The cops are here was not the sentence one wanted to hear before the morning coffee. Even if Sveta only had coffee out of habit. And even if it was only one cop.

Haven had a reputation as a safe space for mutants (and some humans, too). Generally they kept on amicable terms with the police, especially MRC, and those terms required a whole lot of finesse and negotiations that Sveta did not count among her favorite pastimes. But it was useful, especially because it was rare to not have at least one person in the building who was in some kind of trouble with the law. (Including Sveta herself, albeit anonymously.) When her assistant called up to tell her a detective wanted to talk, Sveta knew immediately what this was about.

"Send him up." she sighed, massaging her temples with gloved hands before she put on her game face. The kid was hiding somewhere in the building, and he would remain so, until she had the talk with the cop. This was not her first time doing this, and not the last either.

But she did not expect him to walk through her door.

Oh, f*** me sideways.

"You..." her smile barely wavered "... are new."

Haven had a good reputation if not a perfect record. They took people in and helped them. Sometimes the person needing help was actually responsible for someone’s death. That was what brought Sam to Haven. One of their latest stray mutants had killed someone and run. This meant he needed to meet with Svetlana to get her to release the kid to Sam.

Sam arrived at Haven and after announcing himself and stating his business while flashing his badge he had to wait to be sent up to meet with Svetlana. That was fine. Sam understood having to wait for large organizations. It wasn’t like there was any evidence at risk so there was not much he could do if he wanted to just head straight in anyway.

Surprisingly, Sam didn't have to wait very long before he was sent in to meet with Svetlana. He had not dressed specifically to meet with a higher up at Haven that day but that didn’t mean he wasn’t dressed nice. When he wasn’t working the street, Sam tended to dress professionally. Not in his police uniform but a suit. A suit plus a badge projected a particular kind of power.

When Sam stepped through the door he was greeted by the blonde woman who ran the place. She seemed to stagger mid sentence. Sam wrote it off as if she was expecting someone else. He was new to MRC afterall. Likely a different detective went by to settle issues.

”Howdy, I’m Detective Samuel Travis. Nice to meet you.” Sam held out his hand to shake hers then noticed the gloves on her hands. Mutant, germaphobe, fashion statement?

”I’m here about a new kid Haven took in.” Sam opened a file he had with him and produced a picture, ”Max “the Spike-Man.”

Out of all the mutant activist joints in the city, this guy had to walk into hers.
Sveta's forced smile was beginning to hurt her face.

F** F*** F*****

>>”Howdy, I’m Detective Samuel Travis. Nice to meet you.”

"Svetlana Sergeyeva. Nice to meet you. No handshakes, sorry." she left it up to interpretation. Some people assumed she was a dangerous mutant. Others assumed she was a germophobe. She liked to keep it vague, as per Pippa's advice.
Detective Travis was definitely better dressed than the last time. She looked him over, wondering if he was carrying the same experimental weaponry. Her caffeine aura didn't flicker. Still not an adapted.

Did he recognize her? Or suspect her as someone familiar?... She would have to keep up appearances until he gave it away.

>>”I’m here about a new kid Haven took in. Max “the Spike-Man.”

Sveta walked back to her desk, taking the time to rearrange her face.

"Now, you know I can't tell you anything about that until you tell me your official reason for being here." she noted lightly. Sometimes, the cops just went fishing. "Coffee? Tea? Soda?"

Ms. Sergeyeva did not shake Sam’s hand. Sam smoothly withdrew his offered hand.That was fine. People often had their reasons. With mutants, Sam assumed it might be for his own protection. Miss Sergeyeva then withdrew to her desk and decided to make Sam’s job harder.

”Tea. Thank you. And lots of sugar. You can take the man out of Texas but you can’t take Texas out of the man.” Sam said and then set the file he had brought with him on the desk and pulled out a crime scene photo. ”Max is the primary suspect in the murder of this man, Gary Franklin. He was a member of a gang in a neighborhood close to Max’s.”

Sam wasn’t sure if it was gang violence or anti human violence or what. All he knew was that Max was likely the murderer. The dirtbag had used his mutant power and driven a spike through someone killing them. ”This is more of a courtesy. I could get a warrant and come in making demands. I’m asking for your cooperation… Your help in finding justice for Mr. Franklin.”

>>”Tea. Thank you. And lots of sugar. You can take the man out of Texas but you can’t take Texas out of the man.”

Sveta poured some tea for the guy, and placed the cup on her desk for him, accompanied by a box of sugar. She motioned to him to take a seat; this conversation was going to take a while. She also made a mental note about Texas. She still remembered working with the other guy.

>>”Max is the primary suspect in the murder of this man, Gary Franklin. He was a member of a gang in a neighborhood close to Max’s.”

Murder. Sveta swore internally in Russian. She knew someone had died, but according to the kid, it had been an accident. Of course, it was not surprising that the cops would jump straight to murder.
Then again, the photo did not look like an accident scene.

>>”This is more of a courtesy. I could get a warrant and come in making demands. I’m asking for your cooperation… Your help in finding justice for Mr. Franklin.”

"I appreciate it" she nodded. He was right, he could have barged in with a warrant. If a judge would grant one for Haven right away. But at least this was the start of a working relationship. "I am not sure about calling it a murder, though. From what I hear, it was an accident."

Sam took the tea with a , ”Thank you.” and then used the sugar to turn his tea into the syrup he was so used to from back home. He took the offered seat and sipped at his tea. Sickeningly sweet, as God intended.

Svetlana didn’t immediately demand he return with a warrant. That was a good start. Hopefully they could build a good working relationship. That would make things much easier in the future. Haven had mutants, it was an inevitability that mutant powers would force a deadly situation. From the outside it seemed Haven was good at helping prevent those situations, but eventually the odds are against you.

”My working theory from what I have is that it was some kind of an intimidation tactic or mugging gone wrong. That falls under the felony murder rule. Second degree murder.” Sam took a sip of his tea and waved a hand. ”Murder, homicide, manslaugher. They all mean the same thing. Someone is dead and someone else killed them. I’m just trying to find out what happened. My best theory rightnow is felony murder. If that’s wrong, help me find out what really happened. You have the kid here. Let me talk to him, get his story.”

Sam didn’t see any problem in working with Svetlana. To him there was only one outcome and it would mean getting a dangerous mutation off the street.

>>”My working theory from what I have is that it was some kind of an intimidation tactic or mugging gone wrong. That falls under the felony murder rule. Second degree murder.”

Sveta hated legal terminology. It rarely ever covered what actually happened. And it rarely ever worked in favor of the kids, especially when the kids were mutants.

>>”Murder, homicide, manslaugher. They all mean the same thing. Someone is dead and someone else killed them. I’m just trying to find out what happened. My best theory rightnow is felony murder. If that’s wrong, help me find out what really happened. You have the kid here. Let me talk to him, get his story.”

"You can talk to him when one of our lawyers is with him" Sveta clarified. It was just a fact, not a threat. "From what I know, he was defending himself from someone who did not like mutants at all. I don't like waving words like murder around when a kid's already scared for their life."

A lawyer. Of course Svetlana would insist on a lawyer being present. Sam didn’t view that as a problem, only an inconvenience. He understood the rationale, the US legal system being inspired by Blackstone’s Formulation, and viewed it as a positive. It did however make his duty harder.

”That’s fine.” Sam had hoped to talk to the kid at Haven before arresting him. A noncustodial interrogation. No Miranda necessary. An attorney present nixed any advantage Sam had in the interrogation by not Mirandizing Max. ”The kid should be a little scared. Someone is dead and it looks like his spike’s did the deed. That said… I can play nice with the kid. I can stick with homicide.” In addition to murder, homicide included jutified and negligent killings. ”It’s semantics, I know, but the counsel will know and can help him understand the difference.”

Sveta new that lawyers made the cops feel all kinds of ways, but she was not going to throw the kid to this detective without having legal help. She was also aware that homicide was a broader term (as someone who had killed people before, she liked to be informed on these matters) (obviously Detective Sweet Tea did not need to know this). It was definitely not just semantics, though.

"So, what's the part of the story you know, then?" she ventured. The more she knew, the better she could decide the next steps.

What part of the story did Sam know? There was no reason to withhold information from Svetlana. Legally any exculpatory evidence he had would need to be turned over to the defense in a prosecution so it worked well to just give all evidence to the prosecution. Protected against an overturn on appeal. This early in the process, it could result in Max or a witness changing their story, but the crime scene and the body told their own story and they were more valuable.

”Eyewitnesses said max held Mr. Franklin against a wall as they spoke. At some point a spike extended from Max into Mr. Franklin. Max then withdrew the spike and fled the scene. There is CCTV footage that corroborates the statements.” Sam produced an autopsy report, ”There was no there sign of a struggle and it does not appear Mr. Franklin was using some kind of power nor was he on any mind or body altering substances at the time of death.”

>>"Eyewitnesses said max held Mr. Franklin against a wall as they spoke. At some point a spike extended from Max into Mr. Franklin. Max then withdrew the spike and fled the scene. There is CCTV footage that corroborates the statements.”

Sveta sighed. CCTV made everything worse, while it did not usually show the whole story. But it was right there, literally on tape, and the lawyers were going to have a field day with a kid who could stab someone else with a spike from their body. Eve jail was not going to go easy for Max. Sveta picked up the autopsy report she was handed, and frowned, flipping through it.

>>”There was no there sign of a struggle and it does not appear Mr. Franklin was using some kind of power nor was he on any mind or body altering substances at the time of death.”

Sveta put the file down and ran a hand through her hair. "Well... f*** me. This does look bad." The other guy clearly managed to pick a fight with Max; the kid might have been wild, even a criminal, but he did not strike Sveta as a cold-blooded murderer. "And here I thought the fact that apparently we have wizards now is bad enough."

Sam put a professional smile on his face and ignored the devil on his shoulder telling him to make a joke. One did not say ‘Maybe later’ in response to ‘fuck me’ on the job. That was how someone got busted back to patrol or outright fired. ”Now you see why I called it a murder. It looks bad. The video is damning but maybe there’s something that wasn’t seen. Something Max knows that could help his case.” Sam doubted it, but leaving Svetlana with an idea of how helping Sam helped Max might make her more agreeable.

Make working with her that day and in future days that much easier.

”Ain’t New York great.” Humans, mutants, adapteds, mystics. New York had it all. One day, through Sam’s efforts, hopefully that list would be one shorter. ”Always something new under its sun.”

Sam took a long sip of his tea before circling back around, ”You’ve seen what I have on Max. You know how damning it looks. Will you help me find justice for Mr. Franklin? All I’m asking for right now is the chance to talk to Max. You can be present if you would like.”

>> ”Now you see why I called it a murder. It looks bad. The video is damning but maybe there’s something that wasn’t seen. Something Max knows that could help his case.”

Sveta was starting to wonder. She trusted the kid, he did not seem like a cold-blooded murderer. But he had clearly lied about what happened, probably out of fear. This was going to make everything so much harder to handle.

>>”Ain’t New York great. Always something new under its sun.”

Sveta sighed. In her experience, a lot of that 'something new' usually tried to kill you. Or kidnap you and use your blood.

>>”You’ve seen what I have on Max. You know how damning it looks. Will you help me find justice for Mr. Franklin? All I’m asking for right now is the chance to talk to Max. You can be present if you would like.”

Now they were down to negotiations.

"Me, and a lawyer." she clarified. "And we need to talk to him first, so he doesn't freak out when you show up."

”Yes. You and a lawyer.” Sam corrected. It was an inconvenience but at least helped maintain Justice was pursued. Blackstone’s formulation was the bedrock of American criminal justice, providing protections to the accused was beneficial… If annoying.

The second request was one Samdid not like, but it wasn’t worth fighting. He wanted to be able to more easily rattle Max to have him slip and say something he didn’t intend to. Sam kept his professional smile and nodded, ”And y’all speaking with him first is fine. I trust you would cooperate if he confessed and him having a level head going into it should move it along smoother.”

”That said, if we could do this today that would be preferred. Sadly this isn’t the only case on my desk.” Sam said in a relaxed tone. If it wasn’t done that day he would likely come back with a warrant. That said he was willing to wait a reasonable amount of time that day.

Well, he was suddenly taking this in stride. Sveta knew she was pushing her luck, since he could always just come back with a warrant and bust down the door, but it was worth a try.

>>"Yes. You and a lawyer. And y’all speaking with him first is fine. I trust you would cooperate if he confessed and him having a level head going into it should move it along smoother.”

"If he confesses, he's all yours. But we'll still provide a lawyer." Guilty or not, mutants needed good representation. Everyone deserved a chance, but especially the ones the system was rigged against.

>>”That said, if we could do this today that would be preferred. Sadly this isn’t the only case on my desk."

"Anyone else in my building on your list?" Sveta arched an eyebrow. Mr. Busy Bee, going around town kicking down doors and taking names. "How about you get a refill on your tea, and I'll see what I can do. No promises." The sooner he got out of here, the better.