When Harry enters the kitchen, he notices how Louis is already in there with a cup of steaming tea in his hand. They make silent eye contact briefly before Harry turns to the refrigerator. He reaches inside the cold box to try to find something to eat on this fine early morning.
"You're up early." Louis states, still leaning against the kitchen counter.
Harry grunts out of exhaustion, "I woke up with a chill coming through my vents."
Louis looks down sheepishly, "Yeah, that was me. Sorry about that."
Harry shrugs and pours himself some tea. "Why are you up this early?"
Louis sets his cup of tea down and gives Harry a look, "My room got kinda toasty." Harry nods, looking down into the hot liquid of his tea. "Our rooms are connected, I assume?"
"Most likely, yes."
After a moment of silence after Harry answered, he reaches for the remote of the tv that sits on the kitchen counter. But as soon as he reaches for it, Louis also reaches for it, not noticing Harry's already moving hand.
Their fingers brush together, sending painful bolts through their whole bodies. Their skin tingles, with cold, with heat.
Simultaneously, the men jump back yelping in pain as they hold their hands close to their chests. The force from their powers touching sent them back a small distance from where they were originally standing.
Louis grunts out, "Oh fuck ow. I'm sorry."
Harry winces with the same amount of pain, "No, that was my fault. I'm sorry."
Harry looks down at his stiff fingers, noting the frostbite.
Louis looks down at his throbbing fingers, noting the burns.
They both look at each other, still gripping their hands tightly. Slowly, a small smile cracks on their faces as they just stare at each other. They burst into meaningless giggles and drop their injured hands.
After they settle, Harry comments with a nod toward Louis' abandoned tea, "I see you like your tea hot."
"Who doesn't?" Louis asks with an eye roll.
Harry remarks, "People who like iced tea."
"That's one iced thing that is not for me." Louis admits with a slight grimace.
"Me either." Harry agrees, "But there is one icy thing that's growing on me."
With that, Harry takes his tea to his room. Louis is left watching him, silently thinking about Harry's words.
He didn't mean that; he couldn't have, Louis thinks to himself, that curly forest fire of a man might finally be seeing how enjoyable it is to be around me.
The team wanders around the training room, looking for something to do. They're tired of always having to train. They've been heroes of Eroda for four years without having any official training.
"What if we sneak out again?" Niall suggests.
Zayn slaps his arm lightly, "That went very very badly last time."
"What if we just go back to our quarters and hang out? Like watch tv or play games?" Harry asks.
Louis shakes his head, "There are guards always waiting outside of our quarters and the training room after the last time we escaped. We wouldn't be able to get in without Cordon and Grimshaw finding out."
They all give up, resting on the benches, sadly.
The training room door opens.
Shawn struts in, his eyes running over a clipboard he holds. He suddenly stops only feet in front of the team. His eyes shoot up curiously, glancing at each man.
"Why aren't you guys training?" Shawn interrogates.
Niall explains, "We're bored." Shawn places a hand on his hip, the other one holding the clipboard at his side. "We don't want to train. We don't need to train. God, we don't even know what we're fighting for or what we're fighting against!"
Shawn bites his lip, glancing at his watch. He tells them, "Look I really can't let you guys waste time for training. We've lost enough time already and with the threat coming closer-"
"Tell us." Harry states, standing up from the bench. "Tell us about the threat."
Shawn steps back and shakes his head, "Absolutely not. I cannot release that information to you. The directors would be furious!"
Louis stands too and pushes, "Come on, we should know what we're fighting! Just tell us about the villains."
Shawn glances down at his clipboard, still shaking his head. "I can't. It's confidential."
"Then we're giving up!" Niall exclaims, also standing from the bench with Zayn following. "We can't work with people that don't trust us. If the most important secrets are going to be kept from us, then how are we expected to pull through in this fight?"
The hesitation in Shawn's eyes is obvious. The team sees the very moment when Shawn breaks.
"Fine." Shawn breathes angrily and turns around. He starts walking toward the door before turning around and giving them an expectant look. "Are you coming?"
The team hurries to follow him out of the training room. As soon as they exit the room, the guards in the hallway step forward.
"Agent Mendes, you can't-"
Shawn cuts off the guard, "Oh, Justin." He smiles sweetly, but everyone can see the underlying threat of it. "I have authorization to escort them wherever I want, don't I? I mean, I had authorization to ride your dick last night."
Justin turns red, his fellow guard trying to cover his laugh. Justin quickly turns his shocked expression into a glare, "Fuck off, Mendes."
"So I have authorization, correct?" Shawn asks sarcastically.
"Yes," Justin growls, "Now get out of here before I shoot you."
Shawn smirks at his success and leads the team down the hallway.
The team is silent as they follow Shawn around the facility. They don't know where they're going, but they trust Shawn to not get lost.
"Right through here," Shawn mutters as he swipes his key card on the panel beside the full metal door. "Before we go in, I need to tell you a few things." They wait patiently. "Do not tell the directors about this! Do not be rowdy or use your powers at all in there! Do not under any circumstances touch her!"
The team share a look of confusion as Shawn finally unlocks the door. He pushes the door open slowly, a professional tight-lipped expression on his face.
Shawn takes his place by the door, standing against the wall silently as the team comes in. The team line up in the middle of the room, wide eyed at what sits in front of them.
A woman.
Young and blonde.
She sits crisscrossed on the white floor of the white room, wearing white clothes. She sits in the almost empty room, staring ahead at the tv also on the floor.
The men stare at her. Then she turns to them.
"Agent Mendes," She says softly, "Are these the ones that I've heard so highly of? The ones that will save me?"
Shawn nods, his hands behind his back. "Yes, Miss Swift. This is Louis, Niall, Zayn, and Harry. Or as you know them: Polar, Steel, Bolt, and Blaze." He looks to the boys, "Team, I'd like you to meet Taylor Swift, the woman you have been brought to protect."
The guys glance from Shawn to Taylor in surprise.
"This," Louis starts, pointing at the woman. "This is who the people are after?"
Taylor stands and approaches, "Hi, I know I don't look like much. And trust me, I wish I wasn't much. But like you four, I have a power."
Zayn creases his eyebrows, "Wait, what? You have powers? And that's why you're being hunted by some people from the States?"
Taylor shakes her head, "They're not from America. The men out to get me. They went to America because they know that's where I'm from. And it is where I was. I fled to America after I found out that they only wanted me for my powers and they were creating a device to take it from me and use it for themselves."
Harry asks the question on their minds, "What's your power?"
Taylor steps forward and scans over Harry's body for a moment before she looks to Shawn, "May I, agent?"
Shawn nods, prompting Taylor to hold her hand out for Harry. He slowly puts his hand in hers, noting how she observed the painful memory from that morning, where him and Louis touched. And suddenly, the skin turned from the frostbitten bruise to his normal pale tone. No remnants of his injury remained, he was healed.
Harry gasps as he gapes at his hand, pulling it away so he can look at it closer. The rest of the team stares in awe at Harry's hand. Taylor stands silently, letting them react.
"Wow..." Harry whispers, "Yo-You healed me!"
Taylor nods, "That's why they want me." Her eyes move around the team, stopping on Louis. "May I?" She asks him, holding out her hand.
"What?" Louis asks, not making a move to touch her.
"Your hand." Taylor explains, "What happened to Harry, happened to you. Didn't it?"
Niall and Zayn look at Louis, then Harry. They realize that their injuries, which they're just now noticing, is in the same place.
"Woah, what happened?" Zayn asks, "Did you two get in a fight again?"
Harry grimaces at the memory, "Uh actually no. Surprisingly, it was an accident."
Louis puts his hand in Taylor's reluctantly. She holds it carefully and just like Harry's hand, it was healed in an instant. His burn mark on his fingers were gone.
"Thank you," Louis says slowly, looking at his hand in wonder. "But why do they want you because of this?"
Taylor sighs and explains, "The men after me, I used to work with them. We were a team, we were friends. But then they got greedy, hungry for more power. I overheard them one day, talking about taking over the world. They were done being good guys and they wanted more power. They approached me the next day and told me their plan, like it all made sense! Like I would want to be a supervillain with them!" She shakes her head angrily. "They had plans to convince me to make them immortal. They wanted me to use my powers and make them invincible! But I couldn't do that! It would make them too dangerous!" She pauses, "So I ran. I left our headquarters, and I left Australia. I left and ran back to the U.S. But they followed me." She breathes in to calm herself before she continues, "I found my way to Eroda when I remembered that HDF headquarters was in this city. I did everything I could to catch the attention of Director Cordon and Grimshaw, clearly I was successful with that. And here we are."
The team nod along to the story, only able to imagine what kind of things this girl went through. All the fear she was filled with when she had to run from the people she trusted most.
"What uh, what do we do?" Niall asks in a small voice.
Shawn cuts in from behind them, "You train. You train until you're ready. Which isn't yet, so if you'll excuse us, Miss Swift."
Shawn goes to herd the team out of the room, stepping in between Taylor and the team. He waves his arms lightly at the team to usher them out.
"Wait!" Harry calls, stepping out of the way of Shawn's reach. "We still don't know who we're up against."
Taylor hesitates but states with a forceful tone, "I believe Agent Mendes can explain that all to you. Right, Agent Mendes?"
Shawn checks his watch and groans, "Fine! Fine, I'll break protocol just so these idiots can be satisfied. Now are you? Are you satisfied? Cause we have to get back already." He stomps from the room, holding the big metal door open for the team to slowly make their way out after saying goodbye to Taylor.
"So?" Louis asks as he plops down onto one of the couches in their living quarters. "Taylor said you would explain everything else. So explain."
Shawn huffs out an upset breath as he stands in the middle of the circle of couches that the team is all sat on. He places his hands on his hips as he begins his explanation, "Taylor was a part of a team, like yours. It was an amazing team! Their team of five kept the whole continent of Australia safe just by themselves!" He smiled like a fanboy as he talked about the superhero teams' past. "The team was Remedy or as you know her, Taylor Swift. She didn't do a lot of the fighting but she was always there for the aftermath to help her team and the civilians." His fanboyish smile left as he continued, "The rest of the team..." He sighs and takes a quick but noticeable glance down at his feet, "Shield, the telekinetic, Calum Hood. Ghost, the impossibly fast, Luke Hemmings. Mask, the shapeshifter, Michael Clifford. Illusion, the man that can borrow anyone's superpower, Ashton Irwin. These people are dangerous, incredibly dangerous. They will stop at nothing to get what they want." Shawn pauses and reluctantly tells them, "Unfortunately, they have been a team for a full eight years. They were together for almost a decade! And you guys, you guys have been a team for like two weeks. And before that, you hated each other, you still do!"
The team look at each other; Zayn and Harry sharing a look, Louis and Niall sharing a look, then Zayn and Niall look at each other, and then Louis at Harry.
"No," Harry says softly, still making calm eye contact with Louis. "No, I don't think we do."
"No," Louis agrees, "I don't think we do anymore."
Niall and Zayn grin widely at their teammates before sharing a look of pride with each other. Shawn gives a look of surprise, also being thrown off guard by the sudden surprise of Harry and Louis not hating each other.
"Oh," Shawn starts, "Well, if that's the case, then maybe you guys have a shot."
"What do we need to do?" Niall asks, leaning forward to show that he's paying attention to whatever Shawn suggests.
"Train."