Mac had been telling himself for years that his fear of heights wasn't actually a phobia. Yet that assertion seemed to fall apart the higher he climbed. Mostly because despite the totally stable staircase he was on resulted in an exponential increase in his heartbeat.

He also had to acknowledge that he'd sort of forgotten about having a bullet wound in his leg until he thought about the reason he knew his heart was beating way too fast was the throbbing in his thigh.

Granted, he was very good at estimating distances, and this maintenance catwalk appeared to be a custom model of about forty-five feet off the ground. Any idiot knew that was enough to kill you, or at least shatter everything important in your body, if you fell from it. But any idiot would also look at it and say that it was meant to be walked on, that there were perfectly safe stairs to get there.

Mac wasn't any idiot. In fact, usually he was too smart for his own good. The disadvantage of having a brain that worked at above average capacity was when it decided to be irrational, it was better at that than average, too. Anything more than a step ladder usually had him mentally calculating exactly how much force he'd hit the ground with, or if he was really high up, how long it would take to reach terminal velocity.

He hadn't realized how much the pace of his breathing had already picked up until he heard Jack speak from behind him. "Easy, there, bud. You're alright."

Of course Jack was right behind him. No way was he going to let Mac just take off into an unknown situation. Besides he figured Jack would be all about that catwalk. Heights definitely didn't bother Jack, and the high ground was the place a sniper always wanted to be, more or less. After a couple seconds, Mac was able to acknowledge Jack's presence.

"Yeah. I know." Mac kept going up, deliberately trying to slow his breathing down. "Knowing and feeling are two different things."

"Don't I know it."

Mac could hear the smile in Jack's voice. It made him grin just a little, too. If anyone knew what it felt like to get irrational over something other people would think was ridiculous, it was Jack. What Mac most appreciated about Jack in this kind of situation was that he was the first to admit he was freaking out, didn't care what people thought about it, and still seemed able to function even a razor's edge away from panic. Most of the time.

They reached the top of the stairs and Mac could plainly see the device he'd glimpsed from the floor. He stopped for a minute, evaluating the narrow walkway in front of him, made up of what looked like heavy duty chain link fence. The floor seemed about a thousand miles below them and the sick dropping in Mac's stomach and the tightness in his chest made him feel like he was falling already, even though all he was doing was looking down.

But, scared didn't matter. A timer potentially ticking down to what Jack liked to call simply 'kaboom' was what mattered. Mac took a long breath in and sort of held it as he moved to take a step out from the relative safety of the platform at the top of the stairs. Jack's hand gripped his elbow and stopped him. Mac turned just enough to face him.

"Slow down, kid. I don't think you know it, but you're limping pretty bad. You just take it easy gettin' out there. I'm gonna hang onto you so that leg doesn't go out from under you. Okay?"

Mac shook off Jack's hand. "I appreciate it, but I'm fine. I'm realizing how far up we are here …" His eyes unintentionally strayed to the floor again and he shuddered. He couldn't help it. It was just a shiver that wracked his whole body for a second. "Your weapons aren't good for distance, Jack. If anyone comes back or somebody else from their cell shows up, it's probably better if you're by the door. I just feel like they aren't done here. Just because O'Neill and his guys took off in a hurry doesn't mean everyone involved knows about it. In fact the Mazari's MO back in Afghanistan was to take out members of their own team for whatever reason."

Jack appreciated that Mac was able to think tactically at the moment, but he also wasn't about to leave the kid alone up here, wounded and freaked the hell out. "No worries, kid. We'll keep an ear out and I can move pretty fast for an old guy." Jack patted Mac on the shoulder in a 'this discussion is over' gesture. Mac's face said he was about to get stubborn, so Jack added, "If it'll make you feel better, I'll head down once you're workin' on that bomb, but I'm walkin' you out there and you damned well better not argue with me about it. I'm your Overwatch. I say how we set up a disposal. All you do is the disposin'. Capiche?"

Mac shook his head, but one side of his mouth quirked up in almost a smirk. "You got it, Sarge," he said with a fair amount of genuine amusement. It was too easy to fall back into old roles, he thought. But he also didn't think that was necessarily a bad thing where he and Jack were concerned. He let Jack support the arm on his injured side as he edged out toward the middle of the catwalk.

"Quit lookin' down," Jack admonished when they got about half way to their destination.

"I can't help it," Mac grumbled. And he really couldn't. He didn't want to look down. Ever. At all. But his eyes kept finding the floor, entirely independent of his wishes. He decided edging along faster was his best bet to get to the bomb and disarm it before his heart just exploded in his chest.

It was almost a relief to reach the bomb and see the timer ticking down toward zero. His mind went perfectly blank with anything other than evaluating the device and picturing how to disconnect each and every dangerous component. Even his heart rate slowed, and his breath returned to a normal, even calm rhythm.

It was amazing how really deep training could do that for you. No feelings about the bomb. Alfred Pena had said that over and over to him and all the other trainees until it was burned into their brains. It didn't necessarily come naturally for most of them, but for Mac, who had spent a lot of time in his life ignoring his feelings anyway, it hadn't taken very long for something to click and for Al's calm voice to sort of take over in his head and talk him through disarming even the most complicated bomb. It was similar to how he would often hear his grandfather's voice say, "Deep breath. Let it out. Now work the problem."

He got out his Swiss Army knife and prepared to do just that.

He was entirely in the moment, until he crouched down to get a better look at the device. "Gah, damn it," he hissed, pressing his free hand against his injured leg and squeezing his eyes shut for a minute. Jack's hand was gripping his shoulder, steadying him until he lowered himself all the way to sitting on the narrow platform. His hand was wet with blood, but as he pried his eyes back open, he reminded himself that it wasn't a serious wound, just painful and annoying. "I'm good," he bit out and as he started taking off plates and confidently severing connections, Jack released his shoulder.

"I'm gonna head down and have a look around, check in with the boss … You call me before you even try to get up again, you hear?"

"Mmmhmm," Mac replied, only about half paying attention. The device wasn't complicated, or not more than anything else he'd ever encountered, but there was definitely room for their to be waste from fissionable materials packed into the case. He heard Jack's feet receding back across the catwalk. "Be careful," he said absently as he continued to work.

Mac was starting to feel like he had a handle on this bomb when Jack called out from below, "Better hurry up, Mac, we're gonna have company! And the boss is still a couple minutes out with our back up!"

"Almost there," he shouted back.

He was aware of the sounds of shouting. The subsequent gunfire was a distant annoying sound, like a fly buzzing nearby when you're trying to read. When Mac finally snipped the last critical wire and the device went dark, suddenly reality rushed back in, and Mac was aware of a firefight going on below him. Far below.

He swallowed hard as he looked down, but he needed information. Since he saw some familiar looking faces dressed in full tactical gear intermingled with people who were clearly there to just do damage to Los Angeles and then probably move on and do it elsewhere, he guess the backup Jack had called for had gotten here. He squinted down at the figures from both sides moving from cover to cover around the edges of those not already on the ground being handcuffed by the tactical unit that had arrived. He couldn't spot Jack anywhere.

He needed to get down from here, find Jack, and start asking questions about what was really going on here. There was no way Jack had called their boss at a think tank and less than fifteen minutes later gotten a SWAT team or whatever the hell this was to converge on their location or to go after the other trucks containing bombs that had fanned out into the city.

He groaned as he started to get up. He also probably needed to find someone to patch up his leg. He staggered as he got to his feet, actually using the disarmed bomb as leverage to stay upright. Damn, that hurt. The upside was that things seemed to be slowing down below. Mac started to make his limping, grumbling, way toward the stairs.

He was already mentally preparing for Jack to absolutely justifiably chew him a new one for not only breaking into his file cabinet, but taking off pursuing what he'd found without a word to anyone, and then managing to get his dumb ass captured and subsequently shot. Mac vowed to himself he wouldn't try to justify it, not out loud anyway. He owed Jack an unargued with lecture at this point.

He was concentrating so hard on making his way across the catwalk without putting too much pressure on his leg that he barely noticed how high up he was. His brain kept helpfully reminding him of it, but he was hurting enough that he was mostly successful ignoring it. He had about ten feet to go when he both looked down and put too much pressure on his bad leg all at the same time and his leg buckled and he went down hard on one knee, sending a resonant clanging through the metal.

"Mac!" Jack called out from below, sounding a combination of worried and irritated that his young friend hadn't called down for help like he'd told him to when he'd left to secure the rest of the warehouse. Mac's gut instinct that others might show up had been good, and there were still a few loose bad guys, but Thornton had arrived with the tac team, and Jack wasn't about to let Mac try to get down from his precarious perch on his own at the moment. "You stay put, damn it! I'm comin'!"

The part of Mac that hated needing help, that always felt like even asking for it was going to result in him getting yelled at or being made miserable in some other way, was tempted to try to get to his feet and just finish the job under his own steam. The rest of him really didn't want to fall, or put his weight back on his leg until he'd maybe just possibly gotten something in the way of a decent painkiller in his system, and that part of him knew he could trust Jack to help him. Jack wasn't about to yell at him or make him feel bad for needing help. In fact, pretty much the exact opposite.

"Okay," he called back, squinting as he started to ease himself back down onto the catwalk. He wanted off it more than anything, but waiting for Jack seemed like a smart move after he'd already almost fallen when his leg gave out.

"Good man," Jack called up approvingly as he started to take the stairs two at a time. "I'll be right …"

He didn't get to finish the sentence.

Mac saw it coming before Jack did, and he opened his mouth to call out a warning, but it happened to fast. One of the Mazari guys, who was still fighting even though it should have been clear to the dipshit that he'd been left to die by his boss, broke the hold of the tac guy trying to wrestle him to the floor. Jack was just there, in the middle of that staircase.

The gunshot was unbelievably loud for some reason, Mac thought sort of incoherently. He saw it connect with Jack's shoulder, saw the spray of blood, and saw the force of the impact knock Jack right over the railing of the stairs to the catwalk. "Jack!"

Mac was on his feet and running the rest of the way across the catwalk before Jack had even hit the floor. It had looked to Mac like Jack had fallen forever and he felt like the world was moving in slow motion. Jack had been shot and had fallen … like twenty feet or something.

Mac sort of vaguely processed that one of the guys in tactical gear had tackled the shooter, as he sped down the steps toward Jack. As he ran down the stairs his brain started a very unhelpful litany of facts.

Statistically falling forty-nine feet is a reasonable predictor of fatality. His first blush assessment told him that Jack had fallen about half that, which his brain told him meant there was a fifty-fifty shot that Jack was still alive. Falling eight or more stories is a predictor of a one hundred percent mortality rate.

Of course there was the force to consider. Force equals mass times acceleration. In this case acceleration was the force of gravity on a falling object, or nine point eight meters per second per second. Jack was about six feet tall, so that was roughly one point eight meters add that to the twenty feet up the stairs which was about 6 meters. He weighed about one eighty, so approximately eighty-two kilograms … Mac felt like he couldn't breathe while his brain did the math …

Jack hit the ground going thirty nine kilometers per hour or about 24 miles per hour, falling for only about one second (which just didn't seem possible, no matter what the math said, Jack had been in the air on his way to that concrete floor for an hour at least), and he'd hit with nearly five thousand joules of energy.

Then Mac stepped on the stair he'd actually seen Jack fall from. He knew it because the image was like a flashbulb had gone off and seared it into his mind. Jack had fallen maybe ten feet. Okay, okay that was bad, but it wasn't as bad. His brain helpfully reminded him that Jack had also been shot and that's why he'd fallen in the first place.

Mac took the last few steps two at a time and was on the floor at Jack's side before any of the rest of the guys in the room had gotten even half way there. "Jack, Jack c'mon, man," Mac said with a small amount of desperation.

Jack opened his eyes, "Aw hell," was the first thing out of his mouth.

Mac almost laughed with relief that Jack was clearly alive, and not just conscious, but enough himself to be ready to bitch about the situation. Mac took in the bleeding shoulder, realizing it was bleeding under Jack as well. A through and through that was called. That was good. It meant the bullet hadn't bounced around and torn up extra things on its way through.

Mac reached out and squeezed Jack's other shoulder. "Hey, buddy, don't move, okay? You fell pretty far."

As two other members of the backup team Jack had called in got there, Jack just nodded a little. "Not moving isn't really a problem, kid," he groaned as one of the men put pressure on his bleeding shoulder and the other was on his radio saying things Mac only half heard.

Mac's eyes went wide with fear for his friend. "You can't move?" he asked, feeling something akin to panic, already thinking what paralysis would mean for someone like Jack.

Jack did his best to laugh at the younger man. "I can move, kid. It just hurts like hell. I'm not as young as some people."

Mac smiled down at him and shook his head with exasperated affection. "Jackass," he said quietly. "You scared the hell outta me for a second."

"Good," Jack groaned. "Now you know how I felt when I came home and saw that you'd busted open my personal locked files and …"

"Jack, I'm so sorry. I don't know what I was thinking."

"Too much about other people and not enough about your own hide as usual, I'm guessin'." He looked Mac over. The kid was going to realize he was actually pretty hurt too any second, Jack thought. Then he heaved a resigned sigh. "Best back up a minute kid; Thornton just got here with the medics and they are gonna be more than usual levels of annoying because I took a tumble."

Mac gave Jack's shoulder another squeeze and stood up out of the way. His boss strode over and pinned him with her dark eyes. "The device?"

Mac squared his shoulders. "Deactivated, Ma'am. Safe for retrieval and analysis. Were you able to identify and recover all the vehicles?"

"We were." She gave a curt nod of satisfaction along with the statement.

"Were there any other devices that we should worry about? If I'm needed elsewhere to disarm …"

She stopped him. "Not all of the trucks contained explosives, but the ones that did have been rendered harmless and are on their way back to a secure facility to be processed."

Mac glanced at his watch. "That's impressive work, Ma'am, if you don't mind me saying so."

Her Cheshire Cat smile made an appearance. "I could return the compliment …" Then her expression hardened a bit. "If I wasn't so blindingly furious that you came down here on your own after looking at classified documents Dalton had in his possession."

"I'm sorry, Ma'am. I believe Jack's pretty furious, too. And I have a feeling …"

"As soon as he's been patched up you're going to be reminded what it's like to have someone who outranks you and likes to yell upset with you."

Mac nodded, looking down at his shoes. "I'm afraid so, Ma'am." Then he heard Jack yelp, a surprised, distressed sort of sound, and without even excusing himself from his boss, he limped back over to where the medics were getting Jack ready to move. As soon as he was close, he saw the problem. He bent toward Jack and grabbed his free hand, ready to be a distraction. So he was going to be a jerk for a minute and tease the poor guy.

"Guys, take it easy on poor Jack. He's the world's biggest baby about needles, even those itty bitty IV ones. This one time in Afghanistan …"

"Don't you dare tell that story!" Jack said with a fair amount of heat. "Ow! Goddamn it, Evers, you need more practice before they let you out of the house with sharp things," he snapped, glaring at the man who'd just very sneakily taken advantage of the distraction Mac had provided and started the absolutely necessary whether Jack much liked it or not IV.

They started to move toward the door, and Mac took a step after them. "Got room for me to ride with him?" he asked tentatively.

Evers grinned at him and nodded. "Dalton already told us to drag you along if necessary. Have a seat and we'll be right back to move you the right way. Got yourself a nasty little GSW of your own, kid."

Mac glanced down at his leg which he'd all but forgotten about. "Oh, um, yeah, I guess I do."

Between the glare he was getting from Jack, and the one he saw Patricia Thornton directing his way, his next thought of "But it's fine," died on his lips. He sat down on the nearest crate to wait for them.

"I'll be right here," he said with a sigh.

Nothing like saving the whole city and keeping the state from being rendered uninhabitable only to wind up feeling like you were in trouble.