Goddamn if Misha didn’t coo at them like an idiot. Riley rolled his eyes, pretending not to be charmed by his antics. Andrej smirked and reached into his bag again, this time to fish out a 1994 Heckler & Koch pistol. He tossed Riley his father’s gun and laughed at him when he almost dropped it in surprise, only to have his fingers close around the grip all by themselves.

“I can’t believe you fuckers swam an underground river all the way to Carlsbad,” he grumbled as they stashed the weapons in the back of the truck. “This kind of shit doesn’t happen in real life.”

“I can’t believe Kolya knew where to go to fish us out,” Misha threw back over his shoulder, trying to fit his guns in with the rest of the arsenal.

“I did most of the heavy lifting,” Riley reminded him, a flash of silver in his eyes and his pitch a bit off, just enough to make Andrej shudder and think that he was never going to get used to McClane.

“Augh,” he muttered. “Shut up, I’m not talking to you, you’re creepy.”

Kolya laughed at him and handed him a bottle of a sports drink, his favorite brand, because Kolya was awesome and knew evading government agents was thirsty work. “You’ll get over it.”

Yeah, he would. He had to, because the smug little alien shit was clearly there to stay.

“SO WHAT now?” Andrej asked once he’d drunk his fill and grabbed his own guns. He tugged on his shoulder holster until it was set just right and inched closer to the driver’s side door of the muscle car. It was pretty, for all that it also was a redneck’s wet dream. He wanted to drive it. Judging from the indulgent smile on Kolya’s face, he might even have a shot at that.

“Road trip,” Misha told him, eying the truck with a certain measure of resignation.

“Awesome.” Andrej studied Kolya’s slacks, looking for the telltale key bulge. “Where are we going?”

“Kansas,” Riley said stoically.

Andrej interrupted his hunt for the keys to stare at him. “What the fuck are we gonna do in Kansas?”

Riley shrugged. “McClane wants to find Superman’s crash site.”

“Superman’s crash site.”

“Superman’s crash site,” Misha confirmed.

Andrej looked at Misha. Misha was smiling, loose and relaxed next to Riley, who was outright laughing now at something none of them could hear. They still had plenty of issues, all three of them, but by this point Andrej was reasonably sure they’d find a way to make it work. They were certainly willing to do whatever it took. He looked at Kolya, who’d dug the car keys from his back pocket and tossed them to Andrej with a challenging smirk. Andrej snatched the keys out of the air and let go of his old life with a helpless little chuckle.