Born in Ballard, Dante lived as many normal kids did. He lived in a violent neighborhood, but his parents were raised lower-middle class, so taught him early on how to avoid trouble. A quiet kid, Dante was never really tempted into trouble like many of his peers, though never tempted into excellence either. His parents didn't call him well-behaved, just low maintenance. Even in school, he scored near the top of his grade simply because he actually paid attention and did his homework.
In fifth grade, he came across Isabella. Only an idiot would call her a 'nice girl', and Dante's no idiot, but she did make life a little more interesting. And she kept coming up to him, so why not make her a friend? She'd come over to his house after school and stay for dinner and games before going home. On the weekends, they'd spend most of the day hanging out, with most of Dante's energy focused on dissuading her from "cracking that jackass over the head with this brick" and the like. He slowly learned about her family life by listening to her ranting (good god, could this girl bitch) so it didn't surprise him at all when she got kicked out of her house. Though the knife in her hand was a bit of a surprise. Still, she'd always been like a little sister to him, so when she was actually living with him rather than just visiting. It also cut down on the teasing, though anyone who tried to tease Dante for hanging out with a "little girl" often ended up with Isabella's teeth marks in his leg.
High school was a sans-Isabella experience, which was both a disappointment and a relief for Dante, though it meant he came home to his "sister" grounded more often than before, with him not around to rein her in. Still, the extra free time meant he finally tried out for sports, getting on the baseball team. And hey, he wasn't bad, and first base was always exciting. It surprised Dante when, on his parents' insistence, he applied for a sports scholarship to the University of Washington, and actually got enough money to pay for half his tuition. In college, he joined the University baseball team, where he took the spot of Designated Hitter, which was where he first noticed his powers begin to manifest. It took a while for him to realize that not everyone knows where the ball's going to cross the plate before it leaves the pitcher's hand. On the academic side, Dante found himself idly floating. In junior year, he found himself pursuing a degree in English just by default. So, on a hunch, he followed a childhood dream and, after getting an Associate's in Criminal Justice, dropped out of college to join the police academy. 720 hours of academy and four months of field training later, Dante became a beat cop at 23.
The years went by smoothly after that, with Dante distractedly pursuing his career while spending more time with his family. He was delighted when Isabella got into college, and frankly surprised to find her pursuing a degree he /should/ have gotten. Oh well, c'est la vie. Wanting to spend more time with his "little sister", Dante managed to get her a spot in the Forensics department, right around the same time he made detective, at 28. It was this time that he started to see Isabella as not such a little girl anymore. They had a few flings, but nothing ever seemed to come from it. Maybe something would have, but one day he found himself being transferred to the NYPD. Isabella, much to his relief and amusement, attached herself to him like a limpet, and they made the trip to Queens where things were a /lot/ more busy. No time for romance for these two. Then weird stuff started happening to Dante.
Shortly after working on a very tough case with the NYPD, Dante began to get hints that he was being followed. And watched. He became wary, watching his surroundings and his tracks whenever he was walking to or from work, or when he were home alone. One afternoon, he lingered outside his apartment door instead of going in, staring at the doorknob. Eventually, it opened…and the strange man peeking out into the hall to check and see if Dante had come home yet got the butt of Dante's pistol to his temple, dropping him like a sack of potatoes. The other stranger in the apartment, who was hanging out in Dante's kitchen when his partner went down, quickly acquiesced to Dante's commands to "Get the hell out, before I call the cops!" The pistol trained on his partner's temple probably helped. After that day, there were no more direct confrontations or traps set. But Dante would occasionally catch people watching him, or suspicious cars parked outside his building. Even small signs his apartment had been entered, but nothing taken or disturbed, and no ambushes like the first time. Eventually, this came to be normal life, and Dante just let them be as long as they let him be. Besides, his life was pretty good, all things considered… until the bomb hit, then everything went to hell.
The days leading up to the hit, Dante had felt distinctly uneasy. His intuition was making him itch like crazy, so on the day of bomb hitting, Dante managed to convince Isabella to take the day off and make a trip to the mainland for a zoo trip. Just getting out of Manhattan eased Dante's nerves…and at noon, he found out exactly why when the sky lit up with fire.
After that, life was chaos. Even being temporarily demoted down to beat cop didn't mean a break in work, as he and Isabella were too busy trying to mitigate the chaos of the hit. Though neither of them volunteered to go anywhere near the blast zone. And then things got worse… After Nathan's speech to the world, Dante was forced to reveal his secret to one person. The /only/ person he's ever mentioned it to: Isabella. Thankfully, she took it pretty well. She broke his nose, and then promised to help him keep the secret. Well, it was a damn sight better than the Evolveds she'd lynched. Speaking of which, Dante was grateful he had his abilities, as it let him keep on top of Isabella and keep her from doing stupid things like invading houses of Evolveds and shooting them without a warrant. He was concerned for their senseless murder, sure, but he'd accepted long ago that it was impossible to completely control Isa, so he could at least keep her from going to jail. That was, until that one day when they were separated for two different cases, and Isabella ended up shooting up a small family without a clear enough basis, and she lost her job.
That was actually good news for Dante's blood pressure, as well as human kind as a whole. With Isabella mostly staying at home, he could focus more on his work. Until she got a job with Homeland Security. He wasn't sure how she swung that, and something about it smelled fishy, but he was just happy that she was sitting under a Government bureaucracy, so she was less likely to be in the middle of mayhem. Regardless, he slept easier than he had since the Bomb went off. Until June of 2007 when, without warning, Dante tendered his resignation with the NYPD, citing mental health reasons. Shortly before the Linderman act passed, Dante walked up to one of those cars with the men who were always watching him, tapped on the glass, and said "I want to work for you."
Joining the Company was no problem, as they'd been waiting for the perfect time to recruit him for years. However, Dante was incredibly surprised to find himself paired up with none other than Isabella, who was still working for "Homeland Security". What surprised him even more, however, was when he was pulled aside and told that Isabella had tested positive for the genetic marker for Evolveds. No, she didn't know, but they were pairing her with him because, although she was very effective and…ah, enthusiastic agent, her psychopathic tendencies put her as a danger, especially as the nature of her powers, when they were to finally manifest, were unknown. So Dante, with his history in keeping her somewhat on the level, along with his ability to sense clues of her manifesting, was paired with her as a combination bodyguard and babysitter. Not to mention, they are both /very/ good at their detective work.
