February 22, 1974
"I haven't heard from them in a while."
Carly looked up from the book she was reading.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"Everyone at Westchester," Hank said, "Nothing."
He sat down next to her, rubbing the back of his neck.
"They've been keeping in pretty close contact after, well, you know," he said.
Carly put a hand on his shoulder. Hank looked worried, and she hated seeing her husband like that.
"Maybe they figure everything's alright now," she said.
Hank shook his head.
"No, we usually keep tabs after an incident like this for at least a month and a half," Hank said, "And this incident was rather major."
"Little paranoid, aren't we?" she joked.
Hank looked at her, his face serious. One of his hands rested over where her stomach had started to swell.
"Not really," he said.
The past few weeks had been slow since the X-men had rescued her from the Friends of Humanity, but Carly knew that Hank was still worried for her, her and the child she carried, and the way the world was changing around it all. Their injuries were still healing, and it was all still fresh in Hank's mind.
Carly sighed and cupped his face with her hands.
"I'm fine," she said, "We're both fine Hank."
"I know, I know," Hank said.
He smiled weakly.
"I'm something of a worrywart, aren't I?" he asked.
"Yes, you are," Carly said.
She leaned in and kissed him.
"But you're mine, and that makes all the difference," she said.
He smiled at her and clasped her hand.
"I still think I should call them," Hank said, "Just to be safe."
Carly laughed.
"If you feel the need," she said, "I'm sure everything's fine though."
"You're probably right," he said, getting up, "But, as I said, I do need to know about these things. With everything that's been happening-"
"Yes yes," Carly said, "But don't blame me when Moira chews you out about it."
Hank smiled and walked into the next room. Carly settled back and looked outside the window. It was snowing lightly in Jasper, and she was glad to be back. In all likelihood she knew that they wouldn't be able to stay there for too much longer: Hank was already making plans about what to do with his blossoming political career. It would take them far away from Rhode Island, away from the little town that they had come to know.
She felt tired just thinking about it, but she figured that was the baby. She knew that a lot of work was coming their way, new struggles that might make what they had already gone through look inconsequential. Still, Carly could look to the future and still enjoy the calm before the storm.
She looked away from the window and turned back to Othello. Ever since Hank had agreed to read more Shakespearean comedies she'd tried to read more of the tragedies. It was depressing stuff, but that didn't mean that it wasn't well-written. Desdemona seemed too foolish for words though, and Othello was too quick to jump to conclusions.
Just as she flipped the page she heard a clatter in the kitchen.
"What happened?" Hank demanded.
Carly slid her bookmark into place before putting the book down. The calm hadn't lasted long.
Scott wasn't sure why Sean kept looking at him as though he'd never seen him before. He wanted to say something, to ask why. Part of him was sure that it was because he had expressed too much concern for his brother and Sean was considering pulling him from the team. Scott wanted to confront him, to tell him that he would be fine, that he had trained for this, that he would be able to make it, but he knew that would just cause more trouble.
At the same time he got the strangest feeling that the look that Sean was giving him had absolutely nothing to do with any of that. There was something calculating in it, true enough, but there was guilt there too. Scott didn't know what to make of it. No one had really looked at him with guilt, except for the few snatches he caught in his brother's eyes from time to time.
They walked into what Scott supposed had once been the living room. The rest of the X-men had heard the call and were assembled around the table. Clarice wasn't there, but he knew that she was scheduled to go on patrol along with Riptide on the other side of the building. He felt good about having her out there. She was capable of taking Riptide on or, if bad came to worse, she could teleport to them for help.
He didn't trust the Brotherhood, even if they were just worried about their own. He would never trust them, and he had every reason for that. Mystique seemed upset about Azazel's death, at least that's what he thought was happening, but he had a hard time caring. He'd seen Clarice nearly get disembowled enough not to care if the red teleporter had met his end. The only reason they were involved at all was because his brother had managed to get mixed up in their mess, and he could very well die because of it.
As Scott and Sean took their seats Magneto came in. Scott kept his gaze level, his arms folded across his chest. He'd been taught to never take on the man in front of him on his own, taught to use back-up and to approach with caution even when he had back-up. It was a lesson that he was going to be hard pressed to forget, and he didn't intend to do so any time soon.
Emma Frost walked in behind him, carrying what looked like a small phone. Scott looked at Sean to see if he recognized what it was, but Sean still had a strange, glassy-eyed look to him. Scott was becoming very worried about his brother's friend, about the man who had helped him move into Westchester once upon a time, but now was not the time to voice those concerns.
"We picked up a few peculiar transmissions about an hour ago that bore Black Tom's signature," Emma Frost said, "After that we did a quick job of triangulating his position, and we believe that we might be able to have a satellite view of where he is."
"And why didn't you tell us about this an hour ago?" Scott said.
His voice was irritated. Emma rolled her eyes and Scott narrowed his. Sean's hand came up and, although his eyes were still glassy, his voice carried the tones of authority in it.
"Cyclops, let it go," Sean said.
Scott pulled his arms closer to his chest, irritated.
"Can I continue?" Emma asked, her voice venomous.
"Emma, there's no need for that either," Magneto said.
She rolled her eyes. Sean seemed to sit up straighter, the glassy look beginning to disappear from his eyes.
"So you think you can give us a visual look?" he asked.
Emma nodded. She pressed a button on the device in her hand and a screen unfolded in the middle of the table. The screen folded up and Scott had to resist the urge to start back. Warren had already jumped back, and he heard some snickers from Angel. Scott felt as though his head were about to explode, but he knew that he had to keep his thoughts on the frustrating team-up they'd been forced to do to himself.
At first the screen showed static, but a moment later Scott saw a visual of a factory where several trucks were pouring out. He frowned, and he could see that the Brotherhood members were looking uncomfortable too.
"He certainly has a lot of gear," Sean said.
He looked up at Magneto.
"Sure there's nothing you're not telling us?" he asked.
Magneto folded his arms.
"I know that your cousin has a rather hefty cash reserve-"
"No."
Scott looked over at Sean. His eyes were hard and his face twisted into something dark.
"Oh?" Magneto asked, "Do they not know that you're related?"
Sean laughed, and the sound was a bitter one. Scott felt the old worry rise up again.
"They know that we share blood," Sean said.
It was true. Alex had briefed them on the members of the Brotherhood as they had understood them at the beginning of their training. As such they had learned that Black Tom was Sean's cousin. There had been a few murmurs amongst them, but it was obvious that Sean wanted nothing to do with his cousin. Scott knew that the reason for that was what had happened with Sean's wife, but Scott had been very young when that had happened and the rest of the X-men hadn't come to Westchester yet.
"But he is not my cousin," Sean said.
"And I thought you were all about family at Westchester," Magneto said.
"We are," Sean said, "And that man is not family."
There was a tense silence. Scott wondered who was going to go after who first. He looked at Sean, waiting for some sort of signal that he was going to snap, or that he had seen the intention to attack in Magneto's face. They would have to support him, and it didn't matter if they were outnumbered or not.
Instead he saw Sean relax and swallow.
"So I would ask you to simply refer to him as Black Tom, if you don't mind," Sean said.
Scott blinked. Magneto looked at Sean, his expression strange.
"I don't,"he said.
"Good," Sean said.
He nodded towards the screen.
"Now, Scott said that you said something about us trying to find patterns," he said.
Magneto nodded, still looking strangely at Sean.
"We want to know if you know anything about his methods that we don't," he said, "Given that, I want to know if you have any strategy that we might be able to use beyond tracking these."
Sean leaned in. Scott silently willed him not to talk to Magneto about their methods. He had to see that it was a bad idea, that they couldn't let Magneto in on any of their plans. Letting him sit in the front of the Blackbird had been bad enough, but he didn't want them knowing anything about their battle strategy. Even having Emma in the room was making him uncomfortable. He couldn't trust the people in front of him.
Yet Sean continued to look at the scene, cocking his head back and forth. He wondered what he was seeing, why the glassy-look had disappeared completely from his eyes. It was like he was actually surveying a battle grid, surrounded by people he could trust. Scott wanted to shake him and remind him that they couldn't trust the people they were with for even a minute, yet he held his tongue. It wasn't his place to correct Sean, not in front of the Brotherhood. He had to keep reminding himself of that.
"It seems to me that a simple flanking strategy would be in order," Sean said, "But I get the feeling that maybe things aren't as simple as all of that. We'd need to take a closer look."
Magneto nodded. Sean cocked his head.
"However," he said, his voice ponderous, "I was wondering if you wouldn't mind zooming up on the rear guard, if possible."
Magneto looked at Emma, who pressed another button. A distorted image grew, but it provided a better view of some of what Scott assumed were Black Tom's goons. However, as he looked closer there seemed to be something familiar about the way one of the motorcycle guards was driving. He looked over at Sean, who had the ghost of a grin on his face.
"It looks like we have someone on the inside," Sean said.
"What?" Magneto asked.
Sean pointed at the screen.
"See that rider in the back? That's Havok," Sean said, "I'd recognize the way he rides anywhere."
Sean's grin solidified a little more. Even Scott had to stifle a chuckle: he knew where this was going.
"And I'm guessing, since someone else is on that particular bike with him, that he's riding with Magnetrix," Sean said.