Whispers

- See -

Seven Years, Three Months, Fourteen Days, and Eleven Hours Ago

Wilson Fisk was a large man. His girth was easily three times that of the young woman behind him. His bald head shone in the artificial lights of the skyrise apartment overlooking New York. A heavy cane bore the brunt of his ponderous weight. He was smoking a cigar, blowing out the roiling heavy smoke with its spicy fragrance and nicotine odor, while staring out the pristine glass at the tiny, heltering, skeltering people below. He lifted one meaty hand and gestured for the girl to come closer.

She stepped forward until the glass showed back his shrewdly thoughtful expression, reflected in the glaring pane.

"There's something I want you to do," he said, enunciating his words clearly and distinctly. He blew out another ring of smoke to break against the glass. He waited for it to dissipate completely. "I want you to go and visit a business acquaintance of mine. Jean-Luc LeBeau."

He turned and she stepped closer to him. She was so much smaller than him, wearing fitted leathers to his tailored suit, with dark, golden red skin to his pasty white complexion, thick black hair swinging at her waist to his bald head. Her eyes drank him in, focused unerringly at his mouth.

"You will offer him information in exchange for a favor." Fisk placed the cigar in his mouth again and inhaled deeply before breathing out.

She waved a hand to break up the smoke.

He chuckled, then sobered. "Tell him you are the Kingpin's daughter. He'll listen."

"What is the information?" she said. A light thickness coated her voice.

"Worthington, Stark, and SHIELD have created a proposal to use their Cure on baseline humans of any age, in addition to all known mutants. It has no side effects," he told her. "Mutants are the new nuclear warheads, Maya." He shook a warning finger at her. "The nations won't stand for it."

She studied his mouth, his face.

"Soon every person and every newborn child will be 'inoculated,'" he said, his tongue curling in disgust around the word, "against mutation."

She caught her breath.

"In exchange for this information, he is to hide you until the cleansing period is complete." Fisk stumped forward heavily on his cane and placed the burdensome weight of his free hand upon her shoulder. "You will not be Cured!"

- Know -

"You don't owe me," Remy says, tilting his head toward Pyro standing in the doorway. The white devil had sprawled on the couch after a particularly nasty job.

John, also known as Pyro, says nothing. His eyes burn and dance and tighten as he measures Remy.

"I wouldn' do that t' y'," the Cajun continues, leaning his head back onto the back of the couch and closing his eyes. "I've owed too many people. Sold m' soul too many times."

The two men remain in a comfortable silence as John takes in the words, the truth of what is being said. Remy LeBeau has spent a lifetime owing, and now he pays back into the lives of other mutants. He has even corralled the dangerous Pyro and given him skills Xavier could never impart.

"I want to do something," John says.

Remy cranes his head to look at him. "If y' do somet'ing, it's because y' wan' t'."

John says nothing.

"I'm a T'ief." Remy sighs and sinks further back into the couch. "Master T'ief of the Guild, ranked t'ird in de world." He grimaces. "Told y'. Owed too many people."

"That what Shiro does?"

Remy waves his hand noncommittally. "Sometimes." His reply is cryptic. Glowing red irises on black swivel up to meet the intent gaze of the pyrokinetic. "Y' still wan' in?"

John's eyes dim, then burn with the intensity of fire. "Yeah."

- Do -

It is John's first real food in days and he devours it readily.

"Y're name, homme."

John stops and stares at Remy. For once, he's at a loss. "She called me John," he finally says.

Remy nods slightly. Shiro gives a dark-eyed look full of understanding.

"Y' got a handle?"

"Pyro." John grimaces. "Not sure—"

"Pick later," Shiro says, the straight shiny dark hair of his Japanese heritage falling into his eyes and obscuring the darkness further. "When it doesn't hurt.”

"Dishes won't wash demselves," Remy says abruptly, pushing away from the table.

John scrapes off the last food onto his fork and eats it, then follows Remy into the kitchen. "I'll help."

"Bien," the devil-eyed mutant responds. "Y're s'posed to."

- Didn't -

Pyro has been through enough horror and pain and fear in his life, he never thought there could be anything traumatic enough to trigger a secondary mutation. He's seen it all, been through it all.

He was wrong.

Just one slip—Pyro can't bring himself to think of the reason behind this aching beneath his flesh, this heat rolling about in his belly like a hatred, an unadulterated pain.

Betrayal.

He slams his fist into the side of a building as he walks along in the darkness of a New York night. He's free. He's fire. He's--

He cries. No one can see him now.

He drops to his knees. The aching intensifies.

And the fires begin.

-

he is fire, he is pain

sorrow burns, she fans the flame

fire aches beneath his skin

pain has scarred him for his sin

burn the world and come within

-

-

gather the angels of the winds of heaven
for the warrior rides forth with no master
and the fires shall bear no restraint
the arrow is drawn from the quiver
sped through the burning of hearts only faster
bloodying with its taint

from the dark and the light and the casting of thunder
ridden with power, tremulous, hidden
sacred the circle of pain
from sweetness and brightness, the singing of bleakness
unwoven, unraveled, in mystery bidden
to walk in the falling of rain

from the bright'ning byres of flaming rebirth
from phoenix fires and death unsung
ring in the day the earth will rue
the wings of heaven lie tattered and riven
cast, like old gods, to the earth and wrung
to make the worlds anew

-

Paragraph.

Paragraph.

Scarves, gloves, dresses, tank tops, t-shirts, skirts. A maelstrom of clothing twists and heaves on a purportedly empty bed.

Little things. She tries not to notice.

Sudden confusion, hand stopped on the sugar spoon.

How do I take my coffee?

Painstakingly untwisting the sheets from her legs in the morning.

She opens her mouth to get Hank's attention, then blinking silence at a half dozen habits for calling him.

Hesitations. A moment to get her own voice straight in her head before she dares to speak. Nobody else seems to notice.

Why should she?