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Angus is not afraid.
Well, maybe he is, but not very. He is just a little boy, to be fair, and sometimes, being cornered by crooks who look rather like they want to menace him could be just a tiny bit frightening. And, to continue being fair, this might have been his own fault for trying to bust their crime ring—which he had been hired to do—and not quite managing to get out unseen.
It was supposed to be relatively simple: the boss was out of country, and his second in command was just a little too lax on security, so it had been no big feat for Angus to sneak in and find the appropriate files the police needed to legally incriminate the whole gang—documents and photographs proving their involvement in illegal drug distribution and dozens of murders over the past five years. The issue had arisen when Angus had found himself trapped in a storage cabinet set into the wall, while the boss-for-now held a conference right outside in his office with at least a dozen henchmen. Angus had waited, uncomfortable and panicked, for hours, until it sounded like everyone had left, and he had opened the door to get out to find the man in charge talking to one of his lackeys, and Angus had bolted. It was sheer luck he got out of the building at all.
A force of their security had chased him, and although he had managed to shake most of them, he hadn’t quite managed to get away, and now he’s trapped in an alley with three men on his right and two on his left, and he is quite alone.
And so, Angus mentally narrates, that brings us to our current predicament, where our protagonist is, in fact, trying to stall for as long as possible.
The alley he’s in isn’t especially large, but it is grungy and dark, and the buildings on either side are mostly abandoned apartments. This isn’t the part of town where, when someone hears screams from outside their apartment, they check on it.
The men surrounding him are each at least three times as big as he is, and while he isn’t literally in a corner right now, this small alley isn’t exactly a step up. He’d been running from them for half an hour and he still couldn’t manage to lose them, so either there’s some kind of tracker somewhere on him or they’re just very good at keeping their targets in their sight. Obviously, neither of these situations is particularly great for Angus, and at this point it doesn’t really matter. He tried to slip away in the crowd and it didn’t work, so he is a bit stuck for the moment.
But.
But he told Kravitz, this morning, that he should be out for the day but he ought to be back well before dinner. It took longer than expected to infiltrate the crooks’ base, and now, well. As near as Angus can figure, it’s more than half an hour after the usual dinner time at Taako’s, so even if Kravitz hadn’t passed the message along to Taako (which he always, always does), Taako himself would be getting concerned and hiding it under a façade of “what, he thinks he can get out of dinner? Nuh uh, not happening here time to get that little boychick”. It’s happened before, when Angus has gotten caught up in his books only to find Taako gently pushing the book down, eyebrow raised, intending to bring him down.
He also knows that Kravitz, in particular, worries, because “Angus, you’re very, very young and your job is dangerous and I of course would never try to stop you I just…would like you to try to keep me in the loop, so if you ever need help you’re not alone.” And Angus had agreed, and let Kravitz know when he’d be out, and so Angus knows with complete certainty that this late to dinner? Those two are one hundred percent looking for him, and probably ready to throw down.
So he just needs to stall, really, until they find him, because while he might be able to deal with one or two of these particular…gentlemen, he can’t handle all five at once. He is, after all, very small. Still, his family is coming, and so he knows soon enough everything is going to be fine. They just have to get here before the crooks get tired of word games, and preferably in the next few minutes or so because it’s getting a little more worrying, now that he can’t run any more. His back is literally against the wall, and there is nothing left for him to do other than wait.
One of the men on his right (shaved head, yellowed and cracked teeth, about the size of Magnus but reeking of smoke and rotted food) steps forward and, before Angus can react, has him shoved up against the wall, with an arm across his chest and a knife to his throat. This is, obviously, not ideal. Rising panic threatens to swallow him—because for the first time, it might just be that whoever is coming from him will come too late (he doesn’t doubt that someone is coming, just their timing)—and for a moment, Angus McDonald is truly afraid.
It is here that the individual pinning Angus to the wall makes a critical mistake.
He hoists Angus further up the wall, until he can’t quite reach the ground, digging an elbow into Angus’s chest, until he can’t quite breathe—and the man tosses his head back and laughs.
He laughs and laughs, until he flinches, jerking against Angus’s neck with the knife and crushing his chest even further for just a moment, and then goes limp and crashes to the ground, Angus sliding down after him, frantically gulping air, although this time without the hyperventilation of literal moments ago.
Angus isn’t hyperventilating because Angus isn’t worried anymore, because the four other men have all lifted their attention up to the roof across from Angus, where a single figure stands and jumps down to the ground, and he can’t exactly see the face from this angle but he knows that hat and that figure in the deepest part of his being and he knows everything is going to be fine, now, because Taako’s here and judging from the smoking back of the man who had Angus pinned? He’s really fucking pissed.
His head is spinning from the sudden adrenaline crash, and he shakily lifts a hand to his neck. It was just nicked, a little bit, but frankly he’s tired and Taako can take care of the others he just. He needs to just. Sit. For a bit. (When he decided he wasn’t hyperventilating, that may have been a little bit not true.) And so he stays that way, pointedly ignoring as Taako (and Kravitz, who had been lurking in shadows while Taako attracted attention so he could get the drop on them) handle the men who had until just moments ago been determined to, uh, “clean up the evidence”.
Today has been very stressful, and two of his pseudo-parents are here now, so Angus just…lets himself breathe, and when Taako crouches down in front of him, he doesn’t feel particularly bad for throwing himself into his arms and clinging.
He knew they were coming, but it got a little tight there at the end, and he’s just…he’s glad they came. And as Taako slowly puts his own arms around Angus, holding him until Kravitz makes his way over to them and lifts Angus up to carry him home, they don’t really need to say anything for Angus to know they’re glad they made it in time, too. Taako let him hug him and hugged him back, after all, and Kravitz is literally carrying him, even though he is capable of walking. They were worried, and that means…a lot, frankly.
Just because they don’t really need to say anything doesn’t mean they don’t, of course. Taako’s been muttering this whole time, and Kravitz has soothing platitudes galore, but Angus is a little too scattered to focus on the exact words right now and just listens to the familiar voices of the people he loves, letting their poorly-disguised worry wash over him as he closes his eyes and presses into Kravitz’s chest.
And as Kravitz brings them home, Angus feels safe.