Day Zero - Arrival at Silver

[x-tarot.livejournal.com]

Hours after Marie-Ange is rescued, JP finally gets her safely to Silver - and the truth of what he said to get Marie-Ange to come out of her catatonic state is confirmed.



With Silver's continuing metamorphosis from nightclub to fortification, Mark was growing ever more testy and short. He had nearly lost his temper once already when Ray dropped a glass bottle of water that Jake had spent an hour purifying, and the kid was only spared because Jake quickly went to purify more. Everyone was restless, and the fear and anticipation in the club was palpable. Since Pete and Jean-Phillipe left to find Marie-Ange, there had been no news at all from the outside. There were noises every now and then, explosions and maniacal laughter and terrible shrieks that filled downtown. Though he was more or less sure of Silver's short-term security after a day spent reinforcing the place, he knew that it wouldn't stand against a concentrated attack, and who knew who or what was out there that would want to destroy a bastion of human/mutant peace? He felt like Anne Frank, hiding out while evil forces marched across his home looking for him and those like him, ready to kill him on sight if they found him.

Everyone jumped when something banged hard on the front doors, and half of them turned to him expectantly, waiting for him to do something to keep them safe. He heard sobs escape from a few people, those who had arrived half-dead after running through Apocalypse's mobs to safety. Tom the psychometrist slowly crept to the door and laid a hand on it, and all the fear suddenly drained from his face. "It's the French guy!" he announced, and suddenly half a dozen others joined him to unlock and unseal the door to let him in.

Jean-Phillipe staggered through the door first, looking even more scraped and bruised than he had when he'd left with Pete. As he came through the door, he pulled his equally scraped and bruised cousin along with him.

Compared to her usual well-dressed and groomed appearance, Marie-Ange was a disaster. Even compared to her clothes from the day before, she was a mess. Her jeans were torn in one leg, her hair was long out of the braid she'd tied in the day before, and she was limping and smudged and generally miserable looking. But possibly most startling was the way she clung to Jean-Phillipe, letting him lead her into the club.

Over the gasps of those regulars who knew Marie-Ange, Mark shouted for a free cot, water, and clean towels for her. He helped Jean-Phillipe half-carry her to the cot, and then grabbed a towel from someone he didn't even acknowledge to start cleaning her up. "It's OK, Angie. You're OK now. I gotcha. What are you all looking at?" he barked at the crowd assembling behind them. "Shut the door, you idiots. I . . . where's Pete?"

"He told me to run when we encountered Caliban," Jean-Phillipe replied, a frustrated tone in his voice. He'd gone to retrieve his cousin, not simply exchange someone else for her. He slapped his hand against the wall, electricity crackling around his palm. "You told me I should do whatever he said, even if he said to 'fuck off'," he continued bitterly.

"Then you did what you should have done. Rubbing alcohol." He took the bottle and poured a little bit of its contents onto the towel. "Pete's probably ripping him to pieces and feeding him to the dogs. You don't need to see that. This is gonna sting, Angie. Just hold still, it'll be over in a sec."

"Ow! Ow, stop that. I think I broke something..." Marie-Ange said quietly, trying to take the towel from Mark and not really doing a very good job of it. "In my head. Or someone's nose. I ... no, I know I broke a nose. Not any of your noses, yes?" She looked up, first at Mark and then at Jean-Phillipe, and nodded to herself. "Good, no broken noses. I did not break my nose, I know that. Oh, and maybe a neck. I think I remember breaking someone's neck... I will break someone's neck?"

Jean Phillipe frowned. His cousin was even stranger than usual since the rescue. He'd had to prod and pull her the entire way back to Silver. "You almost _did_ break my nose," he groused, "when you..." He trailed off and glanced nervously at Mark.

Mark raised an eyebrow but kept his gaze on Marie-Ange. "When she what?" he asked. Satisfied that she was as clean as could be for now, he tossed the towel away and handed a glass of water and a bottle of aspirin to her.

Jean-Phillipe's brain screamed at him to lie. But the cat had already been let out of the bag, unfortunately. "Um, nothing?" he said weakly. Why had he had to say that? Why couldn't he have snapped Marie-Ange out of her fugue state before it came to that?

Despite her mostly distracted state, the kick that came at Jean-Phillipe's ankle connected with exactly enough force to hurt, but not so much as to actually cause him any injury. "I hit him. He can tell you later why." Marie-Ange said. There were way too many people around to demand that he explain right then at there. "But he did quite a good job in rescueing me, and so I will not hit him again." Well, not today anyway.

Mark stood led Jean-Phillipe a few feet away, out of everyone's hearing. Though he was much shorter than his ex and could never be described as intimidating, the fire in Mark's eyes made up for that. "I swear," he whispered coldly, "If you did something to her and are keeping it from me, then I'll have no problems throwing you out to Apocalypse's mercy. It might be sweeter than mine, because I am really not in the mood for this shit right now. Not when I'm responsible for almost forty people's lives."

"She slapped me," Jean-Phillipe admitted. "When I went to get her, she was practically catatonic." His stomach roiled as he spoke in hushed tones. "I tried everything to snap her out of it." He swallowed heavily. "I got her to react by telling her..." he glanced away from Mark's face and toward the floor. "...that I have been working for Magneto."

"That's one way to shock someone back to reality. A lie like that..."And then the tone of Jean-Phillipe's voice and the way he held himself set off an alarm in Mark's head. "Tell me that was just a lie, JP."

"It is not a lie," Jean-Phillipe said flatly, still not able to look at Mark. "I have been providing him information the entire time I have been at the mansion."

The last time Mark had jumped on Jean-Phillipe it had been for much more recreational purposes. This time, they fell to the hard floor instead of the soft bed and Mark swung a punch at Jean-Phillipe. "You son of a bitch! Fucking traitor piece of shit." So blinded with rage, he didn't notice the crowd gathering around them or Marie-Ange's cries for them to stop, until he found himself flying away and landing unceremoniously on his butt. Ray stood nearby, the air around him rippling with telekinetic energies as he fought to keep Mark away.

Jean-Phillipe had not resisted, and he made no attempt to struggle towards Mark and hit him in return, simply wiping blood away from a split lip. He still believed strongly in the mutant cause, but the excesses of Apocalypse's minions had started to stir up doubts in his head. And he was ashamed at the way he'd betrayed someone he did care about. Despite the way he'd broken things off with Mark, he did care about his former lover. It was true that he hadn't really been looking for a long-term commitment, but it had been even more about keeping free of entanglements due to his reasons for being in New York.

"Boys." Normally when Marie-Ange said that word, it was because any of her male friends were being particularly goofy, and it was said with such a tone of humor that it was unmistakably her laughing. This time it was said like an insult, as if the people she were speaking to were acting like four year olds. Which is about what she thought of the situation. "You can beat each other senseless later, when the city is not under attack from a psychopath?"

"I know you're high and hallucinating now, but you heard what he just said, right?" Mark struggled against the telekinetic bonds keeping him down and glared at the kid, who looked scared but didn't let go. "Spy. For. Magneto. As in, we're not safe with him."

"He is not going to do anything." Marie-Ange had gotten up from the cot somewhat unsteadily. "I am not high, and my hallucinations usually come true, if you remember? I have a headache that feels like Terry singing Platée in my ears, but I am not all that unbalanced." She looked at Mark, and then glared at Jean-Phillipe. "And besides, if he does anything, he will not make it to get word to Magneto."

Jean-Phillipe sighed. He wasn't really sure how his week could get any worse at this point. He'd been exposed as a spy, and now his cousin and ex-lover were both ready to kill him if he put one toe out of line. "I will not go anywhere," he promised, not moving from where he sat on the floor.

With everyone staring at him like he was a madman, Mark had no choice but to accept Marie-Ange's reassurance. "One wrong move, Jean-Phillipe." The bonds started to weaken, enough that he could reach into his pocket and pull out his iPhone. A second later, a red force field appeared around him, and Ray staggered back a step from psychic recoil. Freed, Mark returned to his feet. "Well? What are you all looking at? Don't you all have shit to do?"