salute [h.s]

i love you, it's all i do

*

Summer, 2016

Piper's head was throbbing, so much so that all she wanted to do was close her eyes and scream very loudly to let out some of the pain reverberating around her head. However, the situation sort of precluded that reaction and forced Piper to keep her lips zipped shut and her eyes wide open, her attention focused firmly on the going ons in the room.

The head of the Denisov crime family was spouting out a speech in a guttural Russian dialect, most likely discussing all the ways he planned to torture her in a language she didn't understand. Four henchmen were scattered around the room, pointing guns at her that they were prepared to shoot if she so much as breathed wrong. It was sort of twisted but she was a little proud that Denisov thought she was enough of a threat that he had not one, but four men holding her at gunpoint. If she wasn't also bound at the wrists and hanging from the ceiling, high enough that her stretched toes were a couple inches off the floor, she'd count it as a victory. As it was, she had to admit that the guns weren't making her feel any better about the outcome of this situation.

The odds weren't in her favour but she'd been in enough of these situations — what the SIS referred to as hopeless situations and what Harry liked to call inconveniences — that she knew that something would work in her favour. Louis would get her transmitter working so they could track her and Harry could come and get her. Or one of these men would slip and she'd find an advantage somewhere that she could use to free herself. Or all of them would just drop dead all at the same time and save her the trouble of having to fight them when she already had a splitting headache and what she highly suspected was a broken nose (courtesy of Henchman 1, who would be getting a good smack from her if she ever got her hands free).

And if none of that happened, well, she'd handle that then.

Until then, she was waiting idly, her careful gaze sweeping over the room looking for exits in case she did manage to get free. Denisov was shouting now and when she dragged her eyes over to him lazily, she found him standing much closer than he'd been before. He was yelling at her aggressively, spit flying from his mouth as he barked out words she couldn't understand. She assumed he was asking her about her mission, or maybe for the whereabouts of the military plans she'd just helped Harry steal. Whatever it was, she had no way of knowing so when Denisov paused to wait for her answer, she simply shrugged.

It earned her a hard smack across the face, Denisov's rings cutting into the already bruised skin of her cheek. She let out a harsh gasp as her head was jerked to the side, her nose throbbing under the pressure and making black dots pop up in her vision. "Motherfu—"

"Language, petal," a charming voice said in her ear, just loud enough for her to hear over the practically violent shouting that was being directed straight at her by the stout Russian violating her personal space. Despite his teeth snapping right in her face, his rank breath hot against her face, Piper found herself smiling, her eyes dropping to the ground.

Two words from Harry and she could feel her breathing evening out, her heart slowing down to a more reasonable pace in her chest, that tight knot in her stomach beginning to unravel. They'd been working together, agent and analyst, for over a year now and in that time Piper had learned one thing about the two of them — as long as they were together, they could face anything and beat any foe. The warehouse she was being kept in was outfitted with dozens of scramblers so she'd lost contact with Harry and Louis, who had been left behind at the hotel where their mission had begun while Piper found herself being knocked out and whisked away. But now Harry was back in her ear and everything seemed a little less dire knowing he was on his way to her.

"You're one to talk," she muttered, snorting a laugh. Only last week, C had walked into her office in O branch while Harry had been swearing up a storm on the transmission because he'd accidentally stepped on a sea urchin while he was trying to be sexy and chat up a potential informant in St. Kitts. Piper liked to think it was karma — the only person he should've been chatting up was the poor girl sitting in her frigid cold office with its broken central heating, sipping ice cold tea while her boyfriend was tanning in the sun without her.