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Settling onto Jon’s sofa, Donna smiled as she ran her hands over the pliant leather of her seat. Not overstuffed by any means, it was nonetheless soft and cushy. It could benefit from a throw pillow or two, or perhaps a blanket, but that was certainly too much to expect from the practical and frugal engineer. That his furniture weren’t holdovers from his university days and all matched had been quite a pleasant surprise.
Jon set the tea tray on the glass coffee table in front of her, inviting her to prepare her cup with a shy glance. He’d offered her a glass of wine, obviously trying to impress her on her first visit to his flat, but she’d declined. She didn’t want to be treated like a princess. She wanted to feel like she’d come home.
“This is just what I like,” she crooned as he sat in the armchair to her right. “A hot cuppa after a lovely dinner and warm company.” She grinned at his embarrassment. They’d just spent the last two hours chatting in a posh restaurant and he still reacted to anything she said like he couldn’t believe she was talking to him.
Jon straightened his shirt self-consciously, then began pouring his tea. “It’s good that you like it, because there’s not much else to do here. Not even a telly, though I suppose I should get one.”
“Not on my account,” she assured him. “I’m not interested in telly when I’m here with you.” His eyes lit up at that comment, but he suppressed it as quickly as it came.
“Are you sure? It’s no bother,” he hastened to reply.
She bit back an amused smile and folded her hands in her lap as she drew a firm breath. “Jon, I don’t need a telly. I don’t want you to change who you are and what you do just to please me.”
“Still, it’s good to have. I had one, you know,” he murmured like it was a dark secret. “Always did, since uni. But then after… when…” He faltered, hesitating to say something he clearly didn’t like talking about. Giving up, he swallowed hard and shook his head. “Well, it became too noisy, and not in a good way. I couldn’t ignore it, so I turned it off. Then I thought, if it’s going to be off, why have it at all?”
Donna laughed. “You don’t need to justify it to me.”
Jon replied with a smile of his own. “I suppose not. Though I expect we’ll get a new one if you -” He broke off, mortified at his unspoken implication when they’d been seeing each other for less than a week. Donna pretended to be absorbed in adding sugar to her cup and mercifully sent the conversation in a different direction.
“You do have a beautiful space here,” she remarked, twisting in her seat to take in the converted warehouse, with its high ceilings and tall windows. The naked brickwork and pipes running the height of the wall at intervals gave the flat an industrial feel, accented by matte chrome fixtures and a thoroughly modern kitchen. Donna supposed she would need to get used to walking on air as she climbed the clear glass stairs that led up to Jon’s bedroom, then swallowed her own embarrassment at the thought. “I have to say, though,” she coughed out a bit hoarsely, “it’s not what I’d expected. I thought all you technogeeks preferred dark little caves.”
“I suppose I might have done, years ago, but I’ve other needs now.” He placed his cup carefully in the center of the saucer on the table, then sprung out of his chair, hopping up the nearest pipe and tumbling about the walls of the room for about fifteen seconds without touching the floor once. Donna had gasped at his sudden movement, then gaped with wide blue eyes locked on his every move. She’d had few opportunities to observe his powers up close and she suspected they would always entrance her. He landed back at his seat, a pleased smile blooming as he noted her astonishment and approval.
“I’ve just got to have the space, to work off all the excess energy,” he pronounced without a hint of heavy breathing from the exercise. “I don’t know how other primes deal with it at all. They must jog a lot or something.”
“I’ve never seen, well, you know, him have a problem,” she said, blurting the pronoun as she broached the uncomfortable topic of her former boyfriend Lance, “but then he didn’t exactly tell me much, it turns out.”
“No.” He flashed her a commiserating smile. “I had a small flat when I first moved back here, down in Southwark, but it didn’t work. I spent most of my time away, running miles and miles every day, and it really wasn’t enough. I hadn’t figured out yet that I could jump and tumble.” Shrugging, he glanced up at the high ceiling. “I was lucky to find this. Put in a bid, got it, and broke the lease on the old flat, just two months in.”
Donna gave the place another once-over. “Well, I like this one. Bright and airy, and comfortable. Nice area, too.”
“West London born and bred,” Jon declared. “I’ve been wanting to get back here for a while. Acton’s perfect, made even better by the fact that my parents live in Oxfordshire now.” Sipping his tea, he winked at her over the brim of his cup.
“I bet,” she replied with a smile. “Near us, too, this is. Must be good for you, coming up twice a week for Gramps. Though I’ve wondered…” She trailed off, frowning a bit at some internal thought.
“Hm?” Jon murmured as he picked up his teaspoon and tried to balance it on the lid of the teapot. “What’s that?”
“Oh, nothing,” she said, shaking her head as she waved off his enquiry.
“You can ask me anything, Donna,” he prodded, looking up to catch her eye even as he continued to adjust the position of the spoon. “No secrets, not from you. I promise.”
That simple statement warmed Donna’s heart more than she would have imagined. Perhaps Lance’s betrayal had hit her harder than she’d cared to admit. She didn’t want Jon’s secrets - everyone was entitled to their own privacy, after all - but his promise of honesty reminded her just how different he was from her former boyfriend. “Well, I was just wondering, back then, that night in the alley, after work and all. What were you doing in Chiswick?”
The spoon fell, clanging and clattering against the teapot and bouncing over the edge of the tray onto the table. He grabbed it with a supernaturally quick hand, darting just past the sugar bowl in his haste to silence it. “I wasn’t, really,” he mumbled, ducking to hide the spots on his cheeks.
Donna laughed. “You weren’t in Chiswick? You were right there, not a minute after those blokes came up.” She placed her cup in its saucer and leant back, planting her hands on her thighs.
“Well, yes, I, I, I was, I suppose you could say,” he stammered, toying with the spoon, “but I wasn’t really. You shouted, you did, and you, you know, y-you’re quite clear.” He seized on that and followed through, tapping on his ear. “Yeah, you know, don’t you? Always have been. I could hear you anywhere. You shouted and I came.”
“All the way from Glasgow?” she joked, throwing his tease from the previous week back at him. “Even your hearing’s got limits. And besides, you were there in seconds. North Acton’s a bit of a dash.”
“Well,” he shrugged. “Not all the way, really. I was on my way home -”
“- via the river route, was it?” she asked sweetly. “Or did you get lost in Monument and found yourself on District instead of Central?”
“We-e-e-ellll,” he drawled, looking anywhere but at her. Donna suspected he was struggling with himself to stay in his seat and not flee.
“You were following us, weren’t you?” she finally asked. Jon startled at the pleased tenderness in her tone.
“No, not so much.” He was suddenly interested in his violin on its wall rack.
“Well, not following Nerys, I’d guess. Wouldn’t be right to follow the boss around. Stalking me, then?” she clarified, her lips pursed in a teasing smile.
“I would never!” declared Jon, but he still refused to look at her.
“All right,” Donna relented. She knew he’d been interested in her for a while now, and she felt quite complimented by his devotion. She reached over and took his hand. “That’s the story, then, that you heard me scream from Acton and you wanted to protect me, so you, what do you call it? Teleported? You teleported to come save me. That’s a rare power of yours, isn’t it?”
Jon grinned, his eyes shining with gratitude that she wasn’t making him admit something that obviously mortified him. “Very rare. So rare I can’t remember how to do it again.”
She squeezed his hand, pronouncing him, “My hero,” and he flushed. “Yes, I think we’ll leave it at that.” She turned to top up her cup.
Relaxing visibly, Jon silently thanked whoever might be listening for the brilliant woman who understood him so well and interpreted his actions in the best possible light. Stalking, he thought. Stalking my beautiful Donna. He didn’t like the word or the concept, but he couldn’t convince himself that he hadn’t been completely out of line that night.
. _ . _ . _ . _ .
Just a few weeks earlier…
Stepping back from the stainless steel high-vacuum contraption he’d spent the last three hours disassembling, Jon inhaled deep into his chest to calm himself. His long, spidery fingers trembled as they clutched the handle of the spanner he’d been using to remove the bolts connecting the pump to the main chamber. He’d been down here working in the lab too long, had allowed energy to pool in his body, threatening to burst out of him if he didn’t do something about it.
Tossing the spanner back on the tool bench, he hopped to the computer to check the time. 18:30. That meant the building was likely empty except for the cleaning staff who weren’t allowed in the labs, security, and him, but he stuck his head out of the lab door to check, just in case. Closing his eyes, he listened and found nothing unexpected. The hum of machines sitting idle in the labs up and down the corridor, the whine of the fluorescent lights at frequencies higher than humans can hear, the subtle rush of water and steam in the pipes threading through the walls, the settling of the building as it cooled in the evening: this was all normal, and not a trace of human movement among it. The nearest person would be the security guard at the reception desk, but that was distant enough for his purposes. With a nod, he retreated back into the lab and shut the door.
Taking a moment to roll his shirtsleeves down and fasten the cuffs, he clenched his fists twice, wriggled his fingers to loosen them, then launched himself into the air toward a wall, somersaulting off it across the vast room. He whirled and capered, bouncing off the walls, floor, and ceiling in a routine that was half acrobatics and half dance, expending his overabundance of energy the only way he knew how. During the work day, he had to limit himself to quiet, careful calisthenics, but alone, late in the evening, he revelled in his freedom.
Ten minutes later, he came to a stop in front of the machine, feeling much calmer and in control. As usual, he was neither winded nor sweaty; just another strange symptom of his powers. Clucking his tongue, he grabbed the spanner again. He wanted to go home, but he couldn’t leave the pump assembly half-connected to the main chamber. Luckily, it was simply a matter of removing the last five bolts. Three of them came off easily enough, but the fourth was stuck, resisting his extra-human strength. With a sigh, he laid a finger on the head, concentrated for a moment, then applied the spanner again. This time, it spun right out.
Removing the last fastener, Jon fetched the remote control box from the tool bench and punched a button to move the harness that held the pump assembly. As it glided across the room and out of the way, he shook his head. He’d been studying the machine designs for two days, and now had spent another day taking apart the finished product, and he was no closer to figuring out why it was not holding its seal. Dr Byrne would be here in three days’ time, expecting to see the finalised prototype of his custom vacuum chamber, and if Jon couldn’t fix the problem by then, that would be the end of his job. He’d had too many failures during these past two years to survive this.
He tossed the control box back on the bench and walked over to the computer bank to begin shutdown. He could continue working into the night, but he knew that he’d be sharper and more efficient after a night’s rest. It was time to go home.
After shutting down the lab, he grabbed his jumper and coat from his office then headed out of the front door of Fischer Engineering, nodding a good night to the security guard nose-down in his spy novel at the front desk. Turning right by rote, he paused on the pavement in front of the building. He usually dashed off home on foot, scaling buildings to avoid other pedestrians and scrambling along walls and ledges faster than any Olympic runner could sprint on flat ground. His normal path home, several miles as the crow flies to Acton, was far more efficient than taking the Tube. Tonight, however, he had no interest in speeding to his empty flat, where he would gulp down a microwaved meal then retreat to his study to pore over the project designs and watch his career crumble in front of him until he fell asleep on his keyboard. That had been his routine ever since the glowing blue meteors began raining all over the world.
No, he decided. Not tonight. Tonight, I take a break from being a freak, a monster, an alien. Tonight, I pretend to be a normal person, a human again, and I’m going to do the things humans do. For an hour or two, anyway. He checked his pocket for his months-idle Oyster card then, spinning on his heel, he stepped off in the direction opposite his usual path, trying to enjoy the pleasant spring evening as he headed toward Monument.
By this time, the only pedestrians in this area were the few heading towards the restaurants a few streets down, and Jon kept a careful distance from them. They weren’t far enough away that he couldn’t hear their low conversations clearly - he’d have to be half a mile away for that - and he grimaced at his inadvertent eavesdropping on their private lives, trying to concentrate on the architecture around him and the noises of the traffic to ignore them. So many people within earshot - tens, or more likely hundreds of them, if he counted the muffled voices behind the windows above - and he could hear them all among the cacophony of motors, tyre scrapes, even footsteps around him. On top of it all, his personal sonic field sang a discordant descant. This “gift” of his was amazingly powerful.
Beyond that, if he concentrated, he could tune out the noise and follow any single voice he wanted. The engineer in him - which was all of him, he reminded himself; if he hadn’t become… this… whatever he was now, an engineer was all he would be, all he’d ever been - the engineer wondered how his brain could isolate a single complex waveform from the chaos. The mathematics behind that alone were staggering, and how a biological system could do that was unimaginable. However his brain did it, it was far more impressive than simple super strength or flight, if not nearly as flashy.
He snorted at himself. The point was to be human tonight, and given two minutes, his thoughts invariably scurried back to everything inhuman about him.
With a self-conscious sniff, Jon swept back his coat and stuffed his hands in his pockets, striding along with shoulders curved against all scrutiny. He couldn’t allow himself to brood about his powers. Brooding led to despair, and he knew that it would be written right across his face for everyone to see. He’d never been able to keep his goofy, mobile face from broadcasting every thought. Best to keep his eyes forward and his thoughts to mundane matters.
Easier said than done. A couple stepped out of a restaurant in front of him and turned to pass him by, the woman hooking her hand on the man’s arm, and it took all of Jon’s concentration to not cringe away from them. Rationally, he knew he could not inadvertently hurt them, that it took a number of seconds for his sonics to cause any noticeable effect, if they even managed to get within two inches of him in the first place, but he could never shake the feeling that he was walking poison. One day it would matter. He just knew that he’d hurt someone someday with these powers he’d never wanted, and more than likely, it’d be someone he loved. He kept himself a safe distance at all times from everyone to delay this eventuality as long as possible
As he crossed a street and gained the far kerb, a clear, ringing voice from far ahead hooked his attention and reeled him right in. Every voice was unique to him now, and this one was unmistakable, he’d heard it so many times. Donna Noble. He stumbled to a stop and hopped into a doorway even though there was no way she could see him this far away in the shadows of the London evening. From her good-natured grumbles about having to leave early to head home to help her mother with something, he guessed that she was stepping out of the pub with a friend, probably Nerys, the manager of the engineering group of which he and Donna were members. He swallowed against the chill in his heart. Nerys would be firing him by the end of the week if he didn’t figure out the leak in the machine.
Even that thought couldn’t keep the sparkle out of his eyes as he listened to Donna’s voice. She’d unknowingly snared his heart the moment she’d breezed into his office on his first day at Fischer and welcomed him with a party horn and a handful of confetti. He’d shrunk away from her, of course, due to both his natural reticence and his lack of control over his then-newly-acquired superpowers, less than a week old at that moment, but with a kind word and a sympathetic smile, she’d put him as much at ease as he could possibly have been. Her brazen countenance and her joie de vivre, so foreign to his own personality, had captivated him at first, but as he got to know her, it was her compassion and her keen wit that edged out all others.
Of course, “got to know her” was a relative phrase. Perhaps if he had been normal, he might have tried to talk to her. He’d been a relatively normal, if introverted, bloke at one time in his life, but his blasted powers dashed those hopes before they even started. As he muddled through that first month of learning to exert some control over his sonic field, shattering or warping a good portion of the items he’d unpacked in his flat as he went, he had realised he could never get close to anyone, her most of all. He had resolved then to always request the other group secretary, Veena, for his projects, to keep Donna as safe as possible, and he got to know Donna through Veena’s eyes. Learning that Donna was already taken, dating the head of HR no less, let him blame his decision to keep her at further than arm’s length on his honour, rather than on his failure as a prime.
Then there had also been the inadvertent eavesdropping on her conversations. He’d found it almost impossible to ignore her voice when she was within earshot, which was a remarkably large distance. Every word Donna and Veena exchanged in their office, even whispered behind a closed door, he heard. He’d trained himself to ignore what they were saying, but her voice was music to him, enchanting and comforting. Here, in the open air, he couldn’t resist listening to her. I am not a stalker. I am not a stalker, he chanted silently to himself.
“If you knew you had to leave this early, I don’t see why you came out to the pub in the first place.” The whinge confirmed Jon’s guess that Nerys walked along with Donna. “And you just left poor Lance hanging. The way you treat him…” She left the admonishment hanging.
“I hardly treat him bad,” Donna replied. “He doesn’t need me to enjoy a night out with friends. And honestly, I don’t hear him complaining. Just you, as always.”
Nerys harrumphed. “I can’t see a bloody thing. Why’d you have to wait until it’s dark to leave?”
Donna laughed. “I love Chiswick at night. It’ll be a lovely walk from the bus stop.”
Jon, however, agreed with Nerys. The darkness hid much and it wasn’t safe for anyone to walk alone, or even two women together. With a sigh, he resolved to see Donna home safely and Nerys as well, at least as far they might travel together, and so he slipped from his doorway back to the pavement. He only needed to keep an ear on them, not an eye, and could follow at a large distance without being seen.
I am not a stalker, he reminded himself as he walked, stepping as silently as he could though he knew it wasn’t necessary, trailing them far out of their hearing. I’m just making sure she gets home safely. I am not a stalker. Really I’m not. Somehow he couldn’t quite convince himself.
The two women strolled toward the station, heedless of their surroundings as they chatted about the primes they’d seen in the sky earlier in the evening.
“They’re such a rare sight, what with primes being so few, but there were two of them, right up there!” gushed Donna. “I’ve only ever seen one of them in person twice before, not counting that time the Shard did that charity run.”
“That’s two more than I’ve seen,” Nerys pointed out, “but then I look where I'm going. I don’t have my eyes glued to the sky all the time. Someday you’re going to fall in a manhole like in those cartoons.”
“Of course,” teased Donna. “Anything to require a rescue.” Both women laughed, and Jon grinned as well at the thought of Donna staging an accident to attract the assistance of one of the superheroes. He assumed her hero of choice would be Silver Falcon - strong, broad-chested, with a booming baritone that carried - though he suspected she’d never turn down the chance to rub elbows with a celebrity like Kathica Myles.
“The moment any prime said a word to you, you’d faint dead away,” Nerys teased. “You wouldn’t be able to put ten words together.”
“I wouldn’t need to,” Donna insisted, her nose in the air. “‘Take me, Silver Falcon!’ is only four.”
Jon quickened his pace as the rising ambient noise indicated they were near the station. Though he knew they’d be heading for the westbound District line which would take Donna to Chiswick in a straight shot, he could easily lose them whilst navigating the crowd if he didn’t close the distance now. His remarkable powers did have their limits and he’d lose their heartbeats amongst the hundred others if they stopped talking. He broke into a jog to catch up and only slowed to a respectable walk when he saw up ahead the woman with the brilliant copper hair going through the ticket gate next to her friend with the shining blond updo.
The crowd was not thick enough to keep him hidden from them, so he kept a fair distance, but he discovered that he needn’t worry as neither woman turned to look behind as they walked. Nerys continued to tease Donna about her prime worship. Jon was pleased to learn that though she clearly thought that Donna’s obsession was excessive, she harboured no ill will towards the primes themselves.
“Maybe one day you’ll meet one and you’ll find they’re just like everyone else,” she was saying. “They’ve got powers, sure, but that doesn’t make them better people.”
“Or worse people,” Donna countered. “You just hate them because they’re primes. You never said a word against any celebrity before the Blue Rain, nothing that they didn’t earn themselves.”
“I don’t hate them,” Nerys countered, sniffing imperiously. “Falcon and Angel seem nice enough on telly, but do you really know? At least with regular celebrities, you can look them up. But them? We don’t have a clue who they are.”
“Except Kathica.”
“Which makes my point.”
Donna laughed, tacitly acknowledging the generally poor opinion of the only public superhero’s personality and intelligence. “Suppose it does. But she tries to do good.”
“I’m not saying we shouldn’t be grateful. You just shouldn’t let them control your life.”
“They don’t,” Donna assured her. “That’s Mum’s job, and I’d like to see a prime try to pry off her iron grip.”
The conversation drifted in other directions as they reached the platform and took seats on one of the benches for the short wait. Dawdling in the corridor, Jon peeked around the corner, then jerked back as he spotted Nerys idly looking in his direction as they chatted. He sighed in relief as their conversation continued on; she hadn’t spotted him.
In due time, the train pulled up to the platform and Jon watched the two women board the train. As they stood up, Donna’s handbag caught on the edge of the seat and its contents clattered across the tile. She and Nerys both scrambled to grab all the items and stuff them away in their handbags and pockets, then ran for the train, getting in just as the doors began to close.
Jon didn’t dare reveal himself by dashing across the platform into the nearest car, and he clutched at his hair as the train pulled away. As the tail end passed him, he identified a couple of easy handholds and without stopping to consider the idiocy of his plan, he sprinted past the newest arrivals to the platform and leapt. Soaring over the tracks in a wide arc, he bounced off the tunnel entrance and caught the edge of the roof of the train, grinning at the astonished gasps and horrified screams that followed him. His fingers started to slide down the smooth metal, but he found purchase with his trainers and, as the darkness engulfed him, he secured his hold for the journey to Chiswick.
So much for doing the things that humans do. The life of a prime was certainly never dull.
All that was left for him now was to hang back and enjoy the ride. As the train approached Cannon Street, he worried that he’d be spotted and arrested by transport authority, but it only took a few seconds of covert observation for him to realise that Londoners were far too busy dashing for their trains to check for unwanted passengers hanging from the tail. Truth be told, he’d paid his way, though perhaps his choice of seat was a tad unconventional.
A long and windy trip later, as the train came to a stop at Chiswick Park, Jon peered out to watch Donna and Nerys alight and disappear up the exit tunnel. Apparently Nerys lived in Chiswick as well. The train’s doors slid closed, and as it accelerated further westward, Jon leapt from his perch and landed lightly on the platform, startling a couple emerging hand-in-hand from the tunnel.
“Oh, my lord!” the woman exclaimed, clutching her partner closer.
Jon gestured back at the departing train. “Mind the gap, ma’am,” he advised. “It’s quite a bit larger than you’d think.” He bobbed a quick bow to her and trotted off.
Keeping a good distance behind, he tailed Donna and Nerys out of the station and among the sparse pedestrian traffic of the weekday Chiswick evening to a nearby bus stop. He ducked under the awning of a dark shop and leant casually against the wall, his head low and face hidden as he surveyed the area for any possible danger.
They boarded the bus that arrived a few minutes later, and the moment it pulled away from the kerb, Jon dashed off, taking the first opportunity to scale the building he’d been sheltering by and follow the vehicle from the roofs and ledges above. He couldn’t suppress his manic grin as he sprung along unobserved, or at least unrecognised if someone did see him. He might not want these powers, but he had to admit that he revelled in the opportunity to exercise them freely.
Each time the bus stopped to let off passengers, Jon paused, a still, dark gargoyle perched on high, watching carefully for any sign of trouble. He noted Nerys alighting first and alone, ostensibly near her home, and he remained there, vigilant as she walked, and only sprinted off after the bus when she’d turned the corner two roads down.
The bus rumbled on into a quieter, lonelier area, a lone pub on an awkward corner surrounded by small, dark shops and offices, then terraces further out. When it pulled to a stop in front of an estate agent, Donna hopped out and, wreathed in a halo from the brightly-lit vehicle, turned back to nod at the driver before starting her walk home alone. Jon held himself especially still, willing himself invisible though he knew she would never see him up on the roof.
A couple strolled down the street, their footsteps filling his ears as they approached the pub. The man held the door open for the woman, who stepped back to allow three bladdered blokes spill out onto the pavement before she entered. The man turned up his nose at them then followed his companion in, letting the door close behind him. As far as Jon could hear, those were the only people on the streets nearby. A few cars, yes, but otherwise, the only others he detected were inside, muffled by the walls of the houses, the pub, and other buildings. Donna herself noticed none of this as she turned by habit toward home.
As Jon began to berate himself for making up a shoddy excuse for following her home, he noticed that the three drunkards had fallen silent. He heard, rather than saw in the darkness, the big one thrust a finger in Donna’s direction, where she’d stopped to peer at the window display of a dark dress shop, and the other two grunt in approval. With simultaneous nods, they set off toward her.
Whilst Jon had intended to protect Donna if anything happened, he hadn’t thought of how he might actually do so. He’d never fought anyone before, much less three blokes, but he’d have to learn quickly. The only things he knew were that their intentions weren’t good and that he somehow needed to keep Donna from identifying him.
He shrugged his coat off, letting it fall to the roof beneath his feet, then tore off his jumper. As he wrapped it over his mouth and nose like a bandit’s bandana and tied it with the arms, he heard the men come up behind Donna and demand her handbag. She thrust it into their hands. “Take it. Just please leave me alone,” she begged.
This isn’t going to stay! Jon couldn’t quite tie the arms tight enough to prevent the jumper from slipping either up or down. Grumbling low in his throat, Jon pulled the thing off and tied it like a babushka’s kerchief, but with the arms covering more of his face.
One of the men grabbed Donna’s chin and expressed what he wanted to do to her. As she protested, the one behind her grabbed her and began dragging her down the pavement. Her scream, high and shrill, cut off abruptly, Jon suspected by a gag, and he could hear her kicks as she fought valiantly.
“Soddit!” he spat. He pulled the jumper back over his head, his eyes peering out of the neck hole, then tied the arms under his chin. It’ll have to do. Without another thought, he leapt into the darkness and landed on the pavement outside the alley into which the men had taken her.
Circling Donna, who’d fallen when her ankle had collapsed under her, the men crowed with menacing delight, heedless of the newcomer. Jon took a deep breath to yell his challenge, then at the last moment, modulated his voice with his sonic field, lengthening the waves of his words to a lower frequency and making it unrecognisable. He expected that Donna didn’t know him well enough to identify him by voice, but he couldn’t take any chances.
“Leave her alone!” he boomed. It sounded quite impressive, even to himself. He hoped he could back it up.
The men looked up from their victim. “Bugger off!” spat one of them. “Or we’ll paste your face into the ground.”
Projecting more confidence than he felt, Jon strode into the alley. “I said, leave the lady alone,” he repeated, this time soft and low.
“Cort?” called one of the smaller men to the big one who’d pinned Donna. He punched her across the face, then jumped up to join his friends.
Suddenly, the world switched gears, grinding into slow motion. Jon could hear - no, feel - every minute movement around him, and he shut his eyes to eliminate distraction from that less useful sense. Cort pounded his fist into his palm in anticipation of the ensuing violence, but the difference in his arm movement on the last repetition telegraphed his intentions to Jon, and he ducked under the fist that lashed toward his face almost before it started moving. The big bloke might be the most dangerous, but Jon guessed that taking out the smaller ones would give him advantage, so he sprang toward the closer of the two, driving his shoulder into his chest and knocking him into the wall.
The other two struck fast - Cort with both fists and the other one with a knife Jon hadn’t previously spotted - but their blows whiffed through empty air as their adversary bounded up the wall and somersaulted over them, striking each of them as he passed. Both of the smaller men wobbled a little, but Cort was still strong and they turned to bear on Jon, spreading out to herd him against the opposite wall.
Jon smiled, feeling his power coursing through his body. He’d always considered his abilities useless annoyances, but he’d never before tested them like this. Rage radiated from Cort as he advanced, but the other two had their doubts, probably only remaining because their big friend would surely win them the fight, and Jon was certain that a few good hits on the big one would break their courage. Beyond them, Donna’s breathing was laboured and uneven. He had to finish this quickly to tend to her.
There was a fifth person here, Jon suddenly realised, in the sky above, only revealed by the sound of rushing wind. His smile faded as a figure in a silver bodysuit shot in from above and caught Cort on the side of the head, sending him down in one strike. Jon backed against the wall, wide-eyed as Silver Falcon despatched the other two in short order, but it wasn’t the hero’s entrance that had stunned him. Every person’s sounds, the cadence and pitch of their heartbeats and breathing, were unique. Jon had learnt this almost the moment he’d gained the ability to hear them, and he recognised Silver Falcon’s immediately. This was Lance Bennett, the head of human resources at Fischer Engineering and Donna’s boyfriend for longer than Jon had known her.
Shaking his head, Jon snorted at himself as his strength drained as quickly as it had built. He’d named himself guardian of Donna’s trip home, convinced himself he’d followed her for a greater purpose, but Donna already had a protector, the best in the British Isles. I need to leave the hero business to those who know what they’re doing, he berated himself. Convinced it was more important than ever to keep his identity hidden, he felt at the jumper to ensure his face was still concealed.
“That’ll teach them to prey upon women like that,” stated Silver Falcon, striking a regal pose as he dusted his hands off. Jon wondered if the man had modelled his behaviour after the old George Reeves serials, then berated himself for the jealousy he’d no right to feel.
Falcon made no move toward Donna, watching her impassively as she lay on the ground. “Are you all right, miss?”
“Yeah, I’m fine, Silver Falcon,” she replied with a dazed smile. “Thank you!”
Jon gasped as the realisation hit him. She doesn’t know! Donna stared up at the superhero like a teenager meeting her celebrity crush. Still reeling from Cort’s blow, she barely had the presence of mind to say anything coherent, much less sustain a pretense of not knowing Silver Falcon. She honestly had no idea who he was.
The hero turned to look Jon up and down, his gaze lingering on the jumper over his face, which Jon knew must look ridiculous. “Good work there, mate,” Falcon drawled. His disdain hit Jon hard, and embarrassment flooded his stomach. He tried to think of anything to say, to defend himself, but the hero had already turned back to Donna, warning her to be more careful in the future. She called her thanks to him as he raised his fist and flew off.
Donna continued to stare up at the sky, heedless of her own injuries or indeed of the three unconscious men littering the alley and the stranger watching her. Jon frowned. How could her own boyfriend leave her alone in this alley, sitting injured among the three men who’d attacked her and another bloke who was hiding his identity behind a makeshift mask? He had to have known it was me, Jon concluded, because he wouldn’t just leave her with a complete stranger, would he? He tucked that thought away; right now, Donna was hurt and more important than anything else.
Jon crossed the alley and knelt next to her. His movement shocked her out of her reverie and she jerked away from him. “I know you’re not fine, no matter what you might tell him,” Jon stated gently. She stared at him, wary of his proximity and the jumper that concealed his face. “It’s okay,” he reassured her. “I’m not going to hurt you. May I check you over?”
Donna pushed herself up and leant back against the wall. Jon wasn’t sure if it was more comfortable for her or if it simply was further away from the strange masked man kneeling next to her. “How?” she asked.
He held up his hands to show her they were empty. “I just need to touch.”
“No funny business, sunshine!” she snapped. The exertion made her sway a bit.
“None. If I do anything you don’t like, just tell me no. Or scream if you prefer. Okay?” He held himself carefully still, making no move that could be construed as a threat, and waited for her refusal.
She nodded.
Jon placed his hand on her ankle and concentrated, modulating the frequency of his sonic field to ultrasound. He’d tried this before on his own body, to see if he could visualise his innards the way hospital machines could and found that he could identify some things, though he had to admit he had no idea what an injury would sound like. He could “see” the leg muscles tense with the shock of contact and Donna’s apprehension about his actions, but the tendons or ligaments or whatnot in the ankle (he wasn’t much of a doctor) seemed whole.
Next, he touched her cheek and knew immediately the bones were healthy, though he suspected she’d bruise from the strike. Lastly, he pointed at her stomach, the request for permission in his eyes. She nodded and he laid his hand on her blouse. This was the hardest of the three, as he really couldn’t tell what was what. As with the ankle, he couldn’t detect any major damage, though he wasn’t sure if bruising an organ, which he couldn’t detect, might be a problem.
“You’re very lucky. Nothing serious.” He realised that he’d actually been touching her, a dangerous act in its own right. Covering his sudden panic with a nervous smile, he scooted back as he double-checked his sonic field to make sure it was safe. He almost forgot what he’d been telling her. “Y-your ankle is twisted and not sprained, and you’ve no internal damage in your gut. Your jaw is fine, too, but it will likely bruise.”
Donna’s eyes widened. “You can tell all that by just touching?”
He murmured, “Yes.” As he expected, she puffed a sceptical snort. “Well, I’m not perfect and could be wrong. Best you go to A&E if you can, but I think they’ll tell you the same.”
He hopped to his feet and found her discarded handbag among the rubbish in the alley. He could hear her lying against the wall, still dazed and exhausted, watching him because she hadn’t the energy to do anything else. He couldn’t leave her here, but helping her home would require supporting her at the very least, and he didn’t know if he could control his sonic field long enough to avoid hurting her. Ultimately, he didn’t have much of a choice; he had to get her home. Well, he sighed to himself, it takes a few to cause any damage. I’ll just have to drop her quick if it squeals.
He looped the handbag over his neck, then held out a hand to her with an encouraging smile that he realised she couldn’t see behind the jumper. “Let’s get you home, shall we? Can you walk, or shall I carry you?”
“I can take care of myself,” she growled at him.
“I’m not going to leave you here in this alley, especially when we don’t know when they’ll wake up.” He nodded toward the three unconscious men. “Come on. You can lean on me.”
She glanced at the men, then gave Jon another appraisal before agreeing. “All right.”
Despite her insistence that she had the situation in hand, Donna couldn’t stand without his help, and after a couple of vain attempts to boost herself up, she finally allowed him to lift her to her feet. Stooping quite a bit to minimise the height difference between them, he slung her arm around his shoulders and supported her with his arm tight around her waist.
“I’m sorry, I don’t have a car here. We’ll have to do this the hard way. Which way?” he asked as they slowly limped along.
She pointed, and when they reached the pavement, he guided her gently in the indicated direction, letting her set the pace with each slow step. As they inched along, he focused on keeping his sonic field at a safe infrasound frequency so that she wouldn’t inadvertently hear it. He spoke only to ask how she was doing or if she wanted to rest. Donna herself was preoccupied with keeping her footing, and so the long journey home was mostly silent, at least to her. He heard her tension dissipate as she came to trust his support and intentions.
When they finally arrived at the door to her terrace house, Donna tested her footing, then tentatively extricated herself from him. Her grin shone in the porch light, proud and relieved as she stood on one foot, the injured leg held lightly up, the toe resting on the ground.
“All safe!” Jon declared, quite delighted that he’d managed to get her home, safe from her unfortunate encounter and unharmed by his powers. He unhooked her handbag and gave it to her.
Donna smiled. “I don’t know how I would have done it without your help. Thank you…” She hesitated. “You are?”
Jon’s joy drained. He took an involuntary step back. “I don’t have a name.”
“Of course you have a name,” she replied with a laugh, and he knew he deserved her mockery. “Why don’t you take off that silly jumper so that I can see you properly?”
In a panic, he backed away and clasped the cloth over his face. “No! I’m not anyone. I was just passing by.”
Donna frowned, looking him over from head to foot, then nodded slightly, as if she’d made some internal decision. “Are you a prime?” she blurted.
Jon swallowed hard. She had no idea who he was, didn’t know that they were colleagues and that she’d known him for two years now, yet he still was reluctant to admit to her, of all people, what he was. Though he’d sworn to himself he’d never pursue her, because she was taken and because he simply was too dangerous to be around, he couldn’t stand the thought of her thinking he was less than human. But he had no other way to explain how he’d done what he’d done this evening, fighting those blokes and helping her afterwards.
“That’s such an odd word, isn’t it? Implies we’re not human, like we’re a, er, a number, or a cut of meat, or something,” he mused. He knew he was simply stalling, hiding his dark secret from her for one more moment, but it was also his truth. He’d no idea what he was anymore. “Or that we’re morally superior somehow.” He stared at his hands, obsessively rubbing his fingers as he stonewalled. “I… I’ve a little. You saw. I can’t do much, not like Silver Falcon. But you were just…” He faltered. Silver Falcon might have defeated her attackers, but he’d arrived late. Donna would have suffered for that delay if Jon hadn’t acted. “I couldn’t just stand by,” he finished lamely.
“You’re a proper hero, then,” Donna declared, her voice gentler than he’d ever heard it before.
Jon startled and almost shook the jumper off. “Oh, n-no no, not me. I’m not, n-not one bit,” he stuttered.
“You are!” she assured him. “Really you are. Jumping in to defend me when you could’ve been killed yourself. And not for glory or recognition or reward, but just to help me. That’s what a hero is.”
Had he really done that? He’d just had to stop those men. It hadn’t mattered who they’d been attacking, though of course the victim being Donna had made it all that much worse. But that’s what she was saying, wasn’t it?
“Though,” she continued, “if you’re going to keep doing this, you should get a better mask.” She took a careful step forward and grasped his arm. “Thank you for saving me, and helping me home.”
She smiled at him, and his heart melted. That was all he’d ever wanted, to see her smile. “It was my honour,” he replied, and he meant it.
Suddenly, it was all too much, and he bounded off. He was halfway home before he paused on the roof of a dark office block and found a perch where he could stare out into the night and contemplate what had just happened. He tore the jumper from his face and pulled it on properly.
He’d been a hero, Donna had said, a proper hero. He’d used his abilities to do something good. For the first time since he’d gained his powers, he considered them to be true gifts, beneficial and desirable to have. Maybe I can do this superhero thing. Not like Silver Falcon. I can’t fly, and I can’t go around punching supervillains. They’d squish me like a bug. But I can do a bit. He stared down at the dark road below him. I could certainly try to make the night a little safer.
He snorted, shaking his head at how daft he was being. “This is a fantasy, pure and simple!” he berated himself in a shout reflexively silenced by his sonic field. No one ever heard him, not when he could avoid it. “Here I am, crouched on the edge of a roof in the classic pose, looking out over London as if I had the faintest hope of trying to protect it. I’m tossing around the words ‘superhero’ and ‘supervillain’ like they’re a part of normal everyday life!” But even as he laughed at himself, he realised that for the first time since the Blue Rain had come, he felt he had a purpose.
“I’ve got to try,” he argued with himself. “I can’t live the rest of my life hiding from the world, not like I’ve been.” He flexed his fingers, testing the strength of his grip. “I can do this. I can make a difference. I did tonight, I think.”
With a self-conscious sniff, he gazed back the way he’d come. “And maybe someday, I’ll make her proud. Not that she’d know, but I will.”
He stood up and nodded to himself, tapping his fingers on his thighs as he paced across the roof. “But she’s right. I need a mask. Something that hides my face whilst keeping my ears free. And free breathing. It should fold up, too, so I can keep it in my pocket.”
His head whirling with designs, he sprinted off toward home, relishing in his agility and freedom and in the cool breeze in his face, then slid to a hard stop and smacked himself on the forehead with the heel of his hand. “My bloody coat!” he exclaimed. “Oh, Jonathan, how can you be a superhero if you can’t keep your head on straight?” With a disgusted and amused snort at himself, he sprinted back toward Chiswick proper.