Work Text:
01/10/2001
Everything hurt but the screams across the hallway were the worst.
It wasn't the first time Jubilee's mind made a stubborn attempt to escape that heaviness in her body and head, she didn't think … She could remember hearing steps nearby not too long ago. Unintelligible voices, too, occasionally. The taste of sharp sweetness seeping into the needle in the back of her hand when they'd restocked whatever she was being given to stay under … But every smallest attempt to try to remember where the hell she was, why and why they didn't let her wake up had so far dissolved into overwhelming black- and nothingness behind her lids, too quickly to do as much as find out how much time was passing.
Today, things were different. There probably wasn't a damn drug even existing strong enough to keep her in that reluctant sleep when the rooms of wherever they were keeping her were filled with the roars of some male voice she didn't know … But for some reason, hearing that unbridled anger, that raw pain in that tone hurt her soul.
As did her body hurt.
Her eyes weren't used to seeing anymore; when she somehow, finally managed to pry them open, the glaring neon light above her bed provoked tears instantly, along with an almost entirely soundless moan on her lips. Compared to the stinging heat raging in her cells, that torturous throb behind her forehead, all of her muscles cramping, again and again, and her skin feeling like it was on fire … It was a comparably small inconvenience.
But once her eyes had started to water, she suddenly couldn't stop it because fuck this, what was this? Where was it, what was wrong with her? Was she being a prisoner? Not impossible, she suddenly realized though the memory of what had happened before she'd passed out was still hazy … Well, then she needed to stop making noises and drawing attention to herself immediately, some year-long instinct drilled into her in theory lessons by a certain teacher with red-tinted glasses, vaguely flared up. But even if she'd wanted to, she couldn't stop those involuntary twitches of her limbs against that awful tingling under her skin. Or those hoarse noises from her throat, now that she was finally being aware enough of herself and her surroundings again to realize, she was in trouble, for some reason, big one. Who …? Why …?
"Talk about the noise that can wake the dead."
Jubilee didn't know when the woman had entered the room or if she'd maybe been there all along.
But when she managed to get her eyes open again, this time thankfully without pain and able to make out more than just blurred shapes of grey and white, a hint of relief hit her. She was pretty sure she'd seen the oval face, these gentle dark eyes, of the young woman in a white coat, standing in the doorway on pictures before, and not in the hostiles section of the X-Men network ...
"Uh …" A half-hearted attempt to croak out something was rewarded with a painful cough in her far too-dry throat.
"Slowly, Miss Lee. You've been out for a couple of weeks. There's water on the nightstand. Can you try to get it?"
The stranger made no move to help her with that which immediately replaced the vague hope that Jubilee was a patient here and not a captive, with fear again, especially with someone next door obviously being in great distress.
It would probably have been better, not to take in anything before she could be sure about her situation, Jubilee also remembered from those theory classes in the X-Men boot camp that felt like a million years away suddenly. But swallowing hurt more by the second, besides … She was full of needles and tubes and had been sleeping through both Christmas, New Year's, and the first classes of 2001, from the sound of it. They could long have killed her if they wanted to.
So she forced her lazy muscles to work, somehow, pulling herself a few inches upright on her elbows, wincing at another scream from nearby, accompanied by several bangs and rumbles as if someone was being repeatedly thrown against a wall.
What the fuck was this place?
Definitely water, and preferably a whole package of Twinkies if she could get her hands on one, so she could get back on her feet and get out of here as soon as possible, wherever here was …
Only when she somehow managed to stretch her arm to her side, towards said glass, and saw the occasional spark of blue dancing over her far too pale skin as a new cramp had her almost atrophied biceps twitch, she understood that wasn't happening anytime soon.
Her powers. The pain … That had also been the last thing she'd felt before passing out, on a roof somewhere in Washington … One of her first missions. Magneto, Toad, her teammates – that fucking reversal weapon. They'd flown to that conference because they'd had no choice though chances had been pretty good, that dangerous trip to face the Brotherhood was entirely moot because some crazy alien entity could come back to Earth anytime soon and turn it to ash anyway … Well, that at least had obviously not happened.
Weeks … She'd been out weeks … Then, maybe, just maybe …
Somehow, she managed to get out another word, and this time the shaking in her voice wasn't from not being able to drink anything for far too long but from the weirdest mixture of bone-deep terror and unexpected, overwhelming hope. "Phoenix?"
The woman nodded, a smile on her lips that seemed genuine while she put down a few words in a data pad similar to the ones Jubilee knew from Mutant High, a sleek, thin design not available anywhere else in the world … Suddenly, she had a pretty good idea about this place.
"Your people were successful. Everyone made it home. Doctor Grey keeps calling and asking about you."
Jubilee almost dropped her glass when she finally had it in her trembling hands, her eyes wide open at that one revelation no one in Westchester would have dared to dream about after New York, at the relief and excitement that things had apparently indeed turned out alright for the universe. That even made her forget the pain for a moment.
But that was when the screaming next door continued. She shuddered and started to drink so she could finally start to communicate with that woman right and find out what else was the fuck going on here.
When she lowered the glass, she could see the stranger's just as restless look at the door, her tight shoulders, and the gloomy frown on her high forehead. Whoever these people were – and thinking about it, there really weren't a lot of possibilities –, they apparently were at least not responsible for whatever happened nearby but that didn't make these yells of hate and grief easier to bear.
"Who is that? This is U.G.E.R., right?"
"I see your brain is recovering from being fried a couple of times." With a weak grin, the woman pulled up a chair but still stayed at a respectable distance from the bed.
"That is someone else needing help that we're not entirely sure how to give right now, and my name is Moira MacTaggert. Professor Xavier and I go way back. He asked me to stay here in Canada for a while and help the other scientists here figure out how to get you back on your feet."
Charles ... So the others had really made it back from that absolutely insane trip to the Shi’ar … Jubilee wanted, needed to hear everything about that immediately, needed to know how the others were doing, how Jean was doing, if things would really be fine now … But as long as she didn't even know where to get something less hideous to wear than a damn hospital gown, not to mention where her phone was, that would remain wishful thinking.
The worry, at least, had died down.
Moira had stopped working at Mutant High long before Jubilee had first come there, but Charles always only spoke very highly of her. This was someone, she could trust, hopefully.
"Charles … Is he here?"
"Here, as in this lab? No." There was a wistful expression in those deep, intense eyes that Jubilee wasn't awake enough yet to place. "On Earth? Yes. As of yet."
"As of …?"
Moira shrugged a little and got up to check on a few of the bags and machines placed all around Jubilee, deep in thought apparently and still without getting anywhere in her closer proximity which was increasingly starting to tug on Jubilee's nerves.
"There's … rumors. Have been for a while but since Phoenix, it's harder not to listen. A deeper personal commitment to the Shi’ar Empire, negotiating on Earth's behalf ... That's not something he can do from here. I'm still hoping but … I shouldn't, it's selfish. This will be good for us, for our safety. Especially in these times, we live in. Phoenix has thrown us in the center of the universe's attention and not all of that attention is healthy. Keeping the peace with those who are willing to protect us is now more important than ever."
"Why … are you telling me this?" Jubilee wasn't even sure she had even understood everything the woman was talking about but what she had, she didn't like even the slightest. Maybe that was the reason why the X-Men usually kept secrets on that massive scale away from their potential permanent future teammates. Jubilee's head was suddenly swimming so much, this time only from a sheer overload of emotion and information, that she would probably have had trouble again, keeping her eyes open, if it hadn't been for those heart-wrenching screams.
"Because I like to believe in fate, sometimes, though I'm not horribly religious. We've been waiting for you to wake up for days. And now, suddenly, the moment we've had another emergency being flown in through our hangar …"
Moira flinched once more herself when in that other room, that heavy thud of an apparently immensely strong body hitting walls resumed, followed by more agitated, wildly discussing voices of other scientists outside the door.
"We'll have to wait until the effects of whatever virus has infected his brain will wear off, but maybe, in a few days ... Right now, he can't think clearly, he can't even see right. His whole mind has been reduced to experiencing nothing but the darkest feelings in his soul. Which in his case is his parents' death a couple of years back and his wish to avenge them. He's … in a lot of pain."
"Feel that," Jubilee murmured, honestly sympathetic without even knowing the guy's name. "Before you tell me the rest, Doc, can you do anything against this?" She vaguely waved down with her weak, sparkling arm over her body, the tremors running through it again and again that required a tiring amount of energy, swallowing down more whimpers.
"We've been trying since they brought you in, but for now, it's mostly combating symptoms." Underlining that depressing assessment, Moira got a new bag with thick fluid from a locked cabinet on the wall and hooked it to the needle in Jubilee's arm, hanging it up on an IV stand that was even further away from the bed than the night table.
Jubilee only finally started to understand that caution when Moira leaned in a little to refill her glass and a couple of blue sparks immediately jumped from her skin to the other woman's, making her hiss out, the muscles in her arm cramping so badly she almost dropped the carafe.
"Oh shit, sorry."
"Not your fault, Miss Lee." But Moira was very much in a hurry to retreat back to her chair in the corner, rubbing her elbow with a grimace. "This is one more we can put on Lehnsherr's tab. And believe me, I'm rather here right now than over there. He goes on like that, even those Adamantium walls won't hold forever, and then they'll have to try to choke him out manually so that we can finally get some sedative in him until we have an antidote. Gas doesn't work on his physiology. His body goes into a self-sustaining mode in emergencies, including nutrient and air supply."
"Like Professor Logan's?" Jubilee felt even more confused. They always said Logan was, along with Hank and that animal Sabretooth, one of the very few of his kind. If there were any more ferals like this, Jubilee should have read about them in the network …
"Nothing like that, no. He's … not from here. Here meaning this galaxy."
Though Jubilee was still trying to make sense of the fact why she was suddenly being told all these things in spite of not having clearance for such confidential stuff, she was hard-pressed to complain. She sat up with a start, her eyes immediately wide open again, curiosity and anticipation making it more bearable that she'd have to lay around here only God knew how long until her body would finally stop acting up, instead of resuming her training for her team and being with her friends.
At least she'd have some exciting story to tell them when she got back.
"Wait, there's one of the Shi’ar here? Did the X-Men bring h…?"
"Oh, no, no, no, no, don't say t..." Moira interrupted her quickly, staring at the firmly closed – and hopefully locked – door when not too far away, an ear-piercing new scream tore through the air, the walls and floors shaking so heavily as if that whole underground base was about to collapse.
"Too late, that word he's heard. And here it just sounded like he was coming down. Not a Shi’ar, no. One of their archenemies, stranded here since some asshole shot down his parent's ship in the orbit. Not counting the people working here, there are probably like five people on Earth who know there's a species called Kree even existing, let alone one of them is residing here, and we better all pray it stays like that. So I hope you know the responsibility that comes with that kind of knowledge."
"I'm not stupid." Jubilee rolled her eyes a little more dramatically than necessary, probably, given she was still at a loss about what suddenly made her so special. Was she maybe dying instead of recovering and Moira just didn't have the guts to tell her?
She couldn't elaborate on that encouraging thought, fortunately, because after a few seconds of eerie silence, after an especially hard hit of muscle against Adamantium, the noise returned, only even more deafening.
Visibly losing her patience, Moira tore a communicator not bigger than a hand mirror from her pocket and activated it harshly. "Heavens, can someone from tech please make that damn cell soundproof?"
"Isn't he hurting himself?" Jubilee asked, more worried for this stranger by the minute who apparently wasn't as lucky about making friends in this facility as she was.
"He's resilient, but yes, we'll have some healing to do when he passes out," Moira sighed, at least a shadow of honest compassion darkening her expression. "Right now, he's on one of his White Runs though, don't worry. He completely blocks out the pain mentally. And at some point, even alien stamina runs out. When he's back in his own mind, I hope you two will have a more peaceful meeting. I think you'll like each other."
"I still don’t get why you're so chatty, doc." It was probably a little late to finally get herself to ask unless they had some telepath sitting around here just waiting to wipe Jubilee's mind, but the situation didn't get any less weird.
"Because you are not leaving here for a while and will need someone to make your life easier, now that you're awake. Someone who can actually touch you."
"What? Why …?" The mistrust immediately back, Jubilee tried to sit up straight this time, only to fall back with a pained scream when all her muscles cramped at once again, a bright glowing field of blue around her shape attacking her cells anew, for unbearably long seconds, before it faded.
"Fuck …"
"That's why," Moira said dryly.
"Calm down. You'll be back with your people as soon as we can get the effects of that reversal shot you've been hit with under control. Which we're still working on, but we're making progress. I know you might not feel like it right now but that continuous loop of negative energy releasing right back against yourself, that prevented the reversal ray from wearing off until now, has finally weakened. We are optimistic that you will make a full recovery soon. Until then, I'll ask Noh-Varr to give you a hand with things as soon as he's back to his senses. He's your age, and not walking out here anytime soon himself, so you two might want to get acquainted. As soon as he's able to listen, that is."
"Has someone actually, you know, tried? Talking, I mean, not screaming." Maybe she was just being cranky because she was in pain and tired and a good deal shocked about what had suddenly become her life, but Jubilee was increasingly losing patience with the distanced way her doctor was talking about that other patient.
Just because he apparently didn't have a wealthy, powerful protector like Charles sending his own personal doctor here and was probably the loneliest kind of being on this whole planet, shouldn't mean they treated him with less care and caution.
"Through the speakers, yes, more than once. Entering that room would be lethal at this stage, for one or both parties. I doubt he even heard us when we tried. As I said, his higher cognitive brain functions are entirely blocked, including the ability to communicate." Moira looked unimpressed.
Jubilee took another yearning look around for her stuff but even if she'd somehow managed to get on her feet and to that small cabinet over there, somehow she highly doubted her MP3 player had survived that blast of her own powers if they'd even brought it here at all. "You guys don’t happen to have Napster, do you?"
"Yeah, you're not getting a computer with online access here anytime soon, young lady." Moira snorted. "This is a top-secret, high-security facility, in case you missed it. We do have a very extensive recreational media selection in our network though if that's what you're asking. What do you want to listen to?"
"Not me. He." Jubilee nodded next door impatiently, hissing when the jerky movement sent a new wave of pain through her neck.
"I told you, he …" Moira stopped herself, hesitating, contemplating the idea. "I doubt he even remembers a word of English right now …"
"I wasn't talking about singing. Try Apocalyptica. 'Nothing else matters'. There's … there's just something about a cello."
Jubilee ducked her head, at a loss for words when Moira eyed her as if she was the alien in here. "The Professor always says, music is a language we all speak."
"He does, yes. I remember." A small, wondrous smile was on the other woman's lips when she got up, hurrying to the door, much to Jubilee's satisfaction.
"Try to sleep a little, Miss Lee. I'll be back in a few hours."
Jubilee was far too weak still to protest, but before the exhaustion overcame her again, her ears picked up on a quiet crackling in some speakers in the corners of the room before the first plucked tones on a broad neck of four strings started to sound through the air.
Only a couple of moments later, it was finally silent next door.
"You don't look much like an alien."
And still, Jubilee knew it was him immediately when the door opened two days later to reveal an average-sized but very muscular silhouette of someone with white hair, fair skin, and the most beautiful blue almond eyes she'd ever seen. No earthly being could possibly be that beautiful.
His voice was so much more pleasant when he wasn't screaming. "And you do not look much like a superhero, Miss Lee."
"Jubilee, please. And I'm not a hero." She nodded down on the chair Moira had declared her regular seat in here, her cheeks a little too red, not only from the very appealing sight but also a shame torturing her ever since her doctor had finally updated her on everything that had happened, in Washington, in space, at home. All without her adding a whole lot of useful things to it.
Noh-Varr ignored her gesture entirely and sat down on the edge of her bed instead, unflinching when the first sparks of blue hit him, seemingly bouncing right off. "That does not sound right. To me, you certainly are one."
Jubilee didn't have a lot to say to that because she was too busy blushing even more suddenly. "So, uh … Do they at least pay you for me frying your ass every day now?"
"Not on sick leave, no." Shit, he had a beautiful smile, too. "But that is alright. I might find another reason or two to stick around here for a while. Shall we get started? Doctor MacTaggert said, you asked for a shower."
"Yeah, because I'm pretty sure, otherwise soon everyone else in this building passing by this room will call for it." Jubilee's cheeks were immediately burning even worse at the thought of undressing in front of someone she'd only just met but she also didn't want the first impression she left on that guy to be an attack on his surely superhuman sense of smell either.
Fortunately, Noh-Varr looked just as embarrassed as she did once he'd easily carried her still far too tired body to the adjacent wet cell of her sick room, to the small stool inside the shower there, and it was time to get to the naked part. If aliens could get a red head, that would probably have been an endearing sight right now.
Thankfully, there was always something you could count on to work when you didn't know what to do with your hands and were still far too high on a wild mixture of drugs meant to keep pain and cell damage under control, to trade a lot of words. Jubilee rummaged in the front pocket of her patient gown for the first thing she'd asked her doctor yesterday and held out the small silver packaging to her new caretaker with a brilliant smile, her other, still far too unsteady hand busy fumbling with the cords in her back.
"Chewing gum?"
Noh-Varr laughed, and Jubilee lost her heart.