Disclaimer: I don't own Thunderbirds.
Sicktember Prompt 21: Unlikely Caregiver, with Mechanic, Parker and Scott (requested by janetm74)
This was all his fault. He should never have accepted that invitation; ever since the disaster of the original Zero-X, he'd been nothing but a magnet for trouble, so why he'd decided to step back into the public limelight again, he had no idea.
Maybe he'd just wanted to put it all behind him. His business had crashed and burned when he'd been arrested as the Mechanic, and while it did leave a bad taste in his mouth that it had been used to further the Hood's goals for eight years, it had still been his blood, sweat and tears that had been poured into it in the first place. He'd loved that business, and watching it go under with no hope of recovery had been hard.
Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward had offered to help rebuild connections, find him new contacts and get his name back out there in the engineering world with the backing of two powerful names – not just the Creighton-Ward, but the Tracy name as well.
It was the eldest of the brothers, still legally in charge of Tracy Industries even though he was aware that behind the scenes, the family patriarch was once again making the decisions, who had attended the event as a representative of said name. Considering he had still not been forgiven for the danger he'd posed to the family, it spoke volumes about Scott's personality that he was still willing to do that for him – and it hadn't even been at the behest of his grandmother, because the young man had nominated himself as soon as the British aristocrat had broached the subject.
Consequently, it was also the eldest of the brothers who was crumpled on the ground after taking a shot that definitely hadn't been aimed at the Tracy. The Mechanic – or Michael, as he'd been nicknamed by the younger Tracys, and subsequently adopted as his new professional name as a way to further differentiate himself from his annihilated business – had nothing on him to combat the unknown threat, which meant that the only thing he could do was to remove himself from the situation.
At his feet, Scott wasn't moving. There was no blood – it hadn't been a bullet, more like a dart, from what he could tell – but he was clearly unconscious.
Did he assume he would still be targeted and that it was safer for the young man to leave him here, or would Scott be vulnerable to ill-wishers that hated that he was publicly supporting a man who had once terrorized the world?
Around them, people were screaming and running around in a panic, clearly unused to their events being so dramatically interrupted. A woman tripped over the hem of her skirt and crashed forwards onto the shiny ballroom floor, one dangerous stilettoed shoe flying off of her foot. Wine glasses and champagne flutes were being dropped left, right, and centre, leaving shattered crystal sparkling across the polished mahogany.
If he left Scott here, the young man was in danger of being injured by the stampede of panicking moneybags. Michael could, at least, protect him if the threat was only from one direction.
Scott wasn't light, by any means, but he was equally no heavier than the equipment Michael was used to carting around in workshops. Kneeling down, he hefted him over his shoulder, watching his head loll awkwardly with the movement as gravity took hold. Now, he needed to find somewhere safe.
Lady Penelope's butler appeared so suddenly in front of him he might as well have teleported.
"This way," the man said, leaving no room for disagreement as he tapped his arm and then slunk through the crowd. Despite his age, he moved like a tiger, lithe and confident, as he led Michael to a segment of wall that looked a little too identical to the rest of the room, and a little far from the major exits. A servant's entrance, or something else?
At a push from Parker, it swung open to reveal steep steps heading down. The lighting was dim, and old. Early twenty-first century at the newest, and certainly not on the same generator as the rest of the mansion. A bolt hole, or escape tunnel, then.
"Shouldn't her Ladyship be using this?" he asked, although he still stepped forwards, mindful of the young man he had in a fireman's carry.
"'er Ladyship h'isn't the target," the butler told him, with a little push to his back. "h'I'll come find you shortly, once h'everything's h'under control."
There was no point wasting time with pleasantries. Michael gave a nod of acknowledgement and kept walking, descending the dim staircase – which quickly turned into a tight spiral, and the hand not holding Scott in place was forced to grip the railing for balance – as it went down, down, down.
How deep it went, he had no idea. His sense of orientation was pretty good, but he lost count of the steps around three hundred, and he was fairly certain it was further than the descent to the labs on Tracy Island. Still, he was fit, his grip on Scott was secure, so down and down he continued to go.
Then he hit the bottom. A small chamber carved out of rock greeted him, stocked with piles of non-perishable food. A small spring peaked out from the rock in the corner, with the water running clear, although there were large bottles of water also piled in one niche. Neatly stacked blankets wrapped in reusable bags sat on top of a wide ledge.
The passageway continued past the spring, presumably leading outdoors somewhere on the impressive grounds, but Scott hadn't stirred at all, and this offered at least a temporary haven, so Michael one-handedly wrestled a thick blanket clear of its storage and roughly lay it out on the ledge before carefully depositing the young man on it.
Even the dull lighting was enough to highlight the sheen of sweat on Scott's face, and the way his brow was furrowed. The dart was still buried in his shoulder, and Michael fished out a bulky first aid kit from beside the bottles of water.
Tearing open a packet of gloves and pulling them on – they were clearly designed for someone with smaller hands, but he made it work – the packaging made a makeshift holding for the dart once extracted, and he carefully set it to one side. Someone would need to analyse that to work out what was in it.
The medscanner – IR issue, because the lighting might date to the millennium but the supplies themselves were clearly kept up to date – showed a slight fever, but Michael wasn't a medic. Injuries, he could handle. Illnesses were a long way out of his wheelhouse. There was little he could do for Scott beyond exposing and cleaning the entry wound – barely a pinprick, but it was something at least, rather than just standing and watching and blaming himself.
Not that he wasn't also blaming himself – Scott had taken that dart for him, and there was a high degree of concern with that fact, because if it was meant for him, then whatever was in the dart was likely moderated to his size, and while Scott was tall, he was still smaller than Michael. If this killed him…
Maybe he wasn't redeemable after all, regardless of what International Rescue believed.
His hands stilled where they were applying a patch of gauze. Well. Stilled. Stopped moving, at least, but they were trembling fiercely, medical tape clinging awkwardly and folding over on itself.
He'd caused this family too much grief already.
Footsteps, loud and deliberate, caught his attention and he spun around, casting for something to use as a weapon in case he'd been followed by an ill-wisher. He didn't think Parker would have been obvious enough to advertise their escape route, but there was no point in taking chances when it wasn't just his life on the line.
"h'It's me." The butler's voice rang out before he came into view, and when the lighting did reflect off of the leather jacket the older man wore, Michael could see that he was alone. "'Ow is 'e?"
Michael instantly moved out of the way so that he could approach. "He hasn't woken," he reported. "He's running a low-grade fever."
"Hmm." A gentle hand rested on Scott's forehead for a moment, brushing stray hairs back. "Not too 'igh, h'at least. Where's the thing that 'it 'im?"
"Over here, in the bag." Michael picked it up gingerly and Parker held out his hand for it. He gladly handed it over.
The butler scrutinised it for several moments, pulling out a torch with far brighter illumination than the bolt hole's. Then he sniffed it.
"h'Oh, that stuff." Michael found it back in his hands again. "Not pleasant, but 'e'll sleep it h'off then be right h'as rain again." The ease with which he could identify it was somewhat startling, and not a skill the Mechanic would have expected from an aristocrat's butler – not that he knew much about high society, admittedly.
He watched as Parker fussed with the half-taped gauze, finishing securing it before lightly tugging Scott's shirt back up to cover it.
"M'Lady h'is seeing h'off the guests now," the man continued. "We found the blighter responsible and 'e's going h'off to the nick, but h'it's safer for the pair of you to stay down 'ere h'until they're all gone."
He nodded. That made sense – Scott was still in danger, even if he didn't so much care about what happened to himself.
"Shouldn't you be with her?" he asked.
Apparently done fussing over the young man – in a manner that was definitely familial, despite the fact that to Michael's knowledge they were only co-workers, leaving him with a lot to unpack there if he ever felt like it – Parker leaned back against the ledge with his arms crossed.
"h'I can't very well be leaving two guests cowering 'in the bolt 'ole alone now, can h'I?" the man responded. "Someone h'oughta make sure you're both safe."
There was a slight emphasis on the word both that caught Michael out. Scott, he understood, but him?
Parker chuckled.
"h'I know that look," he said, shaking his head. "You think that because you were used by the 'Ood, you don't deserve h'any second chances."
That was… unsettlingly insightful.
"I-"
"This family doesn't work like that," Parker continued. "Not the Tracys, h'and not the Creighton-Wards, h'either. H'if your 'eart's in the right place, they'll give you a second change h'at life, h'and you don't get a say in h'it."
That sounded like, "the voice of experience?"
"H'oh yes." Parker gave a half-grin. "Spent the first 'alf of my life h'in and h'outta jail like a jackrabbit. I was a crook, through and through, h'until Lord Creighton-Ward picked me h'up and gave me 'is daughter to look h'after. Now look h'at me – on the straight and narrow, when h'it suits."
The half-grin flashed into a smirk for a brief moment, leaving Michael with the impression that the man was more than capable of being mischievous when he wanted to be. He also suspected that Parker's loyalty was very much to the families mentioned, and that he was quite at home using his criminal skills if it helped them.
But they weren't the same. "You never killed anyone, did you?"
Parker shrugged. "'Ard to say, in all 'onesty. Never killed 'em directly, sure, but couldn't tell you h'if they died later h'as a result. Besides, h'if h'it's blood on your 'ands you're worried about, we've all got it. h'Even the boys. h'IR doesn't 'ave a 'undred percent success rate, you know."
Michael blinked; the thought hadn't even occurred to him. Still, "that's not the same."
"Maybe not in your 'ead," Parker conceded. "But just because you see h'it that way, doesn't mean they – we – do. You're one of h'us now, whether you like it h'or not."
But… Michael glanced over at the unconscious young man on the ledge. "I don't think everyone agrees with that." Scott had come here as public support, sure, but it was clear he didn't like or trust him.
Sharp blue eyes narrowed. "h'If 'e didn't h'agree, 'e would never 'ave come to the h'event." It was the closest Parker had got to snapping the entire conversation. "And 'e wouldn't be letting you stay with 'is family on Tracy h'Island, h'either."
Honestly, Michael had assumed he'd been overruled by the others on that one.
"h'I can't speak for 'im, h'and I won't," Parker continued. "But don't h'underestimate 'is 'eart."
That sounded a lot like a warning, and it suddenly occurred to him that, barring Brains, who admittedly only interacted with humans when he had to and much preferred AIs for company, Parker had been the only older male in Scott's life for eight years.
He clearly wasn't a surrogate father, and nor did it seem that he intended to be, but there was a degree of protectiveness for the younger man that Michael had never noticed before.
Michael instinctively got the sensation that he did not want to be on the wrong side of that protectiveness.
"I understand."
Parker scoffed, but the sound was fond. "No, you don't," he corrected. "But you will."
There was nothing Michael could say to that.
Ah yes, let's give Tsari two very interesting relationships that she loves exploring - Scott&Parker and Scott&Mechanic - and watch what happens! Apparently in this case it turns into exploring the third side of that triangle. Not too much of a focus on the actual 'sick' part today, but I had great fun writing this! Sorry it's so late - got assailed by my own sicktember earlier, although that seems to have passed after a nap.
I'm dabbling in Sicktember over on tumblr! Only doing prompts that I get a character request for, so feel free to drop by with a request. You can find the list on the sicktember tumblr blog!
Thanks for reading!
Tsari