Title: Collision Event

Author: walutahanga

Disclaimer: Power Rangers is not mine.

Notes: One way that Jack Lander's life could have gone better. Some profanity. Very AU.

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Particle collision event: A brief dynamic event consisting of the close approach of two or more particles, such as atoms, resulting in an abrupt change of momentum.

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Eric was tired. He'd just pulled a doubleshift to make up for Wes taking the day off. (Something about Sky having the flu, and Amanda freaking out.) He was just signing off when he saw two Guardians dragging a kid into headquarters. Literally dragging. They were trying to be gentle, but the kid was yelling and kicking up a storm, using words that kids twice his age shouldn't know.

"It's okay, kid. Just calm down, okay. No one's going to hurt you…" The Guardians were frustrated and helpless, and clearly had never had to deal with a terrified, furious kid before.

Eric walked over.

"What's going on here?"

"This is the Valley Mall thief, sir," one of the guardians replied, straightening as he recognised his superior.

Eric looked at the kid skeptically. He was no longer yelling, but he was twisting furiously in the Guardian's grip, trying to get loose. He looked about twelve years old, with dreadlocks and clothes too big for his skinny limbs. He didn't look like the kind of person who could get inside locked doors and leave about as much trace as a ghost.

"Him?" Eric said, his tone saying it all.

"He's a mutant, sir. Phases through things like Kitty Pryde."

"Who?"

The man went a little bit pink.

"Comic book character, sir."

"I see." Eric returned his gaze to the kid. "That explains how he got inside buildings without unlocking the doors. It doesn't explain what he's doing here. Why aren't social services taking him?"

"Social services don't want him. They say a mutant might be a danger to their foster families. And he's already escaped twice from juvie. Our cells are the only place that can hold him."

"So basically no one wants to deal with this kid, so we got stuck with him?"

"That's the long and short of it, sir." The man winced as the kid elbowed him in the stomach.

Eric repressed the urge to say something really scathing about social services. As mutants became more numerous over the past ten years, both he and Wes had seen mutant orphans marginalised and ignored, and then punished when they used their powers for criminal purposes. Eric knew just how much attention and care a mutant child needed to turn out right, and held Social Services to be about as useful as horseshit.

"Alright," he sighed. "I'll take it from here."

"Yes, sir."

The guardians handed the kid over, clearly relieved to not have to deal with it any further. The kid re-doubled his struggles. Eric, however, was a little bit stronger than the regular human, and had a several blackbelts besides, and had no trouble keeping hold of a squirming kid.

"What's your name?" Eric asked. The kid glared at him.

"Fuck you."

"I'm pretty sure that's not what your mother calls you."

"You shut up about my mother!" The kid delivered a sharp kick to his shin. Eric winced and wished Wes were here. As Wes' own son was a mutant, he somehow knew exactly what to say to get through to kids like this. Eric settled for saying:

"Kid, I really wish you'd stop kicking me."

"Fuck you!"

"There's really no point, you know. I'm not letting you go, and you're not getting out of here, and kicking me will only get you into more trouble."

The kid finally stopped squirming, the fight going out of him.

"That's better," Eric said. "Now, you hungry?"

The kid glared at him suspiciously.

"I've heard that one before," he sneered. "Is this the part where you offer me candy?"

Eric snorted.

"Kid, it's more than my career and my marriage is worth to proposition a skinny runt like you. I was thinking the caffeteria."

He felt the kid relax very slightly, some of the tension thrumming through his arm fading.

"I could eat," the kid said cautiously.

Eric took the kid to the cafeteria, sat him down at a table, and plunked a plate of food in front of him. He noted the kid eyeing the exit.

"And just in case you're wondering," Eric said casually. "I'm faster than I look, and there's about twenty Silver Guardians who can tackle you before you get halfway to the door."

The kid started eating. He wasn't kidding when he said he was hungry. He wolfed the meatloaf down as if it was a hamburger. Eric suspected if he'd been alone, he would have licked the plate too.

"So now that I've fed you," Eric said. "What's your name?"

The kid gave him a mutinous look.

"Kid, I'm going to find out eventually. Just save us both the headache and tell me."

"Jack Landors," the kid muttered.

"Know where your parents are, Jack?"

That earned him an outraged look, and another kick underneath the table.

"They're dead!"

"Ow. What did I say about kicking me?"

He glared at the kid, who glared right back.

"How old are you?" Eric said.

The skinny shoulders raised in a shrug.

"You don't know or you don't want to say?"

"Pick one," Jack bit out.

"Jesus. How long have you been on your own?"

The kid just glared at him again. Eric sighed.

"Great, the one day Wes has to take off, and you show up."

"I'm sorry I made you take time out of your busy schedule to arrest me," the kid said, a faint smirk curling his lips. So there was some spunk under there, beneath the resentment and distrust and hostility.

"Don't apologise," Eric said, matching sarcasm with sarcasm. "It's what I get paid for. C'mon."

He stood, and the kid was watching him warily again.

"Where are we going?"

"I have to put you in a cell for the night. One even you can't walk out of."

The kid went rigid.

"Kid, c'mon. It's only for the night, and you'll have the cell to yourself."

For a moment, he thought the kid was going to try and bolt again. Then he saw him give in, shoulders slumping. The kid clearly had smarts. He knew he was trapped, and he went along with it, waiting for an opportunity. Eric escorted him down to lock-up. The cell was small and private. Once he was inside, Eric activated the forcefields that would hold the kid in.

"Hey." Jack watched Eric from behind the bars. "What'll happen to me?"

Eric shrugged.

"Hard to say. You're a minor, so they won't put you in prison. But nowhere else will hold you, and social services won't take you…"

He wasn't going to say it, but it would be a whole lot more convenient for everyone if the kid just escaped and waited until he was eighteen to get arrested again.

The kid didn't seem overly surprised at Eric's statement.

"So no one wants to deal with me," he said with a shrug. "What's new?"

There was an almost painful familiarity to the overly casual tone, the pretence that the rejection didn't hurt. Eric had become intimately familiar with it in his childhood, with the father that had liked to use his fists and the mother that had drunk herself into an oblivious stupor every night. He knew that the sting never really faded. The mask just got better.

"We'll figure something out," he said. "And it won't be prison. I'll make sure of it."

The kid gave a snort of laughter.

"Sure. Whatever."

"Get some sleep, kid."

Eric went home. On the way, he picked up some flowers from the florist and handed them to Taylor as he walked in the door.

"Nice," she said, eyes narrowing. "What did you do this time?"

Eric took a deep breath and prepared to be the most persuasive he'd been since he convinced her to marry him.

"Taylor, have you ever thought about adoption?"

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