2013.08.07 - Ohio Calling

Rainy day in NYC. Overcast, drizzly. Good day for some, not so much for others.. but for one fuzzy blue teleporter, it seems apropos for some reason.

Kurt is in the Majestic, his image inducer turned on such that he looks like, well, a human 'normal' version of himself, only with a little more smoothed lines. Ears aren't pointed, and those burning yellow eyes are a deep chocolate brown, echoing the dark brown of his hair.

That, however, doesn't keep him from perching in the rafters, in the shadows. It's actually become one of his more favourite 'haunts'; moving indoors from the lake of Xavier's, or the habour.

Brown eyes gaze to the ceiling that is oh-so-very close, and looks as if he asks questions of the universe before reaching for his cellphone in back jean's pocket. Pushing the keypad with a strange looking 5-fingered hand, he dials a number that is so very familiar to him.

Staring at the screen, Kurt can feel the vibration of the cell telling him that the call is, indeed, going through.. and it rings in his hand.

Here goes nothing?

Timing is everything.

The call goes through after all of two rings, resulting in what should be an equally familiar woman's voice. "Blue. Hang on."

There's a distant sound of jingling and the sound of something clearly made of metal clunking shut. A car door. A crackling sound like a paper bag follows, then a peculiar Thuk! sound.

About a minute later there's an image to accompany the voice, Domino's smaller figure covered in a huge, baggy, and very dusty flannel shirt with big, scuffed sunglasses and a tattered Gander Mountain hat to finish the look.

The sunglasses are first to go. Judging by the surroundings and the shadow that the bill of her hat casts upon herself she must be sitting in a car with no roof. The interior's a mix of black and red. Not one of her normal two cars.

The angle's slightly awkward but it works. She duct-taped her phone to the dashboard, though the Bluetooth mic means she's still plenty easy to converse with.

"Nice timing, was just about to hit the road."

An older sounding engine cranks to life, her attention darting to and fro as she reaches to shift into gear and pull out.

"We've got some ground to cover, and I've got a lot of miles to put on through the middle of fucking nowhere. You've probably seen the news by now. So," she pauses while peering back at the image induced Kurt through the smaller screen of her phone. "Where would you like to start?"

Kurt waits patiently as Domino settles herself, though he finds himself peering, trying to work out what could be hidden around the edges. In computer games, all one has to do is thumb around and scrolling works! Not so, sadly, even with high-tech phones.

"New car?" is asked after what seems to be an eternity, but before she gets back to the mic, as it were. He's craning his head, trying to see what he can, and it's just not enough.

As for his part, well.. not much to see in the shadows of the rafters, other than the fact he's currently not blue.

Whistling to fill in the space of silence, the moment she's back to the com, as it were, Kurt exhales what's left of held breath. Searching for any new, visible injuries, he nods his head slowly in agreement.

"Are you just leaving then?" is followed with, "Any news about Sentinels is news. Was that what Shift texted you about?" More recent is much easier.

With the new car question she glances back with a grin. "Seventy-one." Not new, per se... "This baby's packin' a carbureted two point two. Not a bad restoration job. How about you, what's with bein' all incognito? Thought only I had to look ridiculous this week."

As she picks up speed there's a few extra squeaks and rattles coming through, including some wind noise. Her mic's a good one though, cutting out most of the unwanted noise until it's nothing more than faint background ambience.

"I'm a few hours out. Yeah, that..." she starts in with a frown, reaching up to hook a hand around the back of her neck once she's done switching through the gears. During the hesitation she's looking somewhat troubled. It doesn't go away when she starts talking again. "Does the name 'Master Mold' mean anything to you? I've got a really bad feeling about this. Like things haven't been bad enough, I got caught up on the news out in Times Square. You kids okay?"

"Listen, for whatever reason we haven't seen the worst of these guys. There's experimental models that seem smarter, capable of pulling themselves back together. Even capable of remotely operating nearby units, from what I can tell. Thing is, we found one in pieces in an abandoned facility, yet it still powered up and started trying to kill us. Why'd they leave it behind? If it's more advanced, why aren't they fielding it? Why would they leave it behind and clear out everything else that place had to offer? It doesn't make any sense."

"'Master Mold'. Latveria? Didn't we bring Herr Trask in, und he was given over to the Legion, I think it was said?" After all, Xavier's isn't in the habit of keeping high profile, high security prisoners.

Shaking his head, Kurt doesn't answer the question regarding his current 'look'. Instead, he peers at the screen; the worried look upon her face is something he doesn't normally see, and it doesn't sit well with him. "Liebling, are you alright?"

That's followed with, "The Sentinels in Times Square weren't like that, nein. Their programming was.. different. They fired upon everyone. Not only mutants, but normal people who were running away." He takes a deep breath before he lets it out slowly, making the admission, "Mother was involved there." Kurt isn't going to leave it to chance for inference, given the last few days each have had. "Liebling.. Genosha.. they have Sentinel technology. I'd wondered when Magneto und Mother had been taken by Sentinels back to Genosha at the beginning. But now?" He shakes his head slowly. "Unless Mother was present just to watch, but I don't think that's her style."

Belatedly Kurt adds, "We're all fine."

"What did you do with the Sentinels there? Und.. Shift? He left the XMen, liebling. Und, he was excited about what Magneto had taught him."

Domino continues to frown as she shakes her head. "Master Mold is a machine, not a person. Think bigger, nastier Sentinel. I don't know how much bigger or nastier, the one we found was ..reanimating itself at the time."

"Not really," she admits. "There's a whole lot more going on than I know about. Shift's got himself some strange new weapon that apparently fires superheated bits of himself. He's familiar with some gal, Ukrainian I think, that's got experience on par with my own. I don't know who she is or where she came from but there's something about her that doesn't feel right. The facility was supposed to be shut down and abandoned but not only did we find this scrambled Sentinel but Deadpool was sitting down there slamming tequila like he was waiting for us to show up for the last four hours, and this is only what happened in the last few hours. No, I'm not alright."

Things only get worse from there. "Great," she mutters while rubbing her forehead this time. "I don't know if their altered programming fits into this at all, but it's something else to keep an eye on. Go chat up Mommy Dearest, from a safe distance if you've got the option."

The next headshake is somewhat more energetic. "Sentinel. Master Mold. Just one. It was trying to rebuild itself from nothing but a head on the floor. Shift melted a hole through its brainpan then we turned the whole facility into a damned sinkhole."

Blink.

"Back up," Dom suddenly intervenes. "What the hell did Magneto teach Shift?"

Pale.

Kurt's face, in its natural 'blue', is difficult to tell when the blood drains from it, but now? With the image inducer? Stark Industries certainly has a hell of a product on their hands. Slowly, the elf raises his hand in that desire to touch his beloved friend on the other side of the screen. "I will have to explain," and his voice lowers.

"I spoke to Shift a little while ago. He'd come to me to tell me that Magneto had taught him about his powers.. when we were still on Genosha. That he had learned how to turn into plasma, as bright as the sun, or as a black hole.. and wished to learn more about it. To learn how to use it. I'd told him 'no.. that such things were best unexplored'. Jean und her Phoenix.. und if a man like Shift had the world at his fingers? Liebling, even I would have a hard time not falling sway under it." Looking away, he knows full well that she knows the truth on -that- one. He draws another breath and looks back to the screen. "Now, I had heard that he left the XMen, but I know not where he'd gone. Und now?"

Here, he peers at the screen, asking, "This Ukranian.. bow und arrow?" Oh please God, let the answer be 'no'. "I hope to mein Gott im Himmel, liebling.. because if it is she, she is one of Mother's .. friends. Und Magneto's."

And with the Sentinels? This is not good.. and Kurt runs a hand through short brown hair, his expression truly concerned. "I will spend more time with Mother, if I must, liebling.. but it is not where I'd like to be."

Whump.

For a moment Domino's showing teeth, thumping her head against the back of the seat. There's a large gap within the story suddenly coming together, and she is not liking the picture that it's creating.

"Yeah..." she sighs. "Bow and arrow. Went by the name Strilka. So Shift's learned a new trick and now he's camping with Magneto and Co. What the flippin' Hell caused him to shack up with those kids? Xavier's may not be the best place in the world for him but that doesn't mean he should--God damnit," she seethes while slapping the wheel with an open palm.

"Sentinels on Genosha. Sentinels in Times Square. Sentinels in Ohio. If you can confirm your mother was connected to what happened in New York then these guys have been involved with every single recent involvement with the things." (And I helped them. For fifteen fucking grand.)

"Long distance, if you can," she repeats. "Not sure a face to face is where anyone wants to be with her."

When the merc looks back to the screen again there's something of a haunted glint in her pale stare. "Shit's about to hit the fan in a real big way, Blue. I can feel it coming. Thing is, I don't know what in the hell we can do about it."

"New trick, liebling? If he trains his gift, he would be unstoppable. Such power is good for no man." Though, the gun is new to him.

Kurt nods his head. "Ja.. that is her. She is one of Magneto und Mother's trusted allies. She is from a camp we liberated in the Ukraine last year." And he's got all the paperwork from -there- too. "I do not think she is unreachable, however," he begins again slowly, softly. "There is a girl inside there.. someone she hides. "She may yet be saved."

But all this coming together too? "Liebling.. come home," he doesn't raise his voice. That -look- in her eye is worse than the one he'd seen before, and it's causing him serious heartache. "We can speak on what we can do when you are with me."

Still, Kurt is troubled, and where does one turn? The XMen don't seem to be interested in going after Magneto.. and the Omega Mutant has set himself up in amongst the nations. "I know she was. Jean felt her und her teleporter friend in Times Square." There's his proof.

"Liebling," he whispers again, "why did Shift call you?"

"Silver linings," Domino mutters. "We've already exchanged contact info." (Everything for a reason, right?)

"No sense in wasting any time," she counters. "I'll be on the road for hours. Either I get to spend some of it on the phone with you or I get to spend the next few hours picking through the Best of Country, in which case I'm gonna be late on account of me shooting myself several times."

When the next question is raised Dom's fingers reflexively tighten around the wheel. 'Why did Shift call her?' The immediate reaction her mind leaps to is 'it's none of your damned business.' Those words come dangerously close to leaving her mind in exchange for actual words.

"It was an info hunt," she finally answers with an extra helping of weight upon her words. "He was after as much data as he could find. I don't know what they managed to get or if it's of any use to them but we didn't leave empty handed."

(And I didn't have time to make a second copy so don't ask.)

Now there's another matter weighing heavily upon her mind. Magneto is not the sort of guy she wants to have as an enemy. Could she live with herself if she didn't try to interfere, knowing that Times Square might only be the beginning?

"Goldrush," she suddenly says without any hint of what she means. Black-capped fingertips drum once along the wheel. "We can't take them head-on and I'm willing to bet that trying to sneak in and steal this data out of the middle of Genosha is a no-go. The only way to come out on top is to beat them to the chase. We don't know how many facilities are out there or where they're located, so at a best case scenario it's still a total crapshoot and they've got the lead. On the upside, back with the X'ers I've had a chance to do some thorough ballistic testing of their armor so I at least know where to shoot them and what to shoot them with."

Kurt exhales in a soft, -almost- relieved sigh about the exchanging of contact information. "Ja.. und she has a way to contact me, should she wish. She hasn't yet, but I don't know if she's had the chance to be out from under mother's watchful eye." But, perhaps she has, and..

No. The elf still believes the best in people. He does.

Catching the tightening of her face as she keeps her thoughts in check (he knows that look too), Kurt waits patiently for the moment to pass, his expression encouraging.. as encouraging as he could be with someone else's face, that is. "Information hunt.." he repeats slowly, "Und they found what they were looking for." Sadly, that is a statement.

Second copies of Sentinel research isn't what Kurt wants..

Technically, she didn't answer the 'why', but he couldn't have filled her in on it all. Not given that she's reacting the way she is, now that holes are being filled in. There's an angry look that crosses his face, and he looks away again, trying to quell the rising ire. He used her.

"Goldrush?" Kurt looks back to the screen, the remnants of that anger still playing in the twitching of muscles on his cheeks. "We cannot get into the systems there. I only have so much access to the database.. und that's only the Humanity First side. Assuming I would be welcome there, given that they don't need me. Not anymore."

Then, that's really the best plan they have to go on at the moment. "I can get a list of where their bases were. Humanity First's, that is. Assuming Magneto hasn't identified them all first." Kurt slouches even further on his perch. "Or, we undermine him with his personnel. Take them out. Make them doubt their allegience. Every tyrant needs people to love him."

"I have no idea if they found what they were after, our team tech-head got fried to ashes and the storage medium got scorched pretty badly before he could finish. He was complaining about how scattered and useless a lot of the info was. Feel free to hold your breath there if you feel so inclined, at the very least it'll get your skin that much closer to the right shade."

Maybe Shift had used her, but that's the nature of the job. She verbally signed into the contract, she did the work, she got paid. That's as far as it should ever go. She's still curious as to where he came into that much money to pay off everyone involved but that's a matter for another time.

"Now you're starting to get into another mess," Domino skips back in. "'Take them out' means a whole different thing to me. If you start firing up the ol' subterfuge play then I'm gonna have to bow out, that's not my area. You want to try and turn the masses against him, that's your call."

Dom passes a quick look over her shoulder before merging onto the freeway, the sound of the car's smaller engine coming through the mic as it revs up then shifts back into a low hum.

"Alright, I've crunched some numbers. We can't take the data from them and we can't very well stop them from getting more of it. Our best play is to make it known that they're taking control of the project and that anything resulting from their involvement goes right back to Magneto and Fantasy Island. If we can round up some hard evidence and drop it on SHIELD's front door then we can take care of the problem without putting our own necks on the block. They have the numbers and the resources that we don't."

Kurt frowns at the comment regarding holding his breath until his face turns blue, and there's that second in time when he recovers, making a face at her when he does.

"What isn't a mess about this, liebling? My mother is involved, Shift is involved, my half-sister Rogue is involved, und.. Logan's gone to Genosha. If SHIELD is part of this, I would love to lay it all at their feet. I would." And Kurt is being genuinely honest there. "But I can't turn my back after, brush my hands as if there's dirt on them, und walk away."

Now, with Kurt's physiology, he could easily remain in those rafters indefinitely, but he's starting to get restless now. He could easily start counting the hours, the minutes until she returns home, but that would drive him nuts.

"Do you think SHIELD would take them on?" Beat. "Really?"

What? Is that hope in the blue bamfer's tones?

"Sorry to hear," Domino replies without any sign of emotion. She wouldn't have any trouble passing the situation over into more capable hands them walking away from it all. She's not about to lecture the guy on the problems with not being able to let go, however. That's something else he'll have to work out in his own time.

She can see that restlessness in the guy. Not only that, she has a good idea that she knows where this conversation is going to go once the matter of Sentinels is over.

Another sigh passes through her nose, flicking the signal on with a brisk swipe of her hand then merging lanes to pull off onto the shoulder.

"One second."

She pulls the phone off of the dashboard and switches to another program, waiting a few seconds as signal is established.

"Thirty-nine degrees north, eighty-three degrees west."

With that she leans back into her seat and closes her eyes, mentally counting down the seconds.

Kurt stares at the screen at her words, and he chuffs a breath in annoyance. He recognizes it.. and at least believes he understands. Letting go is easy for her, but it's not for him. He needs some things, and the need for a more.. righteous society is high on his list of ideas. Isn't that why he'd gone to Xavier's? To be with those who could forgive, and to turn hearts towards the right way to live.

But, there's no answer to it.

There simply isn't.

Kurt watches, now, listening to the sound of the engines. "Then how are we to gain the information--"

In the next second, there is nothing on the phone. Service is hiccupping, spotty at best. There's no word again from the other side of the communication.

Not until..

Bamf!

There is non-mutant-looking Kurt sitting in the front seat of the car. Light skin, less angular features, brown hair, brown eyes.. though he has the same sense of fashion, and he lifts his phone up, only to poke at the 'end call' red strip at the bottom of his phone. Looking next to him, there's a greeting that finds voice, "Liebling," before he finishes his thought from their conversation.

"--in order to hand it over to the authorities?"

Once again Domino remains silent as she flicks the turn signal in the other direction, glancing to the mirror before the old red '71 Porsche lurches forward with the briefest of squeaks from the rear tires. Nothing to see here, just picking up a friend! They're back up to highway speed (and then some) before long, the removed panel between the front and rear windshield overhead offering circulation without being overly distracting.

"Don't you have a powerful psychic friend you could call upon or something? I don't know. If any of this were easy then it wouldn't be Magneto behind it. But, yes, I'm positive that SHIELD is going to take interest. The guy's taking over an island, blowing up mountains on a whim, and building himself a loyal mutant following. They'd be stupid not to be all over him."

This isn't why she brought Kurt over. One, it's free company for the long drive back. Two, she knows how easy, and tempting, it'll be to just hang up on the guy once they start talking about the boat. And China. ..And Cheng. Now she's got nowhere to go. It's a means of keeping control when she knows that she's about to lose a lot of it. He's here on her terms but now she won't be able to get rid of him.

So, first she's going to keep things within her control.

"What are you hiding from, Kurt?"

A soft whistle escapes the non-blue elf as they pull out into traffic. A 'strange' five-fingered-looking hand runs along the door, and he chuckles softly. There's a hint of that Kurt humour that is meant to pull any potential sting of rebuke beneath it when he asks, "It's stolen, isn't it?"

Sitting back, Kurt leans in the seat only to play with the adjustment. He's a little hard on it, however, and he falls backwards completely, lying down.. and he sighs rather theatrically. "Makeout seats?"

Sitting up again, however, Kurt recovers and looks out onto the road before them. "Ja. Jean." That's the only one he can think of. "At this point in time, I'm a little afraid to speak with her." Isn't that always the way, though? The times when one -should- reach out, that's the time when the hesitation is greatest.

Another soft laugh sounds, and Kurt bobs his head lightly. It is true that Magneto is never easy. It's always complicated.. and moreso when mutants are involved. "Ja, true.. I am just disappointed that I am not hearing of anything or anyone else." Well, other than Logan, that is.

Kurt truly likes the company, and he'd rather be here than alone with his thoughts. He needs to get them in order before Amanda comes after him, because, well? There's no hiding anything from that woman. The way a door closes clues her in on things!

"Hmm?" Kurt makes it sound.. innocuous enough, the quiet noise sounding as if there isn't a thought towards that end. Actor, hello! "Hiding from?"

Shaking his head, he looks to her again, and looks almost sad; his expression shifts and softens a little more, and he slouches in his seat. "I am not hiding. I am simply using an item to change my features." So he doesn't have to look at himself.

Now, this particular area of thought brings him around, and he cants his head in question when he returns his own question. "He was a bad man, ja?"

"It was sitting forgotten in some guy's barn, I doubt he's going to miss it any sooner than he'll miss the three oh three I borrowed from his cabinet," Dom replies as though it were of no consequence. It really isn't! She needed a car, he had a spare lying around. No one got hurt, life moves on. If he's lucky he had it insured. "Enjoy what you have while you have it."

In another moment she's glancing over to the guy with a thin smirk. "It'd have to be, there isn't room in the back for a lunchbox."

Ever feel like words are being exchanged but you're just not getting anywhere..? For a while she remains silent, focused on her driving as the image induced one freely speaks his mind on several previous issues.

The response that he ends up getting is nothing more than her holding out an open palm, not taking her eyes off of the road. "Give it."

The image inducer.

"I refuse to talk to an imaginary reflection. You won't get a thing from me until you hand it over."

(Act your way out of this one, Furball.)

Words are exchanged. It's just a matter of how badly one wants them to be formed in an answer. Besides, all's fair. Kurt did ask 'why' Shift had called. Not 'for what purpose'...

Semantics!

Kurt grins at the smirk, though it fades in the next few moments. Particularly when her hand is out. "Why does this remind me of scenes in movies when teachers are asking for their students' gum?" He looks rebellious for a moment, and those strange, 'normal' brown eyes narrow. "Did you know there are only three... no, four people in the world who demand that I look the way I do for them? That for me to look any other way simply is against nature." He chuckles again, though it's not a happy sound. "I used to wear this all the time until I was challenged. I was told I was a coward for wearing it."

A sigh escapes the elf, and he touches a spot on his arm. First, the inducer obviously turns off, revealing the fuzzy blue, demonic-elf in all his glory. As he takes it off to hand it over, however, there's a screeeeeeching of tires as a car careens towards the side of their ride, the driver quite surprised to see a blue.. thing emerge in a passenger seat.

Kurt digs his fingers into the frame, his warning coming at the same time the car does, "Liebling!"

"Hide all you want in your own time, Blue," Domino counters. "You're hiding from something and until you can tell me what it is I'm not going to let you disappear into a corner and hope that everything sorts itself out."

Odds of his resorting to an image inducer being due to something that she had been involved with: Sucker bet.

"Not judging you, simply refusing to let you take the easy way out of a problem."

If speaking to some 911 enthusiasts, one might argue that it took the design teams at Porsche decades to perfect the rear mounted engine. It wasn't until the mid-2000's that experience and technology could finally catch up with the idea and help keep such a car stable during all conditions. 1971 missed that mark by a good thirty years.

When tires squeal beside them Dom stomps on the accelerator, ducks the wheel one way then the other, then simply loses control. With all of the weight in the back the little red targa starts spinning like a top down the lanes of Interstate 71, leaving marks through two full revolutions before she can regain control and get it moving in the proper direction once more.

In response to nearly getting rammed off of the road she holds one of her arms as high up over the roofline as she can reach, giving the wiped out driver the middle finger.

"Idiots don't know how to drive around here, swear to God..."

Kurt holds on for dear life, including wrapping his now-seen tail around Domino's waist- just in case. Those little micro-suctions on his hands certain do the trick! If it were anyone else, at any other time (except for a select few), he'd have bamfed the pair out before the car crashed and caught fire.

But, thankfully, that's not to be. Any of it. The worst, then, that could happen is that they get hit by another car coming up the pike. Thankfully again, it's luck- or perhaps it's because of the 'Our Father' that is being recited by a particularly devout elf that they surive?

Once the car truly does come to rest, and they're in the correct direction once again, Kurt first breathes that sigh of relief, which is quickly countered with, "I wouldn't blame him. A rather handsome, fuzzy blue elf appeared out of the blue.." though there, his words ring a little hollow, and he looks forward again.

"I do not kill, liebling," Kurt begins. "I do not use guns. I try to pretend that if I drop the bad men into the water, they can swim, rather than believe that they are set upon by sharks." (Isn't it shark week?) "Anything I do, it is by my own hands. Und.. it has been a very long time since I was angry enough that I killed. Und.. this is the first time that it was a deliberate act." He smiles sadly, and he looks to his friend, his brows rising, "Tell me, liebling. What was it that happened in China? He was a bad man, wasn't he?"

Riiight. Domino's supposed to talk about the events of China now that her heart is racing and adrenaline has saturated her system? Before any response can be forthcoming she glances down at that very tail, now wrapped around her middle, then taps it a few times with her hand.

When he says 'I do not kill' she could almost laugh (in that forced, not at all funny way) and counter it with the most obvious remark. "I don't know that you could use guns," she replies while peering into the mirror, making sure that the surprised fool back there doesn't get pancaked by an eighteen wheeler or something. Seems he has enough sense to move onto the shoulder for the moment. "Probably for the best, can't have you stealing my thunder."

(Alright, girl. Let's do this.)

"Let me tell you a little something about the man that you removed from society. Around 1983 he took the life of his own father, believing that he was too narrow-minded to see the full picture. He single-handedly took over the family business and established himself as a premier Chinese mobster. Any who threatened him were cut down, usually by such neighborly acts as cutting the fingers off of the opposition's children."

"He had a blind ambition to become the leading criminal lord in the country, but he couldn't hack it. He was ignored, pushed aside, shoved back into his place, and it only made him push the shock tactics further. Whole families would be wiped out, often without any message behind the act. Wars were declared between different factions, orchestrated by his men. I was stuck in China for a week because of him. Your boat was targeted when he sent his men after me. He took me with the intention of using me to initiate another war that would span two countries, minimum. He was also exactly one eighth of a second away from getting a pair of two hundred grain hollowpoints through the back of his head before you could do the honors. He was a dead man walking, he was just too blind to see it."

Now isn't that lucky, out of all of the people that Kurt could have wound up taking his anger out on?

"So pick up your head and stop feeling sorry for yourself."

The tapping of his tail is a reminder that his first thought, other than to hold on, was to be sure that she'd be out of the car and safe with him should it have been necessary. It also tells him that he should probably uncoil it now, and he does, though the spade-tip slaps back at the 'offending finger'. Tail pokes back! It slides off, and soon enough, is settled next to him.

"I have used a gun." Beat. "Once." There comes a slightly longer pause before, "I borrowed a shotgun to shoot up a room." After hitting a girl. Oof.

Though, as Domino begins to recount the numerous sins that she knows of that can be attributed to the now decapitated man, Kurt begins to relax. There is a heaviness that is lifted from his shoulders, his chest isn't quite as tight as it had been, and his words come slowly, enunciated carefully, "He deserved worse, liebling." A slow smile begins to rise, and he shifts in his seat in order to lean across to kiss Domino on the cheek.

"Danke, liebling. Now I know that when I go to hell, it is my choice, and I am not long there." Rather than damning his soul.

Sitting back in his seat, Kurt looks out at the scenery, or lack thereof, going by. "I submitted my insurance paperwork. I have fifteen days before they have to look at it."

Domino thinks about that admission for a moment, mutters a "Huh," then follows through with a "Good job." (This would be a lot more difficult if the guy was gun-shy.)

Getting a kiss on the cheek for that is not expected. At all. Kurt gets another sidelong glance, one which is held for a moment before she allows the next smirk to take shape. "Don't worry about it. You'll be able to visit me while you're passing through."

Speaking of doing wicked deeds, she chooses not to point out that Kurt's trying to collect insurance on a boat that was bought in full with blood money. Money that came from selling out his own mother. Good for him once again for being able to see the positive side in all of this!

"I should be around a bit more," she says in what might appear to be a complete change of topic. In her mind it's still all connected. "Give me a call when you're ready to start chasing down leads on the money backing the research you're hunting down."

The insurance claim might pay out, but she's got ideas of her own for getting Captain Bluetail back out on the Seven Seas.