Literally Pirateninja (shadowcat) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2012-09-27 04:20:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, kitty pryde (shadowcat), neena thurman (domino) |
"I'm thinking of a nice retirement somewhere away from all of this. Maybe the Bahamas.
Who: Kitty and Neena
What: Post-surgery chat and filling in on the whole fake husband mess.
When: Wednesday
Where: Stark Tower
Rating: PG-13
Status: Complete
They'd brought Neena in after Xi'an had already left. Kitty had clung to her for literally hours, kissing occasionally, but mostly just enjoying the feel and warmth of their bodies pressed together. She'd made Xi'an late for work. She hadn't cared.
But Xi'an was gone, her scent still lingering in the containment chamber. She wondered if Neena was okay. They were in that other room for hours. When they came out, Neena hadn't.
She knew the woman was awake - she was on the net. She also knew, from her reading through the past week of posts, that something major had happened, while Neena had been missing.
Testing the side of the chamber, she waited until Moira was gone, and phased through it. She'd been given a hospital gown, and it was the only thing that offered her modesty as she snuck across the hall and into where she'd seen Neena taken last.
Neena had gone from spending most of the morning trying to find a way out of this to cracking jokes with Tony and pretending everything was fine, even though she still looked like hell.
Mainly she was glad when she woke up that she still had hair left. Moira had been nice enough to only shave clear the incision area, and the rest of her hair covered the spot over. It barely hurt, though there was this weird feeling like there was an absence of something - the buzzing in the back of her brain had been a constant companion of hers for almost two months now.
She was awake and curled up in the hospital bed they'd transported her there in, with her laptop on her lap. Surfing the net was at least a distraction. From everything.
"You're paler than I remember. I thought I was supposed to be the ghost," Kitty said, her head poking through the solid metal of the door. The rest of her soon followed, and she put a donut on the end table, pilfered from some meeting room.
She felt oddly naked, even with the gown on. It had seemed like her dreaming was 'done' like she'd remembered everything. But she hadn't. Not by a long shot.
Neena looked so weary and tired, that Kitty wanted to just hug her.
The pale woman almost jumped when she'd heard Kitty talking. She hadn't been expecting any company in there, not after she'd woken up. Moira always knocked before she entered, and Scott was away taking care of something for her.
She hadn't been expecting Kitty to come visit that soon, even though she'd threatened it. She looked down at her arms though, and shrugged, "This is as pale as it gets, I think. My lips are starting to go black, so I'm expecting to be almost done with this pretty soon now."
Neena sounded more cheery about it than she felt. It was hard to feel much of anything at all these days. And she really didn't want the spot. She knew it was coming, but that didn’t mean she was looking forward to it.
"Well, it's hot, so there's that." She sat down on the edge of the bed, and looked her over. She decided to not beat around the bush, and jumped right into it, "What happened to you, Neena? Who took you, where's Romany, and Pete, and who's that overly polite git on the network with his name? Do you need anything. Anything I can do?"
The laptop was still on Neena's lap, and at first, she didn't tear her eyes away from it. There was a slight twitch in her jaw, and her eyes glassed over with emotion, but when she spoke, her voice was even, "I don't know where Romany and Pete are. I've never known them, and I never will."
"Oh." Kitty made the connection fairly quickly. Maybe that could explain some things. Why Pete had reacted to her the way he had. Why he'd been more acidic than she'd remembered. Why he hadn't been so willing to just be friends. It had been an act, and the real Pete Wisdom had finally stood up.
Her voice cracked a little as the implications sank in, as Neena's face betrayed what the woman's voice had not, "That's... insane. Why?"
Who had she slept with? Who had Neena married?
Who had Neena married, indeed. Who had she married. Who had she loved enough to let into her life like that, underneath every guard she'd placed up. Who had she told every single secret to.
And that had been the thing, right there. He had been a man to tell all of her secrets to, and she had stupidly trusted him to keep them to himself, "I was a case. I was being investigated. The cover had to be convincing enough, because they knew I wouldn't fall for anything less. Whoever this ... person is, it's the real him. And he doesn't know me. He never has."
Her voice had wavered for a second or two somewhere in the middle of that, but when she met Kitty's eyes finally, she'd mastered herself again, "Romany, the one I met, the one I lived with, is dead. She came to my hospital room, threatened to shoot me, and then shot herself. Apparently, they need me alive."
As for the rest of what had happened to her, she wouldn't say. She hadn't told Scott, and barely told Moira. It didn't matter, because it was over now.
A strangled sort of sound reached Kitty's throat, but only partially escaped her lips, her hand over her mouth.
Romany was dead? But that hadn't been Romany? God, what about the dreams? How had they known about those? Or had they somehow worked it out from too many people with too much of a big mouth...
Kitty suddenly wish she'd never asked, "Who is they?!"
"I don't know," Neena said, with a sigh. She flopped back against her pillows, and closed her eyes, "Scott knows. He knows everything, I think. She said it was all in the cards. The whole mess, encrypted in a deck. I didn't look. I was busy dealing with ... other things."
Like trying not to think of all the ways she could kill herself with the things that were at hand while no one was looking. And the chip, the stupid chip, which was at least off now. She wondered if the migraines and nosebleeds would be back. Was that the lesser of two evils?
Did anything really matter?
"It doesn't matter, Kitty. Try not to think about it too much. She wasn't Romany. I'm alive, just like they wanted. You're solid again. Everyone wins." Except for her. She didn't win. She never won. She'd never win, again.
"Do you want me to look at them? The cards?" Kitty reached out and took Neena's hand, squeezing it lightly. It was like something from their world. Skrulls, or shapeshifters. In some ways that would almost be easier to believe.
She felt dirty. She'd slept with that man, and he'd used her in some long game to get to Neena. She still couldn't imagine what Neena felt like right now. Heartbroken. Betrayed. Those words didn't cut it. So she just squeezed the woman's hand, and replied, "We could find those people. Shut them down."
"You'll look even if I tell you not to," Neena replied. She knew Kitty too well. But the rest of it...
Her lips thinned into a line, and she shook her head. She didn't squeeze Kitty's hand in return, either. She sort of laid there for a while, trying to formulate the thing she wanted to say. It was important to her that Kitty understand why this was so dangerous. She wanted Kitty to stay away from it. Kitty was a woman who didn't know when to leave well enough alone.
"This ... cell," Neena started, in a whisper, "Is very well informed, and very crazy. They used everything they knew, against me. Everything. Nothing was safe. Things I'd thought were my deepest and most precious secrets. They killed me so no one would think to look for me, and would have kept me alive involuntarily in their camp, using me to give birth to what they think is the next messiah. Using my mother's eggs. Which they manipulated me into extracting from another cell's lab."
"I want you nowhere near this. I want you as far away from this as humanly possible. There's still a chance they'll come for me, even in this state. They only need me alive enough to stay pregnant. They won't even keep me awake for it. And if they get wind of you poking around in this, they will hunt you, and Xi'an, and her twins, and Illyana, and Clarice, and everyone else. We aren't finding these people. We aren't shutting this down. Leave it alone."
Kitty closed her eyes. She didn't want to hear it. She didn't want to leave it alone. She thought it was morally and ethically wrong to just leave it be. The thought of Xi'an and Illyana as some sort of mutant breeding machines sickened her. These people sounded like they'd be capable of that. Spy games and super science.
A thought occurred to her, "If they catch wind of just how many people are developing magical powers, it won't matter, Neena. They'll come for us anyway. I'd rather be prepared than not. And I'm already in it by virtue of knowing you, and of knowing that man."
That man who knew she could walk through walls. Who knew Xi'an was a mutant. That they all were. Had he reported that? Kitty paled at the implications.
Spy games and super science...
"They were only trying to recreate my brother. His powers made him into the perfect weapon." Neena whispered. She didn't want to think about the rest of what Kitty was implying. It didn't make as much sense to her as the rest of it had.
"Me and my mother and... Danika, we would all be immune to it. When they were done with their army of Lazarus's, they would have killed us all. I don't think they'll come after you unless you provoke them."
"If they can't recreate him, what's to stop them from trying to get their hands on people that can get into any vault on the planet?" Kitty pointed out, "Or a woman who can mind control people? A vampire? A werewolf? What about the mages and the Hulk."
Because if you could control the Hulk, you were pretty much unstoppable. Kitty took a deep breath, "You're probably right, but if that's the case, why do they need you alive any more?"
"Well for one thing, they didn't impregnate me before I was dragged out of there," Neena sounded bitter. And relieved.
“Your sister is still out there,” Kitty pointed out.
"My sister can't tell the future," Came Neena's whispered reply, "They were testing me. They wanted to use my dna I think. To make an even better one. But they probably will get Danika, too. That would make sense."
Kitty just nodded her head. She let go of Neena's hand, folded her hands into her lap and looked down at them. She felt as helpless as she had when Kruun had been chasing her.
She couldn't let anything happen to Xi'an, or the twins.
It felt wrong to do nothing, though.
Neena watched her, and let out another very long sigh, "They'll be long gone from there by now, and they won't have left a trail. If you still want to... be a hero... then talk to Scott about it. He's starting up some training I think. For infiltration."
She didn't want a part in it. She could use a hundred excuses for why - even the x-rays on the monitor nearby and the 3-D image Tony had mocked up before they'd started. She'd never be cleared for any kind of active duty again with a microfilament piercing her lung like that.
That wasn't the reason why, of course. The reason was, to Neena, much more cowardly and ridiculous, but it still existed, "I can't do this anymore."
Kitty rolled her eyes. Training? She didn't need that, she thought. It was still fresh in her mind. She glanced up at Neena, understanding in her eyes, "I know."
She didn't think it cowardly at all.
"I'm thinking of a nice retirement somewhere away from all of this," Neena joked, "Maybe the Bahamas."
A ghostly smirk crossed Kitty's lips, "Too cliche. How about Toronto? I hear the crazed government agencies are fairly low key there."
"Canada sounds nice. Maybe I'll find Logan up there in a bar somewhere."
The older woman ducked her head a bit as she spoke. She had no intention of retiring anywhere, but it was better if everyone thought that's what had happened to her. The truth wasn't nearly as pretty.
"Having Logan around would have been nice." She replied, studying Neena's face carefully. There was something in her voice, and in her eyes that made Kitty feel uneasy.
"You say Scott is out doing something?"
"Well he knew Moira was going to have to hack my head open today, so he decided to use the free time to go to work and then went to clear my stuff out of the apartment."
Neena'd almost asked him to burn the rest of it. Anything that was left. 'Pete's' white shirts and black ties, anything of 'Romany's' that remained. The furniture and things she figured could just stay behind for the next renters.
She'd even told him to leave the keurig behind. The thought of coffee made her sick.
Scott had taken the initiative to burn everything that had been the Wisdom's. Because he didn't know what if any could be used to trace back to her, so he wasn't taking any chances.
Kitty nodded her head, "I should get back before Moira has a cow."
She pushed the donut towards her, "Eat that, it has sprinkles."
Sprinkles fix everything.
Neena shook her head. The thought of eating anything, really, made her sick, "Thanks for the the thought, but... I just can't eat that. You should get back though. You don't want Moira to be angry, she's no fun when she starts screeching."
"That's when she's the most fun," Kitty replied. She leaned over and kissed Neena on the cheek. She was glad she hadn't let "Pete" chase her off. That she'd been persistent in trying to be Neena's friend.
Because now she knew that his efforts to keep her out of their lives had been with purpose.