**He was born in Moscow, the son of a university professor and a KGB archivist. About as privileged an upbringing as one could have, in the last years of the communist regime. And he might've grown to adulthood there, save for early manifestations of his power. His mother determined to flee, rather than have her child taken from her by those shadowy government divisions tasked with investigating such things. She bought asylum and then citizenship with the stash of documents she'd been carefully copying in her long years as an archivist, and the little family settled into comfortable obscurity, just another set of recent immigrants from Russia, living in Little Odessa.
Fel adapted with surprising swiftness, once the initial culture shock was over. He abandoned his accent, and did his best to get better acquainted with New York, so by the time he reached high school, he was more or less indistinguishable from the mass of American teenagers.
The future seemed very bright….but as Felix advanced on his teens, another, more mundane problem began to rear its head. Generally even-tempered and good natured, he grew moody and unstable, prone to fits of mute despair or flights of unceasing energy. During the latter, his control on his power would loosen, growing uneven. Though the destructive fits of his early childhood never ensued, he had to be careful. Afraid their hard-won stability would prove ephemeral, Irina took Felix to one of the local doctors, another immigrant, one she'd known in Moscow….and one of the few privy to what Felix could truly do. His diagnosis was manic depression, now more clinically known as bipolar disorder. Troubling, but easily treated with commonly available medication. It gave him back control over both mood and ability, and granted at least the illusion of security.
That dealt with, his adolescence went smoothly enough. His grades were good enough for him to seek out scholarships, and he graduated with honors from his high school. But rather than head to a university somewhere else in the great republic, Felix stuck close to home, applying to and being accepted at NYU. College was for the most part a smooth continuation of high school - learning continued to come easy to him, he was enjoying himself, and his power and his illness were both under control. Until one winter evening, when he was taking a shortcut through Central Park.
He'd always relied on good sense, quick wit, and subtle and controlled use of his power to keep him safe in the city, carefully avoiding the seedier districts. But he was stumbling home, half-drunk from a party at a friend's house, claiming he needed the walk to save cab fare and sober up, when a very unfortunate would-be mugger stepped out from behind the edge of a bridge on one of the shadowed paths at the edge of the Ramble. The flicker of moonlight on the knife blade was enough to startle Felix into near-sobriety - but not fast enough to prevent the mugger from getting too close. Fright and alcohol both magnified his response. The first abortive shove only knocked his assailant away a few feet - and was mistaken for a physical blow. Unafraid, the knifeman came at him snarling. And Felix, panicking, hit the assailant full force - with a hysterical strength that smashed him against the stone of a nearby bridge over their path. It was the first time in his life he'd truly lost control of it in such a major way - he fled blindly, without waiting to see what became of his victim. Nor did he ever learn - he didn't dare confess what'd happened to anyone, friends, doctor, kin. Deep in his heart of hearts, he's certain he killed that night.
Irina and Nikolai had high hopes for him - surely he'd be a doctor, or scientist, or even a lawyer. What they did not expect was for him to declare his intention to become a cop. But Felix was adamant - though he majored in biology (somewhat to salve his curiosity about his own odd abilities, and those rumored to be possessed by others), his focus was always on joining the police. And despite his parents' protests, and his friends' bewilderment, that's precisely what he did upon graduating from NYU. He was painfully eager, and desperately idealistic, wishing to serve the city that'd seemed like such a refuge. To precisely no one's surprise, while nominally part of the forensics division, he was more or less permanently loaned to the part of the force dealing with organized crime. Specifically, the guys dealing with the Russian mafia, from their base in Little Odessa - after all, a native speaker of Russian could hardly be passed up.
To his own bemusement, he found he was good at it. Very good. Those barely restrained fits of manic energy served him beautifully during long stakeouts or nearly endless shifts, and his rise up the career ladder of the NYPD wasn't quite meteoric, but very close. For the most part, he was adroit enough to keep from making more than the absolute minimum of enemies. But he made detective at a very young age, all on the strength of the anti-organized crime cases. He'd kept absolutely iron control over his power, with barely a breath of any oddity. He was known among the Department for occasionally volatile moods and manic energy, but nothing stranger. Until it all went south. As part of a raid by a task force taken from Organized Crime and Narcotics on certain "distribution centers" (read: stash houses), complete with SWAT level gear and armament, went completely wrong. It was essentially an ambush, and one of the worst incidents in terms of casualties in the NYPD's history - the kind of door-kicking that looks impressive on film, but is functionally a terrible risk. And one particular building in the high rise projects they were raiding had been fortified against them, which led to the spectacle of Felix somehow managing to disarm a roomful of heavily armed men.
The sheer shock of it was enough to defuse at least that particular little encounter, letting the cops subdue all those in that particular apartment. It also, however, used up the little span of time he had available for his power….and a later encounter in the raid didn't go so smoothly. HE ended up taking two rounds to the chest, of the kind that punch through a vest as if it were nothing more substantial than a linen shirt. It earned Felix a medal for valor….and some very hard questions, though, after. Ones he was hard put to explain. But with his record, it was kept as much of a secret as it could be - swirling departmental rumor, rather than front page news.
But the rumors were there…..and while the NYPD may be a family, in a sense, it was becoming an uncomfortably incestuous one. His record was sufficiently bright that the FBI was angling for recruitment…..and after the botched raid, it seemed a wiser choice than ever. So Felix headed off to Quantico, at least somewhat in hopes of leaving that particular part of his past behind him. He was again routed into organized crime, but stationed out on the West Coast - LA, San Francisco, Seattle. He spent years carefully keeping his head down, as much as his innate competitiveness would permit. It made for an oddly chequered career, but he did well enough, if he didn't advance up the ranks as fast as he had the NYPD.
He spent a few years stationed in San Francisco, a few more in Seattle. But ironically enough, the Bureau determined he was most needed in New York, and he's been stationed in his old stomping grounds ever since. Some clever senior Agent, either somehow unaware of his record….or more likely, attempting to shuffle that particular oddity back on to the NYPD, has made him one of the local liaisons between the Bureau and the NYPD. Not all of his old comrades are enthused to see him again. And as a Feeb, no less.
He was in Seattle when the explosion happened. His parents had long since retired to Florida, so what was left of his family was safe, though he lost more than a few old comrades in the NYPD to it. It's still something of a shock to him, seeing so much of his beloved city in ruins.
