"It wasn't like this was the first time they'd had to pretend not to know each other. Far from it, but Mac and Jack were accustomed to working together. Even if their covers weren't on the same side, as when they'd gone after El Noche, they'd never been in direct conflict. This time, however, they had gone under with opposing drug cartels who were on the brink of a war which would likely end with many civilians caught in the crossfire. The FBI hadn't been able to get the necessary information, and time was running out. So, the Phoenix Foundation took the job.
"Hey, boss! We caught a rat sneaking around the warehouse!" One of the two burly thugs twisting Mac's arms tightly behind his back called out. Jack turned from the spreadsheet covered table he'd been leaning over and walked toward them slowly, twirling his blade in his right hand. As he stood in front of Mac, a sick grin spread across his face. Mac knew Jack was too good to risk either of their covers. He just prayed Jack wouldn't beat himself up too much afterwords.
"Well, well, well, what have we here? This is a strange place for a boy like you to be nosing around? Just what were you looking for? And who do you work for?"
"I wasn't looking for anything, and I don't work for anyone. I was just curious, thought the place was abandoned, which it obviously isn't. Thought I'd poke around a bit." Jack gave a short, barking laugh before his grin vanished and he backhanded Mac across the face. The hit wasn't as hard as it could have been, but Mac had already taken a few good hits when he was caught. That was definitely gonna bruise.
"You're gonna answer my questions, punk. You can play nice and tell me what I want to know now, or you can tell me after I've made you cry for your mama. Your choice."
"I'm not telling you anything." Jack heaved a very put upon and falsely sympathetic sigh.
"I gave you a chance, boy. Tie 'im up, fellas. I'm gonna enjoy this." One of the ruffians drove a fist into his stomach, and they dragged him over to a metal chair before he could regain his balance enough to walk on his own. Mac dragged his feet as much as he dared. This would not even compare to some of the pain he'd endured, but he was not looking forward to this. His best friend was about to torture him, and there was nothing either of them could do about it.
His dread only increased when the door opened and a man in an expensive suit entered. Jack exchanged words with the man briefly, who crossed his arms and leaned back against the table. Apparently, he was going to watch. Super. As Jack advanced on him, face hard, Mac shifted in the too-tight leather bindings holding him to the chair. For a moment, Jack stood looking down on him and Mac could see the deep sorrow in his brother's eyes. He did his best to give a discreet, reassuring nod, and then Jack let his fist fly.
He began with another strike to Mac's face, Beowulf cutting a gash in the young man's cheek. It was quickly followed up by several hard hits to his stomach and ribs. Given a few seconds to breathe, he allowed himself to sag in his bonds. His cover was a two-bit drug dealer and low level cartel spy, not a trained government operative.
"I'm telling you," he gasped out, "I don't work for anybody. You can just let me go, and I'll forget I ever saw anything."
"Liar." Faster than Mac could realize what happened, Jack's knife was out and had flicked across his left shoulder. The cut was shallow, barely deep enough to bleed, and certainly less painful than his throbbing jaw. Still, he gasped in shock at the sudden burning and slow trickle of blood.
He swallowed hard and looked up at Jack, allowing his face to show pain and what anyone but Jack would read as fear. As much as it burned his pride to offer any sign of weakness, he didn't want to force his partner into doing something he'd feel guilty about later. Jack was looking at him with a calculating gaze.
"You know, I think I remember this guy now. Rumor has it he stole a hard drive off Artemis37 years back. Once a rat always a rat, I guess." Artemis37? Should he know who that was? "I wonder what she'd give to have a crack at him?"
"Who's Artemis37?" Jack shot a withering glare at the man who had dared to speak, but deigned to answer anyway.
"One of the most dangerous hackers of our time. Hacked the pentagon a few years back, I'm surprised you haven't heard of her. Certainly capable of getting us into all sorts of things Beltran Cartel don't want us to find." The man who had asked still looked confused but was at least smart enough to stay silent. Recognition dawning on the other thug's face mirrored the recognition Mac was carefully keeping off his face. That was one heck of a plan Jack had there. But if it worked, he wasn't complaining.
The boss man seemed to consider this for a moment while Jack and Mac held their breath. Finally, he nodded slowly. "How do we contact her?"
Jack grinned. "Leave that to me."
This was the single most absurd thing Riley had ever seen. Mac was on his knees, his hands cuffed behind him and his mouth gagged. His cheek was badly bruised and bleeding. Jack stood over him, his posture malicious and threatening. Mac locked eyes with her, and an eyebrow quirked upwards as if he knew what she was thinking and agreed.
Riley walked forwards a few steps and called to Jack. "Well? I'm here. I see you brought me what you promised. Give him to me, and you'll get what you want."
"And how do I know you've really held up your end of the deal? No. You give me what you promised, and once I see that it works, then I'll give you the rat."
"Oh, it works. I've been after this guy for a long time. And what do I care about Beltran Cartel?" Riley held up the thumb drive so Jack and his companions could see it. "I give you the drive and then you give me my thief. That was our deal. If it doesn't work, you know where to find me." There was, of course, no reason Tyler McClane would know how to find her, but then there wasn't any reason he would know how to contact her either. She just prayed the real cartel members would buy it.
Jack pretended to consider a minute. "Fine. Bring me the drive, and you're free to do whatever you want with this scum."
Riley wanted to run forward and hug Mac, who kept looking worse the closer she got. But she caught the warning gleam in Jack's eye and carefully hardened her features. Any sign of sympathy and they were all dead. So she kept her steps even and measured until she stood directly in front of him. Without breaking eye contact, she placed the drive in Jack's outstretched palm.
"Plug this into the fastest computer you've got. Any small-time hacker or coder will be able to take it from there." Then she turned toward her other teammate to find that Mac, conscious of the unfriendly gazes on him, was glaring at her with defiance. It was entirely in the realm of possibility, of course, that Mac was glaring at her simply for the fun of it.
Licking her lips hungrily, Riley leaned over him. "You remember me, Elliott Gavroe?" She asked. "You remember what you took from me? Before I'm done with you, you'll barely remember your own name. I'm going to make you scream until your voice is gone and you can no longer even beg me to stop. I'm going to break every bone in your body, pull the flesh off your skeleton bit by bit, and burn what's left while you're still breathing. And you're gonna thank me for every breath I let you take freely, every moment of respite, because they are a gift for which you're going to beg. Because you are mine, and there is nothing I cannot do to you if I wish."
"Have your fun with him," Jack laughed, pocketing the flash drive.
Satisfied with the appearance of fear in his still defiant blue eyes, Riley grabbed Mac's arm and yanked roughly him to his feet, returning her gaze to Jack.
Pleasure doing business with you." He nodded, and she strode purposefully back to her car, dragging Mac behind her. He stumbled once, and her brow furrowed, but she reminded herself that Jack wouldn't have let anything too bad happen to him and resisted the urge to look over at him with concern. As she reached her destination, she slowed her steps. Jack still stood watching them, arms crossed over his chest. So did his companions. His companions who outnumbered him five to one if they suspected he had double-crossed them.
After a moment's hesitation, she walked to the back, popped the trunk, and gave her prisoner a meaningful shove. Mac, who had up until now had offered no resistance, pulled back and resumed his look of defiance. Her answering glare came easily. They were so close. Why did he have to be difficult now? It wasn't like she could physically overpower him.
Thinking quickly, she twisted her hand in the front of his shirt and slammed him against the vehicle, eyes (hopefully) burning with rage.
Mac winced as Riley shoved him back onto his cuffed hands. The blood from his shoulder had stuck to the fabric of his shirt, and Riley's moving the fabric around had caused the cut to flare painfully. Before he could even catch his breath, he found himself hitting the pavement and suddenly, Riley's combat boot was digging into his neck.
"Get in the trunk. Now. Or you can spend the drive breathing through only one lung." Mac nodded as much as he could and felt the pressure on his neck release.
Riley dragged him to his feet by the back of his shirt and shoved him much more forcefully towards the open trunk. This time, he climbed in willingly, relaxing and giving her a nod once out everyone else's sight. She slammed the trunk and locked it. Climbing into the driver's side, she held Jack's gaze as long as she could. When she pulled out of the parking lot, Riley and Jack both felt a swell of relief.
Riley parked the car in the old parking garage of an abandoned mall. She had needed to get far enough away that she wouldn't risk being seen by anyone hostile but didn't exactly want to explain to random civilians why there was a guy tied up in her trunk. After a quick scan on her computer for any surveillance devices, she circled the car and threw open the trunk. Mac greeted her with a smile. The gag was around his neck and his hands, free from the cuffs, were twisting a paper clip into what appeared to be a fractal.
He accepted her hand out of the trunk and stretched his muscles. "Matty wants us to lay low for a while," she informed him. "Jack's got a plan, and we should have this wrapped up within the next couple hours, but if anyone realizes you and Jack were working together…"
"Right. I probably shouldn't be seen in public." Mac walked around to lean against the hood, and Riley dug the first aid kit out from under the seats. Thankfully, it was a fully stocked Phoenix issue one; no one had been quite sure what injuries Mac might have, although Riley had to admit that his condition seemed less sever to her now calmer eyes.
"So what was actually on that flash drive? I presume you didn't actually give them your back door into the Beltran Cartel servers." Riley snorted.
"No, but those idiots will never even get close to figuring that out." She pulled out an antiseptic pad and gently taking his chin in her hand, began to clean his cheek. "The code is mostly legit, similar to what I use to lock onto a server and get past the firewalls. But it requires action from someone with a sense of what they're doing, which may take them some time to find. And then it will run them in circles and have them jumping through hoops for about seven hours, at which point they will find all the arrest records of cartel members."
"Which is already public record."
"Exactly." Mac winced when Riley hit a particularly sensitive spot while cleaning the dried blood from his face. "But," she added, putting down the bloodied pad and applying two butterfly bandages, "even if they do figure it out before we arrest them, Jack can blame me for screwing them over." Glancing at the scrapes on his neck, she repressed a shudder and ordered, "shirt off."
Mac looked rebellious for a minute, but Riley leveled him with her best authoritative older sister stare and he removed it slowly with a sigh and a small sound of pain. Riley began carefully cleaning the cut on his shoulder. They stood there in silence while she did so, but as she taped gauze over the cut, she couldn't help griping at him a little.
"Speaking of authenticity, could you not have just gotten in the car? We were practically home free and they were buying it just fine."
"If they changed their minds though, you were in the line of fire, and I wouldn't have been able to protect you," Mac said in a low voice. "I had to convince them we weren't working together."
Figures. Mac always had some sort of noble, selfless reason. Somehow, that made what she'd done even harder. "I can handle myself, and they only had to buy it for about twenty more seconds. Plus, I had Jack."
"I know. But when you love someone, you do crazy things to try to protect them." Was Mac trying to give her some kind of absolution? She forced her hands to remain gently as she rubbed salve over the bruises covering his torso. He was doing his best to hide it, but she could tell he was in pain./p
"Well, if in the future, you could make an effort to at least warn me before you go throwing curveballs," she teased grumpily.
Mac laughed brightly and held up his hands in surrender. "Alright, sis. Next time you buy me off Jack to torture me out of revenge, I promise to be a good little captive and do what I'm told without being threatened." Riley laughed then shook her head and groaned.
"Can you please not put it like that? And there is never going to be a next time, Angus Macgyver, because if you ever even think about putting me through that again, I will make you rue the day you ever asked for my help with that stupid virus!" Mac's eyes softened, losing the teasing look, and he put a hand on her shoulder.
"I'm sorry, Riles. I realize this can't have been easy for you. But you were fantastic out there. They absolutely bought it. Heck, I almost bought it, and I've seen you covered in frosting and feathers after a mid-cookie decorating pillow fight." Riley snorted. He was hardly one to talk considering he'd come out messier than any of them. "I know it made you uncomfortable, but you saved my life today, Riley. Thank you."
Riley allowed herself to sag for a moment. "You're welcome, Mac. And I will always go along with whatever crazy plan I have to in order to do that, this just wasn't my favorite."
Mac hmmed. "Yeah, I think I prefer getting beaten up by terrorists. I certainly have a new-found sympathy for anyone who crosses you. But if it makes you feel any better, I'm sure I'll be mother-henned over this 'til I think about running away from home."
Riley laughed and felt something uncoil inside her. Feeling at least a little better, she returned to the first aid pack. "Just remember, the farther you run, the longer you'll be spending in that trunk on the way back." Mac scowled at her with a twinkle in his eye, and Riley wondered if this was what it was like to have a younger sibling. Someone you teased and made fun of but couldn't help wanting to protect from all harm. She began gently cleaning the scrapes on the side of his neck, and he tilted his head slightly to let her. They probably didn't warrant much more than a cursory swipe or two with the antiseptic wipe, but Mac made no comment on her unnecessary ministrations.
Riley finished and returned the first aid kit to the car while Mac replaced his shirt, not bothering to hide a wince when he knew she couldn't see. He turned to her and was about to say something when she stepped forward on impulse and enveloped him in a gentle hug, mindful of his injuries.
He returned the embrace gratefully, and after a moment, he spoke. "I love you, Riles. I know you would never hurt me if you didn't have to."
"And if anyone ever even thought about following through on those threats I made-" she whispered fiercely.
"You'd erase their existence. I know." Riley didn't pull away and neither did Mac. Truthfully, he needed the hug probably more she did. He'd been kidnapped, beaten, and tossed around more times than he could count, but there had been something terrifying about having his own family be the ones to do it. He was glad to be out of the line of fire, safe and sound in his big sister's arms.
Late that night, after raids and arrests and one minor shootout, when the team was assembling back at Phoenix for debriefing, Jack found a moment to pull Mac aside.
"You okay, buddy?" Mac wanted to laugh. What exactly was he expecting? Jack Dalton would prioritize a team member's paper cut over a stab wound of his own. He'd very nearly done so once - long story.
"I'm fine, Jack. Getting pushed around a little doesn't exactly qualify as a rough day at the office. The question is: are you okay?"
"You didn't just get 'pushed around a little,' kid. I roughed you up pretty good; this time you can't even lie about it. And I'm the one that's supposed to stop that from happening to you."
"First of all, I'm the one who was stupid and got caught. And what would have happened to me if you didn't rough me up?" Mac prodded.
"I would have left you in the hands of my goons who would have been considerably less kind. Or if I'd protected you, I would have risked our covers and they would have done much worse to you," Jack responded evenly. "I'm not guilty. I know I did what I had to. It just feels wrong, you know what I mean?"
"Yeah, I know what you mean."
"Now stop worrying it'll make me feel bad and put some ice on that." Mac grinned. His partner knew him too well. Okay, maybe he should refrain from grinning for a while.
AN: This was really not intended to be a Mac and Riley fic, but it sort of turned itself into one. Sorry there isn't more Mac and Jack. Also, I spent three days trying to figure out how to end this, and I couldn't, so that's why it just kinda... ends. Abrubtly.