2020.12.18 - Bad Intel
How did things even get to this point? Daken had a really nice day planned, as he sometimes does. They were going to go to one of the more residential areas of Metropolis, to enjoy some time in a natural setting. It's been snowing, so what better time to see the pretty nature under a blanket of quiet, beautiful snow?
Apparently a lot of better times, because right now Daken's crouching with a fierce expression, in the middle of an extremely clean and efficient futuristic factory, with everything but his pants scorched off by weapon fire.
AIM uses laser rifles and a lot of aggressive bright yellow. Right now, they've got Daken and Lester pinned down. But Daken made sure to get Emery somewhere safe, like an office or something. Not that he expects the young man to actually stay put. He's figuring Emery will make for a great last-minute drama twist, when they get surrounded by enough elite AIM strike troops.
Thank goodness for healing factors, am I right?
"Osborne's intel is shit," Lester complains as he wriggles out of his own scorched clothing, revealing his kevlar costume beneath. Hey, some people don't have healing factors, okay? "'Our sources indicate that AIM's attention will be on Coast City for the foreseeable future'." The assassin stuffs what's left of his pants into his backpack, coming back with a gun. "Well, fuck -him-, is all I got to fuckin' say about his fuckin' sources."
Checking the clip, he slaps it home and comes up in one smooth movement, firing six times and counting six thuds as he comes back down -- all in the space of two heartbeats. "I swear to fuckin' God," he says as he lands on his side, wincing as laser fire slaps the air above them. "I'm gonna punch that arrogant motherfucker right in his million dollar caps."
Today, Emery expected to get to enjoy a nice, relaxing day playing in the snow. The school had hooked him up with some winter clothing and he bundled up in a pair of corduroy pants, boots, mittens and a warm winter coat. Unfortunately, that is not how things ended up playing out. At the moment, Emery is peeking out at the chaos through a smashed window from within what looks to be a lab tucked into a corner of the factory. Having tossed his coat to reveal a thermal shirt underneath, he's tapping buttons furiously on his gauntlet.
"Come on, come on, we're in a freaking factory full of tech. /Hack something, Genesis!/" he yells at the device. Since Daken and Lester seem to be taking most of the attention off of him, it leaves him free to pull up a schematic of the factory - courtesy of Genesis' hack (finally). "Okay, so..." A holographic display appears in front of him, showing several cameras inside and outside. "Dammit, the stuff in this place is locked up super tight." He peeks over again, watching as the AIM guys zero in on his friends. "If I could just get control of their automated defenses..." He trails off, tapping more buttons.
Bobby loves this time of year....the decorations, the singing, the snow and ice making everything beautiful, the sound of automatic weapons fire in the industrial part of town...."Wait!" Bobby actually thinks aloud, then looks around "I don't remember those sounds as part of Deck the Halls." With his arm full of packages that he'd spent the last few hours carefully picking out and buying for the other students and some teachers at Sky High, Bobby extends his hand to form an ice slide and begins to ride it along the rooftops. "I hope it's just some kids with their Cyberpunk 2077 playing too loudly," he mutters to himself as he hones in on the sounds.
What he finds is far from a LAN party of acne-faced teens playing computer games. Stopping at the nearby building rooftop, Bobby sets the presents down with a "Stay here," as if they were going to listen to him. As he studies the figures, he recognizes the uniforms as AIM....no one else uses that much of gaudy of a shade of yellow. "They aren't just shooting for target practice, so let's see what's going on." Quickly covering himself in an ice layer, Iceman sends the slide out to the next building, gliding across until he's above a group of the AIM soldiers. Just as they are about to unload another barrage of laser fire into the factory, a sheet of ice appears in front of them, causing the lasers to ricochet in random patterns like a light show, some of them actually hitting other soldiers.
When that small group is out of the way, Iceman slams through the upper window, shattering glass as he arrives on edge of a slide, "There was no chimney, but if anyone's got milk and cookies for Santa Iceman, I'm here to help!"
"You're going to have to get in line." Daken peeks up to glance out about when Lester fires off his shots. "Good, that's a few less AIM troopers to worry about, but some of them have heavier weapons than usual. They don't usually send 'em with that level of ordnance."
Even though there are some taken out by the arrival of the spectacular Iceman, there are more yellow-clad operatives running around the place than anyone would be comfortable seeing. Blasts fly in all directions, and it's not the safest thing in the world to introduce oneself to that environment. But at least it's a hero who knows what he's doing and can account for himself decently, Daken figures. He hopes Bobby knows how to account for himself, at this point. He'd better.
Daken raises an only slightly singed bare arm and waves Iceman over in their direction. "Get under cover or they're gonna add a mutant to whatever they're here to pinch!" And at the back of his mind, he idly hopes Emery has enough sense to stay safe and knows, in his heart of hearts, that the boy really won't, most likely.
"Yeah, I don't get it," Lester says, risking a peek over their cover to note what he can of the attack. "It's just a fuckin' waste space. I bet there ain't even anything good to be found around here." He pops up and takes out another four before he's back down. "Probably like old Lexphones and shit."
The arrival of the Iceman gets a small lift of the assassin's eyebrows. "Wasn't expectin' that," he mutters as Daken warns his fellow mutant. Checking his gun and coming back up like a vicious jack-in-the-box, another six thuds add to the count. "At this rate, I ain't gonna have enough rounds to get us out of here, let alone get the Egg out," he says in an annoyed voice as he comes back down. "Fuckin' Osborne."
Emery, courtesy of the cameras he hacked, was able to witness Bobby's ice wall outside shortly before he crashed in through the window. The images of the cameras outside disappear as suddenly as they appeared over Emery's gauntlet, replaced with a holographic keyboard. "Okay, reinforcements have arrived. That's good. Now let's do this, Gen. You and me. Those specs say there are laser turrets built into the ceiling. We need those to get some advantage."
His fingers fly over the holographic keys, the invisible strokes sending inputs in an attempt to hack the factory's defenses. "Or maybe we can seal-- shit, oops." A large gate opens at the far end of the factory, several of the AIM troops swinging around to face it. "Sorry, I can fix it!" Emery calls out from where he's hiding. The gate closes just as suddenly, leaving a number of them staring in confusion for a moment before they go back to firing on the others.
Emery's head pops out from over the side of the window as he aims his gauntlet at the ceiling. "Too much interference in this place, I need a direct-- fuck!" he yells out as he ducks again, two shots of laser fire flying through the window and hitting the wall behind him. This time his head pops out the side of the doorway as he aims his gauntlet again. He keeps quiet this time as his fingers move, the sudden whirring of gears overhead indicating he's done something to the ceiling this time.
"I've got the lasers!" he calls out, before hiding again. Unfortunately, they're not particularly /fast/ deploying defenses, the turrets slowly descending from the ceiling in the four corners of the room.
Iceman does make a great target and initially doesn't seem to notice the laser fire around him, as several of the AIM operatives are still focused on the pair pinned down. "Tats!?" he hollers out as he raises a quick shield of ice as two AIM soldiers decide they need to deal with the new intruder. "Are you breaking in or out?" he asks, his gaze sweeping across the floor, several machines used for construction or fabrication already smoldering piles of rubble while many others provide an obstacle course in part of the factory floor.
Another trio of laser fight comes for Iceman from the other direction and after the first one hisses against his shoulder, another quickly formed ice wall forms to block the rest. "Why aren't you doing your thing?" He seems to be doing okay until a pair of AIM heavies appear near the corner of the room, pushing a large tripod-mounted energy weapon. Looking at it, Bobby turns then grins at Daken, "Be right there!" However, as he's about to move towards the weapon, the operatives turn it on and fire the device, firing a large, intense beam of hyper-accelerated photon particles at Bobby. When the energy beam collides with the ice covered mutant, there's a tremendous hissing sound as a figure is thrown across the room. The thud of impact reverberates the metal shelves as Bobby, bereft of the majority of his ice covering hits the ground, the heat from the beam melting away the outer layer of ice and leaving him vulnerable.
His voice can be heard a moment later, "Oh...now I know why you're holding back." Even without a healing factor, the ice protected Bobby from the brunt of the attack. Not one to stay down when his friends are in trouble, he peeks up over the mangled metal shelf, "Okay...*cough* what's the plan? Going in....or leaving?" he asks of the others who've obviously been here for a purpose.
"Stay under cover!!" Daken barks, appropriately, when Emery pops his head out. Just one mistake, that's all it takes, and he knows it. Dammit. Not that the AIM guys are really shooting to kill, but they sure are shooting to take down, and any incidental injury, they don't seem to care much about. If it's interloping super-types, they don't give a flying flapdoodle.
As demonstrated by Bobby going flying, just as the tripod...of course starts to walk at the group of heroes and affiliated. Because of course it would, it's AIM. Naturally, they gave the thing AI. Fortunately, this also means that the AIM troops are starting to withdraw. Whatever they're after -- and there it is, Emery will see. They've collected something that looks far more advanced than a place like this should ever have. Perhaps it was an item that was being kept here secretly, because it wouldn't be a suspicious location. AIM must have caught wind of it, and here they are, making to get away with it.
And the heroes are pinned down by a walking arsenal that can blast one of their number across a room. "Lester," Daken rumbles. "Can you take this thing out? I mean, take it out and keep its databanks intact? If we can get Emery to hack that thing..." He's just glad it's not a Rocket Rex or one of the other, weirder AIM inventions bearing down on them. "I can keep it busy."
Lester shoots a glare in Emery's direction when he calls out, even thought the kid can't see him. Of course, everyone is getting glared at, right now. Especially the empty air. He waits for his moment to pop up again, only to see the Iceman get sent flying. "Hoo, boy. They ain't gonna be happy about that," he says, taking out five more agents before he drops back down.
Daken's question gets a moment of thought before the former assassin reaches for his backpack. "I don't even know why I got one on me," he admits as he comes up with a small, silver sphere. "Thermite grenade. Should take out some of the armor and some of the insides." He frowns, and peeks over their barricade. "But it's gonna be most effective from the front." You know, where the lasers come from.
He pops up, then, putting the finger and thumb of his right hand in his mouth and whistling loudly before he shoots directly at the tripod. "Hey, dumbfucks!" he shouts, firing again and taking out one of the escorts. "You running like the yellow chickenshits you are?" And of course, they're not. The tripod isn't particularly concerned, but the others turn back to firing on them. He turns his attention to the grenade, then, firing absently as he pushes the sequence to arm it. "Still need that thing to turn around," he mutters, dropping into a crouch to concentrate. "Otherwise, we're just givin' it an asshole."
Emery squeaks from his spot as he sees the gigantic beam knock Bobby out of the sky. "You /assholes/!" he shouts as he pops up over the broken window. His fingers fly over the keyboard as the laser turrets finish their descent. "Let's see how you like payback, jerks." The turrets, normally controlled by sensors and automatic protocols, don't exactly move as quickly when guided by Emery. Two of them turn and fire shots, catching some of the soldiers who are beating a hasty retreat. "Well, crap. They're running away."
From behind the safe wall, Emery's fingers move quickly. There's a hissing sound from the doorways as gates crash down, sealing the room. "You are so /not/ stealing tech on my watch," Emery calls out. The AIM troopers trapped inside look around in confusion, the ones carrying the crate between them backing into a corner. Emery turns his efforts to hacking the giant walking gun next. "Oh, they're clever. This one might actually take some effort. Genesis, you take the lasers and keep those guys pinned near the doors." That done, Emery begins to pick apart the code controlling the weapon.
Emery overhears Lester talking about blowing it up. "Yeah, I guess blowing it up works, too." Such a shame, but it /is/ trying to kill them. There's a sudden sizzling sound, and some sparks erupt from the walking gun. "It's stuck, I've got it stuck for a bit, but it won't hold!" he calls out. Hopefully they can work with that.
"Who you got with you over there, Tats?" Bobby calls out. "You need that thing facing you? I mean I can help with that if that's the plan." Without really waiting to see if that is the plan or discussing the plan, Bobby leaps into action. Drawing on the moisture in the room as the doors come slamming down, he covers himself again in his ice form. Then it hits him, he knows that other voice, "Plucky is that you?" he asks believe he heard Emery's voice.
Once he's encased, Bobby quickly jumps onto his ice slide and draws the fire of the walking, heat-ray firing automaton. "Okay only AIM would make something like that walk," he says as he dodges a few large blasts of intense energy. One of them instantly melts a section of his slide as he narrowly dodges it. "Whatever you're gonna do, get ready!" Without the ability to explain, he throws a hand out towards the large aperture on the walking ray of death, giving him a moment of clear movement. He uses the opportunity to throw up a wall right in front of the firing beam and glide over to hover above and behind Daken. Looking down he waves, "Oh yeah, it's firing this way next." As if on cue, the sound of whirling is heard as the beam locks on to Bobby, firing that wide photon beam at him. Being ready for it, he uses his ice blast to propel himself upwards. However, the technological killer is now facing Daken and has melted away the ice shield that had been in front of it, giving a clear shot for whoever is going to do something.
"No, don't blow it up! I need those insides intact." Daken waves a hand frantically at Lester, but glances over at where Iceman landed. "I'll be back. Hold down our point."
With that, Daken vaults himself out from behind cover, and it's nothing short of a marvel that he isn't hit at least once by the flying shots coming in his direction. But it is fairly noted that the AIM forces are retreating, for the most part, or starting to. He's very spry and good at moving in ways that no one would expect, even managing something like a cartwheel in the middle of it all, which looks strange, to be sure, with the way he looks at the moment. He's not expressing his youthful ebullience.
But just as Bobby leaps out, Daken gets to the ruined shelving where he'd just been and looks mildly perturbed. It's just a little, and only for a moment, but he smirks and shakes his head at Bobby. Icemen gonna ice. Which leaves him right there to deal with the thing, and Bobby flying somewhere overhead.
"Guess it's just you and me, big boy." Daken doesn't expect the tripod cannon to reply, and it does not. This is one of the less fun AIM inventions. It just focuses and opens fire, which makes Daken have to do a lot of his impressive moves that show off his muscles and that other thing of being really good at surviving intense fighting essentially unarmed. Thankfully, Emery's help has slowed it down and made it less accurate. And Daken...he's got a great healing factor, so even if he does get hit, he'll just need some rest to recover. Probably. It's better, in his mind, that this isn't anyone else here. Especially not Lester. Daken would go as berserk as his father if something bad happened to Lester because of these clowns.
Though they aren't anything to sneeze at. They may be goofy and nerdy in some ways, but they're also extremely intelligent and extremely dangerous. Daken knows better than to fail to take AIM seriously. That could cost him significantly.
"But I like blowing shit up," Lester complains as Daken interrupts his great plan. "And it was just gonna be a little bit." He sighs, and thumbs the switch that aborts the grenade's arming sequence, and tucks it back in his backpack. "Fuckin' nerds. Ruinin' my fuckin' day, and I can't even blow 'em up." He snorts. "Fuck -that-."
He comes up, then, seemingly oblivious to the inherent danger as he starts dropping AIM agents left and right -- for about as long as it takes Daken to reach the tripod. Then his gunfire is strictly to keep it off of the mutant as he works. The look on his face is determined, even as a laser creases his left shoulder, leaving a scorch mark on the kevlar. His look turns dark as he rolls that shoulder, and he lifts his gun and drops three more as he calls to Emery. "Egg! You got any other magic geek shit to do, now's the fuckin' time!"
Emery pops his head back up, surveying the scene. Some of the AIM men are trying to shoot the laser turrets at the ceiling. They manage to knock one of the turrets out of commission, but that still leaves three to keep them penned in. "Yes, it's me!" Emery calls back to Bobby from where he's standing. "Ohmygod that thing looks super dangerous. Don't get hurt!" he calls out, a note of panic in his voice. "Ugh. Genesis, can you hack that thing better than I can?" From the gauntlet, a fluid female voice responds "It seems its protocols are more advanced than anything I've encountered before. It's adapting to and resisting most of my normal techniques." Emery sighs and rubs his hand over his face. "Fuck my life," he grumbles.
Emery stays safely in the room, even though part of that safety is nullified by the fact that he's standing up in front of a broken window. Still, his lower half is safe, right? As he brings the gauntlet up, he hears Lester call out to him. "I'm /trying/!" he shouts back. As his fingers fly over the transparent keys, he takes manual control of one of the lasers. "Get back, guys! I'm gonna try to cripple it." The warning given, he uses his control to manually aim the laser at the tripod-weapon, shooting beams at the muzzle to slice the end off.
When Daken goes over to where he just left, moving like only Daken can move, Bobby turns back to see Emery standing there like there aren't criss-crossing beams of doom lighting up the factory floor like a disco, "Watch yourself, Plucky. You owe me a drink sometime!" When he sees what Emery is up to, Bobby jumps up on a machine that looks like it might produce sheets of stamped metal in order to get a better look. There are still AIM soldiers firing at the bald guy shooting back. "Making you a hole there, Spot," he says as he notices the concentric circles on the guy's mask. Then Bobby brings both his hands together, fists facing each other and creates a large ice fist about the size of four grown men. It slams forward in front of Lester, knocking aside about a half dozen soldiers to give him room to maneuver or get a better position.
"I'll keep it still for you," he calls back to Emery and then a flutter of ice crystals start to for around the tripod-weapon. He knows it won't hold as that thing is hot but it. might give Emery a few extra seconds and allow Daken a chance to do what he does best...get up close and personal.
There's so much going on that Daken can only concentrate on what he's doing, which is distraction tactics on that giant walky cannon that's trying to blow a hole in him, or anyone else it can get a bead on. Fortunately for Daken and his allies, the mutant is too fast and too skilled, and he hasn't been hit...yet. He's pretty sure it's going to just be a matter of time, unfortunately, and he's hoping that Lester or Emery or someone can manage to get this done before that happens.
"Now is definitely the time!" Daken calls out, and it's shortly after that he has to leap out of the way of another particularly massive blast from the thing. It's a good thing that it's comparatively slow, but it's catching up. Things are getting much more dangerous than they even were a few seconds before. It keeps getting closer to hitting him.
Thankfully, the ice buys them all a few seconds of breathing easier than they just were. The floor is littered with KOed AIM operatives, and few are left to actually fire at the heroes, just as thankfully. They're concentrating on getting out with their prize, more than they're worried about taking down heroes.
"-Spot-?!?" Lester's anger at the nerds in front of him is gone in the indignant reaction that nickname evokes in him. AIM agents are still going down, but Lester is clearly distracted. "I'm fuckin' Bullseye. The Spot is a goddamned loser. You ever see all those holes on his body?" He slaps a hand against his belly, taking out four more agents. "Does this look like it's full of fucking -holes-?" His gun briefly catches Bobby in its sight, and the ex-assassin takes a long moment before reminding himself about that 'ex' in his job title, and then it's gone, back to picking off the last few remaining.
Emery's response gets an annoyed grunt, and when Daken almost gets friend, there's an audible grinding of Lester's teeth. Clearly, the thing is -begging- to be blown up.
Emery, working his magic on his gauntlet, cheers in triumph as one of the laser beams from the turrets connects, slicing a hole into the end of the monstrosity. Another follows, and another, accurate fire separating the tip of the gun from the rest of it. Another laser beam catches the thing's leg, causing it to stagger and slip down on one side.
Just then, the AIM operatives manage to shoot out the laser in the ceiling. "Dammit," Emery curses. "I'm running out of turrets," he grumbles as the remaining two continue to fire at the AIM dudes. He giggles at Lester's reaction to the nickname, though. "It can't shoot anymore, take it out!" he calls out to the others. True to his word, the device seems to be struggling to fire as the laser beams have cauterized the opening of its gun.
Bobby can't help but smile at the reaction to his nickname, "Well, that had the intended effect," he quips, not seeming to mind the tirade though he does get tense when the sight is aimed at him for a brief moment. When Emery's handiwork knocks the turret down, Bobby sprays a heavy coating of ice on the thing to make it brittle for Daken's eventual attack upon it. Then he sees a group of AIM soldiers heading for the door with the crate. "I take it them getting away with that isn't good?"
Before an answer comes, Bobby rushes to take some cover behind a large metal cabinet and then starts flinging icicle-like projectiles at the doors to keep them shut. What he didn't count on was the high each looking flame throwing that one of the AIM operatives changes his laser rifle into with a couple button presses. The flames start to melt the ice bolts holding the doors closed as Bobby keeps sending more. "Can you take out that thrower?" he calls over to self-declared Not-Spot.
"Yeah, probably not good if they came here to get it." Daken calls back to Bobby, as he crawls all over the thing, trying to figure out where he can deactivate it safely. "Emery! Get this thing powered down. Without damaging it any more than you have to, if you don't mind!"
Even if the robotic weapon seems to be less than powerful at the moment, it is still made of metal, and it would still hurt if it used itself as a blunt object against Daken or anyone else. Fortunately, the others have damaged it so much that it's amazing the thing is still moving.
The discussion about a nickname for Lester, though, makes Daken grin just a little, despite himself. Oh, you have got your hands full with that one, popsicle.
Lester has nothing but hard looks for the young mutant as he reaches for his last clip. "Yeah, smirk it up," he mutters under his breath, and just like that two of the remaining agents go down like sodden heaps. Just in case the ice guy has any questions about anything.
But there's still a murderous tripod walking around, and that needs to be dealt with. Not that his guns and night-night bullets will do much against it. He sighs, and tries not to think about the thermite grenade in his pocket. It would be just that easy...but that would damage Daken, and healing factor or no, that's not something he's willing to do (right now).
Emery sighs as he sees the AIM troops trying to haul the crate off. "Dammit, I thought I told you guys this is /not happening/!" Raising one of his hands, he closes his eyes and -pushes- with his mind. The two men holding the crate are shoved by a wall of telekinetic force, causing them to lose their balance. They drop the crate, but Emery's already shifted his focus to the crate. It levitates in the air shakily as it drops to the ground, Emery gritting his teeth and straining with the effort so it doesn't crash down.
Emery leans against the wall, looking quite worn out from exerting that degree of telekinetic force. "Genesis," he mutters. "You're on the last two lasers. Cover fire." Bringing his gauntlet up, his movements are slower than before. But he manages to cause another short-circuit in the mobile gun, this time causing it to stop completely and twitch twice before sagging down. "Thank fuck," he mutters as he drops his hands, the holographic keyboard disappearing. He's completely spent and slides down the wall, sitting down cross-legged.
With the agents down except for the killer tripod, Bobby looks to the crate and has an urge to go see what's so important to AIM that they sent so many reinforcements to retrieve. However, seeing Emery collapse to the ground stirs the protective side of him and he glides quickly over to where the young man has slid to the ground. "Damn, Plucky, you've gotten some upgrades since I saw you last." He reaches down and wraps his arm around Emery's waist and helps him stand, taking the bulk of the weight against himself. The ice is cool to the touch but slowly melts away leaving Bobby's skin much warmer, though still a touch cooler than normal body temperature.
"I think Daken's make short work of that Killer Laser Tag Bot. Any idea what they were after?" he asks, assuming Emery or one of the others might know since they seemed to be here ahead of it or right afterwards.
The thing does power down, once Daken finds the right place. He's mostly going by intuition, but it's okay because it works. He does it, and then they're all out of danger. The remaining AIM troops seem to have escaped, but that's fine. They have plenty of others around who probably won't talk either...but they also have this huge robot that Daken is totally going to have Emery hack into. Maybe make it an ally. He always did like Star Wars.
"Hey, is he okay?" Daken calls to Bobby, before slinking down off the thing and dashing over to Lester. In a sweeping move, he does the thing that usually only happens in movies, where one person picks up another one, spins them around, and then dipsmooches. If only he had appropriately triumphant music around him.
Once Daken breaks the kiss, he grins almost apologetically to Lester. "Thank you."
When the Egg goes down, whoever is left standing on AIM's part is no longer, as Lester just takes out any remaining annoyances. He watches Bobby carefully as the mutant collects the kid, and he starts in that direction.
Then there is Daken. And that kiss, and the cartoon exclamation point that is assuredly hovering above Lester's head as he's kissed. At least at first. Then he just relaxes into it, enjoying the sensation of his partner's mouth on his. And then, just like that, he's back on his feet.
Daken's apologetic thank-you gets a rough (well, it looks rough from the outside) shove from Lester, who scowls deeply. "Keep it in your pants, ya perv." (It'd sound more forceful, probably, if he had any breath in his lungs.)
Emery is too exhausted to explain himself to Bobby, so he just shakes his head faintly at Bobby's question. "No clue, but whatever it is, we can't leave it here. I'm sure the guys will know where to take it. Somewhere secure, that is." He leans on Bobby for support, clearly his stamina has reached its limit and the adrenaline he was running on is gone. "I don't have the energy to go back to Sky High. M'gonna just crash at their place." He raises his voice slightly to call out to Daken and Lester. "Guys. I'm taking the couch tonight. K? Thanks." Emery's made up his mind, it seems. His head tilts and rests on Bobby's shoulder. He's not passed out, yet, but getting there.
Bobby nods to Emery, "Sure thing, kid." Then he looks between Lester and Daken then back to Emery. A smirk plays across his lips "Well, guess that'll be a fun pajama party." With a small grunt, he lifts Emery up into his arms, clearly able to carry the smaller teen without too much trouble. "Haven't seen you in a while, Tats, looks like you're doing good for yourself." he says, nodding to the powerful looking man who had just enjoyed a shared kiss. ."I'm Bobby. Bobby Drake. Iceman," he says then laughs "Or Popsicle to some."
Helpfully, gently but firmly, Daken helps put Lester upright and pats his chest. He doesn't say anything further about it, but he figures he's said enough with what he's done, as much as what he's said during the whole fight.
To Emery, he turns and waves a hand. "That's fine. Oh, uh, Bobby...this is Lester, he's my..." A sheepish grin comes to his face, and Daken then looks to Lester to complete the thought. He doesn't want to make the man uncomfortable, after all.
"Boyfriend," Lester says, his expression hard for the mutant, as if challenging the kid to make a joke about it. "You can call me Bullseye, though. Not," he says, leaning in and giving Bobby a hard narrowing of his eyes, "the fucking Spot." There's a definite edge to his voice, although he offers a hard slash of an almost-smile as he straightens back up.
That settled, he motions to the nearly-unconscious Emery. "We'd better get him back home," he says in an annoyed tone. "I'll fuckin' call Mister High-and-fuckin'-Mighty to send a team to move this for us." He frowns. "He fuckin' owes us that much. Coast fuckin' City." He growls, and goes to retrieve his backpack and, presumably his phone. "My -ass-."