Fic: Paint the Sky With a Silver Lining 7/7
Sorry for the long wait. Work's understaffed and all I did when I got home was hug my couch ;)
TITLE: Paint the Sky with a Silver Lining, part 7
Crossover with The A-Team movie
SERIES: Imperfection Deviation
AUTHOR: Macx
RATING: PG-13
DISCLAIMER: None of the characters belong to me, sadly. They are owned by people with a lot more money :)
FEEDBACK: Loved
Author’s Note: I’ve never tried to write the four guys from The A-Team before, so I might have handled them out of character. Call if creative discrepancies ;)
Sam leaned against the wall in the corner, watching Ratchet and Dr. Mark Keyron examine the new-arrival. Templeton ‘Face’ Peck looked like he was suffering from a bad migraine and he was pale as a sheet. In a way Sam could relate. If this ‘thunderstorm’ Peck kept talking about was anything like the symptoms he had had when his own abilities had come through, he really wasn’t having a good time. Sam had been asked by one of the assistant doctor to join them, mainly because Ratchet’s presence was upsetting whatever it was that tortured Peck.
The technopath couldn’t shield anyone, but he could try and find out if something his mind saw or felt from Ratchet was actively hurting the other man. So far he hadn’t pinpointed anything, but he had managed to ease the pressure by manipulating ratchet’s systems. The medic had been slightly annoyed, but he had given Sam permission to continue as long as the human Prime didn’t off-line him or made his work impossible.
Sam had promised not to come close to his processor or spark.
Keyron typed a command into the MHD, the medical holo display, and a three-dimensional image of Peck came up. Along his spine several thin lines showed up. One was very close to his neck.
“This is what the doctors couldn’t find with conventional means,” Keyron said, stepping back. “Shards.”
“Shards?” Face echoed faintly.
“You said you were caught in an explosion in Mission City when you were a teenager. You have the scars to prove it. This is what was left and what couldn’t be found. Shards. Fine slivers of alien metal.”
Now Peck looked positively sick.
“Looks like this is responsible for you feeling when a Cybertronian life form is close. You react a lot stronger to these guys than Mai. I suspect that the radiation from the mechs is sending shock vibrations through the shards. Those translate through your nervous system and your brain interprets it as a thunderstorm.”
The lieutenant rubbed his tired eyes. “Can you take them out?”
“Most likely. But not all. This one,” Keyron pointed at the one that seemed to be inserted into a neck vertebra, “is tricky. I could kill or handicap you for life. The others are surrounded by enough muscle tissue that we can safely remove them.”
So Face wasn’t a technopath. He had survived something terrible and hadn’t died, but the splinters in him had changed his perception of the world nevertheless.
“So when you take them out, except the tricky one, what happens then?”
“Best case scenario?” Keyron leaned against the MHD. “You stop feeling the effects. The thunderstorms.”
“Worst case?”
“Nothing changes.”
The lieutenant was silent for a moment. “Or I get something in between? Dampened effect?”
The doctor nodded.
Again Face massaged his temples. “Anything that makes this migraine any less is appreciated.”
Sam studied the pinched features, the pale skin, and he knew he would have chosen the same way. His own abilities had nothing to do with foreign objects in his body. While Will had been speared by the Allspark shard, it had disappeared inside his body and no scan in the world could penetrate the dense invisible shield the hybrid had around himself. Maybe he would look the same way Peck did: splinters everywhere.
Smith suddenly walked into the room, scowling when he discovered Ratchet, scowling even more, eyes close to enraged, when Face only smiled faintly. He really looked terrible. Murdock and Baracus took up protective positions and Sam admired the closeness of the team. No words were lost.
“What’s going on?” Smith demanded, voice hard.
Peck nodded at Keyron to tell him.
“It’s my choice, Hannibal,” Face said forcefully when they digested the news. “I’m going through with it. You don’t have to suffer these headaches! If they can make it better, I’m all game!”
“You trust them?” the older man asked softly.
Face met the steely eyes with a steely look himself. “Yes.”
Hannibal blew out a breath. “It’s your choice, kid.”
“Damn right it is.”
“But if it doesn’t work out…”
“Then at least I tried.”
And that was it. Hannibal looked at him long and hard, then clasped the younger man’s neck and squeezed it gently.
“This is new for all of us,” Face said calmly. “Everything’s changed. But if they can remove the splinters…”
“The migraines are gone.”
He nodded.
Another squeeze. “We’ll be there.”
It wasn’t just a promise. It was a vow. Face smiled at his commanding officer, a brilliant, warm smile.
“Damn right we will be,” B.A. rumbled.
“To the stars and beyond,” Murdock agreed.
Face laughed a little. Sam caught Keyron’s look and he knew this was serious surgery and that the doctor would do whatever he could to help Peck, but there were no guarantees.
::The splinter close to his neck is difficult:: Ratchet said, using the connection Sam had opened. ::We might not be able to get it out::
::Do you think those are Allspark splinters?::
::The Allspark didn’t explode. It disappeared. I believe what Lieutenant Peck has in his body are parts from, well, us.::
Sam shot him an incredible look. Ratchet didn’t comment any further.
::He can sense you guys because of parts from you?:: the technopath repeated.
::Yes:: Ratchet didn’t sound happy.
::How?!::
::I can’t tell unless I have one of the splinters for examination::
Keyron cleared his throat and Sam became aware of everyone’s attention on him. Anyone who had never heard of technopathy - and who else would have heard but those who knew him? - and anyone who just watched him stare at Ratchet with varying expression would call him mad. He dredged up a smile.
“Gotta go,” he muttered. “Appointment.”
::How many more injured from Mission City could be affected?:: he asked Ratchet as he fled from the room.
::I don’t know, Sam, but Lieutenant Peck’s condition makes me fear the worst.::
So did Sam. He had to find a list with the people who had suffered from the Decepticon attack. Twenty years had passed. Time to find out the truth.
* * *
Two days later Face was in surgery. Five hours after it had started he was wheeled out of the OR and Keyron looked rather positive.
“We removed all splinters except for the one in his neck,” he told the three men who had been waiting more or less patiently outside. “Its actually fused tightly with two neck vertebrae. The others were easily cut out. Lieutenant Peck will be fine.”
“Except for that one shard,” Hannibal stated.
Keyron nodded. “The risk of a permanent handicap or death were too great.”
“I appreciate your care, doctor. We all do.”
“Colonel, it’s my profession to help people.”
“When can we see him?” Murdock asked eagerly.
“He’s still waking up. Give him another hour.”
The pilot bounced on the balls of his feet and B.A. glared at him. Hannibal just nodded at the doctor, leaning back in a chair. He would wait. As long as he had to.
* * *
Ratchet looked deeply disturbed. Sam could feel the emotions radiate off him without even trying to pick up anything. The chief medical officer had asked for the Primes to be present. At least the three currently on base.
“I examined the splinters I removed from Lieutenant Peck,” Ratchet said. “All of them are made of Cybertronian alloys.”
“So they are parts of mechs who were injured or killed in Mission City?” Will asked.
“I tried to find out where exactly the lieutenant was when he was injured. The medical files are rather vague due to the many injured. He was found near one of the heavier fight zones. I can’t tell who were the donors, so to speak. It could be Autobot or Decepticon. What is more disturbing is the fact that the presence of these splinters enabled Lieutenant Peck to sense us.”
“Normally I’d agree,” Lennox said. “But there’s always the Allspark energy.”
“He shows no signs of it. He was also far away from where Sam released the Allspark’s power to kill Megatron,” Ratchet argued. “I believe the key to the mystery is the fused shard in his neck. It’s attached to the C1 and C2 vertebrae, what your doctors call the Atlas and the Axis. Peck’s medical files say he had scrapes and bruises and cuts on his neck and in his face. No doctor found deep stab wounds or lacerations that accompany such violence. There is also just a faint scar. The others Dr. Keyron removed were more prominently scarred.”
“So…?” Sam probed. “What you’re saying is…?”
“I can’t identify the shard still in his neck. I can’t explain how the injuries made this one human so sensitive to us.”
Optimus Prime hummed softly. His optics had taken on a deeper hue of blue. “Can we be sure that the splinters are splinters?”
Sam blinked, exchanging confused looks with Will.
“Op?”
“Throughout the war new methods of undetectable infiltration methods were developed. One short-lived spy method was a microscopically small mechanoid being that could combine with more of its kind to form a Blade. The Blades were lethal and nearly undetectable, but once we discovered their existence, we developed countermeasures that eradicated them.”
“I’m positive that we aren’t dealing with a partial Blade, Optimus,” Ratchet said. “I immediately sent the correct pulses to annihilate it, but there was no reaction. There is no pulse coming from the splinters either. I’d have to study the lieutenant to maybe get an answer. I doubt he would volunteer, though.”
“He won’t. They won’t,” Will stated, shaking his head. “We don’t even know how his abilities were triggered. We don’t know what he was able to do before. He was sixteen. He was gravely injured, he was surrounded by dying mechs who probably radiated a lot of stuff our bodies aren’t happy about, and it all combined to give him this sixth sense.”
Ratchet whirred unhappily. “I have a lot of scans I need to go through, but to really discover what has happened to this human, I’d need him to stay here.”
“He won’t agree,” Lennox remarked. “Neither will his team. And I agree with them. He isn’t in any danger from the remaining splinters. We gave them a promise that they can leave. I won’t confine him here for no other purpose than medical curiosity.”
Ratchet’s optics flared. “This is far more…”
Optimus held up a hand. “I have to agree with Will, ratchet. I gave these men my word. As long as Lieutenant Peck is in no immediate danger and as long as he is no danger to us, he can leave.”
“Very well,” the medic bowed to the authority of the Primes. “I’ll see if he agrees to a few more scans, so I have enough material to continue my research without him.”
Optimus nodded his agreement.
When Ratchet had left, the Autobot leader looked at his fellow Primes.
“Sam?”
The technopath understood the unspoken question. “I felt nothing from him, Optimus. Whatever fused to his spine, it’s not alive. And Face is no danger. No more than any other Special Forces operative anyway.” He shot a smile over at Lennox. “He’s just human.”
“And we’ll keep an eye on them anyway,” Will added.
* * *
It had taken him less than a week to recover completely from the minimalistic surgery. The cuts had been tiny and there had been no visible scarring. Face had woken up to find his team with him. B.A. had snored in one corner, Murdock had been playing some kind of video game, and Hannibal had watched him. Like he had watched him the whole time the lieutenant had been sleeping.
The thunderstorm was gone. Not completely. Face would have been surprised if the surgery had had a hundred percent success. It was now a static in his mind, like a distant storm, which only rose in intensity when there was too much input. He could still tell the Cybertronians apart from the normal machines, but it no longer overwhelmed him.
After a week it was time to go home. Well, their version of a home. Their version of a life. With Mai.
B.A. was completely in love with the idea of a sentient car by now and where he had been fond of his car before he was now mother-hen protective.
“Ready?”
Hannibal’s voice interrupted his thoughts and Face looked up from his private look-out point. He had chosen a low roof structure to get some necessary alone-time. It was a place one of the humans who seemed to have a special position with the mechs, a kid called Sam, had shown him. Face was sure that there were secrets they had yet to discover, like who Sam was, who Lennox really was, like so many, many things, but right now his mental self-defense mechanism told him to stop asking. They had been brought into a world that was already overwhelming him. He didn’t really need to know that much more.
“Ready,” he answered.
Hannibal held out a hand and Face took it, letting the other man help him get up. “How bad is it?” the colonel wanted to know.
“Just a mild buzz. Enough to make me want to get away from here, a lot less than a week ago.”
Hannibal held his steady eyes and Face let him see, without masks and facades, that he was fine.
“Another week,” the leader of the A-Team told him. “Then we take on a new job.”
“Hannibal, I’m fine!”
“We aren’t. We all need the time.”
Face smiled. “I know a very nice lady in a very, very nice hotel in Vegas who might just let us stay in their executive suite for a week.”
Hannibal chuckled. “I thought you would. And Vegas might just do the trick.”
“I’m sure she’s open for a deal.”
Hannibal grinned more. “Give it your best shot, Lieutenant.”
“I always do, Colonel.”
* * *
They were back on the road, back in their old lives. Not with a pardon, but something close to it. And with a promise that whatever could be done to clear their names, it would be done. When Hannibal had met an older man by the name of Tom Banachek he had first judged him as the usual pencil pusher, but he had been wrong. Two hours later he knew that this man had done something close to acquiring a pardon: he had gotten the Army off their backs and the search warrants for the A-Team removed from the police files. To reinstate it would take more, but Banachek had simply asked for time.
They had it. Now that they didn’t have Decker or Lynch or some small town sheriff breathing down their necks, they had a lot. It wouldn’t change their MO, the way they worked, but it would free them.
Hannibal lit up a cigar, grinning to himself.
The deal had been a rather simple one, too. Mia was their charge; they were her guardians. B.A. had taken to that like a fish to water. He had always loved his car; now he adored it. Murdock was one happy crazy puppy. Face… Face could still feel mechs, but it was a gift now. It was no longer a debilitating curse.
And Optimus Prime had made it part of the deal that should they, well, Face, pick up anything, he had to call in the location. It might be just an Autobot undercover, but it could be a Decepticon, too. Hannibal had been told a few ways to get in contact with the mechs or their allies, and he had been astounded to hear just where they were all spread out.
Now the A-Team belonged to that operation as well. Indirectly. They were still working their own jobs, but should they run into a rogue experiment from Sector Seven, they would handle that, too. Mia was actually looking forward to finding kin; even if they might turn out to be homicidal or insane.
Looking over his shoulder, Hannibal checked on their con man. Face was dozing. Murdock caught Smith’s look and gave him a brief nod. The pilot, while giving the impression of being completely absorbed in his game, was keeping a close eye on their lieutenant. Despite how well he had made it through the surgery, he was still the recipient of the ‘thunderstorms’ and being at the base had drained him more than he had let on.
“He’ll be fine, Colonel,” Mai’s soft voice told him. She almost whispered as not to wake Face.
Hannibal smiled. “I know he will.”
They all would be.
fin!
TITLE: Paint the Sky with a Silver Lining, part 7
Crossover with The A-Team movie
SERIES: Imperfection Deviation
AUTHOR: Macx
RATING: PG-13
DISCLAIMER: None of the characters belong to me, sadly. They are owned by people with a lot more money :)
FEEDBACK: Loved
Author’s Note: I’ve never tried to write the four guys from The A-Team before, so I might have handled them out of character. Call if creative discrepancies ;)
Sam leaned against the wall in the corner, watching Ratchet and Dr. Mark Keyron examine the new-arrival. Templeton ‘Face’ Peck looked like he was suffering from a bad migraine and he was pale as a sheet. In a way Sam could relate. If this ‘thunderstorm’ Peck kept talking about was anything like the symptoms he had had when his own abilities had come through, he really wasn’t having a good time. Sam had been asked by one of the assistant doctor to join them, mainly because Ratchet’s presence was upsetting whatever it was that tortured Peck.
The technopath couldn’t shield anyone, but he could try and find out if something his mind saw or felt from Ratchet was actively hurting the other man. So far he hadn’t pinpointed anything, but he had managed to ease the pressure by manipulating ratchet’s systems. The medic had been slightly annoyed, but he had given Sam permission to continue as long as the human Prime didn’t off-line him or made his work impossible.
Sam had promised not to come close to his processor or spark.
Keyron typed a command into the MHD, the medical holo display, and a three-dimensional image of Peck came up. Along his spine several thin lines showed up. One was very close to his neck.
“This is what the doctors couldn’t find with conventional means,” Keyron said, stepping back. “Shards.”
“Shards?” Face echoed faintly.
“You said you were caught in an explosion in Mission City when you were a teenager. You have the scars to prove it. This is what was left and what couldn’t be found. Shards. Fine slivers of alien metal.”
Now Peck looked positively sick.
“Looks like this is responsible for you feeling when a Cybertronian life form is close. You react a lot stronger to these guys than Mai. I suspect that the radiation from the mechs is sending shock vibrations through the shards. Those translate through your nervous system and your brain interprets it as a thunderstorm.”
The lieutenant rubbed his tired eyes. “Can you take them out?”
“Most likely. But not all. This one,” Keyron pointed at the one that seemed to be inserted into a neck vertebra, “is tricky. I could kill or handicap you for life. The others are surrounded by enough muscle tissue that we can safely remove them.”
So Face wasn’t a technopath. He had survived something terrible and hadn’t died, but the splinters in him had changed his perception of the world nevertheless.
“So when you take them out, except the tricky one, what happens then?”
“Best case scenario?” Keyron leaned against the MHD. “You stop feeling the effects. The thunderstorms.”
“Worst case?”
“Nothing changes.”
The lieutenant was silent for a moment. “Or I get something in between? Dampened effect?”
The doctor nodded.
Again Face massaged his temples. “Anything that makes this migraine any less is appreciated.”
Sam studied the pinched features, the pale skin, and he knew he would have chosen the same way. His own abilities had nothing to do with foreign objects in his body. While Will had been speared by the Allspark shard, it had disappeared inside his body and no scan in the world could penetrate the dense invisible shield the hybrid had around himself. Maybe he would look the same way Peck did: splinters everywhere.
Smith suddenly walked into the room, scowling when he discovered Ratchet, scowling even more, eyes close to enraged, when Face only smiled faintly. He really looked terrible. Murdock and Baracus took up protective positions and Sam admired the closeness of the team. No words were lost.
“What’s going on?” Smith demanded, voice hard.
Peck nodded at Keyron to tell him.
“It’s my choice, Hannibal,” Face said forcefully when they digested the news. “I’m going through with it. You don’t have to suffer these headaches! If they can make it better, I’m all game!”
“You trust them?” the older man asked softly.
Face met the steely eyes with a steely look himself. “Yes.”
Hannibal blew out a breath. “It’s your choice, kid.”
“Damn right it is.”
“But if it doesn’t work out…”
“Then at least I tried.”
And that was it. Hannibal looked at him long and hard, then clasped the younger man’s neck and squeezed it gently.
“This is new for all of us,” Face said calmly. “Everything’s changed. But if they can remove the splinters…”
“The migraines are gone.”
He nodded.
Another squeeze. “We’ll be there.”
It wasn’t just a promise. It was a vow. Face smiled at his commanding officer, a brilliant, warm smile.
“Damn right we will be,” B.A. rumbled.
“To the stars and beyond,” Murdock agreed.
Face laughed a little. Sam caught Keyron’s look and he knew this was serious surgery and that the doctor would do whatever he could to help Peck, but there were no guarantees.
::The splinter close to his neck is difficult:: Ratchet said, using the connection Sam had opened. ::We might not be able to get it out::
::Do you think those are Allspark splinters?::
::The Allspark didn’t explode. It disappeared. I believe what Lieutenant Peck has in his body are parts from, well, us.::
Sam shot him an incredible look. Ratchet didn’t comment any further.
::He can sense you guys because of parts from you?:: the technopath repeated.
::Yes:: Ratchet didn’t sound happy.
::How?!::
::I can’t tell unless I have one of the splinters for examination::
Keyron cleared his throat and Sam became aware of everyone’s attention on him. Anyone who had never heard of technopathy - and who else would have heard but those who knew him? - and anyone who just watched him stare at Ratchet with varying expression would call him mad. He dredged up a smile.
“Gotta go,” he muttered. “Appointment.”
::How many more injured from Mission City could be affected?:: he asked Ratchet as he fled from the room.
::I don’t know, Sam, but Lieutenant Peck’s condition makes me fear the worst.::
So did Sam. He had to find a list with the people who had suffered from the Decepticon attack. Twenty years had passed. Time to find out the truth.
* * *
Two days later Face was in surgery. Five hours after it had started he was wheeled out of the OR and Keyron looked rather positive.
“We removed all splinters except for the one in his neck,” he told the three men who had been waiting more or less patiently outside. “Its actually fused tightly with two neck vertebrae. The others were easily cut out. Lieutenant Peck will be fine.”
“Except for that one shard,” Hannibal stated.
Keyron nodded. “The risk of a permanent handicap or death were too great.”
“I appreciate your care, doctor. We all do.”
“Colonel, it’s my profession to help people.”
“When can we see him?” Murdock asked eagerly.
“He’s still waking up. Give him another hour.”
The pilot bounced on the balls of his feet and B.A. glared at him. Hannibal just nodded at the doctor, leaning back in a chair. He would wait. As long as he had to.
* * *
Ratchet looked deeply disturbed. Sam could feel the emotions radiate off him without even trying to pick up anything. The chief medical officer had asked for the Primes to be present. At least the three currently on base.
“I examined the splinters I removed from Lieutenant Peck,” Ratchet said. “All of them are made of Cybertronian alloys.”
“So they are parts of mechs who were injured or killed in Mission City?” Will asked.
“I tried to find out where exactly the lieutenant was when he was injured. The medical files are rather vague due to the many injured. He was found near one of the heavier fight zones. I can’t tell who were the donors, so to speak. It could be Autobot or Decepticon. What is more disturbing is the fact that the presence of these splinters enabled Lieutenant Peck to sense us.”
“Normally I’d agree,” Lennox said. “But there’s always the Allspark energy.”
“He shows no signs of it. He was also far away from where Sam released the Allspark’s power to kill Megatron,” Ratchet argued. “I believe the key to the mystery is the fused shard in his neck. It’s attached to the C1 and C2 vertebrae, what your doctors call the Atlas and the Axis. Peck’s medical files say he had scrapes and bruises and cuts on his neck and in his face. No doctor found deep stab wounds or lacerations that accompany such violence. There is also just a faint scar. The others Dr. Keyron removed were more prominently scarred.”
“So…?” Sam probed. “What you’re saying is…?”
“I can’t identify the shard still in his neck. I can’t explain how the injuries made this one human so sensitive to us.”
Optimus Prime hummed softly. His optics had taken on a deeper hue of blue. “Can we be sure that the splinters are splinters?”
Sam blinked, exchanging confused looks with Will.
“Op?”
“Throughout the war new methods of undetectable infiltration methods were developed. One short-lived spy method was a microscopically small mechanoid being that could combine with more of its kind to form a Blade. The Blades were lethal and nearly undetectable, but once we discovered their existence, we developed countermeasures that eradicated them.”
“I’m positive that we aren’t dealing with a partial Blade, Optimus,” Ratchet said. “I immediately sent the correct pulses to annihilate it, but there was no reaction. There is no pulse coming from the splinters either. I’d have to study the lieutenant to maybe get an answer. I doubt he would volunteer, though.”
“He won’t. They won’t,” Will stated, shaking his head. “We don’t even know how his abilities were triggered. We don’t know what he was able to do before. He was sixteen. He was gravely injured, he was surrounded by dying mechs who probably radiated a lot of stuff our bodies aren’t happy about, and it all combined to give him this sixth sense.”
Ratchet whirred unhappily. “I have a lot of scans I need to go through, but to really discover what has happened to this human, I’d need him to stay here.”
“He won’t agree,” Lennox remarked. “Neither will his team. And I agree with them. He isn’t in any danger from the remaining splinters. We gave them a promise that they can leave. I won’t confine him here for no other purpose than medical curiosity.”
Ratchet’s optics flared. “This is far more…”
Optimus held up a hand. “I have to agree with Will, ratchet. I gave these men my word. As long as Lieutenant Peck is in no immediate danger and as long as he is no danger to us, he can leave.”
“Very well,” the medic bowed to the authority of the Primes. “I’ll see if he agrees to a few more scans, so I have enough material to continue my research without him.”
Optimus nodded his agreement.
When Ratchet had left, the Autobot leader looked at his fellow Primes.
“Sam?”
The technopath understood the unspoken question. “I felt nothing from him, Optimus. Whatever fused to his spine, it’s not alive. And Face is no danger. No more than any other Special Forces operative anyway.” He shot a smile over at Lennox. “He’s just human.”
“And we’ll keep an eye on them anyway,” Will added.
* * *
It had taken him less than a week to recover completely from the minimalistic surgery. The cuts had been tiny and there had been no visible scarring. Face had woken up to find his team with him. B.A. had snored in one corner, Murdock had been playing some kind of video game, and Hannibal had watched him. Like he had watched him the whole time the lieutenant had been sleeping.
The thunderstorm was gone. Not completely. Face would have been surprised if the surgery had had a hundred percent success. It was now a static in his mind, like a distant storm, which only rose in intensity when there was too much input. He could still tell the Cybertronians apart from the normal machines, but it no longer overwhelmed him.
After a week it was time to go home. Well, their version of a home. Their version of a life. With Mai.
B.A. was completely in love with the idea of a sentient car by now and where he had been fond of his car before he was now mother-hen protective.
“Ready?”
Hannibal’s voice interrupted his thoughts and Face looked up from his private look-out point. He had chosen a low roof structure to get some necessary alone-time. It was a place one of the humans who seemed to have a special position with the mechs, a kid called Sam, had shown him. Face was sure that there were secrets they had yet to discover, like who Sam was, who Lennox really was, like so many, many things, but right now his mental self-defense mechanism told him to stop asking. They had been brought into a world that was already overwhelming him. He didn’t really need to know that much more.
“Ready,” he answered.
Hannibal held out a hand and Face took it, letting the other man help him get up. “How bad is it?” the colonel wanted to know.
“Just a mild buzz. Enough to make me want to get away from here, a lot less than a week ago.”
Hannibal held his steady eyes and Face let him see, without masks and facades, that he was fine.
“Another week,” the leader of the A-Team told him. “Then we take on a new job.”
“Hannibal, I’m fine!”
“We aren’t. We all need the time.”
Face smiled. “I know a very nice lady in a very, very nice hotel in Vegas who might just let us stay in their executive suite for a week.”
Hannibal chuckled. “I thought you would. And Vegas might just do the trick.”
“I’m sure she’s open for a deal.”
Hannibal grinned more. “Give it your best shot, Lieutenant.”
“I always do, Colonel.”
* * *
They were back on the road, back in their old lives. Not with a pardon, but something close to it. And with a promise that whatever could be done to clear their names, it would be done. When Hannibal had met an older man by the name of Tom Banachek he had first judged him as the usual pencil pusher, but he had been wrong. Two hours later he knew that this man had done something close to acquiring a pardon: he had gotten the Army off their backs and the search warrants for the A-Team removed from the police files. To reinstate it would take more, but Banachek had simply asked for time.
They had it. Now that they didn’t have Decker or Lynch or some small town sheriff breathing down their necks, they had a lot. It wouldn’t change their MO, the way they worked, but it would free them.
Hannibal lit up a cigar, grinning to himself.
The deal had been a rather simple one, too. Mia was their charge; they were her guardians. B.A. had taken to that like a fish to water. He had always loved his car; now he adored it. Murdock was one happy crazy puppy. Face… Face could still feel mechs, but it was a gift now. It was no longer a debilitating curse.
And Optimus Prime had made it part of the deal that should they, well, Face, pick up anything, he had to call in the location. It might be just an Autobot undercover, but it could be a Decepticon, too. Hannibal had been told a few ways to get in contact with the mechs or their allies, and he had been astounded to hear just where they were all spread out.
Now the A-Team belonged to that operation as well. Indirectly. They were still working their own jobs, but should they run into a rogue experiment from Sector Seven, they would handle that, too. Mia was actually looking forward to finding kin; even if they might turn out to be homicidal or insane.
Looking over his shoulder, Hannibal checked on their con man. Face was dozing. Murdock caught Smith’s look and gave him a brief nod. The pilot, while giving the impression of being completely absorbed in his game, was keeping a close eye on their lieutenant. Despite how well he had made it through the surgery, he was still the recipient of the ‘thunderstorms’ and being at the base had drained him more than he had let on.
“He’ll be fine, Colonel,” Mai’s soft voice told him. She almost whispered as not to wake Face.
Hannibal smiled. “I know he will.”
They all would be.
fin!