X-23 or Laura depending on who talked to her, walked me to Charles' office. Today was a Saturday morning and we still walked across a couple students on our way yet none looked at us. I thought our blood soaked appearance would garner their attention, maybe a scream from one of the children. But no one stopped us, even Hank, who came out of Charles' office, walked by us without a glance. I opened the door first and saw Charles with a pleasant expression seeing us walk in, "good morning." He said.
"Morning." We both said in unison.
Just about when we were about to sit down Charles spoke in a hurry, "I hate to be rude but the leather on the chairs is rather fine and in my family since I have memory. If you would kindly not stain it with blood, I would be most grateful."
We stood looking at him and X-23 spoke first when she saw Charles about to talk, "626 found the Danger Room due to my training. It's my fault that he discovered the basement, I accept any punishment you wish to give–"
Charles cut her off, "Laura." He gave her a weary smile filled with guilt at her solution, "there are no punishments here, only lessons. You know this. If anyone is at fault, it's me for underestimating our guest's hearing. However I'd like to ask you to go clean up, I have matters to discuss with our guest. And don't worry about unsettling your fellow students, I've taken care of that." The professor tapped his head in jest.
X-23 gave me a quick glance before leaving us alone. I gazed at Charles to continue his discussion, "I beg your pardon for not allowing you to change before having our talk, I'm afraid I have a busy schedule today. How have you found the school so far?" He asked.
I blinked a couple of times trying to figure out my assessment on it, "similar to SHIELD on how it operates. Everyone has their tasks for the day or week, the X-men serve as agents. But some of your students don't fit in with what your 'idea' of a school is."
"Is that a fact or opinion in your mind?" He sincerely asked as if he were asking a student to explain their answer in class.
"Opinion, their all individuals with their own opinion about your school." I replied.
"Do you think you'd fit in? Be able to have a life here, a normal one?" He asked.
I wasn't bothered by his question but this felt more like an interrogation than a discussion. I spoke, "No, I have my mission to accomplish."
Charles circled his sophisticated wheelchair around his desk to come in front of me. His tone was filled with pity, "what about after you've taken care of HYDRA? What then? Fury has a puzzled mind for which he uses when speaking to mutants with my specific power, perhaps he always thinks this way. He constantly has numerous plans, strategies, the world moving around in his head that misguide me on what he's thinking. But the last time I spoke with him face to face I asked for you, I saw a glimpse of what he planned for you. In his mind, you never leave SHIELD. His agent, a tool."
I decided to skip the part where he probed Fury's brain since I would rather not anger my host in his own house filled with mutants. Instead I opted for ending this conversation, I have no reason to explain my wants to a stranger, "Fury and I made a deal of mutual benefit. Besides, I'm young and have a bright future in my field."
He moved his wheelchair an inch closer to drive his point home, "then why not use your skills for your fellow mutants? After your 'mission' why not come here, and join my X-men?"
'My X-men', the phrase reminded me of Raven's or rather Mystique's argument yesterday, sounds like I'd be trading the Fury I know for a new one with unknown beliefs if I did. I responded, "I'm a rather progressive person Charles Xavier, I only see people to protect while working with SHIELD. Sorry but I'd rather not work for people with a smaller reach than Fury's network and budget. Thanks for the offer, I'll go clean up, good day." I said it with the full intent of using sarcasm and wanting to express my desire to end this conversation. Of course what I said was a lie, I owe no one much less the mutants my aide. There's only HYDRA's debt that I want to collect.
Charles sighed, "still, please consider helping any mutants you find, agent. Just because the governments stopped hunting our kind doesn't mean organisations aren't putting innocent lives through what you went through. Your unique power resists my ability but anyone here can see that you still bare the scars of what happened in that lab. My doors are always open to you child and I can comfortably say that your presence can be of help to some of my students just how they can help you heal." He said in a fatherly tone and meant every word as if it were true, who knows.
Opening the door he asked one last thing of me, "child, it would put my mind at ease to know that the 'basement' is kept secret. I assure you that its birth is only meant to help mutants worldwide. If put in the wrong hands, say HYDRA, it could cause more harm than good for everyone."
I gave him a nod and left for my room. Whether Fury knows or doesn't know of it already, it doesn't mean anything in my search for HYDRA from what I saw, nor would me creating conflict over it for both groups. While showering and putting on new military clothes that I brought from headquarters I thought about our conversation. I believed the so-called professor a moron when it came to people like me. In what world could I heal from the countless viruses running through my veins? My scars are proof of my own will and struggle to survive, not weights but reminders of what needed to be done. I'm still fighting to survive as long as HYDRA still lived to reclaim their experiment; no one around me seems to understand that simple point but me.
A knock at the door brought me out of thoughts. I opened it and X-23 stood there with a blank face, "want breakfast?"
"Sure." I said.
We walked together in silence to the kitchen. I watched as the students there quietly left or got out of her way as she searched around the kitchen for two bowels. She filled them with some sort of cereal with colourful little bits mixed in with it and chocolate milk. My eyes inspected her and I couldn't help but comment, "this isn't a healthy breakfast."
X-23 placed the bowels at the kitchen island and gestured for me to sit at the chairs assigned to it, "my altered genes keep me in top shape supposedly. I decided to give myself little pleasures where I can. Can't you?"
She sat down to eat not caring whether I followed her example. I looked at one of the few people similar to me chow down on this weird soup and turned off my brain to eat what she took the time to make for me. We finished at the same time and worked together to clean the dishes. Since I had nothing to do until Clint came to pick me up from his mission I asked her a question, "do you mind if I follow you around today? I have nothing to do."
"Sure." She said.
I followed her routine, went for a run during the rest of the morning, workout at the gym, lunch, another jog, hit a boxing bag until dinner, and finally try to sleep. When she couldn't fall asleep, she would knock on my door to go train in the Danger Room. However Charles instructed us to only do simulated battles as he felt that our spar left too much of a mess. Thus our routine continued the same way for a week without a conversation between us other than when we coordinated during our time in the Danger Room, she's a good partner to have in battle. No one bothered us until the following Sunday.
The 'gang' came to talk with us or rather me during breakfast, "Hey! We're going to the mall and thought, hey, why not invite our guest. So? You up for it." Said Bobby.
I looked at the group and saw Jean who hid behind the group, "wanna go X-23?" My eyes searched her face for discomfort.
"Why would you want to go?" She said while her face remained plastered to her signature cereal.
"Coulson told me to buy clothes, and he won't stop berating me back at base if I come empty handed I think." I said it plainly as a burden, however Kitty took it the other way, "yay!!! Shopping spree!"
Bobby looked at me with dead eyes as if I unleashed a demon, "I'll come, I need a new outfit for the week since I lost one during our spar." X-23 said.
"I'll pay for it since I had a hand in it." I said and Bobby took a step closer to ask me something, "mind giving me a small loan? I kinda wanna buy something wink, wink."
"Sure." I said.
I went upstairs for my bag with the bundle of cash in it to spend. When I showed the rest the amount they let out a unified voice, "OUR MONEY COMRAD."
"Sure." I said since it didn't come from my bank account.
Arriving at the mall I hoped to visit just one of the stores and be done with it but these people wanted to go everywhere until there wasn't a penny left. We went together to every store but separated into groups of boys and girls inside them for some reason. Surprisingly Rogue stayed with X-23 while the other girls browsed and even helped her pick an outfit. I wasn't so lucky, at first I thought Bobby would use the money for a gift to give Kitty but that wasn't the case with the countless jackets he tried on. It took some time for me to find clothes and the only clothing I picked was grey since it reminded me of my armoured suit. The boys laughed at my logic of picking clothes just for the colour but didn't dismiss my approach. At one of the stores I found a pair of grey jeans and couldn't decide if it would look good so I went to the dressing room alone.
Inside I closed the door behind me and glanced at the mirror in the room to see if the jean fit me or made me look goofy. After a couple of minutes I decided to leave them and changed out of it. I had my hand on the doorknob when a familiar tingle touched my mind, my pen pal. They pulled on the imaginary rope gently and rhythmically. It had been a bit more than a week since either of us called for the other, I forgot about them.
I backed off from the door and answered with pull from my side. Like we always did, I'd pull after they toggled on the rope. I sat on the chair that was placed in the changing room wondering why my symptom of insanity from my days in the lab returned. While I felt the rope being pulled at the back of my mind I chose to indulge my madness and looked in the mirror for a makebelieve rope. I looked long and hard hoping to leave this crazy thought behind me even if it had helped me keep my mind and soul intact. No rope in sight. I got up staring at the mirror to see my idiotic face and was about to swear to put this foolish motion behind me when I saw a faint line of hand move.
My eyes didn't blink as I searched the mirror for the hand, the more I focused on my reflection, the more an image or rather scenery formed in front of me through faint lines of shadows that flickered in the reflection. The background was a room, the ruins of one. Walls made of concrete not even painted, cracks ran down them with bullet holes on the walls in front of the only broken window of the room. It was hard to tell but the turned on light bulb meant it was night in this place alongside with the moths that fluttered around it. In this room a bed was placed in the middle under the window where a light wind entered, barely lifting the countless blankets with holes in them that spread on top of its broken bedframe. And on that bed the hand I saw before moved up and down with a comb in hand across long strands of hair. A girl around my age combed her hair in this room somewhere in the world, my pen pal.
She was looking at the floor while the shadows that made up her faint mouth moved, was she talking, singing, mumbling something? The whole time she pulled on the rope connecting us and I started to desperately pull to make her look at me but the lines of her face formed a smile at my effort. I kept trying until a silhouette appeared in a dark doorway, a man also around my age with a shocked expression as he looked at me through the mirror somehow. He raised his arm to point in my direction yelling something that prompted the girl to finally glance at me. I could barely make out her face as she stood up from shock. She began to walk closer towards me and I too couldn't help but get right in front of the mirror. We both held out our hands about to touch the mirror when the man raced to pull her back to face him and the door of the changing room was banged on wildly; why did my body turn to look behind? Was it my stupid instinct that drove me to turn around from my combat training? I was so close.
When my gaze fell back on the mirror, it was only my miserable face looking back yearning for that someone who helped me through the darkness. But she wasn't there.
"Oi, officer! You there buddy?" Bobby said.
"Ya, I'm almost done." I replied with melancholy.
Am I insane for what I saw, or was it my insanity for someone that created this illusion. I pushed down those thoughts reminding myself of my mission. Leaving the changing room I continued my day like always after returning to the mansion. At dinner however I heard the engine of a quinjet flying over the mansion, Clint came back from his mission. I got up from the table where me and X-23 sat to eat to go gather my things from my room. Three bags of clothes to transfer later to the Helicarrier. When I got to the backyard where Clint had landed the quinjet, X-23 waited for me.
Her arms were crossed for some reason and she eyed me with uncertainty. I spoke first, "I'm leaving for my mission X-23, it was a pleasure to train with you." I said in a monotone voice but I meant it.
She spoke in a stern voice, almost a demand, "will you visit the school? Rogue told me that you'll help train her powers."
I thought of Rogue, no horrible self inflicting feelings of letting her down arose in me. However when I looked at X-23 in front of me… I had to turn my eyes elsewhere to say no, yet my mouth betrayed me, "after the mission I'll come train with you. No one else can match my momentum like you back at base."
"I was talking about Rogue." She said with a thin line forming on her face, perhaps a smile.
"Sure…Rogue." I said
"Goodbye then 626." X-23 said.
"Goodbye X-23." I replied.
I marched off before the gang came down to see me off, I didn't want to go through the same scenario with each of them if possible. When I reached the quinjet I saw a giddy Hawkeye radiating with glee, what kind of mission did he come from?
My first instinct made me inspect him for any signs of harm and he gave me a wide smile showing his teeth, "what? Did you forget me so quickly?"
"You, Good?" I asked, eyeing his tanned face.
"One day kid, in the future, you'll know what love is." He said looking into the far distance as if he spat out some form of wisdom.
"Sure." I said, my go to answer, "can I go inside or you gonna stand in my way the whole time?" My tone a bit shaky seeing this new type of Clint.
"Let me help you with your bags. Looks like we both enjoyed our time away from each other." He said ushering me inside the quinjet. "Did you make any friends, besides me of course."
I looked at the mansion, my eyes finding a certain black haired girl with claws that came from every end, "a couple."
"Wow… two miracles in one week. Ahhhh… I have high hopes for our mission. Come, we have a widow to hunt." He said dropping one of my bags on one of the spare seats in the hull of the quinjet. The rest of the hull was filled with equipment, excitement filled me at the thought of getting even with the person who ruined my 100% mission record. I gave one last glance to the school before seating in the co-pilot's seat.
"Where's the hunting grounds?" I asked.
"We got a pretty good guess that we'll find her in Paris." He said.