Bridges
Kitty cried out and gripped her arm. Kurt bolted to her side as Logan ordered for him to get them out of there. Sam lifted his shield to stop the array of bullets that flew toward them and then held on to Bucky as the group connected and Kurt teleported them all back to the base. Once they were safely inside the base, Kurt rushed Kitty to another room. Logan followed along with something between concern and anger.
Sam called for Torres to return as quickly as he could. Torres responded that he was flying towards the roof alongside the dragon. As the exchange ended, Walker, Bucky, and Sam followed after the three mutants to see what had become of them.
They found Logan, Kurt, and Kitty inside a rather small room with a couple of dusty hospital beds. The three men stood in the doorway. Kitty sat on the edge of one bed, holding her shoulder with a grimace on her face. The blood had seeped through her fingers and now trickled down her arm. Logan searched a few nearby cabinets while Kurt teleported around the room, looking for any medical supplies.
“Hurry up, would ya?” Logan shouted in Kurt’s direction.
“I am trying! Zer is nozing here!” Kurt responded loudly and then finally found a nearly empty box of gauze. He returned to Kitty and then eased her into moving her blood-soaked arm so he could get a proper look at her wound. He wrapped the remaining gauze around her arm and then apologized for not having been able to find any painkillers.
Torres had arrived and stood behind Walker, Bucky, and Sam, trying to get a view into the room, “What happened?”
“Kitty got shot,” Sam answered, watching them intently. Lockheed flew into the room at full speed and landed next to Kitty, poking her side as a way of letting her know he was there. She smiled faintly at the little purple dragon and stroked its back.
“That explains why the dragon was suddenly so on edge,” Torres expressed.
“What, did you talk to it or something?” Walker asked bluntly.
“No, he just started getting really anxious all of a sudden,” Torres shrugged. It slightly baffled him that he was defending the dragon that had mauled his face a few weeks earlier.
Kitty stood up and walked with Kurt to the doorway. Logan joined them and silently checked on her. The concern on his face was minimal but ran deeper than most would think.
Sam looked at her arm, watching the blood easily bleed through the thin layer of gauze surrounding it, “You guys need some help with that?”
Kurt nodded quickly, “I need to treat ze vound properly. Zer is nozing here zat I can utilize,” He looked to Logan as if asking for approval and he just nodded reluctantly.
“We have medical supplies on our jet. You can treat her there and then we can drop you off wherever you need to go,” Sam put out the offer.
“Alright, take us there,” Logan relented after he took another glance at Kitty’s arm and her pained expression as she went back to holding it again now that the blood continued to run.
Sam turned around and led the group out of the hall and eventually out of the building. They quietly headed down one street and then approached the outer edge of the city where the jet sat in plain sight, blending into the dark of night.
They all boarded the jet. Torres went to the front and got into the pilot’s seat to take off. Sam showed Kurt where the medical supplies were and helped him unload what he needed. Logan helped Kitty to a seat and then stood by her with his arms crossed as Kurt sat down next to her. Lockheed flew into Kitty's lap and curled up there, settling in nicely.
Bucky and Walker sat next to Sam. Logan watched over Kurt and Kitty and made sure that Kurt had gotten the wound clean and made sure that she’d only just been grazed with a bullet rather than fully shot. He then made his way to the copilot's seat and began telling Torres where to go.
As the jet began to take off, Kurt had been able to stop the bleeding and then wrap her arm with a real bandage. Kitty thanked him quietly and leaned on his shoulder. Kurt nodded his head and then put his arm around her.
Once the jet was in the air, Sam started up a conversation, “So, you gonna turn over your little data hard drive to the government or are you gonna keep it to yourselves?”
“Sorry,” Kitty apologized quickly and then pulled the device holding all of the information from her pocket, “Is there somewhere we can plug it in or..?”
Sam pointed to a place under her seat. She looked down and then found the spot, plugging in the device. A light blue hologram popped up displaying the first of the many files on the drive. The group searched through the files and then found one on the purpose of the facility. Bucky spotted a file on how mutants were captured to be trained and then auctioned off.
The file had multiple missing or deleted parts, but enough scrolling found enough info for Kitty and Kurt to exchange a glance. They knew something.
“Any thoughts?” Sam asked aloud.
Kitty and Kurt looked away from each other and back to him as if they’d been caught red-handed. They whispered between each other, leading Kitty to admit, “We have our suspicions.”
“Care to enlighten us?” Walker questioned, retaining his usual rude tone.
Kitty and Kurt whispered to each other again and then both leaned forward to try and determine if Logan had been listening in. They both still looked uncertain and then shrugged, nodding to one another.
“We think that we know how they could be getting their supply of mutants,” Kitty announced, “Ever heard of the Hellfire Club?”
“Nope. Bucky?” Sam shook his head and then cocked it to look at Bucky on his left. He too shook his head while Walker watched them. He clearly didn’t even know what was going on.
“Alright, so the Hellfire Club is this secret society made up of wealthy elites that seek to influence world events,” Kitty explained and then looked between Bucky and Sam, “Sound familiar?”
“Yeah, but it’s not HYDRA, right?” Bucky queried.
“Nein, zey have a bit more of a moral code zan HYDRA. Ve have encountered zem before,” Kurt answered and then went back to speaking with Kitty, “You don’t zink Shaw und Frost vould sell out zeir own kind?”
Kitty raised a brow and then laughed, “Starting off, Frost is a stone cold bitch. Secondly, Shaw has zero morals. They can say all they want about ensuring a mutant future, but that doesn’t change the fact that all they want is power.”
“Nozing on ze file indicates zeir involvement,” Kurt speculated, “Maybe anozer party?”
Kitty shook her head quickly, “No, no. It has to be Hellfire business. These kinds of sales stipulate an economic maneuver. It’s strategic. It has to be Hellfire. I’d know Frost’s scheming anywhere.”
“Ve can put zat down as an option but ve should not be so sure until ve can confirm,” Kurt cautioned her.
“So.. who are we talking about?” Sam asked after the group had stalled in silence.
“Emma Frost and Sebastian Shaw. They run the Hellfire Club. They’re both mutants,” Kitty replied as she tried to adjust her seating and winced as she moved her arm. Kurt shot a frown at her and caused her to stop.
“Alright, and what’s their.. Special thing?” Sam lifted his hands like he was using magic of sorts, causing Kitty and Kurt to crack a smile.
“He can absorb energy and use it against you and she’s very good at getting in people’s heads,” Kitty explained the dulled down version of their powers.
“She can also turn her skin to diamond,” Kurt added, resulting in Kitty rolling her eyes, “Vhat? Is zat not true?”
“That is correct,” She shrugged.
“It is sehr pretty,” Kurt continued, inducing another eye roll from Kitty.
“Moving on from that, let’s look for some leads on those government leaks, shall we?” Kitty sat up again, switching the topic.
They continued to sift through the records, finding even less about government leaks until they found a file hidden between two other miscellaneous files about bars.
“Look at this,” Sam leaned forward pointing to a line at the bottom of the file they’d found. Kurt looked at Kitty, expecting her to lean forward. She raised a brow and then looked at her arm before looking at him with an unamused expression. She stayed where she was and Kurt leaned forward instead.
“It is all encrypted,” Kurt noticed.
“They wanted to keep it secure,” Bucky went on, “Something important has to be on there.”
“Kätzchen, do you think you could-?” Kurt posed the question.
“Yup, I’ll do it when I have my computer,” Kitty agreed.
“Why can’t you do it now?” Walker asked with his arms crossed.
“Do you see my computer?” Kitty retorted, causing Logan to snort from the copilot's seat.
Walker grumbled to himself and then opted to watch the front of the jet.
“Okay, you’ll do that once we drop you off and you’ll let us know so we can determine how to proceed,” Sam said, his words being met with curt nods from Kitty and Kurt.
The two mutants interpreted that as the end of the debriefing and Kurt leaned back, shutting his eyes. Kitty leaned on his shoulder again and her eyes fluttered shut.
“It’s going to be a long flight, so you guys might want to get comfortable,” Torres announced from the pilot’s seat.
“Fine by me,” Sam mumbled and leaned back in his seat, shutting his eyes.
Walker had somehow dropped dead asleep and begun to snore. Bucky attempted to sleep by shutting his eyes. After finding that unsuccessful, he attempted to count sheep in his head. This attempt was met with varying success as he fell in and out of consciousness. He finally managed to drift off for quite some time.
Bucky didn’t know how many hours had passed when he heard soft murmurings from across the way. He recognized Kurt and Kitty’s voices going back and forth. He waited to open his eyes, worrying he would disturb the conversation and possibly make things awkward. So he decided to listen in.
“So what happened?”
“Wie meinst du das?”
“You know what I mean. Something happened to you during the mission.”
“Everyzing vas fine.”
“I call BS. What happened?”
“Vhat makes you zink somezing happened?”
“Kurt, when something upsets you, you do this thing where you hug me really tightly and put your face on my shoulder. You did it earlier. So I’ll ask one more time, what happened?”
“You have me zere,” Kurt chuckled slightly and then sighed, “Kätzchen, zere vere rows and rows of cages in zat place meant for our kind.”
There was a brief pause, “And it reminded you of-”
“Yeah.”
Another pause.
“How did zings go on your end?”
“Pretty well, actually. I think I’m getting better considering the circumstances.”
“Hm. Are you getting better or are you just avoiding ze problem?”
“What? I don’t- I never. No.”
“Kätzchen. Just like you know my tendencies, I know yours. Zis goes both vays. Und ich weiß wann you are avoiding a problem.”
“I am not.”
“Ja, das bist du. You are sehr direkt with machines und zeir problems but you often avoid ze problems you have vith other people.”
Kitty scoffed, “Name one example.”
“Illyana.”
“Okay you win that one, but I’m not avoiding this specific problem.”
“Have you spoken vith him about it?”
“No. It’s not exactly something you just bring up out of the blue. Plus, once this whole ordeal is over, I’ll probably never see him again.”
“Do not be so certain. Zese zings are alvays unpredictable.”
“I guess you’re right.”
Another pause followed at the end of their quiet discussion.
“You know I’m never gonna let that happen to you again, right?”
“Was?”
“I’m never going to let anybody put you back in a cage. I don’t care who I have to fight- even if it’s Captain America or the Avengers. I’m never going to let it happen.”
“Let us hope zat vill never happen.”