off right now,” she tells him casually, smirking when he groans.
“If my rib wasn’t broken and I didn’t have a gunshot wound in my leg, I’d totally say fuck the window and do it anyway,” he admits, leaning forward to grab her dangling ear bud. “Kira, how long do we have?”
“Not long enough for sex,” Kira mutters, and Allison’s lips quirk slightly because she could swear she hears a note of disappointment in Kira’s voice. Kira is their personal operative, and she’s always listening when they’re in the field. Thus, she’s been privy to the times when they do have the opportunity to indulge in their shared sex at risky moments kink. It’s adorable how often Kira blushes when seeing them now. Kira clears her throat. “Ten minutes, possibly less. The shot wasn’t loud enough to draw attention from the other guards, but I’d suggest moving fast.”
“You’re always welcome to listen when we have rough and hot reunion sex later, our cute little voyeur,” Stiles teases, winking at Allison as Kira sputters at them. He drops the bud before stand up, his smile faltering only slightly as he puts weight on his leg. “Okay. Fuck. This hurts.”
“Focus and internalize it,” she reminds him, eyeing him carefully. “It isn’t as bad as Kathmandu.”
He huffs a laugh. “Nothing is as bad as Kathmandu. But it is as bad as Marrakesh. Just sayin’.”
“Understood.” Allison knows that means they have less time than Kira believes because Stiles is in extreme pain. They’ve managed to get really good over the last nine years at blocking it out and ignoring it in order to achieve success at their missions, but they’ve developed their own scale to admit how bad it truly is without having to admit weakness to anyone else at their agency. They don’t trust anyone but themselves, though they’ve gradually begun trusting their team now that they’re actually working with one that’s all theirs.
“Let’s boogie,” Stiles says, reaching down to strip the weapons off the guy he shot. He checks the clip before locking and loading. “Ladies first.”
“Charmer,” she coos, kissing him lightly before entering the corridor. Now that he’s got her back, she’s relaxed and able to concentrate just a little bit better because she knows he’s alright. When they get out of this, she’ll take him to medical to get the wounds seen to. Maybe she’ll just ride him right there. Dr. Derek does seem to enjoy watching them, after all, and she and Stiles like that.