A/N: Hey, guys. Look at me, not updating a month overdue! :)
I'll be honest, I'm not entirely happy with this chapter, but I figured I'd toss it out, and edit it with your feedback to make it better. After this one, I think we'll only need a couple more chapters to wrap it up. :D Oh, and I had some formatting issues with this chapter. I think I fixed them all, but I wouldn't be surprised if one or two slipped past.
Thank you SO much to my reviewers, Pink-Libra-Girl, and bradburythequeen. Your despairing and enthusiastic words fueled this chapter, and are a big part of the reason it didn't take another three weeks to churn out. Love you guys!
Rating: I'm going to say this chapter is also a T.
Warnings: Angst, and sad Chase, grief, and Templeton's general contradictory creepiness.
Be the reason someone smiles today! :)
Templeton was standing in his grand office, staring out of the high windows with an inscrutable face. He didn't seem to notice Absko and Chase slip into the room, and kept his eyes fixed on the streets so very far below him. Chase almost smiled at the thought. Templeton held himself in such esteem, saw himself as something above the everyday person, and he had the view to make him feel the same way. What he didn't realize was that looking down on people for too long was a lonely, lonely thing. Chase knew; he was the kind of person to hide behind arrogance. And if there was anything the smartest man in the world understood, it was loneliness.
The bionic shook himself. Snap out of it, Chase, he urged. You can't afford to be sympathizing with him. You can't afford to understand him. He's your enemy, remember. He's hurt you, he's hurt your family, he's made you hurt your family. He's a monster. You're a hero. You aren't the same, you never will be.
Absko broke the seemingly eternal moment by clearing his throat, and time sped back to normal speed. Templeton turned, and his hungry eyes snapped Chase out of his thoughts. Chase stood up stiffly as the other man moved forward, and forced himself to look Templeton in the dark, predacious eyes that bore down on him. In those eyes, Chase could see the ruthlessness that had let the man murder his brother in cold blood. Chase felt a swell of hot, numbing rage, but fought it down. If he showed any emotion, any weakness at all, Templeton would use it against him. He would be ice. He would become what he had, for so long, tried not to: a machine.
"So, Tancred, at last, here we are." Templeton nodded to Absko, and the bodyguard slipped out of the room. Even in the intensity of the moment, Chase had to wonder how much a huge man could move as quietly as a cat.
Turning his attention back to Templeton, who clearly expected an answer, Chase sat calmly silent. Templeton sighed. "Come, come, don't be so juvenile, Tancred. I was hoping we could have a nice, civil, conversation. Let's just sit, and be social for a time." He gestured to the chairs close by.
Chase snorted, he couldn't help himself. "'It has been said that social occasions are only warfare concealed,'" he quoted with the help of his perfect memory. He shook his head. "Why not talk about why I'm really here, now that the masks have dropped?"
"Alright then, Tancred," Templeton said softly, pacing in inexplicable patterns around the room. "We've seen that you're willing to do anything to keep your family safe, even be a different person, conform, let yourself be molded. Even lie to them, hurt them, to protect them. Very interesting, but to be expected. I'll admit," Templeton said, in a rare moment of honesty, "I'm disappointed it won't be you staying with me, following in my footsteps. Extraordinarily, really." His voice hardened again. "So I'll give you one more chance to do just that." He turned to the large mirror on one of the walls, and pressed something. The entire mirror slid up to reveal a window into the next room, and in that room sat-
"Trent?" Chase whispered, disbelievingly. And it was, along with the bully's closest friends, the ones that held people while Trent beat them up, stood lookout, and spied. These were the people that had made his life miserable for years, and not just his, but his siblings' too. He turned to Templeton, wanting an answer. Why was one of the only unresolved pieces of his history sitting imprisoned before him?
"We're at a crossroads, Tancred," Templeton told him, answering his look. The madman sounded almost sane, almost human. "This is where we decide your future. Whether you can dish out the justice you have a right to." He waved a hand at the glass. "They can't see us, and have no idea their fates are being decided, just as yours is. So, tell me, what happens to them?"
That caught Chase off guard. "What?" He asked, confused.
"What happens to them now, Tancred?" Templeton clarified. "It's up to you. If you decide to give them the same misery they piled on you, then you stay here. Your life is your own. Kill them, and you go completely free. You and your family never hear or see me again. Refuse, and I send you on a mission you don't come back from. Obviously, that would tear your family to pieces, making it pointless to pursue them any longer, either way. No matter what you choose, my revenge is ensured. Choose one, you have to tell them you're a murderer. Choose the other, you won't be alive to tell them anything. So..." He looked at Chase expectantly. "What now?"
Chase stared at the bullies, gut churning. He was remembering how they had targeted his younger brother, ruthlessly. The bruises Leo had tried so hard to hide, and failed, because Chase knew him better than that. He was remembering how he had gone to tell them to stop targeting Leo, and how they had indeed stopped. How they had turned their attention to him, instead, and he hadn't told anyone, because he should have been able to manage it on his own. He remembered days spent skirting the bullies, hiding in his own school, always avoiding and redirecting his family's inevitable questions. The humiliation, the pain, the years of juggling crushing missions, and scathing family, and abuse at school, the place the smartest bionic should have been able to shine. He remembered it all, and hot anger burned in his eyes, anger and hurt. And Templeton smiled.
"Come on, my boy," he said, laying a hand on Chase's shoulder. "You want to get even. You want to get them back for what they did to you. Justice can be done, you can strike back now. I can see it in your eyes that you want to."
Chase stared for another minute, face inscrutable, fists clenching and unclenching. Emotions were warring within him, and the whole room, the whole world, it seemed, held its breath waiting for his response. Slowly, Chase nodded, and Templeton grinned. Tancred was his after all.
"I want to," Chase said, softly, "And I admit it. They've hurt me so much, that yes, of course I want to hurt them back. It would be just; an eye for an eye. But, as they say, that would leave everyone blind, and so it does. It may be fair, but it's not right."
He turned to face Templeton, displacing the man's hand from his shoulder. Chase stood straight, defiant, and assured. This was not a boy, to be manipulated, not an apprentice to be shaped, but a man who knew his own mind, and would stick to his ideals, even to death. Chase smiled.
"I could get my revenge on them, but that isn't what I do. I'm a bionic hero, and I save people. I protect people. I don't use my powers for my own gain, my own selfish desires. I have power, but it isn't truly my own. It is the people's. And so, no, I will not hurt them. Let them go."
Templeton sighed, shoulders slumping. "So much potential," he murmured, looking Chase up and down. "Wasted. You could destroy nations. You could rule the world, and you give up this power to save a group of petty bullies." He shook his head. "A shame. Truly, Tancred, you do yourself a disservice."
It rankled that Templeton could kill one of Chase's family, take them away forever, and still be this sincere, still care. It sickened him. But Chase forced himself to return to ice.
Genuine disappointment in his eyes, Templeton held out a hand to Chase, who forced himself to take it, and they shook hands. Chase could feel that, even if his decision had disappointed the man before him, there was more respect there. Even a criminal mastermind apparently respected someone who stuck to their guns. Too bad he didn't want Templeton's respect. It couldn't bring Adam back.
A gentle prick on the back of Chase's neck warned him of impending unconsciousness just before black threaded the corners of his vision. He knew that when he woke, he would be on a suicide mission. But still, as he drifted away, he couldn't bring himself to regret what he'd done.
He only wished that his family didn't have to lose another loved one so soon.
*squeeks and gets a head start* Oh, and if anyone is wondering, that quote's from Star Trek TOS, Khan in the episode Space Seed. I don't own it, but it sure is pretty.