Notes: This story was inspired heavily by the TV Show series Heroes and X-Men Evolution, but more in particular, the newer movie that came out in 2011, X-Men Evolution: First Class. The story was also inspired by the stories on the site. I see tons of these kinds of stories that base themselves solely on the "superhero" theme but only subject the story to one main character. I figure, it's about time there's a story that gives equal chance to all characters and not have just one. That way, the author and the readers are both happy.
Just to let you know, they will ALL have powers. Some more than one.
Rating, Disclaimer, Warnings:
T; I do not own Criminal Minds; Violence, cursing, total alternate universe, grammar & spelling errors, possible OOC, POV shifts, a lot of characters, etc.
Just Life
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Summary:
Superhero theme A/U: They each made different choices in life, some for better and some for worse, but fate brought them together anyway.
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PREFACE: History of Sorts
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Chicago, Illinois. 1982
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"What are you gonna teach me to do today, Carl?" Twelve year old, Derek Morgan was lounging on the chair as he waited for his long time friend and mentor, Carl Buford, to come back into the room. He glanced up at the man when he heard the low thumps of shoes hitting the floorboards. Carl eyed the boy with mild curiosity, noting that Derek was especially excited this morning. "Well?" The impatience in his tone was as clear as day. It had only been a few years, since his mother's death really, since Derek discovered his special powers within himself and a couple weeks since Carl had been able to successfully persuade the boy to let him teach him how to control it. That was when the two really started to hit it off together.
Carl had been known to mentor a few children in the neighborhood before but none had ever been as gifted as Derek Morgan. Carl was sure the boy was a gift from God himself and had, had the power within him since birth. The trigger was his mother's death and from time to time Carl was lucky enough to witness the gift. He pretended to contemplate the question as he went to wash his hands, humming under his breath.
"Aw come on, Carl," Derek hissed. He got off from the chair and was looking at the man's turned back in frustration. "Are you gonna teach me kung fu? How to whip people's asses? Cuz there's this guy I know that's really been bugging me. You remember that punk named Jared, don't you?"
Carl paused and turned the water off. "I'm not going to teach you how to kill people, Derek," he said sharply.
There was a beat of silence before Derek let out a huff of anger, throwing his hands into the air. "I know you ain't. I don't wanna kill anybody anyway. I just mean whip his ass. You know – knock him around a lil!"
Carl spun to face the boy, anger written all over his face. Derek flinched at the sudden movement. He backed up a little when he saw the man's eyes. Derek may have been gifted by God, but he was still a little boy and Carl was still a large man. "Look," Carl started, trying to calm himself down. "I know you want to hurt people because they hurt you, Derek. There's nothing wrong with thinking about that from time to time but actually hurting them just to inflict pain – that's wrong and that's not why I became your mentor. Understand?" He knelt down in front of the boy and put out his hand, palm facing upward. At the boy's hesitant nod, he took hold of the boy's wrist.
"Why don't we pay respect to your mama now?" he said in a gentle voice. Derek frowned as the man stood up, pulling the boy forward. "I'll teach you whatever you want to know afterwards. Okay, dear boy?"
Derek thought for a moment, letting the man drag him out of the room to the door. "Fine," he muttered. He still wanted to cream Jared next time he saw him. He glared at the back of his mentor, whom only chuckled as he unlocked the door and opened it wide. God nothing was ever fair. But at least he got to see his mama today. As the two stepped outside, Derek was pelted by the bright and heated rays of the sun. It sent flurries of goose bumps down his skin. He blinked his eyes against the blinding daylight. "But you're paying for lunch again, right?" He was kind of hungry, he had to admit
Carl looked down at the boy in surprise, caught off-guard by the sudden question. Then his lips curved into a slow smile as he watched Derek squint against the sun. "Of course, Derek. Lunch and dinner are on me today."
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1988
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"Carl Buford was a good man. He took care all of the kids in the neighborhood – real good care them, like they were one of his own. Especially me. He was my friend and mentor for a long time. He was like my father – my real daddy. He took me under his wings when my mama died and taught me how to stop pitying myself like the fool I was.
"For a long ass time, I wasn't sure how I could go on in life. For a long time, I woke up and thought to myself, Derek ain't nobody gonna be missing you. You is a fool to be thinking somebody would. Then I'd be going back to bed in my street clothes – didn't bother taking a bath or changing. I stank the whole house up for weeks and I wasn't sure how my family could put up with me. Still ain't sure now.
"But then there was Carl Buford. He came knocking and asking if I was okay, especially after what happened to my mama. I wouldn't be the cool jackass I am today. I wouldn't be the man standing here before you, talking to all you, saying these kinds of stuff you normally wouldn't be hearing coming outta my mouth. I won't lie. I wasn't sure if I could make it here today, to his funeral, to my daddy's funeral. I wasn't sure I wanted to get outta bed.
"But Carl deserves this, more than this. He made me believe in most things I forgot existed. Most importantly, he made me believe in myself again. Thank you for that, Carl. I hope you and my mama found peace already. You'll always be in my heart. Amen."
He walked back down to his seat in a chorus of applause. He hoped to God that Carl Buford heard him and was resting easy up there, wherever the man was.
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2010, Present-time
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He had to get away. He had to get as far away from them as possible. Heart racing inside his ribcage, he turned sharply at a corner and found himself at a dead-end. Derek cursed to himself. He could hear the faint police car sirens in the background and out of the corner of his eyes, Derek saw the emergency fire escape stairs jutting out of an apartment complex building to his left. In his panic, he nearly missed it.
He ran underneath the ladder that came down, stopping only a few feet from his head. Jumping as high as he could, Derek managed to grab hold of the ends of the ladder and pull himself up. Just as he was half-way in climbing to the top of the ladder, he heard the distant click of a gun and someone shouting, "FREEZE!"
Shit. Shit. Derek sped up in his climb, scaling the stairs as rapidly as his feet could carry him. He ignored the white hot burn lacing through his right leg as he ran up and up and up. He found an open window a few minutes later and without hesitation, he threw himself in the slightly large gap. Derek hit the floor with a low thud and let out a small moan in pain as his leg collided hard with a nearby table. Damn it all, could his day get any worse?
The door next to the TV that led out of the apartment slammed open. Derek's eyes widened in fear as a man with black hair and narrowed brown eyes peered down at him. He was clutching a pistol out in front of him with both hands. "Derek Morgan, you're under arrest for the murders of two cops and three civilians."
Oh shit. That would make it worse. Derek let loose a heavy groan as the man cautiously walked over to him, handcuffs dangling on his belt. His head hit the floor before he could stop himself. He just didn't have the strength to go on. It was all over. At least for now.
Before he slipped into a state of unconsciousness, the man had already moved over to him and knelt beside him. He dropped the gun and took out the cuffs but not before touching the small of Derek's back and leaning over so he could whisper in the black man's ear. "I know what you are, Derek. You can't hide it from me." Then he heard the man pick up his gun again. "But we'll discuss everything later. For now, I can't let you try anything." And then he was hit on the back of the head with the butt of the man's gun, seeing and hearing nothing but blackness. His head dropped once again to the floor with a loud thud.
The man sighed and rose back to his feet. He wiped the sweat from his brows and put the gun back into the extra holster he kept on his left ankle. It wasn't too easy chasing down Derek Morgan. The man was pretty athletic and had it not been for his own gift, he was sure he wouldn't have known which room the man decided to hide himself in. Derek was an expert when it came to the art of hiding. He must have practiced for years. But Aaron Hotchner was also gifted and more experienced – maybe a little more so than the unconscious man before him.
There was a buzz in his pants pocket as his phone's vibration went off. He took his cell phone out and flipped it open, checking the caller ID carefully before pressing 'talk' and putting it up to his ear. "Hey, Dave. Yes, I found him." He raised an eyebrow. "No, he didn't cause much trouble. I got him right here." There was a pause. He furrowed his brows after a moment. "I'll bring him back soon, don't worry."
His friend hung up and he snapped his own phone off. Looking down grimly at the bleeding man, Aaron contemplated on what to do next. This was definitely the guy they were looking for. Aaron knelt back down and leaned over the man again. He turned him over slowly, grimacing to himself when Derek moaned from the pain. Where was he hurt? Aaron certainly didn't shoot him and he was sure he didn't hit him on the head that hard.
It didn't take very long before Aaron knew what was troubling the man. His eyes were glued to Derek's right leg, more specifically, his knee. Jutting out as painfully white as can be was the small beginnings of a bone fragment. Dear god, he was just seeing this now? How the hell could Aaron be so clueless?
Aaron's heartbeat was speeding in his chest. He wasn't sure how to help the poor man. He wasn't a doctor of any sort. He leaned over the man and started to prod his knee, not sure on how to fix it. Derek hissed out in pain as Aaron tried to push the bone back in. He had to close the wound somehow or Derek was going to lose more blood. God, what the hell happened to him? As he pressed his thumb down on the bone fragment, hoping he was doing something right, he searched for something to wrap around the knee.
Getting a desperate idea, Aaron ripped a piece of fabric from the sleeve of his own button-up dress shirt and began to wrap it in place. Before he could get the cloth all the around the man's leg, however, something miraculous happened. Aaron's breath caught sharply in his throat and he had to swallow thickly.
The large gash on Derek's leg started to heal on its own, his skin growing back quickly over the bone that had moments before stuck out painfully.
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Las Vegas, Nevada. 1990
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Spencer was ten years old and in high school. He would be graduating in two more years, at the age of twelve, making him a genius prodigy. It should have made him ecstatic, pleased, excited, anything. But he felt nothing except a small queasiness in the pits of his stomach. He liked being a genius with an IQ of 187 and an eidetic memory. But while there were some perks to it, he found more downsides. He was smaller than everyone else in the school for one, the actual youngest attending high school, which made him an easy target for bullying. And another was that while he was smarter than pretty much everyone at school, that he had the ability to easily absorb information in an instant like a sponge, people were afraid to get too close to him.
Sometimes Spencer wished he wasn't so smart, that he was just a normal kid with parents that loved each other and had friends to get his back when the bullying emerged. At the age of ten, a sophomore in a Las Vegas high school, Spencer found out he was more than just intellectually gifted when he had to hide in the girl's bathroom. It was the senior prick, Russell again. It was almost always him that demanded Spencer to pay up his daily homework he said the young genius owed him.
Spencer had gotten into the teen's debt the same way most kids did – by doing absolutely nothing. He had just been sitting in the wrong place at the wrong time, looking up from his book at the wrong person. The library was the only safe haven to Spencer. Nothing bad ever happened there, not in the first two years since he entered high school at least. It was always quiet there. No one bothered with Spencer in the library because of the strict old librarian keeping a close watch from the front. Not until Brian Russell at least.
It was only last month that Russell started coming into the library on a daily basis to have a "talk" with Spencer. At first, Spencer thought nothing of it. Just another face curious about a ten year old genius prodigy. Just another guy that haven't seen a single book until now. And he seemed nice for a while, for a few weeks until he had the old lady in the palm of his hand. He made light conversation with her and Spencer. He said he liked the library, that he wanted to read all the books and old Miss Harrison nodded her head and fiddled with her fingers and said that he should meet up with young Spencer Reid over there, that the kid pretty much memorized every book word by word, that Spencer could help him with his reports if he asked kindly enough. That Spencer would more than likely be his friend because he didn't have any.
And she was right. Spencer would become his friend if he had so much as asked. But that never happened. That was never Russell's intentions. Spencer should have seen it coming. The senior wanted nothing to do with a weak little ten year old that got picked on for his brains. He just wanted Spencer to do his homework for him so he could quickly make his escape. Spencer did do it for a while. Just because the guy was taller, bigger and tougher than him.
But that was months ago. He was getting tired of doing what Russell wanted. He was getting sick of being treated like dirt. Spencer didn't go back to the library. He hid in the girl's bathroom at lunch break now. Russell never knew where to look. Usually Spencer could hide all lunch without anyone bothering to check, except maybe an occasional girl that badly needed to piss. But no one ever found Spencer, sitting on the closed toilet seat in the far end stall of the girl's bathroom.
Today was different though. He had a feeling today was different. He wasn't entirely sure why though. He did everything just the same as the previous days. It was just a feeling in the pits of his stomach. He clenched his hands tightly to either side of him as he sat as still as possible. He held his breath when he heard the faint squeaks of sneakers against the tiled floor. Then the slow creak of a door opening. Please let it just be a girl.
"Spencer, I know you're in here!" Spencer nearly let out a gasp. There was no mistaking that loud, obnoxious male voice. Russell. His hands tightened. Russell let out a snicker and started opening each stall. "Where are you?"
Please don't let him find me.
Each step got louder as the senior got closer. Don't let him open this one. Don't let him open this one. Don't let him open this one. He felt his heart plummeting to his feet when Russell was pushing open the stall right next to his. "Come on out, Reid."
Spencer wasn't sure what happened in the next moment. He heard a loud click and the senior was opening the door to Spencer's stall. He peered inside with a sneer on his face and Spencer was sure the senior could hear the loud thumping of his heart beating in his ribcage. But then in a moment, the grin was wiped away and replaced it was the utter look of confusion. Russell took a step forward, scratching the back of his neck, looking right at Spencer…or through him. As if he couldn't see that Spencer was right there, cowering on the toilet seat.
"What the hell? I thought Peter said he'd be here," Russell grumbled. He turned around and stalked out the bathroom, leaving Spencer bewildered for the first time in his life.
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Tampa, Florida. 2005
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"Okay. Here goes nothing. You ready, PG?"
"Yeah. Anytime you are, Em-Em. Just take a deep breath and let go. You can do it."
She snorted. "Easy for you to say. You're not the one about to jump from a two-story building."
"Well it's…it's hard for me to watch."
Emily Prentiss rolled her eyes as the woman down below looked at her with frightened brown eyes. How was it that Penelope Garcia seemed more scared down there, feet planted to solid earth while Emily was up here, hands holding tightly to the edge of the window, about to jump off from a two-story house? God, this felt ridiculous. She could feel goose bumps trying to crawl over her skin.
"Here goes nothing," she muttered and took a huge gulp of air, hoping that it wasn't going to be her last. Glancing down quickly for one last look at Penelope, she let go of the ledge and leaped out the window, meeting the warm breezes that day head on.
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New York City, New York. 2010, Present-Time
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"You can open your eyes now, JJ."
JJ's eyes snapped open at the sound of Will's voice. She let out a small gasp when she saw that they were in his apartment. It was the largest she had ever seen with two spare bedrooms down a nice-fitting hallway, a kitchen that came with its own refrigerator and freezer, a stove and a new and working dishwasher. They were in a spacious looking living room with a fireplace.
She knew Will was loaded because of his job and his parents. She also knew he already owned a couple apartments in the city but this was the first time he'd shown her one of the places and they'd been going out for a few months by now. She looked up at him and noted he was smiling at her. "So what do you think?" he asked, taking her hands in his.
JJ grinned. "I think this is beautiful."
"Good," he said breathlessly. He pulled her closer to him. "Want to get dinner tonight?"