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"Do not trust the horse,
Trojans!"
-Virgil
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Chapter Forty: Heed Virgil
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"That…her?" a voice asked from somewhere within the vast, dimly lit living room. None of the windows were open, and the curtains were pulled tight against the sun outside, which was just now finishing its decent below the hills. A large television crackled in the corner, but the picture was so dark that it didn't help to light the room much.
"Who the hell do you think she is?" Pietro hissed back, hurling a half-stuffed decorative pillow in the general direction of a dark lump in the corner, which just so happened to be one of his housemates. Todd Tolensky, the mutant known as Toad, laughed and dodged the fluffy missile, sending a larger one hurtling back. To his extreme delight, it beaned Pietro on the side of the head just as he turned his attention back to his guest.
Nat stifled a snicker with the back of her hand, not quite managing to look like she was coughing. Her white-haired tour guide momentarily looked like he was going to try to seriously injure Toad, but he softened at the sight of Nat's smile and ignored his friend instead.
"Are you still hungry?" he asked, sauntering toward the kitchen with his hands stuffed casually in his pockets.
She felt her stomach rumble quietly in response, but Pietro hadn't heard it, and she shook her head. "Not really, but I could certainly use a shower. I'm assuming you've got one of those—" she gestured back toward the living room, where Toad was still cackling loudly to himself "—despite the personal hygiene of that one."
Pietro snorted out a little laugh and nodded his agreement. "Lemme give you a quick go-around of the place first. That way, things'll look less confusing tomorrow mornin'." He grinned, waving his hand toward the walls of the room they'd entered. "This is the kitchen, I'm sure you can tell. That door goes to the backyard, and that one to the pantry. There are a couple of living rooms, like the one we just left."
Nat glanced around, trying to take it all in with just a few glances. Her stomach was doing flips inside her midsection. Of course, she was terribly nervous about being in the home of the X-Men's enemies, but there was also something else that bothered her, something strange in the sense of déjà vu that permeated the entire experience. It hadn't been that long ago that Kurt had given her a tour of the Xavier mansion on the shores of Breakstone Lake, and an odd sensation of guilt rattled her bones.
On top of it all, there was the unsinkable feeling of being beaten. She'd been telling Pietro since the beginning to leave her alone, that she would never join him because she was loyal to her new friends at the Xavier Institute, and here she was, entering his home as if it were her own. In some way, it was humiliating. She felt as if a promise had been broken, and he had proven her to be a liar. Or, worse, he had managed to wear her down to the point of submitting, while the idea of submitting to Pietro was still both appealing and disgusting to her.
I suppose it is my home, now, she thought, blinking hard, and I ought to make the best of it.
Such a strange feeling it was, to undergo homesickness. She'd rarely felt that way in all her life, and when she had, it had been about so few places. Not many had been particularly hospitable toward her, and even if she had made it through the door to one of these new places, she had seldom felt welcomed once she made herself a home there. Natalie Fairbanks was a loner, plain and simple, and the lifestyle had grown on her over the years. Feeling that tinge of wistful regret at the thoughts she harbored of her life with the X-Men, she got the uncomfortable feeling that this place would never feel quite that way.
And why was she being so warmly accepted in this household, one that, as far as she could tell, prided itself on its ability to be brutally chary and hostile toward outsiders? Were they honestly just trying to admit one more maltreated mutant teenager into their ranks, or was she some sort of "I-told-you-so" directed against the X-Men, retaliation for Rogue's switch? Maybe it was neither, and they were just recruiting her to do exactly what Pietro had accused Xavier of doing, only in reverse: bringing Nat in as a decoy, or another drafted soldier in their angry little war. Any way she looked at it, she couldn't help but harbor doubts of her own.
Nat shook her head, irritated with herself. She pushed her thoughts aside and tried to concentrate on what she was seeing and what Pietro was saying.
The place wasn't a mansion, by any means, but it was pretty big anyway. Finances had unquestionably been put out to set this place up for its inhabitants, and she tried not to remember the faces of the people who had undoubtedly funded it. The walls of the kitchen were high and tiled in a pale blue color but they were slightly grimy with dust and cooking grease. A large window over the sink faced west. The sky was almost dark now, with the last traces of violet and salmon staining the clouds. Nat vaguely took note of the large breakfast table circled by chairs that were all reinforced to put up with Fred's considerable girth and weight. A thought donned on her that sent a smile creeping around her lips. She got the impression that someone had cleaned up a bit for her impending appearance.
Twirling a lock of dark hair around her finger, looking as cute and innocent as possible, she turned to Pietro and grinned. "You didn't clean up all by yourself just because you knew that I'd be coming, did you? For ickle ol' me? You shouldn't have!" She quipped as she batted her eyelashes in an exaggerated fashion, trying not to laugh out loud.
The look of surprise on Pietro's face, and the delightful shade of pink that tinged his cheeks, made Nat want to throw herself a party to congratulate herself on her success at agitating him. Ha! I gotcha! she thought, grinning to herself. Her companion grunted and rolled his angular shoulders, trying to look uninterested. He glanced away and pretended to examine the tie on the curtains. "Once again, Firecracker, my life doesn't revolve around you."
"Sure it doesn't…"
This is starting to be more fun than it probably should be, Nat thought.
Pietro tossed his hands in the air to give the appearance that he was exasperated, but she could see the flustered expression on his face, and chortled at her success. He may have made her feel defeated and embarrassed, but she could toy with his emotions. It was a little cruel, but it was still one of the best things about being female.
"Okay. What about my room?"
He nodded and left the kitchen, making his way toward a staircase against the wall of the living room. Toad was still cackling to himself, a little calmer now, and kept shooting furtive glances in their direction. Pietro continued to pay no heed to him. "Upstairs. I'll show you."
"Ooooh! Takin' New Girl to her bedroom, huh?" Toad waggled his thick brow, waving to the pair on the stairs. "Well, well, well! I suppose I should just wish you a good time, then." He lowered his voice, looking grave. "I'll make sure you ain't disturbed."
Nat felt a blush creeping up her cheeks, and bit her tongue to keep from audibly grinding her teeth together. She glanced over the railing and smiled nervously at the newly arrived Lance Alvers, who stared at her suspiciously as he tossed his coat onto a nearby chair. He stared at her without blinking, and she tried to smile as Pietro grabbed her by the arm and hauled her up the rest of the staircase. Pietro glared at his friend over the banister, hissing, "Shove it, Tolensky."
At the top of the stairs, he turned to "New Girl" and shrugged. "You're better off ignoring him as much as possible. Trust me. It's a skill you're going to have to master, and quick."
Nodding, Nat felt strangely close to laughing again. "Right. I think I can handle that."
She turned and glanced down a long, dim hallway, which had been black until Pietro flicked a nearby light switch. They didn't seem to spend much on lighting bills in this place. Small electric sconces adorned the walls between the doors, and cast a diffused light onto the dark carpeting, doing little to aid Nat's eyesight. The walls were high, like the ones downstairs had been, but there were no windows in the hall with the exception of a large skylight in front of a bathroom door. She could make out the tiny pinpricks of starlight here and there through the glass.
Pietro smirked, and Nat suddenly noticed that she'd been standing in the same spot at the top of the stairs for a good two minutes, staring down the dark corridor with Pietro's fingers still wrapped around her forearm. He rolled his eyes and continued to guide her down the hall. "It's a hallway, stupid, not the god damned Cave of Evil. Relax a little."
Nat shivered and followed him, coming to a stop in front of a door with slightly rusty hinges and squelching the eerie feeling that she had suddenly stumbled into some sort of haunted house at a Halloween fair. Nat bit her tongue and tried to convince herself that she was simply being oversensitive. After all, she was tired, dirty and it was nighttime. Who knew what this place might look like after a bath, a good night's rest, and a few hours of sunshine coming through that skylight?
She glanced at the knob, where she saw a tiny monster face scribbled onto the metal surface, fashioned out of what looked like White Out. She stared at it with an eyebrow raised, and Pietro looked momentarily confused, then irritated when he noticed it. He sighed. He'd meant to wash that off…
The fair-haired mutant shrugged and said, "Here's your room. Mine's over there." He jerked his head toward a room with the door painted bright blue, but she ignored him, which seemed to make him fall silent in a less than happy sort of way. They stood there for a moment, and he was apparently waiting for her to open the bedroom door and go inside. When she decided to make him squirm a little by doing no such thing, and folding her arms across her chest instead, he mumbled something unintelligible under his breath. Gritting his teeth a little, he tossed the door open triumphantly and turned on a switch just inside.
The room flooded with white, dazzling light, almost enough to make Nat's retinas pop after the strange dimness of the rest of the house. She shrieked and covered her eyes with her fingers, slapping at him with her free hand. "You jackass! Why didn't you warn me you'd had a freaking spotlight installed in the ceiling?"
Pietro smirked. "Sorry."
Still seeing multicolored blotches hovering throughout her vision, Nat scowled. "Uh-huh."
She glanced around the room. There was a small white-washed dresser and a desk, with a bed pushed up against the wall dressed in pale lavender bedding. Like everywhere else Pietro had shown her so far, it had obviously been cleaned up to distract from the presence of immoveable dust, and very recently to boot. The scent of fresh 409 and Windex still hovered in the air. To her surprise, she noted a remake of an old Beatles poster over the desk, and glanced at Pietro, who was averting his eyes again rather than making some snide remark.
Was it just her, or was he acting decisively less obnoxious than usual?
"You know, Flamethrower, you really reek."
Okay. Maybe not.
Nat glared at him, her hands perched as haughtily as possible on her hips. "Well, what do you expect? The last time you were dropped off alone in a city that you didn't know, I bet you smelled like a bed of bloody roses after a few days without a shower, didn't you?"
"I'm not sure what bloody roses smell like."
She glared some more. "I hate you."
He shrugged again, rolling his eyes and rubbing his hands together maniacally. He pointed to a small door on the other side of the bedroom. "Whatever. Just get your stinky ass in that bathroom and clean up. We're havin' important visitors later tonight."
Something froze within Nat's chest, and she felt peculiarly heavy. "Visitors? This late?"
A huge, sarcastic grin erupted on Pietro's face, and he clasped his hands together under his chin, pantomiming glee, before reaching out to pat the top of Nat's slightly dirty head. "Good job, Miss Keller! That's exactly what I said!"
Biting her lip to keep from whimpering, she stared at him with eyes that managed to be widened with fear and narrowed with infuriation at the same time. She tried to ignore the prospect of company, especially if they were who she thought they might be. "You haven't yet started working on making me hate you less, I see."
With a nod of his head, Pietro disappeared down the hall, saying over his shoulder, "Just get ready to see Mystique. She'll be here in half an hour or so, and she'll be so pleased to finally see you again." He paused, as if lost deep in thought, and glanced back at her. "As long as you don't still stink."
She slammed the door with enough force to awaken the White Out face, and stood alone on the inside, starting to feel slightly nauseated. This was undoubtedly going to be a very long night.