Title: Wild Horses and Ninja Turtles
Author: dragonfly
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Drama, friendship, family
Characters: Jack, Mac and Bozer
Summary: Missing scene to 02x04 X-Ray and Penny. You did what you had to to protect your family; even from themselves and their restless, ginormous brains.
A/N: 1. Thanks to wabbit for the late night Turtle talk. 2. This is my first time participating in the MacGyver 2016 fandom.
~*~MACGYVER~*~
Pushing his way through the crowd, Jack found MacGyver down on the pavement shying away from well-meaning hands and looking more afraid than Jack had ever seen him when lives weren't at risk. "Mac!" The younger man startled violently, but instinctively reached towards his voice before his eyes had even landed on him.
Quickly moving to him and dropping to his knees, Jack pulled the trembling body against his. "Hey, I got you, buddy," he breathed shakily. He was warm. He was alive. Jack closed his eyes with a sigh of relief. "God, you scared the hell outta me."
MacGyver's breathing sped up even as he pressed his face into the crook of Jack's neck and twisted his fingers into the fabric of his shirt.
"Hey, slow it down, brother. I'm here. You're alright." Jack couldn't help but think that if he were a kangaroo, MacGyver would be trying to crawl and hide inside his pouch. Considering the kid was rarely one to seek comfort—especially physical comfort, Jack was trying hard not to freak out. "You wanna give me the basics?"
MacGyver just shook and pressed closer.
Worry on the rise again, Jack held him tighter. "Anyone see what happened?" He asked the crowd that still lingered. He had been driving around in an aimless panic—praying for Mac, or the Powers That Be, or the Paperclip gods to show him a sign; when Riley called and told him that her facial recognition software had picked up Mac's image. He wasn't far from his location and probably broke every law—traffic and the ones about light—getting to him as quickly as he had.
"He crawled out of that manhole," a guy supplied, pointing behind Jack. "He was stumbling around. I thought for sure he was gonna get grilled a few times."
As sirens neared, an older woman that reminded Jack of his Nana knelt next to them. "He passed out for a few moments. When he came to, he was really confused. He wouldn't let us touch him."
Jack nodded with a frown and looked down at his partner. He was concerned that Mr. I'm Fine hadn't pulled away yet. God only knew what that bastard had done to him. "Hey Mac, you with me, bud?" Jack leaned back slightly to try and get a look at his face. He noted his breathing had at least slowed to something close to normal.
Head tucked under his chin, MacGyver nodded, but barely and with too much hesitation for Jack's liking. Jack brushed a hand over the blonde strands as much to reassure himself that he was okay as it was to check for a head injury. "Come on, brother. I need you to talk to me."
Instead, MacGyver breathing started to quicken again.
"Hey, now," Jack placed his hand over the restless fingers that were hooked between the buttons of his shirt, "what's going on? Talk to me."
"Murdoc…" He trailed off with a shiver, sounding unsure—and then completely closed up when a medic knelt on each side of them and started asking questions.
Jack told them what he could, and what he knew—which wasn't much. The moment they touched MacGyver, he turned his face into Jack's chest with a shudder and tried to make himself as small as possible against him. "Hey, hey, hey now, it's alright. These are the good guys."
Jack was really trying hard not to freak out, but Mac wasn't making it easy. What the hell had that bastard done to him? He was about to check for a head injury again when one of the medics gestured at the blood on the crook of Mac's arm.
"Looks like he might have been given something," she stated, being mindful not to touch him.
Jack cursed and ran his hand over the back of MacGyver's neck. Drugs…that explained a lot. Damn that Murdoc. He couldn't wait to get his hands around that little bastard's neck. He shifted slightly as the urge to punch something coursed like fire through his veins. The fingers that had been twisted in his shirt tightened and Mac tugged at him and pressed closer. "Don't."
Jack looked down at him. "Hey now, I'm not going anywhere. I promise. Wild horses and all that." In fact, he was never letting him out of his sight again.
MacGyver's shoulders relaxed some, but he was still pressed against Jack and eyeing the medics warily.
"I know, bud." Jack rubbed his shoulders sympathetically. "We'll go home, I promise. But first we gotta make sure you're okay."
Another tremor tore through the body he held. The kid was drugged, confused and probably hurting—and being in an unfamiliar place surrounded by unfamiliar people…well, it wasn't helping the situation any.
Out of the corner of his eyes, Jack had been watching their field agents covertly move in and take up defensive positions. They were there to make sure his boy stayed safe. He owed Matty a big kiss when they got back.
"Come on, now. You like Justine, don't you?" Justine worked in the infirmary at Phoenix. Mac didn't mind most of the staff, but Justine he seemed to trust the most. "The whole gang's waitin' for ya there."
MacGyver was quiet a long moment before asking in a very uncharacteristically small voice, "Then home?"
Jack huffed a laugh. Kid was already trying to escape the infirmary and he wasn't even there yet…or speaking in complete sentences. But he always had been the kind that liked to tuck himself away to lick his wounds. "Yeah, then home."
Though, Jack suspected as soon as whatever the hell was coursing through Mac's veins wore off; home would be the last thing on his mind. Of course, he wasn't going anywhere until Jack had him fitted with a tracker.
~*~MACGYVER~*~
Mac was curled towards Jack on the infirmary cot, looking more like a lost little boy afraid to go to sleep, than the highly trained and brilliant field operative that he was.
"You're safe, Mac," Jack promised again. "Just get some shut eye until this stuff wears off, alright?"
After a failed attempt to get a blood sample to determine what he had been given, it had taken Jack twenty minutes to get MacGyver out of the corner he had lodged himself in. Thankfully the nurses have quick reflexes—quicker than Mac's currently are, and no one was hurt.
He still wasn't talking much, or letting anyone touch him that wasn't Jack or Bozer. In fact, under Justine's watchful eye, Bozer had been the one to finish cleaning and wrapping Mac's arm while the others waited less-than-patiently in the other room.
"I hate seeing him like this, man." Bozer returned from his search for a 'blanket that won't blow away if he, God forbid, sneezed' and draped the thicker fabric over the shivering form.
"Yeah, me too," Jack agreed. "I've seen him concussed, shot, tortured—"
"Feel free to stop."
"Sorry. My point is, I've never seen him like this. It's like that giant brain of his is…is…"
"Currently in the process of the slowest reboot ever?"
Jack sighed. "Yeah."
Justine suspected he might be having an adverse reaction to the drugs already messing with his system. Jack wouldn't be surprised. The kid was sensitive to even common over-the-counter drugs.
MacGyver was looking between the two with heavy-lidded eyes. The only words he's said since Jack picked him up off the sidewalk were, "Murdoc." "Tired." "No." (He used that one a lot with the medical staff.) "Why?" "Jack", "Boze", "Sorry" and "Stay." (Those last two he used the most with Jack.) Jack had told him repeatedly that he wasn't going anywhere, but in his current condition, Mac couldn't seem to either understand or remember his promise.
"You wouldn't happen to have any tricks you've developed over the years to help our boy relax after a traumatic experience, would you?" Bozer asked, somewhat glibly.
Jack pursed his lips. "Usually I just talk about things he has no interest in until—"
"You bore him to sleep?" Bozer chuckled and gave Mac a look. "You have my sympathies."
Jack crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair; already figuring out Bozer's play. "Alright then, what's your trick for our sleep-reluctant boy?" He glanced at MacGyver who was furrowing his brow and frowning. They would probably get hell for this later—when he was aware enough to be offended and annoyed.
"Well, Jack I have many tricks in my very versatile bag," Bozer stated, sitting on the cot next to MacGyver's feet. He made a thoughtful face. "Though, I admit he's outgrown some of them."
Jack lifted his chin and kept up the light banter. "Oh yeah, such as?" He hadn't missed the way Bozer had placed his hand solidly over Mac's calf.
"Well," he started, "you see, when we were kids, I went through this Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle phase at about the same time I took up an interest in sewing."
Jack opened his mouth.
"So," Bozer continued, cutting off whatever smartass remark he was about to launch, "I made Mac a two foot tall stuffed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle for Christmas." He frowned. "I wanted to make it life size, but my mom thought a five and a half foot turtle would be a bit much."
"Five and a half…? They're cartoons. They're like this big." Jack indicated approximately two inches between his index fingers.
Bozer looked less than amused. "I'm not even going to dignify that, Jack."
The former Delta Force soldier grinned. "So, what'd you do; smother him with it when he couldn't sleep?"
"Funny thing," he said and looked to watch as MacGyver closed his eyes and his tense body slowly began to relax into the cot, "he never had trouble sleeping as long as he had that ugly ass thing to hold onto. As my skills improved, I gave him a much more dignified one," he explained, "…but it was that misshapen thing he always favored."
Jack smiled fondly at the image Bozer had created and relaxed back into his seat as their boy's breathing evened out. "Which turtle was it?"
Bozer gave him a look. "Which do you think?"
They smiled and said in unison, "Donatello." He was the scientist, after all; the engineer. And he always preferred to use his brains over violence to solve conflicts.
Whatever Bozer's tricks typically were when dealing with an insomniac Mac, their familiar banter was comforting enough to finally ease him into a light sleep. "Good work, Boze."
He nodded, but it was with a frown. "I just wish we could do more. Like…wrap him in fifty layers of bubble wrap and ship him to a deserted and undisclosed island until we can catch this bastard."
"You and me both," Jack agreed softly, "but you know our boy here always prefers to fight his own battles."
"Yeah, I know. Doesn't mean I have to like it."
MacGyver suddenly jerked awake. Panicked blue eyes searched them both out before settling on Jack.
At the look on his face Jack stood up, and placing his hands on either side of the younger man leaned in close. He had a feeling his need for constant reassurance was due to both the drugs and what had happened in Paris. "What'd I tell ya, man?" he pressed softly, hoping for his own reassurances that the drugs were finally leaving his system.
MacGyver studied him a few moments as if searching that fractured memory of his. "Wild horses?" he asked in a small, hopeful voice that made Jack's throat tight and his chest ache.
God, what he wouldn't do for this kid. There were tears in Jack's eyes as he brushed a hand through the long, blonde strands. "You know it, brother," he vowed thickly.
A small, relieved smile met Mac's lips and his eyes began to close again.
"You realize he's gonna kill us," Bozer warned quietly. "Me; for telling you about his cuddle buddy, and you; for, well, letting me."
Jack quirked an eyebrow at him and moved to reclaim his spot in the chair next to the cot.
Bozer regarded the finally peaceful look on their sleeping friend's face. His own features softened and the rigid worry he'd been carrying across his shoulders since he'd learned of Mac's abduction fell away. "You're right; totally worth it."
Jack grinned as he leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. You did what you had to to protect your family; even from themselves and their restless, ginormous brains.
"Hey, Jack?"
He heard it in his voice; the fear, and meeting his eyes knew what he sought. "We will, Boze," he promised. "We'll get him."
Swallowing, Bozer nodded before looking back at Mac. "Even still, maybe I should brush up on my sewing skills."
Jack scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "Yeah, uh, hey listen, while you're at it, you think you could—"
"Don't worry, Mikey, I got you covered."
MacGyver wouldn't be the only one having trouble sleeping after today. But they had each other to get through this and come what may, and Jack would always bet on their little family of misfits—every damn time.
The End.
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