Like Clockwork (Part Two)

Our van would have been very out of place rolling down the streets of Beverly Hills. Also, if the Facility were closer to us than we wished, they would have found us very quickly. We ditched our ride a few miles outside of the neighborhood and grabbed an Uber.

To say that Beverly Hills was not a place for us was an understatement. A child assassin, a wolfbot, and a kid that would probably never see the money it took to afford a year's payment on some of these homes in his entire lifetime. How the cops weren't called on us before we found where we needed to go, I would never know.

Even when we rolled up to the doorstep – or front gates – of one Julian Keller, I felt for a moment that we would still be arrested when he came out to see us in-person.

"What are you doing here?" Were the first words out of his mouth upon seeing us. How rude. No asking us how the summer was going, or anything like that, "What the hell is with your clothes?"

He could have been referring to the bullet holes in my shirt, the dirt, or... who knows what else I'd gotten on me from the fight the night before.

"Hi buddy!" I greeted Julian brightly. Black iron bars separating us between the street and his family's home property. From what I could see through the gate and up the driveway, it was quite the place, "Man. You really are rich as fuck, aren't you?"

Keller Pharmaceuticals was a thing. It took a while for me to be privy to how big of a thing it was since – being the strapping young buck I am – I never needed medicine.

"What the hell, Marcher?" Julian let me have it from his side of the gate, "You can't just come to my house. Wait, how do you even know where my house is?"

Julian didn't loathe me the way he did at the start of the semester, but we weren't close enough for me to just turn up out of the blue. To be fair, I don't know anyone who would have been cool with that.

"You live in Beverly Hills. That was all we needed. Well, that and-," I reached out and gave Laura's nose a squeeze, "Honk-honk," I had to stop and look at Wolf in amazement, "I can't believe she actually let me do that."

Saberwolf agreed, "I cannot either. I expected her to cut your fingers off."

It seemed to be at this point where Julian noticed that I had brought company. First he looked at Wolf, then over to Laura, who he had much less familiarity with, "The clone smelled me out like Wolverine? That's fucking creepy. Don't do that again, you hear me?"

The guy was harsh on people he didn't know very well. And Laura had always been antisocial, to be nice about it. Whenever I interacted with the Hellions or anyone else not affiliated with our team, she was never around.

She took the impolite acknowledgment of her presence in stride though, "Not just you. Your entire team. It was not difficult once we got close enough."

Julian stared her down until he realized he wasn't going to make her flinch. With a sigh, he turned back to me, "Seriously, what's going on?"

I reached out and tried to shake the bars of the gate, "We'll tell you inside. Right now, I really want a shower and a change of clothes, if you don't mind."

"I do mind. I mind a lot," Julian shot back before just giving up, "Whatever... come on."

With that, Laura, Saberwolf, and I were let onto the Keller family premises. Julian's folks were gone, which could have been seen as a good thing. I doubted we would have gotten past the front gate had they been present.

I was careful not to touch anything. To give you an idea of what I was dealing with, the foyer when we walked in could have doubled as an art museum in a small town – full of paintings and even a few statues for guests to observe. And that was the first room we saw. Saying Julian had a silver spoon in his mouth would have been conservative. Gold or platinum spoon would have been more apt.

I'm man enough to say that I was jealous. I don't even know what I'd do with that much money, and knowing that I would be getting more indefinitely. I would die trying to spend that shit.

Julian stopped us in front of a door and rapped his knuckle off of it, "Here you go. Shower up, and be quick. I seriously need to know what this is all about."

I nodded and gestured with my head for Laura to go inside while I went off to look for another shower. Julian grabbed my shoulder to stop me, "No. Uh-un. You guys use one bathroom," I gave him a look that he reacted to, "Come on. I can't just let you guys run around my house by yourselves."

"You let your team do it," I shot back, believing I had a point.

"Are you my team?" Julian gave me as a rebuttal, "Besides, I don't. I have Santo supervised 24/7. I don't need him wrecking up stuff in my parents' house by accident."

My last attempt was to throw myself on some existing sense of camaraderie, "Come on, man. It's me. Doesn't that mean anything?" With his lack of reaction, I didn't need him to answer that. In the end, I waved it off and turned to Laura, "You go first. I need to think."

She went in, and Julian went off with Saberwolf, presumably to find the others. That left me to slump up against the wall and sit on the floor, alone with my thoughts.

I didn't know what the hell I was talking about when I said I needed to think. Think about what? Once again, I was out of my depth when it came to something like this. But I needed to be ready with some kind of pitch to get the Hellions' support. We weren't at odds anymore, but we weren't as tight as I thought either, even after the end-of-semester party.

And here Laura said I was good with people. Clearly I wasn't that good.

Also, how to go about informing them on what was up was also an issue. This was Laura's story, and it was admittedly very ugly. While it was not my place to explain it all, this was a problem that I was theoretically going to ask the Hellions to deal with. It was why we were here to begin with. We didn't have any options, and I didn't want to keep anything from them. I didn't want to deceive anyone into doing anything dangerous.

This was Paladin business. Even if the Paladins currently consisted of me, Laura, and freelancer Saberwolf. But it was that mindset that was making this so hard in the first place. It was what turned common rivalries into the kind of obnoxious animosity that the Hellions and the New Mutants had. The kind that I used to have with Julian for a short time.

While I thought to myself, Laura came out and tapped me on the shoulder, dressed in the new clothes we'd managed to pick out, "It is your turn," She told me.

From where I sat on the floor, I glanced over and looked her over. I'd gotten a few outfits for us, and out of what she had, she'd picked a little pair of black shorts and a black t-shirt with a tiny cartoon of Jason from Friday the 13th on it.

Getting clothes for Laura was weird. She didn't know what she liked. When I asked her why she wore the clothes that she did, she told me someone else had shopped for her before and she just followed that archetype.

Whatever. I didn't know anything about girl clothes. I'd make Hisako do something about it later. It did seem like it worked though. Some brighter colors might have made her seem more approachable, but to be fair, she did look good in dark-colored clothes. I made note of such.

"You look good in that," I told her as I stood up and stretched, "I can't believe you were wearing black jeans in the summer. Weren't you hot?"

Laura looked herself over, tugging at the fabric of her shirt as though she were checking it over, "I will pay you back."

"Don't worry about it," I waved her off as I headed into the bathroom, digging through my bag to find what I was going to change into, "I've got money to blow. Not as much as our good friend Julian, but I've got some cash saved up from working at the theater."

"Have you come up with any ideas on how we will fight them?" Laura asked, leaning against the doorframe, her head peeking into the bathroom, "You said you needed to think."

So she had believed in me when I'd said that? Too bad. She probably shouldn't have, "I can think of whatever I want, Laura. I barely know what I'm doing," I admitted, "Simulations and all of that crap will only take me so far."

Laura closed her eyes and took a deep breath, "I am familiar with this sort of thing," She said confidently.

"That's what I'm counting on. But you've seen the Hellions. Do you really think they're going to listen to us?"

Her eyes shot open and she glared at me, "Why did we come here then?"

My plans weren't perfect, but at least I was trying something. I was willing to take suggestions if anyone else came up with any, "Because if the X-Men are tied up in something, we don't have a lot of options for help," I picked up my phone and wagged it for emphasis before throwing it over to her, "I called them while I was sitting outside. Like Wolf said yesterday – Nothing."

Laura stared down at my phone in her hands and frowned, "I do not like this," She said, "If it were just me, that would be one thing. But it is you, and now them."

She didn't want the Hellions involved. She didn't want me involved to start with. But as badass as she was, she was one person against an organization that knew how to deal with her. That did not make for a successful formula, "If it were just you, even if I was with you, it would be even worse. I want us to have as much of a fighting chance as possible."

I wanted to live. I wanted her to live. I'd told her what I thought about her opinion of her self-worth. It didn't bear repeating. But even if Laura didn't feel like she deserved to be alive, I wanted her to be.

Laura gave a deep sigh, but decided to leave things at that, "I understand. I will find Saberwolf and Julian."

Laura slinked away and shut the door behind her, leaving me alone in the bathroom to shower. Good. I could take a few minutes to turn my brain off. No one to fight. No one to look over my shoulder for. Marginally safe.

I let out a sigh as the warm water hit me. For the time being, I'd take it.