Title: Testing the Mettle
By: Craig
Pairing: Jack/Ianto & Martha/Mickey
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Rating: PG
Note: Torchwood S4 AU
Disclaimer: Torchwood and Dr Who belong to the BBC and Torchwood was created by Russell T Davies. This is nonprofit fanfic.
Summary: Jack and Ianto have returned to Earth after spending some time away to find a changed Torchwood with new friends, new challenges and new relationships.

***

Sureforce Cardiff had a special distinction amongst Cardiff's security firms. Two of its employees had particular connections to the Torchwood roster.

As Andy Davidson put the coffee down, Mickey Smith grimaced: "Hey, it's not that bad, is it?"

"Someone's been cleaning his Luger near the coffee jar again. Haven't they, Rex?"

Rex Benton grinned sheepishly: "Aw mate, yex not on at me for keepin' me equipment polished?"

"Not when it interferes with our meal break, you don't. You need someone to keep your mind off firearm maintenance."

Rex' face fell and then Andy swallowed: "Mick? Tell me that isn't what I hope it's not...?"

But Mickey was already on his cellphone: "Martha? We've just spotted a Cyberman, vintage model, circa 1986. No, I don't know what it's doin' here. Okay, we'll stay put. Just be careful, love."

"You heard the lady, Rex? Rex? Gordon bennet. Once a UNIT squaddie, always a UNIT squaddie..."

As the Torchwood Range Rover screehed to a halt, Jack called: "Lois, tactical."

"It is a Mondas vintage type. Which may or may not be bad news."

"To hell with that. Mickey and Andy are in there. If you've faced off against them, any of you, tell me what we have to do to take them down."

"Well, the good news is that these particular cyberspecies are highly vulnerable to gold. And the other good news is that we have aurosynthetic DNA bacteria courtesy of the late Nyssa of Traken."

"Hang on lads, we'll be right with you..." Cam called into the receiver. He watched Ianto unload a bazooka:

"Can you fire that thing?"

"Oh yeah. Jack's shown me quite a few tricks..."

"And trained you well in firearms as well. Or was that T1?"

Lois cast an envious eye at the ordinance: "Isn't that overkill?"

"You weren't at the Battle of Canary Wharf." Ianto said curtly.

"Sorry I spoke" Lois said quietly.

"Ahem." Jack cleared his throat.

"Sorry, Lois. It's...personal, that's all."

She nodded: "As long as you realise that it's just as personal for Martha and me this time as well."

"I wouldn't want anyone to ever have to live through what I had to..."

Ianto replied. "Don't worry, mate. We're a team."

At the moment, there was a hail of gunfire from inside: "Shit! Who's Mr or Ms Triggerhappy bastard?" The four of them entered at a run, ready as ever for extraterrestrial combat.

They were Torchwood. They would prevail.

***

Cam called: "Okay, I did some reading up on the Doctors hostile alien species database. Turns out the vintage model is highly susceptible to radiation and is photosensitive, as well as vulberable to aurotoxins."

Ianto stood alongside him: "Can you localise the impact of this shell?"

"I'm not sure if it's going to work, Ianto. Still, I'll brace you as well."

"Everyone down!" Jack yelled.

There was a potent explosion, which blew a hole in the roof, as Lois and Rex Benton distracted it with tracer fire. It emitted a guttural stream of electronic noise and lurched toward them, as they evaded it. Ianto cursed:

"Damn it. Thought that wouldn't do any good."

"That's okay. Must have been therapeutic, though."

"Hell, yeah. Jack, get away from it..."

Martha called in from the Range Rover: "The lab's genetic sequencer has just finished. I'll need help loading it up and getting back here."

Rex broke cover: "That's me. See yez later, everyone..."

Jack Harkness engaged with it and stabbed a laser screwdriver into its eyesockets. With a roar of inhuman rage, it batted him away against a row of crates. He felt a rib snap and grimaced.

Ianto stared at the creature in hatred and vowed: "I will cause it extreme pain for that. That is, if that thing can feel..."

"If it helps, it's psi-null, so I can't telepathically incapacitate it either. Nor is telekinesis sufficiently akin to electromagnetic or nuclear energy. Metal blizzard time..."

Cam gestured and pieces and fragments of loose and detached metal converged on the oncoming Cyberman. He batted it aside as Ianto loosed another shell at it, as it roared its defiance and rage at them.

***

As the Range Rover screeched to a halt outside the Hub, Martha and Rex ran for the invisible lift that took them into the bases innards. In one of its auxiliary labs, an assembly process was well underway.

"Who was this Nyssa lady then?"

"A deceased companion of the Doctors. She was from a world that was highly sophisticated when it came to biochemistry. She...gave her life trying to stop the Cybermen..."

"Ianto looked damned angry."

"Is it any wonder? Lisa. And given what that creature did to Jack, I'd say he's playing hard and fast on this one."

"Cam's a hard'un, though. Is he involved with anyone?"

"Down, tiger. Let's worry about getting this stuff into ordinance and then back to the others..."

"Right. Take it this is preset to Torchwood requirements?"

"This is almost like old times, isn't it?" Martha almost grinned, until she noted the UNIT logo:

"Oh no. Not now..."

"Hellfire. They know how we feel about that Johnson bastard, it's why we quit."

"Yes, and a regrettable loss it was..." A familiar Australian accent filled the room.

"What do you want, Tegan?"

"Not to tread on your toes, Martha. I'm afraid that vintage piece of plastic and metal shit is one of ours, cryofrozen. Someone or something thawed it out and set it on you."

"We have the situation under control, Commissioner Jovanka."

"Look, I didn't want her here, either. Unfortunately, I'm one of three commissioners and I was outvoted."

"Loading finished. Let's go."

"Some other time, Tegan. Sorry."

"Just take care, okay?"

***

Rex screeched to a halt outside the abandoned warehouse: "What I'd like to know is what the hell possessed them to store that thing in a low security setting. Bluidy Thatcher and her cutbacks back in the eighties..."

Martha threw him the re-engineered bullets and grabbed her medical satchel. She hoped that the others had been able to weather the storm inside.

Lois ran to Cam: "I need some fast remedial action from you, mister."

"That would mean a telepathic experiential transfer, wouldn't it?"

"I'm just damned tired of being an ingenue and leaving the others to carry the can over this. Look at the state of Jack."

"You'll have a splitting headache at the end of today."

"I don't care. My people are in danger."

He sighed and closed his eyes, raising his hands to Lois' temples. At that moment, Rex ran in, throwing the ordinance to Ianto, Cam (who multitasked, loading it into Lois' Luger) and to Andy and Mickey on the gantry above.

"And Lois...? You do realise why Ianto has to finish it off, don't you?" Cam added.

She nodded: "Ianto? I'll get the legs. You get coup de grace."

The burly Welshman didn't speak. As Lois shot the creature in its hydraulic legs with their aurosynthetic-enhanced ordinance, inadvertantly spraying Cam and Rex with grimy but inert nanorepair fluid, deactivated as the gold-laden microtoxin spread and proliferated through the Cyberman's vulnerable anatomy.

Ianto's face was a study in cold fury. He ran toward the creature, yelling in pain, rage and anger, both for his mutilated, injured but regenerating lover in the corner of the factory, as Martha tended to him and for someone els. His fusillade of deadly bullets slammed into its head, cutting off its enhanced brain, then into its chest panels. It gave one last guttural cry as merciless Ianto kept firing into it, over and over, emptying his pistol.

Cam walked over and sprinkled some spare aurosynthetic viral particles onto a knife. He hugged Ianto briefly as the other's eyes filled with tears and pressed it into his hands. Ianto knelt and carved a word into the convulsing cyberbody.

LISA.

Then he walked over and hugged Jack, helping him to his feet as Lois swayed on his feet and Andy and Mickey ran down the gantry to their respective partners:

"You were brilliant!" Andy exclaimed as he embraced Lois. Cam cleared his throat:

"Someone's going to need intensive care."

"Come over here, man of mine..." Martha said as she finished tending to Jack's wounds. Mickey scowled at Rex:

"Next time, leave it to the professionals. And you stimk..."

"Bugger. An' we have no showers at this warehouse."

"We do back at Torchwood. Hope the others don't mind sharing a rover with two smelly buggers..."

Martha smiled to herself as she helped Jack to his feet and between Ianto and her, they helped the recovering, bandaged immortal into the front seat: "What?" Jack queried, still dizzy from blood loss and trauma sustained from his arduous battle with the Cyberman.

"Oh, this should be fun." Martha said slyly.

"Tell all, Mrs Smith."

"2 4 6 8, guess whose ex-UNIT team mate isn't straight...?"

"Then why didn't he respond to me when I called him gorgeous?"

"Noticed the way he's looking at tall, blond and brooding? And the way Cam's looking back at him?"

Ianto was still silent as they finished attending to the hostile extraterrestrial incursion site as Cam took care of the neccessary formalities and UNIT liaison matters and Mickey and Andy threw the creature into the boot.

And for once, recently, Jack reached across and held his lover as Ianto's reserve broke and he gave way to his sorrow. Even if he was anchor and rock to Jack Harkness, sometimes anchors need rope.

THE END

***