2013-01-21 Sooner Perhaps

The hour is late. It hasn't been long since the Blackbird landed, following a secretive, ground breaking, and most of all, questionable operation in the Middle East. Most of the children are asleep, and the mansion is utterly quiet, save for a few things happening in the state of the art catacombs beneath the ground.
"You would not be so undahstanding if I was walking around de complex naked."
Kwabena Odame is clearly not in the best of moods, and the shorter medic following behind him sputters a bit. "Mister Odame. I am just trying to point out, I mean, clearly this -costume- you procured isn't best suited to your particular mutant abilities. I can't say, and really, you should speak with Mister Hank about this, but..."
Kwabena spins about, glowering at the younger lady. "I will not--!" But then he stops, blinking his eyes owlishly. "I apologize. I will speak with Dr. McCoy. I promise." He offers her a pleasant smile, though that smile does not reach a set of eyes that have changed quite a bit over the past weeks. "But I am not going to remove de costume. I am sure de burns will heal in time. I promise to do what you have asked. Now, if you'll excuse me, I could use a smoke after all dis."
Blink blink. "Sir, cigarettes are not-"
Kwabena shoots up a gloved hand, shakes his head, then begins walking toward the secret entrance to the underground base.
|"Naked wouldn't be so bad."|
It's a voice from the recent past, though it may feel like longer. It certainly does to the kunoichi herself, esconced within what little shadow lies between Kwabena Odame and his waiting nicotine fix. Betsy has put little effort into the pomp of her return-- the mansion *is* predominantly sleeping, and she's waited for the moment that she knew this would be the case, lying low at the fringe of the grounds and watching for the time being. Reflecting on all that has happened, and all that must now occur. She's still running it through her mind when she drops from the gloom, resplendent in her familiar purple attire as she lands in a three-point, spreadeagled crouch before the man she so brutally, painfully betrayed...
There's a moment where she almost appears predatory, before she rises to her feet, hands falling to her side and head tipping aside in a gesture as much inquisitive as it is disarmingly friendly.
"Don't look so surprised," she speaks aloud, clipped British tone quiet - but echoing, nonetheless, from the cold metal corridor, "I wanted to bring you here, originally, because I knew they'd accept you. Because they accept anybody like you; like us. I've not been kept away. Though as of this particular moment," she pauses to eke out a bittersweet smile, glancing up along the corridor toward the brighter lights within. Toward the central core of the complex where, surely, at least one other is already aware of her presence within this place. "I believe they should think about changing the access codes more often. After what I did..."
She doesn't finish the sentence, leaving her sentiment hanging for the Ghanaian to observe or otherwise; though it should take relatively little to draw the conclusion. Her brow is furrowed, violet eyes rampant with conflict still after so long - though a portion of her old strength has clearly returned, the incursion and escape from Latveria has cost Psylocke dear. Most notably, in the conclusion she has drawn and returned to address with those to whom it matters most...
That she doesn't deserve to be an X-Man.
There's a shake of Betsy's head, before she adds, politely:
"How have you been, my friend?"
A gloved hand of gunmetal gray is already digging into the inside pocket of a black leather riding jacket, when all thought of Kwabena's impending nicotine fix is stunted by the voice in his mind. It is like a distant memory, a dream both long forgotten and yet impossible to forget, wound up inside of him in a manner that should not be so surprising.
Any thought of a clever response to Betsy's telepathic memory is stopped somewhere in that barrier between brain and mouth, the one erected by the efforts of surprise. His hand slowly emerges from within the jacket, sans cigarette, and it hovers in a slow downfall until she rights herself. Only when she speaks up with her own, natural voice does the telltale sign of a smirk find itself at the corner of the African's mouth.
"Just because you have seen it doesn't mean everyone -else- gets to see it," he quips in response.
However, silence becomes him when she continues. Her explanation wasn't needed, but it was warranted. He nods his head, follows her glance, then looks back to his oldest friend with a certain irony in the fact that, his oldest friend was one he'd known for such a sadly short period.
Her question goes unanswered for the moment, for Kwabena had indeed picked up, at least in part, the meaning of her silence. "Dere are many people who might feel de same way," he intones with a heavily accented voice, spoken so quietly. Indeed, there is a particular coldness upon the edges of his usually carefree tone, a coldness rendered by the memory of the dozens he slaughtered in the middle east. How long had it taken to scrub the blood from his face? Not until it had crusted over under the baking sun of Mureybet, against flesh burned and charred from war.
"Their opinions may not matter," he follows up, and reaches with hand to try and find hers. "It is good to see you," he says, offering a bit of former warmth that has not yet been killed by the severity of his actions on the other side of the planet. "I am... doing well."
There's no comfort from the lingering thought-demons besetting Betsy Braddock; though if any were capable of offering it, Kwabena might be amongst them. That he forgives her enough to even allow this approach - to not react as anything other than a friend reunited - already goes some way to assuaging the worst of her flagellative guilt. The recent stain upon her own hands... that has made little odds aside from a return to purpose. An assurance that she's not all bad, after all.
Even if she is a killer. That's a darkness she has come to readily accept.
"Everybody's opinion matters," she smoothly, gently counters when Kwabena reaches for her hand. She doesn't fight the gesture; giving herself over, instead, with a slow unfurling of dextrous fingertips. There are fresh callouses upon her palm, brushing against the Ghanaian's own before her fingers tighten and replace harshness with warmth. A warmth indeed, that softens her tone as she finishes, "We've all an angel and devil inside."
Violet eyes seek his gaze with a probing insistence that's far more genuine, heartfelt, that any telepathic trespass could ever be. She's careful not to even read the surface of his thoughts themselves-- seeking the truth from his own lips, and in his own words. His own stare. What he offers, and what she hears, is all that she needs to release herself from the tenterhooks upon which she's balanced since she first caught glimpse of his approach - and sought the shadows.
"I'm glad. That's... all I ever wanted."
She claimed to be selfish, was accused of it and accepted, but there was always a purpose beyond and above the very mercenary nature of humanity. Inside the selfishly-wrought limitations of victory was a need and desire to see all of her allies not just safe but better for her efforts. To find sanctuary at last for him - to find Blink a home from home, if not her home itself. While it could never be so simple, she believes what the Ghanaian tells her. It doesn't take a psychic to read between the lines, and see the complexity behind his statement...
Complexity makes it no less honest.
"But perhaps one other thing. About what happened." Frowning more deeply, she pauses to gnaw upon her lower lip, flesh reddening as it's sucked between her teeth. Violet eyes dance with momentary conflict, before she lifts her chin with a toss of her head. Her one hand keeps its firm and pleasant grip, but the other rises to toy uncertainly with the purple strands at the nape of her neck. "Can we move beyond it? I could never forget what I did, or..." Or what she saw him do. They've not spoken of it; had no chance, and yet... "But it's something that should be behind us."
Josh is headed down the corridor toward the medical bay, hoping perhaps to find Broo there. Lately the little guy had been hiding under the beds in there, though it seemed he was beginning to come to terms with the traumatic experience Josh had accidentally imparted to him, thankfully. He's even offered to teach the teen everything he knows about xenobiology, which would be quite helpful.
Anyway, he runs into Kwabena. "Oh, Kwabena. Hey..." But then he realizes he's with a lady he doesn't know, and they are touching in an affectionate manner, or at least appear to be. Oops. Awkward. "Um...oh, uh...sorry. I...didn't mean to interrupt."
In another world, another life, one fashioned of lies and technology, Kwabena Odame was more than a killer. That he has taken the lives of countless others is not in question, nor is his stance amongst morality, for with every soldier he so brutally killed in the middle east, indeed, a family may have been saved. That bloodshed was not regretted.
However, in that other life, he put a gun to Betsy Braddock's head, and pulled the trigger. In another life, he blew her brain upon the wall, simply to get a narcotic fix. In that life, he is more than pathetic.
It's a demon he has had the time to wrestle with. All of the hatred that he once piled upon himself has now found a target both safe and unsatisfied in the visage of Victor von Doom. A man whom, in his darkest of dreams, dies at his own vengeful hand. Yet those unhandled demons sleep safely, for he's found other things upon which to bend his spirit. For good or ill, this is who Kwabena has become, and only time may tell what comes of the festering of those demons.
"You're right," he answers. "We do. And I don't think we can -evah- keep either of dem from affecting us, at least in some way. I think... I think what matters is which one we allow to have more of a powah over us. I hope you undahstand what I mean."
There is a brief reprieve from the heavier conversation, and while the Ghanaian holds his friend's hand tightly, he motions about with his eyes in that old familiar way. "You should have seen de look on Jubilation's face when she saw me here. Ororo wasn't nearly as surprised, but Jubilation?" A grin comes to bear. "De girl has quite de heart."
However, such matters are short lived. At first, Kwabena is not entirely sure to what incident Betsy is speaking of. However, when it becomes clear to him, the African reaches to catch the other hand that is toying with her hair, bringing it down as he steps closer to what should be an embrace. The look in his eyes tells her not to go on about that, and there is a silence that lingers for a moment before he speaks. "Let dat be behind us, for none of it was real," he offers. "De only thing..."
His voice trails off as he remembers the last moment before their lives were turned upside down at the hands of a treacherous dictator. The moment when she, in her apology, offered one tangible thing that may have kept him alive through the ordeal. His eyes haven't strayed from hers, and what should have been an embrace changes. He moves closer, as if to kiss the woman in a much different way that she had him in Latveria.
Instead, the needle is torn and the orchestra halted. With a fluttering of eyelids, Kwabena's head darts to the side and his eyes fall upon Josh. A gasp forms, and he steps back reactively, for the moment flustered. "What... Joshua?" he spits out, but is unable to form any other tangible words for the moment.
The battle 'twixt darkness and light is one that Psylocke has inwardly waged for some months now, if not since she first discovered the person she might be - and might be capable of being. That dichotomous existence of a mutant only enforces her belief in the very human principles of right and wrong, that no man or woman can be wholly one or the other. Not solely through subjectivity; but because it's impossible to meet one's own standards, however impeccable. Temptation waits, lurking in the pitch of the subconscious, and all hold violence in their heart somewhere...
It's part of what it means to be an animal, slave to the primal even through evolution. By the same auspice that feeds hunger, and carnal lust. As she voiced to that looming figure of Doom, in the forbidding depths of his palace, it also builds friendship; trust and love.
Hardest to accept, that even someone like Jubilee has that devil inside of her. A perilous thought that Betsy evades in the now as she smiles softly at the utterance of the mallrat's name, suppressing a laugh only due to the dwelling gravity of this reunion. She's lost sight of many things of late - one, that her return promises more than difficulty and anxiety. While the news she may bear could be hard to break to the spunky Ameri-Chinese girl, she's among those with whom a meeting could only otherwise bring pleasant things.
"She's definitely got--" Her smile freezes, the fidgeting hand halting in the moment before it's seized. Violet eyes lid momentarily, then peer smokily and cautiously upward to meet the inbound Ghanaian. "Heart." Finishing her sentence in a near-whisper, she's aware of the interruption just before it comes, though a part of her mind is already begging it not to - a very different part to that telling her to immediately pull away. The latter comes too late.
The former can't do enough without causing a seriously unwanted ruckus. Kwabena steps back as she relaxes her posture, breathing a sigh but not removing her attention from the Ghanaian. Her response to him comes with an unharried assurance, verbal now rather than physical.
"It *was* all real, but to accept that and move beyond, to recognize what it truly meant..." Drawing a shuddering breath, she glances from Kwabena with some wealth of effort - as though tearing her violet eyes away, blinking rapidly as they come to alight instead upon the gold-skinned mutant who's come upon them. In what is, she quickly and rather obviously reasons, his home as well. "That's what makes us better people."
She finishes distractedly, distantly, though with no less resonance as she meets the embarassed Elixir with a measure - again - of that familiar confidence. Betsy's never had trouble meeting her fellows, mutant or no, never been an outcast in the sense so many of their 'kind' have.
"I think, perhaps, we needed to be interrupted," she opines with a less-than-furtive glance toward Kwabena, lips pulling into a teasing half-grin that's as playful as it is - on a level she doubted she'd be capable of, today - happy. But her attention is swiftly back on Elixir, along with the extension of a hand. "Betsy. Or Psylocke, if we're trading codenames. Hello."
Josh stands there awkwardly for a moment as Kwabena is at a loss for words. But then the woman breaks the silence with an introduction. Ah, that's better. The embarrassment disappears. He smiles politely and takes the handshake. "Josh." he responds, nodding. "Nice to meet you, Betsy. Sorry to have interrupted you two."
What exactly it possibly could have all meant, even Kwabena doesn't really know. His former brooding has given way to action and purpose, perhaps in an unhealthy way; he hasn't truly recovered from Latveria, he has only -moved on-.
That may come back to haunt him.
Regardless of how difficult it is to notice a black man (especially one with so dark a complexion as Kwabena) blushing, Kwabena manages it. One gloved hand rises to scratch awkwardly at the back of his bald head, only to peel away with a wince. The first degree burns may be healing, but his skin is still a bit tender in some places where he was injured in the middle east.
"Perhaps you're right," he asides to Betsy, though his gaze lingers upon her for the briefest of moments - long enough to deduce that, perhaps, their unfinished business is to remain unfinished for a while. Perhaps a long while.
"Don't worry about dat, Josh." Kwabena finally turns away from Betsy, perhaps letting an encouraging and comforting gaze linger upon her for a moment. "Just old friends who have not seen each other for some few weeks." He motions toward Josh while canting his attention back toward Psylocke. "Joshua may be able to use his mutagenic ability to help fix my ailment," he points out. "Dough I feel we must bring dis to de attention of Doctah McCoy before proceeding." He looks back toward Josh pointedly at that.
Sometimes, all one can do is keep moving. Life is like that.
"Josh," echoes the kunoichi, her grip as firm as might be expected from one who spends an unreasonable quantity of time training for combat. Outwardly, she's as pleasant as her parents wish she'd been when she was a scrappy, distractable tomboy - but there's surely a great deal more to Betsy than just pleasantries. There's a certain aura in those violet eyes, a keenness as she measures Elixir with her gaze, discernable even through the clouds of disturbed emotion.
"A new student?" She enquires, briefly looking once more to Kwabena at the quantity of explanation he offers. Along with that simultaneously over- and understated statement that speaks heaps... whilst saying almost nothing. There's a sparkle in her eye at that, a momentary re-flaring of the grin from a few seconds before. "'Old friends'. Something like that."
"You're a healer," she remarks on turning back to the gold-skinned mutant, mischief gone in favour of open interest. There's still an anxious, nagging part of her muttering something about wounds that can't be healed, but there's no denying the asset someone of such gifts would be to the team. With the very physical injuries they all bear. "That must make you very popular; I'm sure there's nobody around here who'd begrudge you the occasional... interruption."
Maybe it's not gone, after all. It's the first time she's felt like a *person* in what feels a long time.
"Um, replace that 'may be able' with 'will be able'." Josh says teasingly, winking at Kwabena, though he looks slightly disappointed at having to ask Dr. McCoy first. He sighs. "Oh, /fine/. But I mean, it's not like you're an alien, anything." he protests.
He nods at Betsy. "A healer, yeah. Mostly. I can deal damage if I want to, but try to stay away from that if it's at all possible." Usually it is possible, since he can typically just cause the a troublemaker to pass out or fall asleep instead of killing them.
A simple nod is provided in explanation that yes, Josh is a new student to the institute. Perhaps more, the Ghanaian had managed to intone, though he himself hasn't been made aware of the particulars behind how the gold-skinned mutant found his way here.
A similar grin flares upon Kwabena's features, for he and Betsy had shared a great many things in the impossibly short time they had known each other. "Betsy here is responsible for my being here," he offers, while looking back to the younger mutant. "In many ways."
By way of explanation, he offers, "I believe he said it was called 'Biogenic manipulation'. Am I right?"
Following any offered explanations, he looks back to Betsy. There is a brief silence, for there were many things that could, and should, be said. However, in lieu of such things, he merely offers a warm smile and says, "I am glad you have returned."
Another look is given to Josh, but he doesn't speak about why the youngster is up so late. Instead, he reaches for his pack of smokes, taps one out, then nods his head to those who have gathered. "If you both would excuse me..."
Responsible. It's something Psylocke is loathe to consider herself, in light of all that's occurred; no matter what amends she might have begun to make in the past few weeks spent globetrotting in search of truth and justice. They've shared so much, yes, she and the Ghanaian - but what else has she exposed him to? For now, she holds to the hope that the good outweights the sinister, that their personal tribulations have at least led him to something greater-than.
"But the path you've walked is your own, Kwabena."
That comes quiet, reflective as much as it is advice for his own reflection. The original intent that she not take credit for the good he achieves, for himself and for others, finds itself conflicting with the accompanying possibility that she *can't* be blamed for all the ill; no matter how much she may have believed she should be, or how she might wish to take it upon herself. Whether for ease or some decadent, self-destructive desire. In spite of any lingering shade, she smiles anyway, while realizing - too - if she is glad, herself.
It remains to be seen, she quickly decides. But she feels... better. More whole.
"Your abilities sound interesting. I'd say I can't wait for a demonstration but-- well," she laughs, a breezy thing so natural she surprises herself, a warm flush seeping into her cheeks before she can prevent it. It's a rather different blush to Kwabena's earlier, though. "Around here I doubt I'll have to. Not long, at any rate. For now I..."
A glance flickers between both her fellow mutants, then off down the corridor leading deeper into the complex. At the heart of which lies the pivotal conversation that decides her fate: as an X-Man, if nothing else. She draws breath, and restores her smile.
"I've got to see a man about a dog. I'll see you both soon, I'm sure."
Violet eyes find Kwabena at the last, flooding once more with so many emotions - but a pleasure and passion overriding the conflict and the pain now. As she starts to move away, and as he does the same, there's one last sparkle in the corner of one eye.
"*Sooner*, perhaps. Stay healthy."
Josh nods at Kwabena's explanations regarding Betsy. "Oh, so you two are like, dating." And then they are parting ways. Well, it was about time he got back to looking for Broo, he supposed. He should now also look for Dr. McCoy as well, probably.
"It was nice meeting you, Psylocke. Just remember, if you ever need to be brought back from the brink of death or something, let me know." he jokes, winking.
As they all move to depart, Kwabena looks toward Josh with a glimmer of mirth in his mismatched eyes. He makes it a point to lean toward the youngster, a quiet murmur of advice coming from him. "Not... in the slightest, young man."
He pats the gold-skinned mutant on the shoulder, before making for the secret base's secret exit. He needs a goddamned cigarette.
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