(Criminal Minds/Heroes) Boy Meets Girl, Except When He Doesn’t for etoile_dunord
Title: Boy Meets Girl, Except When He Doesn’t
Author: a_cook1
Fandoms: Criminal Minds/Heroes
Characters René (aka The Haitian), Noah Bennet, Nathan Petrelli; Penelope Garcia, Aaron Hotchner, Kevin Lynch
Pairings: René/Penelope, Penelope/Kevin
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 4,848
Spoilers: Through season 4 of Heroes, through season 5 of Criminal Minds
Warnings: Mind control, power abuse
Disclaimer: Heroes and Criminal Minds belong to their respective creators
A/N: Thank you to jaune_chat for betaing.
Summary: The BAU investigates a serial killer and the Company cleans up the evidence.
The first time René met Penelope Garcia, it was in passing.
Hiro Nakamura had been taken into custody by the FBI for questioning. It had been a simple case of Hiro having been at the wrong place at the wrong time. Perhaps he would have been proven innocent based on evidence; at the very least the Company would have thought of a way to protect their interests and keep him from being held. There might have been a plausible way to extract Hiro from the situation. Sadly, when dealing with Specials, planning and plausibility often had to be set aside.
René was finding himself more and more disgusted (in a quiet, diplomatic way) with the many failures of Primatech. Sylar was a sore point for him, and for Noah. Noah was driven by the potential threat Sylar posed to his family, but René had more basic reasons to want Sylar contained. That there were people with powers beyond those of the rest of humanity was a difficult enough concept. Even their own kind displayed a distressing range of bad reactions to it, from subtle self hatred to downright bigotry. If a man who could fly but chose generally not to could cause such ill feelings, what damage could a serial killer with a seemingly endless array of powers do to humanity’s ability to accept them?
If humanity was ever allowed to know, that was.
Primatech wasn’t omnipotent. There was no reliable way to predict when and where Sylar would strike next. They weren’t even able to hide all of his acts of brutality from public discovery. More often than not, clean-up came in the form of a visit from René and Noah. It could have been worse, René knew. He could have been partnered with someone inexperienced, or someone without Noah’s subtle humor. Even, perhaps, with someone who couldn’t blend in to save his life. Fortunately, Noah looked so much like a middle management type that people rarely questioned their presence anywhere. Perhaps it was the glasses.
Walking into a building full of FBI agents was incredibly easy. They took an elevator to the floor where the team of agents who were investigating the most recent spate of Sylar’s kills was stationed. They shared the elevator with one other person, a woman with a thick file clutched in her arms. There were sparkly things fluttering down from an emphatically red ornament to mingle with her bright platinum hair. Her lips were painted such a bright shade that René marveled at how closely it matched the plastic barrette. She wore a dress in some satin-look material that had the most interesting palette of colors….it was like looking at a stained glass window that had been painted by a madman. She smiled brightly at them both.
Here was a woman who would never need a power to make her special.
“Hello,” René said.
Noah raised an eyebrow at him in discrete amusement.
The woman’s smile brightened, if that were even possible.
“Hi! First day?”
“Yes,” he agreed. “I am René.”
“Penelope.” She shifted the file so she could free her hand to press against his. She was wearing a ring that resembled a hard candy.
“Very good to meet you, Penelope.”
She blushed when he said her name. Or perhaps it was that he hadn’t yet released her hand.
Noah was clearly stifling a smirk.
The elevator stopped and they all exited, Penelope with a brief wave before she headed down a hallway, heels clicking rapidly.
“She’s cute,” Noah said.
She was a shaft of light sent through a prism to dance about on recklessly impractical shoes. Cute was nearly an insult. René chose not to respond, which made Noah chuckle.
René had to ready himself for what promised to be a difficult operation.
Normally, there weren’t so many people to take care of at once, to begin with. It wasn’t precisely draining for René to use his power, but it wasn’t entirely pleasant, either. Noah did all of the talking, which was a blessing, because René didn’t like the idea of engaging someone he was about to use his powers on in conversation. There was something about watching a person’s eyes grow gradually hazy and confused…as if they knew there was something missing. It was depressing, at the best of times.
There were seven people working on the murders. Seven people whose eyes René would have to look into as he carefully excised Hiro Nakamura and the crimes that Sylar had committed from their minds.
Some people’s thoughts were a jumbled mess. This made it difficult to find a particular memory, but easier to hide that anything had been taken. Sandra Bennet’s mind, for example, was like a pleasantly cluttered home. The memories dearest to her, those of her family, were the easiest to access. They were what she wanted to remember. The unpleasant truth about her husband’s work was the last thing she wanted to dwell on, so it was fairly easy to take that and never have her miss anything.
Other people built mental blocks to hide horrible things, even from themselves. Everyone had one or two, but sometimes he encountered someone with more than usual. He knew this was a way people had of protecting themselves from pain. However, in the end such blocks created complications.
The most difficult minds to enter and to extract memory from were the more organized ones. They almost always realized there were gaps.
Within the first fifteen minutes of reaching the Behavioral Analysis Unit, he encountered six of the most strictly organized minds he’d ever seen. It was delicate work, but fairly quick.
Only two of them, Derek Morgan and David Rossi seemed to immediately distrust Noah. Rossi had been doing this work for a long time, and according to the information they had, Morgan had been a police officer. Of four of the others, only Spencer Reid and Aaron Hotchner presented any real challenge for René.
If asked to explain what it was like, taking a memory from someone, René would have described it as catching smoke in his hand and wafting it away from its source. This would have sounded strange as well as difficult. Still, it would be a fairly accurate way of illustrating his power.
Removing the relevant memories from Spencer Reid’s mind was like attempting to uproot a redwood tree using a short handled spade and a chain made of dental floss. He loathed eidetic memories. If there was a follow-up to this job, it would be due to Reid, he was certain.
Aaron Hotchener did not have an eidetic memory, but he did have a distressing number of painfully well constructed blocks, some of them so old that, if they had been physically present, they would have been covered with dust.
René also hated working around scar tissue. He could do it, but it was tedious work.
By the time he had finished with the profilers and Agent Jareau, René was developing a very slight headache.
The last name on their list was Penelope Garcia.
“I will take care of it,” he told Noah, who gave him a sympathetic look.
“I’ll wait by the elevator,” Noah said.
When René appeared at her office door, Penelope smiled again.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hi there. You lost?”
“No. I am where I need to be.”
*****
The second time René saw Penelope, the Petrellis were involved. The FBI had rediscovered Sylar’s work, and due to a series of patently ridiculous accidents, Peter Petrelli had come up as a suspect. René wondered how many of the problems Primatech faced on a daily basis could be traced back to the Petrelli family. Peter was wanted, according to their information, for questioning.
When René and Noah arrived, Nathan Petrelli was already in Agent Hotchner’s office. There was really no telling how long the two had been arguing, but neither of them appeared ready to back down. Hotchner stood with his arms folded, staring glacially down at Nathan, who somehow gave the impression that he didn’t have to tilt his head back quite that far to meet Hotchner’s eyes.
“They were both lawyers,” Noah said. “If we leave them, they could be there all day.”
They opened the office door in time to hear Nathan say, “Unless I’m mistaken, these people are usually highly intelligent. I love my brother, Agent Hotchner, but I think ‘highly intelligent’ may be a bit of a stretch.”
René thanked whatever gods were listening that Peter hadn’t been present to hear that.
Noah stifled a smirk as he knocked perfunctorily on the door and entered.
Agent Hotchner looked as though he wasn’t certain whether or not to be grateful for the interruption. He frowned. “Is there something I can do for you?” There was a faint note of puzzlement in his voice.
That was common for people who had met René before.
Nathan glared at Noah. “I’m handling this, Bennet.”
“Poorly, Nathan,” Noah said easily.
“You know each other. Of course.” Hotchner pinched the bridge of his nose.
René understood. The headache, unfortunately, would soon be worse.
“We’re here to take care of this problem,” Noah said. “You see, there are things the public can’t know about. This killer you’re looking into, he is our responsibility. You don’t have to concern yourself about him anymore.”
“And you are?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
They had worked together long enough that René knew his cue when he heard it. He stood in front of Agent Hotchner, looked into his eyes and searched the locked-down cold storage of the man’s mind for the memories he needed.
Hotchner’s mouth twisted and he started at René’s light touch. “I think you should leave.” It was spoken forcefully enough, but then there was silence, as the determined set of his mouth relaxed and his eyes grew unfocused.
One down, six to go.
Not easy, by any means, to get them each alone long enough, but Noah and René had Nathan to help divide and distract them. Emily Prentiss, with her neatly compartmentalized, remarkably uncluttered thoughts; David Rossi, who on a superficial level of his mind seemed less organized than the others, but René knew from last time that this was simply a surface glamour. Derek Morgan, whose mind was open and so terribly upright, with one or two doors that were so tightly closed even the man himself might not know what was behind them; Jennifer Jareau, whose thoughts were sunlit and precise. And of course, Spencer Reid.
René wished for aspirin.
When they went to Penelope’s office, she wasn’t there.
Nathan found this amusing.
“So, what…you lurk in here until she comes back?”
René spotted a coffee cup in the trash. “Perhaps she left for coffee?”
Noah shrugged. “Why don’t I make sure Nathan gets out of here without causing any trouble?”
Nathan made an irritated noise.
Noah pretended he hadn’t heard. “While I do that, you can lurk in her office until she comes back.”
The man was funny. As Noah left with Nathan, René heard Petrelli begin talking. It actually sounded more like the beginning of an argument than a simple conversation. René enjoyed the quiet after the door closed behind them.
When the door did open, he saw that he had been right; there was a cardboard coffee cup in Penelope’s hand. She was wearing lime green and purple. René smiled and tried to look non-threatening. “Penelope?”
She paused in the doorway, reluctant to enter the room completely with a stranger there.
“I am sorry…may I talk with you?”
“Uh…yes? I mean, hi, I guess.” She laughed nervously. “Sorry. The last drop dead gorgeous guy who wanted to chat at random? Shot me. How do you know my name?”
“I asked,” he said.
“You asked?” Her lips were tugging into a smile, as if they were uncomfortable holding any other expression for long. “Why did you ask?” There was definitely a hint of playfulness in her tone.
“I….” This was why Noah usually did the talking. René didn’t have the gift of quick, casual lies. “I would ask if you would let me buy you a coffee, but I see that is not necessary,” he said, hoping to distract her.
“Okay…..well, thanks. Do I get to know your name, O mysterious, coffee offering stranger?”
“René,” he said.
“René. Nice. Love the accent.”
There was a pause, which he realized he should fill by saying something, anything.
“Listen,” she said, after the pause had lengthened into something beyond awkward. “It’s nice to meet you, René, but I really need to get back to work, and since this is my office, I kind of have to ask you to, well….you know.”
“Certainly,” he said. “There is just one more thing….”
He left her in the doorway, a soft, puzzled frown on her lips, which would no doubt smile again, soon.
Perhaps it was time he considered other work.
*****
René could tell Noah was thoroughly exasperated. All that work - twice - and a simple error on the end of Primatech’s computer tech division meant that the information the FBI had been building about Sylar was just waiting for someone to stumble across it.
Of course, someone did.
On their third visit in as many weeks, roughly half of the BAU was away on another job altogether. When René had been told they only needed to contain three people, he had hoped that Agent Reid wouldn’t be one of them. Extracting his memories always gave René such a headache. Of course, he knew that life was rarely as simple as one wanted. He caught Reid unawares by the coffee machine. The scent of the coffee, burnt and institutional made him wrinkle his nose. No wonder Penelope preferred to go out for hers.
At least it didn’t take too long, this time. They hadn’t pieced everything together quite yet, so there was less to uproot.
Once René was finished with Spencer Reid, he went to Agent Hotchner’s office, sighing at how quickly this particular place was beginning to feel like a second office away from the office.
Noah was already speaking with Agent Hotchner, who was listening with an icy, impenetrable set to his features.
“You’re not supposed to know about any of this,” Noah was saying when René opened the door. “And yet you keep putting it together. Either your people are very, very good, or my people are very, very clumsy.”
Agent Hotchner lifted his chin. “My people are the best.”
“I appreciate that you think that,” Noah said ruefully. “But frankly that gives my people too much credit.”
René wondered how often the human mind could take what he did to it in such a short period. Sandra Bennet had begun to develop problems after years of being subjected to René’s talent. These people were receiving weekly visits.
Noah waited unobtrusively by the elevator after they left Hotchner’s office while René went to take care of Penelope.
He could hear her talking with someone before he reached the door. It turned out to be a young man with messy black hair. He was wearing glasses and the worst shirt and tie combination René had ever seen. From the familiar way the man was leaning over Penelope’s shoulder, his fingers lightly toying with the ringlets down her back, René guessed that he was a boyfriend.
He reminded himself that he barely knew Penelope, and that he had no right to be jealous.
René listened for a moment. If they were discussing anything having to do with Sylar, René would have to take care of this man, too. But no, after only a few moments he realized they were discussing inanities.
Penelope wrinkled her nose adorably and laughed at something her boyfriend whispered into her ear.
“Excuse me,” René said. “I am sorry to interrupt. I believe Agent Hotchner would like to speak with you.”
They both turned when he spoke. The boy paled. “Me? Uh…why?”
“No, sweetie,” Penelope said. “He means me. I’ll see you later.”
The boy made as if to kiss her, then halted, clearly unsure of the propriety of such an action. René barely refrained from glaring, or possibly rolling his eyes the way Claire sometimes did.
“Um…kay.” Penelope’s boyfriend finally said. “See you.”
René smiled tightly at him when he squeezed past, then stepped aside to allow Penelope to precede him down the hall.
“Are you new here?” Penelope said. “I thought I knew everyone.” She smiled, reflexively friendly, automatically welcoming.
“I am,” he said.
“How do you like it?”
“The…people are nice.” René said. He had her alone; he simply had to finish the job.
She grinned slyly at him. “Okay, you totally don’t sound convinced of that. If it’s Hotch, don’t worry. He seems a little distant when you first meet him, but he’s a really sweet guy. Funny, too.”
René coughed politely, which apparently struck her as hilarious.
“Your friend seems to be afraid of him,” he pointed out.
“Kevin’s braver than he looks,” she said easily enough. “He’s actually Batman. The visible fear is just a clever ruse so no one discovers his secret identity.”
“Ah, but you figured it out,” René said.
“But of course! I’m a genius and a miracle worker! No ruse is clever enough to fool the likes of me!”
“Miracle worker?”
“Yeah, they only call me that because I do miracles. It’s a thing. I hardly like to bring it up.”
He realized they had stopped walking at the same moment she did. So quickly that he might have imagined it, shy uncertainty clouded Penelope’s face.
“Um. So. Hotch,” she said.
“Never mind him,” René said, mourning the loss of their light banter. “Just, wait one second.”
One of these times, he wished he could leave her with something nice, something other than vague puzzlement and a slowly building headache.
*****
It was several months later that René found himself at Penelope’s apartment door with Noah.
“Reduced to stealing comic books from law-abiding techno geeks,” Noah sighed. “Hiro Nakamura would strenuously disapprove.”
Hiro would indeed. René felt it was indicative of some great truth about life that the most morally upright people he knew continued to be those who were also the most naïve. Take Peter Petrelli, for example. There was a man who had made an art out of being easy to manipulate, and yet René could hardly see an instance where he himself would not at least trust the man’s motives.
Peter Petrelli would disapprove of stealing comic books from law-abiding techno geeks as well.
Noah raised his hand to knock again when the door opened, revealing Penelope Garcia in fuscia pajamas with cartoon platypuses on them. Her hair had been colored the exact, vibrant shade of a new penny.
She giggled when she saw them. “Yeah, thanks boys, I don’t need any insurance.”
Noah smiled. “We’re not trying to sell you anything.”
“Okay. You aren’t looking for recruits are you? I’ve heard that about Republicans.”
“What? No, we’re not-”
“You’re not a Republican? Okay, really. You’re not a Republican? I work for the FBI. I know a Republican when I see one.”
Noah shook his head, fighting a laugh. “Listen, this has nothing to do with politics. We’re here about your Isaac Mendez comic books.”
Her eyebrows disappeared into her bangs. “You really don’t seem the type.”
“I’m really not.” Noah admitted.
“Okay…..look, I don’t know why you’re really here, but I do think it’s kind of freaky that you know I have comic books at all, much less whose work I’ve collected, and since I really do work for the FBI, I suggest you leave before I have to call someone.”
“He died under bizarre circumstances,” René said. “Isaac Mendez. His work was left unfinished.”
She was looking only at him, now. “Everyone knows that. It’s no secret.”
“Tell me, what did you think of his work?”
“It’s pretty much widely agreed that he had some great ideas, but little to no follow through. Some people blame that on his drug habit. There were new characters popping up all the time, but most of them seemed to be little more than window dressing. He was terrible at picking names, which is one theory behind why Hiro Nakamura was so popular - it’s hard to identify with characters that are known only as The Cheerleader or The Flying Man or The Haitian or The Man with the Horn Rimmed…..
“Oh. My. God.” She looked from René to Noah, then back again. “You’re them! The Man with the…..and you’re The Haitian!”
“René, please.”
“And you have a name! I mean, of course you do, you’re a person and people have names and his name has nothing to do with glasses at all, does it? And, and the Cheerleader? She’s real, too? And the Flying Man and, wow, Mendez really hated giving you guys names, didn’t he? Or was it that he was trying to protect your identities or something like that? I mean, geez, government conspiracies are nothing compared to the cover-up the Company has going on….”
René smiled at her breathless enthusiasm, but it was a small, bitter expression. Penelope was too quick to miss the import of their visit. Even before she stopped speaking, the light in her incredible eyes was being replaced with suspicion.
“And you’re here. To see me. Which means that I know something I shouldn’t.”
When it became evident René couldn’t answer, Noah stepped in. “I’m afraid that’s so, Ms. Garcia. We need your collection. Just anything you have that pertains to Isaac Mendez.”
“This is because of how he died. What that awful man did to him. Why? I’m not into that kind of thing, you know. True crime? Not my thing at all. I work with people who catch killers. I see enough of the horrible things people do to one another there. I don’t go looking for it in my free time.”
Of course, she almost immediately answered her own half-posed questions. “The man who did that….it’s the man from the story isn’t it? The one who cuts people open to steal their powers…he’s really out there, isn’t he? Killing. Oh god, you’re protecting him.”
She tried to slam the door shut.
René felt ill at how easy it was to force their way in. Noah searched the apartment quickly, dispassionately, until he found what they were looking for. While he did that, René was forced to keep watch over Penelope, who looked incredibly frightened and fragile in her nightclothes. She was wearing slippers made from lime green faux fur. He found it easier to focus on those than on the accusation that glittered in her eyes above her flushed cheeks.
“So. You come in here, you take my things and then you mind whammy me, right? That’s the drill, isn’t it?”
René sighed. “Yes. I am sorry.”
“No, you’re not. If you were capable of being sorry, you’d be trying to catch your killer, not terrorizing me in my apartment on a Thursday night.”
“I am sorry. I admire you. I do not like having to do this to you.”
“Admire me? You don’t even know me.” Anger was beginning to overcome her initial fear.
“I always enjoy our conversations,” René said wistfully.
She paled. “Our conversations. How many times, exactly, have we met?”
“I found them,” Noah said softly.
“How many times have you mind whammied me?” Penelope demanded, ignoring Noah completely.
“We are not protecting him,” René said. “We are protecting you. He is dangerous.”
“Yeah, okay, except, you’re the ones invading my apartment, rooting through my personal things and getting ready to erase pieces of me.”
She was right.
She was right and beautiful and angry.
And then she was only right and beautiful. She had stopped being angry, for the simple reason that she couldn’t recall what she had been angry about.
René and Noah left, neither of them speaking until they had reached the car.
“She’s safer this way,” Noah said.
“I do not enjoy my job,” René said. “I do not think I ever have.”
*****
Noah had called, with a jumble of partial information about the Petrellis and Sylar, and a request that René meet him for coffee. Noah usually revealed little over the phone. That wasn’t what was worrying René, precisely.
It was the flatness in his former partner’s voice that made him nervous about meeting.
They sat at a table together in a cute, brightly decorated restaurant. Noah wasn’t quite fidgeting, but he was having a difficult time looking up from his mug of coffee. He hadn’t put any cream or sugar in it, but nevertheless his fingers went to light on the spoon the waitress had brought, moving it about slightly.
René had never felt quite so afraid of hearing what might come out of Noah’s mouth.
“Sylar won’t be a problem anymore,” he said finally, still not meeting René’s eyes.
“That is a good thing,” René said eventually.
Noah sighed. “You remember Nathan Petrelli?”
René raised an eyebrow. The question would have made him laugh, if he hadn’t been so busy watching Noah avoid looking away from the depths of his mug. Eventually, Noah began to speak, softly. René had to lean forward to hear all of it.
He was shaking his head before Noah had even finished. “No. I cannot be a part of this.”
Noah looked up, and René wondered at how the man seemed to have aged since they’d seen one another last.
“I don’t like it, either, but this is necessary. It’s the only way to keep everyone safe. Your people won’t have to worry about a monster coming for them; my people won’t have to worry about trying to hide his activity from the world. Sylar’s contained. Everyone wins. But without your help, I don’t know how long we can do this. Parkman’s….having some difficulties accepting his role in this.”
René was almost certain Matt Parkman was not the only one having such trouble. He didn’t press it, however. He didn’t want to expose Noah’s own vulnerability, nor did he particularly care to ask after Angela Petrelli’s guilt in this ugly matter.
Mostly, he was simply distracted by the bright laughter coming from a table not far from them where Penelope Garcia was just sitting down with Agent Jareau. They were leaning close together, giggling like school girls.
René looked from them, from Penelope’s open, lovely smile, to Noah’s still features. It would be blatantly manipulative of the man to invite him here to ask this of him, if he had known that Penelope might be here.
“Every Tuesday, they have lunch here,” Noah said. “It took me no time at all to find that out, on my own. Sylar - Nathan - works in this town. Who knows what he might notice, given enough time? We have reason to believe he had information about the interest the FBI was taking in him.”
It could be a lie. René thought it wasn’t important, one way or another. He reminded himself that he had once considered Noah Bennet to be a friend, and that the desperation that had driven Noah to this was due to his love for his daughter, not loyalty to the Company. He did his best to ignore the anger and the sense of surprised betrayal he could feel at this unworthy trick.
“Once,” he finally said. “I will do this thing for you once. Tell Angela Petrelli that I will be unavailable in the future. No matter whom you might think to dangle in front of me. How can I possibly care about the potential danger Ms. Garcia is in? As you recall, I never actually met the lady.”
Noah saw through it, but he nodded. “Of course. I’ll advise Angela of your position on this matter.”
He stood to leave, taking a wrinkled ten out of his wallet and setting it on the table. He tucked his wallet away, and the set of his mouth changed, went from a blank line to a soft, sad smile. “I can’t actually thank you enough for everything you’ve done for my family. Maybe I should have started there, instead of this?”
“Maybe you should have. But then, I might have suspected you were not who you said you were.”
Noah nodded. “Wait until you see Nathan.”
He left. René watched him disappear into the stream of people outside, and then finished his coffee slowly. He was still there half an hour later when Penelope and Agent Jareau began to gather themselves together to leave. On their way to the door, something flashed and fell from the improbably brazen orange of Penelope’s hair.
He picked it up and followed them into the afternoon. It was a small clip with what appeared to be purple tinsel and sequins interspersed with feathers on it.
“Miss,” he called. “Miss, you dropped this….”
They were already down the block, chattering and laughing together.
René closed his hand around the bright bit of fancy and walked the other way.
-END-
Prompt:
Five people Character A never met
Author: a_cook1
Fandoms: Criminal Minds/Heroes
Characters René (aka The Haitian), Noah Bennet, Nathan Petrelli; Penelope Garcia, Aaron Hotchner, Kevin Lynch
Pairings: René/Penelope, Penelope/Kevin
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 4,848
Spoilers: Through season 4 of Heroes, through season 5 of Criminal Minds
Warnings: Mind control, power abuse
Disclaimer: Heroes and Criminal Minds belong to their respective creators
A/N: Thank you to jaune_chat for betaing.
Summary: The BAU investigates a serial killer and the Company cleans up the evidence.
The first time René met Penelope Garcia, it was in passing.
Hiro Nakamura had been taken into custody by the FBI for questioning. It had been a simple case of Hiro having been at the wrong place at the wrong time. Perhaps he would have been proven innocent based on evidence; at the very least the Company would have thought of a way to protect their interests and keep him from being held. There might have been a plausible way to extract Hiro from the situation. Sadly, when dealing with Specials, planning and plausibility often had to be set aside.
René was finding himself more and more disgusted (in a quiet, diplomatic way) with the many failures of Primatech. Sylar was a sore point for him, and for Noah. Noah was driven by the potential threat Sylar posed to his family, but René had more basic reasons to want Sylar contained. That there were people with powers beyond those of the rest of humanity was a difficult enough concept. Even their own kind displayed a distressing range of bad reactions to it, from subtle self hatred to downright bigotry. If a man who could fly but chose generally not to could cause such ill feelings, what damage could a serial killer with a seemingly endless array of powers do to humanity’s ability to accept them?
If humanity was ever allowed to know, that was.
Primatech wasn’t omnipotent. There was no reliable way to predict when and where Sylar would strike next. They weren’t even able to hide all of his acts of brutality from public discovery. More often than not, clean-up came in the form of a visit from René and Noah. It could have been worse, René knew. He could have been partnered with someone inexperienced, or someone without Noah’s subtle humor. Even, perhaps, with someone who couldn’t blend in to save his life. Fortunately, Noah looked so much like a middle management type that people rarely questioned their presence anywhere. Perhaps it was the glasses.
Walking into a building full of FBI agents was incredibly easy. They took an elevator to the floor where the team of agents who were investigating the most recent spate of Sylar’s kills was stationed. They shared the elevator with one other person, a woman with a thick file clutched in her arms. There were sparkly things fluttering down from an emphatically red ornament to mingle with her bright platinum hair. Her lips were painted such a bright shade that René marveled at how closely it matched the plastic barrette. She wore a dress in some satin-look material that had the most interesting palette of colors….it was like looking at a stained glass window that had been painted by a madman. She smiled brightly at them both.
Here was a woman who would never need a power to make her special.
“Hello,” René said.
Noah raised an eyebrow at him in discrete amusement.
The woman’s smile brightened, if that were even possible.
“Hi! First day?”
“Yes,” he agreed. “I am René.”
“Penelope.” She shifted the file so she could free her hand to press against his. She was wearing a ring that resembled a hard candy.
“Very good to meet you, Penelope.”
She blushed when he said her name. Or perhaps it was that he hadn’t yet released her hand.
Noah was clearly stifling a smirk.
The elevator stopped and they all exited, Penelope with a brief wave before she headed down a hallway, heels clicking rapidly.
“She’s cute,” Noah said.
She was a shaft of light sent through a prism to dance about on recklessly impractical shoes. Cute was nearly an insult. René chose not to respond, which made Noah chuckle.
René had to ready himself for what promised to be a difficult operation.
Normally, there weren’t so many people to take care of at once, to begin with. It wasn’t precisely draining for René to use his power, but it wasn’t entirely pleasant, either. Noah did all of the talking, which was a blessing, because René didn’t like the idea of engaging someone he was about to use his powers on in conversation. There was something about watching a person’s eyes grow gradually hazy and confused…as if they knew there was something missing. It was depressing, at the best of times.
There were seven people working on the murders. Seven people whose eyes René would have to look into as he carefully excised Hiro Nakamura and the crimes that Sylar had committed from their minds.
Some people’s thoughts were a jumbled mess. This made it difficult to find a particular memory, but easier to hide that anything had been taken. Sandra Bennet’s mind, for example, was like a pleasantly cluttered home. The memories dearest to her, those of her family, were the easiest to access. They were what she wanted to remember. The unpleasant truth about her husband’s work was the last thing she wanted to dwell on, so it was fairly easy to take that and never have her miss anything.
Other people built mental blocks to hide horrible things, even from themselves. Everyone had one or two, but sometimes he encountered someone with more than usual. He knew this was a way people had of protecting themselves from pain. However, in the end such blocks created complications.
The most difficult minds to enter and to extract memory from were the more organized ones. They almost always realized there were gaps.
Within the first fifteen minutes of reaching the Behavioral Analysis Unit, he encountered six of the most strictly organized minds he’d ever seen. It was delicate work, but fairly quick.
Only two of them, Derek Morgan and David Rossi seemed to immediately distrust Noah. Rossi had been doing this work for a long time, and according to the information they had, Morgan had been a police officer. Of four of the others, only Spencer Reid and Aaron Hotchner presented any real challenge for René.
If asked to explain what it was like, taking a memory from someone, René would have described it as catching smoke in his hand and wafting it away from its source. This would have sounded strange as well as difficult. Still, it would be a fairly accurate way of illustrating his power.
Removing the relevant memories from Spencer Reid’s mind was like attempting to uproot a redwood tree using a short handled spade and a chain made of dental floss. He loathed eidetic memories. If there was a follow-up to this job, it would be due to Reid, he was certain.
Aaron Hotchener did not have an eidetic memory, but he did have a distressing number of painfully well constructed blocks, some of them so old that, if they had been physically present, they would have been covered with dust.
René also hated working around scar tissue. He could do it, but it was tedious work.
By the time he had finished with the profilers and Agent Jareau, René was developing a very slight headache.
The last name on their list was Penelope Garcia.
“I will take care of it,” he told Noah, who gave him a sympathetic look.
“I’ll wait by the elevator,” Noah said.
When René appeared at her office door, Penelope smiled again.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hi there. You lost?”
“No. I am where I need to be.”
*****
The second time René saw Penelope, the Petrellis were involved. The FBI had rediscovered Sylar’s work, and due to a series of patently ridiculous accidents, Peter Petrelli had come up as a suspect. René wondered how many of the problems Primatech faced on a daily basis could be traced back to the Petrelli family. Peter was wanted, according to their information, for questioning.
When René and Noah arrived, Nathan Petrelli was already in Agent Hotchner’s office. There was really no telling how long the two had been arguing, but neither of them appeared ready to back down. Hotchner stood with his arms folded, staring glacially down at Nathan, who somehow gave the impression that he didn’t have to tilt his head back quite that far to meet Hotchner’s eyes.
“They were both lawyers,” Noah said. “If we leave them, they could be there all day.”
They opened the office door in time to hear Nathan say, “Unless I’m mistaken, these people are usually highly intelligent. I love my brother, Agent Hotchner, but I think ‘highly intelligent’ may be a bit of a stretch.”
René thanked whatever gods were listening that Peter hadn’t been present to hear that.
Noah stifled a smirk as he knocked perfunctorily on the door and entered.
Agent Hotchner looked as though he wasn’t certain whether or not to be grateful for the interruption. He frowned. “Is there something I can do for you?” There was a faint note of puzzlement in his voice.
That was common for people who had met René before.
Nathan glared at Noah. “I’m handling this, Bennet.”
“Poorly, Nathan,” Noah said easily.
“You know each other. Of course.” Hotchner pinched the bridge of his nose.
René understood. The headache, unfortunately, would soon be worse.
“We’re here to take care of this problem,” Noah said. “You see, there are things the public can’t know about. This killer you’re looking into, he is our responsibility. You don’t have to concern yourself about him anymore.”
“And you are?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
They had worked together long enough that René knew his cue when he heard it. He stood in front of Agent Hotchner, looked into his eyes and searched the locked-down cold storage of the man’s mind for the memories he needed.
Hotchner’s mouth twisted and he started at René’s light touch. “I think you should leave.” It was spoken forcefully enough, but then there was silence, as the determined set of his mouth relaxed and his eyes grew unfocused.
One down, six to go.
Not easy, by any means, to get them each alone long enough, but Noah and René had Nathan to help divide and distract them. Emily Prentiss, with her neatly compartmentalized, remarkably uncluttered thoughts; David Rossi, who on a superficial level of his mind seemed less organized than the others, but René knew from last time that this was simply a surface glamour. Derek Morgan, whose mind was open and so terribly upright, with one or two doors that were so tightly closed even the man himself might not know what was behind them; Jennifer Jareau, whose thoughts were sunlit and precise. And of course, Spencer Reid.
René wished for aspirin.
When they went to Penelope’s office, she wasn’t there.
Nathan found this amusing.
“So, what…you lurk in here until she comes back?”
René spotted a coffee cup in the trash. “Perhaps she left for coffee?”
Noah shrugged. “Why don’t I make sure Nathan gets out of here without causing any trouble?”
Nathan made an irritated noise.
Noah pretended he hadn’t heard. “While I do that, you can lurk in her office until she comes back.”
The man was funny. As Noah left with Nathan, René heard Petrelli begin talking. It actually sounded more like the beginning of an argument than a simple conversation. René enjoyed the quiet after the door closed behind them.
When the door did open, he saw that he had been right; there was a cardboard coffee cup in Penelope’s hand. She was wearing lime green and purple. René smiled and tried to look non-threatening. “Penelope?”
She paused in the doorway, reluctant to enter the room completely with a stranger there.
“I am sorry…may I talk with you?”
“Uh…yes? I mean, hi, I guess.” She laughed nervously. “Sorry. The last drop dead gorgeous guy who wanted to chat at random? Shot me. How do you know my name?”
“I asked,” he said.
“You asked?” Her lips were tugging into a smile, as if they were uncomfortable holding any other expression for long. “Why did you ask?” There was definitely a hint of playfulness in her tone.
“I….” This was why Noah usually did the talking. René didn’t have the gift of quick, casual lies. “I would ask if you would let me buy you a coffee, but I see that is not necessary,” he said, hoping to distract her.
“Okay…..well, thanks. Do I get to know your name, O mysterious, coffee offering stranger?”
“René,” he said.
“René. Nice. Love the accent.”
There was a pause, which he realized he should fill by saying something, anything.
“Listen,” she said, after the pause had lengthened into something beyond awkward. “It’s nice to meet you, René, but I really need to get back to work, and since this is my office, I kind of have to ask you to, well….you know.”
“Certainly,” he said. “There is just one more thing….”
He left her in the doorway, a soft, puzzled frown on her lips, which would no doubt smile again, soon.
Perhaps it was time he considered other work.
*****
René could tell Noah was thoroughly exasperated. All that work - twice - and a simple error on the end of Primatech’s computer tech division meant that the information the FBI had been building about Sylar was just waiting for someone to stumble across it.
Of course, someone did.
On their third visit in as many weeks, roughly half of the BAU was away on another job altogether. When René had been told they only needed to contain three people, he had hoped that Agent Reid wouldn’t be one of them. Extracting his memories always gave René such a headache. Of course, he knew that life was rarely as simple as one wanted. He caught Reid unawares by the coffee machine. The scent of the coffee, burnt and institutional made him wrinkle his nose. No wonder Penelope preferred to go out for hers.
At least it didn’t take too long, this time. They hadn’t pieced everything together quite yet, so there was less to uproot.
Once René was finished with Spencer Reid, he went to Agent Hotchner’s office, sighing at how quickly this particular place was beginning to feel like a second office away from the office.
Noah was already speaking with Agent Hotchner, who was listening with an icy, impenetrable set to his features.
“You’re not supposed to know about any of this,” Noah was saying when René opened the door. “And yet you keep putting it together. Either your people are very, very good, or my people are very, very clumsy.”
Agent Hotchner lifted his chin. “My people are the best.”
“I appreciate that you think that,” Noah said ruefully. “But frankly that gives my people too much credit.”
René wondered how often the human mind could take what he did to it in such a short period. Sandra Bennet had begun to develop problems after years of being subjected to René’s talent. These people were receiving weekly visits.
Noah waited unobtrusively by the elevator after they left Hotchner’s office while René went to take care of Penelope.
He could hear her talking with someone before he reached the door. It turned out to be a young man with messy black hair. He was wearing glasses and the worst shirt and tie combination René had ever seen. From the familiar way the man was leaning over Penelope’s shoulder, his fingers lightly toying with the ringlets down her back, René guessed that he was a boyfriend.
He reminded himself that he barely knew Penelope, and that he had no right to be jealous.
René listened for a moment. If they were discussing anything having to do with Sylar, René would have to take care of this man, too. But no, after only a few moments he realized they were discussing inanities.
Penelope wrinkled her nose adorably and laughed at something her boyfriend whispered into her ear.
“Excuse me,” René said. “I am sorry to interrupt. I believe Agent Hotchner would like to speak with you.”
They both turned when he spoke. The boy paled. “Me? Uh…why?”
“No, sweetie,” Penelope said. “He means me. I’ll see you later.”
The boy made as if to kiss her, then halted, clearly unsure of the propriety of such an action. René barely refrained from glaring, or possibly rolling his eyes the way Claire sometimes did.
“Um…kay.” Penelope’s boyfriend finally said. “See you.”
René smiled tightly at him when he squeezed past, then stepped aside to allow Penelope to precede him down the hall.
“Are you new here?” Penelope said. “I thought I knew everyone.” She smiled, reflexively friendly, automatically welcoming.
“I am,” he said.
“How do you like it?”
“The…people are nice.” René said. He had her alone; he simply had to finish the job.
She grinned slyly at him. “Okay, you totally don’t sound convinced of that. If it’s Hotch, don’t worry. He seems a little distant when you first meet him, but he’s a really sweet guy. Funny, too.”
René coughed politely, which apparently struck her as hilarious.
“Your friend seems to be afraid of him,” he pointed out.
“Kevin’s braver than he looks,” she said easily enough. “He’s actually Batman. The visible fear is just a clever ruse so no one discovers his secret identity.”
“Ah, but you figured it out,” René said.
“But of course! I’m a genius and a miracle worker! No ruse is clever enough to fool the likes of me!”
“Miracle worker?”
“Yeah, they only call me that because I do miracles. It’s a thing. I hardly like to bring it up.”
He realized they had stopped walking at the same moment she did. So quickly that he might have imagined it, shy uncertainty clouded Penelope’s face.
“Um. So. Hotch,” she said.
“Never mind him,” René said, mourning the loss of their light banter. “Just, wait one second.”
One of these times, he wished he could leave her with something nice, something other than vague puzzlement and a slowly building headache.
*****
It was several months later that René found himself at Penelope’s apartment door with Noah.
“Reduced to stealing comic books from law-abiding techno geeks,” Noah sighed. “Hiro Nakamura would strenuously disapprove.”
Hiro would indeed. René felt it was indicative of some great truth about life that the most morally upright people he knew continued to be those who were also the most naïve. Take Peter Petrelli, for example. There was a man who had made an art out of being easy to manipulate, and yet René could hardly see an instance where he himself would not at least trust the man’s motives.
Peter Petrelli would disapprove of stealing comic books from law-abiding techno geeks as well.
Noah raised his hand to knock again when the door opened, revealing Penelope Garcia in fuscia pajamas with cartoon platypuses on them. Her hair had been colored the exact, vibrant shade of a new penny.
She giggled when she saw them. “Yeah, thanks boys, I don’t need any insurance.”
Noah smiled. “We’re not trying to sell you anything.”
“Okay. You aren’t looking for recruits are you? I’ve heard that about Republicans.”
“What? No, we’re not-”
“You’re not a Republican? Okay, really. You’re not a Republican? I work for the FBI. I know a Republican when I see one.”
Noah shook his head, fighting a laugh. “Listen, this has nothing to do with politics. We’re here about your Isaac Mendez comic books.”
Her eyebrows disappeared into her bangs. “You really don’t seem the type.”
“I’m really not.” Noah admitted.
“Okay…..look, I don’t know why you’re really here, but I do think it’s kind of freaky that you know I have comic books at all, much less whose work I’ve collected, and since I really do work for the FBI, I suggest you leave before I have to call someone.”
“He died under bizarre circumstances,” René said. “Isaac Mendez. His work was left unfinished.”
She was looking only at him, now. “Everyone knows that. It’s no secret.”
“Tell me, what did you think of his work?”
“It’s pretty much widely agreed that he had some great ideas, but little to no follow through. Some people blame that on his drug habit. There were new characters popping up all the time, but most of them seemed to be little more than window dressing. He was terrible at picking names, which is one theory behind why Hiro Nakamura was so popular - it’s hard to identify with characters that are known only as The Cheerleader or The Flying Man or The Haitian or The Man with the Horn Rimmed…..
“Oh. My. God.” She looked from René to Noah, then back again. “You’re them! The Man with the…..and you’re The Haitian!”
“René, please.”
“And you have a name! I mean, of course you do, you’re a person and people have names and his name has nothing to do with glasses at all, does it? And, and the Cheerleader? She’s real, too? And the Flying Man and, wow, Mendez really hated giving you guys names, didn’t he? Or was it that he was trying to protect your identities or something like that? I mean, geez, government conspiracies are nothing compared to the cover-up the Company has going on….”
René smiled at her breathless enthusiasm, but it was a small, bitter expression. Penelope was too quick to miss the import of their visit. Even before she stopped speaking, the light in her incredible eyes was being replaced with suspicion.
“And you’re here. To see me. Which means that I know something I shouldn’t.”
When it became evident René couldn’t answer, Noah stepped in. “I’m afraid that’s so, Ms. Garcia. We need your collection. Just anything you have that pertains to Isaac Mendez.”
“This is because of how he died. What that awful man did to him. Why? I’m not into that kind of thing, you know. True crime? Not my thing at all. I work with people who catch killers. I see enough of the horrible things people do to one another there. I don’t go looking for it in my free time.”
Of course, she almost immediately answered her own half-posed questions. “The man who did that….it’s the man from the story isn’t it? The one who cuts people open to steal their powers…he’s really out there, isn’t he? Killing. Oh god, you’re protecting him.”
She tried to slam the door shut.
René felt ill at how easy it was to force their way in. Noah searched the apartment quickly, dispassionately, until he found what they were looking for. While he did that, René was forced to keep watch over Penelope, who looked incredibly frightened and fragile in her nightclothes. She was wearing slippers made from lime green faux fur. He found it easier to focus on those than on the accusation that glittered in her eyes above her flushed cheeks.
“So. You come in here, you take my things and then you mind whammy me, right? That’s the drill, isn’t it?”
René sighed. “Yes. I am sorry.”
“No, you’re not. If you were capable of being sorry, you’d be trying to catch your killer, not terrorizing me in my apartment on a Thursday night.”
“I am sorry. I admire you. I do not like having to do this to you.”
“Admire me? You don’t even know me.” Anger was beginning to overcome her initial fear.
“I always enjoy our conversations,” René said wistfully.
She paled. “Our conversations. How many times, exactly, have we met?”
“I found them,” Noah said softly.
“How many times have you mind whammied me?” Penelope demanded, ignoring Noah completely.
“We are not protecting him,” René said. “We are protecting you. He is dangerous.”
“Yeah, okay, except, you’re the ones invading my apartment, rooting through my personal things and getting ready to erase pieces of me.”
She was right.
She was right and beautiful and angry.
And then she was only right and beautiful. She had stopped being angry, for the simple reason that she couldn’t recall what she had been angry about.
René and Noah left, neither of them speaking until they had reached the car.
“She’s safer this way,” Noah said.
“I do not enjoy my job,” René said. “I do not think I ever have.”
*****
Noah had called, with a jumble of partial information about the Petrellis and Sylar, and a request that René meet him for coffee. Noah usually revealed little over the phone. That wasn’t what was worrying René, precisely.
It was the flatness in his former partner’s voice that made him nervous about meeting.
They sat at a table together in a cute, brightly decorated restaurant. Noah wasn’t quite fidgeting, but he was having a difficult time looking up from his mug of coffee. He hadn’t put any cream or sugar in it, but nevertheless his fingers went to light on the spoon the waitress had brought, moving it about slightly.
René had never felt quite so afraid of hearing what might come out of Noah’s mouth.
“Sylar won’t be a problem anymore,” he said finally, still not meeting René’s eyes.
“That is a good thing,” René said eventually.
Noah sighed. “You remember Nathan Petrelli?”
René raised an eyebrow. The question would have made him laugh, if he hadn’t been so busy watching Noah avoid looking away from the depths of his mug. Eventually, Noah began to speak, softly. René had to lean forward to hear all of it.
He was shaking his head before Noah had even finished. “No. I cannot be a part of this.”
Noah looked up, and René wondered at how the man seemed to have aged since they’d seen one another last.
“I don’t like it, either, but this is necessary. It’s the only way to keep everyone safe. Your people won’t have to worry about a monster coming for them; my people won’t have to worry about trying to hide his activity from the world. Sylar’s contained. Everyone wins. But without your help, I don’t know how long we can do this. Parkman’s….having some difficulties accepting his role in this.”
René was almost certain Matt Parkman was not the only one having such trouble. He didn’t press it, however. He didn’t want to expose Noah’s own vulnerability, nor did he particularly care to ask after Angela Petrelli’s guilt in this ugly matter.
Mostly, he was simply distracted by the bright laughter coming from a table not far from them where Penelope Garcia was just sitting down with Agent Jareau. They were leaning close together, giggling like school girls.
René looked from them, from Penelope’s open, lovely smile, to Noah’s still features. It would be blatantly manipulative of the man to invite him here to ask this of him, if he had known that Penelope might be here.
“Every Tuesday, they have lunch here,” Noah said. “It took me no time at all to find that out, on my own. Sylar - Nathan - works in this town. Who knows what he might notice, given enough time? We have reason to believe he had information about the interest the FBI was taking in him.”
It could be a lie. René thought it wasn’t important, one way or another. He reminded himself that he had once considered Noah Bennet to be a friend, and that the desperation that had driven Noah to this was due to his love for his daughter, not loyalty to the Company. He did his best to ignore the anger and the sense of surprised betrayal he could feel at this unworthy trick.
“Once,” he finally said. “I will do this thing for you once. Tell Angela Petrelli that I will be unavailable in the future. No matter whom you might think to dangle in front of me. How can I possibly care about the potential danger Ms. Garcia is in? As you recall, I never actually met the lady.”
Noah saw through it, but he nodded. “Of course. I’ll advise Angela of your position on this matter.”
He stood to leave, taking a wrinkled ten out of his wallet and setting it on the table. He tucked his wallet away, and the set of his mouth changed, went from a blank line to a soft, sad smile. “I can’t actually thank you enough for everything you’ve done for my family. Maybe I should have started there, instead of this?”
“Maybe you should have. But then, I might have suspected you were not who you said you were.”
Noah nodded. “Wait until you see Nathan.”
He left. René watched him disappear into the stream of people outside, and then finished his coffee slowly. He was still there half an hour later when Penelope and Agent Jareau began to gather themselves together to leave. On their way to the door, something flashed and fell from the improbably brazen orange of Penelope’s hair.
He picked it up and followed them into the afternoon. It was a small clip with what appeared to be purple tinsel and sequins interspersed with feathers on it.
“Miss,” he called. “Miss, you dropped this….”
They were already down the block, chattering and laughing together.
René closed his hand around the bright bit of fancy and walked the other way.
-END-
Prompt:
Five people Character A never met