One of the few things Jackson possibly hates more than being forced to shut up by Jaebum (for no good reason, he insists, because it isn’t even like he talks a lot, anyway) is being forced off a hundred storey building into freefall of uncertain consequences.

Unfortunately for him, this is exactly what he’s made to do, because desperate times call for desperate measures, and he’d be damned if being cornered by machine gun fire off a rooftop doesn’t fall under very desperate times.

The first thing he thinks of is gonna die, gonna die, I’m gonna die, before he remembers that he’s a professional, trained to be tactful and calm in situations like these, to strategise the best solution in the shortest time, so he focuses on the subject at hand.

Mark has a really nice , he observes gratuitously, about ten feet into their plummet down. And oh yeah, we need to get the case on our evac ride out.

“Stop looking at my ,” Mark shouts into the radio, and Jackson splutters.

“This is so not what I need to be hearing before I die,” Bambam complains next. Jackson glares. He hates them all.

It’s a precious second later that they hear the low hum of an engine they all recognise, though, and snap back into action at once, Mark shouting out a there, it’s getting closer, falling into formation in the air as the dropship (the real one, this time) lines up close by, falling in tandem with them, cargo bay wide open.

“We’ve got to get in closer!” Jackson’s yelling, and Mark’s urging a hand forward, trying to get a grip on the body of the vehicle.

He’s forced to draw back, however, at the rattle of gunfire that disrupts them- a spread firing dangerously close actually hitting the sides of the ship, and it’s only when Jackson hears the low curse of pain in the radio that he looks over to see the case whirl out of Mark’s now bleeding hands.

“Case!” Mark bellows, injured hand clutched in the other, and Bambam’s quick enough to grab it as Jackson twists his rifle out from behind him, firing into the cockpit of the offending helicopter.

They’re dangerously close to the ground now, and the sides of the building are getting closer to them as the structure gets wider on the way down. Bambam’s aligning himself towards the cargo bay, case clutched tight to his chest, and Jackson grabs his shoulder, ready to push him in if the opportunity arises, rifle still aimed and searching for the last helicopter.

“Hold on to him!” Mark’s voice comes into the radio, and Jackson barely has the time to make sense of what he’s saying, let alone get a proper grip on Bambam, before he turns to see Mark kick hard against the side of the building.

His shoulder’s braced against his body, and the sharp protrusion sinks hard into Jackson’s side, sending both him and Bambam spiralling into the cargo bay, and Jackson’s winded for a moment when he tumbles clumsily into the cold, hard space, Bambam in his arms.

Panic explodes, however, as the ship tilts violently and suddenly, and he realises it’s pulling up, it’s pulling up and leaving without Mark, and he stumbles to his feet, grabbing one of the bars on the side for support.

“Cargo bay doors now closing, secure objective in the designated safe zone,” the order over the radio’s made clearly even through the rush of wind, decisive and firm. Jackson, of course, ignores it, instead roughly grabbing the talkie connecting the cargo bay to the cockpit.

“Get the ship back down there!” he doesn’t remember ever shouting this loudly, feeling like his throat’s about to tear itself to pieces. “Mark’s not on yet, he’s-…”

A cry of pain rips through the radio, and both Jackson and Bambam freeze, bodies rigid, chests heaving with their breaths, fearing the worst. But then-…

“Holy ,” Mark’s voice comes in, laboured and breathless, and Jackson almost melts into a puddle of jelly on the floor right then.

“Mark, dude, how the hell are you alive?” Jackson’s pressing the earpiece in, straining to hear above the whistle of the wind around the space, absently kneeling to help Bambam up. “Alive as in, not a pile of spaghetti bolognaise on the floor right now?”

“Ow,” Mark groans, and the two of them hold still for a moment, paying rapt attention. “You won’t believe who I’m with, guys, this is ing ridiculous-…it’s Yugyeom, I’m with Yugyeom right now.”

“Is he in a copter?” Jackson asks in disbelief, while Bambam’s eyes widen until it’s almost comical. He was so not going to lose out on hijacking an enemy copter to some kid. Mark snorts.

“That’s the best part. We’re not.”                         

*

Yugyeom had realised about 0.32 seconds after lobbing Bambam up that it probably wasn’t the best thing he could’ve done for the piping he was holding on to, because it’d slid by a dangerous margin, metal groaning against the broken concrete.

Don’t kill me, please, is Yugyeom’s first instinct. I still haven’t beaten Bambam’s high score in Halo Wars multiplayer. I can’t die like this.

He regrets not climbing further to try to grab the concrete edges, bloodied hands be damned, because it’s only a few more seconds of pathetic clinging before the piping gives even further, and Yugyeom’s eyes widen.

.

He makes one last grab for any solid surface, any at all, as the piping finally breaks, and his fingers manage to close on a glorious amount of nothing before he feels gravity claim him, and the plummet begins.

Good grief, this might be it, he thinks, spiralling messily through the first ten feet down. Then, I should’ve just had that last chocolate shake before the mission.

He’s spreading his arms and legs, trying to create as much resistance as possible, and it’s then he realises how long a drop it actually is to the bottom, and feels oddly burdened.

I’m sorry for breaking your iPod speakers, Mark hyung, he chooses to think solemnly in these last moments. I’m sorry for making fun of your emotional ineptitude, Jaebum hyung. I’m sorry for eating all your pork dumplings that one time, Jackson hyung. I’m sorry for-…

A nudge against his foot brings his attention to the fact that bodies are falling- Bambam’s work from up there, no doubt, and amidst the desire to scoff, an idea springs into his head.

Okay, I take that all back, I’m not sorry for anything, he thinks contentedly, grabbing two of the bodies and roughly bunching them together with the short piece of cable looped around his waist, straightening them out, until they form a shield, of sorts.

There’s a level he remembers from studying the layout of the building- an open-air garden level for leisure and recreation or whatever, one that, very importantly, doesn’t have a window that might possibly give him a concussion when he does what he’s planning to do next.

He squints below, watching the one open-air level approach, and sighs, taking a grenade out from the pouch behind him, a gun in his other hand.

This is going to hurt me.

Yugyeom bites the pin, securing the human shield close to him, before tossing the explosive out in front of the shield, getting his gun out immediately after to let loose a spread of blind shots, catching the grenade on the second one.

The explosion is tremendous, slamming first into the human shield Yugyeom’s constructed, then into him, propelling him forcefully into the safety of the open-air level as desired.

What is not desired is the pain that sparks like fireworks when he hits the miscellaneous furniture and random potted plants on the level, and Yugyeom’s wheezing for the first few minutes he’s sprawled on the ground, forcing the spikes of pain down, wondering what he’s fractured and if the damage is reparable.

He thinks he blacks out several times there, blinking in and out of consciousness, trying to clear his head and assess the damage. He doesn’t know how long it is before he actually manages to try to sit up, albeit shakily, checking his head, neck, back, then his limbs, relieved when he’s confirmed that nothing drastic has happened to his facial features (what a shame, Bambam would’ve sniped if he were here). While Yugyeom’ll be dragging his bruised and battered hide to the infirmary to stay there for the next three days or so, it’s certainly better than ending up an unfortunate human trash bag on ground level.

His head is spinning, white threatening to cloud over his vision from the sound of the grenade, and he touches his ear blearily, hoping not to feel blood.

Much to his relief, he doesn’t feel anything liquid- instead his fingers prod the earpiece, and he taps it insistently, hoping it’s still working. He’s planning how best to make Bambam feel as guilty as possible for letting him fall, when he realises he’d given his mic to Bambam back up there, and groans.

On the bright side, though, his earpiece crackles to life, so he won’t exactly be going into this blind.

“Five o’ clock!” he swears he hears someone yell into their radio the moment it’s operational.

Goodness, how long was I out for? It can’t be past noon. Yugyeom taps the radio a bit more, ears still buzzing from the explosion, before he tunes into something a lot more interesting.

“Stop looking at my !”

Okay, hyung, he thinks, absently checking his equipment as he waits for context of some sort to explain why anyone would be looking at Mark’s (actually, scratch that, it’s probably Jackson, and there’s probably no good reason). Predictably, none comes. Instead-…

“This is so not what I need to be hearing before I die.”

Die-…that doesn’t exactly sound ideal, especially when Yugyeom almost killed himself thrice trying to save Bambam that day. It’s then he realises the buzzing in the radio isn’t all in his head- it’s wind, wind resistance, and that means they’ve decided to join Yugyeom’s crew and try out sky diving without the parachutes or the harnesses, probably not by free will, which means (he lets out a put upon sigh here) he probably should do something to try to save their sorry behinds.

He limps over to the railing to peer up, confirming that the three fast approaching skydivers-sans-parachutes are indeed fighting helicopter gunfire and trying to get into the dropship, and groans, looking around the cheerfully green level for a semblance of a plan.

That’s when his eyes catch the hulking, polished, open air mid-size Wrangler Jeep sitting on the display stand in the centre of the level, “Go Off-Road!” put up in a merry sign with faux foliage surrounding it, and lets out a breath of laughter, before starting to limp towards the vehicle, wondering just how crazy today is going to get for him.

Very crazy, he concludes, about two seconds after the two seconds it’s taken him to hotwire the vehicle, counting down neatly the time it’ll take for anyone to pass this level on the clock in his head, before revving the engine and gripping the steering wheel uncertainly.

Very, very crazy.

*

(The mission log of what he does next is ranked somewhere near the top of the list of things they tell new recruits back at the Academy (not much younger than himself) to never, not unless they’re incredibly crazy or dumb, ever do.

He calls it an excellent combination of physical calculations, bravery, and pretty damn awesome driving skills for a minor.

Yugyeom almost doesn’t want to part with the Jeep once he and Mark are three rooftops away and heading towards the secondary rendezvous point at the docks. This leads to a tedious argument akin to one a father would have with a rebellious son wanting to bring home a pet tiger.

Mark eventually wins by saying that Yugyeom doesn’t have a legitimate license, not in any country and certainly not in Japan, (not counting the six he’s attained illegally using fake IDs, including one to pilot a jet plane) and Yugyeom is forced to bid the Jeep a teary farewell at the pick-up point.)

*

Somewhere much higher up in the air, with an actual parachute this time, Jaebum realises about one second out from the helicopter that he doesn’t actually know how he’s going to do this.

Youngjae’s still cuffed. Jinyoung is unconscious. They have one parachute between the three of them, and while Jaebum would give it up to save them both, there’s no way both of them would be able to hang on through the initial jerk once the parachute inflates while they’re incapacitated like this.

He’s desperately running solutions through his mind when he draws closer, relieved to note that despite the terrifying freefall and the handcuffs, Youngjae’s still managed to hold onto Jinyoung, making his job a lot easier than it would’ve been if they’d been separated. Youngjae’s eyes widen once he sees Jaebum, and his mouth opens, shouting out something that’s stolen immediately by the wind rushing in their faces.

“I can’t hear you!” Jaebum draws as close as he can get, till he’s got one hand on them both, feeling some semblance of security at the fact. It’s then he realises Youngjae’s shouting out a string of numbers, trying to twist his body to show Jaebum the cuffs, and oh-…

Right, he’d forgotten to calibrate the fact that Youngjae’s a genius, and somehow managed to mentally hack the electronic cuffs without actually touching the display panel. Something else that’ll make his job a lot easier.

Jaebum swallows his panic, then, forces all fears of impact out of his mind, flipping open the display panel and punching in every number and letter that Youngjae shouts, barely audible over the wind, and his fingers are shaking when he gets the last button, and the cuffs break loose.

Youngjae grabs the straps of Jaebum’s harness once the cuffs come off, pulling Jinyoung’s motionless body in closer to them, eyes wide with barely-suppressed fear and expectation of what are we going to do, how are we going to get out of this?

Jinyoung’s still unconscious, face pale, blood spattered from an injury along his hairline, and Jaebum feels a stab of guilt at making him go into the copter first. He aligns him gently in between them both, gesturing quickly for Youngjae to hold onto him.

“When I pull the strap,” he shouts over the wind, making a pulling motion near the parachute. “There’s going to be a jerk, so you have to hold on tight, okay?”

Youngjae nods hastily- he’s been trained for basic fieldwork, sure, but Jaebum knows for a fact Youngjae had hacked the system to fake his results so he could pass without actually doing most of the final examinations. He’d forged a whole statement under Jaebum’s name saying he’d “surpassed expectations for the marksmanship assessment”, when in reality he’d be lucky to shoot point blank and hit anything at all.

Jinyoung’s head lolls as they secure their grip around him, and Jaebum feels his stomach flip-flop unpleasantly at the approaching buildings below them. “I’m pulling, one, two-…”

He gives the strap a final tug, bracing as the parachute rises behind him, arms tight under Jinyoung’s arms, supporting the three of them, and as the parachute finally fills out, there’s a breathtaking tug as expected.

Jaebum’s biceps burn at the sharp tug, but he strains to keep supporting the two of them, Youngjae clinging on tight to the straps of the parachute whilst holding onto Jinyoung now that the drop’s lulled to a more gentle descent.

The flat, open surface of one of the low-lying facilities below now seems like everything Jaebum could ever ask for, and he counts down the seconds in his head until they hit blessed, solid ground.

Youngjae’s apparently even more eager than he is, because he drops when they’re a few feet above ground, stumbling magnificently and tumbling to his knees, and the relief of one less body makes its presence felt on Jaebum’s arms at once.

It’s unfortunate, then, that the wind, on a capricious whim, decides to choose that moment to pick up, and Jaebum curses as the parachute lifts up behind him, dragging him off his feet, and he struggles momentarily with Jinyoung in his arms, fighting to get the parachute off.

He’s despairing his fate when he realises the not-so-unconscious person he’s holding is moving, turning around groggily, hand worked into his back pocket, and Jaebum flinches, eyes closed, as Jinyoung lifts his knife above both their heads in one swift movement to cut them loose, before letting the weapon clatter to the floor some distance away when they tumble down, breathing hard, eyes screwed shut.

“There’s a reason,” Jinyoung says firmly, though faintly, after a few seconds of catching their breath. “Why I’m in charge of aviation, and you’re better off planning our land missions.”

“I just saved you,” Jaebum wheezes in a groan, struggling up to see Youngjae running over anxiously, his step still a little unsteady, and Jinyoung rolls over, flopping back on the rooftop, eyes half-closed, revelling in some much-needed horizontal ground level time.

“Group hug,” he initiates with a grimace, pulling Youngjae down once he’s close enough, beaming weakly, and Jaebum lets out a bubble of laughter, not bothering to get up yet, unable to believe they’re all alive.

Youngjae jumps, though, as there’s a loud patter of gunfire, and Jaebum’s struggling off at once, squinting up at the copter hovering some distance from them, gunman raining bullets closer and closer to them. A hundred thoughts are going through Jaebum’s mind at once, ranging from oh the case they’d better have gotten the case onto the evac ship to retreat, cover, need to secure the area.

Then there’s two clean shots, and the gunman topples out, plummeting somewhere beyond their line of sight, and Jaebum turns pensively to look at Jinyoung, who’s glaring the copter down, gun aimed at the empty spot behind the machine gun.

“Group hug,” Jinyoung hisses venomously, half at the pilot, who decides it’s best for everyone that he quietly excuse himself at this point, before doing an about turn and high tailing it out of here while he still can, and Youngjae snuggles happily up to Jinyoung at the retreating sound of rotor blades, while Jaebum slumps beside them, grinning.

Calling for evacuation can wait for a second.

*

It’s two days in the Osaka base before any of them feel sufficiently equipped to start operating as per normal again.

Normal by their definition, anyway.

Jackson sprawls out luxuriously on Jinyoung’s cot, before he’s neatly kicked off onto the floor and left to sulk his way over to Mark’s bed to the sound of laughter.

Yugyeom’s arguing with Bambam about something again, probably about who would get to use the bottom bunk once they’re back at home base and how offensively pink Bambam’s toothbrushes always are. By the medical staff’s calculations, the maknae would have to stay in the infirmary the longest out of any of them, Mark coming in as a close second, and when Bambam expressed his awkwardly firm insistence on staying that duration, the rest of them sort of followed suit, despite knowing about the boredom that would quickly ensue.

Youngjae’s curled up miserably on the bed beside Mark’s, having promised Jaebum that he’d take up refresher courses for all the fieldwork assessments and hence regretting life decisions, and the cozy room bursts into raucous laughter as Bambam leaps onto the bed from Yugyeom’s, effectively bouncing Youngjae off with a yell onto the floor.

This laughter dims to a serious hush, however, as the door opens and Jaebum walks back in from the overall mission debrief, lips thin, sighing in exhaustion. All eyes are on him as he settles on the chair beside Yugyeom’s bed, slumping back, stretching his legs out.

“Well?” Jinyoung’s trying not to sound too anxious, and Jaebum cracks open an eyelid.

“I wasn’t demoted, big surprise there,” he says, and there’s a collective sigh of relief. “Apparently my blatant disregard for the mission objective will be overlooked due to the fact that I recovered valuable JYP Academy assets,” he points in the vague direction of Youngjae for a moment, who grumbles a bit at being called an asset. “And the case was secured eventually, so. Things are okay.”

“No one’s gotten down on their knees to thank me yet,” Mark says pointedly.

“I can get down on my knees to thank you,” Jackson waggles his eyebrows, and Jinyoung whacks a pillow into the back of his head with surprising strength for someone who’s been bedridden for almost a day, with a death whisper of there are minors here, and Yugyeom and Bambam laugh excitedly from their beds, eagerly looking on for more.

“Uh, hyung, about the fieldwork assessments,” Youngjae starts hesitantly, from where he’s now seated primly at the foot of Yugyeom’s bed. “Actually, uhm, I’ve been thinking about it-…”

“And you’re going for the refresher courses,” Jaebum says sternly. “Physically.”

“It’s okay, Jae,” Jackson rounds the bed, clapping a hand on his back, sending a dirty look over at Jinyoung. “We’ll all be here to help with the training. It’s not like your hand-to-hand combat’s all that bad, anyway.”

“Yeah, you almost came in top for evasive manoeuvres during our last group assessment,” Yugyeom cackles, nudging Youngjae with his foot under the blanket, smile disappearing one second later, however, at the look on the older boy’s face. “Oh, , I didn’t mean it, don’t hack my Xbox account, please, I just got past the third Boss, hyung-…”

“There’s a line, Gyeom, and you’re toeing it,” Youngjae says darkly, before retreating to his little ball of misery once more. “Hyung, it’s so unfair, Donghyuk from YG Institution, he faked all his physical assessment scores-…”

“That’s Hanbin’s problem,” Jaebum says unconcernedly, eyes closed. “Training studio, tomorrow, 7am. Let’s get this over with.”

Youngjae collapses sideways onto Yugyeom’s bed, curled into a snail shell, whining loudly, and this is apparently Bambam’s cue to pounce on him, eliciting a yell, that just gets louder as Jackson joins in on top of them both enthusiastically.

Jaebum’s forced to his feet at the dirty glare the nurse shoots him from behind the curtain, reluctantly peeling the two most unnecessarily excitable members off their shell-shocked, flattened tech specialist, depositing them on Mark’s and Yugyeom’s beds respectively so Youngjae can breathe, and Jinyoung scowls, gesturing for the younger boy to join him.

“Anything else the directors had to say, hyung?” he asks, once the noise has subsided a bit, a battered Youngjae gathered protectively to his chest, and Jaebum shrugs.

“New assignment, once we get back to the Daegu base, week after next,” he says, and the rest snap to attention, some a little more reluctantly than others.

“Another one already?” Mark says with a resigned sort of annoyance.

“They know what we’re made of,” Jackson puffs out his chest. “We’re hot property now!”

“Does this mean I can skip some of the final assessments?” Youngjae asks hopefully.

Jaebum shrugs again, with more emphasis this time, as he reclines back on Jinyoung’s bed, his feet up on the neighbouring bed, ignoring Youngjae’s question as he lets out an invasive sigh.

“This is our job, guys, this is what we do.”

A moment of dramatic, post-war silence follows. Then-

“Damn straight,” Jackson nods.

“Shut up, Jackson,” Mark says tiredly.

“Make me,” Jackson grins, then, and Jinyoung almost throws the fruit bowl at him, almost, because Youngjae manages to stop him in time, and Yugyeom and Bambam are rolling on the bed, laughing, the maknae clutching his chest, trying not to mess up the treatment for his fractured rib.

This time, Jaebum doesn’t bother getting up to do damage control, instead smiling, letting the mirth cushion them, insulate them from what they are, what they do- he’ll let them have their fun, this once.

Heaven knows they need it, anyway.

________________________________________

a/n: yes so that ends that \o/ hehe so uhm. was it okay? i rewatched jurassic park today and then looked at my fic and contentedly decided it wasn't so overly dramatic after all so yes

cheers!!!!

thank you guys for your wonderful comments, the encouragement is appreciated more than you can imagine ^.^ hope this lived up to your expectations? and uhm if you guys would like more of this au, maybe something more light hearted and involving other groups (???? this is dumb) (what am i doing) (ur talking to urself shut up angel) (ok) then uhm let me know!!! yes \o/

hope you guys have a great day, thanks for reading <3 ^.^