Nick Balleta

“Sorry.” It’s too quiet, the word an unfamiliar thing on her lips, but she forces her hands to move, a slower adjustment of denim around his hips before she zips him up.

“Hey,” he states gruffly, voice quiet as his hands cradle her jaw like something delicate, even if she’s far from a fragile creature. She’s lived this long without him and she’d continue to do so if he were gone. But Nick can’t help that he simply doesn’t want that. But she looks so small in his hands, so quiet and soft like she does when she’s sleeping, oblivious to his gaze. “Ain’t got nothin’ to be sorry for.”

But the idea is cut off by how roughly she pulls up the denim around his hips and he hisses at the discomfort, the sharp shooting of pain through his stomach from the movement before he grits his teeth and accepts it. “Or not.”

Then the moment’s gone, shattered just as swiftly as it came.

Her blood runs cold when the door bursts open, some scene straight from every waking nightmare quick to unfold itself before her. Men with guns and black bags, harsh orders that demand cooperation, and nothing but cold cells and an undignified death waiting for anyone they get their hands on. She’s seen the aftermath, her parents buried somewhere in an unmarked grave, and the thought that it’s the kind of fate waiting for her horrifies her less than the idea of it barreling towards Nick. She can lie every other moment of the day, but no matter how many walls she’s thrown up to protect herself, the simple fact is that it would destroy her all over again to lose him.

Especially like this. And if she should be content for him to form some human shield in front of her she’ll never be satisfied with that. Her fingers grasp at his arm as she shifts to stand next to him, pulling on him with too much desperation at the sight of him standing in front of that many men with guns. Her hand lifts, she reaches for the strands of her power that she’s only known how to destroy with, shattering veins and destroying both hearts and minds.

Nothing happens. They keep coming, someone in a black uniform lifting his gun and shouting orders at them, but he doesn’t crumple like he should. And that stirs too much terror in her heart, because she’s heard the rumors, stories straight from Eli’s mouth what they might be faced with now. Later there might just be resentment for him, that he’s the reason they were sitting in this bar so far from home in the first place when agents came crashing down the door.

And she stands beside him now just like one, steadfast and strong, jaw clenched in disdain for the men who’ve barged in with guns and bags hoping for nothing more than prisoners and a body count. He doesn’t move to cover her once more because she’d only continue to step away from her bodyguard and later he may be proud to have the woman stand right by his side. Right now, he can only process the fear coursing adrenaline through his veins and the wish he had purchased a gun out here to carry, in case of a moment like this. But hindsight is 20/20 and he’s only got a knife in his back pocket which he doesn’t know is the wisest choice to brandish right now. Running is their best option. Getting Eve out and safe is his main objective.

Who fires first, he’ll never know. But suddenly there’s a commotion. Maybe it’s Eli’s sister or when Eli’s jumping over the bar, shouting at them to get out. It’s obvious that they won’t go silently or easily. They will all fight. But first his goal is to get Eve to safety. “C’mon,” he grunts a command, grabbing her forearm to tug her back towards the kitchen where he assumes there’s an exit. His gaze darts for that flash of red hair, because Eli will want her out too and away from danger, sparking the sudden thought that if he can convince them their job is to get the other away, maybe they won’t linger here longer than necessary.

The idea is disrupted by a man in black tactical gear shouting at him to get down, to put his hands on his head and comply. But Nick never has and he shoves his frame between the Initiative tool and the woman he loves. He doesn’t have a gun. He isn’t armed like the man before him, but he wouldn’t go down without a fight and he’s hoping just his size proves intimidating. He steps up, inflated ego making him the scariest thing in the room due to a strange amount of confidence that perhaps he shouldn’t feel when he couldn’t be sure his ability will work. Maybe he couldn’t decipher any of the new techniques these soldiers could teach him, but that’s the best case scenario. He has years of training in other fighting styles. But maybe it erases the memory of all of them together and the thought is too frightening that he lashes out in his fear.

Nick swings at the man, grabbing a fistful of his shirt to drag him forward and make a mess of his face. He might see a similar terror mirrored back at him in those wide eyes but this one has something he doesn’t. A gun. The New York native almost forgets until that shot rings out, that searing pain ripping through his abdomen causing him to double over. But his legs manage to keep him standing as his spine collides harshly with the bar. A hand instinctively slaps against the wet spot on his shirt, dark, crimson blood beginning to stain the white t-shirt.

And it’s impossible to convince herself even on her worst days that he isn’t offering her both of those things. It’s just easier to ignore them altogether, as though the harsh words she grants him might be enough to convince both of them that she isn’t offering the same in return.

The illusion melts away when he shifts next to her, drawing a present from his back pocket that she hadn’t honestly expected to ever see clasped in his fingers. And it’s impossible then to hide the way her eyes light up, something almost childlike in her answering smile. She can tell them both she doesn’t care about Disneyland, well aware that it was simple bribery on his part and an excuse on hers. But there’s warmth spreading through her chest knowing that he followed through anyway, simply because he promised her.

Her fingers curl around the tickets before she’s pulling them from his hand, holding onto them tightly before she replaces them with herself. She shifts from the barstool to glide an arm around his shoulder before she forces herself onto his lap, a boldness more fitting in those moments when she’s too intoxicated to pretend he’s so easily replaceable in her life.

“I hate you,” she tells him, forehead pressing against the side of Nick’s. And it’s scary to know that it doesn’t matter what she says, when by now he’s aware it’s too much the opposite.

The smile that illuminates her face could knock him out. It steals the breath from his lungs and fills him with a foolish amount of pride that he’s done something great. He’s made her happy. And whenever she’s joyful and tipsy, she ends up in his lap like it’s his own reward. It doesn’t sound wrong to assume that and it’s the best prize he’s been given - her smile, her affection. An arm winds around her waist to keep her stable atop his lap, free hand grabbing at her thigh with little concern for who sees. It’s still G-rated. He wouldn’t be that disrespectful to the patrons of the bar, but it’s difficult to keep his hands to himself whenever Eve is around.

But it’s the ‘I hate you’ that causes the back of his neck to heat, his grip to tighten and his own smile to mirror that childish glee of her own. She’s never meant that phrase. She always means the opposite when she exclaims it and his heart threatens to break free of his rib cage just to join hers. “Hate sex in It’s A Small World then?” he offers with a smug smirk, but as soon as the words leave his mouth there’s a distraction from the entrance.

The door is kicked in by a man he doesn’t recognize, followed by a team of soldiers and officers. Nick quickly slides Eve off his lap and onto her feet, his body the best kind of shield between her and the men who burst in. Initiative.

Every day they stay in Los Angeles is one more convincing Ryan that they’ll never be flying back to New York. The death of Eli’s father will remain a shadow hanging over them, a ready excuse every time she asks why they can’t just go back. They’ll settle into this place she never asked to be and never had a true desire to stay. But she will, because Nick will look at her with eyes that shine too brightly in her presence and swear he can’t do this without her. And if it’s easier to convince herself to stay when she thinks it’s all bullshit, part of her believes it.

It has her gaze following the man that brought them here with some narrow eyed expression, because if it’s exhausting trying to stay angry with Nick, he’s a better target for her bitterness. Especially when she thinks he excels at charging in and fucking up lives. She was comfortable until the two of them showed up at a bar looking for her, and if some days she can’t decide whether to thank him or blame him for Nick’s introduction into her life, today blame comes easier.

Out of the other faces at the bar, there are fewer she recognizes. The redhead she knows, because she’s heard too many stories. His brother and sister. The rest might be friends of his, or simply strangers, but either way she’s content to let them stay the second.

Next to her Nick is all nervous energy, a wide grin on his face that she can’t name the source of. She doesn’t believe he’s about to present her with plane tickets, and at this point there’s not much else she holds out hope for. A noncommittal noise escapes her in response, but her fingers settle easily on his knee, pressing down with light pressure to try and still the quick bounce.

But she allows her attention to shift to him, voice dry and unaffected as she can manage. “You know Balleta, sex on the beach isn’t as nearly as romantic as you think.“

A hand to his knee is all it takes to cease its motions, some small exertion of pressure that isn’t needed when it comes to her. She just needs to touch him, look at him and there’s a storm raging in his chest that settles at any scrap of attention she tosses his way. It might be sickening to outsiders as they watch him break his back to please her, but they don’t know how softly she sleeps against his side or how every effort to dim her smile are in vain when it comes to him. He isn’t blind. He sees what he does that makes her happy and it’s all he’s ever wanted since he met her all those years ago. She might still refer to them as partners or something sounding equally as business casual as she can. But he knows better. He knows what they are.

Nick grins at Eve and shakes his head. “Don’t gotta be romantic,” he comments, ducking his chin to pass the comment quietly her way without the rest of the bar’s patrons prying in.

But he has other romantic plans and his weight shifts forward to ease a small envelope out of his back pocket. Larger fingers make it a challenge to slide the tickets from the loudly decorated slip they’re hiding in but he manages, holding out two pieces of thick paper out towards her - one with Mickey Mouse on the front and the other with Goofy, images he loved as a child growing up with his siblings.

“While I’m not turning down sex, might be some cooler, dark places in Disneyland to get freaky,” he suggests with a smug smirk, having no intention of trying to sneak a quickie on any of the innocent theme park’s rides. And perhaps his smile is too wide to suggest he’s serious about it but there’s tickets that prove he’s living up to his end of the bargain.

Jotting down a few notes on a pad of paper of shows they needed to see and rides she’d want to go on, Nick is interrupted by the presence of another. But he’s polite enough, shaking his head as a New York City accent betrays he’s far from home, “Nah, man. Not a local. Sorry.”

His fingers curl against the bar, shaking his head in an undisguised frustration. There’s too much tequila in his bloodstream to pretend he’s not a restless beast left pacing in its cage, and to say he hates it is an understatement. It’s why he came back here, why Nick promised to stay for now.

And he’s left standing here with little to show for it except his frustrations.

“Well, I don’t have the first fuckin’ clue how to even go down one of those.” Another situation he would, and without hesitation. He’d draw his knives and he’d start cutting open people one at a time until someone points him in the right direction. Only this time it’s the Syndicate he’s looking at. His family, and if he can’t call all of them friends, there’s a bond of loyalty there that’s stronger than blood. If they want to call him a traitor, an outcast, he can understand all of those designations, but it doesn’t change anything now that he’s standing back in their city.

Most of them Bruno invited in himself. He opened his doors to them, gave them a home, and if anything the thought of someone betraying him just makes his temper rise even higher. He can’t lie to himself and pretend it’s half the reason he’s gone after the Initiative so viciously. There’s something cathartic in that much bloodshed, a peace he can’t find with otherwise empty hands.

A breath escapes him, and if he can’t quite calm himself, Nick doesn’t truly deserve his anger. He might be more lost than Eli is, without the familiar streets of New York offering any illusions of safety. “We grab a Corinthian. Jack’s gonna try anyway and I don’t have a better idea.”

But nothing about grabbing a Corinthian sounds safe. It all sounds like a death sentence and he doesn’t want his trip to LA ending with the funeral of a man he calls brother. He’s supposed to do right by this one.

There’s a question sitting like poison on Nick’s tongue that he doesn’t want to ask. Both answers Eli could give would be a horrible. A ‘no’ leaves him too open in Nick’s mind, an easier target when he doesn’t have a second person watching his back. A ‘yes’ means he’s gotta break that news to Eve, who may not forgive him for that one. He suspects he’ll be seeing her off at LAX after that. 

The answers aren’t sitting at the bottom of a glass or in the curls of red hair that keeps distracting him, because he began to think the woman wasn’t really at all. That she’d just been a figment of Eli’s active imagination. Had he told her of his plan? Does she know about the ridiculous idea to grab a Corinthian, hold him hostage, and beat answers out of him? And what if they don’t get the answers they’re looking for? What if suspicion on a Syndicate member is right?

“You need me there?” he asks, less tentative than he feels and eyes cast upward at his friend, his brother. He doesn’t want to be anywhere near a Corinthian but there are few he’d step in front of one for. Eli’s on that list.

And if he’s sickened by the thought of a traitor in their midst, something so mundane is almost worse. It’s insulting to everything his father was, fully aware of just how strong he was even without that power in his veins. Some days he still can’t wrap his head around the fact that the man’s really gone, constantly waiting to hear his footsteps in the hollow hallways he’s left behind. Instead he’s just left with ghosts, his father, his brother, all of them left haunting the empty space in his chest they left behind. And maybe if he can claim his vengeance, he can offer them some peace.

Maybe then he’ll be able to claim some of it for himself.

“It’s not.” It’s with narrowed eyes he fixates on Nick, the anger rushing through his veins battling with vodka for control. “It’s not a fuckin’ mugging. You didn’t know him. You don’t know what he was capable of. Some asshole street thug never would’ve had a chance.”

He’d been that asshole. He’d been that junkie kid sitting on his ass staring up at a man in a nice suit that he’d just wanted to steal from. Except he’d knocked the knife from his hand, stopped the world around them and barely blinked at the shadows that rushed to Eli’s fingertips. He could’ve killed them, and instead Bruno had held out a hand to help him up. It’s suddenly a more painful memory than he knows what to do with, his throat locking up and stopping any more vitriol from pouring out.

The redhead never steps over, perhaps confident that Eli’s pal from New York City has it under control or maybe there’s little desire to step between him and the beast that claws its way out of Eli’s chest. They both know what the man is capable of. 

“Alright, alright,” Nick soothes calmly, hands up in a defensive stance he doesn’t truly need. He doesn’t trust Eli not to hit him, because he’s been on the receiving end of those blows numerous times. But he doesn’t think tonight will come down to bloodied knuckles and clenched fists. His friend has every right to be angry, still no answer to who put a bullet in the back of his father’s head and maybe suggesting a simple mugging had been stupid of him, inconsiderate even. Eve wouldn’t have suggested a thing like that. She’s smarter.

But Nick only wanted to exhaust all their options. But they seem to only have two - the Initiative and the Syndicate. Both are terrifying, but if there’s a traitor in their midst than he wants Eve as far away from any of the ones that call themselves friends of the Selvaggios.

“So what next?” he asks to derail the train he put on the tracks, the idea that a junkie mugger could take out a powerful mutant, “You got two roads to travel down.”

It has him pouring another shot for himself, unmindful of if Nick wants another or not. And right now it might be too tempting to slip back into all those old habits. Toss back too many shots, snort a few lines, fall off that wagon he’s been clinging to a little too desperately these days. It seems like a poor way to repay Bruno’s memory, but walking around with clean hands is just as bad.

He’s quick to toss back the shot, hoping that swift burn will offer some comfort. But it serves to loosen his tongue when he feels a mounting restlessness building up in his chest. He shredded a man just to hear him tell him no, and maybe he should’ve listened then. Maybe it wouldn’t feel like the trail’s so cold. “I don’t know. And I’m trying to keep it cool and figure this shit out, but all I really want to do is start ripping people open until they give me the answers I want.”

And he knows Nick doesn’t have the solution to that, not for any of it, but it doesn’t stop him from asking. “But I can’t do that to our own. So what the fuck am I supposed to do?” 

Though it doesn’t seem fair that she’ll have to take care of a drunk Eli. 

He’s a pacing beast, a monster hungry for blood and revenge walking the perimeter of his cage. He’s too hungry for that violence sometimes, an addiction that stuck for him compared to the other ones that he hasn’t relapse on in a long time, or so Nick is led to believe. He doesn’t know any of the people here that hold the title family, but he thinks they wouldn’t be sticking around if Eli had slipped up. 

“Maybe it ain’t any of this,” Nick starts carefully, unsure of how this idea might go over with his friend, but it has to be a notion he entertained. “Maybe it’s just a muggin’ gone wrong or some lunatic. Not every murder gets solved, man.“

“That’s the problem. I don’t know.” His fingers spine the empty glass in his fingers, the idle distraction necessary when he hates the possibilities they’re faced with. The idea that someone his father trusted placed the barrel of a gun to the back of his head and pulled the trigger, and no amount of tequila will erase that image.

“Worst case scenario is a traitor.” The words come out quiet and rougher than he likes, unable to keep them to himself or swallow them down like broken glass. And it might make a Corinthian seem like the lesser danger when all’s said and done. He has a better idea what he’s up against then, and a well placed bullet might be all it takes, if they time it right.

“So there’s that.” He manages a quick and crooked smirk, though it still comes easier than trying to sort through the mess it leaves his head every time he tries to sort through the tangled web surrounding his father’s death. It shouldn’t be taking this long. There should’ve been witnesses, or files, or someone willing to talk, and the fact that it’s been so well buried is that much more frustrating. “I like your idea better. Square things away with the woman and I’ll start stalking LAX.”

Nick’s eyes flicker over to Charlie and he wonders what she knows, if she’s trustworthy because Eli would never suspect her of something so heinous. But three years is a long time. So much could’ve happened in three years. Or what of his brother? Could Jackson be involved in this? He’s only heard a collection of stories about the other people in this little family. He couldn’t guess of who else to question but it makes everyone a suspect. It makes everyone a target and he thinks he can see the giant, red bullseye painted on Eli’s back.

“Any ideas on who?” he questions lowly, leaning in so the redhead might not catch any of the words he’s uttering, but with his luck she’s probably picked up some supersonic hearing while Eli had been getting into bar fights with him across the country.