Chapter Four
“Man-sized, no need to shout, can you hear, can you hear me now…”
Ororo walked to the gravesite, slowly, solemnly. Every time she visited, she left with the same feelings”remorse, guilt, self-loathing. She used to “talk” to them, to try to explain that everything happened for a reason, but what reason was there for their deaths? She’d long stop talking, not because there wasn’t anything left to say, but because sometimes talking was too painful. What good did talking do, anyway? It sure as hell wouldn’t change anything.
Whenever she visited their graves, it always reminded her what she was really in this business for, what really fueled her. They were the reasons she’d chosen the life she had. She did this for them. But what had she accomplished? She hadn’t kept her promise to finish what she started, to avenge their deaths. She hadn’t found the target of her hate. She hadn’t looked him in the eyes and made him beg for his life. His time would come, and when it did, she would be heartless in her strike.
“Bless their sweet souls,” a voice said behind her. Ororo turned to face a matronly woman, the deep wrinkles in her face mapping out a story of her life. Her deep brown eyes watered, as she looked down at the graves and then back up at Ororo. “They were so young.”
“Yes, they were.” Ororo agreed softly, trying to keep her own tears from coming.
“I was visiting my husband, George, just a few feet away,” the woman said pointing to Ororo’s left. “I saw you. Such a pretty, young thing with so much on her shoulders. It’s like a shroud of sadness surrounds you, love.”
“You just don’t know,” she said with a sigh. Ororo allowed the first tear to slide down her cheek. She’d never allowed herself to properly grieve their deaths. Oh, she cried for months after they died, but she cried because of her own anger, her own pain. She hadn’t truly cried for them.
“That’s right, dear. Just let it all out. It’s okay to cry. We don’t do enough of it if you ask me. But remember death is not the end,” the woman whispered in her ear.
Ororo talked with the woman a while and found her story amazing. She married her husband during the Great Depression, and she told Ororo they were happy, even though they had nothing. She lost her husband after World War II when some street thugs robbed him, leaving him for dead when he had nothing to offer them. She raised her three children alone, never remarried, and visited her husband’s grave with a dedication that touched Ororo to her very core.
“Love,” the woman started, “love is the glue that keeps us together, that will heal all wounds.”
Those were the woman’s parting words to her. Ororo hadn’t allowed herself to love anyone in a long time. Anger had always been her fuel, not love. Anger would see her through this, not love. She pushed thoughts of love and anger aside. She had an important meeting to attend.
She found herself in one of Sebastian’s meeting room with some of his other “workers” talking tactics. A team mission was being coordinated between herself and some of the others.
Her first team mission had been so many years ago. Shinobi had successfully managed to make somebody angry”not that that surprised anyone. Shinobi pissed off many people, the spoiled brat. What did surprise them, though, was that somebody actually took the time and effort to kidnap Shinobi, selling him to some mutant slave-trading overlord in Thailand.
Ororo had always had the feeling that Sebastian was only partial to Shinobi, but he did make a huge effort to get him back. Ororo believed it was because it was an insult on his power rather than because he really cared that someone had kidnapped Shinobi. She still remembered him pacing and saying, “Nobody challenges Sebastian Shaw.”
Greg had been reluctant to let her in on the mission. Even though the Aiden assassination was a far memory by then, he still worried for her. She remembered him pulling her aside after the meeting. “You’re the only woman going on the inside. You are not obligated to do this, Ororo. I’m not discrediting you in any way. I know that you are a capable woman, but if you don’t want to go, I’ll understand.”
“No, I can do this,” she’d told him. “I was taught by the best, after all.”
“Very well,” a hint of pride showed in his voice. “I respect a woman who isn’t afraid to do something of this caliber. I’m not going to send you in there with any illusions, Ororo. I’m sure you already know this, but I want us to be clear. They’ll see you as easy prey. Keep your wits about you.”
So, she found herself in the Thailand, a thousand miles from home, trying to help save Shinobi. When they found him, he actually had the audacity to ask what took them so long. She hoped the next person that decided to kidnap him dropped him in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, preferably with cement on his feet. Even now, she still felt that way.
She’d moved up from being part of team missions to prepping others from them. She often sat at Greg’s right hand, offering her own pearls of wisdom for Sebastian’s other assassins, acting as a strategy coordinator. She liked the sound of that”strategy coordinator of the assassins.
A group effort was needed for this mission. They were going to infiltrate some large cooperation in Brazil that made something called “rojo” because of its red color, or at least, that was the short name for it. It was some kind of synthetic formula being manufactured in the lab there. They had high expectations that it would be a key element in many new drugs, among other things.
Why Sebastian wanted the drug was unknown to her. Personal reasons, she guessed. He did that from time to time when he was in one of his capricious moods. He had them steal things that didn’t seem to have much merit as far as his greedy agenda was concerned, but she didn’t think the same could be said for this particular mission.
They were only meeting with two members of the team at the moment”the two that Sebastian had put in charge, Lupa and Manuel. Both young, they hadn’t been there nearly as long as she had. She believed that this was their first coordinated operation. At least, for Lupa, it was. Manuel had been on plenty of team missions.
Ororo wondered what Sebastian had been thinking putting Lupa in charge of a team mission when she hadn’t even been on a team mission. Ororo worried that the rest of the team might not work well with her. Lupa had a reputation of trying to be domineering. The last thing anyone wanted was a whole mission botched because Lupa didn’t know how to handle power responsibly.
Ororo had declined the leadership role in this mission. She didn’t want them to become too comfortable with the idea of her as a leader. She was overdue for her chat with Sebastian about leaving, and she didn’t want him getting any smart ideas.
“Trying to take them all out at one time is ambitious, Lupa.” Ororo said to the younger woman sitting across from her “He doesn’t expect you to go in like a one-woman wrecking crew, Lupa.”
“That’s why Sebastian is sending in a team.” Lupa said dryly.
“No, he’s sending a team because he wants this done as efficiently as possible, not as foolishly as possible.” Ororo said, earning herself a nasty look from Lupa, but she didn’t let that discourage her. “Think about how much attention that would attract if you went into a big lab trying to kill everyone to satisfy your own bloodlust. Think practically, Lupa.”
Lupa’s look of contempt only deepened, but Ororo shrugged it off as insignificant. Vashati Zinou, codenamed Lupa, was the closet thing to a werewolf that Ororo had ever seen. She looked like she walked straight off the set of some bad horror movie. She wasn’t completely covered in fur, only her arms were significantly furry, and she never could resist flashing a hint of fang.
She had control over higher-order mammalian animals, and she heard a rumor that Lupa traveled with a pack of “dire wolves.” Ororo decided that she would probably be pretty, if she weren’t always scowling at her. She wondered if she took lessons from Emma, the queen of the scowls. This was how things always were between them, malicious fraught with bitterness. She did know for a fact that Lupa considered herself the better assassin, but she didn’t know where that feeling stemmed from.
Perhaps it came from being the only two female assassins that Sebastian employed. Perhaps it was something more. Ororo had a feeling that Lupa had a thing for Victor and saw her as an obstacle between him and her. Personally, Ororo didn’t have anything against her, but she was never the one to follow the old adage “kill ‘em with kindness.”
“What’s so foolish about it? If you go ahead and eliminate them all, that reduces the threat of them looking for you because they will all be dead. If you pick them off one by one, eventually, they’re going to find you and kill you.”
Ororo laughed. “We’re talking about a billion dollar lab, not some house of assassins. Yes, I’m sure that brute force will be necessary, but killing everyone. That’s just ridiculous and highly improbable. You’ll only get yourself killed in the process.”
“I’d much rather hear what Greg has to say about this since he’s far more experienced.”
“Actually, I have to agree with Ororo. I know you’ve been watching them, right?” Greg said. Manuel nodded, producing papers from a folder. Manuel began to give them meticulous details about the every day lives of the people who worked at the lab.
Manuel de la Roche did most of the surveillance when it came to a team mission. He prided himself on his stalking skills, which were actually somewhat creepy in Ororo’s opinion. He had a tendency to connect to his targets, living his life out vicariously through them. Ororo knew he envied what his targets had, wished he could be part of it. Greg warned him that forming personal attachments to his target would be his downfall.
Because of his incessant need to feel something he didn’t have, he often used his powers, the ability to control the emotions of those around him, for no good most of the time. There were always a gaggle of beautiful women following him who seemed to think that they were “in love.” He couldn’t be happy with that. How much did any of it really matter, if he had to use his powers to keep up the charade?
“I have a question.” Manuel said, looking more serious than Ororo had ever seen him look. “What is rojo?”
Ororo looked at Greg, and his look mirrored her own. This one was really going to go well, especially since Manuel didn’t even know what he was looking for. Ororo rubbed her temples. What was Sebastian thinking? They’d have to send the team to the library archives to find out about the thing before they let them loose on the mission.
“It’s a formula.” Ororo said, explaining to them the advances that science hope they could make with it. “Rojo is just what it’s called because it’s red in color.”
“So, I’m risking my life for some goddamn medicine?” Manuel asked.
“You’ve risked your life for far less, Manny.” Lupa said sarcastically.
“And as far as Sebastian is concerned, that medicine is worth more than your life tenfold.” Greg said, smirking a little.
“What’s so important about it, anyway?” Manuel asked, after he rolled his eyes at Greg.
“I don’t know, but I know that Sebastian really wants it.” Greg answered with a shrug. That much was very true, not just from the setup of a mission, but the way he’d been acting earlier. While he was talking about it, he seemed agitated as if the world would end if they didn’t acquire this formula.
Sebastian had been acted really odd lately. Well, not odd as much as preoccupied. Ororo knew he was busy with work, but he just seemed a little more preoccupied than usual. Maybe, he’d always been that distracted, and she just never noticed. She didn’t think so. He didn’t even yell at his staff as much as he usually did.
Meetings where Lupa was present never went well with her, but at least, Lupa waited until after the meeting to act like a complete bitch. There was some exchange of words. Lupa accused her of being “incompetent” of all things because of what happened with Cameron. “If you don’t watch out, you may find yourself replaced.” Then, she made sure to exert her authority as one of the leaders of the mission.
Lupa turned on her heel, marching out of the office. Ororo clenched her fists starting after her, but Manuel blocked her path. “If you don’t… oh…” Ororo trailed off in mid-sentence. She felt different all of the sudden. Chasing Lupa was the furthest thing from her mind. All she could think about was Manuel. And was it her imagination or did Manuel get handsomer in the last five minutes?
No, these feelings weren’t real. Manuel was making her feel this way about him. She closed her eyes and shook her head, exerting some level of authority over her emotions. She opened her eyes again and glared at Manuel.
“Manny, are you fucking with my emotions?” she asked brusquely, furrowing her eyebrows at him. The lopsided grin he gave her confirmed that he was. “How many times have I told you not to do that?”
“Hey, I was just trying to keep you from killing Lupa,” he said with a shrug.
“By making me think that you’re the most desirable man on earth?” she asked. “Couldn’t you have just calmed my nerves or something?”
“Whatever works, right?”
“Do that again, and I’m going to hurt you.”
“You said that last time.”
“Fine! Do that again, and I’ll get Victor to hurt you.”
“Now that’s just cruel and unusual.”
“Whatever works, right?” Ororo said, mimicking his earlier words.
When Ororo arrived at home, she immediately started dressing for her night out with Jean. Jean was going to kill her, if she was late. The meeting lasted longer than she thought. She thought she had a good chance of being on time, even if she was pressed for time, but things never went as planned. Victor showed up while she was putting the finishing touches on her hair. What else could turn her day upside down? She wondered silently.
“Where ya going?” he demanded.
“Not now, Vic. You know I’m meeting my friend for dinner.” Ororo said, looking at herself in the bathroom mirror.
“Don’t go.”
“I have to go or my best friend might disown me.”
“So.”
“So? So!” she started, but stopped. How was she supposed to explain something like loyalty and friendship to Victor? The only reason he showed any loyalty to Sebastian was because he was the only person willing to meet his ridiculous fee for his “talents.” She didn’t know if she could consider him loyal to her; that was something she preferred not to think about. “I’m going. End of discussion.”
She tried to ignore his fingertips running over her bare arms and the way they made skin tingle. She tried to ignore the look in his eyes when he hooked the thin strap of her dress over one claw. Before she could utter a warning, he snapped the strap of her dress with ease. “Oops, looks like you’re goin’ to be late,” he said.
“Victor!” she shouted. She turned to him, mustering up her best glare. “Is sex all you think about?”
She always asked him that jokingly, if sex was the only thing he thought about, but at that moment, she meant it. What did she expect him to say to her? She’d never went into that relationship”relationship being a very loose word in their case”expect to turn him into some kind of merry homemaker. She was smart enough to know that Victor’s brain worked on three modes”eat, kill, and fuck.
Why was she choosing now to express some kind of disdain with the way things were between them? She’d never had a complaint before, and for the most part, she believed that she was quite content with the way things were between them. Yeah, the emotional void was there, but it wasn’t something she let eat away from her.
I should just drop this; there’s nothing wrong with the way things are now, she said to herself. She was going to fuck it all up, if she didn’t close her mouth. Then, she’d be back at square one, an empty bed, but she couldn’t back down. She started this, and she would see it through… maybe.
“There is more to life than sex,” she continued.
“Whaddya mean there’s more to life than sex?” Victor asked, staring at her as if she just told him that cows would no longer be slaughtered for his eating enjoyment.
“I mean we can’t keep doing this. Don’t you want something more substantial in your life than an occasional fuck?” she asked, searching his eyes, trying to make him understand.
“Never really thought about it.” He shrugged indifferently. And she had no reason to believe otherwise. Victor was a pretty straightforward guy, and she was sure that he didn’t sit down and analyze the relationships he maintained. She knew he would say that was something women did to make themselves miserable instead of enjoying the ride.
“I have, and I don’t know if I want to do this anymore, Vic. I don’t know if this is right.”
“Of course, it’s right, babe. Your pussy fits my dick like a glove. If that ain’t right, I don’t know what is,” he said, wrapping his arms around her. He added a slap to her butt to make his point.
“Once again, your finesse with words never ceases to amaze me,” she said sarcastically, pushing him away as she back to the mirror. She plucked up her ripped strap between her forefinger and thumb, trying in vain to salvage it.
“What crawled up your ass an’ died?”
“I’ve just been doing some thinking lately. That’s all,” she said, catching his eyes in the mirror. “Do we really care about each other? If we didn’t sleep together, would we still like one another?”
“I’d destroy this world for you,” he whispered in her ear, his breath moving up her neck, teasing like a cool breeze. She swallowed hard when his fingers brushed against the nape of her neck, slowly creeping around her throat, a brutish show of possession. “You know you want me to.”
Goddess, what was she doing with him? Some games, she reasoned to herself, should never be played, but she didn’t protest when he deftly snapped the other strap, the silk ticking her skin as it slid away from her body like water washing over her. He grabbed her arms a little too roughly, turning her to face him again, pushing back her neck. Rough whiskers scraped the smooth skin of her neck, causing a sigh to escape from barely parted lips.
Sometimes, she let herself believe that he might bite her, and maybe she wanted him to.He nipped her bottom lip too hard, following up with a soft swipe of his tongue. Then, his lips crushed hers, bruising, almost paining, and she grabbed his shirt in her hands, knotting the material between her hands. This is all wrong, she told herself, but she bunched his shirt up tighter in her hands until she was almost ripping it away from his body. She wouldn’t deny him.
Maybe, he was right. Maybe, he wasn’t. Did it matter really?
“Well… Jean won’t mind if I’m a little late.”
”””
Jean was pacing in the foyer, ranting to anyone who would listen. “Ororo knows I hate to be late, and doesn’t she know how hard it is to get a table at Arpége?” she said to no one in particular. He leaned casually against one of the stairwell banisters. He had convinced himself that he wasn’t waiting to see Ororo. Nope, not at all. He was keeping Jean company, so she wouldn’t look stupid complaining to an empty room.
When she finally arrived, he saw her shoes first, those stiletto “come fuck me” heels that made your eyes want to travel farther up. Her legs were shapely and long, seeming impossibly long in his eyes. Her legs seem to go on for days leading up to the kind of hips a man could hold on to all night.
She was wearing a little, white number that dipped too low in the front, and when she turned around, he saw it dipped too low in the back, as well. She wore it like a second skin. A split in the dress threatened to expose one powerful thigh, and she didn’t seem the least bit concerned that she could cause the second coming in that dress.
She almost made him wished he’d thought to change the threadbare white shirt”one that had seen better days, possibly better years”he’d been wearing while working on his bike. She offered him a Mona Lisa smile, tossing her mane over her shoulder, when she caught him staring. Apparently, she wasn’t against a little ego stroking.
Strong perfume threatened to overpower her own earthy smell, making his nose twitch slightly, as she passed by him. Why did women feel the need to put on a gallon of perfume when their own smell was good enough? Beneath it all, he smelled the faint scent of a man. He hadn’t thought much about her being with someone, especially not after she kissed him. That wasn’t something a woman with another man did, unless she was looking for trouble.
“Where have you been?” Jean asked exasperated.
“Sorry I’m late. Wardrobe malfunction,” Ororo said with a slight chuckle.
After a few words of reprimand, Jean excused herself from the foyer to search for her purse. There was light conversation between them. The spoken words didn’t matter much. The only thing that mattered was the soundless conversation they carried on. Their bodies said everything their mouths couldn’t.
He knew he shouldn’t get caught up in her game. Despite what she did or who she did it to, she was still a woman, and she still knew how to appeal to all the right sides of his manhood. She touched him once during the course of their talk, her fingers brushing against his wrist, heating his skin like an unseen stigmata. Then, she leaned into him for no particular reason at all.
Then, there was that brief pause in time when he was sure that she was going to kiss him again. Light musical notes skittered on the air, and the moment was gone. She cleared her throat and put a relative amount of space between them. She pulled a small, black cell phone from her purse, rolling her eyes at it slightly. She held a finger up to him. “I have to take this,” she said, moving further away from him.
She flipped open the phone slowly, putting it to her ear. “Hello,” she breathed into the phone with the perfect amount of dispassion, indifference with just a hint of bewitchery. The voice that came roaring from the other end didn’t sound so bewitched. He wasn’t quite able to make out all the words, but the irritation behind the voice was unmistakable.
That must be the other guy. She didn’t seem shaken by the yelling. She sighed into the phone. Her own annoyance a silent reaction, as the voice on the other end continued to vary between differing degrees of shouting. Her expression changed from the annoyance to quiet anger, but she didn’t raise her voice.
“I’m not…” she whispered, looking around. Her eyes grazed his for a second before she looked away.
He wasn’t eavesdropping. Nope, not really. He couldn’t help it that he had very good hearing. What was he supposed to do? Interrupt her conversation and tell her that he could hear everything?
“…your wife! Stop treating me like I am,” she finished despite the noise from her phone.
There was always the option of just leaving. He stood stock-still in place. An option didn’t mean he had to do it. It meant he had the option of doing so if he wanted to. Quite frankly, he was comfortable where he was standing. It didn’t have anything to do with her.
“What is your problem tonight? I started this? What? No! There is no other man.”
Maybe”just maybe”if he moved a few inches closer he could make sense of what the other person was saying. But he would only do that if he were eavesdropping. Right now, he was just doing what the kids referred to as “ear hustling.” That sounded so much better than “eavesdropping,” in his opinion.
“I was just voicing” Why do you always wait until after you’ve slept with me to start the drama? I don’t seem to remember you asking all these questions after we… Oh, you will listen to me bitch and moan. You’re the one who called me with this bull””
The expressions on her face teetered between angry and almost passive at times, but she continued to hold that steady, calm voice; almost as if she feared cracking if she raised her voice. What kind of guy would call and start drama over a frigging cell phone? He was a firm believer in talking to a person face to face, if he had a problem.
“No, I won’t come back right now. I had one father in this life, and his name was not Victor. When I’m done, I’ll let you know.”
“That’s not going to work because you wouldn’t do that,” she paused, a dramatic gasp coming from her lips. “You’d better not. Don’t you dare touch my Amaryllis or so help you goddess…”
Then, she smirked a little, crinkling her eyebrows. All the anger seemed to dissipate from her face, just as quickly as it had formed, like a summer storm. “You’ll break my knees the next time I try to leave. Oh, is that so? I’ll keep that in mind.” She was actually amused by that. He wasn’t aware the threat of physical violence was amusing.
Jean came rushing down the stairs, barely giving Ororo time to hang up her cell phone as she pulled Ororo out the door. She did somehow manage to turn to give him a wave before she left.
”””
Victor told her that he would break her knees next time she left when he didn’t want her, too. Threats from Victor weren’t to be taken lightly. She knew that it would suit him fine to break her legs if she pissed him off, but she hadn’t taken him seriously. There’d been something joking in his voice, as if he was using his own brand of “humor” to smooth things over.
But she’d been honest with him. There was no other man. Kissing Logan didn’t mean there was “another man,” right? They weren’t together. She kissed him because she felt like it. It hadn’t meant a thing. Just like it hadn’t meant a thing that she decided to wear that particular dress. Just like it didn’t mean anything that she thought she might kiss him, again, right there in the mansion.
She had to give Victor more credit, though. Aside from hot sex, she generally thought of him as rather mindless, incapable of complex thought. No, she didn’t think he was incapable of it, but she felt that he much rather operate on the basest of all levels because it was much easier. There wasn’t another man, but he sensed something that had something do with another man. That broke the norm of his everyday, habitual thought process.
They always joked about her being with other men, but it had always been just that”a joke. However, when he called her about this “other man,” she knew at that moment that he would never tolerate it. Not that she had any intentions of being with another man. She just could handle one. What would she do with two?
This was a very serious turn in their relationship. She had never given much thought to Victor being with other women, and she never thought he’d given much serious thought to being with other men. They both agreed that they had fun. This wasn’t anything they were pursuing seriously. At least, that was the impression that she was under. So, what was with this sudden covetousness, the sudden demand to know where she was?
She might’ve been flattered, if she wanted something more with him, if she really was trying to make him jealous. This was just another reminder that she never knew what was going on in his head. Maybe, she should take a break from him, from men in general. Men were lunatics, anyway, and they couldn’t blame it on PMS like women could.
She wouldn’t think about it, anymore. It wasn’t fair to think about Victor when she was trying to have a decent meal with Jean.
Dinner with Jean was always something she enjoyed; it gave her some semblance of normalcy, however false that was. It allowed her to pretend that she was just a working woman, a woman who found a little time for her friend because of her busy work schedule. With Jean, she talked about things that seemed so trivial when she tried to discuss them with people who knew what she did.
She was allowed to be lighthearted with Jean. Life was simple with Jean. Except, sometimes, Jean was a little too inquisitive. Did she blame Jean? No, she didn’t. In fact, she found it amazing that Jean never mentioned how weird it was that she didn’t speak much about her life. They were always talking about things at the mansion or something totally unrelated to their lives.
Perhaps, Jean had noticed. Jean was more perceptive than she let on, but she never called Ororo out. It was incredible that she managed to stay such good friends with Jean despite the widening divide between them. She felt that Jean knew her better than most people, even if there was a black area of her life that she felt she couldn’t share with Jean.
But Jean’s perceptiveness reared its head while they were dining. They were making small talk while they perused the menu. “What company do you work for, Ororo?” Jean asked, changing the subject abruptly.
She hadn’t expected her question, but she didn’t let it rattle her, not physically, anyway. She worked hard at portraying the perfect picture of emotionless. Sure, it had been part of her training, but it wasn’t where the practice originated. She learned a long time ago how to keep her emotions in check due to a mutation that could easily mirror any instability of her emotions, if she didn’t control it, which could translate into a very bad thing for everyone.
“I work for Shaw Enterprises.” Ororo said, nonchalantly, never missing a beat. She tried to make it sound as non-threatening as possible. She knew that Jean would ask this question, eventually, and she’d been practicing for ten years to get the insouciance down perfectly.
She thought it was a funny question for Jean to suddenly ask, and she wondered if Logan had spoken to Jean about what he knew. She dismissed that thought, though. If he had told Jean, she would’ve known. Jean would’ve talked to her about it… or rather lectured her, a habit that she picked up from Scott.
“You mean Shaw as in Sebastian Shaw.” Jean said, lowering her voice, as if she were speaking about some unmentionable subject.
She knew that the X-Men had their fair share of run-ins with Sebastian and the rest of the Hellfire Club, but this ill sentiment toward Sebastian wasn’t limited to the X-Men or even mutants. He’d gained notoriety in every aspect of his life, and everyone seemed to have a reason to hate him. She didn’t deny that it was deserved, though.
“Yes, that would be him,” she said. Jean was staring at her disapprovingly. “What did I just grow a third eye?” That was meant to be a joke, but Jean didn’t laugh.
“How can you work for someone like Sebastian Shaw?” Jean asked.
“Just like thousands of other people work for him. I get up in the morning, I shower, I dress, I go to work, and then I go home.” Ororo said calmly. She knew where this conversation was about to go, and she was trying to avoid that route.
“Ororo, don’t you know about the things he does?” she asked.
“I am aware of the allegations that many people have brought against him.”
“Allegations?” Jean said, sounding almost outraged. “He would sell his own flesh and blood to get what he wants.”
“Everyone has something he or she secretly coveted, something he or she would do anything to obtain, even if they had to sell their own flesh and blood.” Ororo said softly. People didn’t like to admit things like that. It was like admitting that you are capable of hating. People don’t like to deal with hate. They much rather it fade into the shadows so they can go on living the doldrums of their everyday life.
“You don’t honestly believe that.”
Ororo couldn’t say what she honestly believed that. She’d seen many people who were willing to do anything to achieve some goal, herself included. She can’t say that she’d obtained her ultimate goal in life, and she probably never would. She could say that she knew what it was like to want something so badly that you’d do whatever you had to do. Whether that had someone to do with one’s own selfishness, one’s own weakness, or both, she wasn’t sure about.
“Let’s not spoil dinner by talking about work.” Ororo said, looking down at her menu. That wasn’t a conversation that she wanted to have with Jean. She wouldn’t say she outright lied to Jean, but she picked the information that she fed Jean carefully. She could feel Jean’s disapproving stare, a silent reproach. “Look, I’m getting some time off soon. Maybe we can take that vacation we talked about.”
She wanted to ask Jean if things were any better with Scott, but she didn’t want to give Jean anything else to be bitter about. If Jean wanted her to know what was going on, she would tell her. Rocky relationships were a fragile thing to discuss in her opinion, and she didn’t want Jean to feel like she was prying. Besides, Jean’s face had actually brightened, and she wanted to keep her in a good mood.
They managed to get through dinner without the subject of Sebastian Shaw coming up again, a welcome relief on Ororo’s part. After dinner, Jean linked arms with hers as they walked out of the restaurant. “There’s somewhere I want to take you, a club that I just happened to find,” she said
Twenty minutes later Ororo found herself taking a familiar beaten path, and she hoped silently that they weren’t going where she thought they were going. “There it is.” Jean said, her eyes gleaming a bit. The Kurogaisha. The club was too exclusive, too sordid, for Jean to happen to “wander” upon it.
“I’ve heard about this place and the things that go inside of there. This isn’t the type of place that you just happen to know about.” Ororo said, evenly, making sure not to betray that she knew the place intimately.
“An old friend mentioned it. He said something about it being very private, but that I wouldn’t regret checking it out.”
“Trust me when I say this. You wouldn’t want to waste your time on this place.”
“And how would you know?” Jean asked. The question didn’t hold any hint of anger. It was just curious, and Ororo had a bad feeling that she was being duped by her best friend, that maybe Jean knew more than she was saying.
“I…” Ororo trailed, not knowing how to answer that question exactly. She could say that she’d been to the club before, but then Jean would want to know why she didn’t say that in the beginning. And if it wasn’t the kind of place that was on the up and up, why had Ororo visited to begin with?
“That guy is staring at you.” Jean said, pointing behind Ororo. Ororo turned and saw one of the bouncers, Bruce, looking her way. He started waving, and she sent an awkward smile his way before turning back to Jean. “Do you know him?”
“It must be some mistake.”
“Must be.” Jean said, not sounding too convinced.
“Let’s just go. I have to work in the morning, anyway.” Ororo said, hoping Jean hadn’t paid too much attention. Jean didn’t argue with her much with the suggestion, as Ororo had expected her to, further convincing her that there was something more to this trip. Jean didn’t mention anything more, so Ororo didn’t mention anything.
Disaster avoided… for now…
”””
Author’s Notes: Excuse any mistakes. I was really tired when I looked over this. Sorry it took so long to update. Both of our computers decided to die at the same time, and then I had some things in my personal life to attend to. The significant other and I built a computer together, so we could dictate how it performed, and well… my personal life will never be sorted out.
This chapter changed from its original format a bit, which is why it isn’t titled as I said it would be last chapter. Many things changed in this fic while I had some down time to think about it causing an outline rewrite. Good news, though. The next chapter is done. I’ll post it in a day or two when I’ve had the chance to look over it. And thanks everyone for your reviews and hanging in there. LOL.
Special thanks to my buddy, Nick, for his pearls of “wisdom.” ;) How would I have ever made it through this chapter without you?
I made up a name for Lupa, since I don’t remember her having one besides Lupa in the comics. Manuel de la Roche is the mutant known as Empath. Name of the restaurant mentioned borrowed from one of the restaurants on the “most expensive” list in Forbes. What? I like Forbes magazine.
Chapter title comes from “Man-size Sextet.”
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Next Chapter: Entr'acte: Three Can Keep A Secret
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