Friggin Punks

Participants:

elisabeth2_icon.gif felix2_icon.gif

Scene Title Friggin Punks
Synopsis Lizzie hates those middle of the night calls.
Date Oct 26, 2010

Out on the streets


Why is it always the middle of the goddamn night when they're called out on this kind of bullshit? Elisabeth climbs out of the vehicle on the opposite side of Felix, her blonde hair a beacon of light above the all-black armor adaptive armor of FRONTLINE. She brings her helmet out of the transport with her, though it's not on her head. Full gear was called for on this one. She glances toward her partner and murmurs, "You're going to play nice, right?" Cuz the call came from John Bradshaw's unit — and Liz has vivid memories of Bradshaw's anti-gay, anti-Evo, anti-everything-not-WASP attitude and how it rubbed Felix the wrong way as SCOUT liaison.

The situation is unfolding even as they approach the police line. The tenement is clearly a derelict, pretty much barely habitable even for the squatters within it. At the edge of the worst part of the Midtown chaos, it survived by sheer dint of architecture. And how it's still standing currently is anyone's guess. "Christ, they need to bring a wrecking ball in for all these places that are this unstable," she murmurs to him.

The blast of gunfire from a third floor window sends all available officers — and there's a good eight cars' worth of them! — scattering for cover. And it makes Elisabeth herself duck backward instinctively. "Fuck!" If she gets dead out here, Richard'll kill her.

That explains why, for sheer fucking contrariness's sake, on one shoulder there's the gray on black Felix the Cat decal. And on the other, in muted pink, he'd found a triangle sticker. One of those. Because he never can be just a team player, can he? Fel's grinning like a cat expecting a bottle of cream, even as he settles his helmet on his head. "I'll be -so- nice," he retorts. "Put on your lid, girl. I know you hate it, but Jesus."

Jamming the damn thing on her head, Liz activates the comm between them and says, "I hate it. I can hear better without it, and goddamn it, I want to talk to cops without being faceless!" She comes up, though, fastening the headgear securely. The screen in front of her eyes is already pulling up information for her on how many people are in the immediate area and the trajectory of bullets. She jerks a chin for Felix. "Third floor?" she asks him. "Christ."

"I feel like a gimp, so tell me about it," Fel retorts, voice made tinny as the helmet speakers click on. "OR like a stormtrooper. AS you say, Lord Vader. And you're right, this place does need a wrecking ball. Hopefully, we ain't it. We know this guy is Evo?" he adds, craning his neck as his own HUD guides him.

As the gunfire stops, heads pop back up. And it's then that Bradshaw himself looks around and sees the backup they called for. He jogs over, a portly guy with thinning brown hair and brown eyes. Maybe once he was good looking, but nearing retirement age he looks like a detective desk jockey. "Hey, you!" he barks. "'Bout damn time you guys got your asses here. That fucker up there's pinned us down four times out here. And we can't shoot back, he's got some kind of fuckin' force field that repels bullets. We got two officers down with their own goddamn ammo. Now what are you gonna do about this shit??"

Felix turns that faceless, shining expanse of polarized helmet on him. Just stares for a few moments. It's meant to be unnerving. "We'll take care of it," he says, and there's that obnoxiously insouciant sneer in his voice, all Brooklyn. Implying without saying just what he thinks of Bradshaw and his efforts.

Bradshaw literally sneers at them, and Elisabeth doesn't step into that. After all, Felix can deal with the man. The blonde instead turns her own concealed face toward the building, using the HUD's infrared to see what she can see for heat signatures even as she barks, "How many suspects are actually in the building? And how many hostages?" If any. They have no idea of the situation out here.

"Two suspects were chased inside by uniforms on foot after a robbery six blocks down," Bradshaw replies, disgust in having to deal with Evos evident. "They shot the store owner; he's touch and go on the way to the ER. Got away with a couple hundred bucks and barricaded themselves in there. We have no idea how many hostages may be in the building — Lieutenant said to call you people in before we stormed the place."

The black helmet nods, thoughtfully. And then Fel clicks over to internal communication. "Well, Liz," he says, quietly. "Any thoughts? I could possibly sneak in the back and just….subdue them." Subdue with extreme prejudice, knowing Felix. She can't see his face, but it's there in the quality of his silence, for a moment. "I mean, with handcuffs and everything," he adds, artlessly.

Uh-huh. "Subdue them, huh? That's not going to be like you and the fucking pistol in a crowd of innocents the other night, is it?" Elisabeth demands through the comms drily.

Bradshaw clearly knows that he's been excluded. He gets That Look. The one that says 'fucking bitches cutting me out' and says, "Frankly, I don't think there's a goddamn thing in there and they're boxed in. You should just let us send SWAT in."

And then Elisabeth turns her helmeted head toward him and flicks the helmet's face shield to a more opaque one, showing him hard blue eyes that indicate her opinion of him is pretty much that he's an idiot. "Really?" she asserts in a tone that's dry as dust. "And when your SWAT team goes in and has bullets thrown back at them through the riot shields and you lose two or three more good cops, you gonna go tell their widows personally? Or you gonna delegate that because it's too much like the right thing to do?" Her voice doesn't have to be projected to carry to at least three other officers in hearing range. Who make a point of turning eyes toward the building and 'ignoring' what just happened. Liz looks at Felix and says, "Recon. Gimme a true headcount — if you have the shot to subdue with prejudice… take it." She's not fuckin' around out here.

Well, now, they call me the breeze. Fel hates Lynyrd Skynyrd with a passion, but that song's stuck in his head, as he heads for the back of the building. He tosses a salute to Liz, heads off to one side at a fairly sedate pace….and then there's the pitter patter of little Fed feet, as he goes to look for a rear entrance.

Which, of course, inspires some snickering among the NYPD present. Someone noted the triangle sticker.

The building is shaky enough that he slows down, lest his own drumming boots knock holes in the fragile floor. The anonymity of the black armor helps a little, with the stealth, makes him an oddly ghostly figure, despite his solidity. He's confronted, at one point, with one of the squatters, cowering in a corner, pale face's reflection swimming in the polished obsidian of the helmet's faceplate. Makes a shooing motion with a gloved hand. Go, go. And then moves on, creeping up towards the third story.

Elisabeth's helmeted head comes around to the snickering. She doesn't feel the need to stand up for her partner — he's proved himself on every field of battle he's ever graced. Got the bullet holes to prove it. She fixes Bradshaw with an icy gaze as he sputters back an enraged retort to her query and cuts him off. "I want a perimeter set up at the halfway mark on every side street around. And I want uniforms at either end of the alleyway to get possible civilians off the site as fast as possible." Her tone brooks no argument from him, cold even behind the vaguely digitized version of her voice. "If one squatter takes a cop's bullet, I'll have you in front of the meanest IA fucker I can find before you can spit," she informs him.

There's a pair of them, finally. They haven't taken any hostages, apparently. Just a couple of young men, just out of the end of adolescence. ALmost children, save for the guns they have. They're looking down at the whole array of NYPD below….and snickering. Only to turn in horror at the sound of Fel's boots. There's the chatter of auto rifle fire - one of them has a cheap AK knockoff and he just empties the magazine at Felix. Happily, the armor does exactly what it's intended to. And behind his mask, Fel grins.

Down on the ground below, Elisabeth is listening for Felix's reports. A civilian scrambles out the side door and runs hell bent for leather toward the side of one barrier, hustled out of sight by uniforms redeploying in the area. The sounds of automatic weapons fire makes the blonde peacekeeper tense up visibly and start moving toward the building. If they've hurt her partner, she will rattle that whole fucking building down on their heads. No questions asked. "Ivanov, report," she says through their private comms.

She has entirely dismissed the man in the rumpled suit in order to step up to the front line and await Felix's words on the matter.

«I'm Clark fucking Kent up here» he reports, with an utterly childish delight. «IT's a couple of chumps with AKs.» Which explains the cheap rifles that come soaring out of the window to land with a clatter on the pavement. Game over, children.

If she could facepalm, Elisabeth would. Instead, she stands immobile and just … waits. Cuz… Christ almighty, some days partnering with Felix is sort of like hand-holding a toddler.

A super effective toddler. «Got 'em cuffed. Send up the uniforms» His satisfaction is unmistakable. And so they'll find him, helmet off, standing over a couple of subdued robbers.

Elisabeth (and Bradshaw) come upstairs just behind three uniforms who have pistols drawn until they're satisfied that the entire situation is contained. The blonde has her helmet off, carrying it in one hand, and she eyes Felix with that look he knows so well. The amused exasperation. Bradshaw sneers, "Well, if it was that damn easy, why the fuck did we need you two?"

As the uniforms start manhandling the chumps, Elisabeth turns to Bradshaw and comments mildly, "I recommend you give the credit to whoever most deserves it in your squad. Perhaps the guys who took bullets for their valiant attempt." Her words are cool, the tone clearly implying he doesn't deserve it. And when she looks back at Felix, she says dismissively to the cop, "DHS will want to take at least the powered one into custody, probably."

Felix has his own helmet tucked under his arm, and looks eminently smug. "Forcefield," he notes to Bradshaw, elaborately casual. He's beaming at Bradshaw, like he just got given a cookie.

Elisabeth just shakes her head and murmurs, "Well… now that that is taken care of. I think you owe me a beer, Ivanov." She grins a bit and pivots on a heel, letting them clean up the mess.

"I surely do," Fel agrees. There's that particular twinkle in his eye. Liz can be a really cheap date. Especially if you sing to her.

OH, she knows exactly what the speedster is thinking. And he better hang it right up! Elisabeth grins at him and walks out of the scene. "Lookit that. Barely any shots fired at all." She pauses and slants him a look. "You didn't bruise or anything, right?" Cuz, well, you never know.

"I think I got a hangnail," he says, pulling a long face, though his eyes are gleaming.

"What.ever," Elisabeth laughs at him. "I'm not kissing that better. I got fuckin' hauled out here at ungodly hours of the night just to let you go in there and step on a couple of punks. Hauled out of bed, mind you! A warm bed! And you didn't even let me use my Super Nag!" She sounds affronted but the fact that she uses the term for her enhanced shout that Nash dubbed it — the one that she's in the past nearly peed herself laughing over — gives away that she's not the least upset. At least… not MAD upset.

Felix literally sidles up to her. It's much less effective since they're both armored. And earns them both some amused and puzzled looks, as the plates clank. Fel puts an arm around her. "Well, since you're -up-…."

Fft. Liz wraps an arm around his waist and murmurs, "I'm up. But you're still not gettin' lucky." Not tonight anyway. She pauses and looks up at him, a faint smile playing about her lips as they walk back toward the transport. "How'd you like to be Uncle Felix in a year or two?"

And the Russian makes a dubious face. "I know you want kids. I'd be honored to play uncle to any of them…." But he still looks rueful.

Leaning up to kiss his cheek in front of all the cops who're watching them leave, Liz murmurs, "Good. Cuz my baby daddy said yes." She smiles up at him. "Assuming we're all still alive and shit in a year." Which, knowing us, is a huge fuckin' if. "And assuming he isn't sterile from the nuke," she admits on a laugh.

Man. There goes his girlfriend. Now he really needs to find a boyfriend. "Congratulations," he says, gently, and he kisses her on the forehead in return.

There are some very confused looks going on among the cops who are watching. Isn't he gay? There are glances between themselves, cuz while it's not exactly open, it's also not exactly a secret. Elisabeth looks up and draws him down for a kiss. "It's still a good year away, Felix. Don't make that face. It doesn't change how much I love you."

He's -so gay-. Not that Fel camps it up at FRONTLINE. That would be a bit much. "I know," he says. "It's just one more change. Even though it's one you want…."

"Don't panic, Feeb," Liz teases softly. "It's not changing yet. And you never know. It might not change at all." Trying doesn't mean succeeding. And considering their lifestyle, well… ya know. She smiles. "C'mon. Beer. Wine. Lots of snuggles. We can't pick up takeout — fucking curfew. But eh, whatever." She moves to climb into the car.


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