Synchronized Swimming

Chapter 24: Raven

Sorry this update is a bit on the short side, but I had to resolve the cliffy. AP testing season started so I may not update for at least another week.

Kota

"Complication? What is it?" I ask as Mr. Blackbourne continues staring at me. He looks at a piece of paper in his hand for reference before answering.

"Apparently, Adrian and Jonathan's team is unable to continue overseeing the mission- family emergency. They want us to take complete control over it, when before we only had to do recon." he explains. My breath hisses out. With Sang and synchro, we aren't ready to take lead on another big mission. This was supposed to be our break!

"Can we decline?" I ask. It would be horrible to leave Adrian and Jonathan's team hanging, but we need to focus on us right now. Mr. Blackbourne nods, but I can tell he looks as reluctant as I am to abandon them.

There has to be a solution to this. "What if we ask a different team to take control?" I suggest. Mr. Blackbourne perks up at my idea, but quickly deflates again.

"That would be ideal, but we don't have the favors right now." he says. I'm shaking my head before he even finishes speaking.

"You're still thinking like it's the beginning of the year. We received plenty of favors from the Ashley Waters job, and we'll get enough favors from this one to cover getting another team to help." I tell him.

"Who do you suggest?" Mr. Blackbourne asks. I mentally run through the teams that are capable of handling a large scale operation: out of all the options, only the Toma team is free right now. They can be kind of wild, but when it comes down to it they're some of the best Academy members and Corey's computer skills could prove useful.

"What about Axel and his team?" I offer. Mr. Blackbourne looks contemplative as he considers. I find myself hoping that he agrees to ask them; Captain America Civil War is coming out soon and I've been dying to ask Corey for his predictions. And they'll be a huge help with the mission, of course.

"That's a good idea, Mr. Lee. I'll call them right now. It's short notice, but for enough favors I bet they'll accept." Mr. Blackbourne pulls out his phone and rings Axel.

I tune out their conversation to provide some privacy and occupy myself with straightening out the books on the bookshelf. Whoever owns this house organized them by color and size instead of authors name, which bugs me but it feels rude to redo them so I settle for neatly pulling them all towards the front of the shelf. I'm just finishing the last row when Mr. Blackbourne finishes talking.

"Axel accepted. Marc and him are going to ride with you and me up to Greensboro to discuss details and the rest of their team will come in a separate car. He actually is quite excited." Mr. Blackbourne seems amused when he says the last sentence. I raise an eyebrow and wait for him to explain. "Apparently one of Raven's cousins in Russia does synchro on their national team and he took an interest in it when she started out. Axel agreed to help us for no favors on the condition that Raven comes to the clinic with us."

I try to picture Raven doing synchro, but I can't imagine it. Tall, tattooed... and graceful? Most people have a hard time believing that North and Silas do synchro, but Raven is so much more bulky and just plain scary looking than them. "Are you sure that this isn't a joke?" I ask doubtfully. Mr. Blackbourne shakes his head and holds up his phone.

"Axel sent me a video of Raven swimming in Russia. It's honestly one of the most amazing routines I've ever seen." he says.

Stunned, I watch Raven swim a duet with someone I'm guessing is his cousin. He channels his ferocity as he swims in a way that creates a magnetism around him. I don't think I even blink during the time he's swimming. It's too bad men can't do synchro in the Olympics- Raven is definitely good enough to be on the Russian national team.

"Maybe we'll learn something this weekend, too." I say in awe.

"With someone like Raven helping us, I certainly think we will." Mr. Blackbourne agrees.