The front of the 23rd precinct was a study in chaos.
The entirety of the Manhattan population of Gargoyles were gathered inside the precinct building, all dressed in their official NYPD gear…Which mainly consisted of specially made ballistics vests with NYPD emblazoned across the chest in bright yellow lettering.
They had been there almost an hour now, with only the briefest meeting with Captain Carlin. According to him, their job tonight was to just stand in the back, stay silent, and let the man who was acting Captain in Maria's stead to handle things.
The fact that Acting Captain Carlin was still standing upright was a testament to the clan's control, as he'd passed by the group several times and had been muttering about having to have this press conference in the first place, and how it wouldn't have been necessary if it hadn't been for the "incompetence" of Bluestone and Maza in handling the information and the news report the evening before.
Brooklyn and Hudson, knowing full well that the surest way to get Goliath's temper to rise and his control to snap was to insult his mate within his hearing, took up a post on either side of their leader. They were ready to step in to intervene if needed, as they knew he would do for them.
Just before they were to go out and take their positions, the human members of the Task Force began filtering in. The GTF Officers were recruited from every station within the NYPD on Manhattan island and came dressed in their crisp blue uniforms. As they entered, they immediately broke off, and went to converse with the clan members.
It was not a comfort, Goliath thought, that they were all as confused as the gargoyles were as to why their presence was called for that evening.
They were joined by a frazzled woman by the name of Lucy Santos. Lucy had started out as a minor PR rep within the NYPD, and now held the position as the public relations representative for the GTF division. Judging by her state, she'd been notified about this press conference a short time before as she was slightly disheveled and so unlike her normal self.
"Alright," she said, "in just a minute, we're going to need you to go outside. Just stand against the wall of the station." She ran a hand over her hair, frustration coloring her voice. "Captain Carlin will go out, make his speech, and we can get on with the rest of our night."
Everyone nodded, and as Carlin himself approached, his expression thunderous.
Without a word, he stalked past the GTF members and paused to straighten his tie in the reflection of the glass doors before turning to impatiently motion to Lucy.
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"I guess that's our cue," Lucy said with a sigh. As they began to walk to the door, she mentally cast Carlin to the fiery depths of the innermost circle of Hades. She missed Captain Chavez and the openness that the normal captain had.
Not that she resented the captain for having a baby and taking a few weeks off, but Lucy wished Maria would have been able to select her own temporary replacement.
Maria would never have called her an hour out, unless it was a dire emergency, and on the extremely rare occasions that had happened, Maria had flat out told her what was happening so that she could prepare in case she was needed to take over at the podium.
Carlin had kept her completely in the dark. If she was needed at the podium, she'd be going in completely blind. Oh, she could BS with the best of them, redirect attention when needed, but it was helpful to be able to prepare first.
Once outside, they were all assaulted by the flashing lights of the camera flashes as well as the hot and steady lighting from the video takers. They took their positions as ordered, with the human task force officers interspersed between their gargoyle counterparts.
Lucy stood just behind and slightly to the side of the podium, her normal position of being seen but not heard from unless needed.
Carlin came in then, his chest puffed up and looking important. Lucy almost rolled her eyes.
'Talk about a power trip,' she thought.
She looked out at the crowd, really took in the scene before her, and felt her whole body tighten up with anxiety. At some point in the half hour that she'd spent inside the station, the crowd had divided into two very distinct groups.
One side, the more vocal and restless of the two, were very obviously anti-gargoyle.
The other side, still vocal but not seeming as agitated, was of the pro-gargoyle camp.
Lucy sent up a silent prayer that whatever Carlin had planned, that it wouldn't be the spark to set this powder keg of a situation on fire.
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"Maria?" Eagle called from the living room where he had been pacing with a fussy Sofia. Their daughter, born two weeks ago and normally a happy and content baby, had chosen that night to decide to fight sleep it seemed.
He had moved into Maria's apartment, only blocks from the NYPD station she worked at, "temporarily" before the baby was born to help out as much as he could, trying to give Maria the time to rest and recuperate afterward. It hadn't been as if she had been walking through the valley and all that, but it hadn't exactly been a breeze of a delivery, either.
Part of that was age, he supposed. She'd practically been put on bed rest the last two weeks of her pregnancy, and for someone like Maria, it had driven her a little crazy.
He could certainly testify to that.
Now that Sofia was born, he had it in his mind to push his arrangement with Maria from "temporary" to a more permanent status. He had proposed about midway through the pregnancy, hoping that her hormones had chilled her out enough to at least entertain the idea.
She had accepted, but didn't want to have the actual ceremony until after the baby had come, to give them both time to adjust to parenthood and decide if getting married was what they both wanted.
That evening, Maria had decided that she wanted to make fajitas from scratch, so Eagle had gladly taken over baby duty.
They had learned in the first few days that Sofia tended to sleep easier with some kind of low noise in the background, so Eagle had flipped channels until he'd found a news channel. With the volume turned low, he hadn't been paying attention to it, really, until he heard something about the 23rd precinct.
"Yes?" Maria called out from the kitchen.
"If you can put things in there on hold for a minute," Eagle said, giving Sofia an extra pat or two on her small back to try to get her to burp, "you might want to come and see this."
Maria came out from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a hunter green dish towel. Sure, she was still moving a little slower compared to her pre-baby speed and had a few extra curves, but Eagle still eyed her appreciatively. Those extra curves were in all the right places, Eagle thought wickedly, then gave his head a shake to clear it.
Maria glanced at the television and frowned. "What is going on?" she asked sharply.
"I don't know," Eagle admitted. "I had the volume down."
Maria scooped up the remote, and boosted the volume up to a level where a human could actually hear it. No one was at the podium just yet, but the reporter on scene was speculating all over the place about what the impromptu press conference was going to be about.
That was the first time Maria heard about the picture that the reporter had caught and stared in disbelief as that very picture was flashed across the screen.
Eagle looked on in a combination of fascination and astonishment as his normally calm and collected fiancée as she began swearing in fluent Spanish. He knew just enough Spanish to get the gist of what she was saying, and he almost felt sorry for that Carlin guy and his manhood that, should Maria get a hold of him, was going to be parted from his body.
"I have to get down there. Where are my damn shoes," Maria said, already moving as quickly as she could from the living room.
Eagle sighed, went into the kitchen to make sure all of the appliances were turned off so the place didn't catch fire, then slipped into his own shoes.
He went back to the television, and glanced up to see that the Gargoyles, the task force, and Miss Santos were coming out of the building.
As he listened to the opening speech Carlin gave, he felt his blood chill.
Sofia gave a soft belch and Eagle continued to absently pat her back. "I agree, Sofia." Eagle said, glaring at the television. "That guy's a dick."