Beating a Fleet Retreat

[Warren Worthington III]

(( picks up from “The Sound and the Fury,” on the way to the Blackbird, away from the riot itself))

> Guys, I don’t know what you’re doing here, but the Blackbird is hovering in front of the library a couple blocks over. Do you need a ride? Anyway, go down Broadway, and take a left on 40th. You should run straight into it. Well, the park, anyway. The plane’s cloaked. If we get separated, meet us there.

It’s a strange feeling, being ‘patched in’ to Josh’s telepathic conversation with someone else. Warren’s not even sure how he can tell the difference between Josh ‘talking’ to him and to others, but there’s no mistaking it. He’s also not sure whether his replies will get relayed to Matt and Laurie, but he trusts Josh to handle communications appropriately.

Yeah, I’m on my way there now with Storm; I’ll be right back. He continues soaring towards the cloaked hovering jet, uncomfortably aware of their unnatural cloud-cover dispersing now that Storm is no longer maintaining it.

Not that he expects anyone to be looking up, particularly, or in a position to do anything about it if they do spot him boarding. Then again, the last time he thought that the bastards fired a SAM at him, so he figures he’s entitled to a little bit of paranoia on the subject.

Ultimately, though, there’s really nothing he can do except hope anybody who sees him vanish into the active-camoflauged hatch assumes he’s a teleporter or something. He takes an extra minute to strap Ororo carefully into one of the seats, just in case there’s unexpected turbulence or something.

Then he dives back out the hatch, keeping an eye on the pedestrian traffic along 40th and Broadway. So where do you want me, love? I can take the other windrider off your hands if you want, or ferry the kids… or help bail John out, if you want. He tries not to let his anxiety about that last option show… flying into the middle of a firefight is just part of the job, right?

[Sofia Mantega]

((Jumping over from The Sound and the Fury," I think I should be posting here? haha))

“Um. Sorry. I’ve kind of not been explaining much, have?”

Sofia laughs, with that overexhausted slightly hysterical tone, as Josh nails her thoughts for this whole crazy situation in that one sheepish sentence. “Kind of…not at all,” she murmurs, but it’s free of sarcasm; she’s just thankful he has finally caught on and she doesn’t have to beg and pester all the answers out of him.

“We’re all from a school. Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters… It’s a place where mutants can be safe to learn about their powers.”

School has mildly bad associations for Sofia—while nothing outright bad ever happened to her in school, the social isolation definitely did work its way into her psyche, another force eating away at her self-worth in that world. Why does being different have to be so wrong for so many people? she wonders with a small flare of resentment, but it fades away at Josh’s next remark, “Er, but the fighting terrorists in leather suits part is optional.”

“What do you do there, then?” It’s probably a silly question, Sofia thinks, but she’s not filtering out the silly questions anymore—he’s offering explanations, so she needs to take what she can. She doesn’t have the energy to worry over how she sounds, how annoying she may be, or even fully process what she’s hearing—she’s all reaction, even if those reactions are a bit sluggish.

“We can take you there, if you want. Just to get away from here, anyway. I bet you’re hungry after all that excitement, right?”

“Yes!” she exclaims without thought, no need to consider this option. They’re not leaving me here! “I mean…yes, I want to go with you! Not so much yes-I-am-hungry, I would not be…that excited about food, just…yes?” Her words are clearly jumbled, but the emotion there isn’t—she’s simply happy to have somewhere to go next. Forethought has never been her strong point, and this time luck came through for her, if getting caught in a dangerously violent riot could really be considered lucky…but now the full reality of the situation doesn’t really matter, it just matters that she’s not going to be stuck here alone anymore.

“Thank you,” she says, with all the weight of her previous worries. “I don’t think I…would have had anywhere else to go, if all this had not happened…”

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

>“Yes!”

Sofia’s exuberance almost feels physical to Josh through his extra senses, and his brisk pace falters for a moment as he recovers from it. Whoa, didn’t think she was that hungry. Then again, we’ve been here for hours… Some dinner was starting to sound good. Oh. Sofia’s next words clarify her excitement.

>“I don’t think I…would have had anywhere else to go, if all this had not happened…”

“Nowhere to go?” Josh is slightly intrigued. Just what’s going on in her life right now? However, as he’s about to open his mouth he hears Warren’s voice in the back of his mind.

>So where do you want me, love? I can take the other windrider off your hands if you want, or ferry the kids… or help bail John out, if you want.

No! Josh is slightly dismayed at the panicked sound in his ‘voice’, but the idea of Warren going back into the melee scared him. He’d seen how many bystanders had been injured by the lightning attacks. The kid seemed insane - he was hurling energy in every direction without discretion. Sending Warren back in wasn’t really necessary, in any case. I don’t want you to get - I mean, I was thinking we could do a flyover with the plane and pick up John and Rogue.

After a moment, Josh thinks about the conflict of interest. He was technically in charge, since Ororo was out for the count. The problem was having Warren in the mix. It wasn’t fair to make him choose between being a good leader and protecting his boyfriend… but that’s the way life was, sometimes. Hopefully they wouldn’t encounter it again, since he didn’t really have any command aspirations.

“Sofia and I are almost to you. Any idea on Laurie and Matt’s progress?” Josh steps onto the sidewalk on the other side of the street, finally to the library. He gestures to Sofia. “Over near the trees.”

When they’d parked, Ororo had figured that a group gathered near the trees would look slightly less suspicious than vanishing in the middle of a flat lawn. As the two of them near the cloaked plane, Josh gives a mental wave to Warren. Hey, stud. Have I ever mentioned how good you look in that uniform? He grins.

After looking around and deeming it safe, Josh reaches out with his powers and hits the ramp lever, inside the jet. With a muted mechanical sound, the ramp lowers, leaving a square leading into the plane that seems to be hanging in midair. Josh motions with his head, and starts up the ramp.

[Warren Worthington III]

> No! I don’t want you to get - I mean, I was thinking we could do a flyover with the plane and pick up John and Rogue.

Warren smiles fondly at the panicked overtones and the uncompleted sentence in Josh’s thoughts. Believe me, I don’t exactly want to get, myself. Flyover it is… Rogue should be able to give our resident pyromaniac a lift up to the jet, I suppose.

> " Sofia and I are almost to you. Any idea on Laurie and Matt’s progress?"

"Not a clue, but I can find out." Josh and Sofia turn the corner into his line of sight as he replies, and he gives them both a friendly wave as he wings back towards Times Square, hoping to run into Matthew and Laurie on the way, and wondering if any other unauthorized Institute students had tagged along on their little field trip.

> Hey, stud. Have I ever mentioned how good you look in that uniform?

He grins foolishly at that. You have, but I don’t think you really mean it… you always want me to take it off! He’s vaguely aware of Josh lowering the Blackbird’s ramp behind him, which makes him grin again… in some ways Josh is a better flier than Warren is, but he never quite seems to get comfortable with it.

He spots Matthew then, a shock of red hair head-and-shoulders over the crowd making him easy to spot, and finds Laurie predictably nearby. Hovering above them he calls down "Hey guys… need a lift?"

[Laurie Collins]

Guys, I don’t know what you’re doing here, but the Blackbird is hovering in front of the library a couple blocks over. Do you need a ride? Anyway, go down Broadway, and take a left on 40th. You should run straight into it. Well, the park, anyway. The plane’s cloaked. If we get separated, meet us there.

Since her first rather awkward meeting with Mr. Sheppard Laurie’s been getting a bit more used to the idea of psychics, and if Josh had passed that little mental note while she was calm and in familiar surroundings she would have been a bit startled, nothing more. Unfortunately she’s neither calm nor anywhere near anything familiar and so when the older student ‘speaks’ she jolts with such alacrity she thinks she might actually be able to feel her internal organs get left behind the motion and then settle queasily back into place as she stills. When she looks around she blushes as she finds the teenagers who’d been fighting each other standing still and looking around for what had just inspired that startled feeling in them. Right. We’re mutants. We talk to each other with our brains and it’s perfectly normal. I should be used to that. Note to self: adjust to disembodied voices in mind. Even her thoughts are getting somewhat hysterical at this point and that’s as good a reason as any to follow Josh’s advice and get the hell out of dodge.

She’s heading for the alley again with Matthew about half a pace behind her when Mr. Worthington comes arcing back towards them, slowing to hover just over their heads. Wow… even in the midst of all this Laurie takes a moment to be impressed, she’s never seen any of the Institute’s more aerial residents in action without people shooting at them or angry mobs or other such violent things that distract her from noticing how very surreal it is to see someone suspended in midair, especially when the person has a rather impressive wingspan. A sharp crackle of lightning makes her jump again though she manages to keep her pheromones in check this time. Okay, still violently distracted.

"Hey guys… need a lift?"

Laurie looks back over at Matthew then up at Mr. Worthington who is by no means weak but doesn’t look at all capable of carrying her friend anywhere just the same. Well he is a teacher, he must have something worked out. With her blind faith in authority figures having solved the nervousness over potentially leaving Matthew behind (she thinks again that she really does have to stop using chaos as an excuse to throw restraint to the wind and act like they’re…well…something they shouldn’t be what with her pheromones) she nods vehemently in response, not trusting her voice to carry over the noise of the crowd.

[Sofia Mantega]

“Nowhere to go?”

Of course Sofia’s quiet words would not go unnoticed; now it was her turn to deal with all the questions. She’d rather not start up with that particular long story in her current state—the chaos seems to be dying down, and with it her nerves, but the heavy exhaustion replacing it did not lend itself to coherent storytelling. If she tried to tell her story, it would likely come out in unintelligible angsty rambles that would leave Josh more confused than ever.

But she has to say something, so she takes a deep breath (it seems like forever since she’s been able to take such a real calming breath) and glances up at Josh, opening her mouth with the hope that something coherent would come out. “I…” but she trails off, thankfully, seeing that Josh is more than a bit preoccupied with whatever the mission at hand is. For once she is happy not to be at the top of someone’s priorities. She catches sight of Warren and grins, waving back at him. They’re probably talking in their minds again, she thinks, vaguely wondering how such a thought had become so casual and sensible already—or at all. She watches Warren soaring back towards the riot, and with the calm that has settled in she can finally try to take in the sight of the winged man—but it’s still too much, too bizarre, still feeling more like a dream than reality. She looks back at Josh to reorient herself (somehow a telepath in a superhero suit would have to become her base of accepted reality) and follows him into the jet, her trust placed unquestioningly in this group of mutant strangers.

[Warren Worthington III]

Warren catches Laurie’s nod and drops, his wings clearing a bit of space around them. "Not sure why you kids are here, really… but you get to take the jet plane back home, which is something, right? Do you have any idea why things got so crazy back there?" That last is mostly directed to Laurie, and Warren does his best not to make it seem accusatory, even though it did all seem quite a lot like her power in action.

He wraps one arm just underneath Matthew’s shoulders, and the other around Laurie, then hesitates. Warren’s developed a fairly reliable talent for estimating weights; he judges Matthew at about 160 kg and Laurie at roughly half that, between them they’re a bit more than he can handle. He might be able to get them as far as the Blackbird, but then again he might not.

"Heh… my mistake," he colors a little with embarrassment as he releases Matthew. "Can’t carry both of you at once. And, not to be a sexist pig or anything, but I’m guessing Matthew can push his way through the crowd a bit more easily than you can? Matthew, meet up with us at the jet as soon as you can, OK?”

At the boy’s hesitant nod he launches himself back into the air, Laurie in tow. Shortly thereafter they’re back in the Blackbird, joining up with Josh and Sofia. "Sorry guys… couldn’t carry both of them. But Matthew should be here shortly."

[Laurie Collins]

"Do you have any idea why things got so crazy back there?"

He’s asking both of them but looking right at her and she blanches visibly. He thinks it was me! She opens her mouth to rush out an explanation then thinks- I’ll have to explain about my father. - and just as abruptly shuts it again. “Um. I don’t know.” she whispers, then turns her head to shoot Matthew a pleading look over her shoulder. It’s true, she doesn’t know if she knows or not, it might be some other sort of mutation. Maybe they’ll get back and Josh or Mr. Sheppard will stroll out and announce that they’ve found the telepath responsible and everything will be okay and no one will ever have to know about him.

But there’s no time to hang around debating cause and effect, luckily, and Laurie wriggles a little in awkward discomfort without meaning to as Mr. Worthington wraps an arm around her in preparation for flight.

"Can’t carry both of you at once. And, not to be a sexist pig or anything, but I’m guessing Matthew can push his way through the crowd a bit more easily than you can? Matthew, meet up with us at the jet as soon as you can, OK?”

“Wait, I don’t want to leave y-“ but by the time she’s gotten that much of the protest out Matthew’s nodded and her feet are leaving the ground. She makes a sort of choked gasp and covers her eyes with her hands, forgetting to finish her protest at leaving Matthew behind as she concentrates on staying as calm as possible because as scary as flying is she gets the feeling that flying with a pilot influenced by fear pheromones would be even scarier.

When they finally land (though finally might be a bit of an exaggeration, it was probably less than five minutes all told) her eyes fly open and she takes a quick stagger-step away from Mr. Worthington, scanning the nearby streets anxiously for Matthew before realizing he couldn’t possibly be here already and that she’s being rather rude to the others, especially Mr. Worthington when he’s just airlifted her from the riot and all. They should have taken him… I’m less conspicuous. she thinks, biting her lip as she remembers the earlier incident because of Matthew’s height. On the selfish side she trusts him and now that they’re separated she feels even more adrift in the remnants of chaos. But I can’t do anything about it now.

“Sorry.” She whispers, blushing and turning back to face the others, giving Josh a small wave of greeting and Sofia a tentative but friendly enough smile, assuming she’s a student she hasn’t been introduced to yet. “Um, thanks Mr. Worthington, for the, uh, ride. Sorry if I scared you up there. Is Miss. Munroe okay? We saw her fall...” that’s a lot of speech for her and it’s rushed out in a sort of breathless ramble as she crosses her arms over her stomach protectively.

[Warren Worthington III]

> " Um, thanks Mr. Worthington, for the, uh, ride. Sorry if I scared you up there. Is Miss. Munroe okay? We saw her fall…"

Warren waves a wing in the general direction of Ororo’s seat. "She’s not bleeding or anything like that, and her breathing seems steady… I think she’ll be OK." The truth is he knows almost nothing about medicine; she might be hemoraging internally or slowly dying of who-knows-what, for all he’d be able to do about it. But there’s no point in letting the kids know that, especially not with this new girl on board.

He’s not at all sure whether his breathless anxiety is his own, or Laurie’s, or some combination… Josh seems relatively calm, though, which leads him to suspect it’s all him. Though how anybody stays calm in situations like this, he has no idea…it’s all he can do to keep from hiding in the bathroom for the rest of this particular mission.

Not that he intends on letting any of the kids know that… public relations is, after all, his main role on the team, and right now that means putting on a brave face. So he leaves most of what he’s thinking and feeling unspoken and adds in Josh’s direction "Hon… I think this might be taking too long? If you want, I can pick up Matthew and rondezvous with the Blackbird somewhere a little less public while you do that flyby thing you were talking about to pick up Rogue and Allerdyce?"

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

As soon as he gets to the top of the boarding ramp, Josh reaches across to the pilot’s position and begins flicking switches and moving the Blackbird out of standby. The board responds, as lights and diodes begin blinking on and off. He slips into his seat and can feel the reassuring hum of the engines ramping up.

Josh finishes up some last-minute checks. Ooh. He glances backwards at Sofia. “Hey, just take a seat, and be sure to buckle in, alright?” He shoots a reassuring smile her way. Shortly, Warren and Laurie appear behind him.

> "Sorry guys… couldn’t carry both of them. But Matthew should be here shortly."

He looks up at Warren next to him, and waves back at Laurie. “Sounds good. We’ve gotta get John and Marie out of there as soon as we can…”

> “Um, thanks Mr. Worthington, for the, uh, ride. Sorry if I scared you up there. Is Miss. Munroe okay? We saw her fall...”

At Laurie’s words, Josh looks back at where Ororo is buckled in. She was breathing normally, just in a sort of unconscious-limp way. Wake up soon, okay? I wasn’t planning on being in charge. In retrospect, they ought to have some kind of formal chain of command for these situations. Right, and I would put Bobby above me on that. Except he’s… Josh firmly pushes Bobby out of his mind. This isn’t the time.

> Hon… I think this might be taking too long? If you want, I can pick up Matthew and rondezvous with the Blackbird somewhere a little less public while you do that flyby thing you were talking about to pick up Rogue and Allerdyce?

Unfortunately, what Warren was saying made sense. I don’t mean like that… Josh bites his lip a little. He didn’t much like sending Warren back out, but the longer they delayed, the more likely one of the other two would be injured. And asking him to go pick up Matt and meet back up with them wasn’t likely to be very dangerous.

“Okay. I’m gonna swing straight through the fight, so I’ll meet you two on the far side of it.” Josh leans over and kisses Warren softly. He brushes a hand through the hair on Warren’s neck as he does so.

After the kiss, Josh looks into his boyfriend’s eyes. “Be careful, okay?” A smile touches his lips. “Don’t be late.”

Warren leaves out the top hatch, and Josh secures both that and the boarding ramp. Once he locks his seat into flight position, he closes his eyes and breathes out for a moment. Here we go… “Hold onto your seats, ladies…” At this, Josh pulls the jet away from the ground and drops the active camouflage.

Outside, an astonished businesswoman drops her coffee onto her feet as a sleek black aircraft materializes over the library’s lawn. With a burst of its engines, it maneuvers out of her vision. The coffee slowly puddles on the ground.

Josh wrenches the controls, sending the craft into a dive underneath some kind of power or data cables. Flying higher up is much easier… damn. Unable to take his eyes off his work thanks to the tight confines, Josh can only hope Laurie and Sofia aren’t panicking. John, Marie! It’s time to get out of here! Josh sends this telepathically right before the Blackbird soars around a skyscraper and banks into sight, boarding ramp dropping.

[Rogue]

_{[Popping in from that other thread. ;D]}

”Bloody hell, woman, when’d’you get so demanding? Fine. I’ll change my schedule.”

”Don’t think it’s tha’ much t’ask, Sugah. Very glad y’ll stick around for m’sake.” flashes a grin at him in return (glad to note that he’s in a fair enough mood to be grinning in the first place, seeing as shock must not be that fun and all, so he must not be hurting too badly, right?).

It’s almost comical that he grabs on tight when she’s only holding with one arm (though, really, she’s strong enough she could be holding him with only a few fingers and keeping him up, if she could get a proper enough grip that way…but she won’t try that, because it wouldn’t be very nice, and the potential for falling is higher that way…), and she can’t help but giggle slightly.

”I did not have a shock. I’m fine. Fucktard zapped me with a… shiny… thingy. But yes. Fine.”

”A ‘shiny thingy’, huh?” she grins slightly, ”…Was pretty shiny, actually, yeah. But in a bad way, a’course.”

They’re almost to the jet, which she’s glad to note the ramp of which is down. Makes getting in a whole lot easier. She speeds up slightly (hoping she’s not going to scare John too much as almost an afterhought), and sort of swoops inside, landing on the floor and flashing John a grin as if to say see, nothin’ to worry about, and letting go of him except for one hand on his arm to steady him (because he does look a little shakey still), and looking over towards where Josh is piloting from.

”We the las’ ones?”

[Pyro]

< But in a bad way, of course
”Very bad.” he agrees - ”Evil sparklies… ha, suit the fucking fairy to a tee; badass satanic glitter” – grinning to himself at a joke no one else could hope to understand and he rapidly forgets anyway.

The jet is marginally better than flying Rogue Airlines – at least it has a floor – though he can’t quite delude himself enough to forget that this isn’t a room but an airborne bucket (which… it defies all logic, or all John!Logic at least, that such a thing can stay up… like he said, the ground is good. Leave the sky alone), and though he pushes away Rogue’s supporting hand with a I can manage it! huff he’s quick enough to totter into a seat and, fighting to suppress the residual shudders which feel – and no doubt scan – annoyingly like shivers, fastens his belt and narrows his attention down as much as possible.

< We the las’ ones?
He doesn’t register that the question isn’t directed at him, and replies on some instinct that isn’t normally there (had he been in his right mind he’d have left the brat to rot, but something’s inspired an unusual degree of something just short of concern) ”Not if Danny ‘I can crank it up to 11 for you’ Stalker-boy is still down there… Anyone see him die or anything?”

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

Josh bites his lip as he tries to hold the jet steady. There was a surprising amount of turbulence this close to the ground, but he thought it probably had more to do with stress pressing in on his mind.

There was definitely enough to stress about. The lightning kid was still tossing bolts out, and John had been hit. To make matters worse, most of it was going on directly below him, so he could only use the jet's exterior cameras to get a vague idea of what was going on.

> ”Sorry for the delay, Joshy – on m’way. John had a bit’ve a shock – lit’rally speakin’, that is – but ‘e seems okay f’now. We’re almos’ to y’all.”

Josh looks worried. "Gotcha, Rogue. Hurry if you can - he looks like he's about to turn his powers on the jet." If he did, Josh was ready to pluck him off the ground and toss him into a tree.

He hears clattering on the deck plates in the back, and a quick glance backwards confirms that it's them. Josh breathes a sigh of relief.

> "We the las’ ones?"

> ”Not if Danny ‘I can crank it up to 11 for you’ Stalker-boy is still down there… Anyone see him die or anything?”

Josh's eyes widen at John's words. "Danny? What the hell is he doing here? How did all these people from the Institute get here?" A quick mental check of the crowd below confirm's John's words.

Danny, I have no idea how you got here, but we have to get out of here, now! Fortunately, he can feel Danny's agreement with his words, and the taller boy is already moving towards the ramp. Josh gives him a hurried telekinetic boost, and he hears a crash in the back.

Josh is already closing the boarding ramp, and hits the thruster control. The Blackbird banks and thunders off towards the rendezvous with Warren and Matthew. He lets out a sigh of relief.

"Everyone okay back there?" Josh keeps his eyes on the canopy. "Strap in, please..." Here's hoping they don't scramble any fighters. New York has to be touchy about unidentified aircraft...