Day Eighteen - Compromise (Fast and the Furious)
Title: Compromise
Author: Constance Truggle
Rating: FR13
Pairing: Brian/Mia, Dom/Buffy
Summary: Brian didn't want to turn Dom in, so Buffy found a way to get them all out.
Disclaimer: Don't own Buffy or the Fast and the Furious.
Word Count: 2991
Author's Note: This follows my other story, It's a Small World After All. Seriously unkind to Riley. And a huge thanks to hellbells for looking this over. And for making me write the confrontation with Riley. Hope it's up to snuff! Also, I struggled to remain within the word count, so some scenes are severely glossed over.
Buffy's head hurt. Her head hurt like there was a troll using his hammer for a golf club with her head as the ball. And she hadn't even gotten out of the car yet. She could see them, of course. The Finns. Samantha and Riley Finn, she of the Peace Corps and he of the Toothpaste Ad. One of the others looked familiar, too. Gray or Grant or something. Cracker? Graham! That was it. And another guy, this time one she'd never met. She heaved a sigh, pushed open the door, and let Dom pull her out.
“What are you doing here, Riley?” she asked in a very tired voice. “And do I even want to know how you knew where to find me?”
“They're here for you, babe?” Dom asked. Buffy tossed him a brief smile.
“Yeah. All that shit with Sunnydale? They're the ones who think they need to deal with it.”
“It's what we do, Buffy. You know that.”
“No, Riley. I know that you think it's what you do. And it's cute. Really. But I also know that your people fuck it up all the time.”
Riley's wife sneered at her, and Buffy wanted to laugh. Still a bit jealous, then. She could work with that. She wasn't the same slayer they'd last seen. Now she knew what she was, what she could be. She was the top of the fuckin' food chain, and she wasn't going to let these righteous idiots run roughshod over her again. Not this time. So she smiled slightly, tilted her head until it rested on Dom's shoulder. She watched Brian flank her other side, leaning back against Dom's car like he owned it and crossing his arms as he watched the soldiers in front of them. Dom's other friends shifted around them and suddenly there was an Us against Them camaraderie that had the Army boys shifting just a bit. She had to admit that Team Toretto was definitely a rough looking group. Dom didn't say a word, just let Buffy lean on him as he wrapped a muscled arm around her waist.
“If it's what you do, Riley, where the hell were you when it was going down? Where were you when teenage girls were dying for something they couldn't control? Where was your damned team when we went into the Mouth of Hell itself to kick ass so hard that the whole fucking town turned into a crater? Huh? Where the hell was your team? You think that just because you sent some doctors up to remove the chip in Spike's head that your people put there without making sure it wouldn't malfunction that you were done? That we couldn't have used your help? Even your group's bumbling efforts would have been better, because at least your people knew they were likely to die when they signed up for this. These girls didn't. So no, Riley. It's not what you do. It's what I do. It's what Faith does and what Giles and the rest of the Scoobies do. What you do is play at being a monster hunter. You need a team to take down even half of what I do alone in one night. So tell me again, Riley. What, exactly, are you here for?”
“Damn, babe! If I didn't know better, I'd say you were a little angry,” Dom drawled, sending his boys into coughing fits as they tried to rein in their laughter.
“Look, Buffy,” Sam Finn said, drawing Buffy's name out like she tasted something nasty. Buffy's eyes narrowed and she straightened up, moving away from Dom in an angry, predatory way. Riley shook his head at his wife and she closed her mouth with a snap. The guys on Dom's team looked at her with new found respect that such a simple movement from her could get that kind of reaction.
“What. Do. You. Want?” she gritted out, muscles in her cheeks flexing rythmically each time her teeth clenched tighter.
“We just want to debrief you, Buff. That's all. We need to know what happened so we can stop it from happening again.”
Buffy laughed, a bitter, twisted sound. “You're almost two years too late, Riley. And if it happens again, I'd better not be alive to see it.”
Riley sighed and Graham stepped forward for his turn. He was softer spoken and more respectful, though, so she didn't lash out at him. She glared at Riley and at Sam, and pulled her cell phone out. With the press of a button, her phone was ringing and she shot a vindictive smirk at her ex when the cessation of the ringing let her know the other person had picked up. She spoke before he could.
“Angel, I need some info.” Riley jerked and glared back at her when he heard who she'd called.
“You're in charge of Wolfram and Hart now, right?” At his affirmative, she grinned. Ferally. “Can you find out just how much pull the Council has with the US government?” Riley stepped his glare up a notch.
“What is this, Buff? A reunion of the exes?”
Buffy put her phone on speaker at Angel's request. His voice came out loud and clear to the soldier.
“Watch your mouth, boy. I'll beat your ass again, and I don't have one of those chips your people like putting into guys like me to make it easier for you to torture us. Don't think I don't know what kind of sick things you did, using a plastic stake on William. Does your wife know that you couldn't handle Buffy being stronger than you, so you went to a vamp suckhouse to satisfy your need to be in control?”
The girl turned to her husband, a look of revulsion on her face. Buffy also looked repulsed, but it was because he would think to even have a plastic stake made and use it on a vamp.
“Wow. I am so ashamed to say that I ever dated you. First, you can't tell when somebody else has my body, then you go to the suckhouse because you're insecure, and then I find out you're sick enough to go and actually get a plastic stake made just because Spike... what? Is it because I found out about the suckhouse? Because he showed me? Or are you just petty enough to do it because you knew he could keep up with me? He was strong enough and had the stamina to be a help to me, not just in the way.”
Angel's soft laughter could be heard through the phone, Team Toretto and the other soldiers watching with horrified fascination as Riley and his ex finally faced off.
“It's great to hear you light into Smiley Riley like that, Buffy, but next time, can you keep Spike's stamina out of it?”
A wicked grin crossed her face and she almost wished Angel were there to see it. “Back on topic, Mr Big Shot. What kind of pull do I have?”
“You have the kind of pull that can get the soldier boys to back off. Since it was a Council operation, you only need to answer to the Council. Currently, that's Giles and you.”
“Me?!? Are you serious?” Buffy stopped, took a deep breath, then continued. “Alright. Who do I call and what do I say?”
“I'll give you a number, you just call and tell them that you represent the Council of Watchers, based in London, and you are handling the Sunnydale situation. If they give you a problem, have them call me. Between the Council and Wolfram and Hart, you shouldn't have a problem. Call me when you're done.”
“Alright then. Thanks, Angel.” Buffy took the number down and hung up, dialing again right away. Her conversation with the guy who answered went a lot smoother and easier than the one with Riley, and soon enough the soldiers were gone. Only Graham had given her an amused look. He wasn't a stupid one. Maybe the Council could snatch him up. She'd talk to Giles later.
Finally, the entire group was able to get into the house. Mia offered her some clothes that were closer to her size, and Brian offered to run her to get some outfits once she was clean. She jumped at the opportunity for a hot shower. Dom grabbed her arm as she headed to the bathroom and looked at her.
“We gotta talk.”
“After I'm clean and done with some retail therapy. Then I'll tell you what you need to know.”
Brian was driving and Buffy kept staring at him. Finally, he pulled over at a burger joint and sighed.
“What is it?”
“You're a cop, Brian. How'd you get mixed up with Dom?”
“It's an undercover job. You can't let them know, Buffy.”
“I figured as much, or you would have jumped in with the whole Riley thing. You always were a bit overprotective of me.”
“You're my favorite cousin. Of course I want to protect you.”
“You're avoiding the question. What's going on with you and being with Dom's gang? If you get Dom into shit...”
“Fuck, Buff. Toretto's hijacking trucks and then selling the goods. He's doing it so he can get his sister out of here, and I think the guy just got a big ol' run of shit luck and he's making the best of it, but it's illegal and he can't keep doing it.” Brian ran a hand over his face, rasping against his stubble. He and Buffy had shared a lot over the years. When he became a cop, he learned a bit about the stuff Buffy took out. In fact, they hadn't seen each other since they were kids, then one night when she was around fifteen, he ran into her taking out a couple vampires. They started a long distance communication not long after as she moved to Sunnydale. So he knew what she did. And she knew him too well for him to hide this from her. Especially since it involved a man she was, apparently, involved with. Or planning to be.
“Shit. Alright. Let me think.” She was quiet for a few minutes, eating the food he'd grabbed for them when he pulled in. “Okay. If the hijackings stop, then there's no way to prove who was doing it, right? So we get him to stop.”
“It's not that simple, Buffy.”
“It never is, of course. What about if... hmm.. Oh! I know! I'll have to clear it with Giles first, of course, but what if we say he got the wrong trucks? He never knew what was in them, but he was grabbing some shipments that had been taken from the Council. With some autonomy, we could probably pull that off. And if nothing else, Angel does run Wolfram and Hart.”
“We could say that your contacts marked the trucks, but they were the wrong ones. The right ones had demon drivers, so whatever contact the government has that you called wouldn't think twice about it if they thought that Dom was fucking with demon profits.”
“Oh, perfect! We'll have to talk to Dom tonight. Come clean to him about you after he gets the Slayer Schpiel. And another thing I'll have to ask Giles, but Dom could work for the Council. It's an adrenaline rush he's after, right? So he can patrol with me. See if it's something he wants in on.”
They talked to Giles and got his tentative okay on things. It took a couple days, but they got it. With the Council's resources decimated, a few humans who could handle the kind of story that Buffy and Brian concocted would be an asset. Because there were times when the Council needed things that had been stolen and moved in trucks and hijacking the trucks would have been preferable to the brawls that had resulted from having a team get to them after they'd stopped. And while he was leery about accepting Angel's reassurance that he was the nominal head of the Council right now, after a few calls to some old acquaintances from his Council-lackey days proved the claim true. Giles and Buffy were the current heads, in charge of getting the Council back on its feet and in the demon slaying business again. So he approved her requests and sent her on her way. Perhaps she'd like to head up the Los Angeles office, he mused.
Dom and his friends took the bit about her being a slayer well, once she finally told them. It seemed that the illegal street racing world was aware and always on the look out. They'd heard the slayer myth, but believed her to be just that: a myth. Buffy proving herself as a slayer was equally easy. She did some feats of strength and aerial gymnastics and bam! Instant acceptance of her abilities. And it explained the soldiers waiting on her quite nicely. It wasn't until Leon, Vince and Jesse left that she got apprehensive.
“Dom, we need to talk some more. Brian and I have something to tell you, then we have a plan. But you've gotta hear him out first, okay?”
Dom looked at her warily. Something about this whole conversation was off. She was treating him like he was going to explode at any moment. He nodded and sat back, lacing his fingers with hers.
“First, Dom, this is going to be really hard for you to accept. I... shit.” Brian started pacing, not sure how to continue. He figured that the bandaid approach was best. “I was sent her undercover to find out if you're involved in the truck jackings.”
“WHAT?!?” Yup. There went Dom's temper. Buffy held him down, but it bothered her to do so, to make him hold in his instinctual reaction. “You knew?” he asked her, and she flinched slightly.
“I knew he was a cop. I didn't know why he was involved with you until we went shopping.”
“If you knew he was a cop, why didn't you tell me earlier?”
“Because he's family. I figured I'd give him a chance to explain first, and he did. He's having a little identity crisis right now over this, you know. He's a cop, so he should be doing his job. But he thinks you're doing the wrong thing for all the right reasons and doesn't want to turn you in. So we came up with a compromise.”
“You came- what? What do you mean you came up with a compromise?”
Buffy took a deep breath. “We tell the FBI, because they're in on it too, that the trucks marked for you to jack were the wrong ones. We tell them that the Council contracted you to get our own goods back and that our man would mark them for you. We say they had demon drivers, so it should have been fine for you to deal with them. But our man screwed up or screwed us, we're still trying to find out and it's an internal matter that we're dealing with, and you didn't ever open the trucks on our instruction, so you didn't know you had the wrong shipments.”
“And money? How do I make what I need to get Mia out of here?”
“That's easy,” Buffy said airily. “First, if Mia wants, she can come work for the Council. If she doesn't, that's fine too. You and your merry band of hijackers are in, though, if you take this out. You'll work for us. We'll pay you well, and it won't always be jackings like that, but it will be steady work with an adrenaline rush beyond belief. So what do you say, Dom.”
“I have to talk to the guys.”
“That's fine, but it can't wait forever.”
The next day, Dom agreed.
Agent Bilkins showed up and introduced himself. Buffy shook his hand and gave him a witty quip that should have gotten the ball rolling, but it fell flat. She turned to her cousin.
“He reminds me of Agent K in Men in Black. You know, where he says,” here she affected a truly horrible Tommy Lee Jones voice and said in a rather monotone way, “we at the FBI do not have a sense of humor that we are aware of.”
Brian looked horrified, but Dom started chuckling. Brian's sergeant also laughed, though he looked disgusted to be sharing a sense of humor with Dominic Toretto of all people. The FBI agent glared at her, but she'd done what she set out to do; release some of the tension in the room. So she laid out her case for Dom and his friends. The Council would cover fifty percent of the loss the merchants felt, since their insurance would have covered it anyway. Dom would inspect any trucks they had cause to go after before moving them from wherever they were stopped, should they have the need to jack any other shipments of stolen goods. They would inform the local LEOs or the FBI of any effort in that vein in the future. She agreed to all of their demands. She told them that the Council was under new management, and it would be open to more agreeable negotiations in the future. Agent Bilkins was both shocked that the Council wasn't a hostile entity any longer, and that this little girl was actually offering the olive branch to the Agency. They wanted a good relationship with the Council, so he took hold of that branch with both hands.