‘ sit still or this isn’t going to work, ’ she says with a laugh, pulling her sharpie away from the skin of carter’s forearm momentarily. only a second later she resumes drawing the sigil on carter’s arm, as they’d discussed. ‘ this will only take a moment, i promise. ’
things you said when they took me away ( eyes emoji )
it’s the clanging of the loud iron door that draws cameron from his stupor – nearly two decades of suppressors having taken a toll on mind and body. but that door rarely opened. this area was reserved for the guardians, by order of valentine geroux. and the guardians had ( almost ) all been captured years ago; only three remained, to anyone’s knowledge. hannah, who by technicality wasn’t a metahuman and, unlike the others, could switch her abilities on and off. jamie mcmorrow, the kid of the team, who had been urged to flee with his family at the first sign of danger -- but knowing his track record was likely hiding out in the shadows in graywater waiting for his chance even after all this time. the kid had a way of making himself invisible when needed.
and carter, who cameron knew valentine wanted for himself. who valentine wanted so viciously, so selfishly, he’d personally had a role in turning the vulfe family over to the feds when they came to graywater to eliminate the metahuman threat.
he hoped she’d escaped on that fateful night so fucking many years ago, but he had never heard one way or another.
he gave everything to protect her, to protect their daughter. grayson vulfe, then an infant, would be nearly an adult by now – and cameron had missed out on most of her life. he doubted he would ever see either of them again.
but if they were safe, if they’d avoided the purge of metahumans from graywater city and society, then it was okay. that made it worth it. a lifetime of interactions with his wife and daughter in exchange for their safety and wellbeing.
he drags himself from the old cot and almost as if on autopilot his weak, atrophied legs carry him from the wall to the thick iron bars of his cell. through them he can see the other guardian captives – miles, jackson, elliot – likewise rousing themselves to see what the commotion is about, each of them fatigued, weakened, malnourished in their own ways.
a long while ago they were more talkative, more chatty. scheming, plotting, trying to figure out any way to get out of here and get themselves back home. that was all they wanted, really. they just wanted to go home.
but the chatter had long since stopped. there was nothing left to talk about. hope had run thin and any chance of escape went out the door with it. now there was only the occasional mindless drone of speech just to give them something to do, maybe to sometimes reminisce on life before this, but cameron rarely participated.
between the suppressors, the rationed food, the cruel tests valentine randomly selected him for, the beatings from the guards that seemed so much worse for him than for other guardians, the fact that his daughter was a grown human now who he had hardly even known as a toddler -- cameron’s spirit had been broken, perhaps irrevocably.
now all that was left was to stare back at each other with sunken, hollow eyes, the only real sign of the passage of time being the graying hairs and the lines of grief and age etching their way onto the faces of his friends.
and then they drag her in.
she’s older, of course, but it’s still her. the fiery way she moves, even with her limbs restrained and likely bound by a current suppressing her abilities. the lion-like roar of her voice as she fights and struggles so characteristically her.
life floods into cameron’s veins the moment he sees and hears her. carter. his wife. the mother of his child.
they had her. but if she was here -- ?
‘ carter!! ’ he calls, and the two lock eyes.
‘ cameron! ’ she shrieks back, her struggle picking up in intensity -- and the guards only restraining her further.
he reaches outstretched fingers through the bars of his cell, praying just to even touch her, verify she was really here, was really alive, that this wasn’t a hallucination. filled all at once with a complex array of emotions; love, relief, fury. concern. if she’s here, where’s grayson?
where’s grayson?
as the guards drag carter past, cameron shouts for her again. ‘ where is she? ’ he yells. ‘ carter, where is she? where is she? where is she?? ’
carter doesn’t answer the question and deep down cameron knows why. to do so would be to put their daughter at risk. carter’s silence though reassures him of one thing -- grayson is alive, somewhere.
‘ i’ll get you out of here! ’ carter yells back at him. ‘ i love you! i love you! ’
‘ carter -- it’s him -- don’t do anything he says -- carter i love -- ’
one of the passing guards shouts something and turns to cameron with a rifle, lashing through the bars at him. the buttstock of the rifle meets the side of his head with a crack and he crumples to the floor.
by the time he comes to, carter is long gone.
he curls into a ball there on the cold cement and sobs openly.
i hear the girl behind foxveined is a pretty good personal trainer who’s clients always make her feel really good because they always leave in great moods, work really hard, and get really good results.
i’ve also heard she can deadlift almost twice her own bodyweight.
“Anyone who thinks the pen is mightier than the sword has not been stabbed with both.”
‘ you sound as if you speak from experience, my queen, ’ he says with a quirk of his eyebrow and a teasing lilt in his voice. ‘ at least swords are generally predictable. being stabbed with a pen is not something one generally expects. ’
“--- i’m gonna go out on a limb and say i’m not s’posed t’be here. buuut, since i’m lost, i’m also gonna hope i get a pass?” she grins sheepishly. this is what she gets for poking her nose into anything vaguely supernatural she could find. it was in her nature - while it burns her about half the time, she can’t resist. it’s too funny when regular humans get it wrong.