Advent Calendar Day Twenty-One - Generation Kill fic: Vincible
Day One | Avalanche, Generation Kill, Brad/Nate, R, 400 words | for pjvilar
Day Two | No Fu Manchu, Hawaii Five-0, Danny, Steve, PG, 803 words | for laceymcbain
Day Three | running away from nothing real, Inception, Eames/Ariadne, R, 1,358 words | for vinylroad
Day Four | they said a hundred times I should have died, Generation Kill, Brad/Nate, NC-17, 1,192 words | for pau494
Day Five | try again, die again, die better, Torchwood, Jack, wallpaper | for pierhias
Day Six | monsters are always hungry, darling, Generation Kill, Brad/Nate, NC-17, 1,001 words | for lunatics_word
Day Seven | The Nine Lives of Bryce Larkin, Chuck/Chrestomanci series (Diana Wynne Jones), Bryce/Chuck, PG-13, 1,760 words | for misura
Day Eight | Jump, Generation Kill, Brad/Nate, PG-13, 2,045 words | for idrilka
Day Nine | It's a White Oahu Christmas, Eureka/Hawaii Five-0/Leverage/Supernatural/White Collar, G, 1,450 words | for vonilyn
Day Ten | The Jackpot, White Collar, Neal/Peter, PG, 644 words | for lazy-daze
Day Eleven | faster than sound, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, John, Cameron, PG-13, 237 words | for nrrrdy_grrrl
Day Twelve | A Golden Age, Merlin (BBC), Merlin, Arthur, Gwen, (Gwaine, Lancelot, Gilli), PG, 780 words | for hypertwink
Day Thirteen | Snug, White Collar, Neal, Peter, G, 308 words | for merkuria
Day Fourteen | The Outing, Castle, Esposito/Ryan, R, 1,758 words | for aurora_84
Day Fifteen | see the light, Supernatural, Sam, wallpaper | for daisychain1957
Day Sixteen | The Girl in the Goblet, Merlin, Arthur/Merlin, PG-13, 2,712 words | for curtana
Day Seventeen | Found, White Collar, Peter, Neal, wallpaper and icons | for setissma
Day Eighteen | a love story (in household utensils), Generation Kill, Brad/Nate, PG, 625 words | for kubis
Day Nineteen | Interrogations, Castle, Rick, Alexis, Kate, PG, 661 words | for summerstorm
Day Twenty | interruption (with kisses), Supernatural,Sam/Jess, NC-17, 1,165 words | for deirdre_c
Vincible [Generation Kill, Brad/Nate, PG, superhero AU, 2,720 words, for starlurker, prompt: trapped in a cold place. Sequel to Jump. Beta by out_there.]
Most people will never know the color of time.
"It's-I don't know, Brad, it's impossible to describe. It's startling, something like the sky on one of those impossible days where everything looks too bright. But it's richer than that. There isn't a word for it." Nate shakes his head. "It's like describing a symphony to a deaf person, or a sunset to a blind person."
"Or perfect silence to Ray Person," Brad interjects, and they both laugh.
"Yeah," Nate says. "Impossible."
Nate does the impossible every day. Slows down time. Saves a falling construction worker or a too-curious toddler who's wandering into the path of a motorcyclist.
Brad thinks knowing Nate is more amazing than seeing the color of time.
*
Evan Wright is excited. Brad can tell that before he's even entered the coffee shop, and that's not just because Brad is unusually observant. The blind guy at the table in the far corner can probably tell Wright is excited.
"You'll never guess what," Wright says before Brad's even pulled out a chair.
Brad can do more than guess. Every journalist in Boston has been trying to get an interview with Captain Terminator, the local superhero. Still, Brad isn't going to ruin Wright's moment. "What?" he asks.
"I have the interview of the year. No, strike that, the interview of the decade." He pauses for effect. "Captain Terminator is giving me an exclusive."
"That's fantastic," Brad says, because it is. It'll make Wright's career.
It's why Brad got him the interview.
*
"You'll have to be careful," Brad warns. "Be discreet. The last thing you want is to give away too many secrets."
Nate rolls his eyes. "Thanks for the concern, Brad, but I know what I'm doing."
Brad's sure he does. Brad has faith in Nate. But the thing is about Nate Fick - the thing that Nate tends to forget - is that he's only human.
He can be hurt.
Brad wishes Nate would remember that.
*
Nate has three suits and three capes. "They might be indestructible and impenetrable, but they still get dirty," he says, when Brad finds them hanging up in Nate's wardrobe.
Brad worries about him. He can't help it. "Shouldn't you at least have a secret wardrobe for them? What if your cleaning lady finds them?"
"I don't have a cleaning lady," Nate says.
"That isn't the point. You could be burgled. Or Ray could get drunk and try to use your closet as a bathroom." It wouldn't be the first time that's happened. Ray peed in Brad's sneakers once.
"You want me to have a secret door and a secret elevator down to my secret underground lair, don't you?" Nate's mocking him.
"I just want you to be careful," Brad says. He seems to be saying that to Nate a lot lately, but then someone needs to look out for him.
*
The exclusive runs on the front page. There's a photo, which scares the hell out of Brad, because even though Captain Terminator is wearing his mask - which covers half his face - and his cape, and even with the stern, tight expression that's nothing like Nate's easy smile, Brad can still see the distinctive jaw line of Nate Fick below the mask.
No one else comments on the likeness though, so Brad calms down after a while.
At least Nate's responses to Wright's questions are terse and don't give too much away: no, he isn't an alien, yes, his intentions are purely to help people, that's what he was sent here to do, and yes, he has a secret alter ego, but no, he isn't revealing it. He does provide a name, though. Thrasos. From Greek mythology, the spirit of boldness. His birth name, and that's news to Brad.
The rest of the article is mostly filler. Wright waxes poetic about Captain Terminator's muscular physique - it seems Wright has joined half of Boston in succumbing to a crush on Captain Terminator. He takes up almost an entire column describing the thrill of being taken on an impromptu flight. Then there are interviews with people Captain Terminator's rescued - mostly old news, but there are a couple of new interviews in there, people who've only just come forward. But even with the padding, there's enough new information in the article to have the whole city talking about little else for days.
*
When Brad and Nate are walking past the water cooler and overhear El and Sophie, a new junior exec, and Jamie, the copy boy, each say they'd do Captain Terminator in an instant, Nate's ears go bright red. It's all Brad can do not to laugh.
"I'd do him too," he whispers to Nate, secure in the knowledge that he's going to get the chance later. Possibly in their lunch break if he can persuade Nate to use his superpowers for frivolous reasons, like getting them back to Brad's place for a quickie.
*
"How do you know your birth name?" Brad asks, one evening after a late meal at his place.
Nate leans forward on the sofa, head propped in his hands. He's probably never told anyone before - other than his parents and his two older sisters, Brad's the only one who knows about Nate's super powers. That's what comes from trusting a guy enough to jump off a building when he tells you to. Nate speaks softly, so Brad has to lean towards him to make sure he catches everything. "There was a letter in the parcel that was sent back in time with me. Addressed to my adopted parents. My birth parents chose them - I think technically they're my great-great times a hundred and something parents."
"The suits were in the parcel too?" Brad asks.
"The fabric for them was. My Mom - my adopted Mom - made the suits once I'd stopped growing. When I'd learned how to, you know, harness all my strengths." Nate always gets a bit bashful talking about his skills. Underplays them as though he's nothing particularly special.
When Nate first told Brad he was human, just like him, Brad didn't believe him. He couldn't. Humans can't fly or stop bullets, he'd said. Except apparently they can. Fly, at least. The ability to do so is in everyone; it's just that most haven't unlocked the skill. In the future, people learn how to do that, how to use their brains to the full. And a human operating at his full potential can fly, can manipulate time, and is strong. Very strong.
"And you can stop bullets," Brad had said, confident that the answer would be yes, but Nate had dithered for once. Brad had pushed, until Nate admitted that he could slow time around them long enough to catch them, and his suit would stop them, but if he didn't see the bullet coming, and he wasn't wearing his suit, or it hit him somewhere his suit didn't cover, well. Nate had shrugged and let Brad work that out for himself. No need to spell it out.
Brad thinks of all the times Nate puts himself in harm's way. It didn't seem so bad when he'd thought Nate was invincible.
*
This is how Brad learns firsthand that Nate's human.
They go on a company retreat. Team building, all that bullshit, but they get to climb mountains, so Brad doesn't complain.
He and Nate are paired up, which is the other reason Brad doesn't complain.
They're given two days, some fishing line, a compass, matches, a tin can and a tarp, and dumped out in the back of beyond.
There's no point in rushing back - the idea isn't to be first back at base, but to bond and work together. Those were the exact words used. So they head down the valley to a point where the river widens, collect some wood, dry leaves and tinder for a fire and some water, and set to sorting out a meal for the evening.
"I don't suppose you have heat vision or freeze vision and can catch us some fish that way?" Brad asks.
Nate laughs. "Neither. We're going to be using the fishing line, just like everyone else."
Actually, they aren't. Brad shucks his boots, rolls up his pants, and wades up the river to a spot where a rock juts out and forms a quiet pool. He squats down and waits, aware that Nate's watching him inquisitively while he's getting the fire started.
It takes a while, but eventually the fish Brad thought might be hiding under the rock pokes its head out, then its whole body. Brad works slowly, working his fingers around it, tickling it until he's gotten enough of a hold of it to throw it up onto the bank.
"We twenty-first century mortals might not use as much of our brain as you, but we can still pull off a few useful tricks," he says. It's a good size, easily enough for a couple of meals.
Fish cooked on a stick on a fire out of doors tastes pretty damn good. An ice cold beer would go down better with it than a shared tin can of river water, but still, it isn't a bad start to the weekend. The trees are red and gold, and the autumn sun is warm on their backs.
A few hours hiking takes them over two peaks and into a rockier part of the mountain range. The sun's already out of sight, and it'll be fully dark in an hour. Time to build some shelter.
Or, as luck will have it, find shelter. "There's a cave the other side of that stream," Nate says, once they meet up after scouting out the area. "It's dry, no recent animal droppings. If we gather some dry leaves, we'll be comfortable enough in there."
Comfort is relative, but they're out of the wind, and they light another fire, so it's warm enough, and with the tarp on top of the leaves they should keep warm for the night. They fall asleep shoulder to shoulder, the cave a dim red from the embers of the fire.
They wake up coughing and in a dark so intensely black that Brad thinks for a moment that he might have gone blind.
"Nate?" he shouts, jumping to his feet.
"I'm right here," Nate answers, voice right behind him. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah. You?" Brad coughs again, the dust in the air choking.
"Yeah, I'm fine." Nate sounds a bit hoarse, but that's understandable. "I should have checked the cave out more carefully," he says. He sounds furious with himself.
He shouldn't be. Brad had looked over the cave when they first explored it, and there was nothing to suggest that a collapse was likely. Perhaps it was a small quake. "Never mind," Brad says. He fishes in his pocket and pulls out his cell phone. No coverage up here, but he has a flashlight app on it.
It's bad - the light shows the entire entrance blocked, a mixture of boulders and smaller rocks. How deep, he can't tell.
He turns to Nate. He has dust in his hair and a graze on his temple, but looks okay otherwise. "You can get us out of here, right?" He knows it's a no on the heat vision and the freeze vision, but he reckons that a superhero who can fly and bring a helicopter down out of the sky can get them out of a blocked cave.
Nate shakes his head. "You'd better turn off your cell phone, save the battery."
That's when they have the conversation. When Brad learns exactly where Nate comes from - the Western Union, Earth, in the thirty-fifth century - and that he's not an alien or a mutant and hasn't been zapped with anything or genetically altered. He's just an ordinary guy who happens to be able to fully utilize all the power of his brain. "Well, roughly 98%."
"So, no laser eyes." Laser vision, whatever the hell it's called. Brad's never been big on comic books.
"No. I'm afraid we're going to have to wait this one out."
Nate's right - if they try to dig themselves out, there's too much chance they'll just bring more rubble down, and even if Nate can speed them out of the way, they'll be getting themselves into a worse position than they're in now. They'll be missed in about thirty hours, and then help will be on its way. In the meantime, Brad can think of worse things than being trapped with Nate.
"However will we keep ourselves occupied?" he asks. From the way Nate pushes him down onto the tarp, he'd say they're on the same page.
It isn't so good by the second night. Even if they didn't have watches, they could tell day from night by the temperature change, and without a fire the second night gets very cold. They huddle together, the tarp around them, both shivering.
"I'm sorry," Nate says. It's probably well past midnight, though Brad refuses to keep checking the time - it just makes it feel slower. Nate's teeth are chattering slightly.
"What the fuck are you apologizing for?" Brad would bet he knows the answer: Nate's feeling guilty that he isn't a better superhero, that he can't do everything. Sometimes Brad could punch him.
Nate doesn't answer, just pulls Brad closer. Trying to warm Brad up, no doubt, even though Nate feels even colder than Brad. They're both lean, but ever since Nate's become Boston's very own superhero, he's grown even leaner. Apparently, flying and slowing down time burns up a lot of energy.
When they get out of here, Brad is going to take Nate for a huge meal. Something hot and greasy.
For now, all Brad can do is hold on.
It's late the following day before they hear the sounds of rescue. They pull back into the deepest part of the cave, glad they've done so when dust and rubble starts falling again. Brad isn't sure how long it takes to dig them out, but it's long enough that he finds he's asking Nate stupid questions just in order to keep him talking, to be sure that he's still awake.
They fail to persuade the head of the rescue team that they don't need checking out in hospital. Brad whispers to Nate en route: "Is this going to be a problem?"
Nate shakes his head. "No. Unless they scan my brain activity - which they're not going to do for a mild case of hypothermia and some cuts and bruises - there's nothing out of the ordinary for them to notice."
And that's the moment when Brad realizes that Nate could have been killed. That Nate can be killed. That Nate really is human. Maybe not just like him, but human all the same, and he needs Brad as much as Brad needs him.
That's okay, because Brad has his back now.
*
"Why Captain Terminator?" Brad asks one night. It's the name Nate gave after one of his early rescues, when the girl he'd saved from a mugger had insisted on him telling her who he was. She'd been interviewed on 7 News that evening, full of enthusiasm for Boston's very own superhero.
Nate flushes, like he's embarrassed. "I thought of joining the Marine Corps once. Doing officer training after college. Then I realized I could help more people staying here in Boston. But, if I had joined up, maybe I'd have made Captain one day."
Brad thinks Nate would have made one hell of a fine leader. He's got that quality about him. People listen to him, respect him, and that's without knowing what Brad knows about him.
"And Terminator?" Brad prompts when Nate doesn't sound like he's going to carry on.
Nate grimaces. "It, well, there's Nate in it. Sort of. I had to think quickly, and it wasn't as though I could tell her I was Nate Fick, accountant," he says defensively. "And I didn't think to say my name was Thrasos. So I said Captain Terminator. It stuck."
Brad cracks up.
"At least I'm not named after an animal. Or a bat," Nate says, but there's a grin lifting the corner of his mouth.
*
Knowing Nate is better than knowing the color of time. It's better than anything.
//
Day Two | No Fu Manchu, Hawaii Five-0, Danny, Steve, PG, 803 words | for laceymcbain
Day Three | running away from nothing real, Inception, Eames/Ariadne, R, 1,358 words | for vinylroad
Day Four | they said a hundred times I should have died, Generation Kill, Brad/Nate, NC-17, 1,192 words | for pau494
Day Five | try again, die again, die better, Torchwood, Jack, wallpaper | for pierhias
Day Six | monsters are always hungry, darling, Generation Kill, Brad/Nate, NC-17, 1,001 words | for lunatics_word
Day Seven | The Nine Lives of Bryce Larkin, Chuck/Chrestomanci series (Diana Wynne Jones), Bryce/Chuck, PG-13, 1,760 words | for misura
Day Eight | Jump, Generation Kill, Brad/Nate, PG-13, 2,045 words | for idrilka
Day Nine | It's a White Oahu Christmas, Eureka/Hawaii Five-0/Leverage/Supernatural/White Collar, G, 1,450 words | for vonilyn
Day Ten | The Jackpot, White Collar, Neal/Peter, PG, 644 words | for lazy-daze
Day Eleven | faster than sound, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, John, Cameron, PG-13, 237 words | for nrrrdy_grrrl
Day Twelve | A Golden Age, Merlin (BBC), Merlin, Arthur, Gwen, (Gwaine, Lancelot, Gilli), PG, 780 words | for hypertwink
Day Thirteen | Snug, White Collar, Neal, Peter, G, 308 words | for merkuria
Day Fourteen | The Outing, Castle, Esposito/Ryan, R, 1,758 words | for aurora_84
Day Fifteen | see the light, Supernatural, Sam, wallpaper | for daisychain1957
Day Sixteen | The Girl in the Goblet, Merlin, Arthur/Merlin, PG-13, 2,712 words | for curtana
Day Seventeen | Found, White Collar, Peter, Neal, wallpaper and icons | for setissma
Day Eighteen | a love story (in household utensils), Generation Kill, Brad/Nate, PG, 625 words | for kubis
Day Nineteen | Interrogations, Castle, Rick, Alexis, Kate, PG, 661 words | for summerstorm
Day Twenty | interruption (with kisses), Supernatural,Sam/Jess, NC-17, 1,165 words | for deirdre_c
Vincible [Generation Kill, Brad/Nate, PG, superhero AU, 2,720 words, for starlurker, prompt: trapped in a cold place. Sequel to Jump. Beta by out_there.]
Most people will never know the color of time.
"It's-I don't know, Brad, it's impossible to describe. It's startling, something like the sky on one of those impossible days where everything looks too bright. But it's richer than that. There isn't a word for it." Nate shakes his head. "It's like describing a symphony to a deaf person, or a sunset to a blind person."
"Or perfect silence to Ray Person," Brad interjects, and they both laugh.
"Yeah," Nate says. "Impossible."
Nate does the impossible every day. Slows down time. Saves a falling construction worker or a too-curious toddler who's wandering into the path of a motorcyclist.
Brad thinks knowing Nate is more amazing than seeing the color of time.
*
Evan Wright is excited. Brad can tell that before he's even entered the coffee shop, and that's not just because Brad is unusually observant. The blind guy at the table in the far corner can probably tell Wright is excited.
"You'll never guess what," Wright says before Brad's even pulled out a chair.
Brad can do more than guess. Every journalist in Boston has been trying to get an interview with Captain Terminator, the local superhero. Still, Brad isn't going to ruin Wright's moment. "What?" he asks.
"I have the interview of the year. No, strike that, the interview of the decade." He pauses for effect. "Captain Terminator is giving me an exclusive."
"That's fantastic," Brad says, because it is. It'll make Wright's career.
It's why Brad got him the interview.
*
"You'll have to be careful," Brad warns. "Be discreet. The last thing you want is to give away too many secrets."
Nate rolls his eyes. "Thanks for the concern, Brad, but I know what I'm doing."
Brad's sure he does. Brad has faith in Nate. But the thing is about Nate Fick - the thing that Nate tends to forget - is that he's only human.
He can be hurt.
Brad wishes Nate would remember that.
*
Nate has three suits and three capes. "They might be indestructible and impenetrable, but they still get dirty," he says, when Brad finds them hanging up in Nate's wardrobe.
Brad worries about him. He can't help it. "Shouldn't you at least have a secret wardrobe for them? What if your cleaning lady finds them?"
"I don't have a cleaning lady," Nate says.
"That isn't the point. You could be burgled. Or Ray could get drunk and try to use your closet as a bathroom." It wouldn't be the first time that's happened. Ray peed in Brad's sneakers once.
"You want me to have a secret door and a secret elevator down to my secret underground lair, don't you?" Nate's mocking him.
"I just want you to be careful," Brad says. He seems to be saying that to Nate a lot lately, but then someone needs to look out for him.
*
The exclusive runs on the front page. There's a photo, which scares the hell out of Brad, because even though Captain Terminator is wearing his mask - which covers half his face - and his cape, and even with the stern, tight expression that's nothing like Nate's easy smile, Brad can still see the distinctive jaw line of Nate Fick below the mask.
No one else comments on the likeness though, so Brad calms down after a while.
At least Nate's responses to Wright's questions are terse and don't give too much away: no, he isn't an alien, yes, his intentions are purely to help people, that's what he was sent here to do, and yes, he has a secret alter ego, but no, he isn't revealing it. He does provide a name, though. Thrasos. From Greek mythology, the spirit of boldness. His birth name, and that's news to Brad.
The rest of the article is mostly filler. Wright waxes poetic about Captain Terminator's muscular physique - it seems Wright has joined half of Boston in succumbing to a crush on Captain Terminator. He takes up almost an entire column describing the thrill of being taken on an impromptu flight. Then there are interviews with people Captain Terminator's rescued - mostly old news, but there are a couple of new interviews in there, people who've only just come forward. But even with the padding, there's enough new information in the article to have the whole city talking about little else for days.
*
When Brad and Nate are walking past the water cooler and overhear El and Sophie, a new junior exec, and Jamie, the copy boy, each say they'd do Captain Terminator in an instant, Nate's ears go bright red. It's all Brad can do not to laugh.
"I'd do him too," he whispers to Nate, secure in the knowledge that he's going to get the chance later. Possibly in their lunch break if he can persuade Nate to use his superpowers for frivolous reasons, like getting them back to Brad's place for a quickie.
*
"How do you know your birth name?" Brad asks, one evening after a late meal at his place.
Nate leans forward on the sofa, head propped in his hands. He's probably never told anyone before - other than his parents and his two older sisters, Brad's the only one who knows about Nate's super powers. That's what comes from trusting a guy enough to jump off a building when he tells you to. Nate speaks softly, so Brad has to lean towards him to make sure he catches everything. "There was a letter in the parcel that was sent back in time with me. Addressed to my adopted parents. My birth parents chose them - I think technically they're my great-great times a hundred and something parents."
"The suits were in the parcel too?" Brad asks.
"The fabric for them was. My Mom - my adopted Mom - made the suits once I'd stopped growing. When I'd learned how to, you know, harness all my strengths." Nate always gets a bit bashful talking about his skills. Underplays them as though he's nothing particularly special.
When Nate first told Brad he was human, just like him, Brad didn't believe him. He couldn't. Humans can't fly or stop bullets, he'd said. Except apparently they can. Fly, at least. The ability to do so is in everyone; it's just that most haven't unlocked the skill. In the future, people learn how to do that, how to use their brains to the full. And a human operating at his full potential can fly, can manipulate time, and is strong. Very strong.
"And you can stop bullets," Brad had said, confident that the answer would be yes, but Nate had dithered for once. Brad had pushed, until Nate admitted that he could slow time around them long enough to catch them, and his suit would stop them, but if he didn't see the bullet coming, and he wasn't wearing his suit, or it hit him somewhere his suit didn't cover, well. Nate had shrugged and let Brad work that out for himself. No need to spell it out.
Brad thinks of all the times Nate puts himself in harm's way. It didn't seem so bad when he'd thought Nate was invincible.
*
This is how Brad learns firsthand that Nate's human.
They go on a company retreat. Team building, all that bullshit, but they get to climb mountains, so Brad doesn't complain.
He and Nate are paired up, which is the other reason Brad doesn't complain.
They're given two days, some fishing line, a compass, matches, a tin can and a tarp, and dumped out in the back of beyond.
There's no point in rushing back - the idea isn't to be first back at base, but to bond and work together. Those were the exact words used. So they head down the valley to a point where the river widens, collect some wood, dry leaves and tinder for a fire and some water, and set to sorting out a meal for the evening.
"I don't suppose you have heat vision or freeze vision and can catch us some fish that way?" Brad asks.
Nate laughs. "Neither. We're going to be using the fishing line, just like everyone else."
Actually, they aren't. Brad shucks his boots, rolls up his pants, and wades up the river to a spot where a rock juts out and forms a quiet pool. He squats down and waits, aware that Nate's watching him inquisitively while he's getting the fire started.
It takes a while, but eventually the fish Brad thought might be hiding under the rock pokes its head out, then its whole body. Brad works slowly, working his fingers around it, tickling it until he's gotten enough of a hold of it to throw it up onto the bank.
"We twenty-first century mortals might not use as much of our brain as you, but we can still pull off a few useful tricks," he says. It's a good size, easily enough for a couple of meals.
Fish cooked on a stick on a fire out of doors tastes pretty damn good. An ice cold beer would go down better with it than a shared tin can of river water, but still, it isn't a bad start to the weekend. The trees are red and gold, and the autumn sun is warm on their backs.
A few hours hiking takes them over two peaks and into a rockier part of the mountain range. The sun's already out of sight, and it'll be fully dark in an hour. Time to build some shelter.
Or, as luck will have it, find shelter. "There's a cave the other side of that stream," Nate says, once they meet up after scouting out the area. "It's dry, no recent animal droppings. If we gather some dry leaves, we'll be comfortable enough in there."
Comfort is relative, but they're out of the wind, and they light another fire, so it's warm enough, and with the tarp on top of the leaves they should keep warm for the night. They fall asleep shoulder to shoulder, the cave a dim red from the embers of the fire.
They wake up coughing and in a dark so intensely black that Brad thinks for a moment that he might have gone blind.
"Nate?" he shouts, jumping to his feet.
"I'm right here," Nate answers, voice right behind him. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah. You?" Brad coughs again, the dust in the air choking.
"Yeah, I'm fine." Nate sounds a bit hoarse, but that's understandable. "I should have checked the cave out more carefully," he says. He sounds furious with himself.
He shouldn't be. Brad had looked over the cave when they first explored it, and there was nothing to suggest that a collapse was likely. Perhaps it was a small quake. "Never mind," Brad says. He fishes in his pocket and pulls out his cell phone. No coverage up here, but he has a flashlight app on it.
It's bad - the light shows the entire entrance blocked, a mixture of boulders and smaller rocks. How deep, he can't tell.
He turns to Nate. He has dust in his hair and a graze on his temple, but looks okay otherwise. "You can get us out of here, right?" He knows it's a no on the heat vision and the freeze vision, but he reckons that a superhero who can fly and bring a helicopter down out of the sky can get them out of a blocked cave.
Nate shakes his head. "You'd better turn off your cell phone, save the battery."
That's when they have the conversation. When Brad learns exactly where Nate comes from - the Western Union, Earth, in the thirty-fifth century - and that he's not an alien or a mutant and hasn't been zapped with anything or genetically altered. He's just an ordinary guy who happens to be able to fully utilize all the power of his brain. "Well, roughly 98%."
"So, no laser eyes." Laser vision, whatever the hell it's called. Brad's never been big on comic books.
"No. I'm afraid we're going to have to wait this one out."
Nate's right - if they try to dig themselves out, there's too much chance they'll just bring more rubble down, and even if Nate can speed them out of the way, they'll be getting themselves into a worse position than they're in now. They'll be missed in about thirty hours, and then help will be on its way. In the meantime, Brad can think of worse things than being trapped with Nate.
"However will we keep ourselves occupied?" he asks. From the way Nate pushes him down onto the tarp, he'd say they're on the same page.
It isn't so good by the second night. Even if they didn't have watches, they could tell day from night by the temperature change, and without a fire the second night gets very cold. They huddle together, the tarp around them, both shivering.
"I'm sorry," Nate says. It's probably well past midnight, though Brad refuses to keep checking the time - it just makes it feel slower. Nate's teeth are chattering slightly.
"What the fuck are you apologizing for?" Brad would bet he knows the answer: Nate's feeling guilty that he isn't a better superhero, that he can't do everything. Sometimes Brad could punch him.
Nate doesn't answer, just pulls Brad closer. Trying to warm Brad up, no doubt, even though Nate feels even colder than Brad. They're both lean, but ever since Nate's become Boston's very own superhero, he's grown even leaner. Apparently, flying and slowing down time burns up a lot of energy.
When they get out of here, Brad is going to take Nate for a huge meal. Something hot and greasy.
For now, all Brad can do is hold on.
It's late the following day before they hear the sounds of rescue. They pull back into the deepest part of the cave, glad they've done so when dust and rubble starts falling again. Brad isn't sure how long it takes to dig them out, but it's long enough that he finds he's asking Nate stupid questions just in order to keep him talking, to be sure that he's still awake.
They fail to persuade the head of the rescue team that they don't need checking out in hospital. Brad whispers to Nate en route: "Is this going to be a problem?"
Nate shakes his head. "No. Unless they scan my brain activity - which they're not going to do for a mild case of hypothermia and some cuts and bruises - there's nothing out of the ordinary for them to notice."
And that's the moment when Brad realizes that Nate could have been killed. That Nate can be killed. That Nate really is human. Maybe not just like him, but human all the same, and he needs Brad as much as Brad needs him.
That's okay, because Brad has his back now.
*
"Why Captain Terminator?" Brad asks one night. It's the name Nate gave after one of his early rescues, when the girl he'd saved from a mugger had insisted on him telling her who he was. She'd been interviewed on 7 News that evening, full of enthusiasm for Boston's very own superhero.
Nate flushes, like he's embarrassed. "I thought of joining the Marine Corps once. Doing officer training after college. Then I realized I could help more people staying here in Boston. But, if I had joined up, maybe I'd have made Captain one day."
Brad thinks Nate would have made one hell of a fine leader. He's got that quality about him. People listen to him, respect him, and that's without knowing what Brad knows about him.
"And Terminator?" Brad prompts when Nate doesn't sound like he's going to carry on.
Nate grimaces. "It, well, there's Nate in it. Sort of. I had to think quickly, and it wasn't as though I could tell her I was Nate Fick, accountant," he says defensively. "And I didn't think to say my name was Thrasos. So I said Captain Terminator. It stuck."
Brad cracks up.
"At least I'm not named after an animal. Or a bat," Nate says, but there's a grin lifting the corner of his mouth.
*
Knowing Nate is better than knowing the color of time. It's better than anything.
//