Losers/Push Fusion Fic: The Past is Only as Far Away as Your Shadow
Disclaimer: I don't own any of it but the few names you won't recognize.
Notes: One of these days I will write a fic that does not subscribe to the notion that Jensen is the Most Special Loser. Even if those are fun fics. Also, The Losers is technically part of the DC universe, so there will be references made.
There are special people in this world. We don’t ask to be special. We’re just born that way. Governments around the world have set up what they call Divisions to hunt us like animals and capture us, experiment on us and try to turn us into weapons. Eight years ago, Nick and I led a group of others like us and took down the United States Division. We changed our identities, and have been living normal lives ever since.
Normal, however, never comes easy for us, or stays for long.
==
After the birth of Pooch’s son (whose name no one remembers because Jensen keeps calling him Mini Pooch and it’s sticking) the team makes a beeline for New Hampshire. Jensen bounces in his seat the entire way, chattering about his sister and niece and his niece’s soccer game and occasionally looking sideways at Aisha because she did shoot him and now they’re going to bring her to meet his family. Clay kind of gets it, but that doesn’t stop him from threatening to duct tape his mouth and throw him in the trunk. Pooch just laughs when they stop at a rest area and Jensen demands to ride in Pooch’s car with his family instead of the rest of the team and Aisha.
“Man up, Jensen,” he says. “Maybe you should be wondering what you’ll tell your sister and niece instead of how your niece’ll do in her soccer game.”
Jensen just laughs. “I don’t have to worry about telling her. I just have to worry about what she’ll throw at me. Think they have Skittles in the vending machines here?”
~~
Cassie Jensen is waiting on the front step when the team plus Pooch’s family and Aisha pull up. She’s rather petite, looks too young to be a mother of a seven year old. There’s little similarity between the two Jensens, save for the blonde hair (waist-length and a few shades paler on her) and blue eyes. “You look like shit,” she says, hands on her hips.
Jensen just grins and opens his arms. “C’mon, Cassie. Don’t tell me you didn’t see this coming.”
Weird commentary, even for Jensen, but Cassie smiles. “You’re right. I did. Get in here and eat. You have just enough time before Beth’s game.”
Aisha looks wary. “Jensen, did you call ahead?”
Jensen frowns, confused. “No. That’s like calling a girl to break up with her, which I’ve done and know is a bad idea-”
“Then how did she know we were coming?” Pooch asks and Clay thinks they’re in a world of trouble if Max has gotten to Jensen’s sister.
Cassie smiles. “I can see the future,” she says flippantly and walks into the house.
The team looks at Jensen who raises his hands in a placating manner with a broad “hey, don’t blame me” grin. “She’s smart. Really smart. Smarter than me. I leave it at that.”
Clay doesn’t say anything until Jensen and Jolene with the baby go after Cassie into the house. “Don’t say it, Aisha.”
“I don’t trust them,” Aisha says and glares at Clay’s expression. “Clay. I’d been watching you for two weeks before approaching. I’ve been watching all of you since. There is no way he told her, or she could have been tracking him via internet-”
“I trust my team,” Clay cuts her off. “Jensen-”
“Is blinded by familial loyalty!”
“Sound familiar?” Cougar asks. It’s cruel, but it is also true and needs to be said.
Before Aisha can answer, Jensen calls from inside the house, “Pooch! There’s cake!”
“It’s not for you, it’s for the girls!” Cassie protests. “Jake! Quit picking at the icing!”
Jensen shouts in alarm. “Clay! She’s coming after me with a knife, and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t mind killing in front of Beth!”
“And to think I handpicked this team,” Clay mutters, thankful for the distraction, and goes to rescue his teammate.
Behind him, Clay hears Aisha practically snarl, “Don’t you ever say a word about my family.”
Cougar only says, “Same to you,” and he and Pooch follow Clay inside.
~~
Of course going to the soccer game turns into a disaster. An amusing disaster, but still a disaster. They end up having to take turns watching the game through Cougar’s scope on a nearby hill. The Petunias lose, but Clay thinks it was a close, fairly called game. That doesn’t stop Jensen and Pooch from grumbling the entire way back to Cassie’s house, though. Clay thinks for a moment that he might have to sit in the middle of the backseat to keep Cougar and Aisha from killing each other thanks to their earlier exchange, get between them like he did at the soccer game just as a precaution, but Aisha just settles in the middle with Cougar on her left with no fuss. They discuss soccer tactics on the way back and how to spend Aisha’s new hundred bucks, so Clay counts it as a win.
“They did all right for all their players being half the other kids’ size,” Clay offers to Jensen and Pooch’s commentary on the game as a whole.
“Soccer divisions should be divided by size,” Jensen declares. “Like wrestling.”
“Wrestling is done by weight,” Clay reminds him. “And soccer is a team sport. What if your star player gains twenty pounds right before a game?”
“Kids don’t grow that fast,” Pooch laughs and Jensen points at him.
“You say that now. Just wait until Mini Pooch gets a few months along-”
“For the last time, Jensen, his name is-”
“- and he’ll be the size of freakin’ Godzilla. Beth used to be the size of a netbook. Now look at her.”
At the house, the Pooch family retreats to the guest room for a nap because Pooch was shot in the legs less than a week ago and Jolene popped out a baby two days after and Clay maintains that babies are the laziest creatures short of teenagers. Jensen holds his arm a little carefully; there wasn’t time to think about the pain when they were so close to finding Max but right now, Cassie looks at him, calls him a moron who shouldn’t be let out of the house ever, and yanks him from the room to take a look at the wound. Cougar makes to follow, has a slight frown on his face that means he’s affronted that someone would doubt his work, but Beth appears with her soccer ball and a smile. “Uncle Jake says you’ve got good aim.”
Beth has the same eyes and smile as her mother. It doesn’t take much convincing before Cougar is in the backyard, kicking the ball to her. Aisha smiles as Clay washes the dishes from lunch. “He’s good with kids.”
“Yeah,” Clay answers and remembers Cougar mentioning a half-dozen siblings and three times that many cousins. “Jensen had been planning on bringing us to meet Cassie and Beth. Put Cougar in a good mood. Pooch was going to bring Jolene, too…” Belatedly, Clay realizes that Roque was supposed to be at this cookout they’d been planning, and he looks down at the pot still half-covered in grease. “That was before Max.”
Aisha picks up a glass and starts drying it. “My father’s birthday would have been next month. I was planning to visit him.”
They don’t say anything after that. Later, Clay passes Cassie’s door and sees the Jensen siblings going through what looks like a hundred drawings done on black paper and talking quietly. Jensen is frowning and Cassie shakes her head and says, “It’s not that simple.”
She loses another five years with the makeup washed off, which makes Clay wonder not for the first time about Jensen’s life before Clay picked him up for his team. Cassie is mid-twenties at the outside, and so would have had to had Beth when she was a teenager, but Jensen doesn’t talk about Cassie much, and a few of his rambling stories about his childhood that they mostly ignore don’t match up.
Cassie looks up. “Hi, Clay.”
He tilts his head toward the kitchen. “Dishes are done.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” Cassie says as she stands and begins gathering the pages into a neat pile.
Clay shrugs. “We’re imposing. Don’t worry, we’ll be out of your hair soon enough.”
“No, you won’t.” Cassie looks at Jensen when he nudges her. “What?”
Futzing around with the stack of drawings, Jensen doesn’t really look up. “I need to talk to you about why we’re here.” Jensen glances at Clay. “I don’t think you’ll want to be around for this.”
Cougar gives Clay a slightly questioning look when Clay steps out onto the back porch and they faintly hear raised voices from an upstairs window. “Jensen’s telling his sister.”
A slight nod, and Cougar goes back to kicking the soccer ball with Beth. Eventually, though, Beth informs Cougar and Clay that it’s snack time and they have fudgesicles in the freezer. The three sit on the back steps with their popsicles and watch a line of ants discover a bit of Clay’s popsicle that had come off with the wrapper. One of the upstairs windows opens and Jensen looks down. “We’re good,” he assures them. “She’s kind of pissed, but we’re good- hey, is that a fudgesicle?”
Beth laughs and waves hers at him. “We’re eating the last ones!” she calls up, even though there’s almost an entire box left.
“Oh, you’re breaking my heart, Beth!” The window shuts. Clay thinks if the Jensen siblings’ argument hadn’t woken up the Pooch family, Jensen running down the stairs did now. “Hey, uh, don’t leave Cassie alone with Aisha for a while,” Jensen warns as he plops down on Cougar’s other side with his own popsicle. “She’s not too happy about the whole shooting thing even if Aisha did totally save us in the end.”
Beth looks over at her uncle. “You got shot?”
Jensen lifts the sleeve of his Petunias shirt and shows her the bandage. “Yeah, but it’s just a scratch,” he assures her and his grin dares either of his teammates to bring up the fact that he pitched a giant fit over it. A giant, well-deserved fit because getting shot sucks, but a fit none the less.
The little girl still looks confused. “You couldn’t block it?”
Clay laughs a little and Cougar hides a smile, but Jensen’s voice is oddly strained as he jokes, “I’ve met Superman, Bethy, and trust me. I’m not him.”
Aisha appears at the back door. “Jensen,” she says as Beth runs inside to get another fudgesicle, “how much should I worry about your sister’s promise to kill me if I hurt any of you?”
Jensen grins. “How much do you know about us?”
This earns an irritated look. “There are no files on you from before you joined the Army,” she replies tightly.
The hacker points his popsicle stick at her. “Wrong. There are files from before then.”
“But they’re fake! There is only one name from your past that isn’t made up, and he died three months ago.”
Jensen’s smile doesn’t falter. “Well, until you find out the truth, just know that Cassie will follow through on that promise.”
The look in Aisha’s eyes suggests that she wants to hurt Jensen anyway until she gets some answers. Clay sighs and holds out the half of his popsicle left. A mix of emotions ranging from irritation to confusion crosses Aisha’s face, but she takes it and leans against the wall behind him. When the Jensen girls and then Pooch and his family come out, Clay can close his eyes and pretend for a moment that this is normal, there is no Max and Roque simply isn’t there and they’re not laying low until they have to move again. It’s dangerous enough being here at all, but Clay knows if his team doesn’t get some kind of breather, they’ll break and make mistakes and die.
“Stop thinking so hard,” Jolene chides and Clay opens his eyes to look at her. She smiles and hefts her baby to a more comfortable position on her hip.
“You’re safe for now,” Cassie agrees and does not look at Aisha.
Clay smiles half-heartedly and tries to believe her.
~~
"Kyouji is dead?" Clay hears Jensen ask his sister later on.
"I didn't see how," Cassie says, which is on the list of strange things she and Jensen have said. "Kyle came and told me. Pinky is far enough underground that he shouldn't be found, and Emily is safe as long as she stays in Hong Kong. I haven't heard from Hook."
"And Kira?" There's something in the way that Jensen says the name that makes Clay think Kira is someone special, someone Jensen loves or loved, but Clay has never heard her name before. Never heard of these others, either.
The younger woman pauses. "I don't know where she is yet."
"I need to-"
"No, you don't."
"Cassie, I can't-"
"Jake," she cuts him off. "I'll find her. Trust me."
Clay leaves before they can find out he heard them talking. He makes a note to have Aisha check on the names he heard.
~~
When Cassie said ‘for now’ she clearly meant it in the most literal sense because around three in the morning a few days later, Clay wakes to crashing downstairs. He and Aisha roll out of bed before they’ve even woken all the way up and head for the door, armed and prepared for anything short of a nuke. Clay points to Cougar as he comes out of the room he shares with Jensen. “Where’s the girl?”
Cougar jerks his head back. “In there.”
“Take her, put her with Jolene and the baby, and you and Pooch stay with them,” Clay orders and follows Aisha down the stairs.
Jensen and Cassie are already in the living room, hands up and staring down at least a dozen guns held by men in tactical gear. “Clearly whoever sent you didn’t tell you shit,” Jensen says in a quiet, hard tone. He does not have his glasses on, which means he can’t see worth a damn right now, but a pair of guns is tucked into the back of his Captain America boxers and being blind as a bat never stopped Jensen before. No lights are on, and Clay bets that whoever these people are, they’ve cut the power. If not for the full moon shining in through the broken windows, the room would be pitch black. “So I’m gonna tell you. Get the fuck out of here ‘cause you don’t know who you’re messing with.”
One of the men scoffs. “Donovan says ‘jump,’” he says and shoots.
Clay can’t move, can’t do anything to help the Jensens without getting himself, and the others by proxy, killed. An odd, ricocheting noise breaks Clay from his thoughts and he and Aisha stare because Jensen is fine and the bullet is buried in the wall behind the intruders. “Open fire!” the man orders and his team does.
Clay and Aisha are struck momentarily dumb by the fact that Jensen spreads his arms a little and it’s like the bullets are bouncing off some kind of shield. Cassie has no such problem, and ducks behind Jensen to grab his guns and start firing back from behind him, arms on either side of his chest. Clay and Aisha join in and Cassie stares at them for a moment, shocked, before going back to shooting. Jensen makes a shoving motion and two men go flying right out the window before pulling his arm back and the rug flies out from under the feet of another.
The gunfight is over in under a minute and Cassie walks up to the one left, pinned against the wall with nothing holding him. “What do the Donovans want with us?”
“To pick a side already.” They all look to the door, where a short blonde man not much older than Pooch leans against the frame, arms crossed. “Big damn war going on, and one of you hides in a bubble of domesticity and the other fakes his own death.”
“The fuck I did,” Jensen growls and Clay finds himself afraid Jensen will do something irrational. “And if Kage were any sort of good at being a Watcher, you’d know that.”
“Bite your tongue,” the stranger says sharply and straightens, arms falling to his sides. “You can’t do something as big as take down Division and think that’s the end of it. Your Watcher’s mother started it, the two of you finished it, except it’s not quite over yet.”
“It is for us,” Cassie snaps. “This fight over hierarchy isn’t ours. It’s yours.”
“Don’t be naïve, it’s everybody’s.” A sharp smile, too wide to be real, appears on his face. “And since you two played such a big role in the last shindig, you can expect more visitors.”
He turns to leave, but the man against the wall rasps out, “Brandon, please-”
“Oh, yes. You’re still here.” The short man, Brandon, raises a hand.
“Don’t-” Jensen starts to snap, but is suddenly flying backwards to land on the stairs when Brandon makes a shoving motion at him. When everyone looks back, Brandon is gone and the last of the intruders is dead, neck broken.
Cassie tucks the guns somewhere in her huge sleeping shirt and checks over Jensen. The man is conscious, but blood oozes from a gash on his head and the stitches on his arm have been torn out. “Shit,” Jensen says as he looks at Clay, pupils blown wide from the concussion he definitely has and, almost surprisingly, fear. “You weren’t supposed to find out.”
“Find out what, exactly?” Clay asks because this looks like something out of a bad sci-fi movie. Or Gotham. Because shit like this isn't supposed to happen in a suburb in New Hampshire. It happens in Star City and Metropolis and Bludhaven, places with people who are equipped to handle it. Which... apparently Jensen is. Fuck.
Jensen swallows. “Um, you know how I told those security guys at Goliath Worldwide that I was a telekinetic? Well, uh, I wasn’t lying."
TBC
Notes: One of these days I will write a fic that does not subscribe to the notion that Jensen is the Most Special Loser. Even if those are fun fics. Also, The Losers is technically part of the DC universe, so there will be references made.
There are special people in this world. We don’t ask to be special. We’re just born that way. Governments around the world have set up what they call Divisions to hunt us like animals and capture us, experiment on us and try to turn us into weapons. Eight years ago, Nick and I led a group of others like us and took down the United States Division. We changed our identities, and have been living normal lives ever since.
Normal, however, never comes easy for us, or stays for long.
==
After the birth of Pooch’s son (whose name no one remembers because Jensen keeps calling him Mini Pooch and it’s sticking) the team makes a beeline for New Hampshire. Jensen bounces in his seat the entire way, chattering about his sister and niece and his niece’s soccer game and occasionally looking sideways at Aisha because she did shoot him and now they’re going to bring her to meet his family. Clay kind of gets it, but that doesn’t stop him from threatening to duct tape his mouth and throw him in the trunk. Pooch just laughs when they stop at a rest area and Jensen demands to ride in Pooch’s car with his family instead of the rest of the team and Aisha.
“Man up, Jensen,” he says. “Maybe you should be wondering what you’ll tell your sister and niece instead of how your niece’ll do in her soccer game.”
Jensen just laughs. “I don’t have to worry about telling her. I just have to worry about what she’ll throw at me. Think they have Skittles in the vending machines here?”
~~
Cassie Jensen is waiting on the front step when the team plus Pooch’s family and Aisha pull up. She’s rather petite, looks too young to be a mother of a seven year old. There’s little similarity between the two Jensens, save for the blonde hair (waist-length and a few shades paler on her) and blue eyes. “You look like shit,” she says, hands on her hips.
Jensen just grins and opens his arms. “C’mon, Cassie. Don’t tell me you didn’t see this coming.”
Weird commentary, even for Jensen, but Cassie smiles. “You’re right. I did. Get in here and eat. You have just enough time before Beth’s game.”
Aisha looks wary. “Jensen, did you call ahead?”
Jensen frowns, confused. “No. That’s like calling a girl to break up with her, which I’ve done and know is a bad idea-”
“Then how did she know we were coming?” Pooch asks and Clay thinks they’re in a world of trouble if Max has gotten to Jensen’s sister.
Cassie smiles. “I can see the future,” she says flippantly and walks into the house.
The team looks at Jensen who raises his hands in a placating manner with a broad “hey, don’t blame me” grin. “She’s smart. Really smart. Smarter than me. I leave it at that.”
Clay doesn’t say anything until Jensen and Jolene with the baby go after Cassie into the house. “Don’t say it, Aisha.”
“I don’t trust them,” Aisha says and glares at Clay’s expression. “Clay. I’d been watching you for two weeks before approaching. I’ve been watching all of you since. There is no way he told her, or she could have been tracking him via internet-”
“I trust my team,” Clay cuts her off. “Jensen-”
“Is blinded by familial loyalty!”
“Sound familiar?” Cougar asks. It’s cruel, but it is also true and needs to be said.
Before Aisha can answer, Jensen calls from inside the house, “Pooch! There’s cake!”
“It’s not for you, it’s for the girls!” Cassie protests. “Jake! Quit picking at the icing!”
Jensen shouts in alarm. “Clay! She’s coming after me with a knife, and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t mind killing in front of Beth!”
“And to think I handpicked this team,” Clay mutters, thankful for the distraction, and goes to rescue his teammate.
Behind him, Clay hears Aisha practically snarl, “Don’t you ever say a word about my family.”
Cougar only says, “Same to you,” and he and Pooch follow Clay inside.
~~
Of course going to the soccer game turns into a disaster. An amusing disaster, but still a disaster. They end up having to take turns watching the game through Cougar’s scope on a nearby hill. The Petunias lose, but Clay thinks it was a close, fairly called game. That doesn’t stop Jensen and Pooch from grumbling the entire way back to Cassie’s house, though. Clay thinks for a moment that he might have to sit in the middle of the backseat to keep Cougar and Aisha from killing each other thanks to their earlier exchange, get between them like he did at the soccer game just as a precaution, but Aisha just settles in the middle with Cougar on her left with no fuss. They discuss soccer tactics on the way back and how to spend Aisha’s new hundred bucks, so Clay counts it as a win.
“They did all right for all their players being half the other kids’ size,” Clay offers to Jensen and Pooch’s commentary on the game as a whole.
“Soccer divisions should be divided by size,” Jensen declares. “Like wrestling.”
“Wrestling is done by weight,” Clay reminds him. “And soccer is a team sport. What if your star player gains twenty pounds right before a game?”
“Kids don’t grow that fast,” Pooch laughs and Jensen points at him.
“You say that now. Just wait until Mini Pooch gets a few months along-”
“For the last time, Jensen, his name is-”
“- and he’ll be the size of freakin’ Godzilla. Beth used to be the size of a netbook. Now look at her.”
At the house, the Pooch family retreats to the guest room for a nap because Pooch was shot in the legs less than a week ago and Jolene popped out a baby two days after and Clay maintains that babies are the laziest creatures short of teenagers. Jensen holds his arm a little carefully; there wasn’t time to think about the pain when they were so close to finding Max but right now, Cassie looks at him, calls him a moron who shouldn’t be let out of the house ever, and yanks him from the room to take a look at the wound. Cougar makes to follow, has a slight frown on his face that means he’s affronted that someone would doubt his work, but Beth appears with her soccer ball and a smile. “Uncle Jake says you’ve got good aim.”
Beth has the same eyes and smile as her mother. It doesn’t take much convincing before Cougar is in the backyard, kicking the ball to her. Aisha smiles as Clay washes the dishes from lunch. “He’s good with kids.”
“Yeah,” Clay answers and remembers Cougar mentioning a half-dozen siblings and three times that many cousins. “Jensen had been planning on bringing us to meet Cassie and Beth. Put Cougar in a good mood. Pooch was going to bring Jolene, too…” Belatedly, Clay realizes that Roque was supposed to be at this cookout they’d been planning, and he looks down at the pot still half-covered in grease. “That was before Max.”
Aisha picks up a glass and starts drying it. “My father’s birthday would have been next month. I was planning to visit him.”
They don’t say anything after that. Later, Clay passes Cassie’s door and sees the Jensen siblings going through what looks like a hundred drawings done on black paper and talking quietly. Jensen is frowning and Cassie shakes her head and says, “It’s not that simple.”
She loses another five years with the makeup washed off, which makes Clay wonder not for the first time about Jensen’s life before Clay picked him up for his team. Cassie is mid-twenties at the outside, and so would have had to had Beth when she was a teenager, but Jensen doesn’t talk about Cassie much, and a few of his rambling stories about his childhood that they mostly ignore don’t match up.
Cassie looks up. “Hi, Clay.”
He tilts his head toward the kitchen. “Dishes are done.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” Cassie says as she stands and begins gathering the pages into a neat pile.
Clay shrugs. “We’re imposing. Don’t worry, we’ll be out of your hair soon enough.”
“No, you won’t.” Cassie looks at Jensen when he nudges her. “What?”
Futzing around with the stack of drawings, Jensen doesn’t really look up. “I need to talk to you about why we’re here.” Jensen glances at Clay. “I don’t think you’ll want to be around for this.”
Cougar gives Clay a slightly questioning look when Clay steps out onto the back porch and they faintly hear raised voices from an upstairs window. “Jensen’s telling his sister.”
A slight nod, and Cougar goes back to kicking the soccer ball with Beth. Eventually, though, Beth informs Cougar and Clay that it’s snack time and they have fudgesicles in the freezer. The three sit on the back steps with their popsicles and watch a line of ants discover a bit of Clay’s popsicle that had come off with the wrapper. One of the upstairs windows opens and Jensen looks down. “We’re good,” he assures them. “She’s kind of pissed, but we’re good- hey, is that a fudgesicle?”
Beth laughs and waves hers at him. “We’re eating the last ones!” she calls up, even though there’s almost an entire box left.
“Oh, you’re breaking my heart, Beth!” The window shuts. Clay thinks if the Jensen siblings’ argument hadn’t woken up the Pooch family, Jensen running down the stairs did now. “Hey, uh, don’t leave Cassie alone with Aisha for a while,” Jensen warns as he plops down on Cougar’s other side with his own popsicle. “She’s not too happy about the whole shooting thing even if Aisha did totally save us in the end.”
Beth looks over at her uncle. “You got shot?”
Jensen lifts the sleeve of his Petunias shirt and shows her the bandage. “Yeah, but it’s just a scratch,” he assures her and his grin dares either of his teammates to bring up the fact that he pitched a giant fit over it. A giant, well-deserved fit because getting shot sucks, but a fit none the less.
The little girl still looks confused. “You couldn’t block it?”
Clay laughs a little and Cougar hides a smile, but Jensen’s voice is oddly strained as he jokes, “I’ve met Superman, Bethy, and trust me. I’m not him.”
Aisha appears at the back door. “Jensen,” she says as Beth runs inside to get another fudgesicle, “how much should I worry about your sister’s promise to kill me if I hurt any of you?”
Jensen grins. “How much do you know about us?”
This earns an irritated look. “There are no files on you from before you joined the Army,” she replies tightly.
The hacker points his popsicle stick at her. “Wrong. There are files from before then.”
“But they’re fake! There is only one name from your past that isn’t made up, and he died three months ago.”
Jensen’s smile doesn’t falter. “Well, until you find out the truth, just know that Cassie will follow through on that promise.”
The look in Aisha’s eyes suggests that she wants to hurt Jensen anyway until she gets some answers. Clay sighs and holds out the half of his popsicle left. A mix of emotions ranging from irritation to confusion crosses Aisha’s face, but she takes it and leans against the wall behind him. When the Jensen girls and then Pooch and his family come out, Clay can close his eyes and pretend for a moment that this is normal, there is no Max and Roque simply isn’t there and they’re not laying low until they have to move again. It’s dangerous enough being here at all, but Clay knows if his team doesn’t get some kind of breather, they’ll break and make mistakes and die.
“Stop thinking so hard,” Jolene chides and Clay opens his eyes to look at her. She smiles and hefts her baby to a more comfortable position on her hip.
“You’re safe for now,” Cassie agrees and does not look at Aisha.
Clay smiles half-heartedly and tries to believe her.
~~
"Kyouji is dead?" Clay hears Jensen ask his sister later on.
"I didn't see how," Cassie says, which is on the list of strange things she and Jensen have said. "Kyle came and told me. Pinky is far enough underground that he shouldn't be found, and Emily is safe as long as she stays in Hong Kong. I haven't heard from Hook."
"And Kira?" There's something in the way that Jensen says the name that makes Clay think Kira is someone special, someone Jensen loves or loved, but Clay has never heard her name before. Never heard of these others, either.
The younger woman pauses. "I don't know where she is yet."
"I need to-"
"No, you don't."
"Cassie, I can't-"
"Jake," she cuts him off. "I'll find her. Trust me."
Clay leaves before they can find out he heard them talking. He makes a note to have Aisha check on the names he heard.
~~
When Cassie said ‘for now’ she clearly meant it in the most literal sense because around three in the morning a few days later, Clay wakes to crashing downstairs. He and Aisha roll out of bed before they’ve even woken all the way up and head for the door, armed and prepared for anything short of a nuke. Clay points to Cougar as he comes out of the room he shares with Jensen. “Where’s the girl?”
Cougar jerks his head back. “In there.”
“Take her, put her with Jolene and the baby, and you and Pooch stay with them,” Clay orders and follows Aisha down the stairs.
Jensen and Cassie are already in the living room, hands up and staring down at least a dozen guns held by men in tactical gear. “Clearly whoever sent you didn’t tell you shit,” Jensen says in a quiet, hard tone. He does not have his glasses on, which means he can’t see worth a damn right now, but a pair of guns is tucked into the back of his Captain America boxers and being blind as a bat never stopped Jensen before. No lights are on, and Clay bets that whoever these people are, they’ve cut the power. If not for the full moon shining in through the broken windows, the room would be pitch black. “So I’m gonna tell you. Get the fuck out of here ‘cause you don’t know who you’re messing with.”
One of the men scoffs. “Donovan says ‘jump,’” he says and shoots.
Clay can’t move, can’t do anything to help the Jensens without getting himself, and the others by proxy, killed. An odd, ricocheting noise breaks Clay from his thoughts and he and Aisha stare because Jensen is fine and the bullet is buried in the wall behind the intruders. “Open fire!” the man orders and his team does.
Clay and Aisha are struck momentarily dumb by the fact that Jensen spreads his arms a little and it’s like the bullets are bouncing off some kind of shield. Cassie has no such problem, and ducks behind Jensen to grab his guns and start firing back from behind him, arms on either side of his chest. Clay and Aisha join in and Cassie stares at them for a moment, shocked, before going back to shooting. Jensen makes a shoving motion and two men go flying right out the window before pulling his arm back and the rug flies out from under the feet of another.
The gunfight is over in under a minute and Cassie walks up to the one left, pinned against the wall with nothing holding him. “What do the Donovans want with us?”
“To pick a side already.” They all look to the door, where a short blonde man not much older than Pooch leans against the frame, arms crossed. “Big damn war going on, and one of you hides in a bubble of domesticity and the other fakes his own death.”
“The fuck I did,” Jensen growls and Clay finds himself afraid Jensen will do something irrational. “And if Kage were any sort of good at being a Watcher, you’d know that.”
“Bite your tongue,” the stranger says sharply and straightens, arms falling to his sides. “You can’t do something as big as take down Division and think that’s the end of it. Your Watcher’s mother started it, the two of you finished it, except it’s not quite over yet.”
“It is for us,” Cassie snaps. “This fight over hierarchy isn’t ours. It’s yours.”
“Don’t be naïve, it’s everybody’s.” A sharp smile, too wide to be real, appears on his face. “And since you two played such a big role in the last shindig, you can expect more visitors.”
He turns to leave, but the man against the wall rasps out, “Brandon, please-”
“Oh, yes. You’re still here.” The short man, Brandon, raises a hand.
“Don’t-” Jensen starts to snap, but is suddenly flying backwards to land on the stairs when Brandon makes a shoving motion at him. When everyone looks back, Brandon is gone and the last of the intruders is dead, neck broken.
Cassie tucks the guns somewhere in her huge sleeping shirt and checks over Jensen. The man is conscious, but blood oozes from a gash on his head and the stitches on his arm have been torn out. “Shit,” Jensen says as he looks at Clay, pupils blown wide from the concussion he definitely has and, almost surprisingly, fear. “You weren’t supposed to find out.”
“Find out what, exactly?” Clay asks because this looks like something out of a bad sci-fi movie. Or Gotham. Because shit like this isn't supposed to happen in a suburb in New Hampshire. It happens in Star City and Metropolis and Bludhaven, places with people who are equipped to handle it. Which... apparently Jensen is. Fuck.
Jensen swallows. “Um, you know how I told those security guys at Goliath Worldwide that I was a telekinetic? Well, uh, I wasn’t lying."
TBC