2-C

“We’ll get you home,” Kate promised. She’d get them both home, it was all she could do. There wasn’t anything more she could do for the poor soul at their feet, after all. He was beyond saving, even for the best heroes. “Just focus on writing for a minute okay? It’ll help,” she said, smiling softly at him. 

Then she turned to the body. “Male. Decent abs – don’t write that down. Caucasion, but like, sort of blue? Is that from an experiment or was he already like that?” she mused aloud, kneeling down for a closer look. “Cuts like the others. Random, but not at the same time. It’s supposed to look more chaotic than it really is,” she noted, frowning deeply. Whoever these people were, they were skilled. She’d seen death enough times to know that. “Definitely connected to the others. Same M.O. Maybe he was an Inhuman? Or a vigilante? Somebody they felt threatened by, enough to tie him up. There’s marks around his wrists,” she said, pointing. 

She stood up, shaking her head. “We’ll have to leave him here. I’ll call 911 anonymously. After we get you someplace safe,” she said, looking over at him. “How you doing?”

Cece was focusing on much more on the writing but he forced himself, pushing everything away as he moved his hand to write out every detail word for word. Something sounded familiar about the way she listed every detail, analyzing, like a scientist. At that thought he froze, pausing on the last word he had to write down. For a long moment he stared unblinkingly at the paper, hand squeezing the pencil tighter and tighter until it snapped in his grip. The sudden feeling of ink dripping over his hands broke his spiraling train of thought and he let go of the pen, glancing up at the woman.

She pouted, not saying anything, just staring at him with a face she knew was cute as a button. “Why not?” She whined, her bottom lip sticking out like she was a child. “Do you really think I’m Strike force? I mean look at me.”

Cece only blinked at her in response, paranoia outweighing whatever tactics she was trying to use. “I have nothing to do with the Strike Force. I’m not one of the freaks with powers.” The empath knew that was cruel to say to someone who obviously possessed powers but it might disgust her enough to leave him alone.

“Obviously.” That was more directed at the second comment, but now that he re-played his words and how sarcastically he made them sound he realized that could be counted for a response to both of what the man said. He looked at the dead man and then the other, he needed to investigate or he wouldn’t feel right about leaving. It looked like the guy was torn apart, maybe by something sharp definitely not done by human hands. Bart used his super speed to look over the guy standing with blood on him not touching him, but just seeing what he had on him. He couldn’t find any weapons. He was standing back where he had started again a good few feet away giving him a calculating stare. “You’re not freaking out so its kinda hard to take you seriously on not doing it…”

Superspeed. Speedster. Flash. Accords. His train of thought led him to a grave conclusion. If the kid really wanted to see a freak out he might be getting his wish if Cece didn’t calm himself down before he started imaging the worst case scenario. Slowly, he took a step back, away from the body and away from the kid he was mistaking for The Flash, a registered superhero chained to the government. It left a sick feeling in his stomach when he realized that even with his powers there would be no feasible way for him to escape in time unless he was hit with a stroke of dumb luck. “I didn’t,” he spoke again, his desperation growing and clawing more fiercely at him every passing second to just resort to his last option and get away.

Yelena had rarely conformed to the city-wide curfew since she had arrived in New York. It wasn’t just because she didn’t respect American authority, but it was also because all the best assassin work gets done at night. Not that she had really killed anyone lately, but despite the fact that she didn’t like to admit it, the strike teams and the murders had an impact on her life. She wanted to find out what was going on, and make sure that they didn’t get to her target before she did. She was walking down an alley when she saw a man holding the body of another. Yelena approached the scene hesitantly, hand on her gun in case she needed it. “What happened here?” She asked in a low voice.

Cece stayed frozen, tense from head to toe the second he realized he was no longer alone. Apparently bad luck had decided to engulf him today. The lied on the ground. There was no hope for revival even if Cece had the ability to heal and for a moment, he mourned the loss of life over his own fear at being blamed for it. Then his senses came back to his priority and he turned slowly, meeting the gaze of the woman that had encountered the unfortunate and gruesome scene. “I can’t...Too late... I can’t help..’

“I know I’ve never been a good liar, so somewhere along the line I figured I should just stop trying to hide things. The truth had consequences sure, but so do secrets and I’m the opposite of a stone vault when it comes to those. So what were these problems? I mean, you don’t have to tell me and whatever all that bullshit but I did just tell you about different dimensions, so I feel like this would be a nice little give and take if you did tell me.”

Being an open book sounded like a horrible idea to Cece but her logic about it almost made sense. It probably felt nice to live without the burden of secrets. “I can’t tell you.” It was more like won’t these days but his constant worry of falling prey to people long gone would never leave him. There had to be more behind them and with all the pressure on the government it was not a good time to be discovered.

Kate searched his face carefully, looking for any sign that he was lying. But he seemed sincere, and he was clearly in shock. “I believe you,” she said, nodding to him. She glanced between him and the body – there wasn’t a lot of time here. The Strike Force could be by any second, and then they’d both be in trouble. But if she took the time to take care of this boy, she might lose the opportunity to gain any clues from the body. “Okay,” she said, clapping her hands together. “You’re gonna help me for a sec, all right? Take this,” she said, reaching into a pouch on her belt and pulling out a small notebook and pen. She pressed them both into his hands. “Write down the stuff I say, okay? Then we’ll get you a coffee. And someplace warm,” she promised. “My RV isn’t far, and it’s safe. I even have a shower you can use if you want,” she said, eyeing the blood on him. 

Relief caused the slump in his shoulders and finally, he thought, maybe he wasn’t totally screwed. The second that thought passed it was squashed when she requested his help and he nearly outright denied her. On reflex, he took the objects she pressed into his hands, weirdly glad that he had already wiped away the blood on his jacket which he needed to burn the second he got home. “Okay but I-I need to get home,” he urged, willing to help for a few more moments but going to her place was a different story. If she was trying to do him a kindness than it was a waste of time, regardless of the fact that he was innocent.

Crap crap crap. Stupid curfew. Cass had gone out and about, completely forgetting to keep track of the time. She wasn’t at all used to having a curfew. I’m going to have to start setting an alarm or something. She looked up from the ground and stumbled to a stop, confusion painted on her face. “What…what the…” She glanced from the body on the ground to the man covered in blood, involuntarily taking a step back. “What the hell is going on here…is that guy dead?!” Quickly looking around to see if anyone else was in sight, she tucked her hand into her pocket, wrapping her fingers around her cell phone. 

Cece jumped at the sudden exclamation, hands clenching into tight fists as he stepped away from the body. He saw the movement when she reached into her pocket and he knew she was either going to call for help or produce a weapon. Both were terrible options for him, guilty or not, but there was nothing he could do. “Wait,” he called out, raising his hands to try and show he meant no harm. “I don’t know where he came from,” he explained honestly, wondering if he should just go ahead and run. If desperation took hold of him tightly enough, he still had one last resort to get away but he was still far from that level of hopelessness.

It was almost like the man never seen a dead body before, his whole frame practically shaking like a leaf. Len almost felt bad, almost. “So let’s say you didn’t kill him.” He gestured to the body, no doubt turning cold and looking gruesome. “Did you see who did?” That kill looked recent and whoever it was could still be close. Len wasn’t scared, per say, but he was always cautious and many liked to return to the scene of the crime to, who knows? Mess things up a little more, stage it more dramatically?

Cece shook his head at the question, scrambling for his next step. Really, he had seen nothing useful other than the person running into him. He stared at the body for a long moment, trying to calm himself down so he could think rationally. “They had powers,” he stated, looking up to meet the other man’s gaze. That fact was explanation enough as to what group was responsible and it made him tense up up even more to think that maybe this wasn’t an accident. His paranoia nagging at him that somebody had found him.

The stranger’s explanation sounded too simple, too convenient, the ‘wrong place, wrong time’ excuse far too overused to ever sound honest. The male’s voice and body language didn’t suggest he was lying however, his nervousness seemingly a personality trait rather than a well versed act, Batman carefully observing the scene. From a simple glance, the victim appeared to have suffered from the same attacks as the Inhumans that had been found weeks before, the visible parts of the body showing the brutal abuse the person had to endure. There was a blood trail leading down the street, blood pooling around the body, and blood on the young man–it was fresh however, meaning it had just gotten on him, and didn’t correlate with the wounds on the body. Being found with the victim would have made anyone a prime suspect, and Batman’s job a lot easier, but looking at the whole picture, it was obvious to see the young man was not responsible for the attack. “What’s your name?”

The heroes gaze was intense and calculating, he was analyzing the situation, hopefully his conclusion would be right. Cece frowned, contemplating if he should give his name or not. Technically, he had no records. His apartment was crap in a crap part of town and his landlord let him rent without question at the price of a small bribe. Facial recognition would probably screw him over first before giving his name, especially since he only went by a nickname, given to him from his assigned number. “Cece,” he finally answered. The blood on his hands was starting to become sticky so he tried to wipe them off on his already ruined jacket, grimacing when he felt it seep through the fabric into his shirt. He was in need of a long shower and a memory wipe of this night. He was never going to stay out after curfew again.

Okay, they were headed into hysterics. And she was fairly certain he wasn’t in any shape to hurt anyone. Besides, if he tried anything, she was as good with her fists as she was with a bow. (Okay, she wasn’t, but that’s only because she was a futzing master with her bow.) Kate sighed, and stowed the arrow back in the quiver slung over her shoulder and walked over to him slowly and carefully. “All right, calm down,” she said, holding her arms wide. “Just breathe, okay? Breathe, and then tell me what happened. How’d you find her?” she asked, glancing down at the body as she stepped closer. It was a gruesome sight, it would tweak anybody out. 

The urge to use his powers kept nagging at him in the back of his head but no matter what, he was not going to give in to the abilities that cursed him. Still, the archer wasn’t getting the point and he wondered how far he get but even if he made it all the way home there was the high likelihood she would probably still find him anyways. “I was walking... she ran into me. That’s it. I don’t know anything more.”

He wasn’t really supposed to be doing this but he just decided he couldn’t be still anymore. And there was so much murder going around that he just wanted to see if maybe he could save someone’s life or maybe catch who did this. He wouldn’t be out long just a couple of hours and as long as he was good about making a gentle breeze then some large gust of wind no one would know a speedster was out and about. However he cursed his luck, the one night he actually goes out to do something completely against everyone’s wishes if they knew he had done it, he happened upon a murder. There was a man dead, a man with blood on him and there wasn’t much need to put two and two together. “So is this your first time or something, cause that’s kinda sloppy.” Bart wasn’t sure what to do, he never thought he’d get this far tonight. Dark humor seemed like a good start though the blood almost made him want to gag.

This wasn’t the first time Cece’s hands had been stained with blood. This had been the first time it wasn’t his fault but those times had passed, he hadn’t harmed anyone in years even out of fear. He kept himself in control and he hated that one mistake of staying out too late might be the thing to ruin that. “Wasn’t me,” he stated, looking up from the body to the kid that stood in front of him. Emphasis on kid. “It’s not safe out here. Go home.” He reasoned that this must be some nosy brat, trying to get a glimpse of what had the city in a panic and well, looks like he did.

She raised an eyebrow, his lie was rather unconvincing, but she could see the fear that radiated off him in a way she had only ever seen in a mirror, the guy either didn’t know he was using his powers, or was as scared as everyone else in the city to admit it. She watched him for a moment, he drew away from her immediately and Liss couldn’t help but let out a sigh, she was only trying to help. When he mentioned the victim needing help she looked down, raising an eyebrow, “Well they aren’t going anywhere, if I call it in now they’ll see you and all the evidence you’ve left around here.” For a second Liss wondered when she had got so smart about this sort of thing, but then she had been spending a lot of time with various powered people and vigilantes lately, perhaps it was rubbing off on her. “I’m Liss, I’m Inhuman, are you…?” She couldn’t tell, and for a moment it broke her heart, if he was one of her people and she couldn’t even tell the difference anymore.

Cece could tell that she didn’t believe but again, no proof. As long as he didn’t let his control slip it would be okay. It would be okay. He repeated that silently as he forced himself to meet her gaze, trying his best not to appear so nervous even if that was the most normal reaction he could be having right away. “I didn’t do this,” he asserted when she mentioned him leaving behind evidence. His brows furrowed at her question before he realized she was trying to ask if he was also an Inhuman. “No. I’m just human. I don’t want to be involved with anything that involves people not human or heroic.” He knew he should be more accepting of people like him but he hated the abilities he had because they had always been the source of his suffering.

“Problems. Yeah, okay. Must’ve been some big fucking problems.” She laughed incredulously, before brushing off his question. “Yeah, dimensions, y’know like alternate realities and stuff. If you’re talking problems, that’s one helluva one to have. You ever accidentally walked into a dimension where New York’s completely underwater? I was finding seaweed in my hair for a week after that. I’m kidding of course, who dimension walks, that’s crazy.” She said, completely unbelievably. 

“They were my problems at the time.” Cece felt insulted that she would brush it off so easily but she had no idea what had been most of his life. He couldn’t blame her for that. “You’re worse at lying than I am if that’s what you were trying to accomplish.” Since she was being so nonchalant about dimension hopping he decided not to make a big deal of it also. If he really wanted to know more about it all he would have to do was tap into her powers but of course, he wouldn’t risk using his own abilities.

Liss hadn’t bothered to even check the weather, so of course she had come out without a jacket on the one night that it would storm. Usually storms were calming to her, reminded her of the storms she would watch over the ocean back as a kid on Attilan, but this was just feirce, and every crack of thunder made her think there was a gun shot instead, and soon found herself cowering in a doorway. What she hadn’t expected was another body to be next to hers, taking cover in the darkness. But she felt that familiar drain of emotions, making her frown, “Are…are you okay? I mean obviously not, there’s a horrible storm going on and we’re stuck out here, but I meant after the other night, yknow, the..nevermind. Do you have somewhere to go? To dry off once the rain stops?”

Once he turned to her she looked him over trying to get a read on his current mood. The moment she was sure she wasn’t going to throw up she spoke. “What happened?” 

“Well, well. Are you the one killing all these people?” Len stepped towards the stranger, though he doubted this was the guy behind all the murder. He looked much too guilty for that and most killers always stayed calm under pressure. It was interesting to see someone out past the curfew hours, though. Leonard was up to no good, but what about this person here? “Or, let me guess, wrong place, wrong time?”

Cece’s gaze snapped up from the body to a man that seemed to be of nothing but trouble. There was no fear coming from him just curiosity and that worried the empath because it meant this was a normal sight for him. “I’m not a killer.” His voice came out shaky, hands even worse as he tried to wipe away the crimson blood that stained them. Death wasn’t new to Cece but the blood made memories better left forgotten come scratching at the surface.

Liss hadn’t realised the other had powers, or that he was unconsciously using them on her until she suddenly felt calm, it was like all her fear, all the mess in her mind was suddenly clear and though it was nice, for a moment, the redhead knew it was wrong. “Hey..it’s okay!” She saw the fear, crouching down to get to his level, hiding the gasp at the blood, “You have powers huh? I mean, unless there’s someone else around here, cause..something isn’t right. Do you need help?” She questioned, tilting her head slightly, “I’m Liss, I can help you!” Her protective instinct kicked in, even without her fear she knew her purpose, one powered person was laying here dead, there was no need for this to turn into another.

Damn. She was smart. This time the fear that washed over Cece was purely his own and he severed the connection as soon as he realized what he had done. “No! I don’t have powers,” he quickly lied, knowing that it might be too late but there was no way for her to prove he had powers and if he didn’t admit to them maybe she would write it off as a mistake. Cece drew away from her, she meant well, he could feel it even without his abilities but her help would only cause him trouble. He knew she had abilities, he felt that strange tingling that told him when he was sensing the emotions of someone above the average human before he had cut off the connection. He had no idea what kind status she held with the Panel or what kind of attention she would attract if they were seen together. “No help. I’m fine. They need help.” The victim was dead but somebody needed to call in the body and get people here who might actually be able to find clues from it. If she wanted to help she would do that and let him slip away.