To Catch a Killer - Part 3

Posted on Sat Feb 8th, 2025 @ 8:39pm by Pietro Maximoff & Bobby Drake

3,747 words; about a 19 minute read

Mission: Episode 6: X-Fernus Agenda
Location: Washington, D.C.
Timeline: December 5th, 1990

The General Services Administration building loomed against the frosty Washington night, its austere neoclassical façade standing as a silent testament to bureaucracy. The glow of streetlights reflected off the pale stone, while the December air bit sharply into their clothes. Bobby and Pietro crouched in the shadows of a side alley, their breath visible in the cold as they scanned the perimeter.

After a quick casing job, Pietro had pointed out a service entrance tucked behind a set of dumpsters. It hadn’t taken much from Bobby to coax a freak winter storm from the December air, though the hailstones were a little much. A few of them knocked the cameras aside and directed away from the entrance.

So far, their escapade had been undetected. On approach to the door, Bobby saw an old-fashioned keypad lock. “Easy,” Bobby whispered. A sheet of ice crept over the panel, and with a practiced tap, he pried the frozen metal apart. The lock clicked, and they slipped inside, closing the door behind them. The keypad panel slid back into place without any obvious signs of tampering.

“Sheesh, Bobby, did anyone ever tell you that you would have killed it as a thief?” Pietro said with a short chuckle. “I know some gypsies back home that would treat you like a king if you could pick locks and cause diversions like that snow storm. Then again, maybe it’s best that Xavier found you first.” It was the closest thing to a compliment Quicksilver had ever provided when talking about the X-Men. Maybe his time with X-Factor and being away from Magneto and the Brotherhood was slowly having an effect on the speedster.

“Thanks…” Bobby bit his lip and swallowed his blushing with a deep breath. “I think I like what we’re doing now though.”

Within the service entrance, the after-hours interior was dimly lit, the faint hum of fluorescent lights the only sound. It smelled faintly of industrial cleaner and stale air. Stacks of boxes and file carts lined the walls in the process of being shipped or reorganized, evidence of a facility meant for storage rather than public access.

The air chilled suddenly, the drop in temperature so rapid it was almost audible. Pietro had barely stepped forward when his movements slowed. He stiffened, his limbs locking as frost began forming on his suit. His breath came out in panicked clouds, visible in the unnaturally cold air.

“What the—” Bobby froze, not from the cold but from fear. Pietro’s eyes were wide with alarm as his lips trembled, forming words too slow to hear. The temperature continued to plummet, and the frost crept higher on Pietro’s body, crackling like breaking glass.

Bobby’s instinctive panic lasted only seconds before realization hit. He glanced at his own ice-formed hands, flexing them easily. “It’s just a cold snap.” His voice was steadier now. “Not so bad for me.”

Pietro managed to flash Bobby a look that would have killed him, he was clearly uncomfortable in the sudden snap freeze that held him in place.

Bobby pressed forward. The air was like a solid weight against his form, freezing and sluggish. Pietro’s frozen outline was still visible, his features locked in distress.

On the far side of the room, Bobby spotted the source: a glowing control panel emitting a pale blue light, its frosted surface radiating the icy trap. He pushed through the cold with ease, creating ice beneath his feet to slide the last stretch. Reaching the panel, Bobby extended his hands, summoning a rush of frost to displace and crack the frozen mechanism. The door locking the panel’s access released with a metallic click, and Bobby manipulated the switches inside with ice spikes until a distinct hum signaled the alarm’s override.

The cold immediately abated, the room’s temperature rising to a bearable chill. Pietro stumbled forward, coughing and flexing his arms as circulation returned. Bobby rushed to his side, his expression one of relief.

“You okay, Speedy?” Bobby asked, clapping Pietro on the shoulder.

“I think my balls are sucked up inside of my body.” Quicksilver grumbled as he flexed and moved to bring blood flow back to his frozen limbs. Pietro’s body began to vibrate so quickly that the outline of his figure shimmered and blurred, the many rapid micro movements heated and warmed him and dried his clothes until he returned to a normal, comfortable state. “That would have been lethal for someone else, I don’t think this place is as harmless as we had originally thought.”

Pietro took a few steps forward and began to cautiously examine the room and the hallway it was connected to. “I’m worried they have more traps like this one, if I speed through and get caught again… well, I doubt we’ll get so lucky and be able to defuse the trap without detection a second time.” He glanced back at Bobby, “How sneaky can you be?”

“Sneaky enough.” In truth, Bobby had no idea. He had always been a go in with guns blazing kind of guy. This was all new territory for him in more ways than one. “I don’t hear any sirens, though, so I think the override worked. Maybe security will just think it’s a false alarm. Should we wait to see if there’s a security guard on patrol or should we push our luck?”

Footsteps echoed down an adjacent corridor, answering Bobby’s question before Pietro could. Both mutants looked at each other and ducked against the darkest corners they could reach. It took a moment before the slow, idle steps made it to them. Evidently the man wasn’t in a rush.

The console Bobby had used to deactivate the trap was the clear goal, and the security guard with a belly that dunlopped over his beltline gave it a quick once-over before snorting in contempt.

“Old system never glitched,” he mumbled to himself before he tapped the radio on his collar. “Central, just as I thought. False alarm. Yeah, I’m sure, there’s nobody in the trap, not even a damned housefly. Clear the alert. I’m headed back to my post.”

As he was talking, Bobby saw the security card dangling from a lanyard at his waist opposite his service weapon. The bold font on it matched the word “SECURITY” on the elevator down the other corridor. Bobby nodded at the guard, tapped his own hip a few times, and pointed down the other corridor at the security elevator. Then, in a needless afterthought, he put his finger against his lips to remind Pietro to be quiet.

Pietro delivered another look filled with contempt as Bobby told him to be quiet. The Romani had been sneaking and picking pockets for over a decade and was rather good at it even before his super speed had kicked in. Shifting onto the balls of his feet, Quicksilver found his footing before he sprung up and into action.

Bobby really didn’t see much after that, Pietro pounced into action and then in the blink of an eye he was back in his hiding spot, the guard’s lanyard in his hands. The security guard continued his walk, clueless to the act of theft that had just occurred.

Pietro gestured towards the opposite direction in which the guard had traveled, opting to get deeper into the facility in hopes that their records would be housed in an archive rather than an office.

The security elevator's sleek metal doors slid open with a muted chime, revealing a pristine interior lit by stark fluorescent lights. Pietro swiped the stolen security card through the reader, and the floor legend flickered to life on a small screen embedded in the panel.

MRD Records - Basement Level 3. So said the metal sign by the buttons which Pietro tapped quite excessively.

"Figures they'd bury the paperwork," Bobby muttered. He leaned back against the elevator wall as they descended. "Probably all in triplicate, too."

When the doors parted on Basement Level 3, the pair were met with an unexpectedly analog sight—a massive concrete floor lined with high racking, each shelf crammed with rows of unassuming cardboard file boxes. The air was tinged with the scent of old paper and dust, and the faint hum of industrial lighting filled the cavernous space.

"You've got to be kidding me," Bobby groaned, stepping out of the elevator. "Not even a computer to search with? What decade is this?"

“This is bottom of the barrel Government work, they don’t care.” Pietro said while beginning to rifle through cardboard boxes. “Just try not to get a paper cut.”

Pietro became a whirl of activity as he turned on his super speed and began to dig through boxes at an inhuman speed. But he paused briefly and looked over at Bobby with a devious smirk. “If you need help with a big word, let me know.”

“Yeah? I’m in college and you’re not!” Bobby called out, but Pietro was already gone. His retort fell to the ground along with the loose sheaves kicked by the speedster’s departure.

For every box Bobby carefully sorted through, Pietro tore through fifty. It was like watching an entire library being gutted in mere seconds. Bobby shook his head and focused on his own task, occasionally muttering curses under his breath as he sifted through papers with endless government jargon.

A triumphant shout from across the room snapped him out of his irritation. “Got it!” Pietro’s voice rang out.

Bobby set the box he was holding back on the metal rack and hurried toward the source of the sound. When he rounded the corner, he found Pietro leaning casually against a shelf, holding up a thick, worn binder with a cocky grin.

“What’d you find?” Bobby asked, skidding to a stop. He leaned in and read over Pietro’s shoulder. Sure enough, there it was: an entry under the heading of Weapon Assignments. One model of the weapon in question had been issued to someone in the MRD. The name jumped off the page. “Thurman, Neena,” he read aloud. “Who is that and where do we find her?”

“Don’t you have a telepath with a crazy mind reading machine at home? Can’t you ask him to find her?” Pietro snarkily replied but Bobby didn’t seem impressed by his comment. “I don’t know, you found all those Hellfire idiots with paper trails, can’t you do the same here?”

It had taken days and weeks of Scott, Jean and Bobby digging through records and transcripts to find the Hellfire Club’s connections; that solution wasn’t a timely one. Pietro was about to comment once more but he was interrupted by a woman's voice.

“Just what the hell do you two think you are going here?” There wasn’t a trace of fear or hesitation in her voice, just annoyance and irritation over finding intruders in the basement of the building. The woman stepped into view, she was of average height with her dark hair in box braids. A pair of round glasses framed her sharp eyes. She was fierce and fearless as she continued to approach them. “You two knuckleheads better start talking because with a push of a button I could have security on your asses.”

Pietro tensed, his fists clenched at his sides, ready to spring into action at the slightest provocation. Bobby, on the other hand, raised his hands slowly, palms open to show he was unarmed. His ice-blue eyes flicked to Pietro for a second, silently urging him to stand down. Fighting their way out of this wasn’t the answer—not yet.

“Hey,” Bobby began, his voice steady and calm, “we’re not here to cause trouble. We’re not thieves, vandals, or anything like that.”

The woman didn't say anything. Since Pietro gave Bobby a sidelong glance, his expression skeptical but not dismissive, Bobby kept talking.

“Look, we don’t want to hurt anyone or steal anything,” Bobby began, his ice-blue eyes locked on hers. “We’re just trying to get answers. That’s all. Senator Kelly’s murder set the country on fire. Mutants and humans are at each other’s throats more than ever. We’re trying to stop things from getting worse before it’s too late,” Bobby continued, his tone as sincere as he could make it. “We’re just… two guys trying to do the right thing. No one else is looking at this from all sides—people are either ignoring the details or covering them up. But this? This is about more than just us. This is about everyone.”

“Oh you’re stealing all right,” the woman said with a touch of sarcasm. “Secrets are a currency just like any other object. The answers you’re looking for are bigger than you think. They can ruin men and empires just as much as money or weapons can.”

The woman folded her arm and looked both of them over. “And don’t think I don’t know who you two are… Iceman, Bobby Drake… Quicksilver, Pietro Maximoff. Since when do X-Men and Brotherhood work together?”

Bobby’s brows lifted in surprise. She knew exactly who they were. His stomach clenched for a moment before he forced himself to relax. He let out a dry chuckle, shaking his head. "MRD, huh?" he said, though it wasn’t a question. "Yeah, of course you are. Look where we’re at."

He exchanged a quick glance with Pietro, who remained silent but watchful, arms crossed over his chest. Bobby turned back to the woman, exhaling sharply. "The answer to your question is simple…” Sighing, he put it the only way that made sense. "Because we left," Bobby said simply. "We walked away from the X-Men and the Brotherhood. No backup, just us. And we didn’t do it for kicks. We’ve been working together to get answers, to uncover the truth. You think this is just about Kelly? It’s not. We helped build the RICO case against the Hellfire Club and their dirty dealings with the Mutant Registration Act. Shaw’s Operation Zero Tolerance? We dug into that, too."

“You didn’t do that,” The woman said with a sassy scoff. “I read those documents, two people working alone couldn’t pull something like that off.”

He tapped the pocket of his jacket. "I’ve got a notepad right here, full of everything I’ve uncovered. Things I wouldn’t know unless I was actually on the ground doing the work.” Bobby let the weight of his words settle before softening his tone just slightly. "Like I said, we don’t want to hurt anybody. But we’re not walking away from this. If an empire needs lies to stand, then it doesn’t deserve to."

“So you get what you’re looking for, then what?” Her skepticism remained intact but she hadn’t sounded the alarm or called for help. “You find out who and why they pulled that trigger, do you know what kind of chaos that will create? This might be a house of cards but it will topple on all of our heads if it’s knocked over.”

Bobby took a slow breath, choosing his next words carefully. “Lady, I’ll make this real simple for you,” he said, leveling her with an unflinching stare. “All signs point to a rogue element in the government assassinating a sitting U.S. senator. That’s not a conspiracy theory—that’s what the evidence points to.”

He gestured vaguely around them, indicating the stacks of government records, the facility they had just broken into, the very fact that they were standing here at all. “And you? You’re a federal agent. Are you on board with that?”

“I’m on board with keeping my job.” The woman took some offense to his remarks and Bobby could tell that wasn’t her genuine answer.

His voice was steady, but there was an edge to it, one sharpened by weeks of uncovering things that had no right to stay buried. “Because right now, standing in our way? That’s what you are.”
The woman’s expression was unreadable, but Bobby didn’t stop. He pressed forward, not with force, but with something far heavier: conviction.

“But if you’re not on board—if you think maybe, just maybe, the people responsible for this should be brought to justice—then there’s only one real choice here.” He leaned forward slightly, his tone taking an edge of pleading. “Help us. Help us hitch Kelly’s assassination to the Hellfire Club, to the MRA scandal, to the whole corrupt machine that’s been running this from the shadows.”

“I don’t know Iceman.” The woman remained skeptical but she appeared to be cracking. “How can I be sure you’ll actually do something with this information.”

He let that hang in the air for a moment before finishing, “The special prosecutor on the RICO case is already tearing it apart. You help us get this to them, and they’ll have to act. We make it impossible for them not to.”

Silence stretched between them for a moment, heavy with uncertainty. Bobby held her gaze, waiting. This was the moment. The moment she decided whose side she was really on.

The woman let out a long sigh as she pondered everything that Bobby was saying, this conversation had not been on her agenda for the day. “Sometimes I have a way to let things slide when it comes to records and paperwork. Things are misfiled or lost and there isn’t a lot people can do about it. It’s easy enough to plead ignorance… what do you need?”

Bobby grinned at Pietro and air-pumped his fist. “Yes!” Regaining his composure, he said, “We need to know who Neena Thurman is and where we can find her. There’s a strong chance that she is the shooter. We need to confirm that before we do anything else.”

Pietro had said absolutely nothing during this entire conversation, in fact he had slowly made his way to a position behind the woman where he picked up a desk chair and was waiting to clobber her with it. As Bobby achieved their goal through civil conversation, he gently returned the chair to the ground.

“Thanks for helping us out.” Quicksilver coughed as he made his way back to standing next to Bobby.

“Neena Thurman…” The woman’s shoulders slumped as she said the name, the pieces of the puzzle clicking together for her in a way that saddened and troubled her. “I don’t even need to look that up. You might know her as Domino. I believe that last time you saw her was during that march in Washington D.C.”

“We weren't there for that,” Bobby said. Maybe this federal agent didn't know as much as she fronted. That thought comforted him a bit. However, if Professor Xavier or the others had contact with this Domino, then maybe he should check with them.

“Can you tell us where we might find Domino?” It wasn't necessarily a long shot but she had already helped them. Bobby knew he was pushing his luck. He pushed it anyway.

“They’re all kept on a farm in rural Maryland together, in Somerset on a place called Cedar Hill.” The woman chuckled, “But showing up on Freedom Force’s front yard without an invitation is incredibly stupid of you. They’ll kill you before you say a word.”

“Wait a minute!” Pietro raised a hand up to halt the conversation. “Domino is part of Freedom Force? The government controlled group of mutants used to manage mutant incidents? Someone in that group shot Kelly in the head?” He shook his head in disbelief.

“If your lead is right and that’s who pulled the trigger… then this conversation just became very dangerous for all of us.” The woman said while folding her arms across her chest. To be fair, she didn’t seem to falter in her response, she didn’t appear to be afraid of trouble.

“I don't care,” Bobby said. “If you know who I am, then you know the threat of death has never stopped us before.”

Looking away from her, Bobby said to Pietro, “Freedom Force falls beneath the Mutant Response Division. If we can get a confession, then this whole mess can be finally made right. And Cedar Hill can't be far. Let's go.”

“Like right now?!” It was funny to see Pietro surprised by someone else moving too fast. “You heard the lady… they’ll kill us if we surprise them. We have to keep this cool.” He laughed at his own surprise joke “Ha! You like cool, be cool, Bobby.”

“Be cool? Dude, I am cool!” Bobby groaned at Pietro. “And stop using my real name, you idiot. That’s why we have codenames.” That made a thought occur to him. He turned to the sassy federal agent. “Speaking of names, who are you exactly?”

“She knows our names!” Pietro snapped back before the woman could reply.

“Are you done?” The woman said with a side eye towards Pietro before her attention returned to Bobby. “My name is Cecilia Reyes, I’m a medical doctor who works for the MRD.”

“She could have been bluffing!” Bobby snapped at Pietro through gritted teeth. “Now we’ll never know.” Turning to the woman, Bobby swallowed his irritation and nodded his head. “Thank you, Dr. Reyes. We won’t let you down. But, uh, if you could help with one more thing…” Canting his head with a shy smirk, Bobby asked, “Got any pointers on sneaking into that farm?”

“I’m not worried about you letting me down, I’m worried about you succeeding.” Cecilia corrected Bobby. “On Thursdays they are allowed to go into town, most leave for the day. Neena usually doesn’t go because she hates the bullshit her appearance causes. Less of them home is better for you.”

“That’s tomorrow!” Bobby looked at Pietro, an even greater sense of urgency in his tone. “We have to go now if we wanna’ catch her alone!” He snapped his fingers twice. “Come on, Pietro. Vamoose!”

TBC

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