Disclaimer: in which Skins, X-Men, and Taylor Swift's high school romance stories melted into one...
He remembered the first time he met Alex Summers.
Temperate summer morning. He had groaned and tossed in his bed, irritated that his mother had drawn the curtains too early for the sunlight to rouse him from sleep. He drowsily pulled himself up from his soft bedsheets and stumbled downstairs towards the kitchen, where Mom was already waiting.
They were alone. Just him and her. He didn't have a father, but he wasn't too stuck on that. She never made it a big deal, and so he never thought it was. They separated when he was too young to understand the meaning of divorce itself. They ended up here, a house Mom had put in half her earnings (and he later found out some years of her working life) for. Their lives went on, normal and mundane, if he were to recall. He was Mommy's good boy, and he didn't feel like he missed anything.
Until there was school. He shook hands gingerly with potential friends the first day Mom took him to the nearby public elementary school. They seemed to warm up to him, those kids his age. In the hallway next to his classroom, he grinned in reply to one Drew Thomas's smile, already anticipating recess time when they could go out and play. Then the teacher walked in. She was a petite, sweet brunette, with a pleasant face and delicate voice. He could picture her in his head now, calling off names and ticking off boxes with her yellow pencil. There were butterflies in his stomach when he raised his hand up to confirm his presence. It was something to be about other kids for the first time. Something to put his name out there.
They started learning. He got through the basics—multiplication tables, simple math problems just fine, and was answering questions almost (because there was that one boy who had an unspoken hand-raising competition going on against him) every time the teacher challenged the class for an answer. Gradually he realized she was focused on him, called him back "to have a little chat," during recess, and began giving him tests, which were basically sheets of papers with problems. He did them without much difficulty, and he was surprised to see shock on her face.
A heaviness sunk in his stomach. She wasn't pleased.
He rubbed his right thumb against his index finger nervously, eyes cast down to the wooden floor of the classroom, avoiding her stare. "Did I do something wrong?"
His voice was cracking, his face heated. His breath caught, and he was sure he was dangerously close to tears.
It was his turn to be shocked. He felt her tender hand touching his cheek (he hated his cheeks then). "No, Hank, no," her tone, coaxing and calm, raised questions in him, "You've done nothing wrong, darling. You are, in fact, a very, very special boy."
He was pretty sure his mouth dropped open on its own accord when he blinked and lifted his eyes up.
Special. No one had ever said that about him before.
After that scene, his childhood passed by at a dizzying speed (he missed his supposedly first slumber party). He was christened "Child prodigy," and enrolled into gifted and accelerated classes. Friends started to desert and shun him, as "genius," the word Mom whispered, her face lit up in delight before she kissed him goodnight, doubled as both an insult and term of abuse. The press made itself his house's primary uninvited guest, and before long, he was sitting exams with "the big ones," middleschoolers twice his size. He found science and math to be fascinating and put his heart, his passion into fueling his studies. He was happy, he was excited to be exposed to so much in so little time, but when he trotted home and put his messenger bag (Mom insisted on getting him one once he stepped into the middle school) on the kitchen counter, he couldn't deny that there was something missing.
He watched boys played across the street, his face plastered to the window, eyes following them with longing.
No one wanted anything to do with him.
He was just a strange, quiet boy who (other than being absurdly intelligent for his age) kept to himself. He lost his connection with his 'friends,' the moment he stepped into the principal's office and his first teacher announced 'the good news.' He was sitting alone at lunch because the middle schoolers narrowed their eyes at him and whispered behind his back, some surely jealous of the 8-year-old marching their halls.
He was different.
He spent his free time in the mini lab that was his bedroom and invented ways to entertain himself.
But it was incomplete.
So he broke down one day and, sobbing, asked Mom that he be back in the class with boys his age. He needed to catch up on the humanities and the arts, he reasoned (because while he could get by in middle school, English wasn't exactly his forte), and… told her about his loneliness.
She took him in her arms and smoothed his hair. It was agreed that he would continue taking middle school science and math courses while attending the elementary school. (By the time Hank was in high school, he was knee-deep in university level sciences.)
Despite the mess of paperwork they had to go through, nothing changed. He did well in his classes, as he expected, but he remained helpless in the friends department.
Then a moving truck pulled up on the lane next to his house that morning. A family stepped out of the car in front of the truck. His heart leaped when he saw a little boy about his age clinging to his mother.
He glanced at Mom for approval.
"Go ahead, say hi to them for me," she nodded, "I'll bake them a welcoming present."
A wave of enthusiasm rushed through him like the first time his experiment actually worked. Hank ran towards the house next door as fast as his feet could take him.
He stopped when he reached the family, trying to steady his breaths. He was huffing now. (not bad, McCoy.) The family was still in front of the house, admiring the surroundings, he guessed, but the little boy noticed him and turned around to offer his hand.
"Hi," he said, "I'm Alex, Alex Summers."
Hank straightened, his hands off his knees, and that was when he first clasped his eyes on the boy.
Alex had a clear, reassuring voice. He sported short, sandy blonde hair, his blue eyes sparkling with excitement.
He looked at the warm, open smile, and he was pretty sure they could be good friends.
His hand held onto Alex's. "Hi," he replied, suppressing his nervous stutter, "Hank McCoy."
They let go of their hands. Alex looked him up and down, curiosity in his voice. "So you're my new neighbor, then?"
He gave a small laugh. "Yeah, I—I guess I am."
Him being who he was, he knew he could run out of words in the next minute, but it was Alex whose words changed what could have been between them.
"Want to come inside?" he offered, his hand in the direction of his new house, "I've got my Star Trek collection and…"
Hank couldn't stop himself. He burst out, "You watch Star Trek?"
The blonde had a light smirk on his face. (Hank didn't know it then, but it was to become Alex's signature look. With girls, at least.) "Anyone who's cool does. You don't?"
He didn't even know where to begin. "No…are you crazy? I mean, I…" and he followed the boy he had met minutes ago into the house. "I've never met another kid my age who's watching Star Trek."
"You mustn't have been looking."
And just like that. Alex Summers became his one and only best friend (also honorary next door neighbor, which was a titled they later bestowed upon him).
They were close, and though people often questioned why 'the jock,' was best friends with 'the nerd,' Alex never left him. They were different, but they had something in common. Alex thought his intelligence was "cool," and came over some nights to watch marathons of their favorite show together.
Inevitably high school happened, and their friendship was tested on uncharted grounds that extended beyond middle school to unknown boundaries.
It was the drift. The separation. And quite possibly the worst thing that hit him since his genius was discovered.
But he was wrong.
He didn't want to remember the first time he met Tony Stonem.
The memory stubbornly clung to his mind, reminding him of the ketchup sauce he spilled on his white shirt that refused to be washed. Tony was like that. Once you met him, he would make some sort of impression on you that would be impossible to forget.
Unless, of course, if it were your and his father's funeral. Impossible was far from appropriate to capture the situation. Tony scarred him.
It was raining (but it was Britain. It might have been just raining all the time, as he had heard before), not the violent kind that occurred during thunderstorms, but the annoying, pitter-patter kind that was just right so you wouldn't need an umbrella and you could easily catch a cold.
He stepped out of the airport limo, still jet-lagged, before helping his mother out after him. His black patent leather shoes landed on damp grass in front of the cemetery, a soft groan in his throat.
He had flown half way around the world with his parent to pay final respects to another one, whom he had never seen in his life.
This had better end fast.
He barely had adjusted to the atmosphere around him at Bristol's cemetery when a young man approached them.
"Excuse me, Miss McCoy and…"
He was about to fill in his name, though he was too busy fumbling with their suitcases. Mom had turned to face the young man, and the voice accompanying her words were in a tone he had never heard before—sentimental and teary, as if she was reunited with a long lost relative.
"Tony," she whispered, soft and gentle, as she took his cold hand, "Tony. It's you, isn't it?"
The name. The way she said the word, caressing it, puzzled him. Just who was this boy to get his mother all torn up-?
Oh. Oh.
He followed Mom's eyes and it dawned on him.
He could have been looking in the mirror.
'Tony,' was wearing a black suit over his white shirt, his brown hair, several shades darker than his, a shaggy cut (made out to be messy bu stylish, he assumed), his face solemn and eyes red-rimmed. He was about as tall as Hank, yet it was his features that caused uneasiness in him.
The shape of the face, his chin, lips, nose…and those eyes…the mesmerizing blue he thought he had only saw in Mom and him…
There was only one insignificant difference—Tony had 20/20 eyesight.
Oh, and he might have been British. The thick accent was unmistakable.
This couldn't be happening.
"Mom," he caught her arm, his one word demanding a thorough explanation of the young man before them. "Mom, what is this?"
An audible sigh escaped his mother's lips. She took both their hands and initiated an awkward handshake.
"Hank, meet Tony," she said, "Tony, this is Hank. Your twin brother."
The words dropped on him hard. He blinked. "Twin brother, Mom?" he looked at Tony and back at her, "You mean I have a brother whom I never heard of here in England?"
To his surprise, Tony chuckled. "Sorry if this comes across as a bit of a shock. Dad used to tell me about you, I mean, and I used to not believe him. Thought he was just taking a piss. Then you showed up today and—"
"This is crazy," he murmured, as Tony led them to the ceremony.
"This is life, honey," said his mother, tightening her grip on his arm, "We thought this would never happen and we'd be fine, living our separate lives."
"But you never had it in your head to tell me about him?" Incredulity and disbelief was raising his volume against his will.
Tony patted him on the shoulder. He almost flinched. "Calm down, mate, it's just me. Could've been Mum's ex-lover or something, but I'm your twin brother, that's it. Who's going to come live with you."
Live. With.
"What?" It was terrible enough that he was having the epiphany of his life amidst the crying and mourning background of a funeral, yet the revelations that continued to pound on him weren't letting him go.
Another light laugh from Tony. Did this guy think every thing was a joke? (Certainly not.) "It's only natural," he said, voice devoid of sarcasm, "Dad died, you know that, and normally I live with him so…"
Mom nodded when he opened his mouth to ask her the truth.
As they say in Britain, bloody hell.
It was the family reunion to end all reunions (he hoped), not to mention they had an extra person trailing after them at the airport. It was like seeing a doppelganger, moving, walking, talking…
Tony didn't let his life rest on the peaceful note he had been living since then.
At first people had thought Hank had gotten a makeover in Britain, but that was before Tony revealed his true colors. His charisma was bewitching, and girls were falling over themselves trying to go out with him. He quite enjoyed the attention, Hank observed with distaste. Too bad that it wasn't just flirting and seduction he was good at, Tony made it in Hank's honors Literature and History classes. (Now he knew where the missing genes on that side of the family went.) The smartass had mastered lies, manipulation, and perfect sneering.
And Hank had only lived with him for four years. He was in eighth grade when Tony moved in. Senior year was unfolding at the present.
When phones rang, it was never for him. Ditto the doorbells.
Somehow Tony was living the dream Hank couldn't manage—the balance between school and social life, with a few joints smoked in between (Hank found a stash under his bed. Tony didn't deny his claims and simply asked if he wanted some.). Introducing himself in a few words in the video diary for Film Class, Tony had said he had everything he needed right where he was: "friends and a brother to amuse me, girls to fuck me, a parent to feed me."
Bastard.
He adjusted himself living under Tony's shadows just fine because he had university and his research to keep him occupied (as well as late nights' attempts at lame poetry).
He even kept his fragile ties with Alex.
But all of that.
That, which he knew, learned, or remembered, about the two young men in his life whom he never thought paths would cross, was rendered to nothingness last night.
A/N: I was going to write a short introduction about them boys but, um, they didn't leave me alone! :P. Got carried away so hard, guys.
Better yet, the exciting part's coming up! (Can't wait to write it still!)
Thank you to all of you lovely readers, reviewers,
You all rock my life,
Loves,
Your ever humble fanfic writer :)