Kurt, Logan, Marie, Scott, Tabitha: Four Hostile Newspapers

[x-cyclops.livejournal.com]

Late Friday night, Marie, Scott and Tabitha are holed up in the working portion of the War Room, investigating the recent FoH attack on Walt Disney World. Kurt and Logan board a charter flight to Florida -- since Logan can't fly commercial -- and, on Saturday morning, after receiving data from the research team, go in to gather hard evidence on the cell responsible for the attack. They fly back early Saturday afternoon.


Tabitha stretches and yawns in huge, exaggerated movements, then pushes the chair back from the desk. "I can hear it in the distance. A can of Code Red is calling my name." She waves quickly and skips toward the door, caffeine obviously already chugging through her bloodstream. "Back in a jiffy!"

Marie gives a little wave as Tabitha bounces out. She's been sorting through printouts of police reports and other bits of information. She tacks two pieces of paper, the text on them streaked with highlighter, to a corkboard standing near the door and stands back with her hands on her hips, looking at the meagre array. It's not even midnight and she already looks tired; she did when they started working.

Scott's finger circles the rim of his mug of coffee and he props his feet on the chair next to him. He's getting nowhere, fast, on the investigation, so he decides to investigate something else, for a moment. "Want to talk about it?"

"What?" Marie looks over her shoulder at him. She's wearing worn jeans and a faded long-sleeved black Distillers tshirt and an old pair of sneakers. Her gloves are one of her favourite pairs; thin, sheer burgundy material that doesn't interfere with her typing. "We have shit to go on. What's there to talk about?" She runs her fingers through her hair, tugging at it little, then goes back to her seat.

"I wasn't talking about that," Scott explains reasonably. "The investigation is going about as well as a car whose engine just died. You're exhausted, though, and you have been since before we stayed up all night with this shit." He offers a kind smile and repeats, "Want to talk about it?"

"Haven't been sleeping that well, that's all," Marie says indifferently. She reaches over and whacks the printer near her. It hiccups guiltily and spits out another piece of paper. "And, you know, things are a little stressful up there on the second floor. Taking care of Manny and Skin hasn't been any fun either, for Shinobi or myself. Life happens." She doesn't look up at Scott, just reaches for the highlighter and marks a few things on the paper in her hand.

"That's what we hired Doc Samson for, you know," Scott reminds her gently. "To take care of kids like Manuel and Angelo."

"Yeah, well Dr Samson isn't there when Manuel's locked himself in his room, covered in vomit and crying his eyes out and asking me to take it all away, is he?" Marie tosses the paper down and gets to her feet, stalking over to the coffee maker. "And yeah, he's here, but someone's got to /catch/ Angelo and make him go in the first place, don't they. I've had to go with him before, did you know that? Samson's there for forty-five minutes at a time. I /live/ there."

Scott sighs, and nods. "It doesn't work when you make them go, you know." He speaks from experience. It never worked when he made Jean ask Charles for help, either. "Angelo has to want it, himself. And Manuel... The Professor believes the system of weekly meetings will help him a lot."

"I think Angelo wants someone to make him go." Marie shrugs and fixes her coffee. "His sessions seem to be really productive. As for Manny..." she shakes her head, remembering her argument with Logan. "...just not going to go there right now. I'd do just about anything to try and help him be with others more like the person he is around me. Just about." She laughs a little and sits back down, leaving it at that.

Scott makes a mental note of that, but doesn't ask. It's obvious Marie doesn't want to talk about it and he doesn't want to push, yet. "It's not your job to fix them, Blossom. You can be their friend and support them without--" He stops, then looks at her a little strangely. "Without parenting them."

Marie looks up from her work. "Someone's got to do it," she says simply.
esmesprout: "Angelo has a mother," Scott reminds her. "And he's old enough to make his own decisions. And his own mistakes. That may not be true of Manuel," he admits, "but for Angelo, it is."

"I agree completely," Marie says. She tosses some of the papers into the shredder. "Manny needs it, and I don't see anyone willing or able to do it besides me and maybe Shinobi and maybe Amanda, but she's got a different relationship with him. Manny needs people to be there for him, unconditionally, if he's going to get better. My gut tells me that. And when he cries or laughs or is /human/ when he's with me, it just makes me believe it more. I wish..."

"You wish..?" Scott prompts quietly.

"Oh, it's already a non-issue." Marie gives him a tight smile. "See, I'd figured that since Moira and Maddy and Hank have been running all kinds of tests on Manny for one reason and me for another, and since Manny trusts me so much, it might actually help if I could really know what his power was like. I thought that it would work to take his power on under supervision so we could both be monitored - him without it and me with it. I know it could be dangerous, but... for Manny, I'd do it. Even just so there was one person in the world who he'd know really understood what he was going through."

The thought makes Scott uncomfortable, but if Angelo is an adult and can make his own decisions, so can Marie. "But something happened to change your mind?"

She laughs. "Oh. Just a little. Naturally, I figured I'd discuss it with Logan first. It didn't get further than that."

A grin tugs at Scott's lips. "He didn't like the idea, I take it."

"No." Marie's expression shifts and darkens. "That doesn't even begin to cover it."

"Should I drop it?" Scott asks kindly. "Or do you want to tell me what happened?"

"The huge, horrible fight in which he decided to be as hurtful as possible didn't convince me to drop it. When he came and said he was sorry and that it scared him and he asked me please not to do it? That did. That was pretty much the end of the issue." Marie sipped at her coffee. "Finding out later that something in him tweaks Manuel to want to hurt and possibly kill him? Nail in the coffin. Manny can't kill him. I can. There's just no way I can take that chance."

"Oh." There really isn't a lot to add to that, but dammit, Logan said he wasn't going to hurt her. This explains, though, why Logan was so concerned about her when they'd talked yesterday.

"It's so bloody frustrating." Marie hugs her knees to her chest and scowls fiercely. "I swear it would help." She looks positively petulant, then shakes her head and the expression is gone. "But. Life would not possibly be that easy. Otherwise, there would be www.friendsofhumanity.com for us to go look up and find their chapter locations."

That gives Scott an idea. "What was the name of the site they used, when they posted that they were responsible for the attack?" His words are a little rushed and tiny clicking sounds from the keyboard signal that he's working again.

Marie gets up and goes to look at one of the pieces of paper on the corkboard. "Um. Realdemocracy.net, it looks like."

Scott hmms and looks up as Tabitha walks back into the room, waving a sixpack of Code Red Mountain Dew over her head. "Caffeine for all!" she cries, and tosses a can to Marie, and then one to Scott. "Anybody do anything brilliant while I was gone?"

--

"Can you walk me through it?"

"Sure! It's easy. Guy named Kevin Poulsen taught me, a couple of years ago." Tabitha grins. "He broke up with his computer to date me, he used to say."

--

"So, all this information, it's right here? It's just...available like this?"

"Yep! Long as you know where to look, you can find out just about anything about anyone, online."

--

"Here! Here they are. Gotcha, bucko." Tabitha points to the screen. "Scott! Come see!"

Scott yawns and plods over to Tabitha's computer. "Mmph?"

"Here are the names you wanted. Can you get police records from that?"

Another yawn. "Yep. Give me a few minutes..." He sits back down at his computer with the names and, twenty minutes later, he pushes back and grins. "Done."

"You've got them all?" Tabitha asks, chugging her Code Red and munching on cold pizza.

"Every last one of them," Scott says with a grin.

"Can I see how you did it?" Marie asks, peering over Scott's shoulder.

--

Logan hates flying.

Kurt hates flying with Logan.

They find the address soon enough, though. Kurt bamfs them in long enough that Logan can take clear photos of the men working together, and then bamfs them right back out.

They argue for a moment about going back in for more information, and finally they agree on one more trip. Kurt bamfs them in and they spend five minutes copying files from the computer onto a spare CD and then bamf back out.

The Friends of Humanity might be organised, but they aren't military and they sure as hell aren't Company. They have no idea anyone's been there at all.

"Dumbasses," Logan mutters as they walk away from the building. Kurt silently agrees.

The flight home is easier.

"Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets."
-Napoleon, Maxims