Angelo and Frank: Hard Truths

[x-pinnochio.livejournal.com]

Frank calls in to Angelo's office. Unpleasant truths come to light.

"I smell good coffee", Angelo declared cheerfully as he opened his office door. "Who brought that in?"

"Your newest and most desperate suck-up," said Frank sardonically, rising to offer it to Angelo. "I hit the rest of the office already. You're welcome." He stuck out his free hand to shake. "I'm Frank, sir. Nice to meet you in person."

Angelo grinned broadly and shook his hand, accepting the mug with a strand of skin. "Nice to meet you too and an out of order thank you. Not sure what you're sucking up for, though, unless you're after a job already."

"Well, suck-up may be pushing it." Frank watched (Or more accurately stared as politely as one can) at the strand of skin as it took the coffee. That... was equal parts gross and kind of useful, but he wasn't going to say anything. "I'm kind of hoping I could talk to you about what you guys actually do. Dad talked a lot about Elpis when he was shipping me here." No bitterness there, no sirree.

Angelo didn't seem to even notice the staring, unless he was just ignoring it on the basis of it being friendly. He nodded and took an appreciative sip of the coffee.
"Happy to. Nate Dayspring's been kind of my mentor since I was about your age, so I was in on Elpis before it even had a name. You said your dad was a journalist?"

"Yeah. Andy Ludlum. He did a profile a couple of years ago." Frank's face seemed to close over a little at the mention of his father. Not so much hostility in his eyes as guardedness- the look of someone not sure whether to protect themselves or not. "He talked a lot about Dayspring. Does he work here too?"

"Might have met him then, but then again maybe he talked to the board instead. No, Nate's not with X-Corps." Quick dark eyes hadn't missed the change of expression, but Angelo didn't bring it up yet. "He stayed with Elpis, but he's on compassionate leave. His daughter died, little under a year ago."

"Jesus." Frank stared at Angelo for a moment. "That... wow. That had to have been hard. Can I ask what happened, or...?" He let the sentence hang there in the air. He was interested to hear the result- Dad had stopped talking about Elpis not that long ago, but he'd never said why.

"It was a rough time in a lot of ways", Angelo said quietly. "What happened... it'd be easier to make up a simple lie here but it wouldn't be right. The truth is really complicated and all tied in with what happened in Genosha last summer, you must've heard about it."

Frank stared. "The Mutant slave thing?" He stood up, very slowly. "I... no. I didn't hear much. My- I didn't have much exposure to it. What happened?" Edit, Frank. Don't show your hand just yet.

"Sit, sit", Angelo urged him, concerned. "This is a long story, might as well be comfortable.
It started when Philip Moreau - the President of Genosha's son - and his girlfriend showed up in New York asking for asylum. Jenny was a mutant and they were afraid she'd be made into one of those mutant slaves, so the two of them ran away. The Professor tried to help them, but Genosha, it turned out, had a teleporter and they took them back. And then a little while later, at a rally at the Genoshan embassy about the things Philip and Jenny had been saying, they took a bunch of us too. Leverage against the Professor."

There was a long, dead silence. Frank managed to maintain his composure, but gears were spinning in his head. He sat down, folded his hands and considered. "I see," he said quietly. "Go on."

"I'm only going to go into what happened to me, in specifics", Angelo told him. "Most of us don't like to talk about it and it's not fair for me to tell you what they wouldn't. A few of us don't even remember a lot of what happened. So. We were at the embassy one second, the next there's a not very enjoyable teleportation process and then we're in a big room full of soldiers, and nobody's clothes survived the journey. And then they told us why we were there, called us all terrorists, treated us to a bit of violence to make the point, and threw us in jail cells. Except for some that got picked to be mutates."

"Mutates. The... the mutant slaves." Frank looked at the table for a moment. "Did they... were you-?" He cursed internally, and started again. "I'm sorry, I didn't know any of this. I was- my dad must have kept it from me. He can be-" he stopped again. Drew himself up. "Go on."

He could hear this. He wasn't weak.

"Dads can be protective", Angelo agreed with forced lightness. "Or think they are. I wasn't chosen for that, no. And I was only there one night before the cavalry came. The people left here weren't going to just stand back and let it happen. Trouble was, they walked right into a trap... but quite a few of us still made it out. Me and some others hid in the city, some went into the country and met up with Jenny who'd managed to escape too and had a resistance movement going out there. Wasn't in any way easy, but we did bring the whole rotten regime down and everyone that got kidnapped made it out. Except one."

"Mr. Dayspring's daughter."

They sat in silence for a moment.

"I... didn't expect the conversation to go like this," he said, finally. "Thank you."

"I wasn't planning on dumping all that on you, either", Angelo said a little apologetically. "But like I said, it wouldn't've been right to lie to you just because it was easier. And it ties to why I left Elpis, too - the old government in Genosha came to them after I escaped with this story about how I was wanted for terrorism and a whole bunch of other charges. The new leaders took it back, but mud sticks. It could have hurt them, got them banned from some countries if I'd stayed, so I let them fire me without fighting it. And then the Professor offered me X-Corps."

Frank considered that. "So... X-Corps is Elpis but without the Elpis. You get to do your thing without them suffering from your rep." He was silent for a moment. "That's kind of clever. But doesn't X-Corps have to deal with it too? I mean, you're connected with terrorism, now. Not directly," he added hastily, "and not really either but... people think you are. Wouldn't that get in the way?"

"I said the same thing to the Prof", Angelo agreed, "and he said anything associated with him, when everybody knows him as so outspoken for mutants, probably wouldn't be welcome in the countries that would've used that as an excuse anyway. Besides... if X-Corps can't work somewhere because of me, Elpis can. And they don't operate Stateside, so there's plenty of room for both groups to work without overlapping too much, which is also good."

"Symbiotic relationship. Huh." Frank sat back. "That's really smart. Do you stay in contact with Elpis? You know, to co-ordinate your responses and stuff?" He paused. "And um... I guess we're getting away from what I wanted to talk about. What do you guys actually do on a day-to-day basis?"

"Yeah, I'm still good friends with a lot of people who work there", Angelo said easily. "I talk to one or other of them most days. On a day-to-day basis... it varies, but not as much as you might think. We do the paperwork for the existing and new projects, permits and all that stuff, and a lot of phone calls to check on how things are going or work on getting something new set up. Sooraya's got a pet project working with girls' education in Afghanistan, for example. We always keep an eye on the domestic and international news, you never know what might be important. And from time to time we do site visits and research trips."

Frank nodded slowly, considering. "Okay. So the projects all run on the ground, but the administrative stuff goes on here in the mansion. Do you guys work on projects directly, ever? I mean, you said you operate stateside." He didn't press about Elpis. Considering how it had gone before, he didn't really want to know what he might find.

"Yeah, most of what we do here in the mansion is just troubleshooting and making sure everything runs smoothly out on the ground. Yeah, I do like to be hands on with the projects when I can, especially here in New York. I'm trying to get a chain of shelters off the ground that are better equipped to handle mutants and their needs than the mainstream ones usually are."

Huh. That sounded interesting. "For people with... more extensive mutations? Cool. Doesn't that just cater to the homeless, though? I mean, how big an issue is homelessness for mutants?" He paused, considered. Realisation dawned. "Wait, is it a big issue for mutants?"

"Bigger than we'd like it to be", Angelo confirmed. "Especially the younger ones. Kids get kicked out, or they run away for one reason or another... I was on the street myself, for a while before the Professor and Scott - Mr Summers - found me. And most existing shelters just don't have the resources to cater to special needs, or some have a "no mutants" policy on safety grounds, because how can you be sure someone's being honest about whether their powers are dangerous or not?"

"Jesus." Frank sat back in his chair. "That's- Jesus." He stared at Angelo for a minute. When he spoke again, there was something in his eyes, some tiny spark that hadn't been there before. "I didn't know. I never even thought about it. Why does no-one ever talk about this? Why is this even a problem?"

He stood up abruptly, put his hands on the desk. "You said younger ones. You mean kids, don't you? People my age. How many of them are there?"

"Hundreds", Angelo said quietly. "That's the best guess I can give you, they look after each other and they're not so keen on answering questions most of the time, but across the country... hundreds. The lucky ones have people that care enough to look for them if they disappear, and sometimes even find them. The rest either get kicked out or the parents don't give a damn, and then they're on their own."

"So what you're telling me," said Frank, his voice leaden, "is that there are hundreds of kids- children, really- who have run away all across America because of some stupid genetic fluke and no-one gives a shit but us? That's what you're saying? Why? Why the fuck do- what, do we stop being human when we show up X-Positive? Does someone mark our name down somewhere on a list saying "won't be missed"? Are you seriously telling me that people think that THIS IS FUCKING OKAY?"

He was shouting, now.

"What justice is that? In whose broken, twisted mind is "Fuck 'em, they're mutants" an acceptable leap of logic?! What freakish, inbred, mentally deficient gila-monster of a human being decides our only choice is slave or runaway?! HOW THE FUCK DOES THAT WORK?!"

Angelo gave him a bitter half-smile, not even fazed by the rage even as he got up to give the people outside of his office a reassuring nod and close the door, then turned back to Frank.

"About half of America is full of gila monster people, seems to me sometimes. Some parents are good - my mom's the best, I didn't run away because of anything she did and now she's as much of an activist as I am, and last year I saw a kid turn into a giant sloth and his dad was right there with him even through the shock. But him and me are the lucky ones. And then there's all the people just waiting to scoop up vulnerable kids without anywhere else to turn..."

Frank stared at him. He'd been doing a lot of that, today. "Waiting," he said flatly. "No, no. Don't tell me. Let me guess, this time. Let's indulge my morbid, fucked-up imagination for once and see how the world lets me down today. Pimps, right? Some fucker out there thinks "hey, you know what my boys'd like? Some fresh mutie ass. Let's go get some!" Or how about gang bangers?"

His voice lowered, now, spitting out the words like bullets. "After all, we're biologically scary, right? Why not some genefreak muscle to go with our lack of morals, intellect or self-control? Fucking god-DAMN IT!"

On the last words, Frank lashed out at the wall, his body shivering as he shifted instinctively to his wooden form. Oaken knuckles smashed into the paint and plaster.

He stood there, panting for a long moment, and let the rage abate. "So how'd I do?" he muttered, eventually.

"Pretty accurate", Angelo said simply, moving to rest a careful hand on the boy's shoulder. "Wish I could tell you you weren't, but that's how it is. I personally know four mutant girls and one boy who've
been in fully conscious slavery or freak shows, five girls if you count the one who was busted back out within hours. The three big things are sex, violence and putting them on display. If they're lucky, they just get put to manual work."

"...god damnit." Frank's head sank. After a moment, his flesh eased back into human form. His arm dropped to his side, and for a while he just stood there, trying not to think. "Sorry about your wall," he managed eventually. "I'll pay to have it fixed, if you want." he laughed, suddenly. "And I promised Kyle I wouldn't fuck anything up for him to fix, too."

"Don't worry about it", Angelo assured him. "We pay a handyman around here for a reason, Fred can fix it. Won't take him five minutes. I'm hoping your hand doesn't break in that shape?"

"Don't think so. I never needed to check before". He flexed his fingers experimentally, then cracked his knuckles. "Seems okay." He turned to look at Angelo over his shoulder. "So... all that... you deal with it all the time?" he said eventually, voice composed, but eyes still sparking with rage; it had abated, but it hadn't gone away. "You try and fix that shi- stuff?"

"That's what I do", he said with a nod. "And it takes a lot of work, and sometimes it seems like it'll never be fixed, but somebody has to do it or it really never will."

"Maybe," muttered Frank. He was silent for a long second, thinking. Then he glanced up again. "Do you take interns over the summer?"

Yeah. Subtlety wasn't Frank's thing.

Angelo laughed.

"We haven't had a summer yet, but that decision would be mine and I say yes. Yes, we do. Want to be the first?"

"Yeah. Strikes me that there's a lot of work to do. Strikes me maybe I could afford to get my hands a little dirty." He grinned, suddenly. "Don't suppose I get to kicks anyone's ass, do I? Or are we more the non-violent, gila-monster respecting types?"

"We're gila-monster respecting in public", Angelo said primly. "What you do on your own time is nobody's business and I might could introduce you to a few places that would help with that."

"Help me respect gila monsters? Or help me teach them a little respect? 'Cause I'd prefer the latter." He grinned again, a little.

"Teach them respect", Angelo said with a crooked grin in return. "On the mostly friendly but still violent side, there's this club I go to once in a while, blow off a little steam. On the just violent side, there may, on occasion, be raids on the worst of the gila dens."

"Hmm. Sounds like fun." He sat down again, shooting a slightly awkward glance at the wall. "I doubt many internships means I get to hit people. I'll have to pay attention in self-defence class again." Frank stood. "Thank you, sir. It's been... an enlightening conversation."

"You're welcome", Angelo told him, and meant it. "If you want, there might be some leaflets and stuff out in the main office you can take away with you, have a read."

"I'll ask.” As he left, he paused at the door. "Thank you," he said simply.