this is not the last time i'm going to be apologizing for uploading after way too long but! it's here and i'm not going anywhere. not when we're about to get to some of my favorite parts i have planned.
as always, thank you thank you, and i hope you're enjoying the ride.
Director MacGyver does not, in fact, think that hiring Riley on full time to handle the technical analytics work for Mac and Jack's team is a wonderful idea. He doesn't quite dismiss it outright. Jack would've actually found it more reassuring if he had - to dismiss the concept he would first have had to acknowledge it as a valid suggestion. Instead, he'd blinked at Jack and Matty like they'd just spoken to him in a language he not only did not speak but could not identify or seem to have heard of. The silence doesn't take long to grow uncomfortable, and Jack takes it upon himself to act as obtuse as possible and assume the Director maybe just didn't hear them properly.
"Riley," he says, bulldozing right on when the Director's attention shifts entirely to him. "We think you should-"
"Yeah," Jack's boss snaps, ending his sentence before he could get halfway through it, "I know what you think, Dalton." It's said with the unspoken implication that Jack and thinking didn't belong in the same sentence with any degree of validity, and Jack bridles at it.
Before either of them can say anything else, the sudden conflict palpable between them, Matty smoothly takes control of the situation. She literally steps in, moving with two quick steps to be standing generally in the middle of the room. There's no evident positioning between James and Jack, not obviously breaking the line of sight between them or protecting one from the other, but she is now the closest to James, commanding the attention of the room be solely on her and what she has to say.
"I know it sounds like probably the worst idea that's been pitched to you in a while, maybe ever," Matty says, in a voice Jack recognizes, from dozens of difficult conversations with people whose power she needed to twist around her own fingers, tug and pull on until the complex marionette of the situation fell into the shape she needed it to be in. "I know how it sounds, trust me, I was skeptical too." It was her idea, but James doesn't, Jack figures, really need to know that. "Just, give me a minute to explain. All I'm asking you is to hear me out. Okay?"
She's given him a way to feel magnanimous, to humor her without intending to take the suggestion seriously at all, and Jack knows that not only by the end of this will James have agreed to what she's proposing, he'll probably somehow think it was his idea to begin with. Matty is just that good. Jack is suddenly very glad that if he has to be investigating his boss, at least it's James, not her. If he had to go up against one of them, he'd pick James any day of the year. If it was Matty, they'd never have stood a chance. Not for a moment.
"What happened today," she says, as if it were just a fluke, a wild outcome, rather than a series of missteps, oversights, and careless disregard, "cannot happen again. I know you're already working on a way to keep it from occurring for a second time, because I know you're fully aware of this. We can't just borrow Riley out of prison again the next time we find ourselves suddenly in need of an analyst of her caliber when all of our viable options are on different continents. And if you can't trust your head of IT to look after the interests of your top team, what can you do to ensure that we won't find ourselves standing in that exact spot a second time? If it could happen once it could happen twice. We both know this."
Really, it wasn't that the head of IT couldn't be trusted, as far as Jack was aware, and more that James himself couldn't be trusted, but of course that's not the point Matty can make here. Instead, she's gone for the angle that leaves James with the perfect opening to feel like he was being vindicated, that his hands had been tied and if the IT depeartment lead couldn't handle his business, how could the Director himself be blamed for it?
"I also know you value the reputation of actors of this agency when we find ourselves needing to work with foreign officials to achieve a mission, regardless of who they think we actually are. And what happened, well, there's no way to put it but this." She pauses and shakes her head, and Jack is floored. It's like she's been rehearsing the monologue the entire way home on the plane, and given he knows her as well as he does, he wouldn't really be surprised if that actually was the case. It's choreographed without looking like it, and Jack just accepts that he's going to spend the rest of his life becoming more terrified of Matilda Webber by the day. "We were embarrassed in front of the Brazillian authorities. To need a Policia guard on the house while we waited to fly in an asset we should've had with us the whole time? It was embarrassing."
"I'm sure it was," James says, mouth turned down in a distasteful sneer, and Jack knows Matty has struck a nerve. Their Director is a proud man, and it's playing right into Matty's hands. "It's shameful."
"Exactly. So we need an analyst we can permanently assign at least to this team, with the type of assignment they're increasingly being sent on. And I can vouch for Riley as far as my personal experience with her goes, but you're in a unique situation here." Another perfectly timed pause, letting what she's about to say build until she says it. "You've got a member of the actual team itself who can vouch for her too. Isn't that right, Jack? You'd vouch for Riley to be assigned to your team permanently?" She glances over her shoulder at him and though her face remains in its perfect mask of confidence, her eyes are hard and sharp. Don't screw this up for us, they say, and Jack nods.
"Yeah, I can. She's good people, Director."
James looks like he's still contemplating the idea, brow wrinkled and lips pressed together in a firm, reluctant line. Jack knows they're balanced on the razor's edge here, that one slight breeze could blow him one way or the other and they'd have their answer. He feels like he should say something to try and influence it, but given how it tends to go when they exchange words, it might have the opposite effect than it needed to if he were to speak up now.
The breeze that comes is not from a direction that Jack would've predicted.
"She's amazing." Mac's voice is sudden and bright from where he's been standing, so far silent, to Jack's left. He hadn't been alerted before they'd walked into the Director's office as to what Matty and Jack had planned, and when the concept was first put forth, he'd looked confused for a moment, but never reluctant or unhappy about the idea. And now he's interjected for the first time through the entire conversation. He's looking at his father steadily, meeting his eye with a kind of confidence Jack isn't used to seeing from him when James is in the room. "That was some of the best work I've ever seen, and she was fast. Our analysts are good, but even they would've had more trouble than she did with Rasmussen's system. We'd have barely scraped by. She left us time to spare. We need her. The agency needs her."
"We need to start hiring new people. We can't keep running at a deficit," Matty says, swinging home the hammer against the nail Mac held up for her. "Now is as good a time as any, and she's the best we're going to find."
The moment the decision is made is visible in the slight shift in James' posture. It would've been evident to nobody but someone very intently looking for it, and Jack holds his breath. James' eyes break away from his son and skate over Matty, coming to focus on Jack himself, piercing and cold. A hand comes up, one finger pointing directly at Jack's chest or maybe his face, it's hard to tell from where he's standing.
"She is your responsibility, Dalton."
I can't believe that actually worked, he thinks, followed almost immediately when the hand does not lower by, Get your finger out of my face, you jackass. He says neither of these things out loud, instead opting to nod. Apparently, James still doesn't think his point was made thoroughly enough, as he immediately goes on.
"If she messes up, it's your ass," James says, "and if she betrays us it's your neck, do you understand me? Everything she does is on you. All of it. You really want to stake that on her?"
"Yes sir, I do," Jack replies. At that point, even if he'd had reservations, it was far too late to entertain them. Besides, it was a point of stubbornness by then. He'd have stuck to his guns no matter if they had unreliable sights or tricky triggers, if it meant not giving an inch to James.
"And we are absolutely under no circumstances field training her," the Director tacks on, and Jack mightily resists the powerful urge to roll his eyes.
"You got it. No field training, loud and clear."
For a moment what isn't clear is how successfully Jack managed to keep the sarcasm out of his voice, and James narrows his eyes. Either way, he seems to decide to just let it go, because he straightens up and shakes out his shoulders, focus off of Jack and onto Matty.
"You'll get her sorted out?"
"Yes, I will. I'll get her settled and take care of alerting IT."
"Alright then," James announces, clapping his hands together. Jack doesn't look to see if Mac flinched at the sound, but he's got a pretty good idea of what the answer is. "You're dismissed."
They begin to leave all together, when James' voice stops them, calling after, "Not you, Angus. A word, please."
Jack and Mac lock eyes for a moment before he turns around, and though his face has gone blank, his eyes are wide, frozen in the look of a rabbit that's been caught in the beam of a hunter's flashlight. Jack tries to look reassuring, extremely reluctant though he is to leave Mac alone with a man he trusts less and less by the minute. He's not sure how well it works though, and before he knows it, the door has swung shut, cutting him off from what's about to be said between the Director and Mac. Jack swallows down the feeling that he's just abandoned the partner he's supposed to keep safe alone to a pit of vipers, and looks over at Matty, catching her attention.
"That," he says, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at the room they'd just left, "was a work of art, Matty."
"I know," she agrees, eyes bright and a smile of her own on her face.
Mac is only gone less than a minute before he walks back out of the room. Jack scrutinizes his face carefully, looking for any indication of what had been said, and what he finds is not reassuring. The kid looks pale and strained, and the fingers of his right hand twist at the hem of his sleeve. He shakes his head and waves his other hand in a short, choppy swoop through the air, the message clear.
Don't ask.
For the moment, Jack doesn't ask. Mac doesn't look any more upset than he always kind of looks, especially after any kind of one-on-one meeting with the Director, and it's nothing he can do anything about right now. He instead looks over the rest of the hall, spotting Riley sitting on a bench not a hundred feet away. He waits for her attention to fall back on him then beckons her over. They hadn't told her beforehand what they were planning to do, in case it didn't wout after all. It's not the kind of offer Jack and Matty had wanted to make without being sure that they could guarantee it. Now they can, and all that's left is to let Matty work her magic and pitch it in a way that she'll accept.
Riley notices them standing there, waiting for her, and gets up. Her hands swipe over her jeans, then stuff into her pockets, and there's a tilt to her chin higher than usual. She looks almost defiant, and given they hadn't really spoken much since leaving Brazil, Jack can't pinpoint what it is she could be angry at him about at the moment - well, in particular, anyway. In general, what wasn't there for her to be mad about.
It only takes him the few moments that Riley spends crossing the floor between them to figure it out. She's not angry. She's anxious and pretending like she isn't, with a debatable degree of success. It reminds him of Mac, standing next to him now and trying not to radiate the sour nervousness that dogs him like the Director's closed office door at his back.
Riley comes to a stop in front of them, hands still deep in pockets, one eyebrow quirked up. The eyebrow asks the question for her, and Matty takes the initiative to answer it.
"The Director has been spoken with," she says, voice and face giving away nothing about what the nature of that conversation had been and how it had gone, "and we'd like to offer you a job."
The other eyebrow shoots up to join the first, and Riley asks, seemingly without meaning to, "I'm sorry, what?"
"If you agree to sign on with DXS, to come work for us, not only will we keep the original conditions of our agreement wherein you will not return to prison, but you will also be given the opportunity to continue doing what it is you love to do, and in the name of helping a lot of people. What you did today you could do over and over, and you'd be paid to do it. We can also offer you a generous stipend to get you into a decent apartment and back on your feet, and in the meantime we will house you at one of our safehouses in the area."
Matty gives the offer a few moments to sink in, as she had done with James, though there is a very different feeling in the air during this exchange than there had been in that one. Jack feels a sensation almost like pins and needles at the back of his neck, watching the cautious look on her face change to one of contemplation, edging into resolve.
"That is," Matty adds, her conspiratorial smile audible in her voice, "if you think you can tolerate being assigned to Jack's team."
"Jack's team," Riley repeats.
"Yes, you'd be permanently assigned to work with Jack and Mac on missions. The three of you would be a cohesive unit, and barring you deciding to take on side projects with IT, or some sort of technical emergency at DXS, you wouldn't be loaned out to other teams. So. What do you say?"
"When do I start?"
Relief breaks in Jack's chest and a grin takes over his face. None of this feels real. His impossible to unravel partner. The way he was starting to feel like the kid was his responsibility past where Jack was employed to take care of him. Doing a secret investigation with his boss into his boss's boss that's liable to get them both fired or possibly sent to jail. Riley, just, being here at all. It feels so unreal, and yet it is. This is Jack's life.
A knocking sound behind them, from the inside of the Director's office door, jolts Jack out of his bizarre reverie.
"That's my cue," Mac says, his expression gone brittle. "I wish I could come with to drop you off at the safe house, but I've gotta stay here and do review with the Director."
Before he can turn around and re-enter the office, Riley makes a point of holding out her hand, shaking Mac's firmly when he takes it. He looks confused, like he's about to ask a question, but Riley's face betrays nothing. Jack is confused too, watching their hands part and Mac move for the doorknob, but he's quickly distracted by the glimpse of the Director he catches when the door opens and closes behind his partner.
Jack doesn't want to let Mac go into that room alone. The instinct to prevent Mac from being left on his own with James has been growing by increments for weeks, and it's taken a massive leap in the past couple of hours, given the conversation he and Matty had in Brazil. But he has no valid reason to stop him, to follow him into a personal meeting with their boss, never mind the man being Mac's dad on top of it, so he's left to follow Matty and Riley out of the building towards Matty's car, leaving Mac alone inside with James.
The drive to the safe house they're putting Riley up in until she can find an apartment is not a very comfortable one. The air is deafeningly quiet and Jack keeps making awkward eye contact with her in the rearview mirror from where he sits in the passenger's seat. After about ten minutes, halfway into the drive, Riley speaks up, a nonsequiter that shatters the stiff air into chunks that drop like broken glass into Jack's lap.
"So what's 'review' then?" she asks, and Jack frowns. "Mac said he had to stay back and do review, what was he talking about? He didn't seem like he was real excited about it."
A glance beside him shows Jack a look on Matty's face that doesn't reassure him. She's focused on the road in front of her, obviously, but her brow is furrowed and her mouth curved down. She looks confused and troubled, like she doesn't know the answer to Riley's question, and Jack doesn't know how he feels about that.
"Near as I can tell it's some kinda thing the Director does with field agents, after missions where something maybe didn't go so great. I don't think you've gotta worry about it. I haven't even had one yet and I've been here a while, and besides, you're technically not going to be a field agent, you'll be an analyst."
The explanation doesn't seem to do much to reassure her, but she accepts it, looking away out the window. The remainder of the drive passes in the same still quiet as before, Jack sneaking what he hopes is semi-subtle glances at the car's other occupants until they pull up outside the nondescript house on the residential street, mostly composed of students at the nearest university. There's an agent waiting outside, there to stay with her the first night if she doesn't feel comfortable alone, a nice woman Jack hasn't interacted with much. He thinks her name might be Stella or Stephanie or something. Once Riley is safely passed off, saying a quick goodbye with an only mildly irritated look at Jack, Matty and Jack are headed back to the office. Matty offered to just swing him straight home, but Jack's car is still parked in the lot, and besides, there's something else he needs to see to there too.
If the drive to Riley's temporary lodgings had been awkward and uncomfortable, riddled with things said and half-said and talked past, the drive back is not much better. Much in the same way as had happened before, the topic of review is what comes up after several minutes of wordlessness.
"Can you explain for me," Matty says in a way that makes Jack uneasy, "what exactly this review thing is all about."
"Have you actually not heard of it?" he takes the opportunity to ask, confirming what he'd suspected earlier when she shakes her head.
"This is the first time."
"Well, as far as I can tell," Jack explains, "given I haven't had one myself, it's just some kind of debrief the Director does when something goes sideways. Kind of a training thing for field agents, figure out what went wrong, how to avoid it. Makes sense you wouldn't be involved in any, you're the Deputy Director. You don't really go on active missions and I can't imagine he'd have anything to go over with you if you did. I think it's taken him this long to get around to me because like, why invest in somebody you don't think will be around long, right? Mac's had a few. I think they can get pretty harsh, especially with him. He doesn't really talk about it, but, y'know…"
The explanation trails off, letting Matty fill in the rest herself. She's seen the way the Director speaks to his son on a good day, and Jack can't imagine it goes any better in a mission review on what didn't go the way it was supposed to. Something about the whole thing doesn't feel right, Mac is always too nervous, but Jack has chalked it up so far to a generally troubling-at-best relationship with his father, and not asked too many questions about review itself. Maybe he should have.
"We'll keep an eye on it," Matty says firmly, as if hearing his unspoken concerns. Or maybe she was just having the same ones herself.
"Keep an eye on it to do what?" Jack can't help but ask a moment later. It's been pinging around his mind this whole time, since she'd told him that the focus of her investigation has shifted to the Director himself. "If we think he's some kind of problem, if we think he's dangerous, then what can we do about any of it? We don't have that kind of power."
"I'm still working on that part," she admits. "But If something needs doing, we'll find a way to do it."
If it had been anybody else, Jack might have doubted that kind of assertion.
When they reach the parking lot of DXS, Matty pulls over in front of the building to let Jack off. He's out of the car and standing on the pavement, eyes raking around for the person he'd come back to retrieve as well as his own car, when Matty's voice stops him, calling his name. Jack stills with one hand still on the door, halfway closed, and looks back at her. "What?"
"Riley."
"What about her?" There's a look on Matty's face that is making Jack nervous but excited, a conspiratorial smile that's half determined and half amused.
"When do you want to start her field training?"
Jack laughs, loud and bright, and closes the door.
