Forbidden Territory
By Port
Please see disclaimer and author's notes in Part 1. Comments and criticism are very welcome. Please enjoy reading!
Part 3
To focus in the security meeting, she had to close off the link. Nate's dread hadn't, as she'd expected, turned into resigned acceptance—or even to nervous anticipation. Domino didn't know what that meant, though somehow she foresaw disappointment. In any case, the meeting wasn't the place to wonder about these things, so she tuned out Nate and gave her presentation.
"There you have it," she told the five X-Men in conclusion. "Fix these seven holes and we'll all sleep better."
"Amazing," said Psylocke. "I would have never seen those last two flaws. How did you find them?"
"I deleted my profile from the security grid and tried to enter the grounds. Three out of four times I managed to reach the compound without being detected. Managed to leave it too."
"The chere is like a clever thief, non?" said Gambit. "We are lucky she be on our side."
"Indeed," said Xavier. "We owe you a debt of gratitude, Domino. Who knows but that your analysis has saved lives?"
"Any time," she said, shutting off the projector. "I always enjoy a challenge."
"Then perhaps you'll help us in implementing the changes you suggested," Cyclops said. The others laughed and nodded agreement, then began a discussion on just how to go about it. Domino sat at the table and let out a quiet breath. She could get used to this.
On returning to the Forbidden Territory, she found most of the kids in the kitchen, impatiently waiting for two pizzas to defrost in the oven. They stopped talking when she came in, never a good sign.
"What's wrong?" she asked, skipping the niceties.
"Who said something was wrong?" asked Tabitha. She raised a thin, blond eyebrow at Theresa, who smiled back blankly. Bobby cut into the silence.
"Are you feeling better, Dom?"
"Yes, thank you. What's the matter in here?"
Sam saw his friend at the end of her stare of authority. "We were just wonderin' where Cable went is all, Ma'am. None of us can find him, and he usually says where he's going before he leaves. Leastways he gives contact info. Um, any chance you know? Ma'am?"
Sneaky, Nate, she thought. Real mature. Opening her mind to the link, she sensed him nearby, but closed off.
"Ma'am?"
"He's close by. Don't you kids worry about him. Was there something you needed?"
"How long are we gonna be cooped up in here?" Tabitha asked. She created a miniature time bomb and rolled it along her arm. "Any longer and we're gonna explode." With a breathy pff sound, the little bomb flared and vanished.
"Tabitha, it hasn't been a day yet!" Domino said.
"Well, I bore easily!"
"You must be really on your toes, Sammy," Bobby ribbed.
"Shut your mouth!" Tabitha returned.
"Enough," Domino said. Attention fell back to her. "We have a few contacts in the Justice Department. They said to lie low for the next week while they cover for us. That means staying indoors."
"But Dom...."
"Don't 'But Dom' me," she said. "They have satellites trained on the grounds. You want to get both teams arrested, let them snap a pretty little picture of your ass on the porch. If not, take it easy indoors for a while. And if it's so boring, I can find a few things for you to do."
Tabitha answered with sullen silence, which was good enough for Domino. "Anything else?"
"That was about it, actually," said Sam. "How are you today, Ma'am?"
She poured herself a glass of lemonade. "Suddenly very tired," she said. "If I go rest, will you kids refrain from killing each other?"
Some of them had to pause to think about that one, but they all gave an affirmative reply. That too was good enough for Domino. She took her drink with her from the kitchen, but something made her pause out of sight and within earshot.
"That makes our second cranky leader for the day," said Bobby. "Sam, if you get moody too, I'm quitting."
Domino shook her head and went to the Little Old Folks Room. Cable must have scared the kids somehow, she thought as she watched news coverage of last night's raid. Somebody had filmed the FoH headquarters exploding. She had to admit X-Force waxed heavy in the fireworks department. The cameraman had caught footage of the team running to the PACRAT. The view was dark and grainy, but she could make out herself and Cable running behind the kids, backlit by the fire. She had an arm around Cable's big neck as he helped her stay on her feet and then onto the PACRAT. She had hit her head so hard that she didn't even remember that part. Just coming to on a cot in the PACRAT with some sort of Shi'ar medical contraption resting on her forehead. Cable had been right there.
Knock, knock, she sent. He hesitated, then opened up his shields.
"Dom."
"Everything okay?"
"Just meditating. How was the meeting?"
"Couldn't have gone better. They made me an honorary X-Man."
His mirth trickled across the link. "They can have you, then—"
"Hey!"
"—but they don't know what they're in for."
"Hungry?" she asked.
"No. But I'll come join you in the little lounge. I think we need to talk."
Her stomach turned over, like a pancake on the griddle, but she didn't betray that over the link. "Good," she said. "I think so too."
While he was on his way—and under the thickest mental shielding she knew how to create—Domino tried to recall from her experience successful discussions of this type. She and Milo had never had one. They had simply hooked up and let the momentum carry them. She didn't think that would work with Cable, mostly because there was no momentum at all. Every time any gathered, they played it off, in that maddening way they had. Why was that?
But it was too big a question for this moment, when she needed—basically—to offer herself to the man she loved. Not just that (had she really just used the term love?), but she needed him to accept her. Failure would be... unthinkable.
Finally, he entered the room. She looked up from the muted television as he closed the door behind him. That was as good as hanging a sign for the kids to know something serious was being discussed, but it would deter disruptions. She moved her feet to let him sit next to her on the couch. He sat on the edge, with his elbows on his knees, fingers interlocked, and they sat in silence.
Domino sighed. She considered retreating from the room, or making a joke or turning the volume up on the news. Anything to play down the importance of this thing to her or to make them both forget the "no" that she sensed from him. But she wanted this, damn it.
"What's the problem, Nate?"
The side of his mouth quirked up. He liked directness. She slid a little closer to him. "Well?"
He gritted his teeth. "Dom. You know... how I feel about you."
"I can read your mind," she said, looking him in the eye.
"Right. Me too. I know...." He trailed off as he looked back up and found her face closer to his own. "I'm sorry about last night," he whispered, gently pushing her back from him. "I gave you the wrong impression."
She blinked. "What happened last night?" It was all jumbled with the terrible headache. Just a series of hourlong naps punctuated by Nate's visits. "Did we... do something?"
"You don't remember?" The look on his face illustrated the curse words that flew through his mind. "Flonqing—"
"Nate!"
He inhaled. "If you don't remember, then why did you want to talk?"
"What don't I remember?"
Was he blushing? Or just angry? His face was reddening, but.... Then he showed her his memory.
He stood on the rug in her bedroom, looking at her asleep on the bed. She saw herself from his own eyes, a dark, slim form under minimal covers, long black hair pooled around her face. She was sure she didn't actually look that attractive. Her eyes opened, all slanty from resting, and she smiled a thin, tentative, dreamy smile. "Nate," she said. He started forward and knelt beside her. His hand came into view, touching the side of her face, probing around the soft, black skin surrounding her left eye. He leaned forward as she opened her eyes again, and she leaned forward too, almost reflexively, to press her lips against his. Instead of pulling away, he held on, and the kiss deepened. At length, he did pull away, and saw her content smile. Then she passed out again and he left, very quickly.
"You wouldn't have admitted to that if you thought you didn't have to," she said, when she found her voice. "So I'll ask you again, what is the problem?"
He shook his head. "It just wouldn't work out."
"Do you—care for me?"
"Of course!"
"Is there someone else?"
"No."
"Do you have VD?"
"Cut it out, Dom. You know how much you mean to me."
"That's why I'm confused, Nate. Every time we have the chance to get started, you put on the brakes. I want to know why."
Scowling, he looked away, then at her again. She raised both eyebrows expectantly. It was getting easier to ignore how much this hurt.
"You're not going to understand," he said, "but I'll explain anyway." This time, he paused longer than before, fists clenched. She almost prodded him to continue, but decided against it. He looked to be in a kind of agony.
"In my culture, in the future, there are... taboos. Certain relationships are forbidden."
"Are you saying you can't go out with me because I'm not Jewish?"
"Quiet." He shook his head. Then he opened his mind to her, and she saw the problem he couldn't put into words. Also the shame. "Dom...."
She cut him off with her stare. His face was closed, but beneath that was pain. She left quickly.
In her room, Domino locked the door and closed the blinds. She sat on her bed, taking deep breaths. "Tyler," she said softly. "Tyler, damn him."
She'd had issues with Vanessa, the shapeshifter who had impersonated her during her imprisonment, but they had dwindled over time. She had never forgiven Tolliver, the alias taken by Nathan's son Tyler. When she learned of the connection, though, she tried to forget. He'd stolen nearly two years of her life, degraded her, used her against Cable, and left her with nightmares that would not quit, even after all this time. But she'd tried to forget.
She had forbidden herself to think of him. Cable had helped her come to speaking terms with Vanessa; she would not ask him to deal with (or even know of) all that his son had done. They had never spoken of it.
Now, against all her effort, memories surfaced. Chains and cells, sleeping drugs, Deadpool's taunts, abusive minions like Pico, who Cable had killed just before freeing her... and above all, Tolliver, who was Cable's son.
They had overdrugged her again. She couldn't move, and she feared falling asleep in case she never awoke. Maybe that would be the only way to escape the iron cell, in the end, but Domino didn't want to play the game that way. It had only been... maybe four months? They gave her ridiculous numbers each time she asked. No matter. She'd find a way out soon. Just as soon as the drugs wore off. She waited on the floor of the cell, motionless.
"I've come to visit you again—" In her mind, she edited out the sound of his voice, which sent the blood from her skin. The voiceless words assailed her through the conduit of the memory.
"I've come to visit you again, my Domino." His footsteps trod lightly toward the barred niche in the wall. She saw his tailored leather shoes in her line of sight, but the paralyzing drug kept her from turning her head or even moving one finger or toe.
The bars slid open, and he kneeled, careful not to soil the cloth of his slacks. His long, blond hair dipped into her line of sight. She knew he could hear her thoughts, so she cussed a long stream of profanity at him in her mind, to cover up the fear.
His soft hand came toward her darker eye to caress the skin of her face. It slid down her jaw slowly, to her neck, then he repositioned her so that she was looking up at him. She couldn't even close her eyes. "Do you fear me, Domino? I like it when you cuss, because it means you are very afraid. The louder the better. Only I can hear you." He slid his hands around on her body, very slowly. Panicking, she stopped cussing, made her mind go silent, completely silent.
"You're no fun, Domino," he said, blowing into her ear. His hands left her skin. "Did the old man think so too?"
Dimly, she had understood him to mean Cable. Tolliver was always talking about Cable. But she hadn't understood his next words until just now.
Getting up, leaving her dark room and finding Cable was really just a matter of deciding what she wanted. It took her two hours, because she needed to re-bury the memories and stop the shaking of her hands, but the decision was the work of a moment.
She found him in the Little Old Folks Room, on the couch, watching the muted news channel with a seriousness it didn't deserve. Standing in his view, she hoped her eyes weren't red, but he probably couldn't tell in the dark.
"Dom." He stood up immediately, concern clouding his face. She looked him right in the eyes, because he liked directness. She did too, and she wanted to be clear about this.
"One day, early on, he came into the cell," she said quietly. Cable tensed, but he listened. "I couldn't move. I was defenseless. He came right up to my ear and he whispered, 'I'm not so depraved as to touch the old man's old woman.'" She felt her face crinkle and dragged in a ragged breath. Her face smoothed out again. "That's the end of it. He never did. I didn't understand why until just now."
In one fluid movement, he embraced her and held her as tightly as she held in her tears. "I'm sorry, Dom. I'm so sorry." She stood slack against his warm body.
"I don't want sympathy," she murmured. "I put it aside until you said what you did. Which, by the way, was misogynist as all get-out. I don't want your pity."
"Then you'll never have it. But I want to help. Tell me what I can do to make up for what he did."
She pulled away. "That's not your job, Nate. I don't want your guilt. I don't want you taking pity on me all the time."
"It wouldn't be like that. You know me better than that, Dom."
"Yeah." She wiped her eyes. "I was never any good at this sort of thing."
He took her hand and wiped the tears from her fingers. He gave her fingers a squeeze. "Me neither."
"Do you really want me, Nate? Not to help me, but just me?"
He drew closer to her and stroked her cheek. "I want both," he said. "I'm sorry I made it so difficult."
She bit back the sarcastic comment that came to mind, but he saw it over the link, and they both laughed nervously, glad for the release. Then Nathan leaned forward, almost shyly, and kissed her on the mouth, and she kissed him back through her smile, and they were still kissing when Shatterstar opened the lounge door and saw them there and realized he had just won a hundred dollars.
The End
Forbidden Territory, by Port
pyrofae (at) mad.scientist.com
The Elysian Fields: http:www30.brinkster.com/silverylining/index.html