Forbidden Territory
By Port
Please see disclaimer and author's notes in Part 1. Comments and criticism are very welcome. Please enjoy reading!
Part 2
Times like that were nice, but it wasn't enough for Domino. She wanted more than dreams and thwarted desire; she wanted Nate, body and soul. The psilink teased her, always offering, never delivering. His company in the Little Old Folks Room (and when the hell had she started calling it that?) taunted her and made her weak and angry at the same time. Even the kids played a part in it.
They were expectant. She was mother, he was father. So why didn't mother and father get together? Nothing could be more natural, right? One evening, she heard them talking in the larger living room. She'd been passing by the half-closed door when she heard her name from within. Devoid of guilt, she stood out of their eyeshot to listen.
Tabitha: "—all the time they spend together in there, you think they're innocently cleaning their guns?"
Bobby, lasciviously: "The way you and Sam do?"
Shatterstar: "Tabitha is not permitted near the weapons closet. Not anymore."
Tabitha: "Don't bring that up!"
Rictor: "Crazy chica."
Bobby: "Not everybody's a fucking rabbit, like you and Sammy, Boomer."
Theresa: "All of ye, stop dog-piling on Tabitha. Everybody has accidents."
The wording amid the two lines of conversation jolted Domino, and she was about to go storming into the room to drag Tabitha out by the ear, then go looking for Sam, before she realized Terry meant the laser gun accident. Old news.
Rictor: "Crazy chica."
'Star: "If you have been cleaning guns with Samuel, Tabitha, I will have to report it to Cable."
Tabitha: "It's a metaphor, Shatty! Get a life! I wouldn't go near one of those metal death traps again if you paid me."
A short silence.
Bobby: "No one's gonna pay you, girl. You don't know shit about guns."
Rictor: "Fucking crazy chica!"
Somebody cleared her throat. Terry. "Anyway," she said pointedly, "what were we talking about before?"
'Star: "We were discussing the odds of Cable and Domino... how is it said in this world?"
Rictor: "Hooking up."
Domino almost gagged.
Tabitha: "They want each other so bad."
Terry, wistfully: "You can see it in their eyes."
Bobby: "I believe we had it at four-to-one against."
That bad? She knew they had a long way to go, but four-to-one? Come on....
'Star: "On my world—" everybody groaned, Domino mentally "—when a man and woman want to hook up, they tell each other. Especially if they are warriors. Why can Cable and Domino not do that?"
A lull in the conversation. Domino wondered. If she happened to get lucky (well, luckier) which of her protégés would win the bet?
Tabitha: "It's not that easy, 'Star. You see, I hate to break this to you, but Nate's a Class-A jerk. Dom could do much better."
Terry: "That's not it at all, Tabby! It's more serious than that." She cut herself off.
Bobby: "You're talking about the look-alike thing."
Ah, the look-alike thing. Domino hadn't given much thought to that lately. It had been two years, after all. Life went on. She'd resolved her issues with Vanessa. It still stung, of course, that Nate hadn't recognized the impostor. That Nate hadn't bothered to rev-up his psionic talents until well after her rescue. That Nate had hooked up with—
Yeah, stung. It probably would forever. But it also gave her hope. After all, he had thought Vanessa was Domino, right? He had, he believed at the time, said 'I love you' to Domino and shared Domino's bed. Or maybe Domino had shared his bed. She didn't know how he felt about those kinds of logistics.
She just didn't understand. If he could commit to her then, why not now?
Then it connected. His guilt. Her kidnapping. Was that it? If so, then he'd developed a full-blown complex by this point. If they waited much longer, he'd never get over it. He'd never touch her. He'd never say to her what he had to Vanessa.
Good God! They could even drift apart, and he might look for companionship with other women. Then she'd have to kill him. Or try to. She was strong, but she didn't know if she was physically capable of that. Either way, it meant the end. No more nights on the couch in the old folks' room. No more stupid brunches. No more psychic conversations when they were bored of talking to other people or too cheap to use a phone. No more hope when she felt the longing in her skin and in the edges of her brain.
That decided her. She liked getting turned on by him, damn it! He was sexy, and she wanted him, and she wanted him to want her. Beyond the physical, too. What man existed but Cable?
She was decided, but the timing was unlucky. That night, X-Force went on a training mission. She spent the time in the dark with half the kids, playing a super-powered game of capture the flag against Cable and the remaining kids. Her team won. But Cable (ever a sore loser, in her opinion) yelled at everyone as he critiqued their performance, and nobody went to bed that morning happy. Well, except maybe Tabitha and Sam. Certainly not Domino and Cable.
The following night, the Friends of Humanity bombed a free Legacy clinic in the city. X-Force went off to investigate, found a few leads, but came home in poor spirits. A few rows of civilians in body bags could do that to you. Domino spent the night in the kids' living room with Tabitha, Sam, Terry and Bobby, who seemed to need her company. The others had gone off by themselves, and Terry had only come in after Jimmy had calmed down. A few years back, he'd buried his entire reservation, and the experience in the city had made him mad.
The following night, they hit the Friends of Humanity. In the morning, the FOH had no headquarters, and their leadership was in FBI custody. X-Force came back to the mansion at dawn whooping and congratulating each other, still hyped from all the action and the payback. All except Domino and Cable, who though bleeding from glass cuts on his left arm supported her as she walked.
Scott stood at the front door as they came in. He was frowning and had his arms folded in front of his chest. A few of the kids (high on adrenaline) jeered like they wanted to start a fight, while Terry and Sam looked from Cyclops to Cable speculatively. Cable smiled tautly at Cyclops without a trace of repentance, and Cyclops stalked off after a moment. They'd probably had words telepathically. Cable barked at the kids to keep it down, then went to the Medilab with Domino.
The night had rattled them both, but neither wanted to admit it. With her concussion, Domino struggled to contain her thoughts, to keep them from leaking out of her mental shields—or from her mouth.
Silence worked at first. She bandaged his arm, then he looked into her eyes to see if they were dilating. They weren't, but she needed to stay awake for a while and get checked on the hour through the day to ensure they didn't. Routine post-concussion treatment.
"You're lucky you have a hard head," Nate muttered. Her head was pounding, or else she'd have made a joke. Her decision to address his guilt complex floated to a prominent place in her mind, but she knew this couldn't be the time. Could it? Of course not. But she had to say something, and she had to distract him from the thoughts and desire lurking just beneath her unstable shields.
"Nate, about the incident at the door."
"I'll talk to the kids about respecting our hosts," he said, probably hoping to change the subject.
"You know what I'm talking about."
He scowled. "Look—"
"No, you look. X-Force is different from the X-Men. Either the other team's going to learn to tolerate us, or we're going to move to a place that doesn't kill morale after every mission."
"Is that why you were so fond of MurderWorld," he shot back, "because it promoted the right kind of values?"
"Don't you bring that up again! It's a red herring."
"Okay." That massive body seethed with tension. "Where do you want us to go, Dom? Give me a location that's better than the mansion. Show me some place that's more secure, or better equipped. Or more accessible. And tolerable for that group of misfit—"
Over the psilink, she rapidly showed him five locations that exceeded those criteria. She stared at him as he processed it and saw the glare that entered his eye.
"Started looking, have you." His tone was cool, flat, but somehow petulant. She matched it.
"It's a pet project."
"You're not happy here, are you," he sent over the psilink. His 'voice' felt oddly detached.
"Actually, it's more practical than that," she said aloud. "X-Force loses bases like a gambler loses paychecks. They're gone almost as soon as we move in. And—" she forced herself not to sound too sarcastic "—please tell me which version of the mansion we're inhabiting. Is it four, five? Five-point-one? I never know if it'll be standing when we get back."
Nate flexed his giant arms, trying to relieve tension in his back. His bandaged forearm twitched once, but he ignored it. "Okay," he muttered.
"If a disaster came and I didn't have that list of alternatives, we'd all be homeless for a lot longer than any of the kids are likely to endure—"
"All right," he said.
"It takes a long time to find the right place. Especially for this grou—"
"All right!"
She stopped arguing, to find she'd stepped very close to him. They were nose to nose. He had such a broad nose, leading to passionate eyes. But that was beside the point.
"Look," she muttered, not moving away from his face. "I just wanted to put that on the table for when the time comes. I like living here too. But it's not entirely practical."
Irritation flowed across the link. Domino realized she'd been right to assume tonight was not the one in which to obliterate his guilt complex.
"Do you think I don't know that?" he growled.
"I don't see you with a list," she challenged. Foolish as it was, the argument had intoxicated her.
He bared his teeth very briefly, and something itched across the link. It was very quick, but Domino considered herself the same. She thought a moment, then—
"You do have one. Don't you." Only a scowl answered her, and she crowed victory. "Why the hell didn't you tell me?"
Coldly: "I didn't want to get your hopes up."
"My—"
"Lay off me, woman!" Abruptly he threw up his hands and left.
"Was it something I said?" she sent telepathically, for some reason wanting to annoy him as much as she could. But his shields were up, and he didn't answer.
She stayed awake for a while watching television in the Little Old Folks Room, though its name no longer amused her. She seriously hoped the kids didn't think she was that old.
Soon, though, her adrenaline stopped working, leaving her tired and achy. She found herself relaxing on the couch, and then her eyes were closed.
A soft touch awakened her, but she remained groggy. Callused hands touched the skin on her cheek, gently thumbing the darker area around her left eye. "Nate?" she asked.
He grunted confirmation. She wanted to go back to sleep, but he nudged her. "Open your eyes, Dom."
Concussion, right. She complied as he examined her pupils. "You're all right. I'll be back in an hour," he said.
He was. Then he returned an hour later. "Don't you want to sleep in your own bed?" he asked.
"If I must," she answered, though the retort was only ironic for her. She allowed him to lead her to her room, where she slept until noon. He came every sixty minutes to check on her, never saying much. She thought she caught him standing in the middle of her rug at one point, just standing there with his eyes on her. It made her stomach tingle. "Nate," she said. He started and walked briskly forward, all business again as he leaned to check her eyes. Remembering the moment, she could have sworn she lifted her head to kiss his lips, but she didn't know what happened next. It was all foggy.
Upon waking, her head hurt much less than when she lay down. She showered and made it late to the scheduled training session in the Danger Room, where she watched from the observation deck, offering pointers over the loudspeaker to the members of X-Force who'd bothered to show up. So few of them did right after a mission, probably figuring they deserved a break.
Cable was still pissed. He was fighting the solid holograms with the kids despite his bandaged arm and didn't acknowledge her when she made her presence known. She saw red seeping through his white bandage, but he didn't acknowledge that either. Domino, for her part, had forgotten what they'd fought over. Something to do with bases, but she was inclined to believe it was really over the incredibly high level of sexual tension they'd built up. Hell, even the kids thought they should get it on.
When the session ended, she met Cable at the entrance of the Danger Room. A towel hung over his shoulders, and he used one end of it to wipe the sweat from his face. As she approached him, he looked up. "How's the head?"
"Better," she said. "About our argument—"
"Forget it," he said. He met her eyes with a crooked smile. "But I accept your apology."
"You do, huh? Then I accept yours." He rolled his eyes, and she almost smiled. Almost. But she had an ulterior motive. This business between them had to end, and she knew how she wanted it to play out. "Nate," she started.
"Don't you have a security meeting to attend?"
"What?" Oh, shit! Was today Thursday? She glanced at her watch and saw she had just enough time to run to her room for the materials she'd prepared. Scowling at Nathan, she said, "I'll see you soon. There's something we need to discuss."
There. She'd opened up the subject. The rest would have to wait, but soon it would all be on the table. She knew that from the feelings of dread she sensed from Nate.
Continued in Part 3.
Forbidden Territory, by Port
pyrofae (at) mad.scientist.com
The Elysian Fields: http:www30.brinkster.com/silverylining/index.html