A/N: In hindsight, these first two characters would have been combined into a single opening chapter. At the time, I wanted to put out what is now Chapter 1 by itself to see if I was interested in continuing this story. I am, and so now we have this entry! Unlike my other story, Looking at the Sun, this one isn't story-rich and so we'll be jumping straight into the action. Also, as it's set in S4 (the other is set in S2) there's less need for me to work on developing characters as they're pretty fleshed out. That's not to say that we won't be exploring Chuck and Morgan and their relationship, but it won't take up too much of the story.

I hope you enjoy it!

Chapter 2 - Richie Rich

The sight that Chuck was greeted with when he entered the armory within Castle was something to behold. His jaw dropped as his brain scrambled, attempting to comprehend what exactly he was looking at.

Morgan Grimes was stood triumphantly, covered head to toe in body armor. Although, now that Chuck thought about it, he had no way of knowing if this really was his best friend. For all Chuck knew, he could be facing off against an intruder at this very moment.

Indeed, he could see that this man had concealed every inch of his skin with some form of Kevlar or thermoplastic resin. Chuck counted four bandoliers slung across the man's chest, akin to John Rambo, and he noticed three more strewn out on a nearby table.

Two SIG Sauer P229s were holstered on the man's hip, one on each side, and Chuck could have sworn he caught a glimpse of a Desert Eagle Mark XIX stuffed into the man's waistband behind his back. Noticing the ridiculous choice of firearm, Chuck immediately knew that he was not staring down one of Volkoff's men, or a cold-blooded assassin. This was definitely Morgan Grimes.

"Morgan, what the hell are you doing?" Chuck asked as he continued to eye his friend, suspiciously. He couldn't help but let out a chuckle as he recognized the ridiculousness of the situation.

"Dude, we need to be prepared." He replied, nonchalantly tossing a tactical Remington 870 in Chuck's direction. He gingerly caught the shotgun and instantly set it down on the nearby table.

"Morgan, stop!" Chuck exclaimed, throwing both hands up in the air. "Let me take a look at the feeds from the roof. I'm sure this is all a misunderstanding, we get people from the CIA and NSA landing here all the time."

Morgan began to follow Chuck out of the armory to a computer terminal, but the nerd herder stopped him.

"Buddy, take all that stuff off. You look ridiculous." He pointed out, gesturing at the vast amount of tactical gear. Morgan was struggling to walk with the weight of his equipment pressing down on the little man.

"Okay, fine," Morgan replied as he started to withdraw his body armor, carefully setting in down on the armory's table. A few moments later, he revealed himself looking reasonably normal, dressed in a checked flannel shirt and jeans. A single bandolier, however, was still securely firmed across his torso.

"Flashbangs? Smoke grenades? Do we reall-" Chuck started, but the bearded man quickly interrupted.

"Chuck, we can never be too cautious. Just let me have these, at least." Morgan pleaded.

"Fine. Now let's take a look at the feeds. Once we realize this is all a big mishap, we can get out of here." Chuck replied with a sigh. "I was thinking we could try a bit of Duck Hunt? No flashing this time though, I promise."

"Okay, I'm in."

Sitting down on a chair and pulling himself up to one of Castle's many workstations, Chuck quickly authenticated before pulling up the substation's live camera feeds. He made quick work of finding the right camera; he had made it his task a few weeks ago to rename all of the feeds to have meaningful names rather than "CAM_026" and "CAM_048".

Bringing up a live view of the roof onto the monitor, both men instantly knew something was wrong: three men in tactical gear were currently drilling their way into the roof's fire escape door.

"Dude! They're trying to break in!" Morgan exclaimed as he grabbed hold of Chuck and pointed at the screen.

"Yeah, I can see that Morgan," Chuck replied, his brain whirring as he tried to formulate a plan. He knew that Sarah and Casey were off in Moscow, so they would be of no use. For now, it was just him and Morgan.

"Err, Chuck?" Morgan asked, dragging him out of his thoughts. "Why are they speaking Russian?"

Sure enough, Morgan was correct. Chuck had only just realized that the feed was also relaying audio, and the men were indeed speaking Russian. He decided to switch to another camera feed, one with a clear view of the helipad, to try and attain any shred of information that could prove useful in their impromptu mission. Upon noticing the helicopter's tail number, Chuck flashed.

"Dude, did you just flash?" Morgan asked.

"Buddy, that aircraft is registered to one Alexei Volkoff," Chuck replied. He had tried to sound confident and assuring, but the look of fear growing on Morgan's face told him he'd failed. "Don't freak out."

"Okay. Well, let's go back to the armory and proceed with my plan. I reckon this..." Morgan added, waving his hands at the camera feed playing on the monitor. "...warrants body armor."

Morgan had sprinted off towards the armory as Chuck decided to look at the feeds for some more clues. Before he could get anywhere with his investigation, he heard his friend shout out.

"Um, Chuck? Why did you put the armory into lockdown?"

"Morgan, I didn't put the armory into lo-" Chuck had instantly got up from his chair to find Morgan. Now they were both staring at an armory with its entrances sealed, a red flashing light illuminating the room.

"This is not good Chuck. Try and unlock it?" Morgan asked, pointing at the iris scanner next to the door. Chuck tried to scan his eye, but it was to no avail. For whatever reason, the armory had gone into lockdown, and now they had no way to defend themselves.

"Well, should we leave?" Morgan inquired.

"No, we can't leave. We'll just be giving them free access to all of our secrets down here." Chuck replied.

"So, we need to stay and defend, right," Morgan said, his voice trailing off as the realization that they were in real, tangible danger hit him. "Oh my God. This is just like that Macaulay Culkin film, isn't it?"

"What, Richie Rich?" Chuck asked. He was only joking with Morgan, but as his friend's jaw dropped wide open, he knew his attempt at humor had fallen flat. "I'm joking Morgan. I know you meant Home Alone... 4."

"Such a response doesn't even warrant a reply," Morgan said, jokingly turning his back on his friend. But Chuck spun him back around to face him immediately; he knew they were just messing around, but now they needed to be serious.

"Morgan, we can do this," Chuck stated, meeting his friend's gaze. They both swallowed simultaneously, Adam's apples bobbing in unison. "It's time to be heroes."

A/N: There's one little clarification I'd like to make before I take this story forward any further. To stay true to Chuck's character (the 'not wanting to kill' part), this story will adopt the laws from the Home Alone universe where actions that would normally kill a man ten times over end up causing but a scratch. That way this story retains the parodic elements with Home Alone and, at the same time, stays true to Chuck's character.