A/N: Uhhh... well, damn. After a year of idleness, TD is back! Hopefully, I still have readers... I would like to apologize muchly for taking so long to get this chapter out. It's just been having major... issues. Originally, there was going to be a very big action sequence... but that was what was keeping me back for a year (because I kinda... can't write action). So! You're stuck with the action-free chapter (the same events happen, I just don't... go into a helluva a lot of detail over the fighting part)
Again, I want to say SORRY for not getting this out sooner! This has been a bad year for me as far as writing goes. And thus, this chapter is dedicated to everybody who ever nagged me to get this thing done (you all know who you are :D). More author notes at the bottom (mostly to clarify this one line)!
Ohh, by the way, after all those chapters of fluff, this is the one where the real plot comes in.... Enjoy :D
"Mmm, there. Right there," Pietro purred lazily as the brunette's lips worked their way down the slim body. He squirmed slightly as Lance's tongue flickered lazily over his right nipple, and his "there"s became little more than mumbled gibberish.
Lance grinned, then stopped as a feeling of dread abruptly came over him.
"Huh?" Pietro sat up, crossing his arms over his chest indignantly. "Why'd you stop?"
"Um..."
"What?" the younger boy demanded impatiently.
"There's something we have to do today, isn't there?"
Pietro rolled his eyes, then quickly went through his mental calendar. After a very brief moment of silence he said, "Nope!" He hooked his arms around the other boy's neck and pulled him closer. "Now finish what you started, or I'll tie you to the bed and tease you mercilessly."
"Heh. That doesn't sound half bad," Lance murmured, slipping his arm around the ashen-haired teen's middle. "Sorry for killing the moment. I just had this weird feeling that we were forgetting something."
"Goodie. Now make it up to me!"
"You're demanding today." Lance smirked, and aggressively crushed lips against Pietro's as his fingers tangled themselves in the ivory tresses. Yummy. He tastes like cinnamon Altoids, he mused. Not much of a surprise there, seeing as how the speed demon had an addiction to those things (he claimed that they made him feel more "awake"-- as if he needed that).
*Creeeak*
Hm. Pietro's never creaked before.
Lance blinked, then noticed the look on Pietro's face and abruptly pulled away. It was now his turn to say, "What?" in that impatient voice.
"Todd!"
He turned to face the doorway, only to find the Toad standing there in his "battle suit", looking rather... horrified.
Hey! What's so horrific about me and Pietro naked in a bed together-- ohh.
"I-- you-- uh-- yo?" the youngest Brotherhood member squeaked, his eyes widened to saucer-like proportions.
"Oi, Todd, what's th' bloody hold up?" St. John called from down the hall.
Oh crap. Instinctively, he yanked the sheets up enough to cover as much of his and Pietro's bodies as possible. Damn prying eyes! Only I can look at naked Pietro!
Todd attempted to stammer something in reply to John, but all that came out was another squeak. With a sigh, the blonde came down the hall and pushed past the smaller boy so that he could see just what was so bad.
Lance stared at his buddy, wondering why the Aussie was dressed in his "Pyro" suit-- well, partly dressed. He had the pants part on, but the top merely hung around his waist, leaving his bare chest for all the world to see.
Hot damn, he's... hot.
Lance Alvers was the master of the English language.
"Geez, can't you guys give it a rest?" St. John grumbled, pulling the costume up so that he could slip one of his arms into the sleeves. "Y'know, boss lady's gonna be here in a couple of minutes, and I doubt she's gonna wanna see the two of you like that."
"Why would she-- oh, shit!" Without thinking, Lance jumped out of bed, causing Todd to emit a yelp as he caught an eyeful of the brunette's "naughty bits". "Shit, shit, shit! I totally forgot!"
As Lance hopped around trying to get his costume on, Pietro decided now would be the best time to push the other two out of the room and shut the door when the three of them were alone in the hall.
"I'm uh, gonna go downstairs, yo," Todd said with a cough, his eyes avoiding Pietro entirely.
Hard blue eyes watched Todd descend the stairs, then turned to St. John with an accusatory look. "How much of Lance did you see?"
"Relax, it's nothin' I haven't seen before, Pietro. But-- uhm... you..." The blonde left his comment at that, deciding it was safer to trail off with an innocent whistle as he tried to keep his gaze from traveling downward.
"What?"
"Dude, I can see your... ahem... everything."
"Huh? Oh crap!" And with that, the speedster was gone, off to change into his ever so fruity Quicksilver costume.
Lance wanted to hit himself. How could he have forgotten something as important as this?! Luckily, Mystique was running a few minutes late, which gave him more than enough time to get ready for what could possibly be the Brotherhood's most important assignment ever: the elimination of the Friends of Humanity.
Well, that's what they were hoping to accomplish, anyway. The chances of totally destroying the organization were slim to none, but as long as they caused significant damage, then Mystique and Mags would be satisfied (and if not that, at least they'd lay off the verbal abuse for a while).
As usual, Magneto wouldn't be accompanying them, but hey, at least they had Mystique and her big guns to help them not die!
Pffth, like she'd really care if any of us bit the dust.
Well, not true. Mystique would care if Wanda died on duty, but that's only because she had some weird "girl power" attitude that made her give a rat's ass over what few girls they had (and by "few", he meant... one, unless you were counting Destiny and the one other girl they picked up on their journeys, but neither of them were very active in the Brotherhood) more than the boys. And she'd probably care if something horrible happened to St. John, thanks to some bizarre bond the two had.
Okay, so here we are. The Brotherhood of Mutants, off on a suicide mission. Well, she never called it a "suicide" mission, but c'mon. All of us versus a bunch of hicks with enough guns to take over a small country.
For a brief moment, Lance wondered if this would be the end of the Brotherhood. Mystique had made it very clear that 1) there was always a chance that not everybody would make it out alive and 2) she couldn't care less if some of them died (by "some", though, he was sure she really meant Todd). Of course, it was all very easy for her not to be as worried as the Brotherhood boys were, seeing as how she was packing some big guns and they... were left with their wits. Oh, and their mutant powers. Couldn't forget about those, since they were the reason the Brotherhood was even around in the first place.
"D'you think he's okay in there?" Freddy asked softly, as if he thought the FoH may somehow hear him if he spoke any louder. Considering that the Brotherhood was currently sitting in a van across the street from the "abandoned" building where the meeting was being held, the chances them actually being overheard were slim to none... that is, unless one of the guys they were supposed to fight turned out to be some kinda mutant.
Todd gave the large boy a reassuring grin and said, "'Course he is, yo. If somethin' happened, he woulda yelled into that thing we wired him with instead of--"
Just then, the Toad was interrupted by a voice singing fairly off key through the speaker Mystique had set up in the van. "C'mon, people now, smile on your brother--"
"Pyro, shut up!" Mystique hissed in response through the wire. "Don't say anything until you're ready to attack."
"Right-o, boss."
With a sigh, Lance murmured under his breath. "He's gonna get himself killed."
"Yep," Pietro affirmed. "And then the FoH is gonna blow us up and we're all gonna die."
The brunette nodded. "And then we're gonna go to hell and beat the crap out of him there."
"Uhh-- guys?" came St. John's now nervous voice over the wire.
"What?" Mystique answered impatiently.
"They seem to be circling around me and uhh... help?" There was a brief crackling from St. John's end, and when the Lance looked out the window, he could see the glow of a rather intense fire through the warehouse windows.
"Well, there's our cue," Pietro said, and promptly hopped out of the van, followed by the others.
"This should be a piece of cake," Freddy said with a grin as the boys set out to attack the warehouse.
Lance was staring at the wall, his mind consumed with a certain numbness that left him seemingly catatonic. Of course, his body didn't feel nearly as dead as his mind-- quite the opposite, in fact. His head was throbbing worse than any hangover, his body was sore, and there was a mild burn on his arm courtesy of Johnny's fire getting a wee bit out of control (and by "wee bit" he meant "became a raging inferno that engulfed the entire warehouse in flames"). All of this made him painfully aware that he was still alive.
"He gonna say anything?" Todd asked in a hush-hush voice as he and Freddy stood by their team leader's bed.
"Maybe the blast messed up his head," the larger boy suggested hopelessly. The two stared at Lance, trying to hide their own mild fear from each other. "Or maybe he's just... uh, really tired."
"He's been sleepin' for four hours, man. 'Sides, if he was still tired, his eyes would be closed!"
"Sometimes I don't close my eyes when I'm tired..." Freddy murmured indignantly in his own defense.
Todd opened his mouth to retort, but stopped as Lance rolled onto his side and looked up at his teammates.
"I'm fine," Lance said abruptly, his voice dry and harsh. "Where's Pietro?"
"One-track mind as always, huh, Lance?" Todd forced with a wry smile. He intended to sound teasing, but the words only came out a hollow imitation of his usual easygoing tone.
"Where's Pietro."
Now it was less of a question and more of a demand. Todd sighed and looked to Freddy for help, but the older boy simply shrugged his shoulders with a helpless expression on his face. "I'm gonna check up on John now..." he said in a low voice, turning heel to exit the room.
Lance stared after him, a frown cutting into his features. "Tell me, damn it-- ow!" He winced and relaxed visibly, closing his eyes. If Todd wanted to play that way, fine. He'd just rest up and grab the boy later. Personally, he was too tired at the moment to get up and chase the kid around (and besides, his body was in no mood to do much of... anything at the moment). He turned his head to glare at Freddy and said, "So, are you gonna make like Todd and not tell me?"
"I-- uh-- umm..." Freddy stammered, trying to think of what to say. "You see, it's kinda complicated and--"
"Fucking tell me already!" Lance snapped just as Freddy blurted out with: "Pietro's gone."
Lance's skin was looking an unhealthy color to begin with, so when his face went another shade towards gray, Freddy found himself wondering if he was about to keel over and die any second. He bit his lip nervously, then said, "Lance, are you--"
"How did it happen?"
"I dunno..."
"Don't fucking lie to me. Just tell me!" Lance snarled, his voice rising considerably.
"He..." Freddy stopped, trying to look for the right words. "Look, when Johnny was shot, the fire went out of control--"
"I know that part already."
"Yeah, well, after that, when you went slamming into the wall, Pietro got distracted and was hit with one of Daniels' spikes. Then part of the building collapsed around him and Daniels and-- look, Mystique told us we had to leave before we all died in the fire. So we grabbed you and Johnny and split. Last I saw, the fire died when Johnny passed out, and those Friends of Humanity guys were surrounding the spot where Pietro was trapped," Freddy said, his voice bearing a small trace of guilt. "We just... we couldn't get to him. Even the X-Men had to run away."
"Bull shit! You said that the fire stopped when you were running; you should've gone back then to get him!"
"They still had their guns! It woulda been suicide!" Freddy snapped, finally losing his patience with Lance. Hell, with the way Lance was talking, he made it sound as if they purposely left Pietro behind. He sighed, then added in a softer voice, "Man, it's like they knew we were coming."
Lance stared at Freddy for a moment with hard eyes, then shut them and allowed his body to relax against the bed. "Look, Freddy, I'm kinda tired right now. Got a lot on my mind. Can you go away?"
"Uh... sure, man," the larger boy said with uncertainty, and carefully walked out of the room, making sure to close the door softly behind him.
As soon as he heard the door shut, Lance opened his eyes and slowly sat up with a wince. He stared ahead at the darkness, then sighed and brought a hand to his forehead, where it lingered before slowly moving up and through his hair. "God," he murmured under his breath.
St. John stirred and, with a sleepy groan, rolled over and covered his head with the blanket. Then he fell back to sleep. Then the process repeated itself. It'd been going on this way for quite some time now and, frankly, Todd was beginning to lose patience. He was about ready to tear the blankets off of Johnny and kick him out of the bed. In fact, had he not known that St. John was currently nude (damn him for going commando under his uniform) under those sheets, he would have indeed done just that.
He supposed he should've cut the guy some slack for having been shot and all. Of course, the wound wasn't all that bad, having gotten him in the upper arm rather than somewhere bad like... the head. Then again, the bullet had some kinda wacky drug in it that made St. John go a little nuts with the fire before passing out, so that made up for the lack of fatal wounds.
"Todd?" the exhausted voice asked suddenly. Due to the sleepiness ingrained in his voice, St. John sounded oddly... young... and vulnerable.
"Yeah?"
"I'd hate t' wake up t' your face ev'ry day."
Must... not... kill...
"Gee, Johnny, that must be the drugs talking!" Todd said in a strained "I'm so kind and forgiving!" voice, forcing a smile to his face.
"Why'm I naked with you 'ere?"
"You don't remember anything?"
"Well... my arm hurts. A lot," St. John said in reply, looking down at his bandaged upper arm.
"Yeah, getting shot does that to ya," the other boy retorted dryly. "But you don't remember nothin' else?"
"Ohh, I remember quite a bit... up until the gettin' shot part. Speakin' of which... wasn't our attack s'posed to be, y'know, a surprise?"
"Yeah; actually, that's what I wanted to ask you about. Did you... see anybody that looked, I dunno... familiar?"
"Todd, b'sides you guys an' the X-Geeks, I didn't exactly see anybody," St. John said with a sigh, then mumbled, "It was just a bunch of backs of heads and blurs."
Todd nodded, then looked down at his shoes nervously. He seemed to be trying to find the right thing to say, so it took him a moment. Finally, he said, "Fuck." Plain and simple. And then, in a low, almost urgent voice, "John, you're never gonna believe who I saw there."
"Yeah?"
Todd looked around, almost guiltily, and swallowed. "I saw--"
"Hey guys."
The skinny teen jumped and turned around abruptly, only to find Freddy standing in the doorway. "Fuck, man, ya almost gave me a heart attack, yo!"
"Hey, it's not my fault you've been so jumpy since we got home," Freddy retorted defensively.
"Ain't you s'posed to be with Lance?" Todd asked, arching an eyebrow at Freddy.
"I was. He told me he wanted to get some rest. Got a lot on his mind, y'know?"
Todd nodded. "Yeah. He's got a lot to take in," he said softly.
St. John blinked, more confused now than he ever was. "Uh... Lance? What happened t' Lance?"
Freddy and Todd exchanged glances, not sure which one of them should explain the whole story to St. John. It took a second, but Freddy crossed his arms over his chest and said, "I've done enough talking today, man. You do it."
The younger boy scowled, but turned to the bedridden mutant nonetheless. "All right, so you know how the X-Geeks showed up a couple minutes before you got shot?"
"Yeah. Me 'n Iceman went against each other, then that bloody blue guy had to go an' distract me. I bet that's why I got shot..." the blonde muttered, taking an angry glance at his arm.
Todd shrugged. "Whatever happened to you, I didn't see. But uh... yeah, after you got shot, Lance was all pissed 'cause he didn't know you were shot, he just thought one of Cueball's jerks hurt you. So, he... uh..."
"He tried to avalanche Summers. Not the ground beneath him, but... uh, him," Freddy put in bluntly.
The pyrokinetic arched an eyebrow, not sure what to make of that. "Oh. How'd that go?"
"Uhh... well... we learned something new about his powers: they don't work on people. They kinda... go shooting right back at him. So... he... went flying into a wall," Todd concluded with a wince. "But he's okay now!" he added hastily upon catching the look on St. John's face.
The blonde nodded, taking this information in. "So... What about Wanda? And Pietro?"
Again, Freddy and Todd exchanged glances, this time looking more fidgety than before. "Wanda won't come out of her room..." the large mutant murmured. "Look, um... Pietro's gone."
"Gone... like in the dead sense, or in the 'he ran away in the heat of battle' sense?"
"Gone like... we don't know," Freddy said helplessly with a shrug.
Todd looked from one boy to the other, then scowled. "He ain't dead! We just gotta figure out what happened to him..."
"And how the hell are we gonna do that? None of us even know what happened in there! I mean, just look! Our big 'secret' attack turned out to not be so secret, then those bloody X-Freaks show up an' attack 'cause they think we're terrorizing the poor li'l civilians. And we lose one of our own, two of us get injured, and you guys are the last ones standing!" St. John shook his head. "This is just... How the hell did this all happen?"
"Somebody musta tipped them off," Todd muttered. "I mean, that's the only way they coulda known we were comin'. Of course, your setting the place on fire didn't help us any."
"Huh?"
"After you were shot. Man, you almost torched the place with everybody inside!"
"Ohhh," John mused, as if he just remembered. "Yeah. Guess I was under the influence. D'you think whatever was in the bullet is gonna have a lastin' effect on me?"
"Hope not."
"It's a good thing they didn't get my writin' arm..."
Todd rolled his eyes. "Yeah, real good thing, yo," he agreed sarcastically.
Freddy, meanwhile, had been listening to the two. The realization of what had just happened hadn't completely sunk in yet. Oh, sure, he knew very well that Pietro had been stabbed and trapped; that Lance had suffered a mild concussion; that St. John was shot in the arm by a bullet that had something in it. He knew that they had met up with a group of anti-mutant jerkoffs who were fully prepared to deal with the Brotherhood, and that the X-Men probably saw St. John's mutant sig on that stupid computer of theirs and decided that the Brotherhood was up to no good, but none of it seemed wholly real to him. It was like... he was expecting Pietro to burst into the room any minute, the same old cocky smirk on his face. Any second now...
Everybody was in the house except for Pietro. On most nights, this wouldn't be a big deal. Pietro liked staying out late-- hell, they all did. He supposed it didn't really matter on those nights when no one was home because he knew they would be coming back later, be it that night, the next day... hell, even a week later. However long it took, as long as there was that certainty, it was okay.
It was funny how empty the house felt when that certainty was taken away.
Freddy needed something stable, something safe before the realization could fully sink in. When the other two were finished with the explanations, he said, "I'm gonna-- I'm gonna call Amy now."
"Don't," Todd said suddenly in a voice that showed more backbone than usual, much to Freddy's surprise. "Don't you tell her anything about tonight."
"Why the hell not?"
The scrawny teen looked conflicted for a second, but quickly put his rarely used "resolve face" on. "Because. She ain't one of us, Freddy. What happened tonight... What happened was strictly a Brotherhood thing, okay?"
"Fine," the other boy said somewhat grudgingly, then walked out of the room to go to his own. As soon as he was gone, Todd turned to St. John again and said in that same urgent voice as before:
"John, I saw her there."
"What?"
"When we ran in to attack the FoH... In the crowd, I saw Amy there. She knew what was goin' on."
A/N: Well, I did promise pain for this chapter! I don't know if I put in as much as I should have, though. Was the ending a surprise to anybody? Prolly not :D
And now, a comment on the part where Freddy talks about guns and how it would be suicide to go against the FoH when they're all packin' heat (so to speak). I would just like to say, before I get any corrections, that YES, I do know that he's pretty much bullet proof, what with having impenetrable skin and all that. However, as far as the context of this fic goes, he never said it was suicidal for him. The way it was going, if he had to go get Pietro, he would've had to drop Lance in the middle of the action and run after Pietro, which prolly would've resulted in Lance getting shot. That, or Todd and Wanda would have to drop Johnny to get Pietro, during which they'd promptly be shot :D Plus, as far as he goes in this fic, he's never been shot before. He doesn't exactly want to test out the limits of his mutation in the given situation ;D
Anyway! I've sorta reached the point of no return in this chapter, which means that I musssst write the next one.
Ohh yeah, and a note to any new readers: this fic was started before Season 2, so uhh... Wanda in this fic is quite different from Evo Wanda. For instance, Evo Wanda could have (if she didn't hate him) saved Pietro and blown up the FoH single handedly, most likely. This Wanda's not that powerful, sooo... yeah!
Stay tuned for the next chapter!