Disclaimer: MacGyver is not mine. I'm just borrowing the concepts and characters for a little while.
Spoilers: 1.01 The Rising, 2.23 MacGyver + MacGyver
A/N: It's not necessary for you to read "Course Corrections" to understand this story. All you need to know is that Mac's father has been manipulating his son's life for years, making sure certain things happen the way he wants them to.
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"Six months ago, right before Lake Como, I was recruited by the CIA for a deep cover op."
~~~ Nikki Carpenter, 1.12 Screwdriver.
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At first, James had been happy for his son.
He'd had his doubts about regularly pairing Nikki Carpenter with Angus and Dalton. It had gone against the tried and true formula of 'scientist and soldier' the agency had used since its inception. However, a field analyst hadn't been necessary back when he'd started out, but that had changed as time had passed and more complex technologies had become so ubiquitous. These days, an analyst was needed in some capacity more often than not.
Nikki Carpenter's résumé had been outstanding, including graduating from MIT, the university his son had attended. At the time she had come to his attention, Nikki was being courted by any number of high-profile companies, including Google and Apple. Somehow he'd managed to convince her to work at a government think tank instead. James was 97% certain Carpenter had figured out early on that she was being recruited by the Department of External Services.
By the time Nikki had started accompanying Dalton and his son out in the field on a semi-regular basis, he'd already noticed Angus's interest in the woman. It didn't take long for them to start dating. When he'd found out about the relationship, James had originally wanted to immediately reassign Carpenter, not wanting his son to be distracted out in the field. Instead, he'd held off on making a final decision until he'd observed the couple's behavior when working together, testing to see if Angus could separate the personal and professional as James had been able to do with his own wife.
Despite that one incident in the surveillance van, Angus and Carpenter were able to remain absolutely professional, their banter being the most obvious indicator that the two were something more than co-workers. Aside from that one disappointing slip, which James had decided to ignore, Angus had passed the test. As a reward, James had allowed his son to keep working with Nikki.
In fact, he was happy Angus had found someone. Angus and Nikki seemed to be a good fit intellectually, and most importantly, neither had to lie about what they did for a living like he'd had to do with his beloved wife.
However, as time had passed, James had seen his son's focus on his work waver. There were signs that the relationship between Angus and Nikki had become quite serious. He'd even been notified that Angus had visited the bank deposit box where his son kept his mother's wedding and engagement bands among other family valuables, such as his great-grandfather's pocket watch.
That visit had truly clued him into his son's mindset regarding Ms. Carpenter. He'd realized he would have to do something to put Angus back on course with his plans for his son's future.
It was too soon for his son to get married; it would completely disrupt his plans. And, married or not, if Carpenter were to get pregnant, then he was certain Angus would quit the DXS rather than risk leaving any child of his without a father. His son could still do so much more good in the world, and above all, James didn't want history to repeat itself. He would not assent to such an outcome.
The other potential outcome of Angus and Carpenter getting married was that his son might choose to leave field work behind and instead only work for the think tank side of the operation. This, too, was unacceptable.
James had such high hopes for his son's career at the DXS, up to and including the notion that Angus might take over for him someday, becoming the new Oversight. Allowing Angus to continue on a course trajectory towards a supposed happily ever after with Ms. Carpenter was no longer tenable.
As with other times in his son's life, James decided it was time to once again nudge Angus in another direction, one that course corrected him away from Nikki.
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It took some time to come up with a solution on how to separate Angus and Carpenter, but he'd managed to find a way in the end.
For a while, he'd been hearing rumblings that there was some sort of leak in the intelligence community. Critical information was making it into enemy hands, including a group unimaginatively named The Organization.
Alex Peters, a friend of his from the CIA, had mentioned they were quietly and carefully putting together an undercover operation targeting The Organization. The objective was to infiltrate The Organization in hopes of discovering who the mole was and dismantling the group from within. At this stage, Peters was putting together a list of potential candidates for the mission. The job was slow going because the CIA agent had to thoroughly vet each and every person by themselves, including double-checking to make sure the candidate was not the mole. If Alex was wrong about the person approached for the mission, then it would be over before it had even begun.
James had arranged a casual lunch between them in the guise of catching up, but in reality, he'd had another objective entirely. Throughout lunch, he'd subtly guided the conversation until he had the opportunity to float the idea that Peters should use someone from another agency to be their operative on the mission. With an operative outside of the CIA, there was a decreased chance that neither The Organization nor the mole would find out about the mission. He'd even casually used Nikki Carpenter as an example of someone from his agency who might be right for the job and talked up her qualifications.
Peters seemed enamored with the idea of using someone who wasn't with the CIA, and James was certain he would hear from the man again soon. A week later, Alex contacted him for a covert meet. At the meeting, Peters had asked him if he would be amenable to Carpenter being recruited for the undercover op.
James had put on a show about not wanting to lose a brilliant analyst to a dangerous mission, but eventually, yet not too quickly, he had caved in to his friend's persuasion. Once he gave his permission, Peters refused to keep him updated on any of the mission's parameters, not wanting to risk anything getting back to The Organization regardless of how much Alex trusted him. He would have no idea when or how Nikki Carpenter would switch sides and work for The Organization. He could only speculate on the defection, but assumed a false trail of disillusionment would be laid regarding working for the U.S. government, which would signal her willingness to betray the DXS and her country.
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It was just over three weeks later that Ms. Carpenter supposedly showed her true colors, and it almost cost him the life of his son.
However, it had not appeared that way at first.
Since Peters had informed him that Nikki would be undertaking the op, James had been forced to maintain the status quo and keep Carpenter in play or risk compromising Alex's mission before it truly got off the ground. For three weeks, he'd continued to assign Nikki to missions which needed her expertise, not knowing how or when the young woman would jumpstart her undercover op.
When the mission in Italy had come up, he'd had no way of knowing it would be the one Carpenter would use as a way into The Organization. The intel he'd had made it clear it was a mission tailored to his son's abilities, and that Angus would need Dalton for immediate exfil as well as Carpenter to identify the rest of the players involved. Though some of the intel was rather vague, it was nothing Angus and Dalton hadn't dealt with before on prior missions. James had no reason to believe his son's life was in any more danger than usual.
The next update he'd had about the mission was that it had been blown. A change in exfil had been required and requested due to one agent being severely injured along with a search and rescue team being needed for an agent who was missing in action. At first, he'd blamed Dalton for not protecting his son, but then he'd found out that, despite a moderate concussion, Jack had kept Angus from drowning in Lake Como after his boy had been shot in the chest. It wasn't an optimal outcome for the mission, but at least his son was likely to survive. The same couldn't be said for Nikki Carpenter.
Later, once Angus had regained consciousness and given his account of what had happened, James had found out that Angus's girlfriend had been shot and killed right in front of his son. Her body was presumed to have been washed away by the currents, and it was highly doubtful her body would ever be recovered.
Only he didn't believe the report he'd read. Not that he doubted his son's version of events, but some things about it left him with questions. And those questions led to only one possible answer as far as he was concerned: Nikki Carpenter's death had been staged and she was now working with The Organization.
James was angry with Alex Peters for setting up a scenario like that, one that included a biologic about which there was little information and which had put his team in mortal danger. There was no way of knowing what The Organization would do with the weapon they now had in their possession.
His course correction had been the catalyst for the DXS losing one agent and two others almost dying. James knew he should also be angry with himself for being the one to have set his plan of splitting up Angus and Carpenter into motion, but he wasn't. In actuality, despite the near loss of his son and his best team, James considered his plan a success.
From what he knew about Carpenter, she would dedicate herself wholeheartedly to her mission. She would want to see it through to the end, even if it took years to completely shut down The Organization. If, in the future, Nikki was to succeed in her mission, James thought it would be far too late to try to rekindle a relationship with Angus. His son would probably never fully trust her again, or at least he hoped that would be the case. It would be interesting to test that hypothesis at some point. In the meantime, it would be worth watching how well Angus handled the loss of someone much nearer and dearer to him.
James considered covertly checking in on his son in the hospital, wanting to see with his own eyes that Angus was alive and recovering, but he decided against the impulse. He couldn't risk anyone finding out he had any special interest in one of his agents; it was bad enough that Matty Webber knew he and Angus were related to each other.
In the end, he'd had to satisfy himself with the regular reports coming in from Patricia Thornton via Jack Dalton. At least with Dalton refusing to leave his son alone in the hospital, James knew Angus would be safe – or as safe as one could be in this business.
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The end.
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A/N: I'm sorry – kind of – if I made you dislike Oversight even more than I suspect some of you do already.
Many thanks to Celticgal1041 for proofing. Remaining mistakes are James MacGyver's fault? ;o)
Thanks for reading!