Better Off Ted/Fringe/Watchmen: 6DoS Meme fic
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,365 all together
Summary: Ted Crisp to Daniel Dreiberg in six steps for visiblemarket.
A/N: Hope you don't mind I had to rope in another fandom to get this done. I knew it'd be tough to reach six ficlets. Uh, spoilers?
Ted hid a wince. Even the rumor was enough to make Veronica’s eyes go bright and hungry. Inter-dimensional travel. Which was a misnomer, as Rose would inform him over the dinner table, because they were talking about traveling between parallel universes, not dimensions, and Ted would worry again about just what she was learning in Veridian daycare. Anyway, it had come out of Boston- the rumor. A grad student was apparently shopping some paper around, based on the research of a long-forgotten scientist named... Priest? Bridges? Ted hadn’t really been listening. Because it was absurd. Inter-dimensional travel. Inter-universal. Whatever.
“Ted! Why are you being like this? We are talking about a planet-sized market, all for me! I mean, Veridian. I mean, me and Veridian.”
Ted took the grad student’s nonsense and tucked it into the crook of his elbow. “Because believe it or not, Veronica, there is enough money on this planet right here. Besides, how do you know there isn’t already a Veridian Dynamics over there? And a Veronica working for it? Do you really want to face that competition?”
“Of course I would. Alternate Veronica would be the only one worthy.”
Ted nodded, “Right, stupid question. In any case, you want to hear a good rumor?”
Veronica crossed her arms and lifted an eyebrow with a casual “Sure.”
He bent a little closer, “I hear that Ludic Science is releasing the newest Mass-Dyn Z10 gaming system a week early.”
Veronica’s face darkened with outrage, “Those bastards. Massive Dynamic can’t be happy stealing half our name, can they?”
“No, they can’t.”
“They have to show us up too!”
“Yes, they do.”
“We’ll fix them!”
“Yes, we will.”
“Come on! We’ve got work to do!” Veronica stomped off, and Ted was happy to follow in her wake.
***
It had taken a long time to get to Saint Claire’s from that back closet on Harvard’s campus. But considering what Ben had found in that closet, it was worth every minute. Three pages of notes, dropped behind a water heater.
Ben shifted in the plastic chair. Glanced up at the high, barred windows, and down at the long, olive-colored table. It occurred to him that this might be a huge waste of time, but by then the doors at the end of the room had opened. A hunched man shuffled in, guided on both sides by tall, broad orderlies until he sat across from Ben. He looked ancient, much more than his fifty-some years. Unkempt and... completely insane.
“Doctor... Doctor Bishop?” Ben said, trying to catch eyes that seemed to be staring down through the table and floor and into the center of the Earth. “I wanted to talk to you. About your research. The window... to the other universe?”
Doctor Bishop blinked.
Taking this as a good sign, Ben pressed on, “I found some of your work, on campus. It’s not much...” Ben pulled the pages from a pocket of his messenger bag, “I was hoping you could help me make some more sense of it.” He laid them on the table and let his fingers drift over them, “I mean, it seems... it seems like you did more than make that window. Which was brilliant, don’t get me wrong.”
Doctor Bishop blinked again.
“But... did you do more than that? Because that would be... I mean...” He trailed off, hands left lying on the pages as if he could soak up the genius they contained.
Two gnarled hands chained together at the wrist slammed down on Ben’s own. He jumped, eyes darting up to meet the ones burning into his. Doctor Bishop’s head cocked slightly, and one word escaped his thin, cracked lips, “... Peter?”
The orderlies took hold of Doctor Bishop’s shoulders, gently pulling him back into his chair, away from Ben, who dared to breathe again. “This is Ben Arazi, Doctor Bishop,” one of them said, “Not Peter.” The orderly looked to Ben, “You should go.”
He stood, quickly gathering the pages and all but jogging from the room. It would take him several extra months to write his paper, but it would be written.
***
Winter, 1985. Doctor Bishop stood on a frozen lake, calibrating scientific equipment. Two women confronted him. He ignored them. The equipment hummed to life, and the nearby air wavered into a blue curtain of energy. Two universes cracked, silently. The man walked through the curtain.
***
On the other side, Ben Arazi earned his doctorate before discovering Walter Bishop’s research. A cure for juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia. Not a treatment. A cure. With a little detective work Ben learned that Bishop had abandoned his research after his son, who had the disease, disappeared one winter night. But, he shouldn’t have. His final formula- Ben knew, just looking at it, that it was the real thing.
He took the pages home, and talked it over with his wife. Massive Dynamic had been good to him over the years. But there was another company they both knew could be better.
***
Adrian didn’t tend to spend more than twenty seconds on any one piece of paper that crossed his desk in a day. However, when that paper claimed it came from a man who had a formula that could save as many lives as it could generate dollars...
He stood next to Dimensional Developments’ new chief of medical research at the first of many social functions they would attend as the cure was distributed to all hospitals with patients in need. Dimensional Developments’ parent company Veidt Industries would make a fortune, and go down in history as the savior of young children the world over. It was a massive triumph. All down to three pages crushed into a corner of a forgotten closet in Harvard. He could almost laugh.
His eyes scanned the crowd. It would’ve been nice to enjoy this night solely for what it was, but unfortunately Adrian Veidt didn’t have that luxury. Because monsters loved to pretend they were clean as much as anyone. Adrian would know. He could enjoy the party, Ozymandias had work to do. Yes, officially he had revealed the two to be one and the same long ago, and yet... schoolboy heroics had found their place at last.
A portly man with an offensive mustache mugged and chortled while his plastic wife dangled from his arm. Adrian moved in.
“Mister Sandusky, I’m glad you could make it.”
The man’s eyes widened at the warm address. He actually blushed. Adrian’s index finger and thumb closed around his cuff link, feeling the slight electronic buzz of the hidden microphone.
***
Three miles from Veidt’s party, a beam of light swept over the filing cabinet in Waldo Sandusky’s office. With the flashlight pinched between his cheek and collarbone, Nite Owl kept it trained on the cabinet’s lock, nimbly picking it with his steel utensils. It gave after a few minutes. The drawer slid open and he removed the necessary files. It was a backhanded way to stop a crook like Sandusky, not his preferred method. But Ozymandias had come to him, confided his suspicions, helped craft this plan. Not that he would ever admit it out loud, but it pleased Nite Owl to know that Adrian was still a mask after all.
A voice crackled over the airwaves, “Nite Owl.”
“Yeah?”
“Veidt’s mic says Sandusky’s on the move. Are you finished?”
“I am. Come on up. And be careful this time,” he added.
“Okay, okay,” Silk Spectre grumbled in reply. Nite Owl smiled, enjoying the fact that she could still sound like a sullen teenager even though she was nearing fifty.
He heard Archie’s engines before he saw the ship slowly rise into view. He flinched and squinted when the floodlights blazed into the room. Silk Spectre swung the ship around, and Nite Owl tensed before it came to a standstill with just enough room for the gangway to lower without scraping against the window. Feeling very smart for not forcing himself into his costume with the long sweeping cape, Nite Owl slid open the window and edged his way into the ship.
Dan shared a smile with Laurie as he showed her the files.
Word Count: 1,365 all together
Summary: Ted Crisp to Daniel Dreiberg in six steps for visiblemarket.
A/N: Hope you don't mind I had to rope in another fandom to get this done. I knew it'd be tough to reach six ficlets. Uh, spoilers?
Ted hid a wince. Even the rumor was enough to make Veronica’s eyes go bright and hungry. Inter-dimensional travel. Which was a misnomer, as Rose would inform him over the dinner table, because they were talking about traveling between parallel universes, not dimensions, and Ted would worry again about just what she was learning in Veridian daycare. Anyway, it had come out of Boston- the rumor. A grad student was apparently shopping some paper around, based on the research of a long-forgotten scientist named... Priest? Bridges? Ted hadn’t really been listening. Because it was absurd. Inter-dimensional travel. Inter-universal. Whatever.
“Ted! Why are you being like this? We are talking about a planet-sized market, all for me! I mean, Veridian. I mean, me and Veridian.”
Ted took the grad student’s nonsense and tucked it into the crook of his elbow. “Because believe it or not, Veronica, there is enough money on this planet right here. Besides, how do you know there isn’t already a Veridian Dynamics over there? And a Veronica working for it? Do you really want to face that competition?”
“Of course I would. Alternate Veronica would be the only one worthy.”
Ted nodded, “Right, stupid question. In any case, you want to hear a good rumor?”
Veronica crossed her arms and lifted an eyebrow with a casual “Sure.”
He bent a little closer, “I hear that Ludic Science is releasing the newest Mass-Dyn Z10 gaming system a week early.”
Veronica’s face darkened with outrage, “Those bastards. Massive Dynamic can’t be happy stealing half our name, can they?”
“No, they can’t.”
“They have to show us up too!”
“Yes, they do.”
“We’ll fix them!”
“Yes, we will.”
“Come on! We’ve got work to do!” Veronica stomped off, and Ted was happy to follow in her wake.
***
It had taken a long time to get to Saint Claire’s from that back closet on Harvard’s campus. But considering what Ben had found in that closet, it was worth every minute. Three pages of notes, dropped behind a water heater.
Ben shifted in the plastic chair. Glanced up at the high, barred windows, and down at the long, olive-colored table. It occurred to him that this might be a huge waste of time, but by then the doors at the end of the room had opened. A hunched man shuffled in, guided on both sides by tall, broad orderlies until he sat across from Ben. He looked ancient, much more than his fifty-some years. Unkempt and... completely insane.
“Doctor... Doctor Bishop?” Ben said, trying to catch eyes that seemed to be staring down through the table and floor and into the center of the Earth. “I wanted to talk to you. About your research. The window... to the other universe?”
Doctor Bishop blinked.
Taking this as a good sign, Ben pressed on, “I found some of your work, on campus. It’s not much...” Ben pulled the pages from a pocket of his messenger bag, “I was hoping you could help me make some more sense of it.” He laid them on the table and let his fingers drift over them, “I mean, it seems... it seems like you did more than make that window. Which was brilliant, don’t get me wrong.”
Doctor Bishop blinked again.
“But... did you do more than that? Because that would be... I mean...” He trailed off, hands left lying on the pages as if he could soak up the genius they contained.
Two gnarled hands chained together at the wrist slammed down on Ben’s own. He jumped, eyes darting up to meet the ones burning into his. Doctor Bishop’s head cocked slightly, and one word escaped his thin, cracked lips, “... Peter?”
The orderlies took hold of Doctor Bishop’s shoulders, gently pulling him back into his chair, away from Ben, who dared to breathe again. “This is Ben Arazi, Doctor Bishop,” one of them said, “Not Peter.” The orderly looked to Ben, “You should go.”
He stood, quickly gathering the pages and all but jogging from the room. It would take him several extra months to write his paper, but it would be written.
***
Winter, 1985. Doctor Bishop stood on a frozen lake, calibrating scientific equipment. Two women confronted him. He ignored them. The equipment hummed to life, and the nearby air wavered into a blue curtain of energy. Two universes cracked, silently. The man walked through the curtain.
***
On the other side, Ben Arazi earned his doctorate before discovering Walter Bishop’s research. A cure for juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia. Not a treatment. A cure. With a little detective work Ben learned that Bishop had abandoned his research after his son, who had the disease, disappeared one winter night. But, he shouldn’t have. His final formula- Ben knew, just looking at it, that it was the real thing.
He took the pages home, and talked it over with his wife. Massive Dynamic had been good to him over the years. But there was another company they both knew could be better.
***
Adrian didn’t tend to spend more than twenty seconds on any one piece of paper that crossed his desk in a day. However, when that paper claimed it came from a man who had a formula that could save as many lives as it could generate dollars...
He stood next to Dimensional Developments’ new chief of medical research at the first of many social functions they would attend as the cure was distributed to all hospitals with patients in need. Dimensional Developments’ parent company Veidt Industries would make a fortune, and go down in history as the savior of young children the world over. It was a massive triumph. All down to three pages crushed into a corner of a forgotten closet in Harvard. He could almost laugh.
His eyes scanned the crowd. It would’ve been nice to enjoy this night solely for what it was, but unfortunately Adrian Veidt didn’t have that luxury. Because monsters loved to pretend they were clean as much as anyone. Adrian would know. He could enjoy the party, Ozymandias had work to do. Yes, officially he had revealed the two to be one and the same long ago, and yet... schoolboy heroics had found their place at last.
A portly man with an offensive mustache mugged and chortled while his plastic wife dangled from his arm. Adrian moved in.
“Mister Sandusky, I’m glad you could make it.”
The man’s eyes widened at the warm address. He actually blushed. Adrian’s index finger and thumb closed around his cuff link, feeling the slight electronic buzz of the hidden microphone.
***
Three miles from Veidt’s party, a beam of light swept over the filing cabinet in Waldo Sandusky’s office. With the flashlight pinched between his cheek and collarbone, Nite Owl kept it trained on the cabinet’s lock, nimbly picking it with his steel utensils. It gave after a few minutes. The drawer slid open and he removed the necessary files. It was a backhanded way to stop a crook like Sandusky, not his preferred method. But Ozymandias had come to him, confided his suspicions, helped craft this plan. Not that he would ever admit it out loud, but it pleased Nite Owl to know that Adrian was still a mask after all.
A voice crackled over the airwaves, “Nite Owl.”
“Yeah?”
“Veidt’s mic says Sandusky’s on the move. Are you finished?”
“I am. Come on up. And be careful this time,” he added.
“Okay, okay,” Silk Spectre grumbled in reply. Nite Owl smiled, enjoying the fact that she could still sound like a sullen teenager even though she was nearing fifty.
He heard Archie’s engines before he saw the ship slowly rise into view. He flinched and squinted when the floodlights blazed into the room. Silk Spectre swung the ship around, and Nite Owl tensed before it came to a standstill with just enough room for the gangway to lower without scraping against the window. Feeling very smart for not forcing himself into his costume with the long sweeping cape, Nite Owl slid open the window and edged his way into the ship.
Dan shared a smile with Laurie as he showed her the files.