A/N: Robert Angevin is not mine—he's on loan from Gevaisa, who says I can use him as long as he's kept thoroughly snarky. This isn't her Minion-verse, but she says he exists in all times and places. Whatever you say, Gev…
"Please come in," the Professor invited, "and that goes for all of you. Scott, Jean, Ororo—I suspect this is about to become a strategy session. Find yourselves seats. Ms. Engstrom, this is Dr. Henry McCoy, who recommended us to extricate you today."
He was large, furry, and dark blue, but Grace was expecting that. "How do you do?" he asked, while he glanced right at her midsection.
"Fine, thank you." She smiled. "I won't be showing in an obvious way for some months yet."
"Oh, I beg your pardon." He was flustered.
"It's all right." She slipped into the chair next to Erik's. He reached out and gave her hand a squeeze, bringing the inside of her wrist to his lips for a fleeting kiss. If he isn't planning on knocking on my door tonight, I know nothing at all about men, she thought. And when he does…I had better take these sensors off my forehead beforehand, as I expect the readout on the monitor here will be quite easy to interpret.
"The first step is to find you an attorney—unless you have someone already." said Xavier.
"Not someone who would be up to this case." she replied.
Mc Coy nodded. "I have someone in mind. His name is Robert Angevin, and he's quite the character. Looks like an archangel, but judging by his tenacity and venom when on a case, you'd swear he has pit bull and black widow spider in his ancestry. In legal circles, he's known as 'the Prince of Sharkness'."
"Why would he want to take her case?" Erik asked. "Is he a mutant?"
"No—but his eighteen-month-old son, who he loves ferociously, is. He'll take it. Let me see, it's Friday afternoon, but not yet five. I'll try him."
McCoy pulled out a phone. He left a message at the first number he called, and got the man himself at the second number. "Mr. Angevin? This is Dr. McCoy. How are you? Good, good. I'm calling because I have a case here you might find of interest. I can't get into any more detail over the phone, not at this time…Monday will be good."
Professor Xavier said, softly, "Have him come here."
"Can you come out to meet her? Great. The address is 1407 Greymalkin Lane…" He rattled off the rest. "Ten in the morning it is, then. Bye, and give my regards to Dr. Uzzano."
He hung up, and said, "There. That's taken care of."
"Do you know what Angevin will want as a retainer?" Erik asked.
"No." was McCoy's answer. "Ms. Engstrom, how are you situated financially?"
"I would say I'm fairly well off. My mortgage is paid off, and the house is worth about five hundred thousand. I have some investments, and with those plus my savings, I think I'm worth about two million, all told. My only outstanding debt is a home equity loan which I took out to buy my car. I still owe about fifty thousand on it."
McCoy's eyebrows rose, and the entire room looked at her with a new respect. "What was your after-tax income last year, Ms. Engstrom?"
"Two hundred ninety-three thousand and change." she replied. "Between my books and magazine sales, my free-lance design work for various fashion houses and catalogs, and commissions, I do quite well. I'm a corporation of one, my overhead is low, and I'm my only employee."
"Unfortunately, legal fees can eat up savings as mice do cheese." observed the Professor. "Whatever Angevin might charge, we'll find some way of covering it. You'll be fighting for us all, and it would be unforgivable if you ruined yourself financially to do it."
"Won't there be a settlement at the end?" asked Scott.
"In a case such as this, financial compensation is not what we want." McCoy explained. "We want what is called 'equity'—which is quite different from the sort of equity one has in a house. This equity is a legal ruling, a legal resolution to the case, so whatever you do, Ms. Engstrom, don't accept any money from any of the defendants involved, or sign anything releasing one of them from the suit, no matter how slight their involvement. The court might find that you released them all."
"I won't." she promised. "I understand."
At that moment, the monkey closed his book, tapped on it like an orchestra conductor, and waving a finger in the air, chanted "One, two—a one, two, three, four!"
All three animals broke into song. "Start spreading the news. I'm leaving today…"
It was the Frank Sinatra classic, 'New York, New York.'
However, they were singing it off key.
"I wannnt to be a part of it! New York, New York!"
I didn't think anything could be more annoying than having them talk to me. I was wrong.
Erik saw her stare, and asked, "A message?"
"No. A musical number." She whispered. "Stop that!"
McCoy's eyebrows frowned, but he went on. "The second thing will be to get you registered legally with the local Board. We can't give them any excuse to claim you're in noncompliance. You must be law-abiding and agreeable. Be there on Monday before they open at nine—you'll be back in plenty of time to meet with Angevin."
"We have the blank paperwork here." Ororo contributed. "You can fill out everything ahead of time, and we'll be there to walk you through it."
"These vagabond shoes…are longing to stray." sang her animals. She ignored them.
"The third thing." Dr McCoy sighed. "Your relationship. I cannot stress how much it must be kept a secret. There is no surer way to lose this case than to have it be known you're involved, and intimately involved at that, with Magneto."
"Ah." She managed. And how much worse would it be if it were known it was an alcohol-fueled bar pick-up!
"I want to wake up in the city that never sleeps—." If anything, the animals were straying further off-key as they went.
"It would be for the best if you were to separate until the trial was over, but I understand…?"
The crooners on the table stopped singing long enough to shake their heads and say, "Don't do it. It's together or not at all."
"The, ah, peanut gallery says not to break up." She pointed to them. "No explanation given beyond, 'It's together, or not at all.'"
They went back to their song. "To find I'm king of the hill, top of the heap!"
"Your voices. Um. That's the fourth thing." McCoy rubbed his forehead.
"I won't talk to them in public. I won't even acknowledge them, but if they tell me to take the stairs instead of the elevator, I'm going to walk, no matter how many flights it may be." Of all these people, she realized, only Erik has taken my voices seriously from the moment he learned about them.
I could love him for that alone.
"What happened with Vera?" she asked, hastily, to cover her sudden emotional confusion.
"Because she went to her front porch to answer her cell phone, she narrowly escaped being run over and killed. You didn't know?"
"Uh-uh. The moose head only said, 'Tell him to call Vera, right now.' It didn't even tell me who 'he' was. Jean remembered you knew a Vera, and of course you know what happened from there. I don't know why they didn't specify who you were, when they knew Vera's name, but they're often like that."
"I see. I can hardly argue, when listening to them yields such results, but be extremely discreet."
"Of course you should keep on listening." Erik said. "This gift wasn't given you at random."
"That's not easy when they're singing off-key at me for no apparent reason!"
"If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere. It's up to you, New York, New York!" finished the chorus. Then they began the second verse.
"By the way—are you at all a religious person, Ms. Engstrom?" asked the furry blue Secretary for Mutant Affairs.
"No. I was brought up Presbyterian, but I misplaced my faith somewhere. I'm like Mulder from the X-files—I want to believe, but I can't manage it somehow. Why?"
"Interesting. No reason. Those are the most immediate points to cover. Now, next thing to consider is the venue. This will be going straight to Federal Court, because the government is one of the defendants, via the Mutant Registration Act. The question is, where—in Michigan, where your health care provider's office is, or in New York, where Marine StarCare has their national headquarters?"
"It's up to you, New York, New York!" the animals reprised.
"All right, now I know why you're butchering Sinatra. New York it is." She told them. "Now be quiet."
The monkey shrugged and opened his book once more, and the lion made a 'tsk-tsking." sound.
"That's actually what I was going to recommend." McCoy said, surprised. "The docket in Michigan is probably emptier, but New York is a more liberal state, and you'll be more likely to get a fair trial and a friendly jury there. We'll have to trust we can get a good date. You don't know how or where they get their information, do you?"
"Not at all. A lot of Erik's ideas about them ring true for me, somehow—."
The gentleman referred to made a pleased sound.
"—While they have seemingly unlimited knowledge, they don't have the power to affect more than where a piece of paper falls. Whatever needs to be done, I have to do—or get others involved.
"It's as if we—all of mutantkind—are blind, including me, and we're trapped in a building that's on fire. Everything we need to put the fire out is on hand, but even if we tripped over it, we wouldn't know what it was or how to use it. However, there are security cameras everywhere, sending to a remote location where sighted people are monitoring what's going on—but they can't get to us to help, and their only way of communicating with anyone is a single radio tuned to a single headset, which I'm wearing.
"It's an uncomfortable headset, they're speaking in a language I'm not fluent in, and I'm a little dyslexic, but I'm the one wearing it, so they're trying to direct me to get the fire out, with your help. They're doing their best, and I'm doing my best, but the result isn't perfect."
"It isn't perfect yet." corrected Erik. "That was very well put."
"Indeed." agreed Xavier. "Now, it will take some weeks to get your complaint ready for filing, and in that time, we'll have to get our people accustomed to working together effectively and peacefully."
"Yes. I also intend to spend some time recruiting more mutants—with so many people who will need 24 hour surveillance and protection, we'll need every warm body—and perhaps a few of the cold ones—that we can muster." Magneto returned.
"Jean—Scott—Ororo—have you anything to add?" McCoy turned to them.
"Yes. You said earlier, Professor, that we would be working out of multiple locations. Where will they be, and who will be going?" Scott sat forward in his chair.
"Excellent questions, Scott. This will be one location, certainly, but we'll need a home base in Michigan. Ms. Engstrom, as your home is now unoccupied, might we use it?" Xavier turned to her.
"Of course—as long as you don't disturb the neighbors, or make the place unsalable." She opened her purse and brought out the keys. "You'll need to have it cleaned up, and some furniture brought in."
"I propose the people we send should fix it up while they're in residence—it will be their cover story. We'll want to rotate personnel." The professor made a note.
"I suggest Logan should be put in charge of the Michigan operation." Ororo added. "He has the experience in covert work, he has the presence to maintain discipline, and he would make a believable handyman."
"Very good suggestions, Storm." Another note went down on his pad.
"And since the University of Michigan is right there, some of our students could audit classes while they're there—it would give them a taste of college." Scott put in.
"Also good…"
"Now for New York City." Magneto took over. "I own some property there, but it's not residential. It's a warehouse without plumbing or heat. One might make do there for a night—and I have—but it's not suited for long term occupation."
"All these things will work themselves out over time…and speaking of which, it's nearly the dinner hour. I suggest we adjourn for now. Jean, can you show Ms. Engstrom where she'll be spending the night?" Xavier looked to her.
"Sure. We found her a space—the attic in the wing opposite Ororo's. If we get the kids into action tomorrow on the attic, it'll be ready for her to move in on Monday." said the red-headed doctor.
"Very good. This place is like a furniture warehouse—my ancestors never threw anything out, so feel free to rearrange anything that's not in active use by someone."
"Thank you—that's very generous. I think I may bow out of dinner, though. I did eat lunch late, and I just want to lie down for a while." Grace told them. And I don't really want to eat my meal under the curious eyes of so many people—not tonight. Too much has gone on.
"You are feeling all right?" asked Erik, concerned.
"Yes." She smiled at him. "Just a bit tired."
"Then we'll see you later tonight, or perhaps tomorrow morning." concluded the professor.
