Chapter Four: Enter 'On (or Grey & Grey)
Honor wasn't exactly thrilled to see him. At the time she crossed over, her world had been in peril. She'd reached out for anything, anyone who could offer hope… And Nate plucked her out. Now that she'd helped him, getting home was her biggest priority, but… He didn't know how to reverse what he'd done. And since she'd destroyed the Omega Machine, her chances were nil to none.
"We'll worry about that later," he said, "Right now we've got to locate Brandi."
"Fuck Brandi! And fuck you!" She stormed away.
He looked to his sister, but Ray shrugged.
"'On, wait-" He chased her across the open field. When the helicopter ran low on fuel, she'd known exactly where to land. From there, they'd tried to formulate a plan. The Greys wanted to find their mark. Honor wanted to march straight to Cyclops for help, and wouldn't delay one minute by helping them get an accidental gang leader home safely.
"Please!" he said, "We need each other."
She stopped abruptly and squared her shoulders but wouldn't look at him.
"Don't make me beg," he said.
She trembled and sobbed, "They're dead. They're all dead!"
Tentatively, he put a hand on her shoulder.
"And if you'd been anyone else," she sniffled, "I – I would've killed you, too. For… taking me away."
She turned and folded into his arms. Her breath and tears were hot against his neck. Stroking her hair, he wanted to do more to comfort her, but nothing seemed appropriate. He could've mentioned that his world was gone, too, but it hadn't meant much to him. Sinister's lab, Toad's gang, dystopian war… That was his home world. She'd lost friends, lovers, family. A son.
How pale he seemed in comparison.
"God grant me strength," she quietly prayed. Standing, she composed herself. "We live to fight another day."
"Stupid-! Fucking-! Jungle!" Brandi cursed, punching at the vines that had ensnared her.
A hand reached from the brush and snatched her fist. She gasped and came face-to-face with her rescuer: the blue-eyed man of ordinary height and extraordinary abilities. A man she owed a quarter of a million dollars…
In the end, he only cleared two-hundred dollars from Brandi's mother, and Ray snatched it up immediately. 'Rent' she called it.
"What're we gonna do about her," he asked, nodding towards Honor.
Ray shrugged. "Since you're paid up, the couch is all yours tonight."
Honor was bored. "Where's Cyclops?"
"Utopia," he said. "An island off California. That's his base of operations but I've no idea if he's in the field."
She nodded. "Then that's where I'm headed." She stood and walked towards the door.
"Why?" He asked.
"Because if I stand still, the weight of everything will crush me." She smiled sadly. "I have to keep moving."
"Let me pack a bag and I'll come with you," he said. "It'll help if I'm there to explain things. He might not trust you."
She agreed to wait and he pulled Ray aside. Alone in her room, he asked her to call ahead to Utopia and ask if they could have Gambit meet her there. Since the Omega Machine re-deux, Nate was completely powerless again. He couldn't communicate telepathically, so he needed Ray's help. She agreed and gave him money for the ferry. He couldn't very well walk to an island.
"Thank you." He tried to hug her but she pulled away with a leery eye. She thought he was being fresh. "Oh, get over yourself!"
In the living room, Honor had fashioned a noose from her belt and was dangling from the crossbeams.
"Oh, shit!" he dove across the room, grabbed her legs, and lifted her so she could breathe. With a thought, Ray cut the leather strap, and Nate collapsed under her weight.
"Have a death-wish, do you?" Ray said. "Then I'm cancelling your road-trip."
"Fuck you!" she coughed and gasped.
"Dad's got his hands full already. Last thing he needs is another loose cannon to babysit. You're staying here until you've earned my trust."
"You can't hold me against my will!"
Cosmic fury blasted from Ray's eyes. "Watch me!"
"I don't know what you're so worried about." Honor grabbed the couch and gave it a kinetic charge. If it exploded, it'd be enough to kill them all. "Everyone just needs to calm the fuck down!"
Ray held the fiery particles in place. Then she told Nate telepathically, 'Clear her mind.'
"Don't do it!" Honor warned him.
'I can't! I'm powerless!'
Like flipping a switch, Ray cut off On's access to her memories. It wasn't a permanent solution. Honor was psychic, too, and eventually she'd discover the truth. Maybe she wouldn't remember her old life, but she'd know they'd stolen her memories. It was a violation of her personhood, which was further desecrated when Ray implanted false memories. Honor's mind was so overwhelmed that she passed out.
Ray calmly dismantled the couch-bomb – all without breaking a sweat.
"Unhand her!" he bellowed.
"Calm down, she's only asleep." She rubbed her temples. "Christ! What're we gonna do?"
Since the question seemed rhetorical, he placed Honor on the couch and checked her pulse. "I can't believe you did that…"
"What?"
"False memories?!"
"She's a danger to herself and others!"
"She was wonderful and perfect and you broke her to re-make her into someone more malleable!" He shook his head. "It was a mistake to come here."
"Where're you gonna go, Nathaniel? You have no money, no power, and nowhere to live."
He saw that she was considering erasing his memories, too. "Don't even think about it!"
Honor woke up with a crick in her neck. Bewildered, she realized she'd fallen asleep against a hallway wall. Nate knelt beside her, looking anxious.
"Oh jeez," she said, "I haven't been on a bender like that since middle school!"
He smiled nervously. "Think you can pull it together? We've got an interview."
"Where am I?"
"Here she comes." He quickly pulled her up.
An elderly woman in a second-hand pant-suit approached. "Mr. Grey, lovely to make your acquaintance. I'm so glad your sister recommended us to you. She's been a wonderful tenant, always on time with the rent, never a hassle to anyone. Such a shame we don't have any vacancies on her floor but- Oh, excuse me, who is this?"
"My friend, Honor."
She smiled tightly and said, "If she plans to live here, we'll need to complete a background check on her, too."
"Oh, no. She's just a friend."
Looking doubtful, she unlocked the door and showed them inside. "This is one of our furnished units. One bedroom, one bath. This is enough for one person but if you plan to have a roommate-"
"How much for the month?" he asked.
"We require first and last month's rent up front. Plus a $500 security deposit."
Honor saw his anxious grimace and said, "Excuse me, m'am, but no one's staying here, are they?"
"No. It's empty."
"So… we could stay, couldn't we? No sense in it being empty."
"No, there's no sense in that."
"Thank you so much. Is it alright if we bring the rent by the end of the month? I know that deposit isn't really necessary. We're good people, won't be any trouble at all."
"Yes… No, the deposit isn't necessary. That's fine. You're decent folks, I can tell."
They shook hands and she left looking distracted but pleased.
Nate asked, "How did you do that?"
Honor's face went from pleased to confused to alarmed. "I – I don't know."
"Saved our butts, whatever you did. I planned to come back at night, but we'd have to bail whenever she came around again." He grasped her hand. "Thank you."
"I know how hard those words can be for you to say," she smirked. "But why did you tell her my name was Honor?"
Her thoughts were open enough that he could see little clues, faint and weak as candle smoke. She thought her name was 'Anya Lynch'… a part-time waitress and seasoned MMA fighter… an abusive ex in Nevada. …Nate was her only friend…
"Trying to protect you," he replied.
…And she'd been harboring a crush on him… Now that the ex was out of the picture, she saw no reason to conceal it anymore.
She smiled. "That's why I love you."
He could kill Ray!
He spent the next few days avoiding 'On, which wasn't easy when they shared a one-bedroom apartment. Claiming to be job-hunting, he'd waste all day hiding from her and his sister. Come bedtime, he insisted on taking the couch.
"You're being silly," she said, wearing only a smile. "We've only got one blanket. Get in here… Keep me warm."
After that, he stayed out later and later to avoid seeing her entirely. One night she fell asleep on the couch waiting for him, so he made himself comfortable on the bed. Big mistake. As soon as he drifted off, she crawled over him (naked, of course, because she hadn't a set of pajamas). He shot out of the room.
This was hell! His dream girl had materialized, moved in with him, and was begging him to bang her, but he couldn't because her memories had been manipulated. He'd be a monster if he took advantage of their otherwise ideal situation. Desperate, he casually suggested a trip to Utopia and she flipped out. Surprise! Ray had placed triggers in her mind around Utopia and the X-Men. 'On couldn't think about them without suffering a full-blown panic attack.
On top of everything else, rent would be due soon. How were they going to come up with $3,000? They were completely broke. After two days without a bite to eat, they found enough change to get a peanut butter fudge sundae and scarfed it down in a parking lot.
"Know what I just realized?" she asked.
"No, what?"
"There's absolutely no nutritional value to this!"
They laughed, hunched so closely together that their noses almost touched. Her dark eyes sparkled and he was achingly grateful to have her. She made his life worthwhile. The powerlessness, the hunger, the constant uncertainty of poverty – even without sex – she was worth it.
One afternoon while he was hiding in the building's laundry room, Ray cornered him. "Come on, Nate, this is getting ridiculous."
He walked out.
"I know you're angry," she said, following him, "But I did what was necessary to save her life."
"You gave me a time-bomb!" he snarled. "She thinks if she goes to Utopia, she will die."
"She will. They'll sort out her memories and then she'll neither find a way back to her home world, which has been destroyed, or she'll kill herself. The fact that she's afraid to die should be a comfort to you."
"That's not your decision to make!"
"I had a moment to act! One moment! Xavier did it a hundred times and no one ever put him on trial! Nate, she has incredible power. She's worth more alive to everyone, not just you. Accept that she's been given a new lease on life. Stop sulking. It's not a tragedy to anyone but you!"
"And her attraction for me? Am I supposed to thank you for it?"
She was disarmed. "What?"
"She thinks she's in love with me!"
Ray smiled slyly and shook her head. "I didn't do that. If she's in love with you, that's her mistake."
"Impossible…"
"Okay, before you go make the two-back beast, I came with a peace offering." She handed him a file of documents.
"What's this?"
"The seeds of Grey & Grey, P.I. I think we make a good team… and you need a job, don't you?"
"I did have a few things lined up, but this looks better."
"Don't lie to me. I'm a telepath."
He reviewed the forms. "You're the senior partner?"
"I think that's fair."
"I need an advance."
Five Years Ago…
"Don't ask, Nate."
Maddie wasn't the one he wanted, but she was the one he got. When Nate crossed over, he'd subconsciously called out for Jean and accidentally summoned Madelyne from the dead. Things only got more complicated from there.
They wanted each other.
"It's a fair question," he said, jerking her coat off.
She knelt before his erection. "I am what I am. Take me or leave me… I prefer the former, of course."
He'd been expecting a blow job, but instead she tore open a plastic pouch and placed a slick rubber sheath over his member. He was horrified. It seemed like the natural reaction to have.
'First time our eyes met, same feeling I get
Only feels much stronger. Wanna love you longer.
You still turn the fire on-'
Now…
'So if you're feelin' lonely, don't.
You're the only one I'll ever want.
I only wanna make it good. So if I love you a little more than I should-'
Nate stood in the "family planning" aisle, looking every bit like the alien he was. Corporate-approved soft-rock music implied a sort of deceptive ease. The options were overwhelming. What was so complicated about it? Should be a simple transaction! Out the corner of his eye, he noticed another shopper coming his way. He quickly made his selection, only to realize the box was wrapped in an impenetrable plastic case. Irritated, he turned it over several times.
The shopper, a woman, had caught up to him and said, "You, uh – you have to take it up front. They'll open it for you there."
"Oh, forget it!" he placed it back on the shelf and wheeled his full cart to the register.
When he asked Ray for an advance on his paycheck, he'd planned to use the money for rent and some for food. Then he wondered how he'd ever get groceries to the apartment without a car or powers. So he arranged for a taxi. Shopping on an empty stomach was his second mistakes; his first was failing to realize they had no cooking utensils, eatery, cleaning accessories, or food additions like butter and salt. So he bought it all. He imagined winning 'On's heart with his hunting/gathering skills… which was how he ended up in the condom aisle.
"Jesus, dude!" the cabbie exclaimed, "Did you buy the whole place?"
"Nearly…" As he transferred his newly acquired bagged goods from cart to car, he had a thought. "I forgot an item. Would you be so kind? I'll give you extra for your troubles."
"Sorry. Can't leave the vehicle. It's a liability."
"I see. Well, you look exhausted. Surely that, too, is a liability. Here's a fifty. Why don't you procure yourself a beverage for the road and a box of condoms for me? Keep the change."
He agreed and Nate was fifty dollars further from making rent. That was future Nate's problem, thankfully. Present Nate was only preoccupied with getting his groceries home.
…
To Be Continued…
…
Author's Notes: For more analysis on the ethics of memory tampering, please see 'X-Men and Philosophy' by William Irwin. The song from Nate and Maddie's love scene/the grocery store is Bryan Adams's "Please forgive me"… which… if you're banging your mother's clone, you owe someone an apology. And my own apology: the dialogue from their love scene was taken straight from the comics, but I didn't note the issue… Honor is an original character of mine and is featured predominately in my other stories. You don't need to be familiar with those to enjoy this story. Thanks for reading!