bow in the presence of greatness

[morethanhuman]

Erik stands in the middle of the shuttle bay, one hand extended palm-up in front of him. Far overhead, almost at the top of the shuttle bay, Lwaxana’s shuttle hovers in midair. His eyes narrow, Erik curls his fingers in a little come-here gesture. A rush of power that's lain dormant in him for over a year surges out through his fingertips, and the shuttle hurtls toward him. It swoops down, passing so close over his head that the breeze from its passing ruffles his hair.

He can’t rein in a laugh-- it's been too long since he’s felt this, the full depth of his power wholly at his command-- and it bubbles up in him, exhilarating and wild, spilling out as he sweeps his hand out in another long gesture, sending the shuttle flying back up to the ceiling.

There's a sigh behind him and he turns, grinning, while the shuttle zooms around the room. “If you’re bored already, don’t let me keep you.”

"I'm sorry, did that read as an I'm bored sigh?" Mystique asks, sidling up to him with an uncharacteristically playful smile. "This is admiration. This is 'my god, you look good with ten tons of metal hovering over you'."

She crosses her arms and watches him hurl the thing back up a second time.

"But you're missing something...”

Erik looks back up to the shuttle, feeling through its component parts-- he could take it apart and reassemble it, melt it down into slag or send it flying out into space. He’s almost forgotten what it feels like, this power. But he can’t even be angry at how long he’s gone without it-- not with it burning through him like this.

Mystique’s comment makes him raise an eyebrow, though he's too busy sending the shuttle through a series of aerial maneuvers to turn and let her see it. “What’s that?”

She doesn't say anything, just changes, and it's not the stagnant, flickering change he's used to, but fast and perfectly smooth. One moment Raven's standing there, and the next… he is.

"Unless you want Charles perusing your mind like the Sunday paper."

The shuttle goes still and so does Erik, turning a sharp look on her, his heart suddenly beating quick for an entirely different reason. This vision of himself-- it's one thing to see photos and illustrations, another entirely to see his future in the flesh before him. It's fascinating, but deeply unnerving, especially since he still can’t be sure if he'll still become that man, or if coming here has changed him too much.

But then it dawns on him-- Raven is right. He’d be wise to protect himself from Charles, who is now more than capable of rifling through Erik’s mind and finding out all about Cuba. And now, with his own powers restored, his helmet is no longer out of his reach.

The shuttle lowers gently to the ground and Erik’s eyes go fierce, a wide grin breaking over his face. “Come on,” he says, striding toward the door.

. . .

They're not even thirty feet from the door when Raven sees it start to tremble in its frame.

Then all of a sudden, it stops. She glances at him and sees he's changed his focus: he's disregarding the door entirely, peeling layers off the wall, the metal rolling up and crumpling like paper until she can see the inventory shelves through the frame. There's a mess of wires, smoking and spitting sparks, but it doesn't stop Erik from stepping through.

Sure, it's petty, but Raven can't resist swiping her comm in front of the half-dead sensor; it gives a sad, bleating no access beep just as she lifts one white boot over the jagged wall.

How do you like me now, HAL?

"They're organized by serial number," she says with a frown, eyeing the tags on the front of the shelves. She pulls open one at random and sees a stack of filthy, bloodstained clothing: nope. Another: a pink vest and a cell phone covered in stickers. Another-- ooh-- has a duffel bag labeled STARK TECHNOLOGIES-- definitely worth checking out once she's found her stuff.

Finally, she pulls open the right drawer. She locks and loads her Glock with a look that's somehow both affectionate and smug, then glances over to see Erik holding his helmet up to the flickering light.

“I’ve always said it takes a very special guy to inspire fear in red and purple,” she says dryly, applying a fresh coat of lipstick in the grainy reflection of the shelves. “I think I just got goosebumps.”

[see the OOC post here before tagging.]

Comments

[born_guilty]

It'll be awhile before anyone catches wind of Erik's new home improvement project, so Raven takes the time to pick through other people's things with casual efficiency.

Even the fact that they happen to walk up right as she's rifling through the station's equivalent of their underwear drawer can't put a damper on her mood.

"Oh good. You're here."

[xiii_legion]

"Hard to miss the great big bloody hole in the wall," Pullo exclaims, looking more than his fair share of impressed. "Was that you?" Frankly, he had no idea what any of these people are capable of now, and makes a mental note not to piss anybody off. Which is often easier said than done.

[born_guilty]

She gives him a skeptical, amused look-- you kidder-- and shakes her head before returning her attention to his things.

"No. It was Erik." Raven nods slightly in his direction. "Not too bad for a guy who was just in a coma, huh?"

Unbelievable. It's not like she's forgotten where Pullo was from, but his stuff looks like a pile of Spartacus props: a dented wine goblet, a rough linen tunic, and... oh, great. The sword. The hilt is hidden under his clothing, and she sees that the drawer is considerably longer than her own to accomodate it. She pulls it out far enough that he can reach in and take it.

"Kind of anticlimactic after shooting."

[xiii_legion]

She might think that, but the expression on his face makes it seem like it's his birthday and Christmas all come at once - or whatever the Roman equivalent of Christmas is anyway. "C'mere you beauty," he says, grasping the sword and drawing it out. It's a relatively simple-looking weapon, unadorned and well-used, and he hefts it in his hand as if testing whether it's really his. "Dunno about that, I've killed way more men with this than shooting 'em," he tells her. "Best thing for it, hands down."

[nottheotherguy]

I raised an eyebrow, grinning a little. "You were just keeping it warm for me, right?" What dumb luck-- it probably would've taken me all day to find my stuff on my own, and Mystique had made a beeline for it.

Not that it took a rocket scientist to figure out what she was interested in. "I don't even know if any of this will work here," I said honestly, reaching for the smaller glass plate and turning it over in my hand. The eerie light in the room glinted off the Stark Industries logo lasered onto the bottom corner. Nominally a phone, it could also do everything I'd ever seen a laptop do, and twice as fast.

It was kind of funny if you thought about it-- here we were, actually in space, and Tony's phone still made the competition look like hand-me-downs from two years back. I just hoped it would still work even without JARVIS around to power it up.

[born_guilty]

"Fancy," she remarks, turning over the tablet in her hand. She's feeling her one hundred and nineteen years just about now, and all the technologically-challenged implications that come with it: does this stupid thing even have a power switch?

"Rest assured; your... purple Brooks Brothers button-down is safe." Raven casts a dubious glance back into the drawer, then up at Bruce. "I mean, really?"

She swipes a finger, then her entire palm over the surface of the damn thing to wake it up.

"Purple?"

[nottheotherguy]

"It looks good with my skin tone. Both of them," I said with a grin, enjoying her snort. "Besides, I work with Tony Stark and Thor. I'm never going to be the most outrageously dressed guy around no matter what I wear."

Reaching over, I tipped the tablet sideways and showed her the indentation on the side, the nearly-invisible button that made the screen light up. "Hello," I murmured as it came to life. The screen still displayed the gamma output tracker I'd written on board the helicarrier, and a separate window was open to show a cartoon meme Tony had linked me a few days after New York.

"Now if only this came with an uplink to Tony's workshop," I said wryly. "I bet he's bored as hell and just waiting for someone to ask him to invent an interdimensional wormhole teleportation device."

[highfunctioning]

"I'll have that if you don't mind."

The look on Sherlock's face said he's have it either way, but Bluebell got a moment's courtesy simply because she was Bluebell.

As soon as he'd heard the inventory cache was open, he'd been desperate to have his greatcoat in hand.

[born_guilty]

She's already pulling something out of the breast pocket of his shirt as he walks up, and his arrival doesn't stop her; she just flashes him an arch smile while she finishes.

"Ooh," she says, holding it up, before she really gets a good look at it. It's a business card; matte black heavyweight stock with raised cream-colored letters in all capitals and a phone number.

THE WOMAN

Raven gives him a look, so genuinely interested and surprised she doesn't even bother with a quip. Instead, she turns the card over, and sees I.A. written on the back in an elegant hand.

She stares at it for another second, instinctively holding it out of his reach, too engrossed (for reasons even she can't quite put her finger on) to actually say anything.

[gadgetguru]

"Don't sound so thrilled to see me, Blue, it's embarrassing," Forge says dryly as he folds his arms, watching her sift through what he assumes are other people's belongings. She's already found her own things, judging by the terribly familiar-looking blazer she's got slung over one shoulder.

"I heard screeching metal, I figured I should see what's going on. Looks like you've got things in hand, though. Literally."

[born_guilty]

"Shouldn't you be somewhere else?" she asks, raising an eyebrow at him as she peers a little farther into his drawer, which, apparently, he hasn't recognized as his own yet.

It is also devastatingly empty of anything fun-looking.

"Like, oh, I don't know... hacking the transporters? I've got a craving for Chinese tonight. I was thinking of that little place downtown in Falls Edge. If I'm getting there before dinner you don't have much time."

[morethanhuman]

There wasn't much else in his drawer-- the clothes he'd been wearing the day he was taken were folded at the bottom, a grey suit and blue tie, nothing remarkable there. He hadn't yet given in to the idea of the cape (though he's seen more than enough of Mystique's world to know that it became a staple of his wardrobe as Magneto) so that was nowhere to be seen. But the helmet...

He'd spent a year now alternating between wanting it and wishing it was back on Earth. In his weaker moments of wanting to erase everything that had soured between him and Charles, he'd sometimes wished he'd never laid eyes on the thing. But now that Charles was here, and the reality of their history loomed over his head every time they spoke, there was only one choice.

He ducked his head and slipped the helmet on, turning as he straightened to discover he had an audience.

[born_guilty]

"Looks good," she says, with some hesitation in her voice. It's something of an understatement-- it really is chilling, somehow, seeing the Erik she knows, a very young Erik, with Magneto's helmet; she's always thought you could see the resemblance best in his eyes, and now there's no question.

After a beat, she presses on. "...what?"

You don't have to be a telepath to see that Erik looks off, and she has a feeling he's not worrying about fashion faux pas.

[morethanhuman]

It was her hesitation that strengthened him. It was ridiculous to be having these pangs of reluctance, as if anything could trump the need to preserve his privacy.

Neither of them had ever acknowledged the root of the problem, that Erik's motive in protecting himself from Charles's prying was to keep Charles ignorant of his betrayal and its terrible consequences. He was lying to Charles to keep Charles from hating him-- Erik was fairly certain the Magneto that Mystique knew would never be so sentimental. But they all had their weaknesses, and at least where Raven was concerned, he was far past the point of pretending that Charles wasn't his.

"Nothing," he said, quietly firm. Their eyes met, and he shrugged one shoulder, amending, "Nothing important."

[inhishead]

Charles was actively looking for Erik, and following the action seemed quite a good hunch when he discovered him in the thick of it. He meant to have out their discrepancies in continuity right then, for better or worse.

Erik, he projected, just as Erik was lifting a strange looking helmet onto his head.

And then he was gone. His mind was snuffed out like a candle, much the way Charles had perceived everyone before he'd got used to what little perception the nanites left him. But he knew he was at full power, now, and Erik's mind had gone totally silent once that helmet was on his head.

Which Charles supposed was the point, going by the look on Erik's face.

[morethanhuman]

Guilt, regret and longing all flickered through Erik's mind, and a thread of something like an apology he was grateful Charles couldn't hear. He'd caught that little whisper, just a breath of his name, and it dropped the bottom out of his stomach so fast he felt sick.

But on the heels of that yearning came anger-- Charles had come here for this, for the purpose of looting Erik's mind for the truth he knew he was being denied. Erik's mouth tightened as he turned to face him straight on. "Sorry to disappoint you, Charles," he said, not as smoothly as he'd like, but hoping his impassive expression made up for it. "But you won't be reading my mind today."

[daughterofthefifth]

Lwaxana had felt/heard/sensed Erik tossing her shuttle--her shuttle!--around like an eager ensign at the tractor beam. She was fine, well, resigned, anyway, to letting him manipulate it through the space of the shuttle bay, but the moment she sensed
// he could take it apart and reassemble it, melt it down into slag or send it flying out into space//
she started at a near run toward the bay. How dare he imagine taking such liberties with her shuttle!

Of course, by the time she reached them, she had felt them divert to the locked door of the inventory chamber and adjusted her course to match. She was in the corridor when she felt his presence disappear, like a star winking suddenly out.

Lwaxana closed the distance at a run, panting and panicked as she rounded the twisted metal of the now open hatch. "ERIK! You're--"

she halted. "Not dead, I see. Is that what that helmet does? How fascinating!" She did little to hide her annoyance.

[morethanhuman]

Erik looked up, both eyebrows high. "Not dead, no," he agreed. It was difficult to keep a bit of a smirk off his face. "But I'm touched to know you'd feel my loss so keenly."

He could see she was practically seething, but deduced quickly that frightening her by putting on the helmet wasn't the cause. His eyes narrowed and he looked at her intently. "You knew I was playing around with your shuttle," Erik said. It wasn't a accusation, but nor was it a question. "Your range is-- farther than I expected," he said, busying himself again with emptying the rest of the contents of his drawer into his arms.

[auroradora]

For all that it's only been a few months, it feels like a lifetime to Tonks since she last held her wand. Helplessness doesn't sit well on her, and she's itched for something to do, a way to fight back. Maybe if she had a task, a cause to throw herself at-- but wishing hasn't gotten her anywhere thus far. This morning she was just glad to have woken up at all-- instinct had told her she shouldn't wish for much more than that.

But now, as she lifts her wand out of the glass box in front of her, all her dread and anger melt away, and a grin lights her face, fierce in its joy. "Lumos," she whispers, nearly laughing in delight at the glow that starts at the tip of her wand. It grows slowly, brighter and brighter, and within moments the light fills the room. Tonks closes her eyes and smiles, breathing out in relief. She's pretty sure her day couldn't get better now if it tried.

[no_good_deed]

"Not bad," says a voice behind her, and when she turns she sees a green woman standing in the doorway - well, hole in the wall. "The only person I knew who used a wand mainly used it to make bubbles. Light is a lot more practical." With that Elphaba stalks in and begins to rummage through the drawers without much care for what's in them or who they might belong to, eager to find her own things.

[auroradora]

Tonks laughs, as much at her own delight as at the woman's comment. "Nox," she murmurs, and immediately conjures up a cloud of bubbles that float around her like dandelion spores on a breeze.

"I can do bubbles too," she says, following the woman down and hovering, peering over her shoulder as she tugs open one drawer after another, apparently dissatisfied with what she finds in each one. "But you're right-- the useful stuff's way better. For example!" She pushes up her sleeves and raises her wand, then pauses and stage whispers, "What's your name?"

[withmyshield]

Sharon gets an email they they've broken into the lockers with everyone's personal inventory. She debates the matter privately for a few minutes, then decides there's no good reason not to go a little out of her way to have access to a kevlar bodysuit. You never know when you might need that. Her SHIELD tech is long dead [the batteries are good, but not eternal], but what really tears it is the thought of someone else getting to them first, because of course no one is without their sentimental tokens.

There are a bunch of people already in the room, opening drawers and setting aside the ones that don't belong to them -except Mystique, who appears to be giving ever drawer equal consideration. Sharon really spots the lack of interest first, since the suit takes up nearly all the space in her little cubby. It's insane, that this is all she has from home, but of course, an agent always travels light.

[wise_ass]

Bert's relieved to see Sharon already in the room when he arrives, after getting a text message from Bruce. He'd have called her, of course, if she hadn't been there, but it makes it easier.

Right now, easy is good.

He walks right up to her, after glancing at a few of the shelves and seeing that they're not labeled with names.

"Hey." He's got that strained look that Sharon almost certainly recognizes by now; he doesn't need to actually shift from one foot to the other to look completely uncomfortable in his own skin.

[withmyshield]

Sharon puts the look and the locale together pretty fast. She literally can't imagine what he's got, though, that is making him so queasy.

"Hey. What can I do for you?" It's a totally serious inquiry.

Open

[inhisnest]

Clint is looking for his bow. He might have managed to make a makeshift one with a half decent draw (if you can do it in prison with your underwear a fully trained S.H.I.E.L.D agent can manage) but it's not the same as having his own weapon back.

He starts pulling at the drawers, unsure which is his. Might as well start on the left and work right until finds it.