Here you have it - the second chapter of Icaria (and anyone who can figure out why I named it that gets kudos). Thank you: MissStud, blackberry01, Aleria14, BlueWingedKitty, Moe10, DigiBleach, flYegurl, and Illucida for reviewing. You guys are the reason I posted this chapter before running off to Santa Barbara. And a special thanks goes to those who have come over from In Reverence...which will have a sequel, now that the results are in. I will try my best.
I do not own Maximum Ride, and therefore own none of its characters...most noticeably Iggy, Jeb, and Ari. Which makes me sad. :( I wonder if Mr. Patterson would let me borrow them for a day...or a month...maybe a year or ten...
(Side note: I've always pictured Jeb as world-weary Jim Gordon from Nolan's Batman movies. Is it just me, or does that man fit Jeb's description perfectly?)
Enjoy!
Icaria
Chapter Two: Rapture and Rupture
An eager growl sounded low from Ari's throat. Jeb stepped between his son and Iggy, who looked as anxious for a fight as Ari did.
"No, stop," he commanded. Ari came to a rough halt and gave his father a confused, furious stare. Jeb forced himself to ignore it and concentrated on Stark's back; the older man had stopped at the sound of Jeb's voice and was slowly turning around.
"Resisting my orders, Batchelder?" Stark widened his eyes almost imperceptibly.
Every one of Jeb's nerves went on alert. He had to be incredibly careful where he tread next; a single wrong word, and he might be hurled off the mountainside along with Iggy.
"No, Doctor Stark. I do not believe, however, that exterminating Igneous would be the wisest course of action."
Stark gestured abruptly to Ari, who was still eyeing Iggy in blatant, bloodthirsty anticipation. "Explain," he ordered curtly.
"Earlier today, you had me participate in an operation linked to Maximum and her kin. It failed, but I wasn't informed that the investigation was over."
Stark leaned forward in the smallest of movements, and Jeb could not help but feel a little spark of triumph in him. He had his superior's attention.
"You want to continue the experiment with Igneous," Stark said slowly. "Do you even know what we were trying to do?"
Jeb shook his head. And I'm not sure I want to, he silently added, but would never dare utter it out loud. " It just seems a waste," he reasoned, "to throw away one of the very mutants we are targeting, especially now that he cannot escape."
"Watch me," Iggy muttered under his breath. Jeb closed his eyes for a moment and sent a silent prayer to whoever might be listening that Iggy wouldn't make his job any harder than it already was.
Stark studied Jeb silently for a long time. During those few seconds, which seemed to stretch on into infinity before Jeb's wide eyes, he heard only the tripping of his heart, his own barely-controlled breathing, and a low, angry growl that was starting to rise in Ari's throat.
"You understand," Stark said slowly, finally, "that you would be solely responsible for this particular experiment and its results."
Jeb tried very hard not to release his breath in a giant sigh of relief. "Yes, sir. I understand."
"Hmm." Stark nodded curtly and said, just before pushing past Jeb to interrogate the search party, "See that I get results, Batchelder, or the mutant won't be the only one to pay."
Inside his stomach, Jeb's entrails shriveled into a tiny ball of anxiety and foreboding. He nodded sternly to himself and moved to take Iggy's arm.
Iggy pulled away. "Leave me alone."
Jeb leaned in as close as the simmering boy would allow him to and whispered urgently, "If you don't let me take you back, I can't guarantee that they won't force you. Please. For your own sake, come quietly."
Iggy's mouth thinned into a knife-sharp line of suppressed anger, but he allowed Jeb to take the arm he was clutching against his side. Jeb felt something wet and sticky against his fingers and pulled his hand back in surprise. Blood coated his skin.
"It's just a scratch," Iggy muttered.
Jeb sighed resignedly. "I'll get that looked at later," he promised. "For now…come."
Jacob took Iggy's other arm without prompting and helped Jeb support the faltering mutant as they made their way from the docking bay. Ari snarled threateningly at them as they passed, and Jeb made a conscious effort not to wince. His son was going to hound after him for this little stunt.
It's worth it, Jeb thought stolidly. Without Iggy, without any member of her flock, Maximum would be driven to distraction. She can't afford to lose her concentration now.
If he was perfectly honest with himself, his job had less to do with his sparing Iggy than his own feelings did. He'd raised Iggy just as much as he had raised the others, even if he had to admit that he'd showered Maximum with more attention than her siblings had received.
It's only natural, he insisted stubbornly, supporting Iggy wordlessly as the boy began to stumble. She was special, different even back then. It was crucial that I focused my teachings on her. After all, she is key. The others are…are…advantageous.
"Where are you taking me?" Iggy asked sullenly. His mouth turned up in a humorless smirk. "Do I get my own five-star room, complete with silk blankets and room service?"
Jeb grimaced. "No."
"A cage, then." Iggy made a face and crinkled his blackened eye in a way that must have been painful. "Typical. Don't you guys ever come up with something new?"
"You could sleep with the Erasers," Jacob offered. Iggy made his eyes go very round.
"No, thank you. I like my face exactly the way it is."
Jacob and Jeb led Iggy through several more hallways until they reached the room they were looking for. By that time, Iggy was leaning heavily on Jeb and pinching his lips into a colorless knot of pain. He was even paler than usual from blood loss. Jeb frowned. He would have to get that arm bandaged immediately. Otherwise, Iggy might not make it long enough for Jeb to save him…
"Here we are." Jacob set about unlocking the door to the containment room. Iggy's sightless eyes went wide at the sound of the door creaking open, and Jeb almost stumbled when the tall boy tried to jerk away. Jeb knew that if Iggy had his usual strength, he would have knocked both him and Jacob on their backs and taken off in an instant. But the boy was woozy and weak from blood loss and the beating, and it probably took all his willpower just to tug his arm away from Jeb's iron grip.
"Let me go," Iggy said faintly. "It's Max you're after, not me, so let me go."
"I'm sorry," Jeb whispered, and meant it. "I really am. But you know I can't do that."
"Quick, inside," Jacob said with a nervous glance behind them. "They might come to check on us."
Iggy tried again to break away from Jeb. Jeb held on as tightly as he could and struggled to wrap an arm around the boy's middle to stabilize him. Unfortunately, Iggy chose that moment to fight, and his foot tangled with Jeb's as the man stepped forward. Jeb stumbled and nearly fell, allowing Iggy to tear his arms free and make a break for it. He only made it three steps before his numb limbs gave out on him and sent him crashing into the wall.
Jeb righted himself and watched in consternation as the dizzy boy tried to fight his way back to balance. There was no way he would be able to get a six-foot-tall, defiant mutant inside a cage without some major bruises and perhaps a broken bone or too. Steeling himself, he came forward and spun Iggy's fumbling form until his back was facing Jeb.
Sorry, he thought, and brought the heel of his hand down on the back of the boy's neck with crushing force.
Iggy stiffened before going completely limp in Jeb's arms. Jeb grunted; the boy was nearly as tall as he was! It was hard enough to balance him when he was partially awake. Now that Iggy was unconscious, Jeb could only lift half of him off the floor. Turning red with exertion, he dragged the tall mutant into the containment room.
It was dark. He knew it wouldn't bother Iggy when he woke, but he still lamented knowing that the boy wouldn't be able to wake to at least the small comfort of warm sunlight.
"That one's about the right size." Jacob's voice was strangely restrained as he pointed to a large cage sitting next to several smaller ones. Jeb nodded abruptly in thanks and half carried, half dragged Iggy into the cage.
Iggy's head flopped pitiably on his shoulder as Jeb propped him up against the cage's bars. Crouched in the cage, which was large enough to hold them both, Jeb sat back on his heels and studied the unconscious boy in front of him. There were so many things he hadn't had the time to notice before that he was only seeing just now: dark bruises beneath Iggy's closed eyes, a thin trail of blood running from somewhere under his hair, the hollowness of his cheeks. The child looked haunted, even unconscious.
"I'll take care of him, Jeb," Jacob's voice rang out in the dank room. "You go on and get some sleep. It's my job to look after the wounded ones, anyway."
Jeb nodded absently and ducked out of the cage. "His head's bleeding too," he said, "and…if it's not too much trouble, could you…get him something to eat? It's, uh…it's no use if he's distracted when I start the experiment."
"Right," Jacob said, and flashed him a thin smile. "That's why. Don't worry, I won't get caught."
Jeb felt a sudden rush of gratitude for the man before him. "Thank you," he sighed, and walked wearily out of the room.
Ari was waiting for him.
"You're disappointed," his son growled. Jeb started and gave Ari a wary look. He was leaning against the wall with his beefy arms crossed over his chest, a dangerous glint in his eye and one lip lifted in a perpetual snarl. Jeb felt his shoulders droop under the thought of getting into another argument with the mutant-child.
"Disappointed in what, Ari?"
"Disappointed that it wasn't Max," Ari snapped. "Don't play dumb. I could see it in your eyes. You thought that freak was Max, and when it wasn't…"
His son paused and glared down at the tiled floor before lifting his gaze back to Jeb. "I would have done it, you know. I wouldn't have failed you."
"Ari, I don't decide who they send—"
"What are you talking about?" Ari snarled. "You're in charge of the investigation, aren't you? Aren't you? Why don't you send me? I hate being caged up in this place, like some kind of…of…"
Animal. Jeb winced. His head fell forward into his hand as if all the muscles that held it up had been cut. "Ari, please. Not today."
Ari pushed off the wall to tower over his father. "No, Dad. Every day. Every day until you stop treating me like a nuisance and start making sense. Until then…"
The look he sent the containment room was enough to curdle Jeb's blood. Ari pivoted on his heel with a hate-filled snarl and stalked off down the hallway, his thick fur bristling with anger. Jeb sighed and thumped the back of his head against the wall.
Jacob emerged from the room, his hands covered in Iggy's blood. "Kid's stabilized. Good thing I had my gauze on me, or he might have lost even more blood," he said, and caught sight of Ari storming away. He looked back at Jeb's forlorn expression and shook his head.
"Jeb," he said tiredly, "what are you doing?"
Jeb ran a worn hand over his face and watched his son go.
"I don't know..."
Iggy woke exactly as he had every day of his life for the past four years: to darkness.
Only, this was a different kind of darkness. It wasn't a darkness filled with the soft breathing of his flock-mates or Nudge's shrill voice chattering at him to wake up and cook her breakfast. This was a cold darkness, where the very air felt wet and seemed to cling to his skin even though he wasn't moving. He could hear something gurgling to his right. Iggy jumped in alarm and hit his head on something hard for his trouble. He spent the next several minutes curled in on himself in a tiny ball, trying to will away the pain that rocketed through every inch of his skull.
His fuzzy mind flashed through to the last thing he remembered. He remembered struggling to escape from somewhere, falling against a wall, and then someone's hand driving down into the base of his neck…
Iggy sat up with a gasp. Jeb. His ex-surrogate-father had knocked him out.
"That jerk," Iggy grouched under his breath.
Jeb was the last person Iggy had expected to meet. He didn't know where he'd been taken to, but he had felt the cold wind leaking through the walls of the helicopter and knew that wherever he was, it definitely wasn't California. Was he even in the United States anymore?
Iggy shivered as the memories of his last moment with the flock bombarded him like an Eraser's fists. The wolf-mutants had ambushed the flock, grabbed and trussed him up so tightly he could barely breathe, and taken off to stuff him into the trunk of a car. From there, it was a long enough drive that Iggy passed out and woke up more than once. Then, just when he'd thought he would finally get a chance to break free, the Erasers had reached in, injected him with a sedative, and bundled him into the helicopter.
It was fast, efficient, and organized. So much so that it had taken his flock by surprise and robbed them of the chance to rescue him, judging by how he wasn't already lounging around on a warm beach pretending to ogle the beach bunnies.
Well, what d'you know? He thought dryly to himself. The School actually did something right for once. And the flock probably has no idea where I am. I have no idea where I am.
Iggy shifted to lean back against the cage's bars. He took a quick inventory of his injuries: one bruised eye, a split lip, one lacerated arm, and a bleeding head. Check. All in all, not too bad.
He knew it could have been much worse; someone had actually bandaged his head and arm. Iggy frowned to himself. That was strange; the whitecoats had never seemed to care whether he was half drunk with pain and blood loss before, so why now?
The only reason his mind could come up with was that the "experiment" he was in for was bad enough that they would actually prepare him for it. The thought made his every nerve squirm with dread. He'd heard them mention something about a surgery gone wrong before—they weren't going to…operate on him, were they?
"'Course not," he reassured himself. "Jeb wouldn't convince them to save me just for that…"
Back to Jeb again. Iggy winced and tried to battle down the mixed wave of anger and relief he felt at meeting his former father figure again. Jeb wasn't on his side—he was a whitecoat. A traitor. He didn't deserve Iggy's gratitude, he deserved Iggy's fist in his face.
Which is the first thing on my "things-to-do-when-I-escape" list, Iggy thought determinedly. He raised himself to his knees. His head just barely scraped the cage's ceiling. Using his reaching hands in place of his eyes, he felt his way around the cage until he had a good picture of how tall and wide it was. The cage was bigger than he expected, but it still wasn't big enough for him to stand or stretch his legs in. He couldn't pick the lock since it had some kind of metal casing around it, and even if there wasn't the casing, it wasn't like he had anything to pick the lock with.
Which means I'm screwed, he huffed to himself. Great.
Iggy had no way of telling time, but he estimated it was hours before someone finally came to get him. During that time, the only sounds he heard were his own measured breaths, the wet gurgling of whatever creature was in the cage next to him, and the occasional agonized scream from outside the room. In short, the usual. Iggy was bored out of his mind and had resorted to entertaining himself by picking at the bandage around his head when the door finally opened.
He shot up, only remembering not to bang his head on the cage's ceiling again at the last second. As the clipped, measured footsteps neared him, he forced himself to lean against the cage's bars and appear nonchalant.
"What?" he asked with an insolent smirk. "Miss me already?"
"Not likely, freak."
The tiny hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Iggy got to his knees and balled his hands into waiting fists. His blood pounded in his ears. "Ari. What are you doing here?"
Ari clucked disapprovingly. "Show some respect, you useless mistake. I'm not the one in the cage."
"I'm the mistake?" Iggy raised his eyebrows and adopted a surprised expression. "Huh. And here I thought that's why Jeb left you all those years ago. My bad. Must've been the dog breath."
Ari snarled and jerked the cage hard enough to send Iggy tumbling against the bars. The injured side of his head struck the unforgiving metal and the world dissolved into a meaningless hum of agony and heat. Dimly, he heard Ari unlock and swing the cage's door open.
"I would watch my mouth if I were you," the wolf-mutant said smugly, and fisted one of his claws in Iggy's shirt. He dragged Iggy out of the cage and dumped him onto the floor. Even through the throbbing in his head, Iggy could feel the cold leaking into his bones. He shivered and forced himself to ignore the pain.
"What do you want?" he asked. His voice didn't come out half as strong as he would have liked it to. Somehow, he could almost feel Ari smirking.
"Break time's up. The good doctors want to see if Jeb really can make something of a failure."
Iggy gritted his teeth. Ari noticed and growled warningly, curling his clawed fingers around Iggy's injured arm. "Don't try anything. They never said you had to be in one piece when I brought you in."
Before Iggy could think up a proper insult, Ari had jerked him to his feet and shoved him forward. Iggy stumbled, hands flailing aimlessly before he found the wall and followed it to the door. He was tempted to make another run for freedom, but Ari followed his thoughts' path. Iggy felt the cold muzzle of a gun digging into the small of his back.
"Don't," the wolf-mutant said. "You know I won't wait to shoot."
No, he wouldn't. Iggy drove his fingernails into the raw palms of his hands and walked stiffly, guided by little jabs and pushes from the muzzle of Ari's pistol. The taller mutant chuckled quietly to himself every now and then, almost as if he was reveling in Iggy's misfortune. Which, in all honesty, he probably was.
Iggy didn't dare try to escape with a gun to his back. That didn't mean he was completely helpless, though; he concentrated intensely to how many steps it took for him and Ari to reach their destination, whose voices he heard as they passed, how many doorways they passed through. It was a short distance from his room to the room where the experiment would be taking place. Iggy counted two right turns, a left, then seven steps down the hallway and into the room.
"I brought 'im!" Ari called. His gruff voice echoed vociferously around the room, bounding and rebounding against Iggy's hypersensitive eardrums. Judging by how Ari's call sounded, the room was huge, almost as big as the docking bay he'd been brought to after waking up in the helicopter.
"Bring it here," a cold voice ordered. Iggy bristled—it was the same man who had wanted him killed earlier.
Ari jabbed Iggy with the gun. "Get moving," he ordered. Figuring it wouldn't be wise to snap at the wolf-mutant with the gun, especially while an important man who wanted him dead was in the room, Iggy complied. Barely.
He walked until Ari stopped pushing him with the gun's muzzle. The important man—Stark—was probably looking him over, if Iggy's hair standing on end was any indication. From the doctor's left, Iggy heard a voice he'd been hoping he wouldn't have to deal with that day.
"Hello, Igneous," Jeb said. Iggy hated how kind his voice sounded. Hadn't he heard what Iggy had said to him before? He was a traitor, and Iggy wasn't going to forget it.
The only reply he gave Jeb was an unwavering glare. He could hear the man swallow and shift uncomfortably.
"I see a night in a cage wasn't enough to curb its defiance," Stark said silkily. "Are you certain you can handle it, Batchelder?"
"Positive, sir," Jeb replied mildly. "Igneous will comply with the experiment. He knows what will happen to him otherwise."
Iggy scowled at the subtle hint and folded his arms defiantly. He wasn't going to let anyone push him around, least of all a man who wasn't brave enough to confront him about his disloyalty.
"Hmm," Stark said. Iggy could feel the doctor's empty gaze on him again and squared his shoulders. "Report directly to me when you are done."
Stark left the room with sharp footfalls. Iggy was suddenly and painfully aware of the presence of more beings in the room. Heavy breathing, a couple of scattered chuckles, the cracking of a knuckle or two…
Erasers, and a lot of them.
"In phase one of this experiment," Jeb was saying, "we will test how your defense and offense skills are affected by your lack of sight. Defeat your opponents in any way possible."
Iggy could feel the man's pleading gaze on him. It was the same look that Max and the others gave him when they made a crack about his sight without thinking, the same look he felt when Max wanted to talk and he was ignoring her. He turned his head away. Jeb wanted to talk? Too bad. He wasn't going to let his ex-father, of all people, guilt trip him. If he wanted to talk, he was going to have to bring himself down to Iggy's level and visit him in his cage. Maybe that would teach him.
Ari growled impatiently.
Jeb gave up trying to get the winged mutant to talk, heaving a weary sigh. Iggy steeled himself and callously ignored the faint sense of guilt he felt stirring in his chest.
"You may begin."
A/N: So we got a tiny peek inside Ari's head (which we will be exploring extensively in this 'fic) and got to experience things from Iggy's pov. He's mostly back to being his snarky little self, but I'm afraid he's still somewhat bummed out about being kidnapped. Next chapter will have more Iggy/Jeb dynamics and a lot of drama, so in the meantime...review?
-Kimsa