Fic - Burn Notice; Depend On the Team
Title: Depend On The Team
Author: bergann
Fandom: Burn Notice
Pairing: Michael/Victor
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 2 040
Summary: There are some situations you can't control. Sometimes, you just have to trust that a member of your team will get there in time, or alternately; that a member of your team is not stupid enough to risk everything just to get you out of danger.
Warning: No real spoilers.
Author’s Note: for wyomingnot, who bought me in the Sweet Charity auction and gave the prompt 'duct tape, dive bar, dinero'.
This can be seen as a sequel to There’s No Going Back and Trust The Ground You Stand On, but should work okay alone too.
There are some situations you can't control. Sometimes, you just have to trust that a member of your team will get there in time, or alternately; that a member of your team is not stupid enough to risk everything just to get you out of danger.
This is the sort of situation that Michael had hoped would belong to the latter. There's no time for a rescue mission, if they want to get to the client's sister before the bad guys do.
Their client this time is Mark Howards. Mark is a pharmaceutical scientist - a position he was happy with right up until a Mexican drug lord, known only as Sacha, had demanded Mark to give him a highly experimental drug and been refused. As a result, Mark's sister Joy had gone missing and Mark had gone to Michael for help.
Michael's plan had not involved himself getting captured and bound, but you can't plan for everything, and Michael really hadn't expected Sacha's barely legal wife to be at the hotel when he'd gone to deal with Sacha. He also hadn't been expecting the martial arts training.
*
Start at the beginning.
It's important for your team to possess several skills in different areas, so that if someone turns out to be a bad choice for a job, there's someone else to step in and take their place.
"Yeah, I think we're going to have to let Fi do this part of the job," Michael says in the awkward silence after Victor's done talking. "Your accent could use more work and we don't have time."
"We could've had months and it wouldn't be enough for him to go in front of Mexican drug lords and be convincingly Hispanic," Sam says to his empty beer bottle, voice pitched low, and then gives Victor a quick glance to make sure he didn't hear. Michael raises his eyebrows and Sam's expression pretty clearly conveys 'well it's true'.
"It wasn't that bad," Victor says and actually sounds kind of confused about it. "No one's said anything before."
"Victor my pal, you've been lied to," Sam says louder, and pats him on the shoulder as he moves past Victor to get another beer.
"It's pretty bad," Fiona agrees with what's probably supposed to be an apologetic smile, but just comes across as smug. "You sound like you should be in an episode of Explosion Gigantesca de Romance." At their blank looks, she sighs and adds, "It's a Spanish soap opera from Santa Barbara, never mind."
"Why are you watching Spanish soap operas?" Sam asks curiously, "I mean soap operas are bad enough, why watch them in Spanish?"
"Because, Sam, there hasn't been much to do and it's not that long since one of their actors was actually killed during his murder scene." Fiona sighs, "And it's very addictive. I caught a few episodes while we were waiting for Michael to wake up after that explosion in that snobbish drug dealer's apartment went wrong, remember? It's...fun."
"Fun," Sam repeats with disbelief, "You actually consider a show without any explosions or gunplay fun."
"I have depths," Fiona protests, "I can like something without it having weapons in it. Not that a gun and some C4 wouldn't solve a few problems, but it's not as though I'm looking for anything with real substance to it in the afternoons anyway."
"We need some place to stash the dinero," Victor says experimentally with a slight adjustment to his earlier accent and the cringes are barely perceptible, but definitely there.
"Yeah, let's leave this to Fi," Michael says and rubs small circles on Victor's spine, out of sight from Sam and Fiona. "On the bright side, this leaves you in charge of explosives and firepower."
"Well," Victor says and there's something in his voice that makes Michael slightly suspicious, "that I definitely know how to do."
Fiona hmms critically. "You're not bad."
"You'll be calling me excellent soon enough, I have an idea."
"Oh?" Michael asks, arching eyebrow. "Why don't you share?"
"I'll share tomorrow," Victor says, "I can't guarantee anything today."
"Victor --"
"Michael, if I thought you knowing would help the matter at all, I'd tell you, but why make your plans depend on mine?"
"No, seriously, Fiona, you watch Spanish soap operas?" Sam asks in the sudden silence, but his laugh is only a tiny bit faked. "Who's your favorite?"
"It's only the one, Sam, and --"
"You planned to get this entire thing too, didn't you?" Michael whispers while Sam and Fiona argue on.
Victor gives him a wide-eyed 'who me?' look. "Planned what?"
Michael rolls his eyes and doesn't answer, but he can't help the small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
*
The bar Victor leads him to the next day is a dive. Even considering the neighborhood, the bar is in pretty damn bad shape.
"There's someone in here that can help us," It's not exactly a question, just a statement of disbelief. It's important to keep an open mind and be ready for anything, but this kind of place you usually only get one kind of people and it's exactly the kind of people Michael tries not to know.
"Definitely," Victor says as he subtly searches through the dark corners for whoever they're here to see. "Although I wouldn't drink anything you order."
"I have been in worse places than this," Michael points out, amusement curving his lips up ever so slightly.
"In appearance, yes," Victor agrees, "but even the water here would have you sick for days, and we don't have time. We can always return after we're done if you feel like you need to prove yourself. Now c'mon, I've found our guy."
They move further into the bar, and eventually Michael can make out the man Victor is heading towards. The man looks very much like a long nap is in order, not to mention a shower. "Hank my man," Victor greets, knuckles tapping briefly against the tabletop. "I hear you've moved up since we last talked."
Hank's grin is a lot more wary than Victor's. "Could be," he says and his eyes sweep quickly over Michael, "Who's your friend?"
"This is Mikey," Victor says, "He's new. Don't mind him. He's just going to sit here and look pretty."
Hank looks uncomfortable. Michael grins, all teeth, and kicks Victor's shin under the table hard enough to bruise. He barely flinches. "So, what do you want this time, Vic?"
"I hear you've got an in with the new arms dealer in town," Victor says, his grin taking on just a tiny bit of edge. "We need an introduction."
"I can do that," Hank nods, "if you do one thing for me first."
"Of course," Michael says and gives Victor a look.
"Tell me why you want an in."
"I am the new arms dealer in town," Hank says and his grin is no longer friendly. "If you're going to do anything with or to my operation, I want to know why and don't lie."
"You're the new head honcho?" Victor asks and whistles. His hand comes down on Michael's thigh and squeezes. Relax. "Really? Congratulations, Hank. Knew you had it in you."
Hank's lips quirk slightly before his face goes blank again. "Tell me, Victor."
"There are some big shot Mexicans in town. You have a shipment to deliver to them. We want to be the ones who deliver them."
"Why?"
"Because those Mexicans are drug lords who are holding a 16 year old girl hostage." Victor says, "You have a daughter that age, don't you?"
Hank's jaw twitches. "I do. I can stop the shipment."
"No," Michael says, "Don't. If they think anything is out of the ordinary, they will kill her. The only way we can get her back safe is by going through with the shipment. Just leave it to us."
Hank raises an eyebrow. "How do you plan to do all this?"
Michael thinks of how Fiona is currently getting a Mexican drug lord to buy her drinks while Sam places bugs in their cars and says, "Need to know."
Victor smiles. "Like he said, leave it to us."
*
The shipment contains the newest military guns available. "We can't let this leave the country," Michael says, mostly to Sam since Fiona and Victor are too busy cooing over the weapons.
"What do you want us to do, Mike? We call the police in and the hostage dies. They're going to check the weapons for any eventual bugs."
"I know, Sam. But we let these people leave the country with crates filled with military grade weapons, then..."
"It's not worth the life of one girl," Victor says, looking up. "What if we put a bug on the guys picking the shipment up?"
"You can pull that off without the person noticing you're planting a bug on him?"
"Sure." Victor says, "I'm a very believable guy."
He pulls it off.
*
They split it up. Michael goes to keep Sacha distracted; Victor goes to deal with the weapons, while Sam and Fiona make sure that Mark doesn't do anything stupid, like hand over the experimental drugs.
They were supposed to meet back at the loft within the hour.
When Michael comes to, and finds himself bound to a chair in an empty room, he can't help but think that he might not make it. It's clear he's been moved, and by the looks of things, to an empty office building. There are several empty office buildings in Miami.
From the initial assessment, things don't look good.
It's hard to tell how long he's been unconscious, but it is definitely longer than he'd thought, because it isn't long until Victor comes bursting through the door only a few moments after there had been gunfire outside.
"Hello Michael," Victor smiles before turning his attention to the bomb he brings out of the bag he'd brought with him. Michael tries to say 'what the hell are you doing' but it doesn't make it past the duct tape covering his mouth.
"Hello Michael," Victor smiles before turning his attention to something currently strapped to the chair Michael's sitting on. "Did you know there's a bomb under your chair?"
Michael didn't know, and tries to say 'untie me or run' but it doesn't make it past the duct tape covering his mouth.
Victor seems to understand the muffled noise though, and brings out a knife from his shoe.
"I kind of like you like this. Bound and silent. So many possibilities." He grins and fake shivers with delight. "These guys must be good, if they managed to tie up the great Michael Westen like this."
Michael would appreciate the backhanded compliment more if he hadn't just recently discovered he's currently strapped to a bomb. He narrows his eyes at Victor and jerks his head to the side in a hurry up gesture. Victor smirks, but does start cutting the cable ties on Michael's feet before walking around to cut loose his hands.
Michael rips the duct tape off his mouth himself.
"I wanted to do that," Victor pouts, "You could've waited."
"There's a bomb."
"Relax, Michael," Victor says and crouches back down in front of the chair. "Whoever built this isn't as good with explosives as with cable ties, I can disarm this in the minute left."
"How'd you find me?"
"I put a GPS tracker in your phone," Victor says absently, "I was a little hurt you threw away our old one, but understandable considering you couldn't be sure I was the only one who had an eye on your movements. Which I was. When you didn't show up, I told Sam and Fiona to go on ahead and rescue Joy. I borrowed a car and came to rescue you."
"You're tracking me?"
"Only when needed," Victor says, "Or if I'm particularly bored. Oh, huh."
"Huh?" Michael repeats, taking a step forward and letting the subject drop for now.
"I might've underestimated them." Victor admits and edges back from the bomb. "36 seconds. Race you."
Michael's already out the door.
On the other side of town, Sam and Fiona are driving Joy Howards to safety.
Author: bergann
Fandom: Burn Notice
Pairing: Michael/Victor
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 2 040
Summary: There are some situations you can't control. Sometimes, you just have to trust that a member of your team will get there in time, or alternately; that a member of your team is not stupid enough to risk everything just to get you out of danger.
Warning: No real spoilers.
Author’s Note: for wyomingnot, who bought me in the Sweet Charity auction and gave the prompt 'duct tape, dive bar, dinero'.
This can be seen as a sequel to There’s No Going Back and Trust The Ground You Stand On, but should work okay alone too.
There are some situations you can't control. Sometimes, you just have to trust that a member of your team will get there in time, or alternately; that a member of your team is not stupid enough to risk everything just to get you out of danger.
This is the sort of situation that Michael had hoped would belong to the latter. There's no time for a rescue mission, if they want to get to the client's sister before the bad guys do.
Their client this time is Mark Howards. Mark is a pharmaceutical scientist - a position he was happy with right up until a Mexican drug lord, known only as Sacha, had demanded Mark to give him a highly experimental drug and been refused. As a result, Mark's sister Joy had gone missing and Mark had gone to Michael for help.
Michael's plan had not involved himself getting captured and bound, but you can't plan for everything, and Michael really hadn't expected Sacha's barely legal wife to be at the hotel when he'd gone to deal with Sacha. He also hadn't been expecting the martial arts training.
*
Start at the beginning.
It's important for your team to possess several skills in different areas, so that if someone turns out to be a bad choice for a job, there's someone else to step in and take their place.
"Yeah, I think we're going to have to let Fi do this part of the job," Michael says in the awkward silence after Victor's done talking. "Your accent could use more work and we don't have time."
"We could've had months and it wouldn't be enough for him to go in front of Mexican drug lords and be convincingly Hispanic," Sam says to his empty beer bottle, voice pitched low, and then gives Victor a quick glance to make sure he didn't hear. Michael raises his eyebrows and Sam's expression pretty clearly conveys 'well it's true'.
"It wasn't that bad," Victor says and actually sounds kind of confused about it. "No one's said anything before."
"Victor my pal, you've been lied to," Sam says louder, and pats him on the shoulder as he moves past Victor to get another beer.
"It's pretty bad," Fiona agrees with what's probably supposed to be an apologetic smile, but just comes across as smug. "You sound like you should be in an episode of Explosion Gigantesca de Romance." At their blank looks, she sighs and adds, "It's a Spanish soap opera from Santa Barbara, never mind."
"Why are you watching Spanish soap operas?" Sam asks curiously, "I mean soap operas are bad enough, why watch them in Spanish?"
"Because, Sam, there hasn't been much to do and it's not that long since one of their actors was actually killed during his murder scene." Fiona sighs, "And it's very addictive. I caught a few episodes while we were waiting for Michael to wake up after that explosion in that snobbish drug dealer's apartment went wrong, remember? It's...fun."
"Fun," Sam repeats with disbelief, "You actually consider a show without any explosions or gunplay fun."
"I have depths," Fiona protests, "I can like something without it having weapons in it. Not that a gun and some C4 wouldn't solve a few problems, but it's not as though I'm looking for anything with real substance to it in the afternoons anyway."
"We need some place to stash the dinero," Victor says experimentally with a slight adjustment to his earlier accent and the cringes are barely perceptible, but definitely there.
"Yeah, let's leave this to Fi," Michael says and rubs small circles on Victor's spine, out of sight from Sam and Fiona. "On the bright side, this leaves you in charge of explosives and firepower."
"Well," Victor says and there's something in his voice that makes Michael slightly suspicious, "that I definitely know how to do."
Fiona hmms critically. "You're not bad."
"You'll be calling me excellent soon enough, I have an idea."
"Oh?" Michael asks, arching eyebrow. "Why don't you share?"
"I'll share tomorrow," Victor says, "I can't guarantee anything today."
"Victor --"
"Michael, if I thought you knowing would help the matter at all, I'd tell you, but why make your plans depend on mine?"
"No, seriously, Fiona, you watch Spanish soap operas?" Sam asks in the sudden silence, but his laugh is only a tiny bit faked. "Who's your favorite?"
"It's only the one, Sam, and --"
"You planned to get this entire thing too, didn't you?" Michael whispers while Sam and Fiona argue on.
Victor gives him a wide-eyed 'who me?' look. "Planned what?"
Michael rolls his eyes and doesn't answer, but he can't help the small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
*
The bar Victor leads him to the next day is a dive. Even considering the neighborhood, the bar is in pretty damn bad shape.
"There's someone in here that can help us," It's not exactly a question, just a statement of disbelief. It's important to keep an open mind and be ready for anything, but this kind of place you usually only get one kind of people and it's exactly the kind of people Michael tries not to know.
"Definitely," Victor says as he subtly searches through the dark corners for whoever they're here to see. "Although I wouldn't drink anything you order."
"I have been in worse places than this," Michael points out, amusement curving his lips up ever so slightly.
"In appearance, yes," Victor agrees, "but even the water here would have you sick for days, and we don't have time. We can always return after we're done if you feel like you need to prove yourself. Now c'mon, I've found our guy."
They move further into the bar, and eventually Michael can make out the man Victor is heading towards. The man looks very much like a long nap is in order, not to mention a shower. "Hank my man," Victor greets, knuckles tapping briefly against the tabletop. "I hear you've moved up since we last talked."
Hank's grin is a lot more wary than Victor's. "Could be," he says and his eyes sweep quickly over Michael, "Who's your friend?"
"This is Mikey," Victor says, "He's new. Don't mind him. He's just going to sit here and look pretty."
Hank looks uncomfortable. Michael grins, all teeth, and kicks Victor's shin under the table hard enough to bruise. He barely flinches. "So, what do you want this time, Vic?"
"I hear you've got an in with the new arms dealer in town," Victor says, his grin taking on just a tiny bit of edge. "We need an introduction."
"I can do that," Hank nods, "if you do one thing for me first."
"Of course," Michael says and gives Victor a look.
"Tell me why you want an in."
"I am the new arms dealer in town," Hank says and his grin is no longer friendly. "If you're going to do anything with or to my operation, I want to know why and don't lie."
"You're the new head honcho?" Victor asks and whistles. His hand comes down on Michael's thigh and squeezes. Relax. "Really? Congratulations, Hank. Knew you had it in you."
Hank's lips quirk slightly before his face goes blank again. "Tell me, Victor."
"There are some big shot Mexicans in town. You have a shipment to deliver to them. We want to be the ones who deliver them."
"Why?"
"Because those Mexicans are drug lords who are holding a 16 year old girl hostage." Victor says, "You have a daughter that age, don't you?"
Hank's jaw twitches. "I do. I can stop the shipment."
"No," Michael says, "Don't. If they think anything is out of the ordinary, they will kill her. The only way we can get her back safe is by going through with the shipment. Just leave it to us."
Hank raises an eyebrow. "How do you plan to do all this?"
Michael thinks of how Fiona is currently getting a Mexican drug lord to buy her drinks while Sam places bugs in their cars and says, "Need to know."
Victor smiles. "Like he said, leave it to us."
*
The shipment contains the newest military guns available. "We can't let this leave the country," Michael says, mostly to Sam since Fiona and Victor are too busy cooing over the weapons.
"What do you want us to do, Mike? We call the police in and the hostage dies. They're going to check the weapons for any eventual bugs."
"I know, Sam. But we let these people leave the country with crates filled with military grade weapons, then..."
"It's not worth the life of one girl," Victor says, looking up. "What if we put a bug on the guys picking the shipment up?"
"You can pull that off without the person noticing you're planting a bug on him?"
"Sure." Victor says, "I'm a very believable guy."
He pulls it off.
*
They split it up. Michael goes to keep Sacha distracted; Victor goes to deal with the weapons, while Sam and Fiona make sure that Mark doesn't do anything stupid, like hand over the experimental drugs.
They were supposed to meet back at the loft within the hour.
When Michael comes to, and finds himself bound to a chair in an empty room, he can't help but think that he might not make it. It's clear he's been moved, and by the looks of things, to an empty office building. There are several empty office buildings in Miami.
From the initial assessment, things don't look good.
It's hard to tell how long he's been unconscious, but it is definitely longer than he'd thought, because it isn't long until Victor comes bursting through the door only a few moments after there had been gunfire outside.
"Hello Michael," Victor smiles before turning his attention to the bomb he brings out of the bag he'd brought with him. Michael tries to say 'what the hell are you doing' but it doesn't make it past the duct tape covering his mouth.
"Hello Michael," Victor smiles before turning his attention to something currently strapped to the chair Michael's sitting on. "Did you know there's a bomb under your chair?"
Michael didn't know, and tries to say 'untie me or run' but it doesn't make it past the duct tape covering his mouth.
Victor seems to understand the muffled noise though, and brings out a knife from his shoe.
"I kind of like you like this. Bound and silent. So many possibilities." He grins and fake shivers with delight. "These guys must be good, if they managed to tie up the great Michael Westen like this."
Michael would appreciate the backhanded compliment more if he hadn't just recently discovered he's currently strapped to a bomb. He narrows his eyes at Victor and jerks his head to the side in a hurry up gesture. Victor smirks, but does start cutting the cable ties on Michael's feet before walking around to cut loose his hands.
Michael rips the duct tape off his mouth himself.
"I wanted to do that," Victor pouts, "You could've waited."
"There's a bomb."
"Relax, Michael," Victor says and crouches back down in front of the chair. "Whoever built this isn't as good with explosives as with cable ties, I can disarm this in the minute left."
"How'd you find me?"
"I put a GPS tracker in your phone," Victor says absently, "I was a little hurt you threw away our old one, but understandable considering you couldn't be sure I was the only one who had an eye on your movements. Which I was. When you didn't show up, I told Sam and Fiona to go on ahead and rescue Joy. I borrowed a car and came to rescue you."
"You're tracking me?"
"Only when needed," Victor says, "Or if I'm particularly bored. Oh, huh."
"Huh?" Michael repeats, taking a step forward and letting the subject drop for now.
"I might've underestimated them." Victor admits and edges back from the bomb. "36 seconds. Race you."
Michael's already out the door.
On the other side of town, Sam and Fiona are driving Joy Howards to safety.