seekevolution | The Storm

The Storm

"Mohinder! Mohinder! It's too much!" the little girl protested from her bedroom after one of her adoptive fathers (paper work having gone through thanks to Matt's singular talent) nearly tackled her to rub sunscreen into her fair skin. "I can't breathe! It's in my nose!"

Mohinder more or less ignored her cries, rubbing more of the white cream into the areas behind her ears. "You'll thank me when you're not a lobster tomorrow."

"But we're wasting time! Matt's already pulled up the car and packed it!" She might be young, but that didn't mean she wasn't already imagining herself like the girls on the Disney Channel with tanned skin and sun-bleached hair. It'd started with lipstick and red nail polish and a two piece bathing suit he'd given into only because he's force her to wear a little jacket when not in the water. And a hat.

"He'll wait for us," Mohinder said as he clucked his tongue, dressed in white shorts and an orange collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up, though left open with his chest bare beneath. He had on a pair of sandals too, certainly looking ready for the beach. If only Molly would cooperate!

"And if he doesn't?"

"We'll think of a proper punishment. All right, there you are, bring a change of shoes in case the car gets too cold on the drive."

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Worried, yes. Worried even more since he was trying not to think about it. But it was in that silence those thoughts and feelings were the loudest, and he hadn't realized he was pacing again until Peter appeared and pointed it out.

Well, at least he was getting used to the younger man appearing and disappearing the way he did. He ran a hand through his hair, made a noise that probably sounded like "Yeah", and after eating some they were more or less on their way.

There was the notion of what if they were carriers - but Matt dismissed it pretty quickly. No one was likely to come back for survivors for days, and during that time those people would get infected anyway. If him and Peter weren't contagious they had a chance to help.

Almost all the stores were looted, but not all very thoroughly, and scavenging for some additional canned goods and bottles of water took a while. Neither of them complained since it was something to do that had a goal in sight.

Still, the sun was on its way down when they set out. Matt had given Peter one of the flashlights for later. Most of loot was in the apartment - it was too risky to carry around with so many people desperate for it - but Peter could teleport back and forth for it as they went. Having an intensely superpowered friend had its advantages.

Cause yeah, Matt would probably count Peter among his friends by then.

They'd worked themselves up to the tenth floor of the first building they chose to enter when they had their first real encounter with someone else, having managed to stay below the radar for the most part, and it was a tense one.

Matt reached out, pulled Peter back. "There's someone here", he whispered, motioning for him to stay quiet, and they both heard the fractured thinking further down the hall. Who's there, go away, I'll kill you, fucking conspiracy--

Telepathy was not a power Peter used often. Trying to tap into Matt's feelings when he used it were more confusing than Sylar's when he accessed his telekinesis ability. Besides, they crossed streams too often when they did and the feedback could cause nosebleeds. Peter wasn't fond of it and he knew that Matt wasn't either.

Picking their way through empty...or not so empty...apartments wasn't exactly one of the highlights of the day. Peter knew better than to try and bury the dead this time. Reconstruction from this disaster was a national effort. He just didn't have the time to do it, no matter how much he'd like to keep these people from rotting in air conditionless studios and one bedrooms.

They came across some goods in those places, too. Toilet paper, water, packages of cereal not yet opened--

Peter didn't really think he was infected any how as he followed Matt up the stairs. Going down was going to be so much simpler. They could teleport after all! He'd been reading up on it. Airbourne viruses lived in the lungs but if the virus couldn't latch onto cells and replicate, there was very small chance they could pass it on.

Besides. If they just left supplies in the hall, everything would be all right.

Or that was the though, at least, before Matt stopped him.

Peter scanned the walls with his eyes and nodded. Yeah, he heard a voice too. Mental disconnects. Parsing issues. Fear. "I'll go." What's the worst that could happen? Peter held a bottle of water in one hand and the other lifted as he rounded the corner. He didn't even get a word out before he was shot in the center of his chest with a shotgun.

This wasn't a good start.

Matt reacted immediately and on instinct. Drawing his own gun, he stepped out from behind the wall, took aim and yelled "Drop your weapon!" at the young woman who was staring at Peter, flat on his back in a pool of blood.

She shivered for a moment before she aimed the shotgun at Matt, who reached out to her mentally. She was scared, he could tell even without reading her mind; it was evident in the wide eyes, the pale face, the slight shaking in her hands. Matt didn't dare look at Peter despite his own racing thoughts. For a moment, he'd forgotten that Peter could heal. That he'd be okay.

For a moment, he was seriously ready to shoot down a twenty-something girl who had maybe three other names in her head, people she was trying to protect. She'd killed Peter. But he didn't get to think about that.

"Who are you?" she demanded, loudly. "Go away!"

Matt grit his teeth. "We're- we're just trying to help, alright? What's your name?"

Kayleigh. She didn't say it out loud.

"You want to help us help out? Huh?" He had that voice - trying to talk someone down, urgent but soothing, reasoning. Despite not really feeling those things, he'd done this a few times and the tone came naturally. She gave him a wary look and he slowly opened his hands up so that he was no longer aiming at her. "Want to tell us how many else are in here? We just want to help. I promise. We don't want anybody to get hurt."

She looked down again at Peter, looking scared and torn, and then she let out a small scream when the buckshots were spat out of his skin.

Dying didn't hurt as much as coming back did. Sucking in that first breath was like being dragged over hot coals, singing his very bones. It was over in an instant, however, and Peter put his hand to his bloody t-shirt, giving the woman and then Matt a somewhat sheepish grin as he sat up. "Sorry, my fault," he groaned, as the gun barrels were shoved against his face.

"Get down! What is this!?" There were other, more choice words in her head. Peter wasn't about ready to find out what they were and Matt probably wasn't surprised anymore than young ladies could talk that way...even if Molly might get her mouth washed out with soap if she ever tried.

"I'm wearing a vest," Peter lied poorly. "Ugh, that hurt." There was truth to that at least! "I'm going to get up, all right? I have a backpack filled with food you can take to your friends--"

"You're trying to kill us!" she screached and Peter looked back at Matt one more time as if to ask the larger man to take care of the mess before she alerted anyone else.

Of course, that was too late. The others, just one floor up, were already on the stairwell headed their direction, alerted by the shell fired. Peter frowned. He really didn't want to have to teleport them to safety. These people needed their help.

"Matt--"

A few thoughts did finally hit him and Peter flinched in surprise. Capture. Keep. Could people fall so hard, so fast?

The moment Matt was clear on the fact that right, Peter healed, Peter was fine, his attention was again on Kayleigh who had been contemplating at least not shooting them but now felt like it was the only choice she might have.

Since, you know. Clearly Peter was ... she didn't know what to call him but it wasn't good in any way, and she was even more scared at what she'd just witnessed. Because no matter what Peter had said, she knew she'd seen the wounds disappear. His blood was everwhere, his shirt was shredded up, and there were no wounds. There was no vest. He was a freak.

He had to be connected to what was going on. To all the dead people. No one could explain the dead people, and she couldn't explain this.

Matt had his gun on her again since she'd picked up the shotgun and was just about to feed her some suggestions when he heard the steps coming down.

"You don't have to hurt us", he barked at her, verbally to help his own focus. "You don't want to hurt us. We're here to help."

She looked at him for a moment but when he turned his head and there were others - three right now, probably the names in her head, another younger woman, a teenage boy and a harsh looking man who looked a bit older than Matt - when they showed up and stared the two of them down, Matt knew there was a risk that they'd be in trouble anyway.

The older guy had a rifle. The younger two had melee weapons. A knife, a bat. Matt registered this quickly.

He slowly held his hands up in a show of good faith and since he knew the woman behind him wouldn't shoot him in the back, he turned towards them, keeping a line open for Peter just in case. Telepathy and telepathy didn't mix well but they could battle the feedback if it meant safety, if they had to.

"Hey, it's okay. I'm a cop. We just want to help. Kayleigh was going to help us do that."

"A cop? Where were you when my boy died?!" the old man said immediately and took a position in front of the younger children. They were on the edge of the river of blood that had spilled from Peter's body, but if the man noticed it, he said nothing. "Where were you when they kicked our doors down and stole what little we had yesterday?!"

Peter kept his own hands visible, fingers spread and palms down flat. He liked to think himself good at negotiations, but no matter what he was at heart, his skill was that of a hospice nurse and his heavy losses with his brother and with Katelyn and then Adam left him with no other recourse but to step to the plate...and when that happened, people got hurt.

He was tired of it and looked instead towards his friend for cues. For a moment at least. Peter couldn't keep his mouth shut.

"We're here to give you food and water, to make sure everyone here is taken care of until--"

Yeah, he should have gone with his first instinct to shut up. "Until what? The sickness takes us? More bandits come? The soldiers kill us?!"

They were all very good questions and the worry was understandable. Peter's eyebrows bunched up. "We're in this together, sir. All of us. We need to help each other out."

Matt agreed. "Sir! Sir, please. Look- you can either keep to yourself and wait for those things to happen to you, or you can let us help you." The man looked like he was about to snarl something, but Matt interrupted him. "You're still hoping, right? You are. If you're so sure you're going to die here you wouldn't still be fighting or looking out for these people. Come on. Stop ... pointing the weapon at us and let us help you. Okay?"

For a moment it looked like he'd gotten through, but the man eventually snapped, "What's the catch?"

Matt blinked. "Sir?"

"You're not just going around handing out treats out of the goodness of your hearts, you're not", the man growled, fixing them with a stare. "So what's your game? Huh?"

He used the rifle to emphasize his point and Matt breathed in to restore some patience. Then he pushed at him. There is no catch. We're being honest.

The man remained skeptical, but when Matt said, "There isn't. We just want to give you a few things and then leave. Alright?", he seemed to accept it.

Matt glanced at Peter but didn't relax even when the rifle was partially lowered.

"Thank you, sir", Matt said tersely.

Somewhere behind them, Kayleigh went up to the man Matt felt fairly certain was her father. She didn't want to hurt them, but she still gave them a wary, scared look, and it was mostly fixed on Peter.

Well. Looked like Matt would get to find out if he could make people forget something, if they couldn't come up with something convincing.

Peter still wasn't sure how they came out of that one without anyone getting permanently hurt. Sure, most of his bloody was all over the hall floor, but at least they'd left food and water with those poor people...even if it only extended the inevitable. A city this size? It could be months without help. Peter was only thinking realistically. He'd seen the future, hadn't he? He knew what this could become--

No. He knew what this was going to become. It scared him. He hid it well.

"Mind if we stop at the Gap or American Eagle on the way back?" the younger man asked, smiling though he looked like a zombie, flecked with blood along his chin and ear. "I'm going to need some new clothes."

Keeping Matt busy was as important as keeping himself busy. His toes dug into the soles of his shoes as they stood in the shadow of the building's broken doorway, glass spread out under their feet. There was no sound at all, just litter and bullet casings. Had the military moved off? Moved on? He wasn't sure what was worse.

"And...your nose is still bleeding." Whatever Matt had done up there-- Peter hadn't asked, all right? It seemed to have hurt him.

Matt pressed a few fingers to the blood and was surprised to find that Peter was right. He felt a little (quite a bit) shaky - it had taken a lot of effort to filter through memories alone. To then try to alter just one ... He leant back against the wall to the building for a moment and wiped the blood away with his hand, shooting Peter a vague look.

"Yeah", he agreed after a moment. "Yeah, you look like shit. Good thing you can heal."

It really had been, because Matt had been pretty scared for that short moment there. But at least it had served as a pretty solid reminder and Matt didn't think he'd be likely to forget again that his friend was practically immortal.

He smirked suddenly, however tired-looking the expression was, and clapped a hand to Peter's arm. His own ached a bit if he lifted it too high, the small wound from earlier making itself known, but Matt just considered himself lucky to not have had taken any more bullets to the chest. Unlike certain people. "Okay, let's get you some clothes. Next building, let's just ... do some Robin Hood moves. In, out."

Which was admittedly what they'd tried here, it just hadn't gone over very well.

Maybe they should leave some things outside apartments, knock on doors, and turn invisible. That'd be a strategy.

It was getting increasingly darker outside and Matt was wary of trouble. Riots happened any time, but thieves and robbers still much preferred the shelter of the night to operate. Plus it had an intimidation factor that was invaluable when your primary tactic was to scare people into submission.

And despite the silence surrounding them, that eerie silence that didn't belong at all in a place like New York, after a time there were sounds as well, magnified by the alleys. Echoes, whispers, footsteps. Most people kept to themselves but Matt tried to stick the main roads, not wanting to risk it. Peter was probably fit for fight but he wasn't sure about himself for a little while, and besides - it'd just be so incredibly unnecessary.

"All right, let's see where Matt is tonight," Mohinder said as he settled beside Molly. He was working double shifts and while the girl understood why he had to be at the lab so much, Mohinder knew she had to be lonely. There were other children here, mostly very young children. She helped out where she could, the CDC compound very large and very secure. Though the infrastructure of the United States had started to crumble drastically in the last three weeks since he'd been airlifted out of New York City, for the most part, the virus hadn't spread.

The cities were lost, being reported to news media that everyone inside of them was dead from biological, terrorist weapons. That the zones were unsafe. The military controlled all access into and out of them.

Of course, that didn't mean it was true, just that Mohinder had to work on his inoculation all the faster...and that checking up daily on Matt was so essential.

The man seemed to move around. Patrol? He would be on the streets one night, East Side Manhattan the next, back in their flat the night after--

Mohinder was going mad not knowing what was happening.

He'd likely have been even more mad if he did, however.

Peter was exhausted when he popped back into their newest safe room, falling on the egg carton foam 'mattress' he was using. The survivors, immune, perhaps, or simply having survived the dissipation of the virus from the city streets, had started to band together. After Hurricane Katrina, dogs had gone feral in a matter of weeks. It seemed that people were capable of it too. "That large group took over Times Square," Peter grumbled at the back of Matt's head. "I think they saw me."

Matt groaned and covered his face with his hands for a moment. The gang formations were no surprise and the brutality and desperation of their actions weren't either, but that didn't mean that it was any easier to deal with.

Him and Peter had stuck together solo mostly because of their abilities. Joining another group would be risky for both of them given what they could as people grew increasingly scared and aggressive. Although they could probably manage a situation if they got into one, they'd both agreed to lie low as much as they could - if the knowledge about their abilities spread they'd likely become some kind of target.

They didn't want to live with that.

Having spent the last few weeks trying to help out behind the scenes, keep track of the situations and gangs around them and just keep surviving. Matt was thankful for Peter's company and he'd said as much on at least one occasion, but things were also getting more ... strained. Not between them, necessarily.

Just people. And the diminishing supplies.

"Okay", he muttered, sitting up to look at Peter. He was thinner, perpetually with small scratches or flecks of dirt or blood on him. Looked like something out of a bad action movie. Then again, that's what their lives had become. "Right. The loft?"

They'd slowly set up a few places that they could move between. Isaac's loft was one of them and would have a better vantage point than this place, but wasn't close to as many good raiding points. If there was much left anywhere, but him and Peter had ways of finding things that normal people hadn't, so they were at an advantage.

Matt didn't want to take any chances. The group in question was aggressive. Not to the point of murder (yet, that they knew of), but they were fiercely territorial and would likely try to steal from them. That's how it went these days.

But it might not be necessary, it all depended on where they'd spotted Peter. He trusted Peter's judgment, and he looked at him in a way that spoke of that. He got to make the call. Either they moved out now, at least temporarily, or they kept up the routine. Temporarily.

It was all temporary.

But there was one routine that Matt had latched onto, and although he couldn't be sure, there were those small moments of being aware of another mind. At first it had alarmed him, but as time went on and it was never harmful, he told himself it had to be Molly. He hoped it was Molly. He wanted it to be Molly.

But he said nothing about it, just anticipated it every night and needed it to mean that his family was safe.

He never stopped missing them.

"Yeah, the loft. I'm going to drop off one more supply bomb in Brooklyn where the abandoned military garrison is and then we'll move. Just..." He needed a minute. Abilities cost energy. Energy had to be made up some way. It wasn't like Peter could just eat enough to fill what his brother use to call hollow legs any more. They had to be careful. Crafty. "Tomorrow we'll need to raid a pharmacy. I was thinking--"

Always bad. Peter only 'thought' when things were desperate. He didn't run anything else by Matt unless he wanted to be talked out of it in some small way.

"I was thinking that we go to other cities. Towns. There are a load of pharmacies all over the place and the big chains won't miss some of the drugs if I'm careful--"

But it was still stealing. Even if these people needed it. Raiding rich penthouses without people living inside of them for the contents of their medicine cabinets just wasn't doing it any more.

"And I could maybe get a message out. Like... If I were to go to Atlanta--" Peter wasn't an idiot. It was more than just Molly that Matt was missing. He sometimes spoke in his sleep.

Matt leaned his head heavily into one of his hands. He absolutely caught the underlying meaning to that last thing Peter said and he appreciated it, but he still didn't think it was something they could risk.

"Probably a bad idea", he said, not without some reluctance. "What if we spread the damn thing?"

The incubation period was long since over and everybody who'd attracted the virus was dead, but that didn't mean that the survivors weren't still carriers. He hadn't forgotten Mohinder's regretful admission that some viruses just needed a change in environment before breaking out. That they could lie dormant. That without conclusive evidence they had to assume that they could've been part of this outbreak to begin with.

He had more of a problem with that. Not so much the notion of stealing. When it came down to survival such lines didn't matter that much.

"We could go to other places we know are ..." He trailed off, gestured idly with his free hand. Tiredly. "See how many people made it. If there's anything left."

"And do what? Ferry people here?" Actually, that made a lot of sense to Peter... His eyes were bright at the thought. Maybe he was thinking less Lord of the Flies and more reality show TV but it sounded appealing to him to have his own tribe, his own people, to clash against the modern warlords ruling over vast portions of the city. He had such lofty thoughts at the moment, standing high atop a building, providing a safe haven for survivors, a place where they could all meet and join together and be truly safe until they were liberated---

Such a dreamer. No wonder he was always so easily won over by people that might not use his gifts for good. Or who thought the greater good also meant the moral. Peter was still so wide eyed. People died all around him and he wanted, needed, to believe in only the best possible.

"We'll need to clear out space, maybe an apartment building and-- What? Am I getting ahead of myself?" His excitement died down a little from the look Matt was giving him, but only just so. He pulled himself to his feet and shrugged. "Just a thought. Not everyone left out there is cruel and is willing to hurt people to get ahead."

Said the man who Matt had personally seen get shot. Three times.

"Not everyone, but the majority is." Matt gave Peter a look that spoke of consideration. Maybe calculation, even. "You can't die, Peter. And we know we're immune. The people out there - they're scared, desperate. People do a lot of cruel things to protect themselves."

Or the people they cared about. Both Peter and Matt knew that much. The difference was that Matt, although he wouldn't call himself a pessimist, had a darker outlook on things than Peter had. And Peter was fully capable of being cynical and realistic - he just often chose not to. Matt could understand why, or at least he thought he could. But it wasn't anything he himself could disregard. His distrustful streak was definitely the dominant one in this situation.

"I meant more ... like taking stock. See what the situation is. Look, no one's tried to get us out of here, so that means no one's got this under control. It also means they're probably waiting for us to kill each other. If we want to get a message out, it has to be to the public, somehow. The media. Let them know people are alive, that they're not sick, and that they want out of here. Or at least that we need some kind of help."

Playing Robin Hood had worked out for a time, and both Peter and Matt had overhead suspicion as well as gratefulness at the 'supply bombs' they dropped where they could. But everything was running out, including everybody's patience and will to keep going like this. Soon people would try to get across the bridges despite the heavy blockades. Try to swim across - people had already tried. There'd been enough military in place on the othe side to shoot them down, but the island itself was completely deserted now except for the survivors.

They'd done some work on that, too. Try to get rid of bodies, or at least the ones littering the street. It had been agonizing. Taxing. They were both incredibly tired and worn from ... well, everything, and so Matt could appreciate Peter's optimism and dreamy nature to an extent. But he didn't have a lot of it himself right then.

Without it, Peter would be nothing. He had little family left he could trust and was still nursing heartache from many sources. As Mohinder had, Peter was used. He gave off fiery, underdog ambitions, he tried his best to be the good guy, but maybe he wanted too much.

"I'll get a camera. I can film them. Film us. Leave it behind for someone to find." He was almost desperate. Playing Batman in a broken city really wasn't all that much fun. The thanklessness of the job didn't bother him nearly as much as the people left to suffer. He'd nearly succumbed to his own darkness twice, wanting to rid the island of the troops that surrounded it. His brother's voice had been in his head ever after. The military weren't their enemies.

They were following orders.

Peter had never been in the service, not like his brother had. He often thought he missed out on that now. He needed more...discipline. But that's where Matt came in. Tired, worn, hurting Matt. Soldier-not-a-soldier just trying to hold it all together for his daughter.

For that geneticist they both cared about...perhaps a little differently though.

"I'll do it. We can watch the footage and it's going to work. Besides, Mohinder's like...really smart, right? He's probably almost done figuring this thing out."

And, truthfully, Peter was right.

The trouble was that every breakthrough seemed to come with a break out. In this case, it was not metaphorical. Atlanta's first cases of Shanti were already streaming in by the time Matt and Peter agreed to deliver their tape to Washington DC's national news program.

Edited 2014-02-21 22:01 (UTC)

"Yeah, let's hope so."

Matt didn't want to hope too much, honestly. Mohinder had had that exasperated, unhappy look regarding his work and that was etched into Matt's mind in a very real way. Not even only because of what it meant, but just ... just him, too. He thought about him and Molly whenever they slowed down, whenever there wasn't anything to do (and he knew it was often the same way for Peter, with his own losses). It was normal that memories started slipping after a time but Matt could still recall a few choice moments with a lot more clarity than he probably had any right to.

Then again. Access to the brain.

The tape they made was quick but effective - some shots of people dividing food amongst each other, looking melancholy, fighting; empty streets; and towards the end just the two of them stating their names and a few facts. Like how they were lacking in medicine. That there were a lot of people still there. Peter got to handle most of the camera work and with the help of all his abilities, particularly invisibility, he caught a few very striking moments that they were sure the media wouldn't be able to resist provided they did get a hold of the tape.

Matt let Peter handle that. While he was gone he went to scope out a building they hadn't been to yet, just to see what was there.

It was standard, now. Mapping out this city that was nothing like New York.

And Atlanta was about to be the same, unbeknownst to Matt and Peter and the people left, and Mohinder would get to watch entirely too many people die again unless he worked fast. Odessa had fallen in less than three days. Judging by New York, slightly more people might live, but he others seemed to die just as quickly.

No. Atlanta was worse. Mohinder had now seen three cities fall, witnessed the deaths of thousands and knew thousands more perished as well. Atlanta was not worse because of the death toll, but because he'd been so close. He'd isolated the proper genes and was in the middle of testing phases when Shanti drifted across the city.

The riots came right away where in New York, they'd been ghostly and delayed. There was no time to finish. They had to evacuate.

The trouble was, not many laboratories around the country were set up to complete what Mohinder had started. He and a small team of a dozen or so scientists had connected through the internet across the globe to work on the geneticist's findings but without samples of Mohinder's blood, there was little to be done outside of the Indian's own team.

When the word came to evacuate, Mohinder watched as brutish men and women cleaned out his labs for him. He did his best to direct them properly with his tests and his formulas, but he could only hope, helplessly, that they would make it wherever it is they were going safely.

He'd never heard of Pinehearst before, not in any real sense, but after being assured that they could accommodate him and his potential vaccination, Mohinder and Molly boarded a plane to head back north. Fort Lee, New Jersey, was more of a military staging zone than anything else, right across the Washington Bridge from New York.

Being so close to Matt again was both a relief and a anything but.

Especially when, moments after being settled in, Matt's separated family was crowded into a large room to watch the news report from a source supposedly inside New York itself...after most of the world believed it to be desserted and coordoned off.

Molly gasped as Matt appeared, his words silencing the news caster's. "Matt!"

Mohinder's blood ran utterly cold as he saw the other man, gaunt and paler than usual. And that's when the riots started everywhere.

Pinehearst might be safe for the most part, but the rest of the country was plunged into despair. Mohinder's inoculation might come too late if America ended up killing itself first.

It was a national tragedy and international tension ran high. The world was afraid and perpetually on edge. It seemed people didn't unite in grief - they lashed out. In many different directions. The government trying to handle the situation mostly didn't know what they were dealing with and the few who did tried to keep quiet about it. Blaming biological terrorism meant that other countries were pointing fingers ... It wouldn't just be America wiped out if things continued the way they did.

Matt didn't know. He could guess, could reason, but he wasn't optimistic. Him and Peter's stunt could have any reaction imaginable but all they knew was that they needed something to change. It was an attempt.

And although it'd be difficult to say exactly what would change, it was clear from the media and the people watching that something would. Matt could only wait.

Mohinder had to be part of the action.

The lab at Primatech was a very good one and that in itself might be slightly worrying, just from the amount of tools and programs available. But then again, maybe it was just a relief. Mohinder's work was well taken care of but there appeared to be people keeping eyes on him in a subtly different way than people had checked in with him back in Atlanta.

Molly would be even more lonely there. It was a very closed off building; very controlled. She spent a lot of her time in the lab with Mohinder, not saying much.

Whoever was running the operation kept to themselves.

And reports came from Atlanta of so many casualties, several of them from people killing each other inadvertedly or not, and the authorities having had to pull military and CDC personell out quickly.

People didn't like that, in Atlanta or outside the city. After the New York tape it looked even more cruel to leave the people on their own.

"Mohinder?" It had been days since Molly had really spoken to him, and Mohinder immediately looked away from some promising results to where Molly was sitting in the corner, feet dangling above the ground because her legs weren't quite long enough to reach the floor. She looked upset. "Mohinder--" There were tears in her blue eyes and the man had never pulled off his goggles or his gloves so fast in his life to get to her.

"What's wrong, Molly?" His voice was understandably strained and he reached into his pocket for some tissues in case those tears decided to fall. He figured she was upset at being alone here, at being cooped up, upset at missing her friends, at the birthday party she want meant to go to, at the lack of crayons Pineheart had.

He was not expecting her shoulders to start to hitch. "I can't find him. He's not anywhere!"

Now, that wasn't quite true. Matt was still alive, but the incendiary bomb, home made and strong enough to blast apart the building he and Peter had been hiding in, was enough to make him lose consciousness. Peter was caught under the rubble, dead for all intents and purposes until someone could pull the rebar from his skull, but Matt had been thrown clear enough that he wasn't immediately killed.

It was time to wake up, however. Time to clear his head from the way his ears rang and get the hell out of dodge before the bandits descended.

Matt might have been getting mentally stronger during his time in the hell that was now New York, but he had to be awake first.

When he woke, it was to the sound of voices. He couldn't tell whether they were mental or verbal but it didn't actually matter, because voices had become a very bad thing at some point during the - what, a month? - during the time him and Peter had been stuck in New York. The painful, shrill noise that was even closer distorted the words. He couldn't tell what they were saying, only that it was hurting his head.

Then he noticed the smoke. Both from fire and debris. The pain in his arm, thankfully his left one, something to his side, a rib? - pain. Just the pain.

And that Peter was gone.

Peter, he called immediately, struggling to stand, having to navigate his way through chunks of concrete and bricks and glass and broken furniture. The daylight streamed in from somewhere else. There wasn't much fire, thankfully. But the air was warm and hard to breathe and he didn't get a reply from the younger man and that worried him something fierce.

But by the time he'd regained his sense of balance and direction and thought he saw a glimpse of something wet and deep red from beneath the worst of the rubble the voices were close enough for him to spot.

He didn't leave. Instead he crouched, hid in the shadows next to what he hoped was Peter's blood and not someone else's, and waited. Watched. Waited. His lungs hurt and his body hurt and he was pretty sure he was bleeding given the way his vision was a little blurry to one side, but he was careful and didn't move until one of the sons of bitches showed up nearby.

He twisted one of his arms up his back and clamped a hand over the guy's mouth before he had time to react, then after a whispered threat slammed him down against the shards of concrete and pressed his gun up beneath his chin.

He only had a few shots left. He wasn't planning on using them, but this guy didn't need to know that.

And it was in that position that Matt leapt into the younger man's mind, pushed ruthlessly past the waves of fear and anger to find the reasons and dig them up to look at. And oh, he didn't like them. It had been about getting to them as well as a few others because, to this group, Matt and Peter and another small group they occasionally spotted but never interfered with were stealing from them just by virtue of existing in a similar enough area.

Matt grit his teeth and pressed something in the man's mind that made him wince and breathe very fast. "You're not going to do this again. Ever again. You understand me?" It was growled dangerously close to his face and backed with a rough mental push that was similar to the way Matt pressed him further into the now extremely uneven ground. He ignored the pain on the man's faced. He ignored his own. "You're going to take your friends with you and disappear."

The others might not listen. This man was hardly their leader, and there were several of them, but Matt didn't have the patience for this kind of bullshit and he would hurt them if he had to.

His priority was Peter.

All this, while Molly was burying her face in Mohinder's chest and thinking about how Matt had said he'd be fine but he'd been wrong. She hugged Mohinder close and sobbed quietly and knew that she wouldn't dare to leave him out of sight from now on. If he died too ...

Something deep inside her expected it. He was the only one she loved who was still alive.

It had been so short and so stupid. Mohinder didn't even know what to say or what to feel. Should he cry? Could he? Perhaps later, when Molly was sleep he could grieve. Even if it still didn't hit him. It didn't make sense. No sense at all. Heart racing, Mohinder just let her cry it out and waited for the numbness to let him feel something again.

With the kid scrambling over the fallen rubble and the message Matt implanted in his head with gun more than suggestion, the larger man was finally able to get to what had become of Peter's body. The younger of the two had died or was injured so often that the sight of his mangled corpse, no matter how horrible, likely meant little to Matt. It would take some time to work the metal from his skull, the reward would be gory, but at least Peter would be left to breathe again in no time.

He came to with a start, hands pushing aside rubble. "What did they get?"

Yes, Peter was concerned. Their supplies were low now, entirely too low. The destruction of one of their shelters meant that people that had come to rely on their supply drops would go hungry--

And Peter couldn't even remember the last time he ate. He figured he probably couldn't starve to death and more so he just went hungry whenever he possibly could.

The sounds of his voice in Matt's injured ears must have been dampened because when the older man didn't answer right away, Peter started to shout instead.

Probably a bad idea. When bombs went off, people didn't always move away. Sometimes they came to see what was left to take.

"Shut- Ssh!"

Grabbing Peter hurriedly by the arm to get his message across, he found he was smearing the younger man's own blood over the thin, torn up jacket he wore. It was all over Matt's hands and he'd been kneeling in it too. It would be alarming with that much blood on him except ... yeah. They'd done this a lot of times before. And while Matt would never get used to pulling items out of his friend he'd grown far too accustomed to the sight of his blood and injuries.

He'd hissed the request between his teeth and when Peter fell silent he moved his head to the side, listening. For anything. Sounds or intentions. It took him a lot of effort and strain to get sounds past the shrill and it didn't make his headache feel any better, but they both knew they had to pay close attention. When he caught something he looked up at Peter and only gave a brief nod to their right - their conversations had grown shorter and shorter after all this time, at least in these situations.

Peter would get it: got to move.

Of course, moving swiftly when you were suddenly aware of the pain shooting up your side wasn't very easy, and something caught slightly in Matt's breathing when he followed his friend. Peter would be a lot faster, but it wasn't all about speed.

And when they did move to get out of there the rest of the bomber group spotted them and gave chase. Not all of them, some of them stayed behind, but enough of them started running up to them with the intention of teaching them a lesson.

Others circled the area. Matt could hear them, keeping distance for now but fully intent on seeing what they could get in the commotion they all expected.

Where were their things? Third floor? Matt didn't think too much of the building had fallen in and he thought their particular area would be okay. The question was if they wanted to risk going there to grab their things or not.

The only feasible way they'd manage that would be with teleportation.

But that would also expose them and make them even more of a target in the future.

Matt grabbed Peter by the arm again and voiced this as quickly as he could, mentally projecting to fill in the gaps, all the while looking around for an opening. It was a good thing most people had abandoned ranged weapons a while ago. Thre weren't any new bullets to be found after they were fired, after all, and this bought them a moment to think.

But only a moment.

There didn't have to be an opening when Peter was strong enough to make one. He half-flew, half-jumped to a small landing made in the rubble and pried open a fire door still left standing. Unlike Nathan, Peter could easily carry Parkman, his ability to use multiple powers giving him an edge despite his diminutive size. He was even smaller than Mohinder, after all. Not by much, perhaps, and time in Ireland and at the research facility with Elle lent him time to muscle up, but he still looked waifish in such ill fitting, torn, and bloodied clothing.

Those in pursuit would arrive just in time to see the door shut and it would take them a few minutes to scramble up the rubble. It bought them enough time to teleport to the third floor for their goods, but taking everything would be impossible.

"Just the water," Peter whispered. That, more than anything else, was high priority. Anything running from the taps now was brown since the treatment plants had stopped working. Below, he could hear people yelling and cursing. They were fast. Resourceful.

And as much as Peter wanted to be a hero, he was getting really sick of it too.

"Hurry!"

At least the cover gave the others a pretense not to think that he and his friend had teleported away seconds before they broke into their hideaway. Besides, they were much too happy to find a cache of good to really be bothered by remembering to give chase to the other two.

Yeah, water. The hunger wasn't anywhere near as bad as the thirst, sometimes, and with the way everything was dwindling it wouldn't be long before they'd start suffering from dehydration. How good would they be even with abilities if their bodies were shutting down?

It hurt Matt a lot to admit defeat for that reason, because it was another small nail in their coffin. If things didn't change soon there really wouldn't be much hope for them unless Peter teleported them directly into a medical facility that still worked, and in that case ... it might just start all over again.

They reappeared in the loft. They'd managed to grab almost all the water, which still wasn't all that much, but enough to get by for a few more days. They still had some canned goods and dry foods, but all in all ... yeah.

There was something ironic about the loft and the explosion painted in the center of the floor. They'd avoided that future. They'd saved New York. But only to have it lost to something far worse.

Matt sat down and let Peter look at him with the verdict of sprains, nothing too serious but things that could be, and things that hurt at that. Matt spent some time after that trying to convince Peter to eat something despite the other's hesitance to.

They took turns sleeping, just to be sure.

There was another explosion early morning the next day, but it was far away.

By nightfall after that there was a fire in Central Park.

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