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xp_logsKevin, who apparently never sleeps, is putting Darcy, who has had all the caffeine in the world, to bed.
"I told you, I don't need sleep the way you think. Also, how many Monsters have you had today? Your hand is vibrating." Kevin said, sipping yet another black coffee from the brown plastic thermos top. He was in what they'd learned was 'Old Man' driving gear: a red plaid flannel shirt with a thin light blue sweater over top, a pair of chinos, brown brogues and a pork pie hat perched on his head.
"I can't see colors yet but I can still keep up with you, so obviously just enough." Darcy's voice was dry but her tired eyes were twinkling with a bit of humor. "So you don't need standard human sleep on the regular. You should probably still get some R&R when you can, just in case things go tits up and you actually need your reserves." Her own attire was the best of Jane's internship. A band tee with a baggy sweater over it, comfy pants and sturdy boots, and a long scarf that was currently covering her hair and winding loosely around her neck. She'd skipped the contacts during the drive, rightly guessing she wouldn't want to be changing them on the RV or at rest stops, and her chunky framed glasses were currently being pushed up her nose as she poked her tongue out at the man in the driver's seat.
"I'll make you a deal. I'll take a rest if you do the same. Your eyes are floating behind those glasses and your boyfriend is in the lead car right now." He waved at Jubilee, who had been told multiple times not to drive the RV over the Grand Canyon Evel Knievel style. "It's rucksack time for you."
"Cute you think I can do that on..." she mentally calculated how much caffeine she'd had in the past twenty-four hours and frowned. "Huh, maybe I do need to sleep." Darcy held up her hand, noting the visible tremors. "Wild, I haven't even popped a caffeine pill yet. Science intern me says I've gotten old. And weak. I haven't had that much caffeine today. Still under 300 milli." She shrugged, adjusting her hair as it caught between her back and the seat and pulled. "Sure thing, Boss, we can go take a nap. I'll even let you read and be on the outside of the bunk if you want."
"If you were smart, you'd vomit up all that garbage." Kevin said, shifting to allow the next crew access to the RV. He took her by the elbow and walked her to the back. "You need to rest."
"Vomit's gross and definitely not gonna help me sleep," she replied. "And it'd stink up the RV. I don't wanna have to eat again to replace the nutrients either, it's hard enough to keep up as-is." She toed her boots off, sticking them in the small cubby with the rest of her things, then unwound her scarf. Her glasses went into their case before her hands disappeared inside her sweater. Some comical maneuvering had her shirt joining the pile, and soon she was just in the sweater and a pair of shorts, small travel pillow and a bottle of water clutched in her hands. "Alright, point me at whatever bunk we're gonna be in."
"There's only two and other people are snoring in the other one." He thumbed to the one in the back of the RV. "Snuggle in. I'll set an alarm."
"Bossy," Darcy muttered half under her breath before clambering into the bunk and settling against the wall. "You're getting up here too, don't think I won't follow you around if you try to duck out," she said as she tucked the small pillow under her neck. "And grab a blanket, please, my legs're gonna get cold."
He shifted and tossed the blanket over her. "I'm going to get a bit of rest. Because of your insistence." He wrapped her in the blanket and leaned back against the wall, pushing his hat down over his eyes and leaning back against the wall.
Darcy gave him a stern glare. "Get your ass in the bunk, Sydney." It was probably the grouchiest she'd ever sounded when talking to her mentor and friend. "You can at least sit down to rest, you're not a Buckingham guard." She was pretty sure she'd put her Guarana powder in her bag. The protein shake she had in the fridge right now wasn't caffeinated, but she could change that pretty easily if he was going to be stubborn. She hadn't hit the danger threshold yet, regardless of her shaking hands.
"Fine. Shove over." He sat on the bed, still on the edge, where he could lean back still seated and tip his hat. "Does this pass muster, boss?" He joked to her.
"Better, but it doesn't look very relaxing," she muttered. She'd take the teeny, tiniest of wins though, and wiggled until she was comfortable, face smushed against his hip. "There's more room if you want it, I don't flail that much in confined spaces." As long as she could roll just enough to switch sides she'd be okay.
"Appreciate it, but I don't like lying down in moving vehicles. Too many years and too many miles to be comfortable doing it." He said, voice slightly muffled by the pork pie hat he'd donned the second he'd sat down in the driver's seat, looking like the wholesome dad from a wacky 80s comedy.
"Fair enough," Darcy mumbled into his hip. "Not like it's hard for you to move me around if you change your mind. You could probably mostly sit up, but the angle would be hell on your lower back."
"Shapeshifter. Nothing is hell on anything." He said, a bit of smugness in his voice.
"That's assuming you want to shift, and since you're sitting like that instead..." Darcy waved her hand at him, making her point. "Hence the hell on your lower back." She patted him on the knee as she dropped her hand, leaving it curled over the blanket.
"This is the Monster talking." Kevin said, placing his hand over hers and giving it a squeeze. "Sleep, Lewis. In a couple of hours, we'll switch out the lead car and you can have a boyfriend in here to keep you proper company."
Darcy tilted her head back, then rolled partway onto her back so she could look up at Kevin. "Why do you think it's the caffeine talking? You're my friend. If you're comfortable in tight spaces with me, it's cool, you can shrink down and move closer. I won't mind at all. If not, you can chill like you are. But caffeine doesn't make me weirdly nice."
"You're worried about things you don't need to be worried about. And that part is nice."
Darcy opened her mouth to reply, but let out a jaw-cracking yawn instead. "What should I be worried about, then?"
"Pretty much anything other than my physical state." He awkwardly patted her shoulder. "But, like I said, it's nice that you think about it."
She let out a disgruntled noise and rolled back onto her side, shoving her face back into the side of his hip and throwing an arm around him. "Yeah, yeah." It was muffled but distinctly annoyed. "Gonna sleep now, you just... do what you wanna do I guess. Like you're gonna."
He ran a hand over her hair, with a comforting squeeze. "I get it. You get some sleep, Lewis."
Amanda and Topaz talk about the Destines.
Ah, blessed quiet and a significant change in atmosphere - Amanda let out a sigh of satisfaction and glanced over at the other witch in the passenger seat. "Nice to get some peace and quiet, yeah?" she offered.
Topaz had been watching the road go by, almost mesmerized. She was starting to understand highway hypnosis. Amanda's voice shook her out of her stupor. "Hmn? Yeah. Didn't realize how loud people get when they're trapped in a small space together. Have you gotten Doug's Burning Man presentation yet?"
"The one where he talks about how he was conceived there? Oh, yeah." Amanda gave a mock shudder. "I can't wait to get there, actually, if only so my arse can recover from all this sitting." She glanced over again at Topaz, peering at her over the top of the aviator sunglasses she'd picked up at a gas station along the way. Like the rest of X-Force, she was in "undercover" mode - a loud flannel shirt over a threadbare white t-shirt and denim shorts that were arguably on the "too short" side of things - the pocket linings poked out under the hems in the front. Wisps of blond hair, escaped from her braid, blew around her face in the breeze from the open window. "It's been a while, hasn't it? Since you last saw Jasmine?"
She'd kind of been hoping Amanda wouldn't bring that up. "Yeah. Not since..." Oh, how to describe that messy period of twenty-eighteen. The curses on the mansion dwellers, the fights, Adam almost killing Amanda, Marie-Ange losing her eye, Doug's blood curse... "Right before Grace died," was the safest answer Topaz could land on. "I knew she ran, and I didn't try that hard to find her, especially not when Adam was still alive." She'd thought Adam had tracked her down and killed her, honestly.
"It was a surprise to have her turn up again. And a mutant too." Amanda had thought the same thing, to be honest, but the memories Adam had shoved in her head hadn't revealed it specifically. "You wanna talk about it? I ask because I noticed you've been very careful not to mention her since we found all this out."
"The mutant thing is a little out of left field." Topaz paused for a moment, chewing over her next words. No, she hadn't mentioned Jasmine, because it was far easier to just not talk about it. "She helped me."
"And I'm glad she did," was Amanda's observation. "Not something you expected from a Destine, tho'."
"No." Topaz scrubbed her eyes, sighing. "She was never really like the others. Too much of a bleeding heart healer type. But she still went along with everything they did, up to a point. And helping me was probably more to soothe her own conscience than anything else. They were all a bit egotistical, not sure if they came by it naturally or if it was Adam's influence..." Her voice drifted off, and she shrugged. "Nothing good ever happens when the Destines pop up."
"Healers tend to have that. Rom used to say it was what kept me from following Rack's influence too much, the healing. It takes empathy... creates it, really." Amanda stared at the road unwinding ahead of them for a long moment. "You can ask, by the way. About Adam's memories in my head." She turned to flash a brief grin at Topaz. "No, I'm not psychic, but talking about his influence and all..."
Well, if she was inviting questions. Topaz looked out the window for another moment, her leg bouncing slightly. "I dunno if I really have a question per se. Just... like you said, healing creates empathy. I can't imagine there's too much of that in his memories. I guess... are you okay? I know it's been awhile, but I also know you and the way you bury yourself in work to avoid dealing with anything else."
There was a pause as Amanda considered the question, listening to the sound of the wheels thrumming against the road. "I'm... doing all right," she said, meditatively. "I mean, it was hard at first, separating it all out, especially with the whole Frankenberry Cat thing. He remembered me in a completely different timeline, and it was hard to unravel. Then with the whole Roma thing, I had another set of memories of him in my head as well. So over time, they've kind of merged. But they're still just memories, not an actual person," she hastened to add at the end. "No possessions here."
"I figured we were pretty safe from possessions," Topaz said dryly. "Why do you think he did it? Gave you his memories, I mean."
"That's something I've thought a lot about," Amanda confessed. "At first I figured it was just another way to get at me, you know? But later, as I was able to sort through things and see how it had been for him... I think he just wanted someone to understand why he was the way he was." She stopped there, not wanting to push Topaz into hearing about Amanda's sympathy for the man who had been the younger witch's personal boogeyman.
Topaz watched the road, thoughts flipping through her mind too fast to fully grasp. "I hate him," she said finally - a simple statement of fact. "I'm never going to get over that. But... I know it wasn't entirely his fault he was a monster. I don't blame him for not wanting to be remembered that way."
"No-one does, really. Everyone starts off at the same place and it's the choices they make that turns them into monsters. Like that fake world of Roma's. Adam and I started off the same as we did here, only I was the one who became the monster."
"Yeah..." And that was a completely different thing on its own. "Do you think it's weird how often we've ended up dealing with alternate universes? I mean before the back door to every universe opened in the church."
"After almost 15 years living in the mansion, nothing is weird," Amanda replied with a snort. "But, to be serious, you're not wrong. After Xorn and the whole thing, I think maybe the spaces between dimensions were weakened? We know it was a bit of a rush job Xorn did - I s'pose he wasn't able to seal the gaps." She glanced over at Topaz again. "Like that version of you from an alternate future."
She grimaced. "Yeah, still trying to forget that. Talk about bad choices and turning into a monster."
"Road less travelled and all that bollocks," Amanda agreed. "So, all this serious talk is making me hungry... Stop at the next food place, whatever it is? We can confuse the locals with our accents."
Marie-Ange and Kevin discuss why so much of Kansas is filled with corn.
Marie-Ange looked at Kevin as she settled into the passenger seat of the TransAm, and shook her head. "I should have flat ironed my hair and found flare jeans, so I could match your hat and mustache." She had her hair in two braids, skinny jeans and a t-shirt she had certainly stolen from Amanda after it shrunk in the wash. Her own tastes did certainly not run to concert t-shirts with a worn hole in one sleeve.
"I can lose the mustache. Just everyone keeps expecting it when I'm in this car." Kevin joked, swapping out an 8 Track cassette for a different one. His coffee thermos, which somehow seemed to be constantly full despite no one seeing him use the coffee machine, sat in between the front seats.
It took some fussing to arrange her bag, her water bottle, and the snacks Marie-Ange had grabbed from the RV, mostly trail mix and dried fruit. "I like the mustache with that hat. I just feel like I am dressed for the wrong era." She paused. "I went for rock groupie, not disco groupie. Amanda hit her head on the bunk when I put on her shirt." It was remarkably tight on Marie-Ange's slender frame. "This is my life now, I steal my girlfriend's clothes and know how to talk to truckers on the CB radio."
"True. I don't remember The Buzzcocks being as nipples forward as that." Kevin said, gunning the engine. "But you're not off. Remember, this was the era that disco fans and rock fans were at war. You look like an Eagles fan from the period well enough."
"If I had a phone I would look that up, or any of the other ninety questions I have been asking myself during this trip. Why is there so much corn?" Marie-Ange sat up as the car accelerated, and resettled into the seat so she could rest one elbow out the open window. "I know why, economically. Corn syrup. It is just one thing to know and another to drive past corn in places I did not expect to see corn."
"This is ethanol country, Colbert. Miles on miles of fat farm subsidies for a fuel additive that serves no use and makes no sense. But if you want to hold the Senate, you keep re-authorizing them in every Farm Bill that hits Congress." He pushed the cassette in fully and Jim Croce took over the car with 'Bad Bad Leroy Brown'. "You know, this is a pretty good look for you. Makes you look a decade younger without the eyepatch and considerably more available. Might be worth keeping for Burning Man."
"Half my festival outfits are this, the other is cut off shorts and crochet'd tank tops." Marie-Ange agreed. "I know about the ethanol, it is just. You know I have lived in America since I was fifteen, and it still is a huge country. I know the cliche, we think two hundred kilometers is a long drive, you think two hundred years is a long time." She paused. "My mother used to take me to church at the Cathedral in Lyon, which is, nine hundred years old? Maybe older. It is easy to forget from a plane. From the car, easier to see how big America is, how different each place is."
"Cathédrale Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Lyon? Been there. Lovely place." Kevin was easy on the highway, moving like he was barely looking. "I miss France a bit. It's a lovely place to be cultured in. The US, you're a guy asking for fancy coffee in Cleveland."
"In any other life, that church is why I was an architect. Even here, it is why I started to study it. " Marie-Ange was just the slightest bit wistful. "France is where you send all your best spies to be chefs. Or just Julia Child, and Ina Garten. Is it just the two? It cannot be just the two."
"Chefs have defined outcomes. Process creates what happens." Kevin grinned. "Which is an illusion for them, because the last thing intelligence is was consistent. But we continue to dream."
"I still burn eggs." Marie-Ange admitted. "It really does seem that there is an overlap, food or drinks, and spy work." She tilted her head, doing the math. "But you never would have worked with her, which is a shame. I watched her show the last time I was ill. She seemed exactly like the kind of person who would work well with you, and tell you stories about the shark repellant."
"Child predates me, but I worked with people who served with her. Met her once briefly at some event at Langley, although by that time she was already the Queen of PBS with 'The French Chef'. My wife used to enjoy her show." Kevin said. "I think the overlap between food, drinks and spy work are more simple than just certain mindsets being common in both fields. You've been all over the world on the ground level. You've been in the midst of how a hundred cultures actually lives, works and eats. You have been exposed to their food and drink because you can't afford to be picky about it. And the most important part is that every culture and most people see sharing food and drink as a time to talk and engage. You sit down for a meal and a couple of drinks with even the most careful potential asset, they're still bound to let something slip while savouring a sip of a full bodied Côtes du Rhône Grenache or chasing up an extra few beans with the duck confit in that rich cassoulet."
"I have eaten nothing but terrible car food and microwave meals for two days, I would give half the team for duck confit right now." Despite this, Marie-Ange dug into her bag of trail mix, ate some, and held the open bag in Kevin's direction to share. "It makes sense, food is a way to share, and to connect, and we all tend to relax as meals, just as... " She chewed on a particularly tough piece of dried papaya. "Just, as people. We connect over food. Maybe we need to hire on a chef, or send half the team to cooking school. Not serious. Maybe a little. A little serious, if we send someone to culinary school we get to eat the homework."
"No, but if Frost would agree to it, I'd like to send most of our people to a few higher end restaurants around New York. Most can pass, but they're a bit rusty and thanks to SHIELD, we're getting to higher end assets these days. Be nice to remind them how to handle that level of contact." Kevin passed a couple of cars and eased into the centre of the highway. "I doubt you'd mind a date night at the Russian Tea Room."
Marie-Ange's face lit up immediately. "I would love it. Amanda would spend an hour trying to convince me she was allowed to wear her Doc Martins under a dress." Her nose wrinkled up in amusement. "I like the idea, and I imagine Emma would not balk. She randomly buys people clothes and shoes, a few dozen meals out is not going to make her even give pause." Now she really was missing her phone, she could've had half a list of restaurants before her shift in the car was done. "We have enough of us to pair off too that we can pair, ah, Topaz with Felicia, or Artie with Wanda or David and fill in some of the gaps. Pair the people who need the refresher with people who read the menu at Atera for fun."
"Work some of the people with rougher edges up to it. But in general, it's a good idea."
'You just want access to the wine list of eighty michelin star restaurants." Marie-Ange said. "Wait no. That is me. I want access to that list. I keep having us mixed up again."
"I always have access to them. It's amazing how many big Wall Street types put me on their tab without knowing." He gave her a crooked smile. "You and your girlfriend should ask more often. I can happily bring you out to them."
"Did you know we became friends because I stole wine from the Professor's wine cellar. or Amanda did, and I drank it. I am not sure. Both maybe." Marie-Ange said. "We should do more events as a team. As awful as this trip has been, everyone has had time to be social together. We keep fighting over the bathroom, but I think most of the team has done a jigsaw puzzle now, or watched a show in the RV."
"That's the next stage. And I should have been more on that." Kevin said, slouched back in his seat, more open than she'd ever seen him. "This is your shop, Colbert. I remind myself that every day. But I think it makes me hesitate sometimes. I'm trying to do my best for you."
"It is my shop, but I inherited it." Marie-Ange said. "Which you know. I should have also been more on having the team be more tightly knit. It might have prevented Artie's outburst, or stayed some of our attrition of people. If I do not get to blame myself, and I can literally see the future, you do not get to blame yourself." She huffed a little in annoyance, and crunched on a piece of chex mix, but then gave Kevin a grin. "Ugh, I am the young director of the shop, you re the older mentor, I am supposed to be getting reassurance from you. This is backwards. I want the cowboy hat now. Cheek aside, you know more about running shops than I do. If I am missing something, tell me. It may be mine, but I have no monopoly on leadership. I am making this up as I go."
"That's part of the challenge." He flipped his hat over to her. "I don't hesitate because I don't know what to do. It's because what I know to do is my way, and inherited or not, this is your shop. At the end of the day, it has to run the way you ultimately think it should be run, or it won't work. Kevin's X-Force would operate a little differently than Marie-Ange's X-Force does, and all of these people signed up for Marie-Ange's X-Force. So that lurks in the back of my head when I make calls. I'm not used to having to mentally critique my own instincts to make sure I'm the one aligned with the mission." It was a frank statement, not out of any kind of fear or self-doubt, but underlining that for all of his experience, Kevin was still forced to keep learning as he went on.
"I could argue that half the team rolls their eyes every time I pull out a deck of tarot cards, and the people I inherited signed up for Remy's X-Force." She paused. "Or Pete Wisdom, or Emma Frost. Or Betsy Braddock. We never ran a one-leader shop before, I do not intend to run one now. If I hate the way you do something, I will tell you. It may not be Kevin's shop, but it is not just mine." Marie-Ange adjusted the hat, and pulled her braids forward so they sat in front of her shoulders. "You came back when you could have left. You believe in the mission. I trust you not to blow up the team. We can share the hat. This one, not the other one. The other one I keep expecting you to have sandals with socks on, and a pocket protector."
"Don't insult my driving hat. Hat like that is the kind you can trust to get you across the country safely." Kevin joked,
"I do trust it. I just think it comes with the kind of clothes that a middle aged accountant would wear."
"It's camouflage, Colbert. If you're a cop and you pull me over in that hat, what are you going to see? A middle aged accountant in a shitty RV on some kind of road trip with his middle aged crisis girlfriend in the front seat. The kind of guy who doesn't own a gun. Who is so ignorant of drugs that he calls it 'the marijauna'." Kevin hit the button and the song skipped to 'Rapid Roy'. "The blandest white guy you've ever seen. I'm a walking, talking manifestation of being let off with a warning."
"And that is why I do not want to share the hat. You wear it, you are harmless. I wear it, I am an ironic fetish model."
Felicia and Kevin stop at a McDonald’s drive-in in the middle of nowhere.
Route 66 in Oklahoma in the dead of night was truly the dead of night. Other than the other vehicles on the highway, it was just vast expanses of pitch black fields broken up staccato fashion by the odd farmhouse or highwayside business. Kevin made a motion with his coffee cup; actually the plastic top of the old school thermos he'd brought on. Felicia was curled up in the front seat, riding shotgun. It was ostensibly the navigator's role, but Kevin didn't seem to need directions, so instead it had turned into a quiet war over the next 8 track to be played quietly and refilling the coffee while the rest of the team slept in the back.
Taking the cue, Felicia poured the last of the thermos into his offered makeshift mug, giving it a dramatic shake for the last few drops. "Want me to wring it?" she asked, voice low and quiet.
"Tempting." He looked over his shoulder into the darkened RV. Everyone he could see was fast asleep, and that included enough people around the coffee maker to wake them for another cup. "Dammit." He drained the quarter cup that was left and put the plastic cup on the dash. "We're better off stopping somewhere, letting them sleep."
Making a thoughtful noise, Felicia looked out at the road ahead, her mouth turning upwards in a bemused sort of smile at the yellow arches sign she could see off in the distance. "I have so many memes right now but you wouldn't get any of them, so. McDondalds?" she asked, quietly sing-songing the name another two times under her breath, unable to help herself.
"McDonalds but... this is a relic. I guess they never had to upgrade, but those arches are from the 70s or 80s at the latest." Kevin said, as he shifted the RV towards the off ramp.
"Maybe they heard you were coming and wanted to make you feel more comfortable," Felicia answered sweetly, ducking the arm he threw out to soccer clock her with a softened chuckle. "But it makes sense I guess. Who's going to retrofit the middle of fuck no?"
"McDonald's franchisee agreements are rumoured to be studied in Hell by demons for a way to ironclad bind someone to you for life. Curious how they avoided it." At required a few maneuvers, mostly carefully drifting left into the lane in order to navigate the drive-thru lane, but within a few minutes, the RV was next to the ordered stand. A voice greeted them, although the static and distortion made whatever they said incomprehensible.
Felicia had at some point already unbuckled herself and so half climbed over Kevin's lap, her head out the window and elbows braced on the edge of the door. "Could we get two large black coffees and three boxes of those little character cookies please?" she said, listening to the garble for a moment before nodding as if it made any amount of sense or they could see her. "Yes, that's right, thank you!" She folded back into her seat with a sharp exhale of breath and looked over. "Window two."
"I don't think they sell those cookies any more." Kevin said, but looking at the menu which was one of those old handset plastic letters jobs, he wasn't willing to rule it out. He just pulled the RV up to the window and handed over a twenty. He had a notion that cash was preferred.
"I don't subscribe to your universal laws," Felicia replied pointedly, ticking up an eyebrow as they were handed two cups and a stack of small cardboard boxes.
Kevin said nothing as they collected the order and he took back his change. He revved up the RV and pulled away, slipping back on to the onramp and on to the highway before saying something.
"So, did you actually get McDonaldland cookies?"
"Open up and see," Felicia said, the packaging crisp under her nails, the half hollow shake of cookies into her palm that she fed into his and her own mouth simultaneously. She smiled triumphantly at the taste of success. "Okay, I'm going to play it cool, but I have no idea if that was me, the McDonalds, or both. We should also possibly check the coffee for LSD."
"If your damnable powers put me back in the 70s, I swear, I will make your disco life a living hell, Hardy!"
"I told you, I don't need sleep the way you think. Also, how many Monsters have you had today? Your hand is vibrating." Kevin said, sipping yet another black coffee from the brown plastic thermos top. He was in what they'd learned was 'Old Man' driving gear: a red plaid flannel shirt with a thin light blue sweater over top, a pair of chinos, brown brogues and a pork pie hat perched on his head.
"I can't see colors yet but I can still keep up with you, so obviously just enough." Darcy's voice was dry but her tired eyes were twinkling with a bit of humor. "So you don't need standard human sleep on the regular. You should probably still get some R&R when you can, just in case things go tits up and you actually need your reserves." Her own attire was the best of Jane's internship. A band tee with a baggy sweater over it, comfy pants and sturdy boots, and a long scarf that was currently covering her hair and winding loosely around her neck. She'd skipped the contacts during the drive, rightly guessing she wouldn't want to be changing them on the RV or at rest stops, and her chunky framed glasses were currently being pushed up her nose as she poked her tongue out at the man in the driver's seat.
"I'll make you a deal. I'll take a rest if you do the same. Your eyes are floating behind those glasses and your boyfriend is in the lead car right now." He waved at Jubilee, who had been told multiple times not to drive the RV over the Grand Canyon Evel Knievel style. "It's rucksack time for you."
"Cute you think I can do that on..." she mentally calculated how much caffeine she'd had in the past twenty-four hours and frowned. "Huh, maybe I do need to sleep." Darcy held up her hand, noting the visible tremors. "Wild, I haven't even popped a caffeine pill yet. Science intern me says I've gotten old. And weak. I haven't had that much caffeine today. Still under 300 milli." She shrugged, adjusting her hair as it caught between her back and the seat and pulled. "Sure thing, Boss, we can go take a nap. I'll even let you read and be on the outside of the bunk if you want."
"If you were smart, you'd vomit up all that garbage." Kevin said, shifting to allow the next crew access to the RV. He took her by the elbow and walked her to the back. "You need to rest."
"Vomit's gross and definitely not gonna help me sleep," she replied. "And it'd stink up the RV. I don't wanna have to eat again to replace the nutrients either, it's hard enough to keep up as-is." She toed her boots off, sticking them in the small cubby with the rest of her things, then unwound her scarf. Her glasses went into their case before her hands disappeared inside her sweater. Some comical maneuvering had her shirt joining the pile, and soon she was just in the sweater and a pair of shorts, small travel pillow and a bottle of water clutched in her hands. "Alright, point me at whatever bunk we're gonna be in."
"There's only two and other people are snoring in the other one." He thumbed to the one in the back of the RV. "Snuggle in. I'll set an alarm."
"Bossy," Darcy muttered half under her breath before clambering into the bunk and settling against the wall. "You're getting up here too, don't think I won't follow you around if you try to duck out," she said as she tucked the small pillow under her neck. "And grab a blanket, please, my legs're gonna get cold."
He shifted and tossed the blanket over her. "I'm going to get a bit of rest. Because of your insistence." He wrapped her in the blanket and leaned back against the wall, pushing his hat down over his eyes and leaning back against the wall.
Darcy gave him a stern glare. "Get your ass in the bunk, Sydney." It was probably the grouchiest she'd ever sounded when talking to her mentor and friend. "You can at least sit down to rest, you're not a Buckingham guard." She was pretty sure she'd put her Guarana powder in her bag. The protein shake she had in the fridge right now wasn't caffeinated, but she could change that pretty easily if he was going to be stubborn. She hadn't hit the danger threshold yet, regardless of her shaking hands.
"Fine. Shove over." He sat on the bed, still on the edge, where he could lean back still seated and tip his hat. "Does this pass muster, boss?" He joked to her.
"Better, but it doesn't look very relaxing," she muttered. She'd take the teeny, tiniest of wins though, and wiggled until she was comfortable, face smushed against his hip. "There's more room if you want it, I don't flail that much in confined spaces." As long as she could roll just enough to switch sides she'd be okay.
"Appreciate it, but I don't like lying down in moving vehicles. Too many years and too many miles to be comfortable doing it." He said, voice slightly muffled by the pork pie hat he'd donned the second he'd sat down in the driver's seat, looking like the wholesome dad from a wacky 80s comedy.
"Fair enough," Darcy mumbled into his hip. "Not like it's hard for you to move me around if you change your mind. You could probably mostly sit up, but the angle would be hell on your lower back."
"Shapeshifter. Nothing is hell on anything." He said, a bit of smugness in his voice.
"That's assuming you want to shift, and since you're sitting like that instead..." Darcy waved her hand at him, making her point. "Hence the hell on your lower back." She patted him on the knee as she dropped her hand, leaving it curled over the blanket.
"This is the Monster talking." Kevin said, placing his hand over hers and giving it a squeeze. "Sleep, Lewis. In a couple of hours, we'll switch out the lead car and you can have a boyfriend in here to keep you proper company."
Darcy tilted her head back, then rolled partway onto her back so she could look up at Kevin. "Why do you think it's the caffeine talking? You're my friend. If you're comfortable in tight spaces with me, it's cool, you can shrink down and move closer. I won't mind at all. If not, you can chill like you are. But caffeine doesn't make me weirdly nice."
"You're worried about things you don't need to be worried about. And that part is nice."
Darcy opened her mouth to reply, but let out a jaw-cracking yawn instead. "What should I be worried about, then?"
"Pretty much anything other than my physical state." He awkwardly patted her shoulder. "But, like I said, it's nice that you think about it."
She let out a disgruntled noise and rolled back onto her side, shoving her face back into the side of his hip and throwing an arm around him. "Yeah, yeah." It was muffled but distinctly annoyed. "Gonna sleep now, you just... do what you wanna do I guess. Like you're gonna."
He ran a hand over her hair, with a comforting squeeze. "I get it. You get some sleep, Lewis."
Amanda and Topaz talk about the Destines.
Ah, blessed quiet and a significant change in atmosphere - Amanda let out a sigh of satisfaction and glanced over at the other witch in the passenger seat. "Nice to get some peace and quiet, yeah?" she offered.
Topaz had been watching the road go by, almost mesmerized. She was starting to understand highway hypnosis. Amanda's voice shook her out of her stupor. "Hmn? Yeah. Didn't realize how loud people get when they're trapped in a small space together. Have you gotten Doug's Burning Man presentation yet?"
"The one where he talks about how he was conceived there? Oh, yeah." Amanda gave a mock shudder. "I can't wait to get there, actually, if only so my arse can recover from all this sitting." She glanced over again at Topaz, peering at her over the top of the aviator sunglasses she'd picked up at a gas station along the way. Like the rest of X-Force, she was in "undercover" mode - a loud flannel shirt over a threadbare white t-shirt and denim shorts that were arguably on the "too short" side of things - the pocket linings poked out under the hems in the front. Wisps of blond hair, escaped from her braid, blew around her face in the breeze from the open window. "It's been a while, hasn't it? Since you last saw Jasmine?"
She'd kind of been hoping Amanda wouldn't bring that up. "Yeah. Not since..." Oh, how to describe that messy period of twenty-eighteen. The curses on the mansion dwellers, the fights, Adam almost killing Amanda, Marie-Ange losing her eye, Doug's blood curse... "Right before Grace died," was the safest answer Topaz could land on. "I knew she ran, and I didn't try that hard to find her, especially not when Adam was still alive." She'd thought Adam had tracked her down and killed her, honestly.
"It was a surprise to have her turn up again. And a mutant too." Amanda had thought the same thing, to be honest, but the memories Adam had shoved in her head hadn't revealed it specifically. "You wanna talk about it? I ask because I noticed you've been very careful not to mention her since we found all this out."
"The mutant thing is a little out of left field." Topaz paused for a moment, chewing over her next words. No, she hadn't mentioned Jasmine, because it was far easier to just not talk about it. "She helped me."
"And I'm glad she did," was Amanda's observation. "Not something you expected from a Destine, tho'."
"No." Topaz scrubbed her eyes, sighing. "She was never really like the others. Too much of a bleeding heart healer type. But she still went along with everything they did, up to a point. And helping me was probably more to soothe her own conscience than anything else. They were all a bit egotistical, not sure if they came by it naturally or if it was Adam's influence..." Her voice drifted off, and she shrugged. "Nothing good ever happens when the Destines pop up."
"Healers tend to have that. Rom used to say it was what kept me from following Rack's influence too much, the healing. It takes empathy... creates it, really." Amanda stared at the road unwinding ahead of them for a long moment. "You can ask, by the way. About Adam's memories in my head." She turned to flash a brief grin at Topaz. "No, I'm not psychic, but talking about his influence and all..."
Well, if she was inviting questions. Topaz looked out the window for another moment, her leg bouncing slightly. "I dunno if I really have a question per se. Just... like you said, healing creates empathy. I can't imagine there's too much of that in his memories. I guess... are you okay? I know it's been awhile, but I also know you and the way you bury yourself in work to avoid dealing with anything else."
There was a pause as Amanda considered the question, listening to the sound of the wheels thrumming against the road. "I'm... doing all right," she said, meditatively. "I mean, it was hard at first, separating it all out, especially with the whole Frankenberry Cat thing. He remembered me in a completely different timeline, and it was hard to unravel. Then with the whole Roma thing, I had another set of memories of him in my head as well. So over time, they've kind of merged. But they're still just memories, not an actual person," she hastened to add at the end. "No possessions here."
"I figured we were pretty safe from possessions," Topaz said dryly. "Why do you think he did it? Gave you his memories, I mean."
"That's something I've thought a lot about," Amanda confessed. "At first I figured it was just another way to get at me, you know? But later, as I was able to sort through things and see how it had been for him... I think he just wanted someone to understand why he was the way he was." She stopped there, not wanting to push Topaz into hearing about Amanda's sympathy for the man who had been the younger witch's personal boogeyman.
Topaz watched the road, thoughts flipping through her mind too fast to fully grasp. "I hate him," she said finally - a simple statement of fact. "I'm never going to get over that. But... I know it wasn't entirely his fault he was a monster. I don't blame him for not wanting to be remembered that way."
"No-one does, really. Everyone starts off at the same place and it's the choices they make that turns them into monsters. Like that fake world of Roma's. Adam and I started off the same as we did here, only I was the one who became the monster."
"Yeah..." And that was a completely different thing on its own. "Do you think it's weird how often we've ended up dealing with alternate universes? I mean before the back door to every universe opened in the church."
"After almost 15 years living in the mansion, nothing is weird," Amanda replied with a snort. "But, to be serious, you're not wrong. After Xorn and the whole thing, I think maybe the spaces between dimensions were weakened? We know it was a bit of a rush job Xorn did - I s'pose he wasn't able to seal the gaps." She glanced over at Topaz again. "Like that version of you from an alternate future."
She grimaced. "Yeah, still trying to forget that. Talk about bad choices and turning into a monster."
"Road less travelled and all that bollocks," Amanda agreed. "So, all this serious talk is making me hungry... Stop at the next food place, whatever it is? We can confuse the locals with our accents."
Marie-Ange and Kevin discuss why so much of Kansas is filled with corn.
Marie-Ange looked at Kevin as she settled into the passenger seat of the TransAm, and shook her head. "I should have flat ironed my hair and found flare jeans, so I could match your hat and mustache." She had her hair in two braids, skinny jeans and a t-shirt she had certainly stolen from Amanda after it shrunk in the wash. Her own tastes did certainly not run to concert t-shirts with a worn hole in one sleeve.
"I can lose the mustache. Just everyone keeps expecting it when I'm in this car." Kevin joked, swapping out an 8 Track cassette for a different one. His coffee thermos, which somehow seemed to be constantly full despite no one seeing him use the coffee machine, sat in between the front seats.
It took some fussing to arrange her bag, her water bottle, and the snacks Marie-Ange had grabbed from the RV, mostly trail mix and dried fruit. "I like the mustache with that hat. I just feel like I am dressed for the wrong era." She paused. "I went for rock groupie, not disco groupie. Amanda hit her head on the bunk when I put on her shirt." It was remarkably tight on Marie-Ange's slender frame. "This is my life now, I steal my girlfriend's clothes and know how to talk to truckers on the CB radio."
"True. I don't remember The Buzzcocks being as nipples forward as that." Kevin said, gunning the engine. "But you're not off. Remember, this was the era that disco fans and rock fans were at war. You look like an Eagles fan from the period well enough."
"If I had a phone I would look that up, or any of the other ninety questions I have been asking myself during this trip. Why is there so much corn?" Marie-Ange sat up as the car accelerated, and resettled into the seat so she could rest one elbow out the open window. "I know why, economically. Corn syrup. It is just one thing to know and another to drive past corn in places I did not expect to see corn."
"This is ethanol country, Colbert. Miles on miles of fat farm subsidies for a fuel additive that serves no use and makes no sense. But if you want to hold the Senate, you keep re-authorizing them in every Farm Bill that hits Congress." He pushed the cassette in fully and Jim Croce took over the car with 'Bad Bad Leroy Brown'. "You know, this is a pretty good look for you. Makes you look a decade younger without the eyepatch and considerably more available. Might be worth keeping for Burning Man."
"Half my festival outfits are this, the other is cut off shorts and crochet'd tank tops." Marie-Ange agreed. "I know about the ethanol, it is just. You know I have lived in America since I was fifteen, and it still is a huge country. I know the cliche, we think two hundred kilometers is a long drive, you think two hundred years is a long time." She paused. "My mother used to take me to church at the Cathedral in Lyon, which is, nine hundred years old? Maybe older. It is easy to forget from a plane. From the car, easier to see how big America is, how different each place is."
"Cathédrale Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Lyon? Been there. Lovely place." Kevin was easy on the highway, moving like he was barely looking. "I miss France a bit. It's a lovely place to be cultured in. The US, you're a guy asking for fancy coffee in Cleveland."
"In any other life, that church is why I was an architect. Even here, it is why I started to study it. " Marie-Ange was just the slightest bit wistful. "France is where you send all your best spies to be chefs. Or just Julia Child, and Ina Garten. Is it just the two? It cannot be just the two."
"Chefs have defined outcomes. Process creates what happens." Kevin grinned. "Which is an illusion for them, because the last thing intelligence is was consistent. But we continue to dream."
"I still burn eggs." Marie-Ange admitted. "It really does seem that there is an overlap, food or drinks, and spy work." She tilted her head, doing the math. "But you never would have worked with her, which is a shame. I watched her show the last time I was ill. She seemed exactly like the kind of person who would work well with you, and tell you stories about the shark repellant."
"Child predates me, but I worked with people who served with her. Met her once briefly at some event at Langley, although by that time she was already the Queen of PBS with 'The French Chef'. My wife used to enjoy her show." Kevin said. "I think the overlap between food, drinks and spy work are more simple than just certain mindsets being common in both fields. You've been all over the world on the ground level. You've been in the midst of how a hundred cultures actually lives, works and eats. You have been exposed to their food and drink because you can't afford to be picky about it. And the most important part is that every culture and most people see sharing food and drink as a time to talk and engage. You sit down for a meal and a couple of drinks with even the most careful potential asset, they're still bound to let something slip while savouring a sip of a full bodied Côtes du Rhône Grenache or chasing up an extra few beans with the duck confit in that rich cassoulet."
"I have eaten nothing but terrible car food and microwave meals for two days, I would give half the team for duck confit right now." Despite this, Marie-Ange dug into her bag of trail mix, ate some, and held the open bag in Kevin's direction to share. "It makes sense, food is a way to share, and to connect, and we all tend to relax as meals, just as... " She chewed on a particularly tough piece of dried papaya. "Just, as people. We connect over food. Maybe we need to hire on a chef, or send half the team to cooking school. Not serious. Maybe a little. A little serious, if we send someone to culinary school we get to eat the homework."
"No, but if Frost would agree to it, I'd like to send most of our people to a few higher end restaurants around New York. Most can pass, but they're a bit rusty and thanks to SHIELD, we're getting to higher end assets these days. Be nice to remind them how to handle that level of contact." Kevin passed a couple of cars and eased into the centre of the highway. "I doubt you'd mind a date night at the Russian Tea Room."
Marie-Ange's face lit up immediately. "I would love it. Amanda would spend an hour trying to convince me she was allowed to wear her Doc Martins under a dress." Her nose wrinkled up in amusement. "I like the idea, and I imagine Emma would not balk. She randomly buys people clothes and shoes, a few dozen meals out is not going to make her even give pause." Now she really was missing her phone, she could've had half a list of restaurants before her shift in the car was done. "We have enough of us to pair off too that we can pair, ah, Topaz with Felicia, or Artie with Wanda or David and fill in some of the gaps. Pair the people who need the refresher with people who read the menu at Atera for fun."
"Work some of the people with rougher edges up to it. But in general, it's a good idea."
'You just want access to the wine list of eighty michelin star restaurants." Marie-Ange said. "Wait no. That is me. I want access to that list. I keep having us mixed up again."
"I always have access to them. It's amazing how many big Wall Street types put me on their tab without knowing." He gave her a crooked smile. "You and your girlfriend should ask more often. I can happily bring you out to them."
"Did you know we became friends because I stole wine from the Professor's wine cellar. or Amanda did, and I drank it. I am not sure. Both maybe." Marie-Ange said. "We should do more events as a team. As awful as this trip has been, everyone has had time to be social together. We keep fighting over the bathroom, but I think most of the team has done a jigsaw puzzle now, or watched a show in the RV."
"That's the next stage. And I should have been more on that." Kevin said, slouched back in his seat, more open than she'd ever seen him. "This is your shop, Colbert. I remind myself that every day. But I think it makes me hesitate sometimes. I'm trying to do my best for you."
"It is my shop, but I inherited it." Marie-Ange said. "Which you know. I should have also been more on having the team be more tightly knit. It might have prevented Artie's outburst, or stayed some of our attrition of people. If I do not get to blame myself, and I can literally see the future, you do not get to blame yourself." She huffed a little in annoyance, and crunched on a piece of chex mix, but then gave Kevin a grin. "Ugh, I am the young director of the shop, you re the older mentor, I am supposed to be getting reassurance from you. This is backwards. I want the cowboy hat now. Cheek aside, you know more about running shops than I do. If I am missing something, tell me. It may be mine, but I have no monopoly on leadership. I am making this up as I go."
"That's part of the challenge." He flipped his hat over to her. "I don't hesitate because I don't know what to do. It's because what I know to do is my way, and inherited or not, this is your shop. At the end of the day, it has to run the way you ultimately think it should be run, or it won't work. Kevin's X-Force would operate a little differently than Marie-Ange's X-Force does, and all of these people signed up for Marie-Ange's X-Force. So that lurks in the back of my head when I make calls. I'm not used to having to mentally critique my own instincts to make sure I'm the one aligned with the mission." It was a frank statement, not out of any kind of fear or self-doubt, but underlining that for all of his experience, Kevin was still forced to keep learning as he went on.
"I could argue that half the team rolls their eyes every time I pull out a deck of tarot cards, and the people I inherited signed up for Remy's X-Force." She paused. "Or Pete Wisdom, or Emma Frost. Or Betsy Braddock. We never ran a one-leader shop before, I do not intend to run one now. If I hate the way you do something, I will tell you. It may not be Kevin's shop, but it is not just mine." Marie-Ange adjusted the hat, and pulled her braids forward so they sat in front of her shoulders. "You came back when you could have left. You believe in the mission. I trust you not to blow up the team. We can share the hat. This one, not the other one. The other one I keep expecting you to have sandals with socks on, and a pocket protector."
"Don't insult my driving hat. Hat like that is the kind you can trust to get you across the country safely." Kevin joked,
"I do trust it. I just think it comes with the kind of clothes that a middle aged accountant would wear."
"It's camouflage, Colbert. If you're a cop and you pull me over in that hat, what are you going to see? A middle aged accountant in a shitty RV on some kind of road trip with his middle aged crisis girlfriend in the front seat. The kind of guy who doesn't own a gun. Who is so ignorant of drugs that he calls it 'the marijauna'." Kevin hit the button and the song skipped to 'Rapid Roy'. "The blandest white guy you've ever seen. I'm a walking, talking manifestation of being let off with a warning."
"And that is why I do not want to share the hat. You wear it, you are harmless. I wear it, I am an ironic fetish model."
Felicia and Kevin stop at a McDonald’s drive-in in the middle of nowhere.
Route 66 in Oklahoma in the dead of night was truly the dead of night. Other than the other vehicles on the highway, it was just vast expanses of pitch black fields broken up staccato fashion by the odd farmhouse or highwayside business. Kevin made a motion with his coffee cup; actually the plastic top of the old school thermos he'd brought on. Felicia was curled up in the front seat, riding shotgun. It was ostensibly the navigator's role, but Kevin didn't seem to need directions, so instead it had turned into a quiet war over the next 8 track to be played quietly and refilling the coffee while the rest of the team slept in the back.
Taking the cue, Felicia poured the last of the thermos into his offered makeshift mug, giving it a dramatic shake for the last few drops. "Want me to wring it?" she asked, voice low and quiet.
"Tempting." He looked over his shoulder into the darkened RV. Everyone he could see was fast asleep, and that included enough people around the coffee maker to wake them for another cup. "Dammit." He drained the quarter cup that was left and put the plastic cup on the dash. "We're better off stopping somewhere, letting them sleep."
Making a thoughtful noise, Felicia looked out at the road ahead, her mouth turning upwards in a bemused sort of smile at the yellow arches sign she could see off in the distance. "I have so many memes right now but you wouldn't get any of them, so. McDondalds?" she asked, quietly sing-songing the name another two times under her breath, unable to help herself.
"McDonalds but... this is a relic. I guess they never had to upgrade, but those arches are from the 70s or 80s at the latest." Kevin said, as he shifted the RV towards the off ramp.
"Maybe they heard you were coming and wanted to make you feel more comfortable," Felicia answered sweetly, ducking the arm he threw out to soccer clock her with a softened chuckle. "But it makes sense I guess. Who's going to retrofit the middle of fuck no?"
"McDonald's franchisee agreements are rumoured to be studied in Hell by demons for a way to ironclad bind someone to you for life. Curious how they avoided it." At required a few maneuvers, mostly carefully drifting left into the lane in order to navigate the drive-thru lane, but within a few minutes, the RV was next to the ordered stand. A voice greeted them, although the static and distortion made whatever they said incomprehensible.
Felicia had at some point already unbuckled herself and so half climbed over Kevin's lap, her head out the window and elbows braced on the edge of the door. "Could we get two large black coffees and three boxes of those little character cookies please?" she said, listening to the garble for a moment before nodding as if it made any amount of sense or they could see her. "Yes, that's right, thank you!" She folded back into her seat with a sharp exhale of breath and looked over. "Window two."
"I don't think they sell those cookies any more." Kevin said, but looking at the menu which was one of those old handset plastic letters jobs, he wasn't willing to rule it out. He just pulled the RV up to the window and handed over a twenty. He had a notion that cash was preferred.
"I don't subscribe to your universal laws," Felicia replied pointedly, ticking up an eyebrow as they were handed two cups and a stack of small cardboard boxes.
Kevin said nothing as they collected the order and he took back his change. He revved up the RV and pulled away, slipping back on to the onramp and on to the highway before saying something.
"So, did you actually get McDonaldland cookies?"
"Open up and see," Felicia said, the packaging crisp under her nails, the half hollow shake of cookies into her palm that she fed into his and her own mouth simultaneously. She smiled triumphantly at the taste of success. "Okay, I'm going to play it cool, but I have no idea if that was me, the McDonalds, or both. We should also possibly check the coffee for LSD."
"If your damnable powers put me back in the 70s, I swear, I will make your disco life a living hell, Hardy!"
