Full Summary:
After voluntarily leaving the SGC, Rodney finds himself and his career at a standstill. Though his former intern-turned-FBI power sleuth is able to keep his checkbook in the black by sending small jobs his way, Rodney knows it's only a matter of time before he loses his chance at a Nobel and, quite possibly, his sanity. A push from an old online pseudo-friend leads him to a local library, where he comes across a handsome veteran with a fantastic goal in mind. Uncover the sunken ship Aurora, and discover a lost treasure.
He doesn't realize until later that sometimes the best treasures are the ones you don't expect to find along the way to find the ones you think you want.
NATIONAL TREASURE FUSION AU.
Author's notes:
Rodney is Riley Poole, John is Benjamin Gates, and nothing everything hurts. And also, Canon Divergence is my friend. For the purposes of the story, I am using Ava Dixon in name and appearance only. She's probably not a replicator. There are spots where the dialogue from the movie is explicitly used.
Please note that this will (probably) not be updated for at least a month. I am going into November with every intention of focusing solely on my Rough Trade/Nanowrimo project, but I actually seriously love this fic so far. IT WILL BE FINISHED. Just, you know, not immediately.
Written for popkin16 over on tumblr, who let me ramble about this for awhile.
XXX
One.
-x-
When Rodney was perhaps four or five, years before Jeannie was born, he remembers reading through his mother's books in the den, pouring over stories about pirates and buried treasure and great, grand adventure. It had been an escape, a solace among the constant pounding pressure of curiosity and knowing in his head. From then, he moved onto science fiction and his world exploded into science and learning and need.
His parents hadn't known what to do with him, reading on his own at a comprehension level that had far eclipsed their own. He skipped through grade levels and blasted past teachers, obsessed with and inspired by Star Trek and space and science and connections. He built bombs to prove he could and spoke harshly to stay memorable.
He devoured knowledge, in any form he could take it, and he learned best by doing.
In another life, he thinks he could have ended up another Daniel Jackson, studying the past for knowing's sake, learning why instead of how.
But his father bought him a telescope and his mother bought him an Erector set and he had never felt closer to them than he had in that moment, in that day, when he felt like maybe they could understand him after all.
Still, sometimes he fondly remembers Treasure Island and Susan Cooper and Masquerade. Remembers stories of treasure hunts and adventure and danger, and thinks that maybe, perhaps, a life like that would have been easier.
-x-
He doesn't really remember how long he spent in the program, working his way through the recovered tech until someone finally realized his worth and he got to see the actual Stargate for the first time. It was like seeing the sun after decades in the darkness. Brilliant and blinding and totally worth every bit of agony.
But the thing about it was, well, too long in the shadows and it hurts to stand in the sun.
Maybe that was stupid and overly poetic, but he wasn't sure he cared.
He'd honestly believed that he was making the right choice, doing the right thing. And he wasn't wrong, no matter what Carter said. She wanted too badly to speed things up, do them the easy way. The way that made the most sense from her standpoint. As brilliant as she was-and she was brilliant-she had trouble reconciling the part of her that was a scientist first and a soldier second, with the part that was soldier first and scientist second.
She should have focused on why and how the gates and the DHD were built the way they were instead of going for the quick and dirty fix.
But she didn't.
It didn't matter though. The science, it was like it didn't matter to most of them as much as it should have.
And being banished to Siberia was probably the worst thing they could have done for their relationship with the Russians. He wasn't built for niceties and smoothing ruffled feathers. He was a genius and an asshole and he couldn't figure out a damn way of changing that without changing him.
Getting the third degree after being booted back to the US with a virtual DO NOT ENTER RUSSIA stamped on his passport was embarrassing enough. Being basically blackballed from working with the DOD for the next couple years after declining a demotion at Area 51 was all kinds of hell.
He had dual citizenship, which was probably the only reason Carter hadn't been able to get him deported too. She seemed vindictive enough for that.
Sometimes he didn't understand why he'd ever found her attractive. It wasn't... right.
His saving grace, the only reason he could afford to eat without dipping into the savings account he'd intended on turning into a trust for Madison's education (which, hah, Jeannie would never accept that now), was Miko.
She'd been an unpaid intern, back when he was purely theoretical in wormhole physics, before the USAF had co-opted him into what should have been the greatest thing to ever happen to him. He'd given her a great reference when she graduated, was able to open doors for her in whatever she wanted.
He'd asked her to join him in the program, had been working on getting her official invite into it, when Siberia happened.
Oh, she'd been a bear after she found out. She could have made it in without him. Probably would have in another couple months. Her work with the FBI alongside her thesis were blasting open doors for her without his support. But once she had heard about his exile, she had flatly and publicly declined to work for the United States Air Force.
He'd been proud. Thought she was an idiot, wished she had put her brain to working on the program and shoved Carter's face in it without offending her apparently delicate sensibilities, but proud.
She was kind of, almost, his friend. Probably would be, if it weren't for the horrible and obvious crush she had on him. And it wasn't that she wasn't pretty, or that brains didn't turn him on like a key already in the ignition. She just, didn't click with him that way. She reminded him too much of Jeannie, probably.
Except the crush. Because, no. He just wasn't going there.
But Miko understood, Rodney knew, that he had to be doing something. He wasn't one to just sit back and let the world turn without moving. The last time he'd taken a vacation, he'd lasted two days before he was working again.
So she sent him work. Most of the time, it was from people she worked with in her shiny new office in Quantico. Sometimes, she found him work in his actually engineering and astrophysics fields. Once, she'd even gotten him into an actual FBI case in California that had to do with both. He'd had to deal with Fleinhardt, but it was surprisingly easy to deal with him after the hell of Siberia and Carter.
It wasn't much, most of the time.
But, he could eat. He could feed his cat. He was pretty sure she was pregnant by his landlady's fat tom, but she was happy.
So, Rodney was okay.
Not great. He was bored out of his mind most of the time, he was exhausted even when he slept all day (which happened far more often than it should), and, not that he'd admit it to anyone, especially Miko, he was lonely.
And if he got one more faux congratulations card in the mail from Tyson or Nye or any of the other idiots, he was going to blow something up.
-x-
"You need a hobby," doctorzee says over the line, his voice only going slightly incomprehensible on the shoddy connection in the middle of speaking.
"I have a cat," Rodney replied, adjusting the wires on his wireless receiver, hoping to pick up a stronger signal than Miss Kitty's basic package.
Paying for Internet hadn't seemed quite as important as buying groceries this week, not that he was telling anyone that, ever.
And Miss Kitty really needed to upgrade her Internet package if she was going to watch that much porn.
"A cat is not a hobby, it is pet. Maybe you should go back to school. Something. I don't know."
"I have already spent too much money on a US education. I can't afford to spend more. Besides, all the teachers are idiots."
"You are idiot who gave up supposedly biggest thing in the science world possibly ever," doctorzee replies, and Rodney sighs.
"Yeah, well, Carter was way more of a bitch that I expected her to be."
"... I think perhaps this is small world, and I will get in trouble with my NDA if we continue talking about my current job."
"That is not fair at all and I hate you."
"Yes, yes, I love you too, McKay. Now, where were we?"
"You're a bastard, Zelenka. We were going to hunt some Zerg..."
-x-
He had been playing online with Radek Zelenka for years. Mostly small matches in Starcraft on the occasional weekend. For a long time, they'd known each other as their handles and nothing more. They'd met only once, three days after Rodney had ended up on Carter's shitlist, and they hadn't known they knew each other until a few weeks later when Rodney was finally able to get online again for fun instead of work.
At least Zelenka had been able to get out of Russia without a demotion. Actually, Rodney was pretty sure it was a promotion to not working in icy hell.
But Zelenka also seemed to like it there.
-x-
But they weren't friends. That would require much more emotion than they were willing to put out on the Internet.
-x-
He took it seriously though, Zelenka's suggestion to get a hobby. It wasn't as if playing video games in his underwear with his cat sleeping in his lap was doing anything good for his abject boredom and total lack of play.
Actually, he was pretty sure he was regressing on the whole "act like a human" thing that his therapist had suggested. Back when he could afford to sit in an expensive office and talk to a hot chick who probably imagined dumping his coffee on his head most of the time.
When he was younger, he used to show Jeannie all the constellations through the telescope he'd rebuilt, but somehow it didn't have the same ethereal feel about it anymore.
What the hell did people do for hobbies anymore anyway? He hadn't had time for hobbies in long enough that he almost felt too old when he finally decided to check out a comic shop.
Which he did not stay in very long, because everything was expensive and he was much too tempted to dip into Madison's money.
Money which Jeannie still didn't know about because he still wasn't talking to her (mostly out of shame anymore) and which she probably wouldn't accept because she could hold a grudge and also would probably assume he was trying to prove he thought Kamden couldn't support her. (Which, was probably fair because that was his initial reason and also he was totally aware his name was Kaleb but he was not admitting that possibly ever.)
Money which he was still incredibly tempted to break into when he finally ended up at a library instead.
"Can I help you find anything?" A slightly grumpy looking librarian asks him, and he's tempted to ignore her but that would probably get him kicked out.
"I've been reliably informed that I need a hobby," he says, mostly on accident.
She smiles, and her teeth are a little oddly slanted and it's kind of distracting, which serves to make her stop smiling.
"What kind of activities are you interested in? We have several upcoming programs..."
-x-
Somehow he ends up signed up for a science fiction book club he'll probably get kicked out of in twenty minutes, the new owner of a cheap plastic library card he'll probably lose, and gets a copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone to read.
He doesn't get her number, and she taunts him with the knowledge that she has a Battlenet ID, but somehow he doesn't mind that so much.
She's a geek and kind of cute but far too young for him, especially when she admits to playing with her mother.
-x-
He's back at the library a week later, hoping they have the next book available because he had liked it far more than he expected when he started reading it on the return trip from Miko's office.
Except, he doesn't quite get to the shelf where FIC ROW sits because he's totally and utterly distracted by a very hot man much closer to his age than the librarian had been and he doesn't even remember the last time he was attracted to a man who wasn't a porn star on the Internet.
(Which, also something no one else can ever know.)
"Thank you," the man says with his sexy smirking face when Rodney's librarian sets a stack of books on the table in front of him.
"Don't you think you could have gotten those yourself instead of overworking the librarian?" It just pops out of Rodney's mouth unbidden, without rhyme or reason.
Rodney's been accused of having no filter between his brain and his mouth before. Often, in fact. Today is, apparently, no fucking exception.
"I could have, if I wanted to risk dropping a stack of books that are over a century old."
"Why would you have dropped them? You're like... barely thirty, not eighty."
The man raises an eyebrow at him, before slowly drawling in some hypnotic California-Southern hybrid speak, "while it's flattering that you think I'm several years younger than I actually am, I can't actually put that much weight on my bad leg."
"Okay, seriously, you can't be that old. You're still hot. And let me guess, you injured your leg playing sports in college?"
"No, actually, I broke my leg in three places while fighting for your right to-"
"Technically, I'm Canadian, so... Actually, I have dual citizenship so your argument is still probably valid."
Instead of the punch he was almost certain was coming, the man starts laughing. Really kind of disturbing almost braying laughs, that leaves Rodney at a total loss.
When the man settles, he leans back in his chair and looks right at him. There's a smile lingering there, on his face.
"John," the man says, offering a hand across the table.
Rodney looks at it for a minute, flustered, "what?"
"My name. It's John. And you are?"
Rodney feels his face go warm against his will, but he steps forward and shakes the proffered hand anyway.
"Rodney. Rodney McKay. So, um, what are you looking up in these old books?"
"Sunken treasure, technically."
Rodney doesn't really think about it, doesn't take the time to mull over what he's doing.
He just does it.
"Oh, cool. Can I help?"
-x-
He doesn't expect to see John after that afternoon. He really doesn't. He thinks about it a lot, the adventure to find a missing ship full of historical and intrinsic treasures lost in time.
He doesn't expect to see John again, but he's also somehow unsurprised when he does.
It's where he's at that surprises him.
-x-
Miko's actual office, not the tiny closet she uses as one in the FBI Headquarters, is on the third floor of an office building that she shares with a local suicide hotline.
Rodney is sitting in a folding chair next to Miko's expensive ergonomic office chair when the woman knocks on the door. Miko is twenty feet down the hall in the bathroom, and the woman doesn't stop to wait for a response before he whips open the door.
"You are most certainly not Dr. Kusanagi," the woman says, crossing her arms. In behind her, John stands, his surprise only a nearly imperceptible flicker of his eyes.
"Miko should be back shortly," Rodney replies, emphasizing his use of her given name. There's a hint of a smile briefly on John's face at the lack of subtlety.
"And yet, you're using her computer," the woman says.
"I was helping her develop a protocol for self-replicating-"
"Ah, she must be your boss. Well then, perhaps you'll work better anyway."
"Do you even know who I am?" Rodney asks, glaring at the woman.
"Ava Dixon," the woman introduces with a smirk, leaning against the doorframe in a way that seems lazy but somehow utterly calculated at the same time.
"Dr. McKay," he answers, smirking up at her, "and very gay."
Which, isn't all that true but also, perhaps, maybe is a little. He's seen John before, even the Pope would probably go a little gay for John.
Certainly took the wind out her sails though.
"Does it matter?" she asks, standing up straight again, her mouth a dark red line across her face, "A paycheck is a paycheck, is it not?"
"Do I look like I would lower myself enough to be your escort?" Rodney bites back, which succeeds in making her angry and also making John snort.
"You are not that funny, McKay," she hisses, and Rodney takes a great deal of pride in how pissed off she sounds.
-x-
"I'm not telling her that I'd help for free but I totally would," Rodney admits later, much later, in the safe confines of his tiny apartment with his cat and consistent lack of legitimate wifi.
John's laugh isn't any less weird when he's expecting it.
-x-
It's easy, after that, to fall into the work. It's easy to lose himself in the work he does on the tech side of things, searching and running and calculating-and watching John calculate faster than he can is a tight hell of its own-and estimating.
Somehow a couple months past, and the most of his free time is spent with John. More often than not, they're alone. Sometimes, they talk about other things. About math and science fiction and world building games. (And okay, once or twice they get online with Zelenka and absolutely destroy things. But it's not a thing. Rodney doesn't have friends.)
It's not until they're discussing the series finale of Buffy that Rodney realizes that it's been six months since he met John, two years since he left the SGC.
Somehow time has faded into late October of 2004 and Rodney isn't sure where it's gone.
Just that, they're so close now he can almost taste it.
-x-
"Assuming John's theory is correct and my tracking model is accurate, we should be getting very close."
"Is your model accurate, McKay?"
"Yes," he hisses at Dixon, "there's a ninety six percent probability that the Aurora did end up within two hundred yards of this spot."
"If you're wrong, I expect to be paid back in full. Every penny I put in," Dixon says, her voice steady and even in a way that makes him feel uneasy.
"Yessir," John says, saluting her in a way that Rodney feels must be offensive in some way.
Rodney rolls his eyes and charts their position.
-x-
"Look, this is a waste of time," Dixon's partner says with a sigh, " How could a ship wind up out here?"
"Well, I'm no expert," Rodney starts, because he's not-technically speaking, "but it could be that the hydrothermal properties of this region produce hurricane force ice storms that cause the ocean to freeze, then melt, then refreeze, resulting in a semi-solid migrating landmass that would land a ship right about here."
-x-
It's cold and his fingers are numb, but as soon as they strike it, Rodney knows.
The Aurora. It's here.
Everything that John's family had been searching for over generations, it's below their feet. Within reach.
They have to break before the dig. Night is settling in, and the Arctic is already almost too unbearable to handle.
Rodney is the first one in the tent, mostly because John's putting his former grunt work to use by doing something outside to make their tent retain more heat.
It's almost twenty minutes before he finally crawls inside.
"Can you believe we found it? I mean, everyone thinks your family is nuts, right?"
"Are you twelve?" John asks him, and yeah, Rodney gets it. Kind of an asshole thing to say. Not that he would have said it any differently.
"Three times over, yes."
-x-
"Do you guy know what this is?" John asks, pulling an ivory colored pipe out of the intricate box.
"Is it a billion dollar pipe?" Rodney asks, because he really doesn't know anything about antiques like pipes.
"It's a Meerschaum pipe," Dixon answers, her voice going all breathy and excited, "and it's beautiful."
"Look at the intricacy of the scrollwork on the stem," John points out, a gloved finger hovering over it.
"Well, is it at least a million dollar pipe? Or a waste of-" Rodney tries to ask before John cuts him off.
"No, it's a clue. We're one step closer to the treasure."
"John, I thought you said the treasure would be on the Aurora," Dixon says, loud and annoyed.
"No," John answers, "I said 'the secret lies with Aurora.' It could have been here."
"Damn it, John," Dixon hisses, crossing her arms like a petulant child.
"Calm down, Ava," John replies, pulling off one of his gloves before pulling out a pocket knife. Rodney watches, mostly mystified, while John slices a shallow cut in the flesh of his palm.
"What are you doing?" Rodney blurts out as John smears his blood against the stem of the pipe. There's a faint flash of color, hardly noticeable and Rodney's not even sure if it actually happened.
And then John rolls the stem down a slightly wrinkled sheet of paper, presumably taken from his pocket. And words appear. John reads them aloud, his tone almost wistful.
The legend writ,
The stain affected,
The key in Silence undetected.
Fifty five in iron pen,
Mr. Matlack can't offend.
"It's a riddle. I need to think," John speaks to himself for several minutes, just low enough that Rodney can't decipher his words, before he speaks normally again, "It's a map, an invisible map."
"Wait a minute. What do you mean, invisible? An invisible map ?" Dixon growls.
John sighs, "'The stain affected' could refer to a dye or a reagent, used to bring about a certain result. Combined with 'the key in Silence undetected', the implication is that the effect is to make what was undetectable detectable. Unless... 'the key in silence' could be..."
"Prison," Dixon's partner interrupts him.
"Alberta. See, I can do it too. Snorkel," Rodney responds sarcastically.
"That's where the map is. Like he said, 'Fifty-five in iron pen.' Iron pen is a prison," her partner remarks back, and it occurs to Rodney that he should probably have listened to what the man's name was.
"Or it could be, since the primary writing medium of the time was iron gall ink, the 'pen" is... just a pen. But then why not say a pen? Why... why say 'iron pen'?" John asks.
Unsurprisingly, Dixon's partner repeats himself, "Cos it's a prison."
John continues as if he hadn't heard the man at all, "Wait a minute. 'Iron pen' - the 'iron' does not describe the ink in the pen, it describes what was penned. It was iron, it was firm."
Rodney knows he should listen, but he isn't a cryptographer. Literary riddles aren't him. And well, he thinks John knows what he's doing anyway. Now, math... science? That he could help with.
"...the Declaration of Independence."
"What? There's no invisible map on the back of your Declaration of Independence," Rodney protests, completely thrown off. Because someone would have noticed that. Right?
"Oh, that's so clever, really. A document of that importance would ensure the map's survival. And you said there were several Masons who signed it, didn't you, John?" Dixon practically purrs the words out.
"Yeah. Nine, for sure."
"We'll have to arrange to examine it," Dixon says, and even Rodney knows that's stupid.
"This is one of the most important documents in history. They're not just gonna let us waltz in there and run chemical tests on it," John says, as if Dixon is a complete idiot. Rodney thinks she might actually be one.
"Then what do you propose we do?" She asks haughtily.
"I don't know!" John yells, exasperated.
"We could borrow it." She phrases it delicately, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out the implication.
"Steal it? I don't think so." John says, his tone brokering no argument.
"John... the treasure of the Knights Templar is the treasure of all treasures." She says it as if John wasn't the one to bring it up to her. As if he hadn't already known.
"Oh, I didn't know that. Really?" John replies sarcastically, a hint of anger in his words.
"Look, John... I understand your bitterness. I really do. You've spent your entire life in the Air Force or searching for this treasure, only to have the respected historical community treat you and your family with mockery and contempt. You should be able to rub this treasure in their arrogant faces, and I want you to have the chance to do that." Dixon says, and for a brief second, Rodney thinks John might do it.
"How?" John asks, but Rodney doesn't think he really wants the answer.
"We all have our areas of expertise. You don't think mine are limited to writing checks do you? In another life... I arranged a number of operations of... questionable legality." Dixon's smile is all teeth when she says it, something that makes Rodney's hair stand on end.
"I'd take her word for it, if I were you," Dixon's partner says, a smarmy look on his face.
"So don't worry. I'll make all the arrangements," Dixon says, as if scheduling a hair appointment. Matter of fact, easy, simple.
"No," John says, and it's sharp and hard and even.
"I'd really need your help here," she replies, her voice deliberately soft and innocent. Not that Rodney believes for a single moment that she is innocent.
"Ava... I'm not gonna let you steal the Declaration of Independence." John says, and Rodney feels oddly proud of him.
"Okay," Dixon says, her voice losing all affectation, "From this point on, all you're going to be is a hindrance."
There's suddenly a gun there, pointed at John's face. Before Rodney can even think about what it means, her partner has a gun in Rodney's face too.
"What are you gonna do? Are you gonna shoot me?" John asks her, clenching his jaw tightly.
Instead of responding aloud, Dixon just smirks at him. It's disturbing and unnatural looking on her pretty face.
"Well, you can't shoot me, there's more to the riddle. Information you don't have. I do," John says, "I'm the only one who can figure it out, and you know that."
"He's bluffing," Dixon's partner says, rolling his eyes. But Rodney doesn't think John is.
"We played poker together, Ava. You know I can't bluff," John tells her, and her smirk drops.
"Tell me what I need to know, John, or I'll shoot your little boyfriend," Dixon says, and both guns are pointed right at Rodney.
"Hey!" the exclamation comes out instinctively.
"Quiet, McKay! Your job's finished here," Dixon yells.
John suddenly lights his flare, the hiss of the flame loud in the quiet of the ship.
"Look where you're standing. All that gunpowder," John says and Rodney almost wishes he didn't know where John was going with that, "You shoot me, I drop this, we all go up."
"John..." Dixon says harshly, the four letters sounding more like an admonishment than a name, "What happens when the flare burns down? Tell me what I need to know."
"You need to know..." John says, his eyes flicking over to Dixon's partner, "if he can catch." Except Dixon's partner does catch the flare, smirking as he does it.
"Nice try, though," Dixon says, grinning widely enough to show her teeth.
The flare reaches her partner's gloved hand and licks it aflame. In his panic, he drops the flare, which starts lighting up the gunpowder.
"Get out!" Ava Dixon screams at her partner, smacking his arm, "Fool!"
"Rodney, get over here!" John yells, pulling him in the opposite direction of the exit.
"What is this?" Rodney asks him as John pulls up a metal door from the floor.
"Smuggler's hold. Get in!"
-x-
They don't talk about John's decision, about the fact that John could have let Dixon blow a hole through him and didn't.
Rodney had spent enough time in the military industrial complex to know that you didn't get that look in your eyes from sitting on your ass doing paperwork.
John had been spec ops or black ops or something. He'd seen war and wrought war and brought war.
Maybe it should have hit Rodney sooner, that realization. It wasn't as if he didn't know that John had been injured in the line of duty. That John hadn't told him as much.
But he'd never... his life had been so... sedentary since he left the Stargate Program that it was easy to... forget.
And now they had what was looking more and more like a sociopathic criminal going after one of the most important pieces in US history.
Rodney didn't have to be a native to know that was wrong.
"It'll be safer if we drive through the border. Ava's not remotely on your level, but it'll be easier to track plane tickets than a cash purchased car."
"How much have you got on you?" Rodney asks, already calculating what they would need.
"Sixty-four dollars and eighteen cents," John answers without even pulling out his wallet. Rodney sighs, feeling around in his pocket for his cell phone.
"I... may have another idea," Rodney says as he opens his contacts.
He scrolls down to J.