Chapter Ten
Scott rested his chin in his hand boredly. It had come to him that he was starting down the same path he'd been on at his old school; the path of no homework and abundant tardiness and detention. He shuddered at the thought. After meeting the frightening principal, he didn't want to go through a possible detention with her.
The fact was that he was actually bored with some of his classes. Without realizing it, he was very good at math. He could do the assignments in class after the lecture, and probably start and finish the next chapter's work as well, if he really wanted to. Something about this Geometry business was just very easy for him. He could look at an angle and know by a glance where to bisect it, what degree the angle was, and how to refract it perfectly…and his classmates looked on in jealousy as he never once used the protractor.
It made for more envy, and less friendly looks, but Scott didn't let it bother him. Just walking down the hall and seeing Jean wave and smile was enough for him. He was almost embarrassed at how much he liked her, and he hadn't even known her that long.
He realized he'd been very comfortable with her, ever since they had both come clean and were honest with each other. It had started that day with him trying to drive the car. After that, at seemingly random places in conversation, something serious would be brought up, and both would discuss it plainly, not interrupting each other and not casting judgement; offering sympathy when needed.
He finally knew the whole story of her friend Annie. She had died in a most horrible way, a hit-and-run automobile accident, and Jean had essentially delved into her mind as she died. She'd experienced Annie's life, and she almost thought she had died herself when Annie's mind slipped away. To experience something so powerful and huge when you were twelve years old must have been hard. Since her power had been triggered as a result of a trauma, Jean didn't know its potential.
Scott had finally, in return, told her about his brother. The plane crash and what his life had been like up until now. To have opened up to her like that was a big step, and she seemed to know it. She had squeezed his hand and hugged him really hard after he'd told her. She'd thanked him. He'd just smiled goofily when she'd kissed his cheek. Yeah, he had it bad. He knew she probably knew it too, with the thoughts she must have picked up from him, but she never cruelly rejected him, or even acknowledged that she heard any such thoughts. It almost made him wonder…
He snapped to attention as the Geometry teacher picked him out and asked him a question from the chapter. After he answered it right away, without even cracking the book open, she seemed disappointed, but nodded curtly at him, asking him to be sure to stay awake, and she continued the lecture. After receiving the obligatory glares from his classmates, he just went back to staring into space. When would it end? He'd been all horrified at the thought of going to a regular school again, worried at how he'd hold up, with more things to hide now than he'd had before, but it seemed that either the Principal, Ms. Darkholme, didn't like to ask questions, or the professor had more pull with the school board than he'd thought.
All his report read was that he was a sophomore; he'd finish the semester with everyone else, not before, not after, and that he sustained a condition that made his eyes sensitive to light. The students looked at him funny; Jean admitted that she picked up thoughts from them that he was kind of weird for never taking the sunglasses off, but past that, no one pushed the weak story.
Jean had smiled, taunting him about a girl in her class who thought he was cute, asking him if he wanted to know what she'd thought. Just another moment he shared with her, feeling happy as they just acted like teenagers together. Despite the weird games they invented, they were just regular kids together. His favorite game was the famous 'Dub-over,' where at assemblies, or lunch, they'd silently pick out a random person, and secretly discuss their version of what the person was really saying. It got ridiculous sometimes. Especially the escapade with his English teacher, and his animated discussion with a student concerning the hairpiece he apparently wore.
Jean always suggested 'Funny thought,' a delightfully wicked game of her own inventing that was particularly fun to play when in small, enclosed spaces, like elevators or in the lunch line. Jean would give him a look, and send a picture to Scott's mind of someone they knew wearing a tutu, or breaking into the can-can. It was usually funny to imagine the adults doing this, and even funnier when Jean had cheated, sending him an image of Logan in a grass skirt, resulting in Scott laughing milk from his nose, and definite giggles whenever they passed Logan in the hallway. Scott in return would picture something he thought funnier and make Jean read his mind. First to laugh aloud lost.
All in all, life was great. It had taken a definite turn for the better, and he hadn't been plagued with nightmares – his or Jean's – for the better part of 3 months. Jean's birthday came and went, and the small celebration was complete with cake and presents, though mutants giving presents got creative. Logan insisted he didn't know the first thing about kids, and ended up presenting her with a certificate that excused her from a week's worth of Danger Room Sessions. The professor got her a nice sweater that looked like it had cost a fortune, and Ororo had given her a harness, of all things.
Jean just got a mystifying chuckle when she asked what she could use it for, and she'd shrugged and turned to Scott. He hadn't known quite what to get her, and he ended up settling on a large teddy bear. She'd looked at it in confusion at first, and had relayed it through a look, and Scott had smiled mysteriously. Jean had held back an evil grin, and Scott felt her enter his mind; she fully intended to wrench an explanation from him, but before she could get to it, he just mentally explained the motive behind the gift. It was big and squishy, and if she ever did have a nightmare and he didn't come to rescue her from her attacking appliances, the bear would. She gave him another odd look as she broke the link, but then took a better look at the bear. It was wearing a giant pair of plush sunglasses. She'd smiled then, announcing aloud that she demanded cake, and Scott had smiled too. She understood that he didn't want a big display of emotion over it, and he was glad for that.
Snapping to the present once more, Scott managed to stand and walk out with the rest of his peers as the bell rang for the end of class. Scanning the hallways immediately, he brightened when he saw Jean, and when she spotted him, she smiled, and made straight for him. They chatted, and Jean whined about how dull it was to sit through the lectures when she could use her telepathy if she wanted and skip the class. After reading anything once, it stayed in her memory bank, and after attending the class for more than five minutes, Jean said she had already picked up the extra things that would be on the test from the teacher's mind.
"I mean, we have these powers, right, we should use them to better ourselves!" She exclaimed then, knowing it wasn't an ethical thing to do, but wanting to whine out of necessity.
Scott just smiled. "Try telling that to the professor."
"Oh, Mr. Big Shot, thinks he's so cool," Jean teased. "When really all he's doing is imagining his geometry teacher in a –"
"Please, God, no," Scott interrupted her, trying half-heartedly to concentrate on anything. The Gettysburg address, the alphabetical order of the United States, old nursery rhymes, all of which were somewhere in his mind, but Jean forced in the horrible image of his teacher in a polka-dotted bikini.
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Passersby would note that Scott Summers had turned bright red for no apparent reason, and that Jean Grey seemed to find it hilarious. Todd Tolansky just cocked his head at them and made his way to the computer lab. His next class was English, but he hardly cared. He'd already had the classes he could tolerate, namely Lunch, dumb-dude math, and gym. He just had to stay at the school. No one had said anything about going to his assigned classes.
"Mystique an' her rules," he mumbled, resisting the strong urge to just up and crawl along the walls through the crowds. He had to resist a lot of urges like that. Living on the streets had just made him accept his mutation. Embrace it, even. Sure, when he was little it sucked to have rocks thrown at him, but he'd always felt that he should just be who he was. If he was a toad, then there was probably a reason for it, so instead of moaning about his mutation, or his hunched back, he should just learn to deal. And he had.
He found it odd, therefore, that when Mystique had said something about their lowly Homo-sapien names being eradicated in lieu of their homo-superior names, he'd felt a pang of regret. It was connected, he supposed, to the place he stayed at in Brooklyn. The people who were so kind to him there. He didn't even know most of their names and he couldn't pronounce the handful he did know, but he had like the feeling of being accepted, even when they knew he was a mutant. He suspected a few in their number were mutants themselves.
He liked finally being able to classify them as something other than 'the freaky people like me.' One point to Mystique, who'd introduced the name they were supposed to be calling themselves. (namely, mutant, not freaks of nature) He reached the class, much slower than he would have if he'd used his powers, and slumped into a seat in the back. He powered the machine in front of it, glad that even with his webbed fingers he could still type on the keyboard.
Without meaning to, his mind drifted to his life before he'd had the bright spot in Brooklyn to turn to. Some good things, like his mother. She'd always smiled at him, and always said she was his treasure. He'd lived with her, in their crummy apartment in East Jersey, and she sang him songs and showed him flowers. Then there was his no good Pop. God, he hated him. Todd, sitting in the class he wasn't supposed to be in, outwardly scowled at the very thought of that man.
The memories he had of his father were all bad ones. Todd remembered the terrible smell he perpetually had…that of stale beer and cheap perfume that didn't match his mother's scent at all. He remembered fights his parents had; usually ending in his mother huddled on the floor with some new injury or other that she would explain away to anyone who asked.
Todd remembered coming home to a silent house some days, afraid, and then relieved when he found one parent or the other, though the relief was substantially higher if he found his mother instead of the alternative. Then one day he'd come home to that silent house, and his worst fears had been realized. His Pop was lying on the ground in a haze of either blood-loss or high alcohol level, clutching the bloodied knife in his hands…and only a few feet away, there lay his mother, unmoving and cold.
Todd couldn't remember much else after that. He knew he'd been found covered in almost as much blood as his dead parents, and that his father had been assuredly dead when the police had arrived, but other things had been blocked from his own mind, and he preferred it that way. He had been pushed from place to place since then, through different cities, bridges, rivers, and counties, only to end up in the care of a blue woman who wanted him to fight for some army or other. At least he got his way paid for him.
Todd barely registered the annoyed tone of the teacher who kicked him out of the lab; just one more person who didn't want him in their presence. Not caring, he shuffled out of the room, and hopped to the nearest window. Suddenly he didn't care for rules and regulations or any cause Mystique had hauled him in for; he didn't care that as well as his caretaker, she was his principal. He had a strong desire to see Brooklyn. So he did.
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Logan was sitting in the window seat of the kitchen, content with his paper and his coffee, though he'd wanted a good stiff drink. (Denied by Charles who insisted he not bring alcohol into the school where impressionable young minds resided…or somesuch bull like that.) He popped a solitary claw, slicing the crossword puzzle free from the rest of the paper. 'Ro liked to do 'em, and he didn't want it going to waste.
Glancing at the scrap of paper, Logan noted again why he didn't do crosswords. He'd be damned if he even knew what half the clues meant, let alone if he'd tried his hand at solving them. He grunted, looking again at the paper, groaning when he realized that he had sliced a chunk out of an article he'd wanted to read. He held the crossword-scrap in place and tried to salvage the story, but it was useless. He'd have to buy another paper.
Muttering in frustration, he set the paper aside and got up from the windowseat, going for the refrigerator, helping himself to a soda. He poked a hole in the top and downed it all in one go. It wasn't that he couldn't open the soda can, he just liked to use his claws instead. He grinned, belching loudly and tossing the can into the garbage.
He then glanced at his watch and sighed, downing the rest of the coffee, knowing the kids would be home soon and that he had to ready the Danger Room for their after-school session. He grinned again, chucking the paper, but leaving the crossword on the breakfast table; Today was sim. 7. Another favorite of his.
He chuckled darkly upon hearing the door open and close, and the shrieks that accompanied that door. He would have them trained up and ready to fight in no time.
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Jean used all the strength at her mind's disposal, dodging tentacles and trying to shout warnings to Scott, whose visor had been knocked off. She heard Logan shouting at Scott too, telling him where to turn his head to save Jean from the advancing tools of death. She scowled in what she thought was Logan's direction. She knew Scott wouldn't do it. He'd risk hitting her.
"C'mon, Slim! Are you gonna let the sawblades have their way with her?"
Scott looked uncertain, and Jean located his visor. Just as he tentatively looked where Logan was shouting, Jean floated his visor to his hand. He jammed it over his head, wasting no time in blasting an unseen tentacle just before it reached Jean. She turned to the sparking remains in surprise, and then smiled at Scott.
As the session ended, and the surviving mechanics pulled away neatly into the walls and floor, Logan walked up, smirking. "Not bad, you two. You can cover for each other very well, but ya have trouble rememberin' to call each other by codenames. You figure yours out, Jeannie?"
Jean flushed, looking at her hands. "Um, no."
They had been wracking their brains to come up with these 'code names,' and Jean was no closer to figuring hers out. Scott, it seemed, had picked his.
"Cyclops?"
"Yeah," Scott said defensively. "What? You don't like it? Wolverine?"
"It ain't that I don't like it, but…why Cyclops?"
"Cyclops is misunderstood."
"Oh?"
"Yeah."
Jean rolled her eyes. Scott launched into his tale. He'd told the same story to Jean when she'd scoffed too. It was just a different way of looking at the Cyclops legend in Greek mythology. Or was it Roman mythology?
"The Cyclopes were like the titans; creatures who were said to be greater than the gods," Scott started, either not noticing or not caring when Logan rolled his eyes. "They were giants, who worked to make Zeus' thunderbolts for him in repayment for releasing them from the prison Chronus put them in. They were a helping hand to the gods, making weapons that killed the Titans. They made Poseidon's trident, Apollo's bow, and Hades' helmet of invisibility. Then Apollo killed them in revenge for his son being killed by Zeus' thunderbolts."
Logan said nothing, and Jean just smirked at him. Scott smirked too. "Sometimes you have to know the background of someone before you can judge them too harshly."
"All right, kid, you can be Cyclops. Far be it fer me to stop ya. You putta lotta thought in this, didn't ya?"
Scott nodded, smiling. Logan smiled too, then turned to Jean. "You'd better come up with a good one, Red. Can't let ol' Cyclops upstage ya."
Jean flushed again, and nodded. Logan slipped into his smirk.
"All right then, class dismissed. Bright an' early tomorrow we're hittin' sim. 34. Not one of my favorites, but it's a good test of teamwork, even when yer a team of two. Until we get more recruits in here, you'd better get used to it."
Scott and Jean groaned good-naturedly and retreated to their consecutive locker rooms, Jean doing an odd hula step that made Scott go red. She giggled when he refused to look at Logan when the man passed them.
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Upon entering the locker room, it was the routine cool down from the strenuous exercise Scott had just undergone, making sure to not actually sit down and change until his heart rate had dropped to a more regular rhythm. Then a shower to make sure he didn't smell like sweat and metal, then on went the running shoes, for a nice jog. He didn't usually care where, and he didn't pace himself. He just ran hard enough to get his heart pumping, but not so hard as to sweat profusely or work himself out all over again. All in all, it was to clear his head and relax. He'd finally found a recreational thing he enjoyed doing, (Billiards) and Professor Xavier had promised the imminent delivery of his own Billiard table, but it hadn't arrived yet. So he jogged.
Scott had to say that his current state of being wasn't the best shape he'd been in. Granted, it was the healthiest he'd ever been. But he'd been in much better shape with the paranoia he'd lived with for so long. His reflexes had slacked, his speed and motivation had diminished lightly with each day he spent getting used to his life as it was now. And he didn't want anything to change. He was surprised at how much he could actually eat when he didn't have to shovel in as much as he could as fast as he could. He didn't eat as much as he thought he did, and eating regularly had helped with the stomach pains he'd sometimes had.
He still hadn't asked about the mysterious disappearing headaches; why they had stopped now, instead of his month as a blind street-urchin. He thought about that too, making sure he didn't run too fast as he rounded the far corner of the mansion. He kept his eyes on his feet, trying not to make himself dizzy. He let random thoughts creep into his mind for the moment, each having to do with the scenery, or the fact that he really needed a new pair of running shoes. He was afraid to ask the Professor, after he had been so generous in giving him the entire wardrobe he had now.
He wondered about the new student that had enrolled recently. He wouldn't have even noticed the small youth, but he happened to share a gym class with him. Todd Tolenby? Tolky? Tolensky! That was it. He was about Scott's age, but in the lower grade. He'd probably been held back. He had an amazing aptitude for basketball, but his hygiene didn't make him a favorite pick, talent or not.
Scott had told Logan about him, and earned a grunt and a sneer. He decided to let it go, deciding that the Professor was handling what needed to be done. Jean had mentioned that she thought she had seen him in her computer class, but hadn't seen him later, and thought he may have been kicked out. She frowned whenever Todd came up in a conversation, making comments that he was really very nice, and that they should give him a chance. Scott just thought he needed a bar of soap.
Scott looped around the grounds a few times, and made his way steadily to the house, looking on in interest as Ororo set up some kind of tightrope near the roof of the building. As he saw the rock-climbing gear, he grinned wickedly, remembering the harness Jean had received for her birthday. Ororo was in charge of some of Jean's one-on-one lessons, and the Professor was in charge of the others. Scott had the Professor and Logan. It was less tightropes, more headaches and survival training. The Professor was instructing him on general control of his beams, testing the level of destruction based on how much of the beam was allowed to escape his eyes, and by the large hole he was slowly making in the yard. It would soon be deep enough to start work on a swimming pool.
He wished sometimes that he had Jean's lessons, but decided that having that level of power would be too frightening. He didn't know how much power she even had, but suspected, due to the damage her room took when she had a nightmare, that she was a lot stronger than she thought she was. While he had the potential to punch a hole through a mountain, she had the potential to destroy the universe. That was power.
Then she'd smile at him, and he'd forget that she was possibly the strongest mutant on the planet, and just think of her as Jean. He thought it would be a shame when she finally thought of a code name, because it would give her power a code name. He might not be able to separate the Jean he knew from the Jean he partially feared.
Maybe she won't think of one, he thought hopefully, holding back a laugh at the look on Jean's face as she came out the door, staring at the sheer height of the tightrope.
Scott headed inside as Jean gripped her harness in fright, looking in disbelief at the airborne weather-witch fiddling with the rock-climbing equipment and tossing a helmet at her. He peeled off his shoes, padding up the staircase and chuckling to himself as he neared his room. He didn't even blink when he saw Ororo through the second-story window, pulling some kind of cord and shouting something encouraging to her pupil below.
He didn't blink when the lights shuddered slightly, figuring it was either Ororo's or Jean's power interfering, or it was that giant computer the Professor had. He slid into his room, dropping off his jacket and his shoes, opting for his t-shirt and jeans. The weather was getting colder, and he'd soon be trading his t-shirts for warmer sweaters, but as it was, the Professor kept the mansion at a comfortable temperature, and until it got colder, he'd be fine in his current attire.
Making his way back down the stairs, Scott proceeded to examine the refrigerator, repositioning the shades on his nose, pulling out a jar of strawberry jelly. Or it may have been raspberry…He really wasn't sure, since the jar was unmarked and he couldn't discern the color properly, but as long as it wasn't grape, he was fine. He opened the cupboard, pulling out the bread. He purposely left the cupboard open, knowing it bugged Jean.
He spread two pieces with the indiscernible jelly, not surprised at the loud bang that echoed through the kitchen as Jean stomped into the house. She stormed into the kitchen, slamming the cupboard door shut with her telekinesis and flopping into the chair next to Scott. He wordlessly offered her one of the pieces of jelly-sweetened bread, and she took it.
"How on earth am I supposed to do this! I can't lift myself! I've tried before! It's like asking me to lift a crane for all she cares."
"Like a construction crane? To lift stuff?"
"What?"
"I just doubt you're that heavy, that's all."
Jean choked on her bread, glaring at Scott. "I don't like your insinuation, buster. Don't you like grape?" She pointed at the bread that Scott still hadn't touched. He grimaced and pushed it towards her, trying to ignore his protesting stomach. "I bet you're stronger than you think you are."
"Hm," Jean said disinterestedly, "that's what the Professor says, but I'm not sure I believe him. Hey, how did you come up with your code name, anyway? I can't think of anything, and I've wracked my brain."
"The way I see it, you have a few choices."
"Which are?"
"Well, there's the classic 'Spider Woman.'"
"True, I could go with that, but I don't have spider powers."
"This may present a problem."
"Not to mention I'd be sued for copyright law violation for the name alone."
"Okay. Option 2? Go without a code name; the Professor doesn't have one, I don't see why you need one."
"Logan wouldn't go for it."
"Well, that brings us to option 3. Wait until we get new recruits, then Logan will be so busy bugging them for codenames, he'll forget about you."
"You're not making this any easier on me. You just can't think of one either, can you?"
"I've got it. Poseidon."
"I'd just be copying you; and isn't he a sea-god?"
"You said to think of a name. You weren't specific."
"I've gotta go. I promised 'Ro a 5 minute break, no more," Jean said, pulling her harness back on, and retrieving her helmet telekinetically from the counter. She turned back, poking Scott in the nose. "Think of a name that I could use, that Logan and I would approve of, got it?"
"Oh, I know a name that suits you perfectly."
"Really? What?"
"You ready? Here it is: Jean Grey."
Jean smacked his shoulder, jogging outside, where the sky looked threatening. "I'm coming, I'm coming!"
Scot just grinned, heading for the cupboard and pulling out a nice safe jar of peanut butter.
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