Shake Your Foundations

11. If You Really Knew

Zarana found her brother first, and judging by the murmured discussion he and his current paramour were engaged in when she peeked through the classroom door, he'd likely just found out as well. Andi hadn't stuck around for the grown-up talk about appropriate guardians and side objectives, and Zarana was more concerned with finding the kid before she hurt herself than her brother's adventures in dating. Odds were the kid wouldn't talk to him or Mystique anyway, if she was riled up enough to storm off.

Why had she run from the fight in the first place? In the year and a half Andi'd been with them, she'd never run from a fight once it got going. She might flee to avoid starting one, but never abandon one wholesale, even if retreating was the wiser move—considered it a form of cowardice. No telling where the kid picked that habit up from either. Could have been from the foster parents for all Zarana knew of the subject. But where the habit came from mattered far less than the fact the girl's current behavior went against all previous encounters and was thus of high importance.

"Where would she run to?" She sighed, running a hand through the short red hair of her wig. On base (either of them), she knew all the girl's favorite hiding spots, but here at Bayville High School, there was no telling where the kid might feel safest to vent. Well, besides the gym, but there were too many people in there at any given time for that to pan out even if the kid hadn't been injured. Not behind the bleachers at the track field, either; that's where the real delinquents hid when shirking class and Andi had no patience for that group on a good day. Today she'd avoid them as if they carried some sort of contagious disease. Shop class was still in session, so that option was out too. Hmm, maybe this was easier than she thought.

And since none of the Joe or Cobra operatives had offices of their own and the girl was trying to avoid all authority figures, it left one place open: the library.

To her surprise, she found the girl in a deep whispered conversation with another student. One of Miss Sefton's friends, she noticed. Given the lack of shouting or swearing, the two teens were well on their way to becoming friends, or at least cordial acquaintances.

Andi wasn't known for playing well with other kids her age, being both too far ahead mentally and behind emotionally to connect well with anyone but Shadowatch. She'd take a bullet for anyone on her team, but had no qualms about leaving anyone else behind to suffer unless they were under her protection. Perhaps it was cold and a bit ruthless, but Zarana saw nothing wrong with the behavior. As long as you and yours made it back in one piece, the others could go off and die for all she cared.

But unlike the other girls, Andi never made an effort to get to know the other kids their age at the Terrordrome—especially the other girls. She'd actively hidden from them on more than one occasion. The handlers and teammates had their theories concerning where and why the behavior started; a combination of stuffy all-female private schools and old-money rich foster parents forcing her to interact with spoiled rich kids in their social circles was her particular favorite and one of the more likely candidates. Regardless of where it started, the odd behavior made it extremely difficult for her to connect with other girls in her age group. Because of that, Zarana decided not to break up one of the rare friendly conversations she'd seen the girl have with a total stranger. There was never any way to know if some random person you talked to one day could wind up helping you out of a tight spot several years down the road; a networking opportunity like this, especially one that tested the kid's ability to adapt and act in a role, couldn't be passed up.

The woman realized she was smiling a little bit.

"Good for you, kid." Zarana whispered to herself. "I'll just let you speak in peace."

As a bonus, it also gave Andi a chance to calm the hell down before one of them tried to talk to her about the…incident in the chem room. It meant that Zandar would be the one trying to talk the kid down and through whatever the hell was bugging her, but by the time he got out of class, there would be far less chance of the kid trying to avoid him or, god forbid, take a swing at him.

He did it because it was his job, not because he wanted to. He'd have rather kept the whole thing quiet, really, but protocol stated that his CO be informed, and for this op that CO was Falcon. Mainframe trusted Falcon to keep many of his secrets, but he wasn't sure he could persuade the lieutenant to keep this hushed up until the mission concluded. Not without having interacted with the girl personally.

He also suspected they might need to borrow a goddamn muzzle from Mutt and strap it onto Jinx if word got out before they wrapped up and went home. For all her training in covert operations and familiarity with the placement of their listening devices, she'd forgotten that he'd bugged the teacher's lounge with video and audio recorders. He reviewed the footage each night and saved everything that might be useful, be it for current affairs or future blackmail. The recording of her 'chat' with Zarana currently sat in his draft folder, ready to be sent to Hawk and Storm Shadow if the female ninja didn't adjust her attitude. He could understand why she wanted to go after the older Dreadnoks (and wasn't about to stop her if she did), but the girl had nothing to do with that situation.

Falcon glanced up as he entered the class room they'd claimed as a makeshift mission control room. "Why are you here?" The younger Joe asked. "I thought you'd be with your 'informant'."

"We got a hit on that hair sample we sent back for testing," he spoke without preamble and handed a stack of papers in Falcon's direction. "And if it's any consolation, they didn't know about any of this before we did."

"Yeah, like that's not ominous," Falcon frowned, taking the offered papers and looking over them. His eyes widened when he read the information on them. "You gotta be kidding me. Is this some kind of joke?"

"Afraid not. By now, Doc, Lifeline, and General Hawk have been alerted to the match as well." It was standard procedure for comparison tests like this one.

"Jesus…and you're sure they didn't know?"

"Positive." Though he wasn't about to mention that Zarana had been with him when the results came back… "If you recall, they were the ones who gave us the sample in the first place."

Falcon hummed noncommittally. "Do you think the kid knows?"

"About her mother or the siblings?"

"Either. Both." The man shrugged.

"There's no way she doesn't know about her mother; not when they've both taken such great pains to hide the connection, though that doesn't tell us why she hid it in the first place," He said. "If she knows about the other two, she's ignoring it in favor of maintaining her own cover."

Falcon paused a moment to think. "Protection, maybe? Though I'm not sure from what…"

"From Magneto." It was the only solution that made any sort of sense to him. "I doubt he knows the girl exists, let alone that she's working for Cobra. He'd have done his best to force her into the Brotherhood if he knew about her." The child of his two top lieutenants and with the kind of power the kid had at her fingertips, there was no way he'd have just let her join Cobra-not even working for a fellow mutant like Zartan.

"They hid her." Falcon sounded like he wanted to bang his head against a wall. "Put her up for adoption so even they couldn't find her…though somehow Mystique has custody now…"

"I'll ask the guys on base to look into that. Our new files mentioned labs, so that may play into it, but we don't have time to chase that particular rabbit ourselves," He said. The entire story was likely to be a convoluted mess, but it might help them predict what the kid would do in a fight. "But I'm more worried about how she sees us than a Dreadnok custody case."

"How so?"

"For starters, she's fifteen—barely old enough to drive let alone piss SHIELD off like she has." And how she managed that feat, he could do without knowing. "I don't know that we could draw her away from the Dreadnoks, but at the very least we can get her to trust us not to kill us or run experiments on her if we caught her." Because he wasn't stupid enough to think SHIELD wouldn't.

"She doesn't have any trust in us." Falcon pointed out. "Keep in mind that she was shot by Beach Head once."

"Maybe not, but she doesn't hate all us either. Alpine got on with her okay this morning, and she didn't give me any trouble in class last period."

"It could just be an act."

"Maybe, but do we really want to risk alienating her completely over a 'what if' scenario?" He countered. "Despite what I caught Jinx telling Zarana, the kid and her team are far from a lost cause. She's smart—cagey and paranoid, but smart and pretty fair at reading people."

Falcon started. "...What has Jinx said?"

"She and Zarana had a…disagreement in the teacher's lounge last week while the kid was passed out on the couch. It's one thing to let her verbally spar with the Dreadnoks, but there's no reason to drag the girl into this or say she's not worth saving." He looked the other Joe in the eyes. "If we need to take this to Hawk, I will do it, but it would be better for everyone involved if we took care of it on our own."

Falcon sighed, raking his fingers through his short hair. "I'll talk to her about it. Blood feud isn't a viable excuse here and she knows it, or at least she should."

"You're the commanding officer." He said. "Giving orders is right in the job title." The crack earned him a glare from Falcon.

"Don't be a smart-ass, Parker. I get enough of it from the kids without you tacking onto it."

"So, when does the music class meet again?" Andi asked. It would probably wind up being a waste of her time, but she wasn't about to use her elective space up in Art class. Half the mutants in Bayville took that class—the half she rather felt like strangling at the moment. Zandar was a decent teacher; he didn't deserve to be glued to the fucking chalkboard. If it weren't for their own rules against it, she'd have consented to letting the X-brats get captured and roughed up for a few days. Give them something real to kvetch about for a change (most of what she'd overheard was minutia at best and useless at worst). Twerps didn't know how good they had it…

"Oh, you've missed today's. It was this period, same as the second Art class section," Jenna answered. "Mr. Williams is kind of a dork, but I think you'll like him. Most everyone who's taken his class does. Though I'm not sure what you could play one-handed…"

"I can play piano, but that's about it." And she hadn't even touched one of those in several years. Mom never owned one, and she doubted Zartan knew she could play or else he'd have found one somewhere. "Know anything similar enough for me to fake proficiency?"

"No, but Mr. Williams might," Jenna answered. "He can't exactly put you in the band anywhere if you're not staying, though."

"Don't really want to be in the band anyway," She shrugged. "I just don't want to die of boredom waiting on my next class." However, any forays into the world of High School Band would need to wait until tomorrow. This period was almost over and she planned on spending the next one holed up in the teacher's lounge—away from her boss and the science class she was supposed to sit in. "And depending on where your next one is, you should probably get going."

"Wait, don't you have a class next?"

"One of the many advantages to being an auditing student—attendance is optional. Plus, I'm pretty sure I can get caught up on my sciences at home."

"Oh. I forgot…I'm sorry."

"Eh, don't sweat it. We're new in town; it'd be kinda stupid to expect everyone to remember everything about us right away."

"Right." Jenna nodded. "Hey, I know you probably eat lunch with your dad or whatever, but if you wanted, you could sit with my friends and me tomorrow. I think you'd really like Stacy and Amanda."

"...I'll think about it." She evaded, grabbing her book bag as the end of period bell sang. "See you tomorrow, Jenna."

"Yeah. You too." The other girl called as she picked up her bag and walked to the exit doors.

Andi hung around for about five more minutes, intent on avoiding foot traffic. Both 'dad' and Zarana had classes this period, so the only thing stopping her from leaving was the student crowds. Once she was considered 'fashionably late', she got up and walked toward the door…

…only to come face to face with the last person she expected a confrontation from today. "Walk with me, kid." Zandar ordered, bits of construction paper, glitter, and glue stuck fast to his wig and clothing. If he was trying for intimidation, the leftovers of last Art class completely ruined the image for her. "We need to talk."