fic: Self-Defence
Title: Self-Defence.
Rating: PG-13.
Characters: mild Molly/Micah, Peter, Angela, OFC briefly.
Warnings: For safety's sake, spoilers for all aired episodes, not including the season finale.
Word count: 2041.
Summary: "Protect yourself," Claude had said. Molly protects herself above all else.
A/N: I had so much fun writing sociopathic!Molly that I wrote more! This is a sequel to my last heroes_contest entry Break - it would probably help to have read it first, but you won't be lost if you don't. The GN Rebellion, Part 7 is referenced in this. Again, you don't really need to have read it. Plus, it isn't that good. :/ This was written for heroes_contest's 21st one-shot challenge.
If you know both yourself and your enemy, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss.
Angela visits her. Well, she sends letters and leaves messages on Molly's answer machine first, but Molly figures there's plausible deniability in not having received those. All ten to fifteen of them.
Molly's roommate is moving out. They're only a month into the fall term, but Sarah is set on leaving. She hasn't said why. Molly offers to help, reaches out for one Sarah's bags, but Sarah snatches it up with the rest of her things: her box, her backpack, and her other bag. It looks awkward for her.
Molly opens the door for her. “Goodbye, Sarah,” she says as the girl leaves. Sarah glances at her, a murmured 'yeah' passing her lips before she turns to negotiate the hall. She passes a dark haired woman on her way.
“Angela,” Molly says, blinking a couple of times before smiling.
Angela's smile doesn't reach her eyes. “I have a table booked at Kojin Sushi, come along.”
-
“You do realise what's happening, don't you, Molly?” Angela has her driver stop a few blocks from the restaurant.
“I thought we were getting sushi. I'm hungry,” Molly replies, though she really isn't. She gazes absently out the window.
“To you, dear,” Angela continues, as if Molly hadn't spoken. She lays a hand on Molly's arm. “It's become more difficult to hard after Sylar.”
“How's Peter?” Molly asks abruptly.
“He's in therapy. It's helping.”
“Oh.” Molly pauses a second before adding, “Good. Should I be in therapy too?” This is what Dr Phil and Oprah say. She watches too much daytime television.
“It wouldn't help,” Angela says, hand still on Molly's arm. “You aren't like my son. But perhaps I can help.”
“What do you mean?” Molly asks, but she thinks she already knows. She thinks that maybe people like Petrellis see things a little differently than Sarah.
“Change of plans.” That smile still doesn't reach Angela's eyes. “Let's go back to my house.”
-
“What you must understand is that you're different.” Angela drops a cube of sugar into her tea and stirs. “And people will notice. People have noticed, haven't they?”
Molly shrugs.
“Well, that nice Sarah girl seemed rather upset earlier. Did you pick up on that?” She doesn't give Molly the time to answer. “Of course you didn't. You don't understand the effect you have on people.”
“Maybe you should quit being vague and just say what you mean, Mrs Petrelli.” Molly takes a sip of the tea. It's disgusting; she spits it out.
“Yes, dear. You're a sociopath. You probably have been for some time, but killing Sylar was the catalyst for you. You stopped pretending. You couldn't hide it any more, especially not from yourself.”
“Is that what your dreams tell you?”
“That's what experience tells me. I've known people like you in my time.”
“So am I going to become a serial killer?” This occurred to Molly recently; the thought was... interesting, if a little cliché.
“Not necessarily, but you'll need to be careful. You have to see yourself the ways others see you. Every gesture, every comment, every word - it has to be carefully chosen to create the right effect. Otherwise, people like Sarah will keep running away from you.”
“I see.” She smooths her hands over her jeans, leaning back in her chair. “And you're going to teach me?”
“Like I said, I have experience.” Angela takes a breath, fixes Molly with a steely, yet friendly, stare. Impressive; maybe she can teach Molly a thing or two. “Now drink your tea, and pretend you like it.”
-
She remembers everything. The places she's been, the people she's met, the things she's seen. She was only young - a baby, really - but she hasn't forgotten a thing. It's not a bad thing; in fact it's quite a help. The Walker Tracking System wasn't her, that person was a scared little orphaned girl, roots torn from her, thrown on a plane and forgotten.
Sometimes, Molly looks up her friends from grade school on Facebook. They're fat and happy, judging by their pictures. She has no desire to engage with them again. Still, sometimes she looks them up, locates them, finds their telephone numbers and where they work. She doesn't do anything with it, this information - she just has it. She likes to know that it's there, should she ever need it.
Angela isn't wrong in what she says, Molly begrudgingly has to admit; Sarah fleeing their dorm room probably doesn't look good. There'll be questions. Still, she likes the peace and quiet, the time to sit with her thoughts. Claude taught her not to fear isolation. Those months that she travelled with him, he trained her in how to perfect her ability. More importantly he trained her in survival.
“People will fuck you over if you give them the chance,” he had said, and it wasn't hard to believe with Nathan Petrelli trying to contain his own brother and daughter, X-Men style, and Monica having God knows what kinds of experiments done on her. Micah had to be the heroic 'Rebel' and send her away - it felt like rejection then, that last time she was truly terrified.
“Protect yourself,” Claude had said. And he was the master at that.
Alone in her room, she is safe.
-
The long forgotten stories of Peter's suicide attempts reappear once the papers gets a whiff of his visits to an exclusive private clinic. Interest pieces are written about how the tragic plane that killed Senator Petrelli tore his family apart. There are candid shots of his ex-wife looking old while buying groceries, his sons drinking at frat parties, his mother shooing paparazzi off her lawn. Though focus, though, is of course always Peter and his clandestine appointments with a renowned psychotherapist.
Molly visits him on a Tuesday morning between lectures. Peter no longer has a job and rarely goes out, if the papers are to be believed, so she doesn't call first.
She hears the turns and thuds of many locks before he opens the door to her.
They talk about nothing in particular. She tests out her small talk skills; something she hasn't really done in years, preferring to either get straight to the point or not speak at all. Peter likes small talk, though: he's happy to talk about the weather and what's on TV.
Amidst a chat about football games that neither of them follow, she asks, “Are you... okay?”
She hasn't asked anyone that in so long. Not Matt or Mohinder or the various boyfriends she's had over the years. She didn't care. She's not sure that cares now, but she wants to know the answer. She has some measure of affection for Peter, the kind one might have a younger sibling they don't know very well. She doesn't want Peter to stop being around.
“I'm not going to kill myself, if that's what you're worried about.”
She nods, and comments how warm it is for February.
-
One day, when Molly goes to visit Angela, she is not the woman's only guest. Molly's been visiting her regularly for the past couple of months. She still hates the woman, for ordering her around like a lapdog, for being Nathan Petrelli's mother, for not dealing with Sylar at any of the numerous times she had the chance to, but hate and love are not mutually exclusive emotions.
She sees the benefit their 'friendship' is having. She learns what not to say, and when to smile and when to laugh. The improvement is marked; sometimes people even sit with her in the cafeteria.
Angela doesn't have visitors, not any more. No lunch dates, no 'gentlemen callers'. There is only Molly; sometimes Peter.
This turn of events is unexpected.
“Darling,” Angela says, when she sees Molly at the lounge door. The maid had let her in. “You remember Micah, don't you?”
Micah looks exactly the same. When he turns his head towards her, it's as if he sees right through her.
-
“Do you see it, Molly?” Angela asks, days later. Micah has been at the mansion everyday since that first day. Molly is curious as to why, but she never likes to appear too interested in anything. “Do you there's something wrong with him?”
“He's like me?” There is something strange about Micah, but she can't put her finger on it. He isn't like her, not exactly.
“Close enough.” Angela smiles, pats Molly on the knee. “There's something brewing under the surface, almost breaking through.”
“The nicest people always snap eventually,” Molly says off-handedly. It's something people say.
“Indeed they do. I want you to get close to him again.”
She sips politely at her cup of tea, pinky extended. “What have you seen, Angela?”
Angela merely smiles again, leaning forward to take a cake from the fancy stand on the coffee table. “No need for you to worry about that yet, dear.”
-
“Why are you here?” Molly asks on her third 'date' with Micah. She wears a dress and heels, and they go wandering around a park, holding hands. The sun is setting. She wishes she'd worn flats. “In New York?”
“Big company wants to hire me.”
“What kind of 'big company'?”
“The bad guy kind.”
She stops walking, tugging on his hand to keep him with her. “What are you up to?”
“Revolution, my dear Molly.” He kisses her. “Soon, we're all going to be free,” he murmurs against her lips.
-
She tells Angela about Micah's 'revolution'. Angela says that it's as she thought. That he had come to her about her and Bennet's newest 'concern'. That it's a shame, nevertheless. He had such promise. She asks, “and how do you feel about it?”
“Well, his 'revolution' can't happen. We wouldn't be able to stay under the radar any more. The government would get involved again. They'd find out about how I killed Sylar. I'd be put in prison, or a psychiatric unit. He thinks that because he's intelligent and because he saved some people when he was thirteen that he'll win. All he'll do is end up letting out a bunch of proto-Sylars.”
That's the answer Angela wanted. It's also... the truth, to extent. She does think that a revolution will lead them nowhere, and she certainly does not want to be done for killing Sylar, but she likes Micah's style. She can relate to him unlike almost any other person. She can see how his brain, and, most importantly, she can predict his next move. And she's learning to predict Angela.
Keep your enemies closer, and all that.
“You know what you're going to have to do, don't you?” Angela asks.
“Don't worry about that,” she replies. “When the time comes, I'll do what I need to do.”
-
The last times she goes to the Petrelli mansion, Peter is there. She's older, now, about to graduate from NYU. She already has a job lined up at a clinic. She majored in psychology. She enjoys the irony.
Peter's better now. He's dating that Emma chick again, and he says he's done with whole superhero thing. Really done with it now. “Do you think about... that day?” he asks, leaning against the kitchen counter. She drinks black unsweetened coffee when Angela isn't around. She likes having to use whitening toothpaste that stings her gums to remove the stains.
“Of course I do.”
“Sometimes I still have dreams about it.”
“Completely normal.” She squeezes his arm, and he smiles faintly. “I do too. But you fight on through. We fought through, Peter. We won”
He slings an arm around her shoulders. “Thank you. You're a really good person, you know that?”
“That's what you think,” she says, grinning.
Rating: PG-13.
Characters: mild Molly/Micah, Peter, Angela, OFC briefly.
Warnings: For safety's sake, spoilers for all aired episodes, not including the season finale.
Word count: 2041.
Summary: "Protect yourself," Claude had said. Molly protects herself above all else.
A/N: I had so much fun writing sociopathic!Molly that I wrote more! This is a sequel to my last heroes_contest entry Break - it would probably help to have read it first, but you won't be lost if you don't. The GN Rebellion, Part 7 is referenced in this. Again, you don't really need to have read it. Plus, it isn't that good. :/ This was written for heroes_contest's 21st one-shot challenge.
If you know both yourself and your enemy, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss.
Angela visits her. Well, she sends letters and leaves messages on Molly's answer machine first, but Molly figures there's plausible deniability in not having received those. All ten to fifteen of them.
Molly's roommate is moving out. They're only a month into the fall term, but Sarah is set on leaving. She hasn't said why. Molly offers to help, reaches out for one Sarah's bags, but Sarah snatches it up with the rest of her things: her box, her backpack, and her other bag. It looks awkward for her.
Molly opens the door for her. “Goodbye, Sarah,” she says as the girl leaves. Sarah glances at her, a murmured 'yeah' passing her lips before she turns to negotiate the hall. She passes a dark haired woman on her way.
“Angela,” Molly says, blinking a couple of times before smiling.
Angela's smile doesn't reach her eyes. “I have a table booked at Kojin Sushi, come along.”
-
“You do realise what's happening, don't you, Molly?” Angela has her driver stop a few blocks from the restaurant.
“I thought we were getting sushi. I'm hungry,” Molly replies, though she really isn't. She gazes absently out the window.
“To you, dear,” Angela continues, as if Molly hadn't spoken. She lays a hand on Molly's arm. “It's become more difficult to hard after Sylar.”
“How's Peter?” Molly asks abruptly.
“He's in therapy. It's helping.”
“Oh.” Molly pauses a second before adding, “Good. Should I be in therapy too?” This is what Dr Phil and Oprah say. She watches too much daytime television.
“It wouldn't help,” Angela says, hand still on Molly's arm. “You aren't like my son. But perhaps I can help.”
“What do you mean?” Molly asks, but she thinks she already knows. She thinks that maybe people like Petrellis see things a little differently than Sarah.
“Change of plans.” That smile still doesn't reach Angela's eyes. “Let's go back to my house.”
-
“What you must understand is that you're different.” Angela drops a cube of sugar into her tea and stirs. “And people will notice. People have noticed, haven't they?”
Molly shrugs.
“Well, that nice Sarah girl seemed rather upset earlier. Did you pick up on that?” She doesn't give Molly the time to answer. “Of course you didn't. You don't understand the effect you have on people.”
“Maybe you should quit being vague and just say what you mean, Mrs Petrelli.” Molly takes a sip of the tea. It's disgusting; she spits it out.
“Yes, dear. You're a sociopath. You probably have been for some time, but killing Sylar was the catalyst for you. You stopped pretending. You couldn't hide it any more, especially not from yourself.”
“Is that what your dreams tell you?”
“That's what experience tells me. I've known people like you in my time.”
“So am I going to become a serial killer?” This occurred to Molly recently; the thought was... interesting, if a little cliché.
“Not necessarily, but you'll need to be careful. You have to see yourself the ways others see you. Every gesture, every comment, every word - it has to be carefully chosen to create the right effect. Otherwise, people like Sarah will keep running away from you.”
“I see.” She smooths her hands over her jeans, leaning back in her chair. “And you're going to teach me?”
“Like I said, I have experience.” Angela takes a breath, fixes Molly with a steely, yet friendly, stare. Impressive; maybe she can teach Molly a thing or two. “Now drink your tea, and pretend you like it.”
-
She remembers everything. The places she's been, the people she's met, the things she's seen. She was only young - a baby, really - but she hasn't forgotten a thing. It's not a bad thing; in fact it's quite a help. The Walker Tracking System wasn't her, that person was a scared little orphaned girl, roots torn from her, thrown on a plane and forgotten.
Sometimes, Molly looks up her friends from grade school on Facebook. They're fat and happy, judging by their pictures. She has no desire to engage with them again. Still, sometimes she looks them up, locates them, finds their telephone numbers and where they work. She doesn't do anything with it, this information - she just has it. She likes to know that it's there, should she ever need it.
Angela isn't wrong in what she says, Molly begrudgingly has to admit; Sarah fleeing their dorm room probably doesn't look good. There'll be questions. Still, she likes the peace and quiet, the time to sit with her thoughts. Claude taught her not to fear isolation. Those months that she travelled with him, he trained her in how to perfect her ability. More importantly he trained her in survival.
“People will fuck you over if you give them the chance,” he had said, and it wasn't hard to believe with Nathan Petrelli trying to contain his own brother and daughter, X-Men style, and Monica having God knows what kinds of experiments done on her. Micah had to be the heroic 'Rebel' and send her away - it felt like rejection then, that last time she was truly terrified.
“Protect yourself,” Claude had said. And he was the master at that.
Alone in her room, she is safe.
-
The long forgotten stories of Peter's suicide attempts reappear once the papers gets a whiff of his visits to an exclusive private clinic. Interest pieces are written about how the tragic plane that killed Senator Petrelli tore his family apart. There are candid shots of his ex-wife looking old while buying groceries, his sons drinking at frat parties, his mother shooing paparazzi off her lawn. Though focus, though, is of course always Peter and his clandestine appointments with a renowned psychotherapist.
Molly visits him on a Tuesday morning between lectures. Peter no longer has a job and rarely goes out, if the papers are to be believed, so she doesn't call first.
She hears the turns and thuds of many locks before he opens the door to her.
They talk about nothing in particular. She tests out her small talk skills; something she hasn't really done in years, preferring to either get straight to the point or not speak at all. Peter likes small talk, though: he's happy to talk about the weather and what's on TV.
Amidst a chat about football games that neither of them follow, she asks, “Are you... okay?”
She hasn't asked anyone that in so long. Not Matt or Mohinder or the various boyfriends she's had over the years. She didn't care. She's not sure that cares now, but she wants to know the answer. She has some measure of affection for Peter, the kind one might have a younger sibling they don't know very well. She doesn't want Peter to stop being around.
“I'm not going to kill myself, if that's what you're worried about.”
She nods, and comments how warm it is for February.
-
One day, when Molly goes to visit Angela, she is not the woman's only guest. Molly's been visiting her regularly for the past couple of months. She still hates the woman, for ordering her around like a lapdog, for being Nathan Petrelli's mother, for not dealing with Sylar at any of the numerous times she had the chance to, but hate and love are not mutually exclusive emotions.
She sees the benefit their 'friendship' is having. She learns what not to say, and when to smile and when to laugh. The improvement is marked; sometimes people even sit with her in the cafeteria.
Angela doesn't have visitors, not any more. No lunch dates, no 'gentlemen callers'. There is only Molly; sometimes Peter.
This turn of events is unexpected.
“Darling,” Angela says, when she sees Molly at the lounge door. The maid had let her in. “You remember Micah, don't you?”
Micah looks exactly the same. When he turns his head towards her, it's as if he sees right through her.
-
“Do you see it, Molly?” Angela asks, days later. Micah has been at the mansion everyday since that first day. Molly is curious as to why, but she never likes to appear too interested in anything. “Do you there's something wrong with him?”
“He's like me?” There is something strange about Micah, but she can't put her finger on it. He isn't like her, not exactly.
“Close enough.” Angela smiles, pats Molly on the knee. “There's something brewing under the surface, almost breaking through.”
“The nicest people always snap eventually,” Molly says off-handedly. It's something people say.
“Indeed they do. I want you to get close to him again.”
She sips politely at her cup of tea, pinky extended. “What have you seen, Angela?”
Angela merely smiles again, leaning forward to take a cake from the fancy stand on the coffee table. “No need for you to worry about that yet, dear.”
-
“Why are you here?” Molly asks on her third 'date' with Micah. She wears a dress and heels, and they go wandering around a park, holding hands. The sun is setting. She wishes she'd worn flats. “In New York?”
“Big company wants to hire me.”
“What kind of 'big company'?”
“The bad guy kind.”
She stops walking, tugging on his hand to keep him with her. “What are you up to?”
“Revolution, my dear Molly.” He kisses her. “Soon, we're all going to be free,” he murmurs against her lips.
-
She tells Angela about Micah's 'revolution'. Angela says that it's as she thought. That he had come to her about her and Bennet's newest 'concern'. That it's a shame, nevertheless. He had such promise. She asks, “and how do you feel about it?”
“Well, his 'revolution' can't happen. We wouldn't be able to stay under the radar any more. The government would get involved again. They'd find out about how I killed Sylar. I'd be put in prison, or a psychiatric unit. He thinks that because he's intelligent and because he saved some people when he was thirteen that he'll win. All he'll do is end up letting out a bunch of proto-Sylars.”
That's the answer Angela wanted. It's also... the truth, to extent. She does think that a revolution will lead them nowhere, and she certainly does not want to be done for killing Sylar, but she likes Micah's style. She can relate to him unlike almost any other person. She can see how his brain, and, most importantly, she can predict his next move. And she's learning to predict Angela.
Keep your enemies closer, and all that.
“You know what you're going to have to do, don't you?” Angela asks.
“Don't worry about that,” she replies. “When the time comes, I'll do what I need to do.”
-
The last times she goes to the Petrelli mansion, Peter is there. She's older, now, about to graduate from NYU. She already has a job lined up at a clinic. She majored in psychology. She enjoys the irony.
Peter's better now. He's dating that Emma chick again, and he says he's done with whole superhero thing. Really done with it now. “Do you think about... that day?” he asks, leaning against the kitchen counter. She drinks black unsweetened coffee when Angela isn't around. She likes having to use whitening toothpaste that stings her gums to remove the stains.
“Of course I do.”
“Sometimes I still have dreams about it.”
“Completely normal.” She squeezes his arm, and he smiles faintly. “I do too. But you fight on through. We fought through, Peter. We won”
He slings an arm around her shoulders. “Thank you. You're a really good person, you know that?”
“That's what you think,” she says, grinning.