#it was so difficult getting back into Team SA37 mode for this

[hardygalwrites]

Day 12 Prompt: Rebellion

Prompt by @whumpmasinjuly (click here for the complete 2022​ itinerary)

Part of the “Team SA37 series”

← Prompt: Falling – Prompt: Numb →

Feat. me being a day late SA37 trying to punch a client in the face on behalf of his team and nearly getting his shoulder dislocated for his trouble

(image source)

rebellion, noun: the action or process of resisting authority, control, or convention

—

“I’m sorry about your team…”

SA37 could barely hear the words over the whirring of the helicopter blades and the rush of his own thoughts. He didn’t bother saying anything back or even looking at the people sitting in the helicopter with him. He kept his head down, eyes closed, steepled fingers pressed against his forehead, and simply nodded.

The urge to get up and shout at the pilot again was strong. At the very least, it might ease the tight pressure in his chest and loosen his tightly clenched jaw.

SA37 shifted his steepled fingers until they were intertwined with each other, knuckles going white.

No, that would be pointless. The pilot was just a lackey after all, following the orders his boss had given him. It was the boss, the client, that SA37 needed to save all the rage and distress in his chest for.

He took a deep breath and sat back in his seat, dropping his hands onto his lap. His eyes drifted over to where the client’s daughter sat with her spouse and child. Though he was at least glad the child hadn’t gotten hurt, the sight brought him little comfort.

The helicopter finally landed a little under an hour later in an isolated area outside the city. The family was quick to exit the helicopter and rush to where one Mr. Donovan stood waiting with a pair of cars and a handful of his most trusted bodyguards. SA37 slowly followed suit, his steps slow and measured as he watched Donovan greet his daughter and her family with warm smiles and embraces.

“Thank god you’re safe,” Donovan said, planting a kiss on his grandchild’s forehead, before drawing back and sweeping a hand towards one of the cars. “Quickly. Grace will drive you somewhere safe. I will meet you there momentarily.”

One of the bodyguards began to usher the family towards the car. The daughter hesitated, glancing back and meeting SA37’s eyes as he approached.

The daughter turned back towards Donovan. “Dad…”

“It’s all right,” Donovan reassured, patting her on the shoulder. “I’ll be right behind you.”

With some pulling and coaxing from her family, Donavan’s daughter reluctantly got into the car. She gave SA37 one last worried glance before she disappeared behind tinted glass. SA37 couldn’t blame her. He wasn’t sure that he wasn’t about to do something incredibly stupid.

He was sure he didn’t give a damn.

As the car containing the family drove off, Donavan turned to SA37 with an infuriatingly amiable nod, “I must thank you, Agent SA37.”

The agent in question grit his teeth, his stride picking up speed. “You son of a bitch…”

SA37 aimed his sights directly at Donavan - prepared to grab him, prepared to punch him, he hadn’t decided - only for two of Donavan’s bodyguards to plant their hands on his chest, shoving him back.

Donavan sighed, seemingly nonplussed by SA37’s rising aggression. “I see your team didn’t make it. That’s a shame.”

SA37 lunged forward again. The bodyguards seized his arms, holding him back with vice and bruising grips, but SA37 kept his glare fixed on Donavan.

“You ordered the pilot to ditch us,” SA37 snapped, jerking against the bodyguards.

“No, no, no.” Donavan shook his head. “I simply ordered the pilot to ensure my family’s safety by any means necessary, even if it meant leaving one of your people behind.”

“If he had just waited another minute–!”

“Then the life of a child would have been put at even more risk than it already was,” Donavan cut in dismissively. “Again, it is a shame that your team does not seem to have made it. They are as deserving of my thanks as you are.”

SA37 wrenched one of his arms free and lunged it at Donavan. A swift punch across the face and the subsequent twisting of his other arm had SA37 falling to his knees, a groan of pain escaping through clenched teeth.

“I do understand you’re upset.”

Donavan’s tone belied his sympathetic words. SA37 looked up from where he knelt on the tarmac, snarling at the impassive man standing over him.

“You made me abandon them!”

“I understand,” Donavan said in a tone similar to that of a parent talking down to an unruly child. “I will give Double Eye financial compensation for the loss of your agents, on top of the actual payment for your work, of course.”

“‘Financial compensation’?” SA37 hissed. “Do you–?!”

He jerked against the grip on his arm, only for his arm to be twisted further, forcing a cry of pain out of him. Despite that, SA37 kept his eyes on Donavan, breathing harshly through his teeth.

“Do you seriously think my team is only worth a bit of ‘financial compensation’?!” he spat. “God– Shit!”

SA37 bent forward until his hair brushed against the tarmac, attempting to ease the pressure on his shoulder.

“I am trying to be gracious, given your loss, Agent SA37,” Donavan said, “but if you insist on continuing to lash out like this, then I’ll be forced to put in a complaint to your superiors.”

“Do you think I care?!” SA37 retorted, voice tight but no less venomous when aimed at the shoes of his client. “You already made me abandon my team! What’s one aggravated client on top of that?!”

Donavan sighed again. “Look, I understand–“

“You don’t! Goddammit, you should but you don’t!”

It was starting to snow. SA37 could feel the flakes falling onto the back of his neck, see them decorating the tarmac with specks of white. The condensation of his breath was becoming more noticeable, though that could have easily been due to his pained, quickened panting. SA37 took a deep breath and let it out in a long puff of condensation.

“You went to all these lengths to get your daughter and her family back,” SA37 intoned, staring hard at the client’s well-polished shoes. “Hired a Double Eye team, threw them under the bus, all for your family. Why?”

“This is pointless, agent–”

“I don’t have people I would do that for. No family, no kids, no significant others. Just my team. Agent Tigress, Agent 707, espec– …even Agent Jam. I would do… anything for them…”

There was a stretch of silence, in which all SA37 could hear was a rising wind and his own breathing.

“Just what are you expecting me to do, Agent SA37?” Donavan finally asked, his voice calculatingly blank.

“You’re the one who made me leave them behind,” SA37 said grimly. “Help me get them back.”

“You are assuming they are even alive, agent.”

“They have to be. None of them are the type to just wait around to die. There’s a whole forest they could have escaped into, hell, they could have hijacked Moss’s chopper–” SA37 cut himself off, his desperation becoming more overt than he cared to let this bastard, of all people, to see. “For your sake, Mr. Donavan, you had better hope they are alive.”

SA37 craned his head up to meet Donavan’s eyes with a blank stare.

The client met his stare with that same cool, impassive gaze. “I don’t respond well to threats, Agent SA37.”

Donavan waved a hand at the bodyguard holding SA37 down. The bodyguard pulled back, and SA37 nearly face planted onto the pavement as his arm was released.

“A snowstorm will be sweeping through the area tonight,” Donavan said, turning his back on SA37. “Starting at seven AM tomorrow, I will lend you my resources to search for your team in the forest for exactly twenty-four hours.”

“That’s all I need.” SA37 slowly got to his feet, rotating his shoulder.

“Do understand that I will be taking the expense out of your payment,” Donavan added, glancing back.

“Understood.” SA37 swung his fist into Donavan’s face.

The instant his fist met Donavan’s jaw, SA37 found himself being slammed back onto the ground, face scraping against the tarmac, the familiar click of a safety being disengaged above his head.

“No, no, I’m fine…!” Donavan insisted, though his voice was slightly muffled. “Let him up…!”

“But Mr. Donavan,” one of the bodyguards, the one shoving SA37’s face into the ground, started to protest.

“I said let him up.”

Slowly, the pressure on SA37’s head and back pulled away. SA37 got back to his feet, managing to remain cool despite his throbbing skull and stinging face, and looked at Donavan.

The client gave him an amiable nod, his own face marred by a quickly developing bruise. “God knows I would have done a lot worse.”

SA37 nodded back. “Glad we understand each other.”