CoV fic: In the Shadows - Chapter Five
Title: In the Shadows
Chapter: Five
Fandom: City of Villains
Character: Tainted Shade aka Tag van Keuren (though he's not actually in this chapter)
Genre: Character origin
Word Count: 1,761
Warnings: none
Notes: It has been a very very long time since I have posted on this story, so it might be helpful to review the first four chapters. However, I am actively working on this again, so hopefully postings will be more frequent. As always, the story is moving slowly, plotwise, thanks to my preoccupation with pesky things like background and character development.
Sitting alone in the passenger’s seat of the car, Theresa rubbed her forehead with a nervously trembling hand. A tension headache was pounding behind her eyes, as it had been since the previous afternoon’s meeting with Tag’s two doctors. Vaguely she wondered if she could get Dr. Evenston to prescribe her something to counteract the throbbing, but she knew she wasn’t inclined to ask, not with as betrayed and angry as she still felt over his insulting suggestion that Tag was… was one of those…
And to think he was excited when Dr. Lowe explained it to him! Theresa thought bitterly, recalling how Tag’s face had lit up eagerly upon hearing the word “mutant”. Furiously, Theresa shot a glare out the car window, seeing the remembered surprised smile on her son’s grayed face, rather then the hedge that separated their property from the neighbor’s. He thought it was neat! Damnit, doesn’t he have any sense of reality? Doesn’t he realize just how horrible it would be if he really was…?
Well, of course, he wasn’t. Theresa refused to let go of that opinion. Her son, her bright and perfect little boy, was not one of those genetic mistakes, and she was not about to believe any different, no matter what Dr. Lowe said. She knew how mutants were, and her son was not like that. He was a good person who cared about others and was always smiling.
Kurt finally came out of the house and climbed into the car, slamming the driver’s side door with a forceful yank and jamming his keys into the ignition. The noise only aggravated Theresa’s headache and jabbed a hole straight into her patience. He’d been banging doors and stomping around the house all morning. “Kurt, please,” she snapped, squeezing her eyes shut again, fingers pressed into her temple. “Is all the noise really necessary?”
He made a sound of irritation in his throat, but otherwise didn’t acknowledge her, choosing instead to put all of his severe concentration on pulling out of the driveway and turning the car in the direction of the hospital. Theresa sighed furiously and returned her own attention out the window, watching as their middle-class suburban neighborhood whisked past. Flashes of clean well-tended homes, carefully raked piles of autumn leaves, and precise white mailboxes with perfect black numbers flickered in her vision in a way that almost seemed mocking.
Theresa’s family could trace itself back to some of the earliest Dutch immigrants in the Great Lakes area, proud people who farmed the land and established the firm foundation of a strong extended community in Western Michigan. Kurt’s family had been even more well-regarded as hers; his grandfather had helped to build many of the grand old homes that still stood in the nicer parts of Grand Rapids and Muskegon, and other relatives had been furniture crafters. His family tree included local politicians and Masonic Lodge members of high degree.
When she and he were married everyone agreed that it was a fine strong union. They didn’t especially love each other; Theresa had decided in college that Kurt was a good match, and rather than wait until the taciturn man proposed, she’d just taken him along to pick out her engagement ring. But love didn’t matter so much as far as she was concerned. It was what they did with themselves that was more important.
Once graduated and married, she began working on making as lasting a name for their family as their predecessors had. Kurt was now a high level executive at a financial company in Muskegon. He kept the mortgage and bills paid while Theresa herself was highly active in the PTA, in fundraising for the school, and in local politics and the monthly community council meetings. She was also a Human Resources Director for Grand Valley State College. Thanks mainly to, by her way of seeing, her social efforts, the van Keuren family was upper middle class and very well respected in Twin Lake.
Theirs was not the type of family that would produce mutants. Theresa found the very suggestion repugnant. They were good people, upstanding people! They had advantage and breeding. They threw several parties a year that were always well attended, and people greeted her fondly when she was out around town. To even think that they could have a mutant in the family! Obviously Evenston and Lowe were grossly misguided, and it infuriated Theresa to think that they were ignoring what was really wrong with Tag in favor of trying to push such a lie on them.
And he was excited about it! she silently fumed to herself yet again, feeling quite betrayed by what she viewed as her son’s disgraceful reaction. He was insulting his family lines and their current respected place in the community by being so ignorant about the reality of mutants. He thinks it’s all fantastic and glamorous, like in his foolish comic books. I’ll be setting him straight on that first thing…
“So,” Kurt’s terse voice broke through her thoughts. His words were spoken in tight monotone as he glared out the windshield at passing traffic. “Are we going to talk about this?”
Theresa shot him a huffy expression, folding her arms over her chest. What was this now? Kurt was not usually a “talk about it” kind of guy. In fact talking had very little place in their relationship and he had always been a distant father at best. Tag loved him, and seemed to understand that Kurt was simply not a gregarious person, but Theresa thought it was both one of his worst and best personality traits. On one hand, his reserved silences were frustrating, but on the other hand, his disinterest in their marriage meant she didn’t have to deal with him very often.
As far as she was concerned, his obviously reluctant effort at conversation now was a complete waste. “Tag is not one of those genetic freaks, so there’s nothing to talk about. Unless you wish to discuss the fact that you gave those ignorant doctors permission to perform unnecessary tests on our son, when we should be getting him some real help,” she replied haughtily, still miffed with him for overruling her wishes in Dr. Evenston’s office.
“Men with medical degrees are hardly ignorant, and I think you need to face some reality, Theresa,” he grumbled, making a sharper than necessary turn as he tugged the steering wheel forcefully to the right. “For chrissake, the boy has spikes growing out of his skin. What else do you think he could be besides a mutant?”
Theresa’s temper and sense of betrayal flared once again, and she twisted in her seat so that she could unleash the full force of her anger directly at him. “How dare you?! Kurt, Tag is your son, not some freak of nature! We’re successful and respected members of this community; we don’t live in one of those filthy big cities or next door to a toxic waste dump. It’s ridiculous to think for even one minute that we could have produced something so horrid as a mutant!”
Kurt winced against her strident protest, and his sharp eyes stayed narrowed afterwards, speaking volumes as to the strength of his own anger. The difference between them was that Kurt was the type of person to contain his anger and let it smolder dangerously, while Theresa was open and free with hers. “Look, I’m not saying him being a mutant is a good thing. But it’s possible, and you have to accept that.”
“I’ll do no such - -“
“It doesn’t matter if he is, because the doctors will fix him!” he snapped, to cut her off before she launched into another tirade. “If you’re so worried about your precious community image, then no one has to know he’s a mutant. We’ll just see to it that the doctors nip this in the bud before it gets out of hand. We’ll get those damned spikes removed, and no one will ever be the wiser.”
That was at least a sensible suggestion, but Theresa still wasn’t about to forgive him for believing that Tag was a mutant in the first place. He was not! Slightly mollified, she sat back again and glared out her window, wrestling against angry tears that were trying to form, causing heat behind her eyes.
“He’s not a mutant, Kurt,” she said after a long extended silence, the tone of her voice still angry, but now also touched with an element of pleading. At that moment, Theresa felt as if the entire world were against her and her precious little boy, insisting that he was something so terrible, something he could not possibly be. Something wrong and disgusting. “Remember when he was a baby? Those perfect little blonde curls and warm smiling eyes? Everyone said he was so handsome and beautiful, and he was! He was so good too, not fussy or colicky like so many babies are.”
Kurt sighed quietly to himself but didn’t reply, knowing he wasn’t likely to talk her out of her delusion no matter what he said. It was true that Tag had been an attractive and good-natured baby, but that didn’t make him any less of a mutant now, and obviously Theresa was conveniently forgetting the more tedious and sleep-robbing aspects of raising an infant.
“And when he grew up, he was so generous and friendly!” Theresa continued, her expression taking on a hint of dreaminess as she remembered how idealistically perfect her little son had been. Her use of past tense bothered Kurt on a deep level, like she was talking about a child who was dead and gone. “He was never afraid of other people, he wanted to get to know everyone, and he always shared with other children. And smart! Oh my goodness, Kurt, do you remember his first set of Legos and how he spent hour after hour playing with them, building and building? That eventually got him started on erector sets and model kits and all those silly rockets that blew up before he could get them off the ground…”
Though she laughed at the memory of Tag’s failed experiments at flight, there was a sense of desperation to it, and when she looked at Kurt again, tears that she hadn’t been able to keep in check stood in her eyes. “Kurt, a child so perfect, so bright and happy… a wonderful child like that simply could not be a genetic mistake. It’s impossible! He just can’t be a mutant!”
Chapter: Five
Fandom: City of Villains
Character: Tainted Shade aka Tag van Keuren (though he's not actually in this chapter)
Genre: Character origin
Word Count: 1,761
Warnings: none
Notes: It has been a very very long time since I have posted on this story, so it might be helpful to review the first four chapters. However, I am actively working on this again, so hopefully postings will be more frequent. As always, the story is moving slowly, plotwise, thanks to my preoccupation with pesky things like background and character development.
Sitting alone in the passenger’s seat of the car, Theresa rubbed her forehead with a nervously trembling hand. A tension headache was pounding behind her eyes, as it had been since the previous afternoon’s meeting with Tag’s two doctors. Vaguely she wondered if she could get Dr. Evenston to prescribe her something to counteract the throbbing, but she knew she wasn’t inclined to ask, not with as betrayed and angry as she still felt over his insulting suggestion that Tag was… was one of those…
And to think he was excited when Dr. Lowe explained it to him! Theresa thought bitterly, recalling how Tag’s face had lit up eagerly upon hearing the word “mutant”. Furiously, Theresa shot a glare out the car window, seeing the remembered surprised smile on her son’s grayed face, rather then the hedge that separated their property from the neighbor’s. He thought it was neat! Damnit, doesn’t he have any sense of reality? Doesn’t he realize just how horrible it would be if he really was…?
Well, of course, he wasn’t. Theresa refused to let go of that opinion. Her son, her bright and perfect little boy, was not one of those genetic mistakes, and she was not about to believe any different, no matter what Dr. Lowe said. She knew how mutants were, and her son was not like that. He was a good person who cared about others and was always smiling.
Kurt finally came out of the house and climbed into the car, slamming the driver’s side door with a forceful yank and jamming his keys into the ignition. The noise only aggravated Theresa’s headache and jabbed a hole straight into her patience. He’d been banging doors and stomping around the house all morning. “Kurt, please,” she snapped, squeezing her eyes shut again, fingers pressed into her temple. “Is all the noise really necessary?”
He made a sound of irritation in his throat, but otherwise didn’t acknowledge her, choosing instead to put all of his severe concentration on pulling out of the driveway and turning the car in the direction of the hospital. Theresa sighed furiously and returned her own attention out the window, watching as their middle-class suburban neighborhood whisked past. Flashes of clean well-tended homes, carefully raked piles of autumn leaves, and precise white mailboxes with perfect black numbers flickered in her vision in a way that almost seemed mocking.
Theresa’s family could trace itself back to some of the earliest Dutch immigrants in the Great Lakes area, proud people who farmed the land and established the firm foundation of a strong extended community in Western Michigan. Kurt’s family had been even more well-regarded as hers; his grandfather had helped to build many of the grand old homes that still stood in the nicer parts of Grand Rapids and Muskegon, and other relatives had been furniture crafters. His family tree included local politicians and Masonic Lodge members of high degree.
When she and he were married everyone agreed that it was a fine strong union. They didn’t especially love each other; Theresa had decided in college that Kurt was a good match, and rather than wait until the taciturn man proposed, she’d just taken him along to pick out her engagement ring. But love didn’t matter so much as far as she was concerned. It was what they did with themselves that was more important.
Once graduated and married, she began working on making as lasting a name for their family as their predecessors had. Kurt was now a high level executive at a financial company in Muskegon. He kept the mortgage and bills paid while Theresa herself was highly active in the PTA, in fundraising for the school, and in local politics and the monthly community council meetings. She was also a Human Resources Director for Grand Valley State College. Thanks mainly to, by her way of seeing, her social efforts, the van Keuren family was upper middle class and very well respected in Twin Lake.
Theirs was not the type of family that would produce mutants. Theresa found the very suggestion repugnant. They were good people, upstanding people! They had advantage and breeding. They threw several parties a year that were always well attended, and people greeted her fondly when she was out around town. To even think that they could have a mutant in the family! Obviously Evenston and Lowe were grossly misguided, and it infuriated Theresa to think that they were ignoring what was really wrong with Tag in favor of trying to push such a lie on them.
And he was excited about it! she silently fumed to herself yet again, feeling quite betrayed by what she viewed as her son’s disgraceful reaction. He was insulting his family lines and their current respected place in the community by being so ignorant about the reality of mutants. He thinks it’s all fantastic and glamorous, like in his foolish comic books. I’ll be setting him straight on that first thing…
“So,” Kurt’s terse voice broke through her thoughts. His words were spoken in tight monotone as he glared out the windshield at passing traffic. “Are we going to talk about this?”
Theresa shot him a huffy expression, folding her arms over her chest. What was this now? Kurt was not usually a “talk about it” kind of guy. In fact talking had very little place in their relationship and he had always been a distant father at best. Tag loved him, and seemed to understand that Kurt was simply not a gregarious person, but Theresa thought it was both one of his worst and best personality traits. On one hand, his reserved silences were frustrating, but on the other hand, his disinterest in their marriage meant she didn’t have to deal with him very often.
As far as she was concerned, his obviously reluctant effort at conversation now was a complete waste. “Tag is not one of those genetic freaks, so there’s nothing to talk about. Unless you wish to discuss the fact that you gave those ignorant doctors permission to perform unnecessary tests on our son, when we should be getting him some real help,” she replied haughtily, still miffed with him for overruling her wishes in Dr. Evenston’s office.
“Men with medical degrees are hardly ignorant, and I think you need to face some reality, Theresa,” he grumbled, making a sharper than necessary turn as he tugged the steering wheel forcefully to the right. “For chrissake, the boy has spikes growing out of his skin. What else do you think he could be besides a mutant?”
Theresa’s temper and sense of betrayal flared once again, and she twisted in her seat so that she could unleash the full force of her anger directly at him. “How dare you?! Kurt, Tag is your son, not some freak of nature! We’re successful and respected members of this community; we don’t live in one of those filthy big cities or next door to a toxic waste dump. It’s ridiculous to think for even one minute that we could have produced something so horrid as a mutant!”
Kurt winced against her strident protest, and his sharp eyes stayed narrowed afterwards, speaking volumes as to the strength of his own anger. The difference between them was that Kurt was the type of person to contain his anger and let it smolder dangerously, while Theresa was open and free with hers. “Look, I’m not saying him being a mutant is a good thing. But it’s possible, and you have to accept that.”
“I’ll do no such - -“
“It doesn’t matter if he is, because the doctors will fix him!” he snapped, to cut her off before she launched into another tirade. “If you’re so worried about your precious community image, then no one has to know he’s a mutant. We’ll just see to it that the doctors nip this in the bud before it gets out of hand. We’ll get those damned spikes removed, and no one will ever be the wiser.”
That was at least a sensible suggestion, but Theresa still wasn’t about to forgive him for believing that Tag was a mutant in the first place. He was not! Slightly mollified, she sat back again and glared out her window, wrestling against angry tears that were trying to form, causing heat behind her eyes.
“He’s not a mutant, Kurt,” she said after a long extended silence, the tone of her voice still angry, but now also touched with an element of pleading. At that moment, Theresa felt as if the entire world were against her and her precious little boy, insisting that he was something so terrible, something he could not possibly be. Something wrong and disgusting. “Remember when he was a baby? Those perfect little blonde curls and warm smiling eyes? Everyone said he was so handsome and beautiful, and he was! He was so good too, not fussy or colicky like so many babies are.”
Kurt sighed quietly to himself but didn’t reply, knowing he wasn’t likely to talk her out of her delusion no matter what he said. It was true that Tag had been an attractive and good-natured baby, but that didn’t make him any less of a mutant now, and obviously Theresa was conveniently forgetting the more tedious and sleep-robbing aspects of raising an infant.
“And when he grew up, he was so generous and friendly!” Theresa continued, her expression taking on a hint of dreaminess as she remembered how idealistically perfect her little son had been. Her use of past tense bothered Kurt on a deep level, like she was talking about a child who was dead and gone. “He was never afraid of other people, he wanted to get to know everyone, and he always shared with other children. And smart! Oh my goodness, Kurt, do you remember his first set of Legos and how he spent hour after hour playing with them, building and building? That eventually got him started on erector sets and model kits and all those silly rockets that blew up before he could get them off the ground…”
Though she laughed at the memory of Tag’s failed experiments at flight, there was a sense of desperation to it, and when she looked at Kurt again, tears that she hadn’t been able to keep in check stood in her eyes. “Kurt, a child so perfect, so bright and happy… a wonderful child like that simply could not be a genetic mistake. It’s impossible! He just can’t be a mutant!”