Page 93 of Shielding Instinct

How long had they been friends before Bruce explained that to him? And why had it taken him so long?

Hawkeye could see some challenges ahead as he got to know Petra better.

And he wanted to do both.

He wanted to get to know her better, and he wanted to be challenged.

While Lynx was a puzzler, Petra was a puzzle.

And Hawkeye liked that.

Their holding hands like this? He’d read it as companionable and trusting until she told him more.

And then he realized that, in the most positive light possible, this was a little bit like what Petra had been saying about AI. His neurotypical world and Petra’s neurodivergent world overlapped, but what he perceived to be reality wasn’t necessarily true.

Yeah, that was a mindfuck.

He’d have to spend time thinking about that and talking it through. But out loud, what he said was, “That’s right. Lynx is our puzzler. I haven’t quite worked out what that means.”

“The search?” Petra asked.

“The search, okay. I’m at the airport. I see that this elderly woman is agitated. I began to wonder if she might be having an episode of disorientation, Alzheimer’s, or what have you. Cooper is looking worried.” Hawkeye rubbed his thumb between his eyes, “That thing he does with his brows where Cooper squinches them in with concentration then looks at me to tell him how he should interpret the situation.”

“Describe what she was doing,” Petra asked.

“She was up and pacing back and forth in the waiting area, wringing her hands and moaning quietly. I’m not sure if there’s about to be a medical crisis. I’m looking for anyone associated with her. I lock eyes with a different woman. She says that the woman is upset because her husband isn’t there. ‘Where is he?’ I asked. Turns out they got separated when they were coming through security.”

“It happens,” Petra said.

“Then I hear a code over the loudspeaker. I recognize it as a missing person. In my view, I watch as workers pull out their radios and listen in. I always say the more eyes, the better. As a matter of fact, when we have a missing child, we don’t try to protect the child by keeping things quiet. We get loud, and we get loud fast. We call out everything we know about that child.”

“Give me a for instance. What does that mean to you?” she asked.

Hawkeye thought for a minute. “Okay, this isn’t something that happened to me, but once Ash and Hoover got sent up to New York as a K9 team to help with a security contract after the protectee family had their non-verbal autistic child take off running. So, this is a hand-me-down story.”

“Still,” Petra said looking up at him, “what happened?”

Hawkeye noticed that she gripped his hand harder when her eyes weren’t going in the same direction as her feet. That was probably why their hand holding made him think of Bruce. “Knowing the child was at risk for running off, Strike Force practiced what they would say so that they could call the information off in a cadence as they fanned out. Imagine, say, four guys in security uniforms fanning out, calling that there’s a—I’m making this up—boy, four years old, black hair, blue shorts, white tennis shoes, non-verbal. They said everyone had their head on a swivel, looking for the child.”

“By the road.”

“That was the danger, of course,” Hawkeye said. “But this big, burly guy had scooped up the boy.”

“What?” Petra gasped.

“Good guy. Had a neurodivergent child himself. He’s singing all his words and keeping the stress as low as you can imagine. The kid is petting his beard, and when he starts to squirm, the guy tickles him with his beard. He was just an ace guy who would not give the kid over to our team.”

“Wait,” Petra squeezed his hand as her face flashed up to catch Hawkeye’s eyes, “you said good guy.”

“The best. He waited for a police officer to get over there to make a hundred percent sure that he wasn’t handing the boy over to someone with bad intent. He stood there, singing his conversation and waiting for the officer to give the go-ahead.”

“Marvelous. Okay, back at the airport,” Petra said, “you wished they were blasting information about the missing husband?”

“Things might have gone quicker. The wife didn’t have a photo but said her husband had a cane and a green jacket.”

Petra stumbled, and Hawkeye tensed his arm so she could recover her footing.

“So, you went off on your search mission for him?” Petra asked. “Could Cooper get involved?”

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