A/N - all recognizable characters are owned by DC. Only the cops, Aegis and our heroine are mine.
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For Lish
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OK, Zee, you can do this.
I took a deep breath, pulled up my big-girl panties, and knocked on the door.
The man's voice that said "Yes, come in." sounded normal, not mechanical or robotic. I wasn't sure what I was expecting but that wasn't it.
I stepped into the room and closed the door behind me.
Hazel Neubauer was ninety-three, asleep in the bed, an oxygen hose in her nose, though asleep wasn't really accurate. She was unconscious, had been for almost a week, and the staff expected her to die, peacefully, in the next day or two without waking up again. I'd been there before my grandma passed and she looked like I thought she would.
Almost.
My grandma hadn't had a man in a self-contained, refrigerated suit of power-armor sitting beside her bed, holding her hand. The unexpected surrealness of it would have made me laugh if I hadn't been so scared.
When he saw me he put her hand down and stood up. I don't know what he looked like outside of his suit, but in it he was huge. I suddenly knew what Harry felt like the first time he saw Hagrid. I held both of my hands up in front of me.
"Doctor Fries? I'd just like to talk to you for a few minutes …"
His stare was neutral, emotionless but not blank, and very disconcerting.
"… if I'm not disturbing you …" I tried not to mumble.
He gestured me to one of the guest chairs close to him. My friend Debbie's father liked to quote the Yiddish phrase "God watches out for children and idiots". I prayed he was right as I walked over to the chair – well within his reach – and sat down.
"My name is Zee-Axis." I started. "I'm –"
"You are a telekinetic and an engineering or mathematics student at The Ohio State University." Well, shit. One of Batman's smarter villains knows who I am. That can't be good.
But lying isn't going to do help me either.
"Math. Maybe math education. I haven't decided yet."
He sat back down on a heavy, metal stool that didn't appear to have a problem with his weight.
"Is your mentor, Aegis, here too?"
"No. But SWAT is. Outside."
"Why? I've done nothing illegal."
"Here." I clarified, trying to think of a diplomatic way to say "but you're still a big, bad villain" but nothing good came to mind. I decided to go with the truth. "No one knows what you're doing here. This is hospice, not …" a bank or a lab ... "It's really freaking people out."
He thought about that for a moment.
"Is SWAT coming in?"
"I told them they didn't have to." Yet. "I wanted to-"
"If they do," he started to stand, "they'll find I'm –"
"Doctor," I put my hand on his arm. The metal was cold. "Sit down. Please. No one wants violence, especially here." He didn't but I did have his attention. "I came in here to talk to you so I can give them a reason to stand down and go away! They're cops. They're not in your league. I don't want to see any of them get hurt." OK, maybe one of them … "And, if you're here for Hazel, I don't want your time with her disturbed."
He stood there for a long minute, thinking or processing. I'm usually good at reading people but I didn't have a clue.
"Doctor, please, give me something to give them. Who is Hazel to you?"
"Bullshit! He's lying!"
"Why would he lie?" I was about done with Phillips.
"Because he's –"
"Why would he lie about this?! It's hospice! What's there to steal?"
He snarled at me and turned to Mercer.
"I still say we go in."
Mercer, thankfully, shook his head. "Not without the OK. "
"If the Captain's not here, you're the OK."
"Not for something like this."
"Yes for this! Len, he's one guy in armor. We've taken guys in armor bef-"
I was pissed now and got in his face. "And what about the other people in the building? He's not the only person in there!" Actually, they'd been moving the people they could so he was close to the only person but not quite. Still …
"They're mostly dead already. No real loss … Hey!"
I snapped. I waved my arm and he flew across the lot and into the back of the SWAT box truck. A flick of my fingers slammed the door shut and then I pushed, hard, and upended the truck. Even from where we were, I could hear the equipment inside falling … and Phillips cursing … me.
I got really lightheaded for a minute and grabbed onto Mercer's arm for support. He put his arm around me and took some of my weight. "You OK?"
I nodded. Lifting that truck, few tons that it was, had really pushed my powers to the edge. Maybe a little past it. I'd done it, and would probably celebrate it later, but I also knew there was going to be a price to pay. Usually in migraine currency.
Joy.
I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. Now that my initial flash of Grrr! was over and I could think about what I'd actually done, I started hearing phrases like "assaulting an officer" and "destruction of police property" in my head. Well … frak.
"Don't worry about it," Mercer gave me a tight one-armed hug. "Nothing in there we needed anyway."
"Thanks!" I stepped back and lifted myself about an inch off the ground. The lightheadedness had passed but I didn't want to take the chance. Plus, even though the press wasn't there yet they would be soon and the last thing either of us needed was news footage of a SWAT officer with his arm around a local costumed vigilante.
We both looked at the upended truck. And smiled. But, no matter how good – or justified - it felt, I figured I'd probably end up getting crap for it.
"Need me to put it back?"
"Eventually." He waved a couple of regular uniform officers over. "We're good for now."
While he talked to them about perimeters and keeping the press away, I called Aegis. He and Captain Bohacovitch had both been on speakerphone when I explained the situation to Mercer, so he knew what was going on. Well, most of it.
"What do you need, Zee?"
"I don't know … maybe a good lawyer?"
"A lawyer? Why?" Here it comes. "What did you do, Zee?"
"Nothing that won't be fixed before you get back."
"What. Did. You. Do?"
I didn't know all of the details but Aegis had been in the military when 'the accident' happened and he got his powers. He still had a lot of contacts there, still had the haircut, still had the mindset and that came with pretty rigid ideas about chains of command.
Needless to say, he tore me a new one. And not a petite new one either. But, eventually, he wound down and ran out of venom to spew at me and I managed to steer him back to our armored dilemma.
"I'm going back in," I told him.
"No, Zee. I'll be on site in less than an hour. I can – "
"You can text me when you get here and I'll come out then. If I need to."
That got me another earful.
"He's dangerous, Zee!"
"I know. But I think he's telling me the truth. And I don't think he wants a fight." Gawd knows I didn't! "Plus - Mercer outside and me inside means less chance of someone doing something stupid. Or deadly."
Mercer heard his name and came over.
"You really think he's telling the truth?"
"Yes," I nodded. "I really do."
"She was Nora's favorite aunt." He took her hand again. He didn't pick it up but pushed his own armored hand down into the mattress so he could slide it under hers. Then he moved his thumb beside it, against her hand but not on top of it, less chance of accidentally hurting her. There was such a touching gentility to the action I was dumbstruck for a moment.
"She never married. She taught elementary school for 38 years and said that was enough for her. But not for Nora."
"Why not?" I asked.
"Nora loved her and …" He seemed to get lost in his own thoughts for a minute. I let him take his time coming back.
"Nora was afraid that she would die alone. She didn't want that. We talked about it a number of times and she insisted that, when Hazel's time came, she would be there."
But had Nora died before her aunt and …
Oh.
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TBC ...