A/N: Let's have some Ethan & Brandt (almost put a slash in there then remembered that a slash mark has a whoooole new meaning in fanfiction, lol!) bonding time, shall we? ...Or maybe some not so much bonding time? Methinks our team is going to kill my boy before this story is through, lol.
Ethan stood at the hotel's kitchen counter absently flipping through the morning paper while he waited for his teammate. He and Brandt had been given the last spot in the three hour break rotation, and after a short nap and a chance to clean up, they still had about an hour to go before Styles was due to be at work. It seemed Brandt was taking his time getting ready, something Ethan was actually thankful for because it meant the injured man wasn't pushing himself too hard…yet. Somehow Hunt didn't think it was going to stay that way for too long.
"God, I hate this thing," Brandt muttered as he slowly emerged from the bathroom, carefully picking his footing as he made his way back to his chair using the aide of a rolling walker. He leaned on it heavily whenever he needed to pick up his right leg, and he couldn't quite manage to pick the left off the ground entirely, almost dragging it along beneath him like extra baggage. Instead of taking steps, he walked in a series of lean, hop, slide, lean, hop, slide, resting in between every other shuffling step he took on his bad leg.
"You shouldn't be using it yet, at all," Ethan pointed out for probably the millionth time since Brandt came under his care. The injured agent wasn't supposed to have attempted walking for at least another week, certainly not while he still suffered the effects of the mild ankle sprain on top of the muscle damage in his thigh, but convincing him of that was a lost cause. Brandt won that argument the very first day out of the hospital when he stubbornly decided he was going to get up and walk around with or without his team leader's approval. Three painful falls later, Ethan realized he either needed to keep Brandt constantly sedated – pretty much an impossible feat due to the fact that the analyst would catch on to oral sedatives quickly enough, which would no-doubt result in a refusal to take any of his medications; and anything involving injecting Brandt with a needle unless absolutely necessary was out of the question – or give him the walker so that the man could move around with some semblance of freedom without causing further damage to himself. Reveling in his victory, Will had done the slowest lap of all time around the living room, then promptly passed out on the couch for the next six hours; after which he woke up sore as all hell. Ethan got to say, "I told you so." Brandt didn't give a shit, and continued to not give a shit every time he happily shuffled around on his own two feet, much to Ethan's dismay.
Ethan frowned as he helped steady Brandt while he slid down into his chair. "I thought you were taking a shower," he said, glancing over to the bathroom where he noticed the untouched roll of plastic wrapping on the sink that was used to keep the stitches dry.
Brandt shrugged as he steadily worked his way down the row of snap buttons on the legs of his pants, the breakaways being much easier to get on and off than his normal slacks or jeans. How he managed to get into and out of his boxers by himself was anyone's guess, but he was adamant from the start that no one was changing him 'like a man-baby.' "I figured between you and Benji all the hot water would be gone," he said, his tone light and teasing.
Ethan snorted out a small laugh. "It's a hotel. You can't use up-"
A hotel. If there was ever a moment when Ethan felt the need to literally slap his palm to his forehead, this would be it. They were in a basic hotel with basic hotel showers, which meant getting into it required stepping over the high edge of a bathtub.
Brandt saw the look on his team leader's face and deciphered it for exactly what it was. "Don't worry about it. We can check in at a more handi-accessible hotel tomorrow."
"We still have time," Ethan tentatively offered. "I can help you-"
"No." Brandt rolled the chair towards the doorway a few feet, then stopped when he realized Hunt wasn't following. "If we have all this extra time, then I want breakfast - the kind that comes as a plate full of food I can drown with syrup."
"That's pretty much everything on the breakfast menu for you," Ethan pointed out.
"Exactly. Let's go. I'm starving."
Hunt nodded and grabbed the handles on the back of Brandt's chair, grateful for the fact that this was at least the first morning since the agent's hospital release that he hadn't asked about Cary's non-progress on the Columbia mission.
"You're buying, right?" Will casually asked as they went out the door.
Ethan laughed. "Yeah, buddy, I'm buying."
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Ethan yanked the headphones off and dropped them onto the seat beside him, huffing out a frustrated sigh. Brandt, sitting in the back with the radar screen resting on his lap, arched his eyebrows up.
"Problem?"
"There's too much static," Hunt answered. "I can't hear a damn thing."
Benji buzzed through on the comms. "I told you, you need to get closer. The range on that dish isn't far enough to compensate for distance plus the height of the building."
"We can't get any closer. All the spaces up front are reserved for staff," Ethan informed the tech.
"Or handicapped," Brandt offered in an overly casual tone, then added as if surprised, "Oh, hey! We have one of those!"
Ethan twisted around in his seat and stared at his agent. "We've been fighting with this thing for over an hour. You couldn't think of that before?"
"Apparently not."
"You're the analyst. You're supposed to think of this stuff," Hunt said, utterly flabbergasted.
Brandt looked back down at his screen and twirled his fingers beside his head. "Analyst on meds. I'm not exactly firing on all cylinders over here."
Hunt ignored the snickers coming through the comm from his two other oh-so-helpful agents. "Benji, how long would it take to get some new plates for the van?"
"Well, uh, let's see…The machine can spit them out in roughly fifteen minutes, add another five for me to hack into the system and make the plates 'official' in case anybody bothers to check, tack on another half hour drive time for me to get from here to the hotel and back to you guys, maybe add another-"
"Benji. Just give me a time."
"Right, um, I'd say an hour, hour fifteen, tops."
"Jane?" Ethan asked.
She came back right away with, "Styles is gone all day. If I can't spare Benji for one hour of that, then I have no business being in the IMF. I'll probably be done here before he gets back."
"Right, and if you get bored, you can always let the dog out," Benji offered, the humor in his tone implying there was an inside joke to that. Ethan could almost hear her eye roll in response.
"We'll be waiting," he prompted. "South lot, northeast corner."
"Copy that," the tech answered, then went quiet.
It was peacefully silent in the van for all of ten seconds before Brandt started in with, "Soooo…what do we while we wait?"
"Watch the radar," Ethan answered, his response coming out more as a direct order than a suggestion.
Another few seconds went by before Brandt held the tablet up through the little window, and waited patiently for Hunt to take it. When Ethan didn't immediately move, the analyst shook the computer slightly. "I need to check something in Carmichael's file again."
Curious, Ethan took the tablet, glanced at it to see the readout showing that Styles was in a meeting with several people that didn't match Carmichael's physical specs, and turned back to where Brandt was quickly scrolling through the digital reader containing all of the target's information. The agent flipped past something, stopped, then went back and started reading whatever had caught his eye. "What do you have?" Ethan asked, seeing the gears working in the analyst's head.
"I think we should send someone on the inside," Brandt said absently as he continued to read.
Ethan looked up at the ceiling of the van for a second, took a breath, then responded as calmly as possible. "If we pick something up on our surveillance that warrants sending someone undercover, we'll consider it. Otherwise, we work with the bugs and Benji's chip. From the outside."
"That could take weeks, and it doesn't guarantee we pick up anything incriminating," Will argued.
"There might not be anything incriminating to pick up," Ethan retorted. "That's what we're doing here in the first place – just recon."
"We can do it faster from the inside…" It came out as side commentary in almost an sing-songy fashion, as if it was meant to be something that Ethan wasn't supposed to hear.
"No." Ethan waited a beat before asking a question he knew he would probably regret. "Who would we send in, anyway?"
Brandt shrugged as he looked over the intel again that had spawned his rash idea. "Me."
Hunt closed his eyes against the headache that was threatening to form. He turned his attention back to the blinking dots on the tablet and silently declared that he just wasn't going to respond to any ridiculous notions his agent came up with while still in his semi-drugged state.
"Ethan? You didn't…you didn't say anything…"
Hunt put the headphones back on and let the static drown out anything else Brandt had to say. He figured that was answer enough.
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