Meanwhile At Jade and Alex's Apartment
Jade arrived at their shared flat shortly before he did, sitting on the couch as she her mood swung rapidly and her hands shook slightly. In an attempt to take her mind off of it, she had turned on the television, only to see the reports of an attack on Stark Tower, followed by some reruns of the attack on Xavier's School for Gifted Children. It all left a sour taste in her mouth and she got up, going over to the sink and splashing her face with water.
"Hey Jade, sorry, got a little caught up with things," Alex said, going into the apartment and giving her a smile. He noticed the TV was on, and seeing the reports, shook his head and turned it off again.
"How are you feeling? Are you alright?" He was concerned about her, especially since she was pregnant.
Jade leaned against the counter, pulling her hair back into a ponytail. She was pretty much constantly moving her hands.
"I'm fine," she said simply, though she had to wonder if he knew anything about the attacks.
"I'm guessing you were caught up with whatever fucking mess is going down at Stark's?" she inquired, wishing she could take a drink but she couldn't.
Damn it. "Actually, I wasn't at Stark Tower... A friend of mine, Colonel Rhodes, called, I owed him a favor anyway, and he asked me if I wouldn't mind meeting with Stark's daughter and a few of her friends. That was what I was doing..." She raised an eyebrow, finding it was an odd coincidence - Alex was off dealing with the Stark kid whilst Stark Tower was under attack? Jade didn't know what the connection was, not yet, but she knew the universe was rarely so lazy for any coincidence to be true.
"What did they want?" Jade asked, not minding that they hadn't really talked about the pregnancy. The thought of it freaked her out and she was certain would continue to do so for a few months.
"...They were trying to get me to change my mind about mutants and other people with powers... Though towards the end of that conversation, one of the group took control of Ricky and tried to get him to hurt me, so that didn't exactly put much towards their favor if I'm to be honest. I actually kind of respect Xavier in a way, however he and the entire rest of the mutant population need to be put into check. They could destroy the world if they wanted to, Magneto has nearly done so multiple times over the years..." "Right, the Stark kid is with Magneto's son..." Jade recalled.
"Are you quite alright though?" she asked him, not seeing any noticeable injuries. She imagined Ricky was the one they needed to be concerned about - he was tough, but not in the same way she and Alex were.
"Oh, I'm fine, he missed and I caught him by the arm, so no injuries done to me, and I don't think any were done to Ricky... Anyway, how are you feeling, since I'm more concerned about you right now than myself... Or the campaign for that matter..." he said, looking at her, he did look concerned about her.
She rolled her eyes, still leaning against the counter.
"Didn't I already say I was fine?" she reminded him, but truthfully, she was panicking. She had calmed down slightly since when she first called him but still, her family history wasn't exactly the greatest. Her father had sexually abused her and her mother never cared for her. The only family that actually did, her uncle, had been killed by Hel years back.
"I mean are you really okay? Look, I'm pretty sure most people in the world would likely be panicking in this situation... I care about what happens to you Jade, I don't want you to have any problems... If you are freaking out, I'm here for you..." "Bloody 'ell Alex, 'course I'm freaking out! I don't exactly feel chuffed right now!" Jade snapped, clenching the counter with her hands.
"There's a bleedin' baby inside of me! And it's not like I done gone and asked for this!" "Alright, I get it... I don't think a lot of people do ask for it... All that matters though is the fact that it happened, and all that matters is what we are wanting to do... Actually, to be honest I always thought that I might be a little on the older side to be having kids, despite the fact that I wouldn't have minded having any..." Jade sighed, grabbing herself a glass of water and drinking from it, shutting her eyes to imagine it was alcohol for a moment. She kept the glass in her hand, fidgeting with it.
"Look, I know you're a real corker and all, Alex - I love you, warts and all...But this? What the bloody 'ell am I supposed to do?" she asked, her accent getting thicker and using enough British slang to confuse the average day person.
"...It is your choice Jade... You can either keep the baby or not... I personally think that you should, and we can figure this out together... But ultimately it is your choice Jade... Not really mine..." "Of course I'm bloody keepin' it!" Jade snapped, taking another deep breath afterwards. She didn't want to yell at him - well, she did, but she knew that she shouldn't. Her life had been complicated and hard. She wasn't sure if her baby would end up being fruit from the poisoned tree, so to speak. The glass shattered in her hand, the pieces falling to the ground and hitting her bare feet.
"Damn it Jade, are you okay?" he asked, rushing over to her to start cleaning up the broken glass on the floor.
"It'll be okay Jade..." "I'm fine, it's just a bit of fucking glass, that's all!" "I know Jade... Glass can still hurt you know..." he responded, tossing the broken glass in the trash.
"Yeah, well, better glass than some of the fucked up shit out there in this world....Do we really want to bring a child into this world, Alex? I mean, I killed the fucking devil, there's got to be some sort of demon bounty out on my head. And you waltz around saying ya did Hel in - so the Asgardians probably want ya dead too." "Honestly Jade? I'm not afraid of them, I haven't been in a long time. We wouldn't let anyone hurt our kid, do you really think we wouldn't be able to protect them from the dangers of the world? We do the things that we do to protect people, to help them and protect them from anyone like that... I think we'd do a pretty good job at keeping that kid safe..." Jade stared at him, before she extended her pinky to him. It was one American tradition that she liked.
"Promise you'd protect our kid with your life?" He chuckled slightly, smiling at her before he held out his hand and wrapped his own pinky around hers,
"I promise you Jade... I'll protect them with my life..." She raised an eyebrow.
"Are ya using the gender neutral or did the doctor call you to say I'm having twins after I left the office? Or are you planning on us being like the fucking Weasleys and having a lift's worth of kids?" "Uh, gender neutral, unless the doctor told you what gender the kid is." "Unless the doctor was a mutie and could see the future, no - it's way too early to tell that, Alex," Jade explained.
"...But I hope it's a girl...I always loved the name Alcie."
Location: Cells
"Doesn't look like things are going too well for you there," Lance mumbled as Charlie tried to break the glass as well, but failed and like Dean before more of just bounced off of it.
"Like I said, I don't think they'd be dumb enough to lock us in these cells if they thought we could easily get out of them..." he added, shaking his head slightly. If Dean was paying attention, he'd find that suddenly, it was like his speed was back, the inhibitor having left his body. Seems like what they had said about anyone with speed or a quick metabolism burning right through it had some truth to it.
"That isn't enough for me to be able to do anything... I don't think I have the strength in order to do something that strong turning it into sand, using that much power to time travel that far back... It just won't work..." Thalia said, looking over at Ayita and shaking her head. There was suddenly the sound of a door opening nearby, and footsteps came over towards them.
Soon, a group of OMEN agents came into the room. They weren't carrying any sort of machine gun or anything, but each one had a pistol that was in a holster at their side. Those seemed to be the only weapons easily visible. Lance looked over at them when they walked over to Ayita and Allison's cell, as well as the one that Dean, Richard and Charlie were all in. They didn't even seem to notice that Richard wasn't bleeding out anymore, as there was still blood on his clothes from his injuries before.
"Alright, time to get a move on," one of them said as a few of them opened up the cells, pulling their guns out of their holsters and pointing them at people. Lance was wondering just how desperate a few of the others were to get out, since they literally just found the opening that they were waiting for.
Marygold Isley and Mirembe Adebayo
Location: Stark Tower - Medical
Mary managed to get up onto her feet, coughing a little bit still as she went with Folly over to the medical area. This day just kept getting better and better. Though right now, she felt like they had hit rock bottom, so hopefully that meant things could only get better from here. However based on the way things were going, and the fact that she had thought that they had hit rock bottom earlier, well that didn't really mean anything clearly.
Mira was doing a lot better than before, and glanced over at Carolina as she helped her along,
"Thank you..." she said softly, not saying much else. Her head was pounding still, but she was grateful that the worst of her injuries were gone. With the way things had gone, it definitely could have been worse, she looked at her hand, and saw that it was still bleeding and somewhat burned from when the weapon had exploded in her hand. Maybe they could fix the design so it wouldn't do that the next time they went against Sentinels.
When Mary sat down on a bed, she pulled out her phone, sending a message or two real quick, but nothing more. Putting it away she took a deep breath and started trying to think,
okay, we've got to go after OMEN, find where the others were... If we hurry, we can finish this fight against OMEN, maybe even shut the organization down... She shook her head slightly, she had no idea what they should do, but maybe their best course of action was to just go and fight head on, they had tried just about everything else, and Jakobsen didn't seem willing to listen to anyone.
Hearing that Guin had a location for the facility was a slight surprise, but after hearing what the future speedster said, it did make some sense to her.
"Alright... If you know where they are, that is a good thing. Maybe we should have just gone after OMEN, even if they were going to want to use that against us... All these what if scenarios are making my head spin... Anyway, this time we're just going to go after them, it doesn't matter anymore what OMEN can do, basically turning our own words and actions against us. What matters is getting our team members out of there and destroying that facility." she said, managing to keep her voice level and even.
She was trying to remain calm, trying not to panic too much, but she wasn't sure how well she was going to be able to do that. Nothing matter too much other than rescuing the others and getting them out of there. Mary fell silent as Banner came into the room and started patching up the remainder of everyone's injuries.