![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
x-deadpool.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
xp_logsWade, Marie-Ange, Doug, and Emma meet to discuss North's potential mental state as well as the few loose ends allowed to blow in the wind until they tangle themselves up.
It had taken a while to finish cleanup on the facility that had held North, and so by the time Doug and Marie-Ange had gotten brought back to the mansion and then headed down to the medlab, it was well after midnight on the East Coast. Doug had collated all the papers and bio samples that the team could find into a package for the doctors and scientists of the mansion to see if they could make heads or tails of. As they came into the medlab, they found it mostly empty save for Wade, who had pretty much passed out in a chair by North's bed. "Stubborn," he told Marie-Ange with a fond shake of his head, and passed her a five-dollar bill.
"We should re-sort him to Hufflepuff." Marie-Ange made the money disappear into a pocket. "He can be a Gryffenpuff and wear red and black all the time." She eased up next to Wade and patted his shoulder gently, trying to wake him up without startling him into unwelcome stabbiness.
A throwing knife dropped into Wade's hand as he woke, but he didn't actually toss it at anyone as he looked up. "Sorry, still jumpy," he muttered, closing his eyes again and leaning his head against Marie-Ange's hip for a moment before straightening properly and flicking the knife back into his wrist sheath. "As you can see," he said, blinking tiredly as he rubbed at his face. "Whatever they put in him did some things. De-aging things. We're expecting McSparkles soonish to... y'know. Make sure his brain's still his brain."
Doug shook his head. "Someone played Science Russian Roulette with him - I mean, they had no idea what they were doing." That North was still alive, even in the questionable state he was in, was more than they should have been able to reasonably hope for, given the circumstances. Of course, it could also be sheer cussedness on the German's part - Doug wouldn't put it past North to just be too stubborn to die. His hand fell reassuringly to Wade's other shoulder and the three stayed close, taking strength from each others' presence.
"David is not going to die." Marie-Ange prodded at the morose pair of men with a card that had appeared - apparently from a sleeve. "I am reasonably sure he is still David inside his... really very de-aged head. Felicia is going to have heart palpitations, you know. Right in the office."
"Ha, did you see her comment on the note I posted? 'Deep inside you' jokes. So long as he wakes up and is mostly himself, I'll be 100% okay with making every single one of those the internet can find for me," Wade said, quirking a smile despite himself. "Cece said he was healing a lot faster than expected, too. After what went down with me and getting an infusion from Logan, though, she's not sure if that's because of my healing factor or if it's from whatever they injected him with."
"Who the hell knows." And really, who the hell cared, as long as their teammate was alive and safe. Doug shook his head. "I'll help you find a bunch of good internet memes," he promised Wade.
Emma shuddered as she swept into the room, having heard the last of the conversation. “Ugh,” she said, forsaking her usual eloquence. “Not ones with kittens, I hope. So many pictures of kittens on the internet. I don’t understand the attraction.” She dropped her coat onto the seat near the door, revealing she was wearing a dazzling white sequined sheath dress. “Business awards dinner,” she noted absently, aware that she didn’t exactly look quite in tune with her surroundings. “I am reasonably unlikely to have to him bleed on me, yes? This thing is a bitch to dry clean.”
"David is done bleeding on teammates for now." Marie-Ange's hands automatically shuffled through a deck of tarot cards, and flipped them one by one. Strength. The Moon. Death. She showed the last, and shrugged. "Change, not actual death, as I always remind everyone. But that is, I think we know this, yes?" She pointed at North. "Change is what it is, but he is safe for now."
"Sweet," Wade said, obviously very tired. "Change we can handle. Can you tell us if he's still actually our surly German in there, McSparkles?"
“Sometime soon,” replied Emma, frowning as she looked down at North. “A surface scan doesn’t show anything. Not in the sense of 'nothing wrong.' As in 'nothing.' I think,” she frowned again as she probed more deeply with her telepathy, “I think he’s... hiding. Hiding his mind. Do we have any idea what was done to him?”
"What's the medical equivalent of 'I wonder what this button does'?" Doug asked, semi-rhetorically. "They shot him up with some kind of serum without any idea of what its effects might do. He was still... fluctuating... when we arrived." He grimaced. "That we were able to even get him stabilized was a minor miracle."
"We do seem to specialise in minor miracles," replied Emma. She frowned as she probed more deeply with her telepathy. Wherever North had hidden himself, it was a long way down, though there were hints and glimmers of things down there in the dark. Small things. Frightened things. "You know," she said, suddenly serious, "that if they did... enough to him, it may be best if I just make sure he's safe and leave him there. Give his mind time to heal without having to deal with..." her hand made a vague encircling gesture clearly meant to convey life, the universe and everything, including North's new and startlingly younger body, "things." She tilted her head judiciously. "For a while, anyway."
Wade looked from Emma to North and back again, unhappy with the suggestion but knowing when it came to brain-things he really wasn't an expert. "Do you... I dunno, have any idea how long that might take? People can be in comas for... years." He was pretty sure her 'for a while, anyway' implied she wouldn't let North sulk in his gray matter for that long.
"Nothing like that long," replied Emma, giving what could only be described as an elegant snort. "The thought of bedsores alone is enough to make me say I'd wake him up, if he doesn't come out by himself." She reached deeper again, found enough of the man she knew to be certain that it was him and that, when he woke up, it was likely to be mostly that man who came back. Quiet, gentle touches of her mind, soothing the worst hurts, extinguishing the things that lurked in the dark, so there was only peace and quiet and silence for him to sink into. "Give me another fifteen minutes or so and at the very least, his mind will be a safe place for him to rest until he needs to come out again." She raised an eyebrow at the audience. "Do we have any names for the people who did this?"
Marie-Ange nodded. "Oh yes. We have names, aliases, and fifty or so hours of movements from Kraven." She made a face. "Who names themselves that? Who does not change their name when it is that? Though, he was a coward." Her face clearly disapproved. "Before either he found our tracking chip and removed it or someone removed it for him. I am not sure about the other?"
"Tomi Shishido. Cut and run like his more appropriately-named compatriot. But we're tracking his accounts, seeing where he goes to ground and so forth." Doug had a constantly updating program running on one of his servers, with instructions to alert him if Shishido varied outside certain parameters. But in the meantime they would see what they could find out.
"I've asked some people to flag Kraven for me -- discretely," Wade offered, eyes moving from North back to Emma. "Blacklisting him's too obvious. I don't have pull in his circles, anyway. Retrieval was never my specialty. But keeping an eye on who's looking to hire him and for what? That I can manage. I guess now we're just waiting for one of them to slip up enough for us to actually get them?" He hated waiting. He'd much rather just go kill them. In fact, at the moment, there was literally nothing in the world that would make him happier than killing Kraven and Shishido.
Emma sighed theatrically. "It's such an extensive list," she said. "But it's always so much fun when they do finally slip. There we are: the world's most patient and deliciously dangerous banana peel, waiting right at their feet." She put her hand on North's brow. "But for now it's time for all of us to sleep," she said. "Not just our patient here. Revenge can wait till morning. This time, at least."
It had taken a while to finish cleanup on the facility that had held North, and so by the time Doug and Marie-Ange had gotten brought back to the mansion and then headed down to the medlab, it was well after midnight on the East Coast. Doug had collated all the papers and bio samples that the team could find into a package for the doctors and scientists of the mansion to see if they could make heads or tails of. As they came into the medlab, they found it mostly empty save for Wade, who had pretty much passed out in a chair by North's bed. "Stubborn," he told Marie-Ange with a fond shake of his head, and passed her a five-dollar bill.
"We should re-sort him to Hufflepuff." Marie-Ange made the money disappear into a pocket. "He can be a Gryffenpuff and wear red and black all the time." She eased up next to Wade and patted his shoulder gently, trying to wake him up without startling him into unwelcome stabbiness.
A throwing knife dropped into Wade's hand as he woke, but he didn't actually toss it at anyone as he looked up. "Sorry, still jumpy," he muttered, closing his eyes again and leaning his head against Marie-Ange's hip for a moment before straightening properly and flicking the knife back into his wrist sheath. "As you can see," he said, blinking tiredly as he rubbed at his face. "Whatever they put in him did some things. De-aging things. We're expecting McSparkles soonish to... y'know. Make sure his brain's still his brain."
Doug shook his head. "Someone played Science Russian Roulette with him - I mean, they had no idea what they were doing." That North was still alive, even in the questionable state he was in, was more than they should have been able to reasonably hope for, given the circumstances. Of course, it could also be sheer cussedness on the German's part - Doug wouldn't put it past North to just be too stubborn to die. His hand fell reassuringly to Wade's other shoulder and the three stayed close, taking strength from each others' presence.
"David is not going to die." Marie-Ange prodded at the morose pair of men with a card that had appeared - apparently from a sleeve. "I am reasonably sure he is still David inside his... really very de-aged head. Felicia is going to have heart palpitations, you know. Right in the office."
"Ha, did you see her comment on the note I posted? 'Deep inside you' jokes. So long as he wakes up and is mostly himself, I'll be 100% okay with making every single one of those the internet can find for me," Wade said, quirking a smile despite himself. "Cece said he was healing a lot faster than expected, too. After what went down with me and getting an infusion from Logan, though, she's not sure if that's because of my healing factor or if it's from whatever they injected him with."
"Who the hell knows." And really, who the hell cared, as long as their teammate was alive and safe. Doug shook his head. "I'll help you find a bunch of good internet memes," he promised Wade.
Emma shuddered as she swept into the room, having heard the last of the conversation. “Ugh,” she said, forsaking her usual eloquence. “Not ones with kittens, I hope. So many pictures of kittens on the internet. I don’t understand the attraction.” She dropped her coat onto the seat near the door, revealing she was wearing a dazzling white sequined sheath dress. “Business awards dinner,” she noted absently, aware that she didn’t exactly look quite in tune with her surroundings. “I am reasonably unlikely to have to him bleed on me, yes? This thing is a bitch to dry clean.”
"David is done bleeding on teammates for now." Marie-Ange's hands automatically shuffled through a deck of tarot cards, and flipped them one by one. Strength. The Moon. Death. She showed the last, and shrugged. "Change, not actual death, as I always remind everyone. But that is, I think we know this, yes?" She pointed at North. "Change is what it is, but he is safe for now."
"Sweet," Wade said, obviously very tired. "Change we can handle. Can you tell us if he's still actually our surly German in there, McSparkles?"
“Sometime soon,” replied Emma, frowning as she looked down at North. “A surface scan doesn’t show anything. Not in the sense of 'nothing wrong.' As in 'nothing.' I think,” she frowned again as she probed more deeply with her telepathy, “I think he’s... hiding. Hiding his mind. Do we have any idea what was done to him?”
"What's the medical equivalent of 'I wonder what this button does'?" Doug asked, semi-rhetorically. "They shot him up with some kind of serum without any idea of what its effects might do. He was still... fluctuating... when we arrived." He grimaced. "That we were able to even get him stabilized was a minor miracle."
"We do seem to specialise in minor miracles," replied Emma. She frowned as she probed more deeply with her telepathy. Wherever North had hidden himself, it was a long way down, though there were hints and glimmers of things down there in the dark. Small things. Frightened things. "You know," she said, suddenly serious, "that if they did... enough to him, it may be best if I just make sure he's safe and leave him there. Give his mind time to heal without having to deal with..." her hand made a vague encircling gesture clearly meant to convey life, the universe and everything, including North's new and startlingly younger body, "things." She tilted her head judiciously. "For a while, anyway."
Wade looked from Emma to North and back again, unhappy with the suggestion but knowing when it came to brain-things he really wasn't an expert. "Do you... I dunno, have any idea how long that might take? People can be in comas for... years." He was pretty sure her 'for a while, anyway' implied she wouldn't let North sulk in his gray matter for that long.
"Nothing like that long," replied Emma, giving what could only be described as an elegant snort. "The thought of bedsores alone is enough to make me say I'd wake him up, if he doesn't come out by himself." She reached deeper again, found enough of the man she knew to be certain that it was him and that, when he woke up, it was likely to be mostly that man who came back. Quiet, gentle touches of her mind, soothing the worst hurts, extinguishing the things that lurked in the dark, so there was only peace and quiet and silence for him to sink into. "Give me another fifteen minutes or so and at the very least, his mind will be a safe place for him to rest until he needs to come out again." She raised an eyebrow at the audience. "Do we have any names for the people who did this?"
Marie-Ange nodded. "Oh yes. We have names, aliases, and fifty or so hours of movements from Kraven." She made a face. "Who names themselves that? Who does not change their name when it is that? Though, he was a coward." Her face clearly disapproved. "Before either he found our tracking chip and removed it or someone removed it for him. I am not sure about the other?"
"Tomi Shishido. Cut and run like his more appropriately-named compatriot. But we're tracking his accounts, seeing where he goes to ground and so forth." Doug had a constantly updating program running on one of his servers, with instructions to alert him if Shishido varied outside certain parameters. But in the meantime they would see what they could find out.
"I've asked some people to flag Kraven for me -- discretely," Wade offered, eyes moving from North back to Emma. "Blacklisting him's too obvious. I don't have pull in his circles, anyway. Retrieval was never my specialty. But keeping an eye on who's looking to hire him and for what? That I can manage. I guess now we're just waiting for one of them to slip up enough for us to actually get them?" He hated waiting. He'd much rather just go kill them. In fact, at the moment, there was literally nothing in the world that would make him happier than killing Kraven and Shishido.
Emma sighed theatrically. "It's such an extensive list," she said. "But it's always so much fun when they do finally slip. There we are: the world's most patient and deliciously dangerous banana peel, waiting right at their feet." She put her hand on North's brow. "But for now it's time for all of us to sleep," she said. "Not just our patient here. Revenge can wait till morning. This time, at least."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}