Family Ties
folder
X-Men - Animated Series (all) › General
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
51
Views:
7,050
Reviews:
30
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Category:
X-Men - Animated Series (all) › General
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
51
Views:
7,050
Reviews:
30
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
I do not own X-Men Evolution, or any of the characters from it. I make no money from from the writing of this story.
44
Family Ties Chapter Forty Four (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply
A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST
WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse and Hamsterch, ch, I always knew geometry would
come back to haunt me… InterNutter, TC
and Maxwell Pink are fantabulous for archiving. J ProPhile gets big, sparkley muse wings for
being a smutmuse (you don’t have to wear ‘em…prolly get you jumped on the train
if you did). Ramsey, Tex and Jubilee
get jalapenos for being helpful (I’m up to my elbows in the damn things…take
them! Please!). Readers/Reviewers: The ducks go marching one
by one, hurrah, hurrah… (Works better
with ants, doesn’t it?) Thank you
sooooooooooo much for reading and reviewing!
J
“What,” Amara
managed to growl, “are you staring at?”
Warren
actually blushed at getting caught out.
Returning his gaze to the long blacktop road ahead of them, he
shrugged. “Nothing.”
Amara
glanced at Lance, sleepnextnext to her with his head resting on the window, and
Rogue, curled cat-like against Todd in the back seat next to Lance. “Liar,” she said softnot not willing to wake
them. “What is it?”
“Why are
you so…asky?”
“This is
possibly the most boring journey I’ve ever been on and that’s counting the one
from Nova Roma to Bayville.”
Warren slid
his glance back towards her. “Nova Roma
to Bayville…how did you manage to get there, anyway?”
Amara’s
lips tightened and she turned to look out her window at Mississippi whipping
by. “How much further?”
He sighed
and tightened his grip on the steering wheel.
His wings were bothering him, pressed as they were against his back, and
the discomfort was making his patience very thin indeed. “Amara, I know.”
“What?” she
hissed, her skin rippling with hidden fire.
“What do you know?”
“I know
what happened to make you so…upset…” he finished lamely. Not many things
frightened Warren but he was keenly aware that he was not exactly flame
retardant.
“No one
saw!” she said under her breath. “Oh,
gods,” she groaned, hunching over as if she were about to be sick. “How?”
“I found
the letter and,” he paused, then finished in a rush, “I asked Beast to
translate it for me using a program at the Institute when they called earlier
and…”
“The
letter?” she asked sharply, loud enough to make Warren swerve and Lance snort
in his sleep. “My letter?”
“Yeeeees….what
are you talking about?” He glanced at
her again and noticed with some surprise she had gone pale under her olive
complexion, making her look distinctly chalky and very, very afraid.
“Nothing,”
she snapped. “Not a damned thing.”
“Amara,” be
began, reaching out to lay a comfor han hand on her arm as he drove one-handed,
only to have her strike out at him, her nails scoring deep grooves on his
otherwise unmarked flesh. “Hey!”
Rogue
yawned to wakefulness. “What the Hell’s
goin’ on up there?”
“We there
yet?” Todd mumbled. “I don’t wanna go
to school, Ma…”
Amara
fumbled with her seat belt and demanded, “Pull over! Now!”
Warren
swerved for the second time in as many minutes and had barely skidded to a halt
when Amara flung herself out of the car and was doubled over on the side of the
road, vomiting in a most unregal fashion.
“Serves her right for that shit on the way up,” Rogue muttered, but looked
concerned nonetheless.
Lance
crawled across Rogue, wincing in anticipation of errant skin contact, kneeing
Todd in the stomach in the process, and joined Warren standing next to
Amara. “You eat something bad,
Princess?”
“No,” she
snapped, still on all fours on the ground.
Lance
exchanged mildly confused looks with Warren and dropped to his knees next to
Amara, holding her hair back out of her face just in case she needed to be sick
again. “What’s wrong?” “Don’t,”
she ground out, “touch me!”
“Amara,” he
said, exasperated already, “for the last fucking time, what the Hell is wrong
with you?” Once the dam burst, there
was no stopping Lance’s rant. “You
break up with me because I wasn’t pissed at Tabby for having a baby, you go all
fucking aloof and then you set the damned field on fire…”
“Aloof?”
Rogue muttered, sliding out of the car.
“Word a Day calendar?”
“Shut up,”
Lance snarled.
Amara stood
shakily, glaring as well as she could to stop Lance from shouting onward. “This is not the time or place, Lance.”
“It never
will be so just tell me now!”
Warren bit
his lip and edged away, motioning Rogue and Todd to join him. It was not exactly private but it was the
best they could do in the circumstances.
Amara was hurling Latinate invectives at Lance as Warren said in an
undertone, “She’s been hiding a letter from home.”
“So?” Rogue
asked flatly. “She’s pissy because she’s
homesick?”
Todd was
paying more attention to Lance and Amara than the people he was standing
with. “No,” he said slowly, “that’s not
it…” Turning luminous eyes to Warren,
he asked, “She got disowned, didn’t she?”
“How’d you
know?” Warren asked, obviously surprised.
He shrugged
almost sheepishly. “Ma went to Latin
Mass a lot. I picked up a few words…”
Rogue’s
eyebrows were somewhere in the vicinity of her hairline as she asked, “Such as?”
“Father…disown…”
“Pardon me
for being vaguely Protestant, but where’s disown in the Bible?”
Warren
shushed them as Lance stalked back towards the car. “Everything okay?”
“Fuck off,
Warren!” Lance slammed the car door behind him and stared sullenly out the
window.
“Let me
try,” Rogue sighed, strolling over to Amara.
“So…disowned, huh?”
“You have
the suavity of an elephant with four left feet,” Amara sighed.
“Why’d you
tear into Lance?”
“None of
your business.”
“Amara,”
Rogue said softly, peeling off first one long glove, then the other. “Do I have to find out the hard way?”
The Nova
Roman blinked at her, a range of emotions playing across her face before she
finally settled on resigned pain. “Get
Lance.”
“This,”
Jean said, “is new…” She looked mildly
bemused as she circled the group of people sitting in the middle of the hangar,
their hands, ankles and mouths bound. “Does
it come with slipcovers?”
Forge
snorted. “These are the Lees, if you
recall…”
Jubilee,
looking stunned, said, “My aunt…”
“Shhh,
cherie. Jus’…shhh…”
“Geez, Rem,
what the Hell happened to you?” Scott
followed Banshee into the hangar, carefully avoiding standing next to Jean,
much to her ire. “You look like you got
beat.”
“An’ dey
say you ain’t smart,” Remy sighed.
Scott’s
frown flickered to a quick grin before he bent to peer at Troy. “Hello.
I remember you. You’re a jerk.”
Jubilee was
shaking as she pointed to one young woman.
“She’s my aunt.”
Jean raised
her eyebrow in askance at Banshee, who shrugged. “Since me an’ Forge are de facto leaders, I guess I can give
permission.”
“That’s all
I need,” she smiled. “Now this won’t
hurt a bit,” she said kindly to Lilly, though Jean honestly wished it would be
at least a little painful.
Jubilee
tipped her face up to meet Remy’s gaze.
“I don’t know what to do,” she breathed. “I’m scared.”
For the
first time since he met her, Remy saw Jubilee as a child, a scared, lonely
child who had to grow up too fast and he did not like the feeling it gave him
one bit. “Chere, les’ go upstairs and
you get to bed till de Professor get home, d’accord?”
She nodded
glumly. “Okay…”
Forge
jerked his head in the direction of the door and said, “Jamie and Rahne are in
the kitchen making something to eat. Get something in her stomach first,
okay? She hasn’t eaten since…wow. Day before yesterday, I think.”
Jubilee
nodded in confirmation. “I think I’m gonna ralph.”
“Charmin’,
p’tite. Charmin’.”
Jean waited
until the faint snick of the door signaled their departure before
turning her full attention back to the group of people bound on the floor. “How’d you guys manage this?”
Banshee
smiled faintly. “Long story short…we
surprised them.”
“Short story
longer, I need the number for MiracleEar[1],”
Forge added, earning a smirk and a kick to the ankle from Banshee.
Jean shook
her head and glanced at Scott to find hookiooking at her intently. Later, she promised him and saw him
relax fractionally. She had so much to
say to him, things to work out that seemed like mountains to climb days ago but
now seemed negligible, but she could not let that cloud her mind. She took a deep breath and schooled her
thoughts, letting everything fall away.
The Professor had been helping her in developing her telepathic abilities
in addition to building her telekinesis, but she had not had a chance to
actually try to use them on her own before.
Find the high projector…that’s easiest… She let her mind clear only to be assailed with a wall of
emotions and yammering that made her stagger back before she seized the “loudest”
voice, the one showing images as well as words. Lilly. Good.
Scott
surged forward to catch Jean when she swayed but Forge stayed him with a heavy
hand to his shoulders. “Let her.”
Scott
opened his mouth to protest but thought better of it. Jean stood still as a
post, frowning as she read one of the group.
Finally, after long minutes, she said, her eyes still closed, “We need
the Professor. And probably Logan. Now.”
Banshee
nodded curtly and sped from the room, making a beeline for the phone in the
downstairs study. As soon as Forge
lifted his hand from his shoulder, Scott crossed to Jean and took her wrists in
his hands. “What is it?”
She blinked
and sighed. “I have a migraine.”
“Come on,”
he said, trying to draw her away, but she shook her head. “Jean!”
“Scott, let
me finish this!” She used what energy
she had left to push him away before turning back to read Lilly again.
“Jean,” he
said firmly, “don’t do this to yourself!”
“Shhh,” she
warned him. Her skin was slowly paling,
becoming waxy with strain. Lilly glared
at her above the tape covering her mouth and Scott had a sudden, sick feeling
about what was going to happen. Before
he could do or say anything, Jean groaned, the sound turning into a near-scream
as she clutched her head and fell to her knees, the veins in her neck bulging
with strain as she pitched forward.
[1] A brand of
hearing aide
Disclaimers Apply
A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST
WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse and Hamsterch, ch, I always knew geometry would
come back to haunt me… InterNutter, TC
and Maxwell Pink are fantabulous for archiving. J ProPhile gets big, sparkley muse wings for
being a smutmuse (you don’t have to wear ‘em…prolly get you jumped on the train
if you did). Ramsey, Tex and Jubilee
get jalapenos for being helpful (I’m up to my elbows in the damn things…take
them! Please!). Readers/Reviewers: The ducks go marching one
by one, hurrah, hurrah… (Works better
with ants, doesn’t it?) Thank you
sooooooooooo much for reading and reviewing!
J
“What,” Amara
managed to growl, “are you staring at?”
Warren
actually blushed at getting caught out.
Returning his gaze to the long blacktop road ahead of them, he
shrugged. “Nothing.”
Amara
glanced at Lance, sleepnextnext to her with his head resting on the window, and
Rogue, curled cat-like against Todd in the back seat next to Lance. “Liar,” she said softnot not willing to wake
them. “What is it?”
“Why are
you so…asky?”
“This is
possibly the most boring journey I’ve ever been on and that’s counting the one
from Nova Roma to Bayville.”
Warren slid
his glance back towards her. “Nova Roma
to Bayville…how did you manage to get there, anyway?”
Amara’s
lips tightened and she turned to look out her window at Mississippi whipping
by. “How much further?”
He sighed
and tightened his grip on the steering wheel.
His wings were bothering him, pressed as they were against his back, and
the discomfort was making his patience very thin indeed. “Amara, I know.”
“What?” she
hissed, her skin rippling with hidden fire.
“What do you know?”
“I know
what happened to make you so…upset…” he finished lamely. Not many things
frightened Warren but he was keenly aware that he was not exactly flame
retardant.
“No one
saw!” she said under her breath. “Oh,
gods,” she groaned, hunching over as if she were about to be sick. “How?”
“I found
the letter and,” he paused, then finished in a rush, “I asked Beast to
translate it for me using a program at the Institute when they called earlier
and…”
“The
letter?” she asked sharply, loud enough to make Warren swerve and Lance snort
in his sleep. “My letter?”
“Yeeeees….what
are you talking about?” He glanced at
her again and noticed with some surprise she had gone pale under her olive
complexion, making her look distinctly chalky and very, very afraid.
“Nothing,”
she snapped. “Not a damned thing.”
“Amara,” be
began, reaching out to lay a comfor han hand on her arm as he drove one-handed,
only to have her strike out at him, her nails scoring deep grooves on his
otherwise unmarked flesh. “Hey!”
Rogue
yawned to wakefulness. “What the Hell’s
goin’ on up there?”
“We there
yet?” Todd mumbled. “I don’t wanna go
to school, Ma…”
Amara
fumbled with her seat belt and demanded, “Pull over! Now!”
Warren
swerved for the second time in as many minutes and had barely skidded to a halt
when Amara flung herself out of the car and was doubled over on the side of the
road, vomiting in a most unregal fashion.
“Serves her right for that shit on the way up,” Rogue muttered, but looked
concerned nonetheless.
Lance
crawled across Rogue, wincing in anticipation of errant skin contact, kneeing
Todd in the stomach in the process, and joined Warren standing next to
Amara. “You eat something bad,
Princess?”
“No,” she
snapped, still on all fours on the ground.
Lance
exchanged mildly confused looks with Warren and dropped to his knees next to
Amara, holding her hair back out of her face just in case she needed to be sick
again. “What’s wrong?” “Don’t,”
she ground out, “touch me!”
“Amara,” he
said, exasperated already, “for the last fucking time, what the Hell is wrong
with you?” Once the dam burst, there
was no stopping Lance’s rant. “You
break up with me because I wasn’t pissed at Tabby for having a baby, you go all
fucking aloof and then you set the damned field on fire…”
“Aloof?”
Rogue muttered, sliding out of the car.
“Word a Day calendar?”
“Shut up,”
Lance snarled.
Amara stood
shakily, glaring as well as she could to stop Lance from shouting onward. “This is not the time or place, Lance.”
“It never
will be so just tell me now!”
Warren bit
his lip and edged away, motioning Rogue and Todd to join him. It was not exactly private but it was the
best they could do in the circumstances.
Amara was hurling Latinate invectives at Lance as Warren said in an
undertone, “She’s been hiding a letter from home.”
“So?” Rogue
asked flatly. “She’s pissy because she’s
homesick?”
Todd was
paying more attention to Lance and Amara than the people he was standing
with. “No,” he said slowly, “that’s not
it…” Turning luminous eyes to Warren,
he asked, “She got disowned, didn’t she?”
“How’d you
know?” Warren asked, obviously surprised.
He shrugged
almost sheepishly. “Ma went to Latin
Mass a lot. I picked up a few words…”
Rogue’s
eyebrows were somewhere in the vicinity of her hairline as she asked, “Such as?”
“Father…disown…”
“Pardon me
for being vaguely Protestant, but where’s disown in the Bible?”
Warren
shushed them as Lance stalked back towards the car. “Everything okay?”
“Fuck off,
Warren!” Lance slammed the car door behind him and stared sullenly out the
window.
“Let me
try,” Rogue sighed, strolling over to Amara.
“So…disowned, huh?”
“You have
the suavity of an elephant with four left feet,” Amara sighed.
“Why’d you
tear into Lance?”
“None of
your business.”
“Amara,”
Rogue said softly, peeling off first one long glove, then the other. “Do I have to find out the hard way?”
The Nova
Roman blinked at her, a range of emotions playing across her face before she
finally settled on resigned pain. “Get
Lance.”
“This,”
Jean said, “is new…” She looked mildly
bemused as she circled the group of people sitting in the middle of the hangar,
their hands, ankles and mouths bound. “Does
it come with slipcovers?”
Forge
snorted. “These are the Lees, if you
recall…”
Jubilee,
looking stunned, said, “My aunt…”
“Shhh,
cherie. Jus’…shhh…”
“Geez, Rem,
what the Hell happened to you?” Scott
followed Banshee into the hangar, carefully avoiding standing next to Jean,
much to her ire. “You look like you got
beat.”
“An’ dey
say you ain’t smart,” Remy sighed.
Scott’s
frown flickered to a quick grin before he bent to peer at Troy. “Hello.
I remember you. You’re a jerk.”
Jubilee was
shaking as she pointed to one young woman.
“She’s my aunt.”
Jean raised
her eyebrow in askance at Banshee, who shrugged. “Since me an’ Forge are de facto leaders, I guess I can give
permission.”
“That’s all
I need,” she smiled. “Now this won’t
hurt a bit,” she said kindly to Lilly, though Jean honestly wished it would be
at least a little painful.
Jubilee
tipped her face up to meet Remy’s gaze.
“I don’t know what to do,” she breathed. “I’m scared.”
For the
first time since he met her, Remy saw Jubilee as a child, a scared, lonely
child who had to grow up too fast and he did not like the feeling it gave him
one bit. “Chere, les’ go upstairs and
you get to bed till de Professor get home, d’accord?”
She nodded
glumly. “Okay…”
Forge
jerked his head in the direction of the door and said, “Jamie and Rahne are in
the kitchen making something to eat. Get something in her stomach first,
okay? She hasn’t eaten since…wow. Day before yesterday, I think.”
Jubilee
nodded in confirmation. “I think I’m gonna ralph.”
“Charmin’,
p’tite. Charmin’.”
Jean waited
until the faint snick of the door signaled their departure before
turning her full attention back to the group of people bound on the floor. “How’d you guys manage this?”
Banshee
smiled faintly. “Long story short…we
surprised them.”
“Short story
longer, I need the number for MiracleEar[1],”
Forge added, earning a smirk and a kick to the ankle from Banshee.
Jean shook
her head and glanced at Scott to find hookiooking at her intently. Later, she promised him and saw him
relax fractionally. She had so much to
say to him, things to work out that seemed like mountains to climb days ago but
now seemed negligible, but she could not let that cloud her mind. She took a deep breath and schooled her
thoughts, letting everything fall away.
The Professor had been helping her in developing her telepathic abilities
in addition to building her telekinesis, but she had not had a chance to
actually try to use them on her own before.
Find the high projector…that’s easiest… She let her mind clear only to be assailed with a wall of
emotions and yammering that made her stagger back before she seized the “loudest”
voice, the one showing images as well as words. Lilly. Good.
Scott
surged forward to catch Jean when she swayed but Forge stayed him with a heavy
hand to his shoulders. “Let her.”
Scott
opened his mouth to protest but thought better of it. Jean stood still as a
post, frowning as she read one of the group.
Finally, after long minutes, she said, her eyes still closed, “We need
the Professor. And probably Logan. Now.”
Banshee
nodded curtly and sped from the room, making a beeline for the phone in the
downstairs study. As soon as Forge
lifted his hand from his shoulder, Scott crossed to Jean and took her wrists in
his hands. “What is it?”
She blinked
and sighed. “I have a migraine.”
“Come on,”
he said, trying to draw her away, but she shook her head. “Jean!”
“Scott, let
me finish this!” She used what energy
she had left to push him away before turning back to read Lilly again.
“Jean,” he
said firmly, “don’t do this to yourself!”
“Shhh,” she
warned him. Her skin was slowly paling,
becoming waxy with strain. Lilly glared
at her above the tape covering her mouth and Scott had a sudden, sick feeling
about what was going to happen. Before
he could do or say anything, Jean groaned, the sound turning into a near-scream
as she clutched her head and fell to her knees, the veins in her neck bulging
with strain as she pitched forward.
[1] A brand of
hearing aide