Summary:Laura comes back to the Mansion and Caden gets to welcome her home Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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Several hours ago…
"Really, Janice. This is not a thing I'm ready for." Caden had returned several weeks ago, and since he'd returned he'd made himself useful. To his friends and teammates, using his talents with computers to get them information and intelligence. Using his connections to get people in contact with the right people. He even snuck into a records building and stole the old information that Nick and Isis needed by hand.
But that hadn't been for the school proper. "Caden, I know you're an X-Man," Janice had said, one of the school instructors who had taken a role in the children's learning as many of the X-Men had already run off. "And you're welcome here as long as you like. But it just might help you feel better… you know, if you connected with the students of this generation. You know?"
The older woman smiled to Caden and squeezed his elbow, "They've all heard stories of the X-Men and the things you accomplished. Some of them would love to spend some time with one of them."
But Caden, was never one for such attention. Though he did have a /smidge/ of guilt feeling about living there and eating there… when he hadn't really been contributing too much. So eventually, after some hemming and hawing, the youth smiled to her and said. "Alright. Alright. I'll… teach a class or something."
Now… out in the field in the back of the mansion.
"Alright Antonio, bottom of the 9th, two outs. Bases loaded. Let's see what you got." Caden stood on the pitcher's mound surrounded by about twenty youngsters of all ages, the team off the field are hooting and hollaring and calling out to Antonio.
"You got this, Tony!"
"Yeah, don't even have to go rock form, buddy!"
"He's got nothin' left, Pryde's on fumes!"
But Tony's grinning, his earthy features augmented some wth rock-like eyebrows and teeth. He stops for a second, lines up and then /points/ with the bat for the outfield. Calling it.
"Oh ho, somebody's got some moxie. Alright kid, let's see what you got!"
Caden winds up, there's a pitch… and /CRACK!/ the ball goes sailing sailing… off into the woods for a homerun. With great applause the kids running around the bases, his team rushes out to greet him. The other team grumbles and kicks their feet as they start to head in.
"Hey, don't worry guys, we'll get 'em next time…" But that doesn't stop the grumbling.
Those woods are home to all sorts of things. Flora of all kinds growing wild and dense. Fauna in the form of forest animals from squirrels to deer and the occasional bobcat even. It isn't a place most of the student body wander off to, sticking to the paths that lead to the lake and such.
The baseball soars through the air, crashing through the trees and falling toward the ground. Directly toward a figure walking through the woods on the way to the mansion. She paused, tilting her head to the side as she heard something crashing through the branches above. Animals didn't makes noises like that. People weren't usually that high up and she didn't smell anyone. Her reaction is intantaneous.
*SNIKT*
*SWISH*
The two halves of the ball hit the ground on either side of her body, neatly severed in twain by her claws. She stared at the pieces then frowned as she withdrew her claws, followed by immediate regret at letting her instincts get the better of her.
Gathering up the two pieces, she cradled them in one hand and shifted her backpack strap with the other while continuing her way toward the mansion ahead. Coming out of the treeline, she started crossing through right field on her trek to a place she called home, though she had been away for some time dealing with personal issues.
Laura came right up to the few stragglers still at the field and held up the remains of what had been their baseball. "Sorry. I broke it."
The kids had wandered inside by now, though some were still drifting into that back door, their patter fading as they move. It leaves Caden out there to pick up and pack up all the equipment. So she likely gets some time to see the man with the athletic physique casually strolling around the makeshift baseball 'diamond'. He's kneeling down at each point, scooping up third base, second base, first… Under one arm he has his baseball glove and on his head he has a backwards Yankees cap of blue.
Something about him seems somewhat familiar. The stride, the stroll. If the wind changed angles she could get a whiff of his scent and there'd be no puzzlement further. But as she draws closer and closer she might see… is that? Caden?
Since she had left that time ago, he was a little taller. A little more bulked out in the shoulders and limbs. He always had a dancer's physique though now he looks more like an athlete or even a baseball player of all things.
But when she steps closer and he turns his head to the side, it's the hazel eyes that does it. Then the smile. Especially when the two seem to come to life upon seeing her. "Laura?"
He drops the baseball equipment on the ground and starts toward her, arms spreading. "That you?" But then he sees the split baseball and laughs a little. "Oh c'mon, see… this is why we can't have nice things."
But once those words are murmured he draws close to slip his arms around her for a welcome home hug.
That can't be Caden. He was shorter, scrawny. Not shorter than her, just shorter than he was now. He'd always been taller than her. Yet, now he had filled out a bit. Must go with the age. Time had passed since they had seen one another.
The scent had answered her question long before she got close enought to see his face and those eyes she knew well. She started to give a smile, then realized what he was doing.
Laura had grown up in a lot of ways through her years her. She wasn't as prickly as she had been upon her arrival where attempts at physical contact generally led to someone bleeding. She'd grown up.
But she still didn't like it.
She just wasn't one of those touchy-feely sorts. So when he came in for the hug, the corresponding expression for her emotions was written all over her face. Yet, she let him give the hug. She even put her arms around him ever so briefly and gave a single thump on his back before quickly withdrawing her arms back to her sides and hoping he was going to let go soon. "Smell the same but you look different. Got bigger."
"Yeah," Caden says, drawing out that word as he lets go of that half-hug after just a single moment. He draws back stuffing his hands into the pockets of his gym shorts, the white 'Xavier's t-shirt hanging loose upon his frame perhaps a size too big. "That's a story I should probably tell after you've been back a bit."
That said he grins and steps back, "You look good." A tilt, "Short, as always, but good." For a lot of people that might bring on a threat or a hint of violence, but Caden… got along with most everyone. Though, to be fair, he did get whapped now and again.
"Are you back for good?" He turns and starts to gather up the field equipment, kneeling to scoop up the bases again and to grab his glove. "Walk with me, we can talk while you help me get all this stuff in the athletic shed."
"Size doesn't matter."
The response is immediate with no sort of innuendo meant. Laura doesn't even seem aware that there might be such an opportunity. While she has learned a lot, she is still not quite the social level of most other people. Really, she preferred not to be social but everyone insisted she should try.
She frowned as he volunteered her to help pick stuff up. "Carrying my own stuff already," she muttered. Yet, somehow, she ended up bending and helping pick up stray gloves and extra baseballs to throw into the bag he was filling. She still had her backpack on over her flannel shirt which was over a simple black tshirt. Jeans on her legs. Hiking boots on her feet that had a hole in the front where the toes rested. Looked like they had been cut at some point. He would recognize why. It wasn't that unusual for her to have shoes with that sort of damage, after all.
"Dunno if I'm back for good. Depends." Which was no answer at all really but a full answer at the same time. Laura tended to follow her heart and instincts, a habit that was perhaps genetic.
She can gauge the scent of him, this close enough as they walk. Smelling fresh and vibrant with the sweat of exertion to him from the day's exercise. His clothes smell freshly laundered. He's changed shampoos since last she saw him. But beyond that… it's Caden.
Once he has enough equipment in a suitably large grey sack, he slings it over his shoulder and starts to heft it on his way over toward the shed. His footsteps are easy, and his stride seems to be… a little more confident than she may remember. Since in the past there had always been something skittish about him, some element of trepidation at times around her.
"Well, there aren't that many people still here. Working here, I mean. Some people come by now and again. But it's mainly me, and Nick. You remember Wolf Cub?" He rubs the back of his neck thoughtfully, "Illyana and Piotr have their own thing going on."
He turns to her and says, "Oh man, also they're both older now." Older than them by a good bit, "And Piotr has a daughter. Can you believe that?" He reaches the she and shoulders open the door, tossing in the equipment and then closing it.
"I figure you're welcome to stay as long as you need. But… yeah, feels like a lot of the team has moved on." Which she can tell, read off his scent that it makes him a little sad. Amongst other things.
A thump is given to the door and then he starts walking. "C'mon, I'll get you set up with a room."
Her immediate instinct is to tell him don't worry about a room. Laura would be just as happy making a spot for herself out in the woods. But no. That was one of those social things. They preferred her to stay in the mansion with other people, even though it made less sense to her way of thinking. However, it was the right way for people. Normal people. She needed to try to be normal.
"Sure. Room's good." She dropped into step next to him, needing to take longer and faster strides to keep up with his longer legs but not having any difficulty doing so.
The way he was explaining the older thing, she realized he didn't mean just older from the time she was away but older somehow physically in a more advanced way. "Daughter?" That had her turning to him in surprise then shaking her head. "Missed lots. Lots of stories, I'm guessin'." More a statement and not a question.
The hint of sadness catches her attention then she realizes she understands it. Hearing that a lot of the people she may know are likely gone has her frowning a bit as she looks to the building as they move closer to the backdoor. "So school's no more? X-Men?"
"School's still going," Caden says, gesturing with one hand towards it as if evidence, yup it's still there. "X-Men, we still work together some, but it's not quite as formed up as it used to be. More independent operations." The young mutant frowns a little as his eyes distance, and she can likely sense the trepidation on that topic.
But then he changes it and uses the excuse of the door coming up to let that line of discussion falter. "You're already set up in the computer records, I'll grab you a key and we can find a room on the second floor." He holds the door open for her and then slips inside afterwards.
Once they have the walls of the mansion around them she might sense a hint of stress slip away from him. Not so much fear being out and about, and more simply… that the mansion will always have some subtle hint or feeling of safety to it for those who spent such time there before. And got through everything together.
It doesn't take long for him to find Janice and wrangle up a key, nor for him to lead the way upstairs to one of the old staff dorm rooms. It's there that they'll wander and once there he says, "So are you going to tell me what you were up to while you were gone, or you gonna save it til we got a bunch of people together and tell it all in one go?"
Independent operations. That sounds…odd. It was this place she learned about teamwork. Friendship. The very things that they taught her and now it was gone. She frowned a little bit but continued their trek to her new room.
Once inside, she walked to the bed and threw her backpack into the center of it. Then she glanced around the room at the comfortable but sparse furnishings. A move to the attached bathroom then making the circuit to check all exits which meant every window. "Nothin' t'tell."
She seemed content with that answer until she looked back his way finally, realizing the expression might be wanting something a bit more. "Tracking a lead. Didn't pan out." She gives a shrug, not sure what else to say about it all.
"Can tell that to a group if you want but don't think they'll be interested."
"Lead on what?" Caden asks. That has often been his problem in the past. Nosey, curious, inquisitive. It's how he got into trouble so many times in the past and why some of the team had to inevitably rush to help him out no less than a few times. But then instead of waiting for her to answer or become uncomfortable, he holds up a hand. "Actually, nevermind. Tell me if or when you wanna tell me. None of my business."
That said he folds his arms across his chest and leans in the door jam, watching her settle in. He looks down the hall and she can tell he probably is arguing with himself about whether or not to tell her something. Eventually, however, he comes down on the side of revelation.
"Just so you're, you know, up to date. I was gone for a while myself." Not as long as her, since he was gone only six months or so. "There was something going on with my father. So I followed him." A pause, then he smiles a little. "To Japan of all places. Was captured for a time. The people there tried to turn me into an assassin. It was… messed up."
He looks back at her and says, "So I guess what I'm trying to say is… I suppose I understand what you…"
Then he stops and shakes his head, "Nevermind, dunno what I'm trying to say."
Instead he grimaces and says, "I'm more just kind of annoyed. Why doesn't anyone ever kidnap mutants to make them into like, I dunno, really great opera singers or something? It's always to become an assassin."
"Less demand. Lower pay. Powers don't help."
Wait? Was that rhetorical? Laura still had problems catching that sometimes. She frowned again as she sat down on the edge of the bed, waving to the chair over by a desk that was setup in the room for use if needed. Not that there was anything on the desk other than a small lamp to allow for working with better than the overhead illumination.
She didn't respond to the fact he thought that he might understand now. For her, it wasn't quite the same. Certainly, being captured and someone trying to turn him into a weapon was high on the bad scale. "Who? What group?" she asked, looking for information that would help her perhaps understand. She had dealt with a lot of different things in her time with The Facility. It might ring a bell. But then she got to the heart of of things before really giving him time to answer.
"Did you kill them all? If not, want me to?"
And that sums it up for Laura. If they were not dealt with yet, she'll go deal with it.
"Was this ninja clan," Caden says as he pushes off of the wall and takes a few steps across the room, leaving the door open. Old habits die hard. The old rule since he was on campus at 13 years of age, and any time people were visiting others in their rooms, the doors had to remain open.
"I don't remember all of it clearly, since they used some sort of telepathic ability. But I was able to escape, get my father out. And I had the help of someone… can't remember who."
He drops into the chair with a /fwumpf/ bonelessly sprawling and resting his hands on the arms of the chair. "I'm pretty sure they're not a threat."
For a time his gaze distances past her, but then those greenish yellow eyes meet her own and he smiles a little, being able to read elements of Laura between her statements. "But thanks."
It was the offer of true friendship from a Laura standpoint. He would recognize that. It wasn't just everyone she threatened to go kill people for. After all, she was supposed to be not trying to kill people now. Not that it was working so far. It really didn't make a lot of sense to her other than it was considered socially unacceptable.
"If they took you, they might take others. Should look into it." That's about as pushy as Laura gets on the topic but she gives another of those brief shrugs, dismissing it.
He mentioned they had tried to make him an assassin. He carried himself differently than he had before her departure. Likely because of those events perhaps? Her voice is curious as she asks, "How much did you learn?"
The young man looks to the side then back at her with a small but regretful smile. "They did a lot of… brainwashing things. For a time I felt like I had no individuality. Was just one of their soldiers. But when they discovered my mutant power they felt I could be the best of them so…" He lifts a hand and waves it to the side, "I retained that. I still have the… muscle memory of it all."
His smile returns albeit ruefully as he looks back to her, "So hey, I should be able to give you a run for your money now and again." His lips twist as he adds, "So long as you don't cheat." But Laura's response to that had always been that there was no such thing as cheating. He half expects her to repeat it.
Then he rests his hands on the arms of the chair and pushes himself up out of his seat. "I'll let you get settled in and changed or whatever. If you want we can go to Harry's for dinner? I'll see if I can wrangle anyone else up that wants to come along if you're feeling up for company."
His footsteps carry him towards the door.
He may be disappointed as she doesn't say the words he remembers. Yet, the ones Laura does utter carry the same message. "Not cheating if you win."
She hops off the bed, reaching for the backpack and sliding it over closer to her. There is the sound of the zipper sliding open then she is rustling around inside the bag as she pulls out some clothing items.
A pause as she glances over her shoulder at him, nostrils flaring slightly as she inhaled before speaking. "Sure. Gonna shower first." She had just finished traveling back, after all. "Then change and food."
She turns around to watch him as he nears the door.
A fist raps lightly on her door, a small double knock as if to signal his departure, "Alright." He takes a moment to catch her silhouette in the room limned by the light through the windows. He gives a small smile, "I'll call people and see if they wanna come with." That said he steps out and through the doorway, waving over his shoulder. "Catch you in a bit, Kinney."
And with that he disappears from view.