Disclaimer: See first chapter.

Across the Pond

Toad scowled out of the window as the aeroplane taxied along the runway. His shoulders were hunched up as far as they would go, which meant that his coat covered almost all of his face, but people were still staring.

The man sitting next to him cleared his throat nervously and made a doomed attempt at sounding cheerful, "Well Mortimer, we're taking off!"

"Toad." Toad muttered, "Mortimer's a stupid name."

The man gave a slightly apologetic look around at the rest of the passengers, who were determinedly ignoring them. "Not long now, and there'll be people from Xavier's Institute to meet us at the other end. Is, uh, is your hand OK?"

Toad ignored him, preferring instead to watch as London dwindled below him, disappearing as the plane rose upwards. His hand. Yeah, that was where it had all gone wrong. Because even with a plentiful food supply, there were still some things you needed and with winter approaching warmth was high up on the list. A big jacket, that would help, one of those parka things, or some type of fleece. Something waterproof for preference.

High quality jackets couldn't be found by rummaging in the trash bins. He was too conspicuous to work or beg, and so had turned to pretty much his only other option, petty theft. To his surprise, it hadn't been too hard, his best technique had been to loiter around in market places, wait until someone put a purse or wallet down on the counter for a few seconds, grab it with his tongue and run like hell.

It had worked, for a while, but the degradation of his school trainers had meant that his first priority had been boots (big vintage Doc Martens. Just like Lance). And people didn't come to the market too often when it got colder, the shopkeepers were getting warier too, the number of times he'd been chased off with the end of a broom.

Taking money direct out of people's jackets had seemed like a good idea at the time. And for the first few wallets it had seemed like a great idea. Right up until he'd pushed his luck a bit too far, and assumed that anyone drunk was less likely to notice him surreptitiously sneaking his fingers into their jacket.

Well that had been a bad idea.

He shivered slightly at the memory, as the plane climbed above the clouds. The guy had been six foot tall, what the hell had he been thinking, but he'd been giddy on success, and almost had enough for a jacket, and the guy had looked rich, walking out with some girl on his arm, throwing a handful of notes at the bouncer. Toad had figured that he'd be too busy with the girl, too full of drink to notice.

Figured that one wrong.

It had been slightly surreal at the time, his hand suddenly engulfed in a meaty fist, caught, terrified, like a rabbit in the headlights, the girl swearing at him, the man talking, talking soft, sounding very far away. His feet were glued in place, he could hardly move, didn't try to run, didn't even scream, just stood there, whimpering slightly, as the man coolly and deliberately broke every bone in his fingers.

The pain happened later, when the adrenaline rushed out. He'd tried to hide it, tried to live with it, but after the third day, when his fingers were looking all blue and puffy and leaking weird yellow stuff he'd given in. He was cold, he was hurt, he was in huge amounts of pain, the streets were no longer an option.

He'd crawled into the first hospital he could find and croaked his name out. The woman on the desk had taken one look at his weird green hand, with bones and fingers all at odd angles, and sent him straight to intensive care where, mercifully, they knocked him out as quickly as possible. He wondered how long it had taken them to work out he was meant to be green.

After that it had all been fairly inevitable. His name was on the records with a nice big M for Mutant next to it. Phone calls had been made, people had been contacted and here he was, on an aeroplane next to some guy on the way to an Institute in America.

He wished Lance were here, but somehow thinking of Lance didn't even help, because all he could hear were Lance's words, in the few times he'd got the boy to talk about his time in Prison.

He'd thought it was amazing, like an adventure, and Lance the hero so tough and brave. He hadn't noticed then, that the toughness was an act, a part, to keep the fear away. He would only notice that later, when he looked back and realised that Lance was the most terrified person he'd even known.

"They…they didn't hit you or anything did they?"

Lance gave a sigh, "Well … no. Thing is Toady, it's not about hitting. The other kids did that sure, people were always getting into fights and stuff, but not the people in charge. Thing is, akk, I dunno how to explain it. You don't have to hit someone to make them hurt, to make them feel like crap."

Toad frowned, although he could kind of see.

"It's just like, if your in charge of someone, and you don't like that person, there's just a million ways to make things just that little bit harder. Not big things just little things, so you grind right down and cave in. Right there at their sodding feet."

He couldn't imagine Lance caving in. And he hadn't known then that the older boy had been blinking back tears, pulling on the cigarette to blame his choked breathing on the smoke.

"Lance…isn't smoking bad for you?"

"Makes me feel good."

"But won't you die earlier?"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"In that case, Toady, I better have another one, yeah."

"Kelly." Magneto frowned, "I can't say the name sounds familiar."

"It shouldn't." Mystique yawned, closing the laptop and leaning back in her chair, "He's a small time political backbencher who wants to feel big. So he's taken an 'anti-mutant stand' in the hope that shouting slogans loud enough will get him closer to the Whitehouse."

"Protecting all law abiding freedom-loving peoples of this fine country." Magneto said, almost managing to keep a straight face.

"That sort of thing." She walked through into the main room and looked around, impressed, "You've done well with the décor."

"Thank you."

"Is everything made of metal?"

He nodded, "Why build a base I can't control?"

"I like the Newton's cradle."

"I thought you might." The iron balls bounced gently against each other with a small 'klink' "So, Kelly, are we worried?"

She shrugged, "Depends how people react."

"And how do you think they'll react?"

"What do I think, or what do I hope?"

Magneto sighed, "Ah yes, hope. Is there still any of that around?"

She shrugged, "Oh, I've managed to find someone crazy enough to volunteer to look for our Sabretooth. Possibly a mutant as well, so could be a potential gain."

"Well done. Any further information about Sabretooth?"

"His name. Creed. Victor Creed. But apart from that, nothing."

He had to get away. Toad had spent six hours on the plane thinking about it, and a further four as they dragged their way through customs, explaining and Xavier's-letter-producing at every single step. It was … warmer in America, wasn't it? Yeah, it must be, Hawaii was in America after all and that was warm. And America was next to Mexico, it would be fine. He had a nice big jacket now anyway, and could survive on the streets, sort of.

Anything would be better than an Institute, than one of the places that had left Lance looking so worried and nervous. At the moment, he only had the one guy looking after him, it should be easy enough to cut and run.

They approached the exit terminal, both feeling nervous. Past the last security people, towards the doors, and oh no the man had spotted someone, a hand on his shoulder guided him strongly towards a bald guy in a wheelchair and a tall teenager wearing what he had to admit were seriously cool shades.

OK, here goes, it was now or never. He turned towards the man next to him and, half unconsciously, half deliberately, spat in his face.

It certainly had the desired effect, the man let go of his shoulder immediately. But … it wasn't normal spit, the stuff had felt odd leaving his mouth, sort of … gloopy. And the man in front of him was struggling with what looked like some sort of green thing on his face.

Toad stared, gaping, for as long as it took him to realise that the security guards had noticed as well, and then took off. Swinging himself over the barrier and dashing away from the doors he ran, his long legs taking him far away from the repercussions of security.

A/N: Meh. Bad ending. But good chapter (if short). Please leave reviews, because I am very busy with work at the moment and if I don't get reviews I am liable to forget that I have another chapter of this to write.

Heh. This chapter has been in planning since about two chapters ago, when I suddenly realised that Toad was on the wrong side of the sodding Atlantic. My initial panic plans involved weird and exotic mechanisms for Toad transferral (including a hot air balloon at one point) but I think this line worked fairly well.

Btw, Toad's thoughts concerning America are not completely atypical. England is very, very small, and there is a tendency among people there (especially kids, who don't think about it too often) to forget that America is actually quite a bit bigger. In fact, everywhere is quite a bit bigger with the possible exception of Luxembourg.