Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first and only time he’d deliberately put a pack together, it hadn’t ended well. Conrad Stonebanks had taken most the crew and started an arms selling business that the CIA had ultimately decided was too dangerous to be left alone. They had ordered the Expendables to take the operation out and eliminate everyone involved. Barney’d tried to argue, but the guy they’d been working with was much less warm and fuzzy than Church and a lot less understanding than Drummer. He’d snapped that either the Expendables could do it or they’d hire someone else.

In the end, he’d taken the job.

It had ripped into his heart to take down people who the part of him that was wolf insisted were pack, and he’d done his best to give them painless deaths. From most of them, he’d seen nothing but calm acceptance in their faces. In the pack, Barney’s word had been law, and he’d warned them not to go this route. They’d understood the consequences when they’d jumped into this endeavor and they accepted their consequences without hesitation.

Stonebanks had been different. Conrad and Barney had been the kind of friends that were always willing to take a bullet for the other guy. To kill him had been tantamount to ripping out a part of Barney’s soul but he’d done it anyway. Stonebanks had died spitting vitriol at him, fury marring his face.

The original team had drifted apart after that. Most had died, their hearts just not in the battle anymore. Doc got arrested and thrown in a Black Ops prison. Bonaparte wandered off in his own direction, becoming a lone wolf. Another couple simply faded away, the shattered remains of the pack bond eating at them until they could barely function. One, a man called Hallmark for his cheesy, optimistic sayings, shot himself through the head.

Tool was the only one who stuck around. He retired, started a bar and a tattoo business, and kept Barney relatively sane. He’d also smirked when Barney had started a new team, insisting that this time it would be just a team. Tool had known exactly what would happen, that Barney would get attached, and he’d been right.

It had started with Hale Caesar and Toll Road. The pair of wolves were best friends, brothers in arms, and they’d felt open through his pack sense from the moment he’d met them. It had made Barney nervous, and a little sharp, around them but he’d needed the help. And part of him had yearned for the company. Wolves were social creatures by nature and Barney was used to having a pack around him. Now the only pack he had was Tool, Doc too far away and buried under too many defenses to be felt.

Gunnar Jensen had been next. The massive Swede had already had problems with booze and drugs when Barney met him, but he had a good eye and he didn’t feel as wide open as Caesar and Toll, who were already slipping through the cracks in Barney’s defenses. Gunnar was loud, brash, and tended to ignore authority figures, which made working with him tough, but he was an effective mercenary and Barney needed the muscle so he’d kept Gunnar around.

Yin Yang had been next. The Asian mercenary slipped in and out of Barney’s life periodically, stepping in to lend a hand and then vanishing again like smoke. He didn’t officially join up, possibly because of Gunnar’s tendency to annoy him, but when he did agree to work he was good. Smaller than the rest, he could vanish practically into thin air and then reappear behind the enemy to take them out.

The last recruit was the one who changed everything. Barney Ross met Lee Christmas in a bar in the north of France, looking into the bottom of a bottle. Bonaparte had sent him in Lee’s direction, insisting that he’d been the best knifeman in the SAS. He hadn’t looked like much, up until a rowdy drunk bothering a harried looking waitress had startled at a knife flying just by his face. The man had taken one look at the former soldier’s dark face and thought better of protesting.

Recruiting Lee had been difficult. The Brit hadn’t exactly been looking for a team to work with, or the straggling beginnings of a pack. He’d been sharp tongued, antagonistic, and when he’d finally deigned to work with them, downright antisocial. Getting a read on the younger wolf had been practically impossible and Barney had been ready to call it quits when a particularly exhausting mission had stripped Lee’s defenses away. What had been underneath had been something raw and painful. Something that Barney recognized all too well.

He’d done some digging, called in some favors with the CIA, and found out the truth. Lee Christmas had been part of an incredibly effective SAS pack. There’d been a couple humans scattered in, but from all accounts they’d been pack, and that was all that mattered to a wolf. Then one of the humans had turned and betrayed them. Lee, along with his team, had been captured and tortured. His team had died, and Lee had barely escaped, killing the traitor. The SAS had honorably discharged him and he’d fled to France, hoping to escape the nightmare he’d lived. Lee had been trying to protect himself by not letting anyone else in. It was ironic then, that Lee was the one who’d pulled the pack together.

Somehow Tool had gotten the Brit to open up and, in turn, shared some of his shared history with Barney. Lee had, warily, begun lowering his defenses, and Toll and Caesar had jumped at the chance to know their teammate better. Gunnar, who’d already developed a grudging admiration for the Brit, had followed along with a shrug, and when Yin had showed up for another mission he’d been intrigued. Barney hadn’t noticed what had happened, hadn’t noticed that he’d gotten attached, until the bonds were already mostly formed and by then it had been too late to break them without injuring everyone involved in some way, so he held on.

Pushing them team out, in light of Conrad Stonebanks, had been the second hardest thing he’d ever done. He’d known what Stonebanks was doing, shooting Caesar to hurt Barney, and he hadn’t wanted to see the others get hurt. He’d locked them out, even Lee who’d looked like he’d just lost everything again, and walked away.

A call to Bonaparte had started building a new team, with a new promise not to get attached, and Tool hadn’t been around to snort at his resolve. The tattoo artist had been far too angry to talk to Barney and had actually locked his packmate out of the bar. Instead there had just been Bonaparte’s shrug.

He hadn’t meant to get attached to the kids either, but somewhere around the time he, the old team, and Galgo had rescued them, they’d reached out feelers and he’d let them in. After everything they’d been through under his command, working for someone that didn’t even care for them, they deserved it. They’d latched on, Smilee the last one to hold on to the offered bond, and settled in. Galgo had too, despite his annoying habit of talking constantly, and suddenly Barney had found himself with a large pack again. One he hadn’t set out to build, but that had created itself none the less. Now all he had to do was go apologize to Tool.

Chapter Text

They’d died. He’d felt every single one of them flicker and then die out, like candles in the wind, leaving a gaping hole behind. He’d been sure he was next, but then the Navy Seal team sent to retrieve them had arrived. He’d felt nothing but hollow rage and loss after that.

The Marines had honorably discharged him, despite all the complaints about his inability to take orders without hearing the reason behind them, and he’d fled. He’d ended up in Juarez, Mexico fighting in a gladiator like games where money went to the winner. He’d drank most his money away, trying to bury the pain under a thick layer of booze, and snapped shields in place despite the people around him mostly being human.

He’d promised himself that he wouldn’t become part of a pack. Not again. Then Barney fucking Ross had shown up.

Smilee wasn’t sure whether or not he should hate the guy. He’d been given a job and, in the end he’d hesitantly given in to slipping into a pack, but there was a near constant worry of them dying. As it turned out, his worries hadn’t been unfounded.

He’d been furious when he’d first been grabbed, wolf close to the surface as he demanded to know what had happened to the rest of the team. The man had looked at him, pity in his eyes, and he’d known then, before the words had even come out of his mouth. “They’re dead you sorry, sad little bastard. Gone. All of them.”

Now? Now he was numb. His mind was empty and the spot in his chest where he normally felt the connections was hollow. Again.

It hurt less than the first time, maybe because he hadn’t known what to expect then. Instead of burning pain and overwhelming emptiness, he just felt numb. Like the bonds had been simply a pile of sand whisked away by the wind overnight. His stomach churned at the sickening thought and he hunched over in a shadowed back corner of his cell, arms wrapped around his stomach and head resting on his knees. His breathing sent puffs of white up towards the ceiling as his traitorous heart beat steadily on, allowing him to live when everyone else had died once more.

This time he was done. He wasn’t going to survive this. Even if his captors didn’t kill him, he’d find a way to end it himself. He wasn’t going to drag on in his miserable existence and risk this happening a third time. He couldn’t let the curse continue. A little, hysterical laugh bubbled out of his mouth as Smilee realized he was the curse. His very existence led to the deaths of everyone around him. Maybe, if he was fortunate, it would end the lives of the bastards that let him live before he managed to end himself. He grinned hollowly in the shadows and curled in tighter, shivering from silent pain as he waited for the right moment.

Only the third mission with the kids on board and it had gone south. Way south. The kind of south that ended up in there being about five hundred well trained men batting for the other team instead of just a hundred and fifty. This particular cartel leader, some guy with a small operation in Juarez and a bigger one in the US whose name had made Smilee grimace and roll his eyes, had a small army at his beck and call that was proving harder to dispatch than any of them had expected. They’d ended up spread further apart than they would have liked and somewhere in that time period, someone had grabbed Smilee.

They’d cleared out the majority of the bad guys, so while Thorn was trying to figure out if their guy had a grudge against their teammate and Lee dealt with the few guys they had left alive, Barney and the others were spread out and searching for their missing packmate. Wherever they’d dragged him was out of reach of the bond, probably in some area where Ash bark or leaves had been included in the building materials. The Ash tree wasn’t particularly harmful to wolves but mixed with a small amount of Monkshood, more commonly known as wolfsbane, in building materials it could block bonds between pack members.

Barney headed down, deeper into the complex, with Doc at his heels. Toll, Caesar, Galgo, and the rest the kids were scanning the surrounding buildings and grounds for any sign of Smilee, but Barney suspected they hadn’t taken the kid far. The basement of the main building complex was distinctly cooler than upstairs, and Barney felt the bonds go silent. The radio at his hip crackled and Lee’s voice demanded, “You okay down there Zero?”

“I’m good,” he replied, eyes shifting to better scan the surrounding darkness. “Whoever built the downstairs had it designed special though.” Lee’s soft swearing echoed through the radio but Barney ignored it, leading the way deeper into the tunnels with Doc covering his back.

The air quickly grew cooler and when they reached a fork in the road, vents in the ceiling were blowing chilly wind down on them. They split after a silent conversation, Barney going left and Doc right. This particular tunnel sloped further down, the air turning frigid and sinking cold teeth into bare skin. The difference between the temperature here and the warm air outside was a sock. Barney just hoped the cold didn’t slow down his reflexes too much.

The tunnel reached a dead end with a series of shadowy cells barely lit by flickering lanterns hanging outside each door. The doors were made of what looked like Ash, probably because of a mistaken idea that the Ash tree was poisonous to werewolves. That bit was nothing more than foolish superstition. There was some truth to most myths, but often times there was enough wrong that a werewolf could use a hunter’s ignorance to their advantage.

Barney was peering carefully through the tiny barred window in each door, straining his eyes to see into the darkness, when Lee’s voice crackled through the radio, saying his name. “Yeah?” he questioned.

“It was personal,” Lee said, voice dark. “These guys grabbing Smilee wasn’t an accident. They wanted to break him and then kill him.” A pause and then his beta added, “They told him we were dead. All of us.”

Barney felt silent fury blaze under his skin at that. Galgo and Lee were probably the best ones to truly comprehend what John Smilee had gone through when his entire pack had been killed, but Barney, Tool, and Doc had a pretty good grasp on how that felt. The resulting agony had made the kid wary to open up to a bond, and he’d been the last one to truly settle into the pack. To tell him that the Expendables were all dead would destroy him.

“Which one of you went left downstairs?” Thorn’s voice suddenly snapped, whipping across the channel like one of Lee’s well thrown knives. The kids got along incredibly well, possibly because Stonebanks had kidnapped and held them for hours in a small room, but regardless of the reason they got along well and Smilee was their unofficial ringleader. Now someone had gone after him, had deliberately tried to destroy him, and Barney had no doubt that they were pissed.

“Me,” Barney replied, keeping his voice steady. The last thing the kids needed to know was how angry he was about the whole situation. It would just set them off.

“You found the cell block?”

“Yeah, I found it.”

“It’s relatively new,” Thorn said, voice still razor sharp, and Barney felt a low growl build up in his chest. The bastard had been planning this for a while then. He was going to have serious words with Drummer about the CIA possibly withholding important information when this was all over. “Best as I can tell, it was built in the last four months. Probably because of what happened today.” The sentence ended up a frustrated almost snarl which was followed by a short growl.

“Put a lid on it kid,” Lee’s voice said, filtering faintly over the airwaves. “Tell him the rest.”

“As far as I can tell, he’s in the last cell on the right. The rest should be empty right now.”

“Got it,” Barney said and headed down the cell block, ignoring the other doors in favor of the one Thorn had mentioned. He stepped up to the barred window, making some deliberate noise in the hope of catching the attention of anyone inside. His first thought when he finally caught sight of the figure inside was that Smilee was already dead. The he saw the white puff of breath rising to the ceiling and breathed out softly, forcing himself to calm down. The kid might not be able to feel the bond at the moment but he’d be able to tell if Barney was too riled up by body language alone. The kid had proven several times over that he was surprisingly good at reading and interpreting a person’s body language, possibly from several years working with a team and reading their every move in silence to avoid being shot.

The door creaked slightly when it was shoved open but Smilee stayed perfectly still, muscles not even tensing. Barney took a cautious step forward, then another, and that was all it took for the kid to explode into motion. He took a knee to the hip, twisting to avoid it slamming into his stomach instead, and ducked under a punch, forcing himself not to strike back. This wasn’t a challenge to the pack hierarchy. It was pure, suicidal panic.

He tackled the kid, teeth sharpening in his mouth, and pinned him down, pressing deadly canines at the nape of the kid’s neck in warning. Smilee stopped fighting but his whole body was shivering. Barney doubted it was just because of the chill. His suspicion was confirmed when he heard what the kid was mumbling under his breath.

“Not real, not real, not real.”

He grabbed Smilee’s hand, wrapping it around one wrist and pressing so that the kid could feel his heartbeat. “They lied,” he rumbled low in the kid’s ear. “We’re alive.” Smilee shuddered, a little strangled sound escaping him as he went limp and his grip tightened on Barney’s wrist. He mentally readjusted any plans he had for the next week or so because Smilee was either going to be staying with him or Lee to avoid having a panic attack because he was alone.

“Come on,” he coaxed as best he could, standing and pulling the kid up. Smilee went with it, still shuddering. Barney didn’t protest the hand still wrapped around wrist, instead guiding the kid out of the cell. The trip through the tunnel felt like it took longer this time as he guided a visibly shaken John Smilee through the few turns. Doc met them at the fork, a hint of relief crossing his features as he took in the sight of their missing teammate. The man stepped in behind Smilee and they finished the trek in silence, emerging into the warmer air above. The team was waiting for them Lee and a worried looking Thorn bracketing their three prisoners while they others had spread out, facing the entrance to the tunnels.

Luna let out a relieved sound when she caught sight of Smilee, trailing close behind Barney. A moment later she was scrambling across the empty space to wrap him in a tight hug, followed closely by Mars and Thorn. The kid dropped Barney’s wrist to wrap his arms carefully around Luna, resting his head against her shoulder and shuddering as the other two rested hands on his shoulders, stay close enough that he knew they were there.

Lee jerked his head towards the prisoners, a hand dropping towards one of his knives. Barney nodded. Most of the old team had moved, forming a protective barrier between the kids and the remaining bad guys. Barney slipped through one of the gaps to rest his hand against Smilee’s shoulder, trusting Lee to finish the rest of their problem off. “Grab your gear and head out,” he ordered, voice low under the soft hiss of the Brit’s knives. “We’re leaving in ten, and if you’re not in the plane you’re going to have to run for it.”

There were some laughs from the old crew while Thorn and Mars backed off a couple steps, allowing Luna to guide a still shaken Smilee towards the plane. There’d be further repercussions from this later, but for now Smilee’s emotions were stabilizing and his pack was whole. He could deal with everything else as it came.

Chapter Text

His shoulders ached and his heart was thrumming out a speedy beat. He was wondering if he should have ever left his home. Just a couple days ago, Thorn had been climbing cliffs and working on hacking the latest and greatest online databases. Now he was tied up in a row with three other people he barely knew, waiting to die.

“This is not how I’m going to die,” Luna said from somewhere towards the other end of the line and he heard the shuffle of footsteps and then startled swearing from John Smilee.

“You’re not going to get out of the ropes,” Mars spoke up from Thorn’s left. “They’re new, and you couldn’t reach the knots if you tried.”

“Then I’ll figure out something else.” Luna’s voice sounded determined but Thorn wasn’t hopeful. He wasn’t seeing a way out of this.

“What?” Mars asked, tone challenging. There was a moment of silence as Luna considered her options. The others waited for her to come up with a solution that Thorn had a feeling wasn’t coming.

“Fine,” she said at last. “I don’t have a plan.” “There isn't one.” Smilee’s voice was dark when he finally spoke up. “There never has been. We’re just extra pawns in a bigger game. Expendable.”

There was several long minutes of silence as they absorbed that bleak point of view. Thorn turned it over in his head and found that it was difficult to argue with that. They weren’t pack to Ross, nor were they anywhere close to family. Smilee was right. They were just pawns.

“I’m not gonna die with people I barely know,” he said at least. “So if we’re going to die here, we might as well get to know each other.”

“Well that’s one way to look at this,” Luna said with a snort and Mars turned his head slightly to give Thorn and worn out grin. “So what do you want to know?”

“Anyone got a pack that’s missing them?” he asked at last, even though he suspected he knew the answer. Wolves like them didn’t take a mission like this if they had a pack.

“Never bothered with it,” Luna said after a moment. “The people I trust to watch my back? They’re my family, but pack’s different.”

“Yeah. It involves wolves for one thing,” Mars teased, voice lighter than the occasion warranted. Thorn found himself snorting and he thought he heard a soft bark of laughter coming from Smilee’s direction.

“Men,” Luna muttered but she sounded almost amused.

“I don’t have one either,” Mars said. “Most my time in the army was around people.”

“I don’t have one either,” Thorn said, trying to shrug and instantly regretting it. “Just never took the time to find enough people like us around.”

In the silence that followed he turned his attention as best he could towards Smilee, Mars following suit. Their fourth companion was glaring down at the floor, as far as he could tell, ignoring them all. After what felt like an hour of silence his whole body jolted and he winced, turning to glare at Luna. “What was that for?”

“I thought you might have fallen asleep since you weren’t sharing,” she replied, voice sugar sweet and oh so dangerous. Thorn knew better than to stick around and argue with a voice like that.

Smilee apparently didn’t because he snapped, “Why does it matter? We’re all going to die in a few hours anyway.”

“Because I’d rather die with friends than with some jerk I don’t even know,” Luna snapped back, sounding positively poisonous.

There was a long, heavy silence after that and then, as if resigned to sharing whether he wanted to or not, Smilee said, “Dead.”

His tone was so flat and uninterested that it took them a moment to register what he’d said. “W-what?” Thorn found himself stuttering cautiously.

“They’re dead,” Smilee said, voice going bleak. “There was a mission gone wrong and they got knocked off one at a time. By the time the emergency evac team arrived I was the only one left.”

“I’m sorry,” Luna said softly, and Thorn saw the motion that meant she’d bumped her shoulder against Smilee’s.

“It was a while ago,” Smilee replied, as if the amount of time between the event and now made the agony in his voice less painful to hear.

There was a long silence and then Mars said, voice heavy with sudden realization, “You didn’t sign up intending to come out alive.”

“No.” Thorn couldn’t see the self-depreciating smirk on Smilee’s face but he just knew it was there. “I knew it was a lost cause when I signed up. Figured it was a good way to go out.”

“How were you the only one who caught on?” Luna demanded, voice sharp. “Not that you’re an idiot or anything, but they were pretty subtle about it.”

“I wasn’t as far buried in a bottle as they thought I was,” came the wry response.

“Gallows humor already?” Thorn cut in and got amused sounding snorts in response.

“Nah,” Smilee replied, tone overly sarcastic. “This is just my normal humor.”

“Well I can see why you didn’t want to share and be friends with us,” Luna said, tone positively dripping with sarcasm. “With your cute and charming personality, you must have so many that it’s hard to keep track of them.”

Smilee barked out a laugh that sounded like it hurt and Thorn leaned around Mars to see him slump as much as possible in their current predicament. “I’ve heard that before.”

“Well whoever she was, she was spot on.”

“Yeah,” came the low, painful tone. “She was.”

The soft sound of footsteps had them all falling silent and exchanging resigned glances. “Face our fate with dignity?” Mars suggested, a half smile on his face.

“Yeah,” Thorn agreed, managing a small smile in return. “I think we can manage that.” Then Barney Ross broke down the door and everything they’d thought they’d understood shifted on its axis.

Chapter Text

The bar was smoky, crowded, and not Tool’s because Barney had yet to get around to apologizing to him. It was also the same bar in which Barney had informed them that the ride was over. This time around was better. They’d come back triumphant, Caesar was recovering, and the kids were apparently sticking around. Barney had already mentioned that he was going to talk to Tool about getting them ink.

Right now, Toll and Caesar could see them all bunched together, John Smilee standing just a little on the outside, chatting and grinning. Luna had one arm wrapped around Mars’s shoulders and her other hand tight around Smilee’s bicep to pull him closer to the group. Thorn was on the other side of Mars grinning and tipping his beer towards them as he made some kind of wry comment. Toll had spent a little time with them earlier in the night and, from what he’d seen they’d fit in well.

It was just a matter of fitting them in. “What do you think?” he asked, relishing in the fact that his old friend no longer looked, or smelled, like he was an inch from death. The recovery was extraordinary, even for a wolf, and Caesar had been lucky that the bullets hadn’t been silver. The poisoning would have killed him long before anyone would have been able to help him.

“I think they’ll do,” came the humor filled response, Caesar’s eyes fixed on the rowdy crowd. Then he turned towards Toll and added, “I also think Barney needs to get on with apologizing because we need our bar back.”

Toll grinned and clinked his bottle against Caesar’s pop can. “If he doesn’t soon, Lee’ll throw him out the plane during the next mission,” he replied.

“Sure he will,” Caesar drawled, taking a drink. “And then we’ll be lookin’ for a new alpha because I’m pretty sure the kids aren’t ready to take over.” Toll nodded, smirking, and the pair settled into comfortable silence, simply watching the crowd around them.

Lee wasn’t sure what to think of the newcomers. It had stung that Barney’d replaced them with another, younger crew but once he’d crawled out of the bleak hole that being suddenly locked out with the others created, he’d recognized that suicidal look in Barney’s eyes. That was what had driven him to gather up the guys and head back to the hanger not once, but twice. Now, standing just inside the doorway watching Toll and Caesar argue cheerfully with a fully sober Gunnar while Barney rolled his eyes and avoided playing referee, Lee felt like everything was finally settling back into place. Then he decided he’d relaxed his guard too soon because Galgo was suddenly standing beside him chattering a mile a minute.

He’d missed the beginning of the Spaniard’s sentence and wasn’t too keen on hearing the rest of it, not that he was going to have much of a choice in the matter. Lee ignored the amused smirks sent in his direction and headed further into the hanger, trying to block out the assault to his ears that Galgo was proving to be. The Spaniard had been useful when they’d gone to rescue the kids and finish the mission but that didn’t mean Lee appreciated having his ear talked off. He knew it was probably a long ingrained habit to block out the silence left behind from dead packmates, but he still didn’t appreciate it.

Luna, Mars, and Thorn practically exploded into the room a moment later, chatting animatedly between themselves. Smilee was notable only because of his absence. He’d been friendly enough with the rest of the kids the night before but, as the minutes ticked by, there was no sign of him. Lee could feel Barney beginning to tense when the rumble of a motorcycle cut through the noise. The kids silenced immediately, turning expectantly towards the doorway. Lee turned as well, watching as John Smilee sauntered in, motorcycle helmet tucked under one arm. “What happened to your eye, man?” Thorn called as Lee zeroed in on the bruising surrounding the kid’s eye. “You get into a bar fight?”

“And when exactly was I supposed to have time to get into one?” came the immediate reply, complete with an eye roll.

“That doesn’t answer the question,” Luna pointed out, gaze sharp, and Lee stretched out his pack sense but Smilee was just barely connected and his emotions were strictly controlled.

The kid grinned at Luna’s observation and shook his head, dumping the helmet on a nearby table. “Rough neighborhood.” His voice was wry and amused, making Luna snort and shake her head.

“So you ran into a door,” she jabbed and Smilee let out a huff of soft laughter.

“Do you really think so little of me?” Smilee retorted, the hint of a grin curving his lips up. “Some guy was definitely drunk, probably a little high, and causing chaos in lobby of the hotel and he managed to get a good hit in.” Mars and Thorn did their best to muffle laughter but Luna didn’t bother.

“You make it through a fight with an entire army without more than a few scrapes but you can’t duck a punch?” she jeered. “That’s just sad.”

“She’s right,” Mars said, grinning and shaking his head. “That’s very sad.”

“It’s amazing what a little alcohol can do to your reflexes,” came Smilee’s wry response as he crossed the room to join the rest of the kids.

Tool slipped in the back halfway through target practice, keen eyes studying the newcomers. Smilee and Mars were hitting target after target, their military training aiding in accuracy, but Luna and Thorn, whose moves were more suited for close combat, were having a little more trouble. Still, they’d shape up with some practice. “Barney finally get around to apologizing?”

“Came in around two in the morning,” the tattooist drawled. “Decently sober too.” They both turned back to watch as Smilee and Mars lowered their weapons moments after one another and stepped back, allowing the others to finish. By Expendables standards, it’d been a decently relaxing afternoon.

Caesar was settled in a chair jeering at Toll, which was slowing the veteran Expendable down but, aside from Luna and Thorn, everyone else had finished up. Barney had gone out with his usual flare, nailing several in the chest, while Gunnar had gone for headshots. Glago had taken a few shots, fairly accurate ones at that, before shrugging and settling back against a wall, seeming content just to watch. The kids, however, had turned it into some sort of competition. Lee hadn’t heard the exact words tossed between them but the emotions that had sparked up over the bond had been easy enough to read.

Luna lowered her gun with a huff of exasperation, Smilee and Mars grinning behind her back. “Laugh it up boys,” she growled, catching their grins. “I can still kick both your asses.”

“And Thorn’s,” Mars said in a low, amused voice as they last of their crew lowered the gun with a groan. “Did you even hit the target?”

“Maybe,” came the hedged reply. “I’m not really sure.”

“How are you not dead?” Luna demanded incredulously, glancing at the clean target across the makeshift range and then back at her teammate.

“Spray and pray.” Smilee’s voice was full of unheard laughter as he jumped into the conversation and Thorn responded by flipping him off with a scowl.

“They’ll shape up.” Tool’s knowing voice drew Lee’s attention away from the kids.

“I hope so,” Lee replied, studying Tool’s face for any sign of what the man was thinking. “We can’t be rescuing them all the time.”

“You’re still angry.” The former Expendable turned to look Lee in the eyes, something like sympathy hidden there.

“Yeah,” Lee said, voice bitter. “He threw us out like yesterday’s garbage, went on a suicide mission with a bunch of kids that didn’t know what they were getting into, and expected us to be, I don’t know, happy about it.” The Brit pulled in a deep breath to calm himself, aware of Barney suddenly turning, attention caught by the turmoil flowing from his beta across the pack bond. “It’s gonna take me a while to get over that.”

“You’re mad at the kids too.” Tool turned back to look at them as they compared targets.

“Maybe.”

“No maybe about it.”

Lee huffed in irritation at the calm statement and turned his attention towards people in question, trying to figure out his emotions towards them. Tool was right, as usual. Part of him was angry at the kids for going along with Barney’s suicidal plan, even though he knew Barney was good at pretending he had a perfectly legitimate plan. Part of him hated them for taking the place of pack.

“You have to let go of that. It wasn’t their fault and it wasn’t yours.” With that, Tool stepped away from Lee, heading over to speak to Barney. Lee watched him go before turning back to the kids. He found Smilee watching him cautiously. There was something in the kid’s eyes that said he was waiting to get hurt by this, waiting for it to come back and bite him. Then Luna jostled him and he turned back towards the other kids, leaving Lee with a sudden realization. He recognized that look. He’d been wearing it the first time he’d opened up and taken a chance when this pack was just starting out. It meant he'd have to keep an eye on that kid.

Gunnar was not, by any means, credited as the most observant Expendable, and with good reason. Often enough he had been buried under enough drugs and alcohol to make even the strongest man with the highest tolerance disoriented. He didn’t particularly care. He used what skills he had to figure out what made people tick and, more importantly, what annoyed them. Once Gunnar managed to figure out what bothered a person, he was like a dog with a bone. Yin Yang knew that probably better than anyone else, despite the fact that he was no longer part of the pack. Not that any of them had been particularly surprised. He’d only barely been part of the pack to begin with.

When it came to working out how to annoy the newcomers, Gunnar didn’t waste any time. Galgo was pretty much impossible to crack, probably because he didn’t stop talking long enough for anyone to completely process, but the kids were a completely different story. They each had their own ticks and twitches and, best of all, if Gunnar poked the wrong buttons they exploded. Barney was smart enough to know what was going on, naturally, but it was amusing to watch the kids try to hold it in, still uncertain about their positions as pack members, before exploding in sheer frustration.

Luna had been the simplest to crack. She hated anyone even remotely insinuating that, since she was female, she couldn’t do what anyone else could. It didn’t exactly take her long to fly off the handle either. Once he’d figured out his angle, it had taken Gunnar an hour and ten minutes to have her swearing at him and throwing the nearest convenient object at his head.

Thorn’s weak spot was his tech. The Swede had discovered it by accident, when he spilled a mug of black coffee over a phone. The hacker had taken one look at the technology, turned and interesting shade of puce, sputtered a little, and then stormed out. Two hours later, Thorn discovered all his technology had mysteriously gone missing. The young man had made it an hour before he’d finally started yelling in pure frustration. Gunnar had settled back to watch the fireworks show, only slightly disappointed when Barney had come in and put a stop to it.

Mars had been harder. The trained soldier was more laid back about his belongings and his status than the others, but everyone had something that bothered them. Gunnar poked and prodded over the first three days after the Stonebanks incident until he finally found a hole in those laid back defenses. Mars had issues with people touching his weapons. It was an understandable quirk, considering that in the military having a well maintained and working weapon was the difference between life or death, but that didn’t mean Gunnar wasn’t going to exploit it.

He’d started subtly, shifting every single gun just a little bit to the left. When that had failed to get much of a reaction, he’d stepped up his game by moving the guns to various parts of the room. Mars had meticulously put the guns back in the proper places, thoroughly checking each one, but hadn’t said a word. Then, when Gunnar came in the next morning, most of his gear had mysteriously gone missing. The Swede had spent an hour and a half search for, and grumbling over, the missing items after Barney informed him with a smirk that he was on his own. Then he’d decided there were easier people to bother than Mars. Smilee turned out to be the biggest mistake. His one big weakness was one that Lee would probably maim Gunnar for exploiting and, for all his rashness, the Swede didn’t have a death wish. Therefore he turned his attention towards finding other ways to irritate the final newcomer. He’d manage it sooner or later, just like he’d inevitably managed it with the other Expendables. It was almost a right of passage.

“So what do you think of ‘em?” To Barney’s credit, he hadn’t asked until a week after the whole Stonebanks mess, when Lee’s anger had simmered down into irritation over the whole mess.

“They’re not bad,” he admitted, leaning back against the doorway of the hanger to watch their pack taunt each other playfully. “But next time you want to pull some crap like that, I’m locking you in the nearest cell I can find and the rest of us will finish it.” The Brit stared blackly at Barney until he got a nod from the other man to acknowledge how serious Lee was about that whole business. “Good,” he said, pushing himself up. “Let’s get inside then, before our morons kill each other out of sheer stupidity.” Barney laughed, drawing the attention of the morons in question, the kids staring like that hadn’t realized their leader could be happy about anything, and Lee shook his head before heading in to join the group, their alpha right on his heels.

Chapter Text

It was Mars who finally pointed out what they’d all been blind to. They’d been a pack for three months and half a dozen missions spanning from the cluttered streets of Calcutta to a high speed chase through the Sonoran Desert in Arizona. During those long hours where they were forced to coexist, there had been some full moon nights, during which the urge to shift was almost impossible to ignore. Thorn, Luna, and Mars had all shifted at some point in time, as had most of the older Expendables. Smilee hadn’t. Wherever the part of him that needed to shift lurked, it wasn’t anywhere near the surface.

“It’s a bit strange, now that I think about it,” Luna admitted as they leaned against the wall near the entrance to the hangar, waiting for the person in question to show up. Thorn nodded in agreement but Mars stared out towards the dirt road, pensive. “What?” Luna prodded, nudging him with her shoulder.

“Sometimes, when packs get broken, things get messed up,” he replied, frowning. Luna frowned as well, but quickly wiped the expression off her face when she heard the rumble of an approaching motorcycle. John Smilee might have told them his story when they all thought they were going to die, but that didn’t mean he wanted their pity. “Any idea what’s going on?” Smilee asked as he approached them, leaving his helmet resting on the seat of his motorcycle.

“Just as much as you do, man,” Thorn replied with a shrug.

Barney had called an unexpected meeting during their recovery time from the last mission, an assassination in the freezing wind of fall in Moscow. The event was unprecedented, at least for the new members of the pack, which was part of the reason they’d lingered at the entrance to the hanger, waiting for their unofficial leader and chatting quietly. Smilee nodded, and Luna didn’t have to be pack to sense the air of nervousness around him. “Let’s roll boys. I don’t have all day,” she said, trying not to let his worry seep into her. This was probably nothing more than an unexpected mission Nothing to worry about.

 Barney leaned against the plane, waiting. The old crew was chatting quietly but the newer part of their pack had paused at the doorway, their emotions a series of fluctuations probably following whatever conversation they were having. Smilee was the last one to arrive, leading the little group in, but Barney’d expected that. His current den was the furthest away from the hanger, whether on purpose or by coincidence Barney wasn’t certain. “What’s this all about?” Smilee demanded, arms folded defensively over his chest. He’d been around long enough by this point that Barney knew that the posture was a sign that Smilee was uncomfortable with the current situation but trying not to show it.

“We’ve got a mission coming,” Barney replied, staring the kid down. “The CIA’s got a few of our kind working as agents and handlers. One set, agent and handler, went rogue a few days ago. They’ve got a small army posted at the base of the Caucuses. CIA wants us to take them out.”

“Target date’s a full moon night, which means most of ‘em are gonna be shifted,” Lee added.

“Big deal,” Luna said with a shrug. “We can handle it.”

“Yeah,” Barney agreed. “But the last thing we want is for one of us to shoot one of our own because they forgot what he or she looks like shifted.”

The kids were, for the most part, unbothered by the statement, but Smilee tensed, eyes darkening. Barney was well aware the kid hadn’t shifted since before he’d joined, and he even had a guess as to why, but he’d half to shift sooner or later. Better have him face whatever was bugging him now than to have his hesitation get someone killed on a mission. “So you interrupted recovery time for this?” Thorn asked, emotions amused. “Could’a been worse.”

“We should probably move this outside,” Caesar pointed out. “Before something gets wrecked.”

Barney nodded in agreement before jerking his head towards the door. “Everyone out,” he ordered.

They brushed by in groups, the kids leaving in one big clump, but Smilee stayed where he’d been standing, arms still folded under his chest and eyes blazing. “I’m not doing this,” he said when Barney arched an eyebrow at him in question.

“Oh really?”

“Yeah.” There was a stubborn set to his jaw that said the confrontation Barney’d been hoping to avoid was probably going to happen whether he liked it or not.

“Don’t test me on this, kid,” he warned but Smilee set his jaw. Barney blew out a breath and then turned towards Lee, who’d waited by the door. “Don’t let them get involved with this.” Lee nodded in acknowledgement, stepping outside and pulling the hanger door firmly shut behind him. “Last chance. We can still do this the easy way.”

“Not gonna happen,” came the stubborn reply as Smilee shifted, readying himself for a fight. Barney nodded, accepting that they were really going to have this fight, and then moved.

Smilee blocked the first blow, wincing when it impacted into his arm instead of his stomach, and barely twisted out of the way of the second. The kid might have been taught hand to hand in the military and improved upon it during his time spent in Juarez, but Barney’d been in more fights than he could count. He didn’t bother trying to block the glancing blow the kid landed, instead shrugging it off and returning one of his own. Smilee stumbled back under the force of it and Barney pressed forward, not wanting to give the kid time to recover. The longer he let this fight drag out, the bigger the chance that the part of Smilee that was wolf would decide that challenging Barney’s authority was fine.

The next two blows connected easily, leaving the kid reeling. It was easy from there, as they kid tried to retreat out of range, to grab an arm and it get it twisted behind Smilee’s back, forcing the kid to his knees. Smilee twisted, trying to break free, but Barney just twisted his arm further. The kid let out a little yelp of pain and stilled, muscles tense. “Shift,” Barney ordered, voice a low growl, and he watched the kid shudder from the effort it took to fight off the command.

Obeying their pack alpha was practically hardwired into a wolf’s DNA. It wasn’t impossible to ignore an alpha’s command, but it took an incredible amount of focus. Most wolves couldn’t manage it until they were older, and even then it was a struggle, but Smilee had a tendency to be extremely stubborn and, like Bonaparte had said when they’d first met, the kid didn’t like following orders.

“Don’t fight it,” Barney said, keeping the kid pinned. “Just shift.” Smilee thrashed against Barney’s grip again before going limp, panting harshly. Barney waited, knowing he’d already won, and a moment later a shudder went down the kid’s spine.

He kept his grip on Smilee’s arm until he heard the cracking noise that signaled bones breaking and reforming. Then he stepped back and allowed his own swift to sweep over him. There was a brief moment of pain as bones snapped and shifted, but Barney doubted it was anywhere near the level of agony Smilee was likely experiencing.

The more often a wolf shifted, the more painless the experience. Small children shifted so often that they didn’t know the action hurt and, more often than not, they kept it up into they were teenagers. It wasn’t until a wolf hit adulthood that they struggled to find the time, and place, to shift. That was when most realized it actually hurt. Barney’s crew, for the most part, shifted consistently enough that it was a relatively painless process should they need to do so. For someone like Smilee, who probably hadn’t shifted since his pack had been killed, the process of bones snapping and reforming, muscles shifting, and body changing in ways a human body shouldn’t be able to, would be agonizing.

Shift complete, Barney turned his head to take in the dark brown wolf stretching across from him. Amber eyes studied him for a moment but Barney ignored the scrutiny, taking in Smilee’s shifted form. The kid was built a little slimmer and smaller than Barney, dark fur all one color aside from where it lightened around his muzzle. There were no obvious scars on his frame but Barney could pick out a couple places where the kid’s coat was thinner from old fights, but nothing serious. Whatever had happened to him when his pack had been killed might have left scars in human form, but Barney was guessing it had left the wolf one untouched.

“You two get your differences settled?” Lee’s voice jabbed from the doorway and Barney turned to give the Brit a sardonic look. “That doesn’t work so well in wolf form Zero,” his beta informed him with an amused looking smirk. “You two coming outside, or do you want me to let the rest of our morons in?” Barney jerked his head and Lee stepped aside, Luna the first one through the gap left open.

“About time,” she said with a smirk as she took in Smilee’s shifted form. “We’d been wondering if you’d forgotten how.” Although her tone was light and teasing, Barney could sense the touch of relief on her end of the bond. Smilee shook his head in response and her smirk widened into an actual smile. She paused for a moment and then ordered, “Don’t do something like this to us again or I swear to god I’ll kill you.”

“And we’re not saving you,” Thorn spoke up cheerfully before darting behind Mars with a squeak at her scowl. Barney snorted, shaking his head and the corner of Lee’s mouth curved up in a smirk.

“Let’s get shifting kids,” Toll Road called. “I’d like to get the rest of my day off back.”

“What he means is he needs his beauty rest,” Caesar called, resulting in jeers from the old crew and laughter from the kids. Barney settled back on his haunches, content to watch his pack settle down and shift, the bond a peaceful presence humming in the back of his mind.