Mommy Mystique (cont.)

"You're going to get jobs," Mystique had said, way back at the beginning of all this. Like it was that easy. Sure, just get a job. They're giving them away three for a dollar down on the corner. All you have to do is trade in your self-respect, and any hope you had of attracting the opposite sex . . .

Right now he hated just about everyone: Mystique, Wolverine, the X-Men, the Brotherhood, the world . . . but most of all his new "boss", a short bald guy who seemed to think that running a dinky little yogurt shop made him second only to God. And he made Lance wear a hair net, for God's sake!

Lance wanted to kill him, but as Mystique had said, they needed the money, especially where she wouldn't be working for a year. So he bit his tongue and hoped that he'd get a new manager soon.

The manager, in turn, though Lance Alvers was a complete loser and was hoping, praying, that the little freak would do something to give him an excuse to fire his sorry butt.

Lance straightened his stupid uniform and tried to count ways to kill the boss.

The boss checked the week's profits and tried to catch Lance doing what he wasn't supposed.

It was like any job, really.

Today was Saturday, which meant steady business all day long. Lance and the other two people who worked the front counter had their hands full from the time the mall opened until lunch break at two o'clock. By then he was too tired to eat.

"I hate Mystique." he mumbled.

"Who's Mystique?" asked a girl he worked with, who joined him at the table. "Oh, you got the curly fries. How are they?"

"Almost done."

"I mean, are they good or what?"

"What?" Lance blinked."Oh . . . uh . . ."

He couldn't remember her name; she had just started two days ago. She reminded him a lot of Kitty, except that she (not Kitty, the other girl) was blonde and tended to wear a lot of blue and green.

"Yeah." he said finally.

"Great," she said. "I really shouldn't have any, cause they're like loaded with fat and calories, but once couldn't hurt, right?"

"I guess not." Lance said.

"Okay then. Save my seat, will you?"

"Okay."

She got up and went to the fry booth . . . and Lance suddenly found himself hoping Kitty wouldn't come here and run into her.

Actually . . . he hadn't told anyone where he was working. Except Mystique, because he had to sign his paycheck over to her every week. (They were working on getting him a bank account.)

Still, it was a steady job, 6.75 an hour, and unless he screwed up royally, he wouldn't have to worry about losing it.

So, for a while, at least, he forgot about hating his boss. But that didn't last. By the end of the day, he was so frustrated he almost couldn't find his way home.

When he finally did get home, however, the house was in chaos.

"'Bout time you got back!" Toad complained.

"What did you do to this place?" There was stuff all over the floor. "It looks like a bomb went off here!"

"We lost the remote."
"So you just threw everything on the floor and left it there?" Lance was too tired to pick it up himself, so he just collapsed on the couch.
Someone was already there.

"Hey! Get off me!"
Lance jumped up in surprise. "Oh, sorry," he said. "Didn't see you there."

"So whatcha been up to?"

"I've been working, what else?"

"Get yelled at yet?" Toad snickered.

"Oh, what do you know about it?"

"Just what Mystique told me." Toad giggled.

"Is she home yet?"
"Nah, she's still in the hospital. For now, anyway. Wish those stupid babies would hurry up and get here already!"

"Careful what you wish for." Pietro said. He slumped back onto the couch.

Lance just stomped up to his room and slammed the door.

He hated Mystique for making him get a job. And making him hand over his salary. Why did he have to be the one to support the family? It wasn't fair!

He punched the wall . . . which was not a good move. Now he'd have to find some way of covering up the hole.

He looked around till he found one of his old posters. Perfect. You'd never know the hole was there.

Now that that was out of the way, he started thinking of ways he could get out of this mess . . . .

There weren't a whole lot.
Well, he could stick to his original plan, and hit the road. But where would he go? Both his parents were dead. He'd had enough of foster homes, and group homes, and any other state-run hole they cared to put him in. (That included prison--well, juvenile hall, where he'd spent two months when he was thirteen.)
So what now?

Then he decided that it didn't matter, just as long as it was away from here . . .

At that precise moment . . . he heard a knock on the door.

"Go away!"

"It's me, Toad, yo."

"What do you want?"
"I brought you something."

"Unless it's a one-way bus ticket out of town," Lance snapped, "I don't want it."

"No, no, you'll like this. Open the door."

Lance sighed. "Okay." He opened the door . . .

Toad was standing there, holding a note from Kitty. Lance could tell without even reading it, just from the pink paper.

"What's it say?"
Toad rolled his eyes. "How should I know? I don't read other people's mail!"

"Yeah you do!"

"Okay, so I do, but I didn't this time!"

Lance took the note. Toad was just standing there like an idiot.
"Well?" Lance prompted.
"Whaddya want, a tip?"
"No, I want you out of here!"

Toad hastily retreated.

Lance opened the note and read it.

Dear Lance,
Kurt is very excited about the new babies. We got to talking, and he thought we should give Mystique a baby shower. Can we do it at your place? We'll set up and bring the food and stuff. Call me and let me know if it's okay.
Kitty

Lance didn't know what to say . . .

He took the phone into his room, and dialed her number. "Kitty?"

"Hi!" she said. "You, like, got the note?"
"Yeah."

"So when are you coming?"

"What, you mean now?"
"Well, we have to, like, plan it out and stuff. When's Mystique coming home from the hospital?"
"Uh . . . I'm not sure. Hang on." He put the phone down and shouted, "When's Mystique coming home?"
"Tuesday!"

"Okay..." He picked up the phone again and passed on the information to Kitty.

"So come over, and we'll talk about what we can put together by Tuesday. OK?"

"Okay."

He grabbed his keys and shouted over his shoulder, "I'm going out!" And was gone before anyone could ask where.

Kitty rushed to the door. "Hi, Lance!" she said. "Come on in!"

"Is Chromed--I mean, the professor here?"

"Uh, no, he's out. All the adults are out somewhere. Which is why I asked you over tonight."

Lance heaved a sigh of relief.

Kitty showed him the list she had made so far, of stuff they would need.

"Whoa. You guys sure you need all this?"

"Wait till you see the guest list."
Lance was surprised to see she had put down all the members of the Brotherhood, as well as most of the X-Men. "Uh, I don't think this is such a good idea . . ."
"Will you relax? Everything will be fine!"

Lance was a bit skeptical, but still, he wanted to be there. "What about the gifts?"

"Gifts?"

"It'll look funny if you all give her big expensive presents and we don't."

"I guess you're right," Kitty admitted.

Elsewhere in the house, Scott and Evan heard a strange voice coming from upstairs. They went to check it out.

It turned out to be the worst mistake they could have made.

Pietro was in the midst of a full-blown Mr. Rabbit puppet show.

"Hi, kids!"

"I thought you got rid of the puppets!"

"Sorry." Pietro replied sheepishly. "I got bored."

"Put those away before you scar someone for life!"
Pietro was surprised to see Rogue there. She had spent most of the week at the hospital with her mom, or hanging out with her brother.
"What are you doing here, Roguey?"
"Don't call me Roguey!" she teased him.

"Suit yourself." He put the puppets away. "You heard about the party?"
"Party? What party?"

"For . . ." He was tempted to say 'trollop babies', but Rogue might punch him out if she did. "You know, the baby shower."
"Oh, that. Yeah."

The house was buzzing. The news about the babies was the most exciting thing that had happened around here in a long time.

"What do you think she'll call them?" Rogue asked Kurt.

"I don't even know if zhey're boys or girls."
"You don't know?"
"She said she couldn't tell from zhe tests."

"Oh, brother!"

"Maybe. Maybe sister. Maybe one of each." Kurt smiled happily. He would be happy with either one, as long as he got to see them.

In the kitchen, Kitty and Lance were going over the revised list. And it was a pretty long list . . .

"Okay, we've got all the food . . ."
"Not if Fred's coming. You'll never have enough food for him."

"Good point."

"Now we just have to figure out where to hold it."

"The carrot patch!" Pietro said in Mr. Rabbit's voice.
"Shut up, Pietro." Lance grumbled.

"Humph," Mr. Rabbit said. "No respect!"

Kitty rolled her eyes. "Ever think of maybe giving the puppets up, Pietro?"

"But I like my puppets!"
"Yeah, well, like, no one else does!"

Pietro glared at her. Just for that, he introduced a new character: Brain-Dead Valley Girl Rabbit.

"You're asking for it, Pietro." Lance growled.

"Knock off the puppet thing!" Rogue demanded. "We're tryin' to have a serious conversation here!"
Pietro sulked for a while . . . and Rogue ignored him. It wouldn't last long.

"So," she said to Kitty, "how are we gonna have all of us and all of you in the same room without killin' each other?"
Kitty hadn't thought of that. "Uh . . ."

 A rabbit puppet popped up by her ear. "How about we rent a carrot patch?"
"Shut up!" She swatted at it, but Pietro was too fast. He was on her other side before she could raise her hand.

"Why you little...!"

"You asked for this." Rogue took off her glove . . . and grabbed Pietro by the arm. He had only a moment to give her a startled look before he passed out.

"Serves ya right, Speedy." she smirked, taking the rabbit puppet and stuffing it in the wastebasket.

"I think he had a good idea, though," Kitty said. "Why don't we rent a hall? That way it's not your place, or our place . . ."
"Neutral territory," said Lance. "That could work, but . . . where do we get the money?"

"Good question." The three of them looked at Pietro, who always seemed to have extra cash . . .

"You thinking what I'm thinking?" Lance mused.
Kitty looked shocked. "That would, like, be stealing!"
"I didn't say steal it from him. More like . . . blackmail him into helping us."

"That's low!"
"Uh huh."
"That's despicable!"
"Yep."
"So . . . how do we pull it off?"

Little did they know that Logan was in an adjacent room and could hear every word . . .

"You guys got something you wanna tell me?"

"Uh . . . no! Nothing!"

"Try again."

They realized they'd have to tell him eventually . . . so Lance filled him in on what they had so far.

"You wanna what?"

"We should do something nice for her. And you, too," Lance added, remembering that Logan was the father of the babies.

Logan didn't know what to say. "I don't know if she's up for a big party. She's supposed to be resting . . ."

Pietro started to come around.

Rogue leaned over him. "Think you can behave yourself this time, Speedy?"

"Wha . . . what'd I do?"

She gave him a look.
"Oh . . . you mean the puppets!"
"Puppets?" Logan asked.

"Yeah . . ." Rogue began.

"Uh . . . can we talk more about the party?" Pietro said, trying to change the subject.

But Logan was more interested at that second in hearing about the puppets. "What kind of puppets? Like Howdy Doody?"

"Not quite," Rogue said, glaring at Pietro, who finally gave in.

"Oh . . . you mean Mr. Rabbit."
"Yes, Mr. Rabbit."

Pietro gulped. "Okay," he said. "You win. The puppets stay home."

Under his breath, though, he muttered, "Nobody around here has any sense of humor."

They called around, and found a hotel with function rooms for discounted prices. Even better, they supplied all the party goods--everything from decorations to food. It was all part of the package.

"Vunderful!" said Kurt when he found out.

"Now all we have to do is get the invitations out," said Rogue.
"Invitations? I thought it was just gonna be us."

Rogue turned to Scott and said, "You in on this whole party thing?"

"Yeah . . ." He thought it was a bad idea, too, and it must have showed.

"Well, just don't screw this up, will you?"
"Why would I do that?"

Rogue just looked at him. "Please? This is important . . ."

"Can we just go home?" Lance grumbled.

"SHUT UP, LANCE!" everyone snapped in unison.

Rogue looked around. "You know, this place ain't bad. We could all live here and not even bump into each other half the time."
"Live here?" The other Brotherhood members thought she'd gone crazy.

"Yeah."

"Uh . . . we'll think about it." Lance hurried them out the door. He had to work the next day . . . and his jughead boss wanted him by 8 AM, the twit. On a Sunday! The mall didn't even open till 10, but for some reason the food court opened early. Crap. He hated coming in early . . .

But when he got there the next morning, he found that What's-Her-Name was there too.

"Hi, Lance."

"Hi, uh . . ." It was cheating to glance at her name tag, but he did it anyway. "Caitlin."

"You holdin' up OK?"

"Yeah, I guess so."
They worked together for a while setting things up, and then she asked him, "Um . . . do you have a girlfriend or anything?"
"No," he said, thinking of Kitty. He liked her, he thought she kinda liked him, but there was nothing formal there, was there? Especially with her being an X-Man and him being with the Brotherhood.

"Well, then," Caitlin said. "Would you like to go out sometime?"
He thought about it a long while. "Where'd you wanna go?"

"Oh, anywhere you want is okay, I guess. How about tonight?"
"No, I'm not allowed to go out on a school night."

"Tomorrow night, maybe?"

"I'm working tomorrow night."
"Oh. Well, what about Tuesday?"

"Tuesday's good."

Then he remembered . . .
"Oh, no, wait a minute. Tuesday I've got this . . . family party. I can't."

"Wednesday?"
"Great. What time?"

"Are you working?"
"Just till 7. How about we meet here then?"
"Great!"

He floated on a cloud of happiness the rest of the day. Not even the Evil Boss could get him down.

Back at the Brotherhood house, things were tense.
Magneto had been out of the country for more than a month, on "business". But he was about to come home . . . and he had no idea what he'd be walking into.

At the toy store downtown, he bought two of their biggest teddy bears, and tied yellow ribbons around their necks. He still didn't know whether the twins were boys or girls.

Nor was he aware that Logan had his own plans for Mystique.

(And the tension mounts! Next chapter: surprises all around at the baby shower! Don't worry, the twins are coming soon!)