Chapter 2: Not a Ranger Word (Murdock) Suffocated half to death by his team of overprotective worry warts, Captain Howlin Mad Murdock forgets to pretend to be 100% a-okay in a crowded train station, which really is just the icing on top of a really shitty week.
Warnings: Canon depictions of mental illness may not be the most accurate in the world, but the established rules are the ones I tried to adhere to for the purposes of fanfiction. Again, expect about a PG-13 movie in terms of violence.
Face's arm brushed against his, again, the silky fabric of his fancy jacket bringing up gooseflesh as it slipped against his own sleeve, and Murdock automatically recoiled - right into Bosco. The bigger man brought a hand up, a feather light touch to steady him, and the pilot shuddered away from that too. He curled his spine, dropped his chin past his scrunched up shoulders, and tried to make himself as small as possible.
Three days of this. A full week of this, if Bosco's hovering at the hospital and in the hostel could be counted. Two days in the hospital, two days in the motel, one day in the nicer-but-no-more-spacious room, two days on the rumbling bus, and now walking with little sleep towards the train station. How's your head, how's your head, how's your head, crazy man? What they were asking wasn't what they meant to be asking, they weren't asking what it sounded like they were asking, but it grated all the same. Last night, Face had stopped him from removing his stitches with a Bowie knife, half locked in the bathroom at the back of the smelly bus. How's your head? Better if they were out, better if things were normal, better if...
Hotel, bus, now train. That was the plan, easy enough to remember. Hotel, then two days on a bus where Murdock was reminded to lay low, to be quieter, that leading the whole group in a sing along was not really "laying low" behavior, two days of nothing but laying low and more of it on a train and there was only so much sleeping a man could do, and it had been two days through this country to the train station that would lead them to a train that would be a few stops and then a new country with the checkpoint in that new country and they still wouldn't be out, more laying low, try their luck, and Murdock was definitely going to pull all his hair out by then.
No one was smiling. Not a one of them. Not Face, not Bosco, not Hannibal. Murdock had tried, God had he tried, but after nearly a week of pulling smiles out of the boys with pliers and excavation gear, their moods had begun to infect him. His head ached. It did, aching more and more each time they asked him the question. How's your head? None of his usual tricks were working. Face was distant, B.A. was nearly silent, and Hannibal was grim and gritted. It hadn't been this bad since just before their court martial, and Murdock had fought then too. Had fought until they pulled him away, had to forcibly remove him from the chamber, because he hadn't seen a way out. But they'd come for him anyway, shouldn't have doubted Hannibal Smith, and they'd driven a hummer through a wall to a musical cue and it was so funny and perfect and they'd laughed and flown a tank and it didn't matter that the plane exploded, because they were laughing and having fun and that was it. That was them.
They always came out the other side of things laughing. If they weren't laughing , if he couldn't get them to laugh -
"How's your head?" Face asked, leaning down as if conspiratorial. Murdock tried not to glare, tried to keep his gaze directly ahead, though it was impossible not to see Face's face as close as he had leaned in.
Murdock grit his teeth. "Fine," he lied, always a lie. That's not what he was asking. But why did he keep asking it? He knew the man well enough to see guilt in him every time he thought someone wasn't looking, but that wasn't a good enough reason, and became less and less of one each time he was asked. Didn't Facey understand that he was allowed a mistake or two or a hundred? Didn't B.A. know that Murdock would have flipped them into that ditch too? Still, they carried on like someone had died! Hadn't he said, hadn't he told them, and then when they wouldn't listen to him hadn't Murdock done a good job of distracting them? He made Face watch cartoons with him, he had "helped" B.A. until Bosco tried to throw a wrench at his head - and his threat was creative and funny, A+ work Bosco! - and it was normal until Bosco got all quiet and weird and stared at him like he was fragile and apologized and asked how's your head and no, no, no, that wasn't how things were supposed to be! But they were laying low, keeping quiet, and Murdock was holding up his end of the bargain, no one was dying, surely people laying low could laugh every now and then.
"You sure, man?" Face continued and, oh, they were still having a conversation. Murdock made the mistake of glancing over at him, seeing unwanted concern reflected there. Murdock swung his gaze forward and downwards, ghosting over the cracked sidewalk. Not too far to the train station, not too far at all now. Two by two formation. Face and B.A. walking too close, too close to him, and Hannibal behind Face. Not too far. Voices talking loudly over them, the street crowded with people and vendors and animals. Not too far now. Face kept talking, "Because you're looking a little pale."
"Mphm," Murdock responded, aiming as close as he could to noncommittal teenager. He shoved his hands in his pockets, fisted them, and vowed not to say a single word on the subject. Face stared at him a moment longer, but then let out a sigh, and turned back ahead. Back away. As if Murdock had done something offensive.
Hannibal got shot! Murdock wanted to shout at them, but shouting wasn't laying low behavior. Rubber bullets, but still shot! Go make him trip over himself!
He didn't say it though. Just scrunched up further, glared at the sidewalk, and kept walking. Wasn't that what he was supposed to do? Keep his head down, don't say anything, don't blow it fool. He pretended he couldn't see Face keep shooting him glances as they entered the train station.
Murdock gave himself a physical shake, that rattled from his shoulders to his chest, forcing stillness when he spotted Face glancing at him again, but that tightness in his chest wouldn't go away. When they moved into the train station, Hannibal and B.A. broke off, a separation Hannibal had felt was needed given that four men traveling together was instantly more recognizable than two pairs of two. The train route would take them over the border, yes, but it would take a few stops in country first, and Hannibal was not taking any chances. He rarely did, but this felt more methodical. Murdock could taste the tension, the need to get this right, and the weight was heavy against his shoulders. He and Face would get one pair of tickets, which B.A. and Hannibal picked up others from a different part of the station.
Buying the tickets took less than four minutes (he counted), which included three minutes in line during which Murdock fidgeted, shifted from foot to foot, but said nothing at all. Said nothing especially to Face, who kept looking at him like bouncing was going to rip the stitches out of his head (maybe it would, Murdock didn't care), and said nothing about how the air tasted funny. Too many people, too many voices. The stink of them in the air, every single human being, and it felt like he was licking the grime off the walls with every breath. His head was spinning by the time Face had paid, by the time he patted the ticket into his pocket to make extra sure that the ticket knew to stay there, and Murdock knew something was wrong at that point but the air tasted funny, so to say as few words as possible he asked instead, "Can we go buy some candy?" Easier than explaining what was wrong, too loud, too smelly, too much, too many words needed. Food in his stomach would help ground him. Doctors said so all the time. Maybe. Disoriented, losing time a little, Murdock was grasping at straws. Candy seemed like a cure-all, in that moment where his face felt a little funny and the actual Face was frowning at him a little.
"Uhm," Face said, dragging out the sound as he checked his watch. "Sure, why not?"
And that, he was pretty sure, was how he ended up in a small store, in front of a wide display of assorted candies with strange, copyright knockoff names. His lips were pursed, fingers pinching at his chin in deliberation, and he could see Face moving over towards the coolers on the very far side of the store to get something to drink, leaving him alone by the candy but that was okay he was a ranger, don't blow this fool, and he heard the PA system screech into service above him, lay low, lay low, heard the voices around him like a thousand plucking strings that felt like gunshots the longer they moved, longer they rang out, and Murdock was leaning then, leaning forwards with his hands clapped around his ears, and he knew knocking his hip into the candy display before he lost time entirely.
When time returned to him, sluggishly, Murdock knew he was on the ground from the angle, knew walls didn't work like that nor the air for that matter, but the ground was bumpy, like he was laying on top of stuff. The world was sloshing, like a ship on heavy seas, and even Murdock's hand on the floor did little to steady it. Someone touching him. Grabbing his shoulders. Speaking to him, loudly, not saying his name. Speaking all the same. Questions, maybe. He wasn't really laying, half laying, and the questions were so persistent and firm that he thought for a wild moment that they were the ones holding him up.
"Murdock," he answered, blearily, a question he was half aware of being asked.
"Okay, Murdock, keep your eyes on me," the blurry man said, shaking his hand in front of him, moving his finger. Murdock frowned at him, following the finger with his eyes, able to focus a little more with that stimuli. Was this some kind of magic trick? The man was speaking still, keeping going, and Murdock was finding that harder to follow than the finger, but then the finger was gone, hidden, rejoined the rest of his fellows on the hand and ceased to be special, and - and - another hand, another person, wearing a light colored suit, and he knew that suit.
And then there was another voice, familiar, strong, lots of questions, quickly, very quickly, and a heavy hand on his bicep, pulling him up in spite of the way his feet didn't really want to cooperate. Murdock resisted on instinct, his eyes snapping to try to find who this was, only to see... "- ey buddy, hey, do you know who I am?"
"Face," Murdock answered instantly, loudly with the thrill of knowing an answer, and wow he was acing this quiz, two for two. Only, though this could have been the bleariness of his gaze, Face did not look pleased with his progress. Murdock was more aware of being cold, sweat clinging to his forehead and sticking his shirt to his back. He couldn't quite make out what Face was saying past the white noise, only that Face was moving and Murdock was moving along with him, encouraged the lean against the man, and that was okay, that was nice, better than walking on his own, though Murdock was confused as to why they were moving so quickly.
Face was his cane, his walker, and Murdock leaned heavily against him, his mind coming back on as if someone was flipping switches in his brain as movement jarred him. One, he remembered how to walk. Two, he spotted Jean Claude Van Damme's doppelganger in the crowd but knew enough that Face would not enjoy knowing that fact. Three, he remembered that he was supposed to be laying low. Don't blow this, fool.
Shame and horror merged together to form a single crushing wave that nearly knocked him over, and were it not for Face beside him, the pilot would have crashed directly into the floor. Laying low. He was supposed to be laying low, they were on a mission, they were... Murdock squeezed his eyes shut tightly, leaning heavily against Face, the shame burning in his gut the most grounding thing he had ever felt.
Something like a train whistle sounded, splitting his head like a fire axe. Murdock groaned, pressing a knuckle into his temple, stumbling along at the dictated pace until he wasn't, until he was still, while the whistle played on through its solo. There were voices, more voices, and Murdock yanked his grip away from that nearly gentle vice-grip on instinct, surprised to be let go, and stumbled into something very solid and very familiar. The voices kept going, unbidden of how he recoiled from them. He seemed to be missing parts of the conversation, parts of every sentence...
"- happened, Face, did someone -"
"- nibal, he just dropped, like a stone, I swear to -"
"- not looking good, we should've rested the day -"
"- alled me by name, think he told the officer his, shit I should've -"
"- urdock. Murdock, look at me, son. Murdock."
The pilot pried his eyes back open, lifting his head to respond to that voice. His grip on what turned out to be B.A. did not falter, but he did give Hannibal the courtesy of dropping his hand from trying to bore into his skull. His eyes burning from rubbing them too much, Murdock met his Colonel's worried gaze, and hated himself a little more.
But, Hannibal was looking at him, studying him, and no doubt making his mind up about something. "'M fine, Bossman," he told him, quietly, because Hannibal hadn't asked yet but he was thinking it and Murdock was fine with cutting out that middleman if this was the last word they were going to have on the subject. Past experience told him it wasn't. "Be fine on the train. Just need to... sit down for a while. That's it. S'all trains are. Sitttt - ing." They were nearly there, they were nearly out of the country. A flipped van, nearly arrested at the airport, two days on a bus, and Murdock couldn't bear the thought of abandoning the admittedly lackluster and fairly normal escape plan on the last leg.
Hannibal stared at him, all steely eyed, and Murdock sucked in on his lower lip as he did. Wanted to look away, but didn't, because they needed to go. Where were they? Peripheral vision said some corner of the track, about the board, under the stairs. How had Facey gotten him down stairs without him noticing? His brows furrowed a bit together, but he didn't dare look away from Hannibal. After too long, Hannibal let out a small breathe and nodded, looking away from Murdock and the pilot could breathe. Glanced to check B.A.'s expression, which wasn't awesome, and then stared down at the safe grimy floor.
The platform was quiet, save for the train noise, and Murdock knew why, he knew that they had picked a train that would be practically deserted, the first run at ass'o'army'clock in the morning after a red-eye bus ride, but right now all Murdock could think was to hate the platform. If he had lost time here, no one would have noticed.
Face had taken his bag and didn't give it back as they boarded. Murdock held onto Bosco's shirt, let the bigger man steady him, but drew the line at being carried onto the train. He gripped the handrails, heavy feet thudding up the stairs, and then relied on the seats themselves to keep him upright. He saw Face in front of him choose a row, and chose the row a few away for himself. Put his feet up on the back of the chair in front of him, curled against the side of the window with his arms wrapped around himself a little. No one came to sit with him. As the train started to pull away from the station, his head rattled against the window. It ached, throbbed, but more than that the echoing sounds of quiet conversation in front of him, no doubt about him, ricocheted through his brain worse than anything. He hunkered down, shut his eyes, and pretended he didn't hear them. Couldn't make out the words anyway.
When he heard footsteps, not long after, Murdock assumed they were there to check his ticket. He had even started to move to grab it.
"You alright, son?"
Hearing the soft, compassionate tone of his Colonel's words, Murdock couldn't help but wince. He would have preferred a reprimand! At least Hannibal hadn't put a hand on his shoulder or something stupid like that, since that really would have sent Murdock's teetering sense of self-respect right over the edge. Were all of them going to try to trip him now?
"Yeah, Bossman," he said, mostly lying, squirming in his seat and taking pains to keep his eyes off even the general direction of his superior officer. Even knowing that Hannibal was probably going to force eye contact out of him sooner or later, Murdock pressed his face harder against the window as if a better view of the landscape could be ascertained by means of osmosis. "Better now, 'nyway," the pilot amended, crossing his arms over his chest in a manner that wasn't all too unlike hugging himself, holding himself together. Then, after a beat and a twinge of fear, Murdock added a half-hearted, "Sorry."
It was probably too much to hope that Hannibal would just accept that and go away, that he would just leave him alone to go and pity Face or B.A. or someone, literally anyone else, but that didn't stop Murdock's fucked up brain from going ahead and hoping that anyway. The pilot was treated with a second round of crushing disappointment when he felt the seat beside him compress under Hannibal's weight, his own personal row of chairs officially invaded. He could see through the periphery that Hannibal had brought him a bottle of water. Murdock pretended he didn't see it when it was offered. "Don't be sorry, Murdock," Hannibal said, gently, quietly, and it sunk stones in Murdock's gut. "What happened?" When Murdock didn't answer, Hannibal pressed. "You're not bleeding, but I don't like the look of your stitches. Is it that, or something else?" Hannibal was tiptoeing, which was unlike him, why not just ask are your crazy pills malfunctioning or what? and be out with it? When Murdock still didn't answer, Hannibal asked something more generic: "How's your head?"
Murdock blew out a raspberry, trying to slink lower down into his seat so that he wouldn't have to talk to Hannibal. His whole body ached, squirmed, rebelled at this line of questioning, this concern that would only serve to make one party feel guilty and the other helpless. Hannibal didn't have to be his shrink on top of already being his mother, his Colonel, his commanding officer, friend, and comrade, which had been why he'd been trying to keep a low profile, trying to act normal, trying to pretend that there wasn't a reason they'd busted him out of a VA, but with Face and B.A. and his head ached for not the normal reasons and it was too much, too much…
"Murdock."
Merde.
Letting his cheek slide down the window just enough that he could angle his head and give Hannibal the courtesy of one and a half of his eyes peeking out from under the red ball cap, Murdock swallowed down his first instinct, which was to make excuses and run. Hannibal's face was nearly unreadable, like always, but it looked somewhat softer than the hard lines that had invaded the not-entirely-too-much-older man's face since their discharges. The edges of his mouth were curved most definitely downwards, but despite the lingering smell of cigars that always seemed to inhabit the air around the man, Murdock wasn't feeling all too truth-some just now. Just because Hannibal was one of the few who could always be counted upon to force an answer out of him didn't mean that Murdock always told him the truth.
"I just got confused," Murdock said quickly, quietly, before Hannibal could do something horrible like order him to answer. He kept his voice low out of consideration of B.A. three rows away and Face a paltry two, the car suddenly felt a whole lot smaller. "I - I think... Hard to, uhm. Gauge." He was not telling Hannibal he lost time. He would not, could not, refused... not. He screwed up his face, ashamed of that thought process, turning away from the man so his Colonel could not see him mouth a chastisement to himself.
Hannibal stared at him for what felt like minutes after Murdock stopped talking, and Murdock fought against the urge to squirm in his seat. When the man did speak, it was gently, and it scraped against Murdock's skin like a cheese grater. "You just got confused?" Hannibal repeated, and Murdock had been on the other side of enough shrinks to know exactly what Hannibal was trying to do. Rather unsubtly, without artistry, it must be said.
The pressure of everything unsaid was the tipping point, the event horizon, and Murdock lost the battle of wills against his flight reflex in a matter of nanoseconds. "Yep, sure did, you know me, HOWLIN MAD, yep," Murdock said, a little too loudly, jumping to his feet. "And now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a super need to pee."
"Murdock - " Hannibal protested, and Murdock thought the man might've actually tried to stop him, had Murdock not anticipated this and climbed up onto his seat, so that he could go over his seat to the empty row behind him. Only, he was too tall like that, and his head knocked against the luggage rack, but he kept going, swinging a leg right over, as if his head wasn't throbbing and like he couldn't see both B.A. and Face swivel around to look at him.
"Really got to pee, Bossman," Murdock told him, glancing down enough to see the disapproving expression and glancing right away as if burned. Hopping into the next row wasn't hard past that luggage rack fiasco, and he jumped down into the hallway, walking quickly towards the end of their car. The ruse was up the second he blew straight past the bathroom there and wrenched open the door to get to the next car, but Hannibal probably hadn't bought that pee story anyway. Not too convincing, needed more nuance, needed... Murdock kept walking, half wanted to keep walking until he walked right off the edge of the train, but stopped himself in the dining car, sliding into an empty booth so he could knock his throbbing forehead against the cool metal table.
The thoughts in his head were too loud. Much louder than normal, much... Murdock scratched at his stitches under his hat, wincing when they came away tacky with blood. "C'mon," he whispered to himself, eyes screwed shut tightly. "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, what the hell was that back there?" At some point, he ran out of air, but his mouth kept moving without it, silently, though the words were like a foghorn inside his brain, "Better, better, can't do that, not now,
Now that they were on the run, they had to routinely con, lie and steal their way into the medication that Murdock needed and, as they had when they were in the military and life made sense, Hannibal trusted him to self-medicate. To tell them what was worth taking, to tell them what was working and what wasn't, to tell them what medications were bullshit and which doctors didn't know his brain chemistry from a toilet seat. He ditched this anti-anxiety medication for that one, swapped anti-depressants and cheated on his anti-psychotics with a prettier blue pill, while no one asked any questions. They trusted him. They trusted Hannibal. For the past eight years together, their little system had worked fairly well. Not great, but good. Now that they were on the run, it was going to have to work great. Better. Perfect. They couldn't afford screw ups or mess ups or minor catastrophes in train stations.
Hannibal had given him freedom twice over now. Murdock's side of the bargain was to only pretend he was the amusing crazy. What went wrong? What had he missed? What had he forgotten? Most of the time he could pretend that he was only the amusing kind of crazy, the kind that liked flipping helicopters and pop-culture and accents. Most of the time, he was fine, he definitely could follow orders, he could have fun. What the hell now?
He sat there, head down in the dining car, long enough for the scenery to have changed from small grit-encrusted buildings to rolling fields and telephone wires. He blinked blearily at it for a moment, stalling, wondering just where the hell he was. It could have been five minutes that passed while he felt sorry for himself, it could have been fifty, but whatever malfunction his internal clock was currently suffering, former Captain Murdock knew when he had sulked long enough. Sluggishly, the pilot forced movement into unwilling limbs, starting with the toes, this little piggy and then the next, all the way to market until he was standing upright at long last. But even after all that effort it took a whine and a nudge from Billy to get him moving again, to shuffle and kick at the floor like the immature five year old B.A. kept telling him he was. He kept his eyes on the ground, trying to ignore the nausea filling up his stomach (from either being in a strange place without his team or going back and seeing them now), just keep swimming, swimming, swimming, tracing the diamond patterns on the worn carpet and only ever looking up once as he approached the door to their car, but that was only for a second. Once glance taken out of apprehension, a moment's peek through the window and in the next second he was up against the wall, his body as flat as he could make it against the material adjacent to the door.
—seven heads, no B.A., guns, rifles, blood on Hannibal's face—
Murdock ripped off his ball cap, slapping the red thing across his chest, crushing it into a ball over his pounding heart. Shut up, shut up, shut up! How hard had he slammed against the wall? And secondly, most importantly, what the hell was going on?
Shifting a little against the wall so that he was touching the door with as much of his back as he dared, Murdock tilted his head back against the metal, rolling the side of his face up the cold metallic surface until as little of his eye peered over that edge as was possible. Then, after a moment of staring at rubbery grout that held the circular window in place, Murdock had to tilt his face up a little higher, straining his cheek against the probably germ-ridden metal.
His first count had been fairly accurate, for half a second's work. Only two men held rifles, AK-47s, one of which was pointed directly at the back of a kneeling Face's head, and the other near Hannibal's temple (the message a clear, visual: you move, I shoot the other). Murdock pushed aside the swell of terror that brought up from his gut, falling back into a focus normally reserved for flying. Now that he had a couple extra seconds, he could take his time, properly investigate. He now counted eight goons, none of whom were immediately recognizable but that wasn't saying a whole lot. After all the years and all the missions, one overly muscled baboon kind of bled into the next one. Except... There was a tall man in the corner who definitely had a European vibe, big and muscled, blond and probably a distant cousin of Jean Claude Van Damme. Something about him just screamed that he was different to Murdock, but why he couldn't imagine. Hannibal would probably have known. Mercenaries? Bounty hunters? The militia had put out...
And then, it hit him, like a punch to the gut from the actual Van Damme. He had seen him before, seen him in the crowd, milling around as Face came to scoop him off the floor.
Murdock swallowed down the guilty fear that threatened to overtake his Adam's apple, moving his eyes over each one of his team. B.A. was easy to find, now that he was able to look, little more than a large arm and the upper part of his shoulder, lying on the floor, mostly obscured by a row of seats. Murdock couldn't see any blood, couldn't identify anything wrong with the black man wearing black aside from the fact that he was face down on the ground and that was decidedly not good. Hannibal was on his knees just to the left of B.A., his eye already swelling from a fist to the face. Murdock could see the indent of two knuckles and a ring running diagonally from Hannibal's temple. Interrogation?
He knew he was pushing his luck, knew that he should move, duck back down, but fear made him stay, made him study, made him try to make eye contact with any member of his team, to let them know he was on top of it, that he was - Murdock's eyes widened, staring directly into Van Damme's eyes instead. Saw him recognize him, or suspect the top half of his face, lift a hand, and shout something that was very likely an order to come bring Murdock into custody too.
"Oh no," he let out, though it felt like a massive understatement, slamming his hat back on his head and surging for the other side of the hall to wrench that door open, hoping they wanted their bounty alive. As he was not shot halfway through the next car, that seemed likely, and a glance over his shoulder showed his was being pursued by two men, the first of which holding a suppressed 9mm at about waist height, and Murdock picked up his pace, opening and shutting the doors to the next car in rapid succession. Rather than continuing forwards, he slid to the side, ducking into the open bathroom compartment, and hovering there, heart pounding rapidly.
He had not heard any gunshots. The AKs would have been loud, very loud, and he let himself hope that meant they hadn't killed anyone for his fleeing.
Murdock grabbed the gun as it came into view, snapping it up into the man's nose. The suppressor crunched it like potato chips, and the man recoiled enough that Murdock could kick out his knee as well, wrenching the gun away from him as he went down, snapping the silenced pistol up and firing three quick bursts into the other man's heart in the tightly knit grouping the military had taught him. The butt of that pistol he brought down hard on the first man's skull so that he would not move.
Breathing a little heavily, Murdock was still for half a second before he was moving again, pulling an extra two clips from the man's belt and depositing them into his belt - Murdock had his own 9MM in his bag, but that was up there and he was here and this had a suppressor - checking up and down the deserted car to make sure that no one else was there. Benefits of an ass'o'army'clock train. Swallowing past the lump in his throat, Murdock moved forwards towards where the men had come from, grip tight on the boosted gun. Two down, six with the team, both AKs still in play.
He made it to the "hallway" between cars no problem. When he went to open the door to the next car, he spotted the top half of someone mean looking, and on instinct Murdock slammed his back into the side wall. The man opened the door, standing still enough for Murdock to see his AK, and Murdock shot him twice as he started to snap it up. Three down, five left, one AK in play. Reload. Van Damme alive. A cursory glance showed that there were people in the next car, only a few half-awake people, and Murdock grimaced. They would send more to investigate their missing three, if he was incredibly lucky and they were incredibly stupid. Or, they would give up on him and just take the bounty on the three they had, perhaps set a better trap for him, which was probably the better plan.
Murdock needed a better plan. Couldn't let it get that far. Couldn't just walk back through the train car and storm them. Not when they had the advantage over him like that. He was a Ranger, yes, but he was a pilot primarily, and he did not like his odds.
In the five seconds he gave himself, Murdock could not conjure a better plan. He, however, found an A-Team plan, and that was almost as good. He would have grinned if it weren't his team on the line, would have grinned if he wasn't the only one in play, and he did sort of smile a bit as he opened the other door in his little room between cars, and wind smacked him right in the face.
Trains, as his subconscious was desperately trying to remind him, weren't really his thing. Oh, they went fast enough and with the windows down the wind ruffled his hair in just the right desirable way, but he still didn't like them much. No offense meant, but those boys just didn't have anything on his girls. His girls could soar whereas these boys could only hope to scrap the ground.
The very, very, very, painfully adjacent ground that zoomed past with alarming speed for a land-based vehicle. Swallowing something that felt very uncharacteristically hesitant for him, HM Murdock stuffed the gun into the deep inside pocket of his jacket before climbing up the outdoor "Railroad Employees Only" ladder on the side of the speeding car. It wasn't so dissimilar to flying, after all.
Well, okay it was nothing like flying, but he was trying and lordy did that ground whip on by. Lookit go. Whoooooosh.
The air whipped even harder at him as he lifted his head over the roof of the train, pulled his hat right off and sent it flying away.
Murdock did not have time to mourn, pulling himself up onto the roof of the train before he could think better of it, trusting his instincts now that he had focus. He had the very bare minimum of a plan, but he had always done well under conditions of mortal peril, and his heart hammered just right in his chest as he shimmied across the roof of the train car, climbing onto the next one. There was surprisingly not a lot to hold onto up here, and his fingers pressed hard against the sheet metal so hard they were white tipped. What little there was to hold onto turned out to be skylights, two of them, indented into the roof and made of thin, tinted glass. A plan half concocting in his head, Murdock shimmed on the roof, heart hammering a little faster now.
Climbing onto the second roof, the car where his team was, Murdock took it slower. More deliberate. He could not afford to make noise, to be spotted, though he was banking on a few seconds of disbelief and confusion before anything happened. He did some recon in the first skylight, could see that B.A. was up again and cuffed to a seat, nursing a scowl and a firm cut leaking on the side of his head. Could see that Hannibal and Face had not been moved, though it appeared that Hannibal had been hit a few more times. He did not have a great line of sight for what he intended to do, and so he shimmied up to the second skylight, finding that his initial count had been correct. Four men, the fifth gone, Van Damme and AK keeping the cuffed Hannibal and Face covered. They were all in a line, Van Damme clearly predisposition as the man beating on Hannibal, one, two, three, four, lined up all pretty like targets.
Inhaling a deep breath, Murdock moved himself to the best position he could manage, tried and failed to catch anyone's eye, and reaffirmed his trust that if any of them heard a loud noise, they would know to duck. And then, Murdock smashed the glass of the skylight with the butt of his stolen pistol.
He moved quickly, throwing the top half of his body into the skylight so he hung upside down from it, holding on by his knees, firing two rounds a piece into each man. True to form, Hannibal and Face had dropped instantly at the noise, knocking themselves out of the way of any errant fire. Murdock had shot AK first, then Damme, then the others, keeping two in his clip for that fifth man when he appeared. If he appeared. It was a concern, but not the strongest one, as a wide grin grew across his face. "Did you guys see - ?!" he started, only to have his knee-grip slip and fall the rest of the way into the compartment.
The next thing he was aware of was Face, leaning over him, a weak half-smile on his pale face when Murdock opened his eyes and opened his mouth to tell him, "Ow." The declaration was immediately followed by, "Worth it."
"You're nuts, you know that," Face told him, shaking his head.
"I'm condiments," Murdock told him, adding a very weak half-smile of his own. "I've been promoted."
It didn't quite get the reaction he had been hoping for, didn't get a laugh, and Murdock's insides squished with guilt again. They couldn't catch a break this week, and this little detour down FUBAR lane had not helped at all. Still, he accepted Face's hand up, feeling a little unsteady on his feet but doing okay, doing just fine, given that they all were alive and breathing. He checked though, each one of them, to make sure, glad to see the fifth man down at the end of the compartment but gladder still to have them standing.
His escape plan had not boiled down to much more than 1) roof of train 2) skylight 3) shooty shooty I'm a movie star 4) save everybody 5) apologize later, very profusely. This was why Hannibal was the plan man. This was also why Murdock relinquished all control of anything even remotely resembling a decision to the nearest responsible adult as soon as he'd gotten the cuffs off. Hannibal had kept them in this train car, but near the exit, letting them know the next stop was not far. How Hannibal knew that, Murdock wasn't sure, maybe there was an announcement, but this was why Hannibal was the Colonel.
They were all stiff, standing there, and Murdock felt the ghost of each new bruise and wound he discovered against his own skin, the nervous tension boiling in his gut just not letting up. It was too much, far too much, and he could not stop himself from touching each of them, making sure, just making absolutely sure they were all still here and in one piece, and he was aware of talking too, just rattling off that nervous energy, but he wasn't entirely sure about what, catching about every three sentences.
"You know something?" Murdock said, quickly but efficiently giving B.A. a few swift pats to assess the wholeness of his arms in his cunning strategy to look for bullet sized-holes in the meat by hitting him. "There are surprisingly few handholds on the roofs of train cars. It's like they don't want people climbing up there! Wholly unsafe, we should write an angry letter."
Baracus had, apparently, had enough of Murdock's cunning "bullet-finding" plan by the time the pilot stopped speaking, and shook him off with many an exaggerated arm movement. "Get off me, fool!" he snapped, waving his hands to get Murdock even further back. Once the pilot was at the proper distance, the man added in a voice only somewhat less annoyed (if only somewhat), "I told ya I was fine, fool."
They got off at the next stop, which as Hannibal prophetcized was not more than five minutes out. They were barely off the platform when the carnage was discovered, and they had to walk a good deal faster, four blocks of it, until Hannibal asked B.A. to find them a car and Face a place to rest for the night, somewhere preferably far from the train station. Murdock pretended not to notice how Hannibal himself remained with Murdock at all times, kept close to his crazy pilot in a way that made Murdock jumpy. He purposefully climbed into the front seat next to B.A., but having Hannibal sitting behind him was nearly worse. Murdock kept to his I'm done making decisions plan throughout it all, wordlessly following the lead of his team at every turn, barely trusting himself to breathe the right way at this moment. He did feel better once he fished out his extra hat from his bag, but not by much.
This time, Face didn't find them a hotel, he brought them to a resort. Large white walls lining the grounds, a pool, large outdoor green spaces protected by barbed wire, and plenty of none too intelligent ex-pats. "If you're looking for someone on the run, you go to the dingiest motels and clean 'em out first, right?" Face said, throwing his hands out wide with a forced smile on his lips. Murdock suspected Facey was trying to do something nice, soft beds instead of lousy, but he wasn't about to complain. He'd even shouted top bunk and tossed his bag right at the bed B.A. was approaching, flashing the bigger man an even weaker smile than Face's.
Great. Now he was doing it too.
That night, Murdock cooked. Strode right into the small kitchen, grabbed a hairnet, and chatted with the workers there in as much of their native tongue as he could remember. The woman stirring the soup laughed at his pronunciation, but that was okay, they let him work after he told them that he was a chef extraordinaire and tonight was a special occasion. It felt easier to joke with the cooks than it did with the team, and his presence was tolerated.
He didn't have a lot to work with, not his usual, but there are a lot of raw materials so he can make do. The toast points for B.A. were easy, the tapenade not as much - he was missing fresh parsley and fish sauce and so he improvised, what B.A. didn't know wouldn't hurt him, and Murdock was quite proud of keeping the taste intact. There was meat available, so he chose the best cut he could find for Face, and nuked it good, with some very thick and liberally seasoned homemade potato chips for the side. Hannibal too got meat, cooked him some beef in cheap red wine and salted liberally, adding a bouquet of pretty vegetables to the side, one of which he was half sure was a flower and not actually anything of nutritional value. Murdock found himself a box of Spongebob Mac'n'Cheese, and made himself a nice little pot of EVERYTHING LEFT OVER, and brought out his concoction with a large bottle of whiskey. Ate right out of the pot, sitting around a campfire with the guys. Close enough to normal.
B.A. had smiled a wide smile, gone "hell yeah, toast points, you know how to make me smile Murdock" when presented with his food, and Murdock had managed an exaggerated bow for his efforts, or most of one, and he pretended that he hadn't actually needed that hand of B.A.'s when he got super dizzy. He played it off, tried to, but the damage was done and Murdock had to remind the man of the toast points in front of him to escape that gaze. Murdock stopped checking on B.A. when the man told him that crashing through the roof of the train had been pretty badass, high praise Murdock didn't really know what to do with or how to accept.
Face kissed his fingers exaggeratedly when Murdock handed him his meal, giving the pilot a nervous sort of smile that really didn't do wonders for Murdock's nerves. Face did not get a bow, but rather an apology that the cow could still conceivably be alive, that Murdock had not cooked it to charcoal. Rather than laughing, Face actually looked a little worried, which was wrong. At least when Face cooked into it and tried a bite there was relief there, crushing relief that knocked Face's shoulders, and Murdock could breathe a little more easily. Couldn't really breathe at all when Face told him that he'd done well, holy shit, and had scowled a little into his mac'n'everything when Face looked away. Didn't want to make Facey feel bad, didn't want to knock that smile off his face, but Murdock didn't take any pleasure in it at the moment.
Hannibal had smiled softly and thanked him, for both the food and the rescue, but Murdock was very sure that his CO was aware of the way Murdock was trying to stealthily stare at each and everyone one of them, to make sure he'd done right. Done good. Made up for it, earned his keep, more a help than that other thing. Made the night as close to normal as he could.
Only, it wasn't. Dinner was a mostly silent affair, which was not so unusual Murdock tried to assure himself, but where the silence should have been rife with comradeship and band of brothers it instead stung. B.A. and Face and Hannibal ate their meals with a voraciousness typically reserved for starving wolves, but the conversation faltered and wheezed, short bursts of utter failure and it put Murdock's stomach off enough that he barely had two spoonfuls of his own food, and fled long before they needed to replace that first log on their fire. He didn't even remember what he'd said, if he had said anything, or just gotten up and walked away. Found himself back in the kitchen, sitting on the rear stairs, deliberately striking each and every match out of a matchbook he could not remember picking up, letting them burn until the flame nibbled a bit at his fingers, then grabbing the burned end with his other hand so that he could burn each match in its entirety. He tossed them on the floor when he was done, where some of them promptly shattered into ash.
Hannibal found him not long after the matches ran out. Clapped him on the shoulder, and asked, "Are you okay?"
Immediately, Murdock gave a shrug. "You know, that question has never satisfactorily been answered." When he glanced up, he was granted a moment of his CO smiling, shaking his own head, and Murdock returned the small grin with one of his own. But, it was a short lived moment of levity, as the other man seemed determined to take things seriously. They all were.
"How's your head, son?" the former Colonel asked, his tone gentle.
Murdock grimaced and looked away. Even if he couldn't bring himself to be angry with Hannibal, he didn't want to look at him anymore.
Hannibal sat down on the stair next to him, letting out a small groan of effort he didn't used to make, and Murdock glared a hole into the drywall as if it had hurt his CO. "Murdock," Hannibal prompted. Murdock ignored him. Hannibal's tone grew softer, "Murdock. Look at me, son."
Murdock did not. "They found us cause of me, didn't they?" Though it had the inflection of a question, Murdock already knew the answer. They would've been clear skies had Murdock not lost himself.
Hannibal hesitated half a second too long. "It could have been anything, Murdock. Someone could have spotted us in line, or walking through the station."
"But it wasn't. They didn't," Murdock said, looking down at his collection of burned matches. To have something to do, he tossed the matchbook down on top of them, belatedly thinking that he should have burned that with one of the matches. "I brought the whole train station's attention to us. Jean Claude Van Damme was looking right at me. They know where we are now, if he reported back. Know where the train stopped, got a schedule as much as Face did. They know where we are." Murdock spoke the whole thing levelly, voice even, but it wasn't right. Wasn't enough. If he could have taken a straight ruler to it, made his tone more level, he would have snipped away all the rumbling, the words he tripped over, the tightness in his throat that made the words taste funny.
"Maybe, maybe not," Hannibal said, quicker on the draw this time. Murdock gave him a half huff of air in response, wanting to make it clear to his CO that he didn't believe him at all. Hannibal continued speaking regardless, "The important thing is what you did afterwards. You crashed through the roof of a moving train to get to us." Murdock was sure that Hannibal had nudged him with the intent on getting him to share in a small smile, but it only made Murdock jump, and badly. Hannibal tried something else, after a moment's hesitation. "We do need to get out of here. I'm starting to get the feeling that this country doesn't want us to be here."
The joke was weak, just like everything else the past few days, and Murdock couldn't even give it the courtesy of a half smile. "Yeah," he sighed, gripping the handrail to help him stand. He could feel Hannibal's eyes on him, but Murdock really didn't want to have this conversation now. Really didn't want to talk. "Be glad to see the end of it," he told him, moving sluggishly back into the kitchen. Murdock had half a thought about making a crack about vacation homes, but didn't have the energy to put it forwards. "'m goin to bed," he said instead, lazily lopping consonants off words.
"Murdock," Hannibal spoke up, stopping the man before he could escape. Murdock froze, turning his head down to the ground and letting out a low sigh. He reached up and swiped the hat off his head, rubbing roughly at the back of his head. "Are you okay?" Hannibal asked, pointedly, reminding Murdock that he had not answered the man's question properly. He sighed again, this time rolling his eyes to the ceiling, as if the grimy vent could save him.
"I'm fine, Bossman," Murdock lied, glancing back to his CO. The man looked old, sitting there half-twisted around on the steps, the dim light casting weary shadows across his solemn expression, ripping against the bruises forming against his face. "Won't happen again," he promised, another lie, giving Hannibal a weak smile before turning and walking away.
Story also published on my tumblr, behindthescarydoor.