Persistence of Memory
folder
X-Men - Animated Series (all) › General
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
57
Views:
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Reviews:
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Category:
X-Men - Animated Series (all) › General
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
57
Views:
7,463
Reviews:
68
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.
41
Persistence of Memory Chapter Forty One (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply
A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST
WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta…good luck! *crosses fingers * InterNutter, TC and Maxwell Pink are extra special people for
archiving. ProPhile is a delayed
gratification smut muse but that’s okay…
Readers/Reviewers: Thank you!
And the ducks send their love, too.
Pietro
rubbed his temples, bored to near-tears of the conversation between Magneto,
Tarot and Mesmero. They were discussion
the long-term implications of something he could not have cared less about and
he was about to announce his abdication to wait in the car when something
caught his attention. “What was that?”
Tarot
turned on him to glare imperiously. “He
said, it’s high time we stop hiding and being ashamed of our superiority. It’s time to come out into the open and if
they choose not to, we drag them kicking and screaming.”
Magneto
smiled blandly. “Not quite how I put
it, but that’s the general idea.”
Pietro
could only stare in surprise. “You want to…expose us?”
Mesmero
snorted disdainfully. “Slow learner,
isn’t he?”
“Do not,”
Magneto intoned harshly, “talk about my son in such a manner.” Mesmero ducked his head but glared hard at
the teenager from under beetled brows.
“Pietro, you understand my goals for the Brotherhood…you support them. Why are you acting so shocked?”
“I guess,” he said slowly, not
meeting his father’s or Tarot’s piercing glares, “that it just sounds
so…big…when you say it out loud like that.”
He rubbed his hands on the front of his jeans, drying the sweat that had
suddenly sprung up on his palms. “It
sounds…good,” he lied, his heart racing a mile a minute. Exposed…everyone would know. “But don’t enough people know because of
what happened at Bayville?”
Magneto
made a dismissive gesture. “That’s
penny ante. A joke. That is beneath us.”
“That was
because of us!” Tarot pointed out.
Magneto did
not miss how she included herself in his machinations so easily. “We did seem to cause
that…error…yes. However, they do not
realize the full potential of such an occurrence. They want to hide, to make people forget. They’re sad, really. Pathetic.
Almost makes me pity them.” He
began pacing, oddly more spry than in previous days, Pietro noticed. “Scatterbrain, Saint Anna, Firestar and
Psylocke have been apprised of this as of this morning, but you three need to
be briefed…” Turning bright eyes to his
audience, he stopped pacing. “Soon, the
Brotherhood of Mutants will rise to the fore.
We will be known to all…our numbers are going to swell exponentially…”
I’ll be
damned…he has a graph… Pietro
watched with morbid interest as Magneto brought forth from his desk a pile
easily an inch and a half thick, detailing the finer points of a media blitz
and prepared statements and yes, even a graph, for the revelation of the mutant
population. “But not everyone is ready
to be found out,” he said thickly. The
realization was striking him hard and fast.
It was one thing to show off, zip around town in a blur, even get into
fights, but a full-scale revelation…that was asking for war.
Magneto did
not even look up. He nodded to Mesmero
who grabbed Pietro’s arm. “We’re going
to have a talk,” the older man snarled.
Pietro’s knees buckled and he was lost in the gaze of the
hypnotist.
Psylocke could not even raise her
head as Pietro staggered into the room, falling face-down on the floor as
Mesmero’s influence was removed. “Hey,”
she said tiredly, rolling onto one side after a long moment. “He got you, too.”
“You look like Hell,” Pietro
muttered, gaining his feet. “Has he
been doing this to you this whole time?”
“Not me,” Psylocke responded,
sitting up with some effort. “Firestar. I’ve been the
battery for that damn machine of his.
Now that he has Scatterbrain, though, maybe he’ll leave me alone!”
Pietro
shook himself slightly, trying to regain his bearings. “What did he do?”
“Mesmero?”
Psylocke sighed and braced her hands against the mattress so she would not fall
over. “He hypnotizes people…usually, he
needs eyntacntact. He’s big with
planting suggestions and the like. He’d
like to think he’s powerful, but he’s a better lackey than anything.”
“Then how
did you…”
“I’m too
weak to fight,” she sighed. “I’m
drained to the point of sheer exhaustion.
Whatever that thing is…it’s like mind rape. I can’t stop it…I can feel and see
everything… So far, I know I haven’t
killed anyone but I know…” she paused, closing her eyes. She could see the Bayville Incident as it
happened and the sheer panic remembered was enough to make her sick.
“You look
like Hell,” Pietro rejoined, gaining his feet.
He had no idea how long he had been with Mesmero, but he had an idea
that most of the day had passed.
“You’re not
going to win Miss America yourself.”
Psylocke hissed out a breath.
“They’re coming back.”
Pietro
turned towards the door expectantly, not sure what he should do next—go along
with Magneto or his fear.
Theresa
stretched, bouncing on her toes in the process. “So what’s going on with this whole interview thing?”
Sam
sighed. “Long story…watch the news to
catch up.”
She raised
a brow and lowered her arms. “Well,
it’d be good to know why everyone’s jumpier than a long tailed cat in a room
full of rocking chairs.”
He
shrugged. “It’s a long story. It happened about the time you showed up…”
He gave an abbreviated version of recent events.
“Seems like
I came at a bad time.”
“The little
bit I’ve been here…I don’t think there is such a thing as a good time to show
up. Life never seems to get dull here.”
She made a
face. “You sound like a travel advert
for Greece.”
Sam threw a
small pillow from the sofa at her.
“Keep it up and I’ll tell Banshee what you said about him.”
“You
wouldn’t dare!”
“Try
me!” He threw the other pillow and was
promptly tackled by the lanky Irish girl.
“Eat dirt,
Yank!”
“Hey,
them’s fightin’ words!” he drawled exaggeratedly. Years of wrestling with siblings gave him the advantage, despite
Theresa’s years of experience with fighting.
His size ended up being the deciding factor. In one swift move, he flipped her off the sofa and onto the
floor, pinning her arms and legs quickly.
She struggled briefly, but seemed to realize the implications of their
position the same moment he did. “Sorry,”
he said quickly, rolling off her and sitting up. “I’m…uh…”
“Sam,” she
said in a strange tone. “I think I
might like to stay here a bit.” She
leaned forward and kissed him, her first kiss ever, quickly and urgently,
missing his mouth by an inch to the left.
“I…um…highly
encourage you to stay here,” he rejoined stiltedly. Hesitantly, he leaned towards her, transfixed by the almost
scared expression in her eyes. This
time, the kiss was not as misplaced but still tentative and not a little
awkward. He had the dizzying sensation
of newness, a foreign act that he knew he wanted to become familiar, then she
pulled away. “Theresa…”
“I…I have
to go…unpack. Or something…” As she spoke, she was scooting away from him
backwards, scrambling to her feet. “Later…”
“Smooth,”
Paige drawled from the doorway.
“You see
all that?”
“My big
brother, the Casnova of Kentucky.”
“You’re not
too old for me to kick your ass.” Sam
leaned back against the sofa and closed his eyes. “What do you want, Paige?”
“Think
everyone’s done run off… Kurt’s gone, Warren’s gone, Logan’s gone, Kitty’s gone…Storm
just took off out of here with Forge… I
think it’s just you, me, Jono, Rahne, Jamie and some of the new kids.”
Sam opened
one eye. “So?”
“So?” she
sighed. “Sam, we have this place to
ourselves…”
“We aren’t
snooping around.”
“I didn’t
mean that in a good way. Sam,” she said
sternly, “we’re in charge of a bunch of mutants!”
“Sis, we’re
mutants.”
“Just
because you own a car doesn’t make you a mechanic.” She pushed away from the wall and motioned to him impatiently. “C’mon.
You can moon over Siryn while we run a sim.”
“Do what?”
She
smirked, noticing that he didn’t deny the lovelorn attitude. “If we keep ‘em busy, they can’t get into
trouble.” She had learned that lesson
with her younger cousins.
Sam gave
her a quizzical look. “You know how to
run the Danger Room?”
“How hard
can it be if Kitty can do it and make out with Kurt at the same time?” she
asked blithely. “C’mon. You get the kids, I’ll get it started.”
“How you
doing back there, Kitty?”
“Fine,” she
lied.
Tabby
glanced at Wanda and said in hushed tones, “Can’t you drive faster?”
“I’m trying
to bind her powers and do this at the same time…I’m kinda distracted here.”
Lucas made
a snuffling noise, then cooed. “Well,
he doesn’t seem to notice anything bad coming.”
“Tabby,”
Kitty said stiltedly, “he’s a baby. He
might not even have a little of his powers yet.”
“He does,”
Tabby said with great sureness. “He
told me so.”
Wanda shot
her girlfriend a strange look. “Sweetie,
when we get back, you are so taking a nap.”
Kitty
smiled to herself and closed her eyes.
Home. So close.
“Fuck!”
Wanda slammed on the brakes, sending Kitty sprawling to the floor from the
backseat. “Kurt, I swear to God…”
“Kurt?”
Kitty choked. “Where?”
“On the
corner,” Tabby said. “Honk, Wanda!”
“The idiot
just ported. If I hadn’t been looking, I would’ve missed him. Hey, dumb ass!”
Kitty
blurred in a haze of hot pain for several moments but she became aware of
someone crouched over her and movement beneath her. “Kurt?”
“Kitty, don’t
scare me like this!” he said
raggedly. Frantically, he kissed her
face and hands. “What happened? What’s going on?”
“Home
first, okay? I’ll tell you everything there.”
“Promise?”
“If I
remember.”
A/N Short.
Sorry. We’re flooding here so
the electricity is iffy. It’ll be
longer tomorrow, cross my heart and all that.
Disclaimers Apply
A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST
WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta…good luck! *crosses fingers * InterNutter, TC and Maxwell Pink are extra special people for
archiving. ProPhile is a delayed
gratification smut muse but that’s okay…
Readers/Reviewers: Thank you!
And the ducks send their love, too.
Pietro
rubbed his temples, bored to near-tears of the conversation between Magneto,
Tarot and Mesmero. They were discussion
the long-term implications of something he could not have cared less about and
he was about to announce his abdication to wait in the car when something
caught his attention. “What was that?”
Tarot
turned on him to glare imperiously. “He
said, it’s high time we stop hiding and being ashamed of our superiority. It’s time to come out into the open and if
they choose not to, we drag them kicking and screaming.”
Magneto
smiled blandly. “Not quite how I put
it, but that’s the general idea.”
Pietro
could only stare in surprise. “You want to…expose us?”
Mesmero
snorted disdainfully. “Slow learner,
isn’t he?”
“Do not,”
Magneto intoned harshly, “talk about my son in such a manner.” Mesmero ducked his head but glared hard at
the teenager from under beetled brows.
“Pietro, you understand my goals for the Brotherhood…you support them. Why are you acting so shocked?”
“I guess,” he said slowly, not
meeting his father’s or Tarot’s piercing glares, “that it just sounds
so…big…when you say it out loud like that.”
He rubbed his hands on the front of his jeans, drying the sweat that had
suddenly sprung up on his palms. “It
sounds…good,” he lied, his heart racing a mile a minute. Exposed…everyone would know. “But don’t enough people know because of
what happened at Bayville?”
Magneto
made a dismissive gesture. “That’s
penny ante. A joke. That is beneath us.”
“That was
because of us!” Tarot pointed out.
Magneto did
not miss how she included herself in his machinations so easily. “We did seem to cause
that…error…yes. However, they do not
realize the full potential of such an occurrence. They want to hide, to make people forget. They’re sad, really. Pathetic.
Almost makes me pity them.” He
began pacing, oddly more spry than in previous days, Pietro noticed. “Scatterbrain, Saint Anna, Firestar and
Psylocke have been apprised of this as of this morning, but you three need to
be briefed…” Turning bright eyes to his
audience, he stopped pacing. “Soon, the
Brotherhood of Mutants will rise to the fore.
We will be known to all…our numbers are going to swell exponentially…”
I’ll be
damned…he has a graph… Pietro
watched with morbid interest as Magneto brought forth from his desk a pile
easily an inch and a half thick, detailing the finer points of a media blitz
and prepared statements and yes, even a graph, for the revelation of the mutant
population. “But not everyone is ready
to be found out,” he said thickly. The
realization was striking him hard and fast.
It was one thing to show off, zip around town in a blur, even get into
fights, but a full-scale revelation…that was asking for war.
Magneto did
not even look up. He nodded to Mesmero
who grabbed Pietro’s arm. “We’re going
to have a talk,” the older man snarled.
Pietro’s knees buckled and he was lost in the gaze of the
hypnotist.
Psylocke could not even raise her
head as Pietro staggered into the room, falling face-down on the floor as
Mesmero’s influence was removed. “Hey,”
she said tiredly, rolling onto one side after a long moment. “He got you, too.”
“You look like Hell,” Pietro
muttered, gaining his feet. “Has he
been doing this to you this whole time?”
“Not me,” Psylocke responded,
sitting up with some effort. “Firestar. I’ve been the
battery for that damn machine of his.
Now that he has Scatterbrain, though, maybe he’ll leave me alone!”
Pietro
shook himself slightly, trying to regain his bearings. “What did he do?”
“Mesmero?”
Psylocke sighed and braced her hands against the mattress so she would not fall
over. “He hypnotizes people…usually, he
needs eyntacntact. He’s big with
planting suggestions and the like. He’d
like to think he’s powerful, but he’s a better lackey than anything.”
“Then how
did you…”
“I’m too
weak to fight,” she sighed. “I’m
drained to the point of sheer exhaustion.
Whatever that thing is…it’s like mind rape. I can’t stop it…I can feel and see
everything… So far, I know I haven’t
killed anyone but I know…” she paused, closing her eyes. She could see the Bayville Incident as it
happened and the sheer panic remembered was enough to make her sick.
“You look
like Hell,” Pietro rejoined, gaining his feet.
He had no idea how long he had been with Mesmero, but he had an idea
that most of the day had passed.
“You’re not
going to win Miss America yourself.”
Psylocke hissed out a breath.
“They’re coming back.”
Pietro
turned towards the door expectantly, not sure what he should do next—go along
with Magneto or his fear.
Theresa
stretched, bouncing on her toes in the process. “So what’s going on with this whole interview thing?”
Sam
sighed. “Long story…watch the news to
catch up.”
She raised
a brow and lowered her arms. “Well,
it’d be good to know why everyone’s jumpier than a long tailed cat in a room
full of rocking chairs.”
He
shrugged. “It’s a long story. It happened about the time you showed up…”
He gave an abbreviated version of recent events.
“Seems like
I came at a bad time.”
“The little
bit I’ve been here…I don’t think there is such a thing as a good time to show
up. Life never seems to get dull here.”
She made a
face. “You sound like a travel advert
for Greece.”
Sam threw a
small pillow from the sofa at her.
“Keep it up and I’ll tell Banshee what you said about him.”
“You
wouldn’t dare!”
“Try
me!” He threw the other pillow and was
promptly tackled by the lanky Irish girl.
“Eat dirt,
Yank!”
“Hey,
them’s fightin’ words!” he drawled exaggeratedly. Years of wrestling with siblings gave him the advantage, despite
Theresa’s years of experience with fighting.
His size ended up being the deciding factor. In one swift move, he flipped her off the sofa and onto the
floor, pinning her arms and legs quickly.
She struggled briefly, but seemed to realize the implications of their
position the same moment he did. “Sorry,”
he said quickly, rolling off her and sitting up. “I’m…uh…”
“Sam,” she
said in a strange tone. “I think I
might like to stay here a bit.” She
leaned forward and kissed him, her first kiss ever, quickly and urgently,
missing his mouth by an inch to the left.
“I…um…highly
encourage you to stay here,” he rejoined stiltedly. Hesitantly, he leaned towards her, transfixed by the almost
scared expression in her eyes. This
time, the kiss was not as misplaced but still tentative and not a little
awkward. He had the dizzying sensation
of newness, a foreign act that he knew he wanted to become familiar, then she
pulled away. “Theresa…”
“I…I have
to go…unpack. Or something…” As she spoke, she was scooting away from him
backwards, scrambling to her feet. “Later…”
“Smooth,”
Paige drawled from the doorway.
“You see
all that?”
“My big
brother, the Casnova of Kentucky.”
“You’re not
too old for me to kick your ass.” Sam
leaned back against the sofa and closed his eyes. “What do you want, Paige?”
“Think
everyone’s done run off… Kurt’s gone, Warren’s gone, Logan’s gone, Kitty’s gone…Storm
just took off out of here with Forge… I
think it’s just you, me, Jono, Rahne, Jamie and some of the new kids.”
Sam opened
one eye. “So?”
“So?” she
sighed. “Sam, we have this place to
ourselves…”
“We aren’t
snooping around.”
“I didn’t
mean that in a good way. Sam,” she said
sternly, “we’re in charge of a bunch of mutants!”
“Sis, we’re
mutants.”
“Just
because you own a car doesn’t make you a mechanic.” She pushed away from the wall and motioned to him impatiently. “C’mon.
You can moon over Siryn while we run a sim.”
“Do what?”
She
smirked, noticing that he didn’t deny the lovelorn attitude. “If we keep ‘em busy, they can’t get into
trouble.” She had learned that lesson
with her younger cousins.
Sam gave
her a quizzical look. “You know how to
run the Danger Room?”
“How hard
can it be if Kitty can do it and make out with Kurt at the same time?” she
asked blithely. “C’mon. You get the kids, I’ll get it started.”
“How you
doing back there, Kitty?”
“Fine,” she
lied.
Tabby
glanced at Wanda and said in hushed tones, “Can’t you drive faster?”
“I’m trying
to bind her powers and do this at the same time…I’m kinda distracted here.”
Lucas made
a snuffling noise, then cooed. “Well,
he doesn’t seem to notice anything bad coming.”
“Tabby,”
Kitty said stiltedly, “he’s a baby. He
might not even have a little of his powers yet.”
“He does,”
Tabby said with great sureness. “He
told me so.”
Wanda shot
her girlfriend a strange look. “Sweetie,
when we get back, you are so taking a nap.”
Kitty
smiled to herself and closed her eyes.
Home. So close.
“Fuck!”
Wanda slammed on the brakes, sending Kitty sprawling to the floor from the
backseat. “Kurt, I swear to God…”
“Kurt?”
Kitty choked. “Where?”
“On the
corner,” Tabby said. “Honk, Wanda!”
“The idiot
just ported. If I hadn’t been looking, I would’ve missed him. Hey, dumb ass!”
Kitty
blurred in a haze of hot pain for several moments but she became aware of
someone crouched over her and movement beneath her. “Kurt?”
“Kitty, don’t
scare me like this!” he said
raggedly. Frantically, he kissed her
face and hands. “What happened? What’s going on?”
“Home
first, okay? I’ll tell you everything there.”
“Promise?”
“If I
remember.”
A/N Short.
Sorry. We’re flooding here so
the electricity is iffy. It’ll be
longer tomorrow, cross my heart and all that.