Saturday evening

[x-copycat.livejournal.com]

Vanessa's mercenary past finally catches up with her when someone decides to put a hit out on Mág Ealga

Years of needing to keep yourself alive in dangerous situations taught you choke points and to go down them naturally. Vanessa did it every day and her skills at it had only improved during her time at Snow Valley. She had been going into the building for surveillance. Old habits died hard and she'd continued keeping tabs on a few people she wasn't sure were troublesome but who she also wasn't sure weren't either. She came down here all the time, knew the sounds of the alley and the shapes of things. Nothing seemed off.

The stairs weren't the most stable ones in existence but Vanessa had learnt where the weak spots were. She skipped certain steps or only took to the left or right of others because she knew a misstep and she'd end up going through, not up, the stairs. There was a reason this building was condemned. One day she'd come by and it wouldn't be standing. Vanessa just hoped that it didn't come down while she was in it.

Up on the fourth floor things were quiet. She hadn't gotten her jacket off when she felt more than heard or saw someone move. Vanessa didn't get far before the gun was at her head. "That's gonna make a sound," she said in a quiet, level voice.

"Sure it will. But the knives won't." The voice behind her was quiet, no inflection. It was too even to be anyone that needed or wanted anything from her.

"I've only got a twenty on me." It was important to suss out what people wanted from you before you figured out your recourse. Vanessa's hand was moving very slowly toward her other hand. If it was just the one guy she might be able to take him out pretty easily.

"Don't want your money, girl."

"So what do you want?"

"It's just a job."

A job. Fuck. "You want my head."

"They were non-specific about proof of completion."

Fuck. He could pull the trigger pretty damn easily, but he'd said he intended to use knives on her. That was going to hurt. And suck. She'd die slowly, bleed out. He might enjoy that bit of it. You never knew what sort you'd get taking this sort of job. The question now wasn't who wanted her dead, it was how did she get out of it.

Vanessa controlled her breathing, keeping her heart rate down. Between one pulse of her heart and the next she pulled a smaller, straight-bladed knife out of a sheath on her forearm. She wasn't the sort of girl to leave the house unarmed. He obviously caught the movement because the gun moved but she buried the blade in his side as soon as she could.

A blow to the side of her head told Vanessa her friend with the gun wasn't alone. She didn't know how many people there were, it wasn't light enough to see. Take them out as quick as you can.

Vanessa pivoted toward the gunman in time to see his arm raising to hit her with the butt of the gun. Her blade came up, caught him in the armpit and then tore downward until it hit his elbow. There in the crook she twisted and then yanked the blade out while she began a hip toss. The effort cost her something and she caught a blow to the back of her shoulder. Her adrenaline was high enough that she didn't register if it was a hit or a stab. She'd figure it out soon enough, right?

The gunman hadn't gotten up from the floor for now which left Vanessa to deal with the knives coming at her. There were two other men, at least that she could see. The thick leather jacket helped take a lot of the damage of the slashing she was blocking. Her left arm came up to deflect while her right went for the longer knife on her belt. It was a six inch bladed utility and fighting knife, a present from Thom once.

She just barely missed what would have been a knife to her abdomen. Vanessa took a few rapid steps back and hoped to God there wasn't a fourth guy hiding in the shadows to her back. She had all three men in her sights now and one lunged for her. He caught her in the jaw with his fist, but she'd taken the shot so she could get in close enough to push her knife up under his ribs. He must not have seen the knife she'd pulled from her belt because the sound that escaped him was surprised. She pulled the knife out and dragged the blade across his throat before he could recover or his mate could realize how wrong things had just gone. She pushed hard enough that she felt bone before the knife pulled free of his flesh and she let him fall to the ground.

The body hadn't hit the floor before the one man still standing was coming for her. A slashing motion dragged the sharp side of a blade down her side but Vanessa was already moving when it got her. It would bleed but it wouldn't be too bad. Her arms took most of the knife blows from there until she got ahold of the guy's dominant arm. The knife fell when she snapped the limb. He could still move and he sure as hell tried to fight but the man ended up with the shorter blade buried to the handle in his throat.

Vanessa went back to the first man but found he was gone. Two dead, one injured and missing. Then she heard a crash. The stairs. Her clothes were already ruined so she wiped the blood from her utility knife off on her jeans and went to go find the man who had just fallen through the stairs. He didn't get to leave tonight.

Not long after her attackers are dealt with Vanessa gets a call from another member of Mág Ealga only to find out they were all hit and one of their number fell. Afterward she figures out plans for disposal with the first person she thinks might help.

Thom dialed the number by rote, not having to think about it at all as he wiped blood off the back of his hand onto his shirt.

It rang. It rang again.

"Jesus fecking Christ on the bleeding cross," he muttered. He didn't know who he was cursing at, necessarily, possibly just the world in general. At least he hadn't thrown out his back - he'd've never heard the end of that one. Assuming, of course, that there was anyone left to rib him about it now.

Vanessa dug her phone out of a pocket, shifting the bloody utility blade to her left hand so she could answer. She didn't know who it was, just that it was one of Mág Ealga. She'd programmed all the guys into her mobile with the same ringtone. With a passing thought of whether or not the blood would fuck up the phone, she pressed the button to answer and pressed the phone up to her ear. "Interesting timing you've got there." The only problem would be if it wasn't one of her boys on the other end of the phone.

"Aye, and somebody's right fecking lucky you answered," Thom said, a bit of the tension he now carried releasing when he heard Vanessa's voice. There was no pause for the relief, though. Hits were easier to take the faster they came - slow made shite more painful. "Mikey boy's dead. Been hit, meself."

"Aye, me too." The Irish came back in her accent but it had nothing to do with the Morgan persona she wore so easily. That was just what happened when she talked to Thom. It's what happened to all the American born of them when they were around the older man. "You come out of it all right?" Vanessa knelt down to wipe the blood off her blade on the pantleg of one of her slain attackers. "And what the fuck are people doing coming after us?" Us. Not them. Not Mág Ealga the current. Us, because it was always us whether or not she still went on the jobs with them.

"I've no idea, but I'm aiming to find out. Aye, and I've not tried Eamon yet. Ring him for me, love. Got a bit of cleaning needs doing right quick." Which was Thom-speak for 'you know how to work these damned, new-fangled mobiles better than me and I don't want to hang up just yet.' She'd get it, she was a quick one, his girl. "All in one piece, though. No worse'n Bulgaria."

"Good." She kicked a body just to have something to do while she rang in Eamon on three-way calling. The last thing she was going to do was hang up on Irish after one of them had been killed and the other two had been attacked as well. He'd have fucking killed her for ringing off with him then. "I don't even know where to dump bodies in New York City. Too bad I don't know the kid with the decomposing mutation better. That'd be fucking handy for ditching bod-"

Before she could finished her sentence the ringing end of the phone picked up. The voice that answered was vacant. "Aye?"

"You alive and whole," Vanessa asked quickly.

"Aye," came the answer without pause.

Thom knelt next to the one man he hadn't killed quite all the way yet, thinking he'd get some answers, but he must've hit the bastard harder than he'd thought cause he stopped breathing. "Jesus' bleeding blue balls," he muttered.

He didn't know how they'd tracked him here, but it made his own clean-up relatively easy, so long as he kept up with the local police and made sure they were well-bribed. Burn the whole place down, make it hot. Thom figured he could manage that, at least. Wasn't much to burn, anyway. "You where you were last, boyo?"

"No, I've been moving from here to there." Eamon was glad he hadn't gone back to Ireland like he'd been thinking, off to his Da's where there was family to get in the line of fire. "I left Bulgaria two weeks ago and now," his connection went fuzzy.

"Mother fucker," Vanessa whispered. "Ea? Ea?"

"Ness?" He shifted a little. "Ness, can you hear me now?" Eamon kept looking at his mobile's reception bar but it was nonexistent wherever he went. Then the call just ended. "Damn it!"

"Ea?" Vanessa buried her blade in the thigh of one man. "Fucking mobiles. I know where he is. We've gotta get to Romania and figure out what to do. It's probably easier for us to get to him since his mobile's reception is shit." And why was his reception shit? Eamon usually stuck to places with better service when he was off the job so people could get ahold of him for future jobs and the like if nothing else.

"Aye, darlin'. Tell me where and I'll meet you there, yeah? Take less time for me than you, I'm thinking. Couple extra hours to get some shite figured," Thom'd already gotten everything he'd need in the duffel and that was slung over one shoulder. Extra weapons went into his waistband while he kept the mobile at his ear and rooted through the cabinets for whatever he could find to make the fire burn brighter. Never had he wished he'd paid more attention in demolition than now - course, he thought that every time he had to burn shite down. He'd done well enough, so far.

"Bucharest. Meet me at the airport. I'll get you my flight info when I've got it and I'll make sure it gets to Ea so he can meet us there then, too. I've got a couple calls I've got to make before I can take off." Or before she could go very far at all. How do you get rid of bodies in the fucking city? She wanted to dump them in a sewer, but she'd need help to move them all fast enough anyway. Fucking hell. She knew enough people with ambiguous morals, though, right? She was still on decent enough terms with most of X-Force to ask, but she'd rather that not be her first step. Flying meant weapons transport was an issue. Vanessa would leave that to Thom, she knew the guy would take care of it without her having to say anything anyway.

"Aye," Thom said, spraying the bodies down with a good bit of that 'highly flammable' liquid cleaner shite before stepping out the door to light a cigarette. "I'll see you there, love. Got a present you might like." He'd been planning to save it, but fecked if he wasn't gonna give it to her now. He rang off with Vanessa a moment later, took another drag off his smoke and held his breath for a moment before flicking the cigarette inside and walking away.

Calls - he had calls he had to make. And arrangements. People'd fucked with his family and they were going to pay. Might have just enough time to stop in and speak to a few True Irish friends on his way to Romania, too.

Vanessa growled to herself once Thom rang off. Bodies. She had bodies that needed disposal. She had a shower to take. She had possible injuries to attend. She had a flight to book. She had clothes to stuff into a bag. She had a passport to find...well, any passport really. Maybe Aoife's. She had fallen family to avenge. More bodies that would need disposal. But they were all going to fucking die for this. Every single fucking one of them.

Vanessa stared at her phone and then looked up the first name that popped into her head. This was maybe a bad idea but ideas weren't really what she was operating on right now, instinct was.

"Oui?" Jean-Paul asked, picking up his phone without looking at the display. Very few people had this number, after all.

"How good a friend do you qualify me as?" Now there was a fucking opening line, right? She pulled her knife back out of the dead man's thigh, wiped it back off on his pantleg once more and slid the knife back into its sheath.

Pulling the phone from his ear to check to make sure he was hearing the person he thought he was hearing, Jean-Paul blinked and returned the mobile to his ear. "Quoi? I do not understand. Why do you ask me this?"

The sound that answered was somewhere between a groan and a sigh. Then she snarled and started to cut fingertips off of hands. No fingerprints to identify them by and no teeth, she'd take those as well. "I need to find the fastest and most efficient way to get rid of dead bodies. I usually leave my dead bodies in battle fields...well, most of the time. New York, not so much." Where was a ziplock baggy when she needed one to stick fingertips and teeth into?

This was a joke, surely. Jean-Paul listened to the noises coming tinnily through the phone and paused before saying carefully, "You are not joking." It wasn't a question - her tone was enough to indicate that.

The Alpha Flight suit was definitely out - bloodstains were difficult enough to get out of regular cloth. He needed disposable things. Things he wouldn't mind burning.

"No." She let her end of the conversation drop for a moment so she could concentrate on carving off the pad of a thumb without cutting herself in the process. "They tried to kill me, they don't get to live after that. I don't think the self-defense plea will work in my favor and I've got to get out of the country to take care of the rest of this. I don't need the fucking FBI chasing me." She tossed the thumb tip onto her slowly accumulating pile.

"Very little of the human body - the regular one, of course - is recognisable after it is dropped from a great height," Jean-Paul said, finding a ratty t-shirt that he was fairly certain he'd purchased in desperation whilst waiting for his things to arrive from Laval and pulling it over his head. Jeans followed. "From that height, hitting water is much like hitting concrete." He knew a great deal about the effects of falling on the human form. "Where are the bodies?"

His answer, particularly the thoughtful bits about dropping bodies from a great height, made her smile while Vanessa carved another finger's pad off along with all identifying print it may have possessed. Into the pile it went. "There's a building four blocks north of the penthouse that's been condemned. Fourth floor. I'll open the window," she told him without pause. If he was asking where they were then he would do it, she had no doubt about that. People liked to joke about how real friends helped you hide bodies, but her real friends truly did.

"I'm taking off their fingertips and I'll be pulling their teeth so once they're dropped there shouldn't be anything identifying left. But I want all that stuff in the middle of the fucking ocean if it's possible." She wondered if she could get that through in her checked baggage and dump it all in the Black Sea. No, that was a bad idea. This was precisely why Vanessa was listening to instinct instead of her head for the time being.

"Those bits, they should go into a different water, oui? I will put them in Lake Ontario. Or Erie, maybe." This was going to involve a lot of flying. He'd have to be careful - good thing the shirt was black. Leaving his leather jacket hanging on the chair, Jean-Paul made sure his suite door was locked and then headed for the window. "How many bodies are there?" He stopped before actually asking that, the window unopened for the moment. Prying ears, even accidental ones, could wreck all kinds of havoc on well-laid plans. "It will take a few flights, you see?" Especially if he wanted to drop each body in a different section. The coast of North Carolina, it had sharks. Florida might be better, though, this time of year. He wished he understood American geography better.

"Three bodies between about five-foot-eight and five-foot-eleven. The heaviest is at maybe two-ten, the other two are pretty wiry and lean muscled. Maybe one-eighty each." Vanessa leaned back and frowned at the bodies. "I could get a bigger blade and chop them down into pieces for easiest transport." It'd really make it look a lot like a sadistic, premeditated murder, but she was pretty sure no one was going to believe the bodies really just fell out of thin air randomly anyway.

Considering that for a moment, Jean-Paul thought about how long it took rats to pick bones clean and then decided fish had to work at least that quickly. "Manageable pieces, maybe. It would make the trips easier each way." He'd be exhausted by the end of it, but probably no worse than he'd been when he flew back from Muir.

Her eyes went from the blade in her hand to the bodies. "I need you here before I can take off to get it. The Penthouse isn't far but the bodies need a babysitter so no one can call the cops if they stumble where they shouldn't be." She had both a machete and a sword hanging ornately on her wall at home. Both were sharp and there for ease of snatching them when she needed them more so than to be displayed as part of a collection.

"I will be there, shortly." Jean-Paul needed to figure out where they had sharks this time of year. Or at least lots of fish - farther out would be better, obviously. Less chance of bits and pieces washing up at inconvenient moments that way. And almost no way of being connected to one another.

"Aye," and she rang off. She didn't thank him because someone willing to do this wasn't the sort of person you thanked. Someone willing to do this for you was the sort of person who understood the thanks, didn't need to hear them and understood issuing them just took up needed time. The whole situation put Jean-Paul and Vanessa in very clear standing with one another. He knew she trusted him enough to be honest, to not hold back and go to him when she needed someone above and beyond the call of normal friendship. Now she knew that she qualified as that person for him.


Once the bodies are taken care of from her end and left in the capable of hands of Jean-Paul Vanessa takes the time to cancel her date with her boyfriend while en route to the penthouse.

She'd left Jean-Paul with the bodies she had hacked up. Getting through the city was a fun game of stick-to-the-shadows after that. Vanessa had to get home and get cleaned up before she could do anything else. She had to get other people's blood off of her before she could figure out what stuff hurt just because she'd gotten hit and what was sore because she'd gotten injured. Her mobile was already bloody from answering Thom's call so she wiped her hands off on her jeans and pulled it back out to call her boyfriend. Her boyfriend she was supposed to have plans with tonight. Brilliant.

Lex ran the towel over his hair two or three times and then shook his head for good measure. He was running behind and rushing to make himself presentable for his date with Vee. They hadn't seen one another in a few days and he was looking forward to spending a romantic evening with her, movie and all. Looking in the mirror he smiled, realizing that it was going to be a wonderful evening.

From the other room his phone went off and he dropped the towel. "One minute," he called, knowing that she wouldn't be able to hear him. He ran into the other room and rolled over the bed to get to his pants, I must remember to put my phone in a more accessible spot. "Hey Vee, you ready for tonight?"

"Hey, yeah, so about that....I think I need to cancel." She wasn't entirely sure yet, it sort of hinged on whether or not she could pull off a miracle with booking a flight. She needed to get out to Romania as soon as possible. There was a chance she knew someone somewhere who could pull some strings, she'd just need to figure out who it was.

For a moment Lex couldn't speak, he'd never heard that inflection in Vee's voice. "What's going on," he asked tentatively, moving towards the door. He stopped just long enough to grab his survival blade, before opening it to leave. Something behind her words made him think she was in trouble.

What did she tell him? Rather, how much did she tell him? He knew her name, that was Vanessa's symbolic last wall standing. If he was going to be involved with her then he needed to know her, she supposed. "I've got to get home, wash the blood off me, burn my clothes and book a flight to get me to Romania as soon as possible. And I might need stitches so I've got to figure out where that's not a hospital to go for those."

"Wait, wash the blood off you and burn your clothes? What happened?" He felt his pulse quicken, "Where are you, I'll pick you up." There was no question in Lex's mind of whether she was guilty of something, only the thought that he would make himself available to her as she needed. "As for the stitches, I can probably handle that. I have some field medicine from the army."

"I'm closer to my place than you are." She only had a few blocks to walk, in fact. "Three men found me in the building where I'd been continuing old habits. Apparently there's a price on my head and I don't know who from. They're dealt with but they hit my whole crew and killed one of the guys. I've got to regroup with the others that came out of the hits on them, too. But if you can stitch me that'd be loads of help." It would make the question of where to go and who to trust to do it and keep their mouths shut a lot easier as well.

"Shit," Lex breathed, he knew how much he feared Vee when he first met her and so he knew what dealt with meant. He couldn't blame her. "I'll be there shortly, I'm going to grab some supplies from the lab and then I'll fix you up. If you need anything I can bring that as well."

"Just stitches." That was it, right? Vanessa did a quick assessment and decided that really was everything she needed. She could have thrown in some typically sappy comment about how she needed him but that wouldn't have been very much like her. They'd both know it wasn't a natural sentiment from her. Vanessa didn't need people in the way most people seemed to. She just wasn't that sorta girl. "Maybe help packing depending where the stitches end up, but that's not a bring with you sorta thing."

"Very true," he felt a little worried about her physical state, but was comforted by her attitude. She seemed like his Vee and that's all he wanted. "I'll be there momentarily."

"See you in an hour." She knew he had to be at the mansion and the drive was going to take him a while. Getting pulled over for speeding would take longer. She hit the button to ring off and stuffed the slightly blood-smeared phone back into her pocket. Now she just had to get past the security at the counter of her building.

More than an hour later a shower had unveiled a knife wound on the back of her shoulder and one on her abdomen that needed stitches. She was probably going to tear them open within the next few days and need them redone, but Vanessa was prepared for that. Lex had done a decent enough job stitching her up considering his lack of real medical training.

"Thanks," Vanessa said over her shoulder while pulling her shirt on over her head. He hadn't made a fuss about the injuries or helping her get them sorted. She really did appreciate that.

Reaching out for her, Lex put his hand on her back and kept the shirt from falling all the way below her head. He held her there for a moment to make sure he had her full attention. "You're very welcome." He wasn't going to try and pry into her affairs but he couldn't help feeling like she might need the back up wherever she was headed. "You know, I am willing to fight for you."

She didn't know that actually. Vanessa hadn't really thought about it. She knew Lex was a fighter but she'd never stopped to think about whether or not he'd fight for her.. She hadn't even given it enough thought for it to be an knee-jerk impulse the way calling Jean-Paul about the bodies had. "Thanks, I appreciate that. But you could say it's family business. They went after the only family I've got and they killed my brother."

"I see," he said, though he really didn't want to let it go at that. There was something between them that made Lex trust her implicitly. It was a bond he hadn't felt since he was in the field with the men under his command, and he didn't want to let her go off into the unknown to face an enemy that she didn't know anything about. He pulled her close, being very careful to avoid the areas he'd just stitched up. He wanted to say something more, but was realizing that she was going somewhere that she felt he didn't belong. "Should I even bother asking to come with?"

"Not unless you want to end up in a federal prison. Or a military one. Probably the latter." He was worried and she got that. He wanted to help her and have her back which she appreciated immensely. But it was still a family matter and he still wasn't family. Not yet. Maybe never. Vanessa didn't think planning or having vivid ideas about their future was a smart plan. She did lean into him, though, letting go of her weight for the most part and letting him keep her upright from the way she leaned against him. "You're no good to me in prison, you realize that, right?"

"Yeah," he smiled, squeezing her gently, "and you're no good to me dead." He meant it, and he let her know with the strength of his arms. It was strange for him to feel so connected to someone else, but it felt too natural for him to ignore. If she had to go, then he would support her, but he wasn't going to leave it at that. He wouldn't be able to live with himself if he sat by and did nothing. "I'll give you a month. If you don't call me before then I'm coming after you."

How could you not smile at that? Vanessa wasn't sure because - despite people trying to kill her and her friend dropping body parts she'd hacked up for him from very great heights - she still found herself smiling. "No one can cover my back better than the lads who'll be watching it. They've kept me alive through worse than this when I knew a lot less than I do now. I'll be fine." She pulled her face from where she'd ended up burying it in his neck so she could press a kiss to the corner of Lex's mouth. "You'll hear from me before the month's out." There was no question about that in her mind whatsoever.

"Then there's only one more thing for it then," reaching behind his back he drew forth his survival knife. "If you can get this through security I want you to have this. It's served me very well and I know it'll do the same for you." It was a stupid, sentimental, thing to do but he couldn't stop himself.

"Brilliant ideas for sneaking a knife through security on an international flight?" Vanessa took the knife, though, and tucked it into her waistband. She was careful of the way she moved, not wanting to aggravate her new stitches so soon. "I'll bring an envelope pre-addressed in case I can't."

"If you're bringing luggage you could put it in there, they wouldn't stop you if it was in a case. However, it may be better to ship it." He hadn't really thought about it before he spoke and he felt a little dumb when she put it so easily, he really didn't belong in her world. Without another word he stood and moved towards the kitchen, "How does a drink sound while we try to get you some last minute tickets?"

"I meant ship it to you. I'm not getting it past customs if I can't get it past airport security." Hiding it in something dense enough would obscure it on an X-ray most likely. She'd call Thom, see if he had any brilliant ideas. Smuggling weapons was more his deal than hers anyway. "Tickets are booked already. I called in a favor before I hit the short. I need to be at the airport in a couple hours."

"Ah, would you like a parting meal? I could make something and then drive you to the airport." As he was already in the kitchen he simply took stock of what she had in the fridge and began thinking of what would make a quick, hearty, meal.

"Are you always so motherly?" She didn't want to eat. She wanted to turn her brain off enough to sleep but she definitely did not want to eat and then have to endure that heavy feeling in her stomach. For some reason or another Vanessa liked distance from kills before she ate. She'd have no appetite for hours still. "You, stop, sit. I need to pack anyway."

"I was trying to be romantic, but I guess this isn't the time. I'll sit still." He took his seat, and sat watching Vee work.