Chapter Eleven - A False Start
Since K had placed Kurt in charge of preparing a wedding for her and Logan, the amazing Nightcrawler had been on the job — and he had everything ready for that weekend. A lakeside up in Canada, some good food, and a few simple decorations and tables — nothing too extravagant, though it did look sharp. He'd even gone up a day before the ceremony to make sure everything was in place before the handful of private guests would arrive, and he was positively grinning and brimming with excitement the more things came into place.
Even the weather was cooperating — a mild, slightly windy September day with no chance of rain. And he hadn't even had to ask Storm to help with that. The colors were just barely starting to turn in the trees around them, and Kurt had put Kate and Jubilee on making sure that K didn't panic and bolt, as he was concerned she might.
But, as it was, K was just lying on the bed in the cabin Kurt had set aside for the ladies, staring at the ceiling and lightly kicking her feet as she played with her nails a bit, looking bored. "When do we head out then?" K asked. "Because I don't think this is happening."
Kate and Jubilee shared a look before Kate lightly hit her on the arm with an attempt at a teasing grin. "What, can't wait for the honeymoon? Just want to skip to that part?"
"Thought I already did," she teased right back. "No … that's not what I mean at all. More like — something is going to go wrong."
"The weather's great, Noh's gone to make sure the obnoxious future stepson doesn't come to break things up, and your dress is going to make you look like a classic movie star. What the heck do you think in that little head of yours is wrong?" Jubilee asked, shaking her head.
K just shrugged up to her ears. "Something."
Kate patted her arm. "It's okay to have jitters," she said with a smirk.
"Do I look jittery?" K asked with one eyebrow raised.
"Well, with this sort of thing, it's kind of a default for you," Jubilee replied.
She shook her head a bit. "I'm stuck with him anyhow at this point," K teased. "Kid and all."
"Then stop trying to jinx your own wedding, you goof," Kate said.
"I'm not — I'm not jinxing anything," K replied. "But this is the way it goes. Plans never work out."
"Well, when you're nice and married, I'll make sure to personally escort you to my fuzzy fiance for a formal apology," Kate shot back, laughing quietly.
"You may find yourself waiting on that one," K replied lazily.
"Yeah, for about…" Kate checked the clock. "Sixteen more hours. Just long enough for the 'I do's and then you'll have to do a 'you were right'."
"Uh huh," K said. "We'll see. I won't ask for the same."
"That's because I won't be trying to jinx my wedding," Kate said, shotting K a look.
"I mean when you are proven so spectacularly wrong. I am not trying to jinx it. This is called being a realist."
"Yeah, well, realistically, you're getting married tomorrow," Jubilee said, grinning widely.
K didn't argue the point any further, but she certainly wasn't convinced either. Instead, she pushed herself up so that she was sitting to face the two girls. "So. You're babysitting me, right? What are we going to do?"
"Pamper." Kate and Jubilee grinned at each other and then K as Kate gestured at the overnight bag she'd brought. "I've got movies, I've got snacks, I've got foot scrubs… you name it."
"Did you bring targets?" K asked, picking her head up off the pillow.
"Of course." Kate sounded offended.
"Exploding targets?"
"Couldn't sneak those past your super sniffer fiance," Kate admitted. "But I might have personalized the targets. They have faces now."
"That's okay. I took the whiskey from them and replaced it with water bottles. Framed you for it too," K replied as she laid her head back down.
"I want to be mad, but all I'm getting is this sort of proud 'atta girl'," Kate laughed.
"Oooh, I also got Kurt to promise not to bring any more whiskey to the party than what was in the box," she said with a satisfied sort of smirk.
"My poor Elf. A whole weekend whisky-less," Kate said, her hand over her heart and a dramatic look of pity painted on her features.
"There are loopholes in that plan if they think for thirty seconds," K told her. "He promised no more whiskey. Didn't make him promise no more booze. Or beer."
"Such a generous promise," Jubilee laughed.
K sat up and looked around the room for a moment before she got up and headed to the kitchen. When Jubilee caught up to her, she was digging under the sink, with a few bottles in her hands, pulling out various cleaning supplies. "Hold these," she told her — shoving them into Jubilee's arms before heading to the bathroom to do the same. "I still need explosives. We'll just have to make them."
"You two will have to make them," Jubilee pointed out, though she was following behind K with a look of concentrated concern. "And shouldn't you not anyway?"
"Why?" K asked, sounding totally innocent. "Because Logan's being overprotective? Yeah. That'll stop me."
"How 'bout because I don't want to get blown up again if there's an accident?" Kate pointed out.
"There shall be no accidents," K said decisively. "And I'll mix it up. Babies. Nothing here will blow until it gets hit right."
"Hey, we're, like, contractually obligated to point out danger," Kate laughed, pointing at her own face. "Babysitters."
"Then you should have child-proofed the kitchen," K replied with a little smirk. "Fail. So much fail."
"Amateur babysitters," Jubilee said with a grin.
"You're going to get in trouble …." K teased. "You know. If they come sniffin' around."
"They might if they think they can find the whiskey you stole from them," Kate teased right back.
"That's never gonna happen." She was opening up the case that she'd brought along, though she had to shake her head when she saw that Logan had made a point to remove the explosive rounds from her gun case. "Rude. So so rude." She looked up at Kate. "Do you have your trick arrows at least?"
"Is the Earth still moving around the sun?"
"Well then — archery explosions it is," K said with a nod before she headed outside to find a good spot to set up a few targets.
"What do you mean you can't 'port to get more booze?" Logan asked with a frown, glaring at the pack of water bottles that the girls had left them to drink. "Just do it."
"I told your fiance I wouldn't bring more than I had in there," Kurt tried to explain. "It was a promise — which I admit, I now regret making." He was shaking his head at the water bottle in his hand as he tossed it in the air and caught it again.
"What'd she do with it?" Logan asked, clearly ready to go retrieve the missing alcohol.
"I don't know." Kurt set the bottle down and shook his head again. "I'm sure they've stashed it somewhere, but I doubt they've drunk it." He was trying hard not to smirk at the situation. "I'm sure they'll hand it back to us after the wedding, or leave it somewhere for us to find the 'misplaced' whiskey."
"I doubt it's going to be that simple," Logan replied with a little smirk. "Sneaky little …"
"Yes, she is rather perfect for you," Kurt finished for him, now outright grinning as Scott nearby couldn't help laughing at both of them. Openly.
"Alright, for that, you're coming with us," Logan said, pointing Scott's way.
"To see you graciously accept defeat?" Scott teased through laughter.
"No, to shake the girls down for the booze," Logan replied.
"They're probably holding it for ransom," Scott chuckled.
"Well, she is a pirate captain," Kurt said with a grin Logan's way. "Though I can't believe she stole from her first mate."
"Which one of you is supposed to be second in command on that wreck of a boat?" Scott asked.
"Myself, of course," Kurt said with his tail swishing out behind him. "I do know a thing or two about piracy."
"Well, let's go get the treasure already," Logan said, pulling Kurt along. "Let's get this show on the road." The three men headed out of their little cabin, and Kurt, laughing the whole time, simply teleported them so that they were right outside where the girls were staying, fully intending to shout to them some piratey teasing about their pilfered booze.
But when they got there, it was pretty clear that there was a problem.
The forest around the cabin was filled to the teeth with Hydra, for one thing. For another, the girls seemed to already be in serious trouble. K and Jubilee both were already on the ground and tied tightly wearing collars, and Kate was simply tied. Jubilee and Kate both were calling the Hydra goons every dirty name in the book, but K was unconscious — which in itself was concerning.
For just a heartbeat after Kurt teleported the group of them into the area, the Hydra soldiers paused what they were doing. Then, all at once, they shifted their focus from rounding up the unsuspecting girls to attacking the newcomers, though the three of them fought toward the girls almost as if they couldn't even see the Hydra men around them.
Logan and Scott were working in tandem, claws and optic beams coming into play to cut a path, while Kurt was teleporting quickly and effortlessly, but each time he would get close enough to the girls, he'd be driven back. He had finally run the guards through and was just about to untie the girls — when a green-tipped dart very nearly tagged him, announcing Viper's presence on the battlefield.
Kurt barely teleported away in time, his eyes wide at the dart that was sticking out of the man who had been directly behind Kurt at the time, though he bared his teeth when he heard Viper give the order for the girls to be loaded up.
"If I'm feeling generous, you can have them back when the rest of the Board is restored," she called out before she blew a kiss toward the three X-Men. "I won't begin to make any promises on what condition they'll be in, though." With that, Viper simply stepped back as her men carried the girls onto the waiting stealth jet.
Logan let out a low growl on seeing the girls being manhandled, and Scott simply reacted by moving to blast the Hydra creeps, though he had to pull it back when the jet got in the air, unwilling to risk the girls. Kurt would have teleported again but took a hard hit that left him stunned — nothing was going right.
"Enjoy your little playdate in the woods," Viper called out, looking incredibly smug as she practically hung out of the door of the plane. "There will be no weddings any time soon."
There were simply too many Hydra soldiers for the X-Men to make any headway — Viper had clearly come prepared for any resistance — though the fight had drawn attention. Noh zipped over just after the helicopter had left, looking bemused — and clearly thinking that the girls were doing something ridiculous for their pre-wedding celebrations.
"What in Plex's name did they do n- oh." The grin on his face died when he saw the men fighting off Hydra, and he dove in to help, though it was still clearly too late to get up to the girls.
By the time they'd cleared the area of Hydra, the jet was long gone, though Noh's quick search of the cabins they'd rented for the wedding showed that Viper hadn't taken anyone else but the three who were in K's cabin. Still, everyone at the campsite for the wedding had been drugged, Viper's signature darts in each of them. Not even the loud sounds of battle had stirred them awake.
Once Noh had filled the other three in on the state of things, they were sure to tell him what had gone down with Viper, and it was clear all four of them were ready to get moving and to destroy Hydra for ruining the wedding. "Well, where is this snake woman's hideout — and how much leeway can you give me for making her suffer?" he asked, glaring deeply.
"Madripoor," Logan growled out. "Unless we can catch up before then."
"Doubt she's got anything faster than our bird," Scott pointed out, already moving to get to the blackbird.
"Yes, but even if we overtake them, what then?" Kurt asked.
"I'll get you close enough," Scott said. "And you and the bamfs get the girls down to the ground. We'll deal with Hydra from there."
"You're taking me with you," Logan warned. "I think it's high time I had a little talk with Viper about minding her own damn business."
"And me as well," Noh said quickly. "I have no personal quarrel with the woman, but this is the second time she has taken my wife, and it will not stand."
"Then load up," Scott said. "We're not waiting."
With that, the four of them climbed into the blackbird, and Scott punched it — pushing Noh's latest changes to the engines to full capacity as they raced to catch up to Viper. She might have had the advantage in getting off the ground first, but even her stealth jet was no match for the blackbird. The integrated stealth tech was a huge boost as well, so that when they did catch up, just over Madripoor, Viper didn't see them coming, either.
"Nightcrawler, you're up," Scott called over to Kurt as he got the blackbird in close enough to the slowly descending jet, and Kurt nodded once before he and the bamfs disappeared in poofs of purpleish-blue smoke.
For the moment, Kurt avoided the Hydra goons on the Hydra jet in favor of heading right for the girls, though he had to 'port out of the way when Viper saw him and immediately threw some of her potent darts his way. Not that it mattered — the bamfs had seen Viper's three prisoners and took an arm each before they too teleported out of there.
The instant the girls were returned to the blackbird, Kurt ported Noh and Logan to Viper's jet, allowing the three of them to really let loose and pay Viper back for her rudeness.
From where Scott was hovering, he wasn't surprised in the least to see the jet lilt to one side and then start to slowly make its way down at an awkward angle. But as soon as it was grounded, the proximity alarms went off in the blackbird and Scott was forced to take evasive action to avoid the surface-to-air missiles that were fired his way. He very quietly swore under his breath at a narrow miss and took one glance back at the three unconscious girls in the plane before he headed for the safety of a landing somewhere better hidden and more defensible — the others would have to be on their own.
Inside the other craft, Viper was having a hell of a time trying to avoid Logan's claws, all of her most biting comments falling dead as she dodged and grinned at him — almost elated at being in such a dangerous position as her guards and soldiers fell around her.
Kurt and the bamfs were simply tearing through the Hydra soldiers, all of them with swords drawn as they moved to teach Hydra a lesson for interfering with his perfectly planned wedding for his best friend — while Noh seemed content simply to destroy the jet itself and to then move on to tearing apart anything that looked important on the ground, particularly the Hydra compound that kept spilling out more men in green to try and take on the angry X-Men.
Viper was trying desperately to hit Logan with one of her darts — or a dagger — really anything she could, but her laugh fell when he made solid contact with her and managed to send a set of claws through her chest. She looked stunned that he'd actually done her harm but returned the favor with the last three darts she had as she jammed them into his thigh now that he was so close to her.
He blinked hard as the poisons started to work and slashed at her one more time for good measure before the party started to break up. He staggered backward until he hit the opposite side of the jet, which was just enough for Viper to slip out and into the waiting arms of her men, who weren't about to let her take any more damage and were already in motion to get her out of there and to medical attention.
As Logan stumbled out of the jet to see Kurt and the bamfs finishing off the last of the Hydra soldiers, he looked up to see that Noh had what looked like a helicopter blade in one hand and was running toward Kurt with a look somewhere between pleased and concerned. "I think I may have set fire to much of the building below us. It might be time to expedite our exit," he said before he looked over Logan's way. "I don't know that Wolverine can get back on his own, either."
Kurt cursed under his breath before he teleported straight to Logan and hit the comm to ask Scott where he was. He was reasonably surprised when Scott gave him coordinates and briefly explained that he'd had to set down after the near-miss air strike. "We got the girls out of the blackbird," Scott said. "We're safe."
"We?" Kurt repeated, his brow wrinkled the slightest.
There was a pause before Scott answered. "Just … get to the coordinates."
Kurt frowned at that but teleported all the same once he had both Logan and Noh nearby — though he was surprised at where he found himself when the smoke cleared.
It looked like they were in someone's home, modernized, sleek, almost shining — with large windows covered in fine silk drapes and long, carpeted hallways. "Which of our allies do we have to thank for this place?" Noh asked with a slight frown when he spotted Scott. "I wasn't aware of anyone near here."
"Neither was I," Scott replied with a frown of his own — as Daken rounded the corner with an incredibly smug look on his face.
"Your little Mrs is down the hall. Second door to the right," he said toward Noh. "I'm right across the hall."
"As ever, more information than I needed," Noh replied as he shouldered past him to head for Jubilee — for the moment, putting aside their feud in favor of making sure his wife was alright.
"Hydra's still swarming close to where we parked, but as soon as we've got half a shot, we should go," Scott said, still frowning a bit.
"They won't come here," Daken replied. "Viper knows better than to cross me; I'm not as lenient as my father." He looked up at Kurt, who was supporting Logan. "K is in the first room to the left, Hawkeye down the hall to the right. I didn't touch the collars, but the restraints are gone."
Kurt tipped his head for a moment and muttered a quick 'danke' before he teleported himself and Logan to where K was so that he could set Logan down next to her. K's favorite bamf followed Kurt and crawled up next to K to poke her in the cheek with a quizzical expression. It was clear he was surprised to see K unconscious like that — before the little guy's gaze fell on the collar, and he let out a string of bamfs and a growl.
"I know," Kurt said with a heavy sigh. "We need to get back to Henry." He looked over the collar with a small frown, recognizing the design but not the lock. "And to Ororo. I'm sure she'd make short work of this," he added, gesturing at the complicated design, which got a little smirk and a nod from K's bamf friend.
He ruffled the bamf's hair. "Keep an eye on them. I'm going to look in on the others."
The ferals were more or less pale and unresponsive. Logan and K both were very shallowly breathing, and while Logan was more or less steady, K's pulse was racing, and the woman's muscles were lightly twitching at random intervals. He frowned, knowing full well that there was nothing he could do until he got them back, and he'd already decided that he'd take his little demons and teleport them back himself if need be.
He considered what he could or couldn't do and started by pulling a blanket over the two unconscious ferals. "This should not have happened today," he muttered before he left the two of them there and slipped across the hall.
In both Jubilee and Kate's rooms, the symptoms were the same. Pale skin — dark circles under their eyes, twitching muscles and rapid heart rates. There was a sheen of sweat over their faces, and although he was not medically trained, Kurt knew it meant severe trouble if they didn't find help very soon.
When Kurt was done checking on all the girls and grumbling to himself on the condition they were all in, he headed back out to the large, open great room where Scott and Daken were talking quietly — discussing the plan they'd been working out on how to get them all out to the blackbird as soon as there was a somewhat open window, so they wouldn't simply be shot out of the sky. Daken barely glanced Kurt's way, instead keeping his focus on Scott.
"I don't want to move them until the last second," Scott was saying. "But it's a balance between keeping them safe from Hydra here and getting them to medical attention and getting the collars off."
"The compound the girls were dosed with is a very slow-acting poison," Daken told him. "It will only get worse if it's left unchecked." He looked toward Kurt. "The darts my father was hit with are something else entirely."
"She does like to save her worst for him," Kurt said with a long sigh.
"The other one isn't much better, to be honest," Daken replied. "It just moves much slower." He tipped his head to the side. "Where did this happen? I thought your security advisor was on top of things."
"We weren't at the mansion at the time," Kurt admitted. "We were in Canada."
"I didn't think he took that many people with him when he traveled."
"Not usually, but this was a special occasion," Kurt replied.
When Daken seemed to be waiting for more of an explanation, Scott said, "Well, we'll just have to tell the wedding guests to go home."
Daken raised one eyebrow and half-glanced Kurt's way before he nodded once, almost sharply. "I'm sure it's a real imposition." He simply turned and walked away from the two X-Men to head down the hall and peek in on his 'guests'.
It was another solid hour or so before the coast looked as if it was clear enough to make a move. On Daken's word, those able to carry the girls and Logan moved out to the Blackbird, though Noh looked more than a bit distressed to see Daken carrying K.
"You know, I am able to carry thousands of pounds. Two teammates would be nothing," he said.
Daken smirked the slightest. "I was under the impression that the idea was to handle this one more gently that simple cargo." To emphasise his point, he shifted K in his arms so that her head lolled toward him a bit more, then leaned his head toward hers. "Or am I wrong?"
Noh glared at him hard. "Strictly speaking, that's the idea. But I'll have you know I'll be watching your hands."
"You don't need to worry about that," Daken dismissed. "I have no interest in her anymore."
"You'll forgive me if I don't believe you and look after her best interests all the same."
"If that's the excuse you're going to run with," Daken replied. "Feel free to look all you want."
Noh's response was simply a bit of a low hiss as he shifted Jubilee a little closer to himself and glared.
They followed Daken's lead as he darted through the streets, avoiding all of the many cameras and guards stationed around the area that were obviously looking for them. When they got to the still-camouflaged blackbird, Scott let them in — and Noh was surprised to see how gentle Daken actually was being with K before he nodded Scott's way and slipped out again.
"I'm… not sure how I feel about that," Noh said almost to himself as he made sure Jubilee was settled in before he headed for the copilot seat by Scott. "I'd be a hypocrite not to say it's good to see one of Osborne's Avengers on our side… but…."
"I don't know if I'd go so far as to say he's on our side," Scott said frankly.
"He was in this instance, and that is a good thing. I can't deny that. For the future, though…" Noh looked to Scott. "Let us just say I'm glad he was not on the guest list you drew up."
Scott smirked the slightest bit and nodded his agreement before he got them in the air — and pushed the engines again to get them home fast. He called ahead to let Henry know what was going on and to ask Storm to meet them as well, since she was excellent at getting the locks off the collars. The bamfs had already gone ahead to get everyone from the wedding back to the mansion from Canada, so that by the time they arrived, Hank had everything laid out that he needed for the girls, and Tyler was right there with him.
They went straight to the med bay, and Hank's first concern was setting up some tests to make sure that whatever the girls had been given hadn't adversely affected the baby. Storm was already working to get the collar off K as Hank ran the tests, a deep frown on his face as Tyler hovered nervously nearby.
"It's not just Viper's poison we need to worry about," he explained to Tyler. "Without her healing, the adamantium in her body is poisoning her as well — and it's now more concentrated." He looked over the edge of his glasses at K, then went back to his scans before he gave Tyler a list of medicines it would be safe to use to help counteract the effects.
While he was waiting on the results of the tests on the little one's condition, Hank saw to the other two women in his care, starting up IVs of counter drugs to flush out the poison in their systems and encouraging Tyler to come and sit with them so he could do his own 'scan' to find the poison in their bloodstreams — trying to get the boy to see if he could identify it on his own, though Tyler's abilities were more focused on injury than chemicals.
From there, the mood in the med lab relaxed considerably once Storm was able to pick the lock on K's collar and move to Jubilee so that the little feral could start healing herself, though Hank kept a fluid line in for the baby until he was sure the poison was out.
But even with all of the medical intervention, it still took a few hours for Jubilee to open her eyes — and she was the first to do so. As soon as she did, she was met with a delighted kiss on the temple from her husband, who wasn't one of those required to stay for overnight observation by Henry but who had stayed anyway. "My Jubilee," he said softly. "Welcome back to consciousness. How are you feeling?"
"Kinda gross," Jubilee said with a frown, frowning a bit at the IV line. "Dizzy. Super thirsty, and sick still." Her eyes widened, and she sat up to look around the room. "Is — are they okay? I'm not the first one up, am I?"
"I'm sorry you don't feel well," he said as he put a hand on her arm. "The others are fine, but you are the first awake. But then — you are impatient." He smiled slightly and leaned over to kiss her cheek. "They are fine. K and Kate are being attended to — and the baby is perfectly healthy, according to Dr. McCoy, who is keeping a close eye on the situation." He gestured to where the good doctor was taking another quick reading from the still-unconscious K.
"So … what happened to Viper then?" Jubilee asked. Now that she had her answers, she relaxed and snuggled in a bit, watching Noh with a little smile. "Did you guys tear her apart Because she so deserves it."
"We didn't do as much tearing as I wanted, but she was badly wounded and running like a coward when last I saw her," Noh said, with a bit of relish in calling her a 'coward.'
"At least there's that," Jubilee replied.
"And her compound was satisfyingly engulfed in flames when we left as well. It seems someone saw fit to blow a few heating centers."
"Sounds like a regular mystery," Jubilee said with a mystified look on her face. "How odd for it to just spontaneously combust."
"Your universe is a strange one at that," he agreed, grinning.
"It's best not to question it," Jubilee said with a nod.
He laughed and kissed her forehead. "I'm glad to have you back, Jubilee. Do please try not to get yourself in such trouble again. I'm trying very hard to keep my word to Scott, but it's so difficult when the light of my life finds herself in trouble so often."
"This wasn't even my fault," Jubilee replied. "And so you know? Scott's rule doesn't apply to Logan's enemies." She looked around as Logan smirked her way. "That's Logan's rule."
"Ah, well, had I known that, I would have detonated her," Noh said with a light wave. "That seems a good solution."
"Next time," Jubilee said with a little smirk before she made room for him to slip into bed with her.
He snuggled her and then kissed her forehead again. "Now that you are recovering, I think the most lasting injury left is to poor Nightcrawler's plans for the wedding," he told her at a teasing whisper, indicating Kurt with a tip of his head as the X-Man in question was sitting beside Kate with his tail around her ankle and pushing her hair back with one hand.
"We'll reschedule," Kate said in a soft mumble. She hadn't opened her eyes yet, but she was clearly awake now as she moved to snuggle into Kurt rather than wake up the rest of the way.
Kurt let out a breath of pure relief when he saw that Kate was awake and kissed her first and foremost before he even thought about responding to her commentary. "Yes, I suppose we'll simply have to find another date, another place — and do a little better with our security arrangements," he said with a glance at Noh, who was already nodding.
"Did … that sounded suspiciously like someone saying I was right," K said quietly as she turned her head Kurt's way, joining the others in consciousness at last. "I'll try not to tease too much."
"You jinxed it," Kate accused her, leveling her index finger K's way. "That's what this is."
"I did not — I warned that something awful would happen," K replied as she too moved to one side of the bed for Logan to join her, though he didn't join in any part of the conversation as he instead pulled her closer, wrapped her up tightly, and quietly told her to quit picking on Kurt.
"We'll just have to go somewhere that's not evil Canada," Kate teased gently. "That was the mistake." She snuggled into Kurt with a little smirk on her face.
"Canada is not evil," Logan said. "Quit feeding her crazy."
"It's not me. It's evidence," Kate countered.
Logan gave her a dry look and shook his head before he nuzzled in, his conversation with K quiet enough that the only reason they even knew it was going on the fact that they could see him talking.
Kate shook her head at that and decided to follow his lead and nuzzle into her own Elf — and promise to help him with the second wedding planning process as soon as she felt a little better.