AN: Here we have chapter four, with a big honkin' warning on angst and a rating change. I've tweaked everything for accuracy (found my tapes) and I've started including a quote from a song at the beginning of each chapter. Think of it as a recommended soundtrack. And so it continues:
"You want to wash away what ails your heart, you stand by the waterfront never sure of your choice. This is a sinking road that we all travel on…" –Black Heart Procession 'Waterfront (the Sinking Road)'
"The number you have dialed is not in service. Please hang up and try your call again. If you need assistance, please hang up and dial zero for the operator."
Pietro hung up and dialed zero and the bile rose in his throat as he tried his damnedest not to let panic overtake him.
The first operator he reached hung up on him the moment he said he was trying to reach the Bayville Institute. So did the second, and the third, and the fourth, after being screamed at by a terrified Pietro. There was nothing he could do but try again.
"Operator."
"Please don't hang up. I'm trying to reach someone at the Bayville Institute-"
"Are you another reporter? God, why won't you just leave those poor people alone, haven't they been through enough?" the operator snapped at him. Pietro drew a ragged breath.
"I'm not a reporter, I swear, my girlfriend-"
"Oh… god… I'm sorry, I…" the operator broke off. "There've just been so many reporters…"
"Why can't I get through?"
The operator took a deep breath. If she'd had to look Pietro in the face, she probably wouldn't have been able to tell him.
"There was an explosion at the Bayville Institute. The whole place was destroyed. They don't know if anyone was inside. I'm so-"
Pietro hung up, feeling like someone had slit his legs open and let all the blood drop out of his body. Rogue had been captured. The X-Men couldn't have rescued her that fast. Sure they could have. They wouldn't go back there, not with the risk of being followed by a sentinel. They always go back there, where else did they have to go?
He hit the ground running when he got out of the building, ready to burn his shoes off in order to get back to Massachusetts, and got about three steps before coming face to face with Remy LeBeau.
"Goin' somewhere, mon ami?"
"Move," Quicksilver snarled, balling his fists. Gambit rocked back on his heels and smiled an easy grin.
"Your pere want Gambit should keep an' eye on you, mon frere. Gambit can't do that if you movin' faster than a speedin' bullet."
Gambit charged up the jack of diamonds just slightly, so it burned instead of exploded, and touched it gently to the tip of the cigarette in his mouth.
"You not here when he call, your old man be sorely disappointed."
Gambit let the card fall from his fingers; it crumbled to white ash, the wind blowing it gently apart before it hit the ground.
"I've been disappointing Magneto since before I learned to walk. One of these days he's gonna have to get used to it. Now move."
"What's your hurry? You just got here, take off your jacket, stay a while. We go to a bar, Gambit buy you a drink."
"Gambit'll get the fuck out of my way, and stay the hell away from me unless we're on a damned mission," Quicksilver's irate tirade was cut short as his cell rang. "Christ what now?"
He withdrew the cell phone from his pocket and answered.
"What?"
"Get the hell back in that apartment," Magneto growled.
"What the hell did you do, steal Cerebro from the Institute before you blew the place up?" Pietro shouted, his voice cracking under the stress of his situation.
"I borrowed a spy satellite actually."
"How many casualties?" Pietro asked.
"I have no idea," Magneto replied, his indifference causing Pietro's stomach to twist itself into shapes for which there were no names. "A few of Xavier's were captured, a few of Mystique's."
"And in the Institute?"
Magneto paused.
"Everyone made it out, from what I hear. Though you've never been one to concern yourself with the numbers. Get back inside, and do not go anywhere. I won't warn you again."
That was the real trouble with cell phones, you couldn't slam the receiver down in anger. Pietro hung up and glared at Gambit, whose relaxed grin did not reach his red and black eyes.
"There's a bar down the street. I still buy you a drink."
"Stay away from me," Pietro hissed, and in a blur was gone back up the stairs.
Gambit frowned, as his phone rang again.
"Well?"
"Your boy the angry type, Magneto?"
"Hardly. He has the emotional depth of a house cat."
"That be one angry little pussy cat then, boss. There's somethin' weighin' heavy on that boy's mind."
"Indeed. He tried to call Xavier's institute."
"How you know that?"
"I tapped his phone, you fool. Ah, no wonder he was as so interested," Magneto said. Gambit could vaguely hear voices in the background, a recording of some sort. "He told the operator something about having a girlfriend there. Very interesting. So the boy is seeing one of Xavier's little wenches."
"Lemme guess. Gambit go back to Bayville to find out which one."
"Not yet. Keep an eye on Pietro for a couple more days, make sure he doesn't run. They'll be trying to get back the captured ones, they'll need weeks to regroup. Give it a few days."
"Understood."
Rogue had never been so relieved as she was when she ran up the ramp of the Velocity. They'd made it out, all of them, without being dissected or executed or tortured. She supposed that was all on the agenda for day two. As she looked over at Lance's angry face, Storm struggling to get them out alive, she kept remembering Pietro's words, before he'd let them walk right into his father's trap.
I need you to believe in me and just keep doing it and don't give up on me. Be angry with me, be furious with me, hell, hate me if you want to but believe in me and it'll all come out okay in the end. I think.
Kitty moved to the seat next to her even as the helicopter shook and swerved, and squeezed her gloved hand. Rogue took her by surprise as she leaned over, put her head on Kitty's shoulder, and cried.