Numbers Without Context [fic]
Sep. 25th, 2011 12:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jadedgiantessMore than people might guess, Jennifer Walters understands that sometimes the good guys have to kill someone in the line of duty. She's known it since before her mother died. She knew it better after. She doesn't judge the heroes who have blood on their hands, not really. The bad guys don't always allow for everything to be clean. Not every hero has the ability to become nearly indestructible. She can. She has another choice, and that is why she fights not to kill.
The guard who gives her the file know that what happened wasn't in the line of duty. He knew she'd been brought out of the drugged sleep. That she'd been given access to an outside line. He listened as she talked while other people cleaned up the mess she left behind. Years serving SHIELD have left him with a certain view of superhumans. So he gives her the first file. The one with numbers and damage assessment without any of the why.
Of course Jen reads the file. She's starving for new information. Starving for some kind of hope. To start with there are a dozen different sets of numbers she's seen a hundred times before. Almost every superhuman fight she's ever been in has cost some city a large amount in repairs. It doesn't phase her like the guard might have hoped. Repairs have become a part of the economy of New York given the concentration of heroes. The numbers about people are different. Each one hits her like a blow.
Three people are dead. Three more people that she killed. One day to double the number she'd killed. More injured, more hospitalized. Jen stops making calls. She sits and she looks at the papers, reading and re-reading them again for hours. Sinking into what memories she has left of making those numbers a reality. Even as she feels the creep of the sedatives, Jen refuses to sleep. Not until she knows why. Jen will wait as long as it takes.
Because even understanding the necessity of killing in the line of duty, she will never understand the part of herself that can kill out of confusion and fear.
The guard who gives her the file know that what happened wasn't in the line of duty. He knew she'd been brought out of the drugged sleep. That she'd been given access to an outside line. He listened as she talked while other people cleaned up the mess she left behind. Years serving SHIELD have left him with a certain view of superhumans. So he gives her the first file. The one with numbers and damage assessment without any of the why.
Of course Jen reads the file. She's starving for new information. Starving for some kind of hope. To start with there are a dozen different sets of numbers she's seen a hundred times before. Almost every superhuman fight she's ever been in has cost some city a large amount in repairs. It doesn't phase her like the guard might have hoped. Repairs have become a part of the economy of New York given the concentration of heroes. The numbers about people are different. Each one hits her like a blow.
Three people are dead. Three more people that she killed. One day to double the number she'd killed. More injured, more hospitalized. Jen stops making calls. She sits and she looks at the papers, reading and re-reading them again for hours. Sinking into what memories she has left of making those numbers a reality. Even as she feels the creep of the sedatives, Jen refuses to sleep. Not until she knows why. Jen will wait as long as it takes.
Because even understanding the necessity of killing in the line of duty, she will never understand the part of herself that can kill out of confusion and fear.
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OOC
Date: 2011-09-25 04:38 pm (UTC)Re: OOC
Date: 2011-09-25 08:18 pm (UTC)OOC
Date: 2011-09-26 06:36 am (UTC)Re: OOC
Date: 2011-09-26 06:49 am (UTC)