Based on an episode of The Big Bang Theory: "The Terminator Decoupling". There was a conversation in that episode that I thought would fit well here. Enjoy.
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Wolf had been genuinely looking forward to working with a group of Marines from Force Recon on a joint mission. He had heard rumours about this particular team and they had heard rumours about K-Unit. Because of this, the usual suspicions and concerns about matching skill levels had been glossed over.
The mission itself had gone fairly well. They had been sent to take down a drug cartel in Malaysia who was dealing weapons in Darfur on the side. It was a simple infiltration and destruction mission. A couple of bombs, a couple of assassinations and they should have been out.
But since it was them, nothing could ever go correctly.
Their new fourth, Dolphin, had come across a rather unfortunate document as he had hacked into the drug kingpin's heavily encrypted computer system. A high ranking enforcer here in Malaysia had originally been working for Helter Skelter's people in England. There was a very good chance that he would recognize Wolf, Snake, or Fox and because of this they had shifted the bulk of the mission to the Force Recon boys.
"What do you know about this guy?" their leader, Bullseye, asked. None of them had given their real names-as per usual-and they had been ribbing each other about codenames for a week straight. Bullseye had been given that name because of his near perfect aim. There was also Digger, Six, and Joker. Wolf had not yet been told why they'd been given their codenames.
Bullseye had a distinctive Boston accent and was the son of a woman originally from Ireland, something he never wanted anybody to forget. Wolf rather liked him.
"Not much," Wolf said. They were currently on a train, following the enforcer's movements between cities. The passenger train they'd managed to grab was of a higher caliber so they were traveling in relative comfort. Snake had even gone for a non-alcoholic beer at the bar carriage. Wolf, Bullseye, and Fox were all sitting in a booth in first class, their respective comrades spread around them throughout the carriage.
Wolf tapped the table between them with his fingers and eyed Bullseye, wondering how much he should say to him about the Helter Skelter debacle. He decided on the relative truth.
"He must have jumped ship after Skelter's operation in England fell apart."
"I heard you had something to do with that," Bullseye commented. Wolf nodded but didn't elaborate. "What do you remember about him? Any vices? Any girlfriends? Boyfriends?"
"I can't remember," Wolf said.
"And we're in too deep to get access to the database," Bullseye finished, immediately grasping their problem. Their mission would be smoother and safer if they had their intel on the surprise player.
"There is another way," he said and Fox froze, his cup of tea halfway to his mouth. He had clearly figured out where Wolf was going with this.
"That's a horrible idea," he replied. "You know he'll read it."
"Eagle won't."
"Eagle wouldn't do it in the first place," Fox told him. "Not unless you say you're dying in a pool of your own piss. He won't break protocol lightly and you know it."
"What are you two talking about?" Bullseye asked.
"I have a copy of the files concerning the Skelter operation," Wolf said and held up his work mobile. "I just have to get somebody to send it to me."
"Isn't that illegal?"
"Horribly," Fox said politely, sipping his tea.
"Sounds like fun," Bullseye said, smirking. "Do it."
Wolf manually dialed a number he had long since memorized and waited nervously until a familiar voice picked up on the other end.
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Tom had been enjoying a perfectly enjoyable episode of Doctor Who and talking to a friend about the upcoming school play that he had promised to go to and couldn't manage to wiggle out of.
"All I'm saying is you shouldn't have told her you were going if you didn't actually want to go," Alex told him.
"She's like a puppy," Tom defended. "I just couldn't say no!"
"Are you sure you just don't like her?" Alex asked.
"As a friend maybe," he said, muting the television when his mobile rang. He recognized the number as Wolf's work mobile and wondered what he was doing calling him. He knew it wasn't a butt dial because Wolf didn't program personal numbers into his work phone. He was deliberately calling which was quite interesting. "It's Wolf."
"Speaker," Alex commanded.
"Hello," Tom answered, leaving the mobile on speaker so that Alex could hear and contribute as needed.
"Harris I need to you to listen carefully. I'm going to give you a set of instructions that you need to follow to the letter. Do you understand?"
"Wolf!" he said, managing to sound delightfully surprised even though he'd known who it was all along. "How's the mission in whatever poor, unsuspecting country you're in?"
"It's just delightful," Wolf said tightly. "Now pay attention."
"Oh! While I have you here, my teacher wants to know if you're going to the parent-teacher thing. She like really wants to talk to you about something but since I'm doing well in that class, I think she just thinks you're hot."
"Harris!" Wolf snapped, thoroughly unamused. Alex rolled his eyes. "I need you to gather your powers of concentration, limited as they be-!"
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It was at this point that Fox demanded the mobile from Wolf.
"Wolf, give me the mobile!" he snapped and all but tore it from the other man's hand. Fox took a breath, shook his head, and put the mobile to his ear. "Hey Tom, it's Fox."
"Hey Fox," the boy replied sounding perfectly unfazed by Wolf's rather harsh command. "What's going on with Major Fussy-face?"
"He's calling to ask you a favor. You might have been confused because he didn't use the words 'Tom', 'Wolf', 'please', or 'favor'."
"Enough chit-chat," Wolf snapped, taking his mobile back. "Alright listen, Harris, where are you?"
"I'm at the flat."
"Good," Wolf said, grateful they wouldn't be losing time by trying to convince Tom to actually go home. Although, he shouldn't have been surprised the kid was there. Tom and Alex would have just gotten off school and they had taken to hanging out at the empty flat until it was time to go back to Alex's for dinner. They claimed it gave them privacy and no one saw fit to say no to that. "Go to my room."
"Ooookay," Tom replied, making it clear that he thought Wolf was acting extremely odd. However, Wolf did hear some rustling and a door opening which meant the boy had complied with the order regardless of what he was thinking. "Oh hang on, I'm getting another call."
"No! Harris don't-" Wolf started but Tom had already put him on hold. The man seethed shaking his head. "He put me on hold."
"Who the hell are you talking to?" Bullseye asked.
"My kid," Wolf snarled and refused to say anything more about it. Thankfully, Tom came back before he felt the urge to get up and pace the length of the train carriage in frustration. Fox was reading a magazine and ignoring everyone. Bullseye was watching him with interest and Wolf got the vague impression that he being amused by the spectacle.
"Alright, listen," Wolf said when Tom came back on the line, "despite what I'm about to ask you to do, this does not give you permanent easement to go through my stuff."
"What?" Tom asked, confused. "What's an asment?"
"No, easement," Wolf corrected. "It's a legal right of access."
"Yeah, I'm still not following."
"Oh good grief," Wolf sighed pinching the bridge of his nose as Fox looked over at him, bemused. "Have Eagle explain it to you later."
"I'll just ask him now! Hang on."
"No, no, Tom don't put me on hold! Dammit."
Snake paused as he walked by, took one look at Wolf, and knew something odd was happening. He nodded at his teammate.
"What's wrong with him?" he asked.
"He's on the phone with Tom," Fox asked.
"In the middle of a job?" Snake asked, surprised that Wolf break that one simple protocol. He'd gone longer than this without talking to Tom before.
"He's trying to get the kid to focus long enough to send us the Skelter files," Fox explained and understanding washed through Snake's expression. "It's not going very well."
"Better him than me," he mumbled and went back to his seat next to Digger a few booths away.
They waited for at least another ten minutes before Tom clicked back onto the line.
"Yes, I'm still here Tom!" Wolf snapped. "Now focus! You're looking for a small wooden box between a piece of quartz and a Hoberman sphere."
"A what sphere?" Tom asked.
"A Hoberman sphere."
Fox watched Wolf roll his eyes in a spectacularly exaggerated way at something Tom was telling him.
"No," he said. "The thing with the time on it is my alarm clock." Bullseye gave him a peculiar look and Fox ducked his head, desperately trying to smother a rather unmasculine bout of giggles. "It's a Hoberman sphere Tom! It looks like a spikey ball that opens and closes!"
"Oh, I see it. Hang on!"
"Don't put me on-! Dammit, I'm on hold again."
"He probably went to play with the Hoberman sphere," Bullseye noted and Fox barked out a laugh knowing that Bullseye would never know just how right he was.
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Alex was perfectly content to lean against the wall, arms crossed, watching, listening, and providing no help whatsoever. Tom didn't ask him to and Alex had a feeling he was purposefully making this call difficult for Wolf because he knew it was funny as hell. The smaller boy moved around the bedroom and when he finally figured out what a Hoberman sphere was he put Wolf on hold and played with it for a minute, a look of pure childish wonder on his face.
"I'm keeping this thing," he said and disappeared to stash it somewhere in his own bedroom. When he got back he grabbed his mobile, a box on the dresser that had been next to the Hoberman sphere, and took them both to the big bed. He crawled up on the duvet and sat cross legged in the middle. Flipping the box open he found nothing but letters. Looking slightly disappointed, he brought Wolf back on the line.
"Okay, I got a box but there's nothing but letters in here."
"No," Wolf said, suddenly sounding worried. "That's the wrong box. Put that back."
"Oh, wait, are these letters from your grandmother?" Tom asked, sounding surprised and excited. Tom always loved to be reminded that Wolf was actually a person. He rarely got to see the other man's family and since Wolf was such a hard-ass, tender moments were few and far between.
"Tom, don't read those letters."
"Oh my god! She calls you Moon Pie. That is so cute!"
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Fox was engrossed in his magazine, thoroughly ignoring Wolf's odd conversation about letters, when a sudden commotion made him pay attention.
"Put down the letters!" Wolf all but shouted, his voice sounding peculiarly high and agitated. Fox looked over and saw that Wolf had a distinct air of madness about him. Bullseye didn't know whether to laugh or reach for his gun and the entire carriage turned to look at them. Fox ripped the mobile away from Wolf. The man gave him a hurt look which Fox responded to with a look that said, 'What the hell? Pull yourself together'.
"Hey Tom, it's Fox," he said and heard nothing but two sets of giggles on the other end of the line. Apparently Alex had been there the whole time and had deigned to be unhelpful. Fox made a note to tell Jack.
"Hey Fox, how's the mission?" Tom asked, sounding pleased with himself.
"It's wonderful," Fox simpered at him sarcastically. "Listen, I don't know what you're doing right now but there are little bubbles forming in the corners of Wolf's mouth and he looks like he wants to bite something."
"Okay, yeah," Tom said, suddenly sounding contrite. "I may have crossed a line that time. You can put him back on now."
"Thank you!"
Wolf snatched back his offered mobile and put it to his ear. He mumbled under his breath about getting away with murder. "Tom!"
"What's up Moon Pie?"
"Nobody calls me that but Nana!" Wolf growled, sounding as if he'd suddenly been possessed by a demon. Fox demanded the mobile back and had do some quick maneuvering when Wolf threw it at his face.
"Hey Tom! It's Fox again."
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Alex watched Tom stare at the Japanese puzzle box they had found on the dresser after determining that what Wolf wanted was not in the letter box.
"Okay, Wolf, I found the stupid box. Now what?" Tom asked sounding exasperated even though he had no right to be. He wasn't the one being annoyed and he certainly wasn't the one having his stuff searched by a hyperactive teenage boy who could spot a shiny object faster than a crow.
"You're holding a Japanese puzzle box, Tom. Now listen carefully because this takes very precise movements to open. Do you understand?"
"Uh huh," Tom replied turning the thing over his hand and looking thoroughly unimpressed.
"Okay, this thing takes ten moves to open. First you have to locate the panel with the circles and slide the center portion exactly one millimeter to the left. On the opposite side of the box you have to slide the entire panel down two millimeters and you'll hear a click."
Tom was simply staring with his mouth open, not bothering to try and follow Wolf's instructions. He gave the box an assessing look.
"Wolf, are you attached to this box in any way?"
"No, I bought it off the internet. Did you hear the click?"
"Hang on," Tom said. He set the box on the floor, brought his foot up, and slammed the heel of his boot onto the box before Alex could think to warn him about booby traps. "There's the click."
Wolf went through the rest of his instructions while Tom ignored him in favor of searching through the splinters of the little box. He came up with a flash drive. A flash drive Alex recognized as the one Wolf had previously hidden in a bus locker. The same one that had caused so much trouble in the past.
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Fox was building a teepee out of coffee straws and sugar packets when Wolf finally finished with the stupid box. Bullseye had his arms crossed looking as if he was rethinking his previous assessment of K-Unit as he watched Wolf try to talk a completely uncooperative Tom into inserting the flash drive into the computer.
"Tom the man's dead! You'll be fine, now insert the damn drive."
"You're being mean," Tom complained.
"No, I'm not. Tom, I need those files. I wouldn't be asking if it wasn't important."
"Fine," the kid sighed, finally agreeing to open the drive. "It wants a password."
Wolf gave the kid a string of numbers and hoped that Tom wouldn't recognize the significance.
"Wait, I know those numbers," he said.
"That doesn't matter right now," Wolf replied quickly hoping to push it away before Tom latched onto the subject.
"Those are my numbers!"
"Tom-"
"Yeah, the date I moved in and my jersey number. Wolf! You're just a big cuddley boo!" Wolf felt his face turn bright red in embarrassment but he was finally able to walk Tom thorough the process of sending the files to his mobile. He then had to spend another ten minutes instructing Tom about where he wanted the flash drive re-hidden because he just knew that the kid had smashed the box instead of going through the entire puzzle.
Fox listened to him as he kept saying 'no' and 'I'm not going to tell you' over and over again. However, Tom must have been very convincing because eventually Wolf gave in.
"She calls me Moon Pie because I'm yummy-yummy and she could just eat me up," the man finally said and quickly hung up, face bright red. Fox immediately began laughing uncontrollably and Wolf eventually kicked him straight out of the booth to land in the aisle. At this point, Bullseye lost control but since Wolf couldn't hurt him without potentially causing an international incident, he simply glared at him.
"I should have told Eagle I was dying in a pool of my own piss," he growled and then began scrolling through the files, hoping that by the end of this stupid mission he would be able to regain at least some of his lost dignity.