Less than forty-eight hours later, the rest of the team would have been hard-pressed to convince anyone on the outside that Mac had been badly hurt and needed surgery on his shoulder to remove a bullet and repair the damage it had done. He was clear-eyed, in complete command of his faculties, and ready to stage a daring escape if he didn't get his way pretty soon. When Riley came through the door of his hospital room, he was sitting up, arguing with the pretty blonde nurse as well as Steve, who was trying to be the team's voice of reason, although he was only doing so as a favor to Jack who was off taking care of Phoenix business as the default team leader with Mac out of commission. Steve wasn't trying all that hard. Mac's reputation preceded him, and Steve figured he'd rather lose the battle over this than lose the trust he might need from Mac back out in the field. Making a last ditch effort, if only to stay off Dalton's shit list, Steve said that European hospitals were known for keeping people admitted for longer. They were just more careful than their American counterparts. Mac was having none of it.

"Four more days is ridiculous. If I were back in LA I would've been kicked out of bed ten minutes after I woke up from surgery. I've already been here almost a day and a half." He was still irritated that he'd spent most of the previous day groggy from surgery and the pain meds no one had asked him if he'd wanted.

Steve just held up his hands and tossed Riley a half grin as he sat back down in the chair Jack had reluctantly given up to him. This was the terrible patient Rodgers had heard about. Stubborn as a mule. When Steve had initially sided with the nurse, Mac asked him, in what only sort of sounded like a joking voice, if he thought it was likely for more than one Steve Rodgers to survive being a Cap-cicle since they were extremely close to the Arctic and could potentially test it out. Steve thought Mac was so convinced of his own hyper-fast injury recovery (in which Steve read not actual healing, but a high pain tolerance) that if they were going to start ribbing each other with comic book references, he'd have to think of a good X-man nickname to saddle Mac with.

The nurse was giving her patient a practiced smile, but it was becoming increasingly strained as he argued. As soon as they'd started tapering off his medication a little and he was slightly more awake he'd removed his IV and flatly refused to have another one placed, saying that was a hospital regulation rooted in convenience for staff and not the wellbeing of patients and then rattled off a list of statistics explaining why it was both unnecessary and unreasonable. Now, he was asking for discharge orders before he'd even had breakfast, citing practices in American healthcare. She couldn't imagine the American system where it seemed insurers decided what was best for patients. She would take a whiny patient who buzzed the central station every five minutes over one who quoted numbers and studies at her and resisted the most basic aspects of treatment any day of the week. If he wasn't so damned cute she might actually be mad! But it was difficult to be really upset with him and she'd certainly dealt with patients like him before. "Mr. MacGyver our standards of care here are very high and your surgeon recommends …"

"Nosocomial infection is the greatest statistical post-surgical risk to otherwise healthy people. And international best practice recommends rapid discharge in the case of fully ambulatory patients to minimize exposure." He was practically daring her to argue with him. Steve was having a hard time not laughing at this point. He thought about saying something, but was getting too much entertainment value out of this.

"Yes, sir, but the greatest risk of hospital-acquired infection you would have is at an IV catheter site, which you have, most conveniently, already cleaned and bandaged. After you removed the port." Her smile tightened with some annoyance.

"One less thing for you to take care of before I leave, right?"

She was mildly reproachful, cajoling. "I really should insist on starting another line. The orders were for a second round of antibiotics ... You shouldn't have removed it yourself."

Mac shook his head and said in a voice touched with real stubbornness, "But I did."

Steve had tried to stay quiet but could no longer resist. "He did a good job of it, too."

Mac latched onto Steve's contribution. "See? I came with my very own medic. Just get the doctor to sign the papers and send them to my boss."

This was a losing battle. Nurse Solheim just hadn't realized it yet. "I'll discuss it with him after the mid-day meal, sir."

"It's only nine in the morning." He wasn't trying to sound petulant or look particularly vulnerable, but with the massive case of bed head and his general aura of misery, he managed to look all of seventeen. Always a keen observer, he saw the slight softening of her features, and instead of getting defensive, tried a different approach. "You're not really gonna make me wait around until afternoon for you to talk to him are you?"

"It would be better if …"

"Nurse Solheim …"

"Please," she said almost before she could reconsider it, "Call me Astrid."

"Thank you, Astrid. But four days? I know you're just doing your job. And I can tell you're very good at it, but ... forty more minutes and I might start climbing the walls. Literally. That won't be very good for my recovery either."

She knew she was being played, but she decided that she didn't mind. This American was very handsome, very charming, and honestly made very good points about his own condition. She justified her acquiescence with the thought that one less argumentative patient on the floor would make her day smoother. She'd spent fifteen minutes in here already. She sighed. "Alright. Mr. MacGyver …"

"Call me Mac," he interrupted with his most disarming grin.

"Alright … Mac. Dr. Landvik should be on the floor shortly. I'll speak to him before he begins rounds."

Mac turned up the wattage on his smile, "Thank you so much."

"You …" the nurse cleared her throat. "You're very welcome. Mac."

Riley hadn't even really gotten comfortable in her chair, but she got up to follow the nurse out. "I'll go get you a change of clothes." Riley grinned and shook her head. "Jack's always claiming you've got no game, but now I see … you're actually kind of a player when you wanna be. You just flirted your way to an early discharge, I'm pretty sure."

Mac shrugged, wincing slightly at the pull on his shoulder and what had turned out to be only badly bruised ribs, and flushed just a bit. "Maybe a little."

Jack passed Riley just outside the door to Mac's room. "Where you headin', Ri?"

"To get Mac's stuff so he can get dressed."

"Wait, what?" She just gave him an overly elaborate shrug and continued down the hall to grab the elevator and walk the short distance to their hotel, glad she was going to miss the mini-Papa Jack freakout that was bound to ensue, but she knew from past experience that it was unlikely to change Mac's mind.

Jack strode into the room already giving Mac his disapproving eyebrows and sat down stiffly in one of the visitor's chairs next to Rodgers. "Good morning, Steven," he said formally. "Good morning, Angus."

Mac flinched. Jack only used his real name when he was about to go into full-lecture mode. At least the middle name didn't get thrown out there yet. "Hey Jack. Were you able to get breakfast? Todd stopped in a while ago and said the cafeteria here really puts the ones stateside to shame."

Steve laughed and got up, thinking the two of them were used to processing after a mission alone together anyway, and that if he didn't get another cup of coffee he'd be almost as grumpy as Mac had been when the nurse first told him about the proposed length of his treatment plan. "Don't be too hard on him, Dalton. I just witnessed one of the most impressive instances of a guy flirting to get their way that I've ever seen. And he turned on a dime to do it. A thin dime. First it was all, 'This little shit took out his own IV and I'm gonna go get an orderly to sit on him so I can put it back; not gently,' and then he turns on the charm a little and she's practically putty in his hands. 'Oh, Mac, please call me Astrid ...'" he batted his eyelashes and Mac tossed him a mostly playful glare.

"Damn it all, Mac, I bought that woman breakfast to get her to hold a hard line with you!"

Steve left the room laughing, thinking he'd go find Milton and start talking about how to handle their first debrief as part of Team Thunder Stallions (how Jack always referred to himself, Mac, and Riley, although the younger team members didn't know it). Mac chuckled, too. "Sorry, man. I guess Astrid is immune to both cafeteria pastry and your questionable charms."

"I mean I can see resisting one or the other, but both?" Jack forced a laugh, then looked at him seriously. "I'm tryin' real hard not to go full dad on you right now … but you scared me a little, bud." Mac frowned. None of his injuries had been that serious. "After the flashbacks and everything … you gettin' grabbed … and then you were just so damned docile on the helicopter … Not to mention you were pretty out of it yesterday ..."

"Because somebody let them keep me all doped up! Which better never happen again, by the way!" Mac said with just a little heat.

"I don't know, man." Jack went on, not about to let Mac change the subject. "I was worried you might just bail before it was safe. You've done it before. And I thought you were doin' that 'get trapped in your own head' thing that happened after …"

"Jack," Mac began, waving his hand to invite his partner closer. Instead of pulling the chair over, Jack just moved to sit on the edge of the bed. "I promise you that won't ever happen again. I'll talk to you … I didn't do my usual stubborn thing because honestly Steve has proven himself. He's part of the team. Also, you were there so I figured you guys would gang up on me anyway." His voice was light and confident, but there was something that still felt slightly off to Jack. Mac's eyes were oddly cold; this felt like a full-on 'walls up' situation. It was one of the reasons that he'd brought up light sedation to Steve, who'd communicated it, with a somewhat dubious raised eyebrow, to the hospital staff. Mac was so determined to be in control, to hold everything and everyone together that the only way he ever stopped was when he was out like a light. He also knew that Mac hated hospitals, doctors, anything to do with either, and he knew the reason, although he'd never brought up Mac's pain-induced confession in the helicopter shortly after they'd met. Mac knew Jack was probably responsible for his dozy semi-lucid state yesterday, but he was actually trying not to be pissed off about it. He had kind of escaped a hospital when they first met. Granted it was just a field hospital, but even though it had saved some lives, it had come very close to getting Mac killed. Jack wasn't ever going to forget waiting for that evac and Mac knew it. He shrugged, hiding the wince that the almost involuntary gesture caused much more successfully this time. "Honest, Jack, I'm good. I feel like the worst thing that happened is they took my knife off me before they threw me in the closet to get me out of the way and when I came to I was too focused on getting out to think about looking for it."

Jack lost his serious look for a second and fished something out of his pocket. Mac's face brightened further when Jack put his slightly busted Swiss Army knife into his hand. "Your phone was crushed to powder, but I found this on the ground in the hallway I dragged you out of. It's gonna need a new blade. What the hell did you do to it, anyway?"

"Opened a lock the hard way," Mac frowned, thinking of the state they'd found Kolya in. "How is … everybody?" He pulled the name at the last second, welcoming Jack's ability to soften any blow at the moment.

Jack got back up and pulled a chair closer to the bed. He raised his eyebrows at Mac until he leaned back into his pillows with an irritated sigh. "Everybody's good. Matty has been crackin' the whip and coverin' our tracks to look like a private aid effort gone wrong and causing a riot and the subsequent evacuation assisted by an international task force to get people to safety, so we've avoided an international incident. Although she's not really done yelling at me for us blowing up that jail yet. That's okay. She more than paid for it with the Kazhak. I've always wanted to get my hands on one. The Norwegian government is being more than welcoming and is already settling some of the guys who were well enough to not need to be admitted into refugee housing."

"That's good," Mac said carefully. He didn't like that Jack didn't bring up Kolya first, but he supposed that was why he'd asked his question the way he had to begin with.

"Alexei is doing really well. I think he's gained five pounds already. We've got him a room at the hotel and he's mostly following Ri around like a puppy, asking her a million questions about being an analyst, and about hacking, not to mention getting an update on all the latest American movies and music." Jack paused. The news was good in a way, but he wasn't sure what Mac would make of it. "Nikolai is here in the hospital. Had to have his spleen removed, and he was pretty badly dehydrated, malnourished. Quite a few broken bones. He'll probably need to stay here for a few of weeks, maybe a month."

"Aw, man. That sucks. He hates sitting around almost as much as I do."

"But he doesn't hate hospitals anywhere near as much as you apparently," Jack chuckled. "He seems pretty happy with clean sheets, food on demand, and the attention of nurses who are all aflutter over what he risked to save his brother." Mac smiled. Leave it to Kolya to make the best of any situation. "Matty wants us to hang here until he's been discharged." Mac frowned again, but more in confusion than concern. "She's offered to facilitate the Sokolovs' relocation to the U.S. and of course they both agreed. Matty thinks they can provide enough information to get a solid investigation into the human rights issues going on over there a good start. They could use an escort."

Riley came back into the room and dropped Mac's bag onto the bed between his feet. "Thanks, Ri!" Mac started to get out of bed, but heaved a frustrated sigh when he remembered how not dressed he was. He pulled on a pathetically thin bathrobe over the ubiquitous gown. No matter what country you woke up in, if you woke up in a hospital you'd be wearing one of those damned things. Mac was more than half convinced it was so people would be less likely to just get up and leave. With the minute tying the robe took, Jack tried one last ditch effort to get his friend to hang around for a little more supervised rest.

"Mac, we're gonna be here for weeks waiting for Kolya to recover enough to fly anyway. And Matty's not tapping you for any more missions until a doc at Phoenix gives you the all-clear." Mac glared at him slightly, thinking it wouldn't be below Jack to play up his injuries to Matty. "So why don'tcha just chill out here for another day or two. Maybe you can get the lovely Nurse Astrid's number if you lay on the charm heavy enough."

Mac grabbed up his bag and was halfway to the bathroom already. "Not a chance. I've never gotten to just visit Norway for pleasure before. I'm gonna rock the tourist thing so hard, you're gonna want to buy me a camera and a bad outfit." Mac closed the bathroom door before Jack could come up with a response.

When he came out a while later (getting dressed with a bum arm was about as much fun as he remembered) Astrid and the tall, pale, very stern looking Dr. Landvik were entering the room. Riley really didn't want to be around to watch Mac argue with all three of them so she got up and took Mac's bag from him. "I'll go take this back to the hotel for you, Mac." He smiled his thanks. "Besides I've been out for a while and I don't want to leave Lex alone for too long. I'm afraid he's gonna try to take apart my rig."

Mac chuckled, "He would, too. The sooner we can get him enrolled in a technical program stateside, the happier the world will be." Then he sat down in one of the visitor's chairs next to Jack, making it very clear to everyone in the room that he was not, for love nor money, getting back into that bed. He flashed a smile that Jack thought would have made James Bond jealous. There was nothing of the tentativeness that Jack was frequently used to hearing from Mac when he spoke to people he considered to be in positions of authority either. "Good morning, Doctor. I'm sure Nurse Solheim has already let you know I plan to leave today. I assume that's the necessary paperwork."

The doctor frowned, a face he was used to causing patients to become instantly compliant. "Mr. MacGyver, I understand your desire to be released …"

Mac cut him off. "The sooner the better, Doc."

"I would prefer, first, to examine ..."

"I think I'll pass, if you don't mind. Discharge papers. Raskt, vær så snill."

The flustered older man turned to leave saying only, "Give us ten minutes, sir."

Then Jack did laugh, thinking he would be glad to get Mac out of the hospital now, if only to get him to open up about what was really going on in his head. "Did you just tell that crusty old doctor to hurry his ass up?"

Mac nodded. "Yeah. I pretty much did."