Chapter 2.

            Warren woke in a strange bedroom.  He wondered for a moment who he had gone home with, but a quick check found the other side of the bed un-slept in and most of his clothes still on. The light in through the windows was brutal and the resulting headache was making it hard for him to think.  Somewhere he heard the sound of kids shouting and the infuriating repeated smack of a basketball on a court. 

            Oh.  He was still at Xavier's.

            He picked up a pillow and covered his head with it, anything to shut out the noise and the light. He had vague memories of Ororo and the man with the mutton chops helping him maneuver up the stairs.  For some reason he remembered the stench of brimstone, and that someone had stepped on his wing.  It still hurt a little, a fainter counterpoint to the throbbing in his head.

            When he had been a student in the mansion, he had deliberately chosen a room with a balcony, facing north, so he could fly in and out, but most importantly, so he would not be woken in the morning by the sun.  He wondered if the choice of this room as a guest room was Ororo's deliberate revenge for having to drag his drunken, sorry rear back to the house.

            The sounds of the students shouting over their game of pickup permeated through his consciousness.  There was no way he was going to be able to get back to sleep.  Gritting his teeth he struggled up out of the sheets and the pillows and staggered into the bathroom.

            A long, hot shower later he emerged feeling more like his usual self. He shivered his wings to shed the last of the water, splattering droplets all over the mirror and tile walls.  He thought about shaving, but didn't have his razor.  He did bless who ever it was who had left a toothbrush so he could scrape the fuzziness off his teeth.

            Nude, he flung himself down on the bed, spreading his wings out to dry.  Annoyingly, the sun had shifted, its beams were now flung across the wall rather than the mattress, so he could not quite manage to bask in its warmth. The breeze through the window felt divine though.  He reached for his pants and pulled his cell phone off his belt, flipped it open and called home.

            "Worthington Residence.  Good Morning, Sir."

            "Morning Stevens."

            "I trust you slept well at Mr. Xavier's house?"

            Warren blinked, "Er…yes I did."

            "I have taken the liberty of canceling all your weekend appointments and having a bag sent along with your toiletries and several changes of cloths.  Has it arrived yet?"

            "Oh.  No I don't think I…" Warren's eyes came to rest on a brown leather bag sitting just inside the door of the guest room.  Still clutching the phone to his ear he got up and unzipped the top.  Clothes.  Bag with toiletries.  There was even a razor.  "I take that back.  Yes, the bag is here."

            "Very good.  Is there anything else I can do for you?" 

             "No, I guess not," Warren shook his head, "Stevens, how do you do that?"

            "We all have our trade secrets, Sir."

            Warren closed the phone.  He was grateful for both the clean clothes and the presence of people like Stevens in his life.  He thought about Scott waking up to a similarly empty bed, but with no one to talk to and no one to call, and his self-satisfaction sluiced away. 

Dumping out the bag he sorted though the clothing, picked out clean underwear, pants and socks, but was mildly annoyed to find that his wing harness was nowhere in sight.  A quick search of the room failed to reveal it or his suit jacket, shirt and tie.  He assumed that they must still be in the boathouse, on the chair where he had laid them. Rubbing his temples he briefly considered what to do.  His shirts would not confine his wings without the harness to keep them in place.   He thought about flying to the boathouse to pick it up, but knew that Professor Xavier tried to keep as low a profile in the neighborhood as he could.  It was daylight and a flying angel would be sure to be seen, and the general level of queasiness he was feeling did not lend itself well to even a short flight. Additionally, he was uncomfortable walking around in front of people he did not know without his wings firmly hidden under his clothing. His mutation was a secret, or at least it was supposed to be. The public persona of Warren Worthington the III did not involve a 16-foot wingspan. On the other hand, he was at the school.  If there were one place on the planet where he could reveal his mutation to strangers without fear of revulsion or of having his secret revealed, it would be here.  He picked up the undershirt he had been wearing the night before, but it smelled like spilled rum and coke and sweat.  He shuddered and put it down before his stomach could rebel.  Ok, so no shirt either.

 Cursing his constitution, his lack of judgment and his partial nakedness, he steeled himself to leave the room bare-chested. It made him feel vulnerable to be wandering around without a shirt on, but he was not sure he had any other option.  Temporarily eschewing the chance to shave in order to postpone his decision, he cracked the door and peered through the opening.  No one in sight.  Sure enough, he was in the east wing. Damn Ororo. He picked up one of the clean shirts, shut the door behind him and set off to pick up his harness, locate Scott and find something to settle his stomach, in that order.

            To get from his guest room to the kitchen he had to pass the common room.  It was obvious from the noise level that the room was not empty.  Warren remembered many Saturday mornings in the common room ensconced on the couch watching kung fu movies with Scott and Henry and then trying out those moves later in the danger room, a tactic that usually got them either damaged or in trouble with the Professor. It sounded like the Saturday morning tradition had changed only slightly.  The lush orchestral music of a Japanese style video game came clearly from the television.

            He silently padded by the open doorway, sneaking a peek to see if Scott was in there.  He wasn't, but his passage was immediately noted. An enormously tall, well built boy with dark hair who had been watching the video game perched on a window ledge shot to his feet.  His startled movement alerted the rest of the children that there was something wrong.  The girl lounging on the couch, the one who had hung up his coat the night before, threw herself across the floor and vanished into a wall.  One of the videogame players, a younger kid with braces, cowered under a table, while the other player, Bobby, struggled to his feet to face what had spooked them.

            Warren threw up his hands, "Whoa! Don't panic! I'm a friend."

            "Who are you," demanded the dark headed boy in a thick Russian accent.

            Bobby looked like he was trying to not appear quite as frightened as he actually was, "It's okay, Peter.  I know him. He's one of Professor Xavier's old students.  He was at the…" Bobby took a deep breath and let it out, "…memorial service last night.  This is Mr. Worthington."

            Warren winced at the moniker, "Call me Warren. I'm not that old.  Or scary."

            The kid under the table poked his head out, "You have wings," he breathed.

            "Neal," snapped Bobby, "That isn't polite."

            Warren felt embarrassment wash over him and cursed again the missing harness, "I didn't mean to scare you," he apologized, "I was looking for Scott." Blank looks, "Er… Mr. Summers."

            Peter relaxed, "He's in the kitchen."

            "Thanks."

            As he walked away he could hear a fist pounding the wall and Neal calling out, "Kitty! You can come out now."

            Warren pushed the door open to the kitchen and stopped, appalled. Bullet holes had shattered the expensive wood of the kitchen cabinets, climbing the walls in a spray pattern.  There were holes chipped in the tile countertops and in the floor. It looked like there were even claw marks, huge gouges in the face of the stainless steel fridge.  Boards had been put up over several shattered windows. A chair from the dining hall had been drawn up in front of the coffee machine and Scott Summers sat in front of it, nursing a large mug.  The blue mutant, Kurt, perched on a stool in front of the butcher block with a plate of scrambled eggs, tail curled around the stool for balance. The smell of the food made Warren both nauseous and hungry.

            "What the hell happened here," he demanded.

            Scott, dressed in pajama bottoms and a faded gray t-shirt glared at him from behind his sleeping goggles, "Not so loud."

            Warren winced, "Sorry.  You too, huh?"

            Scott shrugged.  Kurt was staring at Warren with narrowed eyes. Neither was answering his question. Warren sighed, but lowered his voice, "What happened?"

            "William Stryker and his goons," Scott answered shortly, "The school was invaded while most of the faculty were away."  Scott leaned his head against the kitchen cabinet, "Ororo and Jean were tracking down Kurt in Boston.  The professor and I were visiting Magneto in his plastic prison. The only one here was Logan.  The kids handled themselves pretty well, but Stryker captured some of them and they…" he shuddered, " Never mind, it's a long story."

            Kurt used his tail to shove another stool towards Warren.  He sat down on it carefully, certain that his knees would not hold him up any longer, "That explains the reaction I just got.  When?"

            Kurt held up a bowl, "Eggs?" he offered brightly, but locked eyes with Warren and imperceptibly shook his head.

            Warren's stomach rolled in protest, but he took the hint, "Yes please.  Thank you."

            "What reaction?" Kurt asked politely, dishing out eggs onto a plate.  Without asking he slid over 2 slices of unbuttered toast as well.

            Warren looked at the plate of food and picked up a fork, but hesitated to put the first bite in his mouth.  Scott wasn't eating anything either, he noted.  "I came around the corner and they freaked.  Neal hid under a table.  Kitty dove through a wall. Nice mutation, that. I damn near gave Bobby and Peter a heart attack."
            Scott frowned, his tactician's mind already turning over the criticism "Neal's only 12.  Give him a break.  Kitty did the right thing, which was making herself inaccessible to the enemy.  Peter can take care of himself; his body is made of organic steel.  Bobby could have probably frozen you where you stood."

            Warren's wings went ridged with sudden anger, "My point, Mr. School Teacher, is that your kids are spooked.  You have been thinking this whole time that only the X-Men were legitimate targets. That is no longer true.  You need to teach them, even the 12 year olds, some escape and evade survival techniques and something of how to defend themselves.  Because the next guy who breaks in here is not going to give Neal a break."

            Scott's jaw clenched, "Don't tell me how to run this school."

"Then run it right!"

Scott slammed his mug down, "What right do you have waltzing in here telling us what to do when it was you who left us six years ago?"

Warren bit his tongue to keep himself from saying the obvious.  Scott took the opportunity to stalk out of the kitchen.

Kurt put his fork down, "I thought that Professor Xavier told me that the two of you vere old friends."

 "We are.  We just disagree about everything."

Kurt looked at the angel carefully, "You have… an interesting way of showing how much you care about him."

Warren sighed and rolled his shoulder to get his wings to relax again, "The key to Scott is to challenge him.  If I can get him to think more about how to teach, train and prepare the kids, he will spend less time thinking about creative ways to kill himself."

"As I said, it is an interesting way."

It was a warm day for fall, and the sky was clear.  Perhaps it was because of the warmth, or perhaps because it was one of the last few precious Saturdays before the temperature began to drop, but all of the windows to the mansion were open. Open enough that Ororo, shovel in hand and dirt up to her elbows, heard raised voices coming from the kitchen followed by the slamming of a door.  Alarmed she looked up through the window under which she was digging to see Scott take angry strides through the dining hall towards the front hallway.  He slowed, paused just before he crossed the threshold to the hall, and leaned against the doorpost, shoulders shaking. Ororo felt her heart turn over again for her friend.  She thought about putting down her trowel and going to comfort him, but knew that his pride would not allow for it.  A moment later, stiffening his spine and showing no sign that he had faltered, he strode down the hall, heading for Xavier's office.

The sunlight had faded while she watched him.  She looked up guiltily and banished the clouds that her own emotions had gathered overhead.  After a moment they dissipated, spinning their way backwards into nothingness.  She returned her mind to the task at hand, digging up the spent and broken summer annuals and replanting with a profusion of cheerful fall colored mums.  In the invasion of the mansion, Striker and his men had not just wrecked large portions of the inside of the mansion; they had trampled much of Ororo's careful landscaping. Compared to the danger that the children had been in, and to the magnitude of Jean's death, it was a little thing, but it made her angry enough to weep.  There had been so many other problems that needed dealing with once they had returned to the school that she had been forced to wait two weeks since she had discovered the damage to be able to find the time to sink her hands back into the soil.

Another door banged open, but the sound this time was to her left.  After a moment she saw a shirtless Warren stalking down the path to the boathouse, looking almost as angry as Scott had been.

Which explained a lot.

His wings caught the sunlight and absorbed it, feathers ruffling gently in the breeze.  Ororo had known Warren too long to be sexually stirred by the man's appearance, but she was honest enough with herself to admit that he was a lovely piece of eye candy.  She watched the way the muscles in his back shifted and flowed under his skin with each step.  She wondered how long he was going to stay, how long it would be before he was the subject of mutant teen daydreams.  Judging from how sharply Dani and Marie had just sat up from their sunbathing, not very long.  Ororo shrugged and went back to planting.  It would hardly be the first time that Warren had left a trail of broken hearts in the downbeat of his white wings.

A shadow fell across her.  She looked up into the dazzling sun to see the dark silhouette of a demon, blocking her light.

"Hello Kurt."

The mutant squatted down, curing his tail around his drawn up knees, "Can I help?"

She smiled, "I don't know, can you?"

He shrugged, "Probably not." He extended a thick fingered hand, "I am afraid I hav a blue thumb."

Ororo's lips twitched, "Your English is getting better if you can manage to make a pun like that and I don't kill you."

His face broke into a wide smile, all yellow fangs and yellow eyes in a scarred blue face, "Thank you.  I hav been listening to the students."

"Hmmm. That is unlikely to improve your English."

"Ja. I hope not."

She laughed.  In spite of everything else she laughed.

Kurt looked very pleased with himself, "I vant to fit in.  I like it here. Do you think the professor will let me stay?"

"I think you should ask him yourself."

He bobbed his head up and down, "I know. I am just…"

"Afraid?"

He shrugged, "Ja."

"You were not so afraid at Alkali Lake."

He shook his head, thought about it.  "I was afraid.  But, once you explained to me that we had no choice, fear became… irrelevant. I put my faith in God and acted. Talking to the Professor is different."

She planted her trowel in the dirt, "How?"

"I hav been a mutant all my life.  I learned to control my powers early.  I am too old to be student here.  Yet, I have not been to school.  There is nothing I have to teach the children.  I hav nothing I can offer in exchange for staying."  He picked up some of the earth, sifted it through his hands, "But since Stryker captured me and forced me to attack ze President, I do not know that I would hav anywhere else to go.  At least not in the U.S.  I am not safe if I stay.  I don't think I can go back to the Circus either.  That way is closed.  I am stuck, I think."

Ororo handed him the trowel, "Dig," she ordered. He took it, surprised, "You are worrying about nothing. The Professor is not going to kick you out into the street."

"He won't?"

"No."

"Oh," He was silent a moment, turning the spade over and over in his hand, "Not even if I pick up more American slang from his students?"

"I won't tell him," she held up a plant still in its pot, "Mum's the word."
            He immediately looked blank, "What?"

Ororo found herself having to explain horticulture, which killed the pun but not, surprisingly, her mood.