Captured? - x-men evolution

Behind Walls

I don't own X-men, or Marvel, or anything like that. I just own Element and some of the backstories that I made up.

Pain. That was the first thing that I felt. A very intense throbbing was originating from my head and pounding in waves through the rest of my body. Groaning I opened my eyes. I was in a grey room, the walls and ceiling made of a material that looked to be cement. The ground certainly felt like cement; cold, hard, and unforgiving. Blinking a few times I slowly sat up, to be greeted with the sight of Pietro and Bobby chained to a wall, both unconscious though Pietro looked to be asleep, not knocked out like Bobby. There was a bloody sweatshirt tied around Bobby's arm. Letting out a gasp everything came rushing back to me, the confrontation from Pietro, the ambush, the bullet hitting Bobby's arm, and then the Nameless drugging us and putting us into a truck. There was no way of knowing where we were, not when we didn't even know how long we were out for. I slowly stood, practically throwing my hands out against the wall when a wave of dizziness hit me. I felt the need to throw up and took deep breaths, feeling the urge slowly subside. I started to wobble my way over to the two boys when something tugged on my ankle and my face met the floor. Pietro woke with a start from the thud my body made when connecting with the ground.

"Oh," He said dully, "You're up."

"Yeah, how long have we been out?" I questioned, moving into a sitting position against the wall.

"Don't know. I woke up a few hours ago." His stomach growled. I glanced at his stomach.

"Hopefully we'll get some food soon." I suggested, he just scowled at me and looked away. Furrowing my eyebrows I looked around the room some more. It was simple, cement ceiling, walls, and floor, a toilet in the corner, and a door on the opposite wall. Looking back with a groan I saw that I was chained to a wall by my ankle, and that I had 'anti-power' cuffs on my wrists. Glancing up at the boys I saw that they were in a similar situation, cuffs on their wrists, and ankles chained to the wall. If all of us stretched out all of the way I we would be able to reach each other, not a whole lot of comfort, but it was something. Suddenly the door opened with a bang and a foot soldier came in carrying a tray of food. He set it down by Bobby, and walked out of the room. Pietro and I looked at each other for a second, and then began to crawl towards the food. Surprisingly I got there before he did, and immediately began to portion out everything. It was a simple meal, gray porridge that was cold and had lumps of some kind of meat in it, stale rolls, and three bottles of water. When Pietro came up I gave him the largest portion of porridge, a roll, and a water bottle. He looked faintly startled, staring back and forth between me and the amount of food that I had given him.

"You aren't giving me the smallest portion?" He sounded so confused.

"Why would I do that? You're a speedster, you need the nutrients. At least to make up for the fight before we got caught, those cuffs dampen your x-gene. Now instead of a speedster's metabolism you just have a slightly faster than normal metabolism. Either way you're still going to need more food than me or Bobby."

"But you aren't going to make me have less because we're enemies?"

"No, that would be stupid. Besides, in here the enemy is The "Nameless." So, as the old saying goes, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." Whether we like it or not it's going to take all of us to get out of here." I finished before beginning to eat my porridge. It was cold, and tasted like cardboard, not to mention that the texture was a little less than satisfactory. While eating I almost missed the look that Pietro gave me before he slid away to eat his food in 'solitary'. I didn't really get to analyze the look, but I'm pretty sure it was one of consideration. Consideration over the fact that I was being nice to him and that we would have to get along to get out of this place. We sat in silence for a while, Bobby eventually woke up in a lot of pain, but he managed to eat all of his food before we began to talk. We talked for a few hours, and eventually Pietro joined the conversations. We traded jokes, re-encounters of funny missions or training exercises, and back stories. Turns out that Pietro isn't exactly that big of a fan of Magneto. Apparently Magneto isn't the best dad in the whole world, who knew, right? Bobby explained about how he was "kicked" out of his town before the Professor came and got him. His parents are always there for him, but after he "accidently" froze the star player of the football team the rest of the people made it pretty clear that they didn't want him around. In his defense he did it because the dude was being a jerk to some girls, trying to make them make-out with him and such. I don't blame him, and I think that I saw Pietro smirk at the mental image of a frozen football player. Eventually it came to be my turn.

"So what about you Element? What's your backstory?" Bobby spoke up, leaning against the wall, legs and arms spread out eagle.

"I don't know," I hesitated, "It's not exactly a happy, fairytale ending, sort of thing. The school was just a new chapter, and now I'm back here."

"What do you mean 'back here'" Bobby asked.

"D-did I say back here?" I asked nervously, "I meant black ... deer. Yeah! Black Deer. And now I'm a black deer. Heh heh..."

The boys just looked at me for a few minutes. I swear I could hear the second hand ticking away, and there wasn't even a clock in here! Eventually Pietro finally spoke up.

"Please, that was the worst lie I've ever hear. You said back here, so what did you mean? And please don't try to make up another excuse, you x-geeks suck at lying." I scowled at him. He just raised an eyebrow in response.

"Fine." I sat up indian style from where I had been lying on the ground. "It all started about a month or so before my eighth birthday." I continued to speak, telling them about how The Nameless had come and grabbed me, killing my family in the process. I told them about how I had been branded and tortured, just so that they could experiment with my x-gene. I told them about Matt, a fellow prisoner who tried to escape my third year in captivity. I wasn't sure what exactly happened to him, but after his attempt I never saw him again. He was a mutant, like us, though he never spoke. I always had wondered what happened to him, but we all just assumed that he had gotten away. He had given me the hope of an escape. Even though I didn't know his end fate, I figured that it had to be better than staying in the compound. By the time that I reached the fact that I joined the X-men both boys were looking a bit green.

"So, you went through all of that... that torture, and sadness, and pain, and you never complained? Ever?" Bobby looked at me with a mixture of horror and admiration. "Even when Blob broke your arm, or when you were picked on at school, you never complained."

"How the heck are you so nice!?!" Pietro finally exclaimed. I just kind of looked at him in confusion. "No matter what we do to you x-dwee... I mean guys, you're still nice to us. The others turn a cold shoulder, or fight back, but you just take it with a smile and help us with homework or something like that. How do you do it!?!"

I could feel the heat rising on my cheeks, "I don't know, I guess that since I've already been through hell here, that everything else just seems so, unimportant to the bigger picture. I mean, we're all kids with abilities, we all face racism and fear from the humans, and I guess that I hope that by being nice, we could all get along together, or something like that." My eyes widened after a few seconds, "Wow... that was really cheesy." The other two just nodded. After a few more minutes of silence I shifted around to curl up into a ball against the wall. I could hear the Bobby and Pietro shifting around a bit too before their breathing evened out. I could feel the sleep trying to take over my body, but my fear for this place was too great to allow me to sleep. I just kept running through all of the facts that I knew about this place in my head. Various torture techniques running through my head. One thing was for sure, I couldn't let Pietro and Bobby go through what I had to, I was going to get us out of here, even if it's the last thing that I do.

Thanks to all of the people who have commented! It's been a bit crazy lately, my college applications have taken up a lot of time. I should be able to update a bit faster now.