With Friends Like These (Part Five)

When your family owns a theater, summer is awesome, because when all of the blockbusters come out, you can watch them all for free. Better yet, this year I didn't have to work part-time at the theater because I was entertaining company.

I took Laura and Wolf to see a movie as our first real activity because it was simple. Sit down, watch the damn film, and before and after, make conversation. We sat at the back so Wolf could sit down in the space between our seats and the back wall. On the way, no one had picked anything to watch, so I chose an action flick. I had no idea if anyone particularly enjoyed it, even if I did. Seeing as how Wolf didn't bitch while we were watching it, I guess he liked it.

Movies were supposed to make it easy to branch into other topics. Namely in my case, finding out what the fuck Laura liked. My miscalculation was in trying to engage in small talk with Laura Kinney. Nevertheless, I gave it my best shot.

We walked out of the theater and the building once the movie let out. After being in the dark for hours, the afternoon sun didn't hurt my eyes, seeing as how light was my thing, "We're probably gonna be coming back here a lot, so we should figure out what's worth seeing," I told them, taking a moment to stop and point at a marquee on the wall, "I wanna see that."

The trailer for it that had run before our movie that day had been good enough to get my attention. It was supposed to be funny, and it got a few legit laughs out of me. Why not? Comedies were usually hit and miss, but it wasn't like we would have to pay for a ticket.

Laura didn't seem very interested in watching that one, "I do not think comedy is for me," She said, "I may lack the social experience to find it entertaining."

She made a pretty good point. Also a very self-aware one that made me think, "What do you guys even think is funny, anyway?" I asked, "Do you guys think anything is funny?"

Seriously, they had to be the two most joyless individuals I had ever been around. Wolf was an A.I., so it wasn't really his fault. Come to think of it, it probably wasn't Laura's fault either.

Wolf answered first, at my expense, as usual, "It is funny watching you fail at something you boast about," Sometimes a guy had to stop and think about why they were friends with someone.

Why did my friends enjoy seeing me suffer? I didn't understand, "You sadistic, metal fuck," I told him before trying to get someone else's answer, "What about you, Laura? Got anything?"

I half expected her to share Wolf's answer, but she actually took the time to give me a real one, "I appreciate irony. I am afraid I have a dark sense of humor, though."

If that was her only hang-up, we had no problems on that front, and I let her know as much, "There are movies for that. I wonder what you laughing sounds like. Hell, I barely know what you smiling looks like."

"I have smiled around you," Laura argued in return.

She may have been offended, but she didn't have much of a leg to stand on, "Yeah, barely, like I said," I remarked as I hit the button to stop traffic for us to pass through the crosswalk, "And when you do, it's like if someone catches you, you'll get in trouble."

"I would get in trouble."

I had to focus to realize I'd made out what she said. I just didn't believe/understand it, "What?"

Laura kept her eyes on the passing cars instead of looking at me, "The people who made me, the Facility, they employed a woman, my handler. Her name is Kimura," She said, no emotion in her voice, "If I did anything wrong, I would be punished."

And I could only imagine what a punishment entailed for someone as tough as Laura, "But you're, like, a top of the line assassin, right? She never went far enough that you just decided to kill her?"

Not that I was a proponent for murder or anything, but… we weren't normal people. Some of us had to deal with circumstances others couldn't comprehend.

I had only been told a few thing about Laura. Not even the cliffnotes. Past the fact that she was extremely well-trained, had similar powers to Mister Logan, and had been cloned from some of Mister Logan's DNA, I didn't know anything about her.

"I cannot harm Kimura. Her skin is invulnerable," Laura told us, "She was made to counter me."

"So you tried," I said, leading the conversation further.

At my question, Laura shivered for a moment. It was 80 degrees out, "Kimura enjoyed it when I tried. It gave her a justification for harming me."

It might have been wrong of me to bait her to say more when it made her uncomfortable, but she was interesting! And she never talked about herself unless you made her! I was curious! That curiosity turned to anger though. Laura hadn't been afraid of anything so far since I met her. What kind of monster was this woman to get that kind of response out of her?

I wasn't the only one thinking this way, either, "What are the exact specifications of this Kimura person's powers?" Wolf asked ominously as the light changed to let us cross the street, "I could devise a method for you to kill her."

That reminded me why I was friends with him. Good old metal furball. He might have been an asshole of an A.I., but he was our asshole of an A.I., for sure. A Paladin through and through, even if he couldn't be enrolled as a student.

Laura was determined to deal with the whole thing solo. It seemed to be how she handled most problems, "No one else should get involved with the Facility. If they come for me, it is my fight. These are dangerous people."

"Are you serious?" I asked sternly. I didn't take the bad things that happened to my friends lightly, whether it was in the past or not, "For someone with a bad sense of humor, that was a pretty good joke."

"I was not joking."

I gave a completely facetious smile and laugh, "Oh, so you're just stubborn then?" She growled, but she could do that all she wanted to. I had a point to make, "Laura, you're one of us. If something goes down, I'm gonna fight for you."

We had been over this already. We sat down, just the two of us, and talked the whole thing out. I thought we'd come to an understanding. Laura really did need more than lip service assurances to believe in something, even if she wanted to.

"Not against them. They are different," Laura said, "Organized. Well-hidden, well-funded. Intelligent. Ruthless."

There's something to be said for trauma. Even if you know in your heart that you're in a position to move past it, that it shouldn't matter anymore, it still does. There's nothing you can do. It rents space in your head, and you can never get it out.

Even if she knew what to do, knew she wasn't under their control, knew that she could fight back, it was ingrained in her that she couldn't. Oh, she would try. Absolutely she would. There was no way she would let them have their way without going kicking and screaming. But the way she was, I didn't like her chances to come out on top. Not because she was alone, but because her entire life she was conditioned that she couldn't win. Not against them.

Me, on the other hand? "In the last six months, I've fought an alien army, a racist cyborg, a goddamn room…" I was afraid during all of these things, and would continue to be afraid during whatever future encounters awaited me. But that didn't matter, "To you, these Facility guys might be the boogeyman, but to me, they're just another bunch of creeps to add to the list. In short: fuck 'em."

No matter how shaken by something I was, the idea of losing, of failing, and all of the consequences that came with it scared me more than anything else.

Wolf nudged Laura with his head to get her attention, "Yes. As Bellamy says: fuck them."

I could have sworn my eyes almost popped out of my head at hearing that. Wolf hadn't been much for the casual swearing up to that point, "That was priceless. I need to get you to curse more."

She seemed to give up trying to make me back off of my own statement. Good. Because that wasn't going to happen, "You do not understand."

Maybe. But I wasn't trying to say that I could beat them. I was saying that if it came down to it, I would approach taking them on just like anyone else, "I get that they're dangerous. I mean, they made you. But we've got the same options with them that we have with everything that comes at us – fight or run."

I would approach them differently, but I wouldn't treat them differently. An enemy was an enemy. Don't revere an enemy. Give them enough respect to find a way to win.

Man... what a buzzkill that conversation turned out to be. I just wanted to take my friends to the freaking movies. I didn't want everything to get all serious. It was summer.

But that was the normal kid way of looking at things. We were not normal kids. I made light in various forms, Laura had claws and assassin training, and we were both hanging out with a fucking metal wolf. Just because we weren't at the most dangerous school in the world, the Xavier Institute, that didn't mean we were safe. This summer was not going to be what I was used to.