Butterflies and Hurricanes: Bobby's finds a Surprise

[x-coldhands.livejournal.com]

Unable to fight off a gut feeling, Bobby finds himself in the basement of Haven's, where he finds something shocking



With Haven sufficiently distracted at least for a moment, Bobby Drake found himself doing something that had come naturally to him since he was a teenager. Snooping around. He couldn't tell what it was, but something just didn't feel right. And during his time with the X-Men, if he had learned one thing, it was that when something seemed fishy, you were going to find a tuna around sooner or later.

Ignoring the bad pun he made to himself, Bobby pushed a door open near the back of the shop to find a long set of wooden steps. Biting his lower lip he leaned back, just to make sure no henchmen were going to pop out before he slowly began creeping down the steps. With every riser he hit, his body remained tense as he did he best to keep the molecules around his body slowed, just in case he needed to assume his ice form at a moments notice. But nothing prepared him for the sight that awaited him as his feet hit the cold concrete of the floor. A quick scan of the room froze him in his tracks, his mouth gaping. "What in the..."

Derek shifted backward, out of the light coming from the exposed bulb over his head. He sought shadows and found only the wall behind him - there was nowhere to go. Not that he could have done anything if he'd had anywhere to run - he couldn't even creep up the stairs or open the door. The grasshopper body kept him effectively trapped in the basement and, even if he'd had something approximating normal legs, he couldn't have opened the door with the crab pincers he now had instead of hands.

So instead of escaping, he found himself facing this stranger on the stairs. He swallowed, trying to keep his head high as he asked, "Who're you?"

Drake didn't know who or what he had seen before it scampered into the shadows. But he was now more certain than ever his suspicions were right. He remained with his feet planted where they first hit the ground, his hands outstretched in a defensive posture. He wasn't going to take any chances here, but the fact that no projectiles had been launched at his head yet gave him some confidence. "My name is Bobby... I'm not here to hurt you..." He did his best to keep his voice calm and level, a technique he had seen deployed countless times by his teammates.

"So what're you here for?" Derek didn't trust anyone, not anymore, but there didn't seem to be anything wrong with this guy, at least. Of course, that could mean anything. Derek knew that, now. He understood that trusting people to do the right thing could lead to people doing very, very bad things - the road to hell was paved with good intentions, that's what his mom'd always said. Before she died. He should've listened to her. He should have listened to anyone but Haven. He'd just wanted to help, though.

Yet here he was. "What'd you want?" His voice was soft, angry. Derek wasn't approaching the stranger, but he wasn't retreating anymore, either. If someone was going to come at him, he wasn't going to let himself hide.

Bobby kept his spacing, but wasn't going to back down. He did his best to pick any subtleties in the man's voice. But he never had been the best detective in the world. That's when it hit him. He didn't sound like a man or the typical villain he was used to associating with in this types of missions, but a kid. Swallowing hard, he decided that it was time to try a bit of a leap of faith.

"I'm here trying to help some friends of mine. I think that the woman up there..." Pointing with his eyes, Drake looked up at the ceiling before casting them back towards the shadowy figure. "...did something to them." Squinting, he injected compassion into his voice that wasn't hard to muster after detecting the potential age of the figure in front of him. "Do you know anything about her?"

"She can help people," Derek said, his voice bitter. "She's healed lots of them. Cases nobody else could deal with." By using him, of course, but when he'd only had his healing factor, that hadn't mattered. It'd been easy - simple, even, dealing with diseases and illnesses. "Ask anyone in District X. I'm sure they'll tell you. If they're still around." There was no guarantee that they would be, of course. Who'd stick around after being healed?

Then a thought occurred to him and he stepped forward just the smallest bit, toward the circle of light in the center of the room. "She hasn't done this to anybody else, has she?" He gestured toward himself. "It wasn't so bad when it was just the diseases. Leukemia was a cinch. But if she's got somebody else... I mean. I guess they wouldn't have to have the healing factor, would they? Not if it was mutations or whatever. But... she hasn't, has she? Gotten someone else, I mean?" He hated the thought of someone else being used the way he'd been used, of having to live with all these mutations layered one over the other.

Taking the scuttled step by the boy as a sign of good faith, Bobby did the same as he inched forward, still showing his empty hands in front of him. "I don't know if healed is the right word for stealing someone's mutations. Is that what she told you she was doing?" But the last part of the conversation piqued Drake's interest, as he tilted his head to the side. "What do you mean done this?" His heart sank as he thought about the possibilities that swam through his head. "What has she done to you?"

"Look at me," Derek said, stepping fully into the light now so the other man could see him. "You think I was born like this?" He snapped the crab pincers at Bobby, though it was obviously more for demonstration than any kind of threat. "At least the clothes aren't exploding and catching on fire anymore. Or you'd've had a naked half-grasshopper down here when you cam waltzing in." After a short pause, his voice a bit calmer, Derek asked again, "She hasn't done it to anybody else, right? Given them things that didn't belong to them. Like the leukemia she gave me. Or the crab pincers." Another short pause followed by the very, very soft words, "I only wanted to help. And this is what I got."

Bobby tried not to shrug back at the sight of the boy. He had seen a lot of physical mutations in his day, but nothing could have really prepared him for this. Blinking his eyes, he let them dart around the room, doing his best not to stare as well as buying him time to try and think through what he was saying. "No... but I..." That's when the words sunk in as he forced his eyes up towards the boy. "Wait... she did this to you? And she gave you leukemia..." Screw if she did it to someone else, it shouldn't have happened to anyone in the first place.

"Yeah, but that was no big deal," Derek said, shrugging his misshapen shoulders. "I've got a wicked healing factor all on my own. And it was to save a little boy, y'know? So it wasn't so bad. But all this other stuff. I mean, I said it was cool, the leukemia thing. It was helping someone who would've died." Shifting his legs, Derek tried to settle a little more comfortably on the floor. Not that anything was ever really all that comfortable. "I went red a little while ago. At least, I think I did. It's kind of hard to tell. I was clear for a while, and then I was all black. But now I'm red. And sort of spiky. But I can't feel anything. Those last few sort of happened at once. The other stuff, though. It was more gradual."

Lowering his pincers, Derek tried to shrug again but gave up mid-motion. "It's all permanent."

Cocking his head to the side, Bobby took a few steps forward. He wanted to help the boy, but honestly had no idea how. But as his story continued, he couldn't help but have flashes of Yvette flash into his head. His eyebrows furrowing together, he tried to get the words out as they quickly formed in his head. "Wait... do you remember how long ago it was that you got Spiky?"

"Not really," Derek said, more tired now than anything else. "It's not like I've been anywhere but the basement since she turned me into a grasshopper... well. Sort of a grasshopper. Can't get up the stairs. And there's no windows." One pincer scraped at the cement flooring. "You know, Haven said the guy who used to have the grasshopper mutation was a pretty good musician. I could never make anything that sounded good. Then I couldn't feel it anymore to try."

The pangs of sympathy in Bobby's stomach suddenly felt like they were Yetis pounding in there. Stepping forward again, he positioned himself next to the boy. "But no one should have their ability to try to be something taken away." He took a deep breath in. "I know you're trying to help these people, but Haven is hurting you, and if what I think is happening is true, then she's hurting a lot of them to." He paused for a second, not wanting to overwhelm the boy. "I don't want to force you into anything you don't want. But where I come from, I know some of the top doctors in the world." He twisted his head to the side trying to maintain eye contact. "I can't make any guarantees, but I know they would do anything they could to help you... I don't know... fell more comfortable?" It seemed like a losing battle, but he had to try. He wasn't going to just leave the boy.

"What're these doctors supposed to do for me?" Derek asked, no real animosity in his tone. It was more like resignation. "Like I said, it's all permanent. Unless you can find somebody who wants to have crab claws and grasshopper legs." The thought of being comfortable, though - or at least not being stuck in a cement box beneath the clinic... that was tempting. "But I wouldn't want anyone else to be stuck like this." He'd spent way too much time running around District X trying to help people to to want to make anyone else like this.

"No one deserves to be stuck like this." Was all that Bobby could think to say. "You don't have to be isolated here, by yourself. I know a lot of children who thought they would never be able to go out again, and now... now they're worried about what classes they're going to have to take next year." Reaching forward, he extended his arms towards the boy. "Let us help you."

Instinctively shying away from the stranger, Derek shook his head. "Don't touch me. I blew up all my clothes there for a while. Not sure why. Stuff exploded when I touched it." Then he shifted again, attempting to rid himself of the awkward discomfort he'd felt washing over him. Once upon a time, he'd never had to worry about that sort of thing. He'd never hurt anyone when he touched them. He'd had normal arms and legs and he'd been able to do more than sit in a basement all day. "Dunno - what happened to Haven?"

Well that definitely solved the mystery of where the disappearing powers had gone. "You don't have to worry about her. All you have to do is give me the word, and I'll make sure that she's never allowed to hurt you again." Bobby wanted to sprint up the steps and encase Haven in ice for the rest of her life, but he knew that would be over-reacting just a touch. But still, a little frost bite wouldn't hurt her... too much.

"It'd be nice to go outside again," Derek said, trying really hard not to think about the way that people would react when they saw him. Or even how he was going to get out of the basement. Probably some kind of levy and pulley system. That'd be just his luck. Get a whole bunch of people with a pick-up and a winch, maybe, and cart him upstairs on a stretcher. Then he shifted again and glanced at Bobby side-long, tone neutral when he asked, "What's gonna happen to Haven?"

Drake swallowed the large lump in his throat. "That's not really for me to decide." Casting his eyes downward, he did his best to keep them locked onto the boy's face, and not his grasshopper body. "But right now my major concern is that she doesn't do anything like this again, and that we do everything in our power to help you in any way we can."

"She's not trying to hurt anybody," Derek said, frowning a little. "I mean, I guess she's done it to me, but I volunteered to begin with. Just... so long as she hasn't done this to anybody else, you know?" Scraping his pincer along the cement flooring again, he said, "If you can get me out of the basement, I guess I'd like to go somewhere else. Somewhere so I can be outside."

His heart was sinking listening to the boy. "I can arrange for that." Shaking his head from side to side, he was still fighting the urge to charge up the stairs. "But I have to insist that you let my friend upstairs and me take care of Haven." Coughing to hide the resentment in his voice, he continued on. "I don't want to get into the specifics, but I have reason to believe that Haven has done things to hurt others. I've seen it firsthand. I can't allow that to continue."

"Okay," Derek said, shrugging as best he could given the odd juxtaposition of crab pincer and grasshopper shoulder. "So long as I get to go outside again. Y'know. In the sunshine."


"Well get your sunblock ready kid," Bobby added with a smirk and wink before turning back towards the stairs. "I just have one more thing to take care of." The smile faded as he began towards the steps.