Author's Note: Tag for "Fish Scaler" (Season 1, Ep. 14), with brief references to "Corkscrew," (S1, Ep 8), "Large Blade" (S1, Ep 13) and "Hook" (S1, Ep 15).
None of MacGyver's characters are mine; I intend no copyright infringement. This story is solely for entertainment of myself as the writer and (I hope) you as the reader.
oOo
As Mac left the War Room, he spotted Jack leaning casually against the opposite wall of the corridor. Obviously he was lying in wait, lingering to find out how Mac's evaluation with Matty had gone.
Problem was, Mac really didn't want to tell him.
Not while he still didn't know what had gone down between Jack and Matty, whatever it was that had ended Jack's CIA career.
Not given Jack's earlier hopes to take Thornton's position. (Which would have meant ending their partnership. Granted, Jack had backed away from that idea while they were trying to get rescued in Kazakhstan after their chopper crashed—and Mac had meant it when he'd said he was sorry Jack didn't get the job—plus he did believe Jack had meant it when he'd said that he'd just wanted to be offered the position so he could refuse it. Nonetheless, Mac was still processing all the implications of that exchange.)
Not to mention that Mac was very sure that feeding Jack's paranoia about Matty was a bad idea.
So, taken together, all that made him reluctant to want to go over the exchange with Matty that had left him inwardly shaken despite his cheerful assurance to her at the end that he looked forward to the challenge she had set for him.
For him. Not for the rest of their team.
Pushing that point aside, he put on a practiced smile for his partner. "Still here? I thought you'd be heading home."
Jack tilted his head very slightly, in the way that always suggested that he wasn't buying whatever Mac was trying to sell him. "No. No, I wasn't. I thought I'd wait and make sure Matty the Hun hadn't eaten you alive."
Mac spread his hands. "Still all here. No missing parts."
"Uh huh." Jack continued to study him.
It occurred to Mac that if he'd gotten a very positive review he'd be beaming and happy and wanting to spend time with Jack, teasing him about how Matty wasn't as bad as Jack made her out to be.
(Which was just how he didn't feel and just what he didn't want to do right now.)
So he redoubled his smile. "So it went fine. Matty's nowhere near as terrifying as you made her out to be."
Jack pushed off the wall and took a couple steps forward, right into Mac's space. Mac didn't budge.
"Sooo," Jack drawled, "How about we go open a few brewskis on your deck, compare notes about the Hun?"
"Sooorry." Mac drew his answer out too and tried to make it sound genuine. "I promised Bozer that I'd spend some time on Sparky, the robot we're working on with the AI capabilities. You know, the think-tank stuff we're doing to pretend that we're an actual think tank? Hey, you wanna come watch? Keep us company?"
"No, thank you—I do not." Jack looked mortally offended—exactly as Mac had counted on. "You know how I feel about the coming robot apocalypse, man. Why are you trying to help them, not us?"
"Robot apocalypse," Mac answered, deadpan. "Yeah—that's really not going to happen, Jack. I promise. That's movies, not real science."
"Don't think you can predict what a sentient robot would do. It's a lot harder than predicting a person," Jack advised. His eyes still carried a substantial element of doubt—about Mac, not robots. Mac had the distinct feeling that Jack's second comment was aimed right at Mac himself. So, time for another distraction….
"How about we get together for breakfast tomorrow," Mac suggested brightly. That idea had the benefit of suggesting he wasn't trying to ditch Jack, plus it would give him a chance to think things through and decide what he wanted to tell Jack. The truth, of course, because Jack needed to know what Matty was demanding. Not to mention how good his partner was at sniffing out any kind of outright lie, and hated secrets and lies between them. But also probably not quite all of the truth—and Mac would have had time by breakfast, he hoped, to figure out what he thought and felt about it, and how much to share.
Jack actually looked mollified at that proposal. "All right, hoss. How about I pick you up in the morning. We can go to Texican's. I got a jones for their chorizo migas."
Not Mac's first choice, but given that he actually was ditching Jack for the night he figured he owed breakfast restaurant choice to his partner. "Uh, okay. But you cannot insist I put hot sauce on my egg and bean chilaquiles, not at that hour of the day."
Jack stared at him in honest confusion. "Dude, why does the time of day make a difference? It's Tex-Mex food. It cries out for hot sauce, man."
Mac shook his head. "Sorry, but my tongue needs some time to wake up before I set it on fire. Lunch time or dinner, I'm your hot sauce man, but not breakfast." He grinned fondly as Jack shook his head in sorrowful incomprehension. "So, you'll pick me up?"
"Sure thing. And we'll talk." Jack gave him a penetrating look.
"Sure thing," Mac echoed him as blithely as he could. "I'm off to the lab. See you in the morning."
Jack took off the other way for the garage, where his car was parked, as Mac gave him a wave and headed for the stairwell that led to the labs. Once inside, however, Mac stopped at the first landing, then settled himself back on the steps, pulling out his phone. He had no more intention of going down to the lab to listen to Bozer crowing about his great evaluation than he had of spilling his guts to Jack.
It wasn't that he wasn't happy for Bozer. He really and truly was. Mac knew how terrified and depressed Bozer had been, how convinced he was that he was about to lose the new job before he'd even really got started with it. But Matty had apparently seen even more potential in Bozer than Thornton had—which was wonderful. Mac would be happy to congratulate his best friend later tonight at home.
But not right now. He needed to talk with someone whose experience matched his own, but who had no previous agenda in the way. And that meant neither Bozer nor Jack.
It meant Riley.
So he texted her, "Hey. Where r u?" He waited, hoping that she would answer quickly.
In less than a minute he got a text back. "Computer lab. Abt 2 go home."
"Coffee at Maudie's 1st?"
"Jack & Boze 2?"
"Just u & me."
"K."
oOo
Mac settled into the booth at the back of Maudie's Diner, his back to the wall where he could keep an eye on the entrance and the rest of the tables. Jack's ideas of safety and surveillance were rubbing off on him, he thought with some slightly dark amusement. And he remembered all too clearly the last time he'd been caught in a diner, by Nikki. He had no reason to expect trouble from anyone tonight, but Jack believed in building good habits.
Riley arrived with a "Hey," and had hardly gotten her backpack off, taking her seat on the other side, when the waitress came by. They both ordered coffee, then looked at each other.
"So," Riley said, cocking an eyebrow, "you've ditched both Jack and Bozer for me. That's kind of unusual."
Mac flushed. It was true that he and Riley didn't socialize together that much without the others. They saw a lot of each other on the job and off, but usually Jack or Bozer or both were with them during the off-work hours they spent together. Mac suddenly wasn't quite sure why that was.
Discerning his discomfort, Riley waved her hand. "Sorry, forget that. Not really relevant."
"No, actually I think it might be something worth talking about. But at least tonight…" he paused, "well, I need to talk to someone who isn't paranoid about Matty—"
"Or over the moon about his evaluation?" Riley's voice was dry.
Mac looked down at the table and nodded. "I'm glad Bozer's went well, honestly I am—"
Riley's look softened. "Of course you are. I know that. I am too."
"—and I don't know exactly how yours went—and please don't feel you have to tell me, I'm not asking," Mac added quickly as he continued, "but you said you were rattled, and, well, that's a pretty good description of how I'm feeling at the moment. So I figured—"
"That I'd get how you feel." Riley took a deep breath and let it out. "I do. So we're both feeling kind of shaken by Matty."
Mac nodded. "It's not like I'm—fired, or anything."
Riley raised her eyebrows. "Mac, you've been the golden boy of Phoenix since way before I came on board. Of course, you're not fired!"
Mac blushed. He'd heard the term applied to him before, said sometimes with envy and occasionally with bitterness by other agents, and it had always bothered him. Sure, he knew he was a top agent at Phoenix—and he and Jack were a good partnership, a top team. Adding Riley had made them even better, more formidable in the field—she was even better than Nikki had been at hacking and tech. He knew his abilities, knew his own worth to their team, and to the agency.
But "golden boy" sounded so, so—wrongly privileged. As though he got favors instead of earning his way. Mac intensely disliked that implication. He was gifted, yes, and skilled—a highly trained operative, but he'd paid plenty in blood and sweat in his years at DHX and Phoenix—and some tears too, he thought, wincing at the memories of Nikki—enough that he felt he was more than earning his way.
Which brought him right back to the problem point: what Matty thought of his methods. He looked up, abruptly aware that he'd been lost in thought, to find Riley regarding him with a little smile.
"Back again?" she asked.
"Sorry," he apologized, noticing she didn't seem bothered. That was reassuring, the way she accepted him the way he was. Then taking a deep breath, he blurted out the problem. "Matty doesn't trust the way I work."
Riley's highly manicured eyebrows shot upwards and she leaned back slightly. "What?"
"She says," he closed his eyes, trying to remember her words as precisely as possible, "she's not a fan of, of improvising." He opened them again. "She thinks that I've been lucky, instead of good at what I do. And that lucky gets you dead eventually. So she says I have to prove myself to her. One mistake and 'the word improvise falls out of your vocabulary'." He mimed air quotes around the last phrase Matty had seared on his memory.
"Whoa," Riley muttered. "No wonder you're shaken."
Just then the waitress arrived with their coffees. Mac added his usual cream and sugar to his cup, stirring it longer than needed. Riley put just a small twist of sweetener in hers.
"I don't know if I could change my methods." Mac sipped the coffee. It was slightly too acidic and he debated whether more cream or more sugar would do the trick. "And I'll quit before she makes me carry a gun," he added bitterly.
"But it sounds like she's giving you a chance," Riley said, eyes on her own cup. "Like she is me."
Mac looked over at her, worry and concern for her in his eyes. "A chance?" he asked, his tone as gentle as he could make it.
Riley swallowed. "Matty knew about my NSA hacks—both of them. And my time in supermax. Of course she would, she's got my file, and it's not like it's a secret or anything. But . . . she knew something else too. Something I did earlier. Something I thought they—Phoenix—didn't know about. That I never wanted them to know about. Something . . . I was proud of, at the time when I did it. Something I'm so very ashamed of now."
She took a long, unsteady breath, looking down at her coffee. Mac held his, not wanting to press, not wanting to disturb this fragile moment of confidence between them.
"She asked me why I'd done it. And I-I was just paralyzed. I couldn't speak. I couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't lose me the job, lose me you and Bozer, lose me Jack." Her voice cracked on the last one.
Mac reached his hand out, touching her wrist lightly. "You won't ever lose me or Bozer. I promise. And nothing on earth could make Jack give up on you. I think he'd skip meeting Bruce Willis if you needed anything," he added, trying for a little lightness. "He'd complain about it endlessly for the next six months, of course, but he wouldn't really mean it."
Riley gave a tremulous smile, then ducked her head a little. Mac pulled his hand back, sensing that she needed a little space.
"So, I tried to tell Matty how much Phoenix means to me, what having a second chance, what trying to be one of the good guys means. I-I begged her not to take it all away." Her fingers tightened around her coffee mug, whitening with the pressure. "And she said she was sure I was sincere, but I hadn't answered her question. And I couldn't. I just—I wanted her respect more than anything right then, and at the same time I was so scared that if I said a word I'd be fired, but also that if I didn't say anything I'd lose her respect—I was so, so caught. Like a fish in a net, or-or a rabbit in a trap.
"And then she, she—she told me why I'd done it. And she was right. I hadn't even been able to admit it to myself hardly, not since I got myself caught for hacking the NSA the first time. But she knew. She understood. And—and if I'd been able to tell her, if I'd stood up the way Bozer did—I think she'd respect me the way I wanted her to. And instead I didn't." Riley gulped a deep breath. "She's letting me stay on—provisionally. She says I'm like a loaded gun—my mind, my hacking skills—and it's her job to aim me at the right targets."
"So she knows how to use you, and she knows how to use Jack, and she seems to know how to use Bozer, but she doesn't know what to do with me," Mac replied with a sigh, slouching backwards against the seat, unable to mask the bitterness and worry he was feeling.
"I didn't mean—" Riley started but Mac waved her off.
"I know you didn't." He forced a small smile for her. "That's just something she said to me. I'm glad she's giving you a chance, Riles, and I know you'll do great, just like you have the past few months. You're going to be fine."
"So're you," Riley answered, reaching out to touch his wrist this time, trying to communicate reassurance. "She's going to see what you can do, all the amazing stuff that never translates into reports. I think—I think Matty's a warmer person than Thornton ever was. A straighter shooter. Despite Jack's worries, I think she might be easier to work for than Thornton was—for all of us. We just have to show her what we can do."
"Maybe. I hope so. It's her apparent unwillingness to give me any slack that worries me—one mistake and it's over." He looked at Riley. "I have been lucky, of course—and the biggest part of my luck is named Jack. Though please don't ever tell him I told you that! I would never hear the end of it."
Riley snorted at the idea. Mac grinned, but then the amusement faded.
"But it's not all, or even mostly luck, Riley. I think Matty's right to that degree: I'd be dead if I were relying on luck. But I'm not. I'm good at what I do, Riley, really good at it. But what worries me, given her ultimatum, is that I know that I'm not perfect. No one is. And I can think of a ton of mistakes I've made—or things she and other higher ups might see as mistakes. Even on this most recent mission bringing in Bishop." He twisted his lips. "Thornton might have been a traitor, but at least I always knew she'd protect my back with Oversight."
Riley nodded, remembering Matty's caustic tone at Mac and Jack "racking up felonies" down in Atlanta. It had looked to Riley like stealing those two cars had been their best option, but she knew how Mac and Jack worked in the field. Matty hadn't yet seen them at work together very much, so Riley could see how Matty might not think so. "It all worked out this time and Matty accepted what you did—well, more or less," she reminded Mac encouragingly.
He shook his head. "But that was before my review. I'm under warning now. I don't know how flexible she'll be willing to be on the future missions. What she might count as a mistake that will tip me out of her good graces." He looked down at the Formica tabletop, smooth and cool under his fingertips, and wiped up a small spot of coffee with his napkin. "It's just—do you know how weird it is to feel that Bozer has a more secure future at Phoenix than I do at the moment?" The right side of his mouth curled up slightly in sardonic amusement.
Riley quirked an eyebrow at him. "I think what she said to Bozer is a good sign, actually—for all of us, not just him. She said he got her respect for telling her the truth, even when he thought it would cost him." She paused, then added in a low voice, "That's just what she asked me to do—and I failed. I was too scared." She bent her head to take a sip of coffee; Mac could see that swallowing it was an effort. She raised her head and looked him in the eye. "But I'm going to try not to be so scared next time. Because I think the way to really let her down is to lie to her. And I think that's probably the source of the trouble between Jack and her. He's too cagey about it—too embarrassed for it to be anything else."
Mac nodded slowly. He bit his lip for a second, then said, "I told her my methods didn't rely on luck. She didn't buy that—but . . . she did say that she can respect me disagreeing with her and that if I can prove it—prove my way works—she'd back off. And, come to think of it, she also told me that you can't doubt yourself in our business, not at all. So . . . I guess that was a way of telling me to show her I'm right. That it's okay to prove her wrong. So maybe you're right. I really hope so." He gave her a lop-sided smile, small but genuine.
"She's not making it easy, though, is she?" Riley took another long sip of her cooled coffee.
"Nope. She said it was a challenge. And it will be."
Riley nodded in agreement and held out her coffee mug; Mac picked up his and they solemnly clinked them, then smiled at each other and drank together.
"Sooo," Riley drawled, setting her mug back down, "what're you going to tell Bozer tonight?"
"Uh, congratulations?" Mac hazarded, puzzled—hadn't they already covered this?
Riley rolled her eyes. "About your evaluation, Mac. You know he's going to ask. And Jack will tomorrow morning."
"Yeah. Actually, I'm having breakfast with Jack to make up for ditching him tonight. And he's got to know some of what Matty said, because it could affect how we work." Mac turned the mostly empty coffee mug around aimlessly, wishing he'd brought some paperclips to work with. "I don't want to tell him everything. It won't improve his relationship with Matty."
"Well, it can hardly get worse."
Mac raised one skeptical eyebrow at her.
"Maybe you're right," she amended. "Right now he's only scared of her for himself. If you don't pitch it to him the right way, he'll be mad at her for you. So how're you going to tell him?"
"I think," Mac said slowly, figuring it out as he spoke, "that I'll say she has some doubts about my methods. She hasn't seen anything like them before. That's a standard enough reaction." His mouth quirked upwards ruefully, as Riley nodded in agreement. "So she'll be watching me to see how I work. That's all the truth. I'll just leave out that I'm having to prove to her that my approach does work."
"Makes sense," Riley said, "because really all you have to do is what you've been doing. You always pull off weird stuff, and it always works. Used to leave me a little weirded out too, till I got used to it." She and Mac shared a smile. "But there's still my original question: what will you tell Bozer tonight?"
Mac's shoulders slumped. "I'd rather not tell him anything. I don't want to rain on his parade."
Riley narrowed her eyes. "Soooo, if your positions were reversed, if he'd gotten a review he wasn't happy with while you'd gotten a good one, you'd want him to not tell you about it?"
Mac stared at her in surprise. "No—but that's different!"
"How? Mac, it's good you want to celebrate what he's done. But you can't keep leaving him out of the hard stuff in your life."
"Like I did by not telling him about my real career?" Mac looked down at his coffee mug again.
"Not the best analogy, because there were protocols in place for not telling him—but yeah, because he'd probably see it that way. You tell me about this, you tell Jack—at least mostly—but you don't tell Bozer, your oldest friend and roommate? How's he going to feel if—or more likely when—he does find out?"
Mac remembered—hell, he'd never forget—the look of betrayal on Bozer's face when they'd forced Murdoc out of the house. In the aftermath of the attack, the hardest thing for Bozer to come to terms with hadn't been Murdoc's threats or the destruction in their house—it had been how much and how long Mac had lied to him.
Bozer had forgiven him eventually, first officially and then more fully and deeply once he began understanding for himself the complexities of working at an agency like the Phoenix. But Mac had still sworn to himself never to do that again to his best friend.
And here was Riley calling him on doing it.
"You're right," he said, looking her right in the eye.
"Of course I am," Riley answered, inclining her head slightly with a light smile.
"I'll talk with him about it tonight," Mac promised.
Before he could say more, the waitress arrived. "Would you two like more coffee?" she asked. Riley shook her head no, so Mac said, "Just the check, please." Looking over at Riley, he said, "It's on me."
She chuckled. "Mr. Big Spender."
Mac rolled his eyes. "Seriously, Riley, thanks for coming out to coffee with me. Talking about—all this." He waved his hand to try to encompass all the ground they'd covered. He would have added "telling me about your review" but he didn't think she'd appreciate that. "I'm glad we spent some time together—just us, for once."
Riley's smile brightened. "Me too. It's good for friends to have time for each other. But you should get home and spend your evening with Bozer."
Mac nodded, pulling out his wallet and putting some bills on the table to cover the coffees and tip as Riley gathered her backpack and stood up. He followed her to the door, and they emerged into the cool air outside.
As Mac watched her readjust her backpack, he felt a wave of affection for her. Theirs was a dangerous business, and he hoped she never got hurt.
Which reminded him of something Matty had said.
"You know," he said as she finished and looked at him, "there's something Matty said I don't think I paid enough attention to."
"Oh? What was that?" Riley asked, cocking her head slightly.
"She kind of compared herself to Thornton—said Thornton 'ran a loose ship,' either because she liked me and gave me a long leash and covered my back with the higher ups—or because she didn't care if I died because she was a double agent."
Riley's eyebrows flew up and her eyes widened at that evaluation. Mac remembered being taken aback by it too at the time Matty said it. Given how much personal attention and mentoring Riley had gotten from Thornton in her training, the idea probably hit her pretty hard too.
"But Matty also said that she didn't want to be watching me on a monitor when my 'luck' ran out. So I think—at least I hope—Matty's challenging me this way because she does care about her agents. She's doesn't see us as … disposable. She runs a tight ship, not a loose one."
"That's reassuring." Riley's tone suggested she meant it.
"And it means your reading of the situation was right." Mac smiled. "It usually is," he added affectionately.
Riley's eyes brightened. Impulsively, she gave him a brief hug. Mac chuckled, returning it with equal warmth for the moment before they both let go.
"So I'll see you at Phoenix tomorrow," she said.
"If I survive breakfast with Jack at Texican's."
Riley mimed horror. "You let him choose Texican's for breakfast?"
"I made him promise I didn't have to put hot sauce on my chilaquiles."
"An actual promise?" Riley asked dubiously.
Mac thought back. "Um, maybe not. I just told him I couldn't." He looked at her apprehensively.
"Dude, you had better not turn your back on your breakfast. Jack has strong opinions on how to eat Tex-Mex," she warned teasingly. "He's been known to sneak hot sauce onto people's food in the past."
"So I can trust him with my life, but not my chilaquiles?"
"That's about right." She grinned. "I'll bring milk to work in case you need it."
"Riiight. Thanks, Riley."
"You bet. What are friends for?" She gave him a cheeky grin. "Goodnight." She turned and walked off toward her car, while Mac called out his own "Goodnight" and headed in the other direction towards his Jeep—and home. And Bozer.