#did i manage to hack the spotify link and it now shows the full song instead of just the preview??? i spent a lot of time trying

[incidentale]

friend who hasn't watched suburra but has been subjected to my endless wailing and exposed to the crucial scenes to suffer with me, just decided to take her revenge and showed me stupidi ragazzi by achille lauro, saying she couldn't stop thinking about spadino and aureliano when it came up. I'm compromised now.

i mean

I MEAN

I MEAN

[sinkingorswimming]

CONGRATION FOR 600 FOLLOWERS U DONE IT

more X-Men coming through, maybe not so “soft” anymore @linneakou

He could be doing a gig in DC at the 930 Club right now, but Ciao Ciao and his teammates are playin’.

An old friend of Celestino’s, Dr. Mireya Thomas, mentioned during a lunch date to check in and catch up her close neighbor’s son disappeared six months ago. She’d been searching for him—Leo had confided in her that he was a mutant, having moments where flames would appear on his body. Leo was a kind kid, she told Celestino—went to mass every Sunday, was in the church band, good grades in school, helped his local Kiwanis chapter—but he’d come to her because Mireya is a leading geneticist in the field of human mutation.

He prayed every night for a cure, he said then. 

Celestino handed her a tissue to dry her stoic tears and said he would try to find out what he could, keeping an eye out for posters or social media posts.

Thanks to some creative computing on Seung Gil’s part, they have the following—

1) There is some shadow org called The Right taking recently mutant-presenting teens.2) They have some kind of crazy financial backing that no one can properly trace. (”Yet,” grumbled Seung Gil with some acid.)3) Blackwater looking goons with masks do the aductions, and some shady dude who speaks only in a mixture of German dialects calls the shots.

Yuuri is in a costume that’s mostly different from his stage outfits. It’s black and made of some fabric Seung Gil calls “unstable molecules” so it’s fireproof, waterproof, bulletproof, shockproof, and Andre Leon Talley’s scathing critique proof. Chris handled the design, making a point to compliment its inventor on how it goes through a serger like a hot knife with butter. It’s a black-form fitting number covered in prismatic crystals, mesh inserts, and fingerless gloves so he can still use his Laser Hands (TM Phichit, not to be confused with his Laser Pants, also TM Phichit) and he puts in red contacts instead of the UV purple ones. His hair’s gelled back and the make-up that obscures his features is charcoal and crimson. 

Yuuri could dance before he could run, which is how he keeps ending up the point man. Little rainbow shimmers float in the air around him, a sublte method to distract people from paying too much attention to his voice or face. 

“I hate this.”

I know you do, Dazz, replies Phichit over their special earpieces. Just know Forge and I are right behind ya’ once you clear the security systems.

“He really can’t just hack it?” Yuuri arches his back, holding his right foot above his head in a Bielmann. The boots he wears have split soles like dance or wrestling shoes.

Sure I can, if I want the FBI on our door in two minutes, comes the inventor’s scating reply.

Yuuri stretches his other leg. Standing at the wall behind him, Longshot clears his throat. 

Yuuri gives him a look. Since he doesn’t have a secret identity at all really, he just lets his face show with nothing to conceal his features. 

His suit’s been modified by Chris to use the same fabric as Yuuri’s—instead of hot pink, he now wears a purple top attached to black fingerless gloves that begin at his elbows. His pants are a tight shimmery black like oil slicks, but his boots are more traditional combat style unlike the Dazzler outfit. The embellishments on his top are actually weapons—the cord doubles as a whip, the “braiding” is actually those short silver darts he throws, and so on. 

Longshot smiles, his eye glimmering with the gold burst for a moment. “Your lucky charm’s on stand by, beautiful,” he assures Yuuri with a wink.

Yuuri turns forward again so he won’t see that his cheeks now match his make up. He coughs, takes a look at the grid, reminds himself of his forays into acrobatics, aerial silks, and capoeira…and goes.

Phichit should really be doing this, he thinks as he manages to get a hold in a cloth banner above the laser grid, climbing it and then doing a triple somersault to the next one. He’s the one who can cling to surfaces that have friction and can freaking teleport. His eyes are better in the dark, too, but since they couldn’t get the schematics on where the grid stopped or if they continue inside the rooms in the facility (since if Phichit BAMFs into a room full of them, they’ll go off), Yuuri has to do it. 

He tumbles through, avoiding a moving grid with a randomized pattern using the steps from a Paso Doble Minako insisted he learn. There’s not much sound here, but it’s enough and when a random beam almost hits him, he manages to shield himself with a bit of white light at a differeing optical density so it refracts around him. 

Nice, Forge and Nightcrawler say in unison.

Only after doing a full split under the last few does he make it and disables the grid. He’s oddly not sweaty or throwing up or anything. Huh.

Longshot saunters to him, and when they’re face to face, he picks up Yuuri’s right hand, kissing his ring finger and then his cheek, the day’s stubble prickling against Yuuri’s skin in a way that makes his breathing stop and his heart stutter. 

The smell of sulphur and a black bit of smoke heralds Nightcrawler and Forge. Phichit doesn’t need a mask since his daytime appearance with the Image Inducer is one—his gold eyes, deep blue fur, and short fangs make him cute in a sinister manner. His costume is deep red and gold, while Forge wears a sedate gray-blue and black jumpsuit as Chris vetoed his idea for a loud costume like a rainbow.

They find an office with a terminal, and Forge cracks his neck and sets to work. It only takes him a few minutes before he can copy the relevant data. There’s a guard rotation but they timed their entrance with the shift changes. 

It only takes three minutes and they have six more before the gig is up. 

“Done,” Seung Gil says. He pockets the HD. 

“Jěng âh!” Phichit grins and his tail swishes like an excited puppy. The four of them link hands, Longshot giving Dazzler a particularly happy look, and they’re BAMFed out to an alley a couple blocks down.

Longshot pitches forward with a pain-filled cry. 

“Sorry,” Nightcrawler says with a sheepish shrug. “It’s hard on passengers the first…eighteen times.”

“I threw up twice,” Seung Gil adds in a voice that has no comfort whatsover.

Dazzler helps Longshot get back upright. “You okay?”

“It’ll be alright, beautiful,” he answers as Phichit sings some of the lines from Ellie’s “Something in the Way You Move” in the background. 

Yuuri might add it to his rotating encores after he punches Phichit for the heckling. It’s a moot point he forgets, because they end up back at the house Chris bought them—it’s a Park Slope multi-million dollar home that the Giacomettis have owned since it was built. 

Chris perfers a skyscraper’s penthouse so he can stretch his wings…literally, so since this was in disuse, they all moved in. There’s seven bedrooms—Celestino has the master, Seung Gil’s converted the parlor into his sleeping area and work shop, and Phichit keeps waggling his eyebrows that Dazzler and Longshot should double up.

Their rooms are the two on the second floor, which take up the whole thing. They share a bathroom and Yuuri let Victor have the room with the terrace access. 

The cellar has been expanded through the backyard, outfitted with steel walls, soundproofing, and Seung Gil’s hologram tech. It’s a gymnasium on steroids for all of them to refine their skills with their gifts, and boy did Seung Gil get a sour expression when Phichit called it the Danger Room.

He twitches every time someone else says it. He twitches a lot, because it’s caught on.

Chris happens to be waiting in their living and rec room when they get back—he’s discussing something with Celestio. Since he’s not acting as the face of Intoxicated by Giacometti or as a board member of Giacometti Corp, he’s wearing a shirt with a low back so he can have his wings out. 

Seung Gil boots up his computer to run the analysis of what they got. and Phichit BAMFs into the kitchen, returning with a bottle of Mekhong and glasses for everyone filled with ice. He pours and they all take one, though Victor looks at his from every possible angle like it’s poison.

“Mote gaow!” Phichit shouts, and they echo it as they drink.

Victor stares at his glass after his initial sip. He looks confused. 

“It’s more or less rum,” Yuuri explains. Victor doesn’t look like he understands better. Right. Alien. Not from Earth. “Uh, it’s a…sugarcane beverage that can get you drunk.”

Victor lights up. “Ah!” He takes longer sip, and things seem pleasant enough until Seung Gil does a literal sitcom-style spittake at his montior.

“That’s not gonna be fun to clean,” Phichit deadpans. 

“What happened?” Ciao Ciao asks with a serious tone.

“Chris—” Seung Gil begins. “When’s the last time you reviewed GC’s R&D budget?”

Chris pauses, thinks. “Five years ago, if I’m honest. Josef insisted on handling the line items and minutiae so I can be free to do the public appearances and philanthrophy without conflicts.” His expression shifts from thoughtful to grim. “I’m not going to like what you say next, am I?”

“…Let me ask a follow up in that…you’re sure Josef is okay with mutants?”

Yuuri’s spine goes rigid. Even Phichit stops smiling. 

“He’s always told me he is since I presented,” Chris answers with no emotion in his voice.

“Well—” Seung Gil says. “He’s clearly lying. GC-0963 Project: The Right. There’s dozens of mutants in here that have either been abducted for experiments or—”

The silence hangs heavy, leaden with horror and dread.

“How many?” Chris says.

“Chris, maybe—” Ciao Ciao begins.

“How. Many.” Chris snaps.

Seung Gil gives Chris a look uncharacterisically filled with sympathy. “198.”

Phichit gasps, dropping his drink before catching it with his tail.

“They’re imprisoned at a facility out in Montauk,” Seung Gil says. “It’s similar to Supermax but for mutants—they have power dampeners most likely, or they’re sedated.”

“Well, we’ll get them out,” Victor says with resolution and stilted cheer. “It’s a good old fashioned jailbreak!”

“No.” Chris stands, reading the data on Seung Gil’s screen. It all bears out, it seems given the pallor in his face. His eyes look haunted. “We’ll do this in a softer way.”

“You’re hitting him in the board room, then,” Ciao Ciao answers.

“Yeah.” Chris nods. “There’s a nuclear option I can employ with the Board to get him out—and I’m sure we can kill this Project: The Right easily enough too. I don’t want my family name aligned with bigotry or human rights violations, and I’m fairly confident they’ll agree.”

Chris narrows his eyes.

“Plan B though,” he begins. “You all are my Plan B.”