OLD NUCLEAR FALLOUT SHELTER

SOMEWHERE IN THE USA

2009

'…alright, boys, you're coming up to a T-junction ahead, watch out for bogeys…'

Jack, dressed in tac gear, a semi-automatic in hand, grinned as he replied to Thorpe's voice through his earpiece.

'Hey, we don't need you warning us 'bout a good ambush site, Thorpe.'

Worthy, who was behind Jack, continued, voice a little teasing.

'This isn't our first rodeo.'

Their teammates nodded in agreement as they advanced quietly, quickly and on high alert down the hall.

A year ago, they'd been a top Delta unit, affectionately nicknamed 'Dalton's Heroes' by the other units.

Then, after a fateful mission in Colombia, Thorpe had lost the use of his legs, Worthy had gotten life-changing news (of the good variety) and they'd all gotten out.

Problem was, none of them had much in the way of money (being career military didn't pay all that well, even if the benefits and insurance were great), and Worthy, Munoz and Deacon had families to support.

Hence, they'd decided to work freelance as mercs for a couple of years, build up their savings, then retire for good.

(They were very selective about the jobs they took. Very, very selective. They could be, after all. They were that good.)

This time, they'd been hired by a reclusive billionaire (an infamously reclusive billionaire) to rescue his eighteen-year-old son, who'd been kidnapped while on his way home from MIT for the summer.

They arrived at the T-junction, and instinct told them that there were definitely hostiles waiting in ambush.

Jack didn't even look back, just raised his hand in a series of signals, and Fitzy and Lanier tossed a smoke grenade down each side, before Munoz, Jack and Deacon advanced, Fitzy, Lanier and Worthy covering them.

Following the simple technique of going where the bad guys were, they soon came upon a cell.

(These guys were amateurs, compared to them. They stood no chance.)

Jack was just about to rough up a survivor among the baddies to get the key to the cell when the steel door embedded in a concrete wall literally just fell out of the doorframe, narrowly missing Fitzy.

Standing on the other side was Angus MacGyver, said billionaire's kid, a little roughed up, but very much alive. There were a pair of butter knives on the floor on either side of the door, connected to wires coming out of the ceiling.

He was also holding an opened tin can, and a wire from the ceiling, as well as a red Swiss Army knife.

The boy looked warily at Dalton's Heroes.

'I have thermite in this can. If this wire contacts it, it will ignite and produce an extremely exothermic redox reaction-'

Jack looked incredulously at him and interrupted.

'Kid, your dad hired us to rescue you, and now you're giving us a science lesson?'

(Fitzy, on the other hand, looked impressed. Very impressed.)

Angus MacGyver eyed them all for a moment, then Jack rolled his eyes and continued.

'Oh, yeah, password. Right, kid: orange platypus fedora.'

Apparently, his dad had a kidnapping password for him, so he'd be able to identify rescuers. When Jack had asked why in the hell it was so weird, James MacGyver had just shot him a look.

The younger MacGyver relaxed, and tossed away the live wire.

'A, actually, I was escaping. B, exothermic redox reaction, simply put, essentially means it gets really hot. C…' He glanced around at the whole team, and the probably-dead kidnappers littering the corridor, then back around at them, a grateful and relieved look on his face. '…thanks.'

He sounded very genuine. Earnest. Didn't seem like a snooty rich kid.

Fitzy, Jack noted, was still looking rather impressed at the homebrew thermite and whatever it was that the kid had done to the door.

In all honesty, he wasn't the only one. Kidnapped, locked in a cell in a bunker straight out of a horror movie, and the kid had thought of a way to escape, taking advantage of the bedlam they'd been causing.

He'd even managed to have a bit of a witty, cool action-hero moment right there, with that little spiel, even if it was more science-y than Bruce or Arnie.

Not half bad. Not half bad at all.

Jack decided then and there that Angus MacGyver was a good egg…but a seriously weird egghead.

'Come on, let's bounce…'

AN: Or, in which Mac is a self-rescuing not-a-damsel-in-distress?