Forget About It

The young guy they got to surrender seems to have relaxed a little since taking his place next to, or more accurately behind, Gerard. The leader, Mr. Comb Over, on the other hand, seems to want to throttle him with his bare hands. It's obvious that without the young guy, they're almost nothing. Half the brains of the operation has just left, and they're dangling by a thread. Who could blame the guy for yielding though? Gerard has a way with words.

"You're a dead man, kid," the leader says through his teeth. The kid actually looks pretty scared, so Gerard decides to step in.

"No, actually, you're a dead man. The kid here has just surrendered, and will receive no further punishment. Nothing like what you’re facing like, I don't know, life in prison?" Gerard says sarcastically, successfully reassuring the kid. He can’t guarantee this kid much freedom, but his sentence was just cut by quite a bit for listening to Gerard. He’ll probably see the sun sometime in the next ten to fifteen years at least, which is more than the other two guys will be getting.

Frank, though, is almost at his wits. He's pretty sure the only thing keeping him there on the spot is the unbearable thought of Gerard teasing him with digs about his first time out on the field. Oh, and the fact that him and everyone on the block might get fucking killed if he's not careful.

"Yeah right. Can't go to prison if I'm dead. Right asshole?" Mr. Comb Over says in a mocking voice.

"Yeah," The bigger guys says, playing a long with his boss. He puts on a smug smirk, dripping with terror. Frank and Gerard simultaneously roll their eyes. Suddenly, this feels exactly like high school.

“Alright, here's what's gonna go down-”

They're suddenly interrupted by the voice of Brendon. Franks not sure he's ever heard anything so beautiful. For one thing, Brendon’s voice is actually quite nice, and for another, he’s actually there at all, and Frank couldn’t be happier about that.

"Hello gentlemen," Brendon cuts in smoothly, giving Gerard and Frank a look, and then he says bitingly, “If I may intrude. Thanks for calling for backup guys. Really, you are truly model FBI agents. Just top notch. Gerard, how ever did you come to be my boss, I’ll never know. Could’ve gotten yourself killed, you dumbasses.”

"Who the hell is this guy? Is this a fucking party?" Mr. Comb Over says, jerking his chin up at Brendon, before Gerard or Frank can say anything in their defense.

“And yet no one brought champagne,” Gerard murmurs to himself, trying to keep his aim steady on Mr. Comb Over. His trigger finger is as calm as anyone could hope, but he keeps double checking.

No one else followed behind him, but if Brendon’s here than maybe Hayley and Patrick are on their way. Gerard hopes for fucks sake that someone had the good sense to call the bomb squad.

"Forgive me, we haven't been introduced. I'm special agent Brendon Urie. We were wondering if you gentlemen could kindly make our jobs much easier and, like, put the arsenal away. Less death, more families rejoicing for their lives, a whole lot of time saved on paperwork, and god do I hate paperwork," he cuts himself off with a laugh, "It would make this less, well... messy,"

“Like I’m scared of the Feds,” Mr. Comb Over says, “we all know how this is going to end, and for god’s sake, you’re doing yourselves no amount of acclaim or honor by being this stupid. Do you brainless shit heads really think you can do anything to stop us? We're the ones with the bombs, if you hadn't noticed!”

“I should probably announce at this point that there’s a particularly attractive lady behind me, looking at us through a window, and her gun is a lot bigger than this one,” Brendon says, and he brings out his own glock, “and she’s also got the best fucking aim of anyone you’re ever likely to come across.”

“He’s holding a bomb, Brendon!” Gerard snaps, “Hayley knows that right?”

“She’s not dumb, of course she knows that, but the problem is that that guy right there,” Brendon points to the big man, still standing rather precariously in the driveway behind Mr. Comb Over, “doesn’t have a bomb on him. He’s got nothing.”

The big man’s eyes widen to an unimaginable size, and Gerard smiles a little bit. Usually he tries not to kill people, he’s only shot a few people in his entire career, which is more than the staggering number of heads Brendon has at zero. Hayley’s got a good reputation though as being probably the best marksman in the entire state. There’s a few traveling snipers, who go around to assist on cases, but for a field agent, Hayley is the one to beat. She’s the one who’s good with a gun though, which means that she’s got more bodies stacked in her name than anyone else on the team, besides maybe Gerard.

Frank could almost cry, he's so relieved. He suddenly feels more confident, so he stands up taller and straightens his arms. Gerard just looks at him through narrowed eyes, as if he could read his mind, and cuts a look at him that screams, ‘keep your shit together, Iero.’ Gerard wants to ask how on earth Brendon knew to come, but assumes he’s going to have to thank Frank later if he lives to find the time to do so. He doesn’t want to, but Frank did do something right at least.

Gerard chips in, “and the problem is that you don’t know what angle she’s going to shoot you from, big guy. So you don’t know where to hide.”

“Don’t you dare,” Mr. Comb Over says to his only ally left, but Gerard can tell that they’ve hit some sort of chord in the guy.

A door behind Gerard’s team slams, and then Patrick’s running over to them, faster than you’d think he could given how short he is. He comes up behind Brendon, who’s got his hands securing the young guy that they already got to surrender. Patrick runs up behind him and whispers something in Brendon’s ear out of earshot from anyone else.

Gerard turns to look at Brendon as Patrick does so, and Brendon gives him a nod. That’s all he needs for confirmation in knowing that the bomb squad is on their way.

All this happens very quickly and then Patrick’s taking Brendon’s place of supervising over their captive. Brendon then takes a stance nearer to Frank.

At this point, Frank’s breath has started to level out a little bit. They’ve essentially checked off two of the baddies, and have only one left to deal with.

“I’m not in the mood to play games, so either you put your hands up and walk toward me, or so help me god, I will put a bullet in your head, and I won’t fucking regret it,” Gerard warns the big guy, wishing he knew their names. There’s the big guy, and Mr. Comb Over. Mr. Comb Over is the leader, and he’s not giving in anytime soon. The big guy though, he’s defenseless. If Gerard can’t get the big guy to surrender, than he doesn’t feel remorse for shooting him.

“Just answer me one thing,” Gerard says, “Before I give the order. Before I let them kill you. Who is he to you? Who is this dunderhead with the Trump-esque comb over? Why listen to him if it will only lead to your death? Sure you were prepared to die today, but do you maybe want to give that a second thought? Wanna reconsider? Do you have kids that will miss you? How about a wife? Siblings? Mr. Radical over here, he’s got you dancing in the palm of his hand, and he doesn’t give a shit about you.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Mr. Comb Over says.

“Yeah, because if you listen too hard I’ll pull my Jedi mind tricks out on you,” Gerard scoffs, “but really think about this. You’re going to die, and that’s a guarantee, but do you realize what happens if you die? You’re going to stop existing, and that’s it. There will be news articles about this for weeks, if not months. There are five FBI agents in this area, and if so much as one of us were to die, we’d be making headlines for a very long time. Now add all the innocent civilians. Little kids live on this street. Little girls who poison their families with creations they made in their Easy Bake Ovens. Probably some little boys who’ve done the same thing. There’s parents here, and just good people. You’ll kill all of them if you don’t stand down to me. You will make headlines too. But yours will be in infamy. The whole world is going to know your name, and know that you died a villain. You died a mass murderer. I will not let you leave this neighborhood, and that’s my promise. So either let me take you in at the end of the day, or let me have my agents turn you into Swiss cheese.”

The big guy looks to be considering Gerard’s words for a long moment. When he makes u his mind he gives little more than a shake of the head, but Gerard lets out a sigh of contempt.

He turns his head ever so slightly to the side, and says to Brendon, “Tell Hayley to fire.”

Gerard hates giving orders like that. It’s probably the worst part of his job, because even if it’s a bad person, he doesn’t like having people dead.

Brendon and Gerard do have somewhat of their own language. It’s always good if partners do, because you always need a code word for danger. Something for if things go wrong, teams need those. Gerard never thought to give those to Frank. Frank doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say when things go sour. Brendon and Gerard have a few of their own though, that aren’t strictly sanctioned.

The most important are hand gestures. If Gerard holds up one finger behind his back, that means ‘go for the kill.’ Two fingers means ‘don’t aim for a kill shot.’ Three fingers means, ‘bluff.’ Four fingers is ‘do the opposite of what I said.’ They’ve never had to use five fingers, but that means, ‘unleash all hell.’

Behind Gerard’s back he gives Brendon two fingers.

Brendon clears his throat, grabs his walkie-talkie, and quietly sends an order to Hayley.

The next few seconds pass slower than any amount of time has ever passed. It takes about a century for anything to even happen. Gerard trusts his team, so he doesn’t move, and Frank has the good sense to stay put as well.

Then it’s just a matter of seconds before there’s a bang that can be heard loudly, even from where Gerard stands. He doesn’t flinch when he hears it, because that would just be an open opportunity for him to accidentally step in front of a bullet.

The big guy falls down almost instantly and Gerard smiles, because he’s not dead. Not yet anyway. He may not walk again, because Gerard’s fairly sure that Hayley just blew apart his knee cap, but he is still alive. As long as they get him help sometime soon, he’ll probably live.

“Pansy shot,” Mr. Comb Over says, when he turns to see what happened to his goon.

“No, I just don’t want to see a lot of people die today. I’m a fed, sure, everyone hates me. The cops hate me, you hate me, gangs hate me, everyone hates the feds, but one thing I’m not, is heartless,” Gerard says. Frank tries to tune out Gerard, because something about how good he is at this job is turning him the fuck on. Now’s not the time for that, but if he does live through this, he wants to get into Gerard’s pants again. Really wants to get into Gerard’s pants again.

“Think Iero, think! Alright alright, when held up in a situation like this, what do you do? Um, observe your surroundings,” Frank looks around to spot his team, brave faces set on maximum, but their eyes do not shield the fear there.

“What do I know about bombs?” He cuts a look at the bulky, obviously homemade bomb. He takes a look at the wiring, and the clunky material is not helping him. He tries to get a good look at it.

“Okay, red wire connects to... what does the red wire connect to?” Frank is trying desperately to remember what he learned about bombs, but he can’t remember jack shit.

Mr. Comb Over seems to feel his gaze and looks at Frank. Noticing his eyes on the bomb, he turns it over, trying to dislodge Frank’s stare. Instead, Frank sees all he's needed to. With the memory of his cranky old professor's face in his mind, he has the stencil of a textbook page in his head. He may not be Gerard, but maybe he knows a little something about profiling too. Frank hopes to everything he's ever believed in, that he's not wrong just this one time in his life. This once, and he’ll never hope to be right again. Just this once.

Abruptly, Frank closes the distance between him and Mr. Comb Over, his heart pounding. He’s trying to block everything out of his head that he possibly can. He faintly hears the panicked and furious shouts of his name, but his mind is set on one thing. If he’s wrong, Gerard is going to kill him... actually if he’s wrong they’ll all be dead.

Frank is facing the man in a matter of seconds, and he makes eye contact for a fraction of that time before he’s snatching. He tries to pull the bomb out of the guy's hands, but then it slips out of both their hands.

Gerard was wrong. This is the slowest time has ever passed.

Frank hears a universal gasp, but he doesn’t have time to consider it. He thinks back to the first time he saw Captain America, and he remembers when Steve jumped on that grenade. Grenades are different than bombs, but maybe, just maybe, he can absorb the force of the blow. He might be able to dull it enough not to set off the rest of the bombs, enough to save some lives. Here’s his chance to take one for the team.

Frank joined the FBI to be selfless, to save lives. If he’s right, today is a good day. If he’s wrong, then Gerard will attend his funeral, and Frank might almost enjoy haunting Gerard’s ass.

As Frank throws himself on top of the bomb, every last atom of his body screaming in protest, he thinks nothing. He sees nothing, feels nothing, and hears nothing. The only thing he knows is that he has less than a second to know just how stupid his sacrifice is.