Eye of the Beholder

Author’s Notes: Thank you blue_lioness, onewing, moon_muse, amh, Reed McCoy, Capt_Davy_Jones_Lover, Michael, brier and WeepingAngelOfDeath for your reviews.

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“WHAT!?” all of the adults nearly yell, startling the kids.

“Where does it say FOH?” Cathy questions in a shaky voice, the first to actually recover.

“Right here,” Beverly answers, pointing to the lower corner of the screen closest to her. “It’s a bit hard to read, but it’s there.”

All of the adults crowd closer to the desk that the monitor is sitting on and peer down at the spot that Beverly indicates. Sure enough, in lettering that’s only slightly darker than the background are the letters ‘FOH’ on top of a closed fist and Amanda’s hand instinctively tightens around Hank’s. Hank pulls her into his arms as the others continue to stare at the screen and she buries her face into the fur on his neck, finding comfort in his warmth and scent.

“So what does it mean?” Beverly asks, a bit freaked out by the way all of the grown ups are acting.

“You three, bed, now,” Annie orders as she reaches for her husband and he pulls her into the safety of his arms.

“But…,” Paul starts to object.

“You heard your mother, move it, now,” Mike interrupts, never taking his eyes off of the screen.

There’s some minor grumbling as the kids squeeze their way out of the crowded room, but other than that, they say nothing else.

“Why would they do this?” Annie whispers, holding onto Mike as if her life depended on it.

“Hank’s probably the most high profile mutant in the world,” Amanda replies without moving from her spot. “What other reason do they need?”

“I’m sorry you got dragged into this,” he softly tells her as he holds her closer despite the sidelong looks her father is giving them.

“The Friends of Humanity are a sick and twisted lot that need to realize that mutants were created by the good Lord, just like non-mutants,” Cathy states vehemently as she leans against Stuart for comfort and he wraps an arm around her shoulders.

“No good can come of this site,” Hank says quietly while he rubs Amanda’s back.

“Can’t you sue them?” Mike asks, looking over at Amanda. “Get them to close down or something?”

“What would I sue them for?” Amanda counters, finally raising her head from Hank’s shoulder.

“Invasion of privacy,” Mike suggests.

Amanda reluctantly steps out of Hank’s embrace, goes over to the computer and takes a hold of the mouse. She quickly scans through the thumbnail photographs, inwardly cringing when she sees the ones from the holiday gala and silently praying that her parents don’t notice. She makes sure that she didn’t miss any and that there aren’t any other pages to the site before sighing and stepping back.

“All of the pictures are from public venues,” Amanda states. “There’s no case for invasion of privacy. Also, since they’re getting their pictures from anyone who happens to have a camera on him or her, it’s not like they have anyone following us and spying on us. If it weren’t for the Friends of Humanity logo, this could be considered an innocent, if over zealous and down right creepy, fan site. What they’re doing is disgusting and reprehensible, but perfectly legal. Besides, even if I could get the person running this site to shut it down, one of the other members could just as easily start another one.”

“I would like nothing more than to see the mother board fried on their computer,” Hank grumbles and everyone else goes still at his words.

“It’s getting late,” Cathy states out of the blue several silent seconds later. “I have a ton of dishes that I need to wash, so if you’ll excuse me. Annie, Amy, would you please help me?”

With that, the matriarch of the family leaves with her daughters following behind without a word and Hank watches them curiously, confused by their strange behavior.

“I better go make sure the kids are getting ready for bed and not having another pillow fight,” Mike says just before he exits the room.

“Well, that just leaves us, Hank,” Stuart says as he goes to turn off the computer. “Care for a game of chess.”

“I would love to,” Hank replies absently, still perplexed about the others odd behavior.

“Great, I haven’t had a good game in ages,” Stuart happily says as he leads Hank out of the den, thought the cheerfulness seems a bit strained.

Hank follows the man, mulling over the other’s odd behavior and quietly wondering what it was about his comment that made them react so.

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“Annie…,” Amanda starts quietly.

“No, absolutely, not!” Annie interrupts with a snarl.

“Why not?” Amanda demands, barely noticing when her mother puts a dishtowel into her hand.

“Because he can’t do it,” Annie snaps as she turns to start scrapping some of the leftover food into the bucket for the compost pile and the rest into the garbage.

“Can’t or you won’t let him?” Amanda questions as starts to dry the first of the hand washed dishes.

“It’s not going to happen, so stop asking,” Annie growls, barely managing to put a cleaned off plate into a pile to be washed without breaking it.

“Annie, if this was just some ordinary fan that went a bit over the top, then I wouldn’t be asking,” Amanda tells her. “But the Friends of Humanity are dangerous people and they’re targeting Hank.”

“What do you care?” Annie snarls. “You’ll probably just end up dumping him like you’ve done with all of your other boyfriends.”

“Hank isn’t like those guys and I’ve had good reasons for dumping every single one of those jerks,” Amy shoots back.

“Such as?” Annie questions, her eyes narrowed at her sister.

“Well, let’s see,” Amanda replies as she starts to tick of the reasons on her fingers. “Jeff was sleeping with my roommate; Chris was a pathological liar who happened to be already married, something he didn’t bother telling me when he asked me out; Dennis was sent to jail for embezzlement; Keith dumped me and Scott wanted me to quit my job and pop out babies like I was some type of walking incubator. And those are just the ones that made it past the second date. Unlike any of those guys, Hank has treated me with nothing buy kindness and respect.”

“Ok, so he’s not like the other guys,” Annie grumbles as she starts to put away the cleaned and dried dishes. “But the answer is still no.”

“Why?” Amanda asks.

“Because he can’t do it,” Annie answers angrily.

“And we’re back to is it because he really can’t do it or because you won’t let him,” Amanda reminds her.

“I don’t know if he can and I’m not about to let him try,” Annie shoots back irritably.

“Why not?” Amanda demands in a hiss. “How’s he supposed to be able to control his abilities if you won’t let him see what he can do?”

“What if he starts going around and messing around with things he shouldn’t?” Annie quietly questions. “What if he starts causing trouble? What if…?”

“What if you give the kid a chance,” Amanda butts in. “You’ve been raising him to be a responsible person. Trust him to make the right decisions. If you don’t let him, he’ll never forgive you and in the end he’ll be the opposite of what you want just to spite you.”

“What gives you the right to start giving parenting advice?” Annie snaps.

“Amy’s right, Annie,” Cathy quietly tells her daughter. “You need to learn to trust Paul to make the right decisions on his own.”

“You’re siding with her?” Annie asks, completely stunned.

“This isn’t about taking sides, Annie,” Cathy calmly replies. “It’s about what’s doing what’s right. If the FOH are targeting Hank, than the site needs to come down and their computer needs to be taken out of commission.”

“You’re asking for a pretty big favor,” Annie says with a calculating look on her face. “What do I get in return?”

“It seems I’m asking the favor more of Paul than I am of you,” Amy responds, eyeing her sister.

“You have to go through me to get to him,” Annie points out.

“Fine, what do you want?” Amanda asks, dreading that she already knows the answer.

“Baby sit the kids for a weekend,” Annie answers immediately. “And you will feed them healthy food and you will make them do their choirs and their homework.”

“That’s asking a bit much,” Amanda grumbles, scowling at her twin.

“Take it or leave it, but that’s the deal,” Annie responds with a challenging look in her eye.

“Fine, I’ll do all of that on the condition that if any more of these sites come up Paul will take them down immediately,” Amanda counters. “Deal?”

“Deal,” Annie agrees with a nod and the tension that had been building up in the room immediately drains away.

“When can he do it?” Amanda inquires as she goes back to drying the dishes.

“Sometime when Hank’s not around,” Annie tells her.

“Why?” Amanda questions.

“Because I don’t want him to know,” Annie replies.

“Why not?” Amanda inquires.

“Because I don’t want Hank to know,” Annie answers. “I don’t want anybody outside of this family to know.”

“But…,” Amanda starts, turning away from the dishes that need to be dried again.

“No,” Annie firmly interrupts. “I’m trying to protect my child, please respect that.”

“As you wish,” Amanda replies with a shrug. “I was going to show Hank the barn and the gardens tomorrow after breakfast. Would that work?”

“Yeah, that should be fine and it should give him enough time to get the job done too,” Annie responds with a nod.

“If you two are through negotiating my grandson’s future, could you please get back to helping me with the dishes?” Cathy asks irritably as she rinses off another plate and hands it dripping to Amanda since the drying rack is full.

Without another word, Amanda and Annie go back to the tasks at hand and they work on in silence, each lost in her own thoughts.

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As he sips his tea, he looks out the window at another cold, dreary morning and scowls at the inclement weather. It’s raining again, but that’s not unusual weather for Northern California for this time of the year. Despite the fact that regular climate patterns help keep the area green and help keep the redwood trees alive to shield the old house out of view of casual observers, the cold and wet more often than not remind him that he’s no longer the young man that he once was.

He feels his seat gently vibrate and off in the distance he can he hear the whine of a power tool in use and he smiles to himself. How fortuitous it was to find this old house with the large basement and while the real estate agent went on about the view and the redwoods surrounding the property, never did the woman suspect that there were hidden chambers behind the walls of the basement. Judging from the age of the house and its relative seclusion while still being fairly close to San Francisco, he figures the rooms must have been used during the prohibition era nearly a century ago.

From the look of the drains in the floors and the plumbing into those rooms, he figures they probably were making the illegal alcohol as well as storing it before smuggling it out into the city. The pounding of a hammer joins the power tool’s song and it’s music to his ears as his smile turns into a rather evil smirk. Soon, very soon, the basement will have a new purpose and that makes his aching joints hurt just a little bit less.

Thanks to that giant blue oaf, he spent many long, miserable months living among the Sapiens, an experience he doesn’t care to repeat any time soon. Being among them only confirmed his belief that their time on this planet has come and gone and it’s now time for a new regime to reign supreme. He watched as they beat each other up, killing without remorse more often than not and it only validated his belief that if these beings are going to wipe themselves out why shouldn’t he and his kind help them along the way.

But before that can happen, he must repay the one who took away his glory at Alcatraz and his gaze moves over to the wall where the clipped out pictures of his target hang. How delicious it will be when he has his revenge on the Beast who laid him so low and the fact that it will be his Sapien girlfriend that will be his undoing will make it even sweeter. If the two of them had any idea what was in store for them, they wouldn’t be making such spectacles of themselves.

He eyes the latest photographs that he’s added to his collection and he has to chuckle. He must admit the dress she wore to the President’s little party is quite the eye catcher and if the look on McCoy’s face is anything to go by, she probably didn’t sleep alone that night. While the thought of one of his kind sleeping with such a lesser being turns his stomach, the knowledge that McCoy has become so attached to her will make him even easier to manipulate and he can feel his smile deepen.

The sound of yelling and cursing invade his pleasant thoughts and with a sigh, he wearily gets up from his seat to see what the calamity is now, leaving his cold tea on the desk. He follows the sound of raised voices to the room furthest from his office and he sighs. He stops at the doorway of the computer room, knowing that just his presence in that room is dangerous to the equipment therein.

“What is the problem now, Mother?” he asks a bit irritably.

“The server seems to be down,” the young woman answers crossly while she snaps her gum and furiously types away at the keyboard. “I was about to update the website when suddenly it’s gone. All that hard work, POOF, gone!”

“What can you do to fix it?” he questions, relieved that it’s someone else’s fault that there’s a glitch in his plans.

“Nothing ‘til the server comes back up,” she replies as she pushes her lime green hair out her face and spins her seat around to face him. “Got some new news and pics on McCoy and I was about to put it up.”

“What news?” he inquires. “I was unaware that he had done anything news worthy.”

“Nothin’ you’d find in a real newspaper, just some local rag,” she tells him as she chews on her gum. “Got some pics of him and the girlfriend drivin’ through her hometown. Looks like she’s takin’ him home to meet Mommy and Daddy.”

“My goodness, that is juicy information,” he purrs and any thoughts of gloomy weather or painful joints are driven from his mind.

“I could print the pictures up for you while I wait for the server to come up, but they’re a bit fuzzy,” she says and he cocks an eyebrow at her. “Fuzzier than they should be.”

“That won’t be necessary, thank you,” he replies as he turns to go. “My wall is becoming quite full as it is. I’ll leave you to your work.”

He gets about half way down the hallway before the sound of something exploding and screaming comes from the computer room. He spins around and the sight of black smoke coming out of the room meets his eyes and the stench of burnt plastic and metal reaches his nose a second later. Without a second thought, he takes a deep breath and runs into the room as the smoke detector starts to wail.

The room is filled with black smoke and he bends over to get underneath it, though it doesn’t really help. The smoke is making his eyes burn and water and his lungs are starting to demand air, so he blindly makes his way over to the window and opens it, drawing in a breath of the cold wet air as soon as he can. He turns back around and he can hear someone else moving around in there with him.

“Mother?” he calls.

“No,” a muffled male voice calls back.

“Pyro, put out the fire,” Magnito instructs, the smoke starting to sting the lining of his lungs.

“I already have,” Pyro replies with a cough. “But the smoke is so thick I can’t see a thing.”

“Just a moment,” Magnito says as he starts to cough as well.

He sticks his face out the window, actually thankful that they don’t have screens up yet, to get another breath of fresh air and then feels for anything metal. The now overturned desk chair that Mother had been sitting on is what he finds first and he quickly rips the thing apart to make the blades of a fan and then quickly starts to spin them, forcing the smoke towards the open window. Soon, the smoke gets to be too much for the older man and he starts to cough in earnest as his lungs protest the smoke being in them.

Despite the pain and burning of his lungs, he maintains the fan blowing the acrid air out of the room and barely notices when someone starts to lead him out of the room. He can barely see as tears stream down his face, trying to clear the smoke particles out of his eyes. It’s not until someone gently pushes him into a chair does he realize that he’s now in the dining room.

“Where are Mother and Pyro?” Magnito asks when he’s finally able.

“Pyro’s taking her to the hospital,” one of Magnito’s followers tells him as she pushes a glass of water into his hands. “Drink this. It’ll help get the smoke out of your throat.”

“What happened?” he inquires after drinking some of the cooling liquid.

“I’m not entirely sure yet, but it looks like the computer blew up,” she answers as she takes a wet cloth and starts wiping the soot off of his face. “There were pieces of glass and plastic imbedded in Mother’s face and shoulder. It looks like she had her back to the computer so it only got the side of her face, but it still looks nasty. I know you don’t like the idea of us going to the hospital, but Mother was unconscious and it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

“I don’t like the idea of her being in the hands of Sapiens,” he grumbles.

“Pyro will stay with her and warn us if anyone starts asking questions,” she replies.

“I want everything to be in order in the basement if the authorities decide to come nosing around,” he instructs as he gets to his feet and immediately wobbles.

“Yes, sir,” she says as she puts a steadying hand under his elbow. “I’ll see to it. You should go get cleaned up and then get some rest. You breathed in quite a bit of smoke and I don’t want to have to take you to the hospital for smoke inhalation.”

“That, my dear, sounds like a very good idea,” he agrees as he carefully makes his way out of the room.

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Annie nervously watches over her son as he sits in front of his grandmother’s computer completely motionless and he stares at the monitor with completely black eyes. The monitor shows nothing but zeros and ones rapidly scrolling down the screen that can be seen reflected in the boy’s eyes. Amanda’s laptop sits on the desk next to the monitor with the FOH page brought up to monitor Paul’s progress.

“The site’s down,” Mike announces as he stares at the laptop. “Now all he has to do is find the computer it came from and shut it down.”

Annie simply nods that she’s heard him as she continues to stare at her first born, barely breathing as her heart hammers against her ribs. The minutes drag on, seeming to take hours to her and more than once she wants to grab him and snap him out of his trance. Suddenly, Paul slumps forward onto the keyboard and she rushes forward to pull him into her arms.

“PAUL!” she shouts, nearly panicking as she cradles her child in her arms.

“Yeah, I’m here, you don’t have to shout,” Paul weakly grumbles as he blinks a few times and looks up at his mother with bright green eyes.

“Did you do it?” she hesitantly asks.

“Yeah,” Paul replies softly with a small self satisfied smile on his face. “No one’s going to be using that computer again. Though, I think I over did it.”

Before either of his parents can comment on his statement, he closes his eyes and goes limp in his mother’s arms.

“Paul!” Annie calls, shaking the boy and on the verge of tears.

“It’s alright, honey,” Mike says reassuringly. “He’s just passed out. He’s never stretched himself so far before, so it’s not too surprising. I’ll take him upstairs so he can get some rest.”

Mike gently takes his son into his arms and carries him out of the room while she sits down in the now vacated chair before dropping her face in her hands and having a good tension releasing cry.