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Title: The New Mutants II, Volume XVIII: Neutralized
Author: kanedax
Fandom: X-Men Movieverse, plus other Marvel ‘Verses
Spoilers: X3; The New Mutants I & II (see above)
Rating: PG13+ for strong language and general creepiness
Summary: We visit the other side of the board, as Tony and Reed visit the prisoners
Notes: I have the rest of the story charted out as of last night. After this section, I’m looking at five or six more chapters to the end. As usual, I don’t own the X-Men, Marvel Comics, 20th Century Fox, or a masturbating bear.
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“Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick…”
“Would someone… shut her up…?” Sam Guthrie asked wearily as he sat against the wall of the cell. “Bothering me…”
“Let her alone,” Lucas Bishop replied, looking at the opposite wall. The girl who they had been placed into their cell with, the blonde whose name neither of them knew, sat staring at the door, her finger limply extended.
“Tick tick tick tick tick…”
“How long?” Sam asked Lucas. “How long has she…?”
Lucas shook his head. He wasn’t sure how long the girl had been going at it. She would nod off occasionally, and when she awoke she would look back at the door, point, and continue to tick.
In all honesty, Lucas wasn’t even sure how long they had been here. This thing on his head made his thoughts fuzzy. For what felt like the millionth time since he found himself here, he attempted to reach up to his forehead and take off the damned piece of metal. He had free movement when he wanted to scratch his face. He had free movement when he wanted to stand up and walk around. When he needed to take a piss, he could use the toilet in the corner, and he knew that none of the others would watch. When food came (and, his foggy mind had to admit, it’s not like the food was bad), he ate heartily.
But when he tried to lift his hands to touch the metal ring, they wouldn’t move. If he tried to slide himself down the back of the wall to make it slide off, his head instinctively moved forward to keep itself clear of the concrete. Once or twice he had attempted to stand and walk over to Sam, to remove the metal that was circling his own head, but his legs refused to do so.
And his powers? Forget about them. He had bumped his knee on the toilet seat a few hours/minutes/days ago, and he felt all the pain that he remembered from before his powers had activated. He felt none of the flow of energy enter his body. He felt weak. Useless.
And where were the others? At Radio City Music Hall, he remembered very little after they slipped this damned thing on his head. But he did remember a helicopter ride. Kitty was there. So were Bobby and Jimmy. And a boy with a mohawk.
“…tick tick tick tick tick tick…”
Were they? He leaned his head against the back wall and shook it. His head leapt forward, allowing the metal ring to stay in place. He just couldn’t remember anymore.
And what of the others? Where was Rogue? And Forge? And… and…
What were their names? Some minutes he could clearly remember everything, while other times he couldn’t even remember the name of the boy sitting next to him.
He had a sister, didn’t he? What was her name? Something about a book…
Maybe it was the ticking girl…
He turned his head weakly to the right, looking out at the moon. He vaguely remembered thinking that he should smash that window and run. But why didn’t he?
Better to do it later, he thought as his eyes slid shut. When I know more…
tick tick tick tick tick tick
“What time is it…?”
Bobby’s head lolled on his neck as he looked over at the young black boy sitting next to him. Like him, the boy was dressed in dark blue pants and a shirt that brought back dusty memories of Bobby getting his wisdoms removed. He also had blond hair like Bobby, although his was a blond dye through the middle of his otherwise dark hair. His hands and face were scarred, like they had been in the sun for too long. Bobby thought he remembered why, but it slipped his mind.
“No watch…” Bobby said, lifting his wrist to his face. He felt the insane urge to smash his fist against his forehead, maybe to break the metal. That might work. If he hit his head hard enough, it might smack into the wall, and…
Wow, he thought as his hand floated dully before him, my fingernails need some cleaning.
“I’m missing Conan…” the boy said. “I think… my friends always… said he was for old… white… folks… but…”
A brainstorm struck Bobby. “What’s… your name?” he asked, and then realized he had already asked at least a dozen times.
“Masturbating Bear…” the boy replied, giggling.
“Weird…”
“Masturbating Bear,” the boy continued sluggishly. “Triumph… Tike… Coked-Up Werewolf…”
“Bobby?” a voice came from across the room.
“’In the Year Two Thousand…” the boy said in a high falsetto. “In the Year Two Thousaaaand…”
“Kitty?” Bobby said to the voice. “Awake?”
“Mmmmmmmhmmmmmmm,” she hummed, crawling across the floor towards him. “Still tired…”
“Come here…”
“See,” the boy continued, “The joke is that it’s not the Year Two Thousand. That was like… what… fifty… sixty years ago… or something…”
Kitty rested her head on Bobby’s lap, careful not to lay the metal ring anywhere but between his crossed legs, not in any contact with his body. She thought that she could, but she really shouldn’t. He ran his hands through her dark hair, always stopping near the ring.
I can take it off of her right now, he thought. If I can take it off her, she can take mine off. And it would all be over. We could go back.
But she’s just so pretty. Bobby looked down at her and felt that he wanted nothing more than to look at her pretty face and stroke her pretty hair till they both turned old together.
“That’s why it’s so funny…” the other boy said.
“Where’s Jimmy?” Kitty asked, her voice on the verge of sleep.
“Jimmy Hoffa!” the boy yelled.
“…Don’t know.”
“Seeeecrets…”
“Was he here?”
They heard footsteps in the hall outside, and saw two silhouettes look through the door’s window into the room.
“…Don’t know…”
“Where’s Logan and Dr. Moira?” Kitty asked. “And Rogue and Anthony Hopkins and Jubilee?”
“I don’t know…”
“I’m the one bangin’ Mrs. ‘opkins.”
“Jesus Christ,” Tony Stark said as he looked in on the three mutants. “Are they always this… I don’t know… psycho?”
“Mutants don’t normally act this way, no,” Reed said flatly behind him.
“Well, yeah, obviously,” Tony responded. “But with the neural thingies?”
“Neural inhibitors.”
“…Neural inhibitors, sorry,” corrected Tony. “Do they always mess people up like that?”
“I didn’t think they would,” said Reed as the two left the door. “Besides, it’s not doing any permanent damage to their minds. It’s just the brain’s way of compensating for the blocks that it puts onto their powers. S.H.I.E.L.D. used them on Lehnsherr’s kids last year, and they turned out okay when they both escaped.”
Tony shook his head. “Once again proves the instability of the average mind, huh?”
“Tony…”
“Some can take it, some can’t.”
“I don’t want to get into this again,” Reed snapped. “They’re kids, for God’s sake.”
“They’re weapons,” said Tony. “Kids that were chosen by some random fluke of genetics to be carrying around guns and knives and bombs. I don’t think I have to remind you what happened at Radio City, do I? The explosions, the damage, the death?”
Reed mumbled something to himself.
“What was that?”
“I said you act like it was all their fault,” Reed said. “Even though you know better.”
“It was our fault that they pushed Bruce into doing what he did?” Tony asked. “It was our fault that the balcony almost crushed hundreds of people? It was our fault that some punk kid almost blew me to bits?”
“Your suit can take a forty megaton blast,” Reed said, “and you know it.”
“That’s not the point,” said Tony. “The point is that what happened at Radio City happened because of idiots with too much power.”
“Mutant idiots and human idiots,” Reed interrupted.
“The difference being that the human idiots couldn’t blow things up with a stray thought,” Tony said. “You know it. That’s why we’re here, right?”
“This isn’t what I signed up for,” Reed said quietly. “This isn’t what we signed up for.”
“It sure as is,” Tony said. “Both you and Susan did. I completely agree with both of you. Mutation’s a hell of a thing. It can be a blessing to society if it’s treated right, if it’s in the hands of good people. You believed it. So did she. So did Bruce. That’s why I funded your research, because I believed it, too.”
“I didn’t sign up for this…” Reed pointed his finger back to the two doors behind which the mutants rested.
“It’s the nature of the beast, Richards,” said Tony. “If you believe that mutation is good if it’s in the hands of the right people, then you have to believe that it’s bad in the hands of the wrong ones. The ones who weren’t chosen; the ones who flaunt their powers recklessly. The ones who need to be cured.
“Like your son.”
Reed’s eyes narrowed, but Tony just looked back at him without emotion. Richards grunted in frustration and continued down the hall.
“Speaking of a cure,” asked Tony, “have we heard anything about the Worthington boy?”
“Leech?”
“No, the one with the wings. Of course, Leech.”
“No,” Reed said. “Nothing that we didn’t already know.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. The Worthington Labs files were fairly extensive when it came to the capabilities and genetics of the boy. There’s nothing else we can learn from him. Nothing that could speed the process any further than it’s already being sped.”
Tony and Reed walked in an uncomfortable silence. Tony broke it.
“Well, they weren’t exhaustive.”
“Exhaustive enough without killing the boy,” Reed corrected.
“Your point?”
Reed stopped in his tracks and slowly turned around. “Tony…” he said between gritted teeth.
“What?”
“My wife is upstairs with her comatose brother. My colleague is three miles from here, under heavy sedation in a giant steel bomb shelter. There are bodies in the city morgue that were killed in part by our negligence, a half dozen living ones being held here against their will, and a manhunt out for a group of mutants that are being accompanied by my only son. So don’t you dare suggest that I make matters worse by killing a child just to make our project go faster.”
“I didn’t say it,” said Tony, “you did.”
“This whole project’s gone to hell,” Reed fumed, rubbing his hands over his face.
“Far from it,” Tony said, patting Reed on the back.
Reed turned to Tony, his eyes filled with anger, ready to explode. Tony’s cellphone rang. Reed, the moment broken, turned towards the elevator. “I’m going to check in on Susan and John.”
“Give her my love,” Tony said as he flipped open the phone.
“Fuck you,” Reed said under his breath as the door slid open.
“What was that?”
“I said ‘Thank you,’” said Reed, turning back around to discover that Tony wasn’t talking to him, but to the telephone.
“You’re going to have to say it one more time,” Tony said darkly into the phone, “just so I make sure I’m not accidentally firing you.”
“What is it?” Reed asked.
Tony looked up at him, his eyes wide. “We’re having a bit of a problem.”
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