Evan looked far more collected as he turned toward her than he had trying to deal with a slight challenge to his accustomed high school hierarchy. "Were they going to take their usual route?"
"No, they were going to detour and see what they could find off Todd's list."
Todd swallowed hard as everyone turned to look at him. Aside from Evan, they didn't look accusing. In fact, from all the ladies it seemed just absentminded and Kurt was clearly curious. But he'd still have liked the ground to open underneath him.
When he'd turned up this afternoon, it had been with some simple tools and a short cable he'd managed to lift from one of the stores he'd hit for Torpid's batteries. Just to get started on his power taps. Callisto had insisted he write down things that would be useful, but he'd figured she'd just meant for people to keep an eye out in the normal course.
"Should of just let me get everything," he said quietly.
"If I waited for a hundred pound teenager who hops everywhere to shoplift heavy duty resistors and cable, we might have our electricity upgrade by next Christmas," Callisto said acidly. "Caliban says they're in the junkyard. I don't think the chances are good that they just got wrapped up in the scavenger hunt with this much ice around."
"I'll find them," Evan said firmly, passing the box of blankets to Kitty.
"I'll come." Now the stares were all very pointed. Todd swallowed. "Least I can do, right?" Absolute least. But at least he knew he could kick a dude with a gun right in the stupid face pretty good, if he got it just right. More likely he'd just tag along and get in the way. But he didn't think Callisto was into cowardice all that much, and this was kind of his fault. If you looked at it sideways and squinted, anyway, and that was how Todd looked at most things.
"Hey, we'll all come," said Rogue firmly. "Me and Kitty won't have to sneak, and there's safety in numbers. Kurt, turn that thing back on."
Kurt obediently switched back to normal once he'd jumped down. He saw the necessity, though he still felt like a jerk doing it around the Morlocks. And Todd, kind of, though apparently those were no longer mutually exclusive categories.
"Could you, like, tell Mr. Logan where we went?" Kitty asked Callisto cheerfully. "It's the kind of thing he doesn't really mind too much."
"We gotta get that man to answer his phone," Rogue observed quietly enough not to warrant a response.
"I can manage that," Callisto said. Kurt thought she might have looked pleased, but it was really hard to tell.
Though she definitely looked confused to find herself holding the box of blankets as they all spilled out into the hall. Evan led the way, not offering any argument but exuding a certain disapproval. That might have just been about Toad being along or all of them intruding on his hero territory. It was hard to say.
"We can walk most of the way underground," he said as they hurried along, first passing the space the Morlocks had made more-or-less habitable, then into rougher, darker tunnels. "I don't know that part of town very well, but there's probably a fence to get through."
"Lucky we got these two, then," Rogue said, jabbing a thumb toward Kitty and her little brother.
"We have Kitty," Kurt corrected, eyes on the ground. "I... I don't know, I pulled a muscle, or whatever I use for teleporting, while I was jumping all over the Bavarian backwoods. I'm not always off by a lot, but I don't want to try it unless I really have to."
"Aw," Kitty said with a sigh. "Alright. We'll figure it out when we get there."
"Wait, what happened, Kurt?" Evan looked mildly concerned, but mostly curious. Kurt barely had time to tense before Todd spoke up.
"There's more'n one fence, actually," he said quickly. "Kind of a low one around the office and the garage, only about person-tall, and a big one all the way around with barbed wire up top. And some dividers inside, though those can be handy. Keeps any one dog from keepin' after you."
"Um, why do you know this?" Evan was distracted, at least.
"Spare parts an' scrappers. Which they wanna sell themselves, so I'm the reason they gotta have dogs." Hedy had softened his aversion to the creatures as a whole, but he still didn't like that part.
"Really classy," Rogue said lightly. "Anyway, since we don't know where in there they are, why don't we all just hurry up and, y'know, get there?"
"Right." Evan led them around another corner. "Lucid's powers aren't any good in a fight. Scaleface can be incredibly nasty if she shapeshifts, but she doesn't do it in front of humans unless there's a serious emergency. Neither of them likes fighting. So if they're in a bad situation, it'll be all on us."
"I think we'd better do all we can not to fight ourselves," Kurt said firmly. He expected the disgusted look from Evan, but it was still an effort to ignore it. "With the kid on the news right now, the mutie-haters are going to be on high alert, ja? If we hurt someone or even give them a good scare, it will just be fuel for that fire." He regretted the phrase immediately. Usually he was proud of himself for successful use of English idiom, but not when the result was so very literal.
"That's probably why they're in trouble now," Evan growled.
"Yeah, Kurt, if you think we'll make it any better by pussy-footing around a fight, you're dreamin'," Rogue added.
"No way! Kurt's totally right. And what would the Professor want us to do, anyway?" Kitty certainly thought she'd made a winning argument, but Evan and Rogue weren't good targets for the Charles Xavier Is Always Right school of thought.
Todd realized uncomfortably that the deciding vote, so to speak, came down to him. He tried to end Kurt his best fool, I kicked a dude in the face while he was pointing a gun at you, don't you know what I think? face, but he didn't think the message got through. "Or maybe we try an' do it with minimal violence so, y'know, we all stand less chance gettin' hurt?"
If there was a coward's way out, Todd Tolansky would find it. "An', y'know, no crossfire to catch Lucid an' Scaleface in," he added. He sounded less like he was trying to wheedle out of the conversation that way.
"Through here. Low ceiling," Evan said, more sharply than the statement really called for. Sounded like he wanted everyone to shut up, and Todd, for one, was happy to comply. Aside from directions and complaints, they didn't talk much for the rest of the hurried, scrambling trip.
The network underground was a damp, bone-chilling cold. It came on slow. Above ground again, the wind bit and rushed under scarves and into hoods, dragging wet snow everywhere. Todd shivered, but he hopped forward, leading the way. He told himself it was just to keep the others from blundering forward and getting them all spotted, but there was a tiny, struggling, infant idea in the back of his head. If he was the one who saved them, then...
Then what? He'd be the coolest Morlock in the sewer? The one time he'd put himself in the line of fire in the hopes of adulation, it had just earned him a few days of Wanda's less-than-total disdain. The Toad was not the hero.
The junkyard lay on the outskirts of town, the line between Bayville and not-Bayville shared with other sprawling messes like a lumber mill and a freight yard. In this weather, almost all of it was just a lumpy, undifferentiated landscape of dirty snow. The lights were sparse, orange, and flat. It looked awful all by itself to Kurt, but an off-putting aesthetic was the least of their worries.
The gates into the junkyard were wide open, two pickup trucks and a couple of cars pulled up haphazardly in front of a dingy little building that must serve as an office. He recognized one of the cars as the one Todd had been messing with the other night, which was just the icing on the disaster cake.
Lucid was on the ground, tied up. Scaleface was in what he guessed was a crate intended for a very, very big dog. They were hard to catch sight of, surrounded by a half dozen men jeering and throwing insults. Insults and trash. They were clearly working themselves up, and the dog the crate probably belonged to was barking and carrying on in a way that made it clear they were about ready to escalate to more serious violence. Animals always picked it up first.
Kurt was only afraid for a moment before the initial wave of panic was swallowed by a vivid calm. He wasn't helpless, this time.
Evan's spikes were already heating up, but Rogue stepped in front of him. "You charge and they'll turn right on those two. We need a distraction so Kitty can go in."
"A really good distraction," Kitty said nervously. "I can either, like, take one at a time or take one and then grab the other, but I don't think that'll even be faster. I'm super slow with two extra people. And they're far apart."
Evan bristled, but it was pretty obviously true. "Ideas, then?"
"Yup," Todd said abruptly. He hopped the short distance over to Kurt' side and tugged off the image inducer without bothering to ask. Kurt made a short sound of protest, but didn't bother beyond that. "How y'feel about bein' blonde, Roguey?"
She looked like she'd have liked to feed him his own socks for "Roguey," but she restrained herself."Talk fast, Scuzzo."
He'd kind of counted on that X-geek spirit of putting rescue before Toad-beating. "Those dudes? They're losers. Creepy losers. Even Pigskin McGridiron." He'd recognized his and Kurt's old adversary, too, nursing a broken nose. And Fuzzbutt wanted to play nice. "Prolly his uncle owns the place or whatever. Anyways, y'wanna mess with losers, y'give the fuckers a pretty girl who thinks they're cool."
"You'd be the expert, I guess." The comment stung, but only a little. "You want me to put that thing on, though?" She pointed at the inducer, which Todd was already hurriedly reprogramming. "What the heck are you gonna make me look like? An' I hate doin' stuff like that."
"Nobody's happy right now, sweetie." He finished his quick fix and handed Rogue the inducer. "There, try it out."
She looked reluctant, but fastened the thing on with a grimace. The scowl looked perfectly natural on the queen of the angry goths (winter edition), but distinctly weird on the wholesome blonde Todd had thrown together. There was absolutely nothing about the cheerleader-looking girl-image he'd find attractive, but then, he was a contrary bastard. He was under the distinct impression that this was what was generally considered hot.
"Whoa, I didn't know it could do that." Kitty leaned forward in amazement, then frowned. "Um, I can kinda see her real hair up around her hat, though."
"She's too tall for it," Todd explained. "Try not t'move your head too much, neither. Don't need this thing to bug out."
"That could happen?" The girl in Rogue's place sent a horrified look of realization at Kurt. The inducer failed all the time, of course, and messing with it made the thing tetchier.
"Get goin' quick, and you'll prolly be good." Todd looked over at the mutant-torturing party and winced. That looked like a beer can that had just been thrown. Bottles would probably be next, and those were a lot nastier. "We'll try and sneak up in case this don't work and we gotta bash some heads, and Kitty can run around and get them out the easy way."
"Guess that's why Kitty can't play the bait," Rogue said with something close to a growl. She turned away with her arm folded tightly over her chest and started toward the gate.
A lot of things, that girl, but not an actress. They could only hope that blond and shapely would make up for hunched and surly. "Maybe try an' don't sound too much like a Texas Ranger?" he whispered after her.
"I'm from Mississippi!"
"Whatever. It's all the same to me southa' the Bronx. There ain't a lotta you around. We don't wanna tip off that jock." It didn't seem likely, given the guy had the brainpower of a mop, but he was also on the lookout for mutants.
Rogue turned, plucked off her glove, and flicked Todd's forehead. The contact was so brief it didn't even hurt. It felt like looking right into a camera flash while tripping on a stair going up. "Just borrowin' that, then," she hissed, sounding for all the world like a Brooklyn native. Looking invigorated, she strode toward the men with a distinct swagger in her stride.
"Congratulations, you have the power to annoy people into action," Evan said, almost without overt hostility. "You really think this'll work?"
"It'll be weird," he said with a shrug. "Maybe she vamps it up, maybe she don't, an' hell, some of those dudes're prolly married or gay or only like redheads, but it'll be weird in a way that don't gotta mean a fight, a chick comin' up to them at night to be all, oh, hey, I love pickin' on mutants, too!"
"I buy it," Kurt said with a nod. "But we'll get close anyway. Hurry, around this way." He was good at sneaking, and as long as he was busy doing something, he wasn't getting scared. With Rogue using his inducer, he vanished right into each shadow like it was made for him, the orange lights turning the snow blue around the edges of each spot of darkness. Todd had his own flair for it and Evan had learned. Kitty cheated by dropping most of the way through the ground whenever she wasn't behind anything, moving much faster than the rest of them.
Kurt stopped to watch as Rogue reached the group. This wasn't the kind of job she was good at. Kitty really would have been better. Maybe they should have had Rogue borrow her powers. He'd have really liked to have Boom-boom, actually.
But Rogue was managing it. Her body language was distinctly constricted and, though he couldn't hear her in the wind, he could bet she was being quiet. But four of the men were paying attention to her... now five... The last, who looked older than the others, was busy glaring at their prisoners, and so was the dog.
"Come on, come on..." he heard Evan whisper.
"Crap, she can't keep their attention forever," Todd snarled. He could see Kitty because he knew what to look for. She was in place, but they needed that last guy and Rogue's hold on the jerk squad wouldn't hold forever. "Crawler, y'gotta do it."
"I can't! I would if I could, but I could land right in the middle of them."
"Yeah, well, don't." Rogue barely dodged an attempt to kiss her and was leaning back obviously from the football jerk trying to take her hand. Or, no, her waist. "This is gettin' bad, fool."
"But..."
"Go!" Evan said with a glare.
Todd suspected Kurt was turning white under his fur, if that was a thing he did, but he nodded and disappeared.
He didn't land in the middle of the crowd of mutie-bashers, at least. He landed right in front of the old man. Before he could cry out, Kurt grabbed his arm and ported as far as he could away from town. By the time the man had breath to yell, he was standing in the parking lot of a truck stop that had really good pie when it was open. Which it hadn't been all winter, due to necessary repairs that went slowly in the cold.
"There's a payphone over there, you big baby. You'll be fine." Kurt didn't even notice he'd landed where he'd meant to until he landed back in the junky yard, this time on the roof of the office, just in time to see all hell break loose.
Rogue's new friend leaned in and planted a kiss on her cheek that she didn't dodge. He collapsed with a groan and a man who looked enough like him to be his father didn't get through his first invective before Rogue spun around to land a roundhouse kick in his gut. Two of the others had turned to check on the prisoners just in time to see Kitty pulling Lucid free of the ropes.
"Guys! Little help!" Kitty yelled, pushing the cowering Lucid behind her. On cue, Evan got the charge he'd wanted, hurling a row of blazing spikes into the ground between the prisoners and the oncoming attackers. Kurt didn't see Todd.
But he didn't have time to worry about that. He hurled himself off the roof, diving straight for the jock with a satisfyingly broken nose. There was the urge to get him back for the book winged at the side of his head at school, but that had already been payback. One of those vicious cycle things. Instead, Kurt held on once he'd struck, wincing at the impact with a block of solid muscle and then with the ground as they both hit. He ported again to the same parking lot.
This time he was off by a lot, but there weren't a lot of cars on the highway this time of night. The kid had time to jump out of the way and join the guy Kurt was willing to bet was his grandfather.
He didn't bother staying to say anything snarky. After all those long trips, even with just one passenger, he'd be starting to feel it even under normal circumstances. As he landed back in the drive-way, trying to take stock of the situation, he felt his vision swim for a moment. Not good.
Rogue had dropped two more, leaving just the man Evan was grappling with. She bolted over and knocked him on his back with a tap of her hand. Kitty had Scaleface out of the cage and was even putting a Hello Kitty band aid on a cut on her face.
"So... I guess we're okay now?" Kurt said hopefully. "Wait, where's Todd?"
"Off being a slimy coward somewhere?" Evan said with a sneer. "Let's get you two back, huh? Come on, we'd better-"
A short, indignant scream cut him off. Kurt ran toward it (just a little wobbly), accompanied by Rogue. Who had her own face back, he noticed, and who was looking extremely irritated with the universe.
Kurt took in the dog and a prone Todd consciously a moment after he'd already jumped. The animal was a confused mix of something bulldog-ish and something of a mastiff nature and something in the hyena family, and he'd have never gotten it off on his own.
He did get it onto the roof, though, and it was so confused he managed to jump back and port away again before it turned around to rip him to pieces instead. He landed on his knees three feet above the ground, ignored the thump, and blinked blearily at the others for a moment.
Then his head kicked into gear.
"Everyone alright?"
"Couple'a bumps and bruises on Lucid an' Scaleface. That dog got Toad pretty good, too." Rogue sounded like she'd just escaped the set of Gone With the Wind again. Moreso than usual, actually. "We better get back underground fast. Those guys are already twitchin'."
Since Evan and Kitty were helping the rescued Morlocks (who didn't seem to be in need of physical support, but they no doubt appreciated the thought) and Rogue didn't seem like she wanted company that much, Kurt teetered over to Todd, who seemed unsure of how to move.
The dog bite on his right arm was plenty nasty enough, but it wasn't bleeding too bad. Or his coat was soaking it up. One of those. But when he tried to hop in his usual way, the injured arm wouldn't take the weight. He'd tried two limping jumps and settled on walking while glaring balefully at the universe.
"How deep is it?" asked his favorite German accent.
He turned around and scowled. "Could maybe go for stitches an' a rabies shot, yo."
"That bad?" Kurt started to reach for the arm and thought better of it. "We'd better-"
A sudden burst of white light blinded them all for a moment and they shut up, shielding their eyes as the van swung around. "You kids better be ready to fill me in," growled Logan. Todd felt it was one of his pleasanter growls. Didn't seem like he actually disapproved all that much.
There wasn't quite room for everyone in the van, so Kitty sat on Rogue's lap in the front and Todd crammed into the back with Kurt and Scaleface. Evan and Lucid got the free-standing seats in the middle, on account of being pointy and twitchy, respectively.
Spyke's over-the-shoulder glare made Todd want to cower, but it wouldn't do any good. "So were you leading the dog away from us, or did it just find you hiding?"
Little bit of both? "Actually, uh, I figured I could, y'know, calm it down. Spent time with one lately. But I guess the things just don't like me." Fact was, he wasn't a guy for finesse. Rogue dropping the creeps was probably the best way they could have solved the problem, along with Kurt thinning the ranks. "Hey, Fuzzy, where'd you take 'em?"
"Huh?"
Todd realized that Kurt was trying very hard not to fall asleep. He asked more pointedly. "The guys you ported off with. Where?"
"Mack's No Frills Dining."
"The place with the pie?"
"Ja."
"Mutie bashers shouldn't get pie."
"Entschuldigung." He might have been about to say more, but a yawn cut him off.
"Anybody hurt enough that I gotta swing by the Emergency Room?" Wolverine asked, ending the brief silence that followed.
"Callisto and Cybelle can patch us all up," Evan said, glancing at Todd and not glowering, which might mean he got to be included. "Nothing too bad."
"This time. Tell Charles I told you all off for not waitin' around for me, at least."
"And if we're not careful, you'll do it next time?" Kitty giggled.
"Not funny, bub. I know why you did what you did, but things could have gone south any time. You could have had backup."
Todd half wanted to argue and he might have even been safe, since he didn't have to live with the lunatic. But some self-preservation instinct kept him from mouthing off to the scary guy with knives for hands. He let Spyke go ahead and do that.
Scaleface was leaning away from him, giving his injured arm space. He wasn't sure if he should thank her, since she was also determinedly staring out the window with the grimly determined air of someone trying not to think about what had just gone down. She might well be unaware he existed at the moment.
On his other side, Kurt gave up and fell asleep. Todd was prone to a claustrophobic kind of insomnia laced with involuntary mental recitations of all his flaws whenever he went to bed, so watching someone just lean back and conk out was oddly fascinating. It really was like having a cat.
They went over a speedbump and Todd learned that Logan didn't actually slow down when that happened. He was ready to complain—his arm didn't need to be bumped—but was distracted when the impact knocked an imperviously napping Kurt onto his shoulder.
He watched for most of a minute, making sure Blue Boy was actually asleep, that everyone in the front was busy arguing, that Scaleface wasn't paying attention to anything but the snowflakes tapping against the window and Lucid was staring into space (which for him was usually more interesting than for the rest of them, at least).
Kurt was on the good arm. Figuring he'd find a cover story if anyone noticed his contortions, Todd twisted his hand up and very lightly brushed his fingers against the ends of Kurt's hair. It actually did feel like cat fur more than human. Very thick and fine. Hell, part of him really had just been curious. He hadn't had time to notice much during grappling battles of the past, and while he had a sense that the fur on Kurt's skin felt something like he imagined warm velvet would feel, he hadn't been sure about the regular hair.
But it really didn't feel any different than petting a cat would. As with the times he'd managed to glom onto Wanda for a second before she injured him, contact didn't really mean anything when it was one-sided. In his imaginings, it was being petted and kissed and held back that mattered.
Todd turned his hand and shoved gently with his palm. "Get off, Crawler." Kurt muttered something and squirmed away as much as the crowded seat allowed, and Todd stared resolutely at his feet all the way back to the sewer.