#jackael

Jack got shot in the arm in their escape and there may have been a bit of a bumpy ride to the garage.

(Gung-ho cops who want to take the crew down no matter what. Don’t care if it means racking up a major bill for property damage and thank God Michael decided on taking his armored Kuruma even though it’s not the fastest thing around.)

And Jack, okay. Jack’s giving him this look as Michael drags him to the lounge area upstairs and sits him down on one of the beaten up couches. Goes to get the first-aide kit someone stashed here and sets about cleaning and bandaging Jack’s gunshot wound while Jack ~gently nitpicks.

“Okay, you can shut up now, asshole,” Michael mutters, because Jack’s giving him his Pleasant smile, and Jack huffs out this little laugh as Michael patches him up.

They keep their phones close to hand because the others haven’t checked in yet and they still don’t know what went wrong yet.

Don’t know if it was plain bad luck or something else. If their target got antsy and switched things up on their own, or if there was a leak somewhere. Someone realized they were up to something or on of their allies or contacts thinking they could get something out of it if they ratted the crew out.

They don’t know, and the rest of their crew is scattered around the city with the cops out for blood and no one’s checked in yet, and who knows what happened to them?

“Michael.”

Jack, all soft and careful like Michael’s one of the strays he and Gavin go all soft over. (Jeremy too, and Ryan, even if he still pretends he doesn’t have a heart. Geoff stays out of it until one of the little bastard gets their claws into his cold lump of a heart and then he acts like he doesn’t have a wobbly kitten trailing all over him in the penthouse or a mutt chewing on his expensive shoes.)

“I’m fine,” Michael snaps, because one of them has to be.

Jack’s hurting and only has one good arm, and Michael’s a little battered, sure, but he’s got this, okay. He does.

“Of course you are,” Jack says, in the Jack kind of way where Michael honestly can’t tell if he’s being serious or looking at Michael like he’s a dumbass.

“Are you - “

Jack’s got this look on his face, right.

The one he wears when he’s humoring someone he happens to think is being especially stupid but he’s far too polite to say so to their face. (And anyone who knows Jack knows that’s a load of bullshit, because Jack.)

So.

“Jack - “

“You’ve got a little something,” Jack says, reaching out to brush at something on Michael’s face. Touch light and careful, and when he pulls his hand back there’s blood on his fingers. “Right there.”

His face stings, and Michael doesn’t remember when it happened – how it happened. Somewhere in the chaos, flying debris or something else. (There are other little aches and stings and his hip hurts like a motherfucker after going out that window earlier.)

“You mind if I take a look at that?”

Michael raises his eyebrows at that, as if Jack’s just going to let it go if he says no.

Oh, he’ll listen if Michael says no, sure. But he’ll just sit there and wait until Michael’s not so wound up to ask again. Come at it from another angle, and by then Michael will have had time to calm down, stop thinking about how close things came earlier.

“Knock yourself out,” Michael says.

Turns on the tv and finds a news broadcast about the botched heist, relaxes a little because it doesn’t seem like the cops have caught up to the others. (God knows it would the only thing on tv for the next forever if - when – that ever happens.)

Michael gives Jack this look when the asshole presses a little kiss over the bandage on his face (“Helps it heal faster.” :D)

Somehow, Jack gets him to play a game of darts -

“I’m going to kick your ass if you pull your stitches.”

“Michael, please.”

(As if he would ever.)

- and he absolutely does not get annoyed at the one-armed bastard who beats him ~handily >:DDDDD (”Jack.”)

They start to gets texts after that, the others checking in to let them know they’re okay and hiding out until things cool down enough to head back to the penthouse.

Look around and realize the garage isn’t a bad place, really, that it might be interesting to humor Geoff in his grand idea for a motorcycle club for a bit. Change of pace and all, and Jack supervises as Michael makes them a little nest out of the couch cushions and the blankets while they bed down for the night.

When Gavin’s stolen bus didn’t go up, Jack knew exactly what to do. “Contingency plan!” she shouted, C4 already flying through the air. She hit the detonator and the bus exploded. The hot wind buffered her backwards and she sat down hard on her ass. “Go, I got you covered!”

Ryan and Geoff ran into the bank and she heard the expected screaming. Careening around the corner was a police car, but there was no way they’d have gotten here this fast. “Aw who pissed off the cops?”

Jeremy made a noncommittal noise. “Wasn’t me,” he said, throwing a furtive glance at Michael as he worked on the vault door.

“Wasn’t me,” Michael said, grunting with effort as he reached a hand into the lock mechanism and yanked hard.

“You can handle it,” Geoff assured her. He trusted her so fully and without hesitation and it made her smile.

“Fuck yeah I can,” Jack smiled, unloading an armful of grenades from the duffel. “Come at me motherfuckers.”

When the police officers got within reach of the bank, she hurled three grenades in quick succession, the pins clattering to the floor beside her right before the street exploded. Grabbing the molotovs, she threw those at the bus, reigniting the burning carcass and cutting off their entry.

They gathered their bearings, taking aim at her perch on the roof and she dove down to cover as bullets whizzed by. “Gav,” she said, peering into the side alley where their getaway van was. “Any reinforcements?

Gavin hummed, switching between police radios and doing his best to jam them. “Five coming down Main, maybe like seven from Vinewood?”

Michael whooped with joy as the door swung open. “Bet you can’t get rid of them before I grab all the money,” he taunted, already elbow deep in stacks of cash.

Jack’s mouth quirked and she felt herself grinning again. “$10,000?” she asked.

“You’re on.”

And with that, she unloaded the bag beside her, mechanically pulling pins and chucking them into the street below her. As the bullets stopped flying by her, she rolled to the other corner of the roof and caught two police cars with one C4.

“We’re coming out, Jack,” Ryan warned, laying down cover fire for Geoff to run to the getaway van.

“I’m coming out of my cage and I’ve been doing JUST FINE,” Jeremy sang.

“GOTTA GOTTA BE DOWN BECAUSE I WANT IT ALL,” Michael continued, zipping up his bag.

“It started out with a kiss, how did it end up like this?” Jack picked up, tossing the rest of her explosives on the remaining cops.

“It was only a kiss!” Gavin said, throwing the side door open for Geoff before climbing into the passenger seat.

“IT WAS ONLY A KISS!” everyone shouted in unison.

“Get in the fucking car,” Geoff shouted as Jeremy and Michael jumped out the windows.

“That’s not the next line of the song, Geoff,” Jeremy said, waving an arm at Ryan as they both hauled ass to the van. “Jack, come on.”

Taking her cue, Jack slid down the ladder and jumped into the passenger seat. Ryan closed the last door and Gavin floored it out of the alley. “Which safe house?”

“San Andreas?” Ryan suggested.

Scoffing, Geoff cut in. “Don’t need to leave the goddamn country, just go up the coast to Santa Monica.”

Something tapped her elbow and Michael was passing over a gun to Jack. “Here you go baby.”

“Victory flare!” Jack said, rolling her window down and shooting the orange flares into the air.

“Cut it out asshole we’re trying to escape.”

Just as Geoff said that, a helicopter light shone down on the car. “Great, so we’re going to San Andreas.”

Jack laughed, pulling the machine gun from the foot of her chair. “Bet I can take the chopper down before you,” she called to the back seat.