Part Two: Complications
Three days later, I had to face facts. Twice now, and I wanted him more than ever. I'd thought I could just fuck him, get it out of my system. Maybe it wasn't quite that simple.
The morning after, everything was fine. The tension was gone. Not that we were all lovey-dovey everywhere; like I said, this wasn't exactly the romance of the century. And we were trying to keep it a secret, after all. But it was no longer uncomfortable to be around him, and when Scott caught me sitting around alone, staring off into space with a faint smile stuck on my face, he grinned at me. Even more when I blushed a little.
But in general, it was just that all of a sudden, there was no reason to avoid me. He'd talk to me. It was almost startling at first.
Turned out Hank had heard something that night. Nothing he could really pin down, but he asked me if I'd heard anything. So I fed him the pre-arranged line. I couldn't help a smirk as I did. Luckily it wasn't really out of place in a salacious news session. Piotr turned out to be the world's biggest gossip, speculating for a full hour on the state of Scott and Jean's relationship, ending with the thought that it made sense for them, who'd been here together for a while, already, to be dating. He'd wondered before why they weren't.
It made me wonder too. Why weren't they?
In any case, two days later we were summoned to the viewing room, and told about some guy called Wolverine. Mission number two for the new recruits: rescue supposedly the most dangerous man in the world. I wondered in passing if we really wanted to mess with the guys who managed to take him in, but by then I was suiting up, my blood starting to flow a little faster.
I could get used to this. It felt good, standing confidently at Cyclops' left shoulder, watching the road train pull to an abrupt halt in front of us.
"Blow them away, Storm." Calm, detached. Cyclops all the way.
With a smile, I followed orders. Let the power ripple through me, scorching, the light breeze suddenly a forceful wind, then a gale, sweeping the smaller vehicles from the road, knocking the larger trucks over.
It took me a minute or two to recover, and by the time I caught up with the rest, Wolverine was making his escape on a /very/ nice piece of hardware. Special military extras: something a street brat can only dream about.
We got him in the end. Unconscious, mind you, and when he saw that Cyclops didn't say a thing, just looked at Marvel Girl, who was quietly fuming, and shook his head.
Another mission, another long shower, and another adrenaline high that made me jittery, and precluded sleep with wicked thoughts I simply couldn't resist.
I didn't bother with the guys in the rec room this time. I just went straight to the billiards room, the sounds of ivory and heavy guitar pulling me down the corridor like a magnetic force. The door was more ajar this time. An open invitation. I went in, closed it firmly behind me. At the other end of the table, Scott straightened, looking at me as I stood there, my hand still on the doorknob.
"Does this thing lock?" I asked.
In the end, we moved a heavy chair in front of it. Then we cleared the table and made my dream come true.
"I could fall asleep right here," he murmered afterwards, eyes closed because he was lying on his back and the light above the table was bright. It had been something of an amusing obstacle, actually.
"Quicker than fifty games of snooker," I replied, and he grinned.
I left first, went out into the rec room where Piotr tried to teach me how to play something called Tekken. I looked up just like all the others when Scott came past, laughed at my clumsiness, and said he was going to bed.
We were on a roll, now. The third time was the next night, and I knocked on his door this time. He didn't look particularly surprised to see me. Nor did he object when I pushed him up against the wall the instant the door was closed. He called me 'Ro' that night, and as we lay afterwards, wrapped around each other, I told him not to.
"Why not?" No pressure behind it, just curious. We didn't owe each other anything, that was an unspoken agreement.
The response, 'just because' was on the tip of my tongue, so I was almost surprised when I answered: "The guys used to call me that." We were speaking very quietly, more than a whisper, but almost less than a murmer.
"The guys?"
"Other car thieves. Not really friends. Other guys who worked the same area I did, sold to the same dealer."
"And they called you Ro?"
I'd opened it up, now. I should at least close it again. "Not all of them. Just... Just when I slept with one of them. Now and then. They didn't use it in public."
"What did they call you there?" Lighter, easier. I felt like he was letting me off, and he knew it. It brought an involuntary smile to my lips.
"They called me Munroe. It was all surnames; they're impersonal, you know. Business-like. We were business partners, not friends or anything. It was weird coming here. No one but the police has called me Ororo in a long time. And then you were calling me Storm."
"You don't like the codename."
I propped myself up on one elbow, because talking to his shoulder was getting boring. "I'm getting used to it," I said honestly. I was growing into it as I grew into accepting my powers. Storm was an impressive person, and I was just beginning to get to know her. "You can't tell me you took on 'Cyclops' with glee."
He chuckled, very quietly. "It took a little while." He shifted a little, his arm loosely around my shoulders. No pressure there, either. "What would you prefer I call you?"
"Ororo's good." And I smiled.
Neither of us ever mentioned our 'relationship'. It wasn't something that really needed, or even deserved, discussion. During the day, we were just teammates, just friends. And one night in two, there was traffic in the corridors, a knock on a door. Once I met him in the corridor between our rooms, and we both laughed.
We always woke up alone in the morning, though.
Things were happening in the Mansion, of course. We had a solid program of training, interspersed with real school lessons that were sometimes a relief from hours of hard, muscle-bound slog. Wolverine wasn't precisely a tranquil presence. He didn't have a huge amount of interaction with most of us - just curt exchanges, or the activity Scott termed 'malicious lingering', as he hung around like James Dean's bigger, badder brother. He managed to rub most people's fur the wrong way, though. Scott, I think, was sometimes amused at how easily Wolverine managed to get under his skin. No one precisely felt comfortable with him. I, frankly, preferred not to be in the same room as him. That sort of cold, glittering cateloguing was something I could live without. Jean...
Well, I had my suspicions about Jean's reaction to Wolverine. When they later turned out to be fully justified, I felt quite smug. Not often you get to score one over a telepath.
It made the scores even, though, because she'd already got one over me.
I'd slept in one morning - must have had something to do with the exercise I'd had the night before - and was making myself a quick late breakfast when Jean came storming into the kitchen, looking like red-haired wrath on legs.
"Bad night's sleep?" I asked blandly. Since I'd been at the mansion, Jean and I hadn't really bonded. Sure, she was the only other female in the place, but I'd spent most of the last two years of my life hanging out with an exclusively male crowd and, frankly, women's irrationalities generally annoyed me. So I was friendly to her, in a distant sort of way, and she had never seemed inclined to buddy up.
She really wasn't inclined this morning, coming around to the other side of the bench from where I was making coffee. Leaned over it, got right in my face. "How long have you been fucking Scott?" she snarled.
That was right about top of the list of things I hadn't expected to hear that morning. "What?" I snapped, taking a step back from the bench, getting some space between us, space to think. She leaned back as I stared at her, her jaw clenched tight. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"You. Scott. Sex. How long? Don't fucking play dumb; I know you're doing it."
"How?" I demanded. The thought that Scott might have told her chilled my blood, for some reason.
"I get migraines," she said, each word clipped off short and angry. "From my telepathy. They wake me up in the middle of the night. Scott sits up with me, has done for ages. So when I couldn't sleep last night, I went looking for him. Couldn't find him, though. He wasn't in his room. The bed was still made, like he hadn't even got into it yet. It was two in the morning, and he hadn't slept in his bed? I started to worry, didn't I? I thought maybe something bad's happened to him. And then he came strolling down the corridor, just like that, fully dressed and all. Said he'd gone for a walk, which I believed? Like hell I did. Scott doesn't go for walks in the middle of the goddamn night. I started to wonder why he was lying to me, where he'd been.
"Then I remembered Henry telling me you'd heard Scott sneaking into my room. I'd thought it was weird at the time - why would you think that? - but I'd forgotten it since. Started to add up, didn't it?"
Maybe that was enough for her to make conclusions, but I doubted it. Not with who she was, what she was. I'd stepped back up to the bench somewhere in the middle of her diatribe, was coming out of my shock to go on my own offensive. "So you went snooping, didn't you?"
She hesitated a moment, and that was good enough for me. "You did. You went trawling through his brain like a nosy bloody fisherman. You ever think for one minute that maybe his personal life is none of your fucking business? And mine even less so."
The hesitation was gone now. "He's my friend, my best friend. I want him to be happy."
"Maybe he is."
"With clandestine sex snatched when no one else is looking? I sincerely fucking doubt it, sweetheart!"
We were practically shouting now, and I paused for a minute, took a deep breath. Prayed no one else was in earshot. "Who else have you told?" I said, my voice grating through my teeth, but quieter now.
Jean glared at me. "No one."
"Good." She started to speak, and I held up a hand, continuing quickly: "No one else needs to know. You don't need to know. It's our business. Ours. Got that? Scott may be your best friend, but he is not your personal property. In fact, I wouldn't even tell him you knew, if I were you. I don't think he'd take that invasion of his privacy too well, do you?"
Now she was /really/ glaring at me, as if willing me to catch on fire where I stood. "How long?"
The shift of subject told me I'd won, so I was prepared to give a little. "Since two days before the mission to get Wolverine."
Her eyes widened slightly. More than she'd expected, perhaps. She turned to stalk out, but hesitated. She's not stupid, Jean. No matter how pissed she was with me, she couldn't really leave it there. That fragile team dynamic that was so important wouldn't allow it. She sighed, ran a hand through her hair. "Look..." And she trailed off.
I took pity. Or maybe I felt the importance of being able to work with her as well. "The last thing I want is to make Scott unhappy, Jean. We're fine, OK? We know what we're doing."
She nodded, maybe a little relunctantly. "Then let's pretend this never happened, shall we?" She smiled, barely. "You'd better hurry, or you'll be late for training."
In the end I never made it to training. I was heading that way when Bobby came tearing out of the rec room. "Have you seen the news?" he practically screeched, and took off down the corridor. Lacking any real option, I jogged after him, running into a perplexed Piotr on the way.
It all became clear when we finally sat down to watch the news. The fact of the kidnapping of the President's daughter was like a punch in the gut, swiftly followed up by the kick of uncertainty. God, how could we blame Magneto? But how could we honestly let him get away with it. I watched everyone's eyes turn to Cyclops - and he was Cyclops, in an instant - and almost held my breath as he made the decision none of us wanted to make. Just looking at his face, the stern Cyclops mask, I wanted to go to him, give him my strength as well.
Whoa, where had that come from? I almost missed the final decision, wondering what the hell I was thinking.
But I put it out of my mind as we hit Croatia. The first couple of missions had left me - all of us, maybe - feeling a little cocky. And everything seemed to be going all right with this one too, until Colussus came over the comm, announcing Magneto's arrival.
And I ran around a corner just in time to see Beast explode. I threw myself back around the corner, flattened against the wall as the explosion ripped past. Looked out again with a frozen, empty feeling. It couldn't have happened. "We're too late, Cyclops," I said, numbly. "I think Beast's dead."
Numbness faded quickly, something distantly related to panic bubbling up in its space. I squashed it, hard, but couldn't keep an edge of it out of my voice, telling Cyclops what had happened. "How the heck are we going to get him out of here?"
That emotion was nothing, though, compared to what ripped through me, minutes later, as I cowered behind fallen brickwork, and heard Iceman declare Cyclops down. The moment stretched infinitely.
God, no. Please.
Until he spoke again, and the world kept turning.
Colussus was at my elbow two seconds later, and I found the motivation to get back on my feet, get out to help Beast. Working myself up to try and be useful, but I felt so drained. The anger was easy to summon - just think of the fucked situation we were in - but hard to channel. I thought we were all dead, until the world ignited behind me.
Magneto to the rescue. I couldn't process it, couldn't think. Could only watch as they loaded Hank into the bed of a truck. Watch Cyclops speaking with Magneto at a distance. I couldn't hear what they said, but I could see the frustration plainly on Cyclops' face.
It stayed there, lying quiet under the surface, after we got back to the mansion. I felt helpless, looking at the tightness in his shoulders. I wanted to take it away, but didn't know how. Knew that there wasn't really anything I could do.
There wasn't any sex after this mission. There wasn't any energy, any adrenaline, anything. We all showed up separately to the observation room, bearing witness. There was nothing else for us.
I heard the frustration boiling in Scott as he talked quietly about calling Hank's mother. It had a faint echo inside me, but everything was feeling distant at the moment. I turned back to the window, watched implements moving by themselves. Sat in silence, too empty to even try to pray. Until Jean and the Professor had finished, moved Henry from the operating table, took him to the infirmary. Left a gap, broke the spell.
I said good bye to Piotr outside the observation room, hurried to catch up with Scott as he strode down the corridor. At least he stopped when I called his name. Turned to me, jaw clenched.
"Don't say anything," he warned. "Some crap about it not being my fault. I don't want to hear it."
Like I've ever let people order me around. "Forget fault. Who gives a damn about faults? No one's ever to blame. Your decision was right, Scott."
He turned away, started walking again. I could keep up. My legs were as long as his, the length of our strides a match. "Right? Right to almost kill one of my team. Sure."
"You didn't decide to blow up that building." But his objections didn't quite ring true, like he was just making the noises. I grabbed his arm, forced him to stop, turn towards me. "There's something else, Scott. What?"
He opened his mouth, but down the hall a door opened. We both turned to look, my hand dropping from his arm as the Professor and Jean came out, talking quietly about sutures and hemoglobins and all sorts of other medical jargon that made no sense to me.
"I'll keep an eye on him for a little while, anyway," Jean told the Professor, who glanced down the corridor towards us before wheeling off in the other direction. A glance sideways revealed Scott's face had all the expression of a block of granite.
Jean turned fully to face us, her gaze barely flickering over me before settling on Scott. "Are you all right?" she asked, concern evident.
"I'm fucking fantastic," Scott said flatly.
She sighed, her face and postured tired, and I suddenly remembered again that she'd been here for longer. She knew Scott, could probably guess what he was going through better than I could, for all I knew better the way his muscles clenched in climax. But she also shared the Professor's dream, shared the anguish and division of what had happened.
I felt like an outsider.
"I'll talk to you later?" she asked, her hand on the infirmary door.
"Whatever."
The door closed quietly behind her, and Scott turned back to me, crossed his arms across his chest. "Well?"
I had nothing to say, was completely lost for words. The urge gripped me to just hug him, hold him close. There were tears in my eyes, all of a sudden, and I turned away. "Forget it."
I walked away, and he didn't stop me.
And later, I watched from the top of the stairs as he walked away. Fully uniformed, but he wasn't really Cyclops. Wasn't really Scott, either. Somewhere between, all Scott's anger and all Cyclops' frustration. I could hear it in his voice when he argued with the Professor and fuck, Xavier's mental manipulations really didn't help. Smug, self-righteous bastard.
I sat at the top of the stairs as the Professor wheeled off. Just sat there, watching a doorway that stayed empty. I could have run after him. But what would I have said?
What the hell did I care anyway? Let him run off. Let him do his thing. It's not like we're married or anything.
Late that night, I wandered through the corridors to a door. Traced my fingers over the wood, beautifully varnished. The next morning I woke up alone. Like always.
We were all a little more quiet than usual on the way to Washington. A meeting with the President somehow seemed less thrilling when one of you was on crutches, and only that far along because of his great natural healing, and another, the heart, was missing. The platitudes of the Professor and the President were just so much background noise, until the mentioned the Savage Land.
Up on the screen, the footage of Cyclops seemed to play in slow motion. He'd truly defected. Gone over to the other side. Or had he done it purposely to lead attention there? Either was possible. Cyclops didn't do things by half measures, and now more than ever, I imagined the need for /action/ burned inside him.
"Way to go, Cyclops," I murmered. The Professor's admonishment was like a mental slap on the wrist, but I barely noticed it as the conversation moved on to their intention to attack. Attack the island Cyclops was on.
On our way out, the discussion raged. No one wanted Cyclops dead, but finally it was Bobby, full of indignant youth, who voiced that they were all thinking. "How could he go to Magneto?"
"Have you ever considered Magneto's side?" They all turned to look at me. "You don't, usually, because it's unthinkable. Enslaving the human race, mutants dominant, every bit of conditioning makes us refuse it. But he's got a powerful argument. Especially when you've just seen precisely how much the human race can fuck us over." The silence was loud. "I considered it. Long and hard. Eventually, I turned him down. But everyone's got a right to a chance to make that choice." I bit off my last comment; that Scott could even act as a proxy, entertain the option that they couldn't, and save them the anguish of considering the horrible thought.
The Professor's eyes were veiled, considering. "Come along," he said finally. "Let's get back to the hotel."
So that's where we were when Scott's warning came through. You know, not for an instant, from the moment his voice came over the comm all through the frenzied preparation, did I think it was a dream. It was too horrible, even for that. The entire US Sentinel fleet coming our way.
I'm still not entirely sure how we all made it through that day. The events are common knowledge; the fierce battle, the brink of destruction, and the spectacular, final end of Magneto.
Then the cheers. Ragged, but sincere. It was unbelievable. And something I'll treasure forever.
Two days later, Scott was back with us in Westchester. We all smiled, and greeted him, but hung back a little. We knew his first real welcome back would be from the Professor. So I went with the guys as they hit the rec room, the Playstation out in two minutes flat. I dozed on the couch to the sounds of Piotr noodling on his guitar, backed by the electronic percussion of the game. With neverending protesting and gloating vocals by Bobby.
I woke up fully when the Professor wheeled back into the room from the terrace, made a comment on Piotr's playing on his way through. Sitting up, I could see Scott still outside, watching the twilight. I stood up and went outside as Bobby won a game, proceeding to perform some sort of victory dance.
"Hey." His head whipped around, glasses dull in the absence of light.
And then a slight smile, a twitch of the mouth. "Hi."
Awkward? Just a bit. I'd expected it. It was why I'd come out here. If we were going to interact in a useful fashion, we needed to clear things up. That precious team dynamic and all. He opened his mouth again, but I cut him off. "Don't apologise. I don't want to hear it." But I was smiling.
"What?" He was a little perplexed, I could hear it.
"You made the right decision, leaving and going to Magneto. It was right for you. I thought it at the time as well, but we weren't really talking then."
He shrugged, looked away uncomfortably. "Sorry."
"You've got nothing to be sorry for. Scott?" I waited until he looked back to me. I could still achieve eye contact through rose quartz. Maybe I'd never lose the knack. "We didn't have any expectations, remember? No promises. We didn't owe each other anything. We're individual people, and you had to do what you had to do."
He just looked at me for a long moment, beautiful face impassive, blue-stained in the dusk. "Individual people, huh?"
I nodded. "And teammates. And friends."
"Good," Scott stated. And a little piece of me was disappointed that he hadn't pushed it. Hadn't asked: 'What about lovers?' Stupid. It was better this way. We both needed to move on. "It's getting dark out here," he said, standing up and taking up his empty glass. "We should go inside."
I nodded, and smiled. "It's good to have you back, by the way." He smiled in response, and we went back into the house together, joined our other teammates.
And it was good to have him back. He was one of the mainstays of the team, of the mansion. Without him the energy didn't flow right. That was it. That was all. God knows, it wasn't like just seeing him calmed something inside of me. Not like I wanted to run my hands through his hair as he leaned back against the couch in front of me, touch him just because. It wasn't like that.
It wasn't.
Me and Scott, yeah, it had been good. Great, even. While it lasted. But it hadn't been the romance of the century. It had just been sex, pure and simple.
And now it's over.