When Victor gave the orders to impress him, he thought that the most he would get out of it was a good show of guts.
Maybe the two women would show him some survival skill, some true grit as they ran about the wilderness. He thought if they really went for it, they might try and be clever. Lay some traps like the old days, set up a night watch. That the fighting one, Mac, would take Girly by the lead and honestly try to give him a fight.
Then he would have crushed them. Broken them in like filly's with too much spirit, made them all nice and serviceable before he brought them out for a real show.
After dealing with the tail they picked up somewhere near the border, finding Striker's old base to be reclaimed by the lake, and any trace of adamantium grafting gone, Victor was in a foul mood and amended that maybe breaking them in would also mean breaking a few bones.
That changed though.
With a grin on his face, he supposes that while it isn't what he planned for, what they pulled off is far, far more impressive.
He lives for surprises like these.
The wildfire made it hard to track them at first. Impossible, even. The smoke on the wind, the embers in the air, the sounds of the flames- even he wasn't that good, but he wasn't dumb either. They only had a few paths out, bordered on all side by wilderness. Only one path would have led them back to civilization, and once he found a spot that hadn't been eaten by fire, he would have his lead.
He spent two days checking for signs of escape, circling the growing borders of the flames. The changing winds made it harder to be sure, covering signs of anything that might have been, but he found a lead eventually. One strong enough to make him laugh at the irony of it all, and then fill his mind with rage.
By the scenic lake road, there's blood on the gravel and the smell of boots on the ground.
Never polished his boots right, that Jimmy.
There are other scents as well. The stench of the Summers kid, and the bitch with the mind shit. The whole place is thick with that weird feeling of psychic crap, like some serious business got underway while he was busy.
But all of it put together points one way. After solidly proving that they could indeed be worth his while, his claims were yanked out from underneath him, and that isn't acceptable. In fact, that's a fucking punishable offense in his book. He found them first. He's the one that saw what they could be. Nobody just gets to take his shit.
The anger makes it hard to think. It always does. It would be easier if the Kid and Girly were here, scared to death but tearing the air apart with those sharp little words and funny expressions. Then he could laugh it away, ground himself a bit.
He shoulda known that runt would have screwed things up for him. He always did have to make everything goddamn complicated.
Jimmy doesn't get this though. Nobody gets them but Victor, and since they did such a bang up job impressing him, he'll show them what he's got to offer back.
When Phoenix woke up, reality was too much. Even as safe as she was within the depths of the lake, she was confused and overwhelmed. She didn't know what to do or where to turn.
But Jean did.
Jean called for Scott. For SummersCyclopsFriendLover, and she beckoned him to aid them. He became their focus when they were weak, and they poured themselves into reaching him. He became their focus when they were weak, and they poured themselves into reaching him. They touched his grief-ridden mind while he slept, whispered secrets and praises. They wailed, screamed, and begged him to come.
He answered that call.
However, when he was close and she rose to greet him, she felt the rancid touch of Xavier on his mind.
It enraged her, made her head writhe and the heart that isn't hers clench like a stone in her chest. Xavier was someone who Jean Grey trusted, who she once cared for.
One who locked away a part of her, banished it for simply existing.
He was there in Scott's mind. She loved and hated with equal passion in that moment, enough to want Scott to be free of his anguish and sorrow, while simultaneously consumed by the want to destroy any trace of that other.
It was the women who made her pause. The brave heart. The distant mind. One with her determination and anger, and one with her numbness and overwhelming faith.
Phoenix could not comprehend that sort of faith, that clarity of thought.
She thinks she wants to.
She thinks about it even when they wake up. Phoenix can feel the relief and calmness that flood them upon seeing one another. Despite their insulting words and the pain of their bodies, they feel safe together. Cherished.
There is a surety there, a fiery passion tempered by time and experience that exists as a plasma state. It's not about absolute control like with what Xavier did to her. They do not lock parts away from one another, but have seen each other as wholes and accepted that.
Anam Cara, the brave heart thinks when she wakes up, her eyes landing on the distant mind.
Anam Cara, Phoenix wonders looking at the man who thought this body dead for a year but came running when she had strength to give him only dreams.
Maybe in another world, one where those two girls did not exist, she would have obliterated Scott to get rid of any traces of the old man who hurt her so. Maybe in another world, she would wake to Logan and be consumed by the itching thoughts of maybemaybemaybe in her heart, and the lust in his own. In that world, perhaps she never contemplates anything but the driving want to be free, never contemplating what that freedom actually is to her.
Phoenix isn't the Jean Grey that was, nor is she what the others assume she is. It doesn't even feel like her soul belongs to this body, but the distant mind feels the same of her own form. She isn't Jean Grey, but they are not dissimilar. There could be understanding.
"Scott," Pheonix says.
When she calls his name he looks to her, bruised and devoted. She can hear the elation in his head, the steady stream of 'shesaliveohgodthankyoupleaseIloveyou-' that reassures her that he is hers more than he will ever be that old mans.
"Leave with me," she says.
He blinks, his body language hesitant, but Phoenix can hear his thoughts. They will go together.
"Coulson."
Phil looks up from the file in his hand. In front of him, Nick Fury stands at a lazy attention, an old habit he slips into when tension is low, one that could be on purpose, or simply a misdirection of body language to suit his own ends. The workings of Nick's mind are intricate, and Phil is content to let his thoughts on the matter fade away.
"Sir," he greets back evenly.
"How's the situation?"
Phil hums blandly, a single solid tone he holds for three seconds but no longer, giving the impression of thought when there really isn't any necessary. The whole while he unflinchingly meets Fury's gaze.
"Tension between factions is rising. While the weaponization of the cure did secure the CIA a viable witness and credible information while simultaneously depriving Erik Lehnsherr -born as Max Eisenhardt and operating under the alias Magneto- of a general figure by the name of Raven Darkholme, it also seems to have exacerbated situation by legitimizing fears some factions had. Nothing solid yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was an uprising," he states monotonously.
What he doesn't say is that another high ranking officiate of the mutant leader, one previously assumed to be deceased, was caught on camera. Just outside the apartment of a certain waitress and dock loader
In the scheme of things perhaps the disappearance of two women isn't all that big. He deals with military regimes that topple nations on a daily basis, briefs himself on updated information on covert information cells at breakfast, and has the current rates of civil direst on his plate to consider.
However, Phil Coulson is not a forgiving man. He had one place, one constant feed of relative normality in his life, and that was ruined by a Canadian operative that is currently labeled deceased.
The file they have on the man is sparse at best, no more than a few sheafs of paper that label him as a suspected associate of a supposedly dead program that crossed one too many lines. From what little Phil has to go on, Creed went rogue after the SNAFU on Three Mile Island, only to reappear with a new look beside a known mutant rebel. He was assumed dead again after the incident they barely have any information on involving teenagers, senators, mutants, and the Statue of Liberty.
This whole situation feels a bit too slim on information for his liking, if he's honest.
Nick Fury is too good to have any unintentional tells, so the sound he makes in his throat is purely for Phil's benefit. An attention grabber, much like the pointless hum that Phil made before.
"A big cluster fuck the CIA made for themselves," The man comments. "Too much vested interest in one subject. Not a broad enough perspective."
'Ah. Double speak,' Phil thinks calmly.
Sure enough, Nick glances to the files in his hands. They are smaller than normal, thinner than even Creed's. Saoirse MacCullagh and Ana Roubideux are clean to the point that their existence is almost unnerving to a man who is used to having binders of data to deal with. What exists on them is the standard. No shady pasts on record, no rumors of any wrongdoing, and some scant medical records he assumes are scarce simply because they couldn't afford any more.
Normal. They are perfectly, one hundred percent mundane save for recent events.
The looks Nick gives him as when he looks back to Phil is telling. 'I know,' it says apathetically.
This is why he didn't bring Creed up. Because Fury already knew. He knew from the moment Phil submitted a request to look into this case.
"Care to add some perspective, sir?" Phil asks.
"What matters is that Creed isn't re-aligning with the rogue faction for now. If he crops back up, then we deal with it. Stop attempting to figure out the workings of a madman's mind, or find relevancy that isn't there."
Phil nods because that is sage advice, and he sets the files down on the desk in front of him. Perhaps that is it. He's done what he can, and the women should be safe. His part is done.
For some reason, it doesn't feel over though.
Maybe he should check on that.
"Logan, I know you are upset but I implore you listen to me. One thing, no more."
Logan is man enough to admit that he does not want to listen to the professor. Not after what he was just told, not after the man admitted to tampering with someone's mind. Whether it be for the greater good or whatever ass backward reason the old man has, there's somethings you just don't do. Some lines that should never be crossed.
He's also man enough to know that there once was a man he respected greatly in that chair. There are still things worthy of respect inside him, if not the actions he discovered just now.
So Logan shifts ever so slightly, inclining his head stiffly and angling away from the door.
"The women you offered protection to-"
"I didn't offer any protection. I said I'd cut off Sabertooth's damn head if he came a'knockin," Logan corrects gruffly.
"They don't believe that. In fact, I do think they are operating under the assumption that they are still captives on some level."
Logan turns to the man sitting behind the desk. His face, as always, remains still and stern, commanding yet understanding. He doesn't know why, but he feels like he knows generals who had faces like that. Maybe he did. Striker's labs jumbled things, but never fully returned any memories.
"Ms. Ana and Mac have just been through a traumatic event where they acted under the knowledge that they were very liable to die, but their reaction and their temperament speak of not just recent trauma, but past abuse as well," Xavier tells him.
Logan must twitch or something because the man shakes his head. Even without reading minds, the man can still read people like a book.
"It's in their behavior. They way they have closed ranks and kept to themselves speaks of a long-term familiarity, and the way that they have spoken -revealing only what the wished us to hear, and otherwise remaining silent- means they have experience guarding their tongues. Ms Ana eems capable of shutting her body language off almost completely, and Ms. Mac made sure to know everyone's location in the room at all times. This is not something one learns over the course of days."
Logan mulls it over in his head. He's seen the same himself, saw the slighter of the women stare at him like he was going to tear her apart with cold resignation in her eyes, and watched the one seated tense as tight as a bow string.
That's really none of his business, though. He said what he said, and he'll stick by it, but none of that is very relevant as of now.
"And?" he asks.
"And if I'm right, the forest fire was not happenstance. They do not trust us and stand very close to an edge that could lead to devastation. It is a miracle that they are aware enough to not factor all mutants in with Victor , but I do not doubt that if they believe it necessary, one or both of them would take drastic measures."
He grimaces, shifting enough that his weight rests on the balls of his feet. The fire thing is something new. A hell of a gamble on their part.
But how does the bastard fit into this? What does Sabertooth get out of starting a competition with Logan, misreading the whole damn situation with him and Rogue? Why would he drag two normal, non mutant women into this?
(Why does the name Jimmy feel so familiar, like the smell of the northern woods and animal hides mixing with gunmetal in barracks?)
"You afraid they might torch the school if they get spooked?" Logan asks instead of what's really on his mind.
Xavier, for the most part, says nothing. He doesn't even change his expression much. He just looks at him and lets Logan work it out.
"You want them handled," he amends in a low growl. After the shit he just found out about Jean-
"I want them to be safe and healthy," Xavier says, and this time a bit of the calm leeches from his voice. "Despite what you may think, I do not generally go around using human beings as pawns in a game or treating minds as putty to shape at my whim."
"Get Storm to do it," Logan suggests instead. "They look at me like I'm going to tear them apart."
"Ororo is aware and will address this in her own way. However, Storm is the epitome of the environment around them, one which they can neither relate to nor understand on anything other than a superficial level. You may be similar in mannerism to their captor, but that simply puts you in a better place to act as opposition to the experience they have had," Xavier explains.
"They don't get classy shit and you think I can relate," he simplifies in a voice that clearly indicates his lack of interest.
"If you are so empty of empathy, then please imagine the situation we are all in right now. How do you think the world would react to news of a mutant attack on unarmed civilian women? How do you think this school would fair?"
Logan does not speak.
"I'm not a commander giving orders, Logan. You are not the only one I have brought this issue forward with. Things are tense, and I worry about Scott and Jean, but trust that together they may have a handle on themselves. Combined with my fear of how Magneto is reacting, gathering force, and Hank trying to talk the government out of full militarization against protestors, I need all the help I can get."
The professor stares at him unflinchingly, and there's no mind nonsense going on, but Logan feels the weight in that look. The calm expectation.
"But please, allow your disagreement with me about how I treated a patient many years ago -a case in which you have the barest details and no medical expertise- to stop you from facing the present troubles."
Logan cocks his jaw to the side. For a man dedicated to nonviolence and harmony, the professor just gave him a hell of a tongue lashing. Even worse, he's making sense.
"Fine," he grits out. "But when this blows to shit, it's on you."
He slams the door on his way out for good measure.