What Is This, The Incredibles?
It was noon the next day, and you hadn't seen Stacy since before you left the day before when she helped you dress for your date. She'd gone out late with one of her friends, and left early that morning for school.
You were seated at your dining table, holding the business card Mr. Adams had given you and staring at the logo on the back. You swallowed and lifted your phone to your ear, hitting the dial button.
It rang three times, and there was a click.
“Mr. Adams office, how may I help you?”
You weren't expecting a secretary. “Oh, um-” you cleared your throat, putting down the business card and idly picking at the peeling white paint of your dining table—Stacy had insisted on a boho vintage piece that was in sore need of a new paint job. “I'm calling about a job offer?” It somehow came out as a question.
“One moment, please.” You waited on hold for less than ten seconds.
“Miss Y/l/n! What a pleasant surprise. To what do I owe the pleasure?” It was Mr. Adams. You could almost hear his sparkling hungry grin through the phone.
“I'm calling to accept the job offer,” you swallowed nervously again. You hated talking on the phone.
“Fantastic! How soon can you come in to hash out the details?”
“Uh, well, I'm free today and next Monday.”
“Well, I don't see why we should wait the whole weekend to bring you into our little family, so why not today? I can send a car to pick you up and bring you to our offices. What time suits you?”
“Two o'clock.”
“I'll have a car ready and waiting at two for you outside your building. I look forward to doing business with you, Miss Y/l/n.”
“Thank you, Mr. Adams. Is there anything specific I should bring?”
“Just your lovely self, Miss Y/l/n. We'll probably want to see your special gift, so perhaps dress comfortably. Oh, and your current suit. Noble told me you designed one yourself.”
“I did. I'll bring it.”
“Excellent. We'll see you here soon.”
He hung up before you realized you hadn't given him your address.
Two hours later, you were dressed in comfortable stretch skinny jeans, sneakers, a tank top, and your favorite coat. In your bag you carried the usual necessities, keys, chap-stick, wallet, a book, a hat and a scarf just in case it got windy, and your black and indigo catsuit.
As you were making sure you had everything you needed, your phone rang. You answered, guessing the unknown number was your ride.
“Miss Y/l/n, your ride is here.”
You'd guessed right. “I'll be right down.”
They hung up, and you went outside after locking up your apartment to find a black town car parked directly ahead of the front door, a tall and thickly muscled bald white man in a black suit waiting next to it.
You walked towards the car, uncertain.
“Miss Y/l/n.” The bald man said, giving you a casual nod, and opening the car door for you.
You looked at him for a moment. Was he the driver or was he muscle intended to guard you?
“Thanks,” you said, and entered the back of the car. In the driver's seat was another man, wearing a slightly more casual suit. He didn't acknowledge you.
The bald man got into the back seat, shutting the door behind him, leaving room between the two of you. He didn't buckle. The driver glanced at the two of you in the rear view mirror and began to drive.
You arrived at a tall, nondescript warehouse in an area of the city you didn't know. Baldy got out of the car, and opened your door. “We're here.”
“What is this, Zoolander?” You looked up at the warehouse, shouldering your bag.
Baldy closed the car door, ignoring your joke. “This way, please.” He walked to a small side-door that was up a small stairwell, you following close behind, holding the strap of your bag nervously. He opened the door into a small reception area that looked like it should be in a Wall Street office building instead of the side entrance to a dilapidated warehouse. It was clean and chic, with even a soothing water fixture near what looked like two sets of elevator doors. There was a second large gray door behind the secretary's desk to the left. The secretary was so nondescript you forgot what she looked like while you were looking at her.
“I have Mr. Adams's afternoon appointment.”
“Please proceed through the left hand elevator doors,” she replied, almost robotically, pressing a button on her computer.
The doors slid open with a soft whoosh and a ding, and you followed baldy inside. The silence was deafening as the doors slid shut, blocking out the sound of the water fixture in the lobby. The elevator started moving down, and after a few minutes, stopped. You weren't sure how far underground you were, but you knew it was far enough.
Mr. Adams was waiting for you when the doors slid open, wearing another expensive suit, this time dark blue with a mustard yellow shirt. “Miss Y/l/n! I trust you had a safe ride over?”
You nodded. “Yeah, it was fine. What is this place?”
“These are the secret A.I.M. offices. We have a building downtown that deals with public relations, above the board business and so on. This building, however, is where we do our most important work in the city. This floor is dedicated to the study and training of gifted individuals, such as yourself. Today we'd like, if you don't mind, to observe some of your abilities, since we already know how excellent of a scientist you are. After we do that, we can decide exactly what sort of work we'd like for you to do, and outfit you with an appropriate suit to keep you safe in any tousles you might get into. How does that sound?”
While he spoke, he walked with you down a long white hallway with his hand on the back of your shoulder, passing a number of closed silver doors. Baldy trailed along behind, silent as always.
“It sounds like a plan, yeah.”
You stopped in front of a pair of double swinging doors, silver just like the rest.
“Here we are!” Mr. Adams proclaimed cheerfully, pushing the doors open and entering the room with you. Baldy didn't follow.
The room was as white as the hallway. You looked around and saw a hefty amount of gym equipment, weights, treadmill, punching bags, etc., as well as computers practically oozing wires. A few scientists in white lab coats, three middle aged men and one slightly younger woman in her thirties, turned around from various stations around the room.
“I've brought you today's guest! I hope you're all ready for her!” Mr. Adams turned towards you. “I'm afraid I have to leave you here, now. I've got quite a bit of business to take care of, but I'll be back at the end of the day to consult with you about what work you'll do for us.”
You just nodded, nervous at the prospect of having to show your abilities in front of a bunch of strangers, especially when those strangers were detached scientists.
Mr. Adams left, and one of the men came over to you. He had a tan, sparkly gray eyes, and sandy colored hair.
“Hello Miss Y/l/n, I'm Doctor Schmidt. It's a pleasure to meet you,” he reached out to shake your hand, a friendly smile on his face. “Please come this way, we'd like to draw a blood sample before we begin observing.”
Doctor Schmidt was surprisingly warm and friendly, like he was a family friend you'd known forever, and you relaxed, not realizing just how anxious you'd been. “What're ya gonna do with the blood, make evil clones or something?”
He laughed. “Dear lord, no. We want to compare your blood before and after exertion and using your abilities, see what differences we find and how it affects your biology.”
You nodded. “Sounds fair.”
“Jenkins here will be doing the biological samples.”
Jenkins was a thin gray-haired man with dry skin and a stoic-bordering-on-grumpy face. He took your blood and swabbed the inside of your cheek for DNA samples with hardly a word other than instructing you to open your mouth and grumbling that the needle may hurt a pinch. You didn't like him very much.
Schmidt brought you over to the other two scientists, a dark skinned woman with short cropped hair and a relaxed smile, and a tall chubby bearded pale man with a deep and playfully sarcastic voice. The two men called the woman simply “Eto,” and Eto and Doctor Schmidt called the sarcastic man “Jimmy.” You liked all three of them instantly.
Eto hooked some electrodes up to your head and chest underneath your tank-top. “Normally I'd buy a girl a drink before reaching down her shirt like this,” she joked with you. You laughed.
They started you off with simple exercises, running on the treadmill as long as you could or as fast as you could, lifting weights, punching bag, some agility stunts. And then they ran you through them again, and told you to use your powers. Your glowing feet cracked the treadmill after just a few minutes.
“Holy shit dude, you broke the treadmill!” Jimmy yelled out.
“Oh my god, I'm sorry-”
“That was amazing! Do you know how fast you were going?”
“Um, no?”
“Really damn fast. Like, not quite supersoldier fast, but fast.”
Moving on to the weights, you impressed them yet again.
“This is amazing, your strength almost doubles when you use your abilities, I bet if you strained just a little more it would even triple!” Eto's eyes were lighting up like a kid on Christmas morning.
“I think we should have her fight one of the bots.”
“Schmidt, are you sure about that?”
“She's fought Spider-Man and won. We can set it on easy to start.”
You were nervous. “I'm gonna fight a robot?”
“It's kind of like a crash-test dummy, but way more high tech. And bigger. My own creation,” Jimmy bragged.
They went with you to a side room, the floor was covered in mats, and one wall lined with mirrors. Jimmy wheeled in a robot, shiny chrome and clear plastic showing wiring. It's head was covered in some sort of padding, as was it's chest, stomach, back, legs, and outer arms.
“What's the padding?” you asked.
“Sensors to see how hard you actually hit it, all that jazz.” He stepped away, joining his colleagues by the door, pulling out a small remote—presumably for the robot—and pressed a button.
The robot came to life. You immediately went into a fighting position, fists glowing and ready to kick some ass.
“Me first, or is the robot going to make the first-?”
The robot lunged for you, and you ducked, twirling out of the way. The next five minutes were a blur, you dodging, punching, jumping, twirling, kicking—and then the robot's head flew off and cracked the mirror along the far wall, sparks flying everywhere.
A chorus of “oh my gods” and “holy shits” came from the three scientists by the door.
You jumped out of the way of the falling robot body, panting and catching your breath. “Oh my god, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to-”
“That was awesome!” Jimmy interrupted.
“Was that really the easy setting? Because damn, dude.” You were still panting.
“I dialed it up to mildly challenging towards the end there.”
“Well fuck, I guess working out pays off,” you laughed.
“Somebody please tell me we got that on camera,” Schmidt said, awed.
“I turned the cameras on when Jimmy brought in the robot,” Eto said, equally awed, though far more composed. “I'm glad I did.”
You looked around the room, noticing for the first time the cameras in each corner of the room.
“Can I get some water?”
You were all three back in the lab now, your team of scientists working away while you sat to the side, hooked up to another machine, Eto taking notes.
“Dude, I just came up with your code name,” Jimmy piped up.
“Code name?”
“Yeah, you know. Steve Rogers is called Captain America, Tony Stark is Iron Man. You need one too.”
“Let's hear it,” Schmidt looked up from his monitor.
Jimmy paused, cocky grin spreading over his face. “Black Light.”
You raised your eyebrows. “What, 'cause I can glow?”
“Pretty much.”
“I kinda like it.”
“Of course you do, I'm a damn genius.”
You laughed. “Okay, so I have a secret identity and a code name, what about the outfit?”
Eto's eyes sparkled. “That's down the hall.”
You followed Eto down the shiny white hallway, bouncing with excitement. A real code name and new suit all on the first day at your new job? It was almost too good to be true!
“Here we are,” Eto flashed a dazzling white smile that almost glowed, opening yet another silver door into yet another shiny white room.
“Woah, what is this, The Incredibles?” you gazed around at reams of fabric, mannequins, and shelves of things you didn't even know what to call.
Eto laughed. “No. But it is my husband's department.”
At the sound of her laugh a handsome Asian man with perfectly groomed hair and even more perfect teeth appeared from behind a shelf. He looked like a movie star.
“Y/n, meet Mr. Eto.”
Mr. Eto came up, kissing his wife on the cheek. “Angie, what a lovely surprise! Is this our new warrior?” He looked you up and down. “She sent me a clip of that footage from the practice room of you decapitating Jimmy's robot. Nice work.”
You raised your eyebrows. “That was only like thirty-five minutes ago.”
“Yes well, after watching it I had some ideas. Come take a look,” he paused. “I hear you have a suit you made yourself, mind if I see it?”
You reached into your bag, glad you'd decided not to leave it in the lab, and pulled out your suit.
“Not bad,” he said, taking it out of your hands and feeling the material, stretching it and running a deliberate finger along the seams. “But I can do better. You need stronger fabric, something more breathable. Might as well make it flame proof, while we're at it...” He picked his tablet off his desk, and began sketching with a stylus. “Oh, no, that's no good. Uh- yeah, that's much better. Here,” he put the tablet in your hands, having already whipped out a new design based on the suit you'd made yourself.
The main body of the suit was black. Black gloves on the hands, and black boots with purple running up the side of the legs, the stripe ending at your waist. The chest of the suit was the same purple, in a sharp rectangular hourglass shape, like the marking of a black widow spider, or a stylized old-timey lantern. The sleeves were black as well, with another purple stripe running down the outside of the arms, ending at the edge of the tight black gloves which were bordered in the same purple. The forearms looked like he had drawn metal braces running in silver circles up past your wrist.
“What do you think? Look kick-ass enough for you? I'm thinking on the actual costume we can make the purple the same shade as that light you emit when you're using your powers.”
“It's amazing,” you breathed. “I love it.”
“Good, because that's what you're getting,” both of the Etos laughed. “I just can't decide on a mask style, honestly. Full face covered? Just the eyes? Probably should cover your hair, don't want anyone pulling on it in a fight or you leaving any for someone to figure out who you are.”
“I kinda like full face. Or as much as you can hide, without covering my mouth? I don't want anyone to recognize me.”
Mr. Eto nodded. “I'll come up with something, we can tweak it when you come in for a fitting.”
A knock and then baldy from the car ride over entered the room. “Mr. Adams would like to see you, Miss Y/l/n.”
“Mind if I hold onto your old costume for measurements, Y/n?”
“Go right ahead.”
“I'll probably have your new one ready by Sunday, will you be able to come in that evening?”
You nodded, and shook Mr. Eto's hand. Doctor Eto smiled at you.
“It was a pleasure working with you today, Y/n,” she said, shaking your hand as well.
You waved goodbye and followed baldy back to the elevators. The elevator ride was quiet and awkward, and you were thankful when the doors opened to a new floor, this one resembling a standard high profile business office.
“Mr. Adams's office is this way.”
You followed baldy down the hall, and ended up in front of a large glass office, where a pretty blonde was seated at a desk just outside the door.
“Miss Y/l/n for Mr. Adams,” baldy said simply in response to her questioning look.
The blonde lifted her phone to her ear and pressed a button. “Mr. Adams, a Miss Y/l/n is here to see you.” A pause and then she hung up. “Go right in Miss Y/l/n, he's waiting.”
You entered his office alone.