Don't Touch Him
Disclaimer: If you recognize it, then I don't own it.
A/N: For 2021 Whumptober #12 Torture
"You will do it, now," The masked man hit Mac across the face to emphasize his point.
"No." Mac swiped the assorted tools to the floor. He stood at the work table, or his enemy, with his arms, folded tightly over his chest. He refused to assist them.
"We have ways to motivate you," With a snap of his fingers the door was opened. A group of guards pushed a stumbling hooded figure into the room. They strapped their struggling captive into the chair across from Mac. The guards got in a few good hits against the defenseless man before they pulled off the hood.
"My sister hit harder than that," Jack spat out a wad of blood, "When she was six."
"Jack," Mac's hope deflated when he saw his friend also held prisoner. Their captors moved around the room, gathering equipment. Jack tested the resistance of his bonds while Mac's brain worked overtime trying to come up with a solution to get them out of their current mess.
"Hey ya, Mac," Jack smiled with blood-stained teeth, "You need to find better activities to occupy yourself with."
"I didn't want to play with them," Mac quipped, "They just need me to fix their toy."
"Broke it, did they," Jack laughed. They were running out of time. The guards were regrouping after a hushed conversation. Jack knew what was coming, what was in store for him. Mac wouldn't like it one bit. He needed his boy thinking straight, so he kept him talking, "I bet they ain't good at playing fair, either."
"No, they're just too stupid to figure it out," The ringleader smacked Mac, sending the blond to the ground from the force. The grunts gathered around the restained man as he roared in fury.
"You touch my boy again and when I kill you, I'll do it slowly," Jack growled, drawing blood from his restrained wrists.
"I'm fine, big guy," Mac shakily made his way to his feet and tried to defuse the situation. Jack was going to cause himself harm if he didn't stop him.
"We're just learning the rules of the game," Mac winked at his enraged partner. Jack nodded and struggled to rein in his temper. They needed level heads to get out of there. The grunts started on the beating portion of Mac's incentive to work for the enemy.
"What are they trying to make you do?" Jack grunted between hits, ignoring his abusers completely for the sake of Mac's needs, "Build some kinda doomsday dohickey."
"Something like that," Mac tried to ignore the noise of the beating his best friend was taking. He worked frantically at the table. Taking what was given him to work with and making it better.
"Well, don't give these bastards anything."
"You should be more worried about yourself."
"What you talking about? I get hurt worse than this in my weekly bar brawl."
"They don't have these at your bars," One of the grunts held up a large propane torch.
"My elementary school bully caused me more pain," Jack gritted his teeth against the pain of the flames lightly touching the exposed skin of his arms. When he didn't cry out his torturers grew frustrated. Mac was cooperating so their job was essentially complete, but they were there for the fun of it. Causing superficial but painful injuries they drew pleasure by causing pain. They were determined to make their captive scream.
"Why are all you cartoon bad guys the same?" Jack grunted out as they pulled out some new toys to play with. The large knife gleamed as it sliced along his body, growing wet with his blood as the scarlet liquid dripped to the floor.
"Did you read too many comics growing up?" Jack looked over to see Mac hard at work on some sort of project. The guilt had to be eating the kid up alive. They needed to escape soon to save Mac from that load before it buried him. Jack would only admit it in the privacy of his own mind, but he was not feeling so good. He didn't know how much he could humanly take before he wouldn't be much help when escape did come. Mac would figure something out, he just needed to give him a little more time.
"Instead of wanting to be someone cool like Superman or Batman, you decided to be the mustache-twirling villain bent of world domination."
They tried to shut him up by dunking his head in a bucketful of ice water. When Mac stopped working to protest, they just kept his partner's head under longer until he stopped fighting them. With drooping shoulders and guilty blue eyes, he watched Jack sputtered out water and gulp in air when he was finally allowed to resurface.
"What would you even do, being in charge of a whole damn planet?" Jack choked out before he was plunged back into the icy liquid. The process was repeated in such quick succession he didn't have a chance to catch his breath for several minutes. Once he had enough breath he commenced mouthing off once more between dunkings.
"Ain't you ever heard the saying, something about absolute power corrupting ya?"
He hacked water unto one of the men holding his arms behind his back, "You'd never get to enjoy it, too much work being in charge of all those folks."
"You should have just bought an island in the Pacific. It would be a lot better life just worried about number one, sipping margaritas, instead of worried about what everyone on Earth is up to."
Whatever they had taken Mac to do was not what Mac had done. The kid was king of improvising in tough situations. He gave three rhythmic taps against the table, unnoticeable in the chaos of the room to anyone not waiting for it. Angus Macgyver had saved both their skins time and time again. Jack would bet on his boy anytime, against anyone.
"You should have been more worried about what he was up to," Jack took advantage of their moment of confusion to yank his arms free. Using the knife that had cut him against one of his tortures, he took out another with the back of the torch. kicking the bucket into his path he tripped another before taking him out of the fight with a few well-placed punches.
Jack turned to check on Mac's status. The kid had put together a homemade taser and had taken out two of the guards using it. The enemy leader had attacked the escaping prisoner in anger. The two traded blows, Mac was well trained but the other man was an expert in hand-to-hand combat. He knocked Mac down and was looming over him when Jack entered the fight. The two old warriors fought like lions. Quick hits met the mark on each other's bodies. Jack was feeling the effects of his torture session but he powered through the pain. He had made a promise he intended to keep.
"I told you not to touch him," Jack hissed as he slowly choked the life out of the man that dared to cause his boy harm.