Wanting to Stay
Written for the prompt : Dark Angel/The Losers, 494 McDowell (X5-494), and he thought his last unit was screwed up.
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Wanting to Stay
494 is used to screwed up and screw ups. Seriously, Manticore anyone? Basement cell after basement cell filled with offcasts, the 'nomalies that no one can ever be sure what they were supposed to be. Then there's the successes, seriously 494 doesn't even know all the components of his own genetic make up and he comes across as 'normal' on most of the comparisons with ordinaries apart from the superspeed, superstrength, survival under extreme conditions, supersoldier side of who he is.
At least he can walk down the street without drawing more than the passing interest of a few people who are looking for the most part at his physical attributes in a positive light.
This team though are supposedly all ordinaries. 494 isn't sure that he doesn't have his doubts about that. They're all a little . . . 'off'. Take the Lieutenant Colonel and the way he 'interprets' orders . . . there's both a looseness and a certainty that he's right, that screams of X5 and bred for the position although the guy's too old to be an X5 as far as 494 can tell. There's also a rugged realness to Clay's admittedly handsome features that reminds 494 of how so many of the X5s are 'too' good-looking, too picture perfect, no flaws.
The XO for the group, Roque is tall and brutal. He's mean and driven and obsessed with his knives, but deadly. He doesn't suffer fools at all and 494 can't help but admire his single minded efficiency, at the same time as worry that the guy might take a dislike to him and follow it up with a knife to the throat while he sleeps. In truth though, 494's following orders too well for that right now, he's drawn all these assumptions from watching Roque's reaction to the tech guy, who in honesty would be enough to wind anyone up.
The tech guy is something else entirely. 494 finds himself drawn to the guy, Jensen, whose age isn't too different to his own. He talks in a way that 494 doesn't think he's ever really experienced before and he's been accused of having a smart mouth way too often. He's easy on the eyes as well, 494 knows they threw a few looser sexual preferences into the X5 mix in case it was useful to have them working undercover and infiltrating but he's also well aware that the powers that be don't extend the same belief to the rest of their soldiers and so despite this guy's pink shirts and overly familiar friendliness, he's better off keeping his distance.
Jensen is clever, real clever when it comes to computers and hacking and he can talk a mile a minute on just about any subject you care to mention. 494 finds it stimulating, he feels like he's having to use parts of his brain that lie dormant in most of his dealings with ordinaries just to keep up. He likes it, would love to be able to get used to it.
Or at least now the initial misunderstanding with the sniper is now. Cougar is terrifying, even to someone with 494's heightened senses. He'll admit that there is a reassurance to knowing how good at his job the sniper is, more than once now, he's been out with Jensen and felt his hackles rise with the sense of 'observed – tracked – vulnerable'. Jensen smirked at him the first time he reacted, looking round for the threat and then just laughed, saying , "Cougs really is just that good! Don't bother looking you won't find him." 494 had tried and failed, equally unnerved at the slight snort of what he was sure was disparaging laughter he'd heard through the comms. Jensen has smiled wide and pointed unerringly in a direction that he hadn't even suspected and heard the quiet "Si" from Cougar indicating that Jensen was in fact right.
Cougar's silence is unnerving as well, he doesn't think he heard the guy say ten words in the first week with the unit. But he's adjusting and he's not sure they like each other yet, but there's a healthy mutual respect and 494's under no doubt that Cougar has got his back.
Pooch is another kettle of fish entirely. He's the most ordinary of them all in 494's opinion. There's nothing that screams 'different' but he's damn good at his job and seriously his skills as a driver are enough to have 494 white-knuckled and fearing for his life. It's as if he thinks they've all got X5 regenerative powers, which they clearly don't but then he' s so good he's got them free of more than one scrape with little by way of serious injury.
They're a team but they're adjusting. 494 knows they've got his back, knows they're trying to fit him into their team, there's no fixed mould so it's kind of working. He's adjusting too, he's screwed up just enough to feel like he fits here and he's coming to like this spot and hoping that the army sees fit to leave him here with them and forget all about him. He almost wishes that he was ordinary enough to stay as part of a team like this one, but he knows that really all they're doing is widening his experiences to make him blend in more. This won't last, the good things in his life never do.