2012-11-03 The Price of Right

Life has a way of raising questions without providing answers.
Caught in the conflicting orbit of several crises and a number of powerful personalities, Psylocke has been adding to the load herself; an endless cycle of uncertainty leading to further, more personal doubts - and what is a doubt if not a question to oneself? Never one to bare her soul as a matter of course, the violet-eyed telepath has been more secretive still of late, turning inward in part through perceived necessity... and in part through cowardice. She hates to admit it even to herself, but it's the honest truth. Sometimes it's easier to remain silent than share the darker twists of one's soul. By her reckoning, she's hidden enough.
There's a time to break that silence.
The message she left for Logan was simple, brief: to meet her in the holding area.
She's stood there now, one olive-skinned hand pressed lightly against the one-way glass, through which lies the cell that contained the Marauder known as Riptide. Or it seems light-- until a closer glance marks the talonlike flexing of her fingertips, the harsh whitening where they meet the unyielding surface. Narrow eyes observe the prisoner's vacated bunk, though she's looking straight through it; no matter how much she wanted to sense something more in that particular skull, she drained him of all that she could without doing permanent damage. It took all her willpower not to go that far. Now he's gone. There's no reason to be here.
So why come, beside any perverted sense of drama?
Simple enough. Nobody else is going to wander in. Here they can talk privately.
"Bets."
Logan's footsteps are silent despite the adamantium weighing his bones down, his breath still despite the still-closing buckshot wounds perforating his chest; were he meeting a normal woman, those things would doubtless be enough to conceal his approach, but with Psylocke... there's no telling.
After weeks of being confronted with the horrific consequences of man and mutant paranoia, he can't help but throw himself as far into his work as he can; that he can't help but rely on visiting his own brand of horror on those who would set the world on fire with their hatred weighs on him more than any adamantium could. His arms are loosely crossed over his blood-tinged tanktop as he steps up beside his teammate, and his eyes are fixed on her--as they have been since he arrived.
"Nice place for a meeting; teacher's lounge must be gettin' renovated," he dryly remarks; with that, his gaze gradually shiftsto follow the purple-haired ninja's gaze to Riptide's cot.
No telling, and no sharing-- just yet anyway. There's only the subtlest of clues that the telepath has even noticed the verbal greeting, her attention drifting briefly to the gruff Canadian's dim reflection in the glass. Her eyes barely even move.
But finally, she can't resist a tiny smile.
"It seemed appropriate to my mood," she admits with a loose, single-shouldered shrug, sparing the abandoned cell one last pointed second of consideration before turning to meet her teammate's dark stare. "Much as I'd be thrilled if they finally accepted my suggestion to paint the walls magenta... no. I just need you to hear me out about something. Only you. I told you before, about the doubts I'm having. About my... urges."
It's a dramatic way to put it, but she plunges on with a shake of her head.
"There was a time this all seemed so straightforward. Good people, bad people, and the innocent bystanders inbetween." A crooked smile twists her lips, another hint of wry mirth as she rolls her eyes momentarily heavenward. "Admittely that... didn't last terribly long. But now? Now we're pulled in six different directions." There's a hint of distance in that, her gaze shifting thoughtfully aside before she turns back to the cell window, and presents her confession. "Or at least I am. I couldn't tell you before, but I've been approached. Twice now. By different groups wanting me to stand with them-- to fight for our 'kind'," the bitter note isn't disguised, punctuated by a soft sigh as she leans her forehead against the glass. "It's taken me a few days to pull myself back together; to realize it's not *us* and *them*." Each word is spoken taut, harshly punctuated. "The only thing we should be fighting is the chance of war."
There's a pause that barely qualifies as one, albeit for a seeming shift in tone and tangent.
"Tonya Harris and Erik Lehnsherr. Do those names mean anything to you?"
"Helped Lensherr take out a mutant conditioning center," Logan replies without missing a beat. "Couple days before Arizona."
The Canadian's jaw clenches; his voice is even, but just talking about it - thinking about it, remembering the gallons of warm, sticky blood sluicing off his body - makes him so uncomfortable that his arms tighten against his wounded chest. The resultant jabs of pain are motivation enough to let his arms just hang at his sides, though he has to will himself to keep his hands relaxed.
"Lotta dead guards; some of 'em mutants. Brainwashed." There's a pause as he lowers his eyes from the cot to the floor, which has already been scrubbed clean of the Marauder's blood. "I assume they saved a couple more from endin' up that way, while they were at it; wouldn't know."
By the time he's finished giving his account, his hands are tucked away in his jean pockets, mostly to further dissuade himself from continuing to clench and unclench them. "Other one's a blank," he quietly continues. "which is a problem in and of itself." Looking up from tracing absent blood splatters, he fixes fully on Psylocke's eyes.
"Doesn't help much when good'n bad are all too happy t' play at bein' each other," he quietly offers, sympathy seeping into his normally gruff voice. "Best you can do is trust your instincts and live with the consequences."
"No."
It's a word many struggle with, a tough syllable of singular denial. Oft spoken reactively, even explosively, it's arguably most effective when used as Betsy Braddock uses it now. There's so much significance in the experiences related by Logan, shifting through the deep, dark vestiges of emotions most would rather leave covered, and it resonates with her own. And yet...
"That's not the best we can do. I agree with the sentiment, my friend, but-- all this twisting and turning, all this uncertainty. I feel like we're holding ourselves back, and I'm tired of it. Of feeling I have to wait, or throw myself in with the wrong people to sate some burning desire for, what? Vengeance? Absolution? No." Drawing and releasing a breath, she pushes herself away from the window, standing straight-backed, unsupported. "This isn't impatience born of rash desire. I'm... controlled. You are too, but you feel it, don't you?"
She matches that fixating gaze, not daring to explore beyond the surface of Wolverine's mind - not by the necessary caution but through the facts of trust and respect - but she goes at least that far. As if she'd need to, when his body language already told the tale.
"I've been in Gotham, following leads on... weapons. Human weapons." There's a momentary hesitation before she elaborates further, and crucially, "Mutant weapons. Perhaps there's a link with what you-- saw. But I found something else. A mutant identifying herself as 'Blink'. I don't know how or why, but she's moved between worlds. Through time, too. From a future where nothing survives save a few enthralled men and women, and us. The X-Men. As freedom fighters led by *Magneto*. Of all men who could survive through the end of days."
Her dark frown lingers only a moment before it's dispelled through purpose alone.
"I think she's here as a warning. To give us a chance to stop that future. It could only happen because we fell apart, as we're doing now, torn in too many directions to act as a unit. Because too few of us make the hard decision to do what must be done. Or worse; because what we're fighting now is exactly what overcame that world. We're reading between the lines and finding only greater vagaries. We need to read... faster, or harder. Maybe both."
There's nothing funny about dystopian futures or the corruption-choked present, but Logan's lips curl in a tight, almost apologetic smile all the same; his eyes don't quite leave Betsy's, but they do shift downwards a little.
"Ain't nothin' hard, or fast about what the X-Men do, darlin'," he replies, delivering each word deliberately--and carefully. Gently, even. "Not unless Charlie puts on Cerebro an' /makes/ everyone else forget how bad they hate each other, and the day /that/ happened..."
His eyes twitch away from hers for just a second, all the way down to his concealed hands, and while he doesn't offer a conclusion for that scenario, the stony sobriety that falls over his features when he sets his gaze on Psylocke again says enough. "Fightin' for a dream takes time; keepin' the world from killin' itself's a whole other thing," is what he offers instead. It's what he does after all, his contribution to Xavier's dream of peace and togetherness: using decades of experience as a spy and murderer to contain the worst threats to that dream.
"The X-Men might be the only thing left in" keeping a completely straight face is difficult as he says the name--even for a wee hairy man who voluntarily answers to 'Wolverine' "'Blink's' time, but here--you've /seen/ your share'a bad lately, confusion aside. Y' seen how deep it goes; how far d'you think Charles, and Cyke, an' Bobby, an' the rest'a them are gonna wanna go to get rid of it?"
"Not as far as Erik Lehnsherr or Tonya Harris." That sounds bitterly wry indeed, laced with a hard sort of sarcasm all the more jarring next to the heartfelt honesty of what follows. Not tender, by any means; it's firm, but perilously deep. "Not as far as us. What we did in there..." Canting her head, she flicks her brow toward the vacant cell behind her.
"I've got no regrets about it, but I feel like I should. It's not their style, is it? I believe in the Professor's dream with all my heart, but it's exactly that. A dream. There are things that need to be done-- bad things, by the standards of others, that we shy from at every opportunity. Even now we're stood here talking when we should be scouring Detroit. No matter what I'd want, in an ideal world, we're never going to have that unless we make tough choices."
She's barely looked away, but there's a difference between merely keeping one's gaze on another - a social politeness, an unshakable convention - and really /studying/ them. Intensity mounts in those violet eyes as she does this to Logan now, almost unnecessarily considering everything about the man; from his shadier, more savage qualities to that disarming humour. There's no question that this is somebody she can trust, and this is what ultimately counts.
"I want you to meet her, but not as one of the X-Men. I think it's time we acted as we think best without consultation, without waiting for others to agree. She told me of my counterpart... said she was a 'survivor'." She seems to savour the word, lips pulling briefly into a proud, hard, confident smile. "You and I both, Logan. We're the ones who should be risking everything now; to stop a future like that. To stop what's coming. Though I suppose..."
Tipping her head back, Psylocke eases her neck to one side, then the other. There's no crack of sinew - she's loose and ready, as she always is. It's more a gesture to affirm exactly that, to herself, before she directs that confident gaze once more to the Canadian.
"We should probably start in Detroit. Start, as we mean to go on."
It's half a question, one eyebrow shifting upward though her inflection does not.
Logan gives his teammate a slow, solemn nod as he listens. That most other X-Men wouldn't dare go as far as he in the name of Charles' dream is precisely why he's leant his dubious skillset to the team for so long. He doesn't even blink at the reminder of their time with Riptide; whatever guilt he may be feeling for their treatment of the Marauder will inevitably be taken out on the /next/ person or thing who threatens him and his.
"Plenty'a time to sort out Harris, Lensherr, the Brotherhood--all'a that when the Castroveneses are safe," he lowly agrees. Tonya - unknown, pro-mutant quantity that she is - doesn't inspire much confidence, and he doesn't try very hard to /hide/ that suspicion; he even lingers on her name a little longer than the others. Priorities may dictate that they hurry to Detroit, but there is a small part of him that won't be satisfied until he's unraveled the mystery of her; Betsy may not be entirely comfortable with trusting her instincts, but Logan lives and dies by his.
Those instincts also tell him when his teammate shifts from looking to watching, from polite eye-contact to intensive study; they also tell him to look away, to flee from her scrutiny, but this, he fights; he has nothing to hide from her.
"What we did in there--it's gonna happen again." His eyes narrow a little and his voice drops a few decibels--and degrees. There's no joy in his words, no eagerness at all, just grim acceptance. "An' again. An' again. An' again; might be over this. Might be somethin' else; it's inevitable. If it wasn't, I wouldn't be here." Grim acceptance, and a hint of something else--something far rarer for the man named Wolverine:
Fear--not for himself, or even for whatever terrors the near future may hold, but for the friend and teammate who would stand with him to meet them in the darkness where they thrive.
"How long you think you're gonna be able to carry that with you, Bets?" he quietly finishes. It's as much an invitation as it is a warning; whether or not she's equipped to work as far outside of Charles' dream as he does to protect it is ultimately for her to decide.
"Not too long ago, I wasn't sure I could carry it at all."
It's a frank admission, coupled with a shrug that only relaxes Psylocke's posture a fraction. Time's an... odd issue, for her. It's always moved in fits and starts, but now it seems a distant age since she walked and talked in her own body. Every event of her life prior is laid out like a distant road map. It's /not/ too long ago that she was far more frail, physically and emotionally, but it's less far in the past that she took upon herself the burden of using the Siege Perilous. There's no denying that turning point, that line she crossed. To make a decision that affected not just herself, but all those present. Her fate was in her hands. In her mind.
That might have awoken her screaming at night, if she hadn't soon been given fresh nightmares.
"Now I'm certain I can do nothing but. How long? As long as this body lasts, Logan. I can't pretend I don't have doubts, and fears... and weaknesses. In the subway tunnels, I faced--" How does she begin to describe it? "Something worse. Like I'd reached into myself and found the one thing that could make me buckle and bend. That could make me weak. Useless. It shook me, but I came out of it..." She frowns, "Almost peaceful. What I have, who I am, it's just the beginning of greater strength. I won't know my limits until I test them."
A hand flexes at her side, the other riding to her hip as she lifts and examines her fist. Violet eyes narrow with darkly reflective thought. It doesn't take long to voice the conclusion she's already reached, gaze now steely as it slips back to Wolverine.
"But I know I'm nowhere near them. This world's falling apart at the seams, in spite of all our efforts. What you do; steeping yourself in the blood others are afraid to draw, it's... the right thing. Sometimes a line has to be crossed, for a line to be drawn. It's not what you want to hear..." From a friend. From someone you care for. She hasn't missed the implication. "But I'd give up everything if it made a difference. I'm not afraid for myself, in the least. I'm *afraid* of stagnation. Of sitting idle while chaos consumes all that I hold dear. If facing my demons every day gives me even a chance to prevent that..."
Her fist suddenly drops, fingers curling outward before falling loose at her side.
"I'll carry that load until the end, one way or another. Somebody has to do what's necessary; and you know as well as I do, that can't be a single man. The right thing now is to save another man's family-- so that's what we'll do. Tomorrow it could mean siding with an enemy against another, greater threat. It could mean taking a life. So we deal with that. In a way that nobody who's uncomfortable with it has to know. Not everyone's prepared to give their all, truly..."
And then, she summarizes it all with a disarming humanity for the strength of her words, sympathetic to the worries of a friend but unable to back down, not in spite of that but because of it. Neither of them have anything to hide from each other.
"But I count myself among those that are."
What they choose to hide from the world is another matter.
"Alright."
There was a time when Logan, too, was frail, but he knows this only because it must be true--that once, he /must/ have been something more, or less than the murderer that man has made of him; even the Wolverine was a cub, once. Though he's far from a man of faith - years of hearing Nightcrawler talk about his have only served to reaffirm that lack - the vague idea of what he may have been helps to keep him from drowning in the very visceral truth of what he /is/.
Who is he to argue when someone who knows - is reminded every time she sees another woman's face in the mirror - exactly how far she's come from the person she once was, and how much further she could yet have to go? It's a simple answer - two soft syllables given after several lengthy seconds of thought - for an impossibly complex quandry, but it's all the answer that's needed; how much longer /can/ they afford to worry about matters of morality while another man's family is on the brink of death?
With the preternatural quickness that has separated many an unsuspecting man's head from his shoulders in the blink of an eye, he slips one hand from his pocket to give the violet-haired woman's shoulder a firm squeeze; hardly a cure for someone who clawed past her innermost demons on the way to courting them in the name of a dream, but the sentiment - that she isn't alone, even in the darkest depths - is there.
"Long as you understand what you're gettin' into, here'n now," he adds with a quiet touch of lingering concern. "Ain't no room for second guesses, whether we're savin' the world or a wife and kids." He draws his hand back, and after flexing his fingers a little he slides it back nito his pocket.
"Just... remember that carryin' it all ain't on you."
It's not often lately that Betsy is made to feel... young. Inexperienced. But it's not so hard to remember that the man before her holds within a tangle of thoughts, feelings and memories so densely wound as to be utterly impenetrable. And painful. She remembers that, too. But in the now, she finds the approval and trust she was subconsciously seeking in asking Logan here.
"I will," she assures, promises in a near-whisper once that soothing hand has retreated. Two syllables given back, perhaps containing more weight of purpose than her entire soliloquy related a few moments before. That's going to be harder to remember, in the darkness, but of all the trials to come... it's surmountable. Slowly nodding, Betsy rolls her shoulders back, seeming to draw herself up just a little higher. No, they can't wait much longer.
"So let's stop guessing," she says, a sigh of mixed relief and ready renewal of purpose running through her words. "And start knowing. One step at a time-- a warehouse, a man's family, then the world." Whatever demons stand in their way, personal or otherwise. "Whatever it takes."
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