Prayer of the Refugee
Summary : ToadOC:She saved him,he didn't appreciate it very much,it was an embarrassment to be saved by a weeks together will see them to her organizations base and difficult decisions will have to be non-sue experience.
Warnings: This story is going to contain coarse language, gore, violence, mentions of drug abuse, and sexually explicit content.
Memo: FINNALLY! Things are starting to get interesting.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters of X-Men, just my originals and this story.
Exalted Fans: ebell1//ObsidianNight
Chapter oo7
She came out to find Toad sitting on the floor surrounded by what had been collected, their electronic guts were strewn across the floor like some horrible, mechanized battlefield. She almost laughed at the sight of the green giant among the demolished electronic city that made her think fleetingly of godzilla.
He held a growing mismatched cohilation of wires and random pieces all looking randomly glued together. Whatever it was didn't look like much, but what he had done was severely impressive for someone working only with pliers and his hands.
"What are you doing?"
He didn't answer for a long moment, and she started to think he wouldn't at all. "Wot's it look like? I'm makin' ya a radio."
"Me? Why not use it to call the Brotherhood to come get you?"
He didn't want to say they wouldn't come after him even if he could get a hold of them. "No one would respond to a radio signal," More like no one would respond to a call from a currently useless teammate.
She wasn't sure she believed that. "And you are trusting that I will not turn you in?"
"…Perhaps …a bit."
"Why?"
No answer. Maybe he didn't even know himself, she thought.
That was not the case, Toad had an at least shaky sort of trust in her because he had recognized the tattoo on her shoulder while she was undressing. A star interwoven of the red feathers of a Phoenix and the deep blue-green of a Quetzel. He'd seen that symbol before; it belonged to a pro-mutant organization that was sensationalized in the underground because of it's largely human involvement.
He didn't know a whole lot about the group, but it gave him a small bit of ease.
"Do you at least have everything you need?" she asked skeptically.
"Should."
"Good. I know you are ill, but do not hesitate to feign sleep for this. If you come with me to the base, I will make sure you are made well."
What a profoundly stupid bit of drivel. Besides just telling him that he could stay up -as if he were a child- it was simply a stupid sounding statement on its own. "It won't take me tha' long," he snapped, going so far as to roll his eyes.
Natalya left him alone after that, moving to tend the fire, then stretching out in front of it for a nap looking amusingly cat-like. It didn't take him long, either, in two hours they were tuning, trying to get on the frequency she wanted. He found it.
"Chel? Are you there?"
"Na-t-ya?" the makeshift radio crackled.
Natalya, so that was her name.
"Yes, I-"
"We… worried… you okay? …Happened?" Chel asked quickly. While her words were severely broken, Natalya could make out what she was saying fairly easily.
"Stryker's base is underwater, look, I am in a cabin west of where the base was. I need someone to come get me. I also have a guest, he is injured."
"…Repeat?"
She did so.
"Badly?"
She glanced to Toad who stared intently at the device he had made, hands resing on either side of it almost protectively. "Broken leg, but looking at him you would think it ws nothing."
He weirdly seemed to accept the compliment.
"We'll… too send… morning. …eye on …skies!"
"I will…. we will I suppose."
The connection cut off, leaving only muted static, and Natalya smiled at Toad. She genuinely pleased and surprisingly it was with him rather than rescue, and she was not afraid to admit it. "That was extremely clever, you are a genius. It is no wonder Magneto has you among his elite."
"It was jist a radio…" He was unused to compliments, and it made him feel oddly uncomfortable. She smiled more broadly and leaned forward to kiss him on both cheeks.
"Even so, my thanks to you, Toad. It is something I could not do."
He gaped at her, the first unguarded expression she had gotten from him, but it was gone just as quickly as it appeared, melting into anger. "Don' touch me!" he snarled, but the delay made it seem like some random outburst. Not that that would have been uncharacteristic of him, so she simply brushed him off, not finding him to be truly threatening at the moment.
"You can have the bed if you like, I will sleep on the couch." Despite herself, Natalya was sort of socially inept, this was her way of thanking him.
He eyed her wearily. Were they back to that again so soon? " …'m hungry," he mumbled, limping towards the kitchen, "not tired."
She jumped in front of him, "You may sleep whenever you wish, never again if that is what you please. If you are hungry, sit down and I will make us food." She was insistent on thanking him.
The Russian could not accept this as a sort of re-payment for her saving his life, no, that had been her obligation, but what he had done was a great thing to her. While she didn't like him much, she couldn't ignore what he had done.
He glared at her, seeming quite indignant over her stepping in his way, "I'll do it m'self."
"Are you simply trying to appear masculine by denying help, or are you afraid that I will poison you?" She was jibbing him more than anything now, but it was a little too easy to get a rise out of someone like him.
He glowered at her, "No ya bloody commie, I just don' need ya to do nuthin' fer me. That simple enough fer ya to understand?"
"Not used to kindnesses then; maybe you are afraid."
"Afraid of you? I think not, luv."
"No, not of me, but you are afr-gak-" His obnoxiously long tongue was around her throat. She was more disgusted than surprised, but either way she did not thrash or fight him even as she felt her windpipe being slowly crushed.
"I ain't 'fraid o nuthin," he let her go, "I seen and been through stuff that would give you a lifetime o nightmares if you experienced just one. So stop sayin' I'm afraid."
Natalya wanted to laugh, she'd nearly frozen to death, been brutalized, beaten, raped, she had killed, she doubted he could have too much on her. That thick sort of sticky spit of his clung to her neck over a growing bruise and she realized she hadn't yet recalled her breath. When she did so she went into a painful coughing fit. Toad was unsympathetic.
She regained her breath and spoke somewhat raspily, "Despite what is said, no matter how many agree… or disagree, no mater what you say or believe, nothing can be unfailingly proven true… or untrue." She went over to the sink to wash the spit off her neck; she wasn't angry with him, she recognized this for what it was, Toad being himself, just as twisted and ugly on the inside as the out.
She had met many a young mutant with a sever physical mutation, he had reason to be the way her was.
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