CHAPTER 6

What the hell was his life? His cover girlfriend worked in a corndog shop, which he was still wary of ever since the realization that corndogs were Morgan's last meal. His NSA bodyguard was working at the Buy More. He had to give up the one good thing he was doing with his life, and all of it because some jerk he was stupid enough to think was his friend apparently was part of some cosmic conspiracy to screw him over.

Oh, and that Porsche, it was Sarah's after all.

Of course he was gung-ho when Sarah mentioned the doctor who could maybe get the intersect out of his head. Maybe if it was gone he could go back to his normal life. He'd still be watched for a while, but eventually maybe he could go back to normal and be just another guy… who also happens to secretly be one of the most wanted hackers in the world.

Even though he went home with a headache, his not-really-a-second-date was still the best he'd had in years. Part of him wanted to just call it and let that be the last second date he bothered with. He could be a Monk again, maybe focus more on the Piranha once things settled. The blow of finding out Sarah was a CIA agent and he was just some mark hurt.

Yet when Casey came up telling him to not trust Sarah, he couldn't help but question it. Maybe it was her being much, much prettier, or maybe it was just her being nicer, but he found it easier to deal with her than Casey. It almost wasn't surprising when she told him not to meet with Casey and showed him an NSA incinerator.

It all rolled around in his head until suddenly Chuck landed a helicopter and was being yelled at that he should have stayed in the car, as if that was a choice.

"Listen, I'm sorry, okay…"

"No it is not okay!" Sarah exclaimed. "How could you think I was the double, huh?" He felt like a kid, like he was eight being yelled at by his mother or something. It was ridiculous. He even looked at his feet like he used to. "You know I'm not Bryce. Bryce betrayed everything that I believe in and if you ever accuse me of that again, then I will walk away, mission over and we will all go back to Washington. And you do not want that to happen, Chuck. That you should trust me on."

Chuck gaped at the implied threat as she walked away. Casey looked between the two and started to speak when Chuck suddenly cut him off. "Do it."

Sarah stopped mid stride to turn on him. "Excuse me?"

Chuck felt his anger boil up in him. Casey crossed his arms, smirking as he watched Sarah walk back toward Chuck. "Throw me in the bunker, but you better hope you can get your precious secrets from a corpse, because that's the only way you're getting them."

Both agents knit their brows, exchanging glances as Chuck stepped up to Sarah, ignoring Casey. "You need me. Both of you. All of you. If you don't like it blame that piece of shit who sent the email to some worthless loser whose life he ruined twice over now. I had plenty of Bryce Larkin ruining my life at Stanford. I didn't ask him to frame me and get me expelled out of a school I could barely afford. I didn't ask for him to follow that up by fucking my girlfriend. I didn't ask for him to ruin the few things in my life that made me happy since I watched my only friend die in my arms. And I sure as hell never asked for any of this Intersect shit!

"You want me to help, I'll help, but threaten me again and you might as well try throwing me in a bunker and hope you gag me before I bite through my tongue, because I'm never telling anyone a single thing I see. Or maybe I will, since there's really no way for anyone to know if I'm making it all up. It's not like any of you give a shit about trampling on an innocent person, you've all made that very clear. So maybe you should be trying to earn my trust instead of demanding I trust you when all any of you have done is lie to me and pull my life through a sewer of shit!"

He stormed back to his car, his brow sunken as the maelstrom in his mind raged. They wanted to push him around, well they were going to be shocked to find out he's not some dumb goldfish, he's a fucking Piranha and he'll rip them to shreds.

"Shit!" Sarah whispered once Chuck was out of earshot.

"Smooth, Walker. That natural, or the CIA teach you that?"

Sarah glowered at Casey, shaking her head. "I can't deal with this, why don't you-" She stopped herself from suggesting he go back with Chuck while she waited there when they saw the Herder drive off.

Casey groaned. "What did I do to deserve this idiot?" Pulling out his phone he brought up a display showing the car's GPS, which showed it heading back to Echo Park. "Seems he's just going home to sulk."

Of course he was, at least every few seconds. Every other few seconds he was going home to track down the files of everyone involved with this situation and tear their lives to shreds. Other seconds he was going to pull Ellie from bed and tell her the truth. Or walk to a news studio and give someone the story of the millennium.

Ultimately, he settled on planning. Figuring they already had some kind of bugs in his room, he decided he needed to counter those. He'd considered doing it the clever way. It wouldn't be hard to make some loops and trick the cameras. They were probably being run out of Casey's apartment. No, he was going to bite back.

He wanted to start soon but Bryce's burial was the next day, so his trip to the Buy More would have to wait. As much as he hated the guy, he was still his friend at one point, so Chuck at least had to be there. Standing at the back of the grounds, Chuck wondered if any of the people in the seats even knew him or if they were all CIA plants. The only one he was sure of was Sarah, who stood far from him. For a moment he considered waving, but he could tell even from a distance she had tears in her eyes, and suddenly that stray thought came back to him.

Bryce Larkin always got the best girls.

Ellie had suggested he apologize to her but Chuck wasn't sure if she wanted to hear it or if he even wanted to. Yet he still felt bad about yelling at her, so he held off on his plan, waited until he had a break and went over to apologize a few moments before Ellie and Devon showed up to have a makeup meal. To his relief she also apologized for yelling at him, so at least he wasn't a complete push over.

Her smile as he bit into the burnt corndog was definitely worth it. For a moment he almost considered giving up his plan, but knew he had to if he ever wanted to get any kind of ground in this situation. He wasn't completely useless, he just had to show them.

He couldn't do his black box routine, and they most likely went through his mail, so it didn't matter if he went through the Buy More. It wasn't like he could hide what he was making anyway. Once he was finished they would know.

Of course before he got a chance to do anything besides pile the parts under his bed he was given his first mission. He learned to Tango from a mostly naked Awesome, and within a minute of starting his first mission spilled soy sauce on his shirt. He even ran into an old Stanford alumni, who watched as his 'date' went off with some older guy he had been sure was an assassin. At least until he bumped into, or rather tangoed with, the actual assassin and asked a few too many question. As much as he might have been happy to have a woman that looked like that invite him up to her room, doing so with a gun in his side definitely didn't help, especially not when she threw a knife between his legs. Far too close to parts he suddenly wished he hadn't been so selective to use.

Ellie wasn't happy to hear Chuck's conclusion that things with Sarah were complicated, but Chuck found himself smiling as he watched her walk back to her room with Devon. At least he had one thing in his life that wasn't too complicated… baring the lies.

Of course the little good he felt faded when he went to the Buy More and found that the other Nerd Herders gave up on fixing the computers in the back when Harry Tang brought more for them to repair. Though Big Mike wasn't too upset, apparently figuring the rush as an incentive more than a requirement, Chuck knew it was still a blow against any chance he had of becoming assistant manager over Harry Tang.

Thankfully when La Ciudad and her goons showed up, Chuck managed to lock one of them in the cage in time for Casey to show up and shoot the guy with a tranq.

He found some relief from the day later when he talked to Ellie, telling her that yeah, he liked Sarah. Despite it all, even if she didn't really like him, he still liked her.

After dinner he walked her out to her car, which she used to congratulate him on his first mission. And as good as it felt to have her say all that, he shook his head. "Tomorrow I still have clock in at Buy More. I mean what's the good of being a hero when nobody knows about it?"

He felt dumb asking that. Not only did just about every superhero story have something to say about that, but he knew himself in a way. The problem was after years of the Piranha being the hero, Chuck Bartowski wanted to be one too.

"You know," Sarah said as if it was obvious. As if that had been enough. Her features softened as she added, "And so do I."

And suddenly that seemed like it would be enough. With a smirk on his lips he thought that maybe that was the problem. The Piranha was him alone. No one knew about it, not even Ellie, but this, the stuff he was doing with Sarah and Casey, they knew about it. The government was probably going to wipe it from existence when they were done, maybe even wipe him from existence, and he was pretty sure Casey wouldn't spare him a thought. But Sarah might. And maybe it wouldn't be so bad. If he couldn't be with her maybe having her remember him and the things he did would be enough.

"You know if we were really dating this would be the part where I would be forced to kiss you good night."

"Forced?" She repeated with a smile. "Would it be so bad?"

For a second he'd wondered why he'd even said it, but seeing her smile made him glad he did. The hint that maybe it wouldn't be so repulsive to her made it even better. "I'm sure I could suffer through it."

"Me too," she declared. For another second he considered just leaning in and kissing her, but he didn't. He'd tell himself later it was because of the small cut on her bottom lip rather than the fear of trying it and having her reject him. That made it easier to not feel so bad watching her swiftly turn and leave before he could do anything.

If things did turn out for the worst he hoped she at least remembered him. At least someone would know he did something good with his life and, for a while at least, Chuck Bartowski wasn't completely worthless.

AN:

VS The Helicopter is one of the episodes I considered more major reworks on. Originally I'd considered Chuck pushing back against the infighting between Casey and Sarah, but realized the path I had for it lost the end with him to do more. It's the first real hint of him being more willing to put up a fight about things and stand up for himself at times. He won't be suddenly beating up spies without skill flashes though.

VS the Tango was another without too much to change. At first I figured Chuck wouldn't get forced to Ciudad's room since he wouldn't be outed by Morgan's call, but he was already asking too many questions. I also thought maybe the Nerd Herd abandoning the job would hurt him, but Big Mike wasn't really expecting it done that soon so it kind of didn't matter.

Bigger changes are definitely incoming. One episode is basically erased beyond the first scene, while another I basically the same but with shifted motives and extra scenes, but this is still early so the differences have built up too much.