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It only takes Russ a couple of phone calls to find a doctor in Italy who’s willing to take out a super-deadly implant, no questions asked, and it’s maybe a little scary how well-connected he is, but Mac is not about to complain when the result is that Desi doesn’t have to make the trip back to California with the Merchant’s killer chip in her neck.
They spend the ride to the hospital in a not-quite-comfortable silence. He spends most of the trip trying to watch her out of the corner of his eye, trying to size up how she’s doing after her brush with death. He clears his throat. She startles at the noise. “You okay?” he asks, and winces, because that’s a dumb question, of course she’s not, she almost just died and he almost wasn’t fast enough to stop it from happening.
She grimaces. “Been better,” she says, one hand coming up to press at the chip under her skin. “Thanks again for not letting me get electrocuted.” Her voice wobbles the tiniest bit, and he doesn’t miss that it takes her two tries to unbuckle her seat belt with shaking hands.
“Anytime,” he says, and realizes how stupid that sounds half a second later. “Uh. I mean. Hopefully you’re not in any danger of getting electrocuted again anytime soon. But, you know. If you are.”
“I know what you meant,” she says, the faintest hint of a smile on her face as they walk through the hospital doors. “I appreciate it.” The silence that settles over them again as they’re led to an exam room is a little less tense.
The wait for this doctor of Russ’s to show up seems interminably long, and this time, it’s Desi that breaks the silence. “So how’d you do it?” she asks, tilting her head.
“I mean, technically speaking, nothing too sophisticated,” he says, and launches into an explanation of the walkie-talkie jammer, only to stop two sentences in as he registers Desi’s blank expression. “You’re not even listening to me, are you.”
“Not really,” she admits with a shrug, mouth twisting into an apologetic smile. “But don’t let that stop you. You talking science always was my favorite thing to not listen to.”
Mac raises his eyebrows. “I don’t know if I should be flattered or offended.”
She grins, tucking her feet up underneath her on the chair as she settles herself to lean against his shoulder. “Both, definitely,” she says.
His heart beats out a staccato rhythm against his chest as he looks down at her. He’s not dumb enough to think that one near-death experience is all it’s going to take for them to be okay again, but maybe, just maybe, they’re headed back in that direction.
He’s spared from having to come up with an answer to that when the door swings open and a tall woman in scrubs walks in. “You must be Mr. Taylor’s colleagues,” she says, with only the faintest hint of an accent. “I’m Dr. Alessi. It’s my understanding you have an implant you need removed?”
Desi lifts her head. “Unfortunately,” she says, gesturing to the mark on her neck.
Dr. Alessi pauses in the middle of pulling on a pair of nitrile gloves. “That’s not standard placement for any type of implant I’m aware of.”
“Didn’t exactly have much say in the matter,” Desi mutters.
She raises her eyebrows but doesn’t comment. “I’ll need an x-ray to check its placement and confirm it’s not going to cause damage to any major nerves or blood vessels if I try to remove it,” she says as she tips Desi’s head to the side to get a better look at the wound.
“But you’ll be able to remove it?” Desi’s voice shakes, and Mac reaches out to grab her hand without stopping to question whether that’s a good idea. She glances down at their hands, but she doesn’t pull hers away.
“I should be able to.” She runs her fingertips over the chip. “It’s not deeply embedded, that’s a good sign. And if it’s recently placed it won’t have had time to migrate.”
Desi makes a face. “And we’re sure trying to take the chip out won’t trigger it?”
“It’s useless without the radio signal, and the Merchant ditched his remote,” Mac reassures her. He frowns. He’ll still be happier about the whole thing when she’s not carrying a remote-activated killswitch in her body.
“We shouldn’t even need to put you under general anesthesia for this, unless you’re sensitive to the local anesthetic,” Dr. Alessi says. “Any known medication allergies?”
Desi shakes her head. “No allergies.”
“Any alcohol or other drug use in the last 24 hours?”
“No,” Desi says, shifting restlessly in the chair. “Can we get on with this? I’d like this thing out sooner rather than later.”
“Of course,” the doctor reassures her as she peels off her gloves and tosses them into a bin under the desk as she stands. “Let’s get that x-ray, shall we?”
Desi stands to follow her out of the exam room, and Mac does the same, but Dr. Alessi holds up a hand to stop him at the door to the x-ray space. “Essential personnel only, please,” she says. “You’ll have to return to the waiting room.”
Mac gives Desi’s hand a reassuring squeeze before he lets go. “See you soon,” he says, and there is absolutely no reason for him to be worried about Desi, getting rid of the chip is a simple matter from here, but it’s one thing to know that and entirely another to try to untie the knot in his stomach as he turns and walks back out.
Time drags on in the waiting room. He’s pretty sure the clock on the wall is lying to him. He paces one circuit around the room, then another, until he loses count of the circles he’s walked, and the receptionist has been eyeing him like she’s worried about him for what that clock claims is the last ten minutes, and he’s contemplating taking it down and pulling it apart, because it must be broken, there’s no way it’s only been as long as the clock shows since he left Desi, when Dr. Alessi pokes her head into the waiting room. “You can come back and see your girlfriend now,” she says.
“She’s not—” he starts, and cuts himself off, because he’s honestly not sure what they are at this point, and it doesn’t matter anyway. “She’s okay?” he asks instead, because that’s the important thing here.
“She’s fine,” Dr. Alessi says as she leads him back to the exam room. The weight on Mac’s shoulders lifts.
Desi’s shrugging back into her jacket as they enter, gauze taped over the spot where the chip had been. She grins, a little shakily. “Good as new,” she says, holding up a glass jar and shaking it to show off the chip. “No more kill button.”
“Glad to hear it,” he says. There are still so many questions left unanswered, and the Merchant is still out there, but for just a moment, he thinks, everything might be okay.
Desi turns to Dr. Alessi. “Thank you,” she says. “Am I good to go?”
Dr. Alessi nods. “You’ll want to get a doctor to take another look at that once you’re back home,” she says, gesturing to the bandage. “There’s still a chance an infection will develop, since the implant wasn’t placed under sterile conditions.”
Desi scowls. “Fantastic,” she mutters, tucking the jar with the chip into an inside pocket on her jacket.
“Give Mr. Taylor my regards,” Dr. Alessi says as they turn to leave. “And tell him he owes me one.”
“Will do,” Mac says. He glances over at Desi as they walk toward the waiting room. “You good?”
She shrugs. “That’s enough excitement for me for a while,” she says and grimaces. “Enough undercover work for a lifetime.”
Mac grins. “So I shouldn’t ask you for an autograph?”
“I was a benchwarmer,” she says with a snort. “My autograph isn’t worth anything.”
“I don’t know, you scored a pretty sweet penalty kick,” he reminds her. “You might have a great career ahead of you.”
She gives him a dubious look. “I think I’m good giving up the spotlight.”
“I hear it has its perks,” he says, raising his eyebrows. “Rumor has it you’ve got a girlfriend and a boyfriend now.” And it maybe doesn’t quite fall on the right side of sounding like a joke, but he’s been turning that little tidbit of her persona over in his head since he read the bio she and Riley made up, trying to decide how seriously it was meant to be taken, and that’s maybe somewhere on the list of things that they should talk about. It’s nowhere near the top, but it’s also maybe the only one he can bring up casually enough to not immediately get punched for it.
“You believe everything you read on the internet?” She rolls her eyes, and just as he’s about to file that under joke, she adds, “Don’t judge me for living vicariously for a minute, okay, not like I’ve got much chance of finding two people with a security clearance high enough for me to actually date in this line of work.”
Well, that probably warrants some self-reflection that he does not have the energy for right now, not after the emotional rollercoaster that today has already been, so that’s getting folded up and put in the box for the time being. “See?” he says with the tiniest hint of a smirk. “Being a soccer star has its advantages.”
“I’m going to penalty kick you in the shins if you don’t drop it,” she threatens, but it’s kind of ruined by the smile creeping across her face. It probably says something about him that a spark of warmth blooms in his chest at the casual threat of violence, but that’s—he’s almost afraid he’ll jinx it just by thinking it, but it’s just like old times, and it feels like they just might be on a collision course with everything turning out alright.
He’s still trying to come up with a response on their way out of the hospital when Desi stops in her tracks, hand shooting out to catch his wrist. “Uh, Mac?” she says and points to the TV in the waiting room with her free hand. “I think we’re famous.”
He follows her gesture to look at the screen, playing a recap of the soccer match, and as he watches, it cuts from a shot of Desi’s penalty kick to the two of them on the stadium’s kiss cam, and he has to admit, he could’ve guessed there would be unforeseen consequences for kissing her, but getting their faces plastered across Italian sports television is not one he would’ve considered. “Uh.” He’s still staring at the TV, heat creeping across his face. “I didn’t think—” he breaks off, because he has no idea how to finish that sentence. There was definitely no thought process there past oh my god, you nearly died, and okay, there probably should have been, but it’s too late now.
“And here I thought thinking was supposed to be your strong suit?” Desi says, grinning as she bumps her shoulder against his.
Not when you’re involved, he doesn’t say. “Sorry. I, uh. Didn’t really mean for that to happen.” He gestures vaguely at the screen.
She smirks at him. “Are you saying sorry for shoving your tongue down my throat, or for doing it in front of fifty thousand people?”
If he wasn’t blushing before, he definitely is now, face on fire. “Um. Yes?”
She rolls her eyes. “Don’t be. There’s worse things I could be famous for.” Like dying in the middle of a soccer game hangs unsaid between them. She drops his wrist and tangles their fingers together. “Come on. We’ve got a plane to catch.”
He glances down at their hands as they walk out the door and doesn’t bother to point out that the plane has to wait for them. There’s so many questions on the tip of his tongue, but the moment feels fragile, like if he opens his mouth it’ll be cold water on hot glass, so he says nothing and holds on a little harder until they get to the car and he has to let go. Even in the car, the silence is a security blanket, and he spends several long minutes watching Desi out of the corner of his eye, trying to get a read on what she might be thinking, but she’s laser-focused on traffic, expression giving nothing away.
He taps out an uneven rhythm against his leg, fingers itching to take something apart. “Can we talk?”
“You just did,” she says, not taking her eyes off the road.
He sighs heavily. “You know what I meant.”
“Can we talk later?” She glances over at him and makes a face like she’s just bitten into something nasty-tasting. “You just saved my life. Don’t ruin it by making me want to kill you.” And without missing a beat, she turns her full attention back to the road and hits the horn. “Nice signal light, asshole!”
He raises his eyebrows. “I’m going to hold you to that,” he says, because he knows perfectly well that Desi’s ideal time to talk about her feelings is never, and he’s not entirely sure he’s looking forward to that conversation either, but he’s had no shortage of time to think and overthink since they split, and if they are going to make another go of it, he’ll be damned if they start off on the same foot they left off on.
She grins, eyes sparkling in a way that can only mean trouble, and his heart does a hopeful little flip in his chest, because after all this time, she’s still his favorite kind of trouble. “I hope you know there’s an innuendo I’m not making right now and you should admire my restraint,” she says.
“Always was one of your strong suits,” he says dryly.
She glances over in time to catch the smirk creeping across his face. “Oh, fuck you, not the kind of restraint I meant and you know it.”
“Shame.” He raises his eyebrows. “That was fun.” And he’s definitely pushing it now, and his sense of self-preservation should probably be a little stronger than it is, but god, he’s missed the back-and-forth, and for just a minute, they’re back on the same wavelength for once.
She rolls her eyes, but he doesn’t miss the tiny smile that flits across her face. “I thought you were supposed to be not driving me crazy?”
“It’s a work in progress.”
She’s silent for a long moment, and at first he thinks she’s just going to leave the conversation hanging on that note. “For the record?” she says eventually, glancing over at him. “I kind of missed having you driving me crazy.”