Chapter 13 - Fragile
It had been days - days - since Kate had watched her husband get dragged off. She had only just started to get a handle on the anxiety that had threatened to drown her after David was born, and now this?
She was doing okay holding it together for a while, but that particular morning, David had woken up in the middle of the night and then again before dawn, and she had been sleep-addled enough that her crutches had slipped out from under her and she'd fallen flat on her back.
And she'd promptly burst into tears.
She couldn't stop herself from crying, no matter how hard she tried. She was tired and scared and in pain and trying not to let it show how much it hurt when David had started rocking on his knees like he was thinking about crawling and Nate wasn't there to see it.
Bamf.
Kate glanced up in time to see Mia's worried expression in the seconds before Mia rushed to her and threw her arms around her. And for as much as Kate wanted to hold it together, when she heard Mia sniffling herself, Kate started to cry all over again.
"I get it," Mia said quietly, but that had Kate choking back a sob as she thought of exactly why Mia could sympathize with the fear of losing the man she loved. Mia wasn't even far enough removed from losing Noh to have lost her faraway stare before this had happened, and here she was with Kate in a far-too-familiar circumstance.
So, Kate tried to pull herself together enough to comfort Mia. She wiped her eyes and held her breath - and in that silence, she could hear that David had stopped crying, and Natasha's singing was floating their way from the other room.
Thanks, Mom, she thought as she wiped her eyes again.
Mia helped Kate get back up and then sat on the bed with her, not quite meeting her gaze but leaning against her shoulder in solidarity and silence. "There's nothing I can say to make it better, even though I wish there was."
"Yeah," Kate said and then bumped Mia's shoulder. "Sorry to wake you."
"I was already awake," Mia admitted, grasping her tail in her hands and looking down at it. "Nightmares, you know?"
Kate frowned and turned her way a little better. "Horsemen issues?" she guessed.
Mia nodded. "Yeah," she said softly. "Every night."
Kate let out a soft sound and then yanked Mia to her in a tight hug. "I'm so sorry," she whispered.
"Me too," Mia said, turning to grasp onto Kate - and they both sat there in silence for several long minutes, listening to Natasha sing lullabies until they could hear Natasha step out and then knock on Kate's door.
Mia glanced at Kate and then gave her one more hug. "Let me know if you need a repeat performance," she said, a bare whisper of her usual teasing smile on her face before she teleported away.
After the sound of the teleport, Natasha let herself in and slipped over to sit on the edge of Kate's bed. "I won't ask how you're doing, because we both know that would be a waste of time," she said softly. "But from now until we find Nate, someone else is going to make sure David is taken care of at night, whether it's me or your father or your godfather."
"Tony's supposed to be resting-"
"Tony would like nothing more than to rest with a baby in his arms and you know it," Natasha shot back. "You're supposed to be resting too, and you aren't going to be of any use to us when we find Nate if you've been neglecting yourself."
"Okay," Kate said, her voice quivering.
Natasha sighed and then pulled Kate to her in a tight hug. "You married a good man, Kate. He'll be here with you before you know it."
"Okay," Kate said in the same tone as before, which only had Natasha pulling her tighter to herself.
They stayed there until Kate had stopped crying and switched to sniffling instead, and then, there was another knock at the door before Clint let himself in, smiling and bearing a plate full of chocolate chip brownies.
"Before you get impressed, Jarvis made them. I'm just the delivery boy," Clint said with an easy smile as he sat down by the two of them.
Kate laughed and reached out with grabby hands for the plate. "Yes, this is what I needed."
"Thought so." Clint waited until she had a mouth full of brownie before he leaned over to kiss her forehead. "You know we're all here for you no matter what, right?"
Kate swallowed her food a bit faster than she meant to - and then swallowed again, still teetering on the edge of too much emotion. "Yeah," she said, her mouth weirdly dry for how gooey the brownies had been.
Clint sighed and readjusted so that he could bump her shoulder with his. "Hey," he said, "where's your head, baby girl?"
Kate leaned into him more than she had realized she needed to. "It's going to sound hysterical or something," she said, though Clint was already shaking his head, so she sighed. "It's just… everyone keeps saying how familiar this feels, and I'm not sure I like what that looks like for me. You know. Being Scott. Left behind. Surviving with a kid and…" She trailed off, not because she had nothing more to say but because she couldn't get any more words past the lump in her throat.
Clint shifted once again so that he had his arm around Kate, though it was Natasha who spoke up with a firm, "That isn't going to happen."
"Okay, Mom," Kate said. She didn't want to argue, because she knew her mother wouldn't have it. But just because her mom was convinced that everything would be okay didn't mean she wasn't bone-deep terrified of losing her husband, of losing her support, of losing her spark, the way Scott had lost his. She had grown up seeing exactly what happened when people like the ones who ran the Department tore apart families, and she wasn't sure she was built for what happened in the aftermath.
While Clint and Natasha both fell silent, snuggling Kate between them when it was so obvious that was what she needed in the moment, they shared a look over the top of Kate's head, the advantage of decades working together filling in where words didn't exist.
Still, they didn't say anything to each other until Kate had drifted off, exhausted, on Clint's shoulder. And even then, they were quiet until long after they were sure Kate was asleep. Clint didn't say anything until they were back at their room, and even then, it was just to hand Natasha his phone with a whispered, "Guess who's reaching out."
Natasha raised one eyebrow as she looked at the long string of text messages that could only have been from one person. And somehow, she wasn't at all surprised that Wade would reach out to Clint as he came out of hiding for a fight against the Department. With everything that had happened lately, she wasn't sure much could surprise her.
She nodded once and handed the phone back to Clint. "Tell him we're in - but we'll have to work things out so that we can keep our promise to Kate to help her with David until her husband is back."
"Got it," Clint said, already texting. "He's going to be obnoxiously attached, you know."
"I know," Natasha said. "But I also know that he's survived this long by keeping a low profile and by managing to stay under the Department's radar. He's too good a resource not to make use of him."
Clint leaned over to kiss her cheek. "Then let's get going. I don't want to wait too long and let this turn into the bloodbath Katie's worried it will be."
"Agreed," Natasha said. Then, with the barest ghost of a smile, she added, "But I think it's only fair that you get the first shift with him. Let him freak out on you first."
Clint rolled his eyes. "Love you too, Nat."
Bobby had a feeling that the Department wasn't entirely sure what to do with him once they realized the Cuckoos couldn't get any information out of him. They did send in a couple people that morning to ask him questions, but he ignored them and sat curled up on the floor, only kind of leaning into the idea they probably already had of him being nothing more than a traumatized guy who couldn't answer questions.
They gave up on the questions soon after that, and that meant Bobby had the room to himself. And the heat even seemed to be a little less intense. Maybe they were worried they'd pushed too far and wanted to see if they could do any recovery.
Bobby looked around over the top of his knees. The heat lamps were surging a bit, blinking like they were resetting. And that… that told Bobby that something was going on with the power.
The heat lamps dimmed even more, and Bobby smirked to himself. There wasn't much he could do, especially with his knee as messed up as it was, but he had his powers still, because no one expected a dried-up snowman to be much of a threat.
But the thing about keeping a room this warm all the time was that on the other side of the door, there was bound to be some warping. Or, in this time of year, a bit of condensation. There had to be. And as soon as he touched the doorknob, he nodded to himself and froze the lock, bursting it open from the other side.
"Thanks, Magneto," he muttered under his breath as he pushed the door open and reveled in the cooler air, leaning against the doorframe. "Learned something from all those jailbreaks after all."
The further Bobby got from the heated room, too, the more strength he could find. This was winter in Canada. He had plenty to work with; he just had to recover a bit first. He started out dragging himself sideways on the floor to get away from the heat, but once he had space, he was able to pull himself upright, leaning against the wall and hopping along.
He could tell which wall was the one that touched the outside, because it was colder, and it felt amazing as he ran his hand down it. In no time at all, he was even leaving frost on his fingers, and once that happened, he grinned widely. He took a deep breath, shifted into his ice form, iced himself up a crutch and a splint on his leg, and then faced the wall, putting both of his hands against it.
Time to get out.
He pushed an entire ice wall against the outer wall, forcing ice deep into any imperfections he could find, up into the ceiling, pushing on every avenue toward escape. And when he heard something start to crack and groan, he grinned - and then almost laughed when he felt a breeze come in from outside.
Which was, of course, when some guards finally figured out that something was up.
Bobby heard the guards coming long before anyone shouted at him to "freeze" (which was his favorite thing, really), and he spun to face them, not in the mood to hold back.
The first clue that the guards got to inform them of the deep trouble they were in was when the mechanisms in their guns froze solid as frost glazed the barrels of their weapons. Next, one of them looked down when he couldn't step forward only to find his feet frozen in place with ice and frost creeping northward at an alarming rate.
"So, who wants to tell me where the door to outside is?" Bobby said, thumbing over his shoulder. "I can break out the hard way, or…" When none of the guards volunteered any information, Bobby sighed. "Typical." He waved a hand, and the ice that had been moving slowly moved suddenly, covering the guards in ice. Bobby didn't have the time or the patience or the empathy to give them a second chance.
He hobbled as fast as he could down the hall the guards had come down, his eyes peeled for inhibitors. He knew the best places to look for them, too, and they all ended up frozen and nonfunctional before he got within their area of effect. All while he was steadily getting colder, his ice form getting more translucent and the cold front behind him getting sharper and stronger.
He did want to get out, because he hated being trapped like that, but the hallway with a lot more defensive measures and an inhibitor field was calling out for a jailbreak, so he turned that way after he knocked out the inhibitor.
And when he heard two young women's voices, he knew he was headed the right way.
When he broke open the lock to a door, he saw three people in two cells. May Parker and Cassie Lang were in the same cell, with Warren across from them. Not a one of them looked like they were okay, but when Bobby saw Warren's broken wings…
"Wow, I'll bet the other guy looks worse, right?" Bobby called out.
"Objectively? Absolutely," Warren agreed with a weary smile. "I was just telling the girls someone was going to be dramatic and amazing…"
"And here I am," Bobby said, throwing his arms out wide before he stepped forward to look at the lock. "Okay, should be easy," he said, nodding to himself. "I've broken about a dozen of these. There's just an alarm wire that's a problem." He grabbed onto the bars, and the others saw the entire cell door freeze over and then suddenly pop open.
"Awesome. Okay. Let's ice those wings, or you're not going anywhere," Bobby said, wincing in sympathy as he came over to help.
"Please," Warren said, not really trying to get upright when everything was so unsteady for him. "I didn't realize how much I use these stupid things to balance."
"Yeah, we'll get you wing canes or something," Bobby teased him. "How's everyone else?" he called over his shoulder to the girls as he iced up Warren's wings.
"Shaken, mostly," Cassie answered before May could start with a full word vomit as she had been doing for any other question or comment she'd gotten involved in.
"Yeah." Bobby cleared his throat and closed his eyes, then cleared his throat again. "Anyone know the way out?"
"No, but if you can freeze open the collar I've got on, I could just go really big and break the ceiling," Cassie offered.
"Already almost did that with an outer wall. Wanna help me break it the rest of the way?"
"Absolutely," Cassie said, looking relieved to have something to do.
Bobby smirked and turned back to Warren, taking his time because he didn't want to hurt his friend any worse, even though he was desperate to get out. But he must have taken too long, because the next thing he knew, May Parker had gasped dramatically and called out, "Look out!"
Bobby reacted entirely on instinct, because he was not about to get caught again. Immediately, he threw up a wall of ice - but with icicles that spiked out at an angle, instantly impaling the guards that had been trying to rush in after him. Which, of course, had both girls screaming.
"Oops. Hey, maybe don't look over there," Bobby suggested.
"I thought you - you killed them without even looking …!" May looked like her eyes were going to bulge right out of her head.
"We're in the middle of a Weapon X facility," Bobby said flatly. "These are the definition of not nice people, okay?"
"Okay, well, time to go, clearly," Cassie said, sounding stressed and only slightly more together than May.
"Right, right," Bobby said, pulling Warren to his feet and then going to the girls' bars to break those open - but by the time that happened, even more guards had arrived. He immediately threw up a wall of ice between the guards and the rest of them, but there wasn't a way out in the other direction; they'd have to go through the guards eventually, and the bozos were already trying to shoot their way through the ice.
"They're going to bring in an inhibitor soon," Warren said, frowning, and Bobby made a sharp motion with one hand.
"I know," he said, watching through the ice for exactly that to happen.
He didn't see an inhibitor, per se, but … the shapes that were discernible through the ice weren't anything friendly. And after a few moments, Bobby knew they were about to make an example out of all four of them. Before he could process what exactly was going on, his hand popped up, and he concentrated hard to freeze every guard. The temperature around him dropped another fifteen degrees as he did it, and the ice wall in front of him cracked as it froze harder.
It wasn't immediately apparent what had happened, but May was the first to figure it out, because she couldn't see any movement or puffs of breath or shivering. "Oh my god, you froze them from the inside out?"
"Oh my god, that's one of Tony's guns," Cassie said at almost the same time. "He shut down production when some Hydra idiot figured out how to rewire it into a bad molecular disruptor that targets carbon atoms."
Bobby took just a moment to turn toward the girls. "I don't do things like this unless I have to. They were going to kill us. All of us."
"They were going to literally tear apart everything organic in our bodies," Cassie said, looking green and then pale.
A second later, Bobby's ice wall shifted to move like a very fast glacier, twisting the weapon into little more than a tangled smear of ground up metal and plastic. "We need to find the others and get out."
"We could get out and bring help to us?" May pointed out. "No one knows where we are, and if we get caught again…"
"You want to leave your teammates in a place where they were planning to shred your atoms?" Warren asked with a deep frown.
"No, I'm just - one of us should try to get a signal out…"
"Cassie," Warren said. "You've got the best shot."
"On it," Cassie promised, tugging at the collar before Bobby came over to help her out of it.
Bobby got to work - not with ice, but with a makeshift lock pick. What's more, he made quick work of it and tossed it aside, only looking up with a double take when Warren was staring at him in disbelief. "What? I picked a few things up, okay?"
"Yeah, I see that," Warren said, though Cassie was shooting him a look like he should have instantly understood.
"If I froze it, she'd get frostbite, okay? Sometimes, you have to adjust," Bobby grumbled as he worked.
As soon as Cassie was free, she went small first, disappearing from their view so that she didn't go too big in the middle of an underground place and crush anybody, but that left the rest of them to simply trust that she would get out using Bobby's weakened wall.
"Have you guys heard anyone else?" Bobby asked.
May shook her head. "No, you're the first person we've seen that wasn't Warren."
"Not good," Bobby said, then looked toward the fork in the hallways. "Well, I know where I came from, so let's try another direction."
"We'll follow you," May said firmly.
"Yeah, the Abominable Snowman strikes," Warren said, smirking Bobby's way.
"Not my fault you're late to the game on realizing how awesome I am," Bobby shot back before he started down the hall, trying to blaze the trail when Warren was slow and May was shivering - and only partly with cold. "Maybe May's right, though," he said just loud enough for Warren to hear. "You need out now, not with an entourage."
"You saw that gun. And you can see how shaken she is. I can't get out on my own, and neither can she. We need at least one more before we split up any more than we already have."
"You're right; of course you are," Bobby agreed under his breath. "What are the chances that it's just us anyhow, right?"
"Considering I saw Tyler go down?" Warren said, both eyebrows raised significantly. "They wouldn't leave that kid behind after the work they put into him before."
"No, they wouldn't," Bobby agreed, then turned down another hall after peeking around the corner.
They got about halfway down the hall before May suddenly stiffened up and spun on her heels just in time to see a charging Tyler. And since she was the only one to see him fast enough, she stepped into his path and grabbed him, getting slashed across the arms briefly - but then she tossed him hard enough and far enough that he got half embedded into the wall beside her.
"Eep!" she said, completely undercutting the moment.
"Nice," Warren said, though he was frowning at the way Tyler was snarling even stunned and stuck as he was.
"Good move, May," Bobby said, then iced Tyler where he was. "Your dad makes that same sound!"
"I get that a lot?" May said, backing away from Tyler. "I'm going to guess we're not taking him with us - at least not while he's awake?"
"Yeah, what's up with that whole … I thought he was a good kid?" Bobby said, trying to watch all directions at once.
"When the team first met him, he had some machine in him that controlled his every move. Looks like they reinstalled it," Mayday said, doing a full-body shiver. "He lived in the tower for a bit while he was recovering, and it did not look fun."
"Right, I heard about that," Bobby said. "That is a very very bad thing."
"Means we're getting closer, though," Warren suggested.
"Hopefully," May said. "But who's he guarding?"
"Let's find out," Bobby said, hobbling ahead faster.
The three of them burst through the doors at the end of the hall, prepared for a tough fight… and instead, they saw three genesis tubes, only two of which were occupied: by Billy and Rachel.
"Let me look at the controls," May offered, rushing forward. "You don't want to mess with environmental controls…"
Warren and Bobby glanced at each other. "You sure we can't…?" Bobby asked, his fingers flexed all the way out.
"Let me just check to see how they're breathing in there, because you don't want them swallowing a bunch of liquid," May said. "This is what I'm actually good at; Dad and I deal with mad scientists a lot." She was half hunched over the controls, muttering to herself. "Okay, I can start the sequence, but it's going to take a couple minutes," she said, already pulling levers and pushing buttons. "They're on a lot of drugs, and half of those are going through that breathing apparatus, so… I'll tell you when you can break it."
The two X-Men in the group couldn't do much but watch out for May, so they stood back, letting her work… so they didn't immediately clock trouble until Warren started to sway. And even that could have been explained by how badly he was hurt if Bobby hadn't stumbled a step a few seconds later.
"Damnit," Bobby breathed out, trying to throw up a defensive wall of ice, but he was losing steam fast to whatever odorless gas was filling the room. Both he and Warren hit the ground fast, and May toppled sideways a second later before all three of them passed out.
Even though she was tiny, Cassie knew that the Department had to be well-aware of what she could do, so she was exceedingly careful as she ran for all she was worth - hitching rides on passing guards who were running down the halls themselves. She'd hoped that it would get her somewhere she could work her way out easier, but every guard she held onto the shoelaces of took her into another hallway - another wing - another unit - and none of them seemed to be where she wanted to go.
But, eventually, her hitchhiking got her to a security room … and she hoped she'd be able to figure it out from there. If nothing else, she hoped that she could just … wait for the shift to change when she could hop a ride on the current guard's pants cuff.
It was a solid plan. She knew it was. The fact that she didn't have to wait through a full shift was especially helpful, but even at that, she was still incredibly upset when, instead of leaving the facility, she ended up taking a ride to the barracks.
She bit her lip and held back from voicing her disgust before she carefully let go in a dark corner and started to run for the nearest door, deciding that, now, her best option was to simply pick a direction and keep going that way.
She watched the cameras for the motion sensing light to go off, then carefully crept through the sensor zones until she found herself at a door that actually seemed to lead to the outdoors. She rushed out of the door as it closed behind a soldier and had to stop herself from gasping at how bitterly cold it was outside - complete with freshly falling snow that seemed to appear out of nowhere in the darkness, floating so slowly that the chill of the air itself seemed to impede the snow's progress.
But that wasn't nearly as upsetting as realizing how much snow was on the ground when she was so small. She didn't have a whole lot of options, though, so instead of allowing herself to panic just then, she picked a direction and started to book it as fast as she could down a beaten path in the snow, fully intending to get big once she was well away from the facility.
When Bobby woke up again, he wasn't sure if it was a relief or not to find that he wasn't back where the heat lamps were. Sure, he'd broken that door down, but he doubted they'd let a door stop them from sticking him somewhere to dry out if they wanted.
But he wasn't dead, and he wasn't being dried out, and he'd just killed dozens of their men. And he wasn't stupid enough to think they weren't planning something new.
He also wasn't sure if it was as good a thing as May seemed to think it was that they were in cells near each other - though as he came back to consciousness, he could hear her panicked "thank god" as she word-vomited about how worried she was about him and Warren and Cassie, who was apparently somewhere out there still. Hopefully still alive.
He groaned and pushed himself up, surprised not to feel a collar on his neck - but they must have been in a dampening field instead. He definitely couldn't access his ice. "Slow down, May; everything's still loud right now," he said, which had Warren chuckling dryly.
"Yeah, whatever stuff they used definitely plays with the senses," May said, nodding, though she was seated in almost a little ball at the far side of her cell. "Sorry. I just - if they got Cassie too…"
"They didn't," Warren said firmly.
"You don't know that."
"She'd be here if they got her," Warren reasoned. "No reason to separate her."
"Maybe," May said, her arms still wrapped around her knees.
Bobby listened with half an ear as Warren tried to talk May down. He could tell from Warren's tone that he was getting tired of spending the last several days dealing with how panicked she was, even if it was understandable for her first encounter with the Department. Warren had been taking care of two scared young women the whole time, and he hadn't had the chance to worry for himself or for anyone else.
But Bobby couldn't bring himself to try to help, because once he had his bearings, he was opening and closing his hands and doing his best to swallow down his own panic so that Warren wouldn't feel like he had to help both of them.
He'd been so damn close. If he hadn't stopped for a jailbreak, if he'd just focused on getting out, getting help…
He didn't know how much longer he had in him, sitting in this prison full of murderous sadists. He'd thought he'd left cells behind him, and he was just starting to get his life on track - even asked Remy out - and now this.
So when he saw a few uniformed men coming down the hall toward their cells, he held his breath, his eyes narrowed. This was the other shoe waiting to drop.
Warren was on his feet, even if he was mostly leaning against the bars. Bobby had helped immensely by icing his wings, but he still wasn't balanced. "Come back for Round Two?" Warren said, and May let out a squeaky noise of protest at him baiting them like that.
But the men ignored Warren's commentary entirely, passing the elder X-Men by as they headed over to the cell that May Parker was tucked into. At first, May didn't even really look their way, since, until now, they'd been favoring the X-Men members … and May wasn't an X-Man. She was an Avenger. She honestly though,t in some small way, that her capture was a mistake. That they hadn't really meant to get her.
But then, her Spider Sense went wild, and she nearly jumped out of her skin trying to jump away from them as soon as they got in the door of her cell. And when she got past the initial surprise of realizing they were coming for her, she went almost into automatic pilot and ended up tossing the first man who tried to put a hand on her over her shoulder and into the opposite wall hard enough to stun him.
"See, this is why you always ask for consent before touching a lady," May said, smiling weakly even as the other guards redoubled their efforts to get their hands on her. "Hey, no, what did we just talk about?"
When a second guard flew out of the cell and hit the wall, Bobby almost chuckled. "She did warn you guys. "
To Bobby's pure amusement - that was … pretty much exactly how the bulk of that encounter went, with May panicking and chucking one of the guards out or into other guards that had come to help. The whole time, May was borderline apologizing for hurting them while whipping them into each other. And also pointing out that it was their own fault. At least, that was the thread until backup arrived that was packing tranquilizers. But even at that, May was dodging the darts as her Spider Sense went wild. Until she just couldn't.
"The hell kind of organization do you think you are - can't even beat a scared college kid without two rounds of backup," Bobby said, though he was visibly stressed and plainly worried about May.
"You really don't know how to keep your mouth shut, do you?" one of the guards finally replied as they picked May up. She wasn't quite out yet, but she also clearly didn't have control of her limbs - or much of her usual strength, either.
"I spent almost two decades mouthing off to Magneto, so… yeah, honestly, at this point, it's baked in," Bobby pointed out. "Besides, I can't help but notice it feels like you're retaliating against a twenty-year-old for the escape I orchestrated, and that's low, guys."
"Think what you want," the guard replied but didn't rise to Bobby's bait more than that as May was taken out, leaving the rest of the heroes behind.
For a moment, Bobby and Warren were left in silence. And then, Warren heard Bobby swear, hit the bars of his door, and then swear all over again. "Damn it all, Warren, I hate being on this side of things."
"I know," Warren said softly.
"We were almost out, too," Bobby said. "I swear to God, if we end up having to watch her and Cassie get turned into weapons -" He cut himself off and hit the door again - lighter this time.
"Bobby, come on," Warren said - keeping his tone low and quiet. "You really think Slim's gonna let that happen?"
"Yeah, actually, seeing as it happened to me and Remy and Kitty plenty of times - well, the prison part. You know what I mean," Bobby said, though his tone didn't have as much bite to it as it could have.
"We didn't know about that, Bobb-o," Warren said. "Not at the time."
"Yeah, I know. I just…" Bobby pressed his hands into his eyes.
"Besides," Warren continued. "What are the chances that it was just us anyhow?"
"Yeah, I know. I've been thinking about that too. Wondering who else besides Rachel and Billy they got. Because I know I wasn't anywhere near either of them when me and Rem were attacked with the kids. And you can see how the lack of backup for days is kinda worrying, right?"
"Honestly, just with Rachel missing … that would be enough to get Slim going. Or America. There has to be someone out there on our side that will figure out how to deal."
"With Rachel here, I'm half expecting to find out the whole family's here too," Bobby said darkly. He ran both hands through his hair and let his breath out. "You okay? Ice on those wings still helping?" he asked, trying to rally.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Warren answered after almost too long.
"Hey, I know I'm a mess, but even I can tell that's a lie."
"That's the best you're getting right now," Warren said.
"Yeah, fair." Bobby ran his hands down his face. "If I can get past this dampener again, I can make us a path."
"Save your energy," Warren said. "Cas has it covered."
Bobby nodded. "Yeah, this new team … these kids know what they're doing. They do. You're right. Sorry. I just - I thought I was done doing this." He gestured at the bars.
"Yeah, sure," Warren said with a ghost of a laugh. "That's why you're with the criminal, right?"
"That… is beside the point," Bobby said, though he was starting to smile and was blushing.
"I'd ruffle my feathers for emphasis, but it hurts," Warren teased. "Birds of a feather, and all."
"Yeah, yeah. But he's interested and hot and he's Remy, ya know?" Bobby said, turning redder still. "And I'm kinda pissed I finally hooked up with him and got thrown in a cell, because things were going well. For the first time in a long time."
"Don't worry; you'll get your chance. He'll probably be beside himself for losing his lil' Rober'."
"Yeah, you don't get to say it that way. It sounds weird when you say it," Bobby said, smirking hard.
"Good. I'd hate to have you fall all over yourself over a lousy accent," Warren said. "Especially if that's your type." He was teasing, hoping that it would rile Bobby enough to distract him from where they were.
"I mean, with my track record? Sure seems like it is," Bobby said, shaking his head. "Not like you can talk about accents, though."
"No, that's true enough. I love her dirty English."
Bobby laughed. "And she's not here with you, so let's take bets. Rachel's here, so I'm not sure if Scott's here too, but if he's not…"
"I doubt he is," Warren said.
"Yeah, good point. No one knows yet about his whole…" Bobby waved his hand in front of his face.
"About nothing," Warren agreed, paranoid that they were being listened to. "Nothing to know."
"Right, yeah, I mean, most of it's on display from that stupid trial," Bobby quickly corrected himself, frustrated with himself for how much he must have been spiraling to stop being paranoid for a second. It was just such a relief to have Warren talk him down.
"So. We were on bets. I wasn't expecting lil Mayday to get that hands-on - were you?" Warren said, once again trying to redirect Bobby into safer territory. Talking was better than not talking, after all - and established intel was definitely safer than discussing what ifs.
"I feel like I was surprised in the moment, but then I remembered that she dated James, and the kid has dangerous tastes, so…"
Warren started to chuckle. "True story," he agreed, glad they could talk without talking about anything sensitive. Or potentially sensitive.
Bobby was catching onto Warren's calm, too. "Okay, so," he said, "I feel like I'm gonna scream, so I'm just gonna tell you about how bad Johnny screwed up, because… yeah."
"That sounds entertaining and also destined, knowing who we're talking about."
"Right?" Bobby smirked lightly and then settled in, grounding himself in the storytelling and grateful Warren was there. He hated how fragile he felt, like one more failed escape was going to set him off. But, hey, he could survive a little longer with one of his oldest friends there, sure.
It took a while for Tommy to find his way anywhere close to the lab that Billy had been in - but he'd managed to get a pretty good layout of the place by that time. When he got into the right hallway, while still navigating the ventilation system, he paused when he saw the puddle of gooey green water. Someone was out of the tube; he just didn't know who from his vantage point. So all he could do was follow them quietly to see where they were headed.
He was a little surprised that the trail of green drips led back to the original hallway he had been in by Cap. He lost them at one point - or two - but that was definitely where they went, so Tommy was a little more cautious as he worked his way back there. He couldn't understand what these guys thought they'd accomplish by putting Rachel or Billy exactly where Tommy could find them and help them escape. Until he realized it was James that they'd brought there and dumped in a cell - barely hosed off from the crap in the tube.
James was just in a heap on the floor - unmoving other than the incredibly slow rhythm of his breathing. By the way Cap was swearing, Tommy knew he'd tried to get a response out of James before Tommy had gotten there. It took a while, but Tommy worked his way around until he was in a vent that let him see James's face. He looked beat to hell and back - bruised up horribly, which was impressive when the healing was taken into consideration, too.
Everywhere that a lede had been looked angry and half-healed, and James wasn't even trying to move.
Tommy's arm was starting to throb and turn colors that concerned him, and anytime he even lightly hit the spot where he'd been shot, he saw white. So, he was half hoping he could get James into the vents with him. He knew he was useless when he was hurt and slow, but maybe he could start with a rescue.
But then, looking at James… maybe it was better to wait until James was healed enough to move. If Tommy got to him now, maybe all he'd do was give himself and his hiding place away.
"Hey," Tommy whispered, but when James didn't say anything, he swore. "Hey, I know where Billy is," he tried. And that at least got James to look his way, but it didn't look like he had the energy for more than that.
"Oh, this is great," he muttered under his breath.
From James's perspective - everything hurt. Every single part of his body felt as if he'd been beaten within an inch of his life and then set on fire from inside. It even hurt to blink. And breathe. Every inch of his body was in pain so white-hot that it took his breath away and robbed him of all thought. He couldn't pinpoint what hurt first .. just that everything did. He was so tired, too. His senses were a little haywire, like everything had been cranked up, but he didn't have the energy to even cover his ears. So, he followed that impulse to be as still as he could. He'd heard Tommy scraping around, but he couldn't be bothered to look for him, just like he couldn't find the will to even try to tell Steve to breathe and focus on himself for a minute. But, after a while, it occurred to him that Tommy's voice was coming from a weird angle. And then, he'd heard Tommy tell him Billy was there.
But even then, with all that in consideration, it took James far too long to force himself to barely open his eyes. When he saw Tommy tucked into the wall behind the vent, he stared at him for a moment, then went right back to trying to sleep. Tommy needed backup, and James sure as hell couldn't give it to him.
So, of course, he couldn't get the rest he needed. Tommy swore and called him a few choice names before he backed away from the vent opening and headed off to who knows where, right about the time that he heard footsteps echoing the hall. At first, he thought it was one set of high-heels on the smooth concrete floors, and on thinking of concrete, James closed his eyes tighter, savoring the cold emanating up from the concrete under him.
Cli-click click click clic-ck
James frowned, realizing that the footsteps he was hearing were from more than one set of shoes. And it was distracting enough that he couldn't try to get lost in sleep like he wanted. A low, overly loud buzz preceded the sound of his door opening, but he still didn't have the strength or the will to pick his head up to see them, let alone anything else. His nostrils flared, and he couldn't ignore the sound of five distinct heartbeats surrounding him. But he still couldn't bring himself to move.
None of them said a word, and it wasn't until they were there for a few minutes that James even realized that they were telepaths - and trying to break into his head. For an instant, he was worried - he didn't feel up to anything even close to a defense. He wasn't even sure he could pick up his head, let alone his fists.
But then … one of them took a quick step backward and swore in an undeniably upper class boarding school accent.
James took silent, still stock of himself and realized that they hadn't gotten through his natural defenses - and if his nose was right - and it always was - one of them was now sporting a bloody nose. And that left him feeling steady enough to ignore them for the time being while he listened to them regrouping and dragging their injured party out.
The only part of that interaction that left him concerned was that the injured one was talking about how painful it was to try to touch his mind. That … hadn't been anything he'd heard before. Even from telepaths that had tried. He knew that Nate or Rachel would have said as much. Or Betsy …
But for the time being, he was about as safe as one could be post-experiment, stripped naked, and imprisoned. Before the echoing sound of the girls walking away had faded, James was passed out again.
