Title: Missing 15/?
Author: sharonmjl47
Rating: NC-17
Category: Movieverse.
Disclaimer: I own nothing, and no one. Sad, isn’t it!
Feedback: Please, bad or good. If no one tells me it’s bad, I won’t know!
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“Hank? Are you sure having your nose so close to the screen is a good idea? No wonder you have to wear glasses.”
“Rogue, my poor eyesight is, I am afraid, a by-product of my mutation. When I wore glasses when I was a young man, I put it down to countless hours of reading medical journals, but alas, it is nature’s sense of humour once again.”
“Sense of humour? What - to give a genius who wants to read bad eyes?”
Chuckling, he turned away from his laptop to her. “Something like that.” He stood and stretched.
Marie got up from her chair as well, moved over to the edge of the small library balcony and looked down on the student reading area. She saw Creed, lying asleep on a large leather bean bag. Louise was there, too, on a desk behind him with her feet resting on a chair, elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands. She had her eyes fixed on Victor’s sleeping body, watching him breathe and shift around.
They had all been in the school library since the others left on the jet, around half an hour ago, but she felt like it was hours already. Her and Hank had retreated to the top section where the student computers were, but Louise had wanted to watch over Victor.
“Did you find anything?”
“Yes. Apparently, the primal function of the chip is to increase aggression, but there is also a small explosive embedded in its core. I was able to drill into his skull and get my miniature portable x-ray machine. Developed it myself you know. It’s a very fine firberoptic tube which holds a…”
“Hank.”
*coughs* “Yes well, I was able to get it close enough to get a film. Look, I’ll show you.”
He turned back to the laptop and brought up Creed’s x-rays. Marie turned away from the balcony and sat next to Hank. “Ok, so what am I looking at?”
Using his pencil as a pointer he circled the image. “This whole white section here is the chip, this smaller dark section is the explosive. It is wired directly into the chip and then into the surrounding section of his brain. If we try to remove it, it will explode.”
“How big a blast?”
“Oh, my dear! This scan is magnified thousands of times! The ‘blast’, as you put it, would be no more than a little spark to us, like a fuse blowing or a light bulb, but inside his brain, I’m afraid it would be fatal. This area here would be damaged, it would haemorrhage and swell, killing him within a matter of minutes, if not immediately despite his healing factor.”
Marie sighed and shook her head at the screen. “She’s a piece of work!”
“I would like to give Miss Grey the benefit of the doubt and say that this might be a trifle advanced for her knowledge and skill, but unfortunately it was me who taught her how to sew small intricate stitches like the ones used on our sleeping friend.” He leant back in his chair and sighed. “When I came to the Mansion she already was an excellent physician, but the school’s needs lay more with general medicine and minor injuries, scraped kness, cuts and bruises and maybe the occasional broken arm or dislocation rather than surgery. She had trained in medical school, but had never really had the practical experience and she begged me to teach her. I did. We practised on special surgical models and I commended her several times on how quickly she had picked up the techniques of general surgery, appendix, kidney removal and replacement, heart and lung, and to my shame we covered brain defects and surgery at great length.”
“She used your ‘hobby’ to learn.”
“I doubt back then she had any kind of agenda in mind, but yes, I suppose I was more than happy to keep going over the same things again and again when she asked. Happy to have another share my particular field. She has a natural skill. Her stitching was particularly excellent, small delicate stitches that saved many a student from having any kind of scar.”
“That’s how you know it was her?”
“I taught her, so... You see, the stitch marks that Victor’s healing factor has inexplicably left serve like a signature inside his head for all to see.” He gave a small chuckle. “It must have taken her days, weeks even, to produce such a minuscule explosive, then months of preparation to insert it into the brain, in just the right place, and then to wipe his memory.”
“Why, I wonder.”
“Mmmm, quite. The woman has no patience, lost her temper regularly when she got something wrong.”
“So why go to all the trouble? Hank, if she did all this, developed the chip, went through the preparation of Creed and then basically planted him for us to find, why?”
“I don’t know. To get him close enough and kill us, and maybe also himself in the process?”
“As far as I know she’s got no personal beef with Creed, no history.”
Marie rose and walked back to the balcony.
Hank followed her and glanced down. “She is very attentive. I don’t think she has even taken her eyes of him. It is much the same way she always liked to watch you in the stasis chamber.” He noticed Marie stiffen. “Rogue?”
“Stasis... the virus! It must be that. Logan said she somehow searched Liam’s mind for me in stasis. Maybe it’s that?” She grabbed his hands. “Was there any other area that Jean pestered you to help her with, any other interest you shared?”
Hank flustered a little. “Well, um, ur, yes, I suppose we both shared a passion for genetics, the mutant gene… stem cells, cell regeneration. How you could change the purpose of a gene or cell simply by slightly changing its structure. Logan’s healing factor fascinated her greatly - as it does all of us, I suppose. She took a great interest in the body’s own natural defences, tolerances so to speak…”
“What do ya mean?”
“Well, adrenaline for example. I heard you say on many occasions that there’s no drug quite like it. She wanted to know how far you would need to go before your body started to lose the battle.”
“Battle with what, Hank?
“Well, with… oh!”
“Hank?”
“Oh my stars!”
“Hank?!?”
“Bio and chemical weaponry, microbiology enabling pure-culture biological agents to be developed and used as a weapon - in World War II, for example, and by current terrorists. She was positively fascinated by that. I mean, we all want to work against the kind of quite frankly evil scientists that produce diseases that can be used for weaponization, but she was really passionate about it.”
“Diseases that can be used for weaponization? Like Clemency?”
“Rogue, she couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with that. It was developed by Dr. Martin Crawler, he was an expert in weaponized diseases, a madman, but a genius none the less. She had no affiliation with him.”
“How do you know? Do you or anyone else know where she was after Xavier threw her out? What she was doing? Who she was working with?”
“I didn’t have any contact with her personally, but I did hear about her from time to time. She worked in a New York hospital for some years - emergency medicine, I believe, and then she was working as a mutant medical liaison for the Governor’s office, till about four years ago. I lost track of her then.”
“It has to be something to do with Clemency, otherwise why would she scan Liam’s mind for information about me? No reports and witness accounts mention me, thanks to Charles, and those who might have known, think ahm dead.” She shook her head. “The others will be landing that jet in 40 minutes - we have to try and figure this out, because if it’s somethin’ to do with Clemency, they’re walking into a death trap.”
Both of them sat down again, frustrated about what they were trying to figure out. “Aside from ‘Ro and Scott, she never really had any friends. Her life was Scott, medicine and the school. Or so we all thought anyway. Well, I suppose there was Emma, but she didn’t see her very often.”
“Emma?”
“Emma Frost - another woman with psychic powers. They were studying together and got quite close at one point. ‘Partners in crime’, their tutors called them. I think Emma left just before you and Logan arrived.”
“Hank, you weren’t here then. How do you know all this?”
“Oh, but Rogue - I have always been a part of this school. Charles has been a lifelong friend. I would visit, stay a week or two, and then go back to Washington. I only decided to stay at the school full-time because politics was not going the way I had anticipated and my opinion, as a large blue mutant, was for some reason being overlooked. I really am at a loss as for the reason - it must have been the hair.”
Marie chuckled a little. “Could have been the glasses. No one will take ya serious with those!”
“Possibly.” He chuckled as well. “Or it could have been that from time to time I was known to hang upside down from the ceiling of my office and read the Time magazine!”
Marie let out a hearty laugh. “So this Emma woman, where is she now? Do you think she would answer some questions about Jean?”
Hank took off his glasses and began to clean them on his soft sweater. “The last time I saw her was… oh dear!” Hank snatched up his cell phone from the desk, dialled a number quickly and brought it to his mouth.
“Kitty, Kitty dear?” He could hear young laughter and the clatter of pool balls in the background. “I’m assuming that you took your latop with you? Good, listen I want you to find Emma Frost. Her last known residence was Washington DC, around six or seven years ago. Check police records, Interpol, government, everything you can get access to. Yes, thank you dear, pass me over to Charles, would you? And... Kitty? May I remind you as usual? Please call me Hank.”
Hank tapped his sharp nails on the desk while he waited for Kitty to pass over the phone. “Charles, yes, fine, fine, he’s still sleeping. Rogue and myself have been brainstorming about Jean and her intentions. I’ve asked Kitty to find information on Emma Frost. Well it suddenly occurred to me, she was a friend of Jean’s and rather disturbingly the last time I saw her she was working in Washington DC as a secretary. Where, ur, well, the Hoover Building….”
“Whoa, Hank, you mean the J Edgar Hoover Building, as in the FBI?”
“Yes Rogue, I do. Charles, although it was around six years ago, she may well be working there still, or in another government organisation. Exactly, like the Pentagon, yes, I fear so. Do you still have a direct telephone number for the President?”
Marie watched as Hank nodded and made agreeing noises, and then he flipped his phone shut and placed it back on the desk. “Well?”
“Charles is going to call the President from my lab. According to Kitty, Emma does indeed still live in Washington and she is currently the personal assistant to the President’s Military Secretary in the Pentagon.”
Running her hands through her hair, Marie stood up. “So if she is still friends with Jean, she could get her in?”
“Yes, Jean and possibly anyone else she’s working with. But why, why would they want to get into the Pentagon, why do this to Sabertooth, why want information on you? There’s still too much we don’t know.”
Marie leant on the railing again, looked at her grown daughter and smiled briefly at how proud of her she was. “The virus attacks mutants, unless she’s using it against us, what would be the point?”
“Well, there wouldn’t be one, for her to use it she would most likely be exposed to it herself. So unless she’s planning mass mutant genocide, as well as committing suicide, I don’t think it’s that.” He stretched his back and let out a small sigh. “I could use a cup of nice strong coffee. How about yourself?”
“Yeah, I think I could.”
“Coming right up.”
She watched Hank trot down the spiral staircase, briefly ask Louise if she wanted anything and then leave for the kitchen. She turned back to Hank’s laptop and stared at the image of Creed’s brain. “Come on, think! If it’s not the virus, what is it, what is she doing? Think woman, what do you know about Jean Grey?” She rubbed her temples a little. “Psychic, teleke-whats-it, spiteful, untrustworthy, dangerous... hmm... determined, short tempered... huh... vengeful…. She’ll want revenge, she’ll want revenge on Logan for not wanting her, Charles for kicking her out and me for being what Logan wants. Well, with Creed here, if he hurts just one student, it will be enough revenge on the Professor, and she knows about the twins, so it will be revenge on Logan and me if one of them gets hurt. So that’s all those bases covered.
“What else do I know about you, Jean? You like to brag, you like to make a big fuss about things, let everyone know who’s the centre of attention. Okay, so *we* know you planted Creed, but is that a big enough audience for you? Is that what you want in the Pentagon, an audience? Or is Creed really just to keep us occupied while you’re doing something else?”
Resting her chin on the desk she blew out a long frustrated breath. “Or maybe that’s all you wanted to do and there is no other plan.”
She used Hank’s mouse to click away the image of Creed’s brain and it went back to Hank’s desktop. Opening up a web browser she typed in ‘Arlington Urgent Care’.
Quietly she read through all the information that came up: Physicians were trained in Family Practice, Emergency Medicine or Internal Medicine and backed by a team of Registered Nurses, Licensed Practical Nurses, Licensed Radiology Technicians and ancillary staff. Most major insurances accepted. “Huh, god forbid you turn up without insurance!” The site listed non-emergency conditions that they dealt with: cuts, colds, fevers, sore throats, sprains and fractures. It was also apparently a convenient stop for health checks such as sports physicals, flu shots, occupational health contracts, drug screenings, physical exams and workers' compensation cases.
There wasn’t any information on the private wing, so Marie re-did her search and came up with a newspaper article about its opening.
“Arlington Urgent Care opened its new research wing this month. This sleepy area of Washington is the sort of idyll often romanticised on celluloid. But Arlington also hides a surreal sophistication—a state-of-the-art lab where white-robed scientists are busy tweaking genes to fashion life-saving drugs.
It is here that a cool 2 million dollars have been privately invested in research into genetically engineered (GE) vaccines that can help mutants as well as humans. It is a known fact that on rare occasions the mutant gene rejects the basic vaccines for the ‘flu, hepatitis and other illnesses more serious, but the dream has started here.
This was the first stone to be dropped into placid biotech waters, setting off ripples that are now waves. Start-ups are mushrooming. The Department of Biotechnology has announced an ambitious 10-year vision—vaccines for cholera, malaria, and tuberculosis; biofertilizers, biopesticides, transgenic crops; and gene therapy trials against cancer and HIV for mutants. State government has backed the move all the way, bending over backward to lure firms into their ‘genome valleys.’ Foreign firms and research institutes are rushing in. The Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corp. and the U.S. firm Genome Technologies are collaborating to help with an extra 4.5-billion in research money……”
As Hank’s phone began to vibrate at the end of the desk, Marie turned away from the article and picked it up. “Hank’s phone? Hey Kit, yeah, he’s gone for coffee - we needed something to keep us awake. What? You’re kidding! Jeezes! So this Emma woman was getting her in. It must be something to do with Clemency, she’s running a research lab into genetic vaccines, for god’s sake! Yeah, I gotta find Hank!”
She hung up the phone and didn’t bother to finish reading the article, leapt up from her chair and raced down the spiral staircase. She shouted: “Back in a minute” to Louise and raced towards the staff kitchen.
“Where’s the fire?”
Louise jumped at the sound of his voice, then turned to see him sitting up and watching her - his eyes their usual dark pools that gave nothing away.
“Coffee, apparently.” She got up and gestured towards the door. “Do you want some, or something to eat?”
He waved a hand at her. “Nah, nothin’. How long have I been out?”
“A few hours. Hank said it was your healing factor making you sleep.” She sat on the edge of the large couch in front of him, close enough for their knees to almost touch. Reaching out, she tugged at a strand of his hair . “It’s worked, even your hair has grown back…”
Louise gasped as his hand shot out and gripped her wrist. “You shouldn’t do that. I’m potentially dangerous, remember.” He lessened his grip, but didn’t let go of her, just lowered it to his knee and began to rub slow circles on her skin.
“I guess we’re both kind of a bomb waiting to go off. Hank said I have to avoid stress and excitement.”
“No excitement huh? Think you can handle that?” He rubbed up her forearm and then back down settling his thumb in her palm, rubbing again.
Ignoring his comment she pulled her hand back slowly and inspected her feet shyly. “Look, when this is over…”
“I’ll probably be dead.”
She snapped her head up to look him in the eyes. “Don’t talk like that. Hank… he’s a genius, there’s nothing he can’t do.”
“Except take this out. Booby-trapped or somethin’. Either way, there’s no way out of this. I’m a dead man walking, princess. ‘n besides, last thing you should be thinking ‘bout is me.”
“And why is that?”
He took her hand in both of his. They dwarfed it, making it look even more delicate and feminine. “Because the way I look at you ain’t right. I should look at you and wanna cherish you or some shit like that, keep you safe, make you happy, but…”
“But?”
He reached forward and ran his thumb across her bottom lip. “I look at you and see you writhing against me, those plump lips begging to be kissed or wrapped around my cock, all I wanna do is feel you against me, be inside you, fuck you and have you screaming my name. That’s not what you want.”
“We could be…”
“Because I can smell you, I can smell your *innocence*.” Slowly he slipped forwards onto his knees, but his huge bulk still towered over her as he got closer, his lips a breath away from hers. “I’d take that innocence. It would hurt and you don’t want that.” He ran one hand up her arm, across her collarbone and up onto her throat. As he moved his hand down her front to her breasts and then pressed her back until she was laying flat on the couch, him between her legs pinning her in place.
“Victor, I….”
“What? You what, princess?” His hand snaked back up to her throat, his long fingers wrapping around it, she could feel his claws digging in a little, not enough to hurt, but enough so as she knew they could. He had started this to try to scare her off again, but he found himself unable to stop touching her. He wanted her, wanted nothing more that to cherish her as well as bury himself within her wet, hot folds, but he knew he couldn’t, wouldn’t let himself show weakness, especially for a woman, but he just couldn’t stop.
Another gasp escaped her lips and she closed her eyes tightly when she felt his other hand go up her inner thigh and rub over her clitoris through her thin white linen trousers. All she could do was moan as he rubbed her again and again, her breathing getting more and more rapid.
His grip on her throat tightened a little, but still not enough to hurt her. Feeling his tongue snake out over the edge of her ear she arched into his hand. “You like that princess?” She moaned again, this time in annoyance as he moved his hand away, but she panted against his lips again as he pushed the same hand down the waistband of her trousers and into her panties. “You’ll like this more.”
She felt the tips of his claws slip through her folds and circle her clitoris, she arched off the couch into him. The more she arched her body and the more noise she made. She touched her lips to his and he licked her, then kissed her hard as she came, unashamedly bucking her hips into him.
“Please…”
“Girl, you don’t know what you’re asking.” He still laid on top of her while she shuddered away her orgasm and he was just breathless as he pulled his hands away from her and sunk them into her hair, shaking out her hairband.
“I want more, please.”
“Louise, you….”
“Please! Say something does happen, I don’t want to spend forever wondering about what… you, you know, what you would be like. I can’t describe how I feel about you, because I just don’t know what it is, I just know it has to be you, that I care about you.”
“I take you now the only one whose gonna enjoy it is me. It’ll hurt, I’ll wan’ it from behind, hard... Fuck, princess, I would take you so fucking hard. And I don’t care what you say, you don’t want that, do you?” There was a long moment when she simply stared back into his eyes, seeing nothing but black, then she shook her head a fraction, finally admitting that he would be too much for her. “Good. Now stop wiggling that tight pussy against me and stop tempting me before I just take what I want.”
She hadn’t realised that she was rubbing herself against him – shaking slightly she stopped herself and sat up, taking him with her. Touching his lips lightly with her fingers she saw a flash of disappointment in his eyes, she was sure of it.
“You’re right, I don’t want it like that, I don’t… I don’t want pain or domination or whatever, but I do want you.” She kissed him gently, nothing more than a whisper against his lips. “I want *you* to feel, feel something, anything other than the rage, pain and loneliness I felt when I first touched you. I want you to know what its like to…”
He grabbed her hair and shook her slightly, making her gasp. “What, love? Is that what you want me to feel?” He closed his eyes tightly, resting his forehead against her in what seemed like despair. “Stop teasing me little girl or I will fuck you, right here, right fuckin’ now!” She was right, he needed to feel something other that pain and pure lust, she was different than anyone else, he wanted her differently and he knew that, he just couldn’t admit it. Not even to himself.
“Victor…”
He pushed away from her roughly and stood up, keeping his back to her. “I feel, okay? I feel just fine. I don’t need this shit and I don’t need lessons in love from some little girl hooked on Mills and Boon!”
“Little girl? You son of a…”
Whirling on her he grabbed her by the shoulders and shoved her against the nearest wall, hard. “That’s right, finally she’s getting the idea. I’m a son of a bitch, a bastard, an asshole. And you, your just some little girl who thinks that she can change me, well you can’t, I will always be this way. I’ve spent the last eighteen years knowing nothing but whatever animal I have crawling around inside my head and you think its that simple? What just give the man a little female comfort and suddenly I’m the perfect boyfriend? Fuck that princess! Fuck! That!” He shoved away room her and turned his back again.
His grip on her arms had been hard and she rubbed her them. “You know what I think? I think you’re afraid.”
Whirling on her she jumped at the look of fury on his face. “I ain’ afraid of jack shit!”
“Yes, yes you are. Your shit scared that if you let anyone in then you’ll have to care, afraid that if you give a shit about someone other than yourself, you’ll actually have something to loose and at some point you’ll have to admit who you really are.”
“Fuck you princess, you don’t know me!”
She took an angry step towards him and pushed him in the chest, he remained solid and she ended up retreating her own step. “YES! Yes I do, I’ve seen inside you remember. Felt every emotion, I *know* what you want.”
Moving forward he towered over her and glared into her eyes. “Yeah, and what the fuck is that?”
“Forgiveness.” He barked laughter at her, then his face sobered. “You want someone to tell you that all the things you’ve done, all the people you’ve killed, that it wasn’t your fault, that you were just doing a job, employed. You want to know that your life wasn’t a waste of time, that it all meant something, that you’re worth something. But it doesn’t work that way and you know it. You can’t just erase the past and start again, you have to face up to things, to yourself.” She walked to him and stood in front of him. “That’s why you don’t want to feel, why you don’t want to admit your feelings or your emotions, because you hate yourself for every moment of your life and its easier that way. Its easy just be a bastard that doesn’t care, than to actually be a person and deal with the shit in you life like the rest of us.” She didn’t want to, but she started to cry. “Your afraid to admit that you care for me. You think I’m just a pathetic little girl with some rather third rate romantic ideas, well maybe I am, but at least I have the balls to admit how I feel.”
He watched her stomp towards the door and sighed. “Louise, I…”
***************************END OF AT 15
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Thanks to BC. The last few paras are re-written and have not been beta'd all mistakes are mine.