A/N: There is now an alternate title to this fic. It shall henceforth also be known as: "The One Where Benji Has An Aneurysm." Why is it so fun to be evil to that poor boy? Usual thanks goes to The Beta Branch for checking this over...after they promptly kept me from writing it sooner whilst distracting me with all their M:I prompts + other random discussion craziness! *glares* Sometimes there be chaos all up in that forum, lol!

"Benji," Brandt called, trying to get the tech's attention through the window. It didn't surprise him when he didn't get an answer, as he was hollering from the back of the van up through the small viewing window hoping it would travel through the passenger window that had only been cracked a small bit. Since Benji was currently running the power drill, that made matters even more difficult.

"Benji!" he tried again much louder.

Still nothing. With a sigh, Brandt unlocked the wheels on his chair and reached for the handle of the van's sliding door. He sucked in a breath and held it, closing his eyes as he pulled. The movement wrenched on his side and thigh horribly, and he had to take several quick, hissing breaths between clamped teeth to keep himself from crying out. It wouldn't do to have Benji see that he'd hurt himself and send him back to the hotel.

"Not one of your brighter ideas," he mumbled once he could speak. After taking a quick look under his shirt to make sure he hadn't torn any of his stitches, he gripped the side of the van and leaned forward, yelling Benji's name again. Unfortunately, the shift in his weight caused the chair to roll forward with the movement. He panicked as the front wheels dropped over the edge, and was just about to risk jumping out when a hand pressed against his chest. He blew out a relieved breath as Benji carefully worked the chair to a safer position, one hand on Brandt to keep him steady, and one pushing against the chair's backrest.

"Thanks," Brandt said sheepishly.

Benji glared at him. "What were you doing? Are you trying to wind up back in the hospital?"

"I needed to talk to you," Will explained.

The tech opened his mouth, closed it, shook his head in disbelief, and tried again. "You couldn't wait until I was finished? I'm only changing the plates; it would've taken me like two more minutes."

"Ethan could be back in two more minutes. I need you to log into your computer so I can get into your ID program thing."

Benji laughed for a second, then saw the serious look on Brandt's face. "Okay…you want to make an ID for yourself, but you don't want Ethan to know about it. I'm guessing that means you're probably thinking about doing something incredibly stupid, so if I help you, I'll be doing something incredibly stupid, and Ethan will probably kill the both of us for it. That means I'm going to have to answer with a big, resounding 'no.'"

Brandt rolled his eyes. "It's not stupid. We need a reason for us to be in the parking lot. If one of the security guys comes to check up on us, I can just whip out my ID, he'll run it and see my credentials, and let us slide. I'm just covering our bases."

The tech furled his brow in confusion. "Why you and not Ethan, then?"

Brandt sighed and picked up the digital reader with Carmichael's files, then turned it so Benji could see what the analyst had highlighted. Dunn scanned it quickly, his eyes lighting up as he figured out what Brandt was getting at.

"This is… Why, exactly, are we not telling Ethan about this? It makes perfect sense. I don't understand why you think he'd have a problem with it."

Brandt cringed and nervously scratched his head. "Because I might have implied earlier that I wanted to go in."

Benji stared at him. "…Go in where?"

"Undercover," he muttered.

The tech chuckled. "Christ, Will, your meds really are doing a number on your filters, aren't they?" When Brandt only turned away in response, clearly a little embarrassed by the whole ordeal, Benji took pity on him. "I'll get the computer set up for you. Ethan will probably be back before you're ready to print, so I'll keep him from checking in on you, all right?"

Brandt nodded and shot a tiny grin at his friend. "Thanks, Benji."

The tech nodded as he opened up his laptop and hooked the ID printer up to it. "You don't use this ID unless you absolutely have to, alright?" he ordered.

"Got it," Brandt answered quickly.

"And if anyone asks, I had nothing to do with it."

"I won't tell a soul. Scout's honor."

Benji looked up. "Were you actually a Scout?"

"No," Brandt admitted with a shrug. "I still promise I won't tell."

Eyeing him for a second, Benji decided to try one more request. "And you won't bring up last night ever again?"

"I'll burn the tape if I have to," Will shot out, then winced. "You weren't supposed to know about the tape…"

Benji smirked. "You know, I kind of like it when your filters are down. You're very Mr. Honesty." He held out his hand. "I'll be taking that tape right now, if you don't mind."

Brandt sighed. "It's in the glovebox."

Now he understood why Ethan couldn't send him in undercover. Start firing off the right questions and he just spat out answers without thinking. Of course, if he weren't on the meds…

He tucked away that thought for later, still feeling the slight burn in his injuries from simply opening the van door. He'd behave for now, but if push came to shove he'd do what he'd have to in order to get the job done. If Ethan had a problem with that, he shouldn't have brought him along in the first place…even if it technically was just for the sake of keeping him occupied.

Will smiled at that. He had a good team, and they meant well by keeping him involved; but they had to know by now how seriously he took his job as an agent, no matter how small the case. Lord knows they had been through enough hardships to figure that out; so no, he wasn't going to simply play weak little analyst on this. They put him on this mission, they were going to get his full help whether they wanted it or not.

~MI~MI~MI~MI~MI~MI~MI~

"Why us? Can't we ever have just one simple mission where everything works out like it's supposed to?" Benji ranted as he turned the van around a corner a little too sharply.

"Would you slow down? It's not like anybody's dying," Brandt griped as he kept one hand clamped firmly to the bar that had been mounted on the divider between the front cab of the van and the back.

Benji sighed and let up on the gas a little. "I'm sorry, I just don't get why we always have such shitty luck. Jane is stranded on a kitchen island with Satan the Demon Dog trying to eat her face-"

"You're the one that told her to let him out if she got bored," Will pointed out.

"It was a joke. You should've seen what it took to get that little monster in the closet in the first place! Why would she honestly think I was serious?"

Brandt shrugged. "She didn't actually say she let him out. Then again, she didn't say much of anything besides, 'Benji, get your ass back here now and catch the little shit before I shoot it!'" He chortled out a little laugh at his awful impersonation of his teammate.

Dunn watched his friend in the rearview mirror for a second before his face dropped. "Brandt, what did you take?"

"My meds, " Will answered, looking genuinely confused. "Ethan laid them out for me before he left. Why?"

"…And this was after you told him you wanted to go in undercover?" Benji had the feeling someone was going to be dying once everyone's problems were sorted out, and it wasn't going to be him.

Brandt shook his head. "Noooooo, it was after I yelled at him for ignoring me, which was after I told him I wanted to go undercover. He kept putting his headphones on even though all he could hear was static, which I know because I stole them off his head and listened, and all I heard was static, so that means he wasn't listening to Styles or Carmichael or anyone. He was just straight up ignoring me. I don't like to be ignored."

"Oh, good god," the tech mumbled to himself. "How did I become the grown up on this mission? I'm supposed to be the quirky, lovable, dependable, computer guy. I don't get paid enough to be the responsible one!"

"Wait!" Will exclaimed a touch too loudly inside the van. "Did Ethan drug me again? He did, didn't he? When we get him out of jail, I'm going to kick his ass. No, wait, I can't…stupid crocodile… Benji, when we get Ethan out of jail you have to promise me you'll kick his ass."

The tech frowned in thought before nodding his head. "Ya know, I think I'll do exactly that; but first things first, we have to rescue Jane."

"Right. Dog. She's stuck with…" He cocked his head to the side. "How did you get the dog in the closet, again?" A pinging sound came from his pocket and, forgetting he had just asked Benji a question, he read the email he had just received. "Wow. That worked a lot faster than I thought. Carmichael's people are on it. I wonder how much he pays them?"

Benji hit the breaks, stopping the van right in the middle of the street. He ignored the honking horns, and simply flipped on his emergency flashers before turning around to face his friend. "What worked? What did you do?"

"I built up Trent's profile. I wanted it to look good in case anybody checked. Not like you passworded out any of your programs or anything. That was a big mistake." He opened some screen on his phone and turned it so Benji could look, revealing some rising stocks in a company called, "Chairman Sports."

"Did you…? You built yourself an entire fake company? How did…why…you just...you're not even supposed to know how to do that!" Benji's eyes were wide with disbelief, his arms gesturing wildly as he spoke.

Brandt laughed. "You guys are funny. Hellooo. Analyst. That means I'm pretty damn tech savvy, too. I don't hack things, but you give me a fully functioning program? I'm a smart cookie. I can figure it out."

He pulled his phone back and began to type something out in response to the message he had just received. Benji reached back and snatched the phone from Brandt's hands, not wanting his drugged friend to write anything idiotic to the wrong party in his current state of general loopiness. He quickly scanned the message, his alarm increasing by the second.

"Carmichael's men want to set up a meeting with Trent?"

"Bingo. I. Am a genius." Will smiled, then leaned forward and stage whispered, "Now we can set up bugs inside the building."

"We don't need bugs inside the building!" Benji practically shouted. "That's why we have the dish!"

Brandt crinkled his nose up. "Your dish is stupid. And it's tacky. And it made Ethan go to jail."

"The dish didn't… Nevermind. I'm telling Carmichael's people that you'll get in touch with them tomorrow…when you're sober, and when Jane isn't cornered by a football dog, and after we've cleared up this misunderstanding with Ethan."

"And after you kick his ass. You don't drug me without asking me first. We have a rule about that." Brandt crossed his arms over his chest like a pouting little kid. "You promised."

Benji smiled slightly in sympathy. "Yes, I did."

He put the van back into drive and eased it forward, allowing traffic to resume its normal path. He didn't have the heart to tell Brandt that the drug rule had slightly changed after putting him on this mission. Knowing how stubborn the analyst could be, and concerned he might do something to cause himself further injury, they had all agreed upon: "No drugging Brandt without his permission unless he's about to put himself into danger." Insisting he go undercover? Ethan probably had every right to be concerned; and had everything gone according to plan, Will probably would've just babbled on about nothing without a clue that he'd been drugged, passed out, and woken up a couple hours later feeling refreshed and happy.

Things that were not in the plan? Brandt finding the tiniest piece of information that clued them into the fact that Carmichael didn't allow commercial vehicles in the front lots, thereby rendering their "cable company" disguise as useless even with the handicap plates; Ethan going to buy new paints while Benji figured out how to remount the dish in a less conspicuous manner that still allowed it to be functional, thereby delaying the time it was taking for him to get back to Jane, which somehow led to the terrier's escape and consequent trapping of her in the kitchen; an incident in the hardware store involving an already irritable Hunt, some punk jocks trying to start shit for no other reason than to cause havoc, a fight in which the trained agent pretty much schooled said punks, and everyone's asses getting hauled off to jail; and Brandt clearly tricking Benji so that he could design his undercover persona despite Ethan's best attempts to wipe the idea from the analyst's trying-to-be-overly-helpful head.

Now Benji had psycho dog to deal with (again), some local cops who probably just loved throwing their authority around, an increasingly higher-by-the-minute Brandt- "William! Do not touch that break release! Put both hands on the bar, right now!" –and they'd have to figure out how, exactly, they were going to work around this impromptu meeting that Carmichael's people wanted to set up with "Trent Rizner" – Really, Brandt? You couldn't come up with a less fake-sounding name?

Benji let out a heavy sigh. It turned out Brandt had been right from the very start – their team really was a walking example of Murphy's Law, and it was probably only going to get worse from here.