Chapter Text
They left the crooks neatly secured for the local authorities, conveniently surrounded by the evidence of their crimes. Hannibal had been grinning from ear to ear about it. Or maybe he’d been grinning about the Better Luck Next Time, Decker! that he’d spelled out in neon pink paint on the wall behind the criminals. Face wasn’t sure which but, either way, Hannibal had been grinning. He’d grinned all the way to the dumpy vehicle they’d been using on the job, beating B.A. to the driver’s seat and forcing him to take the passenger seat. All by design.
“You know that medicinals such as sedatives are actually considered restraints,” Murdock said, having injected just such a medicinal into B.A. from the back seat. “We aren’t just druggin’ the poor guy, we’re restrainin’ him against his will. I believe the Geneva Convention would have something to say about that.”
“What would they say about B.A. beating us all senseless for putting him on another plane?” Hannibal called out from the front seat, taking a tight curve.
“It might be considered justified,” Murdock said, leaning forward to hold B.A. in place as the car careened around a building and then went slightly airborne.
Face braced a hand on the front seat. He grimaced at the landing, casually pressing his right arm against his side where all the fiery pain he’d been trying to ignore was located. He shot a glance at Murdock and said, “Restrained is a lot safer for us.”
“Yeah.” Murdock turned toward Face, waggling his eyebrows. “That’s what they say in the nuthouse, too.”
“As opposed to-” Face motioned around the car.
“You said it, not me.” Murdock grinned maniacally before returning his attention to the front seat and asking, “Colonel, can we get burgers?”
“Before we outrun the MPs behind us or after we get off the plane, having landed safely somewhere very far from here?”
Face exchanged a look with Murdock, shaking his head, warning against asking to stop now. In the mood Hannibal was in, he would stop. He would absolutely stop.
“I am pretty hungry,” Murdock said, blithely ignoring the warning and squeezing to the far side of the car to try to avoid Face’s swinging hand.
It wasn’t that big of a car, of course, so Face had no difficulty swatting his target on the left shoulder. It would’ve been more satisfying except the motion just ratcheted up the pain in his side. He couldn’t quite hide his gasp, but they were bumping up the road to the airport, the sound of sirens not too far behind them and now Murdock was talking about maybe getting pizza instead of burgers and wasn’t paying any attention to him anymore. The car skidded to a stop and they all got busy dragging the gear and their medicinally restrained Sergeant to the plane. Once everything and everyone was aboard, Hannibal joined Murdock in the cockpit while Face made sure B.A. was both medicinally and physically restrained.
“Sorry, B.A.,” he muttered, securing him in the seat so he wouldn’t go flying. Well, so he wouldn’t go flying out of the seat anyway.
Patting the man’s shoulder, Face pushed himself to his feet, then almost went to his knees as sharp pain exploded across his side. He groaned, waves of dizziness sweeping over him, as he all but fell into the other seat. Once seated, he curled forward, wrapping his arms around his chest, breaths coming short and sharp. Ok this was definitely not good. Head down, he broke out in a sweat. Holding his chest tighter, he panted through the pain, trying not to pass out.
The fight with the goons, the run to the car and then to the plane, dragging B.A. and the equipment - none of that had done him any good, but none of that had caused the injury that was responsible for his current agony. No, the injury had been caused earlier by a pickup truck that had whipped around a corner just as he’d started running across the street.
That stupid pickup.
The driver had been in as big a hurry as he’d been, but Face was willing to bet the other guy had just been running late for work whereas he’d been rushing to back up his team at the warehouse after lifting all the incriminating paperwork from the main office across the street. He and the truck had arrived in the exact same location at the same exact time and collided with cosmic cruelty. The hit had sent him flying through the air, but he’d managed a nice tuck and roll, landed on his feet and kept running. If the guy in the truck cared that he’d just hit someone, Face hadn’t stuck around to find out. He had places to be, a team to assist. They’d dealt with the crooks without too much difficulty and the adrenaline of the fight had carried him through. Till now.
Just a bruise, he told himself. Maybe a cracked rib or three. I’ve had worse.
Darkness rapidly encroached his vision even as the bright sun shone in through the windows. He blinked hard, pushing himself upright and pressing his head against the seat back. The lightheadedness increased with the movement, but he was overheating. Had to get his jacket off. Then he’d feel better. It was strangely difficult, peeling off his jacket. Something he did all the time, yet today seemed almost impossible. His arms were leaden and any twist of his upper body left him gasping, but he managed it. The jacket dropped to the floor and he almost sobbed with relief and pain. Sweat trickled down his face as he fumbled with the buttons on his shirt. Needed to see. Figure out what was wrong. How bad it was.
His mouth was dry but the thought of water made his stomach turn. He generally didn’t get airsick, but that’s exactly how he felt right now. It was difficult, trying to keep his eyes open and make his fingers work. Getting more difficult, actually. Everything was getting more difficult. This was a problem. No, this was an emergency.
“Hannibal,” Face called out. Or at least he tried to, the voice he heard sounded faraway and weak and not like him at all.
He tried again. Had he even spoken? Maybe he just couldn’t hear anything over the rushing water. Water? Where was he anyway? Niagara Falls? Maybe it wasn’t water, it almost sounded like the buzz of a bunch of angry bees. He shivered. Too many bees.
Was that the job? Bees? It seemed an odd thing for a job, but they’d done odder. He tried to remember. Pictured Murdock decked out in a beekeeping outfit. He laughed at the image, but that made his chest hurt worse. Why did his chest hurt? Oh yeah, the bees. They’d stung him apparently. He hadn’t been stung in years and didn’t remember it hurting this much.
They were still buzzing angrily and he batted a hand to make them go away, but they buzzed louder and he hoped they wouldn’t sting his face because swelling from a punch was one thing. He could use that in his favor. The poor downtrodden good ole boy in the wrong place at the wrong time, defending the innocent, getting a black eye for his trouble. But bee stings? He’d look like he had some kind of disease. Diseases were great for getting people to go away and breaking Murdock out of the VA, but they were not good when it came to gaining sympathy, free room and board, or any of the other million random things Hannibal could decide he needed on a job.
“Face?” A voice broke through the buzzing.
“Not th’face,” he mumbled, moaning at the thought. Words were difficult which meant his mouth was definitely swelling up. Great, the bees had gotten him on the face. He was gonna die now. From bees. He would’ve been more upset if he hadn’t felt so far away from everything.
“Hey, stay with me.” Hannibal sounded worried. Sounded close. He was patting Face’s cheek, pushing his head up. “Open your eyes. Need you to talk to me.”
Face opened his eyes. At least they weren’t swollen closed yet. They were blurry, though. Everything blurry and dark but there was Hannibal in front of him, wearing his Very Serious expression. Face licked his lips and said, “Can’t talk.”
“You’re talking right now. Where’re you hurt?”
Couldn’t Hannibal see the bee stings everywhere? Face huffed, motioning vaguely with his left hand. He was the one dying of bee stings why did he have to figure everything out? What was it that killed you about a bee sting? Poison? No, venom. Murdock would know for sure.
“Murdock-” Face started, then gasped, pain slamming him back into his body.
“He’s flying the plane,” Hannibal said, his hands cold against Face’s burning chest. “When did this happen?”
When did what happen? Face blinked, disoriented and shaking with sudden chills. Now that Hannibal had unbuttoned his shirt, he was freezing. Where had the bees gone? He didn’t know, but he almost missed them because Hannibal touching his chest was about to send him over the edge. He tried to push him away, tried to move, to find a position somewhere anywhere that it wouldn’t all hurt so much. Things started getting dark again and then he was falling out of the seat, out of the world. Panic gripped him and he reached out, desperate to find something to hold onto. Something to keep him from getting lost in the darkness. Something to keep him from falling.
“Easy, I’ve got you.” Hannibal’s voice was close, calming despite the chaos. “Stay with me, ok? Come on, Lieutenant, keep your eyes open.”
Keeping them closed sounded a lot better, but there was something in Hannibal’s tone that made Face fight the lethargy and get his eyes open. No longer falling, he found himself staring up at the Colonel from the floor. How had that happened?
“You’ve got some significant bruising here,” Hannibal said, his hands back to ghosting over Face’s chest. “Probably busted a rib or two, but…I think there’s something more going on.”
Face shook his head slowly. Bees didn’t break ribs. But he couldn’t find the words to tell Hannibal that. Shouldn’t he know already? The darkness was stretching out, reaching down and pulling the world inside out and Face was sliding down a dark tunnel. The bee hole. No, hive. That’s where bees lived. Hives. He knew that. He didn’t want to fall down the tunnel though. He’d get lost.
Fear gripped him and he fumbled, again trying to get his hands to work. He grabbed onto something and it squeezed back. The Colonel’s hand. Blinking hard to dispel the darkness, Face stared up past the narrowing tunnel walls and tried to find Hannibal. He was losing track of himself again, detaching from his body and floating
“…away.”
“You’re not going anywhere.” Hannibal’s voice was louder, closer.
Something warm and reassuring was pressed against his forehead, bringing him back to himself a little bit. He could still see the tunnel, though, rising up to grab him. It was wrapping around his legs, tugging on him. He was going to fall into the dark tunnel and be lost forever. Breathing was getting harder.
“Don’t…don’t let… me fall.” He grabbed on tighter to the hand he was holding.
“I’m not going to let you fall,” Hannibal said, with what he meant to be a reassuring smile but was actually terrifying. Terrifying because the smile didn’t match the emotion in his eyes and he only ever smiled like that when things were totally FUBAR. “Stay with me, kid.”
Face tried to, but then the bees were back, sweeping him along into the tunnel. He would’ve been more afraid, but Hannibal had never let go of him before. There was no reason to think he would now.
The last thing he heard before the buzzing faded to nothingness was Hannibal shouting for Murdock.