Morgan & Kurt, then Morgan & Remy

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After a morning of "therapy" Morgan finds herself with more than the freezer can handle. Kurt finds her and the two talk about mutations and families.

Morgan stood there, hands on her hips, staring down the inside of the freezer. Sure, she was planning on bringing a lot of this over to the Brownstone because she knew at least the butterfly would eat it if Morgan managed to cook it first. Or maybe she should leave Jubilee to find someone to cook it for her. Still, there wasn't enough room in the freezer, or the fridge for that matter, for the stuff she had planned to leave here in the mansion. "People need to bloody eat more!" She scowled and started to rearrange things again. Obviously, she'd been indulging in too much therapy and she'd have to cut herself off from hunting for at least the rest of the week just because of how much venison she had stacked up on the counters of the kitchen currently.

Kurt stepped into the room and blinked at her, vaguely startled. "Is the freezer so full?"

Morgan glanced over in the direction from which the voice had come. "Hey, Fuzzy. Aye, it is. What is wrong with you people? Why are you not eating more?"

"We have been down several people", he pointed out. "Not only the missing, but those who went home, and the stress of the situation... how many hunting sessions have you had?"

Morgan frowned at the freezer as she stopped her rearranging. Leaning back, she eyed it as if she was sure she was missing something. "This is only the second one." He asked how many sessions she had, not how many deer she'd killed in them.

Morgan stood there, hands on her hips, staring down the inside of the freezer. Sure, she was planning on bringing a lot of this over to the Brownstone because she knew at least the butterfly would eat it if Morgan managed to cook it first. Or maybe she should leave Jubilee to find someone to cook it for her. Still, there wasn't enough room in the freezer, or the fridge for that matter, for the stuff she had planned to leave here in the mansion. "People need to bloody eat more!" She scowled and started to rearrange things again. Obviously, she'd been indulging in too much therapy and she'd have to cut herself off from hunting for at least the rest of the week just because of how much venison she had stacked up on the counters of the kitchen currently.

Kurt stepped into the room and blinked at her, vaguely startled. "Is the freezer so full?"

Morgan glanced over in the direction from which the voice had come. "Hey, Fuzzy. Aye, it is. What is wrong with you people? Why are you not eating more?"

"We have been down several people", he pointed out. "Not only the missing, but those who went home, and the stress of the situation... how many hunting sessions have you had?"

Morgan frowned at the freezer as she stopped her rearranging. Leaning back, she eyed it as if she was sure she was missing something. "This is only the second one." He asked how many sessions she had, not how many deer she'd killed in them.

First she shrugged, then she almost begrudgingly nodded. "I had some stuff to work out," was all she said. Morgan realized most of the people in the mansion likely wouldn't condone killing things as therapy, or find it the healthiest way to exercise one's demons, but it was her method and lately she had more demons than usual. "We don't have like a back up freezer in the garage, do we?"

Kurt wasn't one of those people - he'd taken part in hunting expeditions with the clan, in the past, and he seemed unfazed. "Not that I know of, but Kyle would know better - or if not, the Professor might be willing to get one."

"Hmm. Yeah, I should poke the other Fuzzy about it. Or maybe just bring more into the city for the Brownstone folks than I'd planned to." Morgan sighed, let the freezer door shut and went to sit down so she could rethink where to put the meat. The freezer door hadn't closed completely, though, too stuffed with food to be able to.

"If you really have more than you can deal with", he offered, "I could arrange to get some of it to my family. It is too far for me to teleport, but not for Clarice."

Morgan perked up. "Seriously? No, really, I mean...really? Please, take it. Loads of it. Jean-Paul is going to maim me if I don't stop killing Bambi. Even he is running out of creative recipes to use it in."

"They will be pleased to take it", he assured her. "They have many mouths to feed, so this would all go to good use."

She slumped back into the chair, suddenly deflating now that she didn't need to figure out where to stuff it all or how to make the freezer somehow larger. "Oh, well, I'm glad it'll go to good use then. They can have all of the overstock that doesn't get taken by the Brownstone folk. That's for future reference, too."

"I will remember that", Kurt promised. "And if Clarice is not able to do it, I will find out if my little sister can manage anything. She is becoming quite powerful these days."

"Your little sister teleports, too? What, is it like a family thing? Blue, fuzzy, and amazing POOF ability!" Now there was something you could market to the kiddies. She even grinned a bit, which was nice because Morgan felt like there was a whole lot of serious going on in her life lately.

He laughed. "I am the only one in the family who is blue and fuzzy. And I do not know if she can teleport yet, but she may have learned - she has powers much like Amanda's, inherited from our mother."

"I don't actually know anything about Amanda's powers, actually. I know her shield crunched from snarly fellas for me and there's something about being better in a city, but herein my knowledge jumps off a cliff and ceases to exist." Now that she didn't have to worry about rearranging the fridge to stuff everything in there Morgan was hungry so she was back at the fridge rifling through things again.

"The short version is magic", Kurt said easily. "The women in our family - those in the female line by blood, at least, so Amanda and Jimaine in this generation - are witches. Healers mostly, but they can do other things."

"See, why does everyone else get the cool stuff?" She looked over at Kurt, sized up his build and then shrugged. "All I can do is play magic, three-d mirror and even then I need to be wearing clothes that fit the new body, which for the record can be a bitch if I need to go between male and female quickly." Which is why she wasn't demonstrating, because his shoulders were too wide and her shirt may possibly end up in pieces from stretching like that.

"Magic 3-D mirror is a cool power itself, I would say", he told her. "The clothes issue is a small disadvantage, after all, and you can always dress too large just in case."

"I could, but you need warning for that," she pointed out. "Sometimes great escapes are planned that far in advance and there's not a woman outside of a burqa about."

"True", he allowed. "I suppose it is a rare mutation that comes with no drawbacks at all."

"I don't think there's such a thing. Having a mutation at all is a drawback, socially speaking." She finally popped out of the fridge with an apple and two containers, one of venison and one of pasta. "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others, right? Same thing. Constitution or whatever else can say all men are created equal, but they aren't and until no one blinks at you being blue and fuzzy or Yvette having red skin and blue eyes or at Kyle having a mutation in and of itself is a drawback. Even for someone who looks normal. Their drawback is just delayed until whenever people find out about them."

"And the day no one blinks", he said with a crooked smile, "will likely not come in any of our lifetimes, however hard we work. But perhaps in time."

Morgan shrugged. "Nope, probably not." She bit into her apple as she shoved first the container of angel hair into the microwave and set it to warm the food up. "Eventually, hopefully. I've got the advantage, though. I can be silly and pink-colored like them any time I want." She wiggled her fingers at him as if playfully making a threat against some unknown normal colored person.

That got a chuckle. "As can I, with the help of machinery. I do not like using image inducers where I do not really have to, though. They buzz."

She quirked an eyebrow up at him. "Image inducers? They've got something that can do that? Interesting. I dunno, I like playing dress up in other bodies. It gets boring walking around looking the same all the time. I'm not used to it."

"An invention of a former resident." He shrugged. "We do not have many of them, so mostly we use them for emergencies - and I can imagine you would not be, having known nothing else since your manifestation."

"Freaks me out a little sometimes, being all blue all the time." The microwave dinged and Morgan swapped out the containers and went looking for a fork because suddenly she was starving. "But I'm mostly adjusted. And when I'm not I wear someone else for a night out or something." Or a night in as things sometimes happened.

"Sometimes I think I was very lucky to have been born this way." He watched her container spin in the microwave, idly. "I never had to deal with the dramatic change at manifestation that others did."

Morgan paused in her chewing to think about that. She was sure he mother would have still declared her a demon, but she couldn't see her dad being willing to give her up because after all if she was a demon then she was one they made. Would they have split up? Would she have been raised with a mother who resented and hated her? Would she have been given up? "Yeah, I think you're right. It's easier to get all the bad reactions from others over and done with before you're old enough to understand or remember. Besides, if you've never been any other way you can't mourn your normalcy, yeah?"

"Very true. And the reactions from others did not change from those I had known before, even when we moved to a different place. Sometimes it was not easy, but it could have been much harder."

"Who would have known that the fuzzy-from-birth guy would end up having had the better route? At least when you wear your differences on the outside the ones on the inside seem to not hold so much impact all the time." It was hard to care about whether or not you liked the same things or were skinny enough or pretty enough when you were blue, Morgan had found. All those typical teenage insecurities had gone right out the window, trumped and stomped on by her appearance and her life's realities.

"I will confess", Kurt added wryly, "that I did not always see it that way. When I was... oh, somewhere between twelve and sixteen, and even my brother and sisters were not like me - not to mention that I was adopted - I gave my parents hell."

Morgan grinned. "Calm little fuzzball was a hellion?" She made a tsking noise and wiggled a finger at him in that no-no-no way parents had. "I guess terminally being the outsider can get to you just as much as suddenly being one can."

"Calm little fuzzball had an older brother to get into trouble with." He grinned back. "And oh, we did. And sometimes even without him."

"Sounds like you had loads of fun. I never had siblings so I missed out on all that." The microwave dinged again and Morgan pulled out the container of meat. Mmmm, meat. "Being an only child is dull as fuck, for the record."

"I cannot imagine being an only child", he said frankly. "Mine was a very large family - and I suppose in a way, living here might show you what that is like."

"I dunno, I think to get that feeling from being here you need to be one of the students, not one of the teachers." Maybe that was just her view, though.

"That depends, I think, on what place in the family you are thinking of. It may help in my case that three of my younger sisters are here."

"Maybe. I've probably got 'responsible older sister' down." And possibly irresponsible older sister, all thanks to Laurie's night of drinking to prove everyone wrong. Laurie, Morgan was sure, had the younger sister thing down pat.

"There you go", he said, amused.

That afternoon Morgan finds herself with another meeting with Remy LeBeau, but this time the proposition on the table is different.

It was the same damn conference room, and once again Remy was surrounded by files, making notes, and looking anything like the figure that Morgan had fought beside only a few days prior. The whole office looked like, well, an accounting firm, maybe a small law office. People pushing paper, making phone calls, sipping from a mismatched group of coffee mugs and looking to all the world like a stereotypical nine to five job. Remy had managed a fighting retreat against a more powerful foe without any casualties, and here he was, mildly adding his thoughts to reams of files and holding a mug that said 'you don't have to be crazy to work here but it helps'. It had to have been a gift.

"Ah, Morgan." He looked up and waved her in. "Glad you could make it. Coffee?"

Morgan wasn't exactly sure why she had been called into the Snow Valley offices again. She assumed it had something to do with her tagging along in Africa and to sniff out prisoners of Apocalypse's. Then again, she'd been debriefed, she'd been told what she could and could not speak about, the money had been transferred and any weapons LeBeau had procured on her behalf for the job in Africa were in his possession where they belonged. To say she was a bit confused was possibly an understatement.

As she entered the conference room, Morgan was struck by the similarity of the scene she'd walked into the last time she'd been here. Nodding a greeting to him, she slipped into the same seat she'd taken in their first meeting. "Please." She didn't inquire as to the purpose of this meeting, assuming he'd tell her when he wanted to.

Remy motioned to the sideboard next to her, where the pot was, and pulled out a thick file. She had seen it before, the collected information that they'd amassed on her. This time, he didn't open it, just laid his hands on top, drumming it with his fingers. "De first thing dat you need to know is dat you've got good instincts and bad training." He held his hand up to forestall any objection. "Dis is not a slight on you mercenary friends. What you managed to learn from dem is pretty remarkable considering it was all on de job training. Dey just didn't have de backgrounds to give you a real grounding in much past small unit combat. I've got friends keeping tabs on dem. Dey seem to be doing pretty well dese days. Pakistan falling apart created a lot of jobs in Africa and de Middle East."

Morgan sat back down after pouring herself a cup of coffee. She was careful to not respond to the comment about her bad training, either verbally or facially. There was something important she knew about herself and that was she had a tendency to be defensive and ferociously protective of those close to her, particularly those she considered family. Going on the defensive wouldn't help her current situation, whatever it was, and the guys wouldn't care about the comments anyway if they were present. Morgan forced herself to let it go. "Yes, it has created many jobs and they are doing well right now. They're in Africa, I believe. Somewhere in the east, but I suppose you may know better than I do currently."

"Currently. You spread around a little money, and you can find out anything." Remy said, leaning forward with his forearms on the table. "Dat's sort of de point. I know dat you planning to go back to dem, back to de mercenary work. Lots of money to be made, likely 'nother few years before de survivors dey start retiring."

Eventually she was just going to stop responding and assume he already knew everything she might say. It wasn't that it was so particularly hard to find all this out, it's just that people rarely laid it out to her like he did. Then again, she was usually with the guys he was checking up on. Why he had people watching Mág Ealga, though, was a curious thing to her. "That's my plan, yes. When that plan will be enacted remains to be seen. May I ask why you've people keeping tags on Mág Ealga?"

"To see how they've been doing, even without you in de field wit' dem. Answer 'ppears to be 'fine'. Which is why I think dat you might consider de fact dat you could be a lot more valuable doing something else."

This sounded like a less friendly and more hard-lined version of what Garrison had said to her when Morgan had told him she was leaving. The thought caused her face to empty of any emotion even as her head cocked to the side in a questioning gesture. "I assume you aren't just looking out for my future potential here as some sort of red-eyed angel and have some suggestion as to what I could be valuable as?"

"Remy sure dat dere are many things dat you could be valuable as. To me, you've got de makings of a good operative. Power perfectly suited to de field, a personal history already suited for disappearing, and training and experience as a combat asset in de field. Losing Pete puts us down a person for de foreseeable future, and while we start training you on areas better suited to dat powers of yours, you already got a use in combat ops." Remy said simply. Most people when trying to recruit did what they could to entice people to join. Remy, on the other hand, wanted people to be able to last his particularly bleak pitch to prove they actually wanted it despite everything he said.

She considered what he said seriously. Morgan didn't like the idea of telling Eamon she wasn't coming back at all. She also didn't like the idea of him wanting to know who was adopting little sister. One thing stuck out to her, though. "What sort of training?"

"Proper intelligence work; insertion and intrusion techniques, deep cover work, trade craft, asset handling." Remy outlined. "Dat's what we do here. All de people you been working wit' have spent de last three years training in setting up networks, managing contacts, and analysing intelligence as it comes in."

She noted the use of the word "proper" in his description of intelligence work and recalled his comments about how she didn't know how to do such work, only got by due to her mutation. Loads of people would have been offended by the comment and had stopped there, but Morgan was of the opinion that if you had a weakness and you could fix it then you did. "And my specific role in all this?" She gestured around herself at the room, but was indicating the larger picture, namely the larger group as a whole.

If he could train her then he could train anyone which meant there was no reason to extend this position to her personally and that was something she wanted to know. Was it because she specifically added something they were lacking or was it because she could be useful and happened to be there?

"I need more people wit' operational experience. Pete being gone for how long puts a big hole in our field capacity, and while most of our staff are turning into good field agents, dere's no substitute for five years experience of being shot at. De other skills we need, I can give you. De extra experience for de others, dere's no shortcuts to providing it." Remy touched the files again, tapping his finger on them. "Dis is a different world den you used to, Morgan. Intelligence and mercenary work overlap in some places, but dere's a big difference, and you going to be starting back at de basics in terms of training for a lot of things. What I need is someone who has skills right now dat I can use in de field while dey acquire de rest of de skills dey going to need for de job eventually. I've seen enough to know dat you have dem."

"Learning isn't a problem for me. I'm not stupid enough to think I know everything, nor am I proud enough to find being taught humiliating." Morgan was thinking about it, that was a sign in and of itself, but there were a lot of points she needed addressed before she could even begin to consider this seriously. "What sort of risk assessment are we looking at on the average field operation? I'm used to it being life or death, which means kill or be killed. I know the X-Men have a strict no killing policy and while obviously I've witnessed the enemy not come out the other end of an operation with your lot I don't know whether or not that is the usual for the things you deal with. Let's face it, I'm a killer. Maybe not the creep into your room at night or shoot you during a speech assassin type, but I am. I think we both know that. That's where my instincts lie and it could be a problem if on a regular basis you want me to bring people in subdued or neutralized with a low body count going on."

After pausing for a second, something Amanda said popped into her mind and Morgan tacked on, "How high is the 'weird shit' factor? I'm not talking bizarre mutations but the people at the mansion tend to mention dinosaurs like others mention immigrants and Amanda's made reference to demons before."

"I expect you to act like a professional, which means minimizing de body count whenever possible. Dead bodies raise questions, and cause problems. And if you get de order 'no killing', I expect dat to be followed to de letter. Dat all being said, our operational profile is very different from de X-Men. Wisdom and I trained as assassins, Betts as a special forces operative; wetwork is occasionally part of de job. Ultimately, for most of our work, we want to avoid any confrontations if possible. When we deploy specifically for combat, you'll have a goal and freedom to decide how to accomplish it." Remy said. X-Force killed when they had to and didn't when it wasn't necessary because they weren't monsters, and killing was often the lazy option which caused more trouble down the road. Remy had read through Morgan's past, and her old team did not have a reputation for unnecessary casualties.

"As for de weird shit meter-- well, dat's a little harder to answer. We're looking to identify threats before dey have a chance to get started, and neutralize dem at dat point. Dere's a history to de world dat most people don't know; a kind of shadow past wit' all nature of ugliness. Dat's where we live, and if we do de job right, no one ever knows dat we're needed. We've saved a mutant who can be best described as 'God' from wiping out ten million Chinese, fought creatures from another dimension, de queen of a demon realm sorts our mail as an intern, and really pissed off a Nazi made of bees looking to kill all de brown people on de planet with a virus. It's kind of a mixed bag."

Morgan nodded along with everything he said, not flinching at the words "professional" or "wetwork" as some people may have. The only flicker of emotion that crossed her face was one of amusement when he referenced Illyana. Morgan didn't know who he was referring to but suddenly she wanted to meet the woman. "I haven't a problem following orders, whether that means killing them all or neutralizing them." If non-confrontation is the way they tended to play it then she didn't foresee a problem. Then again, Morgan thought she'd be finding someone to practice her blade work with. Knives were silent and messy but she was better at disabling in a nonlethal capacity with them.

Thinking, Morgan fell silent for long moments. "When do you want an answer by?" Sometimes offers expired and sometimes that happened rather quickly. The truth of it was that Mág Ealga was a bit part of the decision she had to make, but it wasn't the only part. She'd have to weigh various options against one another, consider pros and cons along with consequences.

"We not General Motors. I need operations people dat I can trust, so de offer is open as long as dat's still what I need." Remy paused. "Dere's something dat you'll need to understand when you make dis decision, Morgan. We not mercenaries. We decide what jobs need doing, and we deal wit' de consequences of dose decisions. De pay is far less den you used to making, de hours are even longer, and de likely outcome of joining us is dat you going to end up as an anonymous body in some foreign hellhole down de road. De only reason to do it is because de job needs to be done, and you'll be one of de people making de decisions, as opposed to just being used to make it happen."

She understood his point and nodded once, seriously, to convey that to him. It was another reason she needed to think about things. It wasn't so much that Morgan had issues leaving behind the life of a mercenary, it was more that she wasn't sure this was the one she wanted to leave that one behind for. The echo of Garrison's voice suggesting she might find a place with these people, though, that didn't help her think objectively at all. "There are very few people I associate with who know the name on my birth certificate. You can only be so known under that circumstance. I was always going to end up an anonymous body in an unmarked grave somewhere." She could tell you about where Aleister had been buried but she couldn't tell you precisely where. He'd had no family to be sent home to just as she had none. Morgan's fate would be much the same. "I need to think about it. For many reasons, not all of them obvious. But I'll give you a definite answer one way or the other as soon as I have one for you."

"You know where to find me." Remy said. If she'd immediately said yes, she wouldn't be the right type of person for the job. Even LeBeau wasn't sure how well she'd fit, especially when mixed loyalties were factored in. But, she'd done two jobs well, and two others he'd heard about through Jubilee and Wanda with skill. He could have used her months ago in India, and without Pete working the network for weeks, if not more, he needed someone that at the very least, he could trust not to get themselves killed. More than any other factor, Morgan looked like a survivor first.

"Any questions, you can talk to me or de others. Otherwise, 'fraid dat Remy have to get back to work."

"I'll leave you to it, then." She gave him a slight smile and a nod as she stood. Amanda was on the top of her list of people to prod for more information about this, but Morgan suspected Amanda would be hard to find time with lately. Maybe she'd talk to the butterfly instead once she'd gone over it all in her own head first. She wasn't sure what she thought about it all as she left the conference room, but she was thinking about it. It was more than she'd have done a few months ago.