MNTW: Hey everybody I'm so sorry I haven't updated in forever I have the biggest case of writer's block
Logan: Then why are you starting something new?
MNTW: This one is actually rather long in the book I'm writing it in. I'm hoping if I work on something fresh I'll get some inspiration for the others.
Adam: Well it's an idea.
MNTW: Thank you.
Marie: MegamanNTWarrior doesn't own X Men or Godsend.
MNTW: This is set three months after X Men the Last Stand, but Rogue hasn't taken the cure and has broken up with Bobby. It's slightly AU because no one has died because there aren't enough teachers other wise.
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"Mommy, Mommy! Look what Uncle Richard gave me." A small brown haired boy came running into the large kitchen where his mother was sorting through a set of prints. He slid a pamphlet onto her lap. "It's a summer camp. Can I go? Please?"
"I don't know, Adam. It looks pretty far away." Jessie Duncan looked sternly over the paper at her son, but quailed under the boy's pleading gaze. "I'll talk to your father when he gets home."
"Thank you, Mommy!"
''''''''''
"What do you mean, Richard suggested it? I don't want him going anywhere that man has set up."
"He doesn't own it, a Mr. Charles Xavier does. I did some research on that computer of yours. He has an impeccable record, runs a school, and works with a number of children Adam's age."
"I don't think I like it. He's too close to where we used to live. What if he finds out?"
"He won't find out. He'd meet new people and there are so many things to keep him busy."
"I don't know, Jessie, what if something happened? We're so far away."
"They have a trained medical staff on site. Come on, Paul, he really wants to go. Sometimes I feel that Riverton is suffocating him. It's nice here, but Adam needs some space. He's never been away from home for even a night before."
"Fine, call them, sign him up."
''''''''''
Three months later, it was the last day in June. They could hardly contain Adam's excitement. "All packed for tomorrow, honey?" Jessie asked as she tucked him into bed that night.
"Yep."
"Try and get some sleep okay?" Jessie laughed, kissing her son on his forehead. "You don't want to be tired our first day at camp."
"I'll see you in the morning, Mommy."
"Sweet dreams, darling." Jessie said sweetly, turning off his top light leaving just his night light on and gently shutting his door. "Oh, Paul, he's growing up so fast. It's hard to believe that he'll be nine in three months." She sighed as she flopped on the couch beside her husband. "Remember Richard saying things might change after his birthday."
"Yeah, it's good we haven't hit that yet, if we're going to."
"Exactly." She said lying down, her head in his lap. "I still worry though, that something is going to happen, that we're going to lose him again."
"So do I, Jess, so do I."
''''''''''
"Okay, your turn, Adam." Jessie said smiling at the boy in the back seat of their mini-van. It was a three hour drive to the camp and they were taking turns making up games to keep Adam from getting too bored.
"Well...I'm going on a picnic," Adam said after a little while of thinking. "and I'm going to bring an ant, a bagel, a croissant, a ding dong..."
"Like you?" Jessie asked playfully laughing.
"Mom!" Adam scolded also laughing and gently hit the back of her seat. "A ding dong...umm..."
"Hey kiddo, look where we are." Paul said distracting him once again from his list, and pointing to an arch that had the words "Xavier's; Working Towards a Peaceful Future" in large white letters.
"We're here!" Adam said gleefully, quickly getting out of the car after his father had stopped it.
"Would you calm down kid?" Paul asked, shaking his head at the boy's antics.
"He's just excited, Paul." Jessie said handing Adam his orange and black duffle bag. "It's not too heavy for you is it?"
"Nope." Adam said, hugging her around the waist. "I love you, Mommy."
"I love you too. Stay safe okay?" Jessie said ruffling his dark brown hair. "If you change your mind we can come and get you."
"Bye Mommy, bye Daddy."
"Adam watch out!" He twisted around, the heavy bag over compensating causing him to fall over a rock, as a car screeched to a halt inches from him. "ADAM!"
"Logan!" A girl in the back seat scolded the driver as he roughly got out and bent over Adam.
"You okay kid?" The man, Logan, asked as he picked the smaller boy up by the waist and set him on the hood of his car. "Anything hurt?"
"Just my ankle."
"Let's see it then." He carefully balanced Adam's foot on his knee, gently pressing around his ankle, when Jessie and Paul came running up.
"What have I told you about not paying attention when you're on the road?" Paul shouted. Jessie looked like she'd never speak again. "You could have been killed!"
"Whoa! Rewind and slow down. One: I wasn't paying attention and it's my fault, two: I think you should really thank Miss Marie for stopping the car, and three: what kind of parent yells at their kid for nearly getting run over?" The Duncans looked at him in stunned silence after his speech as he turned away from them.
Adam was still sitting on Logan's car, now talking to the girl from the car and another boy who had just come over. He had the same bright hazel eyes as Adam, his hair seemed to have been recently been cut off, it was just growing back and he was dressed in all white.
"Jimmy you're back good. There's no way Jean isn't going to yell at me for this so I'm going to make it into a lesson." Logan said, pulling a large first aid kit from his trunk.
"Professor?"
"Are you trained to give a lesson on first aid?" Jessie cut in quickly.
"Logan spends most of his free time in the hospital wing." Marie said, pushing her white streaked brown hair out of her face and carefully helped Adam out of his show and sock. "Don't we wrap it? So Adam can't accidentally make it worse?"
"You do that first and by tomorrow it'll be so swollen he won't be able to use it for a week." Jimmy said somewhat cheekily, earning a laugh from Adam and a playful smack from Marie. "What stops swelling?"
"I don't know! Bobby!" Marie said frustrated, her sentence completely cracking Logan up.
"Yes, now why does Bobby stop swelling?" The older man prompted, nudging the kit towards her.
"Bobby stops swelling because he's Bobby! I don't see what that has to do with anything...Not a word, not a word from any of you." Marie growled, glaring at them as she snatched a silver thermos from the first aid kit. She drenched a strip of cloth with the liquid inside it. "Stay still, okay?"
"It won't hurt will it?" Adam asked apprehensively and he gasped when she pressed it to his ankle. "It's cold!"
"Cold stops the swelling. That's the conclusion they wanted me to get to."
"Who's Bobby?"
"Adam you shouldn't pry." Jessie hissed. "It's not polite."
"I don't mind." Marie insisted, pulling the bandage tight and laughing a little when Adam squirmed as the cold liquid dripped off his toes. "He's my ex-boyfriend. He can lower his body temperature to absolute zero. He's a mutant, like us."
"You three are mutants?" Jessie asked in a somewhat choked voice.
"Yes, most everyone here is. Professor Logan has an adamantium skeleton and can heal many times faster than any normal human. I absorb the life force of anyone I come into contact with, usually resulting in a vegetative state." She paused to let the information sink in, watching out of the corner of her eye as Paul went three shades paler and Jessie began to turn green. "Though anyone within eight feet of Jimmy gets their powers negated until they leave."
"That stuff smells awful. Are you sure it's safe?" Jessie asked.
"It's just calcium and water."
"That way we can use it as an ice pack. The calcium stops the water from freezing at below zero temperatures." Logan explained as a man wearing a camp shirt walked up to them.
"Names?"
"Adam Duncan."
"James Bright."
"Cabin three, boys." The man said handing then both a map and disappearing back into the crowd.
"I guess we'll see you in two months, okay honey. Be careful."
"Don't worry Mrs. Duncan I won't let him get run over by anything else." Jimmy promised, throwing Adam's arm over his shoulders to help him walk.
"Have fun darling I'll see you when you get back." Marie said sweetly, gently kissing Jimmy on the lips and sliding back into Logan's black mustang.
"Bye."
''''''''''
"So you and Marie." It was less of a question and more of teasing statement. They had only known each other for about twenty minutes but Adam and Jimmy had become fast friends. Jimmy had been living at the Xavier Institute since the attack on Alcatraz three months ago, and had lived in a laboratory before then. Having never been away from home for more than a day before now, Adam was fascinated by Jimmy's boarding school.
"We're fond of each other." Jimmy said, pushing so of his clothes into a side drawer. "With her power I'm the only one she can really be close to."
"That seems a little...backwards to me." Adam said slowly.
"Think about it like an arranged marriage." Jimmy said hopping onto Adam's bad to sit beside him. "What's your home like?"
"Well I live with my mum and dad in this really little town in the middle of nowhere. My mum's old science teacher is my doctor." Adam said leaning back on his bed. "What grade are you in?"
"We don't exactly have grades. Everyone goes to the same classes. The teachers give the lessons in way that everybody understands." Jimmy explained. "For example, advanced physics and aerodynamics sounds intimidating but it really isn't when your teacher has wings to use as a visual aid. Everyone is really nice and if you really don't get something there's always extra help. We're all each other has really...Most people have been kicked out by their parents or run away because they don't want to hurt the people close to them."
"Boys dinner!"
"Coming."
''''''''''
"Are you feeling okay? You're not eating much." Adam asked in-between bites of his dinner. "You haven't touched your chicken."
"I'm a vegetarian actually. The amino acids did something strange to the test results at Alcatraz so they too me off meat." Jimmy explained. "I've never tried to eat it again." He looked at Adam for a moment thoughtfully.
"Adam, do you think we look alike?"
"No." Adam laughed. "You're four years older than me."
"So?"
"I have hair."
"Very funny. You know what I mean."
"Okay yes, we do look alike. Why bring it up?"
"Well you've never been away from home for school and I've never known what a family is like."
"You're saying we should switch? You be me and me be you? Do you think we could pull it off?"
"Exactly. No one would know. We could come back here next year and switch back. We're already a lot alike. Do you want to?"
"Yeah."
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