Author's Chapter Notes:
Many thanks to cschoolgirl for the beta and helpful suggestions.
The Mandarin Oriental looked absolutely stunning tonight. Marie must admit to herself that the venue is exceptionally beautiful, even compared to her extensive past experiences with these events. Given how this event is organized she has the distinct feeling that Emma might have had a hand in it. Even the dance is going better than she expected. Coming into this Marie had quite a bit of reservations, while there is much less of a chance for an accident, she didn’t feel quite right going to this dance with Jimmy. Soon, if not already, he would expect more from her than she is willing to give.

Regardless the whole thing is going better than she expected. Jimmy turned out to be a decent dancer, that combined with the familiar semi-formal setting, is really helping ease Marie’s nervousness. It’s not the dance itself that has her nervous, but rather the expectations of what comes after. Letting Jimmy down gently might sound easy in her mind, now that the moment is near, she doesn’t think she’s ever been more nervous.

Marie continues to glide on the dance floor, her sparkling green dress swirling around her. The dance is drawing to a close, and she wants to delay that decision for as long as possible. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see her friends on the dance floor. While some tension is still visible between Kitty and Bobby, they seem to have patched things up for tonight at the very least. As for Jubes, she is definitely enjoying herself from the big smile on her face. Marie got a big surprise when Jubes showed with Piotr. The two make quite a pair, just from their size difference alone, not even mentioning the disparate personalities.

Far too short of a time later the last dance ends. Slowly the ballroom begins to empty. Marie lingers in the restroom with her friends. They are huddled together speaking in hushed tones while the boys wait nearby. Jubes speaks first, in her hand is a back issue of some teenie magazine Marie’s never heard of, “So just remember, don’t let them pressure you into it.”

“No one is getting pressured into-” Marie looks at Jubes curiously, “Where did you keep that magazine during the dance, Jubes?”

Honestly, despite all her bluster, Jubes should be the least prepared for tonight. She’s never had a boyfriend, and only this morning did she manage to find a date with Piotr.

“Don’t you worry about that chica!” Jubes flips to a bookmarked page and begins to read, “Remember if the guy is interested then-”

“Jubes!” Marie snatches the magazine from Jubes’ hands and takes a quick look at the cover. A disturbingly preppy blonde stares back at her. Marie focuses on the date of publication. “This is from 1996.”

“What? I needed reference material.” Jubes shrugs her shoulder and pops her gum.

“You could have looked it up on the internet.” Kitty injects herself into the conversation. She always seems to have a knack for information and technology, it is something Marie can’t help but be a little envious about.

“Kitty…” Jubes pats Kitty on the shoulder and sighs, “Everyone knows you can’t believe most of the things you read on the internet.”

“Oh no! Yo-” Kitty tries to retort, but before an argument can ensue between her friends With a wave of her hands Marie makes the magazine disappear in a puff of blue smoke.

“No!!” Jubes hands swipe through the dissipating smoke, “Now how will I know which way to lean to let him know I want to kiss him.”

“Jubes, seriously?!” Marie gives her a knowing look and folds her arms.

“Fine, fine. Piotr and I are just going as friends.” Pouting, Jubes turns around and leans over a sink and sighs, “Both of you have boyfriends for this dance, I just didn’t want to be left out.”

“Well, Bobby and I are actually going as friends,” Kitty speaks matter-of-factly while giving Jubes a pat on the back. “Until we work things out.”

“It is the same with Jimmy and I.” Well, this is not exactly true, Marie hadn’t actually explained to Jimmy that it is just going to be a friendly dance yet. Jubes seems to catch Marie’s hesitation.

“Kitty and Bobby I believe,” Jubes wiggles her eyebrows at Marie, “But you and Jimmy? You two are thick as thieves.”

“Jubes!” Marie exclaims shoving Jubes playfully on the shoulder.

“Seriously, Marie, you really need to let Jimmy know.” Jubes continues in a more serious tone, “Otherwise things are just going to get worse.”

“I know, Jubes, I know.” Marie sighs as well and brushes a lock of her hair behind her ear, and says a quick goodbye to her friends, lingering in the bathroom a few more minutes. She takes a deep breath and steels herself. Jubes is right, things can only get more complicated the longer she drags this on. Clenching her fist she steps out of the restroom and walks around the corner.

She can see Jimmy waiting in the lobby still, but further away on the other side, across the room she spots a familiar form. She didn’t see the face and barely caught him among a group of men leaving the hotel, but she is certain she saw him.

She moves towards that form before she even makes the conscious decision to; she turns the corner after the shadows, only to find it empty. Marie can’t help the disappointment sinking into her stomach, she is certain he was just here. Then suddenly the finds herself being pulled backward, right into an elevator. A large man presses her up against the wall, before the panic can rise within her, she looks up to see familiar eyes. “Logan…”




He leans down close, close enough for her to feel the heat from his body, to catch the very faint scent of cigars. “What are ya doing here, Marie?”

“Umm a party…” It takes her a few seconds to process what he is asking of her, “I uh… I was at a dance.”

“Can see that, ya look good.” She feels him lean in closer and she tilts her head in response. She hears him take a breath, taking in her scent. “But why are ya here?”

“I saw you and I wanted to…” When his hands slide around her waist she loses her train of thought, instead, she wraps her arms around his neck.

A deep pleasant rumble from within his chest lets her know that he is about to speak. “What about yer boyfriend?”

“Jimmy is… he is just a friend.” It feels really good saying that, saying it in front of him. It is the truth, and no matter how much distortion is in her life, being with Logan always seems to bring out a simple truth.

“That ain’t the vibe I was getting… That ain’t what I heard.” At first, she thinks he sounds angry, but in a burst of excitement, she realizes that he sounds jealous or perhaps more accurately possessive.

She wants to say it is none of his business who she is with but she would be lying, she remembers the feelings that flared up in her chest whenever she thought she caught a hint of perfume on him. She knows it is an irrational feeling, they’re not a couple, there is no future with Logan, not for her. But it makes her happy that he shares that with her, she places her forehead against his chest and lets the feeling of contentment envelope her.

The beeping of her phone interrupts the moment. She reluctantly pulls away from Logan and looks down at her phone. A message from Jimmy is flashing on there. Logan looks at the message and smiles, “Ya better let Jimmy know that yer not going to make it.”

She looks at him and shakes her head slightly and pushes the button to open the private elevator’s door. “This isn’t something I should do over the phone.”

Logan nods and backs further into the elevator, “No guess not, I’ll see you around then.”

Marie raises her hand and a key card floats from Logan over to her. The card comes to rest in her hand. “I won’t be long. Do you think I can drop by and hang out after?”

He steps out of the elevator after her and snatches his key card back with a grin. “Be waiting right here.”

“Marie!” Jimmy is running towards her raising his hand high to get her attention. Like always he is next to Joshua and two other students Marie only knows by their code names Wither and Hazmat. They are all out in front of the main entrance next to a black limousine. The excited look on his face sends a pang of guilt through Marie, she really shouldn’t have let this go on this long.

She steps a few feet from him and returns his wave. “Hey, Jimmy, sorry I took so long.”

Joshua walks up right next to Jimmy and pats him on the back smiling the entire way. “Alright, now that you girls are here we can finally hit the road.”

Marie clenches her fists and decides to postpone the inevitable no longer, “Actually, Jimmy, we have to talk...”

“The talking can wait,” Joshua grins at them while making air quotes. “We have a party to get to.”

Marie glares at Joshua, she is sure he means well, but she would like to spare Jimmy as much pain and embarrassment as possible. So there is no way she is going to break the news with him in front of his friends. “Let’s talk someplace private, Jimmy.”

“Jimmy, you can get private time with your girl later, we are going to be really late,” Joshua cuts in again to Marie’s increasing annoyance.

Jimmy pushes Joshua aside and steps closer to her, his eyes pleading with her, “Come on, Marie, can’t we talk on the way?”

Her friends finally catch up to her and Marie sighs. With Joshua so insistent it is unlikely Marie can get Jimmy to discuss this in private. She might as well get it over with here, where she can have the support of her friends, “I can’t, Jimmy, I’m not going with you.”

“What?” With a puzzling look, Jimmy takes a step back from her, “But I don’t understand-”

Two grey vans suddenly pull up next to them. Two men lean out of the leading van and grab Jimmy. They yank him inside and speed off to the sound of squealing tires, and a panicking crowd. Marie springs into action, she grabs her friends by the shoulders and aims for the still closing door of the van. Without any hesitation, the three girls vanish in a puff of blue sulfurous smoke.

The girls reappear inside the grey van, only it isn’t the right one. The two vehicles are identical and in her rush to not lose them Marie picked the van without Jimmy. Jubes nudges her sunglasses down on to her eyes. Both Marie and Kitty are familiar enough with Jubes to shut their eyes in time. A burst of radiance originates from Jubes hands, dazzling the original occupants of the vehicle. With a few quick light touches by Kitty, every one of the masked thugs are phased through the vehicle and dropped into the street completely naked.

Marie vaults forward over the driver's seat and clutches the wheel. With one hand she buckles herself in and rights the vehicle. Marie scans through the night traffic for any signs of the other van, but she has no luck, while the traffic is not fast, the streets are crowded. “Not good, I think I lost them.”

Kitty hurries to take the seat beside her and pulls out a tablet from her purse. “I think I can hack the traffic cameras, the new ones in downtown are fitted with license plate scanners.”

“We have their license plates?” Marie looks over at Kitty raising her eyebrows in surprise. “And you can hack the traffic cameras now?”

“I was trying to get a shot of us all and snapped it by accident.” Then Kitty’s smile turns sheepish, “And you know that tablet Logan gave us in Colombia? I sort of kept it.”

“Kitty!” Marie can't say much more as she returns her attention back to driving the rather cumbersome van.

“It wasn’t on purpose! And it wasn't to spy on him! It is just so awesome I wanted a little more time with it and then he suddenly left!” Kitty tries her best to explain herself, looking horrified at her actions. It does make sense. Marie and Logan returned to New York on their own, and then things happened so fast from there. She glances up from fiddling with the tablet at Marie, “You won’t tell him will you?”

Marie smiles back reassuringly. “Honestly, I don’t think Logan cares all that much.”

“I have a hit!” Marie can feel the relief flowing through Kitty and she forces her own thoughts from Logan, and she hears Kitty continue, “I’ll just match the coordinates to the GPS… left turn right up head.”

Marie takes the van out of downtown. They manage to catch up with the other van shortly after they leave the coverage area of the traffic cameras, heading straight out of the city. When they finally catch up with the other vehicle, it even slows down for them.

It is late in the night and the glass is tinted on all sides, Marie is certain that they are well hidden. Then from the back of the other van, a light flashes in sequence. She curses to herself, “Damn, anyone got any ideas on how to respond.”

Kitty shakes her head, “It’s not anything I’ve read about. Maybe it is a prearranged sequence?”

“Oh, I’ll give them a response,” Jubes pipes up from her position in the back and cracks her knuckles grinning mischievously.

“Jubes!” Kitty looks back disapprovingly, a small frown marring her face. “Jimmy is in there!”

“I know!” Jubes rolls her eyes in annoyance and throws her hands up, “I’m not going to blow it up or anything!”

“Still! Just give me a sec and I can think of something.” Kitty does not seem to want to give any ground and Marie shares Kitty’s sentiment, Jimmy has suffered enough. If they can, she would like to rescue him without causing any unnecessary injuries.

Nevertheless, Marie wonders what else can they possibly do in this situation. Then it occurs to her, “Kitty, contact Mr. Summers on the emergency channel. If the Blackbird is in the air, there is no way we would lose him.”

Before the girls can come to a decision the van in front suddenly speeds up. With the decision out of their hands, Marie tightens her grip around the steering wheel, “Buckle up girls! They are onto us.”

She is not as good of a driver as Jubes, but the van is not a complicated vehicle if either of them tries any of the fancy maneuverings the van is more than likely to flip over. It all comes down to a contest of raw powers. Marie floors the accelerator, but unfortunately, the two competing vehicles are of the same make and model. With the slight edge in encumbrance offset by her lack of skill, she is unable to effectively close the distance.

As the chase drags on and the stalemate lasts the girls are increasingly more desperate to find an edge. The road turns from paved to gravel and then to dirt. Their surroundings are now equally different, the lightly forested terrain adding even more challenges. Still, Marie does her best to keep on Jimmy’s trail. Kitty finally perks up in her seat with some good news. “Mr. Summers says the Blue team will be here in twenty minutes! We just have to hold on for a little longer.”

It is a small bit of distraction, but just then the van speeds over a hill, going airborne as it clears the peak. The slight loss of concentration is enough to cause Marie to lose control of the vehicle as it impacts the dirt. The girls scream and the van spins off the road and skids into a tree. The airbags deploy and she finds herself face first into an air cushion.

“Oww…” Jubes groans from the back and leans forward and pats Marie on the shoulder with a wry smile. “Chica, next time we’re in a car chase, I’m driving.”

“I think I agree with Jubes on this one.” Kitty pushes the now deflating airbag away from her and starts to chuckle.

Feeling quite a bit of relief that her friends are okay, Marie is just about to join in when she feels the familiar sensation of a suppression field. Marie raise her hand to get her friends’ attention, “You all feel that?”

“Oh shit, the death field!” Jubes immediately digs into her purse and retrieves a small bottle of pills. Without any hesitation, she twists off the cap and pops one into her mouth. Then she offers the bottle to Marie and Kitty, “You guys should take one each, quick.”

Marie takes her pill after Kitty and gives each of her friends a side eye. “Sooo, am I the only one who didn’t take stuff from Logan?”

“Uhh, Chica, life-saving super pills,” Jubes tightens the cap back to the bottle and rattles it. “You should be thanking me, now none of us will get cancer in weird places.”

Marie shakes her head and the girls share a smile. A quick check of her door lets Marie know it is stuck. So she spins in her seat and with both legs kicks her window out. The girls squeeze out of the wrecked van and Marie points towards the next hill where the other van was heading. “Come on, we can still do something.”

“I don’t know Marie…” Kitty jogs alongside her but her voice gives away how uncertain she is, “With the little power we have left, can we really handle those guys?”

“We have to try!” Marie urges them on and they crest the hill together, just in time to see the van pull towards the ramp of a waiting cargo plane. Marie can feel the despair in the air, the team is still at least 20 minutes away. The plane is already in motion ready to take off.

“Maybe, Mr. Summers can track it in the air?” Kitty offers hopefully as the girls slow to a walk. Then to their surprise parts of the plane starts to flicker in and out before returning to their original image. Kitty cries out, “They have visual stealth!”




Logan follows the speeding van closely through the scope of his AMR. He focuses in on the driver's side window, his finger tightens on the trigger and he lines up the crosshair. The van stops maneuvering as it approaches the ramp, it would be a simple matter to time it just right and put one of his high-explosive rounds through the glass. He can see it right now, the burning van careening up the ramp, right into the cargo hold, setting the entire plane a flame.

He lets out a breath and relaxes his grip. While he always values expediency he is not sure if he is doing this for the right reasons. The fastest way is to just kill Leech and the flames erase any traces of his dangerous DNA. But he can’t shake the fact that he is only considering this option because he is jealous. Leech is one of a very few people that can offer Marie a normal life, something that has forever eluded him. The van disappears into the cargo jet and Logan knows it’s now or never. Gritting his teeth he pans the gun slightly left and fires.

A sharp loud crack echoes through the night and Marie watches in shock as the landing gears explodes in a massive shower of sparks. The front of the plane dips and the remains of the gears crumple under the weight of the plane. The nose of the plane digs into the ground and it skids to a halt. Suddenly one of the wings snaps in two, and the area surrounding the plane bursts into flaming.

“Oh my god! The fuel tanks!” Kitty yells out. The girls spring into motion, just as the plane detonates. The surrounding camp is leveled by the force of the blast. The shock wave even reaches all the way to where Marie and her friends are, knocking them off their feet.

“Quick we have to help!” Marie is the first to get up and breaks into a run, sprinting down the hillside towards the now smoldering camp. Logically she knows it is too late for Jimmy, yet she can’t seem feel anything within herself, nothing she that she should be feeling. So she numbly charges forward. Halfway down the suppression field fades as the artificial lights in the camp blink out. Marie looks back at her friends and reaches for them, “The power must be down, now is our chance, hold on!”

They reappear at the edge of the camp, the blast wave extinguished most of the largest of the fires, Marie knows that but dangers still remain. She quickly comes up with a plan of action. “Jubes help me get started on a triage station. Kitty, you search for any injured, once you spot them let me know and I’ll teleport those to seriously injured to be moved.”

The surviving soldiers that could still move started retreating before Marie and her friends arrived, leaving behind their dead and wounded. The girls begin working almost immediately, and not one of them mentions Jimmy. Perhaps they all understand this is not the place for grief or perhaps, like Marie, they just can’t feel anything right now. Marie watches as both of her friends leave with a grim determination in their eyes.

Marie surveys what's left of the field base, mentally tallying the tasks that need to be done. It is her hope that by the time the Blue team arrives on the scene, they would already have finished a preliminary search of the airfield. The sound of boots on gravel lets her know he is near. Once again she marvels at how stealthy he can be when he chooses to.

She turns around to see Logan a few dozen feet away, and the huge rifle slung over his shoulder confirms her suspicions. Anger surges within her, at herself for not being good enough, and at him for not trying more. Yet an understanding comes with the rage, she knows perhaps better than anyone the fate that would have awaited Jimmy. A memory that is far too vivid for her liking. Seething as she is it is still obvious to her now that armed as he is, Logan could have simply destroyed the plane. And the fact that he went through the trouble to aim for the landing gear means he was trying to save Jimmy's life.

Whatever Logan is thinking at the moment he is unlikely to share. He stops just shy of arm's reach, and even if she could read anything in those hazel eyes of his, she knows he is wary. She wants to run to him, fall into his arms and let the slow beat of his heart soothe away her pain. Before she can decide Logan’s head turns towards the sky, and soon she hears it too, the high whining pitch of the Blackbird’s engines. It could not have been more than a few seconds, yet by the time she looks back from the sky he is already gone.
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