Title: Dodge
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: Teen?
Length: 800ish words
Content notes: Injury, mostly off-screen violence.
Author notes: Zazu/Ascot - set in my spies!au which I should probably be calling a man from uncle/leverage fusion!verse at this point, heh.
Summary: This job has not gone to plan.


oOo

“Oh.” Ascot stared at his side, the long tear in his shirt, the crimson starting to come through. The pain was so sharp and sudden it didn’t make sense.

“Shit – shit, Ascot! Come on!” Zazu was in front of him, wide-eyed, grabbing his arm and dragging him onward. Away from the guns, and the fighting, and everything they’d stumbled into with this job – they never should have taken it, never –

Ascot took a breath, and the burning pain in his side flared up, and-

Another gunshot behind them, and he hoped Zazu knew where they were going, because he hadn’t got a clue himself – but there was an alley, and then a path around another disused warehouse, a scrubby bit of land – there were sirens behind them now, somewhere beyond his own heartbeat thundering in his ears, and then they were out to a dubious-looking street.

The meeting-turned-disaster had started at sunset. It was dark now, and there weren’t many lights here. Zazu handed him a tool ring, which had a torch on it, and Ascot held the light as steady as he could on… whatever it was Zazu was doing to the small, beaten-up motorbike down the side of one abandoned-looking pawn shop.

Whatever Zazu had done, by the time he got on the thing it was thumping to life, and he pulled Ascot up onto the pillon seat on the back. It wasn’t big – just a little runaround thing, and the seat was almost more a suggestion than reality.

“I know it’s got handles back there for you to grab onto,” Zazu said, over the sound of the engine. “Normally I’d be telling you to – all those stupid movies with people holding the person in front of them are just irritating, that’s not how it should work – but you’re so much taller than I am, if you rest on me, at least your weight shouldn’t be going in the other direction to me round corners…”

“I’ll get your clothes dirty,” Ascot murmured, looking down at his side. The stain didn’t seem to be getting much bigger, at least – it couldn’t be a bad wound. Not a really bad one. Just… distractingly painful.

“Ascot.” Zazu wrapped an arm about his shoulders, pulling him close, leaning his head against Ascot’s chest for a moment. “I cannot tell you how much I do not fucking care about you getting me dirty.” He paused, then snorted. “Including after we get you somewhere safe and cleaned up and get you some painkillers, too, if you wanted a diversion to take your mind off getting fucking shot, but especially right now I just want us to get on this bike and get out of here, okay?”

“Yeah.” Ascot nodded, leaning into that touch a moment, sighing. “Yeah, okay.”

“And then maybe leaving the continent. How do you feel about going somewhere far, far away? Like, five thousand miles? More? I’m thinking that might be nice.” Zazu pulled away enough to get on the bike, and tugged Ascot over to clamber on behind him.

“Yeah, okay.” Ascot wrapped his arms about Zazu, tight as he could, leaning in against him. “…It’ll make it hard to meet up with Caldina, though. She said she’d be back in two months.”

“I fully believe Caldina knows the value of getting the fuck out of dodge,” Zazu said, and he probably couldn’t feel Ascot nod against the back of his head, but he wouldn’t have heard him, either, as they pulled out onto the road.

They couldn’t go far on the motorbike. Not without helmets, not without being stopped. But it got them a lot further than they could get on foot; to a better neighbourhood, where Zazu broke into a car, and that one got them another few miles – a trail of stolen vehicles which would only lead back to an empty safehouse that they left almost as soon as they reached it.

The only pause they made was for Zazu to clean and bandage Ascot’s side up, digging through their bags for clothes which didn’t have any bloodstains, then bundled him into the van they’d been using the past month. “Get some sleep,” he said, hands shaking slightly as he patted Ascot’s arm.

Adrenaline crashing, painkillers starting to kick in, Ascot was beginning to feel very flat. Still. “No diversions tonight, then?” he managed, amused at Zazu’s double-take.

Zazu snorted, grinning at him briefly. “I’d rather get us across at least one border first, if it’s all the same to you.”

“Guess that’s fair.” Ascot yawned, leaning his head against the cool of the window. The sky was beginning to lighten, a touch of gold and pink on the horizon, and he could hear one determined crow starting up the local version of the dawn chorus. “I don’t like guns.”

“I’m a tech guy. I shouldn’t even see guns, even if a job goes wrong!” Zazu muttered, sounding indignant. “Maybe we should find a new industry.”

“Maybe.” The world started to roll past outside as Zazu got the van out onto the road, and Ascot let his eyes drift shut. Maybe it was time to look for a better way of doing things.