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Men who watch them like hungry black eels; stacy, logan, others ask
Topic Started: Jul 3 2017, 05:02 PM (171 Views)
Mesmero
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Hyper-Hypnotism
Place: Harry's
Time: 11:48 PM June 26

(Tag: stacy, logan, others ask here)

Harry's was crowded tonight, and the crowd was unmistakably criminal.

No surprise, that: Harry's had always been an underworld hangout; had been since the early '50s. It wasn't even a bar, officially; it was a motorcycle repair shop, but if a handful of customers wanted to hang out with the owner, well, there was no law against that, right? And if the "customers" in question were all wearing colors for half a dozen local gangs, well... there was no law against that either.

Besides, the gangs of Hell's Kitchen respected Harry's as a kind of sanctuary, a place where members of rival gangs could meet over cheap beer and sometimes work out ways not to kill each other. When Tombstone and his "monster" gang started throwing their weight around, it was in rooms like this that the Irish and Puerto-Rican gangs of the area agreed to stop fighting each other. And while that agreement had mostly fallen apart after Tombstone's gang went down, they still respected the idea of sanctuary, of someplace where they could deal with each other without having to, well, deal with each other.

Admittedly, Vinnie was pushing the limits of that agreement with his presence. Black and brown and yellow and white skin put aside their differences in Harry's place by mutual agreement, enforced by the shotgun behind the bar, but green? Green was usually pushing it.

On the other hand, Vinnie was something of a local hero tonight, after his team had taken out a local police precinct and released everyone in lockup. No conveniently mesmerized hero this time to slice the thin blue line into short red line segments, but on the other hand they hadn't been equipped with earplugs, either. At least, not once Vinnie's "recruited" agent in place had changed the security code on their inventory locker... he wasn't stupid enough to fall for the same tactic twice. And this time he wasn't interrupted by X-Factor or the X-Men... Magneto might enjoy picking fights with his mutant rivals, but Vinnie preferred striking where the enemy was undefended.

So the local criminal element... well, they weren't buying him drinks, but they weren't slitting his throat, either. Mostly they were leaving him alone, and that was fine with him. The new Brotherhood wasn't nearly as fascist as the old one had been, and thank God for small favors, but sometimes he just needed to get the hell out of their compound and rub elbows with the real world!

All of that said, though, he wasn't exactly surprised when he became aware of someone approaching him as he was methodically making his way through a line of whisky-with-beer-chasers he'd had the barkeep line up for him. Somewhere else, or under other circumstances, he'd probably already be shooting... but anyone who wanted to start trouble here would find enough of it without Vinnie having to even open his mouth.
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Stacy X
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Neurochemical Control/ Reptillian Traits
It took something really special to ‘out-dive’ a dive bar like the Three Strikes, Stacy’s preferred haunt in Hell’s Kitchen, but Harry’s always somehow managed it. You had to take a turn off the main strip on 9th Avenue and wander down West 55th, usually following the sound of a street fight audience or wailing car alarms.

Stacy tried to avoid the place, there was only so much boozy testosterone fog she could stand to inhale, she had zero interest in the NASCAR or football broadcasts; and at least Three Strikes was likely to have at least one other woman who wasn’t just there to tend bar (even if they were on the clock in some other capacity). Plus Harry’s managed to be just a shade more suspicious of mutants, if that was even possible.

Tonight though, she’d been forced to come meet Pharmacy. The crazy gecko-looking mutant, formerly known as Procter, was notorious around Hell’s Kitchen – pretty far down on X-Factor’s priorities but he stayed out of M-Town all the same. He sold his psychoactive bodily fluids to flatscans; and he liked to gawp at the sape boys in Harry’s like it was a petting zoo.

He’d coaxed her into switching off the image inducer against her better judgement. And to be fair, people seeing she was with Procter seemed let her stay relatively unhassled. The reptilian pair stayed quietly in a corner booth while they got business out of the way. As more empty pitchers and shots filled the table, conversation wandered onto idle gossip, everything from She-Hulk’s latest client to the Brotherhood’s shenanigans. Finally, Pharma managed to draw the fancy of some closet-case gangbanger and bade his farewell.

Stacy leaned back in a dilapidated seat that bore a gun shot hole and at least three knife gashes in the upholstery, shaking her head in amused disbelief. She lit up a cigarette, pre-emptively commandeering a shot glass for an ashtray. The dives in Hell’s Kitchen had never really gotten on board with the whole ‘butt out’ campaign, so no one batted an eyelid. Management usually just seemed grateful as long as people refrained from openly cutting lines of coke out on the tables…

For a while she was happy enough to catch up on work emails, tapping idly at her phone as she puffed away. A background of slang-filled chatter, clank of pool balls and grungey 90s rock-rap was oddly soothing to a city-snake like Stacy. The odd noise prompted her to glance up, check there wasn’t trouble brewing that was worth ducking away from before it escalated. Things stayed on a surprisingly even keel though.

At one point there was a cheer when the bar tender managed to drop a tray of empties. Stacy peered over with a subtle smile but it faded when she spotted the green-skinned man chasing down whiskey shots at the bar. Bolstered by the Dutch courage of an evening spent with Pharma, she slipped out of her booth for the first time in hours and sidled over, making no attempts to cover her approach.

“Vincccent.” She purred, voice dripping with equal parts honey and venom as she melted over the bar next to him. “I’d ask what a guy like you was doin’ in a place like this, but really; what’s this place doin’ lettin’ a guy like you in?”
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Mesmero
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Vinnie didn't recognize the voice at first, but Stacy's appearance was unmistakable; he was just surprised that he hadn't noticed her earlier. Then again, he hadn't really been paying that much attention.

"Improving its clientele," he replied over his shoulder. "I give this place some class." He took advantage of the opportunity to scan the room as his eyes swung back to the next shotglass, just in case there was another surprise waiting for him.

Not that Stacy was exactly a surprise. Vinnie was acquainted with her rep, they'd even met a few times; she sold her services across the board. No real enemies; loose alliances with just about everybody. Vinnie didn't trust her, nor precisely like her, but he didn't have a problem with her either; he had no use for her services, nor she for his, so they tended to leave each other alone on the few occassions their paths crossed.

Though apparently not tonight.

"I could ask the same of you, though: didn't think anyone in this place could afford your prices. What rock are you slithering under, these days... still hanging out with the Thieves' Guild?" Vincent was admittedly only vaguely aware of that attempt at underworld unification. "Haven't heard much from them since that stunt they pulled at the Vatican, a couple of years back," he added dismissively before downing the third shotglass. "Can I get you a drink?"

The Vatican caper had been cute, but not really Vinnie's style; he was fine with stealing to keep his operating expenses fluid, but stealing for its own sake had never really appealed to him, especially not the sort of high-profile artwork and stuff that nobody could admit to owning in the first place. Ultimately that sort of thing only appealed to the kinds of rich assholes who wanted to know they had something on everybody else... the Hellfire Club types, and the like. Vinnie was well-acquainted with the type, and they irritated him... power without purpose, if you asked him. If they'd just wake up they could do a lot to improve the world, but they never would.

Well, not willingly, anyway. Admittedly, several of the world's wealthiest men and women had funded his guerilla cell's operations for years, and in some cases still did, but mostly they weren't aware of the fact... Vinnie had "encouraged" them years back to set up covert bank accounts he could access and automatically trickle funds into them, and then forget they'd ever met him. It made no real difference to them, but it had supported the dozens of missions that kept the Brotherhood's name alive over the last few years, and it was easier than robbing banks all the time.
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Stacy X
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Stacy laughed at the notion of Vinnie bringing some class to Harry’s. He was an asshole but that wasn’t the best way to surmise her issue with him. Avalanche, Frenzy, Toxin, even Mammomax; they were Brotherhood assholes too. But they were assholes she still managed to be rather fond of.

And not that she didn’t credit Mesmero with being a tad more upmarket than the likes of 3-Staccs ‘gangstas’, Broadway Bully Family or the Tombstone crew floating around them… But the notion that Harry’s would ever have any class was laughable. The Queen of England could sit down for tea there and it would still easily be the shadiest dive in New York.

“I could ask the same of you, though: didn't think anyone in this place could afford your prices.”

“Oh, baby, they definitely can’t.” She laughed again, although that wasn’t strictly true. It depended what channel they came in through and what they needed. People at the Mutant Town Medical Centre got freebies now; and anyone referred through the city Night Nurses got a hefty discount. She just didn’t advertise the fact.

“What rock are you slithering under, these days…”

“I’d say ‘sashay’ over ‘slither’. But M-Town rocks all the way, these days.” Stacy smiled, smoke curling from her nostrils. “I like it there, no one bothers me much.”

“Still hanging out with the Thieves' Guild?”

“We keep in touch.” She shrugged. Gambit had either picked the best or worst time to show up among them again this year, depending on who’s perspective you looked at it from. “Y’know how I like to keep friends in low places.”

“Haven't heard much from them since that stunt they pulled at the Vatican, a couple of years back,” he added dismissively.

Yellow eyes narrowed, watching that green adam’s apple bob over his third shot. “Yeah, that was… an’ interestin’ experiment.” One with a notoriety that still might yet come round to bite her in the ass. At least Vinnie didn’t mention the Raft breakout. That was a gig that stood to cause more trouble for its participants, retrospectively. Not least because the Guild were all too happy for people to assume it was a Brotherhood stunt.

“We mighta scaled back operations.” And whether he appreciated it or not, the hypnotist next to her had a direct hand in that.

“Can I get you a drink?”

“I’ll take a bourbon on ice thanks.” She ordered without hesitation. She didn’t plan on buying him a damn thing, but wouldn’t say no to offers either.

If he wasn’t going to shoo her away, there was no point standing around in six-inch heels. She slid onto the bar stool next to him, hooking her purse onto her tail she she could hold onto it out of the way.

“You guys been busy bunnies too, I see.” She commented, leaning her weight onto one elbow. Her cigarette was held high but Stacy had become too focused to take another drag. “I thought that business down at 7th Precinct was nasty…” She pursed her lips in mock-pain, “But then you really topped yourselves at that Ball Game, huh?”

The arm on the bar dropped down as she leaned forwards, smouldering tobacco a mere inch from burning a circle in Vincent’s arm. Her tone remained conversational, she was nothing if she couldn’t keep a good mask in place. “I guess it helps that you been on somethin’ of a recruitment drive. Up to an’ includin’ my friends though, I might add. Anansi. George maybe? An’ I know Thebe got roped inta your nonsense that one time.”

That was the part that ate her up the most. Thebe wasn’t supposed to ever be a killer like her or Nansi. Vinne had taken that away from him in the worst manner possible.
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Mesmero
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One side-effect of his ability that Vinnie didn't give much thought to was that even when he wasn't mesmerizing anyone, he generally found it easy to get people's attention... whether through years of practice or mutation he wasn't sure, and didn't much care. Between that, and the tab Ulysses Grant had started for him when he came in, getting Stacy's drink was a no-brainer; it wasn't like he was getting any change back in this place anyway. He caught the bartender's attention with a raised hand, mouthed bourbon-rocks with a head-tilt in Stacy's direction, and forgot about it as she sat.

She'd clearly approached him for a reason, after all, and he was pretty sure it wasn't 'cause she was hard-up for his company. Sooner he let her talk, sooner she'd get to the point..

“I thought that business down at 7th Precinct was nasty, but then you really topped yourselves at that Ball Game, huh?”

"Just getting started, beautiful," he replied around pulls of beer. "The Brotherhood is back."

Not that it had ever left, as far as he was concerned, but he had to admit that their Stadium strike had been better for PR purposes than pretty much everything he'd pulled in the two years beforehand, put together. In the three months since, the Brotherhood had been on everyone's lips, and their little compound was starting to get positively crowded. 'Recruitment drive' was an understatement!

No surprise, there: Vinnie himself tended to avoid the public eye, not wanting to deal with superhuman opposition. Sure, it happened sometimes, like X-Factor showing up at the 7th Precinct, but most of his missions were strikes against undefended targets. Magneto had a whole different agenda; he'd deliberately picked a fight with the X-Men that day.

He nearly choked on his beer laughing at her reference to "Gorgeous" George. "Yeah, George is one of us," he agreed, chuckling. "Such as he is. Has been for a while." Not that the former wrestler was exactly what Vinnie would call a grade-A asset, but his strength and durability came in handy. Plus he was just about the most succeptible hypnotic subject Vinnie had ever worked with; pretty much anyone else would have snapped out of his control by now unless he really poured on the juice, but George just followed along like a super-strong little purple brother, month after month.

Vinnie hadn't known Stacy was a friend of the lunk's, not that it would have made a difference if he had. Same for Anansi, though the spider-man had parted company with them months ago after helping get Vinnie into some high-security installations, back before Magneto had made stealth much less of a valued commodity.

The reference to Thebe puzzled him for a second, before he remembered Tether's real name. "Yeah, he was more of a one-time thing," Vinnie said casually. "Good fighter, though," he added approvingly as he finished the beer, remembering the elastic hero's impressive performance against the SWAT team the night they blew up the 7th Precinct. "I thought he was all mouth at first, but the boy has moves."

It was at about that point that Vinnie realized Stacy wasn't just leading up to her eventual point... that this was her point. He picked up the fourth shotglass, turned on his stool to face her full-on.

"Do we have a problem? You don't like your friends hanging out with a bad influence like me?"
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Stacy X
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Everybody always seemed to underestimate poor George. Sure, he could be a moron sometimes, but being drastically underestimated was how he’d gotten out of many a scrape before. Or at least, it was until he started drinking the Magneto-brand Kool-Aid… Being Brotherhood meant he had some serious pack-mates to back him up in a bad situation now. And if he was happy signing his soul away for some crazy killer hippy chick, that was his business. Certainly not something Stacy was going to bother bending Vincent’s ear about. Hell, he’d probably outlive the true-believers like Mesmero by a good decade or so, no matter which way the winds of fate blew them.

“Oh I’d be the last person t’nag my friends ‘bout bad influences.” She grinned, revealing sharp poisoned fangs normally hidden behind black-glossed lips.

She kept her head down and didn’t meddle with anything that looked like genuinely bad karma. She babysat peoples kids, volunteered at the Medial Centre, gave free dinners to the homeless… But Stacy was also still the same woman who’d stood by Typhoid Mary immolating bent cops, survived bringing Omega Red to heel, sipped vodka with the Winter Soldier, helped Mastermind cook up a kitchen of neurotoxins and handled Sabretooth stopping by without running in tears to X-Factor the first chance she got…

People underestimated George. People also underestimated her. There were reasons she was adamant Thebe shouldn’t be allowed to turn into anything remotely similar.

“But yeah, Nansi an’ Tether, they’re ex-Guildies. Call me territorial, but I hear ‘bout you bendin’ their heads into pretzels again,” She leaned forwards even further, back arching as she supported her weight with a hand on each of Vinnie’s knees, pushing them a fraction apart, “then there’s a problem.” The rattle on her tail shivered as her grin grew grotesquely wider. “A pretty fuckin’ big one.”

And just like that, she was done. Stacy pulled back, giving one of his thighs a parting pat before draping herself onto her own seat again. “Besides, the ones who really fall for the old ‘we are the future not them’ guff, they’re much less maintenance I’d imagine. No?”

She took a sip of free bourbon and tilted her head questioningly. “Does Mags want soldiers that really only listen ta you an’ not him? He don’t strike me as the kinda ego who’d tolerate that long.” She swirled the ice in her tumbler and took another long inhale of smoke.

“Avalanche got about thiiiis close,” a scaly hand raised up, talons of a finger and thumb barely a hair’s breadth apart, “ta recruitin’ me back in the day. Helped that I was young an’ miserable, an’ Dom was runnin’ a bar with cheap liquor. Maybe you oughta open up a Tiki hut in M-Town t’start headhuntin’… Outta curiosity, how do you put a good spin on the B’hood ta mutie kids these days?”
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Mesmero
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Vinnie scowled at the threat, tossed back the last shotglass' contents, slammed it down on the bar's surface.

"You don't want your boy Tether's head messed with," he replied with an almost-casual air, "tell him to stay out of my way. I didn't go looking for him, y'know? He messes with me again he'll get more of the same, and if you have a problem with that we'll have to resolve it." Which he wasn't looking forward to... he didn't want Stacy as an enemy. But if it worked out that way, well, then it did.

"In the meantime, though? Either take your hands off me," he continued, glancing at her hands pushing his legs apart, "or do something useful while they're down there."

“Besides, the ones who really fall for the old ‘we are the future not them’ guff, they’re much less maintenance I’d imagine. No?”

"You'd think so, wouldn't you? It depends, though. Not everyone who supports the cause is ready to do what it takes." Vinnie was mostly thinking about Max, who'd had a full-fledged existential crisis after the baseball game, but the elephant man wasn't alone; part of the problem with the kind of widespread recruiting Magneto was doing was that the Brotherhood was attracting all kinds of wannabes who thought being a "mutant terrorist" sounded like fun, but who weren't prepared for life outside their mothers' basements. "Hell, some of the kids we get expect fucking room service, y'know? Just not worth the effort, I don't care what they can do."

He picked up the last beer, contemplated it carefully. He'd already drunk too much, probably... he'd intended to get wasted tonight, but hadn't expected company. He considered that for a moment, then shrugged and downed half of it.

"Besides, we are the future," he continued after an epic burp. "Doesn't take much to see that. If it weren't for the metahumans backing 'em up, flatscan governments wouldn't last a week." This was one place where he parted company with Magneto... the old man saw everything in terms of humans and mutants. "Ain't no shortage of fascists with an X-gene, any more'n without," he mused, slurring his words slightly. "Sanctuary proved that much. "

“Does Mags want soldiers that really only listen ta you an’ not him? He don’t strike me as the kinda ego who’d tolerate that long.”

Vinnie shrugged. "If he's got a problem with it, he ain't said boo t'me 'bout it. I'm a good field leader; people do what I say. Y'think he's gonna worry I'll try to run things?" He snorted at the thought. "That's a laugh. I don't want anybody running things, least of all me. That's where the trouble starts, y'know?" Of all the people he had this conversation with on a regular basis, it occurred to him that Stacy was one of the few who might understand how things really were. "All of this government shit," he explained, waving a hand expansively to take in the entire world. "Keepin' everybody in line, payin' their taxes an' stayin' in line an' kissing ass like good li'l boys and girls," he expounded vaguely.

“Avalanche got about thiiiis close ta recruitin’ me back in the day."

"Dom was a good guy," Vinnie agreed. "Lost track of 'im durin' the Sanctuary years, though. What's he up to these days? SHIELD lock 'im up?" He scowled. "Probably. They like doin' that."

"Outta curiosity, how do you put a good spin on the B’hood ta mutie kids these days?”

"Mostly don't have to... they come to us. Especially the ones who can't hide... I don' haveta tell you how that is. Maybe you can stomach collaborating with 'em, but most of these kids just can't take the hypocrisy. More power to 'em, I say. Whole corrupt system's gotta go."


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Wolverine
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“Hypocrites the lot of ‘em, let’s burn ‘em at the stake like we used to back in the wild days when people you didn’t like were witches and people you did you’d marry.”

Logan sat down with a clink of glass on table and set a giant mug of Swedish beer in front of Vinnie and one in front of Stacy.

“Humans are evil vile creatures and we should save the Earth and all our kind from them. Or conversely we should take Stacy’s example and fuck ‘em, then take ‘em for all they worth. Is the way of the world now ain’t it? Hits ‘em in the wallet?”

Logan had been listening to the back and forth, and a whole lot more, since arriving at this place an hour ago. With all kinds of shit going down and Magento in the wind, the feral kept a tighter leash on most folk around him then normal. Which meant when Stacy, the guardian of one Mammomax’s children slipped away from the maze, he followed.



“So one thing that’s bugging me Vinnie, what does it take? What is the endgame here? Whatcha actually fighting for and how you gonna get it? I been a soldier, many many times, been a whole lot worse too, but one thing I never seen is a minority winning a war vs the whole world.”

Logan gestured to a passing young lady who handed him his other 4 giant mugs and smiled gently at her. Good help was impossible to find here and the female, no more than 23, looked almost 40. Still, good beer was good beer.

“I’d say sorry to intrude, but we know I’m not. Took care of you twos tabs though, gotta count for something right?”

Harry’s was a shit stain, but they knew him here. Logan had a thing for dives that could be squeezed for info, though Harry’s you had to squeeze real hard and what you got was usually rotten. Seeing the snake lady and the green soldier had amused him though. The two were shooting the shit and that was admirable. Mutants were a small community, it was time to make nice nice.
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I'm the best there is at what I do. But what I do best isn't very nice.
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Stacy X
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[size0][So apparently I post sporadically but with massive word count. Um... Sorry!]

Vincent’s shot glass slammed on the bar and the crack rang out like a gunshot, even above the combined din of patrons and duke box. “You don't want your boy Tether's head messed with, tell him to stay out of my way. I didn't go looking for him, y'know? He messes with me again he'll get more of the same, and if you have a problem with that we'll have to resolve it.”

“That we will.”

If all was fair in love and war, then they’d just given each other a fair warning about the practicalities of party A’s loved ones becoming party B’s instruments of warfare. ‘You fuck with me, I fuck with you’, nothing more, nothing less promised, both equally believed. If pushed, anything she did later would be with a far lighter weight on her conscience.

As far as Stacy saw it, the exchange was just another example of how staying ‘morally flexible’ had its distinct advantages. Such fair warning shots from each side would have been much less civil between more… rigid individuals.

“In the meantime, though? Either take your hands off me,” he continued, glancing at her hands pushing his legs apart, “or do something useful while they're down there.”

She could feel a rumble in that voice, possibly the urge to pour more into it than a mere sour tone. But the override of free will never came, and for that she could appreciate a strange sort of integrity. There’d been times when Stacy herself had been far quicker to override the brains of people who put hands on her skin without permission.

“You said yourself, there’s no one in here can afford my prices.” She took a sip of bourbon to seal their agreement.

At the mention of those unwilling to ‘do what it takes’, Stacy’s eyes narrowed, even as she kept her glossy smile in place. She had a feeling he might be talking about Mammomax. Despite his protestations, she knew their strongman was never going to be happy doing everything men like Magneto and Mesmero deemed necessary. Not when the lives of children, his own or others, were on the line. If his kids were deemed a liability though, or potential leverage, at least they were already squirreled away at Xavier’s. She was fairly sure she didn’t need to make threats on the triplets’ behalf because they were already out of reach, as much as anyone could be without completely vanishing.

“Hell, some of the kids we get expect fucking room service, y'know? Just not worth the effort, I don't care what they can do.”

“Send ‘em to the Vanderhorn then!” Stacy laughed. “At least my place really is a hotel.” She wasn’t even joking about how gladly she’d take Brotherhood rejects. As far as she was concerned, it was no different to taking on the junkies and illegal immigrants getting a shockingly raw deal everywhere else.

“Besides, we are the future,” he continued after an epic burp. Stacy gave a mildly questioning look as she blew out another tobacco cloud. It deflected the digestive gases her reptilian senses did not need an up-close encounter with. “Doesn't take much to see that. If it weren't for the metahumans backing 'em up, flatscan governments wouldn't last a week.”

Having dabbled with sapes who brought their A-game through pure technology, men like Tony Stark and Donald Pierce, she wasn’t entirely convinced on that front. Being born into mutancy was as much a coin toss as being born into wealth. Unless you had both, like the Hellfire courts, ‘evolutionary success’ didn’t necessarily seem guaranteed.

“Ain't no shortage of fascists with an X-gene, any more'n without,” he mused, slurring his words slightly. “Sanctuary proved that much.”

“Won’t argue with ya on that last point.” She shrugged, tapping ash into one of the emptied shots.

Vinnie seemed surprisingly blasé about his own security within the Brotherhood. Although that might’ve been the alcohol talking. How many people had Exodus never said ‘boo’ too about anything, only to have them disappear all the same? To presume Mags wouldn’t escalate to a similar regime? Sure she liked to gamble, but that seemed like a very big assumption with a bit too much riding on it for Stacy’s tastes.

“Y'think he's gonna worry I'll try to run things?”

“Your definition’ve ruin might be different from his, is all I’m sayin’.” She shrugged.

He snorted at the thought. “That's a laugh. I don't want anybody running things, least of all me. That's where the trouble starts, y'know?”

“Trouble?”

“All of this government shit,” he explained, waving a hand expansively to take in the entire world.

“Ah.” She took a deep inhale of smoke, giving a slow blink and the slightest nod of agreement.

“Keepin' everybody in line, payin' their taxes an' stayin' in line an' kissing ass like good li'l boys and girls.”

“Y’know, I wouldn’t have a problem with taxes if they paid for anythin’ that actually did shit for people like me. Or laws that were held up with any kind’ve consistency.” Such as if police or health care did anything about mutant hookers being assaulted half-to-death. Or if state prosecutors didn’t then come down like a ton of bricks on said hookers for the far less damaging crime of theft… “Such as it is, they’re chains I choose not ta tangle myself up with. But the energy t’break ‘em don’t seem worth it…”

The mention of Avalanche seemed to make Vincent a little nostalgic. “Dom was a good guy. Lost track of 'im durin' the Sanctuary years, though. What's he up to these days? SHIELD lock 'im up?” He scowled. “Probably. They like doin' that.”

“Yeah.” Stacy sighed sadly. “I dunno though, last I saw’ve him was right here in New York. Bastard tried stitchin’ me up for some amateur B’hood burglary crap; but then he saved me an’ Thebe gettin’ dragged into a muties versus sape rumble at the Bowery. Was years ago though…” She shook her head, laughing at herself for always being far too fond of all the wrong people.

The answer to Brotherhood’s PR both surprised her and didn’t.

“They come to us. Especially the ones who can't hide… I don' haveta tell you how that is.”

“Well, yeah, but the non-passers you get must be the ones with nothing else goin’ for ‘em then.” She grinned, “Me an’ the other Vegas girls, we were hidin’ out in plain sight.” Granted, that only lasted for as long as it took the Purifiers to work out the Ranch was a sitting duck. “Wasn’t perfect enough t’last forever, but what ever does?”

“Maybe you can stomach collaborating with 'em, but most of these kids just can't take the hypocrisy. More power to 'em, I say. Whole corrupt system's gotta go.”

Stacy was about to try picking apart the concept of ‘collaboration’ when an unexpected third party weighed in.

“Hypocrites the lot of ‘em, let’s burn ‘em at the stake like we used to back in the wild days when people you didn’t like were witches and people you did you’d marry.”

She eyed the giant mugs of beer set down for them with some trepidation. Mesmero had asked her what she wanted to drink, even as they were exchanging thinly veiled but heartfelt threats. Wolverine just picked what worked for him and expected them both to take it gladly, because fuck it he was the one paying. In a weird way, it sort of encapsulated a comparative view of the two men. Luckily Stacy could work with either.

“Oh I’ve had sapes try t’burn me before.” She swallowed her sip of bourbon and lifted a finger like she was casually interjecting with a view on some modern political policy. “Stakes’re so 15th Century though, kids just use gasoline and zippos these days. If they’re not tossin’ acid around ‘cause it’s cheaper by the gallon now.”

“Humans are evil vile creatures and we should save the Earth and all our kind from them. Or conversely we should take Stacy’s example and fuck ‘em, then take ‘em for all they worth. Is the way of the world now ain’t it? Hits ‘em in the wallet?”

‘Fuck’ was by far her favourite cuss, sprinkled liberally over half the things she said just to spice it up on her tongue. The ugly Anglo-Saxonness of the word only ever soured the taste of it when used in its literal form, to bluntly describe what she did for money. It felt reductive, implying anyone with a pulse and a suitable body cavity could do what she did. Stacy was the best there was at what she did, and what she did best wasn’t at all simple – to steal and paraphrase the X-Man’s favourite saying.

“Trust you t’boil things down to a game’ve ‘Fuck, Marry, Kill’, Logan.” She rolled her eyes, remaining good natured about the comment. At least he was acknowledging her prolific extortion habits with minimal judgement. Funny how the free trade of her own body always seemed to come with more hand-wringing than the forced extraction of other peoples’ cash and property. All part of that rotten system Vinnie was so set against, and part of why she genuinely could see where he was coming from.

“So one thing that’s bugging me Vinnie, what does it take? What is the endgame here? Whatcha actually fighting for and how you gonna get it? I been a soldier, many many times, been a whole lot worse too, but one thing I never seen is a minority winning a war vs the whole world.”

Oh, here we go…
Stacy thought to herself, waiting for the veteran versus terrorist dick measuring contest to commence. This was why the people she actually prearranged drinks with were women like Regan, Rahne or Vanessa. She shared a fleeting smile with the waitress who set down Logan’s beers. It was the kind of exchange that often took place when any two people of the female persuasion found themselves adrift in a sea of testosterone, enough to sometimes even overcome mutant prejudice, she’d found.

“I’d say sorry to intrude, but we know I’m not. Took care of you twos tabs though, gotta count for something right?”

“An’ I’d say thanks, but I figured my drinks were already on him so…” Stacy grinned, gesturing graciously to Vincent. ‘Don’t fuss over who pays, as long as it’s not you’ might as well have been her motto.
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Once the initial obligatory exchange of threats was complete, Stacy seemed to settle down, and Vinnie followed suit. He wasn't interested in a fight here; there was no percentage in it.

“Send ‘em to the Vanderhorn then! At least my place really is a hotel.”

"...at least when it's not a soundstage or a detective agency, right?" Vinnie had actually watched every episode of that weirdo TV show... he figured it was a way of learning about his potential enemies... which admittedly it mostly hadn't been. But more to the point: "You got the wrong idea, though. I'm not looking to start a mutant refuge; anyone who needs that, they can find you on their own, or stay in their mom's basements, or whatever they like."

“I wouldn’t have a problem with taxes if they paid for anythin’ that actually did shit for people like me. [..] they’re chains I choose not ta tangle myself up with. But the energy t’break ‘em don’t seem worth it...”

That caught Vinnie's attention; she seemed to understand the general point, even if she was complacent about it.

"Yeah, if the folks running things looked out for the rest of us, everything'd be milk and honey. And if wolves tended pasture sheep would have it made. But that just ain't how it works, right? I mean, I oughta know: I've been the guy running things, more'n once. I'm pretty good at it." Now there was an understatement. He looked at his glass, empty now, and considered ordering a refill... not yet, he decided. This conversation was interesting, he didn't want to interrupt it.

"It's just a lousy way to live, is all.... you're smart to stay out of those chains. As for breaking them, though..." he shrugged. "Well, maybe that's smart, too. Not your fight, right? I just ain't wired that way, though. Never have been. Not since I was a kid."

Not that he was going to get into a story about his childhood with Stacy. Vinnie didn't have much patience for psychologists, but he'd made enough people talk honestly enough over the years that he had a pretty good handle on human nature, and he was pretty sure he was no exception. So, yeah, sure, he probably had an inner child somewhere who still wanted to protect his mom from his abusive dad or whatever, but at this point, who really cared?

He shrugged. "Been fighting all my life. Don't see any reason to stop now. If I can break a few people's chains along the way, so much the better."

“Well, yeah, but the non-passers you get must be the ones with nothing else goin’ for ‘em then.”

"Most of 'em, yeah. They go back to their moms soon enough. The exceptions stick around and try to do something. And the right person at the right time and place more than makes up for a hundred half-assed wannabes." He grinned. "Gotta say though, I like this new generation. They get a lot of crap from the media, but the ones who stick around... they got spunk!"

“Wasn’t perfect enough t’last forever, but what ever does?”

Vinnie nodded agreement. "Ain't that the truth. Hey," he asked impulsively, indicating her cigarette, "can I bum one of those off of you?" He wasn't a smoker, ordinarily, but she was making him crave one all of a sudden. Before he'd quite finished the question they were interrupted by a new arrival, though.

"What is the endgame here? Whatcha actually fighting for and how you gonna get it? [..] one thing I never seen is a minority winning a war vs the whole world."

At first Vinnie didn't recognize the sideburned man who joined them, but his mannerisms and voice were unique enough that it didn't take him long to place the X-Man. By then, the undersized mutant had made it clear that he wasn't looking for a fight, so Vinnie accepted the beer with an intrigued nod of thanks. It was a good question, and he'd thought a lot about it over the years, but it wasn't a simple question, and he didn't have a simple answer for it.

"That's a pretty funny question coming from one of your crew, ain't it? The 'whole world' ain't exactly on your side, no more'n mine. And hell, way I remember it, when those Purifier sapes blew up your school it wasn't the 'whole world' that came to your rescue, it was us." He shrugged, took a long pull of the mug, nodded again. "Good beer. Thanks."

“I figured my drinks were already on him so..."

Vinnie laughed at that. "The more, the merrier, right?" That was fine with him; money was a pretty arbitrary commodity to his way of thinking. In general he only paid for things when he wanted to, but in the long run it was easier to steal a lot of cash once and pay for bartabs than to navigate endless petty theft.

"But since you ask," he continued, "guess it depends on what winning looks like. Some of the Brothers -- or, y'know, Sisters," he added with a nod to Stacy, "some of 'em, most of 'em even, they just wanna hold the whip hand for once. Keep the system in place, just with mutants in charge. Which, I dunno. If it weren't for you lot defending all this..." he paused, waving a hand vaguely in the air as though to encompass the entire world, "all this shit, it might even work, but seriously? Even if we did establish a Mutantocracy or whatever, and even if you 'race traitors'..." he paused for a breath there, the glint in his eye and the smirk on his lips making clear that he'd used the phrase more to goad the X-Man than out of any sincere mutant-supremacist ideology "...even if you gave up fighting us about it, it wouldn't make much difference. Just Sanctuary on a large scale, y'know?"

He took another drink.

"Ain't gonna happen, though. What might happen is, we take down the oligarchy a peg or two. Or maybe all the way down, if we're lucky. And don't look so shocked," he interrupted himself, "yeah, I've read a book! Which, hell, it needs taking down, and from where I sit we're the only folks doing the job," he went on, his voice growing less cynical and more passionate as he warmed to his topic, "while the rest of you try to make friends with the government. Serious question, Logan: why do you even fight for a bunch of statists, anyway? I mean, I get Stacy's position: the government's the enemy, right enough, she just doesn't wanna fight 'em herself. Complacent, sure, but can't fault her tactics; she'll likely outlive me. But you, you're a fighter... you're just on the wrong side. Why is that?"
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“Stakes’re so 15th Century though, kids just use gasoline and zippos these days. If they’re not tossin’ acid around ‘cause it’s cheaper by the gallon now.”

“Cute Stace, very cute. I got burned at the stake as a warlock once. I think…. Memories get kinda fuzzy ya know. I do know I dropped an asshat into a vat of acid once or twice though.”

Logan drank deeply from his first mug and smiled at his two unlikely companions. The feral was the definition of old school and the bars were his holy ground. If a fight broke out he’d fight, but he’d never think of starting a scuffle here. If a place served alcohol, well, it was time to talk instead of punch.

"That's a pretty funny question coming from one of your crew, ain't it? The 'whole world' ain't exactly on your side, no more'n mine. And hell, way I remember it, when those Purifier sapes blew up your school it wasn't the 'whole world' that came to your rescue, it was us."

“Not as funny as you make out. World looks after it’s own, these days the most greedy and arrogant it can find. I’m Canadian, my country already figured out paradise was getting along with people who we don't like, eh? As for the Purifiers, they dead now and I recall you good folk helped on that score. Hence the drinks being on me tonight, man’s gotta show his gratitude.”

Logan listened to the green man carefully, Vinnie was a talker, he had to be his power and style entwined perfectly into the art of conversation. The old old man had been on every side of a conflict one could be on, though rarely the losing side. Wolverine was a survivor, and had at least a century of experience doing dark things for various reasons. When Vinnie paused Logan unbuttoned his shirt and lowered it to his shoulders.

“When I was younger, before my powers kicked in, I had deep whip cuts all over my back. Every time I moved or breathed I could feel em. Had them replaced and healed over many many times over the years. Never thought holding the whip would make them feel better, but that’s just me. If the system is rotten then being the ones in charge of it don’t fix that.”

Logan put his shirt back in place and emptied his first mug with another long pull. This was thirsty work but he was pleased that everyone was being open here. It was an old man’s privilege to talk theories and complain about the world over beer.

“Leaving books out of this for a moment, I don’t fight for statists, or the government, don’t fight against them either. The wonderful leaders of Canada are the ones who decided that I’d be a better person with 100 lbs of metal in me after all. Doesn’t mean I think everything should be burned to ash and chaos should reign. No, my reasons are a lot quieter than humans vs mutants.”

Logan paused for a moment to entwine his arm with another waitress and ask her for 3 rounds of Kamikazes for his little band of misfits then turned back to Vinne with a glint in his eye as well.

“So, a number of years ago a bald guy in a wheelchair rolled into an off the book Government agency like he owned the place. He found a short angry man just back from killing a whole family of mutants who could detonate other people with a touch. 13 people aged 6 months to 61, all dead because they couldn’t touch anyone not blood related. Bald man had balls big as brass houses and just asked the unrepentant killer if this was the life he wanted. ‘I got a school’ baldy says, ‘a place where people will come to and learn to control themselves, where they will be safe and can be themselves.’. Angry hairy man that he was, the killer told him to fuck off, that’s straight bullshit. You’re just going to make a target and a breeding ground for the spooks to recruit from or terminate. ‘That’s just it Logan,’ he says, ‘You’re 100% correct, that’s why we need you. We need a man who’s seen the worst humanity can do and would never allow it to happen to someone else.’ I’m a simple stupid man, anyone can tell you that. I fight cause it’s in my blood, I kill cause that’s what I’m good at. Better to use that to save a few folks from worse things than me, eh? Every time you boys get outta hand and blow up some random ‘sapes’ that makes keeping the school together a little tougher and man I hate working hard.”

Logan smiled a cold smile and reclined in his seat. There was a lot more to Vinnie's views and he actually wanted to tease it out. He wanted to hear Stacy as well, she had an outsider perspective and that always held some truth others never found.

“As for race traitors, well, I’m sure those baseball game goers were all SHIELD agents in disguise. Whatever happened to you guys talking out popes and politicians? That’s actually useful moves there. You want to crumble the government, stop shooting through the rank and file to do it.”
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(Stacy - skipping, feel free to jump back in when you've got time/bandwidth)

Vinnie had considered a number of possible reactions the notoriously labile X-Man might have to his question, or to his presence more generally, but taking his shirt off -- even partially -- honestly hadn't crossed his mind. Apparently to show him scars that were no longer there, all of which amused Vinnie inordinately for reasons he would have had a hard time explaining.
Regardless, the man was right about the ultimate irrelevance of who has the whip hand in a rotten system. The point was to negate the system.

" I don’t fight for statists, or the government, don’t fight against them either."

Vinnie shrugged his shoulders at that, and returned his attention to his beer. No doubt he was going to explain how he was independent of any political entanglements, never mind the real-world implications of governments surviving threat after threat thanks in no small part to the X-Men and other groups like them. In Vinnie' experience a lot of people thought that way, as though they had no responsibility for the de-facto alliances they formed.

And, sure enough, there it was.

"So, here's the thing, Logan," he replied with a sigh, "you can pretend that all you do is save a few folks here, kill a few folks there, tend house at your school, whatever. You can pretend all your brass-balled bald friend does is teach young mutants self-control, pretend that the X-Men are just, I don't know, some kind of local educational initiative or mutant support group or something, pretend you've got nothing to do with governments. You get to do that. But if you're seriously gonna sit there at the same time and ask why we're not taking out popes and politicians? Seriously? Jesus, Logan, you know why."

He shrugged, suddenly unsure why he was bothering to explain all of this for the millionth time. Because he was half-drunk, probably. And if they weren't gonna fight, which honestly was fine with him, then there was no good reason not to get all-the-way drunk, especially if Wolverine was paying the tab. He took another long pull from his mug.

"We don't take 'em out," he finally continued, "because folks like you fight us every damned step of the way when we try. You and your X-Men buddies, and the Avengers and the Fantastic Four and SHIELD and all the rest of you. Y'all keep the popes and the politicians safe, while you pretend you've got nothing to do with them. And no," he rolled on without pausing, "the baseball fans weren't SHIELD agents, you're right. Not even soldiers. They're rank and file, like you said. Not even; they're civilians. You should talk to Max, he got all hot and bothered about that."

Which annoyed him tremendously; if it'd been up to him he'd have just ordered the elephant-man to shut up and soldier, and backed it up with his power if need be. But that wasn't Magneto's style, and Vinnie had to admit the old man knew what he was doing: he was growing their Brotherhood cell way faster and running it more securely than Vinnie himself had managed, even if there was grumbling in the ranks. Anyway, that was beside his point here.

"But you know what? While you're having that talk," he continued, only slurring a little, "be sure to tell him how many rank-and-file soldiers you and your buddies killed back when you were a soldier, y'know? Instead of going after Hitler and Mussolini and Hirohito, I mean. And maybe the two of you can work out why it's OK for Roosevelt to burn Senkichi Awaya or whatever his name was to ash. That double-standard never made any damned sense to me, that's for sure... seems t'me rank and file always get the shaft in any war, we just don't care when it's the enemy dead."
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Dropping bums into acid vats…? Why was she not at all surprised by that. She couldn’t picture anyone mistaking Logan for a witch though. Or warlock? Whatever.

“Can I bum one of those off of you?” Vincent asked impulsively, indicating Stacy’s cigarette.

“Sure, if you don’t mind sweet smoke.” She shrugged, tail pulling her purse up with neither pomp nor grumble. From threats to favours, it was all just an interesting Monday night’s business. While she rummaged for her tin, Vinnie and Logan continued trading verbal jabs. Outwardly it seemed like she’d given up paying the slightest bit of attention to the exchange. But that was just how she operated by default. You didn’t get to be a prolific blackmailer without mastering the art of noting everything while looking completely distracted.

She had to resist the temptation to pull a face at Vin when he started pulling out the big boy words like oligarchy. Or when he nodded to her as a ‘sister’. Hopefully he only meant in the mutated sense. But she got the uneasy feeling that it had more to do with her technically being a public enemy, however nice and low she was on anyone’s list of priorities compared to him. She lit one of her cigarettes for him using her own, took a long draw before passing it over with two fingers. She tipped the tin in Logan’s direction with a questioning look, just to be polite. But from the taste of him, she had a feeling he wouldn’t abide anything less than a fat cigar.

“Serious question, Logan: why do you even fight for a bunch of statists, anyway? I mean, I get Stacy's position: the government's the enemy, right enough, she just doesn't wanna fight 'em herself. Complacent, sure, but can't fault her tactics; she'll likely outlive me.” Stacy tipped a nod to Mesmero before yellow eyes slid back to the Wolverine’s direction. She would have preferred a better word than complacent, something that didn’t sound quite so… incompetent. But really, she couldn’t fault the basic point of his judgement.

“But you, you're a fighter… you're just on the wrong side. Why is that?”

“When I was younger, before my powers kicked in, I had deep whip cuts all over my back.”


Stacy’s eyebrow arched as Logan unbuttoned his shirt, giving little else of a reaction away as smoke curled up from her nostrils. It wasn’t the answer she’d have expected to talk of ‘holding the whip hand for once’. But it seemed perfectly in line with Logan’s style of debate. She didn’t even have to look at Vinnie to taste his equal surprise.

“Every time I moved or breathed I could feel ‘em. Had them replaced and healed over many many times over the years. Never thought holding the whip would make them feel better, but that’s just me. If the system is rotten then being the ones in charge of it don’t fix that.”

“Some people love being the whipping boy.” Stacy couldn’t help but muse. “And I can’t say it was anything but a pleasure to oblige.” She wouldn’t be so flippant about someone who still bore the scars or implied it had only happened recently. But Logan struck her as someone who’d been through worse in his time; she didn’t expect a dark bit of dominatrix humour to rile the old man any.

Logan put his shirt back in place and emptied his first mug with another long pull. “Leaving books out of this for a moment, I don’t fight for statists, or the government, don’t fight against them either. The wonderful leaders of Canada are the ones who decided that I’d be a better person with 100 lbs of metal in me after all. Doesn’t mean I think everything should be burned to ash and chaos should reign. No, my reasons are a lot quieter than humans vs mutants.”

Watching him wind his arm around another waitress and order more shots felt reminiscent of something… Maybe a night out with Gorgeous George, years ago. The way the thief used to casually touch women whether they invited it or were just doing their job. Logan likely wouldn’t appreciate the comparison. In her eyes though it only proved all men, X-Men or Brotherhood, SHIELD or Hellfire, they were all the same deep down. It could be infuriating when they refused to see as such.

She laughed openly at the idea of someone literally telling Xavier to fuck off. But she almost felt sorry for Vinnie, tasting his mildly drunken frustration building up as Logan rattled off the charming story of his unorthodox recruitment for position as school watchdog.

“…Every time you boys get outta hand and blow up some random ‘sapes’ that makes keeping the school together a little tougher and man I hate working hard.” Logan smiled a cold smile and reclined in his seat.

The waitress came back with the Kamikazes and, rather than letting her interrupt the boys’ banter Stacy simply leaned a little, took the tray out of her hands with her tail. The woman looked a little shocked, but not enough to voice any concerns. Sapes could be so cute when they were scared of pissing off the big scary muties.

“As for race traitors, well, I’m sure those baseball game goers were all SHIELD agents in disguise. Whatever happened to you guys taking out popes and politicians? That’s actually useful moves there…”

“…You're seriously gonna sit there at the same time and ask why we're not taking out popes and politicians? Seriously? Jesus, Logan, you
know why.”

Stacy quietly set out the three glasses before dipping to balance the tray against the leg of her stool, leaving condensation to tickle off onto the floor. She figured vodka mixes were more Winter Soldier’s thing… In some cases she might’ve assumed ‘kamikaze’ was a dig at the Brotherhood but she didn’t credit Logan with that Hellfire brand of subtle cattiness.

“We don't take 'em out,” Vinnie finally continued, “because folks like you fight us every damned step of the way when we try.”

That was a rather interesting admission. Stacy had wormed her way into all kinds of high places and holy houses, the Raft Breakout and the Vatican Heist being the two highest profile examples where she’d gotten her talons into politicians and cardinals alike. If her goal had been to turn around and ram a knife into anyone’s heart, there’d have been nothing stopping her. She resisted the urge to brag though. The last thing she needed was Vinnie getting ideas about using her the way he’d used poor Anansi. Let the Brotherhood stick to big displays of brute force if that’s all they had the imagination for.

“And no,” Vinnie rolled on without pausing, “the baseball fans weren't SHIELD agents, you're right. Not even soldiers. They're rank and file, like you said. Not even; they're civilians. You should talk to Max, he got all hot and bothered about that.”

Stacy couldn’t help the shudder that rippled down her spine at the sour rancor his green skin filtered into the air. Her tail threatened to give off a slight rattle but she managed to lock the muscles up just in time. It felt like her place to speak for fellow thieves dragged into Brotherhood business, but the ones who signed up willingly, even Mammomax, they’d have to fight their own battles.

“But you know what? While you're having that talk,” he continued, only slurring a little, “be sure to tell him how many rank-and-file soldiers you and your buddies killed back when you were a soldier, y'know? Instead of going after Hitler and Mussolini and Hirohito, I mean. And maybe the two of you can work out why it's OK for Roosevelt to burn Senkichi Awaya or whatever his name was to ash. That double-standard never made any damned sense to me, that's for sure… seems t'me rank and file always get the shaft in any war, we just don't care when it's the enemy dead.”

“Much as it weirds me out t’be defendin’ the boyscouts but… don’t you think it kinda says somethin’ that just about everything you drag up there was way before the X-Men’s time? Or the Brotherhood’s…? Like, I thought you were wanting t’lay into what the old man here’s done since the wheeled wonder picked him up to play superhero. If you wanna have a little bar side trial for his whole damn life go ahead but there’s only so far you’re gonna get before the bar’s gotta shut for the night, an’ some people here need their beauty sleep.” She picked up her drink to take a sip, tipping Logan a cheeky wink over the glass brim.

“Far as I can see, the only difference is B-hood guys run around lashing out at anythin’ that’ll put a dent in the top one percent’s sense’ve security. X-Guys run around putting props an’ crutches up t’try an’ make the bottom ninety-nine percent feel better. Like the ball game – big song an’ dance about ‘Look, look no one’s safe’ versus ‘Hey some muties’re lookin’ out for ya’. But neither way gets too far ‘cause what you’re dealin’ with is the big squirmy, volatile mess that is human nature.” She shrugged, licking the taste of vodka and triple sec from her lips.

“The people at the top aren’t always gonna feel threatened when you hit ‘em, the people at the bottom aren’t always gonna feel grateful when you pick ‘em up. There was no big public outpouring when Cyclops ‘died’. No big public cheer when Sanctuary got flushed out. Either or both’ve you could disappear tomorrow or kill every world leader at once an’ most people would still just carry on with their own stupid, selfish business. Hope’s a nice thing t’have though, an’ each to their own. Although…”

Stacy’s gaze slid surreptitiously between Logan and Vinnie. “…it’d be nice if I didn’t have t’worry ‘bout me and mine gettin’ blown up or bludgeoned t’death any time we go to a concert or a big game… or locked up an’ beaten’ when we bend human law t’bring home the bacon…”
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Logan took it all in, the arguments from both sides as he finished off another mug of cold beer. It was one thing Yanks got right, beer was best cold and in glass. Feeling indulgent he not only listened, he sat and thought for a bit. Green boy there had some points, the wrong points, or perhaps the right ones in the wrong manner. Stacy…. Well Stacy was Stacy and she operated at the street level better than he ever had or would. By the end of the dual discourse Logan was first smiling, then chuckling, then laughing as he waved for more shots.

“All right, all right you two. We’re all set in our ways, eh? No one ever started an argument thinking they was wrong after all. Vinnie, you’re a soldier, I can respect that. Is why your insides are still inside you right now after that baseball game. Stacy, you’re one of the smartest people I know and I live at a college. You’re absolutely right, humanity at large is more concerned with their next meal, if their wife is gonna check their phone records, and if the NasDaq rose or fell today then they’ll ever be with our kind.”

Logan took another moment to gather his thoughts, he could feel the pull of a night being over, of a welcome worn out and he marked the exits carefully in his mind. He’d enjoyed the company here more than he’d imagined and found a bit more respect for his scaly friend.

“You keep soldiering on Vins, there’s always a war to fight when you don’t want to think. I’ve lived that life, I get it. You keep your head down, do what you’re ordered to, and fight for your cause. Here’s the difference though, you got a choice in who you follow and how, every single day. Most of the time I didn’t. I was black ops, with people who’d use me then wipe me and use me again. You’re willingly choosing to obey a man that told you to murder hundreds of people just for going to a ball game. If a commander told me to do that, if I had a choice about it, I’d have a dead commander.”

The old man picked up two shots and downed them in a flash. This talking stuff was thirsty work, being civil even more so. He gave an appreciative glance at Stacy, the lady knew her stuff well, he’d have to look her up at another date, see if she knew anything about Japan.

“Also you’re missing a real important piece here Mesmo, I fought and killed soldiers when I was one. I didn’t go into villages killing and maiming people cause I thought it was a smart move. Plenty of others did. That makes them what you are, terrorists. Terrorism tears down, freedom fighting builds up. Mayne in the future you and buckethead might want to think that over and go back to helping us do some good again. Those were good times.”
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Stacy's cigarette was some kind of cloved sweet thing which Vinnie was prepared to sneer at on principle, but actually he decided he kind of liked it. "Thanks," he said before taking a deep drag and letting the smoke collect in his mouth. Acrid and sweet all at once; it burned and soothed his throat in the same breath.

Probably some kind of symbolic shit, if he thought about it too much... something about the soothing illusions with which people imperfectly cover up their awareness of the bitter reality, or whatever. Then again, sometimes a cigarette is just a cigarette. He blew the smoke out in a ragged not-particularly-ring-like smoke ring as he contemplated his drinking partners and the unlikely conversation they were having.

The conversation itself was not new, and in fact he'd had it quite often over the last few months as hordes of newbies had shown up at the Brotherhood's front door with the weirdest ideas. On the other hand, having it with these two was weird even by comparison... he'd expected someone like Logan to try and take his head off, not discuss political theory with him.

That said, novel as the setting was, the conversation itself was proceeding along fairly standard lines.

"The thing is, Logan: while you were busy not-killing villagers," he continued in the same conversational tone, "and while you and your fellow freedom-fighters were oh-so-morally killing the enemy soldiers who'd been conscripted from those villages a year earlier, you were fighting for an Allied army that chose to blow cities full of civilians off the map, to destroy Japan's will to fight. You say you'd kill your commander for ordering the murder of hundreds of people just for living their lives in the wrong place at the wrong time, but like I said: when Roosevelt ordered the murder of hundreds of thousands of Japanese doing precisely that, he was spared your righteous wrath."

Not that Vinnie expected that comparison to make any sense to the old man. After all, he hadn't dropped the bomb. All he'd done was fight on the side of the folks who had.

It was absurd from Vinnie's perspective, the distinction Logan wanted to draw between the Allied army killing civilians as an act of psychological warfare and the Brotherhood doing the same thing. As far as Vinnie was concerned it was arbitrary, based on the equally arbitrary idea that governments were somehow more morally justified in commiting slaughter than individuals were, that Roosevelt bombing Nagasaki was somehow morally superior to, say, Lieutenant Calley shooting up My Lai, or Magneto destroying San Francisco. Vinnie hadn't believed that in decades, in so long it was hard for him to even take the idea seriously. He who eats the meat cannot condemn the butcher... he'd forgotten who'd first said that, but it was true.

Which he realized was a huge, and mostly unbridgable gulf between them... they were never going to agree with each other on this one. So they'd likely stay enemies until one of them gave up or died.

"don’t you think it kinda says somethin’ that just about everything you drag up there was way before the X-Men’s time? Or the Brotherhood’s…?"

That was an interesting point. Or novel, anyway. He gave an appreciative nod and thought about it as he blew another scrawny mutant smoke ring.

"Fair point," he admitted. "I mean, I was just looking to get drunk tonight, I didn't prep for a debate on the moral pros and cons of military slaughters of civilian populations... and you're right, my examples are 20th-century and out of date. Or, well, the old man here was fighting in World War II, but for the rest of us it's kind of ancient history." He gave a one-shouldered shrug.

"But seriously, Stacy, are you suggesting that the governments the X-Men help support -- the 'props and crutches', like you said -- are you suggesting they don't commit atrocities like that anymore... that it's all old news?"

It was a serious question. He'd been head-down in the tactical minutia of running a Brotherhoood cell for years, and hadn't really had much of an opportunity to think about the big picture. That wasn't really his strength, anyway. Maybe the big picture had changed while he wasn't looking. He doubted it, but it was possible... especially when the X-Men had three of the world's most powerful telepaths on tap, plus Cerebro, plus probably whatever mind-control lasers the Skrull had used. They could impose peace on the world without having to fight, establish a real working socialist anarchy. Vinnie didn't think they ever would, but he would love to be wrong about that.

That said... he wasn't holding his breath.

"I mean, it sure doesn't seem likely to me. From where I sit it's been the same old shit for a real long time, and it'll keep on going until someone stops it. And hey," he continued, warming to his subject in a sudden burst of enthusiasm, "Like I said, I'll be the first one to admit that the Brotherhood's just as infected with this government nonsense as anyone else... just look at the mess Exodus made of Sanctuary while the gang went merrily along. But from where I sit, we're still the best group willing to stand up to the world's armies, to SHIELD, to..." he waved a hand vaguely, drunkenly, then let it drop, suddenly tired beyond reckoning.

"Ah, what's the use?" he asked, not to anyone in particular. "Look, I get what you're saying... and you're not all wrong," he conceded. "I mean, I agree that it wasn't you who killed all those Japanese civilians, or who slaughtered the Vietnamese at My Lai, or whatever. Sure, millions of civilians killed by armies, but that was other soldiers, it was generals, it was presidents, it was whatever, it wasn't you, it wasn't your freedom-fighters. Your hands are clean. Yup, all of that is true." Another drink had appeared in front of him, and against his better judgment he downed it.

"And I get that you think that's a huge moral difference between us," he told Logan, "because my hands aren't... because I actually killed some of those civilians myself." Not that Vinnie himself had pulled the trigger too often; he tended to work through proxies. The baseball fans had killed each other, after all; he hadn't had to lift a finger. But no doubt Logan and Stacy would dismiss that as sophistry, and they'd be right: what mattered wasn't who pulled the trigger, but rather who ran the show.

"So, yeah. I did. We did. And you think that makes you lot freedom fighters building shit up and us terrorists tearing things down, that it makes what you're doing good and what we're doing bad, and all that. And I get that you think none of it amounts to a hill of beans anyway," he added to Stacy, "since we aren't important enough to change anything that matters. SHIELD takes down the Brotherhood, Sanctuary gets destroyed, Magneto disappears, Magneto comes back, nobody really cares. Human nature, like you said. We can't do shit about it. Like you said, Stace... we could all die tomorrow and nobody'd really care. Hell, Cyclops' brother killed like a billion people, and there was a big to-do about it for a while when everyone found out, and then everyone got busy with the next thing. We don't matter, really."

His cigarette had burned down to mostly ash while they talked, and he stubbed it out distractedly, lost for a moment in his own thoughts. That last one in particular, the ultimate futility of it all, was a thought he struggled with often. Usually he consoled himself with a quote he'd picked up somewhere along the line: <i>you are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.</i>

But sometimes, like tonight, that was just ashes in his mouth.

"Anyway," he continued, "like I said, I get what you're saying. It's just that from where I sit none of that makes any damned sense. From where I sit it's all the same fucking machine that chews those bodies up and spits them out, whether that's nice church-going Purifiers blowing up mutant kids, or government-funded armies bombing enemy towns, or SHIELD-sponsored covert operations, or racist police taking down kids in the street, or whatever. And worse than the corpses, it's that machine that just ruins lives, grinds them down, turns people into soldiers and laborers and cogs. And from where I sit, you guys keep that machine running nice and shiny, and we work on tearing it down, where we can, on the edges, and you think we're the bad guys... because you don't count the bodies when the machine is running, only when we tear bits of it down. You're on its side. You, and the Avengers, and SHIELD, and the Fantastic Four, and the U.S.Army, and... everybody. And honestly?" He downed the last shot in front of him, and decided it was time for him to get going, before he got outright maudlin.

Except it was too late, really.

"Honestly, you lot will probably win. I mean, let's face it, you've had us in hiding and on the run for years, you and SHIELD and everyone else. Even after the Vault breakout you still have half our heavy hitters null-cuffed, and who knows what you're doing to them." He shrugged. "So, you know... there's that. But, like you said, Logan... maybe when you're done with us you and that brass-balled psychic you're so fond of can look around and actually do some fucking good."

"Anyway, thanks for the drinks," he added, standing up. "And the smoke," he added to Stacy. "Too sweet for me, but they suit you. I've gotta see a man about draining a lizard, or however that goes."

As he headed unsteadily for the men's room, he wondered if they'd still be there when he came back out.
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