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Scott, despite everything, didn’t have a whole lot of enemies.
Sure there was the sons of humanity, and sentinels, well the whole Trask cooperation really,the avengers, Sinister, the fantastic four sometimes, Spider-man one time, the Los Angeles police department, the Omaha police department, the New york police department, the Fbi, the cia, the president-
Nevermind, Scott had too many enemies to count.
But worst of all was the x-men.
A X-men.
Marvel Girl.
Scott despised her. Oh, he hated her. Just thinking about her made his blood boil. Wanda had told him that she can tell when he’s thinking about the X-men because he got lines between his eyebrows and his face went kinda red.
So there was just a little teensy insy little bit of resentment as he followed her through cold stone lab. Every bone in his body screamed that he should be in charge, but unfortunately for his pride and ego she had been able to see more of the building before getting captured then he had.
Didn’t mean he couldn’t heckle her, though.
“ So.. Did you pick the name or was it the best that cueball could come up with?”
“ Shut up.” she replied, peeking around a corner. They had been able to incapacitate little miss headache (“Vertigo, Nobody. Her name is Vertigo.” “ I could not care less about what her name is, Marvel girl.”) before she was able to knock them out and take them who-knows where. The current plan was to get the heck outta dodge and away from each other.
Really, they hadn’t even agreed to stick together after they escaped from the cell itself, but Scott would never pass up an opportunity to be a nuisance.
He smirked.
“ No, really, Marvel girl, Kinda… well I was going to say on the nose, but..”
“ But?”
“ You’re not exactly a marvel. Girl, now that's-” he made a gesture like he was sticking a pin into the air, “-right on the money.”
“ Shut up.” she repeated.
He did, completely because of the shadow on the wall that appeared and not anything in her tone. It was large, lurking, and whatever was casting it smelled like rotten meat.
No, he thought, unwittingly smelling the air again. The smell was coming from behind him.
Wait-
“ Sabertooth!" Scott yelled as he and Marvel girl were grabbed by the backs of their suits like kittens being lifted by their mother. Scott twisted around, clawing at the claw that held him. Marvel girl yelped, obviously trying to use her Tk to do something, but whatever it was didn’t yield much reward.
“ Excellent work, Victor.” a cold voice commented. Scott turned to see the shadowing elongate and then appeared as a man with snow white skin and grease-black hair. Scott felt violently sick, all of a sudden. He hoped that Marvel Girl couldn’t see how pale he was.
“ Sinister. Let us go.” he growled. The doctor smiled.
“ After you so perfectly fell into my hands? I think not.” he scoffed. “ Victor, please take them to the lab so I can begin, who knows when such an opportunity will arise again.”
“ What opportunity, what are you playing at, Sinister?” Marvel girl asked. Scott looked at her as they were put down and shoved forward. Something about the look on her face…
“ Ah ah, psychic tricks won’t work on me,” Sinister taunted.
They were unceremoniously frog marched to a sterile stone laboratory. With every step they took, Scott’s panic grew. His head swiveled, looking for some weakness, a way out- anything. It was fruitless, especially when the two of them were strapped to separate gurneys by sabertooth’s less-then-gentle hands. Scott strained against the soft restraints, getting as far as tearing one before he felt two fingers press down on his forehead.
Sinister leaned in closely, his black hair curtaining around Scott's face.
“ Now now, Scott. Let’s relax.” he whispered. Scott hadn’t realized fully what had happened until he felt a sudden rush of euphoric calm.
“No..” he protested weakly.
“ What did you do to him?” Marvel girl asked, blurry-sounding and panicked.
“ Just a little sedative to help Nobody relax, would you like some?”
A glass shattered somewhere.
“ Now, those aren’t very good manners, I’ll have to replace that syringe now.”
Scott’s arms felt heavy as his freed hand was tied up again. The world was red syrup, quiet and far away.
“Now, I am very disappointed in you both. So close and yet so far from helping me achieve my ultimate goal. It was quite unfortunate how it all turned out, though I suppose I'll appreciate the opportunity to work with you two in a more… controlled environment.”
There was shuffling as the doctor moved about the laboratory, and rattling of instruments. Scott listened to it from underwater, unsure and unable to really see, eyes glued to the ceiling.
All of a sudden his vision cleared, colorful for a moment before red consumed him.
“ Wait-” he yelled.
Scott wouldn’t learn until he was outside behind held up by his worst enemy that Marvel Girl had used his own gloves to open his visor, blasting a hole in the roof and allowing her to free them both and drag him to safety.
“I’m scared,” he slurred as she dragged them through the forest surrounding the laboratory. It was something he would never have admitted if he wasn’t drugged.
There was movement in his sight, and warmness in his chest. Marvel girl was talking to him- or at him. Complete nonsense, the lot of it. Scott was very close to his own face. Or her face. Whose face was it? He was pretty sure he was looking at his eyes. Through his eyes. The distinction didn’t matter when he had to go. His hands were a million miles away and his feet were gone completely, he probably left them by the door before he got in the car. It wasn’t illegal to drive barefoot, after all.
“ What?” He asked. Marvel girl looked at him with confusion.
“ I’m wearing shoes.” He confirmed. She rolled her eyes.
“ What was in that IV…” she muttered, presumably to herself. Unfortunately everything was talking to Scott right now.
“ IV, obviously.”
As the numbness in his legs subsided and was replaced by bees Scott began to realize that he was not only alive, but awake, as well. He shoved the girl off of him and to the ground. It was unfortunate that she had been the only thing keeping him up, too. Toppling next to her, Scott took in the perfect image of cumulonimbus clouds above the forest roof.
“ What the fuck,” Oh, Marvel girl was ontop of him. That was… weird.
“ Sorry.” He apologized, he kinda just figured he should, but couldn’t place exactly for what.
“ Jesus, that- fuck. Ok, uhm-” She looked around. “I’m gonna do something, but don’t freak out-ok?”
Scott didn’t really like the sound of his prospects going forward. But she was on top of him and every one of his muscles had gone on strike. His nervous system was a proverbial Emma Goldman, spreading the seeds of anarchy and socialism throughout his blood. Wait, what?
“ Ok”
He felt Marvel girl poke his brain with her finger. She recoiled sharply.
“ Fuck, ok- I promise I won’t look, just- ok- uh- close your eyes.”
Scott wasn’t even aware his eyes were open, so he complied.
He felt a weight get removed from his head. There was a buzz-buzzing in his skull, something got pulled taut, cut with a seamripper, and-
And for the second time in 5 minutes Marvel girl was thrown to the ground.
Scott shook away the feeling of psychic interference, feeling disgusted and violated and really,really fucking angry. His hands easily found his visor, and he jammed it back over his eyes so roughly it hurt.
She had no time to react before his boot was on her shoulder, pinning her against the ground. His nose curled as he trained his deadly gaze on her skull.
“ You have five seconds.”
“ You were drugged out of your mind, I severed the connection between your subliminal consciousness and temporarily isolated the region of neuroreceptors that were firing in overdrive from it. You're welcome. It’ll go back to normal in a day or so.” She snarked. She wasn’t afraid.
She had never been afraid of him, not even when he could turn her head into a black smear on the dirt.
“ You took my mask off.” He accused. The implications of which, admittedly, terrified him. Fucking sue him, he had a life outside of work, and his absolute worst opposition learning even what his face looked like could jepordize that.
“ I didn’t look. I get we have our differences but I'm not moralless. You have your secret identity, I have mine.” She became very serious.
Scott had learned over the course of his year and a half getting in the X-men’s way, and vise versa, that there was a mutual.. Trust, if you could call it that. He wouldn’t kill them. They wouldn’t leave him strung up for the cops (not that he couldn’t get out of that himself). And maybe that was why Marvel Girl’s words rang true.
He took his boot off of her. She got up, looking at him warily. He averted his gaze, grateful she couldn’t tell that for once he wasn’t meeting her glare with his own.
He skipped past gratitudes.
“ What happened in the lab.”
“Sabertooth got the jump on us-”
“-fuckin creed. I’m gonna hunt him down for this.”
“-yeah, maybe later. Sinister gave you something, it- uh, knocked you out pretty good. I used your gloves to open your visor, which gave me enough of an opening to pin him down and get us out.”
“ You carried me out here?”
“ I’m a telekinetic. And honestly, you look like you're 90 pounds soaking wet.” Marvel girl crossed her arms, popping a hip. Scott wished he had his mask. He felt like his cheeks were burning up.
“ You didn’t see-” he couldn’t tell if he was referring to his face or his mind.
“ I didn’t look.” she answered.
..thats good.
“ Good.”
God this was awful.
“You have a history with him, don’t you.”
And somehow it just got worse. Scott straightened up.
“ I don’t see how that's any of your business.”
“ Ok first of all, you talk like you're sixty and have been an accountant your whole life, second of all, I feel like after what Sinister said it is my business now.”
Scott was silent, looking at her for an uncomfortable amount of time without responding physically or verbally. Marvel girl rolled her eyes.
“ Something about us. He specifically wanted us together.” she answered his unasked question.
Scott allowed the unfeeling part of his brain to consider that, but no logical conclusion came.
“ Yeah. Me and him go back.” He spat. “But I don’t know how or why he brought you into it. I’m sorry you got mixed up in my beef.”
“Wow, you’re apologizing-”
Scott didn’t even have time to square his shoulder before she stunned him with a bout of sincerity.
“-Are you sure you're ok?”
The two leaders stood there for a while. Scott was never going to dignify that question with an answer. Was he ok? Of course not, he was a mess. His dad was a supervillain, his girlfriend broke up with him a few months ago and now he was pretty sure he was gonna die alone, his jumper cables had corroded and he only discovered that yesterday, the evil orphanage keeper from his childhood had plans, Victor had betrayed them-
But she didn’t need to know that.
Scott, with a huff, drew a surgical pen from one of his pockets on his suit. He kept it around in case he had important notes to jot down mid-mission, notepads weren’t exactly practical, but he could write on his hand and nobody would bother taking his gloves off to see except him. He was a little surprised that the pen hadn’t been taken off his person when the marauders had caught his slinking around.
He grabbed Marvel Girl’s hand, pulling the cap off with his mouth.
“ What are you doing?” she demanded, pulling her arm back slightly. He didn’t let it go.
“ Giving you my pager number. If sinister fucks with your people i need to know about it.” He wrote ten digits on the back of her hand.
“ You’re giving me your personal pager? Are you stupid? You know I could track this and have you arrested, right?”
“ Business only. And nobody knows about this, alright? Not about today or you getting in my head or this,” he dropped her hand and put his pen back. “ And I'm not an idiot-”
It’s encrypted, he could have said. You couldn’t track it if you tried, and I know you’re going to try. There were a hundred truths he could have said.
“ If you wanted to figure out who I am, you would have already, huh Marvel girl,”
A smirk crept onto her face.
“ Thrilled your feeling back to yourself. I think I liked you better when you were incoherent, doll ”
“ Kick rocks, kid. I have actual work to do.” He snapped back, turning away and starting his trek through the forest. His bike was at least a mile walk away, and the sun was dipping. He needed a shower and a bed about five hours ago.
“ I hope Magnets kicks your ass for missing curfew, dipshit! ” Marvel girl called after him. He raised a hand to flip her off.
“ Go find your birdy boyfriend and run back to baldy, i’m sure he has a good morning america segment all planned out for your ‘public image’” He yelled back, when he got no response, he turned his head to look. She was gone.
“ What a bitch.” he muttered to himself, trying to convince himself that he was convinced.