DISCLAIMER: Everything you recognise belongs to Marvel, lucky them, Anyone you don't know which includes Sarah are mine, I made them up in my mad little head, any reference to people real or fictional is a terrible mistake or new psychic powers.
THANKS: Yass, this one is especially for you :) leave me the email or email me at the address below ;) think you'll get to read chapters as soon as I write them !
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Silk and Steel
Part Five
Self Control
Clarice seated herself on the leather sofa with an outside appearance of complete self control, the untouchable mask that she had learnt to wear that eternity ago when she had been a soldier in Magnetos army, when Apocalypse had reigned. It had been a long while since she'd had to wear it here, in her sanctuary, looking over at the X men she felt that they had somehow violated her safe haven, by bringing their outside cares into it.
The girl knew her name, and the colour of her skin, so there had been a Clarice Ferguson in this universe before she had appeared in the deep Canadian snow. She intercepted another of the girls darting glances and raised her eyebrows, they had to be the same age, the girl was perhaps a year older and yet, the other was still unfinished half trained. Or at least on the surface, an uncanny sense of intuition told her that the girl would be quite handy in a fight.
"You are unsure as to Sabertooth whereabouts then?" that was the visored man, this universes Cyclops she rolled her eyes "I said it didn't I?" Sarah had leant against the kitchen cabinets making 'be calm' gestures, but she couldn't quite manage it, she was rarely sarcastic but these people could push you to the edge. And the girl was still staring, she had finally had enough, she was worried about Vic and this girl seemed to have some macabre interest in the triangular birthmarks over her eyes. Turning she met electric blue eyes with her own solid white gaze "What?"
Rudeness had never been one of her finer points, but living with Mr Creed you had to have a certain handle on bluntness, the girl didn't seem to mind "Your names not Claire Blast is it" she sighed, oh why the hell not, the day was going from bad to worse, and the visored geek didn't want to speak at the moment "No, its Clarice Ferguson, you were right the first time, but what it has to do with you is beyond me" The ixnay gestures that Sarah was making were somewhat interesting but the girls reaction was better "You can't be, Clarice Ferguson's dead, she died years ago"
Rolling her eyes again wasn't going to work so she just stared, the girl was in ripped jeans and a trench, compared to her own Armani elegance she looked very young "I'm not dead, and I've been living with Sarah since I was thirteen" that got her more attention "You've been living in New York for five years and you haven't come to our attention" that was the redhead, she had the look of Phoenix but not the attitude. She sighed "Obviously, now we've had all of the useless q and a could we get down to business"
Settling back she watched as the visor tracked to Sarah "Ms Blast, Sabertooth's last known whereabouts…." His voice trailed off as Sarah made a 'cut' gesture with her hand "This isn't my show, talk to Blink" The girl who had been relaxing was suddenly bolt upright again "Blink?" she let red purple eyebrows slide up "Yes, my work name, I'd be more comfortable if you used it, my name is for friends" The little man seemed to be more interested now, he had been sitting in the brooding quiet that she associated with one of Vic's bad moods now it seemed he was going to speak.
"So, what d' ya enemies call ya kid?" She focused, blue eyes, a darker shade than the girls, rock of ages this one, alive a lot longer than he looked, like Mr Creed she let a slight smile creep onto her face, the first since these people had walked into her home "They don't call me anything, I don't have any enemies" she left the word living off of the end of the sentence, he was smart enough not to need the clarification. He gave her a nod before turning to Cyclops "That'd 'xplain why the 'tooth's been hidin' himself, couldn't have a kid like this with him workin' for someone like the brotherhood"
She could have contradicted him on that, she knew where and who Vic worked for, she'd kept his books for a little while before turning it over to Sarah, once she'd hit sixteen she'd started working with him, she'd seen the blood and the fury, but she'd never been in danger not really, Vic was like a living shield. Both Cyclops and the redhead were raising an argument "Really Logan, she's a child, Sabertooth has shown in abundance what he thinks of having a child tagging along" Well it seemed that the redhead spoke for them both.
The little man, Logan, shook his head "Then why does she stink of him even more than this place does?" he made a gesture with his hand that encompassed the room before looking back at her "You been working with the 'tooth kid?" She was going to ignore him that seemed safer "well? What did you want us to do?" The woman seemed to understand that she didn't want to answer the question "Well, we thought whoever might be living here might know where Sabertooth was supposed to be"
Looking over at Sarah she nodded and watched her friend leave the room before returning her attention to the X men "You do understand that we're helping on one condition?" the two men went still, the tension skyrocketed and she almost cracked another smile, it was the younger girl that spoke "What?" She tilted her head on to one side and let one of her eyebrows lift "That we go with you of course"
The silence that Sarah entered into was deafening, her surrogate mother noticed the tension and shifted into it with a national grace that Clarice envied "The books Blink, I have no idea what to do with the gibberish Creed uses" A lie but a well done one, if they made it out that she was the only one that knew anything they couldn't split them up, nor could they ignore her, and she didn't like being ignored. She was probably spoilt to death, but then being the only child that Sarah could spoil had some effect on their relationship, and Vic had never ignored her, she had never been a child to him either, but he had never ignored her.
She opened up the books and flipped to the final page, filled not with Sarah's neat hand and the mercenary argot they used but Vic's scrawl 'Asril, Canada, favour' three words that wouldn't mean anything to the X men or even to Sarah, but she knew them. Asril was an old flame of Vic's untrustworthy as hell but one of the best spies that could be bought for money. She had put them up once and had made some comments that she hadn't understood at the time, and that had made Vic spitting mad. She'd thought they were going to get into a fight at their safe haven but Asril had laughed it off, saying it was nothing.
Vic had been heading into Canada then, but he was almost a month overdue back, her nineteenth birthday was in three days, and he'd never missed a birthday yet, but now, the whole set-up stank of trap, especially since Asril, who believed in saving favours had called Vic in on a moments notice. Of course she could have been in trouble just that badly, but to call Vic in without him taking the rest of them meant he hadn't thought it was bad, yes, on the whole things stank.
She looked up to find them all watching her, even Sarah who she would have expected to be in the know, but then Sarah had never worried over Vic the way she did. She stared into Cyclops's visor "I want your word that wherever I tell you to go I go with you" he shifted slightly on the sofa making a squeaking noise, leather on spandex, not a good sound combination. But she didn't let up, she could outstare a snake if she had to, one of the advantages of having no pupils or iris's. Finally he nodded, very well, where did he go. She let the corner of her mouth quirk "Canada, but I can't tell you where, I can only program the co-ordinates in" she put a hand up in a gesture she was lifting from Sarah "Its someone's home, and they've paid a lot of money not to be found easily"
He nodded and she nodded back "We can be gone in a minute, just stay put and don't play with anything, I switched on the security when you came in, I don't want to blow you up while we have such a good relationship going" Standing up she moved away with Sarah into the back bedrooms where they lived, a corridor away from Vic's master suite, he was biggest so he got the biggest room. All perfectly fair, plus that was the only one with an en suite bathroom, and no one wanted Vic trailing soaking wet through the halls.
"Do you really know where your going Clarice?" She was Clarice out of their hearing, only Sarah called her Clarice, everyone else called her Blink, except Vic, of course. She nodded, "Course I do" Then she leant against the wall and passed a hand over her forehead the set of her face softening "Did I pull it off alright?" her voice had softened she knew, to her normal husky soprano away from the attitude laden bark she had been using. Sarah smiled "It was straight out of the Victor Creed book of threat, he'd be proud"
Letting a tiny sigh escape she smiled back at Sarah before turning into her own room, walking across it she let the soothing tones of green, blue and gold wash over her as she opened the walnut wardrobe. Vic had decided years ago that her archers uniform didn't suit the work they were doing, spandex was not a Victor Creed accessory. Reaching into the depths behind her casual designer clothing she pulled out the two piece suit, it comprised of a leotard made of a very light durable body armour in a purple so dark that it was almost black and a pair of black leather pants.
Most people will assume that black leather isn't flexible, but hers was, it also had a high grade armour lining. The amount that Vic had paid the Hand for them was this side of extortionate, just, they had been a gift for her sixteenth birthday when it was obvious that she wasn't going to grow anymore. She slipped out the boots that went with them calf high leather and dyed the same shade as the leotard.
She stripped out of her clothes in a whisper of an instant, no underwear required within the suit, it would have made awful lines, as well as impairing her movements. Her own figure caught in the full-length mirror grabbed her attention. She was slender by nature but now her ribs were countable, since Vic had missed his deadline she hadn't been eating properly, he'd ring a peal over her head when he found out….
She swallowed and looked away, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. She slid into the suit with ease lacing up the boots and tucking the set of knives that had been Vic's eighteenth birthday gift into them. Sarah gave her pretty feminine things, Vic gave her things to keep her alive. It was an odd system but it worked. She'd never gotten to grips with hand guns so Vic had compromised and given her a knife long enough to be a sword and taught her how to strap it upside down along her back so that someone of her height could draw it. She pushed that on and pushed her waist length red purple hair into a braid, it still swung long, but she'd never had it short so knew instinctively how to cope with it.
She walked into the hall to wait for Sarah, she didn't have to linger long, Sarah's fall of hair had been tamed into a French braid, something Sarah'd tried to explain over and over again but that she'd never mastered. Her outfit was a dark grey and the boots cut off mid thigh, how Sarah managed to move so quietly was beyond her, she did it but her boots had assassins soles, toughened but heel less, Sarah's had three inch heels, and she was still deadly quiet.
Sarah also had several guns strapped to herself in reachable positions, one of them was a sawn off machine gun, she couldn't restrain the smile and gave her friend a high five. Before walking back into the living room to come face to face with the frowning girl. "You almost killed Wolvie" she lifted her eyebrows at the girl "Did he move?" cool as ice, it was a good lesson to have in their business, the girl nodded and she sighed "then its his own fault, I presume he has a healing factor?" the girl nodded again "Then he'll be fine, nothing in here was meant to be fatal to a healing factored individual"
Walking past the girl she looked at Logan who was stretched out on the couch with a rent in his spandex, there was a discarded spear on the floor red with drying blood for almost a foot "Hmm that's meant to disembowel, but then I suppose the height is a factor" She tilted her head to one side, keeping it together with the faintest of threads, scared to death inside "Well, shall we go then?"
She watched the Cyclops nod and then making to stand stop dead "the security?" she'd honestly forgotten and slapped her forehead with the palm of her hand before reaching into the toaster on the breakfast bar and depressing a hidden button. "Done, Sarah remind me on the way out?" Sarah nodded before tapping the symbol on her chest "Fine, fine, I'll remember" She walked into the waiting lift, lifting an eyebrow at the girl who was already inside, she moved fast. "Now lets go"