Title: Lost
Notes: I actually started this story a couple months ago when I was battling the cold from hell. Obviously, the Vicks 44 was talking a good deal through it. My apologies.
Disclaimer: Marvel, let's make a deal, kay? I don't make any money off this, you don't sue. How's that sound?
******
Maybe it was a prerequisite for becoming involved with the X-family, but Angelo was getting very tired of not even being able to go out to dinner without the world coming down around him.
He sighed as he poked at his cup of coffee with a spoon that hadn't even been given the chance to be used yet, carefully eying his friends. Paige and Jono both sat across the table from him in the small booth in the back of the shop they had come to in hopes of ordering a simple dinner on their night away from the school.
Unfortunately, being a member of Generation X meant that nothing was ever that easy.
Jono looked up from beneath heavy bangs, brown eyes narrowed slightly, staring at someone over Angelo's shoulder. *Maybe you didn't 'ear me the first time.*
Angelo sighed again, this time making himself a bit quieter. Jono could get into a knock-down drag out for all he cared. The angst-consumed Brit needed to work out his frustrations on someone anyway. But as for him, he was going to enjoy the coffee he had just paid two bucks for if it killed him.
Judging from the look on the older mutant's mangled face, however, Angelo realized he'd better drink quickly.
"Jono, please," Paige pleaded, touching her on-again, off-again boyfriend's arm lightly and hoping it would be enough to keep him in his seat. Jono shrugged her hand away and remained focused on the four young men standing just behind Angelo. He allowed himself a brief moment of admiration for the irony of the situation, since he and Angelo both had been hesitant to go out on a Friday night for fear of the small diner being packed with college kids - college kids that probably wouldn't take too kindly to a boy with gray skin and another with a bizarre arrangement of bandages covering his face. The one time they take Paige up on an offer to go to dinner, however, it turns out that it's not the extra gene the three carried that they have to worry about.
Rather, it was Paige herself.
The tallest of the four boys gave a small sneer, leaning against the back of Angelo's booth; the Latino ducked low over his coffee to get at least one sip of it before Jono vaulted across the table like he knew he would. "Yeah, I heard ya, buddy. I just didn't care. So which one of you's screwin' 'er?"
Paige gripped Jono's arm a bit tighter, smiling grimly at the teen blatantly leering at her. "Neither, actually. Now if you'll excuse us, we're just here to have dinner."
"You don't even wanna talk, sweetheart?"
Paige shook her head, blond hair tumbling into her face. "I'm not interested, thanks."
Jono would have smirked if he could. Being that he had no mouth with which to do so, he leaned back in his seat and let a stray, smug telepathic comment find its way to Paige's mind. *'At's m'gel, Sunshine.*
The leader of the group of rambunctious teens, who also seemed to be their spokesperson, folded his arms over his chest. "So you go for the tall, pale, Gothic type, huh?" He gestured pointedly to the way Paige gripped Jono's arm as if her life depended on it. She chose not to tell him it was to keep her somewhat boyfriend from starting a fight. The trio had already gotten kicked out of one restaurant for destruction of property. She wasn't about to get kicked out of a small coffee shop like this.
"I think she told you she wasn't dating anyone, and that she's not interested in talkin', amigo." Angelo blew on his coffee to cool it, never looking up from the mug. The boy standing behind the instigator of the whole incident raised an eyebrow.
"Oh, I get it, Jake. She goes for Spics."
Angelo's fingers curled tightly around the coffee cup, and though it was invisible to anyone who didn't know to look for it, his trained eyes could clearly detect the bright orange flames that composed Jono's chest beginning to churn anxiously and perhaps excitedly at the possibility of a fight.
"Don't you boys have someone else to go hit on?" Paige tried to get them to leave, though she could tell by the way Jono's arm was tensing beneath her hand that there wasn't a chance they were getting out of this without a small battle.
Jake, as he had been called, shook his head. "Why would I do that? No one else in here holds a candle to ya."
Paige checked a snort and pushed her plate away from her, dinner half-eaten. It was only a matter of time before everything erupted and she wasn't crazy over the idea of getting her remaining food all over her. "Gee, thanks. Really. But I'm not interested."
"I think she's blowin' ya off, Jake," the second boy pointed out with a snicker, nudging his friend with an elbow. Jake was quickly losing his good humor in the situation, as he leaned across the table to tousle a strand of Paige's hair. As he spoke, the foul stench of alcohol assaulted the girl, making her draw back somewhat.
"You don't need to hang out with these guys."
"Leave," she ordered sharply. She tried being nice, she tried letting them know she just wanted a quiet night out, and this was what she got in return. She never had a chance to fire off another demand before Jono broke the hold she had on his arm and grabbed Jake's shirt collar, slinging him roughly against the wall across the aisle and coming face to face with him.
"Jono...remember what Emma said," Paige warned, reminding her boyfriend of the "no powers" rule their teacher had set for any of the students leaving the school to go into town. Jono nodded mutely; besides, his misspent youth had taught him long before how to fight without any sort of mutant powers.
*She told you t'go sod off, so why don't you leave 'er alone?*
"Dude, I think you made 'im mad," another boy in the group laughed, eyes darting rapidly from his friend to a rather irritated Brit. Jake decided to gain the upper hand by delivering a quick punch to Jono's stomach, appropriately enough being one of the few places the young mutant was still vulnerable. It was enough to knock him off balance and back a few steps. Jono doubled over in surprise, wishing with all his might that he could smile. Perhaps it was a latent masochistic streak in him, but it had been far too long since his last real fight that didn't involve psychotic mutants. He was liking it so far.
Angelo grumbled an unflattering comment under his breath as he pushed his coffee to the side of Paige's plate. "You try to take the guy somewhere, get 'im outta the house, and look what happens."
"Tell me about it."
The topic of their conversation was oblivious to them, though, as he waited until Jake advanced on him before rising suddenly and grabbing the boy's collar again and gripping the back of his jeans for leverage, running him onto the table at which his friends sat.
"Wha...Dammit!" Angelo swore as his barely sipped coffee spilled onto his lap. "You did that on purpose!"
*Yeah, I did, Ange. I threw the bloke just so I could pour coffee on you,* Jono agreed with almost solid sarcasm, almost bouncing on his heels as he watched the three remaining teens in the group try to help a wildly protesting Jake from his current predicament. *Anyone else?*
"Thinks he's hot stuff now," Angelo almost laughed. He would have, had he forgotten about his now very hot, very wet cargo pants. For the time being, he was content to just stand by and watch Jono get as much as he thought he deserved for the coffee incident. Then again, Angelo reasoned, it was hard to hurt someone who only had half a body, and when what was left was bereft of properly functioning nerves.
Two of the boys made a run for Jono, a clumsy gesture that many training sessions in the Biosphere and drunken brawls in some of the seedier English clubs he and his band had played at detected before it was even made. He easily sidestepped them, letting their own momentum force them into hitting each other. While they groaned at their now sore heads, he turned his attention back to Jake, who was practically seething at being embarrassed.
Too many battles with the same psychotic mutant terrorists he hoped to avoid had embittered Jono to the point he expected Jake to rattle off some snappy, witty insult, then call in the reinforcements. It surprised him when the older teen dove at him, grabbing his waist and using his considerable weight advantage to knock them both to the ground, with the Brit taking the direct blunt of the blow.
Jono gave a sudden mental cry at feeling the back of his head connect with the unforgiving wooden floor, then closed his eyes for a moment as the world began to dim and dance around him all at the same time. At least it had only meant to be a moment.
"Um...Ange, I think we should do somethin'." Paige didn't wait for a reply to her statement, only hurried to Jono's side, touching the remains of his face gently at first, then a bit more roughly.
"Is he out?"
"Like a light."
Angelo sighed for the third time in five minutes. Apparently, even a cup of coffee in peace was too much to ask when one was an X-Man in training.
He was able to detect the two teens sneaking up behind him, but as he turned, he left Paige open to an unforseen attack from behind. A piece of the broken table connected brutally with her head; Jake, letting the alcohol get the better of him and already aggravated at the entire night's events, was out to hurt whoever he could. If that meant taking out a girl from behind, then oh well.
Angelo, unaware of what was going on behind him, was doing well enough at fending off his own attackers until the entire gang decided to make him the center of attention. Unfortunately for them, they weren't aware that he had been in the same situation countless times, and he knew more than one way to get out of it.
One of those ways to make a solid fist connect harshly with an unsuspecting jaw.
The surprised teen stumbled backwards, allowing a small but manageable gap in the circle. Angelo raced for it, but was caught from behind before another move could be made. The last thing he remembered was staring up into Jake's wild hazel eyes.
******
"Ow."
Paige groaned as she sat up, rubbing the back of her head and effectively making herself feel worse when she moved and smacked her hand against a tree.
"Ow, ow, ow!"
Looking around in what dim light the moon overhead provided, she noticed Angelo sitting on a fallen tree trunk across from her, cigarette smoke creating a thin cloud around him. She didn't so much see Jono as hear him. His traditional all black outfit made it nearly impossible to detect him among the shadows in the darkness, but the steady stream of telepathic grumbles he emitted, many of them angry curses, was more than enough to let Paige know where he was.
"Mah head hurts," she complained for lack of something better to say, unconsciously letting her accent slip through. She was too sore to care, anyway.
Angelo nodded to himself, inspecting a deep gash on his arm he couldn't remember getting earlier. "You got out lucky, chica."
*Always figured I couldn't get 'urt anymore,* Jono announced somberly, rubbing at the large bump on the back of his skull. *Guess I was wrong.*
"Very good, El Goth-O," Angelo shot back, wondering for a moment if he was even mocking his own accent. Deciding his head hurt too much to think, he chose to turn around, even despite the pain it caused to his beaten ribs. He was at least thankful that he had received the worst of the attack after being knocked out cold.
"So...What do we do now?" Paige asked abruptly to keep a war from erupting before her eyes. She was in no mood to play referee. "Anyone even have a clue where we are?"
*In the woods.*
Had it not been for the horrid migraine sneaking up on her, Paige would have gotten to her feet and smacked her boyfriend directly across what was left of his face in that moment.
"I know that, Jono. I meant ... well ... what part o' town are we in?"
Jono shrugged helplessly, noticing that Paige was shivering. Her sweater did little to shield against the cold weather and the snow that came up past their ankles, and was continuing to fall. He pulled his heavy jacket from his shoulders and draped it over her, finding that he had little use for it; being composed of a naturally warming energy made wearing coats rather pointless.
"Thanks." Paige's gratitude was a welcome change from her distaste at his previous answer to her question, and Jono offered another shrug as he sat down beside her. "Okay. So do we start walking or wait for someone to find us?"
Angelo raised an eyebrow. "We don't even know where we are and you expect someone else to find us?" He snorted, stubbing the cigarette out on the tree and then getting to his feet, pacing restlessly in the snow. "You can stay here and wait 'til the cows come home...or the squirrels or deer or whatever the Hell it is that lives in the woods, but I'm gettin' outta here."
Jono shook his head. *Yer just gonna end up gettin' yerself lost even worse than we already are, Ange. Jus' stay 'ere 'til we can figure something out.*
"Who said we were lost? We're just temporarily displaced."
Paige ignored both of them. "Think Ms. Frost could track us down?"
*I'm not about to ask for her 'elp, gel, forget it.*
"But..."
*I'd rather lay down in the bleedin' street an' 'ope I get run over. Repeatedly.*
Paige sighed heavily, standing and placing her hands firmly on her hips. "Well, if you two just want to sit here and freeze to death..." She thought better of her words when she remembered Jono's condition. "Well, if you wanna sit here, then go ahead. I'm going...somewhere else."
"Like where?"
"I don't know. I'm not staying here."
*Paige...Sunshine, I don't know if ...* Paige wheeled around, already angry at having received a rather nasty bump on the head and at having dinner ruined. Jono would have gulped if he could. *If I can let you go off by yerself.*
"I'll be fine, but you can come if ya want."
Angelo huffed, making a low noise of a whip cracking as his friend passed him. "You're so whipped, hombre."
Jono turned abruptly, eyes narrowed. *'Least I 'ave someone t'whip me, though.* He took a step back, satisfied to see Angelo's mouth drop open at the unexpected comment. *Right then. I'll just be off now. Feel free t'join us.*
"Yeah, right. I'll be fine. When I find a way out, I'll come let you guys know."
The Latino was fairly certain he heard the older mutant transmit something of a mental snicker before the three went their separate ways.