Disclaimer: All involved characters are the property of their respective creators, and all fall under the copyright of Marvel. No infringement is intended - I am most definitely not making any money off of this, as my bank account proves. I just like playing with the toys.

Thanks to those who reviewed last chapter! Here we venture even further away from continuity, but, as I said before, this is most definitely AU. It should be understood that in the second passage, the characters are speaking in Russian, and the third they're speaking in Arabic. I would put in some other identifying factor around the text, but I think it interrupts the flow (and this website doesn't allow for many inserted symbols anyways.) Anyways, I hope everyone enjoys!


Chapter Two


It's always gray, down at the docks – or, at least, it seems that way to Val Cooper. No matter the weather in the rest of the city, the sky by the river always seems to be the same slate gray color as the tarmac, and the salt-bitter air always feels a few degrees colder. Without that, the place might be whimsical – a child's playground with boxcars stacked like Lego bricks, the stilted bodies of almost delicate-looking cranes perched above the maze, moving with incredible, mechanical grace as they unload cargo from ships that seem more to lumber through the gunmetal water than to float.

Whimsical, yes . . . especially since the whirling police lights add to it a kaleidoscopic effect, reflecting from the smooth white and blue metal of the police cars' finish, that of the single red fire truck, whose siren still goes in a lamenting whine.

"Someone shut that shit off, will you?"

So maybe the gray sky is a good thing, she muses as she turns the collar of her wool jacket up against the chill. It should never be sunny on a day like this.

"I thought all you Interpol guys were supposed to be desk jockeys." It comes out a lot . . . bitchier than Val had intended, and no sooner do the words escape her lips than she starts flipping through her mental catalog of her experience and qualifications, pulling out relevant files – MA in Psychology, 90% case clearance rate - ready for the expected retort of, "Well, aren't you a little young to be heading an FBI task force?"

It never comes. Instead, a slow, handsome smile creeps across Sean Cassidy's face, and he replies in that impossibly sexy Irish lilt, "Ah, well, you know, we desk jockeys like to get out and see what we're working with every once in a while."

It doesn't come out like that. It comes out as "' Ahweel yoknow we deskjockeys loiket'getawtan 'see whetwe'reworkin'wit' eryonce inawhoile," and Val spends a good thirty seconds mentally translating the words into understandable English. While her forebrain is tackling this task, the lesser parts of her have the opportunity to marvel that he certainly doesn't look like he spends much time behind a desk, not with the way that cracked leather jacket falls against his arms, his chest, his shoulders . . . and that he's probably the first person she's ever met with naturally golden hair, or "strawberry blonde", as the philistines might say . . .

"Ms. Cooper?" They're crossing the broad gulf of the concrete quay, headed towards the labyrinth of boxcars stacked two and three high - where all the action is, where she had purposely parked far from. In her relatively short experience as an FBI agent, she had learned that locals are more forthcoming if you don't bust into their crime scenes, lights flashing and guns poised, like a B-movie supercop. Plus, despite exposing them to that bracing wind, the opportunity to size up her international accomplice (she'd referred to him as her sidekick to her co-workers back at the station, before she'd actually met him) was not one to pass up . . . "Ms. Cooper?"

He's staring at her with those baby blues, undoubtedly because of her staring, and she blushes, clears her throat and opens her mouth . . . and produces nothing. Blood begins creeping up towards her scalp the longer her lips are parted. Say something! "So they pulled the boat in off the coast?"

What is wrong with me? She seizes on that gentle prompt as if it's a lifeline, pushing her bottle-blonde hair out of her face with the kind of laugh that makes her think she might be a little too young for this, after all. "Ah, yes. It was a drifter about thirty miles out, well outside of territorial waters. The ship is registered to a Hellfire Shipping Service – it sounded like the worst kind of dummy company, so I sent out a few of my guys to check out the registered address for the headquarters. Turns out it's a drycleaners in China Town." Sean Cassidy nods soberly. "So far, no tag on who the merchandise was going to be delivered to."

"Where's the crew?"

"Abandoned ship, apparently. The place was a ghost town when the coast guard checked it out. God only knows how long it's been at sea – it was towed in late yesterday afternoon, and has been sitting on the dock since. The locals called us in this morning." Their pace slows as they approach the perimeter of the scene. Though the area is thick with black-clad police officers and choked with police cars, invariably, a few dockworkers in yellow safety vests and hard hats float at the fringes, their heads cocked in curiosity and speculation. "They had to wait on a warrant to search the vessel before they could start unloading the cargo onto the dock. So far, the vast majority of the cache seems to be medical equipment, but a few cars have what looks to be government-grade computers inside, though none of them have any proper agency tags on them."

"What made 'em suspect human traffickin'?"

"The smell. One of the coast guard guys said he smelled something like burning meat near one of the boxcars. The customs seal on the car had been broken too, so he got curious and opened her up. Guy's in the emergency room now. Apparently he vomited so much from the sight of the scene he dehydrated himself pretty seriously."

"Grand." They are approaching the cordoned-off area, and Sean ducks under the yellow tape, holding it up for her to pass beneath; he's eyeing her warily. "Have ye ever had a human trafficking case before?"

Val steels. "I worked homicide on a state level for five years before I was assigned to this task force, Agent Cassidy. I think I can handle myself –"

"Not sayin' ye can't." He raises his hands in a surrendering gesture. "But ye may want t' take a deep breath a'fore they open up that box."

Except for the uniformed thunderstorm surrounding it, this boxcar looks no different than any of the other dozens they've passed – regular in shape and size, tired in color, rust-spotted. The officers around it look sick or nervous, and immediately Val can smell it – the charred fetor of a good campfire or a bad barbeque, along with the bitter stink of scorched metal and burned blood.

"And they said there was a survivor?" Cassidy's voice reflects her mental disbelief perfectly.

"Yeah, they took the guy to the county general. Said he was in shock and dehydrated, but otherwise he seems physically fine." Val, despite herself, takes a deep breath. "Okay, open her up."

The pale officer beside the door (looking like he just started shaving a week or two ago) snaps to attention, and throws back the metal clasps holding the door shut. The boxcar comes open with a metal scream.

Val Cooper turns and makes it all of four steps before she narrowly avoids throwing up on her shoes.


The engine roars; rooster tails of mud are slung from the wildly spinning tires into the damp mist of the morning air. It's not a truck that looks like it can take much punishment – the wheel wells are rust stained, paint missing in great scratches and chips from the countless buckles and dents in the body (as if its been gnawed on by some massive dog); the whirr of the tires and labor of the engine climax into a metallic scream before his foot eases off the gas. The truck, in apparent relief, slouches back in the slick black mire of its own ragged tracks.

"It's still there, Piotr." Illyana, perched on the bare scalp of a tree stump ten meters away, yawns lethargically into one small hand as Piotr sticks his head out of the open window, looks over his shoulder. Behind the wretched truck, tethered by a thick chain to its axle, a massive tree stump clings stubbornly to the Earth.

"Chyort voz'mi." He mutters, throws the truck back into gear, and hits the gas once more. The truck jumps forward; the chain tightens into the tension of a guitar string. Once again the toils of labor give way to tinny screams of pain and indignation as the stump remains anchored in place, while the truck seems to be pulling against its own skeleton – the damp air fills with the acrid stench of burning rubber. Piotr cuts the engine. Exiting the cab with a slam of the door, he trudges through the mire and sits down heavily beside his little sister.

He's been doing this since dawn, and has only succeeding in pulling three stumps from a field pockmarked with them.

Illyana tips her bag of gummy candies towards the older boy; he takes it, picks one candy out delicately and they sit for a moment, chewing silently.

"You should just do that thing."

"What thing?"

"You know, that thing where you turn into the big metal guy." With sudden energy Illyana springs into a stand, her boots sinking a good centimeter into the water saturated earth. Her wheat-blonde hair bounces against the back of her threadbare jacket. Arms curling up towards her head in a mock-wrestler pose, she turns, beams at him. "I bet you could just pull those tree stumps out of the ground if you turned into him."

"I can't do that any more, Snowflake."

"Why not? It's stupid to sit here and do it this way if you could do it another way that's faster and better." Her child-face screws up in indignation as she snatches her bag of candies back, which Piotr had been rooting through with interest. "You can't have any more unless you do it."

"Snowflake, it's . . . I can't explain it. It's wrong that I can do that. It . . . it isn't natural. And if people saw—"

"But you saved me that one time, remember? When Papa was driving the tractor and he didn't see me and you turned into the big metal guy and you saved me! That wasn't wrong, was it?"

"Of course not –"

"And there's nobody here!" She flings open her arms and whirls in a sliding pirouette in the mud, and Piotr has to admit that it is indeed a quiet morning, even for Siberia. Those few tourists who venture so far out into the wilderness – for hiking, for camping, to get the real Russian "experience" – have long since retired back to their homelands. The growing season is over, the harvest season soon to begin with worrying results – there has been so much rain this year, and the acres of farmland to Piotr's back are marred with too many plants whose leaves have withered like burned paper, whose stalks hunch, browned and wizened, like old men. The roads have likewise become little more than black oil slicks, the virescent landscape spotted with the little mirrors of pooled water. The horizon is open before them, empty, perspective only stolen away by the sparse trees that mark the boundary of Piotr's destructive efforts. He had just finished cutting down the trees the day before, and though the field is clean of felled logs, many of the trees' dismembered branches and scattered leaves remain. If not for a trill of a single bird hidden somewhere in the trees, they might have been the only living creatures on Earth.

"Come on." A knowing smile sidles across the white planes of Illyana's face and she crosses her arms, tips her head. "Or maybe you can't do it."

"Illyana, I am not going to play this game with you." But he can't help but grin at his much younger sister as she tramps through the wet grass and sucking mud to the stubborn stump, appraising it seriously, fists on her hips.

"I don't know. It's a pretty big stump. It would take someone really big and strong to pull it." He knows what she's doing, hiding her little grin behind her tightly fastened lips as her eyes flit from the mangled wood to him. "You probably couldn't do it even if you wanted to. I mean, you're strong, but I don't think you're that strong . . ."

So it gives him an excuse. Because despite his parents' gimlet-eyed warnings ("You mustn't do that any longer, Piotr. If someone were to find out it might be dangerous for you. People might try and take advantage of a . . . a special person like you.") the rescue of his little sister had not been the end-all, be-all of his career as an impossibility of nature. If he was being honest, he would admit that the day before, alone, after a few hours of dragging tree trunks behind the weary, rattling truck, he had taken to the task himself, toting the massive trunks, one under each arm, as if they were nothing more than sticks to be stacked. He knows that his parents suspect when the work is done too quickly, when the tools don't need to be replaced as often as they should. At first they were fire-eyed about his insolence, as much, he suspects, out of their own fear of what he was becoming as their fear that someone would discover his talents. After a while, though, they had apparently realized that this change has made him no less of a careful and thoughtful boy. Which is why, Piotr guesses, he is here, clearing a field alone with only a single truck as assistance, working a field that is supposed to be ready for sowing in a few short weeks, while his father's other hired hands tend plots miles away, ones already clearly weather-spoiled.

His father is nothing if not pragmatic. And it is not as though Piotr resents the burden, the opportunity. There is no comparison with that feeling of power when he changes, how the world somehow grows more distant, more dim, yet he himself somehow more real within it. How the everyday uncertainties of his father's poor health and their struggling farm, of ever-depleting finances and crop blights become secondary to the immensity of the power he contains within the muscles of his body, and unbreakable substance of his chrome-colored skin. Things are simple when he changes – the world is divided in the twin spheres of order and chaos, and he is a demigod in both creation and destruction alike.

"I am afraid I cannot allow you to tarnish my good name, Snowflake," he says with a wink and a smile as he stands and removes his belt, his jacket, his tired boots and thick wool socks. Mud squelches between his toes, but there's no money to replace shoes dismembered by huge steel toes.

It washes over him as he approaches that insolent stump – energy that is somehow hot and cold, electric and molten, and he sees rather than feels his clothes begin to bulge against their seams.

"Oh, wow." With a fleeting hand Illyana reaches out and brushes his arm, then presses her hand against the cool metal – he can hardly feel it, as if the touch is from a ghost in a dream. "Wow." And for a moment he feels nothing but a devastating love for his little sister, who doesn't ask questions that he can't answer or goggle with apprehension; she just grins, her eyes gleaming with wonder.

"Give me some room to work, Snowflake," he says as he begins dramatically rolling up his sleeves. As she scampers away in self-preservative delight he buries his hands in the sides of the stump. The wood might as well be made of cake batter.

"Let us see what this stump is really made of." And he pulls. It comes up so easily he stumbles back a step or two in overexertion, as the roots anchoring the stump in place snap like strands of hair.

He turns and grins at her, holding up the wood and immense mound of soil the broken roots still clutch. "See? That was not so tough." But she's not grinning back. Instead, she looks almost comically speculative, her little face scrunched in deliberation.

"Well . . . I don't know. Seems to me like the truck probably loosened that one for you. Now that stump over there really looks like a tough one—"


"This is unacceptable."

The thin thoroughfares between the boxy, sand-and-white colored buildings are choked with exhaust, with cigarette smoke and never ending tides of pushing people, who snake around the prattling cars and smoke-belching buses with an deft, if not insane, grace. Despite the constant whining horns and incessant chatter, there's a musical quality to the market place, if only a figurative one – a lyrical element to the people who skitter across the street and duck into and out of buildings, and meld just as quickly into a the cacophony of chaos just as easily as a thread melds into the greater picture of a tapestry. There are beggars and there is rubble, the trash of a thousand passers by; there is the shade of green trees that spring from the middle of the sidewalks; there are stands with figs and oranges and baskets heaped with the rugged oranges, yellows and reds of spice, boxes of brass trinkets and perfumes. There are burqas and colorful headscarves as often as there are blue jeans.

Perhaps its because of this gentle if feverish flow that the tourists are so noticeable – while everyone else rushes they wander in their too short-shorts and flip flops, their skin either starved of sunlight or too deeply loved by it. They float, eyes up, while the natives break from behind them like a stream from behind a stone; their mouths are often turned in distaste at the smoke and the clamor, or gaping like men who have awoken from dreams of darkness into a colorful world. Many of them are very fat.

"Stop complaining, Ororo."

It's not a particularly clever trick. Their targets are almost exclusively young girls, especially those in groups. Disarming, unassuming, lovely dark Fatima will dart forward and grab a tourist girl's pale hand with a beaming smile that infects her sable eyes as she purrs in broken English: "You're so beautiful! Something to match your beauty! What is your name?" And despite the girl's weak protests Fatima will begin to stipple the girl's wrist with henna, saying, "A friendship bracelet! A beautiful gift for a beautiful girl!"

Sometimes they snatch their hands away and move on with a dark glower, but only rarely. Far more often, the girl's friends will stand around and giggle in awe or will ask for a tattoo themselves; or the girl's mother will coo with wonder while her father calculates the expected price of every honey-brown drop. Despite the simplicity of the trick Ororo has to admit that Fatima is rather good – for the most part the people look bewildered, as if snared in some spider's nest, hypnotized by the geometric lines and whimsical swirls that materialize along their flesh with the woman's graceful efforts, a blueprint born from paste squeezed out of a plastic bag.

The fun always ends too quickly. The price demanded is always exorbitant, and will almost always provoke one of two reactions - distracted confusion or open annoyance, often tinged with wrath. Voices will inevitably rise, as these tourists always seem to be incapable of doing anything without it being an event. Fatima, as beautiful as she is, turns ugly with a quickness and dexterity that would be stunning if it weren't practiced, and more often than not her opponents match her flinty stare, the acid dripping in her voice. Inevitably on this busy street between the sights and the hotel blocks, other tourists will begin to slow, to stop, to watch, as if the conflict is a play put on for their amusement.

"I'm better than this."

The actual theft takes no more than a few seconds. Ororo will wander through the crowd, taking everything: jewellery, spectacles, wallets and watches, slipping them from the fixated tourists with almost lazy grace. Purse lips are parted and her deft fingers feel for the most precious of contents – cell phones, credit cards, bundles of cash and cameras. Even those smart enough to not carry handbags or wallets on these thieving streets fall just as quickly – those who carry their money in purses around their necks never notice when, strings cut, the bundles of cash fall between their feet; those with backpacks and luggage are even less aware of greedy, agile fingers, and Ororo has more than once sauntered off with a laptop concealed between her thighs.

Eventually, Fatima will begrudgingly agree on a much lower price, and the wronged party will stride off, feeling victorious. The crowd of onlookers will disperse, none the wiser; eventually, when they realize they've been robbed, none will think of the arguing Arabic woman and the annoyed tourist. They'll return to their restaurants or accuse their hotel managers, etcetera, etcetera . . .

And on it goes, dozens of times a day, day after day. Unacceptable.

Fatima cocks her head from where she's discreetly counting the bills lined up in her little purse. "What are you talking about? Our take was good today."

Ororo tries very hard not to look at the other woman with a tired expression. "Fatima, I stole a Van Gogh from the Cairo museum not two months ago. Before that, thirteen priceless artifacts from private collectors. But instead of being rewarded, here I stand on the streets, picking pockets and palming watches. I have not done this since I was eight years old!"

Fatima laughs bitterly, her dark eyes flashing. "You should be happy that you are even allowed to steal, instead of being forced into a marriage to one of those disgusting slobs. Instead of being sold off to the highest bidder like a goat." Dusk is coming. Already tourists - some in suits - are stumbling wetly, loudly, into the streets.

"El-Gibar . . ." Ororo struggles for a moment as she watches one young man, with a group of his kin, fall to the ground with a shouted, slurred curse. "He is just doing what he thinks is best." The conjecture is not pronounced with much conviction, but the hard glint in Fatima's eyes fades.

"I know. I suppose it is better than being thrown out on the street when I get too old, when my hands get to crippled by arthritis to paint henna or steal purses." Her hands curl up into grotesque, exaggerated claws, but there's no real humor in the gesture. Ororo wants to protest that Achmed would never do such a thing (he gave Ororo everything, after all, took her in when no one else would), but the words never find their way up out of her throat. Fatima continues with disdain, "It's better than being a beggar or a prostitute. Ah, to be a female orphan! No father to give you a dowry, no brothers to support you when no man will marry you. You have a last name, at least, Ms. Munroe."

The word is said with more than a hint of disdain. Ororo smiles sadly. "Honestly, I have been planning on leaving myself. You should come with me to Kenya. Maybe-"

"For what? I am already going far from home soon, to a place where I don't speak the language. At least people are rich there. At least I might have nice clothes and a pretty house, if I am lucky. What does Kenya promise me? Poverty and violence. I have had plenty of that in my life, thank you. And you-" She laughs, though not unkindly, "And you have been saying that you will go to Kenya, your mother's home, since you were ten years old. And yet here you are – the fierce, independent African girl wearing a headscarf, just like the rest of us. You are tame. I never would have thought it, considering what you are."

Ororo touches the bright orange scarf that hides her silver hair from prying eyes, eyes narrowed, lips downturned. She is remembering why Fatima reminds her as often of a black fly as a butterfly. "I only wear this scarf because a thief can't afford to have identifying characteristics, " her blood has become molten in her body, though her voice has filled with ice, "and what do you mean, 'what I am'?"

"Ah, well, you seem to think that no one knows you are special. That we don't know you did something to those security systems so you could steal that painting, those trinkets with no one the wiser." Fatima shrugs. "El-Gibar thinks you are a jinn – he is afraid of you, and that's why he keeps you in the streets. I think he is afraid you will get rich and oust him from his empire of bastard children and fatherless, brotherless women. Better to have you under his thumb - that's why he doesn't pawn you off to some rich businessman."

A cold gust of wind stirs the choked air in the emptying thoroughfare. "And you?"

Fatima flashes her a smile.

"Jinns are just as often good spirits as they are bad, and you make me a lot of money." Discreetly, she tucks some of those crumpled bills into the breast of her high black dress. "I figure that perhaps I can save enough to make my own dowry, and - Where are you going?" Stumbling into a stand she calls severely, "Ororo? Where are you going?"

The other woman doesn't answer; she simply vanishes into the waning crowd.


"Chyort voz'mi." - The internet tells me that this is "damn it" in Russian. Since my Russian knowledge is comprised of being able to ask how someone is, what something is, and the phrase "The man has short hair," I've had to take this at face value. If it isn't correct, let me know and I'll be sure to fix it. I hope Sean's accent wasn't too "They're after me Lucky Charms" - I based the phonetics around my own experiences in Dublin, as well as what I've seen from various Irish films. As always, if it's not correct, let me know!

As always, I love hearing from readers - comments, criticism, the works! Nothing inspires me to update more than a review!