Chapter 13
Disclaimer: I do not own the Fast and Furious franchise.
Owen Shaw's operations were infamous for their precision and efficiency. There was just about them that made them look like works of art. Perhaps it was the attention to detail or the important component that was ingrained within every single one of Shaw's crew: time. Time was the little something that held them together.
'Keep your fucking watch close,' as Klaus had so eloquently put it, was the closest thing there was to acknowledging such a thing. Brian remembered having noted it by himself; remembered watching the guy he'd replaced botch up a seven million dollar mission. Owen had put a bullet in the idiot's brain. For that, Brian made sure to tread carefully.
The time sensitive notion of every single one of Shaw's operations was Shaw's personal signature, and as his crew noticed, it was a very adequate one. There had been that time in Tangier where five seconds was all it took for the tides to turn. Had Shaw not planned to the very millisecond, or had Vegh been distracted, the entire thing would have collapsed faster than Kumiko could inhale sesame seed ice cream. Or that instance in Toronto with the city-wide police search and subsequent civilian casualties.
It was this rigorous mindset that Brian prepared for his last mission where Owen Shaw was concerned. Whilst he trawled through the cool trinkets in his getaway car, valiantly trying to ignore the remnants of his crew and the fact that the ambulances would take a while, Brian planned. He could never fool himself into thinking he would be as deadly as Owen Shaw, but he had learned a lot as his somewhat of a second-in-command position. Best of all, he knew Owen Shaw and he had learned to think like him.
Owen had planned for this. Every single detail pertaining this mission had already been meticulously planned and, Brian supposed, even his eventual betrayal. He anticipated the norm: Owen hightailing it back to Tokyo or Hong Kong with his paramour, leaving his crew to mop up the mess before they rendezvoused a couple hundred million pounds richer. Still, he knew that for every magic neuron Owen possessed, the man still couldn't account for human nature and boy, did the Toretto crew surprise Owen.
Toretto had brought down Owen… Had made the man look like the human he was rather than what Brian had seen him as. Owen had gotten him away from that hospital, given him a purpose, and guided him. Today, Owen Shaw had cut his ties with Brian, and Brian would have to put him down.
So it was that just as the sun set over the London skyline, Brian O'Conner brushed up alongside Toretto's crew just as they were pulling up at the road that would take them to the airport of Owen's choice. They pulled over at a particularly secluded bend of the road where Toretto and Hobbs came out of their vehicles and came over to where Brian awaited them.
"O'Conner."
"Luke Hobbs, I see the reports of your appearance haven't been severely exaggerated."
Somewhere a few steps away, giggles and chuckles erupted, tinging the solemn aura with a bit of lightness that Brian didn't feel. Still, he figured this was one of the few times Dominic Toretto could smile like that.
"What've you got for us?"
Back to business. Now that was something he could work with.
"Owen knows what he's doing. We've been doing heists similar to this one for years already…" Brian pretended not to notice the look on Toretto's face, "but you've surprised him. He's lost time. Thing is that he won't be able to take off until he's got the channels cleared up and all of you have made that a bit difficult."
"So we have a few hours at least."
"Yeah." The blond sighed, "I wasn't sure if you would bring in a bit of...assistance so I brought backup."
At their bemused and curious glances, Brian headed to the car's trunk- or boot, as Jake had insisted upon- and stepped back to let the two other men inspect. When they drew back, their eyes had a tinge of respect that Brian had only seen when he was flipping cars and generally wreaking mass havoc and chaos. The trunk had the best titanium alloy grappling hooks designed for industrial use, with wires just as impressive. Atop of that, all of the firepower their mottley little crew could desire. It was basic but it would be enough.
"We can work with this," Toretto stated.
And Brian fully believed it.
They raced into the airport at breakneck speed almost, just in time to see the plane begin its initial stages into being launched. Toretto's crew worked seamlessly together, Brian almost felt like this was his own crew. But then he supposed that at one time, he had been Toretto's crew member.
Brian had specified the roles Owen's crew would play and from there, Toretto had assigned them their tasks. Vegh would be on the ground, that much he knew, since her expertise with the flip car was almost innate, and so thus she would cause the most damage down there. Jah and Klaus were expert in hand-to-hand so they would stay onboard to protect Owen. Riley, from what both Letty and Mia had expressed, had it out for the both of them. Denlinger and Adolfson would probably be used to counteract whatever Owen had predicted Toretto would do.
The ones he knew as Han, Giselle, Tej, and Roman would prove as distractions down on the floor, bringing down the plane before it even began its ascent. That left the Toretto siblings, Letty, and Hobbs to deal with the actual infiltration.
Brian wouldn't have known what to do. He had no role in this. In fact, he would have been the first to say that due to his close relationship with the many onboard, he should be helping from a distance. He was still very much disheartened about the loss of his own crew to be of much use, and even revenge sounded a bit tiring to him.
He was going against the man who had taken him under his wing and trained him to be better. Owen had done so much for Brian… Brian knew how the man operated when it came to his team members, and yet he was still shaken by it. Not surprised- never surprised- just shaken and unsettled.
In the end, it doesn't really matter.
Brian runs along Giselle, his borrowed BMW a sleek bullet alongside her streaking motorcycle. He's with her when Denlinger makes his move against the jeeps that house the grappling hooks. The blond doesn't hesitate to put a bullet in the man's face before Denlinger crashes his jeep into Tej's. It hurts just as Brian had expected, especially when the man turns a pair of betrayed eyes to him before they close forever.
Brian is better than that.
The amnesiac driver swerves aside as a barrage of bullets hits the pavement and lightly strikes the metal of his car. Giselle motions for him to move and her own steady hand makes short work of their enemy. With Jah and Adolfson still in the game, albeit working at a far more tentative pace than before, it's almost a matter of time before one side fails. Brian feels himself get in the game; it's a chase and he has never been able to say no to it, no matter the odds.
Blood pumping through his veins and toothy smile in place, feeling more alive than he did minutes ago, Brian is interrupted by the presence of the walkie-talkie Toretto hoisted on him. It's a bit of a letdown since Brian hasn't worked with such...backwards tech in quite a while, relying on state of the art connection and headsets, and because he's finally had the rush and it's just disappointing to be interrupted.
"Brian?"
Mia Toretto's voice is soothing and Brian doesn't notice his muscles lose their tenseness as she speaks. "Mia?"
"We need help over here, please. A distraction...the device needs to be taken out now."
For her, anything.
He speeds up, easily bypassing the two jeeps, and with his eye on the ramp that leads inside the belly of the plane, he silently motions Toretto's crew of his intentions before the vehicle roars its way inside. Chuckling hysterically as he interrupts what looks like an all-out battle royale, Brian slips out of the totaled car, strapping his two Glocks on his person.
Klaus and Hobbs had found a kinship with each other and settling it down like men, whilst Owen and Toretto settled their differences. Riley, with her experience and skills in enforcement, handled both Letty and Mia.
The device was so conveniently kept in a briefcase which he spotted easily. Rushing forward, he reached for it, smiling as his hand tightened around the metal. He immediately brandished it before him as a steel-reinforced boot rose to kick him down. From behind the case, Brian's eyes widened as he met Riley's glacial glare. A quick glance behind the woman revealed both Letty and Mia on the floor, still struggling to regain their footing as a particularly harsh tug from the jeeps below sent the plane sideways.
"Such a waste," Riley commented.
It had been Riley who had mentored him in areas Owen was often too busy to work with- things like stealth and manipulation. She always worked undercover and it was through her that he had managed to avoid detection until that slip-up in Berlin.
He knew better than to convince her to stop. She wouldn't. Not when there was too much at stake. Not when he knew her well enough to know what she wanted to do.
Riley advanced threateningly, her hands balling up into fists. Still holding the case, he coiled up, ready for the attack. She struck quick as lightning, and he evaded. There wasn't much else. Her heart wasn't in it. Brian bobbed side to side, weaving in and out just as she did, both emulating the movements of a well-rounded boxer. Occasionally, her kicks jarred him a bit more than he was willing to admit, and sometimes, his deflections caused her to overextend and hurt herself more than him.
They were reflections of each other; false pictures of what they had been at one point. Whether it had been cops or illusions of family, he wasn't sure, but right now- right here- it hurt more than anything else.
"Don't do it, Brian."
Before any of them can move, the door behind Riley opens and she's sucked out faster than he can stop it. He looks away, right into Letty's startled brown eye and simply breathes. "Let's get this out of here."
It's Mia who nods and somehow, Brian can't really recollect, the three of them end up rolling out of the plane in another borrowed car, leaving behind two macho men to close up the fight. Somehow, he ends up holding Mia Toretto's hand- woe to him when Dominic finds out- and there's a flaming inferno behind them. And somehow, Dominic Toretto and Luke Hobbs come out of there, a bit singed and bruised but nothing else.
Owen doesn't come out.
Brian keeps expecting it but for the first time ever, Owen Shaw disappoints, and that perfect streak of completed missions has finally broken.
AN: So finally, right? Just one more and I can finally close up this story. Sorry about the long wait, really.
Solari Crystal
