A/N - robbie - yes. Yes you can say that. I am a goon, I know it, and I love that this ship kinda sorta works in the most hilarious ways. I never expected these to to work out in ANY way? But seriously. The more I/we wrote them picking and flirting ... it had to happen somewhere. Really. And Scott is just ... baby crazy. Even if he doesn't know it yet.
griezz - Wanda's boys ... really don't know what they're missing. Yet. They are spoiled ROTTEN where they are though, so ... you know.
KJAX - YES, I figured out that was you, but thanks for confirming it. 3 You KILLED me with that comment. (Tony writing the fic. omg.) That's AMAZING. And hilarious.
Chapter 21 - Long Overdue
The Guthrie kids didn't take hardly any time at all settling in when they got to Westchester. Jean had already peeked to see what their story was as far as how the Assassin's Guild had gotten them in the first place, and as they'd told K in Savannah, Remy was on it already - and his preliminary reports weren't very good.
It appeared as though the Guthries neighbors had gotten fed up with the family's peaceful outlook - and their cheerful reassurance to friends and neighbors that 'God didn't make mistakes' in reference to mutants in the current climate had half the town or better up in arms.
They'd sent a rookie apprentice to do the job. And the man had come back with the three kids in tow with no explanation as to why. They had considered turning the kids into assassins, but Sam had blocked them from stepping near his siblings and had quoted the commandments whenever they tried to find a way to get them to join the guild. He had apparently seen his parents fate - and he wasn't happy about it.
A few dozen times of 'Thou shalt not kill' shouted at them by a pair of preschoolers- not to mention six defecting guild members - had them rethinking the indoctrination idea. But in the meantime, they had tested all three kids - and all three had turned up positive for the X-gene. Only time would tell if it was active, but that was enough for them to decide to try and win Magneto's favor. They had no way of knowing that K would turn the kids over to Xavier instead.
But more important to the immediate matters at Xavier's … the tables had turned on Peter and Kurt.
At first, both Peter and Kurt had been tickled to get another boy to play with, but the first time that they tried to keep Kitty out of the loop, Sam had immediately stood up for her - and then taken it a step further to keep her close to himself and his sister. He had even gone so far as to block the two troublemaking wall crawlers from getting too close to her to pick on her again.
"If you can't treat her nice, you don't get to be around 'er," Sam had said with his arms crossed. Which, was exactly the right thing to draw Clint's attention.
"Hey bud. You wanna go shoot some arrows?" Clint said - which was something else, considering that the X-Men hadn't quite gotten used to having small kids around when the whole of the Avengers moved in - and immediately started helping in any way they could. Jan had started helping in a few classes, and when Tony was around, he was amazingly good at teaching computer sciences and electronics.
But Clint was a clear rock star when it came to the kids. He was willing to let them tackle him, and he wasn't above getting down to their level. Charles was openly impressed - and wasn't afraid to let him know how much he appreciated someone that was such a natural with the kids.
Of course, Clint had no idea how to really process that other than to blush at the tips of his ears before he awkwardly shrugged and found himself outside with Sam - setting up targets.
Aside from that, the Guthrie kids were more than happy to play with anyone, but in particular, the loved to play with Kitty. She was kind and open to games, and not only did Paige happily dance around the studio with her in their tutus, but Sam was the best big brother imaginable - and joined them to help them dance - though his lifts were more hugs that spun them around.
Not that either girl was complaining. Though it was Jean that caught the particular shade of red that Kitty's ears turned just after Sam gave her a 'lift'. And how quickly she rushed off giggling madly. Paige didn't seem to notice, and if Sam saw it, he didn't realize what was going on. The two little girls were giggling hard as they ran around in circles - all the way up until Natasha stepped into the room and cleared her throat. All at once, the two little girls straightened right up.
Kitty rushed to get her curls out of her face and Paige was pulling at her tutu in an effort to make it more fluffy after hours of play. Natasha walked behind the girls, though she gave Jean an amused sort of smile before she took up a position between them and quietly started their lesson - dancing along with them with the two little girls trying hard to emulate her.
Jean watched as the little girls studiously copied Natasha then let Sam take her by the hand as she and Josh on her hip.
They very nearly bumped into Peter and Kurt as they left the room - both of them peeking in through the window with a little frown. "Boys, you know she'll allow you back in if you can behave," Jean said, but that really only had the two of them scattering.
"It's okay, Miss Grey," Sam said. "I was gonna go shoot with Mr. Hawkeye anyhow."
She couldn't help but smirk at that and with a grin, Sam turned and headed down the hallway to find Clint.
When K finally left Tony's place, both of them were in much better spirits, and he'd made sure not to do his usual and call a driver, instead taking her to her hotel himself.
"I'm not even going to hide the fact that I really want to do this again," Tony said.
"It was a good weekend," she agreed before he leaned over for a careful goodbye kiss.
"Still owe you," he said before she opened her door and got out, shaking her head at him. He didn't drive off right away like she had expected him to do, and it wasn't until she was safely in the building that he pulled away from the curb.
"If I didn't know better, I'd think you might be carrying a torch, Mr. Stark," K muttered to herself as she passed the front desk by on her way to the elevator. It was a good way to spend the weekend, if nothing else. The concierge handed her a small stack of messages - everything she'd missed over the weekend from Erik which really hadn't amounted to much. A few requests to look into some mystery mutants when she was done with her holiday - all of which would prolong her time stateside and give her more time to herself. So it wasn't anything that had her too irritated. Especially when one of the pings would bring her closer to her own home turf. Not that Erik knew that, of course.
She sorted through them and mapped out the coordinates before she made a few calls - and two hours later, she was in a fresh set of clothes and in a convertible headed to that compound in Kentucky first.
Erik had given her what she needed to fly, but the truth was, she'd rather enjoy the ride - at least for as short of a trip as this was. So instead of flashing a medical pass to airport security, she elected to drive through the winding country roads all through the blue ridge mountains. There were faster routes but … the view was worth the time and being closer to the wild would help her in her endeavor anyhow.
She took a hiker's cabin as close to the site as she could get to the camp in Kentucky. The intel that Magneto and his group had showed that the camp was still fully operational - not that she was surprised by that. But neither the X-Men nor the Avengers had gotten around to doing anything about it, and it was high time that someone did.
There were several hikers on the trail even for as late as K had shown up, and she wasn't exactly happy to see it, either. This was one of the lesser known camping spots, It should have had less people around, but now she was going to have to be sneakier to make sure no one saw her go off trail.
She grumbled to herself, but kept a pleasant expression when she passed other hikers. Her change of clothes was in her backpack, but she still didn't need anyone to follow her. She found a resting point near the trail and waited until she was sure no one was around before she slipped off the trail and started down the mountain to where the facility was tucked away - close enough to a population to keep them supplied with rations and guards, but far enough out that no one knew where to look for it. She changed on her way - simply dropping the clothes she'd been wearing near an oak tree that had clearly been hit by lightning - the black bodysuit and head cover would do the trick not only to hide her identity - but the charcoal lining in it would cover her scent, too.
It was just before the shift change when she got there, and she was counting on weary and bored guards that were just ready to go home being a bit sloppy. They always were after being around for sunset, in her experience.
Infiltration was simple enough. At least as far as a place like that was concerned. It was a step above a high-security prison, fortified not only with high walls and electric fences, but motion detectors tied to automatic targeting turrets and chemical weapons. Nothing said 'stay here or die' like automated death sentences - especially when one of the deterrents violated the biological weapons convention, too.
K was sure as she carefully followed the paths that the guards took that the weapons being implemented were acting as a deterrent to the 'good guys' not moving forward on this place. That, or SHIELD shut them down on it. Neither would have surprised her.
The opportunities for entry were few, far between, and well guarded - and yet, the most likely point of entry that K had found … was the most visible from the spot on the side of the mountain she'd done her final observations from. It was well lit - and there was a regular guard cross over, but it was also the only door that she'd seen that didn't have a passcard for entry. Which, in her experience, meant that they used the door often enough that it would have slowed down their rounds. And their actual check ins - that had to be staged inside as the only solid point that would protect the main records of their check ins during inclement weather and unexpected power outages.
But that meant inside would be nasty once she was through the door.
She timed it perfectly - and once she was inside and the guard had done his mandatory check in not twenty yards in front of her, she hit the button on the little EMP that she brought with her. She knew it wouldn't do anything for the check in - but the rest of the hall? The main camera system for that quadrant?
Blacked out - as well as the red emergency work lights. She got through the first set of doors before the guards began looking for what the trouble was, which meant she was on a timer before they got the system rebooted. Not fearing any communications in that sector, she went ahead and knocked out whatever guards were in her way as she rushed for the control room. It was situated on an outside wall near the feeds from the underground power supply - which were insanely well insulated, which meant that even if she'd been nearer, the EMP would have had no affect on the power for the whole place.
So, instead of fighting with the power - and worrying that a whole-system power failure would trigger the gas canisters - K went to work in the very tight quarters in the control room next to the power supply that held the servers for the facility. Once she was inside, she was quick to lock the doors, both with the manual locks and the bar that dropped down to keep the doors from being forced open. She even put a few short wedges under the door to be doubly sure that no one was going to get in until she was done hacking into their system.
The automated systems needed to be shut off, yes - but that wasn't the only things that needed to be done. The personal information of every single mutant in their system was at risk and needed to be backed up and then promptly deleted, and beyond that … there was one other task that needed to be done before she could leave.
The collars that every prisoner in the place wore was powered through a Wardenclyffe tower that kept the collars powered. The process kept them from needing to change out batteries on the collars and from worrying about any chance that the controls on the mutants would weaken - giving one of them a chance to make a break for it.
But because of that, it was incredibly easy for the guards and wardens running the place to correct behavior through the computer system, deliver sedative medication in extreme cases, or in rare cases … remotely opening them - thus turning them off.
Of course, without the proper identification going into the system, it was incredibly hard to get to the right screens that would let K deal with the collars.
So she did what she thought was best and handled the defenses first - the gasses and turrets … even the electric fence.
There was a banging at the door that had K looking over her shoulder once the defenses were down, but for as thick as the door was, even if they started to fire at it, they didn't have a way to get in for how well it was barricaded.
She licked her lips and kept going - elbows resting on the raised counter where the computer was as she leaned forward and focused on turning off the collars. One at a time wouldn't do it - not with angry and scared guards that had records of being trigger happy positioned at the most delicate cell blocks. And not with some of the nastier coding she found hidden in a single line of code.
K swore openly when she saw it - a kill code that could sweep through the facility if it wasn't acknowledged and turned off before the collars were opened. Which just insured that K was not going to go one block at a time and worry about some sadistic guard killing a whole cell block. Not if she could get it lined up ahead of time and pop them all open at once. But that was going to be difficult.
The droning hum of electricity overhead and underfoot actually helped to tune out the shouting guards banging at the door and ordering whoever was in there to throw the main switch - which she knew would kill the whole facility by overloading the Wardenclyffe to dangerous levels. So K focused on the hum instead of the finer details and simply got to work.
She was reasonably sure at this point that she would be captured if the released mutants didn't kill the guards to clear her path - but that wasn't overly concerning at the moment. Not when she was still downloading the entire database to protect their identities - a real record of how many mutants had already gone through the facility and where they could be found now if they weren't still in the population.
She hadn't told Erik that she was going to look for that information. That … she wasn't going to let him use that to recruit. Having gone through the grateful at first from a prison break herself, she didn't want anyone else having to deal with that kind of misplaced loyalty. K was totally wrapped up in her work, fully focused as her fingers danced across the keyboard - all the way up until the outer wall of the room she was in simply gave way in an explosion of red light.
K ducked down out of instinct and covered the back of her neck as bits of wall and ceiling tumbled down - though the bulk of the debris was nearer the far wall than it was her. She was still partially protected by an entire bank of servers that were the entire height of the room.
She was crouched down, one hand on the edge of the counter and still coughing from the dust in the air when someone stepped around the bank of servers and headed for the computer K had just been using - then paused when he saw that someone was there already.
Scott's hand went to his visor. "How do you turn off the collars? Talk fast."
"What the hell do you think I'm doing?" she said, coughing for a moment longer before she huffed and went back to it. "Why the hell did you take so long to deal with this place?"
"It took us this long to figure out a way for Hank to counter the chemical weapons in case they were used."
"They're off," she said. "I took them offline - and the automated turrets too. The collars … are a little more tricky than I realized though." K had tried to ignore him in favor of going back to work, but it was a little distracting with him standing there - staring at her. "Do you mind?"
"Are you the only one he sent in?"
"Saying he sent me in might be a little bit of a stretch. He didn't know all the details of this place," she said. A window popped up on the screen and K turned her head for just a second before she snatched the thumb drive out of the computer - then went back to work. "Yes, I'm the only one here. The idea was to let them out and let the prisoners deal with it as they saw fit."
Scott nodded as he watched K work, then frowned toward the door, where there were definitely soldiers stil trying to get in. "The team's dealing with the guards in the rest of the place, but Captain America did a little digging - there are protocols in place to kill everyone here if we can't find a way to turn them off." He paused. "That's also why we waited."
K nodded. "I'm disarming that - it's one line of code buried in the background. It requires a switch to 'N' or it's an automatic 'Y'." She glanced up at him for a second and side stepped slightly. "Then I'm going to have all the collars open at once."
"Good. My team can get them out as soon as that happens," he said.
She kept working - a little faster than before, but with the wall open like it was, it was a lot easier to get distracted by the sounds of the fight outside. "Do you have something to do other than just … stare at me?"
"I'm not -" Scott shook his head. "If they get in here, this place is their best bet to make every mutant here pay for our incursion. I'm sure you can turn the collars off, but on the off chance someone gets in here before that happens, I'm going to make sure you're focused on the code and not the guards. Okay?"
She frowned a little at him and tipped her head, again moving a little further away. "Fine."
Halfway through the next block of code, her comm started to go off, and rather than answer it, she took it off her hip, slammed it on the counter and sent a claw through it, muttering under her breath about idiots with crap timing as she tried to keep rolling. She figured that it was going to come back to bite her, but at the same time, she was preoccupied and really didn't have time to talk. "Alright … I got it," she said, mostly to herself - but loud enough for Scott to catch it. She was still typing fast, all the way up until the very last keystroke - and that was a hard strike.
"You're going to want to vaporize those banks," K said, gesturing to the servers. "They still have all the data on everyone they've processed through this facility, and I doubt when the power implodes that it'll wipe everything out."
"Got it," Scott said, then frowned her way. "K, I'm not going to shoot you too."
"Sure," she said.
"I'm just saying; we're on the same side here so you can stop acting like I'll turn on you as soon as the banks go up," Scott said.
She paused and frowned a little deeper at him. "Weren't you the one saying you were tired of all the exceptions to the rules?" She gestured to him. "You're the one that follows the rules. I'm the one that bends them. That's kind of the way it's been."
"My rules don't include attacking someone who's helping me free mutants from a camp, K. I'm not some blind disciple to a rulebook," Scott said with a little glare before he did, in fact, light up the banks. "But I'm also not going to let you hand Magneto a list of traumatized mutants he can take advantage of."
"Magneto doesn't know it exists, and he's not going to," she said before she started for the gaping hole in the wall.
Scott blasted the space just in front of her before she could get there. "You have their personal information, K, and I want to know where it's going."
"Somewhere that no one has been - not Magneto's group, not Weapon X - no one," she said. "But from what I've seen already? There are some spots you and your little group of girl scouts aren't going to want to go."
"What are you talking about?"
"Just some nastier installations," she said with a wave. "I'll make sure you get a copy if you need it, but I'm not going to let Erik or anyone in that group see it. Any of it."
"I'm not trying to pry into - I just want to be sure it's not going to get exposed. These people have been through enough," Scott said. "And to be frank, even if you say it's not going to Magneto, he's already proven he can use you against your will. You have to see why it's hard to trust you with any information - even if it's not you I'm worried about."
"He doesn't know it exists," she said patiently. "And I'm supposed to go check out another group after this. I have time." She was clearly frustrated as she started walking again. "Go ahead and shoot me if you feel better about it."
Scott frowned for a moment before he finally nodded and caught up to her. "The team's already clearing that way - if you're up for it, the rest of the guards should be down this way," he said. "Unless you just want to join the team…"
"I haven't done anything but knock a few idiots out tonight," she said. "And I'm pretty sure that team thing's never gonna be an option. But you're hilarious."
Scott smirked at that and blasted an opening in the next wall. "Hey, we're on the same side in this fight. We've even teamed up with Magneto on occasion."
"I don't really want to know the finer points of your charity cases, thanks," K replied.
Scott glared for a moment. "Always nice to talk to you, K," he grumbled. "You really make me want to reach out."
"As long as you feel better when you're done scraping the bottom of the barrel," she said before she broke into a run and pulled her hood back down over her face.
Scott swore under his breath, but K had already found a fight, so there wasn't anything else to do but simply jump into the fight.
She wasn't too far ahead of him, and she wasn't using her claws at all - instead sticking to fists, elbows, and feet as she kept hitting the guards hard enough for the cracks to echo around them. But Scott didn't miss that none of her hits were fatal. Just a lot of broken jaws and noses - a few likely fractured orbital bones and cheek bones - which had she directed that kind of focus to a throat punch, she would have probably killed the guy. As soon as they breached the building and were in the open air, she made a beeline for the fence - only then popping a claw to cut through the chain link and razor ribbon - which made a disturbing springing noise. And just like that, she was a whisper in the trees. Again.