A/N: I'm damn sorry that this chapter took so long after promising that it wouldn't >.> This has been a rather busy year for me, what with applying for college, working on my comic Eternity, Inc. (), working on general school crap, etc. That and the fact that I kinda... got out of the Evo fandom for a few months. However, once again, I'm back! And I've got a nice long chapter for you! Well, longer than the previous chapters, anyway. I hope this is good stuff, as... I want it to be good stuff. See ya at the bottom!
"Pietro."
Am I dead?
When Pietro came to and felt the dull pain flaring out of his side, his body pretty much responded to the question with a firm "no".
"Pietro."
And there was that voice again. He supposed he should've just opened his eyes to see 1) where he was and 2) who was with him; but no. For the time being, he'd rather keep his head slumped down on his shoulder and his eyes closed. It felt almost like sleep, which was nice.
"Pieeeetro."
Slowly, more and more of his brain (along with the Pietro Maximoff version of common sense) was waking up and displacing the "let's lie down as if we were dead!" part of him. This part of him very quickly realized that the voice belonged to none other than Evan Daniels.
Evan. Evan-used-to-be-my-best-friend Daniels. Evan-stupid-X-Geek Daniels. Evan-guy-who's-sleeping-with-my-sister-while-John-isn't-busy-sleeping-with-her-dear-god-that-was-a-ba d-mental-picture Daniels. Evan-stabbed-me-when-I-wasn't-looking Daniels!
This was enough to motivate Pietro to open his eyes. Evan initially took it as a good, he's-not-dead sign.... until he saw the murderous look in those eyes.
"Uhh... I just wanted to-- are you okay?" Evan asked.
"Yeah, I guess, for a guy who just got stabbed," Pietro snapped defensively, which ended all attempts at speaking to each other for a moment. This was good, as it gave him time to assess the situation.
All right, first off, he'd been stabbed. However, judging by the lack of death and pain of the extremely unbearable variety, it probably wasn't too deep, and it probably didn't hit anything vital. He looked down at the bandage that was wrapped around his middle, noting that even though there was blood seeping through, the wound appeared to have been taken care of (poorly, but taken care of nonetheless), which he found to be rather odd. Good, but odd.
Secondly, he was chained up. His hands and feet were bound, preventing all hope of making a speedy escape. He glanced at Evan and noticed that the other boy was chained up, too; his arms tied behind his back (most likely to prevent any spikings).
Great. Well, at least the bastard can't stab me again.
All right, moving on. The third thing that came to his attention was that they were in a very tiny, very mobile room--
"Gah!"
--that just hit a pothole.
When it was all put together, things were not looking good for Pietro Maximoff.
And then, to make things so much better, Evan decided to break the silence and speak. This was just what Pietro needed, conversation with a guy he wouldn't choose to be stuck with in a million years. "Pietro, I just wanted to say..."
Hm. Sounds nervous. This means he's about to break into something heartfelt. Geez, why didn't those guys just shoot me? That would've been way more merciful than this! Hm, maybe if I squirm around a bit, I can reopen the wound and bleed to death before he breaks into the "I love you, man!"s, he thought with a hint of optimism.
"...that..."
"What, Daniels? Quit with the pauses already; you know I can't stand that," Pietro said in a casual voice, sounding as if he was completely disregarding the fact that they were probably being led to their inevitable deaths.
There was a thin frown, then Evan spat out, "I just wanted to tell you that it was an accident! And I'm sorry that this happened."
"Ohh, Daniels apologized! That just makes it all better! Now the scary men leading us to our death are gonna stop the car and let us out! And then somewhere an angel will get her wings!" the speed demon proclaimed in an insanely over-exaggerated voice. Pietro scoffed and, had his arms not been chained up, he would have crossed them over his chest in order to better illustrate his exasperation. "Can you tell me something useful right now? Like, where these guys are taking us and what's gonna happen?"
Evan shrugged, biting back a scathing retort. "They're taking us out of the state; that's all I know. I don't think they're going to kill us, though, 'cause they had the chance to do it earlier and didn't."
"They could be taking us somewhere to do it slowly," Pietro pointed out (not because he necessarily believed it, but because he just wanted to contradict Evan).
"Well, great. I get to slowly die by your side," Evan muttered, rolling his eyes. "Just the way I always wanted to go out."
"I'm touched," Pietro said dryly. "So, what're we gonna do, because I-- I..." The white-haired boy trailed off, as if he'd suddenly been struck by something. Evan tensed up, almost ready top ask him what was wrong, when Pietro cleared his throat and said in a forced "I'm strong like an Amazon" voice: "What happened to everybody else?"
Evan paused for a moment, then said, "I think they all got away. That fire was really intense, but I don't think it killed anybody."
"Oh."
"They'll come for us, man,"
"Yeah," Pietro said in a slightly distant voice. "Yeah, I'm sure they will."
"Oh," St. John said in a very simple, calm voice. "I'm gonna kill her."
Ohhh, great. Smart move, Todd! Tell the guy who loathes Amy about how she sold us out, then expect him not to get all homicidal about it! The younger boy wanted to smack himself-- or, better yet, smack St. John until the blonde forgot everything he just told him.
"Um... please tell me that 'kill' is Aussie slang for somethin' else," Todd said with a little grin, trying to ease some of the tension that had built up.
"Nope, it pretty much means kill," John shrugged. He caught the look on Todd's face and let out an exasperated sigh. "Look, you can't say that she doesn't deserve it. Because of her, Lance got all head-woundy, Wanda's cryn' in her room, I got shot, and-- oh yeah!-- Pietro could be dead!"
"But, she's-- Freddy really cares about her. I mean, I'm not dancin' with joy over what that bitch did, but c'mon! We don't even know if she did it!"
At that, St. John rolled his eyes. "Oh, please. Who else could'a done it?" he challenged, and then, with an uncharacteristic sneer on his face, added, "And Freddy can just sod off! He pro'lly let it slip to her in the first place!"
"Yeah, but... you aren't serious about the 'kill' part, are ya, John?"
The blonde shook his head and gave his teammate an almost guilty look. "You know that Mystique's gonna do somethin' about it. And if she doesn't, Mags will."
"Well, then we're not gonna tell her!" the scrawny teen retorted.
"Todd, now is not the time to go all X-Man on us! Why're you protectin' her after what happened?!"
With a somewhat remorseful expression on his face, Todd shrugged. "Because I can't do that to Freddy," he admitted softly. Catching the incredulous look on John's face, he laughed nervously. "Yeah, I know it sounds stupid, but he's one of my best friends. I couldn't hurt him like that, 'specially with the way things are right now."
"Oh, so let him continue datin' the psycho FoH bitch. Real nice, Todd," St. John said in a voice tinged with disgust. "'Cause that's not gonna hurt him." St. John paused, and his eyes met with Todd's for a moment. The next time he spoke, there was more disappointment in his voice than anything else. "Geez. How could ya do that to Pietro? Not to mention the rest of us."
The younger boy winced at those words. "Don't say that. It's not like... I..." Todd threw his arms up in the air in frustration. "Oh, forget it, man! I gotta get outta here and get some fresh air or somethin'."
With a frown, John watched Todd leave, then slowly got up out of the bed. At first, his legs were kinda shaky, but that wasn't anything he couldn't handle through the grand task of walking. He went over to the closet and pulled some clothes out, then, after tossing them on, made his way to Wanda's room.
The door was locked, of course, so he did the nice-guy thing and knocked. "Hey, luv, can I come in?"
At first, there wasn't any response. As he was about to knock again, Wanda's shaky voice came out from the other side of the door.
"I look horrible right now."
With a half-smile, he replied with, "Aw, sweetie, I've never seen ya look horrible before. It'll be a new experience for the both of us."
"That's not a good way to get me to open the door."
"Well, I try," he shrugged. "C'mon, luv. Please?"
"Johnny, you can't do anything to make this better right now, so please don't try..."
"Sorry to hear that. Could you at least open the door and make me feel better?" he tried.
There was another pause, then finally a click as the door was unlocked and Wanda opened it. Her cheeks were wet and a blotchy red, which wouldn't have been all that bad looking had she not been wearing mascara that day. Still, despite the bloodshot eyes, the streaks of makeup, and the red face, he didn't think she looked as horrible as she said. Of course, that could've just been "boyfriend bias" talking.
"You want comforting?" she asked in a flat voice.
"I lied," he said softly, with a smile. The door opened a bit further, which gave him the perfect opportunity to reach in and pull her into a tight hug. "I know you don't want me to try, but, hell, I'm stubborn."
"They took my brother away from me," she said, her voice small, as if it were caught in her throat. She pressed her tear-streaked face in the curve of his shoulder and let out a little sob. "This is the second time-- the second time-- that he's been stolen from me!"
"I know," St. John murmured in reply as he ran his fingers through the curls of her hair. "I know, Wanda."
"I can't stand it," she whispered. "It shouldn't have been him."
"We'll get him back, luv, I swear. I'll bet the boss lady is cookin' up a plan as we speak."
He could feel the way Wanda's head moved when she nodded, and that brought and end to that conversation. They stood there for a while, his arms wrapped around her slender body, her head resting on his shoulder, and after a few minutes, Wanda broke the silence.
"Thank you for being here... I think I love you," she said into his shirt, her voice muffled somewhat.
"Me too, Wanda. I think I love you, too."
Bobby Drake was confused. Last night was little more than a blur of hicks (y'know, those... New York type hicks...) with guns and a big free-for-all between the Brotherhood and X-Men that Bobby didn't catch half of, since he was too busy "fighting" Johnny to really pay attention to what was going on... until he noticed that odd trick that Johnny did in which he bled and fell down and nearly killed everybody with crazy fire. Then some other crazy crap happened, and once everything was over, the X-Men found themselves missing an Evan.
Okay, when he summed it up that way, last night seemed a lot less exciting than it really was. Still, it resulted in one missing team member, a few nasty little burns on the others, and little random injuries here and there. Although he was well aware of the necessity of jumping right back to action as soon as possible, Bobby, for some reason, wasn't really expecting to do it first thing the very next day.
And now, here he was, all dressed up and ready to go and... do something! What that something was, he didn't know. With Scott acting all agitated (more so than usual) and unclear with his answers to Bobby's questions, the boy couldn't help but feel all "what the hell?" as he and the other X-Men piled into the van (or the X-Van or whatever stupid name it had).
I wonder where we're going, Bobby thought as he leaned over to the side to try to stare out the windshield. It was kinda hard, what with Kitty and Kurt's heads being in his way, but he managed to catch glimpses of the street signs as they passed them. Hmm, he felt like he knew this route. Odd...
And then, Bobby blinked.
Waitasec. This is... hot damn... Johnnyplace! Bobbyboy gets to go to Johnnyplace to see Johnnyguy! Damn, I gotta stop thinking like that... especially when considering the current situation.
"Johnnyplace", also known as "the Brotherhood's house", came into view a few minutes later, and as the van parked, the X-Men hopped out and stood around rather awkwardly as Ororo helped the Professor out.
"So, um... like, why are we here?" Kitty finally asked, looking around at her settings as if expecting an ambush.
Before her question could be answered, the front door to the house opened, and a very stoic man with ashen white hair stood before them.
Wow, he looks kinda like an older, manlier Pietro... Bobby noted, then tilted his head and watched the rest of the Brotherhood nervously step out behind him. Well, at least the X-Men weren't the only ones feeling weird.
"Magnus," the Professor nodded.
Magnus? Bobby blinked. He'd heard of the guy before, thanks to the Professor's numerous warnings, but he'd never seen the man. For some reason, he looked nothing like Bobby'd been expecting.
"Hello, Charles," Magnus said smoothly in reply. "I'm afraid we are not meeting under the best of circumstances." He cast a somewhat disdainful look at the rest of the X-Men, then turned his gaze back to the Professor and said, "I was not aware that our meeting was to be open to children, Charles."
"What's going on concerns them as well," Xavier replied calmly.
"Very well. Let them stay with the Brotherhood while we discuss matters. After an agreement has been met, they may hear what they like," Magnus answered, casting another glance at the X-Men before he turned to go inside.
"I will return shortly," the Professor informed the collective teens, before he and Ororo followed Magnus inside, leaving the X-Men staring at the Brotherhood (who, at the moment, looked like veterans of a very nasty battle).
Wow, Alvers is looking horrible, and Tolensky doesn't look too well off himself, and Johnny's... got his arm around Wanda. Bobby arched an eyebrow in confusion as he watched the blonde and the auburn haired girl. Is he... whispering sweet nothings into her ear? I thought he was gonna break up-- okay, now they're kissing. Great.
Bobby Drake was not, by nature, a jealous guy. Ohhh, no. He was calm. He was... like, Zen or something. Total picture of enlightenment. Nope, that wasn't jealousy he was feeling at the very moment that Johnny kissed Wanda. It was... was... support! Burning, hateful support!
Luckily, Alvers interrupted Bobby's so-not-jealous thoughts and the general silence that had taken over with a delightful "This is all your fault."
"This is-- what?!" came Scott's angry, disbelieving reply.
The rock tumbler narrowed his eyes and said, "You heard me, Summers. If you assholes hadn't showed up, none of this would've happened!"
"Lance, calm down," St. John muttered. "You're still not feelin--"
"Oh, shut up, John!" Lance snarled as he kept his eyes on Scott. "You should be pissed off, too! You wouldn't have gotten shot if that guy wasn't distracting you!"
"Hey, whoa, now you're bringing me into this?!" Bobby cried, not quite sure what else to say. Hell, for all he knew, he could have very well been the reason that John had gotten shot. That thought didn't exactly bode well...
"You've got no right to blame us! It ain't our fault you jerks saw fit to go and attack those guys in th' first place!" Rogue snapped before Bobby had a chance to add anything in his own defense.
At that, Freddy stepped forward, clenching his fists, ready to attack at the first chance he got. Todd opened his mouth, about ready to egg his friend on, but before all hell could break loose, Scott said:
"Who cares whose fault it is? It's not just your problem anymore, and it's not ours. We're all in this together now."
"Bullshit," Lance snorted. "We're not in this together. You're here to get Daniels back, and it's only convenient for you guys that we just so happen to have the same problem."
"Convenient?! You think this is convenient for us?!"
With a sneer, Todd spoke up with, "You sure as hell wouldn't be here all ready to help with your 'we're in this together's if it was just Pietro missin'."
"Of course we would..." Kitty tried lamely, her voice soft and sullen.
"Don't lie," Wanda said in a harsh voice. "Don't you dare lie. Not when it comes to my brother."
That promptly shut everybody up. After a moment of nothing happening, Lance shook his head and said, "I'm going inside. No point in standing around out here." He threw a hateful look to the X-Men and added, "You guys might as well come in, too. Y'know, since we're 'in this together'."
Silently, Wanda pulled herself out of John's arm and went inside, and, hesitantly, the rest followed suit. Well, okay, not the rest. It was more like... everybody excluding Johnny and Bobby. Sure, it would've been a solid "everybody" heading inside; however, Bobby suddenly had one of those rare surges or assertiveness, and he promptly grabbed John's arm to keep the other boy from coming inside.
"Ow! Mind the arm, Bobby!"
Oops. Okay, so he grabbed the wrong arm. "Er, sorry," he muttered. "I just wanted to talk to you. Y'know, without everybody else around."
"Uhhh... you really think this is the best time for that?"
Bobby shrugged. "I know things have been angsty for, well, everybody, but I just can't listen to them blame each other anymore. I mean, it kinda loses its novelty after a while."
"Yeah, I guess it does," St. John replied with a hint of a smile. "So, whatcha wanna talk about?"
"Umm..."
"Well, you're bein' uncharacteristically hesitant."
Bobby offered him a smile in response to that comment and said, "It's because you're so hot that I don't know what to say."
"Oooh, flattery," the blonde laughed. "Seriously, though..."
"Seriously?" Bobby thought over that for a moment. Honestly, he didn't know what he wanted to talk to St. John about. You see, that moment of assertiveness lasted for only about a split second. In that split second, Bobby had come up with his plan: what he wanted to talk about, how he was going to go about it, how the end results would make everybody in the world happy and would end world hunger and yadda yadda yadda-- and then he forgot it all, which left him standing there holding onto Johnny's arm with a blank mind. And so, he tried again. "Seriously, I just wanna spend a couple minutes not thinking about the big bad mess that's going on," he said with a small sigh. That still wasn't quite what he wanted to say, but it was the best he could do considering that he forgot what he wanted to say.
"Hm. Not to burst your 'no bad mess' bubble or anything, but... how're you coping with the lack of Daniels?"
Bobby blinked. Ever since the events of last night, nobody asked him how the situation was affecting him. It was more like "got any wounds? No? Good, because we have to go regroup at the mansion" and then "up and at 'em, Bobby, we've got a big day!" Not that he blamed the Professor or Scott or, well, anybody for not asking him what he thought of the whole situation. After all, they had other things to deal with, such as battle plans or whatever. Still, it had just come to Bobby's realization that he hadn't coped yet. As far as he knew, nobody had.
In fact, I've been more concerned with thinking about Johnny than I have been with-- ah, shit. I'm an asshole; a real asshole! Hm With the way I just said that, I might as well be saying "Look, Gepetto, I'm a real boy!"
Damn it, there he went segueing away from the real issue at hand by thinking about stupid things like Pinnochio again.
"You know what, Johnny?" he said finally, somewhat uneasily. "I don't think I've been coping much at all. It's like reality is some place miles and miles away from me, and I'm still in some happy gumdrop land where it rains chocolate and everyone's singing and dancing while some really bad stuff's happening far away from me."
St. John nodded one of those "yeah, I think I understand, and if I don't, I'm gonna make like I do" nods, then put a hand on Bobby's shoulder, surprising the other boy with the unexpected contact. He gave Bobby an encouraging smile and said, "I'd hate it if it rained chocolate."
Bobby sighed solemnly. "Yeah, I know, I-- what?!"
"I mean, could you imagine the mess it'd make when it melted? And it wouldn't be all that edible, y'know, unless you liked licking melted chocolate off of the pavement. Plus, you'd have one helluvan ant problem."
"You know... you do have a point there, Johnny..." Bobby mused, half of him cursing the other half for being so happy during such a shitty time. It was like laughing in church or wearing Hawaiian shirts to a funeral or something. "How do you stay so unfazed during times like these? I mean... what keeps you from reacting so negatively like everybody else?"
St. John thought on that for a moment, pulling away from Bobby. "Repression," he grinned. "Loads of repression."
Lance Alvers was tense. Well, that was an understatement. He was beyond tense. He was at that point where if you poked him with a stick, he'd level the whole house. Luckily, nobody had any sticks on them, so the house was safe for the time being.
Initially, he'd tried his best to eavesdrop on the conversation Magneto, Baldie, Storm, and Mystique had been having, but it was no use, as the younger X-Men were already too busy crowding around the door in attempts to catch whatever the "big plans" were. That left him sitting on the arm of the couch as Freddy and Todd took the rest of the space.
"This is so stupid," Fred muttered under his breath, only loud enough for the other two to hear.
"Tell me about it," Todd nodded, casting a dirty look to the X-Geeks.
Lance took this moment to take a break from gnawing on the inside of his cheek before he managed to bite a hole through it-- well, not that that could actually happen. It'd take a whole lot of gnawing to bite through his cheek, and Lance wasn't up to it. Instead, he opted to rant quietly to his two remaining teammates (should've been four, but nooo, Johnny and Wanda just couldn't stick around and suffer with the rest of them, could they? Not that Lance was bitter...). "Is nothing sacred? It's bad enough that they're always around when we don't need 'em, but damn it, now they're in our house."
"Well, at least they ain't in our beds, yo," Todd offered.
Lance blinked. "That's... oddly comforting. Doesn't make the situation any better, but hey, at least they're not in my bed."
For the time being, Lance's tense mood had subsided. Unfortunately, "time being" wound up being "the next two seconds".
Cue German accent. "Kitty, why don't you phase your head in there and tell us what's going on?" End German accent.
"Like, no way! You're the one who can go all 'bamf!' and stuff, so why don't you take a quick peek at what's going on?"
Cue German accent yet again. "Do the words 'sulfur' and 'brimstone' mean anything to you?"
Yes, Lance's brain answered to, well, himself, as he obviously couldn't project his thoughts to Kurt. Unfortunately, those words mean you're around. Yeesh, why'd they have to start talking? I can almost stand them when they're silent.
Of course, "almost" was the operative word here. Naturally, they were never fully tolerable to Lance, and he figured that was the way it should be. The earth rotated around the sun, water was wet, and the X-Men were annoying little dweebs.
As two of the annoying little dweebs continued to yammer about going through the door or whatever, Lance tried to find his "happy place". Sadly, he was never one for meditation, so his attempts didn't even get him out reality's door.
"Hey, um..."
Lance looked up from the floor (which, he decided, was infinitely more interesting than staring at the X-Men), only to find Summers standing before him, his eyebrows arched in that "I'm trying to display a human emotion and, therefore, looking utterly confused" way. Lance was pretty used to seeing this look (well, naturally, since it was only one of Summers' three facial expressions), as Summers seemed to have it glued to his face whenever he was around Jean Grey.
"What the hell do you want, Summers?" Lance snapped. Judging by the look on his rival's face, it looked like he was either in for something heartfelt, or something long-winded. If Lance was lucky, it wouldn't be both.
"Look, I know that we've never been friends."
"Yeah. Nemesises is more like it," the rock tumbler grumbled,
"Nemeses," Summers corrected casually. He wasn't pompous about it or anything; it seemed more like an offhand remark, like the kind he'd make to one of his teammates. Still, it didn't make Lance any less annoyed with him. "But, you know, we're going to have to work with each other if we want to get Evan and Pietro back."
"Yeah, I kinda figured that out," Lance muttered. "You got any more nuggets of wisdom?"
"Listen, I just want to say that I'm sorry. I know we're never gonna be friends or anything-- I mean, I don't evenwant to be your friend-- but still, I'm sorry you lost Pietro."
Lance dragged his gaze back to the floor for a moment, not really in the mood to stare at Summers' sober face.
He just had to bring up Pietro, didn't he? Couldn't let me wallow in peace...
"Thanks for the sympathy," came his dry reply as he shoved thoughts of Pietro aside. He looked up at Scott again and sneered. "So, is this the part where I say 'Oh, hey man, I'm sorry for your loss, too. Evan was a great guy'? 'Cause if that's what you're expecting, don't hold your breath. No, wait, I take that back. Hold your breath, then maybe you'll suffocate, die, and be out of my life forever."
"There's somethin' I'd like to see," Todd snickered.
Scott's eyebrows drew together as an irritated look crossed his face. "I should've expected as much from you," he said coldly.
"Yeah, you should've. And yet here you are; talking."
Judging by the expressions on the rest of the X-Geeks' faces, a big argument was about to ensue. Luckily, it was averted as St. John and his new goody-good buddy strolled in from outside.
"Hey, guys," John's pal-- what was his name again?-- greeted. The smile on his face quickly died as he noted the tenseness in the room. "Uh... did we miss something?"
"Nah," Rogue shrugged. "Alvers was just bein' a dick. Nothin' new there."
St. John and his friend exchanged a look of "uh... okay", then went to their respective sides, John on the arm of the couch and Bobby against the wall with his teammates.
Once again, tense silence ensued. Lance tried to keep himself preoccupied by thinking about random inane things, such as "I wonder how many clean socks I have left" and "I bet the milk's gone bad". For the most part, he was able to refrain from thinking about Pietro.
He didn't know how much time had passed before the doors to the adjacent room were flung open, and Magneto and Co. stepped out with a bit of a flourish. No words were exchanged between the adults or the opposing teams; rather, Magneto and Cueball nodded to each other, and the wheelchair-bound man turned to his team and said, "Come. We've much to discuss back at the Institute."
Silently, the X-Men followed, and once the front door slammed shut, Magneto spoke.
"Cerebro has found no trace of Pietro's signature. For now, the Xavier and the X-Men are useless to us."
Immediately, the expressions on the boys' faces brightened.
"Great! No more makin' nice with the enemy!" Todd chirped, only to receive a stony look from Magneto.
"I said 'for now'. In due time, they will have their uses."
Lance managed a bored look. He'd practiced long and hard to achieve the perfect "I'm so bored with authority figures" facial expression, and it worked well to convey just how much of a "rebel" and "badass" he was. Many a teacher had been set off towards doubt and annoyance thanks to his patented Lance Alvers look. Of course, it was a commonly known fact that Magneto was, in fact, quite immune to such looks, and thus Lance's attempt at mini-rebellion was fruitless. Still, habit kept him looking like he couldn't care less about the current situation. "So," he said in a nonchalant manner. "What's the big plan, then? I mean, if we don't have that fancy locator of theirs to find Pietro, how the hell are we gonna know where to begin?"
"Through infiltration, Avalanche," Magneto answered simply. "Mystique shall garner information pertinent to the whereabouts of Pietro from the Friends of Humanity."
"But, they know we're after 'em," Freddy said, pulling one of those wacky "voice of reason" things that was so rare coming from him. "We don't even know where their real headquarters are!"
John looked up from the lighter he'd kept himself occupied with, looking more alert than he'd had the whole day. "We don't," he agreed with a little shrug. "You, however, know someone who does." There was a hint of a malicious undertone in his voice as he said this, which caused Todd to spring to his feet.
"No way, Johnny," he hissed, trying to keep his voice soft, despite the fact that it was pretty clear to everybody else in the room that he had something to hide.
"Oh, sod off, Todd!" the blonde snapped. He turned his attention to Mystique and Magneto and ignored the confused looks he was getting from his other teammates. "Freddy's chick is in with the good ol' FoH," he explained. "That's how they knew what we were up to that night, 'cause the big genius over there went an' blabbed it to her!"
"Damn it, I trusted you with that info!" came Todd's betrayed cry in as Fred's burst out with: "What the hell are you talking about?! Amy's got nothin' to do with those guys!"
"Wait wait wait... you're saying that Amy's responsible for this mess?" Lance asked incredulously.
"Yeah. We pro'lly woulda been able to just go in, destroy the bastards, and leave without any problem if it weren't for her warnin' her pals ahead of time," John said bitterly.
Now it was Fred's turn to stand up and defend his "lady". "Don't listen to him. You know how much he hates her; he'd say anything to pin the blame on her!"
"Yeah," the pyrokinetic drawled, his voice taking on a snide tone. "I hate her so much that I ran into a room filled with fully armed wackos, let myself get shot, and set the building ablaze while my friends were still inside, just so I could blame her afterwards."
Magneto shook his head, absorbing the information that was just presented to him. Naturally, he had never taken any interest in the Blob's social life (as he was quite sure that his brain would simply atrophy from prolonged exposure); however, this girl they had been speaking of sounded as though she could provide some information of use to the Brotherhood. He opened his mouth to command them to shut up and stop arguing; however, went unnoticed when the Blob cut him off before he could begin speaking. He shot a look to Mystique, who appeared as though she was growing bored with the exchanges between the boys, although a faint hint of wry amusement was evident in her expression.
"Geez, what's with you, Johnny?! You've had it in for Amy since Day One! Can't ya just accept the fact that you're not the only one in this group that can get a stable girlfriend?!"
Todd looked from John to Freddy, then directed his next comment to the Blob. "Who says his girlfriend's stable? The way I hear it, Johnny can't keep Wanda satisfied, so she's gotta run off lookin' to Daniels for what she wants."
Lance stood up quickly, and turned to face Todd. "Shut the hell up!" he snarled. "Wanda wouldn't do that kinda shit with Daniels, so don't drag her into this!" Normally, Lance wouldn't be so quick to jump to Wanda's defense (since the worst arguments involving Pietro's witchy sis usually sprang from trivial little things that everybody forgot about ten minutes later, anyway), but, well, at the moment it just seemed like the right thing to do. Besides, he was doing it more for Pietro's sake than for Wanda's.
"Oh, please, I see 'em at school! They're all over each other!"
At that last comment, St. John reached out and grabbed Todd (unfortunately, with his bad arm) by the front of the shirt. The younger mutant let out a little yelp as a fist was about to descend on his face, when the day was saved by Freddy, who grabbed hold of the pyrokinetic's hand and yanked him over to prime "hittin' range".
"Enough!!"
With that, the boys found themselves none too gently flung to opposite sides of the room; Lance and St. John to one, and Todd and Freddy to the other. Magneto and Mystique stood over them, and energy crackled from the elder man's hand. Normally, Magneto's face didn't betray any emotion; however, now, he was looking pretty pissed off. This didn't bode well for the Brotherhood boys.
"Oww... That hurt," St. John grumbled, sitting up.
"Good," Fred muttered from his side of the room.
"I do not have time for your petty squabbles!" Magneto roared. Actually, he didn't so much "roar" as "speak very loudly and forcibly", but that was irrelevant, as his words held the same meaning no matter how they were said. Essentially, he wasn't pleased, and he wasn't about to have the Brotherhood waste his time further. "Now," he continued, his voice lowered and far more calm than it had previously been, "explain the situation to me. Coherently."
The boys looked at each other, wondering which one was going to go ahead and explain. Naturally, Lance was out of the running, since he was with Magneto on the "what the hell is going on?" train. So, that left the others, none of whom were feeling all that ready to talk at the moment.
"Go ahead, Todd. Tell the boss-man what happened," John said in a seemingly pleasant tone of voice.
The younger boy shot him a dirty look, then sighed. "Fine. I saw Amy in the FoH crowd when everything started gettin' shitty." He looked down at his hands, as he wringed them absently. "And... I think she was in on it. I mean, I'm pretty sure she was."
Fred shook his head in disbelief. "No... She couldn't be-- I mean, she wouldn't."
Magneto glowered at Fred and said, "What have you told this girl?"
"Nothing!" There was a pause. "Okay, maybe-- maybe-- I told her some stuff about what we're all about-- I just thought she was interested in what I was doing, y'know..." he trailed off guiltily.
"So, this is all your fault?!" Lance stood up and took some steps towards Freddy, only to find himself stopped midway by Magneto's powers. "You fucking idiot! How could you do something so goddamn stupid?! Pietro's gone because of you!"
"My sentiments exactly," St. John said, rolling his eyes.
Magneto turned his attention to Mystique, who was watching the events go by, and said, "Mystique, take Pyro, find the girl, and bring her here."
"Gladly," she said dryly. She took a few striding steps over to the Australian and held a hand out to him, pulling him up as he accepted.
"Hey, why does he have ta go?" Todd spoke up, despite the lack of shock. Of course Magneto would want stupid perfect St. John Allerdyce to go on the impromptu mission. It just figured that the blonde always got special treatment. Bitterness aside, Todd normally wouldn't have cared about being forced on short missions; however, it just seemed to add insult to, well, more insult to have John go and get Freddy's girlfriend. And besides, why did Mystique hold her hand out to John? She never did that to him when he was on the ground.
"Because, Toad," Magneto said, his voice filled with contempt for the young mutant, "I trust him not to let his personal feelings get in the way, as they would with you." While the comment was directed at Todd, it was clear that the "you" was pretty universally directed towards all of the Brotherhood boys.
"What're you gonna do to her?" Freddy asked, trying to keep his cool despite the anger that was very quickly rising in him. Fear managed to keep him in check for the time being.
"I am simply going to question her, Blob. You needn't fear for her safety," Magneto answered, a faint trace of a smile apparent on his face.
"We'll get right to it," Mystique said smoothly, and, as St. John shot a rather unpleasant grin to Freddy and Todd, the two left the house.
As the front door slammed shut, silence filled the house.
A/N: I apologize for the lack of... most of the characters not doing anything in this chapter. Sure, the X-Men should have more to say, and sure, it's uncharacteristic for bossy ol' Mystique to stand around for pages not saying anything; however, I was trying to limit the people in the conversations so that it'd flow easier. Hope it worked. Besides, Mystique's got her own things to think about right now... >:D
Stay tuned for the next chapter, where there's a little bit o' violence, and where the big plot may rear its nasty head!