Noah (hellboundlife) wrote in commandhq, @ 2018-03-17 10:52:00 |
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Calvin Banner was a kid of the streets that much was true but just because he hadn’t had a full education didn’t mean he was an idiot. Far from it in fact. He just had a different type of intelligence, one born of having to survive in places and with people who if you didn’t keep your wits about you then you were as good as dead. He and his fellow Outsiders had been taken against their will, slapped into cuffs, implanted with control and forced to be soldiers for a cause they most definitely did not sign up for.
He wasn’t happy and he definitely wasn’t the type to sit by idly, not when there were opportunities and chances to seize said opportunities. One thing he needed to understand first and foremost was how far things needed to go before a handler would activate a limiter because once he knew that he’d have a better understanding of how much flexibility they had to work with.
Probably not much but some was better than none.
This whole deal with some guy called Eric pretending to be a super while wearing handler clothes had definitely pitched the already unstable ship of inmates onto a precarious ledge. One that if pushed right could see it go right over. Cal just needed to pick the right moment and manipulate the situation so he didn’t look at fault and was “reacting” rather than “causing” because he knew that they were already looking at the Outsiders under a magnifying glass. He wasn’t about to give them any more excuses to pick at them.
He’d filled up his tray with an assortment of food and drink and waited, patiently surprisingly enough, and when the right moment he turned on his heel and positioned himself so that the guy behind him, Hector he thought he’d heard, slammed straight into him. The result? His tray flipped up and it wasn’t long until Cal was showered with food and drink.
“What the fuck, man?” He bit out, feigned annoyance clear on his face and in his body language.
---
Hector was ignoring the hub-bub of Eric returning back to the general population not as a handler but as an agent the same as them. He tried not to let any of it get to him -- he’d gone years in the Regiment believing certain things to be his own personal truth. But the fact that a super had gone through the system so long without being discovered was a surprise to him. The tiny seed of doubt that Nicky had planted in him was growing still at the idea that Eric would’ve used his powers against them to make them more compliant. More easy to listen to the more outlandish ideas that Eric would come up with when it came to his powers -- even though Nicky was saying that it was a joke. There was still the fear there.
Not to mention the most important thing. The most wounding thing to him. He was still considered a joke by the other supers. Hector was not the most confident and he wasn’t nearly the most powerful there. He knew there were people that could overpower him. Hector had lived most of his life in the Regiment. All of his adult life there. Having people that poked fun at him unnecessarily was something that he was used to. But having a teammate do it so openly seemed to make it so much worse.
Hector had the habit of making himself smaller then he was. Head bowed and shoulders hunched as he walked around the facility most of the time. Usually more tense than relaxed when it came to larger crowds or highly populated areas that people tended to congregate in as he carried on his way before colliding with the younger man. One of the newer people to the Regiment before his grip tightened a bit on his own tray. “I’m…” Hector stuttered out as he looked at the mess he had made. “I’m sorry I can…” He moved grabbing some napkins off his own tray and holding them out for Cal.
---
The guy he'd picked for this particular ruse couldn't have looked any more downtrodden if he'd tried and for a brief flash of a moment Cal felt bad, but then he remembered why and who he was doing this for and that trumped everything else.
He eyed the napkins with an incredulous expression before he decided that maybe the only way to get this going was to be a complete asshole, wasn't like he was here to make friends after all.
"Only really one way to make this fair," Cal shared as he reached out to hit the tray clasped in the other man's hands. Fair was fair, right? And maybe just maybe it would be enough.
Cal honestly didn’t care if he came across like a dick, it was kind of the cross he had to bear if it meant it got him and the Outsiders one step closer to being free.
---
Hector honestly wasn’t aware of the situation that the other man was in. He had learned whatever chips or history that the other supers carried with them when they came into the Regiment. People were captured and all of that. Families were torn apart. But Hector couldn’t remember what his parents looked or sounded like. If they were alive or dead. He was used to that. Seeing different faces that would come and go from this place was something that the ‘lifers’ were used to.
The kids who talked about leaving here would be the same way when they were his age. Other kids used to talk about leaving too. Talk of escape plans and trying to get out of there, even when he lived in the youth facility. Kids would talk about being able to go home. But this had become his home for decades now.
He was waiting for Cal to take the napkins and the rush of apologies that would spew from his mouth. That typically spewed from his mouth when things like this happened. His brow arched slightly when Cal said that before his tray was tipped over and he could feel his blood pressure spike a bit. He balled his fists tightly, white-knuckled.
He was used to this.
He told himself that he was used to this. With how Nicky had treated his nervousness as a joke. To watch Eric trample over the trust he had built with his team. To what was going on right now, it was all too much. His eyes had flashed a different color than their usual brown. Nicky. Eric. Cal were all now in his thoughts over and over again. He was only patient for so long.
Or that’s what he told himself. Nicky, Eric, Cal. Every sort of bullshit he had gone through his life as well but those were the ones that stung the most currently before he shifted and what stood there wasn’t the bumbling looking man before but something that looked like it was ripped out of the movies, moving to reach out and toss the kid across the room before his limiter was activated.
-----
To be fair to Cal he was the first and only encounter that Hector had had with him but it was what was needed, especially for Cal to truly understand the limits and how far things needed to be pushed until their limiters were activated. He most definitely had a oh shit moment when Hector's eye colour changed and the previously quiet almost meek man was replaced by nothing short of a monster that only your worst nightmares could and did conjure up.
Well, fuck.
That was the last thought in Cal's mind as he was unceremoniously thrown across the room just in time to watch as Hector's limiter was activated. Huh so that's how far things needed to go, good to know. Of course that was hard to think as he made a rather solid if not altogether painful impact on the nearby wall. If not for the fact he'd cushioned the movement with a quick sweep of his hand and a pocket of air he might have come off a lot worse.
The strange thing was that as Cal was hauled to his feet and taken out of the cafeteria he was smirking. Mission accomplished, for better or worse, whatever happened next didn't matter because he'd gotten what he wanted.