Who: Luke, Thomas and Max What: Discussing the Oracle situation and Luke avoiding things like a pro. Where: OAH 3. When: During the blackout, after this call. Warnings: None.
Getting to the hospital was an adventure in itself. Luke knew there was a risk in driving himself considering he didn’t know what he’d been drugged with, but his cell was completely useless and he had no idea where the driver was. He ended up taking the bike, sticking to the main roads when he could and finding detours when he couldn’t. The lack of streetlights made things dangerous but he managed to make it to the hospital within fifteen minutes, only encountering a couple near-misses and screeching halts on the way.
The hospital was nearly as bad as Aubade in terms of darkness, and Luke waited in a corner for his eyes to adjust before trying to find Max’s room on his own. Doctors and nurses moved about the hallways, exiting and entering various rooms along the way, but he dodged them to the best of his ability. He didn’t have the patience for obstacles right now. Fortunately the stairwells were empty so he could move faster, without having to worry about his echoing footsteps alerting anyone nearby.
Luke finally found the right room with a little help from the flashlight, pausing to knock first. “It’s just me,” he said as he pushed the door open, just enough so that he could slip inside.
Max had reached for the gun tucked in the back of her pants when she heard the steps nearing the door, sparing time for a quick glance at Thomas. She was just raising the gun when Luke spoke, and it was gone as fast as it had materialized. She crossed the distance between the incubator and the door without any hesitation, and she put a reassuring hand on Luke’s shoulder and then ruffled his hair quickly as she passed him. She’d been worried about him, and it was evident in the quickly-awkward affectionate gesture.
She wanted to get a look at him in better light, because Max knew from experience that the type of poison he had described on the phone had to be a hallucinogen of some sort. She wanted to get a look at his eyes, specifically, at the pupils. He’d said he was fine, but that didn’t appease her, and if she’d known he’d ridden the motorcycle she would have lectured along with the hair ruffle. As it was, she closed the door completely and pulled her iTouch out. Networks might be down, but she didn’t need those. She scribbled on the screen with the stylus and brought up the lights just over where Thomas was, so Thomas could get a good look at the kid. She leaned back against the door, keeping anyone from pushing it open without warning.
Constant in his unwrinkled button-up and slacks, Thomas recognized the flicker of the iTouch, bizarre as it was, and didn’t flinch under the newly bright lighting. His attention sharpened toward Luke at the door as he moved a few steps forward to meet the boy (he still thought of him as ‘boy’). The gaze was disconcerting in its intensity, perhaps because it had been so dim in the weeks past. The contrast was sudden, even with Thomas’ familiar grave expression, and behind him the little pink bundle in the plastic box was watching with large dark eyes.
“Any lingering effects?” He took Luke’s shoulder and pulled him into the light, lifting his chin so his eyes were forced into it and he could see pupil movement. He seemed more comfortable than he ever had before with people in general, less likely to stand back awkwardly.
A brief sort of half-smile crossed Luke’s face at Max’s gesture, and his gaze went to the incubator for a moment before he turned towards Thomas. The flicker of the iTouch didn’t register and Luke was still under the assumption that he couldn’t see properly, so the combination of the lights and his unexpectedly intense gaze caught him off guard. He hadn’t been looked at like that in more than a month.
Before Luke could say anything the light was in his eyes and he squinted instinctively, resisting the urge to pull back and shield his eyes. “Uh… I don’t think so. I made it here fine,” he added with a shrug. “Since when can you see?” His tone was somewhere between accusatory and relieved, and he glanced towards Max in an unspoken question of how long she’d known about it.
As soon as Thomas was done looking, Max lowered the lights again, not wanting to risk them up for too long, since the windows would reflect the glow. “I wasn’t told in advance either,” she told Luke, tucking the iTouch back into her pocket and crossing her arms a little guardedly, but not moving away from the door. “Verdict?” she asked Thomas, in reference to Luke’s eyes, the worry evident in the question. She mouthed Oracle, reminding Thomas that Luke didn’t know the woman was missing, and leaving the telling (or not telling) up to him.
Thomas watched Luke’s eyes move and said, a little suspiciously, “We should still get them to do blood work just in case.” He dropped his hands and looked faintly guilty for a split-second. “Not that long. I came to find Max after the healer left.” Thomas sighed and looked back at Amanda as if to make sure she was still there. His gaze refocused on Luke. It never crossed his mind not to tell Luke. “Oracle is missing. We think it might be connected to Mockingbird.”
“I don’t need--” Luke cut himself off mid-protest and sighed instead. It would be a lot easier to just let them do whatever instead of complaining about it, though he was far from worried about himself at the moment. All thoughts of healers and Thomas’ newly improved vision were shoved to the side when Oracle was mentioned, and his mind immediately went to Quinn. “She’s missing? You think she was kidnapped by Mockingbird or something?” The possibility that Oracle was Mockingbird hadn’t occurred to him just yet. “Are there any leads?”
“I’ll go get one of the nurses to draw blood,” she told them. It was one of the convenient things about Thomas’ connection to the hospital - it gave them some benefits that they wouldn’t otherwise have. “I’ll knock before we come back in,” she said, closing the door behind her, trusting Thomas to keep an eye on the baby while she was gone.
Thomas nodded at Max, his thoughts obviously echoing hers. Once the door closed, he looked back at Luke and his question about Mockingbird. His eyes were steady, still acute. “Something like that. The timing isn’t good, Luke. All this started after the hotel incident with Max and Oracle. Max has had more medical tests in the last few weeks than anyone can ever have. She’s not affected. Quinn reports that Oracle hasn’t been feeling well.”
Luke barely paid attention to Max’s departure, intent on learning as much as he could about Oracle’s disappearance and everything else that was going on. There was little doubt in his mind by this point that the blackout was a coincidence, and it suggested that there was something bigger than just one person behind all this. “No one ever figured out what that was about,” he said, more to himself than to Thomas. Considering that the hotel disaster coincided with the mask killer and Thomas’ disappearance, he’d all but forgotten about it until later. He was silent for a long moment until the implication finally sunk in. “You think… Oracle could be Mockingbird?”
Thomas nodded grimly. “I don’t know if you knew, but short of Anton Sparke and your friend Bly, she’s the only person I know of capable of creating a blackout of this magnitude undetected. There are other possibilities that I’m looking into, but with her missing, she must be connected in some way or form.” Thomas paused, but only for a second. “If she is Mockingbird, she’s not doing this of her own free will.” A harsh, protective note came through Thomas’ addition.
“I didn’t know.” It wasn’t easy to think that Oracle might have been involved all this time, possibly even doling out threats herself; yet truthfully Luke trusted her primarily because Quinn and Thomas did. While he couldn’t imagine her doing anything to hurt her own daughter, never mind the rest of the vigilantes, why wouldn’t she have said something? Even if she was being forced or threatened, she of all people should have known that they could help. “No,” he agreed after a pause. “I can’t see her doing this willingly. That doesn’t change the fact that she knows practically everything about us, and if someone’s forcing her to do what they want…” He sighed. “How are we supposed to find her?”
“Same way we would try to find anyone else. Go to her residence, try to track things from there; I believe that one of her other friends is already on that. Track her movements and doings as best we can since the point of diversion.” He nodded a little. “We’re already working on those as best we can. There is one thing your friend Ratchet can assist with, hopefully, and that’s Oracle’s tech. Do you think you can contact him outside the comms?”
The answer was so glaringly obvious that Luke regretted even asking. It was always the same, wasn’t it? They’d do the best they could with what they had. With any luck something of substance would be found, because he knew how frustrating it was otherwise. “Right. That’s good.” He assumed Quinn was out looking already, and Chief West was likely one of those ‘other friends’. “Yeah, of course I can. I’ll ask him about it but I know he’ll help however he can.”
“Thank you.” Thomas was getting better at gratitude, as well. He smiled at Luke, another bizarre revelation that made his otherwise sharp gaze soften a little. “I’m glad there don’t seem to be any ill-effects from whatever you drank.” Thomas turned a little to put his palms on the warm plastic of the incubator as he spoke, automatic.
The knock at the door was soft and quick, and Max preceded the nurse in, just to be safe. The woman was older, matronly, and she fussed and clucked over Luke as she drew his blood, Max rubbed a hand over the center of his back, even as she glanced toward the incubator to ensure the baby was okay. Once the woman was done, she retreated with her needle and tubes, promising results shortly, and Max waited until the door was closed to speak. She didn’t, however, ask about Oracle. Instead, she looked at Luke. “What were you scared of when you called?” she asked him.
“You’re… welcome.” As if the gratitude wasn’t enough Thomas’ smile only added to his surprise, though it was far from unpleasant. Luke was just as glad that whatever he’d been drugged with seemed to be temporary, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out why there seemed to be something different about the way Thomas was acting even aside from his newly restored vision. He regarded the pink-wrapped baby for a moment before the knock came and his attention was averted, fighting back a frown at the sight of the nurse and her needle. He was far from thrilled about having his blood taken but didn’t complain, opting to sit quietly until the nurse had finished and left the room.
Max’s question caught him off guard, and he stared at her for a moment before shaking his head. “Nothing,” he said, slightly resentful of her use of the word ‘scared’. “I just wanted to make sure you guys were okay.”
Thomas hadn’t been aware that Luke had been hallucinating bad enough to fear anything, and he looked up with a concerned tilt to his brows. Thomas had reason to know that hallucinations were reality, at least for a little while. It gave him uncomfortable memories, and he joined both in the center of the room where Luke was sitting after the nurse departed. He didn’t say anything, not just then.
Max realized almost as soon as she implied he’d been scared that it was the wrong thing to say, so she wasn’t surprised by the resentful tone. She glanced up at Thomas when he neared, and then she sat on the bed beside Luke and looked over at him. She was worried, and it showed on her face. There was something about how all this shit was affecting the kid that made her uneasy, like he was crumbling right before their eyes somehow, and it had nothing to do with how strong he was, because that wasn’t it at all. “I didn’t mean it that way,” she said. “I was just asking what you saw,” she assured him. “Bad word choice on my part.”
Luke didn’t understand the point of rehashing what he’d seen, especially right now. Oracle was missing and probably being held captive by someone using her for their own gain, Quinn was likely out there when she was a mess herself, and he had no idea if Bly and his other friends were getting through the blackout okay. What if Mockingbird followed through on her threats for them too? He wasn’t blind to Max’s worry and he knew she meant well, but he did think it was misplaced all the same. “Does it matter?” Luke looked between the two of them and sighed. “It wasn’t that bad. Besides, it’s over now anyway.”
Max glanced from Luke to Thomas. She was doing a shitty job at this today, and she was pretty sure she was just making it worse. She stood from the edge of the bed, and she made a move to put a hand on Luke’s shoulder, but she stopped herself awkwardly at the last minute. “Didn’t mean to make things worse, kid,” she said honestly and more than a little guiltily. Maybe she was still feeling sorry for herself from the conversation with Thomas. Whatever the reason, she wasn’t doing anyone any fucking favors by being there, and she nodded toward the door. “I’m going check on the bloodwork and see if I can’t get West or Audrey on the phone.”
Thomas looked troubled, but it wasn’t in his nature to pursue that kind of thing with Luke. He could imagine how mortified he’d be if Max had insisted upon going over what he’d seen in the Mask Killer’s hole. After a moment he looked away. “Let us know if you feel anything odd, Luke. Anything at all. We don’t know what they’ve done yet, and I don’t want to find out too late.”