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xp_logsAfter a Horseman's defeat, an X-Man regains consciousness.
The first thing he registered was the restraints.
Straps around his shoulders. His waist. His legs. His hands in some kind of mitt secured at the wrist, padded with batting that filled the orifices of his palms. Some sort of equipment was beeping in the background.
"No." Marius wrenched his arms and felt padded cuffs pull tight around his wrists. Adrenaline flooded his system as he began to struggle. "No. Let me go, let me go--"
Doug felt like he'd been given the softest lob set-up for a joke reference possible. Even with the concerns about whether the recent Horseman was a threat or not, he just couldn't resist.
"Hey you. You're finally awake."
Marius jerked back, this time in surprise. At first he thought it was a stranger, but after a moment Marius realized he knew him -- he simply couldn't read his mutagenic signature.
"Doug?"
"Got it in one. Feeling a bit more like yourself?" Doug asked mildly. So far there wasn't anything 'off' or threatening about Marius' body language, but this was also someone who'd been slugging it out with an entire team not that long ago.
"I'm . . ." Something about the question made his mind shy away. Marius swallowed and tugged a wrist against his restraints. "Look, can I be untied? I'm not going to rampage. I just . . . just let me up, all right?"
Doug didn't answer affirmatively or negatively. "Hold that thought," he told the other man as he crossed to the door and pulled it open, keeping his eyes on Marius the whole time he did so. "He's up," he announced after moving into the hallway and hitting a speed dial on his phone.
Marius watched Doug step out, fighting the panicked feeling that built with the sensation of being tied down. He tried to distract himself by taking a catalog of his body. His chest was bandaged; he could feel a deep ache beneath the dressing. Something around his head, too, but not another restraint. He hadn't been able to read Doug. Were they using an inhibitor . . ?
And then he remembered.
No . . .
Marius screamed. He tried to bolt upright but the restraints caught him again, forcing him back against the mattress. Squeezing his eyes shut, Marius began to beat his head against the pillow in a useless tattoo.
"Please, no," he whispered. "Please. Please."
What a useless sentiment. It was already done.
Unfortunately for Marius, he had long minutes to consider this before the door opened again to a group led by Marie-Ange, if only because she opened the door. She waited for the other to enter, closed the door, and tapped at her phone. "You are currently unpowered, the room is set to flood with enough incapacitating agent to knock you out if you make any aggressive moves, and in case you do not recall, both Topaz and Doug can tell if you are lying." She broke her matter of fact introduction with a brief nod in the younger woman's direction. "Have you any further desire to extinguish your own people?"
Marius didn't bother answering her. "I set it off, didn't I," he said in the empty tones of a man who'd already accepted his own damnation. He looked up at them, face blank. "How many did I kill?"
"None. You were spectacularly bad at your job." Kane said, looking like a jigsaw puzzle with a couple of pieces gone. "You hit hard, and messed a bunch of us up. But you were sent to kill everyone. And you didn't."
The Australian stared at Garrison, unable to believe he'd heard him correctly. For an instant he was, for one of the precious few times in his life, speechless.
"Of course." Marius laughed shakily around the sudden sting in his eyes. "Because you lot were there. Right. Of course you stopped me. Of -- of course."
"I think that's a no to your question," Topaz murmured to Marie-Ange. Her expression was tight, eyes pinched. For the first time, reading someone actually hurt a little. "He certainly seems horrified by the thought of murdering an entire city, at least."
"As is proper." Marie-Ange barely moved, posture steel beam straight, eyes steady on Marius. "You personally killed no one. Clan Akkaba and hangers on, several dozen despite our best efforts. Were you leading them, Marius? Did you direct cultists to murder teenagers?" Her eyes flicked once to Garrison and Rogue, and then back to Marius. "Millions of dollars in property damage, dozens dead. Who directed the hostilities?"
His eyes snapped to Marie-Ange, and in an instant the relief had drained from Marius' face. When he spoke again his tone was strangely detached.
"Akkaba has its own leaders. Didn't give any orders because I didn't need to. But their plan was mine, because it was his. 'Son of the Morning Fire'. En Sabah Nur." Marius had turned his eyes away to stare at the ceiling. "Him that they carved into me."
Topaz nodded to Marie-Ange to confirm that he was still telling the truth. She was getting a few unpleasant flashes of memories here and there as he spoke, and none of it was telling a good story.
Doug backed up Topaz's confirmation with a tiny nod of his own. Given what they knew about previous Horsemen and the brainwashing of some of them, this all fit the pattern. But there had also been true believers, and they needed to know for certain before even thinking about releasing him.
"So, here's an awful thought. Consider the Horsemen, mind control, that whole motief... is this Nur character the same 'Apocalypse' we faced in Manhattan in the old world? Or is this some new asshole using the same Spirit Halloween for his villain ideas?" Kane said to Marius as he rubbed his chin absently.
"The ocean doesn't explain itself to plankton." Marius' voice was still flat, but one of his hands tugged against a cuff. "He's old. Can't even comprehend how old. Our lives, they're like the blink of an eye to him. You see yourself that way, too, once he has you. Disposable. Even Akkaba is ready to throw themselves away for him. Those that came knew they'd be cut down with the rest, and they were glad to do it. Human lives are brief. Him, though? He's eternal."
"Akkaba?" Rogue's entire point of being there was as a bodyguard. Once upon a time, many moons ago, they'd absorbed each other and as such, she was forever one of those weird Marius experts (as limited as that was). Why they needed a bodyguard now, she didn't know but since none of this had anything to do with her (and considering she was leaving soon), she'd tried to tune out and be respectful of his confidentiality. But this? "Frainchement, Marius .... qu'est-ce que t'as fait? How'd you end up with him? Tabernac..."
The French startled him. Marius looked back and seemed to notice her presence for the first time. His confusion coaxed a little life back into his response.
"J'ai fait un erreur," he responded. "I was sick. Full myelosuppression. You know, same issue as brought me here originally. I was referred to a hematologist in Toulouse. Credentialed, decent body of research, impeccable work history. All above board." He laughed without warmth. "Maybe it would've stayed that way if I hadn't been responding to the treatments as well as I did, or hadn't quite so useful a mutation. As it was, turned out the good doctor was embedded there for Akkaba's benefit. One day he just slipped something in the IV. Passed out at Clinique Lentz, woke up who knows where. Then they did . . . the rest of it." Marius tugged at the cuff again. "Know they found someone else that way, though I suppose he might've been more willing than I was. Doesn't matter. We all end up the same."
"Abraham Kieros?" Marius would have remembered the other, failed Death - Marie-Ange thought. Hoped. "Former soldier, paralyzed, he was War to your Death. We have less information about Pestilence and Famine, perhaps they also explored other options with regard to injuries or mutations." She tilted her head towards Rogue - and perhaps strangely, Doug, rather than Garrison. "I trust if we remove those restraints, you will neither betray us, or make any more unwise decisions about your own health?" The room was free of anything sharp, walls padded. Her concern was more philosophical.
Marius gave another humourless laugh. "Just get me off this bed. Keep me manacled, put a muzzle on me, I don't care. Just--" He paused, a thought clearly occurring to him.
"Did anyone pull a CBC on me?" The words came out with the reluctance of a man pulling razor wire from his own throat. "If my platelets have hit 90,000 I'll need to line up a donor before I've got a chance to crash. If it's lower . . . leave me tied until you find someone."
"At last check your platelets were at a reasonable level," Doug informed Marius, his voice a bit clipped and flat. "And we intentionally stationed watchers who would not appeal to your tastes until we determined whether you were still under this Nur's influence." There were a few people now that would work as donors in the room, but he was still in his restraints.
"So, welcome back to the X-Men." Kane said. They had gotten the answers they needed. Marius was a victim and if he wasn't, the telepaths in the mansion would find out soon enough. "Some people didn't survive the experience." It was a shitty comment and he knew it, but he was beaten up. The death toll in District-X had been better than it could have been but it wasn't marginal. And once again, they'd all been too little and too late against their enemies.
Marius turned his head to stare at Garrison. His chest burned from the swaths of skin he'd clawed from Akkaba's brand.
"Yeah, well," the younger man said, "guess time will tell on that one."
"Enough." Marie-Ange cut off the conversation. "Someone please release Marius from his restraints." She eyed the man in the bed, his healing injuries and shadows under his eyes. "Please order him a sandwich. Vegetarian, I believe he will not want to be responsible for any more death in the near future."
The one-time X-Man flinched. For just an instant his face twisted as if he were on the verge of something -- a denial, or burst of rage, or scathing self-recrimination -- but only a moment.
Expression smoothing, Marius shrugged against the bed.
"Well," he said, his tone closer now to its normal ease, "can't say I didn't deserve that. I will admit a caprese does sound good at the moment." He rolled his shoulders against the mattress, forcing the muscles slack, and took a deep breath.
"At your discretion, then."
The first thing he registered was the restraints.
Straps around his shoulders. His waist. His legs. His hands in some kind of mitt secured at the wrist, padded with batting that filled the orifices of his palms. Some sort of equipment was beeping in the background.
"No." Marius wrenched his arms and felt padded cuffs pull tight around his wrists. Adrenaline flooded his system as he began to struggle. "No. Let me go, let me go--"
Doug felt like he'd been given the softest lob set-up for a joke reference possible. Even with the concerns about whether the recent Horseman was a threat or not, he just couldn't resist.
"Hey you. You're finally awake."
Marius jerked back, this time in surprise. At first he thought it was a stranger, but after a moment Marius realized he knew him -- he simply couldn't read his mutagenic signature.
"Doug?"
"Got it in one. Feeling a bit more like yourself?" Doug asked mildly. So far there wasn't anything 'off' or threatening about Marius' body language, but this was also someone who'd been slugging it out with an entire team not that long ago.
"I'm . . ." Something about the question made his mind shy away. Marius swallowed and tugged a wrist against his restraints. "Look, can I be untied? I'm not going to rampage. I just . . . just let me up, all right?"
Doug didn't answer affirmatively or negatively. "Hold that thought," he told the other man as he crossed to the door and pulled it open, keeping his eyes on Marius the whole time he did so. "He's up," he announced after moving into the hallway and hitting a speed dial on his phone.
Marius watched Doug step out, fighting the panicked feeling that built with the sensation of being tied down. He tried to distract himself by taking a catalog of his body. His chest was bandaged; he could feel a deep ache beneath the dressing. Something around his head, too, but not another restraint. He hadn't been able to read Doug. Were they using an inhibitor . . ?
And then he remembered.
No . . .
Marius screamed. He tried to bolt upright but the restraints caught him again, forcing him back against the mattress. Squeezing his eyes shut, Marius began to beat his head against the pillow in a useless tattoo.
"Please, no," he whispered. "Please. Please."
What a useless sentiment. It was already done.
Unfortunately for Marius, he had long minutes to consider this before the door opened again to a group led by Marie-Ange, if only because she opened the door. She waited for the other to enter, closed the door, and tapped at her phone. "You are currently unpowered, the room is set to flood with enough incapacitating agent to knock you out if you make any aggressive moves, and in case you do not recall, both Topaz and Doug can tell if you are lying." She broke her matter of fact introduction with a brief nod in the younger woman's direction. "Have you any further desire to extinguish your own people?"
Marius didn't bother answering her. "I set it off, didn't I," he said in the empty tones of a man who'd already accepted his own damnation. He looked up at them, face blank. "How many did I kill?"
"None. You were spectacularly bad at your job." Kane said, looking like a jigsaw puzzle with a couple of pieces gone. "You hit hard, and messed a bunch of us up. But you were sent to kill everyone. And you didn't."
The Australian stared at Garrison, unable to believe he'd heard him correctly. For an instant he was, for one of the precious few times in his life, speechless.
"Of course." Marius laughed shakily around the sudden sting in his eyes. "Because you lot were there. Right. Of course you stopped me. Of -- of course."
"I think that's a no to your question," Topaz murmured to Marie-Ange. Her expression was tight, eyes pinched. For the first time, reading someone actually hurt a little. "He certainly seems horrified by the thought of murdering an entire city, at least."
"As is proper." Marie-Ange barely moved, posture steel beam straight, eyes steady on Marius. "You personally killed no one. Clan Akkaba and hangers on, several dozen despite our best efforts. Were you leading them, Marius? Did you direct cultists to murder teenagers?" Her eyes flicked once to Garrison and Rogue, and then back to Marius. "Millions of dollars in property damage, dozens dead. Who directed the hostilities?"
His eyes snapped to Marie-Ange, and in an instant the relief had drained from Marius' face. When he spoke again his tone was strangely detached.
"Akkaba has its own leaders. Didn't give any orders because I didn't need to. But their plan was mine, because it was his. 'Son of the Morning Fire'. En Sabah Nur." Marius had turned his eyes away to stare at the ceiling. "Him that they carved into me."
Topaz nodded to Marie-Ange to confirm that he was still telling the truth. She was getting a few unpleasant flashes of memories here and there as he spoke, and none of it was telling a good story.
Doug backed up Topaz's confirmation with a tiny nod of his own. Given what they knew about previous Horsemen and the brainwashing of some of them, this all fit the pattern. But there had also been true believers, and they needed to know for certain before even thinking about releasing him.
"So, here's an awful thought. Consider the Horsemen, mind control, that whole motief... is this Nur character the same 'Apocalypse' we faced in Manhattan in the old world? Or is this some new asshole using the same Spirit Halloween for his villain ideas?" Kane said to Marius as he rubbed his chin absently.
"The ocean doesn't explain itself to plankton." Marius' voice was still flat, but one of his hands tugged against a cuff. "He's old. Can't even comprehend how old. Our lives, they're like the blink of an eye to him. You see yourself that way, too, once he has you. Disposable. Even Akkaba is ready to throw themselves away for him. Those that came knew they'd be cut down with the rest, and they were glad to do it. Human lives are brief. Him, though? He's eternal."
"Akkaba?" Rogue's entire point of being there was as a bodyguard. Once upon a time, many moons ago, they'd absorbed each other and as such, she was forever one of those weird Marius experts (as limited as that was). Why they needed a bodyguard now, she didn't know but since none of this had anything to do with her (and considering she was leaving soon), she'd tried to tune out and be respectful of his confidentiality. But this? "Frainchement, Marius .... qu'est-ce que t'as fait? How'd you end up with him? Tabernac..."
The French startled him. Marius looked back and seemed to notice her presence for the first time. His confusion coaxed a little life back into his response.
"J'ai fait un erreur," he responded. "I was sick. Full myelosuppression. You know, same issue as brought me here originally. I was referred to a hematologist in Toulouse. Credentialed, decent body of research, impeccable work history. All above board." He laughed without warmth. "Maybe it would've stayed that way if I hadn't been responding to the treatments as well as I did, or hadn't quite so useful a mutation. As it was, turned out the good doctor was embedded there for Akkaba's benefit. One day he just slipped something in the IV. Passed out at Clinique Lentz, woke up who knows where. Then they did . . . the rest of it." Marius tugged at the cuff again. "Know they found someone else that way, though I suppose he might've been more willing than I was. Doesn't matter. We all end up the same."
"Abraham Kieros?" Marius would have remembered the other, failed Death - Marie-Ange thought. Hoped. "Former soldier, paralyzed, he was War to your Death. We have less information about Pestilence and Famine, perhaps they also explored other options with regard to injuries or mutations." She tilted her head towards Rogue - and perhaps strangely, Doug, rather than Garrison. "I trust if we remove those restraints, you will neither betray us, or make any more unwise decisions about your own health?" The room was free of anything sharp, walls padded. Her concern was more philosophical.
Marius gave another humourless laugh. "Just get me off this bed. Keep me manacled, put a muzzle on me, I don't care. Just--" He paused, a thought clearly occurring to him.
"Did anyone pull a CBC on me?" The words came out with the reluctance of a man pulling razor wire from his own throat. "If my platelets have hit 90,000 I'll need to line up a donor before I've got a chance to crash. If it's lower . . . leave me tied until you find someone."
"At last check your platelets were at a reasonable level," Doug informed Marius, his voice a bit clipped and flat. "And we intentionally stationed watchers who would not appeal to your tastes until we determined whether you were still under this Nur's influence." There were a few people now that would work as donors in the room, but he was still in his restraints.
"So, welcome back to the X-Men." Kane said. They had gotten the answers they needed. Marius was a victim and if he wasn't, the telepaths in the mansion would find out soon enough. "Some people didn't survive the experience." It was a shitty comment and he knew it, but he was beaten up. The death toll in District-X had been better than it could have been but it wasn't marginal. And once again, they'd all been too little and too late against their enemies.
Marius turned his head to stare at Garrison. His chest burned from the swaths of skin he'd clawed from Akkaba's brand.
"Yeah, well," the younger man said, "guess time will tell on that one."
"Enough." Marie-Ange cut off the conversation. "Someone please release Marius from his restraints." She eyed the man in the bed, his healing injuries and shadows under his eyes. "Please order him a sandwich. Vegetarian, I believe he will not want to be responsible for any more death in the near future."
The one-time X-Man flinched. For just an instant his face twisted as if he were on the verge of something -- a denial, or burst of rage, or scathing self-recrimination -- but only a moment.
Expression smoothing, Marius shrugged against the bed.
"Well," he said, his tone closer now to its normal ease, "can't say I didn't deserve that. I will admit a caprese does sound good at the moment." He rolled his shoulders against the mattress, forcing the muscles slack, and took a deep breath.
"At your discretion, then."
no subject
Date: 2024-01-09 11:30 pm (UTC)Great interrogation/debrief log, guys. <3
no subject
Date: 2024-01-10 02:02 am (UTC)Marius deserves a bit of a hug.