Brotherhood: Getting Up Again
by IronRaven, BabyBeaver editor/betareader.
Still need to tell the stories of three- but this is Fred Dukes, a little more grown up, a little calmer...
-bh
They were officially called something else, but they still called themselves the Brotherhood. Fred had worried that would change, but even with John and everything else they were still them. They'd gotten better, though. Unlike the old house, the water always worked, they didn't get nasty letters from the power company, they weren't broke all the time.
Fred leaned back against the wall, his bare feet up on the bed. He grinned as he wiggled his toes- they'd been in boots for a week. Felt good to have them out in the air and to be on his bed again. A real bed, not a squished mattress on the floor.. He was scared of most beds- they couldn't take his weight very well. Or chairs. At least here, he wasn't too big for everything.
It hasn't been a completely smooth transition, the first few days of actually being part of SHIELD had been a little rocky. Todd hated the spit and polish most of the time, and Pietro was, well, still Pietro. John had had to learn the hard way not to laugh at the Blob. The Colonel and Lance had both been angry with him about that. Lance had yelled at him a little, but not too much. He knew it could have been worse, the dryer could have been in Pyro, rather than the other way around. Fred hadn't even turned it on, he just tipped it over so it was on the door and walked away.
-bh
Lance and Fury had found him on a grassy training field. The Colonel had been really, really mad. He hadn't yelled at all, but he said things about trusting your teammates and he was no good to the team if he couldn't get his temper under control. Fury had told him he'd be a danger to the whole team if one little comment could make him blow his cool like that. How Fred had to be the big man, the team was counting on him.
"I don't like being laughed at." Fred didn't want to blow it. This was their big break.
"They won't be laughing at just you; you'll make the whole team into a joke." Fury pushed him a little. Not much, he'd had a lot worse in lunch lines. "They'll be laughing at your friends, Freddy." The Colonel pushed again.
"Don't laugh at us!" Fred looked at Lance, who was watching, a sad expression on his face. He knew the last of the cash had been spent, it was this or the street. "Lance... tell him to stop, I don't want to hurt him." Fred looked back at the old man. He felt his fist clench at the sight of the smug smile. "STOP IT!"
"Or what?"
Fred swung. Fury danced back, out of the way, spitting out his toothpick. Old guy was fast. Why wasn't Lance helping him; a part of Fred's mind knew it was because this was wrong. The rest of him didn't care. Fred swung, never connecting, until he was worn out. The last punch, Fury caught his hand, and did something too fast for Fred to see. Then Fred was face down, spread eagle on the ground.
"Shh..." It was Lance."It's ok, Fred. You're ok. Can you sit up?"
Fred felt Fury's hand on his shoulder. "Freddy, roll over, sit up. We need to talk."
Fred shook his head. He remembered the times when he was little. When he'd swung on his father. He got whupped afterwards. That had changed after Fred was big enough to whup back. He didn't want to get up, he was going to get beat now. He clenched his jaw- he'd never cried. "Nnooo."
"Fred, come on man, sit up. I want to see your face." Lance ran his fingers over his giant teammate's mohawk. "No one is going to hurt you."
"Promise?"
"Have I ever lied to you before? Come on."
Lance hadn't lied to him. Well, there was the time about what he was doing in his room with Tabby while he was dating Kitty, but everyone knew the truth about that except maybe Kitty and Amara. Fred sat up. There was a third guy there now.
Lance gently brushed the grass and dirt from Freddy's shirt. "Remember when I said you were going to get help? One of those things needs to be your temper, man, or you'll get us all killed. We're going to help you, but you have to let us."
The Colonel held out his hand to Fred. "You almost got me, son. If you'd connected, I'd be going to the hospital or the morgue- but you got mad, you let your anger think for you. If you learn how to care of that temper of yours, nobody gonna be able to beat you again."
Fred took the offered hand, accepting the help getting up. "Are you mad at me Colonel?"
"Not really- I've wanted to do something like that with Pietro for a while. Just don't make a habit of it."
The third man stepped forward. He was about as average looking as it got, average height, brown hair, brown eyes, with a little bit a paunch- that made him stand out in a SHIELD facility. "Mr Dukes? I'm Doctor Trout, I'd like to help you if you'll let me."
"Uh... Call me Fred." He grinned a little- it was a funny name.
The Doctor smiled back. "It's ok, I'm pretty sure I've heard all the jokes, but you can try make a new one."
-bh
The Doctor had worked with all of them, but mostly him and Wanda. As Fred learned to keep his temper and frustration under control, he didn't feel as stupid as he usually did. He still had a hard time reading, it was his dis.. dis.. Fred could never really remember the word, but he could read if took his time and sounded it out. His parents had been happy when he could sign his own name and read basic directions, he didn't need to know more, that was what they'd told him. Math was a problem to, but not the same way. He WASN'T stupid, he just hadn't had a lot of schooling, and he'd never learned to beat his worst enemy: himself.
He reached over, taking his ID case from the nightstand. It was heavy in his hand while he slid out the the ID and the computer data card. He laid them on his belly next to the golden badge. The ID card wasn't just a get out of jail card the way some of them used it; it meant he could go anywhere and when he spoke, people usually wanted to listen. He wasn't fully aware of what doors it would open, none of them were; it was like a new mutant power. He didn't wear the combat uniform of the tactical operatives, or the tailored black and grey of the SHEILD field agents. The wore what they wanted, that went with the "Special Agent" on his badge. So did the dangers.
Not bad for a boy who grew up in a trailer that wasn't worth what his badge was if it was melted down. Who had been told to be big and strong, because he'd never be smart. He'd figured he'd end up like his father if he was lucky, a meat cutter in a slaughter house. The man who brought meat home from work; it wasn't until he was almost twelve before he realized his father worked where they made dog food, and he only in the last few year realized that the meat hadn't been fit for dog food. The man came home, and got drunk, every night. His mother hadn't been any more sober. They'd get drunk and fight and scream and hit each other. And sometimes they'd laugh at him when he screwed something up, or when he'd tried to run away from getting hit.
On the wall beside his bed was his brand new GED certificate. He and Todd both, the same day. Lance had made a big deal about it. It wasn't the same as a diploma, but it was better than his parents and uncles and aunts had ever done. Further than most of the people in the town he grew up in. He hadn't been back in years; he probably never would go back.
He slide a picture of his real family from his badge case, unfolding it. He often did this, spreading his life out and looking at it. He didn't know it when the picture was taken, but he thought of them as family now even if they didn't all get along all the time. He hadn't seen some of them for a while; he missed them.
There was a noise from the common room, the bang of the door opening and the thud of a body falling on the floor, then John's voice. "Eh, Pietro... Crikey, you smell like a cat house. And rum. Can you walk?"
Fred slid the objects off his stomach and onto his bed, before he left his room. He opened the door in time to hear Pietro slur something drunkenly that only Pyro heard clearly. John got under Quicksilver's arm. "Alright, upsie daisy, nice and slow mate."
Fred heard Wanda's door slam close, looking at it instinctively. She didn't like talking to her brother when he was like this. As a result, Fred was looking away when John shrieked shrilly.
"What the hell! Pietro, you dopey bastard! Why'd you kiss me?"
"Cause... Got a sexy voice." Pietro giggled on the carpet when John dropped him.
Fred knew how to deal with this- stuff Pietro in the shower, clothes and all, and turn on the cold water. Let it run until the water stopped, or the swearing did. He'd check every few moments, make sure their speedster wasn't drowning. But he could get his own coffee.
The picture of family wasn't of a west Texas trailer park that had seen better forms of poverty and despair. There was no rusty old pickup in six colors of primer and none of paint, no dead grass and sunbaked dirt. It was green moss on grey stone, with a blue sky behind them. The only shame was that Wanda hadn't joined them yet when it was taken, she was part of his family to. It was his copy of the picture from the top of Mt Humiliation at Camp Ironback, the Brotherhood and the X-men having raced each other to the top, before they fought Juggernaut to a stand still.
Author's notes:
I see Fred as being just a whisker under average IQ, probably somewhere in the mid-to-high-90s, with some moderate to significant learning disabilities tied to and aggravated by, but not necessarily caused by, fetal alcohol syndrome, physical and mental abuse, a failure to provide him with compensatory strategies to get over and around those issues, and paint chips. But because he couldn't beat his frustration level, he just quit trying.
And you can learn to beat some of it. The FAS issues will be for life, that's why he's a little duller than normal. The other disabilities though, yeah, it can be done. I have dyscalculia- think of it as dyslexia for numbers- to go along with my dual engineering degrees with a minor in math. My brother has significant dyslexia, and he writes as well- he gets paid for it, actually. We both have stutters, and we both are very good public speakers with serious radio and crowd control voices BECUASE of the training to make our mouths obey. There is a lot of hope for Freddy- it's amazing how many Senators, Representatives and Members of Parliament are probably running around with IQs in the low-90s. Give him 30 years, and he'll be a high ranked man in SHEILD, and not just because he's known the director of that era since high school.
And yes, the Colonel is a fan of classic war movies. If this was being done for the screen 40 years ago, I'd have cast Lee Marvin for Fury in a heartbeat.