Pete and Illyana, Thursday

[x-snowflake.livejournal.com]

Pete has a chat with Illyana following the events of Cruel Country. Illyana explains, and Pete makes an unexpected offer.


Illyana had recently been under arrest for espionage, so she had convinced herself that going to see Mr. Wisdom was actually the least of her problems. However, it was also the most immediate of them, and she had few illusions about the kind of conversation this was going to be. Still - hesitation would probably not be appreciated. So she knocked on his door.

"Mr. Wisdom?"

Pete looked up to see her in the doorway.

"Come in. Sit down." He slid a pile of papers to one side.

"So. There's a bastard at the GRU that's just used you to by a free pass, and generally put us over a fucking barrel for a year or so. You can imagine how unhappy that makes me."

Taking a seat, she winced, staring down at her hands rather than face the former guidance counselor. "Um. Yes," she said. "There was a - " She stopped abruptly; 'misunderstanding' probably didn't convey the right sentiment, at the moment.

Pete sighed.

"I'm sure Remy gave you the full bollocking already, and to be honest, I just can't be arsed. But what I don't know is *why* the fuck you'd take it into your head to start breaking in to well, pretty much the worst possible place you could get caught..."

She paused for a moment, and then it all came out in a messy, uncalculated rush. "A demon took control of Limbo, and I have to get it back, so I did all this research and I looked at the bibliographies and there was supposed to be something there about it from these guys in Afghanistan, only there was just some stupid thing about steroids and then I got arrested." Clearly dismayed with herself for the format, she crossed her arms, but, once it was out - and sounding worse out loud than it ever had in her head - she felt as though she had to go on. Struggling, she finally came out with: "There was this - war, rebellion. In Limbo. Which I lost, which is bad. Because of the demons. So I was just trying to figure out how to get it back."

Pete just stared at her for a second, his expression unreadable.

"You know, it's a measure of sad, sick the state of my life that I understood that. I mean, most people, you'd get a blank state if you were lucky. A trip to a rubber room, if you weren't. It'd be nice to be one of the people that would pack people that talk about demons off to the nuthouse, I think."

He paused.

"Illyana, I know you like the whole self-sufficiency thing, and normally, I'd applaud that, but did it not cross your mind that you could have phoned us up, here? In the last year, we've both stopped a demon apocalypse, and got whole groups of people into and out of several highly classified security bases. For fun. Well, no, not for fucking fun. But y'know, it *is* what we do..."

Phoned them? Her dubious expression conveyed everything one would need to know about that. But he made it sound so reasonable. Like something she could have done, instead of something that had been impossible. "It was my problem. And there wasn't a lot anyone could do about it. Except for me, when it was mine, and then what was I supposed to say?" Her tone flat and matter-of-fact, rather than self-pitying. Three days' worth of exhaustion made her too honest, and too tired to be careful, which was why she added, half under her breath, "And the X-Men don't have the greatest track record in Limbo."

"And yet, the breaking in to the military base went *so* well." He lit a cigarette almost absently, staring past her, looking distant for a moment.

"First question, then: what effect does this bunch of demons having kicked you out have? Should we be preparing for the end of the world again?"

"Well." She stopped; started again, pulling at a loose thread on her sleeve, trying to be deliberate, but not quite able to get there. "Basically, yeah. And you should probably know if you don't already - their way to that is me.
Through me, anyway. And the demon who knows how to do it, well, knows from personal experience anyway, he's alive. On earth, and probably jumping at the opportunity to cut my throat again. And even if not, there's a whole world of demons with a leader who's powerful enough to go between dimensions, so I'd say that was a problem anyway."

Pete took a long drag on his cigarette. "So, just to make sure I've understood the full implications of the events of the last week or so: there's full scale demon apocalypse coming at a date to be determined, and if there's any warning at all, it may be an attempt to grab you in some manner. Other demon already on earth, with a personal grudge against you will probably try and kill you when it works out what the score is. And a funny-smelling Russian bastard that I don't like very much has my operation with it's trousers around it's ankles for the forseeable future. Does that seem to cover everything?"

Illyana exhaled, slowly. "I'm pretty sure that covers it. Sir."

"Right then. Come and work for me."

At that she did look up at him, wide-eyed. "What?"

"You're bright. You're resourceful. You're willing to take risks to get the job done. You survived a number of years in *actual hell*, so the worst this job has to offer probably won't come as too much of a shock. Why wouldn't I want to hire you? All of that, and I've just taken a royal shafting for your sake. I might as well get some use out of it..." Pete smiled, just slightly.

Illyana regarded him doubtfully for a few moments, but he didn't seem to be kidding, or crazy, and - well - she had a vague idea that her options were fairly limited, as far as the future went. Oh, God, the school. That was going to be a headache on top of a headache, no doubt.

So she said, cautiously, "Well - sure. I mean, yes. I could do that." Honesty compelled her to add, "Though you'd better know that I'm not exactly passing high school. Currently."

"What, and you thought I was just joking about the fact that I made a complete balls-up of high school myself? I don't personally care, so long as you can get the job done, but yeah, you should probably do graduate. I'll talk to someone at Xavier's and figure something out. Most of the younger staff are all working toward a degree, anyway, so we can probably come up with something." He grinned.

"Besides, if there are people here working on find a solution to your problems as well, you might find you have a bit more time for your schoolwork..."

Oh, hurray. Somehow, it seemed very wrong that after the last few days, he should sit there and take it all with equanimity. "I guess so," she said, trying not to sound too unenthusiastic about the prospect of presenting her
teachers with a late homework excuse involving demons and getting arrested. Failing, she amended, "I mean. Of course." She sighed. "So, I work for you. What exactly do you do? I mean, in general." She waved a hand vaguely in the air. "Is it just invading secret bases, or what?"