Kryptonite by Homeric

(Spoilers for everything post "Number Crunch".)

"You're not Superman you know. I can hear you." Taylor doesn't turn his head, and John wonders what it was that gave him away. He's wearing sneakers not his dress shoes so his footsteps are even quieter than they usually are. Maybe it was the faint squeak of the emergency door as he nudged it a little further open, he muses. He always carries a gun, a lock-pick and his phone, but something to oil hinges isn't a tool he picks up out of habit. Most of the time there isn't time for niceties and the doors he has to get through end up riddled with bullets anyway. He's probably upped the share prices on Home Depot alone.

Since there isn't any point in stealth any-more he walks over to the young man sat on the edge of the roof of the apartment complex, close enough to the edge to flirt with danger, but not so close that Reese doesn't yank him back by the collar of his baseball shirt on the off chance he loses his balance. The air vent a few feet behind them releases steam up to the bright stars in the darkness and the hum of traffic doesn't quite seem real.

"So you're a comic book fan?" It seemed a safe enough question. Stepping over the pitted concrete, John gives an automatic once-over at the terrain before relaxing. Flat roof, seven stories high, one exit, cover if needed from a tangle of long since abandoned scaffolding poles bleeding rust into the puddles left by yesterdays rain. A decent place for a sniper intent on the people scurrying down on the street below, but a strange one for a teenager to seek out at eleven o clock on a Saturday night.

"Not really. Liked the X-Men films. Wolverine y'know, with the claws and the attitude and being invincible â€“ he was pretty awesome." When Reese sits down beside him, dangling his long legs over the side of the side of the wall, Taylor finally looks at him and gives a short, almost accusatory laugh. "Damn man. Shorts? Seriously? You're supposed to be bad ass Suit Guy. I mean you found me, so you've got like spider sense 'cause even mom doesn't know I'm up here, and you show up looking like..." Taylor's dark eyes narrow in annoyance and he shakes his head.

"Like?"

"Like a normal person." The teenager looks at him as though he's utterly stupid, and a little thrown, John wonders whether when it comes to kids perhaps he is. "You don't see Spiderman out patrolling in his pyjamas do you? Or.. I don't know Batman saving the world in jeans and flip flops." Taylor sounds positively irate. Too irate really.

"I was out jogging," John says quietly. "You can do it in suits but it's uncomfortable, the shoes give you blisters and the dry cleaning bills are hell. This," he tugs on the tatty gray t-shirt that is sticky with sweat and of forgotten providence "is a bit more comfortable."

"Yeah, but when you're wearing it then.. I dunno..When those men grabbed me there were all those people shooting at you and you never got hit once." Taylor looks away. "You got me and mom out. Gotta be at least a lucky charm."

In the moonlight the scar on Johns thigh hasn't yet faded to silver, the one on his abdomen still pulls slightly as it heals. He tucks his leg up underneath him in a pretence of getting more comfortable. Those two marks on his body are just a couple in the long list of scars that map his skin, and although he doesn't blame Carter for them, and would never divulge how he got them, to have her son ask questions about his scars isn't something he wants to deal with.

Leaning back on his elbows, Taylor stretches and tilts his head at John curiously. "So how come you're here anyway? Weird place to go for a run. If you're looking for my mom she's down the precinct."

John weighs up his options. Since I-and-Finch-keep-both-you-and-your-mother-under-twenty-four-surveillance-and-I-was-worried-when-I-saw-you-alone-on-a-rooftop wasn't a viable option when it came to answering, nor was using default flirting as a distraction or the usual if in doubt physical violence, John settles for a half-truth. "I came to give some work stuff to your mom and saw the door to the roof open. Went to check it out. Saw you here, and why are you here â€“ I'd have thought you'd have somewhere else to be on a Saturday night."

"Yeah well." Taylor is silent for a long while. Reese isn't quite sure whether he's tracking the path of an aeroplane looking like a slow, sorry excuse for a shooting star, or is just lost in thought. "It would have been my dad's birthday today. Figured I'd come up here, say hi to him. Look at the stars."

Fuck. Reese inwardly kicks himself. Looking out for the kid was one thing, intruding on personal grief was something else entirely. The Machine could do a hell of a lot but it didn't understand compassion. "I'm sorry," he says eventually. "I didn't mean to intrude."

Taylor doesn't answer, but he gets to his feet and shoves his hands in the pockets of his (too baggy in John's opinion) jeans. "It's ok," he says eventually. "It's not like there's an advert in the papers or anything. He didn't have much family and it's just me and mom. She doesn't really..." His big dark eyes are overly bright, and standing, John puts his hand on the boy's shoulder. The boy accepts the comfort for a moment before moving away, and not for the first time John is struck by how similar Joss and her son are.

"I miss him, but it's not like I didn't get a family. It's good that she's got you now though. I think she gets lonely." Any vulnerability had been squashed down quickly, and the boy was once again the promise of the man he would become. For Reese however it is a little like being blindsided, something that simply doesn't happen to him.

And Ok, Joss does have him. No way is he going to let anyone harm her or her son. That's what he and Finch do. Finch probably doesn't get distracted and wonder what Carter's lips would feel like, or whether that gorgeous skin is as soft as it looks, and Finch definitely isn't impressed with the ease in which John forgave her for getting him shot. Joss would probably be horrified at the idea of any intimacy between them anyway.

"Your mom and I. We help each other out. That's all." It sounds very convincing in his head and not at all when said out loud.

Taylor rolls his eyes and gives Reese a pitying look. "She's my mom. If she didn't like you she'd I don't know, shoot you or ignore you â€“ she wouldn't let you piss her off all the damn time. Believe me, I know. I live with her and she'd have killed me about a hundred times by now if she didn't love me."

"Just a hundred?" Reese's voice is dry and polite.

"Yeah well, my teachers say I have to do better in math so it's not like I've done a graph of pissing mom off or anything. I don't reckon I'd get extra credit anyway." Walking quickly, he pauses before disappearing down the stairs. "She's allergic to shellfish but she likes the restaurant with the big aquarium down the block. I'm going to soccer camp next week. You'll look after her right?"

"Yeah." The answer comes out before he can think about it. His chest is tight and Reese knows exactly what Taylor is asking. Whatever numbers come up, whatever he has to do, he'll make sure that Joss is not alone.