"Will you walk into my parlor?" said the spider to the fly;

[medea_recast]

WHO: Madelyne Pryor, Alex Summers
WHERE: A MAC Apartment
WHEN: About an hour or so after her first post HERE
WARNINGS: Emotional manipulation?
SUMMARY: Maddie's made her entrance to the City, time to go back to wrapping Alex around her finger.
FORMAT: Para to start, whatever after

Comments

[cry_andletloose]

Alex had been thrown into anguish right from the moment he’d seen Madelyne’s post on his communicator - disbelief, denial and then anguish and guilt as she had responded to him, reaching out like she’d done back when they were in Australia and back in the days of the Inferno. It had been so many years ago and he’d spent so long making peace with his brother and coming to terms with it himself, but then he’d just crumbled

[medea_recast]

Madelyne kept her perfect mask of misery on place when she opened the door. The tears, the pain, all of it so easy and still so close to the surface of who she really was. Tears on her cheeks, and waved Alex inside.

"Look out for the glass, I... I broke a lamp."

[cry_andletloose]

His heart instantly went out to her; she looked so miserable and crumbled and broken. The last time he'd seen her, she'd been the perfect picture screaming fury and defiant arrogance, a far cry from now. It was hard to keep his suspicions straight in his mind when she looked like this.

"Maddie. Scott told me what he told you. I wish there was a way to cushion the blow."

Alex stepped carefully around the glass, then looked around for a way to clear it up. No way was he going to leave the mess here like this, where she could hurt herself on it.

[medea_recast]

He looked so worried, so concerned that she nearly paused. She could remember, watching him sleep, considering sparing him from what she had planned, but in the end... He was just someone else who would leave her, hurt her, and ultimately betray her. She gave a derisive chuckle and moved to the apartment's lumpy sofa, pulling her legs up under her chin.

"Of course he did. Then he told yo to be careful and not to trust me because apparently I'm going to go crazy and kill you all. Sorry, try and kill you all. Perfect. Just perfect. I don't even get a chance this time, do I?"

[cry_andletloose]

Alex said nothing for awhile, not even looking at her because it was easier not to when she looked so vulnerable. Instead, he bent down and carefully picked up the larger jagged shards of the lamp and placed them in one side of the room, all the while careful not to slice his fingers on them.

"That's not true. Sure, most of them don't trust you because of what you-- or a future version of you-- did to them, but we're giving you a chance. Scott's come to see you and so have I."

[medea_recast]

"Scott came to see me to make sure I wasn't crazy." She got up and crossed to the kitchen, opening the pantry door. As she suspected, there was a broom and dustpan neatly tucked inside. She crossed back to Alex and leaned the broom against the wall, crouching down to help with the larger pieces.

Picking up one, she allowed it to turn in her hand slicing her palm open. Bright blood welled up immediately.

[cry_andletloose]

"Scott said you were upset, not crazy. And I came to see how you were," he replied, watching her movements. "It's been years, Maddie. What was the last thing--"

Alex instantly frowned at the blood, cutting himself off. He looked around the room, spying a small towel which he then snatched up and pressed it to her palm, trying to staunch the blood. "You didn't need to do that. I had it covered."

[medea_recast]

"You don't have to take care of me, I can pull my own weight, besides," She watched the blood start to stain the towel. "It's not like it's really my blood anyway. It's just a copy, I'm just a copy, of her."

She looked up at him, letting more of the real pain show through. "And I was sitting here, thinking... I'm not even a good copy am I? If I were... if I were really... I'd be a mutant, like you. Instead I'm just..."

[cry_andletloose]

"You know I don't believe in that," he said firmly. "You're your own person, and my brother was wrong to treat you like a copy of Jean. Even though you're a...clone, you're not her. Not a copy."

Scott had told him to be wary, Alison had said that she didn't trust her, and Scathach had sounded very uneasy over the phone. But it was hard to keep all of that in mind, even his own suspicion, when she was obviously hurting emotionally like this.

"But you did go on to have powers. Very strong powers."

[medea_recast]

"You're always the exception, Alex. You've been my... my best friend through all this. Scott, the Marauders..."

She laid her good hand on his and looked straight at him. "And you still seem to be. Thank you for that." It made using him so much the easier.

She pointed to the kitchen. "There might be a first aid kit in there, maybe in the bathroom. I haven't had a chance to get my bearings here yet."

[cry_andletloose]

"You were there for me too when I needed it. When I was still hurting over the loss of Lorna."

In spite of himself he smiled at her, then caught himself. This was all wrong, this woman in front of him was supposed to be dead. He'd watch her die, yet she was here now, exactly the way she was before everything had soured badly. If he hadn't already been in the City for months, he would've been convinced that this was all some sick joke of a meddling telepath.

Alex took the chance to check out the bathroom, and found a first aid kid in one of the cabinets. He wasted no time in disinfecting her open cut, and then started to wrap a strip of bandage around it.

"Like I said, it's been years. Scott married Jean, had an affair with Emma Frost, then Jean...died." He wasn't sure why he'd told Maddie all that, and thought it was better not to dwell on it.

And then there was one more thing he needed to get out in the open: "I dated Lorna and another girl called Annie, and I'm with Scathach now."

[medea_recast]

"I'll always be there for you."

She watched the expressions cross his face, the familiar torments, the emotional divide, all of it useful and yet painful to watch all the same. But he stood with his brother in the end. Abandoned her in the end. So she allows him no quarter in her plans.

She winces a little at the pain, but allows him to bandage her wound. She files the name Scathach away, she may have spoken with the woman already, she'd have to go back to her entry and check, but his words about Scott... While not entirely unexpected after her conversation with Osborn, the name was enough to shock her.

"Emma Frost?" The Hellfire Queen, Masterminds' sometime accomplice. Surely Scott couldn't have been that stupid, could he?

[cry_andletloose]

He chose not to reply to that, finishing his bandaging of her hand and deftly fixing the loose end. Her hands were just as he'd remembered them, feminine and smooth and unmarred--

"The one and only," Alex said shortly as a disgruntled expression crossed his face. Like Rachel, he disliked Frost and her relationship with his brother, and though it had been going on for months now he still wasn't entirely used to it.

"She reformed, became an X-Man. We...do give second chances, you see."

[medea_recast]

"I shouldn't need a second chance. I haven't done anything."

She pulled away from him, watching Alex out of the corner of her eye as she grabbed the broom. However, instead of sweeping, she stood still, letting the silence draw out before she asked her next question. The one that was of great importance, and even greater relevance than her ex-husband's silly affairs.

"Alex... can you... tell me about my son. I meant to ask Scott more, but I got so angry, and I... I miss him so much."

[cry_andletloose]

"You're right, you haven't. But we've come from a world where you have, so they're judging you based on that."

Her soft, heartfelt question sent alarm bells ringing in his head-- Alex knew that Scott had specifically omitted that fact when he'd visited her earlier, and he vaguely recalled Cable's cordial greeting to her over the Network. This was such a head trip. On one hand, she was his mother and had a right to know, and genuinely sounded like she missed him tremendously. On the other hand, she'd tried to kill baby Nathan before.

Alex picked his words carefully. "Nathan was infected with an incurable disease and was taken into the future to be cured, it was the only way to save his life. Scott says he travelled to the future and took care of him as a boy. He returned to our timeline quite a lot older than us, but strong and healthy. You'd be...proud of him."

[medea_recast]

The measured response annoyed her, there was something she wasn't being told, something he was holding back. She knew him far too well. But perhaps now was not the time. He had to adjust, get used to her being alive and kind again. Lull him to complacency, then what she needed would slip. And she had time, here she could move slow, learn the ropes, work behind the scenes unhurried by her demonic allies.

Here, she could truly be a Queen.

But meanwhile, there was a gullible Summers to play with.

"Are you... a family? Back home, you're all together now, aren't you? Scott managed that much?" Somehow, she doubted that with the X-Men's track record. But stranger things had happened.