Disclaimer-Tallulah is mine. All else is Marvel’s. You know the drill.

Notes-There is no Sage.

Feedback/Contact Info- Email is rhiannonamaris@yahoo.com My Live Journal user name is wise_one_in_hel Feedback is love.

M-13

Prologue-These Things Will Kill You

By RhiannonAmaris

Wisdom searched through his pockets for cigarettes that weren't there. God only knew why he'd quit, it wasn't like they'd get a chance to kill him. He leaned against the wall of M-13's headquarters and sighed. God damn the idiot that wanted to start Excalibur again. God damn them for sticking him with them. God damn whatever caused M-Day. God damn Katherine Anne Pryde for showing her face. And God damn him for still caring. He needed a smoke. He needed a drink. Wagner had said that Pryde was back with Rasputin. He needed someone to rip his heart out of his chest, it had to feel better than it did right now. He'd touched her arm before they'd talked to Ross. She'd phased.

He barely noticed when he was joined against the wall. He looked over when a lighter flared. Tallulah Clark. All of twenty, 5'2", plump, grey eyes, light brown hair in two stubby pig-tails, jeans, Flogging Molly T, denim jacket covered in badges. She looked like a Uni student, maybe art school. She was M-13's golden girl. Had been working on degrees in political science and psychology at the age of fifteen when she been found. She took a drag off a clove.

"When did you start smoking?"

"M-Day." She shifted uncomfortably. "Are we friends Pete?" She asked suddenly and looked away. "Never mind. Forget I asked." She concentrated on her fag, stifling a cough occasionally.

But she had asked, and it burrowed into his mind. He'd known Clark for nearly two years now. It had been just before he'd played fearless leader to X-Force, before he was with M-13. He'd been doing a favor for Jardine and it had been her first mission. Everyone else had avoided both of them. The former Black Air agent and the newbie that could know damn near every detail of your life just by watching you. At first glance he thought she would remind him of HER, so he still wasn't how they'd ended up huddled in the back of a boat, talking about the Clash and Suicidal Tendencies, the band an otherwise. "We're friends Tally."

She looked at her feet. "They're putting me out to pasture." Her voice was shaky. "I'm barely twenty and I'm obsolete. I may have gone all but blind and deaf, but I didn't all of a sudden go stupid. I may not be Holmes turned up to Eleven and a poor man's tepe anymore, but I still make connections faster than that lot. I'm still a genius for Christ's sake, I'm just not as fast." Tallulah's mutant power had been the ability to analyze the patterns inherent in the world around her in the blink of an eye, which was in practice limited telepathy. "Oh and I dumped Mike yesterday. He didn't know who Joe Strummer was."

"That's a good reason... Wasn't Mike that art school bloke with the mohawk?" Pete answered unsurely. Far better to talk about someone else's problems than think about his own.

"Who was wearing a Clash shirt when I met him. Post M-Day so I couldn't just look, have a five minute conversation and come to the split second conclusion of 'friggin' poser', I had to find out the hard way." She blew a stream of smoke up. "Idiot. Do I have some kind of loser magnet? I mean even before I didn't see many blokes, and I could have. A few I mean, I know I'm not..." She trailed off. "Anyway either I blew them off early 'cause they were complete prats, or they ended up splitting since sooner or later I creep everybody out." She took a drag then blew out a long stream of smoke. "Fictional or not I think old Sherlock might of had the right idea."

"I'm inclined to agree with you today." He fell silent for a moment. "You have any normal fags, or just those pretentious things Tally?"

"Just the cloves." Her eyes crinkled.

"Fuck it, hand one of 'em over."

"But you've done so very well Peter." Was the sweet reply through a shit eating grin.

"Oh, very funny Clark. Gimmee a fag." He needed a smoke. Everything would be better once he'd had a smoke. 'Cigarettes dull pain. Honest.'

She opened a silver case. "I know, it's bloody cliche. It's also pretty though, so you shut it." She began to dig out the Zippo then stopped.

Part of him almost felt guilty for still having his powers. Almost. Light, inhale... Hack up a lung. He'd forgotten, it was easy to with how these smelled. These killed you faster. "Fuck I haven't had one of these since... Christ since I was in school." He'd thought himself I jaded cynic back then. God but he'd been naive... A brat mind you, but innocent. A bloke that Amelia 'Dave' Davis had by a string had chain smoked them. Jenny 'Zoe' Gardner, currently of MI-5, was the only one of the old gang that he had kept in touch with. He took another drag, held it in. A line from a Smith's song ran through his head. Silence washed over them. "They're putting together a new version of Excalibur. I've been appointed liaison." He knew she'd have heard. Forced out of the loop or not, Clark had her ways. "I could use somebody I can trust at my back. They can't very well say no to me right now, not about that. It'll be better than riding a desk, or..."

"I'm in. How many of them are in the cult of Xaiver?" The interest was purely clinical.

"Most."

"Is she staying?" Clark's tone didn't change and her eyes remained fixed on a cloud. She knew the answer, even without her powers.

"Nah, back to the spandex circus... and the tin plated Russian." Aside from the crack about Rasputian he managed to seem alright about it. Why should he care. She'd made it clear she didn't.

"Supposed that's to be expected." She bent down, dragged the fag-end across the dirt and slipped it into her pocket. "I'll go and have William's set me up, if you've talked to him."