xp_logs | Amanda and Pete: Medlab, Sunday night after dinner. (Reply)

Leaning heavily on the cane Hank had given him, Pete paused outside the door to Amanda's cubicle, bracing himself. Taking a breath, he tapped on the door.

"Amanda? It's Pete."

"Come in," came the reply, sounding perfectly calm and reasonable. That didn't sound good. If Amanda was being 'reasonable' at this point, it'd be because she wanted something. He opened the door.

Amanda was sitting up in her rather rumpled bed, focussing on several small items she was floating above her lap a pencil, one of those plastic cups hospitals gave you medication in, a couple of pieces of red-coloured charcoal. "I said you could come in. Yer look like a door-to-door salesman, hovering there like that," she said, glancing briefly at him. Fading bruises surrounded her left eye and smudged her cheekbone, and the bridge of her nose was still slightly swollen, but compared to what she'd looked like when the Cajun had brought her in, she looked good. That was a relief, at least.

Letting her playthings fall softly into her blanket-covered lap, Amanda rolled her eyes and waved him in with the cast-covered right hand. "For Christ's sake, Pete, I ain't gunna bite."

"You sure about that?" he asked, a brief smile coming to his lips as he closed the door behind him and crossed the small room to the chair beside the bed. "There's a couple of airport security men who'd beg to disagree." He sat down heavily, trying not to wince as the movement jarred his leg.

"They weren't fightin' fair." Amanda watched him intently, noticing the obvious pain he was in. "But then again, neither did your mates, did they?"

"Amanda…" Pete began, but got no further as she gestured, awkwardly, with the right hand and an unseen force pinned him to the chair.

"My turn, 'Uncle'. I've got some stuff to say and I want you hearin' me out," Amanda hissed, eyes narrowing in anger and the concentration it took to hold something as large as Pete. He nodded jerkily, just once, and she loosened her hold somewhat. But not completely she wanted him to know what it felt like to be at someone's mercy. "Your mate was going t' kill me, did you know that? Not just take me hostage - Remy
came across us just as he had a gun to me head and was ready to pull the trigger. Another couple of seconds an' it would have been my brains someone'd be cleaning out of the carpet. An' there was fuck all I could do about it." She shuddered a little at the memory of the sensation of a cold metal barrel being pressed against her temple, the taste of her own blood in her mouth, choking her, the sense of utter helplessness. "I've been lookin' after meself a fucking long time, an' I haven't felt that helpless since… well, since Rack. An' you've spoken to Romany, you have an idea what he
was doin' to me."

Pete opened his mouth to speak, but Amanda waved him into silence. "I'm not done yet," she said. "I got lucky, this time. But there's no way I'm lettin' this kind of thing ever happen again, got it?"

"It ain't going to happen again on my account, but..." Pete began. Amanda interrupted him.

"That's not what I meant. I know th' score, Pete it's a fucking dangerous world out there, an' being a mutant only makes that worse. An' you can't make that kind of promise 'cause there's no way in hell you can keep it. You'll kill yerself tryin', but." Her tone softened somewhat. "An' I'd rather that didn't happen 'cause I've gotten used to yer ugly mug, an' besides, like Sarah said, we'd have Jake as counsellor an' you can imagine how well that would turn out. No, what I want is for you t' teach me."

"Teach you what, kid?" Pete was following Amanda's train of thought she made perfect sense, but he wanted to confirm what he thought she meant.

"Everythin'. The spy stuff. How t' fight an' how to avoid havin' to. How to use what I can do t' protect myself properly. Get Rom onside so she'll teach me more than just th' defensive stuff I want t' learn how to stop pricks like that one th' other night, an' that means stoppin' them so hard they don't get up again." Her eyes met his steadily. "Will you?"

Ah. Well, it wasn't too surprising that Amanda was the first one to come right out and ask...

"You're already in the self defense classes. Get through them, then go talk to Logan if you want more - he'll do you a lot better than I can, anyway. And I'll make a case to Romany, but she gets to make that call, not me. As for the rest of it - we'll talk about it again when you turn 18."

"Bollocks. We'll talk about it now."

"No, Amanda, we bloody well won't. You've got enough to do, catching up with where you need to be, to worry about the rest of it. And even if you didn't, I'm not here to teach kids to be bastards, no matter how much you think you need to be one. You graduate this place, and get a good grip on your gifts, then I'll think about it."

Amanda glared at him and he returned the look steadily. Then she seemed to slump slightly. "Fine," she said reluctantly, and her hold on him was released. "When I'm eighteen. But I'll hold you to that, 'Uncle'."

"Wouldn't expect anything less."