Chapter Text
“They know we have a doorbell right?” muttered Chase angrily as he walked over to the penthouse’s front door to open to whoever was harshly knocking on it.
The last thing he expected to see when he opened the door was a team of 9 people, all wearing earpieces and suits, looking like they just came out of Men In Black, and yet, that was exactly the scene in front of him.
“Um… can I help you?”
The man in the very front and center pulled out a card with his name, picture, and credentials and showed it to Chase. He was a tall man with black hair and knitted eyebrows. Everything about him screamed serious professionalism.
“I’m Agent Wilson,” he greeted. “You’re Chase Davenport, leader of the Elite Force right? Making this the team’s current residency?”
“Yeah, that’s us.” Chase verified as soon as he validated the card he was shown. He pauses to look at all the agents. “Have we done something?”
“We’d like to talk with you for a bit,” said Agent Wilson walking inside with the rest of the agents.
Oh yeah sure come on in. No it’s not too much trouble, thanks for asking was what Chase wanted to say but he held his tongue.
Bree, Skylar, and Kaz had gotten up to see what was happening when they heard Chase talking at the door. Oliver was listening from the kitchen but walked over to them when he saw the agents come in. They all gave Chase questioning looks when they walked in but he just shrugged in response.
“Sooo… have we done something?” Chase repeated.
“We’re with the abnormal global phenomena division,” explains Agent Wilson. “You two might be familiar with it,” he said, pointing to Bree and Chase. “I was second in command when you worked with Agent Graham.”
“More like when we were his lap dogs,” Bree scoffed. Chase gave her a don’t-piss-off-the-government-people look but Agent Wilson brushed her comment off anyway.
“Either way, you’re going to be seeing a lot more of us now. The president has demanded that you all be placed on house arrest, effective immediately.”
There was an immediate uproar at this news.
“Who do you think you are?” yelled Bree.
“We’re the ones actually doing stuff!” argued Kaz.
“How do you expect us to do anything?” shouted Skylar.
“What have we done to warrant house arrest?” said Oliver.
Chase was just staring at him in offended shock.
“Hey,” Agent Wilson shouts over all of them. “This is a direct order from the president, I advise you all to calmly cooperate,” he warns.
“As if!” Bree exclaims. “Your little subpar division treated us like shit last time!
“And if you don’t want us to be worse, I suggest you all calmly cooperate,” he threatens.
“Hold on a minute,” said Chase, finding his voice. “Why is this happening?”
“This is all per the shapeshifter attacks that happened last week.” He pulled out a tablet and showed them the screen while scrolling through some pictures. They were all of similar things, damaged buildings, flashing ambulances in front of hospitals, injured people; just overall chaos and catastrophe. “Wrecked structures, scared citizens, lack of trust in our government. We gave this team months to do something and this is where that’s gotten us. People think the president isn’t doing anything so this is him doing something.”
Chase tried to keep his voice level. “With all due respect, how is the government supposed to stop this if we haven’t yet?”
“Classified information.”
“What, and we don’t have a right to know?”
“Not anymore, you don’t.”
Chase scoffed, “Well if you expect us to just sit here and do nothing-“
“It’s what we’re commanding you to do and you will do it.”
“Look. This is a much bigger threat than you guys can handle. We’ve almost got it, we just need a little bit of time.”
“Which we have leisurely supplied up until now. Now no one trusts this team and the entire country is breathing down Mr. President’s back to do something.”
“What, so you’re restricting our freedom for no reason to ease the life of one man?” Skylar demanded.
“Precisely,” he replied calmly.
The team all glared at Agent Wilson and his posse. No one could believe how or why this was happening.
“Also,” he says. “We now have an obligation to search the place.”
“For what,” Kaz asked incredulously.
Agent Wilson shrugged. “Anything that could be out of place. You’re all bionic so this is just a precaution. I’m sure you understand.”
“No, actually, we don’t,” interjected Bree angrily. “Have we not built up enough trust with the government for the past few years?”
“And even so, you’d need a warrant or probable cause and I’m pretty sure we haven’t committed any heinous crimes lately,” said Chase.
“You’re bionic,” Wilson reiterated. “That’s enough probable cause.”
“So because we’re bionic, human rights get skimped out on us,” argued Chase.
“You can make that argument when you’re full human,” scoffed Wilson.
Chase was about to retaliate when he heard some commotion behind him. There were flames licking Kaz’ shoulders and he was being held back by their remaining teammates by his arms from charging at the agents. He knew how much Bree and Chase felt dehumanized by comments like this and having an alien as one of his best friends who didn’t like similar jokes made him super protective of them against any deprecating comments.
The agents reacted quickly to this though and pulled out what Chase quickly identified as stun guns but it didn’t stop him from forming a force field that split the room completely in two and using his molecular kinesis to hover the guns well over their heads.
“Think very hard about the decisions you’re making right now, Davenport,” warned Wilson.
“Oh, I’m thinking very clearly,” replied Chase, feeling angrier than ever since their interaction started. It was one thing to threaten his team, they were tough, they could hold their own. But to do it right in front of him, much less in their own home? Government officials or not, he’d choose to defend them every time.
“Control yourself and your team,” said Wilson, glaring through the swirly light blue matter separating them.
“You first,” said Chase. “Tell your agents to stand down.”
“Davenport…” he warned.
“You’re outpowered, Agent Wilson. Tell your agents to stand down,” he recapitulated.
Agent Wilson glared at Chase but Chase held his ground and glared back. They looked at each other for ten more seconds before Agent Wilson turned back to his agents and made a motion with his fingers to which they responded to by relaxing their offensive stances.
Chase deemed that to be good enough and made his force field disappear and then dropped their guns lacklusterly.
The teens were all still glaring at the agents when they had picked their stun guns up and holstered them.
“And that,” said Agent Wilson, straightening his suit, “is why we have probable cause.”
With that, he turned around to walk out with the rest of the agents. “We’ll be back soon with your ankle monitors and our search dogs,” he called over his shoulder. “This time, don’t try anything funny or we won’t be as nice.”
Chase walked behind them and as soon as the last agent walked out the door he slammed it shut, barely even reacting from the strain of using two abilities due to the adrenaline rush he had. He turned around to face his teammates who were all now giving him expectant looks.
“Slightly good news is, they can’t find mission command unless they give the verbal cue for it to open which none of them know, so they’re not going to have anything on us post penthouse search,” he said.
“Bad news is, like everything else,” said Oliver.
“Plus, I’m sure they’re not going to be so communal after that stunt we just pulled,” sighed Skylar.
“Yeah,” groaned Chase. Kaz stared at the ground in guilt.
“Hey,” Chase called out to him and he looked up at him straight away. “It was not your fault, okay?” Kaz nodded softly. “Thank you for standing up for us.”
Chase exhaled and pushed himself off the door, “I’m gonna call Mr. Davenport when they leave and get to the bottom of this. I never liked the new president anyway,” he muttered bitterly, walking away.