| Dark Secrets? Don't Tell Doug! (Posted for Doug & Rachel) | |||||
| |||||
| What: Rachel tries to explain to Doug about her hound marks, and what happened when her powers were removed. | |||||
{{{logtext}}}
It's only been a couple of days since Rachel Summers was last standing outside the Danger Room, but they've been hectic ones, and her performance in the team's last mission hasn't exactly lessened her wish to get access to the training facility. Like before, she's wearing the standard X-Men training uniform, though at least it's a fresh one, and like before, it's still really not her colour. And like before? She still can't get /in/ to the Danger Room.
Which is why she's enlisted the help of Doug. First to undo whatever damage she might have caused when trying to get in last time, and then to get her set up so she won't be locked out - or in - in future. "So." Rachel says, crossing her arms and then uncrossing them again to hang loosely at her sides. "Are you going to need me to /do/ anything?" She's making a miserable job of trying not to look impatient.
"No," Doug says shortly, after one last poke at the calibrations. "Just a bit of adjustment to the biometrics software, that's all. It's supposed to prevent duplicates from accessing the system. Shapeshifters and all, you know? Though Laura managed fine. Must be something about the Summers..."
The program reset, Doug motions towards the Danger Room. "Try it now. What were you programming it for, anyway?"
Rachel looks a bit taken aback by Doug's initial, curt reply, but just shrugs to herself. He is, after all, doing her a favour. She takes a step closer as he continues his explanation, even though getting a closer look doesn't help her figure out what he's doing and probably only gets in his way. She looks sideways at him when he mentions the 'family', and her lips quick in a bit of a smirk. "We do like to cause trouble." She agrees in a cheerful manner. Scott NOT dying has clearly gotten her in a decent mood. "Besides, it probably didn't want to argue with Laura..." Rachel says to herself, rather more quietly.
As Doug finishes up, Rachel takes a half-step back to let him clear the area, then looks at the display panel balefully for a moment. "OK, here goes." She says, and touches the access control.
DANGER ROOM ACCESS PROTOCOL: BIOSCAN ENGAGED - IDENTITY: RACHEL SUMMERS
Rachel waits for what seems like too many seconds before the next message flashes up.
ACCESS GRANTED
Rachel grins as the doors slide open. "Perfect. I owe you one, Doug." She says, stepping through - only to catch hold of the door frame with a hand and lean back out into the corridor. "Coming in?" She asks, before taking a couple of steps further in and turning around. "Anyway, I hadn't decided. I just wanted to..." She shrugs. "Be ready for training with Jean." She looks a bit pained as she says that. "Didn't quite work out that way, did it?"
Rubbing his eyes, Doug runs a hand through his hair, looking a bit peaked, as he yawns. Offering a wan smile, the young man nods briefly. "Sorry, I'm still a bit out of sorts." That he'd not only gone with the X-Men, but he'd covered a mission to ... whatever weird world the lady with six arms hailed from, and gotten mind-expanded in the... whatever that was?
Tilting his head at the danger room, the young man nods, stepping in. "Well, as long as the Danger Room recognizes you, you should be able to set up your own training program. If you want to run Jean's program, though, you'd have to get a copy and authorization to run it, if it's locked and keyed to her. Otherwise you may as well try the available-to-the-public ones. Unless you want to design one right now?"
Now that he's drawn attention to it, Rachel finally notices Doug's obvious tiredness. She's a little puzzled, since she didn't expect the excursion to Pashtun to hit him that hard - and honestly she's been too self-absorbed of late to be aware of his other comings and goings.
Rachel nods her understanding - then almost immediately gives her head a firm shake when Doug mentions Jean's program. "Don't worry, I won't go poking around anywhere I shouldn't." Well, not with /Jean's/ programs anyway, Rachel mentally amends, with only a slight glimmer of curiosity in her eyes betraying her thoughts. She looks honestly tempted when Doug offers to set up a program right then and there, and clearly hesitates before shaking her head again, though less emphatically this time, and with a rueful smile. "I'd say yes, but I'm not sure you're up to it?" She says, mostly sympathetic but unable to resist teasing him just a little.
Her smile fades a bit, though, when she remembers the other reason she asked him down here. "Besides." She begins. "Before you do me any more favours, I think I still owe you an apology for how I acted the other day. And an explanation..." She seems to lose her train of thought, and just stares at Doug for a couple of seconds before gritting her teeth as she makes a decision. Abruptly, the black marks are back on her face, and she continues her sentence as if she hadn't paused. "...for these, if you want it?"
"Don't worry about it... better if I get you started than if I let you go off on your own and have to clean up later," Doug grins. "Unless you want to wait...?" One arched eyebrow quirks at Rachel, before the young man's teasing tone fades as he blinks.
The marks. "... Um... oh. I... I dunno. I guess I thought it was related to the Inhibitor shutting off powers, so I didn't think too much on it. Uh... if you want to explain it...?"
Rachel takes in everything Doug says, but once she's made the decision to turn the conversation toward her Hound marks, banter is put on hold. "You were half right." Rachel says, her eyes guarded and her words careful, but she's not snapping at him the way she did before. "I hide them, all the time. From everyone." She explains, and waves a hand toward her head as she does so. "So when you look at me, most of the time? You're seeing what I want you to see." She hesitates. "Sorry." She adds, although for that part, she doesn't really sound it. Messing with people's perceptions is a necessity in her world, she can't feel any regret for it. "When he took my powers away?" Rachel's hands slide down her sides, looking for pockets her training uniform doesn't have, and she crosses her arms tightly instead. "I couldn't hide any more."
With the first part of the explanation done, Rachel looks away, around the empty metal cube they're standing in, before glancing back at Doug, her short hair falling across her eyes as she does so. "And honestly? No. I don't want to explain it. It's the absolute last thing I want to do. But..." And for this she manages a grim smile, but there's just a hint of genuine humour in it, even if it's mocking herself. "I also don't want you to think I was being a bitch just for the hell of it." She looks away again. "Do you at least want to sit down?" She asks, unease clear in her voice and posture.
"I dunno, to be honest," Doug says, running a hand through his hair. "It's not really any of my business, so..." Trying to get a read off her body language for all the good it does him, the young linguist smiles. "I... well, don't know what to say, except your future must be hard. Was it, uh, as rough as Hope's...?" The other future Summers had it just about as bad, although... was she marked the same way?
Rachel should have expected her suggestion to sit would be recognised as evasion and ignored as such. She's beginning to realise that it's quite difficult to hide anything from Doug, when he sees tells in every move she makes. She's not as good at reading him... unless she were to reach into his mind. And right now she wants to. She's on uncertain ground. She doesn't know whether it's better to take the out she's been offered, or tell him a truth that will colour how he sees her whether she hides her marks or not.
She's trying to work that out in her own mind when Doug throws her a bit of a curve ball. "Hope's...?" Rachel says, not having paid as much attention as she should have, and then she actually has to stifle a laugh. "I guess we'd have to compare notes." The sudden rush of mirth, wherever it came from, dissipates quickly, and Rachel shakes her head. "But I hope she got a better deal than me." Rachel says quietly, half to herself.
"Doug." Rachel says carefully. "I think I want you to know, and I want you to hear it from me. Kitty, she..." Rachel's expression is filled with consternation. "Somehow, she /knows/ things I never told her. Or... I don't remember telling her." Rachel grimaces. "Try to work that one out." She mutters, then draws in a deep breath. "So here it is. These?" She gestures toward her face, her expression twisting as if she'd tasted something unpleasant. "Are brands. They mark me as a Hound. A Hound..." She hesitates, then forces herself to continue, her tone becoming a dull monotone, as if she's trying to disassociate herself from what she's saying. "...is a mutant who hunts other mutants, for the humans, and for the Sentinels. That was me. I did... bad things." Her eyes had gone distant, but they sharpen on Doug again. "They took me when I was fourteen, made me into that... thing, and put these marks on me so I'd always know what I was. Even when I broke their control, when I got away..." Rachel's voice becomes uneven, and she squeezes her eyes shut. "I can't look at myself in the mirror without seeing what I was. And every time I do, I feel the leash."
Rachel lets out a breath, tightly controlled, but it still shudders just a little, and she angrily wipes the back of her hand across her eyes before blinking and looking at Doug. "So when you saw these...?" She gives up with explaining any further, if he doesn't understand then he won't understand. "I'm sorry."
Trying to digest that, Doug frowns. "... I don't know what Kitty knows or doesn't... but... well..." Turning his palms outwards, showing empty helplessness, the young blonde shakes his head. "... well, uh..." He considers the times he'd asked her to help him track down Hope, and frowns. "... so, uh... I don't know what to say, Rachel. I mean, I've never seen..." He holds up his hands. "And I'm not sure I want to see that future either. My head's been messed up enough..."
Well, that was a mistake, Rachel decides with sudden ice-cold clarity. She should have taken the out that Doug offered her. Better for him to think she was a nasty piece of work with some unfortunate tattoos than... whatever he thinks of her now. She thought telling Doug the truth would arrest the out of control feeling she's had since Kitty revealed her impossible knowledge, but it's had the opposite effect. Which she'd have realised if she'd been thinking clearly. Still, it's a small mercy that he just looks baffled, rather than anything worse.
"You don't need to say anything." Rachel tells him, her tone now completely even once more. "And trust me, you /don't/ want to see my future. Everyone loses." The last words are spoken darkly, before she remembers that she's trying to extricate herself from the awkward situation that's completely her own fault. "I'll make you a deal. Program me a big, nasty Sentinel to beat on and I'll never mention any of this again." The suggestion's made in a friendly tone, but there are walls up behind her eyes now.
Taking a deep breath, as the young man thinks about it, Doug nods. "Look, just let me digest this... I mean, I've seen... oh... I can't explain this." Rubbing his face, Doug looks back up towards Rachel. "I'll probably ask about it when I've got time to think. And... I'll ask Kitty how she -knows-."
Taking a moment to consider, Doug shrugs. "I'll do better... I think I have a Big O program here so you can go beat on other giant robots till I have time to make you a Sentinel."
Rachel feels a ripple of alarm as Doug talks blithely about comparing notes with /Kitty/. "Doug, that's... seriously, that's really not necessary." Oh God is it not necessary, but Rachel has a sinking feeling that Doug's going to compare notes with her room-mate /whatever/ she says.
Mercifully, he takes her conversational bait and moves on to giant robots, or at least she thinks he does. She has no idea what he's talking about, but she'll take what he's offering and hope it's not another mistake. "All right, sounds good." She confirms with a sharp nod, and paces toward the centre of the Danger Room, rolling her shoulders in a not entirely successful attempt to ease the tension in them as she does so. "...just make sure the door will open for me when I want to get OUT, OK?" That really would be the perfect end...
"...Er... I thought you said Kitty knew things already...?" Now Doug looks even more confused, frowning. "All right. All right. Not a word to anyone, then," the young man sighs.
There's a brief smile. "Computer, run Big O simulation." Arching eyebrows at Rachel, the young man motions. "Try and stop it, if you want."
As Doug retreats to the main doors, and the Danger Room comes to life around her, Rachel sighs, replacing the telepathic illusion that hides her marked face, and then clenches her fists. "I hope you made this thing tough, Doug..." She murmurs under her breath, as the atmosphere in the Danger Room becomes heavy with suppressed power, while little sparks of fire start to chase themselves over Rachel's body. When her opponent materialises, Rachel actually smiles. It looks big enough to work out her frustrations on, if nothing else.