A/N - Practically An Avenger, I ... can only apologize. We're nowhere near done kicking them. Unfortunately I can't really answer the rest of your concerns yet either. I'm so sorry. Here. Have more awful.
Chapter Two: Malicious Compliance
When the X-Men were finally done travelling and dragged to their separate cells, it was clear at least to Logan and K that it was only going to get worse. The setup was familiar in that each cell was just close enough to the others that they'd be able to see what was happening while still being far enough away from them to be unable to offer any kind of reassurance. But … when it was clear that Ororo was up to something, that was when the real trouble started.
As always, she had her lockpicks hidden in different parts of her jewelry - she was rarely without something that she could use, after all. She was quiet, quick, and could manage a complicated pick without looking like she was doing anything with her hands at all, so when the guard pushing her around tried to shove her into her cell, she took the shot and hooked one of his feet with hers - yanking him off balance hard enough that when he hit the floor it was with a resonating crack.
Kurt grinned impishly at her. "Wunderbar," he said. "Now, let's find Mia."
Ororo smirked at him and got to work - to remove his collar first, though she'd handed him a spare pick so he could start on the cuffs. "The second tumbler in these is a bit sticky," she told him with a smirk just before she'd managed to un-do the first part of the latch in his collar.
Kurt was nodding and smiling her way, but anyone who watched his tail could see that it was still entirely, so it was clear he was only flirting as a means of trying to keep himself and Ororo calm. He couldn't possibly be serious about it. Not when his mind was clearly on getting to Mia.
"You're next," Ororo warned, looking over Kurt's shoulder to Jean.
"Good. The sooner I can find the kids, the sooner we can burn this place to the ground," Jean said, and even with the collar on, the fire was burning just at the centers of her eyes.
"The sooner you're freed, the sooner you can disassemble these idiotic collars," Ororo said, the wicked, troublemaking smirk in place.
"Sure, let me do all the work," Jean shot back with a little smirk.
"And let us do the dashing rescue," Kurt said, smiling a little wider when the collar came off a moment before the cuffs did as well. He grinned and stole a quick kiss from Storm before he went to teleport off in search of the kids - but instead of teleporting, Kurt found himself still standing in front of Storm… and with an alarm blaring in his ears.
"Get out of here," Scott snarled out over the sound of the alarm.
Logan and K were both almost writhing on the floor, still with their hands bound behind their backs so they couldn't stop the sound of the screaming alarms from reaching their ears. Which was when the rest of the X-Men realized that those two hadn't been collared and that there was something the rest of the X-Men couldn't hear hidden in those alarms for as much pain as the Howletts were in.
Kurt stared at Logan and K for a moment before the sound of the door at the end of the hallway bursting open reached their ears over the alarms, and both Ororo and Kurt glanced at each other before they burst forward to fight back.
It was a solid fight - even without all of their skills to aid them, but the sheer number of soldiers was more than the two of them were used to handling. Try as they might - and for as hard as they fought, they were first separated from each other … and then it was clear that punishment was going to be swift.
The guards didn't even try to search Ororo for more lockpicks before one of the guards made the call to pull out what amounted to a rather small - and very dark looking box. There were small gaps in odd places, but for the most part, the box looked solid. "Keep your lockpicks," the soldier said. "You can't reach out to the locks anyhow."
"Lass sie sein," Kurt hissed out, though that only had the guard holding him slamming a fist in his stomach to double him over.
"We'll get to you in a minute," the soldier said with an almost lazy wave. It took four of them to force Ororo into the box and get it closed, but Jean looked ready to murder every one of them with her bare hands if need be. Even without telepathy, every one of the X-Men there knew how terrified Ororo was of tight, dark spaces.
And of course, once Ororo was contained, the guards manhandled Kurt back into the collar and cuffs, though not before they left him badly battered and bruised, so even if he had been able to slip out again, he wouldn't have been able to fight his way out.
Before the guards left, they took the time to look over to the others and a pair of them made their way over to at least get the bags off of Logan and K, though as the guy in charge started out his warning to the others about 'waiting their turn' the one nearest K took a hold of her foot to start dragging her out of the cell, which she took offense to, of course.
There was a wicked kicking session that more or less ended when the soldiers got her boots pulled off and then teamed up to beat on her before they dragged her out, still trying to kick at them, still growling and spitting out curses in Swedish between her still clenched teeth. And for the first time since the nightmare had really started, Logan was growling low.
"This isn't about keeping humanity safe," Scott shouted at the retreating guards. "This is sick! Sadistic. And you know it!" But of course, none of them were listening, and the door slammed shut with a sickening finality. He let out a frustrated noise and sat back against the back of his cell, though it wasn't helping anyone's mood when the silence was only broken by Kurt very softly telling Ororo in both German and English that she was safe - not that it was doing much good when she was clearly panicked.
It took some time, but finally, Ororo seemed to begin to get herself settled out … so naturally, once she was exhausted from the sheer terror - that was when they could hear what was going on one floor up. It was very distant, but it quite obviously screaming. For a moment or two, they were all hoping it wasn't K, but a gasped out curse in Swedish wrecked that hope neatly.
The screams went on for a little while before Logan spoke up. "Don't react."
"What are you talking about?" Jean asked through her teeth.
"That's what they want. Don't react. Whatever they did, don't … acknowledge it."
"Logan, they took my - they took all of our kids, they're torturing your wife, they-"
"That's just the start," Logan growled out.
"And what the hell makes you think we're not going to react?" Scott shot back angrily. "That's our family on the line! We still don't know where the kids are - or the professor or anyone that was at the school!"
"I know," Logan said quietly, though at that, he was already clearly retreating into his own thoughts with a tentative expression.
"Logan," Kurt said softly. "What now?"
"They break everyone down," Logan replied after a long pause, gesturing toward the ceiling, wordlessly pointing out that they had K up there, and from the sounds of it, might even be making headway with her. "And then they'll get what they want."
"Which is what - beyond their own sadistic pleasure?" Kurt asked.
"I don't know," Logan said. "But this is basic torture and manipulation. It's intense, but it's still simple, far as I can tell."
"If they wanted us dead, we'd be dead," Scott said, tipping his head Logan's way. "So this isn't extermination. This is about weapons."
Logan clearly wasn't focused on anything as he slowly shrugged. "Maybe."
"What else can it be?" Kurt asked. "That's always the case - it's either death or slavery for mutants in the minds of people like this."
"This isn't just used on mutants," Logan muttered.
The group of them fell silent, though it was obvious none of them were able to quite push down the honest hurt, anger, and worry running through the whole cell block. Especially after the screaming from upstairs stopped and silence rang out instead. That was somehow worse.
So when, an hour later, the guards came and went straight to Logan's cell, the "don't react" rule went right out the window. Kurt swore in an almost demonic sounding German as his growls and snarls accented the already angry words, but Scott was louder and in a language the guards actually spoke.
"Keep your hands off him or not one of you is getting out the other side of this in one piece," Scott snapped at the guard leading the charge into the cell.
Logan couldn't help but frown Scott's way for that, though it was clear Scott didn't have any means to back it up, which only made the statement that much more confusing to Logan as the guards jostled him and dragged him out of the cell.
Whatever Logan had been expecting, though, it absolutely wasn't to find himself taken to a room where Bobby was tied up and on his knees, with two very large and obvious heat lamps on either side of him focused down at him. He was dehydrated, sweaty and exhausted, though he looked surprised to see Logan there too.
"Here's the deal," one of the guards said, holding onto Logan's shoulder as he said it. "You want him to live through what we're dishing out? Then you dish it."
"What." Logan turned toward the guard with a clear glare. "No."
"Fine," the guard said. "We'll just turn up the heat, then."
"What the hell's wrong with you," Logan growled, jerking his shoulder away from the guard that still had his hand on him. "You don't need to do this to him. You got a question, he'll probably just answer it."
"That's not the point," the guard said. "But if you're volunteering for the interrogation, we'll get to that, too."
"No, that's … what the hell do you want from the kid?"
"Absolutely nothing," the guard told him with a sneer. "Which is why it doesn't matter if he lives or dies."
Logan shook his head at that. "If that was the case, you sure as hell wouldn't be askin' me to beat on him. What'd stop you from just killin' him anyhow?"
"Too cool to die," Bobby said, whisper-quiet.
The guard spared Bobby a look and then turned back to Logan. "No one on my detail wants to wipe noses and deal with screaming toddlers. That's his only use."
Logan turned his way with an honest growl. "Izzat some kinda crack on my wife?"
"You asked what's stopping us killing your teammate? We need a babysitter for the brats until the mini-muties are old enough to be useful."
"What." The word was far more growl than anything else, and Logan didn't even think before he had turned on the guard and laid into him hard. He might have brought Logan there to beat on Bobby, but that had backfired spectacularly.
Of course, the guard wound up on the ground and hurting pretty fast, but there were enough guards in the detail that it was really just a numbers game for Logan before they'd pulled him off their leader and gotten him more or less restrained - though for what it was worth, Logan could hear Bobby whispering just under the guards' hearing range, "Asked for it."
Logan almost managed a grim sort of smirk as the guards kept him pressed into the floor. Their leader needed medical intervention and the lesser guards really didn't know what to do with Logan at that point.
At least until Graydon Creed showed up and walked past where Logan was being pressed down to glare at Bobby and crank up the heat to full blast. He wasn't looking at Logan, but it was clear that's who he was addressing as he spoke. "I know it's hard to get anything through that thick skull of yours," he said. "So let me explain in small terms. I tell you to do something, you do it. I don't care how many of your little friends we go through before you follow instructions; I've got plenty to pick from."
"Is that your deal with everyone?" Logan growled out.
"The ones I can use."
"Where's my wife?" Logan asked in a lower growl.
"Not here."
"No kidding. Where is she?"
Graydon simply smirked before he lashed out and kicked Bobby in the stomach, crumpling him over. "Not here. You're not in control here, Weapon X," Graydon told Logan before he kicked Bobby again. "What do you think will be worse - dehydration or internal bleeding? Both will take a while."
Logan couldn't come up with anything snarky when he was honestly concerned about the kids and K - and their missing members, and though he had plenty of threats, he honestly didn't want to give Graydon any ideas, so the only thing he could do was to clench his jaw and … growl.
"Typical," Graydon said in a sigh before his next blow sent Bobby reeling again.
"Logan, c'mon," Bobby ground out. "Just… get it over with."
Logan's growl stopped almost instantly on hearing it, though it still took a moment for him to get a handle on himself - eyes shut tight as he shook his head. "Popsicle …"
"S'okay," Bobby promised. "Only way you could beat me."
"Fine," Logan finally breathed out. When the men holding him down finally let him up - after Graydon was safely out of the way - Logan shook his head lightly to himself and drew in a deep breath before he started working Bobby over, even if he may have broken a few of Graydon's unspoken rules. Like by cutting him down first so Bobby wasn't a punching bag. Or by making sure that the hits he was taking would look absolutely horrible in the next quarter hour, but weren't actually bad blows that would cause deeper, lasting damage. But even at that, it was clear that when Bobby was on the floor in a lump that Logan felt like total trash.
Eventually, a few more guards arrived - reinforcements not just to move Logan but to move Bobby too, which was at least enough for Logan to see they weren't just going to finish Bobby off if they were moving him. But it wasn't doing much for his mood when he got back to where the others were - sans Hank, and with K still missing.
"Logan?" Kurt breathed out once Logan was locked back in.
But of course, Logan turned away from the group as a whole and kept quiet as he folded in on himself.
It didn't take long for the rest of the X-Men to learn the score. Not that any of them were really in a state to say anything even when they were around each other. The tight, familial connections they had all enjoyed were being strained, and they hadn't been prepared for it.
Kurt was surprised, then, when he was escorted to just outside a room where he could see, on the other side of the glass, that Nate was snuggling a very black and blue Bobby while Kitty looked to be at her wits end trying to console kids that hadn't seen their parents for far too long.
He was staring at Mia in particular, who had a look of fury so much like her mother's that Kurt very nearly smiled simply because of the similarities. But that went out the window when one of the guards snapped something around his wrist.
"GPS," the guard explained. "Any unauthorized teleportation and the computer sends out a subsonic burst. Ought to fry the brains of anyone in a twenty yard radius."
Kurt narrowed his eyes and bared his teeth, unconsciously moving his hand with the GPS further from the kids. The guard didn't have to spell out the rest of it: if he tried to teleport to the kids, he would kill them.
And it didn't escape his notice that Rachel, the oldest, had a similar clunky bracelet on, but the guards didn't share the details on that one just yet.
Instead, they took Kurt to a staging area, and he was both surprised and relieved to see K there, even if she looked like she was just waiting for an opportunity to figure out how to make these guys pay for every single insult.
As usual, Graydon himself was keeping distance, so it was one of his lieutenants that explained the mission: "Magneto sent some of his group to Westchester to investigate the institute. Kill as many as you can, but leave one to tell Magneto who sent you and tag them. We'll pick up whoever you miss and the one you tag later."
Kurt looked toward K, but when she had nothing to add, he simply nodded. He waited until the smoke had cleared from the teleport before he turned her way. "I know where the little ones are, but I can't 'port to them," he told her, his tone ringing with anger and frustration.
"I know," K said through gritted teeth.
"Then do you know what Rachel is wearing?" Kurt asked.
K gestured to Kurt's wrist. "Same thing you are, only they hit the button if I don't do what I'm told."
Kurt let out a growl from the back of his throat. "I'm going to kill him as soon as we get out of this," he swore.
"Okay," she said half under her breath. "You do that."
Kurt let out a breath when he heard it. "We are getting out of this," he said. "I don't know how yet, but he will make a mistake, and then we end him. That is the only way this can end for him."
K turned his way for a moment and simply watched him for a long moment. "I don't know if they have you with me now for ease of transport or to wreck your hope."
"It will take more than this to wreck that," Kurt said.
"I doubt we'll all get out of this, Kurt. But I wish you luck."
Kurt frowned at her tone. "Nein, mein Freund," he said gently as he rested his hand on her shoulder. "If we do not all make it out, then none of us will truly survive. Thus, I choose to believe we will escape."
"Right. Well, in the meantime, this is my downtime. Waiting for Magneto's guys to show their faces."
"At least you have good company," Kurt said in a soft attempt to tease.
"In who?" K asked with a frown as they started to work their way around the edge of the forest.
"The best looking X-Man, of course."
K shook her head at that though, clearly not herself at all. "I'm alone except for the creeps that keep tapping out."
Kurt let out a breath. "Back there, ja, but not now. Focus on that. None of us have seen you in some time and it is a relief to find you alive." He gave her a tight smile. "See? Hope."
K was still for a long while - much longer than Kurt had seen her take to reply to such a simple, open statement of fact. He was starting to wonder if she was going to respond at all when she finally did - very quietly. "I've dealt with a lot of manipulation and torture rackets, fuzzy Elf. I've never found one until now that didn't bother taking breaks. This … I can't even think."
Kurt let his shoulders fall and then pulled her into a hug. "K…" He let the sentence fall. "I will kill them. I promise."
For a moment, K leaned into the hug, but only for a moment. "We have a job to do," she said in a flat tone.
Kurt frowned at her tone but decided not to press her - all threats considered - and simply followed her once she had picked up the scent for a few of the Brotherhood flunkies. And they somehow weren't surprised to find the usual suspects of Toad and the Blob, plus Pyro and Quicksilver all looking over the rubble and speculating on the X-Men's sticky end.
Kurt glanced to K. "Well then…"
"I've got the speedster," K said before she started to limp obviously. "Leave the most worthless one alive."
"So I will need to have a long chat with Toad. Lovely," Kurt said, though he didn't have any of his usual light tone, and he teleported off to catch the Bob's attention.
K's little act seemed to work wonders. She limped partway out of the forest, and when she thought she was far enough away that the others wouldn't try to follow Quicksilver, she made sure to call out for help before she stumbled a little. If that didn't draw him in fast, she wasn't sure what would.
Sure enough, Quicksilver caught up to her in a flash, one hand under her arm before she could slip the rest of the way to the ground. "What's going on?" He asked over her shoulder. "This doesn't look like Boom Boom got carried away."
"No," K replied, though before he knew what hit him, she sent a fist full of claws through his chest. "And I'm sorry for this."
Quicksilver looked honestly shocked, instinctively holding onto her hand as his knees buckled. But he didn't get the chance to do more than that before she pulled her hand back, the claws retracted, and he fell to the ground.
"I'm so sorry, Pietro," K said as she tried to make him more comfortable, clearly shaken up and trying to keep her composure. "But if you'd have lived, you'd be stuck working for them. And I can't let them do that to you. I can't give them a path to Genosha."
But that just had Pietro frowning hard until he couldn't anymore and let his head fall - just as K could hear Kurt further out in the trees baiting the Blob into a blow that crushed Pyro and not Kurt, which only had Fred more determined to destroy the too-quick Nightcrawler.
As Kurt worked, K took a moment to search Pietro for his phone … and then took the chance to try and put a note into a text, just asking that if whoever found the note could please try to take care of Jubilee … and then trusting that Kurt's message would make it with Toad. The message wasn't strictly her job anyhow.
Eventually, Kurt made his way over, slightly bent over and singed from a few good shots, and slipped down to sit next to K. "Toad is running with his tail between his legs," he said softly. "He knows to warn Magneto about Graydon Creed." He paused and looked toward Pietro. "K … this is suicide. Magneto will destroy everything when he sees this."
"I know." K had been sure to arrange Pietro so he looked almost like he'd simply laid down, and she'd taken care to close his eyes, too. "I'm counting on it."
Which was right about when Kurt realized exactly how far off Logan's wife was right then if suicide by Magneto was the best option she could think of.