Thanks so much to everyone who stuck through my rocky first chapter - really more of a prologue than anything - and double extra gratitude to those of you who left comments. Glad to know this has piqued some interest!
Clarifying point: Everything is the same as from canon, except that James isn't Oversight and therefore there's no dossier or anything. Matty was fed up with an old colleague's avoidance and was trying to lead Mac to his dad without violating the agreements between their organizations, so finding out Matty knew him was a lot less explosive and extremely upsetting.
Riley has not spoken to Elwood Davis in six months. This was not her choice, but rather something that happened with the slow slip of an unmaintained field. Silence grew like ragweed until one day she'd looked up and realized that was all there was, anything green and growing she'd been trying to foster with her father hidden beneath a tangled thatch of absence.
It had hurt, to accept that for all his talk of changing and moving forward, it had been so easy for him to let go of whatever place in her life she'd allowed him to have, to quietly fade away. It doesn't escape her that this latest abandonment - the final one, to her decision, he's run out of chances - is so fresh in her mind now.
It's been six months since this, and just one since Mac's father made his own abrupt re-entry into his son's life, and immediately made the top of Riley's shit-list. She can't entirely explain what it was about him, but the moment she laid eyes on the man, she hadn't liked him. She would probably feel a little worse about this if it weren't for the fact that Mac's personality does not indicate a person who received much good parenting to begin with, even before James walked out on him.
As it stands, Riley is perfectly fine with quietly resenting James while maintaining a polite face when interacting with him, for Mac's sake. She's not going to antagonize her friend's father, but that doesn't mean she has to like him, and she's resolved to keep an eye on Mac as things progress. People who've been through what she's been through have a kind of sixth sense about this sort of thing, and every instinct Riley possesses is telling her James, in the most charitable of assessments, does not harbor purely altruistic intentions.
Her explanation of this seems to be holding water with Bozer, sitting across from her on his couch. Mac isn't home, hadn't been when Riley got there, and it was discussion of this that led her to rehashing her conversation with Jack, but to a deeper extent, elaborating and emphasizing her argument. He's been giving shallow nods every so often, indicating silent, almost unconscious agreement with her points. The face Bozer had made when he'd finally seen James again, after knowing him for a few years as a child, is not one that leads Riley to believe he's any more fond of Mac's dad than she is, and that assumption is bolstered by their current conversation.
"And you think the Agency is bad news too?"
When she'd first mentioned the name of the organization James works for, Bozer had looked completely incredulous, and cracked a joke about the CIA. Frankly, Riley would prefer the CIA. The CIA is, at least, a known entity. The Agency, which she does suspect has another name that James merely declined to divulge for whatever reason, is a new factor, a group of people she had never encountered, even in her days as Artemis. It makes her nervous, not even knowing the name, much less what James' role there is. Mac described it as 'one step down from where Matty is at the Phoenix', and the knowledge that this person who makes her so instinctively nervous is in possession of no small amount of power puts her even more on edge.
"We don't know anything about them," she says, in answer to Bozer's question. "I don't trust something until I know, I don't know, anything about them."
"That's fair," Bozer agrees. His eyes have been flickering around the room for the duration of the conversation, jumping aimlessly from Riley's face, to the various eclectic decorations around the house, out the window, and back to her. "I wasn't excited about the first weird spy group I found out about, and that turned out okay, but I'm not betting on batting a thousand here. So, yeah. I'm with you on that. Bad news. The whole thing's bad news."
There's something kind of bitter in those words, 'bad news', like he's drawing on more than just the last month when he says them. Which is when it reoccurs to Riley that he is drawing on more than a month, and that he probably has a perspective she doesn't on James.
"What do you remember?" she asks, changing tac.
"You mean about James?"
"Yeah. What was he like when you first met him, when you and Mac were kids?"
Right away, the look on Bozer's face leads Riley to believe this train of thought is not going to be as useful as she would've hoped.
"Gone," he says, voice flat and stony in a way Riley hates hearing Bozer's voice go. He's a passionate man with strong convictions; he talks with an animation Riley has always found endearing. None of that is there now, replaced by cold, energy-less distaste. "Dude was gone, like, all the time. Even when he was home, he was hardly around. I barely remember him at all, and I was over at Mac's house at least once a week. I don't think I could tell you anything about James if I tried, except that he broke Mac when he left, and I don't want to watch it happen again."
Riley nods. Good to know they're on the same page, then.
"What did Jack say when you talked to him?"
Speaking of being on the same page. Riley tries to take in and let out a deep breath without it sounding like a sigh, appearing as an indication of how she feels about Jack's response. She's not happy about it and she's more than a little frustrated, sure, but she's not mad, and she does understand. So she tries to explain it to Bozer in a way that he'll understand it to.
"I'm just scared that he's gonna be too worried about overstepping to do the overstepping that might need to be done," Riley finishes, giving voice to the part she hadn't said to Jack. "I think if it was anyone but Jack, Mac might not listen, and maybe he doesn't want to take advantage of that and that's why he's not done anything yet, but- Look, all I'm saying is he was acting weird enough already, but ever since James asked him in on that Agency project, we've barely seen him and he's barely been talking when he is around. I'm worried about what he may be getting involved in, that he might be too focused on wanting to make things work with his dad to see that whatever he's been working on with the Agency, it's gonna go down a road he doesn't want to be on."
"What, do you think they might get him in trouble, or hurt, or something? Like, whatever he's working on for his dad, it's more dangerous than James is telling him it is?"
Before she is able to respond, Riley's phone starts buzzing in her messenger bag, discarded on the floor next to the couch. Moments later, Bozer's chirps from the kitchen counter. Exchanging a look, they both go for their respective phones to check the messages they're already pretty sure they're aware of the contents of. Sure enough, true to Riley's assumptions, it's a summons from Matty. They've got an assignment.
There's a moment where Riley sees Bozer turn towards the hall down which lies Mac's room, mouth opening slightly like he's about to call his roommate's name, summon him so they can carpool in. She watches his face change when he remembers that Mac isn't home, an embarrassed cringe followed by a shake of the head.
"He'll meet us there," she says over the back of the couch in an attempt to lighten the mood.
"His car's in the drive," Bozer mutters, moving around the living room to grab his bag. "James picked him up this morning."
"Oh. Well." That's one of Riley's less sensical complaints about James, the fact that he always seems to be picking Mac up or dropping him off, never meeting him somewhere or letting Mac come to him. It's not a generally foreboding action, driving your son places, but something about it makes Riley feel uneasy. There's nothing about James that doesn't make Riley feel uneasy. "I'm sure James will drop him off or something."
"Right." The tone of his response indicates Bozer is not especially fond of this trait either, though it could also be he's just as unimpressed with all of James' behavior as she is.
Mac gets there late.
There's a tension in the room prior to his arrival, an uncomfortable silence hanging in the air when it's been long enough that Jack has checked his watch three times but not long enough for calling him to be anything less than an overreaction. Riley is sitting on the couch, messing with a program on her computer that needs updating just for something to do, while Bozer sits next to her stringing paper-clips from the salad bowl on the table together. Matty has a file she's not reading open in her hands. Jack is standing somewhere near a window, radiating apprehensive energy.
Twenty minutes after Riley and Bozer's arrival, Mac walks in the door of the war room. Under Riley's scrutinizing gaze, he looks flustered, a little embarrassed.
"Sorry," he says, out of breath. "Dad had a thing, and we had to… Sorry."
"It's alright," Matty says, voice brisk and neutral, moving right along. "If you'll have a seat, we can begin the briefing."
Jack has made his way over, next to the couch, and Riley sneaks a look at him as the briefing begins. He's got his arms crossed and if he thinks the worry on his face is subtle, it isn't subtle enough that Riley doesn't see it. She looks away from him and over to Mac. Her friend looks okay enough, focused on what Matty is saying, but there's something off about him, something that's been off for a while. She can't quite figure out what it is, but he seems stressed.
(Of course he's stressed, Riley thinks. His dad, who left him pretty messed up when he was a kid, reappeared in his life and he's spent the last month constantly in the guy's company.
She'd been there, and she'd only seen Elwood sporadically. If she'd spent as much time with him as Mac was presently spending with James… She can only imagine what kind of a conflicted mess she would be. Add that to the fact that he's evidently known where Mac was the whole time, that he knows Matty, and well. Stressed hardly covers it. Riley's having a hard time even understanding why he's trying, but she figures she isn't in much of a position to judge that.)
The mission is going to take them out of the country. Riley realizes on the plane that this is the first mission of that sort that they've been on since James entered the picture. It's not the hardest one they've ever been sent on, a retrieval of a dignitary who'd landed in an unfortunate spot. Bozer is there for more mission practice, still being relatively new, and she's along for tech support. There's not a lot of prep to do, at least not on her end, which leaves Riley a lot of time to watch Mac.
Since they've left for the plane, Mac has seemed different. His posture has relaxed, the odd look in his eyes has faded, and he's talking more. Whether it's the calming effect of settling back into routine, returning to the familiar motions of a job well known and well practiced, or the more conspiracy-theory tinged guess that it's the relief of knowing he won't even have to think about James for at least a handful of days, Riley isn't sure. Whatever the cause, Mac seems a hell of a lot more like himself now than he has since James' reappearance. The only vestige of his unsettled demeanor is the way he seems to be sticking closer than usual to the others, particularly to Jack.
Presently, he's sitting next to Jack on the plane's couch, leaning against his partner's shoulder to read the dossier open in the older man's hands. It's yet another small example of out of character action from a guy who's usually barely capable of accepting physical reassurance, never mind seeking it, and Riley frowns.
When Jack gets up to go speak to the pilot, he brushes a hand over Mac's hair, giving the back of his neck a brief squeeze. It appears to be a moment of thoughtless, casual affection, characteristic of a man like Jack, as free with such affection as he is with good old Texan aphorisms, but Riley knows it means he's noticed too and acted accordingly. Mac watches him go with an odd look on his face, like the contact had both confused him and left him wanting it back when it was gone.
Riley's heart aches, because she knows what that feels like. She's been there before, feeling turbulent and unmoored, alone in an isolated struggle you can't talk about, and suddenly receiving comfort you hadn't known you wanted or needed. She can imagine how Mac is feeling in the wake of that - hardly able to articulate why it had helped and completely incapable of asking for it back.
That's part of Jack's persistent encouragement to the two of them to tell him when they need something that Riley's never understood. What are you supposed to say?
Will you please sit here and hold my hand or put your arm around me in full view of our whole team, because there's something going on with me that I can't talk about, and I'm struggling, and being touched by people I feel protected and safe around helps me feel grounded and like I don't have to deal with it alone. Yeah, no. Riley can't imagine having the nerve to anything of the sort, nor can she imagine Mac doing so. She of all people knows that progress made in accepting support is not progress made in asking for it, and besides, they have a mission to focus on.
The mission is as comparatively short and simple as promised, and Mac outperforms himself, completing his objectives and handling the few unexpected curveballs with a skill and precision that somehow, after as long as they've been working together, still takes Riley by surprise. It's Mac completely in his element, on top of his game, and it leaves Riley feeling both intimidated and proud to know him. He looks at home in his own skin, twisting a stripped cord from a lamp around the internal parts of a control panel, connecting pieces in order to trick the security system into opening a biometrically locked door. Riley notices the dignitary they're here to retrieve watching this with bewildered awe, and feels somewhat like she'd imagine the family members of pro athletes feel after a big win.
That's right, she thinks, chest tight with pride. That's our Mac.
As soon as it's over, though, and they're crossing the tarmac to board the plane, Riley notices it again. Mac's got a distant look on his face and he's walking close next to Jack, close enough that their arms periodically brush, and Riley sees Jack shooting him concerned looks. On the plane, Jack has gathered Bozer over with the dignitary to review what's happened, give him some debriefing practice, which leaves Riley alone at the other end of the aircraft with Mac. She gets up eventually and moves seats, sitting down across from him. Once seated, she reaches out and taps his ankle with hers, getting his attention.
"Wanna go to the pier tomorrow?" she asks, rather than getting right to the point. Riley can't imagine 'are you okay' would've yielded useful results. "I want to try that new gelato place Bozer told us about."
"Sorry Riles," Mac says, with an apologetic wince. He looks reluctant to explain further, but elaborates nonetheless. "I'm meeting my dad for… We've got a thing."
We've been on this plane for thirty minutes, Riley bites back saying. How can he have already gotten you to agree to meet him tomorrow?
"More Agency stuff," she guesses, and he gives an uncomfortable nod. "Is that a good idea? That soon after a mission?"
Mac responds with the least reassuring shrug Riley has ever seen, which is saying something, given a shrug is not the most reassuring of gestures to begin with.
"This Agency thing," Riley can't help but add, unable to stop the stone rolling down the hill once she's pushed it. "You know what you're doing, don't you? You're not gonna get in over your head with them. And if you are, tell us, and we can pull you out, okay?"
The look on his face when Mac makes eye contact with her is chilling. It's blank, completely blank, schooled and controlled until nothing was left. All except his eyes. His eyes, they're exhausted, they look as tired as if he'd not slept in a month. Not slept since James.
"It's just a favor for my dad," he says, voice as neutral as his face is. "It's nothing to worry about."
"I know you better than that, Mac, something is up with you." The accusation, it's a risk, but the stone keeps rolling. "You might not be ready to tell us yet, but when you are, just- You can, okay? Whatever it is, you know you can talk to me, right?" It had been a Hail Mary pass, no practical chance that he would crack and spill everything that's going on with him just like that, but Riley can't help but still feel her heart sink when he answers, voice engineered into artificial reassurance, soft and calming while lacking anything real.
"Thanks Riley," Mac says, with a smile that doesn't reach his eyes, "but it's nothing. I'm fine."