Takes place between "One of Us, One of Them" and "Angels and Monsters"
A partner; a person who shared or associated with another in some action or endeavor. He knew the meaning of the word, but it didn't make the concept any less foreign to him.
He was a loner, he'd always been a loner. His personality, circumstances- hell, even his previous occupation, everything had taught him to rely only on himself. He forged his own path in life, never mind the social implications. If a person could be useful, he let them demonstrate their use, but never depended, never required. Of course, Noah Bennet could be very useful.
Sylar knew him from the past, and knew that he was a dreadful person to have as an enemy. The question now was whether he could be trusted, if he could be a partner to him, as Angela Petrelli (like hell was he going to call her 'mother', when there was nothing to gain from it) had so glibly put it. Bennet was ruthless, judgmental, and- touchy. Touchy about his family. About Claire. That was good. It meant he was still human, redeemable, capable of change. Like himself, for that matter, like- Gabriel.
Damn. Petrelli was getting to him with her talk about being misguided. He hadn't thought of himself as purely human in ages.
It was amusing, it was fun to watch Bennet attempt to patronize him, to watch as he tried to prove how he was the big, bad agent, the best of them all. He could treat it like a game, and still change Bennet's perception of him, make the possibility of a partner more realistic. He could help, in this game. He could be a hero.
But reality had a way of crashing back down on him, forcing him back into the role of the hunter, the villain. In real life, he couldn't pretend to be a good guy. He could only hurt, and kill, and submit to the hunger that took over his mind and drove away whatever humanity he had gathered in the scraps of his current existence.
Maybe he was a monster, he reflected after the fact, staring at the dull red under his nails that he had tried to wash away. He certainly wasn't a hero, wasn't an angel of any sort. But maybe… maybe there were worse monsters to be.
He was trying, at least. That was worth something, in the long-term scheme of things, as he attempted to revise his view on life, to find if there could be such a thing as good. In the beginning, he had been able to choose which powers to take, who deserved to live and who needed to- die. If he could just get that back, get that ability to control himself, that would be enough.
This Canfield, for example. Bennet told him the details in a clipped voice, obviously still unhappy with the need to bring him along. The power to create literal black holes- that could do more than kill, that could destroy the entire world if used improperly. Himself included. And he had a strong sense of self-preservation.
Still, he had heard past the facts of the report, made his own conjectures. Canfield had killed once, and out of an involuntary reaction. There were no facts to point to him being a killer; he was only dangerous. He decided ahead of time that he would be fair to this man, as an experiment; he would put him back where he could cause no harm, and do no damage to him in the process. He could almost laugh when Bennet told him to stay put by the door, to let him handle taking Canfield down, and to only intervene in the case of an emergency. He wasn't going to take Canfield's power, in any case.
All of his good intentions went flying off to pave the road to hell when he saw Claire.
Maybe he had enjoyed playing the hero, before, maybe he had secretly laughed when others grew sullen at being saved by him, the villain, the killer- but there was none of that, now. There was only the fact that there was a murderer holding Claire hostage, and if the situation remained in its current state for more than five seconds he would be extremely pissed-off.
(A small, sarcastic part of his brain noted that Canfield was much less of a murderer than himself or Bennet, and that the cheerleader would, on normal occasions, hardly be endangered by close proximity to any killer. The rest of his mind told the small part to shut up.)
For once, he felt like he could actually trust Bennet- he wasn't going to do anything that might put his daughter in danger. They both had the same goal, at that moment, they were in sync. Almost like partners. Of course, that was when all hell decided to break loose, in the form of a black hole in the center of the room. Somewhere in the world, he knew, a physicist was shuddering over the impossibility of the situation.
At first, there was only the idea of survival- grab onto something sturdy, drop all other priorities. Then, he could watch the vortex, his mind able to quickly analyze, to determine what needed to be done. Bennet seemed fine, but Claire was far too close. He simply needed to calculate the best angle, apply the slightest telekinetic nudge to himself, and- let go.
The force swept him around violently, and the world around him was a meaningless blur, but he knew he was moving in an arc; he managed to grab the metal siding before being swept closer in. On the other side of the room, Claire was losing her grip. There was no time to think; he pushed off, and was swept in another arc, slammed into the siding on the other side. He grabbed her hand before she could disappear.
Damnit. He still didn't have complete control over that newer power, from Bailey. He had to watch helplessly as the most recent events Claire had been through flashed before his eyes, and he didn't want to see this, didn't want to see himself as the monster she thought of him as. Guilt was something he couldn't deal with just then.
The vortex seeped away. He held onto her arm for a second too long as he got his balance back, and she jerked it away. It didn't take visions of the past for him to see that she was furious, and it didn't take long to realize that any partnership which might have been possible before was gone.
It was strange. He had done what was needed in the past, and he'd been fine, he'd been satisfied with the picture of a villain he painted in others' minds. But now, when he tried to fix things, to change? That picture had been painted too harshly. It didn't matter what he said; they would only hear what they expected.
The trip to the park was made in complete silence. He had been dismissed to the back seat- some kind of partner he was being treated as. Claire was sulking or thinking or throwing mental daggers at him in the front. Bennet, on the other hand- Bennet was plotting something. He just couldn't tell what.
He was told to wait by the car, again, and had to wonder why Bennet even bothered with bringing him along.
Except- except that Bennet had cornered the man, but wasn't acting. And Claire was upset. He briefly contemplated using his enhanced hearing to find out what was going on, but decided that that would be too much like cheating. It would be much more fun to puzzle out what this little soap-opera was centered around through vision alone.
It had the typical elements; the damsel-in-distress was in distress, the enraged father figure was asking for the impossible, the family friend was torn between options. A deal with the devil was being made, to wipe out a greater evil. Then, as Canfield turned to look in his direction, horrified of something, he realized who the 'greater evil' was, in Bennet's mind.
This was ridiculous. He started to walk up to them, intent on calling Bennet out- and Canfield warped himself away. Bennet did his best to look angry, but he wasn't buying it. Not this time.
The soap opera continued in the car ride back, with the tension between father and daughter growing- and, with the focus off of himself, he found it highly amusing. He even took the liberty of throwing in a narrative monologue near the end. Bennet would probably give him hell for it on the rest of the ride back, but it was worth it- especially since it seemed to have set Claire further apart from her father, an action he heartily approved of.
He had never had a partner in the past; he didn't think it likely he could ever grow to have one now.