"Je ne veux pas travailler, je ne veux pas dejeuner, je veux seulement l'oublier et puis je fume..."
Title: Moments In The Woods
Fandom: Heroes [Five Years Gone AU]
Pairing: Bennet/Hana (new OTP. Seriously)
Challenge/Prompt: heroes50, 20. Work
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 4505
Genre: Het
Copyright: Stephen Sondheim, actually. *shrugs* I was listening to the Into The Woods soundtrack while working on this. It’s my favourite musical ever!
Summary: He always calls her ‘Wireless’.
Author’s Notes: I’ve claimed the future in 1x20 Five Years Gone because apocalyptic!futures win at life. Hana is an awesome character, but sadly only in two episodes, so I’m getting all my info from the web comics (go read them! They’re cool!) As for some of the other stuff, such as the details of the Linderman Act; that’s my own personal canon, because to be quite honest, FYG left bloody big holes that I’m only too willing to fill in with my own stuff. Feel free to ask me what the hell I’m going on about.
Right and wrong don’t matter in the woods; only feelings.
Stephen Sondheim
He always calls her Wireless. He insists on it; not calling her by her name keeps everything detached, keeps the world at arm’s length. He’s exceptionally good at forcing emotional connections away, until they crumble and die away altogether.
It took Hana a year to worm Bennet out of him; until that point, she was privately calling him Guy With Glasses, or My Borderline Sociopathic Colleague (though, technically, they’re not colleagues. God knows what they actually are). Having a name to call him doesn’t actually make things better; just more definite, more concrete, and their situation is unbearable enough as it is.
Doing their best to keep people safe, against the wishes of the government, against the law, hiding out in the shattered remains of a company that used to kill people like Hana.
She honestly can’t see this ending at all well.
%
Matt Parkman has all the self-control of a starving pit-bull, and about the same amount of anger management skills. He makes Hana shudder every time he strides into what remains of Primatech, and starts throwing threats around. The man is rapidly becoming a monster right in front of Hana’s desperate eyes, and the worst part is that he can hear her thinking that.
What they’re doing will get them killed. No ifs, no buts, no maybes. No excuses either. Actively hiding people with abilities from Homeland Security… it’s suicide, but slow, drawn-out, lingering. Hana was trained in the Israeli army, she does not scare easily, and she is not afraid of death, but waiting for it… Waiting for her inevitable execution is a different matter entirely.
Parkman can read minds, and is getting better and better at it, ruthlessly ripping through people’s thoughts until he finds what he wants, leaving them shivering and quiet, so quiet. Hana has been trained to withstand torture, but not this kind, not the kind where you don’t stand a chance of escape. Parkman takes what he wants, to hell with everything else. Every time he comes near her, Hana can feel his mind sifting almost casually through hers, looking for clues. Looking for something that will bring an end to the uneasy truce between him and Bennet. It leaves her feeling violated, never mind that she’s just as swiftly searching through the text messages and emails stored in his cellphone, looking for anything to protect herself with.
“We can’t trust him,” she tells Bennet, once Homeland Security have finished pointlessly raiding what remains of Primatech Paper and left. She’s developing a migraine, Parkman has left cruel trails of pain through her brain from where he was trying his best to pull her memories apart and find something incriminating. Other than the obvious.
“I know.” Bennet takes off his glasses, and without them, he looks curiously vulnerable. His eyes are so blue.
“Well then,” she begins, “Why on Earth are we-”
“We have no choice, Wireless,” Bennet snaps, exhaustion and helplessness mingling on his face. “We can’t do this without his cooperation. He’s risking his life to help us.”
Hana has issues with that statement, but she knows when not to push.
“Ok, fine.” She throws up her hands. “I’m going to get some painkillers. You want some?”
Bennet replaces his glasses and his poker face simultaneously. He is so stoic that it’s a little unnerving at times.
“Wireless,” he begins in a placating tone of voice, “We’re saving people. Focus on that part.”
Hana bites her lip as she walks out, heading for what remains of the old employee breakroom.
“And just who is going to save us?” she asks, once she’s safely out of earshot.
%
Hana got caught by the Linderman Act, four years ago. The registration act, back when the government was still pretending that it was ok for people with superhuman abilities to live in the world.
“It’s for everyone’s safety,” newsreaders insisted, with creepy, fervent smiles. “Just so we know no one’s going to get hurt.”
They sounded so reasonable. Don’t struggle, they don’t want to hurt you. They just want to make sure they know you’re not going to be a danger to anyone.
Hana had been there, done that, and still had the radioactive isotope marks on her shoulder to prove it. But the fact was that there was no point in fighting back, because those who tried to avoid registration just got slaughtered and then posthumously branded as mutated terrorists.
She has an eight-digit serial number tattooed at the base of her spine, the numbers an inch high, bold and black and impossible to hide. Hana’s grandmother survived Auschwitz, and came out with the serial number, deep blue, on her arm. As it turned out, Hana wasn’t the only one who came up with this connection, but it didn’t matter. No one ever heard from those who spoke up again.
As if to prove a point, Peter Petrelli’s registration was televised. The government trying to show that no one was exempt, not even the president’s brother. Hana watched it on the crackly TV set in the Chicago motelroom she was hiding out in. Three a.m they got him, dragged him from his apartment, screaming, into the street. He tried to fight back, groggy with sleep and whatever tranquillisers they later claimed they hadn’t pumped into his body. He looked thin and pale and scared as the government officials went to work, first anaesthetising the skin (like it mattered, one way or another, but they were still supposed to care), then sticking the needles in.
Hana threw up into a trashcan when Peter started screaming.
(“Pity,” Bennet said years later, when she brought it up without thinking, “He was a nice kid.”)
Shortly after that, the Statue of Liberty exploded into hundreds of pieces, and though no one could prove it, the name Peter Petrelli was on everyone’s lips. He hasn’t been heard from in a while; Bennet thinks he’s lying low in Vegas, but who can tell anymore?
%
“Those things’ll kill you,” Bennet informs Hana, leant against the hood of their car. They’re driving across the state, out to help a panicking family in Arkansas who are too scared to travel in case their son combusts. On the one hand it’s nice to be well away from Primatech and Parkman, who is always breathing down their necks; but at least Primatech is its own little safe microcosm. America is pulling itself to shreds and on the side of the highway, a lit cigarette between her fingers, Hana doesn’t feel safe.
“Bennet,” Hana replies calmly, “I presume I’m going to get a bullet in the back of my head long before lung cancer becomes a problem.”
He smiles slightly, leaning over to pluck the cigarette from her hand. He takes a quick drag before he hands it back.
“Hypocrite,” Hana tells Bennet, watching smoke trickle between his lips.
“You may have had a point,” he shrugs; Bennet never gives an inch because he knows Hana could take a mile in return. “We’re back on the road in three minutes,” he adds, walking away from the car to make a quick call. Presumably checking that the kid they’re going to help hasn’t exploded or something yet.
They’ve been working together for two years and Hana can count the number of times Bennet has actually touched her on the fingers of one hand. She contemplates the cigarette for a moment, watching it burn down. Ridiculous as it is, she can’t bring herself to touch the filter paper to her lips. It’s somehow too… intimate.
She grinds it out under her boot, kicking the butt away.
“Ready to go?” Bennet asks, a moment later, having arrived noiselessly at her side.
Hana nods, sliding into the passenger seat.
“I take it the kid’s still in one piece?”
Bennet doesn’t reply, merely giving her a glare over the top of his glasses. Hana winds the window down, pushing her sunglasses a little farther up her face. If you squint, America almost looks the way it used to, people in cars living their normal lives. Bennet leans over and turns the radio on, and a low hum of music fills the car. Hana can feel the radio wave transmission pulsating just as it enters their vehicle; it’s giving her a migraine. She swallows.
“Turn it off,” she mumbles, feeling queasy, hair blowing across her face.
“The Rolling Stones are classic,” Bennet tells her, tone still neutral, but there’s amusement there too.
Hana closes her eyes, and pushes at the radio wave until it disintegrates into static.
“Fine.” Bennet turns the radio off again.
%
Two weeks later, they’re in a shitty bar in Louisiana trying to track down a terrified teenager with what appears to be superstrength. Parkman’s given them a day’s headstart, or at least has claimed that they’re going to get a day’s headstart (the man’s a backstabbing liar; and he gave Hana the worst of looks when she thought that), and Bennet is wasting no time.
He’s leant on the bar, intimidating the barman by being simultaneously charming and menacing. Hana’s seen this routine before, and it’s impressive, but she crosses the street to the newsstand opposite for a packet of cigarettes and a paper. Not that the newspapers contain anything resembling the truth anymore; but it’s worth it to see what crap the Petrelli administration is force-feeding the American public.
Someone in the bar gets a text message; Hana reads it quickly, and realises, with a sick lurch of horror, that there’s about to be a random DNA test. Homeland Security have crackdowns from time to time, testing the public for the genetic abnormality that could lead to destruction. It’s to make it look like they’re doing something, but really, it’s just a pain in the ass.
Hana finds a back way into the bar and heads for the ladies’ bathroom. Locked safely in a stall, she rips open the lining of her leather jacket, fingers searching for the small capsule she keeps here, in case of emergencies like this. It’s room temperature, but with any luck she’ll get away with it. Hana bites the top off with her teeth, quickly coating her fingertips with the liquid inside, waiting a few seconds for them to dry, and then flushing the evidence.
There are six police officers in the bar, all testing the patrons with small, white handheld pads. It just takes the press of a fingertip to determine whether someone has the genetic abnormality - thanks to Mohinder Suresh and his research laboratories. Hana isn’t sure quite who created the liquid currently drying on her fingertips, but it’s the only thing around that can fool the test.
“Ma’am.” The officer is young, a slightly anxious smile on his face. “We’re conducting a DNA test in this area. If you wouldn’t mind…?” He trails off. He obviously hasn’t been doing this very long.
“Of course.” Hana offers him a bland smile. She’s spent a while working out the exact right expression to have while DNA testing takes place; too smug, and they know you’re cheating. Too anxious, and they suspect you have something to hide. The idea is to look like all you want to do is help them out. She fumbles her current false driver’s licence out of her pocket. “I’m Lucy Monroe.”
Over the officer’s shoulder, she can see Bennet staring at her. He clearly thinks she’s been caught without warning, because, although he doesn’t exactly look worried, he doesn’t look happy.
“Right, Ms Monroe, if you could place your finger here…” The officer is holding out a white pad, and Hana obediently presses the index finger of her right hand to the middle of it. Although she knows that the solution should have worked, she can’t help wondering if this is the one time it’s going to betray her.
“Thank you for your time ma’am.” The police officer offers her a polite nod, tearing the top sheet off the pad. The sheet with her mercifully blue finger impression on it. Hana lets out a slow breath as he walks away, and she saunters over to Bennet.
“Any sign of the girl?” she asks him before he can say anything. Bennet may not be exactly popular with Homeland Security, but at least he’s got normal DNA. These tests are tiresome, not potentially deadly.
“She passed through here this morning,” Bennet replies, adjusting his tie slightly. “If we hurry, we might still be able to catch her.”
Hana nods, and the two of them head for the parking lot. Just before he starts the ignition, Bennet turns to her and asks:
“How did you know?”
“The manager got a text message about it three minutes before they arrived,” Hana explains. “I had time to prepare.”
Bennet nods briskly.
“It’s good that you can take care of yourself,” he says, turning the key, choking the engine to life. Hana takes that to mean that, just for a minute, he was worried about her.
It’s kind of nice to know.
%
“It’s just a flesh wound,” Hana mumbles weakly. She’s feeling kind of numb around the edges and her fingers are wet where they press her leather jacket against her side.
“Lying to me won’t help you heal,” Bennet points out. There’s something reassuring about his gravely voice, like the steadiness can somehow fix her.
“I’m fine,” Hana tells him, trying to ignore the encroaching dizziness. She was stupid, that was all. Cocky. And you can’t be arrogant these days, not and survive. “A couple of band-aids or something, everything will be ok.”
Bennet isn’t buying it. The man has a range of interesting and pointed facial expressions, and right now he’s giving her the you’re-lying-and-in-spite-of-your-best-efforts-I-know-that look.
Sometimes, people don’t want to be helped. Or they can’t be helped because they’re too far gone. Telekinesis can be a bitch if you can’t control it, and Hana isn’t sure exactly what she hit when she got thrown across the room, but she’s definitely bleeding.
“Did you call Homeland Security?” she asks softly, leaning her head back against the wall.
“I had no choice,” Bennet replies. “The man is a danger to himself and those around him. He’s got to be taken into custody.”
Hana nods because, although she doesn’t want him to be, Bennet’s right. They can help people with abilities; but at a price. The devil’s deal with Matt Parkman. And no matter how much good they do, Hana can’t quite reconcile herself with the flipside of their achievements. In many ways, they’re the bad guys. Morally grey, Bennet calls it, and Hana wishes she could be as at ease with the situation as he is.
“Let me look,” Bennet says calmly, and Hana is snapped out of her thoughts as he gently pushes her hand away and peels her jacket back. She bites her lip, swallowing down the pain.
Her white shirt is sticky and red down the right-hand side, and when she breathes in, it hurts like hell. Hana watches with interest as Bennet pulls the fabric away from her wound, revealing a painful, leaking gash just beneath her ribcage. His face remains impassive.
“…Say something,” Hana murmurs eventually.
Bennet adjusts his glasses, getting a couple of blood drops on the edge of the right lens.
“You’re lucky you hit the filing cabinet the way you did,” he tells her. “Any higher, and you could have crushed your ribcage.”
“I told you, it’s just a flesh wound,” Hana repeats herself, but she is starting to feel kind of dizzy as a result of the blood loss. Bennet’s fingers are warm and firm on her skin, pushing down gently, probably checking for internal bleeding or something.
“You’re in no position to judge whether this is serious or not,” Bennet replies, half-patronising, half-something else entirely. “Come on.”
He helps heave her to her feet; Hana feels nauseous the minute she stands, swaying awkwardly.
“Wireless,” Bennet murmurs, “Stay with me.”
He doesn’t sound much like he cares whether she does or not; but Bennet has never been good at expressing emotion and they never defined their relationship anyway. Life would be more difficult for Bennet if she wasn’t around; Hana knows that much, at least. It’s very nearly enough.
“Ok.” Hana takes a deep breath, and, with Bennet’s arm around her, manages to get herself to the old Primatech breakroom, where they keep the medical supplies. Hana lies gratefully down on a battered couch, and Bennet cleans her up with antiseptic, which stings like a bitch, and tapes fresh gauze over the wound.
“You’re going to be ok,” he tells her softly, and for a very strange minute Hana thinks Bennet is actually going to stroke her hair. Then, he changes his mind, abruptly pulling his hand away.
“Parkman will be here soon,” Hana says. “You’d better make sure everything’s ready.”
Bennet nods.
“Get some rest,” he orders before he leaves.
Hana lies, eyes shut, in the quiet, and bleeds.
%
They’re posing as a married couple (Sandra filed for divorce sometime last year, and Hana only met her the once anyway), which means the motel room has a double bed. Bennet is sitting up against the headboard, typing something on his laptop; maybe coming up with yet more false identities to hand out, maybe trying to figure out what to do with Claire.
Hana is not allowed to know about Claire; at first she thought it was because Bennet didn’t trust her, but now she knows it’s because he doesn’t trust Parkman. The fewer people who know a secret, the harder it will be for Parkman to extract it. At least, that’s what Bennet is hoping. The only cold, hard facts about Claire that Hana has are that Claire is Bennet’s adopted daughter and is the biological child of the president himself. And Bennet is hiding her away from the world because she, like Hana, is special.
“First thing in the morning,” Bennet tells her without looking up, “We’ll go and test Lucy.”
Lucy Havenik; she’s eleven, and her family are worried about her. It almost explains why they’re currently in Colorado. Days of driving and Hana is tired and restless.
“And then if it turns out she could potentially kill people, we’ll call up Matt Parkman, let him take care of her?”
“I am not having this argument with you, Wireless,” Bennet informs her calmly.
“These people trust us to help them,” Hana continues recklessly, “And half the time we betray them.”
“We can’t save everyone,” Bennet tells her, he almost sounds angry. “We do what we can to help as many people as possible, but you know as well as I do that some people are too dangerous.”
“Who are we to decide?” Hana demands. This is not the time to confront this, and she is uncomfortably aware that if Bennet wanted or needed to, he could turn her straight over to Parkman. It’s doubtless she’d survive; and if she did, she’s heard rumours about what happens in Dr Suresh’s laboratories. And it’s a fate she condemns innocent people to without a second thought. “What gives us the right to choose who can hide in relative safety and who has to be locked up and experimented on?”
Bennet has put aside his laptop, and he’s glaring openly at her with more fury than she’s ever seen on his face.
“We make that choice because it’s them or us,” he all but snarls, moving to stand so they’re almost at eyelevel. “We are on the edge here, Wireless, and if we slip up we will both fall. Parkman is looking for any excuse to kill us.”
“And whose fault is that?” Hana practically shouts, but the walls are thin enough she’s still wary. “You’re the one who climbed so happily into his pocket!”
“You weren’t complaining when I found you,” Bennet tells her, voice low because he knows what could happen if they’re overheard, “You would have been killed if I hadn’t rescued you, you were grateful then.”
“I wasn’t counting on selling my soul in order to stay alive,” Hana hisses, and she knows that some of this isn’t fair because it’s not all Bennet’s fault, however much she may want it to be. They’re victims of circumstance, victims of the world that’s been left behind after Sylar’s explosion.
“You can walk out any time,” Bennet reminds her. “If you think you could so much better alone. I won’t stop you.”
He knows that no matter how good she is, there is no way Hana can survive in this world. He knows that and he still says it, and that hurts her in some indefinable, stupid way. Hana is sick of meaning nothing to anyone, of struggling to rescue so many people when there’s no one to rescue her.
“Bennet,” she mumbles, “How much longer do you really think we can get away with this?”
She watches the hard edge of his underlying anger leave his face, making him look tired and older.
“We can’t afford to think like that, Wireless,” Bennet replies softly. Then the vulnerability fades away from his face, and the determinedly impassive mask returns. “Have you got that out of your system now?”
Hana wonders if he spoke to Claire like that; it’s sort of patronising, like her anger and frustration and fear are merely childish emotions that will inevitably spill over from time to time, but they don’t matter. Not in the scheme of things.
“Yes,” she mumbles obediently. Bennet nods, turning away. Hana swallows. “Are we… ok?”
They’ve never been ok. It’s pretty much the only thing she’s certain of.
When Bennet turns back, there’s a strange little smirk twisting his mouth.
“I think you can answer that for yourself,” he says. Because, God forbid, he ever give her a straight reply.
“You never give anything away, do you?” Hana’s not angry any more, but there’s sharp bitterness in her voice. “I mean, Jesus, we’ve been doing this for two years and you’ve never even-”
Hana isn’t aware of formulating a plan or even reaching a decision. She moves on pure, flowing instinct, before she can tell herself that it’s a bad idea or even work out exactly what she thinks she’s doing. She takes one step, closing the space between them, clenches her hand in the back of Bennet’s hair, and pulls his head forward until their mouths connect.
She’s done several stupid things over the last few months, but nothing this masochistic. Bennet is impenetrable, impossible to control, and he tolerates her because they need each other to survive. The fact Hana has been helplessly falling for him won’t change anything. It’s too dangerous, too desperate, too uncertain for this to happen.
“Do you have any idea what you’re doing?” Bennet asks quietly, hands tight on her shoulders, pushing her back a little.
“No,” Hana mutters, closing her eyes, and wondering what will happen now. If they’ll be able to go back to their awkward normal relationship, or if, in admitting to Bennet what she couldn’t admit to herself, she’s pushed it all too far.
But the one thing she hasn’t considered is that Bennet is as unpredictable as he is unfathomable, and however he really feels about her, it becomes apparent that he’s as aware of the strange tension between them as she is when he leans back in and kisses her.
They should have done this months ago; it would have solved all kinds of problems. Hana returns her hand to Bennet’s hair, clenching it, trying not to show she’s shaking. She’s not even sure why.
%
Later, she’s wrapped in a sheet and smoking out of the motel room window.
“Can I have one?” Bennet asks, joining her, and Hana obediently shifts over a little, and passes him the cigarette from her mouth, only three drags down. They don’t speak because there’s still nothing to say. Hana picks up her battered packet from the sill, lights herself a new cigarette with a lighter given to her as a thankyou gift by a telepath, thirteen months ago. She wanted him to stay and protect her from Parkman, but he pressed his zippo into her hand and Bennet got him to Oregon with a brand new name.
That was a long time ago, and she has teethmarks in her shoulder, right around the marks The Company put there four and a half years back. Hana blows smoke out into the night air and watches Bennet do the same, there’s something nearly domestic about this, which is odd, and so unlike them that it makes her chest hurt. She resists the sudden and nearly overwhelming urge to rest her head against his shoulder.
“So we go and see Lucy in the morning,” she says, a peace offering, an attempt to get everything back to normal.
Bennet stubs out his cigarette on the windowsill and throws it down into the parking lot below.
“Yes.” He’s inscrutable, as ever, and Hana knows that although this won’t be the only time this happens, by the time they have to drive back to Texas, the weird awkwardness will have gone. They’ll be what passes for normal again. “We should get some sleep.”
“Goodnight, Bennet,” Hana murmurs, as he moves back inside. His bare shoulder is cold where it brushes hers.
“Call me-” he hesitates, and Hana bites down on her lip to keep from saying anything. Bennet is silent for another moment, and then he pats her shoulderblade briefly, and she hears him walk into the bathroom.
So she hasn’t earned the right to know his first name yet. It’s actually a relief.
Hana finishes her cigarette, contemplates lighting another, and instead closes the window. The room is warm and quiet, she can hear Bennet brushing his teeth. Feeling a weird sense of modesty, she opens up the knapsack they’re keeping their few belongings in, dresses in a vest and sleep pants, pulls her unruly hair back into a loose ponytail. Things she does every time, but it still feels strange. It’s possible that she’s just messed everything up for reasons she’s not entirely certain of.
“Bathroom’s free,” Bennet informs her, walking out, and she can’t look at him, half-dressed, it’s uncomfortable and she merely nods, going to brush her teeth, wash her face, try and force herself to feel normal again.
He’s taken the right side of the bed, even though he knows that’s the side she likes to sleep on, glasses folded neatly on the nightstand. Hana clicks off the light, and wonders if she really can sleep beside him tonight, knowing now how she can’t help feeling about him. But she’ll have to. She’ll have to manage, the way she always has.
The bed creaks when she slides in beside him, automatically turning to face the wall.
“Goodnight, Hana,” Bennet murmurs, and her breath catches in her chest.
She prays to God he’ll have gone back to calling her Wireless by the morning.
Fandom: Heroes [Five Years Gone AU]
Pairing: Bennet/Hana (new OTP. Seriously)
Challenge/Prompt: heroes50, 20. Work
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 4505
Genre: Het
Copyright: Stephen Sondheim, actually. *shrugs* I was listening to the Into The Woods soundtrack while working on this. It’s my favourite musical ever!
Summary: He always calls her ‘Wireless’.
Author’s Notes: I’ve claimed the future in 1x20 Five Years Gone because apocalyptic!futures win at life. Hana is an awesome character, but sadly only in two episodes, so I’m getting all my info from the web comics (go read them! They’re cool!) As for some of the other stuff, such as the details of the Linderman Act; that’s my own personal canon, because to be quite honest, FYG left bloody big holes that I’m only too willing to fill in with my own stuff. Feel free to ask me what the hell I’m going on about.
Right and wrong don’t matter in the woods; only feelings.
Stephen Sondheim
He always calls her Wireless. He insists on it; not calling her by her name keeps everything detached, keeps the world at arm’s length. He’s exceptionally good at forcing emotional connections away, until they crumble and die away altogether.
It took Hana a year to worm Bennet out of him; until that point, she was privately calling him Guy With Glasses, or My Borderline Sociopathic Colleague (though, technically, they’re not colleagues. God knows what they actually are). Having a name to call him doesn’t actually make things better; just more definite, more concrete, and their situation is unbearable enough as it is.
Doing their best to keep people safe, against the wishes of the government, against the law, hiding out in the shattered remains of a company that used to kill people like Hana.
She honestly can’t see this ending at all well.
%
Matt Parkman has all the self-control of a starving pit-bull, and about the same amount of anger management skills. He makes Hana shudder every time he strides into what remains of Primatech, and starts throwing threats around. The man is rapidly becoming a monster right in front of Hana’s desperate eyes, and the worst part is that he can hear her thinking that.
What they’re doing will get them killed. No ifs, no buts, no maybes. No excuses either. Actively hiding people with abilities from Homeland Security… it’s suicide, but slow, drawn-out, lingering. Hana was trained in the Israeli army, she does not scare easily, and she is not afraid of death, but waiting for it… Waiting for her inevitable execution is a different matter entirely.
Parkman can read minds, and is getting better and better at it, ruthlessly ripping through people’s thoughts until he finds what he wants, leaving them shivering and quiet, so quiet. Hana has been trained to withstand torture, but not this kind, not the kind where you don’t stand a chance of escape. Parkman takes what he wants, to hell with everything else. Every time he comes near her, Hana can feel his mind sifting almost casually through hers, looking for clues. Looking for something that will bring an end to the uneasy truce between him and Bennet. It leaves her feeling violated, never mind that she’s just as swiftly searching through the text messages and emails stored in his cellphone, looking for anything to protect herself with.
“We can’t trust him,” she tells Bennet, once Homeland Security have finished pointlessly raiding what remains of Primatech Paper and left. She’s developing a migraine, Parkman has left cruel trails of pain through her brain from where he was trying his best to pull her memories apart and find something incriminating. Other than the obvious.
“I know.” Bennet takes off his glasses, and without them, he looks curiously vulnerable. His eyes are so blue.
“Well then,” she begins, “Why on Earth are we-”
“We have no choice, Wireless,” Bennet snaps, exhaustion and helplessness mingling on his face. “We can’t do this without his cooperation. He’s risking his life to help us.”
Hana has issues with that statement, but she knows when not to push.
“Ok, fine.” She throws up her hands. “I’m going to get some painkillers. You want some?”
Bennet replaces his glasses and his poker face simultaneously. He is so stoic that it’s a little unnerving at times.
“Wireless,” he begins in a placating tone of voice, “We’re saving people. Focus on that part.”
Hana bites her lip as she walks out, heading for what remains of the old employee breakroom.
“And just who is going to save us?” she asks, once she’s safely out of earshot.
%
Hana got caught by the Linderman Act, four years ago. The registration act, back when the government was still pretending that it was ok for people with superhuman abilities to live in the world.
“It’s for everyone’s safety,” newsreaders insisted, with creepy, fervent smiles. “Just so we know no one’s going to get hurt.”
They sounded so reasonable. Don’t struggle, they don’t want to hurt you. They just want to make sure they know you’re not going to be a danger to anyone.
Hana had been there, done that, and still had the radioactive isotope marks on her shoulder to prove it. But the fact was that there was no point in fighting back, because those who tried to avoid registration just got slaughtered and then posthumously branded as mutated terrorists.
She has an eight-digit serial number tattooed at the base of her spine, the numbers an inch high, bold and black and impossible to hide. Hana’s grandmother survived Auschwitz, and came out with the serial number, deep blue, on her arm. As it turned out, Hana wasn’t the only one who came up with this connection, but it didn’t matter. No one ever heard from those who spoke up again.
As if to prove a point, Peter Petrelli’s registration was televised. The government trying to show that no one was exempt, not even the president’s brother. Hana watched it on the crackly TV set in the Chicago motelroom she was hiding out in. Three a.m they got him, dragged him from his apartment, screaming, into the street. He tried to fight back, groggy with sleep and whatever tranquillisers they later claimed they hadn’t pumped into his body. He looked thin and pale and scared as the government officials went to work, first anaesthetising the skin (like it mattered, one way or another, but they were still supposed to care), then sticking the needles in.
Hana threw up into a trashcan when Peter started screaming.
(“Pity,” Bennet said years later, when she brought it up without thinking, “He was a nice kid.”)
Shortly after that, the Statue of Liberty exploded into hundreds of pieces, and though no one could prove it, the name Peter Petrelli was on everyone’s lips. He hasn’t been heard from in a while; Bennet thinks he’s lying low in Vegas, but who can tell anymore?
%
“Those things’ll kill you,” Bennet informs Hana, leant against the hood of their car. They’re driving across the state, out to help a panicking family in Arkansas who are too scared to travel in case their son combusts. On the one hand it’s nice to be well away from Primatech and Parkman, who is always breathing down their necks; but at least Primatech is its own little safe microcosm. America is pulling itself to shreds and on the side of the highway, a lit cigarette between her fingers, Hana doesn’t feel safe.
“Bennet,” Hana replies calmly, “I presume I’m going to get a bullet in the back of my head long before lung cancer becomes a problem.”
He smiles slightly, leaning over to pluck the cigarette from her hand. He takes a quick drag before he hands it back.
“Hypocrite,” Hana tells Bennet, watching smoke trickle between his lips.
“You may have had a point,” he shrugs; Bennet never gives an inch because he knows Hana could take a mile in return. “We’re back on the road in three minutes,” he adds, walking away from the car to make a quick call. Presumably checking that the kid they’re going to help hasn’t exploded or something yet.
They’ve been working together for two years and Hana can count the number of times Bennet has actually touched her on the fingers of one hand. She contemplates the cigarette for a moment, watching it burn down. Ridiculous as it is, she can’t bring herself to touch the filter paper to her lips. It’s somehow too… intimate.
She grinds it out under her boot, kicking the butt away.
“Ready to go?” Bennet asks, a moment later, having arrived noiselessly at her side.
Hana nods, sliding into the passenger seat.
“I take it the kid’s still in one piece?”
Bennet doesn’t reply, merely giving her a glare over the top of his glasses. Hana winds the window down, pushing her sunglasses a little farther up her face. If you squint, America almost looks the way it used to, people in cars living their normal lives. Bennet leans over and turns the radio on, and a low hum of music fills the car. Hana can feel the radio wave transmission pulsating just as it enters their vehicle; it’s giving her a migraine. She swallows.
“Turn it off,” she mumbles, feeling queasy, hair blowing across her face.
“The Rolling Stones are classic,” Bennet tells her, tone still neutral, but there’s amusement there too.
Hana closes her eyes, and pushes at the radio wave until it disintegrates into static.
“Fine.” Bennet turns the radio off again.
%
Two weeks later, they’re in a shitty bar in Louisiana trying to track down a terrified teenager with what appears to be superstrength. Parkman’s given them a day’s headstart, or at least has claimed that they’re going to get a day’s headstart (the man’s a backstabbing liar; and he gave Hana the worst of looks when she thought that), and Bennet is wasting no time.
He’s leant on the bar, intimidating the barman by being simultaneously charming and menacing. Hana’s seen this routine before, and it’s impressive, but she crosses the street to the newsstand opposite for a packet of cigarettes and a paper. Not that the newspapers contain anything resembling the truth anymore; but it’s worth it to see what crap the Petrelli administration is force-feeding the American public.
Someone in the bar gets a text message; Hana reads it quickly, and realises, with a sick lurch of horror, that there’s about to be a random DNA test. Homeland Security have crackdowns from time to time, testing the public for the genetic abnormality that could lead to destruction. It’s to make it look like they’re doing something, but really, it’s just a pain in the ass.
Hana finds a back way into the bar and heads for the ladies’ bathroom. Locked safely in a stall, she rips open the lining of her leather jacket, fingers searching for the small capsule she keeps here, in case of emergencies like this. It’s room temperature, but with any luck she’ll get away with it. Hana bites the top off with her teeth, quickly coating her fingertips with the liquid inside, waiting a few seconds for them to dry, and then flushing the evidence.
There are six police officers in the bar, all testing the patrons with small, white handheld pads. It just takes the press of a fingertip to determine whether someone has the genetic abnormality - thanks to Mohinder Suresh and his research laboratories. Hana isn’t sure quite who created the liquid currently drying on her fingertips, but it’s the only thing around that can fool the test.
“Ma’am.” The officer is young, a slightly anxious smile on his face. “We’re conducting a DNA test in this area. If you wouldn’t mind…?” He trails off. He obviously hasn’t been doing this very long.
“Of course.” Hana offers him a bland smile. She’s spent a while working out the exact right expression to have while DNA testing takes place; too smug, and they know you’re cheating. Too anxious, and they suspect you have something to hide. The idea is to look like all you want to do is help them out. She fumbles her current false driver’s licence out of her pocket. “I’m Lucy Monroe.”
Over the officer’s shoulder, she can see Bennet staring at her. He clearly thinks she’s been caught without warning, because, although he doesn’t exactly look worried, he doesn’t look happy.
“Right, Ms Monroe, if you could place your finger here…” The officer is holding out a white pad, and Hana obediently presses the index finger of her right hand to the middle of it. Although she knows that the solution should have worked, she can’t help wondering if this is the one time it’s going to betray her.
“Thank you for your time ma’am.” The police officer offers her a polite nod, tearing the top sheet off the pad. The sheet with her mercifully blue finger impression on it. Hana lets out a slow breath as he walks away, and she saunters over to Bennet.
“Any sign of the girl?” she asks him before he can say anything. Bennet may not be exactly popular with Homeland Security, but at least he’s got normal DNA. These tests are tiresome, not potentially deadly.
“She passed through here this morning,” Bennet replies, adjusting his tie slightly. “If we hurry, we might still be able to catch her.”
Hana nods, and the two of them head for the parking lot. Just before he starts the ignition, Bennet turns to her and asks:
“How did you know?”
“The manager got a text message about it three minutes before they arrived,” Hana explains. “I had time to prepare.”
Bennet nods briskly.
“It’s good that you can take care of yourself,” he says, turning the key, choking the engine to life. Hana takes that to mean that, just for a minute, he was worried about her.
It’s kind of nice to know.
%
“It’s just a flesh wound,” Hana mumbles weakly. She’s feeling kind of numb around the edges and her fingers are wet where they press her leather jacket against her side.
“Lying to me won’t help you heal,” Bennet points out. There’s something reassuring about his gravely voice, like the steadiness can somehow fix her.
“I’m fine,” Hana tells him, trying to ignore the encroaching dizziness. She was stupid, that was all. Cocky. And you can’t be arrogant these days, not and survive. “A couple of band-aids or something, everything will be ok.”
Bennet isn’t buying it. The man has a range of interesting and pointed facial expressions, and right now he’s giving her the you’re-lying-and-in-spite-of-your-best-efforts-I-know-that look.
Sometimes, people don’t want to be helped. Or they can’t be helped because they’re too far gone. Telekinesis can be a bitch if you can’t control it, and Hana isn’t sure exactly what she hit when she got thrown across the room, but she’s definitely bleeding.
“Did you call Homeland Security?” she asks softly, leaning her head back against the wall.
“I had no choice,” Bennet replies. “The man is a danger to himself and those around him. He’s got to be taken into custody.”
Hana nods because, although she doesn’t want him to be, Bennet’s right. They can help people with abilities; but at a price. The devil’s deal with Matt Parkman. And no matter how much good they do, Hana can’t quite reconcile herself with the flipside of their achievements. In many ways, they’re the bad guys. Morally grey, Bennet calls it, and Hana wishes she could be as at ease with the situation as he is.
“Let me look,” Bennet says calmly, and Hana is snapped out of her thoughts as he gently pushes her hand away and peels her jacket back. She bites her lip, swallowing down the pain.
Her white shirt is sticky and red down the right-hand side, and when she breathes in, it hurts like hell. Hana watches with interest as Bennet pulls the fabric away from her wound, revealing a painful, leaking gash just beneath her ribcage. His face remains impassive.
“…Say something,” Hana murmurs eventually.
Bennet adjusts his glasses, getting a couple of blood drops on the edge of the right lens.
“You’re lucky you hit the filing cabinet the way you did,” he tells her. “Any higher, and you could have crushed your ribcage.”
“I told you, it’s just a flesh wound,” Hana repeats herself, but she is starting to feel kind of dizzy as a result of the blood loss. Bennet’s fingers are warm and firm on her skin, pushing down gently, probably checking for internal bleeding or something.
“You’re in no position to judge whether this is serious or not,” Bennet replies, half-patronising, half-something else entirely. “Come on.”
He helps heave her to her feet; Hana feels nauseous the minute she stands, swaying awkwardly.
“Wireless,” Bennet murmurs, “Stay with me.”
He doesn’t sound much like he cares whether she does or not; but Bennet has never been good at expressing emotion and they never defined their relationship anyway. Life would be more difficult for Bennet if she wasn’t around; Hana knows that much, at least. It’s very nearly enough.
“Ok.” Hana takes a deep breath, and, with Bennet’s arm around her, manages to get herself to the old Primatech breakroom, where they keep the medical supplies. Hana lies gratefully down on a battered couch, and Bennet cleans her up with antiseptic, which stings like a bitch, and tapes fresh gauze over the wound.
“You’re going to be ok,” he tells her softly, and for a very strange minute Hana thinks Bennet is actually going to stroke her hair. Then, he changes his mind, abruptly pulling his hand away.
“Parkman will be here soon,” Hana says. “You’d better make sure everything’s ready.”
Bennet nods.
“Get some rest,” he orders before he leaves.
Hana lies, eyes shut, in the quiet, and bleeds.
%
They’re posing as a married couple (Sandra filed for divorce sometime last year, and Hana only met her the once anyway), which means the motel room has a double bed. Bennet is sitting up against the headboard, typing something on his laptop; maybe coming up with yet more false identities to hand out, maybe trying to figure out what to do with Claire.
Hana is not allowed to know about Claire; at first she thought it was because Bennet didn’t trust her, but now she knows it’s because he doesn’t trust Parkman. The fewer people who know a secret, the harder it will be for Parkman to extract it. At least, that’s what Bennet is hoping. The only cold, hard facts about Claire that Hana has are that Claire is Bennet’s adopted daughter and is the biological child of the president himself. And Bennet is hiding her away from the world because she, like Hana, is special.
“First thing in the morning,” Bennet tells her without looking up, “We’ll go and test Lucy.”
Lucy Havenik; she’s eleven, and her family are worried about her. It almost explains why they’re currently in Colorado. Days of driving and Hana is tired and restless.
“And then if it turns out she could potentially kill people, we’ll call up Matt Parkman, let him take care of her?”
“I am not having this argument with you, Wireless,” Bennet informs her calmly.
“These people trust us to help them,” Hana continues recklessly, “And half the time we betray them.”
“We can’t save everyone,” Bennet tells her, he almost sounds angry. “We do what we can to help as many people as possible, but you know as well as I do that some people are too dangerous.”
“Who are we to decide?” Hana demands. This is not the time to confront this, and she is uncomfortably aware that if Bennet wanted or needed to, he could turn her straight over to Parkman. It’s doubtless she’d survive; and if she did, she’s heard rumours about what happens in Dr Suresh’s laboratories. And it’s a fate she condemns innocent people to without a second thought. “What gives us the right to choose who can hide in relative safety and who has to be locked up and experimented on?”
Bennet has put aside his laptop, and he’s glaring openly at her with more fury than she’s ever seen on his face.
“We make that choice because it’s them or us,” he all but snarls, moving to stand so they’re almost at eyelevel. “We are on the edge here, Wireless, and if we slip up we will both fall. Parkman is looking for any excuse to kill us.”
“And whose fault is that?” Hana practically shouts, but the walls are thin enough she’s still wary. “You’re the one who climbed so happily into his pocket!”
“You weren’t complaining when I found you,” Bennet tells her, voice low because he knows what could happen if they’re overheard, “You would have been killed if I hadn’t rescued you, you were grateful then.”
“I wasn’t counting on selling my soul in order to stay alive,” Hana hisses, and she knows that some of this isn’t fair because it’s not all Bennet’s fault, however much she may want it to be. They’re victims of circumstance, victims of the world that’s been left behind after Sylar’s explosion.
“You can walk out any time,” Bennet reminds her. “If you think you could so much better alone. I won’t stop you.”
He knows that no matter how good she is, there is no way Hana can survive in this world. He knows that and he still says it, and that hurts her in some indefinable, stupid way. Hana is sick of meaning nothing to anyone, of struggling to rescue so many people when there’s no one to rescue her.
“Bennet,” she mumbles, “How much longer do you really think we can get away with this?”
She watches the hard edge of his underlying anger leave his face, making him look tired and older.
“We can’t afford to think like that, Wireless,” Bennet replies softly. Then the vulnerability fades away from his face, and the determinedly impassive mask returns. “Have you got that out of your system now?”
Hana wonders if he spoke to Claire like that; it’s sort of patronising, like her anger and frustration and fear are merely childish emotions that will inevitably spill over from time to time, but they don’t matter. Not in the scheme of things.
“Yes,” she mumbles obediently. Bennet nods, turning away. Hana swallows. “Are we… ok?”
They’ve never been ok. It’s pretty much the only thing she’s certain of.
When Bennet turns back, there’s a strange little smirk twisting his mouth.
“I think you can answer that for yourself,” he says. Because, God forbid, he ever give her a straight reply.
“You never give anything away, do you?” Hana’s not angry any more, but there’s sharp bitterness in her voice. “I mean, Jesus, we’ve been doing this for two years and you’ve never even-”
Hana isn’t aware of formulating a plan or even reaching a decision. She moves on pure, flowing instinct, before she can tell herself that it’s a bad idea or even work out exactly what she thinks she’s doing. She takes one step, closing the space between them, clenches her hand in the back of Bennet’s hair, and pulls his head forward until their mouths connect.
She’s done several stupid things over the last few months, but nothing this masochistic. Bennet is impenetrable, impossible to control, and he tolerates her because they need each other to survive. The fact Hana has been helplessly falling for him won’t change anything. It’s too dangerous, too desperate, too uncertain for this to happen.
“Do you have any idea what you’re doing?” Bennet asks quietly, hands tight on her shoulders, pushing her back a little.
“No,” Hana mutters, closing her eyes, and wondering what will happen now. If they’ll be able to go back to their awkward normal relationship, or if, in admitting to Bennet what she couldn’t admit to herself, she’s pushed it all too far.
But the one thing she hasn’t considered is that Bennet is as unpredictable as he is unfathomable, and however he really feels about her, it becomes apparent that he’s as aware of the strange tension between them as she is when he leans back in and kisses her.
They should have done this months ago; it would have solved all kinds of problems. Hana returns her hand to Bennet’s hair, clenching it, trying not to show she’s shaking. She’s not even sure why.
%
Later, she’s wrapped in a sheet and smoking out of the motel room window.
“Can I have one?” Bennet asks, joining her, and Hana obediently shifts over a little, and passes him the cigarette from her mouth, only three drags down. They don’t speak because there’s still nothing to say. Hana picks up her battered packet from the sill, lights herself a new cigarette with a lighter given to her as a thankyou gift by a telepath, thirteen months ago. She wanted him to stay and protect her from Parkman, but he pressed his zippo into her hand and Bennet got him to Oregon with a brand new name.
That was a long time ago, and she has teethmarks in her shoulder, right around the marks The Company put there four and a half years back. Hana blows smoke out into the night air and watches Bennet do the same, there’s something nearly domestic about this, which is odd, and so unlike them that it makes her chest hurt. She resists the sudden and nearly overwhelming urge to rest her head against his shoulder.
“So we go and see Lucy in the morning,” she says, a peace offering, an attempt to get everything back to normal.
Bennet stubs out his cigarette on the windowsill and throws it down into the parking lot below.
“Yes.” He’s inscrutable, as ever, and Hana knows that although this won’t be the only time this happens, by the time they have to drive back to Texas, the weird awkwardness will have gone. They’ll be what passes for normal again. “We should get some sleep.”
“Goodnight, Bennet,” Hana murmurs, as he moves back inside. His bare shoulder is cold where it brushes hers.
“Call me-” he hesitates, and Hana bites down on her lip to keep from saying anything. Bennet is silent for another moment, and then he pats her shoulderblade briefly, and she hears him walk into the bathroom.
So she hasn’t earned the right to know his first name yet. It’s actually a relief.
Hana finishes her cigarette, contemplates lighting another, and instead closes the window. The room is warm and quiet, she can hear Bennet brushing his teeth. Feeling a weird sense of modesty, she opens up the knapsack they’re keeping their few belongings in, dresses in a vest and sleep pants, pulls her unruly hair back into a loose ponytail. Things she does every time, but it still feels strange. It’s possible that she’s just messed everything up for reasons she’s not entirely certain of.
“Bathroom’s free,” Bennet informs her, walking out, and she can’t look at him, half-dressed, it’s uncomfortable and she merely nods, going to brush her teeth, wash her face, try and force herself to feel normal again.
He’s taken the right side of the bed, even though he knows that’s the side she likes to sleep on, glasses folded neatly on the nightstand. Hana clicks off the light, and wonders if she really can sleep beside him tonight, knowing now how she can’t help feeling about him. But she’ll have to. She’ll have to manage, the way she always has.
The bed creaks when she slides in beside him, automatically turning to face the wall.
“Goodnight, Hana,” Bennet murmurs, and her breath catches in her chest.
She prays to God he’ll have gone back to calling her Wireless by the morning.