The Fight

She was outside, they’d told him, and so he walked out past the shattered pictures, stepping over the broken glass and wood, through the unhinged door. There was nobody else awake in this area this time of night , or if there was they were keeping to their own business. Todd could make her form out and stood still, watching as she leaned rigidly against the porch rail, hands clenched around it and back facing him. After a moment she hissed something low under her breath and the side of her hand smashed against a post, doing more damage to herself than to the primed wood.

Todd fought back a wince. They’d elected him of all people to go out and break the news. Nice. As if he didn’t get the tar beat out of him on a regular basis anyway.  He figured he may as well get it over with and edged toward her. He’d shove his hands in his pockets for lack of anything better to do with them, only he was in battle gear. As in, that spandex stuff without pockets. Which was really a shame because people left all sorts of neat stuff lying around while fleeing for their lives.

“H-Hey. Uh. Boss-Lady?”

“What?” Mystique asked, voice flat. She did not turn to glare at him, yet somehow Todd knew she was glaring anyway. Todd plucked up his measly courage and edged a little closer.

“We-We didn’t find anything else. The um . . .“ Todd paused, caught in a confusing moment between saying ‘chick’ and ‘old lady’, before finally settling on a less offensive term. “Woman you’re looking for-”

“Destiny. Her name is Destiny.”

You idiot, Todd finished for her in his mind, because it was just too weird not to hear it.

“Yeah. Destiny. Right. We didn’t find anything - no note sayin’ where she is. Nothin’. We really did look everywhere,” he plunged on, hastening to defend the Brotherhood’s efforts - more on his behalf than theirs. He after all, was the messenger.

“Enough.  I know who took her. They don’t leave notes,” Mystique interrupted. She still did not look at him. “I had hoped . . .”

Todd looked at her then, looked at the proud woman standing at the railing and suddenly saw how vulnerable and helpless and afraid she had become in the last few hours. All of it had happened so fast . . . the phone call to the Boarding House; Lance had answered and all he’d elaborated on was that it had been a woman calling for ‘Raven’ sounding frantic and terrified. Then there’d been a plane ride to the south, and Mystique had taken charge, threatened, given orders in her usual way for them to all get here.

She’d been fine until she saw the front door hanging open.  She herself had torn through the house like a devil wind, and the boys had all wisely kept out of her way. After that, her orders had been strained, quiet. She had gone out to the back porch and hadn’t stirred an inch apparently since Todd had come out.

He realized he’d been staring and looked away, seconds before an owl hooted from a nearby tree. “So, you know who took her then?”

“Yes.”

“Did they . . .” Todd struggled carefully for the right words. He knew what was going on between the old l- between Destiny and Mystique. Well, he had an inkling anyway.  He just didn’t want to get pummeled for it. “Did whoever-they-are do this to get to her or to get to you?”

Mystique looked at him then, actually turned her head. Todd almost snorted at the look of complete shock on her face and gave her a look that clearly said: “I may be sixteen, but I ain’t stupid.”

She scowled at him and asked in one of her iciest tones, “What?”

Todd refused to be cowed. The realization that Mystique and Kurt looked very much alike when angry had elbowed itself to the forefront of Todd’s mind and suddenly his cringing respect turned into exasperation.

“I know what’s going on between you two,” he said, “Okay? I don’t care.”

Mystique, who’d been opening her mouth to tell him it was none of his business, snapped it shut and stared at him. Her eyes were wide and yellow and astonished. The calm before the fists, Todd thought dismally, but still refused to back down.

“You‘re the only one who knows who ‘they‘ are. You know what’s going on. We ain’t gonna find anything else in that house - she’s gone, they’re gone - so what’s next?”

“Nothing is next,” Mystique snapped, voice colder still. “We go back home.”

“What?!” Todd yelped. “Just like that? You’re giving up?”

“What do you propose I do?!” She yelled, looking so tormented and anguished and Kurt-like that Todd actually wanted to smack her. “I don’t know where to begin looking! She could be dead already!”

“She could still be alive, wondering where the hell you are!” Todd snapped back. “And you wanna go home and mourn her!” Frustrated, he didn’t stop there, forgetting who it was he was talking to. “Why the hell you always gotta give up on things when they start going bad? You left us, twice,” he complained, unable to keep the hurt out of his voice, “You left Rogue, you left Kurt -- URK!”

Todd gagged around her hand, which had closed around his throat as he was lifted off his feet.

“SHUT UP!” Mystique yelled, face contorted in pain and fury.

“No!” Todd gasped and twisted, gripping her wrist to pry her hand off his windpipe. She dropped him, glaring down contemptuously. Todd sneered back, and stumbled back to his feet. Nobody in the house had heard that exchange, or else they’d decided not to check it out. “No,” he rasped, coughed and rubbed at his throat.  “Listen. She is one of the last things you care about. You can’t just run away from her.”

“I am NOT running away!”

“You ARE!” Todd yelled back, furious. If Kurt had gone missing, Christ knows he’d try to search for him. The realization that he would was shocking, but he knew then it was true. He’d at least not stop until he found proof, a body, something . . .

“You’re afraid of her being dead, that’s what you said! Well if she isn’t, then you can save her. If she IS, then you can at least find the ones who did it and kick their asses!”

Mystique stared at him, at a loss for words.

“We’ll be there with you,” Todd plunged on, recklessly enlisting himself as well as the others. “Either to watch the poor dumbfucks get mauled, or to help things along. Whatever.” He realized he’d puffed himself up to look a little bigger and tougher than he was when he took a breath and found his lungs already full of air. He breathed out, flushing a little, and waited.   

Mystique was still staring, then her eyes seemed to crinkle around the corners a little and something weird happened to her mouth. It hit Todd that she was smiling. Smiling, at him. He deflated a little.

“I’m serious,” he protested. “Really, I ain’t - I wasn’t just sayin’ that.”

She bit her lip, nodded, looked at him again. Appraisingly this time. Todd felt himself puff back up, just a little more.

“Todd,“ she said, shocking him to his core with the use of his name. “What happened to you? You’re not as . . .  You’re different.”  

What happened to me? Todd thought giddily. I uh, met your son, yo. And he apparently stole all my sanity while I wasn’t looking and traded it for Gut-Bomb coupons. “Dunno,” he muttered, shrugging.

Mystique nodded, accepting the non-answer. Her hand crumpled around something tightly. Todd looked at it, and saw that it was a pair of sunglasses, bent out of shape. Destiny was blind, he remembered from a few photographs in the house. They’d left her glasses.  Todd didn’t know what the deal was about blind people and sunglasses exactly, but it bothered him that she’d been taken without them.   Enough to make him want to kick some ass himself. Literally.

“So. New orders?” he asked, looking up at her.

“Tell the others to come outside. We’re not going to find anything else here,” Mystique said shortly. She put the sunglasses in her belt. “We’ll start east. Towards the coast - that’s where they’re most likely to have gone. And if they are expecting me, they will get a surprise.” Her yellow eyes narrowed and Todd felt a little shiver go up his spine.

Boss-Lady was back.