CW: Brief mention of historical PTSD and drug use
Three
"Lucy!"
Still in his uniform, Jeff bolted from the elevator, ran to the lounge and clutched Lucille close to him. "You all right, beautiful?" He asked, pulling back just enough to search her face for all and any hints about how she was feeling.
"I'm managing." Lucille nodded, tugging him in for a quick kiss and feeling that much more reassured now that they were together again to face this. "Jeff, be careful." She cautioned him. "Our Scotty's buried deep, we've got to convince Fury we're not going to hurt him and he can trust us before he's even going to think of letting us get near him."
"I saw the vids, John had EOS send us everything." Jeff nodded, his expression grim. "Boy's carrying a whole lotta hurt and he's put class 'A' armour plating 'round any part of him that can be wounded. Where is he right now?"
"Down at the east beach. Kayo's keeping an eye on him." Lucy explained, pointing to the hologram over the central table- a map of the island with two markers showing Fury and Kayo's locations. "Do you have any ideas?" She asked, a frown furrowing her brow. "I want to help him, but how? He won't let us close."
"Kyrano gave me some ideas as we were flying in. One of 'em's going to be hard for me." Jeff admitted with some ruefulness.
"What's that?" Lucille asked curiously.
"He told me that anger met by a void defeats itself." Jeff explained. "If Fury starts up, I've gotta wait it out and not react." He saw her doubtful expression and couldn't help but chuckle. "I think I made that exact same face. 'Wait it out' isn't exactly in the Tracy handbook." He sobered. "I'll do my best though, I didn't get to my rank by letting every jumped up newly minted pilot get under my skin, and we didn't build TI or IR by letting anyone else do it either." He kissed her brow. "Gimme five to go pack some food and I'll go see if he'll talk to me." Jeff grinned at her querying look. "His brothers nicknamed him 'Scoff' for a reason, remember? I'm hoping the quickest way to that boy's heart is still through his stomach."
0o0o0
The crunch of stones underfoot was his warning and Fury scrambled to his feet, surprised that he'd actually dozed off to the soothing susurrations of waves lapping against the pebbles.
Someone was approaching his location, a battery-powered lantern in one hand and an insulated lunch bag in the other. The person put the lantern and bag down on a handy flat rock and simply stood there for a long minute, watching him, a thousand emotions chasing over his face, betrayed by little shifts and twitches in his features.
Almost against his will, Fury approached the man, echoes of old memories enticing him to draw nearer. It was like looking into a mirror of the future, Fury realised as he looked into an older version of the face that he saw whenever he shaved.
"...Dad…" The word escaped him before he could slam the walls back up.
"Hi Sc…Fury." Jeff corrected himself. "You hungry?" He asked, turning to the bag and flipping it open to take out bottled sports drinks, a box of crackers and a container of cut fruit. "I know it's a bit late to be eating and Lucy told me you had some pie earlier, but we couldn't figure out the last time you actually ate anything like a proper meal." He laid out the food and sat on the ground, taking a drink for himself and gulping back about a third of it.
"What do you want?" Fury demanded, starting to get irritated with the constant unspoken demands these people were placing on him- they wanted their Scott, he wasn't their Scott, what was it going to take for them to get this through their heads?
"To get some food into you before you pass out again." Was Jeff's reply. "Mangos, melon, apple, banana, take your pick." He said, nudging the fruit bowl over after taking a slice of watermelon for himself. "Sorry there's no pie, if I've been eating astronaut food for more than a day I get a stomach ache if I have anything too rich too soon after." An amused smile pulled at his mouth. "Besides, Gordon was home when that pie came out of the oven. I swear that boy is half piranha, any baking is gone within minutes. Lucy told me Virgil practically had to fend him off with a carving fork to get that slice to you."
Fury made a noncommittal noise, crouched on the opposite side of the boulder and reached for the crackers, judging them to be safer to eat than the fruit. He'd really been needing the carbs and salt though, he realised as he worked his way through the packet. He hadn't actually eaten a proper meal since breakfast… whenever breakfast had been. He hadn't seen a clock or calendar since being on the Cruiser, he'd lost track of what day it was.
As he sat and munched on a cracker, he realised the companionable silence was weirdly comfortable and familiar. Sitting and sharing food with an older adult wasn't a thing he'd done very often. Sure, there'd been the odd good foster parent, people who actually cared about the kids they'd housed, but he'd stopped getting attached to those people after the third or fourth time the system had moved him on to make way for someone else. But sitting here with Dad…Jeff, he corrected himself, felt right in a way that he hadn't felt for ages.
Watching Fury from the corner of his eye, Jeff was feeling hopeful. There hadn't been an explosion like Lucy had gone through, though the more cynical part of him chalked that up to Fury being too exhausted- the shadows under his eyes were like bruises and his colour wasn't as healthy as he'd have liked. If they could maintain something like this current semi-peace, they might be able to work past Fury and get to Scott.
There was a soft ping from his bracer computer and Jeff put down his drink to see what it was- an email from Penelope, as it turned out.
'Jeff,
Here is what I have been able to uncover thus far, I will forward more once I have it.
Best of luck,
Lady Penelope.'
Jeff frowned as he opened the attachments and skimmed through the contents of each one. He felt eyes on him as he got through the last one, forwarded everything to Lucy and looked over to see Fury eyeing him curiously.
"I asked a friend to do some digging." Jeff began, deciding to take a gamble and hoping it would work. "You know who blew up London Airport in 2040, right?"
"Yeah, everyone knows that: Bereznik." The name of the country was all but spat out, dripping with venom.
"They're one of The Hood's biggest clients. Most of the things you steal go straight to them." Jeff sensed more than saw Fury freeze in place and continued. "My friend found out some other things- Clarence and Heather also ended up in the system because of London Airport. Clarence's parents were working there, Heather's mother was picking up a friend. Heather's mother survived but got PTSD, turned to drugs and lost custody of her."
Fury said nothing, keeping his eyes fixed on the horizon.
"You know how The Hood kept the Mechanic, his previous associate, on a leash, right?" Jeff decided to add another log to the proverbial fire. "His cybernetic eye. He's literally got wires into the guy's brain to torture him. You sure you want to keep working for someone who thinks that sort of thing is a great idea?"
"You're lying." The declaration was made, but there wasn't that much conviction behind it.
"Why would I lie about something that Heather and Clarence could confirm for you inside five minutes?" Jeff asked back. "Howsabout you three stop throwing your anger at people who didn't do anything to you and start targeting the people who deserve it." Jeff waved his hand towards the pale forms of the buildings hugging the mountain. "You three can live there, in the Round House, we'll put a concealed hangar and accessway in there for you, and you can start using your skills to stop other innocent kids from going through the same pain and trauma you three went through."
He knew he hit the mark by the sharp intake of breath, the instant tension that lanced down Fury's muscles.
There was a long pause, then Fury snapped "I'm going inside", rolling to his feet and stalking towards the door without waiting for an answer.
Jeff blew out a long sigh and laid back on the pebbled beach. He really wanted to chase after Fury, but Kyrano had cautioned against that. The more they chased, the more they pressed, the more they pursued, the harder he'd fight and the faster and further he'd run. Jeff growled out a few swear words and beat his fist against his thigh in frustration. Why couldn't this be simpler? Why couldn't Fury just see that they were his family? After so long, so much heartache and pain and time and effort, after fighting so long to find his boy, why couldn't this be an easy one for once? Why did every challenge have to be a battle?
"Easy now Tracy." Jeff cautioned himself. "The universe isn't out to get you." A roar of engines caught his attention as Thunderbird One swooped in to land. Jeff got to his feet with a groan, feeling his joints starting to protest about Earth gravity after six and a half days in Mars gravity and zero-G, scooped up the remains of the food and made for the door. If Alan was already home it meant Two wouldn't be far behind and he was betting they'd need some help with restocking.
0o0o0
Fury leaned his head against the panelling of the dark storeroom he'd ducked into just in case Jeff had followed him, closing his eyes as he tried to impose some order on his racing thoughts and hoping the cool metal wall would help sooth the headache he could feel building.
That conversation had been a lot on it's own, much less the surging memories that now tugged at him for attention- being swung up in the air, piggyback rides, snuggling into a warm embrace and listening to a story, feeling completely and utterly safe, secure, protected and most of all loved.
He rubbed at the bridge of his nose and winced. He needed sleep. And pain meds. And coffee. Maybe he could find someone and get some of that, or some more food, the crackers had been good but he needed more. Surely they'd feed him again at some point, right?
Heading back the way he'd come, Fury had been intending to go back to the room, but spying that that blast door was now open, he detoured and found himself stepping onto a balcony halfway up the wall in a large hangar cut from the rock. There was a control booth clamped to the wall on his right, a large tank embedded in the wall held Thunderbird Four, towards the back was the open silo for Thunderbird Three, but Fury only had eyes for the sleek rocket-plane hybrid before him that was Thunderbird One.
Only recently landed, she was ticking and clicking as she cooled and the smell of exhaust fumes still hung in the air. As far as he was concerned, that smell was like perfume. Flying was the one thing that consistently calmed him and brought him joy- the faster the better- and Thunderbird One, speed embodied, never failed to capture his attention and imagination. Right now automated systems and robotic arms hummed about her as they tended to her needs and Fury sat down to drink in the sight of the queen of the sky taking her repose.
"She's beautiful, isn't she?"
He looked up to see a teenager in IR blues seated on a walkway above him, legs dangling between the uprights of the safety railing. Logic dictated this could only be Alan- the only thing he recognised from the toddler he remembered was the blue eyes and blond hair, and the age seemed to fit.
"Thunderbird One is sorta my Thunderbird, for now at least." Alan went on. "Me and Dad share One and Three, but Three's gonna be mine when Dad eventually steps back from frontline duty." He shifted to peer down at Fury. "I was flying One when we found you. Look, I get you're angry with all that," he started as soon as he saw the change in his expression, "I'd be too if it was me, but look at it from our side- you'd do anything to get Havoc and Fuse back, we'd do anything to get our brother back." He shifted a little, uncomfortable under Fury's narrow-eyed scrutiny. "That and we didn't know you three were family, it's not like you've got it posted up on social media or anything, woulda tried to bring all of you if we knew it."
That actually gave Fury pause as he vaguely recalled a saying that went along the lines of it being easy to blame things on maliciousness when it was actually ignorance. He decided to stay silent as he looked down and brooded. Maybe they didn't know that they'd taken him away from the only people he actually dared to love?
If he was honest with himself he really wanted to lash out at the kid, for stress relief if nothing else. He was still all up in knots from the discussion with Jeff, his body clock was well out of whack, his head and back still hurt and he was missing his family something fierce. The kid would have made the perfect target for his ire and reducing him to tears would have warned the rest of them that their goody-two-shoes mission to 'redeem' him or 'prodigal son' him or whatever was doomed to fail.
But he just couldn't bring himself to do it. The kid was a kid, with an endearing, open quality and instant likeability which warmed even his own hardened heart. He could feel the big brother instincts that drove him to claim Havoc and Fuse start to wake up again.
Flicking a glance back up at Alan, reading every nuance of his body language, Fury realised something. Now that he was paying attention to it, he could sense that somewhere under there, Alan was carrying some deep hurts for someone as young as him. Thinking about it, he realised they all were- a son, grandson or big brother shaped hole in their lives.
Fury abruptly pulled himself back from that idea as his long buried empathy and compassion started to come out of hibernation and push him to respond to that pain. He couldn't afford to have those emotions for anyone except his family, everyone else used those emotions to hurt him. It was too dangerous to care.
He ruthlessly silenced the little voice that murmured "But the Tracys are your family too…" as he rose with a grunt and stalked back inside.