lifesmarvels | Untraceable part 2

Title: Untraceable (2/8?)
Fandom: X-Men: First Class
Genre: Noir AU
Rating: PG-13?
Word Count: 1995 (in this chapter)
Summary: Charles F. Xavier is a detective in New York. One day he accepts the case involving kidnapping of the young heir to the Count title. It's not as easy as he would like to when there appears to be no clues of to how and where to the boy was taken and everyone keeps talking about Them.
Author's Note: Still un-betaed, like I think I already said, I have no idea how to find anyone willing to beta anything that I write, so there. This time from a slightly different point of view, I'll try to vary that aspect, because everytime I write Charles the story goes in a different direction I wanted it to. I have chapter three ready, but am not going to post it until I get the next one typed. I think that's it for now. Enjoy your reading.

Raven Xavier was one of the people who tend to act first and think later. It was like that when her powers awakened and she decided to not hide in her own home, later when she found herself on the streets trusting young Charles Xavier and following him to his home. It was like that when she took his last name and started loving the whole, slightly posh, family and when she took him away from Manhattan after his father died and didn't let him join the army. Not one of these decisions she ever regretted. There was however one that she couldn't really decide was a mistake or the best decision she ever made. And it was falling in love with Azazel Darkhölme.

She met him in one of these pubs that only mutants frequented and she could look like herself without fear of being lynched. He just sat there in all his ruby glory as if he owned the place. Which wasn't true, because she knew for a fact that it belonged to Victor Creed with whom she had a brief but satisfactory love affair some time ago. That first night she didn't even stare at him much, just one or two glances his way to signal she was interested if he was. But he went with someone else. The next time too. And the next time and one after this. About that time she decided he's some kind of Casanova and she's no longer interested. So of course that would be the time when he sits himself right next to her and buys drinks for them both. His face was comical when she just turned away and kept chatting with Ororo. But she kept the drink, it was free alcohol after all. She clearly intrigued him enough to start working for her affection, because what happened after was the weirdest and most endearing courtship she ever heard of. Maybe it was because he wasn't accustomed to wooing anyone but even Charles admitted that the attempts were getting more and more pathetic after he discovered the stuffed raven in their office. And that was something coming from the man who thought telling a girl she was an attractive mutant because of her heterochromia was a good pick-up line.

She finally took pity on poor Azazel and agreed to go on a date with him. She didn't let him kiss her until the third one. The fact that he had to know her before he bed her was probably why she was lucky to be his girlfriend for 5 months already. She hoped it would last a little longer because she genuinely loved him, but wouldn't be surprised if it ended sooner or later. Until that happens, he's one of the few people she knew she can count on, so turning to him for information on the case was a given fact.

Because of the visible nature of his mutation, Azazel had to hide in the daylight and stick to the more shady parts of New York. This didn't mean that he or his girlfriend had to be happy about this. Especially since his apartment was more of a floor in an abandoned warehouse and consisted of bed and a closet. And a bathtub, which no one knew how worked. Raven didn't want to think about the toilet or lack of it thereof.

“This is one of the reasons he should just move in with me already. If he wants to visit his friends he can always teleport and it would be so much easier for both of us. Not to mention more hygienic. If only people would stop being such bigoted assholes.” - Raven thought while exiting the car.

The journey from mansion was spent in a thoughtful silence. She could see that Charles tried to find anything else that would make the whole situation have even a little more sense and failing. For all her step-brother was a brilliant telepath, he sometimes forgot that he was not omnipotent and sometimes even he couldn't just find the answer. With a muttered curse she climbed the stairs to the third floor, careful about the loose boards. Only when she heard a short yell and few inventive curses did she realise that she hadn't warned her partner about the tricky floor.

- Charles, are you okay?

- I think so, I just need to get my foot out of the hole. You go ahead, I'll be right behind you. - Charles did sound fine, even if a little lower than her so she just shrugged and continued her upward walk.

- What greeted her when she finally got to the landing was the sign of her lover covered in bubbles sitting in the damn bathtub. Admittedly, it wasn't very weird sign, but in the environment when rats slept in your shoes it was downright wrong.

- Sweetheart, get out. - She said while closing her eyes and trying to banish the sign from her mind. - God, I hope Charles' still in that hole.

- Holy Jesus! - Sounded right behind her what diffused her hopes rather quickly – I need a brain bleach.

Azazel vanished with a snigger just to appear out of the wardrobe a minute later wholly clothed.

- What brings you two doves to my lair? - He drawled in this foreign accent of his. Raven was pretty sure that it was Russian, but everytime she tried to ask he just smiled at her and started kissing her so she would forget what she asked in the first place. It worked.

- A question connected to our newest case. Raven said that you would be able to help us. - Charles said before she could even open her mouth.

- You're a teleporter. - She stated and when he just lifted an eyebrow at her, she continued – Have you heard about anyone who is one too? Or at least have similar abilities?

- Why are you asking me this? - He asked tilting his head to the side

- Someone was kidnapped, - Charles answered – it's possible that by someone with such gifts.

Azazel stared hard at both of them for a while and then he moved to the window, suddenly more serious than Raven's ever seen him. He appeared deep in thought and then he turned around and uttered one word.

- No.

- Oh. - Judging by his answer, Charles was as thrown by the sudden mood changes as she was and that was never a good sign. Maybe she shouldn't forbid him from reading her boyfriends. - So, we're in a square one. - He sounded a little dejected and she could understand why.

Now, they would have to pursue that scary rumour and find out if perfect Nazi soldiers existed. Not a rosy prospect, but at least they would finally know if there was some true in these stories.

- That is it? - Azazel sounded a little confused so she walked up to him and kissed him. (She pretended that loud squeak was uttered by one of the rats and not by her brother) – Thank you, love. - She said and turned only to see Charles pretending to admire the far away wall.

- Do you have some other options? - Her boyfriend asked while sneaking his arms around her waist and his tail around her right calf.

- Only one. - She huffed and leaned into him – The stupid rumour about Them. And we still have to check with the father. Sebastian Frost. Heard of him? - She inquired after she felt him going stiff behind her.

- Not really. - He answered courtly. - But I can take you both to the county archives, they have quite a collection of him. But I may know something about Them if you're interested.

- You've never told! - She rounded on him with a start and he just looked at her with a frown on his face.

Charles was the one who eventually broke the tense silence in the room. - I have a feeling that it may be quite a story so why don't we all move to my apartment and talk about it while having tea and biscuits? - Which was really typical. Charles thought that world could be saved with tea and snacks. But it was a good idea so she nodded and in the next blink all three of them were standing in Charles' living room and the owner hurried to the kitchen to put a kettle on the stove.

Raven thought a little absently that the way they sat all around the coffee table like this, was exactly like one of Ms. Xavier's tea parties, but she didn't dare to voice it. God only knows, Charles and his mother weren't exactly the example of healthy parent – child relations. She also felt a little silly sitting there like this and sipping from her cup in silence just waiting until the love of her life drop his bomb on them.

- What you have to understand, - Azazel started after stuffing one of the biscuits in his mouth – is that the rumours have a nature of exaggerating and overblowing everything. And in these times, when people are stressed and afraid because of war, rumours tend to suddenly sprout some imaginary connections to Nazis and mutants, two things that Americans are unsure about and scared of.

- Are you saying that these stories are fake? - She inquired frowning. It was a relief, but on the other hand, a shame. There were certainly very intriguing, these stories. And she would be right with treating them as actual clues.

- No. - Charles answered her instead of Az – He's saying that there are lies there as well as a some truths.

Azazel nodded to him and started soaking one of the scones in his drink. He looked unusually skittish and unsure of himself, almost like when they started meeting and Raven suddenly felt something warm spreading in her chest and she lent across the table to take one of his hands in hers. He looked a little startled, but after a while he squeezed her fingers and kept holding them. Whatever it was that threw him so much of his usual grid, it wasn't anything she wouldn't accept. After all, she already accepted the tail, did she not?

- But the question is – Leave it to Charles to ruin her soft moment with his work oriented brain – What is true and what is a lie?

- Like I said – Azazel turned to her brother – the Nazi part is definitely a lie, they've never been in the New York to begin with. Also the part about these super clear minds or something, this is simply impossible. - Raven glanced at her brother, but he wasn't in hurry to contradict Az, so she wasn't either. - But I know for a fact, that there was one warehouse, somewhere near mine, that for a while, before America officially joined the war, was used as some kind of laboratory and training grounds. I don't know much else.

- This is already a lot, thank you. - Charles said while absently staring into his tea. - We should focus for a while on Mr. Frost now.

- I will help. - Azazel said what caused both her and Charles to look at him in surprise. - It will be easier and quicker for you to use teleportation to travel. The faster you finish this case, the faster Raven will be free.

Charles made this pained face that showed how much he wants to know about his younger sister love life and she just beamed at her boyfriend. They both nodded for two different reasons, but it was enough to prompt Azazel into kissing his fingers and teleporting them away.