Chapter Text
Buck cursed as he parked his Jeep, pulling in and narrowly missing the car in the spot next to him. He was so late. He hadn’t even been drinking last night! He couldn’t think of any rational reason for why he slept through his alarm clock.
(He swatted at the voice in the back of his head saying the four 18-hour shifts in a row might’ve had something to do with it.)
Buck grabbed his keys and was already planning out his apology speech when he saw the garage doors were shut. The garage doors were never shut, except during hurricanes. Or tornadoes, theoretically, but when was the last time anyone ever saw a tornado in LA? He was already halfway through googling it to learn a cool new fact to share with the team when he remembered why he was wondering that. Because the garage doors were shut. He got a bad feeling - and if there was one thing he’d learned on this job, it was to always trust your instincts.
Upon testing, he discovered that every other door and even the out-of-use ‘secret’ door he’d discovered (it was just an exit that had been painted over during one of the firehouse’s renovations) was locked. Now he was officially crossing the territory from Bad Feeling to Concerned. He hadn’t missed any emails about maintenance, right? He scrambled to open his mail app, but his attention was drawn by a notification he’d hadn’t noticed before. He had a missed call from Eddie, from before Buck had even woken up. He swiped open the notification, feeling unreasonably nervous as he held his phone up to listen to the voicemail.
It started off normal. “Buck, man, where are you? You’re missing out on Cap’s blueberry waffles!” Laughter and remarks about how good they are and how sad it is you’re not here to eat yours, Buck came from the background. He felt his nerves settle some at the sound of his team’s teasing. See? Everything was fine, he was just being dramati-
A loud crack.
Buck felt his heart freeze in his chest. He knew that sound, but that couldn’t be right, that sound didn’t belong in the firehouse where his friends had just been laughing-
Another crack, this time followed by screaming.
Buck felt his heart unfreeze, do the opposite of freezing, pounding in his chest like it was trying to make up for lost time. A heavily modulated voice cut through the screaming, silencing them.
“Stop screaming. Nobody move, or I shoot you all.”
There was silence, then a voice that made Buck want to scream, punch something, rip his own hair out.
“Okay, let’s just stay calm. Don’t do something you’re going to regret.”
Eddie, the stupid, moronic, selfless, idiot. Buck was relieved to hear he was okay, not shot (yet), but of course he was trying to reason with the crazy gunman.
A dangerous click echoed over the tinny speakers of the iPhone. Buck knew that click the same way he knew that crack. It sounded so much more menacing than it should, now that he knew who it was being pointed at.
“I won’t regret this, trust me. Now why don’t you sit over there and shut up like I told you to.”
Shuffling. Eddie listening to the man with the gun and sitting down, hopefully.
“Is that a phone?” Buck was thrown off guard by the second voice. It was unmodulated, and sharp with a hint of panic. “End the call. Now!” The man was whispering, as if that would erase two gunshots. If it weren’t for the dire situation, Buck would’ve snorted. There was muffled conversation that he couldn’t make out, then footsteps, then a man with a different voice changer spoke into the speaker.
“Don’t call the cops. The first sign of police, we’re shooting them all.”
The call ended, leaving Buck with only one logical course of action. He called the cops.
While he was waiting for Athena to pick up, he was already pulling on his Navy SEAL training (it was uncomfortably easy to slip back into that mindset. A large part of the reason he quit two weeks after passing). He assessed the situation; four hostages, three known assailants, possibly more, one armed, possibly more. There were too many variables, too many unknowns. The number one priority was getting eyes inside.
The notification was from 8:52. It was 9:03. They hadn’t even been inside a full quarter-hour yet. He pushed aside the voice saying that anything could happen in less than ten minutes. (He pushed aside his anxiety, his emotions. They would only weigh him down and compromise his decision making. His Navy SEAL training made that uncomfortably easy too.)
Athena finally picked up. “Buck? Aren’t you on shift right now? Is something wrong?”
Buck’s voice was unusually hard as he answered her, but he didn’t have the time or space to worry about that. “Bobby, Chimney, Hen, and Eddie are being held by armed men in the firehouse. I can’t tell exactly what’s happening, but I’m working on getting eyes inside. They said no cops, so make sure you roll up in silent.” He was moving while he was talking, rummaging through his car for anything he could use as a weapon. He came up empty, cursing his lack of foresight.
A quiet gasp. “Oh Lord.” Then, “No you are not, Buck. You are going to get in your car and drive away. When SWAT and I get down there, you had better not be anywhere nearby.”
Buck was digging through his hiking gear and wrapping his hands. He grabbed a length of rope and his radio and took off back for the firehouse. “Athena, I think you know me better than that. My family is in there, alone, in danger. I can’t just do nothing.” He heard a sharp intake of breath on the end of the line, and knew she was gearing up to tell him off, but he didn’t care. He was getting his friends out of there, protocol be damned.
The outside cameras were down for maintenance, so he could go along the side of the building without worrying about being seen. He came around the back of the building, where a pipe ran up the wall. He’d always wondered if he could climb it. Guess now was the time to find out.
“Evan Buckley, do not approach that building! You stay away and stay safe. My ETA is twelve minutes, SWAT is fourteen. Buck- why do I hear grunting?”
She heard grunting because Buck could, in fact, climb the pipe. He finally grabbed the edge of the roof, heaving himself over and landing in a quiet forward roll. He froze for a second, listening for the sounds of gunshots or approaching footsteps. When none came, he inched closer to the roof door, ignoring the sounds of an increasingly pissed off and worried Athena Grant.
The volume reached a level that made him wince and take his phone off speaker. Maybe more pissed off than worried.
The rooftop door did have a lock, but the B-shift was on just before them, and Jerry never remembers to lock it before they leave. He reached out and carefully pressed on the handle, cheering internally when the door opened.
“-had better not be anywhere near that building, or so help me God, I will-”
He cut Athena off, something he would normally never even consider doing for fear of his life. “Athena, I’m about to head in, so I’m going to switch over to my radio.” He hung up the call and switched on his radio, lowering the volume. He was going to pay dearly for all of this later, but if he gets his team out alive, it’ll be worth it.
“I’m linking the SWAT commander to this channel. We are going to have a serious conversation when this is over, Buckley.” Buck cringed. He was going to be flayed alive.
A bzzt, then a new voice. “This is Commander Reynolds. Buckley? I understand you’re a firefighter with the 118? I don’t suppose there’s any chance of you sitting tight until we get there.”
Buck crept down the staircase, sorely missing a weapon of any kind. He lifted the radio and whispered into the mic, “No, sir. I’m inside the building, about to have eyes on the situation. What’s your ETA?” He reached the first landing, cracking the door open to make sure the coast was clear. He slipped out into the top floor of the firehouse, overlooking the two floors below past the railing. ‘Floor’ was a bit misleading; it was really more of a balcony, like the second floor was but without the stairs.
“ETA is ten minutes, Buck.”
“ETA is twelve minutes. Do not engage with the hostiles, just tell us what you see.”
Buck knew he wasn’t going to be able to keep that promise, so he didn’t bother making it. His breath caught in his throat when he saw them. Three armed individuals, with serious guns, two wearing a mask that covered their lower faces and one wearing a hood. His team was sitting in the kitchen table chairs, not tied to them, lined up in a row. Eddie was sporting a nasty black eye and Hen’s lip was split, but no one looked shot. They were being held at gunpoint by one of the guys with a mask. The other one with a mask and the hooded guy - he decided to call them Mask and Hoodie respectively - were arguing about something, gesturing with their guns in a way that made him instinctively drop into a crouch. He pulled out his phone and set it up on the railing, dialing Athena. He muted the call and started streaming a live feed of what was happening.
“Christ, Buckley, any theories on why someone would hold up a firehouse with hardware like that?” Reynolds asked.
Buck frowned, trying to think. The only time he could remember something like this ever happening was the Ladder Truck Incident™, when someone from Bobby’s past had come looking for revenge. But these guys were just holding them hostage, and no one had been seriously injured. Actually, it seemed like they were ignoring his team more than anything, even while they had a gun pointed at them.
“No, sir. Listen, I know this firehouse like the back of my hand. I can unlock some doors and guide your men, but you need to be ready to go in three minutes or I’m handling this myself. I’ll do what I have to to protect my team, so if you want unharmed perps to question, I suggest you get in here and take them yourself.” He started an internal clock for three minutes.
As he spoke, the one holding his team at gunpoint - Buck named him Boss - snapped at Mask and Hoodie to ‘knock it off. ’ Hoodie stormed off down to the garage. Boss got up and started threatening Bobby, leveling the gun at his head and speaking too low for Buck to hear. He heard a rush of static from Athena; a gasp. His internal clock sped forward to zero.
He re-entered the stairwell, reaching the second and then the first floor landing in record time. He muted his radio; he couldn’t afford to give away his element of surprise.
He darted from the stairwell to behind the first ladder truck. Every second he spent in the open was a second Boss or Mask could turn around, just look over the railing and see him.
Hoodie was slouched against the front of the ambulance, his back to where Buck was creeping along the back of the ladder truck. He finally got close enough and pounced, safely hidden from view of the second floor. He wrapped his arm around Hoodie’s neck and pulled it tight, grabbing his fist with his other arm to help pull back further, instantly cutting off all blood flow to his brain. 8, 7, 6… Hoodie struggled, making choking sounds and clawing at Buck’s hands. One particularly well-placed kick from Hoodie made his knee buckle, but Buck held fast even as they went down. He hooked and pinned Hoodie’s legs when his flailing foot almost kicked the ambulance.
Finally, he passed out. Buck waited a moment longer before releasing Hoodie and looking over his gun. It wasn’t a model he recognized, which meant it was either very recent or heavily modified. It looked similar enough to his preferred handgun of choice - a glock, of course, he had taste - that he felt comfortable using it.
He peeked out from behind the ambulance, ducking back behind it when he saw Mask stalking down the stairs. Buck pushed Hoodie under the ambulance and ducked around the side of it. Mask reached the ambulance and turned the corner, sounding exasperated when he spoke into his radio with the same modulated voice from the end of the phone call.
“He’s not here, and there’s no sign of a struggle. He’s probably sulking in some corner like the little brat that he is, Marvin.” So Boss was actually named Marvin.
Buck let him finish the report and end the call, then stepped into view with his gun raised. Mask stiffened, slowly raising his hands. “Put the gun down.” Buck ordered quietly, hand perfectly steady where he aimed at Mask’s forehead two feet away. He did, crouching down and sliding the gun over to Buck.
Buck moved lightning-quick and hit him on the top of the head, hard, catching him before he could hit the floor and make noise. He rolled Mask under the ambulance next to Hoodie, pocketing the extra gun. Two down, one to go. He glanced up at the clock on the wall. 9:13. Somehow, it had only been eight minutes since he’d called Athena, ten since he’d opened up that voicemail. SWAT would be here soon. He had to get that gun pointed away from his team before then.
Buck peeked out from behind the ambulance again and saw eyes looking his way. Friendly eyes, thank god. Eddie was watching him with wide eyes while Marvin had his back turned, making large and angry gestures while on the phone with someone. Buck raised his hand in the military sign for cover me. Eddie looked confused for a second before nodding, responding with the sign for understood.
Buck ran for the stairwell door, taking advantage of Marvin’s distraction. He made it back to the second floor landing and cracked the door open, creeping to the space behind the kitchen counter where he would be out of sight. Marvin ended the phone call, stressedly running his hands through his hair.
“So what’s your big plan to get out of this?”
Eddie’s voice sounded so nonchalant, so completely at ease that it almost fooled Buck. And if it almost got Buck, it definitely got Marvin.
“What?” He hissed, the word coming out with a rush of static as the voice changer struggled to convey his tone. Buck slipped along the counter, getting closer to the chairs. He just needed to get a good angle to shoot…
“I mean, you’ve got four hostages. Even if the police aren’t already on their way, we’ve seen your face. We can ID you.” This incited responses from his team, including “ What are you doing?!” and “Shut up Eddie!” and “No we can’t! Really, I’m terrible with faces!” Ten bucks to whoever can guess who the last one was. Spoiler alert: it rhymes with ‘brimney.’
“Listen to your team, Eddie. Shut up if you know what’s good for you.”
The sound of metal striking flesh and a grunt of pain. But that wasn’t what had Buck’s stomach dropping. (At least, not that alone.) That voice… it wasn’t the same one from the voicemail, and neither was Mask’s or Hoodie’s. That meant-
The sound of a gun being cocked echoed behind his ear. He slowly raised his arms, standing up.
“Look what I caught, Marv.” There it was. The voice from the voicemail. His team swiveled their heads, eyes widening in alarm when they saw him. Buck didn’t flinch when the gun was removed from his grip. He made eye contact with Eddie, flicking his gaze towards Marvin. Eddie nodded, almost imperceptibly.
“Why don’t you go join your friends?” It wasn’t a suggestion. Buck started walking, but he tripped over a protruding floorboard.
His foot and arm shot back, foot kicking at the fourth guy’s - Snake, because he’d been sneaking around like a snake - knee and his arm pushing the gun to the side. At the same moment, Eddie surged out of his chair and tackled Marvin, fighting for the gun.
Buck whipped around, bringing his elbow up and slamming it into Snake’s nose, feeling a satisfying crunch. Snake howled in pain, blindly punching out with his free arm. Buck rolled with the hit to his shoulder, using his momentum to grab the arm and pull, overbalancing Snake. He twisted the wrist of the arm with the gun, making him drop it. Snake stumbled forward, letting Buck bring his knee up for a powerful hit to the abdomen. Snake fell over, wheezing in pain. He scooped the gun up and turned to help Eddie, but Snake grabbed at his ankles and dragged him down. Eddie cried out in pain behind him. Buck twisted, aimed through Snake’s attempts to attack him, and fired. The bullet flew straight and true, landing squarely in Snake’s leg. Snake let go, screaming and grabbing his leg to try to stop the bleeding. Buck lashed out with a solid kick to the head and knocked him out cold.
Scrambling to his feet, he saw a horrifying sight. Eddie, both hands raised in surrender, while Marvin held an arm around his neck and a gun to his head. Buck automatically aimed, but he couldn’t guarantee that his bullet would hit before Marvin could fire. The rest of his team were in the corner of the room, frozen in fear.
“You don’t have to do this, Marvin. You haven’t done anything yet. This doesn’t have to go badly for you.” Buck tried to reason with him, but he saw the look in Marvin’s eye. Panic, with undertones of mania. That was not the look of a man about to surrender peacefully.
Marvin laughed, the sound coming across robotic and staticky through the voice changer. “Please. I’ve been to the big house before, I know exactly what’s waiting for me the second I let myself get taken into custody. No, no, there’s another way out of this, there has to be…” Marvin broke off into mutters, clearly having some kind of nervous breakdown.
Buck was about to try reasoning with him again, stalling for time for something to happen, when a siren goes off. A police cruiser siren, specifically. Marvin’s head snapped up, furiously ranting about how he’d said no police, damn it- and he was distracted, and his grip on Eddie loosened a bit and he turned, looking away for just a second and-
Buck took the shot. There was the sound of a gunshot, then a neat little hole appeared in Marvin’s head. He didn’t move beyond stumbling back for a second, like he hadn’t processed it yet, like his body was frozen in shock because there was suddenly a hole where there shouldn’t be a hole, then a drop of blood trickled from it and he just… fell. Like a puppet with its strings cut. Eddie grabbed the gun, then he moved out of Buck’s line of sight and Buck didn’t know where he went because he couldn’t stop looking at that little hole. Another drop of blood joined the first one, then another, then- then Buck wasn’t watching anymore. He pushed everything to the side, every little emotion and botherance, and refocused his attention on the present.
A hand lowered his gun slowly. He let it. He hadn’t even realized he was still aiming it. He turned his head, followed the hand up an arm and a shoulder and a neck to a familiar face. Bobby. He blinked, and Bobby was smiling at him very gently and now he was taking the gun from him and making sounds that didn’t make sense, that weren’t connecting to form words in his brain. He blinked, and Bobby’s arm was around his shoulders and there were more people in the room, in tactical gear, and his friends were talking to some of them and others were holding Snake up and even more were laying a long white sheet on the ground, a red stain forming- He blinked, and he was outside, wrapped up in a neon blanket that he distantly recognized as a shock blanket, and someone was beside him with their arm around him, comforting him like he was a victim but that didn’t make any sense, his friends were the victims of choked-to-unconsciousness Hoodie and probably-concussed Mask and Snake with the broken nose and bloody leg and Marvin with the neat little hole in his head-
Buck leaned forward and threw up into the bucket someone put in front of him. The arm rubbed his shoulder and squeezed him tight, until he was finished gagging and dry heaving and there was absolutely nothing left in his stomach. The bucket was taken away, and Buck leaned into the body connected to the arm. Another arm wrapped around him, and they held him tight against the world that tried to invade their space, the world that was cruel and harsh where he killed a man.
He blinked, but this time it was less of a blink and more of a waking up. The shock blanket was gone, and he was in the back of someone’s car. Looking up - and wincing at the way his neck cramped, how long was he in that position for anyway? -, he saw Bobby in the passenger seat and Athena driving the car.
“Hey.” He said, voice rough from disuse and the burning in the back of his throat. His mouth tasted terrible.
Bobby and Athena looked at him in the rearview mirror. “Hey,” Bobby responded gently, giving him a reassuring smile, “you back with us?”
Buck looked confused, until Athena chimed in, “You were pretty out of it for a while there, Buckaroo.” Out of it? She took a turn onto a familiar street, and he realized she was driving to their house.
He was silent for a while, long enough for them to wonder if he’d drifted off again before he said, “I killed a man.”
They winced in sync at his bluntness, but also at the lack of emotion when he said it. No confusion, no fear, not even sadness. Just… nothing. Completely flat.
“You did.” Athena agreed, pulling into their driveway. Bobby gave her a side eye, but stayed quiet, knowing that she’s more qualified for this than he is. His killings weren’t like this, weren’t intentional. Athena had intentionally shot people on the job before, at least.
“You also saved your friends’ lives, especially Eddie. He gets to go home and hug Christopher because of you.” Buck perked up a bit at the mention of Christopher, but his face still looked so blank.
“What about Marvin? What if he had a family, loved ones, a son? They’ll never get to see him again because of me.” They were parked in the driveway, but Buck didn’t seem to notice, gaze locked on his perfectly steady hands.
Athena unbuckled and turned around in her seat, facing him. “We found him in our database. Marvin Lewis, 38 years old, served 9 years for a few B & E’s and assault and battery charges. No living family. The man didn’t even have an emergency contact.”
Bobby unbuckled too, getting out of the car. Athena and Buck, after a gentle tug, followed him into the house. He got started on lunch while they talked on the couch. Lunch. How could the world change, so many lives be so drastically altered, before it was even lunchtime?
“I don’t regret it. Athena, I don’t regret it.” He couldn’t look away from his hands that were finally starting to shake, eyes filling with tears.
She grabbed his hands in hers, forcing him to meet her eyes. “Baby. Evan. You did what you had to do. I know it feels like the hardest thing in the world, but please, don’t blame yourself.” His eyes searched hers, looking for something - assurance, maybe, or a sign that she was telling the truth - and whatever it was, he found it, because he launched himself into her arms and started crying in earnest. She held him tight, stroking his short hair as he sobbed into her shoulder.
As his crying slowed down, and she could feel him piecing himself back together under her arms, and Bobby put lunch on the coffee table in front of them and joined the hug, she could tell he was going to be alright. It would take time, and there would be rough patches, but they would get through them together because that’s what family does.
And Evan Buckley has a damn good family.