Title: Miscalculations
Author: knightshade
Rating: PG

Disclaimer: I don't own anything KR.

Author's Notes: This was written for Storm in the Secret Agent Ficathon at LJ community thekittchen. The assignment was to write something from Bonnie's POV with thoughts about how Kitt feels about Michael (or his work or when he gets hurt). I'm not sure this quite lives up to that assignment, but the muse just wouldn't cooperate. Sorry, Storm.

Miscalculations

Bonnie squinted against the sunlight as the semi's ramp slowly lowered, and Kitt's prow came into view. It didn't take diagnostic instruments to see that the damage was bad. Kitt's scanner port was still smoldering and his hood was peppered with gray char marks. Poor Kitt -- always taking the brunt of any harebrained schemes that Michael got them into. Kitt had been vague when he called, just saying that he needed repairs, and avoiding the question of why.

They pulled into the service bay and Michael got out, looking a bit sheepish. At least he had sense enough to feel guilty about it, she thought. "So. What happened?" she asked, already spoiling for a fight.

"My scanner took a direct hit from a heat seeking missile, Bonnie," Kitt said, even managing to sound wounded.

"How direct?" she asked, glaring at Michael.

"My scanner is completely inoperable," Kitt continued, forcing Bonnie to turn her attention back to him. She rolled her eyes and grabbed the diagnostic wand off the bench. Sweeping it over Kitt's hood, she was surprised at the extent of the damage – IR sensors, radar, magnetometer, visible camera – all of his sensors were offline. That and the scanner's processor was toast.

"Well, you certainly did a good job of damaging him this time," Bonnie muttered. "Kitt, could you pop your hood please?"

There was an audible click, leading Bonnie to lift the hood and prop it into place. She immediately recoiled at the pungent odor of burnt electronics.

"Can you fix it?" Michael asked, flopping down in a chair in the office section of the semi.

"Of course I can fix it – I can always fix the damage you do -- it's just going to take some time. I have a replacement processor here, but the sensors themselves are another matter. The only spares I have are back at the Foundation."

"What can you do here?" Michael asked quietly.

"Not much, really. I can change the processor card but it's not going to do any good with a bunch of dead sensors hooked up to it." Bonnie was too busy thinking about the repairs to realize the implications of Michael's question. When it finally dawned on her, she extracted herself from under the hood, crossed her arms defiantly, and asked, "Why?"

"On the way here we were contacted by an informant from within Marcus's group. He's willing to give us information about the chemical weapons. We have a meeting with him in two hours."

"So call and reschedule," she said sarcastically.

Without moving, Michael managed to inject frustration into his entire demeanor. "Bonnie, we got this meeting because of what we did today. We proved that we can take on Marcus and live to tell about it. We have this guy's trust right now, and I think he's going to tell us who their supplier is. If we put him off, he may get cold feet. It's taken us weeks to get someone on the inside to trust us enough to risk coming out into the open. We have to meet with him now."

Bonnie stopped to glare at him. "And what if it's a trap? Kitt won't be able to scan him – he won't be able to tell you if there's trouble."

"I'll just have to rely on my instincts," Michael said. "I was a cop you know."

Bonnie bit her tongue. She knew she'd be going too far if she mentioned where his cop instincts had gotten him. Even in her anger, she knew that wasn't fair. But, damn, she wished that, for once, he'd consider being just a bit cautious. "That doesn't mean you should take unnecessarily chances," she countered instead.

"I'm not!" he said, getting up from the chair, finally riled to the point of yelling. "You know, sometimes we have to take chances! If Kitt and I were supposed to play it safe all the time, then why would the Foundation have hired you and rigged up a mobile garage? We go against nasty people, and sometimes we bite off a little more than we can chew – it happens!"

Bonnie was so tired of the same old argument, and Devon wasn't here to moderate. Actually, that might be a good thing – he always ruled in Michael's favor anyway.

"Right, so you've discovered that you're in over your head and now you're going to go in further with Kitt damaged. Does that make sense to you?"

"We have one chance to blow the lid off this thing! We've worked for weeks to get this guy to come to us – we can't just walk away." He was standing right in front of her, towering over her, in her space. "I'm sorry, but we have to do this now!"

Bonnie held her ground as best she could. "Michael, Kitt's not just damaged, he's effectively blind!"

Michael was glaring back at her and had just opened his mouth to respond when he was interrupted.

"I may be blind, but Michael isn't," Kitt said quietly.

Bonnie stopped and slowly turned around. "What?" she asked, taken by surprise.

"I agree with Michael. He can handle this situation, even if I don't have my full abilities," Kitt said calmly. "I trust him."

Bonnie couldn't remember Kitt having ever expressed his opinion when she and Michael had argued like this before. She looked up at Michael awkwardly. Surprisingly enough, he wasn't smirking or even giving her that 'I knew I'd win' look. "Are you sure?" she asked Kitt.

"Yes, Bonnie. I've learned to rely on Michael's hunches. I may not understand them, but they do have a better than expected success rate. Besides, it was my fault that I got damaged."

Bonnie stared at him. How could it have been Kitt's fault? She glanced back at Michael, who opened his arms wide and just nodded towards Kitt.

"What do you mean?" she asked, more quietly now.

"I was the one who suggested that we go in. We were on the edge of the compound, but it was too far away to determine if they had the chemical warheads. Michael suggested trying to sneak into the compound on foot, but there was really no way for him to get in undetected. I felt it was an unnecessary risk for him to go in alone, so I suggested that we simply approach the compound and get close enough to scan for the warheads. I was the one who said that I would be able to avoid the missiles they were firing at us. But I'm afraid I miscalculated -- I didn't expect them to bring out a second launcher. But, Bonnie, we had to find out for sure if they had chemical weapons or not," Kitt said. "I detected the warheads just before my scanner was destroyed."

Bonnie lowered the diagnostic wand as well as her guard. Kitt had certainly covered for Michael before – refusing to answer when she asked how he had been damaged on several occasions – but she had never seen Michael cover for Kitt. She had been directing all her venom at him, and he hadn't even tried to deflect it by telling her what happened. Not that she would have been angry with Kitt, but Michael bore the brunt of her anger for his partner anyway. It surprised her. It also surprised her that sometimes Kitt suggested doing things that were risky. She had always assumed that that was Michael's handiwork.

Bonnie sighed and pulled out some of her tools. "I'll see if I can get anything else fixed before you need to leave. The radar doesn't look too bad – maybe I can get it working, at least in some limited capacity."

"Thank you, Bonnie," Kitt said, sounding relieved.

"Anything you can get us would be better than nothing," Michael added. Bonnie just nodded to him, realizing for the first time that she had been wrong about his partnership with Kitt. Clearly she had underestimated the respect that both of them had for each other. She had been out of line to blame Michael for everything.

Michael's shoulders relaxed and he turned, obviously about to head back to his chair to wait out the repairs. Bonnie put a hand out to stop him and gently squeezed his arm.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly.

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- knightshade
October 25, 2004