But I'd Have Had to Miss The Dance (Sylverasey Collection)

IIb - Come Up Trumps

Come up trumps: a card playing idiom; to complete something well or successfully, to have a better performance or outcome than is expected (trumps are playing cards that are chosen to be ranked higher than the other cards)

Prompt from hsolomons1: Sylvie gets kidnapped by an enemy of the Crowns from before Coulson was killed by Loki. The Crowns plus Sevasey work together to get her back.

In other words . . . boss fight time! Whew - my apologies to hsolomons1 for taking such an ungodly amount of time to finish part two of the prompt. I had so many other stories on my mind, and a hell of a lot has happened since part one was published. Better (way) late than never, though, right?

Happy holidays, all!

***

Few things scared Matt in all the years he lived. His father, before his death, had been one. Losing men on the job was another. The very thought of losing Kelly and Sylvie made him nauseous and light-headed. He had just watched Jay Halstead brutally overwhelm his opponents in the loft and manhandle them like Voight without batting an eye, so he could add the detective to the list. He wasn't even going to start on how delighted he was to have Will Halstead as a friend after watching the good doctor's telekinetic prowess and ruthlessness.

As he sat, one hand clenched tightly around Kelly's, and watched the man across from him sit one leg crossed over the other and expertly clean his gun without looking at his actions, Matt decided he was absolutely terrified of Sonny Carisi.

Perhaps part of that was due to the fact Matt didn't know much about the Manhattan SVU team, but he had seen Jay and Will in action. He knew exactly what the two men were capable of, and from the way Jay's hand clenched in a fist on the arm of his chair, there was still more to see. He knew absolutely nothing of what the fourth member of the Crowns could do, other than he had to be one hell of a sniper to make the shot that killed David Seldon and he had to have ridiculously fast reflexes to catch a knife thrown at his eye by a telekinetic. Peter Stone considered him his best friend, and the man was both a detective and a bar-licensed lawyer. Out of everyone in New York, Sonny likely would have been the last person he thought of as the King of Clubs. Guess that's the whole point, Matt determined.

"Tell me what happened," Sonny said, eyes level on the Halsteads.

"Foster still hasn't woken up, so we don't have her exact account," Will answered as he came out of the kitchen, two glasses of water in his hands. The beautiful blonde perched on the arm of Sonny's chair took them both, taking a sip from one and putting the other on the table in front of Sonny's supplies before going back to casually leaning against his side. Matt knew Amanda Rollins was a spitfire, he had seen firsthand her drive in the hunt for David Seldon. The picture the two made . . . yeah, Matt decided to never piss either of them off like HYDRA had just done. "But Sylvie and I both had a bad feeling at Med. They were on their way to another call when they were run off the bridge. Foster was drugged and left on the scene. Sylvie was abducted."

"Voight found a HYDRA coin at the scene," Jay added. "Then HYDRA went for Casey and Severide. That's when we found them."

Sonny nodded, looking Kelly up and down. "How are you feeling now?" he asked.

Kelly twisted experimentally, then gave a small wince. "Sore, but I've felt worse on the job before."

Sonny smirked. "I know the feeling." He set his tools down, then went about reassembling his gun. Once again, he never looked down, he was so comfortable in his actions. "What's their goal?" he asked, placing his gun on the table and turning fully to Jay and Will. "Pick us off one at a time? Or use her to lure us all?"