Disclaimer: I don't own any characters except my characters. Which are quite a few this time around. Let's try it this way: I don't own any Marvel characters that happen to show up in the upcoming chapters and which I'm sure you'll recognise without any need to name long lists. I also do not own Jenny, which Dizi created a few years back and which is a fabulous character. I strongly recommend you read her adventures with Wolverine and the X-Men.

4. Second: Captured

As they walked towards the car, over a dozen bags in their hands, Jubilee and Kitty laughed over a joke involving Emma Frost. Isabel had surreptitiously fallen a couple of steps behind because she needed to think, not to mention she felt tired. After all, it had only been two weeks since… she shook her head. It was not the right time to think about it. She was shopping, having fun… that's what she needed to keep in mind. That much her friends had been spot on.

Besides, the whole experience had turned out so much better than she had expected. She had been afraid the three women would dish out against Victor's constant texting during lunch but instead they'd joked about it, and when Jubilee had decided to start sending photos… It had quickly become so fun, for the three of them. Four of them, she hoped. She really wished that Victor (or worse, Summers) hadn't been annoyed over the nearly constant texts. Jubilee had sent him photos of nearly everything she had tried on, and after the first few dozen, he'd gotten into it and had started texting back which ones he liked best. All in all, a perfect girls' day! So very much better than going with him and then having to hurry up while he pretended he wasn't bored half into a berserker rage. It might be true she wasn't a big fan of shopping, but that was mostly because of crowds. Not to mention she much preferred to go in, get what she was looking for, and get out. Today, though, hadn't been about shopping. It had been about goofing off with some friends and relaxing.

She could barely wait for next week, when they'd come out shopping again, this time with Jenny alongside.

The sound of a photo being taken snapped Isabel out of her thoughts and she smiled at her friends, who'd gotten farther off. She was about to speed up to catch up with them when her phone beeped. Victor never answered Jubilee's texts, and although it suited Isabel just fine, she wouldn't have minded if he answered her a couple of times. It would mean he was getting more at ease with the girl and Isabel really wanted him to warm up to her girl friends.

'dont fall behind'

She didn't need to recognise the last word to know what he meant. She knew well enough the only thing she was doing that could merit her a 'don't' was getting away from the other women.

'so para a foto :*'

She had switched to Portuguese when she had been upset over his constant texting, worried that her friends would start criticising him, but now she just didn't feel like making the effort to use English. After all, he could read Portuguese very well, even if he never wrote in it and his pronunciation was more Spanish than Portuguese. In fact, he could understand the language better in writing than when spoken. She sometimes told him he was a genius for picking up languages, though not too often so he didn't start suspecting ulterior motives. She occasionally pushed the envelope a bit, hoping he would speak more often in it, but he rarely did so. A genius he may be for picking up languages – and she really did think he was – but lazy as all hell to work on it.

'jub can take photos up close so DONT fall behind for photos'

She shook her head with an affectionate smile at his concern. He never did that. She could spend the day with her friends in Creston doing whatever that he never once bothered to text or phone her. He might pretend not to be grumpy when she returned, he might occasionally half-grumble that she had taken forever, but he never encroached on her. Not after that big fight, in their first year in Creston, when she'd told him point blank that controlling behaviour meant a desperately needy man.

She sent him a ':*'.

Jenny was so right: big strong men that decide they can keep their loved ones safe no matter what suffer terribly for their decision. Like her Victor. He must be in gut-wrenching worry to constantly text her in front of the other men, especially when he didn't want them to think he cared for her. She really couldn't let him know all those little things she often did and which he considered dangerous (in his eyes, and she rolled her own). It upset him way too much.

In a sudden whim, she texted him in Portuguese that she felt much safer chatting to him like this. But then she noticed Jubilee and Kitty were already waiting by the car for her to catch up and Isabel hurried up.

"Jubilee, can I ask you one thing? Don't send Victor photos in dat I'm alone or far from you two. He thinks is not safe and den he is more worried." Jubilee laughed but Isabel recognised the mischievous glint in her eyes. Just like Victor's. So she hardened her voice. "I'm serious, Jubes. Don't do dat or I will be very, very angry wid you."

"Fine," the girl shrugged and quickly snapped another photo to send him as Kitty opened the car.

"Oh," Kitty suddenly looked back. "I forgot!"

"Forgot what?"

Kitty groaned. "I promised Peter I'd get him some swim shorts."

Isabel looked at her beeping phone to read the 'much better' text and sighed at the thought of going all the way back to the shops.

"I'm sorry, Kitty," and she was, "but I need to sit a little."

"Oh no," Kitty waved a hand distractedly. "I wouldn't make you go back. We've been walking for over three hours and I'm pretty sure Hank is going to say it's too early for you to make so much effort."

Oh, please! McCoy thought everything was too much for her. She was not a little frail who would break at the first turn. It had taken her so long to convince Victor she was not a fragile weakling and now the doctor came in and started it all anew! How irritating.

"I'm fine!" She grumbled and was almost on the verge of insisting they all went back to the shops to prove it, but Jubilee pulled herself onto the car hood and said she was going to take the chance to blitz-text Justin, for a change.

Kitty left her bags and jogged towards the shopping area while Isabel sighed. She was tired. And maybe even a bit sore. Just a bit. She opened the trunk to put the shopping bags and glanced at Jubilee. She was taking selfies to send Justin. Isabel knew she had started the whole 'blitz-texting' to annoy Victor, but it had ended up being much more fun than she had probably antecipated.

Closing the trunk, she opened a door and sat sideways on the back seat then got her cell phone out and sent a text to Victor, warning him Kitty had gone back for a last minute buy.

are you tired, he texted back immediately.

nao, she answered before wondering how Summers let him spend so much time texting. nao estas a trabalhar?

course im working

A whole lot of working he must be doing.

samars nao esta contigo?

SUMMERS learn to spell

As if she'd ever bother. He could understand her written English well enough. What she needed to bother about was getting him over his laziness to start texting in Portuguese.

yes hes here but he knows I need to check on you

chek nao e o mesmo que conversar, she retorted with a chuckle.

chatting is the second best way of checking on you after selfies

Was that him asking her to send him a selfie?

queres uma selfie minha?

you need to ask?

She laughed and resorted to the well known Portuguese expression for 'I didn't understand'.

tease, he sent and then after a few seconds: obviously

She chuckled and waited.

YES

pede com jeitinho, she texted.

He knew that 'asking nicely' really meant 'ask in Portuguese', because she had told him a few times his heavily accented Portuguese was the sexiest thing in the world. And, once more, she had meant it. Especially when he said it over a light growl.

sim, he finally sent.

Without losing a moment she lay back on the seat in order to be hidden from view and unbuttoned the top of her shirt until her bra was showing. He'd be particularly happy to see she had her little adamantium dagger properly secured to the bra, in between her breasts. She guessed he'd have wondered about it when he'd seen her photos trying on clothes, but she had figured it would be best to hide the thing from sight or her friends would never stop talking about it.

Isabel sent him a photo and a quick text asking him if he wanted more. A car braked suddenly, making its tyres screech, and she awarded the dumb driver a fleeting piece of advice as she smiled at Victor's Portuguese answer. Oh, yes, that was…

Jubilee's voice produced the strangest yelp she had ever heard and Isabel got up to check on her, a hand pulling the top of her shirt close. Blood froze in her veins as she stepped up and saw two men outside a grey van. They both had these boxy things in their hands, one of which had thin cables spread out all the way to Jubilee's sprawled body on the floor. Taser, her mind finally recognised.

Isabel ducked and sprinted behind a car, her fingers expertly going through the letters hlp and the send button. Victor had made her practice sending short but relevant messages in case of need. One or two words, shortened down to a sort of code and sent in rapid sequence – or whenever she had an opening. Still, she was always to prefer keeping the phone hidden to risking having it taken. With no idea how to write 'grey van' in English, and the Portuguese being too long to risk it, she put the phone away. If only she could see the license plate! That would merit the risk.

She ran as quickly as she could around another car, always keeping herself as low as possible, while buttoning up her shirt. The men were coming after her and she hesitated only half a second as she computed 'my adamantium dagger' vs 'their tasers' = 'overpowered'. The blade could be useful later on even if now wa…

Isabel's body spasmed wildly as the pain flashed through her agonisingly. What felt like an eternity later, her breathing seemed to resume itself but her body didn't react to her instinct of getting up and away. Actually, it wasn't just her body; her mind couldn't do much more either. In fact, it could only cling to the hope that the men wouldn't get rid of her phone just yet because Victor's phone, not the one the X-Men had given him but the other he had had back when he'd first joined them; Victor's phone had an app that allowed it to locate her own phone.

She felt the men pick her up roughly and take her to the van. She'd ask Victor to put more of those locators on a set of earrings, necklace and ring, her mind brightened suddenly. Then he'd have plenty of failsafes if he ever needed to come after her ASAP.

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