Leg Work

by firechild

Rated T

Disclaimer: I own Mernie, the animal control officer, and the surprise, and for the purpose of fic, I own Mac's friend from Texas. That's about it.

Warning: This story contains references to spanking and to a common phobia.

A/N: I'm playing in Marie's sandbox again--this is set present-day, and it's a door opened by her story, Vacation. If you haven't read that, hit the 'back' button now, go to her site, and read that. If, after reading that (and the rest of her fics, since it's like a Hershey's kiss--ya can't just eat one) you have any squish capacity left in you, please come back and give this a gander. Marie, I hope you like this. Like I said, I didn't know what you had in mind, and I didn't actually ask before stepping into your sandbox again, but I couldn't resist. Oh, by the way, my oc is probably not possible; hey, it's fanfic!

--

"Aw, man, this just couldn't be easy, could it." Danny shifted as he muttered under his breath, working (unsuccessfully) to keep himself too distracted to think or feel, trying to get comfortable as he worked between two machines; given that he was standing, that shouldn't have been difficult, but then, this day was just full of shouldn't-haves. He didn't really want to think about them, but Mac hadn't left him a whole lot of choice on that one--almost an hour after one of his patented 'attitude adjustments,' and Danny was glad that he was only an hour and a half into his shift (yeah, he'd lasted half an hour before this 'day' had totally and painfully tanked) because he was pretty sure that the next ten hours weren't gonna make the ride home in the morning seem any more appealing.

Oh, Danny was okay--he knew that he and Mac would get past this, that the older man still cared for him and wouldn't cut him adrift--but that didn't mean that this day... er, night... was going to be easy. In what the commissioner's office called 'crop rotation' (and Montana, with a most unladylike snort, had called 'mucking the stalls') day and night shift crews had been switched temporarily. He didn't mind all that much, really, as the nights since Ruben's death had been hard, especially those he'd spent at his own apartment where he still sort of expected to hear the little boy's giggles and arguments with Rikki about bedtimes and late movies, and besides, he loved the city at night, at least as much as he ever got to see, between the constraints of work and the restraints of a protective 'dad' with a wicked right arm.

It wasn't like this was the first time he'd, uh, walked into it here at work, and somehow he knew it wasn't likely to be the last, but this had definitely been the worst so far; usually when Mac took him down away from home, it wasn't this bad, he usually just had trouble sitting for a couple of hours, but this time Danny had crossed the line and had caught it like a hockey puck to the teeth. He hadn't seen Mac so steamed in a long time, and he knew he was lucky that the former Marine had allowed him the dignity of the relative privacy of the old bathroom in the morgue, which was more than he'd expected or, to be honest, deserved. By the time the paddling was over and Mac had stormed back out of the lavatory, presumably taking the old ping pong paddle back to the gym on the other side of the basement, Danny had stopped expecting anything normal from this encounter, so he'd actually been surprised when, a few minutes later, he'd been pulled away from the cold chipped tile his forehead had been resting on, firm hands had turned him by the shoulders, his arms had been pulled away from their protective self-embrace around his torso, and he'd found himself held tightly and his head cupped down against a familiar hard shoulder. Several sob-heavy but wordless minutes later, Danny had been released and left alone to collect himself before leaving the sanctuary of the bathroom and finding that someone had used a maintenance cart to block the hallway outside, meaning that it wasn't likely that anyone had actually heard anything. The younger man didn't know why he'd been shown that odd bit of mercy at that moment, but he wasn't going to ask... especially since he wasn't planning on going near Mac for awhile, maybe not ever, or at least not until the older man decided that he wanted to be around Danny again.

About three hours into the shift, the sore young analyst, who'd been doing two-and-a-half jobs at once and was starting to get frustrated at his lack of progress in clinching his case, was a little surprised to feel his pager vibrating against the front of his hipbone, and his heart lurched a little and then tripped into double-time when he saw that he was being called to the UV lab--by Mac. Too smart to invite more trouble by ignoring the summons, but anxious nonetheless, Danny took the time to close out his current experiments grab the print-outs and then hustled to meet his boss, trying not to limp as every move burned.

He walked into the darkened lab, ducking shyly and stopping just past the threshold as he saw Mac near the back opposite corner. "H-hi." Oh, come on--he was an adult, a cop, a detective, hand-picked for the crime lab, and he couldn't manage better than a half-whispered 'hi'? This was just pathetic. He was still ducking and he started to slip his hands into his back pockets... and then remembered why that wasn't such a good idea.

"Hi." Danny couldn't really tell anything from Mac's tone, and he was putting some effort into looking at anything but the older man. He could feel Mac's eyes on him, though, and everything felt like a, well, a Mack truck right now. The few seconds of silence seemed like an eternity and yet not long enough before his boss/dad added, "I was beginning to wonder if you were coming."

Ouch. He'd taken too long and he was going to catch it all over again. "Um... sorry." He absently scratched over one eyebrow with his thumbnail. "I was working in the old lab; had to wait for the processor to reboot."

"I see. Get anything?"

Danny shook his head and then ran his hand up through his hair, another sign of nerves. "No, sir." He sighed and muttered under his breath, "Can't even do that right." He didn't see the look Mac shot him then, or he might've been wary when Mac put away his aggravation--Mac might stow things sometimes, but he never forgot, especially when Danny wished he would.

"Come here. You need to see something." Danny complied, half-shuffling as he tried to find the least painful way to navigate the (ironically darkened) light lab without looking up. At least this time he had an excuse--the light lab might be mostly devoted to examining evidence under different types of light, but it sported two full work islands and one short island as well as a border of counters, and someone had left some extra equipment at points around the lab. All too quickly, however, he found himself within Mac's easy reach, his anxiety losing ground to good after-punishment sense, and his mind admitting that if Mac wasn't finished disciplining him, the young man might as well suck it up and get it over with.

"Danny, are you alright?" Mac's tone, though gentle, clearly demanded an honest answer, and at least this time Danny could deliver. Sort of.

"Yeah, I'm okay... I mean, if... I mean, it's up to you... I mean, you don't have to..." He trailed off--he couldn't even answer a simple question without screwing it up. "Yeah, I'm cool." He was looking down again, running a nervous hand through his hair, and he wasn't completely surprised to feel Mac pulling up his chin. He met his dad's eyes with a wry little ghost of a grin. "I'm okay."

After a few seconds of scrutiny, Mac nodded slightly. "It matters, you know." Those words warmed Danny in a much more comfortable way, and he relaxed a little, knowing that even if Mac was still upset with him, they would eventually be just fine. Now if he could only pass the comfort on to his butt...

"What did you want to show me? Are you gonna tell me why I can't seem to solve my case?" His tone carried the same self-deprecation, but with an easier ruefulness.

"Uh, no, but I'm sure that somewhere around here, there's a capable CSI wondering where the case went." Mac's response was light, sarcastic, but obviously disapproving of Danny taking on all of the work alone. "Wash your hands."

Danny blinked at the abrupt shift, but rather than questioning it, he shrugged to himself and moved to obey. Since cleanliness and safety were critical to their jobs, the techs had sinks in every lab, it took him only a minute to pick his way to the opposite back corner of the lab, throroughly scrub up, dry, and return to Mac. "What do you need me to do?"

As Mac turned to something near his corner, he said, "Close your eyes."

More confused than ever, Danny stowed his comments and closed his eyes; Mac didn't turn to check, trusting his son to obey, but the older man smiled to himself as he could practically feel the confusion and nervousness rolling off of the boy but heard no protests. He had a feeling that in a a few seconds, he'd be hearing plenty of something...

"Open your eyes, son."

Danny complied, to find himself looking at Mac's enigmatic half-smile and... a box. It was clear, about ten inches wide and deep, maybe a foot tall, with a clear plastic hinged grate-style lid; the bottom of the box held a couple of inches of sand, a large plastic goldfish 'cave,' a cheesy-looking plastic palm tree, and...

Danny sucked in a breath, eyes going as wide as petrie dishes. Mac watched the boy pale slightly, and wondered if this had been a bad idea.

"Oh, Mac, she's gorgeous!" Danny glanced up. "She, right?" Mac nodded, his face splitting into a huge self-satisfied grin at the boy's reaction. Danny hunched down to eye-level with their 'guest.' "Hey, there, beautiful! Hi!" His voice was soft, the way some people talked to newborns; Mac noticed that, though Danny had no problem peering closely at her, he kept his hands to himself, resting his fists on his knees to keep his fingers clean. "Hey, sweetheart! How ya doin'?" He gazed at her with a soft smile, and she stared back at him through the plastic, motionless for a couple of minutes; just when Mac was starting to wonder if both of them really had frozen that way, Danny absently raised a finger to scratch his nose, and she raised one foreleg, lowering it when Danny dropped his hand to focus fully on her. Not breathing, Danny raised his finger again, as if to make a point, and she raised the same leg.

Mac felt like he was standing in a scene from ET. "Do something else," he rumbled quietly, so Danny raised the other forefinger... and got her opposite foreleg in response. He looked up at Mac in wonder, grinning, and Mac chuckled. "I'm impressed," he said, shaking his head in surprise. "She hasn't even acknowledged anyone besides me, and I only get a stare, like she's trying to decide if I'm worth biting."

Danny looked at her again. "Nah, you wouldn't hurt Mac, would ya, pretty girl? We love Mac--we gotta take care of him." Danny didn't look up, so he missed the rush of pleased warmth his words brought to his protector's eyes. "What breed is she?"

Mac gently set the habitat on the island near Danny's left hip... and blinked as his smaller charge skittered, trying to keep Danny in sight. Danny obliged her, wincing absently as he sidled and dropped into a high crouch, smiling a little as the object of his fascination calmed. "Well, that's sort of complicated, actually. I'm not entirely sure how to answer."

Danny didn't looked away from her, his head cocked as he studied her. "She looks like a desert blonde, but..." He trailed off, engrossed in the moment but obviously still worried that he'd say something foolish.

"But then she should have bronze knees and toes?" Mac filled in, impresed that apparently Danny had been doing more with his free time on the Net than just messing around with Tony and Spencer. He saw Danny nod. "She's also bigger than a blonde, and she's still growing." He watched his son watching her, and felt another rush of pride and affection for this young man.

Danny looked up just then, and this time he caught the expression, but he wasn't sure what to make of it, so he shrugged and asked, "What is she?"

Mac took a deep breath and slipped his hands into the pockets of his lab coat. "There is no name for her at this point." Danny looked startled, and Mac smiled a little in understanding. "She's a cross-breed, the only one I've ever heard of; she may be the only one, period. I don't know. Do you remember Mernie Slombockle?" Danny shook his head. "That's okay, we'd barely started his case before you went to teach that first responder class. Mernie was our prime suspect in the poisoning death of an animal control officer--she'd died from exotic venom two days after they'd argued about his pets. Mernie was a self-taught scientist with a thing for genetics; he was also innocent. He'd spent years working on breeding stronger, more productive creatures with better immune systems. He was a pacifist; we had a couple of conversations, not very long or deep, but maybe the most healthy human contact he'd had in years. He told me about his work, about how close he thought he was to a breakthrough, about how he hoped that his research would one day help us find a way to improve prognoses for human patients. What Mernie didn't tell me was that he was dying--there was no funeral, but he'd made a short will that was found when his body was discovered; he left everything, his notes, his research, his creatures, to me. By the time I got there, most of them were beyond help, but a few, like this one," he nodded to the box, "survived, and she and two of her cousins seem to be thriving. I have a friend in Texas, a forensic entymologist who moonlights as a high school chemistry teacher, and we ran every test we could dream up--that little girl there is as healthy as an Olympian, and she's got an attitude to match. And apparently, you're her new toy. Kind of a cute one, too." He waited a beat, then grinned when Danny, not sure he'd actually heard the last part, looked up; Mac winked at him, then glanced down and chuckled as their new addition tried to reclaim Danny's attention. "Anyway, here's what we know for sure: she's not quite two years old, she's both burrowing and arboreal, she's got traits from at least four species--we've identified the desert blonde, the Brazilian black, and a couple of others, and we're still not sure where the blue comes from, since Mernie's notes might as well be written in Aramaic--she's obviously smarter than your average bear, and she's evidently a lot more social than I thought."

They leaned in from different angles, watching her in companionable silence for a couple of minutes, and then Danny stood up, unconsciously moaning at the discomfort the motion caused over raw nerve endings. Mac watched him, unwilling to apologize for being faithful as a father but still concerned with his son's hurting.

Danny didn't notice any of this. "Mac," his voice brought the older man back to the moment, "d'you think I could...?" He mimed putting his hand into the box to touch her, excitement clearly warring with shyness and worry that he might mess up anything he touched; Mac's heart clenched at that.

"It's worth a try." Danny smiled a little and lifted the lid, very slowly lowering his hand. His new friend watched, still as stone, allowing him to approach and even stroke her back without so much as a twitch. After a minute of easing into this new level of contact, Danny relaxed a little more, letting his hand lay limp on the sand as he grinned shyly at Mac. "I've never done this before." The young man's eyes were shining, and they held less hurt and uncertainty. As Mac watched, those eyes widened in surprise, and Danny's head whipped down. Mac followed suit, frowning and starting to move protectively toward Danny.

Danny held his breath and his reflexes as she explored his fingertips and palm, inviting herself onto his hand to examine the cuff of his lab coat. Mac glanced up sideways at Danny, and found the boy chewing his lip and looking giddy.

"Pick her up." Mac couldn't quite believe that he'd actually suggested that, but there it was.

"You sure?" Danny whispered. "I don't want to drop her."

"You won't." Mac whispered with gentle conviction. He knew, and suspected that Danny knew, that it wasn't a good idea to handle her much because even a short fall could kill her, but he had faith in Danny.

Danny proved that he was aware of her fragility when he lifted her slowly, stopping about fourteen inches above the island and dipping his head to watch her closely. She seemed to study him for a minute and then, as if satisfied with what she found there, she deftly turned herself around on his hand; it looked like she was observing her environment from her new vantage point, and crazy as it might be, the thought crossed both men's minds that she was filing away everything she saw. Both found themselves wondering what she'd do with the information. They were content to watch her, and she was content to perch on Danny's hand, seeming to trust that he'd take care of her. Danny felt such a rush of protectiveness for her, different than his protectiveness toward Mac and their friends, and he wondered if Mac and Flack felt nearly this strongly about him.

"Hey, guys, you'll never believe what I go--whoa! What the he--? Danny, dude, don't move, okay, just don't move! I got it, just don't move!" Flack himself had popped in looking for Mac on his way home for the night. He'd had a very long day at the end of a very long week, he was dead tired, and with what he was seeing now, he was sure that he wouldn't be sleeping any time soon.

The sight of his little brother standing stock-still with a giant tarantula on his hand scared Flack more than the two guns, the hunting knife, and the grenade he'd faced this week. The cop in him wondered why Mac hadn't already gotten Danny to safety, but the big brother in him took over and, knowing that he couldn't shoot it without hitting Danny, Flack quickly spotted and grabbed a cordless blacklight paddle, advancing slowly toward his friends and the spider. "Just hold still, Danny, I'll get it." He didn't stop to think that he was using his talk-down-the-poor-schmuck-with-the-gun voice; he didn't stop at all until Mac's voice breached his determined fog. "Mac, what--?" Mac had put so much authority into his order to stop that Flack had done just that, and was now staring into his friend's exasperated face.

"It's alright, Don. Just put down the light and stand down. Danny's fine; aren't you, son?"

Danny glanced up and grinned. "Yeah, I'm cool. Flack, you gotta see this!"

"Oh, I'm seein' it, alright, Danny boy, I'm seein' it just fine. Mac, what the he--? It's a tarantula!" Mac nodded, and Flack sputtered. "Mac, it's on his hand! There's a tarantula on his hand!" Mac's growing grin and the glint in his eyes were really starting to get under Flack's skin. Was he not speaking plain old New York English? What part of this did his super-nerdy, super-protective buddy not get? "Tarantula!" Flack thought he might strangle on the scared frustration--if he didn't strangle Mac first. He was all but yelling now. "Tarantula--as in huge, honkin' spider of death!"

Mac snickered.

Oh, that was it. That was just it. He was rescuing Danny, and then he was killing Mac. Flack swore and started forward with the light paddle, forcing himself to focus on the spider.

"Flack!" The bark was so sharp that Don stopped dead again, and this time Mac's amusement warred with irritation and warning.

"But, Mac--!"

Mac leveled a gaze at him. "Don, do you really think I'd let him anywhere near it if there was any real danger?" His tone was calming, but Flack could hear the shadow of hurt underneath the words, and all of that brought the cop back to his senses. He surveyed the situation, took in Danny's expression as the youngest of the three studied the spider on his hand, and Don visibly forced himself to take a step back and stand down.

"Sorry, Mac. I know." That was all Mac needed to hear, as Don had known it would be. The older man nodded once and turned his attention back to Danny and the tarantula.

"Wanna meet her?" Don looked up to see that Danny was looking his way.

"Uh, nah, thanks... I'm not really a..."

"Leg man?" Flack whirled to find Stella standing in the doorway, quirking an eyebrow and a smile at him. As he shifted in his collar, knowing that she'd never disrespect him but having to try hard to not feel like a wuss, she turned her crooked half-smile to the other occupants. "Hey, guys."

"Hey, Stella, ya wanna come say hi?"

Danny was as happy as a child on Christmas morning, and Stella couldn't help but chuckle. "No, thanks, Danny, I'm just fine where I am. She's... magnificent, though." No one missed her hesitation as she searched for the right word, walking the line between polite interest and squick, but everyone understood.

"That's cool. She is, isn't she?" He turned his hand slightly to see what the spider was doing with her right foreleg; she was languidly raising and lowering the leg. "Look, she's waving at you!"

Stella smiled tightly. "That's nice." She leaned her shoulder against the doorframe, folding her arms over her chest and settling in to enjoy the show.

She'd been there perhaps twenty seconds when Adam came skidding down the hall, narrowly missing her as he screeched to a halt in the doorway of the lab. "Dude, what's all the yelling ab--HELlo! Uh, Messer, dude, what's, uh, what's goin' on?" Adam's gaze was riveted on the spider, his eyes wide and wary.

"Hey, Adam. Wanna come meet Mac's new friend?"

Adam just gaped.

"I take that as a 'no, thanks.'" Mac teased, hands back in the pockets of his lab coat as he rocked from heels to toes and back, his earlier tension gone as he looked around, pleased with himself.

Having observed everyone present in her new realm at the moment, the spider turned herself around to look at Danny again, as if to check that her toy really was still there, before turning slightly to lift a foreleg toward Mac. "Hey, Mac, look, she does like you! Are you waving at Mac, huh, pretty girl?"

"Heh. I guess she is," Mac said as he moved closer, cocking his head and smiling down at the spider.

"Mac, there you are--I got those results, but I'm gonna have to run it again, they can't be right. Why's everyone standing around?" Lindsay eased her way into the lab, behind and around Adam, to take in the tableau. "Wow; new friend, Danny?"

Danny glanced up at her and grinned. "Mac's, but I'm borrowing her, or, uh, she's borrowing me, I guess. Come see."

Lindsay started forward to do just that, then stopped when her pager buzzed in the pocket of her lab coat. She stopped and checked it, then sighed. "Sorry, I have to go pick up a sample from the new intern. I'll be back." She turned on her heel and rushed out, clearly not pleased.

She was barely out the door before Syd came in, looking for Mac. The ME only got as far as opening his mouth before he saw the tarantula, and he guppied for just a moment before assembling his spectacles and moving to a distance of about six feet to peer at her. "Well, hello; who have we here?"

Danny shifted his weight, his hiss of pain drawing the attention of everyone but Syd, who was startled when the spider. who had turned to see her new visitors, spun back to face Danny, alarmed. Everyone was surprised by this, which assured a grateful young tech that his reaction was forgotten and he wouldn't be getting embarrassing looks and questions that would lead to even more embarrassing explanations. "I wish I could keep you around, hot stuff--you're kinda handy."

"Ohhh!" Everyone looked up at Lindsay's exasperated exclamation; the young woman had returned as promised, holding a pair of test tubes in one hand, and was staring at Danny in aggravation. After a couple of seconds, she turned and strode out again, and Stella used her shoulder as a hinge to swing out into the hall to ask if Lindsay was okay. "Oh, yeah, I'm just peachy!" the Montana girl replied. "I leave him for one case, and next thing I know, my boyfriend is stepping out on me with a spider!"

Everyone who knew her could tell that the talented tech wasn't really upset, but Danny still got a few warning looks when he craned his neck and half-shouted, "Hey, don't sweat it, sweetcheeks--you know I have a thing for blondes!" The blonde tech's response to that comment was amusing, creative, and something that Danny wouldn't have dared to say, at least not within Mac's hearing. As Lindsay went back to work on her case, the rest of the team chuckled.

Sheldon rode in on the wave of humor, and whatever he'd had on his mind made a gleeful escape when the ME-turned-CSI set eyes on the tarantula. The team rarely saw him move as fast as he did getting across the lab to stop inches from Danny's hand. The spider turned almost on cue to face her newest subject, and Sheldon's face split in a delighted grin. "Danny, you are officially my new best friend! Hi, big girl! What brings you to visit us?" He glanced up at Danny. "She a witness or a suspect?"

"Ha ha, very funny. She's just a visitor; Mac'll find her a good home somewhere." His voice grew quiet and sad with those words before he gathered his maturity and put on another smile. "But for right now, we get to show the lady a good time, don't we, pretty girl?" He turned his hand to look at the spider before turning her back to face Sheldon. "Sheldon, raise your hand." His friend glanced up at him, confused, but at Mac's encouragement, he complied, and sucked in a breath when the tarantula raised the same foreleg. Danny laughed as Sheldon looked startled. "Little player, are you?" He looked at Hawkes. "When I did it, I got the mirroring leg, not the matching one."

Sheldon grinned at him as he reached out a finger. "Your little friend has a sense of humor." He waited for Danny's permission, then moved the finger to stroke the spider's back, for which she held perfectly still.

"Ya mean Mac's little friend. She's his."

Mac turned to reorganize something at the corner station. "No, she's not."

Danny's brow furrowed as he watched Hawkes fall in love with her as he himself had. "Whaddya mean? You said Mernie left her to you. That means she's yours."

"No, she's not." Mac turned back to face his son.

"Then what are you gonna do with her? Have you already found her a home?"

"Yep. A good one, with someone I trust to take care of her and appreciate her unique nature."

Danny was obviously disappointed to have to say goodbye, but he was just as obviously beginning to accept the reality. He trusted Mac with more than his own life, so he kept his eyes on the tarantula's interaction with Sheldon, nodding once and asking neutrally, "So whose is she now?"

"She's yours."

The lab got so quiet that they could have heard a pin drop--or in this case, Danny's neck pop painfully as he whipped his head around, eyes huge and mouth gaping. "Mine?" He whispered, almost afraid that this was all some sort of joke. At Mac's nod and steady gaze, Danny slowly started to breathe again, while everyone else (including Lindsay, who'd snuck back in out of curiosity) noticed that his hand had remained rock-steady under the spider. While the rest of the team smiled at their friend's delight, Danny turned back to the spider. He glanced down at her box but obviously didn't want to confine her yet, so when Sheldon asked if he could try to hold her, Danny set aside his possessiveness, and raised a brow when the tarantula willingly crawled onto Hawkes's hand--and immediately turned to see Danny.

The young man didn't need any more prompting--he whirled and rushed the step-and-a-half to all but tackle Mac in a huge hug, forcing his dad back a step and making him laugh. "Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou! You are beyond awesome! She's really mine?"

Mac pulled back just enough to meet Danny's suddenly-shy eyes; he was beginning to suspect that this might be Danny's first pet, and he wasn't sure which bothered him more--that idea, or the fact that he hadn't known. He had to wonder what else he didn't know about his son. "Yes, she's really yours. That is, unless you'd really rather not--" He didn't get any farther before Danny cut off his air supply with another hug. As his eyes bugged out, Mac patted Danny's shoulder and then tugged gently on the young man's arm, and Danny let go, pulling back a bit with a sheepish grin.

"Sorry," he half-whispered.

"I'm not," Mac said with a grin and a wink. He hadn't seen Danny this happy since well before Ruben's death, if ever, and he wished he could capture that look in a bottle. He was a little worried at first when Danny pulled himself in a little, his grin melting away in confusion.

"But... but how did you...? I never..."

"Oh, but you did. Remember when you told me all about your little, heh, vacation with your friends? I do--the three of you loose in a zoo might be a frightening thought to me, but I remember what you said about your fascination with tarantulas."

Danny blushed a little. "But Mac, I... I don't even know why..."

Mac smiled a little and smoothed his hands down Danny's upper arms. "I think I do." He locked eyes with the younger man, running his hands back up to rest on the strong young shoulders. "Tarantulas have been villified for centuries, all but demonized in pop culture as vicious, relentless, with no purpose other than to terrorize and kill innocent people, but they're not. Very few are actually lethal to us, or even particularly dangerous. Oh, don't get me wrong--they all have venom; they'll kill if they have to, they're wired to survive, but they're maybe the most misunderstood creatures in our world. The truth is, they're also some of the most beautiful creatures on Earth--you just have to be willing to really see them."

Sheldon hated to shatter the moment--anyone with half a brain could tell that the tough-as-nails former Marine they knew as their fearless leader wasn't really talking about the tarantula--but he didn't have much of a choice; his cell phone was vibrating under the elbow of the hand that held their new leggy friend, which wouldn't have been a big deal if not for the big spider rearing up on his hand with each buzz. "Uh, guys..."

Still partially attached to each other, Mac and Danny turned to face their friend, and Danny got his first look at another of his new pet's idiosyncracies--while most of her body was black and covered with thick white hair and her knees and toes were a bright metallic blue, her underbelly was violent royal red, shading in to burgundy near the junctures. The young tech blinked a few times as he moved to take her from Sheldon, who was trying to soothe her vocally while attempting to retrieve his cell phone with his opposite hand. Lindsay, apparently unafraid to be near the spider, moved in and grabbed his phone for him so that he could take the phone as soon as Danny had reclaimed his pet. Mac insisted on checking Sheldon's hand and noticed that the tarantula hadn't bitten even when frightened and stressed, which reinforced his confidence in giving her to his son.

A succession of pagers buzzing, beeping, chiming, and, in Adam's case, demanding attention in a sultry feminine voice, effectively broke up the show, sending reluctant investigators back to their investigations. Hawkes shrugged an apology to the guys and then leaned in toward the calmed spider. "Hey, pretty girl, sorry about that. Uncle Sheldon wouldn't hurt you--it was just my mean ol' cell phone. I'll see you later, okay? Save a wave for me!" He straightened and looked at his friends. "Looks like the Vornacek case just got more complicated; the brother just confessed, even though he was in police custody at the time of the murder, so now I have to go back and reprocess all of the evidence from the clothing and fingernails. Take lots of pictures of your girl here, okay? And Danny, start thinking about a name--we gotta call her something."

Danny was already thinking as Sheldon left the lab. "Hmmm. Something. What do you think of that for a name, huh, sweetheart?" The spider turned to look at him, and he could have sworn he saw scoffing. "Okay, Something's out. Hmph."

"I hate to tell you this, but you're going to have to think and work at the same time. You've still got an open case, and she needs to rest and rehydrate." Mac was placing a petrie dish of water inside the box as he spoke, and Danny reluctantly set her back in her habitat.

"Sorry, baby girl; I'll be back soon, okay? Don't go kissin' any boys, you hear me?" Mac grinned as Danny playfully shook his finger at the spider. The older man waited until his son had disappeared down the hall before gently dropping his black USMC t-shirt back over the box and murmuring to the spider to rest.

It was several hours later, after Danny had finally asked for Stella's help only to hear her tell him that he'd done everything correctly and the problem was the evidence itself, after everyone on the team had taken a stab at finishing the case and failed, that the young man found himself working another case alongside Lindsay, enjoying their easy rhythm. As she was waiting for a machine to finish a run and he was eyeballing a chemical reaction, he tossed out, "I think I'm gonna call her Missy."

Lindsay stopped prepping samples for the next run and turned to look at him, hands on hips. "Please tell me that's not short for 'Mistress.'"

Danny shot her a startled look and then grinned, not having thought of that and thinking now how cute she was when she was exasperated. "What? Blonde, legs from here ta Jersey... what's not to pamper?" He sent her a wink. "Nah--Missy, short for Misunderstood. It suits her." He shrugged one shoulder, and Lindsay sidled up and hooked her elbow onto it.

"And having her suits you." She smiled affectionately, stroking her boyfriend's cheek with one finger. "She's your first, isn't she?"

He blushed and smiled. "Yeah," he said softly, and at that moment he was thinking not so much about the spider as about how Mac was the first person who'd ever really seen him and had made it possible for him to believe that others might, too.

"Well," Lindsay said, watching his eyes and guessing at the direction of his thoughts, "they say you never forget your first." She gave him a quick squeeze before going back to her samples. "Now," she said after a minute, "wanna tell me why you're limping?"

--

Epilogue

The next afternoon, as Mac and Danny were finishing 'dinfast' (Danny had fixed omelets and spaghetti as a joke, and the meal had turned out to be pretty good, as the last twenty-four hours had, despite the younger man's soreness) Mac's cell phone rang. 'I have got to change that ringer,' he thought to himself as he grabbed his plate with one hand and used the other to dig into his pocket. 'Can't hear it without expecting to see 333, and who needs that?' "Mac Taylor," he answered as he turned on the tap to rinse his dishes.

"Congratulations--you are officially the coolest dad on the block."

Mac snorted. "Derek, how's it going?"

"Apparently not as well as it is in your house." FBI Special Agent Derek Morgan chuckled. "I have to admit, I'm impressed--you solved a mystery without any test tubes or foam dummies. I'm so proud."

The wry proclamation had Mac rolling his eyes. "Thanks. I'll be sure to have that put on my headstone. 'Here lies Mac - He took a whack - Got in his kid's head - Too bad he's dead.'" His young friend's hearty laugh was worth the fact that his new little housemate had resolutely ignored him since he'd sent Danny back to work last night; the former Marine couldn't have said why that bugged him. As he bent to put his dishes in the dishwasher, he heard Spencer in the background, explaining something in words longer than Mac's last departmental budget meeting. "He sounds good."

"Yeah," Morgan said with marked fondness. "I'll tell you what, though--you tried to ruin it for all of us, but I won't let you. No way am I getting him a cat of any size."

This time, Mac laughed. "I don't blame you--there's nothing like living with a creature that's always looking at you like you need to be psychoanalyzed."

Morgan went along with the game, sputtering. "You know what, Mr. Big Stuff? Why don't you just go... fingerprint something!"

Mac was still chuckling to himself as he put the phone back in his pocket and closed the dishwasher, which Danny had actually remembered to set for a timed wash. He washed his hands and went to finish getting ready for work. He was about to give Danny his five-minute warning when the cell rang again.

"Taylor."

"I am not shelling out five hundred bucks to buy that boy a tarantula!"

Mac couldn't help but grin at the familiar exasperated bark. "Has Tony actually asked you for a tarantula?"

"No. Not yet." NCIS Supervisory Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs blew out a breath between his teeth. "It's not that I'd really mind one--I mean, at least they're quiet and they don't puke in your shoes. I had one when I was kid, and they're okay pets. There's just no way I'm paying that much money for something that's small enough to step on."

Mac snickered. "Well, then, I guess it's a good thing for you that Tony's fascination wasn't with tarantulas." He could practically hear that click in Gibbs's head.

"What? What fascination? What else would he get all worked up over?"

Mac grinned to himself, feeling just a little bit evil. He knew perfectly well that Tony would have 'gotten worked up over' Missy for Danny's benefit and not because he wanted one himself. It was also fairly obvious that either Gibbs hadn't paid attention to the vacation story, or he'd never asked for it, and knowing his Corps brother as he did, Mac would lay money on the latter, sure that the older man had only been focused on dealing with his son's indiscretions and then forgetting that, technically, the whole mess had started when Gibbs himself had started nattering at Tony to take some of his vacation time and take a break from work. Well, the guy couldn't really say he didn't deserve this. "Why don't you ask your kid when you manage to pull him away from whatever case you've got him on. Who knows, you just might learn something about your little boy's, heh, little fascinations." For once, he hung up before Gibbs could, and thought that it felt kind of good to have an edge over the gunny.

Mac told Danny about the phone calls as they got into the car, and Danny squirmed as they laughed all the way to the lab, half-jokingly listening for a an incredulous bellow from the direction of DC.

--