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“Sir? Please don’t move.” Chase approaches the civilian slowly, hoping he isn’t going to scare the kid off the ledge.
“Doesn’t the Elite Force have something better to do than to strong-arm some kid off a roof?” He sounds bitter, but Chase can see the tears on his face.
Chase holds up his hands. “No, Elite Force here, just me. Just talking.” And Bree listening in, waiting for a signal that she might have to catch this kid as he falls. “Can I come closer?”
The kid shrugs and Chase inches towards him, ready to stop at any moment, but he gets all the way to the ledge, sitting next to the kid, his own feet staying safely on the roof.
“It’s a nice night,” Chase comments, “Any reason for this night in particular?”
“Just a shitty night to take a shitty life.”
Chase raises an eyebrow but says nothing.
“That’s not going to work you know, just being quiet hoping that I’ll say something helpful. I know what you’re doing.”
Chase waits a few more seconds but the kid just meets his eyes defiantly. “You’re clever,” Chase concedes. “What’s your name?”
“Adam.”
Chase feels his heart twinge a bit. He should call Adam after this— his Adam back at the Island, not this Adam here, in danger of dying by his own hand. “I have a brother named Adam.”
“I know, you guys are kinda famous. He seems kinda like a dick though.” Chase sees the kid register what he just said, consider if he should soften the blow, take it back somehow, but Adam lets his statement stand as is.
“Wouldn’t have him any other way.” The last time Adam tried to grow up is still seared in his memory, losing contact with Adam as he hurtled towards a missile in the hopes of saving the planet. If the choice is between a dead Adam and a kinda-a-dick Adam, Chase will choose the latter any day.
“Well, this has been whatever, but if that’s all—”
“So what brings you up here, Adam?”
Adam gives Chase an exaggerated gag. “You couldn’t think of a more original way to say that?”
“I’m not hailed for my creativity, Adam, so is it the view? Maybe the stars?”
“The fact that the building’s tall enough to make the drop fatal without enough time to think about it on the way down? Yeah, it’s that one, and you’re getting in the way of that.”
“Why?”
“Isn’t that the question of the hour.”
“Humor me, delaying your death by a few minutes isn’t going to kill you, or if it does then hey, mission accomplished.”
Adam frowns but acquiesces. “There’s just no point to it.”
Chase stays silent and, whether or not Adam picked up on the trick, he continues.
“I’m useless. I can’t do anything. Everything’s going wrong, and I can’t do anything to stop it.” Adam glances up at Chase. “You’re bionic, you wouldn’t understand.”
Chase gives a bitter smile and rolls up his sleeves, just far enough so that Adam can see the scars, too straight to be anything but on purpose. “I might understand better than you think.”
“Shit. What happened?”
“For the smartest man in the world, I picked a pretty dumb way of offing myself.”
“You calling me smart?”
“I’m calling your chosen method effective, still wouldn’t recommend it though.”
“Why cause you survived yours and you’ve suddenly seen the light?”
Chase was suddenly very aware that Bree was listening in, but they had rules about this. Chase brought up whatever the hell he needed to in order to get them off the ledge, Bree’d check in on him, always, but past that it didn’t get brought up, not by her. He saw when she thought about it, but she never did, and he knew she’d continue to. “No, I survived mine, despised everyone around me for it, took it out on them for a couple of months, got a bucketload of therapy, and it’s still tempting sometimes.”
“Great, very convincing.”
“It’s tempting in the same way getting blackout drunk is tempting. You don’t want to do it, but at the same time, there’s nothing you want more. You still have the chance to say no to that first sip.”
“See if I’m dead though, I don’t have to deal with that.”
“You’re smarter than that.”
Adam’s eyes widened. “You’re not going to let me die.”
“There’re contingencies in place.”
“One of the flying ones, or the faster ones?”
“One of them.”
“So I couldn’t if I wanted to.”
“We wouldn’t let you, no.”
Adam stares at the road below them, and for a minute Chase thinks he’s going to take the sip, jump despite knowing he’s going to be saved, but instead he swings his legs back over to the roof and jumps down. “I know when I’ve been beat.”
Chase jumps down next to him. “Time to go, Adam.”
“Where?”
“The hospital, they’re waiting for you.”
Adam nods. “Smart, I guess. I don’t want to go.”
“No one does, but it helps. And I can come to visit if you want?”
“That’s the last thing I want.”
“Fair enough.”
“But could you come with me?”
“Of course.”
Chase stays with Adam throughout the check-in, as far as the hospital lets him. He talks with Adam’s parents, ensures they’re in a place to care for their son, then he walks out into the early morning and sees Bree waiting for him.
“You doing okay?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s addicting?”
“As hell, but don’t worry, I’m sober.”
“Would you tell me if you weren’t?”
Chase looks at his sister, remembers the nights she sat with him as he toyed with a razor beneath the table. “Yes.”