Fiction: Taskforce Part 1
Dec. 24th, 2009 12:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kethniName: Taskforce part 1
Pairing: Audrey/Nathan, mentions of Matt/Mohinder
Rating: 18
Warnings: Swearing, swearing, sex, swearing, swearing
Note: For![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
perdiccas with huge thanks for the prompt, and thanks to boudecia7, whom I never thank enough for her editing, support, and general awesomeness.
Summary: Having an ability is a fact of life for thousands of Americans. Most of them are decent folks. To cope with the rest, there's the Specials Crime Taskforce.
Word count: 4759
The weather in New York today will be a balmy 82 degrees with fourteen hours of sunshine. This month’s weather is brought to you by Morelli ice cream. It’s not summer without Morelli ice cream.
It’s not fucking summer though is it? It’s the end of December and that’s only summer if you’re on the other side of the damn planet. Just can’t leave things alone. Someone somewhere always has to screw about with the natural laws and shit. I’ve seen enough movies to know that never ends well. They keep paying the damn guy to mess with the weather and sooner or later we’re going to fly off into the fucking sun or somesuch.
Traffic news: listeners are advised that due to the continuing protest outside the headquarters of the Specials Crime Taskforce...
Don’t know why I listen to the damn radio anyway. It’s always bad news.
I go to the bathroom, have a shower, peer at myself in the mirror. Eyes like poached eggs, hair like straw, fuck Audrey don’t you just look like sex on a stick? Not that I was ever what you’d call glamorous and the hours we work now... but that’s the price of success. We’ve got a ninety percent solve record and that is money in the fucking bank let me tell you. We’ve got one of the best solve records in the county, fuck, in the country and they can’t take that away.
Of course, if we were less successful we probably wouldn’t have a couple of hundred assholes parked outside our headquarters. The ones who’re protesting about ‘human rights abuses’ can go piss up a wall, the Supreme Court back our play so go fuck yourselves, it’s the anti-Specials and the Specials protesting about ‘people of ability turning on their own kind’ that stick in my throat. Things are tense enough now Joe Public knows some of his fellow citizens can read his mind, or walk through walls, or fly, without all these ‘them and us’ bullshit. But there’s always some asshole who’s just waiting to slice the population into ‘the right kind of people’ and ‘the wrong kind of people’. And the more they slice it the fewer of the population turn out to be the ‘right’ kind and the more turn out to be the ‘wrong’ kind.
Jesus! I swear there are three times more assholes out here than there were yesterday. The regular uniforms have got them corralled apart now. The civil rights camp, the anti-Specials, the pro-Specials... don’t these people have any other fucking thing to do? There are Specials all over the damn world, you’d think somewhere there was something more exciting to wank about. The uniforms wave my car through and some fucker ducks the barricades to start banging on my window and screaming, ‘sub-human!’ I jump out of the car but he’s dragged away before I can show him who’s fucking sub-human. And then some damned news crew stick a camera and a boom mic in my face.
‘Do you work in the Special Abilities Taskforce Ms...?’
‘Get the hell out of my way!’
‘Do you have an ability...’
Maybe we could dig a tunnel or something. Our own subway stop. Parkman could probably find someone who could do it.
They wanted to give us one of these ‘modern’ places, all stark lighting, glass and chrome. Fuck that shit. I spend more time at work than at home so I’ll be fucked in the ass before I work in some museum piece. Technically, I’m supervising agent but Parkman needs fuck all supervising and the others...
Suresh is impossible to supervise. Half the time he doesn’t even notice he’s being yelled at. He’s always playing around with test tubes or Bunsen burners or knee deep in guts. He does most of the forensics stuff; fingerprints, blood splatter, DNA testing, computer modelling for ballistics and that kind of thing. He’s in his lab now, probably been there all night knowing him, in his undershirt and elbow-length gloves, making a plaster impression of a footprint. Provided you don’t try and steer him he’s easy enough to keep. Make sure he eats and has enough access to Farscape DVDs and he’s happy as Larry.
Peter Petrelli, well, it’s a good job he’s so damn pretty and so damn useful. He’s forever wandering off, forgetting what he’s supposed to be doing, not to mention getting distracted by every shiny thing that catches his eyes. He’s medical officer, as well as patching up injuries, which we pick up entirely too often, he monitors Parkman’s interrogations and helps Suresh with the bloodier stuff like autopsies. He’s also our transport, when he can remember where we’re supposed to be going, and let me tell you, teleporting makes you wonder how the hell you ever flew coach. He’s not turned in yet, probably wandering around trying to work out where he is, but his little office is full of toy dinosaurs and pictures of racing cars. Got to keep your eye on him or there’s no telling what he’ll do.
Technically Nathan Petrelli, Peter’s older brother, isn’t affiliated with us but he’s the Special Prosecutor. Ha! ‘Special’, in all uses of the word. We catch ‘em and he prosecutes them, he’s a bastard too. Nails the fuckers to the door every time. He’s not admitting anything officially but everyone knows that he’s a Special, they just don’t know what his ability is, and he’s not telling.
We have a central area, the case room, with the big table and the boards covered in photographs, copies of statements, maps and all the paraphernalia of our current investigations. There are lots of comfy chairs, this is where we have for what passes for meetings, and right now there’s a box of fresh pastries on the table and a fresh pot of coffee with a couple of mugs already used. Those two add up to one thing; Parkman’s in already.
There’s a whole bunch of rooms off the case room: offices, labs, interrogation room, small lock-up, first aid room, showers, bathroom, all the regular stuff.
And that’s it, four of us in a dozen or so rooms. All those assholes protesting outside, all the chaos spreading out across the whole city, all for the four of us.
Nah, that’s bullshit. They’re here for Parkman.
I dig out a maple and pecan Danish then grab a mug of coffee and load it with sugar. Parkman’s not in his office, which is mostly where he stores files and pokes at his computer. Sulky and petulant as he can be he’s a gregarious type. Not chatty unless he’s nervous but he likes people around him. Me, I can take people or leave them but Parkman likes people, worries what they think about him. Suresh has this theory abilities are influenced by personality, so Parkman worries about what people thinks and he’s a telepath, and Peter Petrelli is Mr Emo and he’s an empath.
Sure enough, he’s hanging around in Suresh’s lab. He’s having a coffee and eating a vanilla Danish, watching Suresh clean up, and listening to him babble on.
‘Hey.’
‘Hey Audrey,’ Parkman says, waving a piece of Danish.
‘Good morning, Agent Hanson,’ Suresh says, sitting on his desk cross-legged and reaching for his mug of coffee. ‘Detective Parkman has been up for a while.’ He waggles his eyebrows.
I sit in his office chair and roll my eyes at the wallpaper on his computer monitor: those Japanese cartoons that are all tentacles, men with knee-length cocks, and women with guns for arms and tits bigger than their heads. The lab guys are all wacky in some damn way or another; it seems to come with the specification. Suresh looks like a male model, dresses like a classic geek, and talks like a sex maniac. Every other sentence has some kind of innuendo or other but if he’s a pervert, he’s a harmless one.
‘Have you been to bed yet?’ I ask him through a mouthful of Danish. Sue me; I’ve got a streak that makes me want to kick ticking bombs.
‘Not yet,’ he says with a wide smile. ‘But if you’re offering...’ He smiles as my hand just grazes across the top of his head.
‘Fucking pervert, get your head down in the bunk room.’
‘I can get my head down right here.’
‘Go and get some sleep!’
He shrugs and sucks down his coffee. ‘It’ll be a few hours before the plaster dries anyway,’ he stands up and stretches. ‘And you keep your fingers out of my stuff,’ he says to Parkman, who smiles innocently.
‘We’re going to the case room,’ I say, flapping a hand at Parkman. ‘See what we’ve got.’
‘I was going to stay here and poke at the ant farm,’ he says to Suresh’s disappearing back, getting an obscene gesture in reply. He follows me out to the case room and grabs another mug of coffee. ‘Did you see the protestors outside?’
‘No, I totally missed the hundreds of assholes screaming, shoving, and otherwise making a fucking nuisance of themselves.’ I take a gulp of my coffee. ‘You okay?’
He shrugs. A telepath in the police is freaking the fuck out of everyone, cops as well as Joe Public. The criminals too, of course, but nobody cares about that. It was bad enough when he was just a mind-reader in the police but now he can force the truth out of suspects and witnesses...
‘At least none of them know who I am,’ he says easily. ‘For now. When my ID gets out, then ask me again.’
The door bangs as Peter finally wanders in. How the hell he’s late so damn often when he can teleport is a mystery for the fucking ages.
‘Morning!’ he calls skipping over, coat flapping, and pouring himself a mug of coffee. ‘Weather’s great again.’
‘Mohinder’s having a kip in the bunk room,’ Parkman says, tapping Peter on the head with a file. ‘So keep your voice down.’
Peter shoves two pastries into his mouth, waves a hand, and skips away clutching his mug of coffee.
‘Parkman, for fuck’s sake stop staring at his ass.’
‘He has a nice ass,’ Parkman says with a sigh and then half smiles at me. ‘So, anything come in while I was away?’
‘A Saturday night usual, wife manifested right as the drunk bastard was smacking her around. She took off but she’s has family in Pittsburgh so the boys there are looking for her to arrive,’ I say with a shrug.
‘As what?’ he asks, leaning back on his hands.
‘Well the guy was inside-out so...’
He pulls a face and shakes his head. ‘There was a witness to the beating?’
‘On the neighbours heard screaming and whatnot. Then a fuckload more screaming and the wife running away like an axe killer was after her,’ I say with a shrug. ‘Bastard had it coming.’
‘You know it doesn’t work like that, Audrey, this is what... the sixth accidental death in the city this year? God knows how many countrywide. People are already getting twitchy about how dangerous we are.’
The only danger he is, is to himself. The wife split just after he manifested, couldn’t take the stress she said. Although it turned out, of course, she’d been fucking his old partner behind his back. That’s what the morons protesting don’t get, just because he can read minds doesn’t mean he is reading minds. The shit people think, that he has to wade through for work, I’m amazed if he ever does it off duty. Did he know his wife was screwing around? He didn’t want to know. Hell he probably ignored every sign there is just so he wouldn’t have to know. That’s the problem with romantics; they shaft themselves before they’ll deal with anything approaching reality.
‘Your guy rang a couple of times; Mr Dark Velvet Voice said he had something for you.’
The other big reason Parkman’s good to have on the squad, beyond his ability and the other obvious stuff, is that he has connections. Other cities have teams, local not federal like us, who concentrate on ‘Special’ crimes but they’re all populated by non-Specials. Openly having an ability in this country right now is a fast track to a split fucking skull so anyone with an ability and two brain cells to rub together is laying low. Nobody is queuing up to help out the ‘bastard cops who don’t give a shit about us being beaten up’. Peter knows some people but it’s Parkman who actually manages to parlay connections into informants. Not a lot I grant you but a few and more this month than last.
The tap-tap of hard-soled shoes tattoo across the floor behind me. The gait is wrong for Parkman and both Suresh and Peter wear sneakers. I ignore it and try again to write up my report. The amount of cases we solve you’d think they might spring for a fucking admin assistant but you’d be whistling in the damn wind.
Tap on my office door and it’s being opened before I can answer. Nathan fucking Petrelli, all slick suit, thousand dollar haircut, and mile wide grin. Not that he’s grinning now, now he’s just looking smug as hell.
‘Gee, I’m pretty sure I didn’t say to come in,’ I say sitting back and folding my arms. ‘What the hell do you want?’
‘Good afternoon to you Agent,’ he says putting down his briefcase. ‘I thought I’d pop by and brief you on the Doyle case next week.’ He blocks the gap between my desk and the filing cabinet and tucks his hands in his pockets with his thumbs sticking out. It looks like he’s pointing at his cock, which is just about level with my damn face.
‘Tough shit, I’m busy.’
‘Funny, you don’t look busy,’ he says in that stupid, fucking growl of his.
I stand up and step forward. ‘Well I am. Get out of the damn way!’
He doesn’t step back. Just stands smirking down at me and then starts unbuttoning my pants.
‘You’re so tense, Hanson, you need to learn to relax.’
‘You going to help with that?’
He goes down to his knees, tugging down my trousers and panties. ‘It’s a possibility I’d consider,’ he says, applying his mouth as his hands grip my hips.
After, he’s always pissy I don’t call his name, he shoves me against the filing cabinet and rides me hard, his fingers digging into my ass. My shoulders slam back and the cold metal burns through my thin blouse. He growls at my fingers yanking his hair and slams me again, piles into me hard enough to really hurt. Makes me laugh, he can’t fucking win this and he knows it. I can take more and I can dish it out. If he could win, if he did win, it wouldn’t be fun anymore.
If any of them know, they don’t say anything. Parkman’s most likely, not just the mind reading but he’s the only one not living in his own cloud cuckoo land. He taps on the door and opens it at my shout.
‘Audrey, it’s past six. We’re going to get something to eat and have a drink. Are you coming?’
Fucking paperwork. It’s always here even when the white heat of an investigation has worn off the paper work is there.
‘I’m bored. We need a decent case,’ I say standing up. ‘Not some lame ass burglary, though I’m sure Suresh is doing wonders with that footprint. Something interesting.’
‘You’re going to regret asking,’ he warns.
Don’t I fucking know it. ‘Is he coming? He can’t spend all night here again,’ I say walking out into the case room. As it turns out the other two are already waiting.
‘I could really go for an Indian,’ Peter says cheerfully.
Suresh gropes his ass and smirks at his scowl. ‘You said...’
‘I meant like a curry in India!’
‘Behave children,’ I say firmly.
Parkman checks his watch and mutters under his breath. ‘It’s too early for India.’
‘This is New York, we don’t need to zip halfway across the damned world for a curry. I’m the only one who drives so I’ll meet you at... the Jewel on forty-ninth,’ I say firmly.
‘I’ll come with you,’ Parkman says. ‘The protestors are still out there.’
‘I’m a big girl, get going. Stop these two duking it out.’
Jesus fucking Christ, there are signs in some of the windows of the clubs and restaurants, ‘No Mutants,’ ‘No Freaks,’ ‘No Sub-humans.’ Sub-humans. I’ll die of fucking hunger and thirst before I’ll set foot in there. No sign in the window of the Jewel at least.
Inside the three stooges are at a table downing beers and tucking into starters. Once upon a time, they’d have waited but I’ve busted their balls too many times for special treatment because I’m female.
We eat out all together maybe once a week, no more than that, and go to a bar a couple times a week. That’s when we’re investigating in NYC; every so often, Parkman and I have to go across the country. Suresh stays at base and Peter teleports. We spend a shitload of time together all told, a good wedge of it with us tired, stressed, or blasted out of our heads. Occupational health is forever bitching about the hours we pull but it comes with the job and so does the socialising, I can’t risk working with people I don’t know and can’t trust.
Parkman reaches across me to grab a beer and flick Suresh’s nose. Parkman’s a lot more blatant about sizing up Peter than Suresh, but then Peter is straight and ‘safe’, Suresh on the other hand is bi, lonely, and it’s hard to tell if he’d run a mile or jump at the chance.
My phone rings and everyone groans.
‘Don’t answer it Audrey,’ Parkman says, taking a gulp of beer. ‘It’s only ever work.’
‘The fuck you say.’ He’s right, nobody else ever calls me but I’m damned if I’m going to admit that.
‘Maybe it’s a dirty phone call,’ Peter giggles, he’s never been able to hold his beer. He leans against Matt and steals a forkful of his curry.
‘Shut the fuck up,’ I say answering my cell. ‘Hanson.’
Booooo
...
...
...
Rain? What... how did I get out...
ooom
The noise deafens. The rushing wind hits like a solid blow.
The Jewel is ablaze. The sidewalk is full of confused, uncertain people including the staff. And the Jewel is ablaze. Lumps of masonry are spread over the street. Cars have been flattened by debris. Burglar alarms are blaring all around. It’s raining. There are distant sirens, police, ambulance, and fire fighters.
And the Jewel is ablaze.
Peter suddenly exhausted, sagging against Parkman red-faced and panting as if he’s run a marathon.
‘What happened?’ Suresh asks, standing up and looking around. ‘Peter did... oh...’
‘Anyone hurt?’ I ask, getting up and brushing myself down. ‘Oy! This is the FBI, is anyone hurt?’
A chorus of ‘no’s’ and shaken heads as people finally start to come out of their own private worlds. People are staggering out of the nearby buildings now and staring.
Parkman on his feet and... people are neatly grouping themselves, those from the Jewel here those who were in the surrounding buildings return to them, people who were in the street over there. Parkman reflexively fishes the handkerchief out of his pocket but his nose isn’t bleeding. Six months ago that kind of effort would’ve had him on his knees throwing up and a nosebleed to drown fucking millions.
Jesus fucking Christ, Suresh! I grab him before he dives into the rubble.
‘Leave it!’
‘It’s raining! Do you have any idea how much evidence...’
‘Not our fucking problem, not our case! We’re witnesses that’s it.’ He’s swaying a little and squinting as if in bright light. ‘Sit down and try not to pass out. Parkman! Keep an eye on him while I find out what’s going on.’
Bastards keep me in for hours. Every other fucker gets sent away once they’ve given a basic statement but once they found out who we were... well then they were all over us. Me and Parkman any damn way. Suresh they hauled off to be checked for concussion, he got knocked over and banged his head in the blast, and Peter kept falling asleep.
They couldn’t ask which of us was Special, not officially, not on tape, that’s against the law. Don’t ask, don’t tell. Some genius fucking idea that. Oh but they made all kinds of insinuations and accusations, as if we’d bombed the fucking place. How did everyone get out of the restaurant? Damned if I know. CCTV from the street shows people magically appearing on the street. How do you explain that? I don’t.
Although I’d bet my ass Peter could. It’s like a fucking twitch, something shocking and unexpected happens and Peter stops time. He was touching Parkman just before, I think, so that was probably both of them. Some fucking crime that. Assholes.
For once, I get into work first. I even beat the damn protestors. Where the hell are the light switches? No damage this far away but the shockwave has knocked papers and shit all over the floor. In Suresh’s lab, the ant farm is teetering on the edge of a desktop plunge into oblivion. That was a close one; he loves those little fuckers.
‘Morning.’
‘Jesus! Do not sneak up on me!’ I snap at Parkman but he just smiles. He looks like fucking death warmed up. ‘Where’s my coffee, you cocksucker?’
‘I just put it on,’ he says easily. ‘I’ve got some donuts, you want?’
‘You got chocolate?’
‘Of course,’ he says, playacting like he’s offended I’d ask.
We sit in the case room drinking the fresh coffee and wait for the others, for the phones to start ringing and the emails to start pouring in.
‘Who was it that rang you last night?’ Parkman asks, dipping a piece of donut into his coffee. Come on you fucker, drop into his coffee, drop, drop... God damn it! How does he manage to do that without it dissolving into his coffee?
‘What are you, my mother?’
He sticks his tongue out, covered in coffee and donut. Nice.
‘We got a new case. Which is a fucking relief because New York is not going to be a nice place for us at the moment,’ I admit. ‘Series of thefts.’
Parkman’s swirling the coffee around in his cup. ‘Out of New York?’
‘Los Angeles. What’s eating you?’
He looks up and shrugs. ‘I don’t want to run off and leave Peter and Mohinder here. Not with the shit that’s being stirred up.’
‘There’ll be just as much shit stirred up in LA.’ It’s a waste of time but I have to make a token effort. Parkman doesn’t put his foot down often but when he does that’s fucking it.
Parkman looks at me silently for a couple of seconds. ‘Nobody will know who they are and we’ll be there.’
‘They’re grown-ups, they know the risks.’
‘Not the fucking point and you know it.’
He doesn’t yell, or growl, or hiss, he says it totally flat and that’s worse.
‘I’ll ask them,’ I soothe.
‘No,’ he says in the same flat voice. ‘You’ll tell them.’
‘Don’t fucking push me, Matt. We’re all stressed after last night but do not push me,’ I say, shoving him in the shoulder.
‘We put up with a lot of shit from you Audrey,’ he says, tone suddenly gentle. ‘We look the other way on a lot of stuff,’ he continues. ‘You know you want to say ‘yes’ so can your stupid pride and say ‘yes’. Alright?’
The door bangs as Mohinder trots through. He walks over and silently helps himself to a coffee.
‘Hey.’
He looks at me startled, like he didn’t realise I was there. ‘Oh, sorry. Morning.’
‘Should you be in?’
‘I’m fine,’ he says, leaning against Parkman. ‘Keeps my mind off things.’
‘You up for a field trip?’ Parkman asks.
‘Ooh!’ Suresh says, brightening right up. ‘Have we got something new?’
Oh, I give up.
Peter transports in, late of course, but clutching a pizza and an armful of bacon subs so that’s alright. The smell of bacon, grease, and cooling cheese floats in the case room as we eat and I brief my crack squad.
‘Three robberies over the weekend, all at jewellers, lots of collateral damage... what Peter?’
‘Collateral like buildings and stuff?’ he asks.
‘Collateral as in dead employees and customers,’ I answer, pinning the photographs on the board. ‘The bodies are in storage for you to examine, Mohinder, but from the witness statements it looks as though there’s death by electric manipulation, and microwave emission. Seems to be four perps, three men and a woman.’
Peter perks up at that. ‘A chick, really? That’s... ow! There’s no need to chuck things at me Audrey!’
‘Chick,’ Parkman mutters scathingly.
‘You’ve got two hours to pack and grab what shit you need.’
‘Me too?’ Suresh asks. ‘All my equipment...’
‘You can bring what you can carry.’ I don’t look at Parkman. ‘We’ll be based at the main FBI office so there’ll be equipment there alright?’
Suresh is more shaken up then I figured. All that talk about ‘equipment’ and he didn’t even crack a smirk.
‘How many dead?’ Parkman asks.
‘Twelve, so far, there’re two more in intensive care which is one reason we need to hustle. Go on, move your asses.’
I’m in the armoury packing up the tasers, darts, and big fucking guns when the intercom chimes. That thing, we hardly ever use it.
‘Agent Hanson?’ Peter asks. ‘Can you come to the case room please? Code 42.’
Code 42 is... fuck.
The Presidential Oversight Committee is poking about the boards when I get there. Kaito Nakamura, Daniel ‘not a mobster, honest’ Linderman, and Victoria Pratt. Rumour has it that Angela Petrelli is some sort of Specials liaison to the President and this bunch report to her. No fucking point asking Peter or Nathan, they’re not a family that discusses things.
‘What the hell is this in aid of?’
‘Agent Hanson,’ Linderman says, smiling sweetly. ‘So nice to see you again.’
‘You got cups?’ Pratt asks, holding up the coffee pot.
‘Only if you want to use one of ours. We don’t do entertaining.’
‘Debateable,’ Nakamura rumbles.
Well that’s fucking cute. ‘We’re about to leave for LA so whatever you want, spit it out.’
They look at each other and Pratt puts a hand on her hip. ‘All of you?’
‘Yeah, figured we’d give the backup guys a fieldtrip. You going to bust my balls on expenses?’
The door shuts with a quiet but very definite ‘click’. Parkman leans back against the wall and folds his arms. These assholes know exactly who he is and what he can do, and he knows it.
‘Excellent!’ Linderman says, clapping his hands together and smiling again. ‘Given that this taskforce is the most well-known and public face of government integration, your involvement in the bombing last night is... unfortunate.’
Parkman shifts position but doesn’t say anything.
‘Is that fucking right?’ I ask, walking to him. ‘Peter got everyone out. If we hadn’t been there you’d have a couple of hundred dead voters. Is that what you’d call an improvement?’
‘Nonetheless,’ Nakamura says, and drops a newspaper onto the table.
City Bombing: Specials Crime Taskforce Possible Targets screams the headline and... Jesus, there’s a picture of the four of us in the rain outside the smouldering restaurant.
‘That’s a pile of shit,’ I say, pushing it away. ‘How would anyone have known we were there?’
‘You might not have been targets.’ Pratt snatches up the newspaper and holds it up. ‘You are now. Sentiment against us is on the rise and people are looking for someone to take it out on.’
‘So you’re here for our benefit? Gee, I feel all warm and fucking fuzzy,’ I say, crossing my arms. ‘We’re going to LA to investigate some jewel robberies. Okay?’
Pratt throws down the paper and tosses her hair. ‘Don’t rush back.’
Bitch.
We teleport into FBI LA county HQ and suddenly we’re surrounded. More agents than I’ve seen since I fucking graduated, and every one of them pointing their gun at Suresh
Part 2
Pairing: Audrey/Nathan, mentions of Matt/Mohinder
Rating: 18
Warnings: Swearing, swearing, sex, swearing, swearing
Note: For
perdiccas with huge thanks for the prompt, and thanks to boudecia7, whom I never thank enough for her editing, support, and general awesomeness. Summary: Having an ability is a fact of life for thousands of Americans. Most of them are decent folks. To cope with the rest, there's the Specials Crime Taskforce.
Word count: 4759
The weather in New York today will be a balmy 82 degrees with fourteen hours of sunshine. This month’s weather is brought to you by Morelli ice cream. It’s not summer without Morelli ice cream.
It’s not fucking summer though is it? It’s the end of December and that’s only summer if you’re on the other side of the damn planet. Just can’t leave things alone. Someone somewhere always has to screw about with the natural laws and shit. I’ve seen enough movies to know that never ends well. They keep paying the damn guy to mess with the weather and sooner or later we’re going to fly off into the fucking sun or somesuch.
Traffic news: listeners are advised that due to the continuing protest outside the headquarters of the Specials Crime Taskforce...
Don’t know why I listen to the damn radio anyway. It’s always bad news.
I go to the bathroom, have a shower, peer at myself in the mirror. Eyes like poached eggs, hair like straw, fuck Audrey don’t you just look like sex on a stick? Not that I was ever what you’d call glamorous and the hours we work now... but that’s the price of success. We’ve got a ninety percent solve record and that is money in the fucking bank let me tell you. We’ve got one of the best solve records in the county, fuck, in the country and they can’t take that away.
Of course, if we were less successful we probably wouldn’t have a couple of hundred assholes parked outside our headquarters. The ones who’re protesting about ‘human rights abuses’ can go piss up a wall, the Supreme Court back our play so go fuck yourselves, it’s the anti-Specials and the Specials protesting about ‘people of ability turning on their own kind’ that stick in my throat. Things are tense enough now Joe Public knows some of his fellow citizens can read his mind, or walk through walls, or fly, without all these ‘them and us’ bullshit. But there’s always some asshole who’s just waiting to slice the population into ‘the right kind of people’ and ‘the wrong kind of people’. And the more they slice it the fewer of the population turn out to be the ‘right’ kind and the more turn out to be the ‘wrong’ kind.
Jesus! I swear there are three times more assholes out here than there were yesterday. The regular uniforms have got them corralled apart now. The civil rights camp, the anti-Specials, the pro-Specials... don’t these people have any other fucking thing to do? There are Specials all over the damn world, you’d think somewhere there was something more exciting to wank about. The uniforms wave my car through and some fucker ducks the barricades to start banging on my window and screaming, ‘sub-human!’ I jump out of the car but he’s dragged away before I can show him who’s fucking sub-human. And then some damned news crew stick a camera and a boom mic in my face.
‘Do you work in the Special Abilities Taskforce Ms...?’
‘Get the hell out of my way!’
‘Do you have an ability...’
Maybe we could dig a tunnel or something. Our own subway stop. Parkman could probably find someone who could do it.
They wanted to give us one of these ‘modern’ places, all stark lighting, glass and chrome. Fuck that shit. I spend more time at work than at home so I’ll be fucked in the ass before I work in some museum piece. Technically, I’m supervising agent but Parkman needs fuck all supervising and the others...
Suresh is impossible to supervise. Half the time he doesn’t even notice he’s being yelled at. He’s always playing around with test tubes or Bunsen burners or knee deep in guts. He does most of the forensics stuff; fingerprints, blood splatter, DNA testing, computer modelling for ballistics and that kind of thing. He’s in his lab now, probably been there all night knowing him, in his undershirt and elbow-length gloves, making a plaster impression of a footprint. Provided you don’t try and steer him he’s easy enough to keep. Make sure he eats and has enough access to Farscape DVDs and he’s happy as Larry.
Peter Petrelli, well, it’s a good job he’s so damn pretty and so damn useful. He’s forever wandering off, forgetting what he’s supposed to be doing, not to mention getting distracted by every shiny thing that catches his eyes. He’s medical officer, as well as patching up injuries, which we pick up entirely too often, he monitors Parkman’s interrogations and helps Suresh with the bloodier stuff like autopsies. He’s also our transport, when he can remember where we’re supposed to be going, and let me tell you, teleporting makes you wonder how the hell you ever flew coach. He’s not turned in yet, probably wandering around trying to work out where he is, but his little office is full of toy dinosaurs and pictures of racing cars. Got to keep your eye on him or there’s no telling what he’ll do.
Technically Nathan Petrelli, Peter’s older brother, isn’t affiliated with us but he’s the Special Prosecutor. Ha! ‘Special’, in all uses of the word. We catch ‘em and he prosecutes them, he’s a bastard too. Nails the fuckers to the door every time. He’s not admitting anything officially but everyone knows that he’s a Special, they just don’t know what his ability is, and he’s not telling.
We have a central area, the case room, with the big table and the boards covered in photographs, copies of statements, maps and all the paraphernalia of our current investigations. There are lots of comfy chairs, this is where we have for what passes for meetings, and right now there’s a box of fresh pastries on the table and a fresh pot of coffee with a couple of mugs already used. Those two add up to one thing; Parkman’s in already.
There’s a whole bunch of rooms off the case room: offices, labs, interrogation room, small lock-up, first aid room, showers, bathroom, all the regular stuff.
And that’s it, four of us in a dozen or so rooms. All those assholes protesting outside, all the chaos spreading out across the whole city, all for the four of us.
Nah, that’s bullshit. They’re here for Parkman.
I dig out a maple and pecan Danish then grab a mug of coffee and load it with sugar. Parkman’s not in his office, which is mostly where he stores files and pokes at his computer. Sulky and petulant as he can be he’s a gregarious type. Not chatty unless he’s nervous but he likes people around him. Me, I can take people or leave them but Parkman likes people, worries what they think about him. Suresh has this theory abilities are influenced by personality, so Parkman worries about what people thinks and he’s a telepath, and Peter Petrelli is Mr Emo and he’s an empath.
Sure enough, he’s hanging around in Suresh’s lab. He’s having a coffee and eating a vanilla Danish, watching Suresh clean up, and listening to him babble on.
‘Hey.’
‘Hey Audrey,’ Parkman says, waving a piece of Danish.
‘Good morning, Agent Hanson,’ Suresh says, sitting on his desk cross-legged and reaching for his mug of coffee. ‘Detective Parkman has been up for a while.’ He waggles his eyebrows.
I sit in his office chair and roll my eyes at the wallpaper on his computer monitor: those Japanese cartoons that are all tentacles, men with knee-length cocks, and women with guns for arms and tits bigger than their heads. The lab guys are all wacky in some damn way or another; it seems to come with the specification. Suresh looks like a male model, dresses like a classic geek, and talks like a sex maniac. Every other sentence has some kind of innuendo or other but if he’s a pervert, he’s a harmless one.
‘Have you been to bed yet?’ I ask him through a mouthful of Danish. Sue me; I’ve got a streak that makes me want to kick ticking bombs.
‘Not yet,’ he says with a wide smile. ‘But if you’re offering...’ He smiles as my hand just grazes across the top of his head.
‘Fucking pervert, get your head down in the bunk room.’
‘I can get my head down right here.’
‘Go and get some sleep!’
He shrugs and sucks down his coffee. ‘It’ll be a few hours before the plaster dries anyway,’ he stands up and stretches. ‘And you keep your fingers out of my stuff,’ he says to Parkman, who smiles innocently.
‘We’re going to the case room,’ I say, flapping a hand at Parkman. ‘See what we’ve got.’
‘I was going to stay here and poke at the ant farm,’ he says to Suresh’s disappearing back, getting an obscene gesture in reply. He follows me out to the case room and grabs another mug of coffee. ‘Did you see the protestors outside?’
‘No, I totally missed the hundreds of assholes screaming, shoving, and otherwise making a fucking nuisance of themselves.’ I take a gulp of my coffee. ‘You okay?’
He shrugs. A telepath in the police is freaking the fuck out of everyone, cops as well as Joe Public. The criminals too, of course, but nobody cares about that. It was bad enough when he was just a mind-reader in the police but now he can force the truth out of suspects and witnesses...
‘At least none of them know who I am,’ he says easily. ‘For now. When my ID gets out, then ask me again.’
The door bangs as Peter finally wanders in. How the hell he’s late so damn often when he can teleport is a mystery for the fucking ages.
‘Morning!’ he calls skipping over, coat flapping, and pouring himself a mug of coffee. ‘Weather’s great again.’
‘Mohinder’s having a kip in the bunk room,’ Parkman says, tapping Peter on the head with a file. ‘So keep your voice down.’
Peter shoves two pastries into his mouth, waves a hand, and skips away clutching his mug of coffee.
‘Parkman, for fuck’s sake stop staring at his ass.’
‘He has a nice ass,’ Parkman says with a sigh and then half smiles at me. ‘So, anything come in while I was away?’
‘A Saturday night usual, wife manifested right as the drunk bastard was smacking her around. She took off but she’s has family in Pittsburgh so the boys there are looking for her to arrive,’ I say with a shrug.
‘As what?’ he asks, leaning back on his hands.
‘Well the guy was inside-out so...’
He pulls a face and shakes his head. ‘There was a witness to the beating?’
‘On the neighbours heard screaming and whatnot. Then a fuckload more screaming and the wife running away like an axe killer was after her,’ I say with a shrug. ‘Bastard had it coming.’
‘You know it doesn’t work like that, Audrey, this is what... the sixth accidental death in the city this year? God knows how many countrywide. People are already getting twitchy about how dangerous we are.’
The only danger he is, is to himself. The wife split just after he manifested, couldn’t take the stress she said. Although it turned out, of course, she’d been fucking his old partner behind his back. That’s what the morons protesting don’t get, just because he can read minds doesn’t mean he is reading minds. The shit people think, that he has to wade through for work, I’m amazed if he ever does it off duty. Did he know his wife was screwing around? He didn’t want to know. Hell he probably ignored every sign there is just so he wouldn’t have to know. That’s the problem with romantics; they shaft themselves before they’ll deal with anything approaching reality.
‘Your guy rang a couple of times; Mr Dark Velvet Voice said he had something for you.’
The other big reason Parkman’s good to have on the squad, beyond his ability and the other obvious stuff, is that he has connections. Other cities have teams, local not federal like us, who concentrate on ‘Special’ crimes but they’re all populated by non-Specials. Openly having an ability in this country right now is a fast track to a split fucking skull so anyone with an ability and two brain cells to rub together is laying low. Nobody is queuing up to help out the ‘bastard cops who don’t give a shit about us being beaten up’. Peter knows some people but it’s Parkman who actually manages to parlay connections into informants. Not a lot I grant you but a few and more this month than last.
The tap-tap of hard-soled shoes tattoo across the floor behind me. The gait is wrong for Parkman and both Suresh and Peter wear sneakers. I ignore it and try again to write up my report. The amount of cases we solve you’d think they might spring for a fucking admin assistant but you’d be whistling in the damn wind.
Tap on my office door and it’s being opened before I can answer. Nathan fucking Petrelli, all slick suit, thousand dollar haircut, and mile wide grin. Not that he’s grinning now, now he’s just looking smug as hell.
‘Gee, I’m pretty sure I didn’t say to come in,’ I say sitting back and folding my arms. ‘What the hell do you want?’
‘Good afternoon to you Agent,’ he says putting down his briefcase. ‘I thought I’d pop by and brief you on the Doyle case next week.’ He blocks the gap between my desk and the filing cabinet and tucks his hands in his pockets with his thumbs sticking out. It looks like he’s pointing at his cock, which is just about level with my damn face.
‘Tough shit, I’m busy.’
‘Funny, you don’t look busy,’ he says in that stupid, fucking growl of his.
I stand up and step forward. ‘Well I am. Get out of the damn way!’
He doesn’t step back. Just stands smirking down at me and then starts unbuttoning my pants.
‘You’re so tense, Hanson, you need to learn to relax.’
‘You going to help with that?’
He goes down to his knees, tugging down my trousers and panties. ‘It’s a possibility I’d consider,’ he says, applying his mouth as his hands grip my hips.
After, he’s always pissy I don’t call his name, he shoves me against the filing cabinet and rides me hard, his fingers digging into my ass. My shoulders slam back and the cold metal burns through my thin blouse. He growls at my fingers yanking his hair and slams me again, piles into me hard enough to really hurt. Makes me laugh, he can’t fucking win this and he knows it. I can take more and I can dish it out. If he could win, if he did win, it wouldn’t be fun anymore.
If any of them know, they don’t say anything. Parkman’s most likely, not just the mind reading but he’s the only one not living in his own cloud cuckoo land. He taps on the door and opens it at my shout.
‘Audrey, it’s past six. We’re going to get something to eat and have a drink. Are you coming?’
Fucking paperwork. It’s always here even when the white heat of an investigation has worn off the paper work is there.
‘I’m bored. We need a decent case,’ I say standing up. ‘Not some lame ass burglary, though I’m sure Suresh is doing wonders with that footprint. Something interesting.’
‘You’re going to regret asking,’ he warns.
Don’t I fucking know it. ‘Is he coming? He can’t spend all night here again,’ I say walking out into the case room. As it turns out the other two are already waiting.
‘I could really go for an Indian,’ Peter says cheerfully.
Suresh gropes his ass and smirks at his scowl. ‘You said...’
‘I meant like a curry in India!’
‘Behave children,’ I say firmly.
Parkman checks his watch and mutters under his breath. ‘It’s too early for India.’
‘This is New York, we don’t need to zip halfway across the damned world for a curry. I’m the only one who drives so I’ll meet you at... the Jewel on forty-ninth,’ I say firmly.
‘I’ll come with you,’ Parkman says. ‘The protestors are still out there.’
‘I’m a big girl, get going. Stop these two duking it out.’
Jesus fucking Christ, there are signs in some of the windows of the clubs and restaurants, ‘No Mutants,’ ‘No Freaks,’ ‘No Sub-humans.’ Sub-humans. I’ll die of fucking hunger and thirst before I’ll set foot in there. No sign in the window of the Jewel at least.
Inside the three stooges are at a table downing beers and tucking into starters. Once upon a time, they’d have waited but I’ve busted their balls too many times for special treatment because I’m female.
We eat out all together maybe once a week, no more than that, and go to a bar a couple times a week. That’s when we’re investigating in NYC; every so often, Parkman and I have to go across the country. Suresh stays at base and Peter teleports. We spend a shitload of time together all told, a good wedge of it with us tired, stressed, or blasted out of our heads. Occupational health is forever bitching about the hours we pull but it comes with the job and so does the socialising, I can’t risk working with people I don’t know and can’t trust.
Parkman reaches across me to grab a beer and flick Suresh’s nose. Parkman’s a lot more blatant about sizing up Peter than Suresh, but then Peter is straight and ‘safe’, Suresh on the other hand is bi, lonely, and it’s hard to tell if he’d run a mile or jump at the chance.
My phone rings and everyone groans.
‘Don’t answer it Audrey,’ Parkman says, taking a gulp of beer. ‘It’s only ever work.’
‘The fuck you say.’ He’s right, nobody else ever calls me but I’m damned if I’m going to admit that.
‘Maybe it’s a dirty phone call,’ Peter giggles, he’s never been able to hold his beer. He leans against Matt and steals a forkful of his curry.
‘Shut the fuck up,’ I say answering my cell. ‘Hanson.’
Booooo
...
...
...
Rain? What... how did I get out...
ooom
The noise deafens. The rushing wind hits like a solid blow.
The Jewel is ablaze. The sidewalk is full of confused, uncertain people including the staff. And the Jewel is ablaze. Lumps of masonry are spread over the street. Cars have been flattened by debris. Burglar alarms are blaring all around. It’s raining. There are distant sirens, police, ambulance, and fire fighters.
And the Jewel is ablaze.
Peter suddenly exhausted, sagging against Parkman red-faced and panting as if he’s run a marathon.
‘What happened?’ Suresh asks, standing up and looking around. ‘Peter did... oh...’
‘Anyone hurt?’ I ask, getting up and brushing myself down. ‘Oy! This is the FBI, is anyone hurt?’
A chorus of ‘no’s’ and shaken heads as people finally start to come out of their own private worlds. People are staggering out of the nearby buildings now and staring.
Parkman on his feet and... people are neatly grouping themselves, those from the Jewel here those who were in the surrounding buildings return to them, people who were in the street over there. Parkman reflexively fishes the handkerchief out of his pocket but his nose isn’t bleeding. Six months ago that kind of effort would’ve had him on his knees throwing up and a nosebleed to drown fucking millions.
Jesus fucking Christ, Suresh! I grab him before he dives into the rubble.
‘Leave it!’
‘It’s raining! Do you have any idea how much evidence...’
‘Not our fucking problem, not our case! We’re witnesses that’s it.’ He’s swaying a little and squinting as if in bright light. ‘Sit down and try not to pass out. Parkman! Keep an eye on him while I find out what’s going on.’
Bastards keep me in for hours. Every other fucker gets sent away once they’ve given a basic statement but once they found out who we were... well then they were all over us. Me and Parkman any damn way. Suresh they hauled off to be checked for concussion, he got knocked over and banged his head in the blast, and Peter kept falling asleep.
They couldn’t ask which of us was Special, not officially, not on tape, that’s against the law. Don’t ask, don’t tell. Some genius fucking idea that. Oh but they made all kinds of insinuations and accusations, as if we’d bombed the fucking place. How did everyone get out of the restaurant? Damned if I know. CCTV from the street shows people magically appearing on the street. How do you explain that? I don’t.
Although I’d bet my ass Peter could. It’s like a fucking twitch, something shocking and unexpected happens and Peter stops time. He was touching Parkman just before, I think, so that was probably both of them. Some fucking crime that. Assholes.
For once, I get into work first. I even beat the damn protestors. Where the hell are the light switches? No damage this far away but the shockwave has knocked papers and shit all over the floor. In Suresh’s lab, the ant farm is teetering on the edge of a desktop plunge into oblivion. That was a close one; he loves those little fuckers.
‘Morning.’
‘Jesus! Do not sneak up on me!’ I snap at Parkman but he just smiles. He looks like fucking death warmed up. ‘Where’s my coffee, you cocksucker?’
‘I just put it on,’ he says easily. ‘I’ve got some donuts, you want?’
‘You got chocolate?’
‘Of course,’ he says, playacting like he’s offended I’d ask.
We sit in the case room drinking the fresh coffee and wait for the others, for the phones to start ringing and the emails to start pouring in.
‘Who was it that rang you last night?’ Parkman asks, dipping a piece of donut into his coffee. Come on you fucker, drop into his coffee, drop, drop... God damn it! How does he manage to do that without it dissolving into his coffee?
‘What are you, my mother?’
He sticks his tongue out, covered in coffee and donut. Nice.
‘We got a new case. Which is a fucking relief because New York is not going to be a nice place for us at the moment,’ I admit. ‘Series of thefts.’
Parkman’s swirling the coffee around in his cup. ‘Out of New York?’
‘Los Angeles. What’s eating you?’
He looks up and shrugs. ‘I don’t want to run off and leave Peter and Mohinder here. Not with the shit that’s being stirred up.’
‘There’ll be just as much shit stirred up in LA.’ It’s a waste of time but I have to make a token effort. Parkman doesn’t put his foot down often but when he does that’s fucking it.
Parkman looks at me silently for a couple of seconds. ‘Nobody will know who they are and we’ll be there.’
‘They’re grown-ups, they know the risks.’
‘Not the fucking point and you know it.’
He doesn’t yell, or growl, or hiss, he says it totally flat and that’s worse.
‘I’ll ask them,’ I soothe.
‘No,’ he says in the same flat voice. ‘You’ll tell them.’
‘Don’t fucking push me, Matt. We’re all stressed after last night but do not push me,’ I say, shoving him in the shoulder.
‘We put up with a lot of shit from you Audrey,’ he says, tone suddenly gentle. ‘We look the other way on a lot of stuff,’ he continues. ‘You know you want to say ‘yes’ so can your stupid pride and say ‘yes’. Alright?’
The door bangs as Mohinder trots through. He walks over and silently helps himself to a coffee.
‘Hey.’
He looks at me startled, like he didn’t realise I was there. ‘Oh, sorry. Morning.’
‘Should you be in?’
‘I’m fine,’ he says, leaning against Parkman. ‘Keeps my mind off things.’
‘You up for a field trip?’ Parkman asks.
‘Ooh!’ Suresh says, brightening right up. ‘Have we got something new?’
Oh, I give up.
Peter transports in, late of course, but clutching a pizza and an armful of bacon subs so that’s alright. The smell of bacon, grease, and cooling cheese floats in the case room as we eat and I brief my crack squad.
‘Three robberies over the weekend, all at jewellers, lots of collateral damage... what Peter?’
‘Collateral like buildings and stuff?’ he asks.
‘Collateral as in dead employees and customers,’ I answer, pinning the photographs on the board. ‘The bodies are in storage for you to examine, Mohinder, but from the witness statements it looks as though there’s death by electric manipulation, and microwave emission. Seems to be four perps, three men and a woman.’
Peter perks up at that. ‘A chick, really? That’s... ow! There’s no need to chuck things at me Audrey!’
‘Chick,’ Parkman mutters scathingly.
‘You’ve got two hours to pack and grab what shit you need.’
‘Me too?’ Suresh asks. ‘All my equipment...’
‘You can bring what you can carry.’ I don’t look at Parkman. ‘We’ll be based at the main FBI office so there’ll be equipment there alright?’
Suresh is more shaken up then I figured. All that talk about ‘equipment’ and he didn’t even crack a smirk.
‘How many dead?’ Parkman asks.
‘Twelve, so far, there’re two more in intensive care which is one reason we need to hustle. Go on, move your asses.’
I’m in the armoury packing up the tasers, darts, and big fucking guns when the intercom chimes. That thing, we hardly ever use it.
‘Agent Hanson?’ Peter asks. ‘Can you come to the case room please? Code 42.’
Code 42 is... fuck.
The Presidential Oversight Committee is poking about the boards when I get there. Kaito Nakamura, Daniel ‘not a mobster, honest’ Linderman, and Victoria Pratt. Rumour has it that Angela Petrelli is some sort of Specials liaison to the President and this bunch report to her. No fucking point asking Peter or Nathan, they’re not a family that discusses things.
‘What the hell is this in aid of?’
‘Agent Hanson,’ Linderman says, smiling sweetly. ‘So nice to see you again.’
‘You got cups?’ Pratt asks, holding up the coffee pot.
‘Only if you want to use one of ours. We don’t do entertaining.’
‘Debateable,’ Nakamura rumbles.
Well that’s fucking cute. ‘We’re about to leave for LA so whatever you want, spit it out.’
They look at each other and Pratt puts a hand on her hip. ‘All of you?’
‘Yeah, figured we’d give the backup guys a fieldtrip. You going to bust my balls on expenses?’
The door shuts with a quiet but very definite ‘click’. Parkman leans back against the wall and folds his arms. These assholes know exactly who he is and what he can do, and he knows it.
‘Excellent!’ Linderman says, clapping his hands together and smiling again. ‘Given that this taskforce is the most well-known and public face of government integration, your involvement in the bombing last night is... unfortunate.’
Parkman shifts position but doesn’t say anything.
‘Is that fucking right?’ I ask, walking to him. ‘Peter got everyone out. If we hadn’t been there you’d have a couple of hundred dead voters. Is that what you’d call an improvement?’
‘Nonetheless,’ Nakamura says, and drops a newspaper onto the table.
City Bombing: Specials Crime Taskforce Possible Targets screams the headline and... Jesus, there’s a picture of the four of us in the rain outside the smouldering restaurant.
‘That’s a pile of shit,’ I say, pushing it away. ‘How would anyone have known we were there?’
‘You might not have been targets.’ Pratt snatches up the newspaper and holds it up. ‘You are now. Sentiment against us is on the rise and people are looking for someone to take it out on.’
‘So you’re here for our benefit? Gee, I feel all warm and fucking fuzzy,’ I say, crossing my arms. ‘We’re going to LA to investigate some jewel robberies. Okay?’
Pratt throws down the paper and tosses her hair. ‘Don’t rush back.’
Bitch.
We teleport into FBI LA county HQ and suddenly we’re surrounded. More agents than I’ve seen since I fucking graduated, and every one of them pointing their gun at Suresh
Part 2
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-12-24 03:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-24 03:50 pm (UTC)I've been thinking about a very similar fic myself but couldn't quite get it to come together.
I'd really like to see that if you do it :D
<333
no subject
Date: 2009-12-25 03:44 am (UTC)I love the way you wrote their natural/laid back conversations. Great read! Can't wait for the next part! <3333
no subject
Date: 2009-12-25 07:50 am (UTC)Thanks hon! More today.
<3333
no subject
Date: 2009-12-25 04:18 am (UTC)Thank you! This is fantastic. Lecherous Mohinder and scatter brained Peter are hilarious, and how does Parkman dip those donuts in his coffee without them disintegrating?!
<33333333333
no subject
Date: 2009-12-25 07:52 am (UTC)I was totally jumping up and down with the happy when I got your prompt. I hope you'll enjoy the rest as much. More today :)
<333!
no subject
Date: 2009-12-25 01:45 pm (UTC)I really like the politics and protests running thickly through the whole thing, how these guys can't win for losing. They save the world over and over, and just get hounded for powers they may or may not have and/or be using, because the bigwigs can't micromanage their image.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-25 03:16 pm (UTC)Nathan is at his best for me when he's been a magnificent bastard :D I miss him!
I've been meaning to do a story where people of ability are 'out' and what the effects are. I'm a big fan of dystopias and 'what-if' scenarios :D
Thanks! <333