CLIW

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Mattie growled at the sound of Double-Fudge's voice and turned around swiftly. Her wings started to rise and spread, as if by reflex action, but she felt them beginning to lift her shirt and quickly folded them back up, neatly against her back. "Where do you think he is? He can't just get up and leave. Besides, what's the worst that could happen apart from having to look at you?"

These past two days just got worse and worse. First her deadbeat ex came back out of nowhere, then he'd grabbed her out of the sky, then they'd ended up with this poopy leaking asshole.

"And is it wrong to want to get outside?" she huffed. "What are you going to do, you Double-Fudge Oreo Filled With Lice, drown me?"

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"Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna take food from him," said Mattie. "I mean, for all I know he's the one who put that freaky-ass rock out there where you'd fall on it. I don't even want you somewhere where he's living, but it wouldn't exactly be wise to move you. Anyways, I took care of myself just fine for three years with no run-ins with other mutants––I'll be fine out there." Seemed pretty logical to her. Based on her own experience, it seemed like freaks such as herself and Nick were few and far between.

She hesitated at the door and turned her head to look at him. He was so vulnerable, and she was just heading out for a stroll...

But she went anyway. She needed the air, and she needed to clear her head.

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"Oh. Uh...I guess," conceded Mattie with a cocked eyebrow. She'd been slightly startled by Nick's sudden outburst having not expected the response to be so strong. She hadn't given any appearance of being frightened: that had proven to be counterproductive, so she'd begun to make an effort at hiding gut reactions like that. Bluffing would be a powerful skill to have against other mutants if she managed to develop it enough, so she might as well start practicing now.

Still, it seemed weird that Nick had responded in the way he had. It wasn't...normal. It wasn't natural, to be so possessive of an attempted murder weapon. But she pushed this feeling to the back of her mind. It wouldn't help either of them to argue again.

So she flopped back onto the bed that was for the time being hers, and she wondered what to do. She couldn't possibly just go home and work and train again pretending that everything was business as usual. She saw no way to help the cause that Nick had apparently joined. She had no idea how to even verify that all this information was correct!

"Am I allowed to go outside...y'know, to take a walk or something?"

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Mattie leaned forward to observe the symbol, which looked like some kind of Celtic spiral. Interesting, even pretty. And now that she looked closer, it seemed to be glowing, but whether that was a real observation or some kind of optical illusion she wasn't entirely sure. It certainly was a well-crafted weapon. Almost beautiful.

Nick seemed impressed with it too, despite the thing having actually stabbed him. She was glad they were on the same page, but also terrified of the prospect of finding out who had created or placed the shard.

"Well, I know that rocks don't normally glow," she said hesitantly. "Maybe we should just get rid of it. It's a little creepy."

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"Hm," she said. She got up and walked to the counter, gingerly picking up the shard. She turned it around in her hand, careful to avoid the jagged edges. There was no way a poison-covered rock could have just been lying where Nicholas had landed by pure coincidence. Her heart picked up just looking at it.

She strode back over and held it out toward him.

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Mattie shrugged and managed a small smile. "I guess I'm just not as popular as you," she responded. She had done her best to blend into human society as much as possible, cramping her wings against her back to look normal, wearing colored contacts over her unusually-pigmented irises, denying her reality at all times of the day except when she was training her flight. The truth was that she didn't want to be this...thing. She wanted to be human––just human, and nothing more.

"So," she went on, "you and Do––er, Jacob, you two go around town finding others and recruiting them to your...army...? And distributing some kind of wonder-drug to them? And you're going to go fight a bunch of brainwashed mutants."

She blinked.

"Okay. I just need to let that sink in."

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"So..." She swallowed a lump in her throat. It was all a lot to take in, especially at this pace and so suddenly: yesterday she'd been carrying out the routine that she'd fallen into. Today she'd had it confirmed that there were others like them. She'd seen Nicholas shoot fucking fire out of his hands like some kind of stupid anime character, right after he'd tracked her down and knocked on her door out of the blue as if nothing had happened, and she'd found out that the psycho who'd tried to drown her was considered a "good guy".

"Okay," she said after a sizable silence, with a sigh. "So you're going to go beat up God-knows how many drugged supermutants and then... give them a different drug? Anything to keep us out of that lab, I guess..."

Mattie sat back down on the bed she'd leaped out of. Everything was insane. Everyone was insane.

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She snarled loudly. "It should have been me!" she retorted. "If you hadn't turned me around trying to play the hero, you'd be fine." Luckily, he'd piqued her interest. She mercifully dropped the subject (perhaps she'd grill him for it later) and went at it from a different angle.

"Who brainwashed him and why? How was he...cured?"

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"Piece a' fucking shit," spat Mattie after the door shut behind Double-Fudge. She got out of bed and stood up, flexing her wings experimentally to see if they hurt. They ached a little, which was to be expected, but surprisingly seemed mostly unharmed. Funny. She'd thought at least one of them was bleeding when they'd landed.

With that finished she rounded on Nick. "Why don't you tell me the whole truth next time, huh, you dingleberry? Maybe if you'd been a little less fucking vague I wouldn't have tried to leave, and then you wouldn't have fucking––attacked me––like your savage-ass brother did three years ago! And then we wouldn't be here!" She paced as she spoke, feeling sick. "Oh, and, take the burgers. I don't want food he's touched or been within five feet of."

She wanted to ask for every single thing he knew, but had conveniently forgotten in her anger. As usual.

The window was still there if Double-Fudge had locked the door. She looked toward it. But maybe she should wait for Nick to fall asleep or something. Unless she wanted him to go after her again.

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In response to her name, Mattie shot Nick a glare to make anyone glad looks couldn't kill. She was sitting straight as a board, and when she'd finished with her wordless "fuck you" her eyes went shifty, flitting from object to object to possible escape route to Mr. Shitdick, which was her new name for Nick.

And of course, when Mr. Double-Fudge Oreo Filled With Lice (known reluctantly as Jacob) reentered the room, she went a few shades paler and growled softly. Apart from that, she was remarkably self-restrained. When he addressed her she hissed loudly, but still she was speechless. Waiting. She listened sullenly but attentively to the entire shpeel with the obsidian shard. The poisoned obsidian shard that she herself should have landed on, if Double-Fudge was correct.

"Mattie's––not looking like she's going to be willing to help us," he finished with a glance at her. She returned his glance with a venomous stare and a proud middle finger.

"The hell I'm fucking not," she finally said, speaking over whatever Nick had muttered. "I'm more likely to chop off your wings and your balls––if you have any––and sew your balls where your wings were, and your wings where your balls were." She hadn't intended the outburst, but boy, did she hate being talked about in the third person.