By: Baloo
Chapter 2
Disclaimer: Dark Angel and its characters belong to Cameron, Eglee, and Fox.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: (AU) He was sent to capture and bring in the rogue, 452, but unforeseen complications changed everything. Feline DNA... pheromones... residual feelings? What’s a genetically engineered supersoldier to do? And what are two of them to do, together?
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Sometime during their heated love-making – and she used the term as a euphemism, because the truth would have been far too crude – Max realized that ‘David’ was not quite who he claimed to be. Or rather, he had failed to inform of all that he really was. She had not been so far gone in her heat that she missed the telltale black lines that stood out starkly against the flesh of the back of his neck. Of course, it hadn’t kept her from repeating the act of their ‘lovemaking’ once, or twice, or four times again during the night. Well, four times for him—five for her. Hey, what’s a girl in heat to do?
And if not already for the barcode, her lover’s incredible stamina should have clued her into the fact that something was up… ahem, something aside from the obvious. Either way, she certainly knew now.
She refused to believe it was mere coincidence they’d hooked up last night—well, of course, there was the fact that he was the most gorgeous creature she’d ever laid eyes on, and even if she hadn’t been in heat, there was no guarantee she would not have jumped him still. But he was a transgenic, an X-series. And as far as she was aware, there were only two reasons he would be out here, out of Manticore. One, he’d escaped, gone AWOL. Two, he was on a mission.
Since he was not one of her brothers – which she knew, not because she’d seen his barcode clearly enough to identify, or fail to identify it, but because none of her brothers were named ‘David’, and nor would they have any reason to lie about their names – and she sincerely doubted that any more escapes had occurred after that of ’09 and the major security beef-up that would have inevitably followed, that left only option two open.
A Manticore soldier just happened to run into her at her favorite after-work hangout? And somehow, she doubted Manticore condoned recreational sex – especially during missions – for its soldiers. Which meant they had not met by mere chance.
So, all in all, that was how 494 awoke that morning to a sight that was both enticing and alarming. A beautiful, gloriously naked, pissed off – transgenic – female straddling his chest, with a gun pointed directly at the center of his forehead.
And his gun too.
It was a very delicate situation, and 494 responded with all the caution required of one in such circumstances.
Giving a lazy, cocky smile, he ran both hands slowly up 452’s thighs and drawled, “Baby, I’ve heard of kinky, but this really takes the cake.”
Common Verbal Usage – speak the language of the people.
452 apparently did not appreciate the effort. The barrel of the weapon met with his flesh, and her trigger finger tightened minutely.
Watching ‘David’ swallow visibly, Max suppressed a satisfied grin. “Don’t call me ‘baby’,” she remarked sweetly. Never mind that he had called her that and a lot more last night – and that she had done the same with him. And never mind that she would never actually pull that trigger. Normally, she would have refused even to handle the gun, but when you wake up in bed with a genetically enhanced superhuman probably looking to kill you – or worse – your ethics gain a certain element of elasticity.
Funny, if she hadn’t seen his barcode, or realized anything out of the ordinary about him, her hands wouldn’t have been wrapped around the handle of his gun right now.
494 did as he was told, keeping his eyes trained on his captor the entire time. The plus side was that her heat cycle had ended and he was thinking much clearer now. The down side – so was she.
“You wanna tell me what the problem is?” he asked in a vain attempt to diffuse the situation by faking ignorance. Who knows, maybe this was her standard ‘morning after’ reaction, and had nothing to do with him, per se. Women were strange like that sometimes, and genetically engineered women were no exception to the rule.
“What makes you think there is a problem?” she inquired with equal innocence. She glanced down at her hands, her generous lips drawing into an ‘o’ of surprise, as if she’d just realized she was holding an instrument of death within their small confines. “Is it the fact that I’m aiming a gun at your head? Because, the thing is, I found it in your coat and I just figured you wouldn’t mind if I had a closer look. You don’t mind, do you?”
In a surprisingly steady voice, 494 replied, “Closer to you – no. Closer to me – well, kind of.”
452 grinned, the same wicked expression he remembered from the previous night, the one that had tantalized him so then, and which brought to mind various other memories of the occasion. For that reason, it tantalized now too, though the reaction was hardly as appropriate at the present as it was last night. He was suddenly very glad she had chosen to seat herself on his chest, and not lower.
Max leaned in slightly closer, her mouth turning down in the slightest frown that was actually more a pout, as she regarded the man below her. “Why, are you afraid that I might accidentally pull the trigger and blow a messy hold in your pretty little head? Cuz if that’s what you’re worried about—don’t be. I actually excelled in armed combat back at Manticore.”
‘David’s’ face remained devoid of recognition. “Manticore…” he said thoughtfully, his green eyes locking steadily with hers. “Some sort of summer camp you went to as a kid?”
Oh, she had to give him points for effort – and for looking so damn good first thing in the morning – but she supposed she should have expected no less of one produced by Manticore. The place put Mattel to shame.
“Give it up, ‘baby’,” Max sneered. “I saw your barcode; I know what you are.”
Seeing no further use for pretenses, the guise of innocence slipped from his features immediately. “Yeah, well, can’t blame a soldier for trying, can you 452?”
Her eyes narrowed, as she inquired, “How do you – ”
But she never got the chance to finish, because the next instant she was lying on her back, wrists pinned at either side of her head, and her – well, his – gun lying on the bed, two feet out of her reach.
“Know your designation?” 494 finished. “I think you know, 452,” he replied, staring down into those brown eyes that had mesmerized him so last night. But today, without the pheromones, and his mission back on his mind, along with the complications that had arisen with this turn of events, he wasn’t going to let himself be drawn into that trap again. “I think you’re smart enough to have figured it out.”
She stared back apprehensively, making no attempt to free herself. “You’re here for me,” she whispered.
“Locate and apprehend the target,” he confirmed, relaying his orders with mechanical stoicism.
Her eyes narrowed, her cheeks flushing pink with barely contained rage. “And what about fucking the target?” she spat. “That part of the mission too, or was that just for fun?”
494 frowned, digesting her words. “Neither. You were in heat.”
If anything, this seemed to fuel her outrage further. Her nostrils flared slightly as she demanded, “What, so that makes it alright?!”
She acted as if he had a choice in the matter – she couldn’t be that clueless, could she? But then he remembered that she seemed to have no contact with any of the other escapees, and she had been fairly young when her group escaped…
Maybe she could be. But whose fault was that?
“If you and your rug rat unit had bothered to stick around long enough to make it to your biology lessons, you would realize that last night wasn’t a choice for me either. It was just my feline DNA reacting to yours. Besides,” he sneered, releasing her arms and retrieving his gun as he pulled back to sit up on his knees, “I prefer blondes.”
Max stared up at him, open-mouthed and torn between jumping him to strangle him with her now free hands – and just jumping him. Because when he’d sat up, the motion caused the blanket that once afforded him what little sense of decency could be salvaged in a situation such as this, to fall off.
Preferred blondes, did he? Well, little soldier didn’t seem quite so sure of that as the rest of him.
In the end the decision was made for her. “Don’t even try it,” he drawled, gazing down at her. “I have ten years of training on you – you wouldn’t make it two steps before I knocked you back down.” He didn’t need to add how appealing the prospect of having to do so seemed right now. Heat and pheromones aside, the sight of a beautiful, naked woman lying beneath him, legs spread on either side of his, was enough to make any man’s blood – soldier or no soldier – rush hotly through his veins.
“What now?” she asked, eyeing him warily as he rose slowly from the bed and sought out his pants from amongst the mess on the floor. She was wrapping the bed sheet around herself in some misguided notion of modesty, as if he hadn’t already seen all there was to see, touched, licked and kissed it a few times over… But at least she didn’t seem to be preparing to attack him – or, if she was, she wasn’t so transparent about it. “You taking me back there?”
Right, like she was going to let him do that. But he surprised her by answering, “No. That would require me returning to Manticore – which I am not going to do.” His pants were on, and he was dropping his shirt over his head now.
Max could only watch him in open shock. “You’re going AWOL?” She shook her head, “I thought you guys were trained to blind obedience. You know, ‘loyalty’, ‘duty’, ‘discipline’ and all that crap?”
He gave her a look of faint amusement, as he placed his gun in the waist of his jeans and sat down at the edge of the bed to put on his shoes. “I followed the rules because it kept me alive, but I’ve never really been one to buy the propaganda.”
“But why now? Why the sudden change of heart?” Her eyebrows rose up to meet her hairline as a thought struck her, and a very disconcerting one at that. “It’s not because… of last night, is it?”
“Oh, don’t flatter yourself,” he replied, rolling his eyes. “As enjoyable as that was, I’m not going to abandon the only life I’ve ever known – and become a hunted man – over a roll in the sack.”
For a soldier, he wasn’t very… soldierly, Max decided. She’d always figured that spending one’s entire life within the walls of Manticore would make a person more disciplined, bland, and drone-like. Like a worker bee in a hive – nothing at all like the sarcastic, cocky, condescending jackass in front of her.
“Then what?” she snapped, dragging herself out of the bed with the sheet firmly held in place. She didn’t like talking to him like this – her in her bed, with nothing but that thin layer of cloth and her own anger and resentment to serve as protection.
He stood as well, lowering his eyes to the ground as he spoke, “Let’s just say that I already have one recent screw-up behind me, and another one so soon after is not going to help my case any.” No, they were definitely going to want to study him, prod and poke him a bit, try to figure out what it was about him and his specific genetic makeup that made him prone to these unfavorable turnouts.
“Oh darn, did I throw a little kink into your plans – ruin your chances for advancement?” she returned unsympathetically.
494’s gaze snapped up sharply, and he thought, maybe, he saw her flinch slightly as their eyes met. “We’re not talking about advancements here,” he ground out through a clenched jaw, “More like a trip back to Psy Obs, only with no return fare this time around.” He didn’t know why he was telling her this – she would never understand what he had been through, the fear he possessed at the very idea of going back there. Hell, she’d left when she was a kid, she probably didn’t even know what Psy Obs was, what went on down there. “I’ll get to trade up my days of being a soldier for the lovely end of biology experiment.” And it was her fault that he couldn’t risk returning to Manticore. Fuck, she just had to go into heat then – not a few days earlier, or a few days later, leaving him out of the whole mess.
Her eyes seemed to soften minutely, as she regarded him. “Why would they send you to Psy Obs for what happened last night? If what you said is true, you couldn’t help what happened, and anyone in your situation would’ve done the same.”
Straightening his back, he pushed aside all thoughts of his momentary display of weakness. “Yeah, but it doesn’t happen often. In fact, almost never. When a female goes into heat, she’s separated immediately from the rest of the unit and kept apart until her cycle ends. They don’t want us… commingling, during the period, getting involved in extracurricular relationships… building attachments.” Especially when a soldier had a track record for building ‘attachments’, and jeopardizing missions over them. He shrugged. “At the very least, they’ll want to keep me under observation; see that everything’s alright.”
“And at the worst?” she asked quietly, round brown eyes peering at him from a face haloed by curls of sable.
He returned her gaze silently. “Look, 452 – ”
“Max,” she interrupted. When he only stared at her blankly, she explained, “My name is Max, not 452. If you’re going to address me, use my name.” She tilted her head to one side, studying him. “I’m guessing ‘David’ isn’t really yours.”
“I don’t have a name,” he answered curtly. “Just a designation.”
“Oh, of course,” she said indulgently. “And what is your designation?”
Hesitating, he wondered briefly whether this was a conversation he wanted to have. Sitting around trading names and designations, especially after what had happened after the previous night – he should be leaving now, going on his way with as much of a head start as he could manage so he might actually have a fair chance of escaping Manticore’s clutches before the backup came looking for their missing soldier.
Finally, he gave in, “494.”
He didn’t miss the widening of her eyes, the slight paling of her caramel skin at his response; it was hard not to notice. “What?”
“N-nothing,” she shook her head, voice still a little unsteady. “It’s just… I know someone with a very similar designation… 493.”
“Yeah,” he shrugged his shoulders, plastering a bored expression on his face. “My twin; your fellow little traitor.”
Again, she was startled. “You know about him?”
“I found out after the escape. I went through a lot of shit because of him – because of all of you.” His eyes were nothing less than accusing as he stared at her. “They wanted to know if it was genetic; that because he escaped, I wouldn’t try the same thing.”
452 – Max – grew defensive. “So? He didn’t even know you existed. You can’t blame him for wanting out of there, and actually doing something about it.”
494 snorted, turning away. “Sure I can, and I do.” He heard the rustle of clothing behind him and knew she was getting dressed. Turning back toward her, his face met with a wadded ball of white linen that effectively obstructed his view.
“Turn around,” she snapped.
“Oh please, I’ve seen all there is to see; I could describe you to a police sketch artist and they’d pick you up in less than five minutes.” But despite his protests, he complied, pulling the sheet off his head in the process.
She finished quickly, letting him know when it was ‘safe’ to turn back. Upon doing so, he found she looked no worse for the wear after the previous night’s activities, except her hair was a little mussed and – oops – he seemed to have torn her shirt slightly at the seam in his haste to remove it earlier.
“So, 494,” she said, giving him an evaluative once-over, “If you’re going into the ‘real’ world, you should have a name.”
“My I.D. says ‘David’,” he pointed out.
“No,” she shook her head, curly locks bouncing in protest. “That doesn’t suit you.”
“Oh, it doesn’t,” he replied, cocking an eyebrow. Then he frowned slightly, puzzling over last night’s memory. “Come to think of it, you never did call me that even once last night. Why’s that?”
Max shrugged uncomfortably. “Like I said – it doesn’t suit you.” She wasn’t going to tell him that she’d seen his barcode long before that, right after they’d returned to her apartment, and she knew then the name he’d given her was a fake. Pretend ignorance; pretend she didn’t know what he was until the morning after, when it was too late to go back and change what had happened.
He crossed his arms over his chest, the picture of indifference. “So, you have a name in mind that does suit me?”
She scowled at him, causing him to suppress a grin – she was adorable when she wasn’t sexy or dangerous, although he wasn’t sure that last two weren’t synonymous when it came to the woman before him.
“I’m thinking… Alec,” she finally offered.
“Alec?”
“Yeah, as in smart-aleck.”
“Alec,” he mouthed, letting the sound roll around in his head. He liked it. But he wasn’t going to tell her that. Instead, he shed a disinterested glance in her direction. “Alec, David, 494… whatever. Hell, you can even call me God – since that’s what you were screaming last night.”