Huh, I'm back. Funny, most o'my AN's start with that. Well, I'm in an art slump, and Mort's been buggin' me saying if I can't draw him, I should darn well be writing about him, so here it it...

Toad/Mortimer (c) Marvel Comics. And it goes without saying that I make no money off of this...(in fact, I think I'm losing money, seeing as how I should be using this time to do something productive...)


It was late Monday afternoon, just as the sky was starting to darken, when the boys had a free hour before supper and evening prayers. Brother Felix had arranged for Mortimer to meet him in the gym, and was pleased to find the boy already there stretching when he arrived. They had had another session the day before, and while Mortimer still had not spoken a word, he was proving to be as apt a pupil as Felix could have hoped for. Indeed, he hadn't thought that the mutant boy he had come to help would have been anything more than standard, if that--his only goal had been to reach out to a child in need, to make up for past failures--but Mortimer's sharp eyes followed his every move, and his small body was quick to copy what he saw. Felix smiled as he lead the boy through a series of basic punches and kicks. There was a fire to him, as if for the first time, he'd been given something all his own, and he every intention of keeping it.

"...And ten. Excellent, Mortimer," Felix said warmly. Mortimer glanced up at him with an expression that was almost, but not quite, a smile. It was certainly better than the dour look the child had worn the first day Felix had seen him. "I think you're ready to start learning the basics of a kata." The boy cocked his head with a questioning look, and, not for the first time, Felix wondered if maybe he couldn't speak. "I haven't gotten to katas with the rest of the class; you'll be the first to learn them, but I believe you can handle it." Mortimer stood up just a bit straighter, a light of pride in his eyes. "Now, a kata is like an imaginary fight, or a dance. There are specific motions you have to do in a certain sequence." The boy looked confused again. "Well, suppose I told you to do a downward block, a walk-in punch, and a downward block." Mortimer eagerly preformed the requested moves. "Good. You just did the first part of Hien One, the first kata. Well...more or less."

They spent the next thirty minutes covering how to turn correctly and which moves went where, and by the end of the class Mortimer had learned the first third of the kata, if a bit shakily. Felix sat down on a dusty bleacher and handed Mortimer a water bottle, which he took after only a moment's hesitation.

"Drink up, lad. If you do this sort of thing without drinking lots and lots of water, you'll make yourself sick." Mortimer drank, still eyeing Felix distrustfully over the top of the bottle. Felix rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"Well, lad, th' point of these lessons was t'bring you up to speed with th' rest o' th' class, and I'd say y've passed most of them up by now." Mortimer lowered the bottle, and Felix could see a sort of dread creep into the child's eyes. "So I think it's time you started coming to th' group lesson." Mortimer recoiled, dropping the water bottle as he scrambled to get up. He backed away, his shoulders hunching into his old position of protection, shaking his head, his eyes pleading and angry. "Mortimer--" Felix started to stand up, then thought the better of it. He seated himself calmly, hands folded in his lap, and fixed his eyes on the boy's. "Mortimer, what are you afraid of?" The boy didn't say anything, but his eyes darkened, more angry now, and a bit ashamed. Felix closed his eyes and shook his head slowly. "Mortimer, you can't let them make you afraid. You do want to keep learning, don't you?" Mortimer lowered his gaze, and nodded, just barely. Felix stood and very carefully walked over to him, then put a gentle hand on the boy's shoulder. Mortimer didn't meet his eyes. "And I want to keep teaching you. But this sneaking about won't go over well with the abbot or anyone else--and you deserve to be in a class with everyone else, to be able to learn with everyone else." Felix paused "I want you to come to my class, Mortimer. I won't make you, and if you still want to meet like this, I'll still teach you. But I want you to come to my class." He crouched down and stared into the boy's eyes. "Nothing can change here unless you make it happen, Mortimer. If you want things to get better, you have to do something about it." There was a long silence, and then Mortimer broke away and ran from the gym. Felix stood and watched him go, listening to the slapping of his bear feet and the heavy thud of the door behind him. His shoulders slumped.

"Oh Lord, I don't know what to do."


The next day, Felix puttered around the small storage closet, trying to find a ball that was actually still spherical. The boys had been working hard, and he thought a more light-hearted catch-and-toss drill might be a fun reward. Finally he withdrew an ancient red rubber ball that had managed to retain it's shape. He hefted it and brushed some of the dust off, then sighed. After last night, he didn't bear much hope that Mortimer would come to class. Maybe he'd been wrong to suggest it so soon. A memory came back to him, orange eyes burning with hope.
"I'm not gonna let them stop me, mum! If I can go to school like everyone else, then I should. It's only fair!"

Felix's free hand clenched. It wasn't right that this child, so young, was conditioned to fear. At nine years old, Marty had been cheerful and vibrant, comfortable with his own mutation, and secure in the knowledge that his family loved him. This Mortimer... it just wasn't right. Felix rubbed his eyes. Well, he would come back to the gym tonight, at least, in case Mortimer decided to continue the solitary lessons.

Felix extracted himself from the closet and started, nearly dropping the ball. Standing just behind him, an uneasy expression on his sallow, green face, was Mortimer. Felix slowed his breathing and smiled.

"I'm glad to see you, Mortimer. Are you going to come to my class?" A barely perceptible nod. "Excellent. I'm sure you'll enjoy it. Here, help me set up." As Felix cleaned sports oddments from the gym floor, Mortimer followed him like a silent green shadow, never more than a meter behind. Felix had to grin--only two days ago, the boy practically refused to let the monk approach him. He had just handed Mortimer a wooden bat when the gym door opened. The bat clattered to the ground. Felix turned just in time to see Mortimer scamper awkwardly for the safety behind the bleachers.

"Brother Fe--ah, Sensei?" It was Thomas, with a few of the other boys behind him. Felix glanced at his watch to find that he'd been running slightly late. He cast a last look at the shadows in which Mortimer crouched, hidden, and turned to face his other students.

"Ah, yes, boys. Come in. Come in and line up." He beckoned and fifteen or so of the boys filed in quickly. Felix set them to jumping-jacks, and then had them do slower stretches. As the boys practiced their woeful splits, Felix noticed an unusual amount of whispering among them. Several of the boys were poking one another and gesturing to the bleachers. Felix apprehensively followed their gaze. Still halfway in the shadows, Mortimer was doing his best to slide into a split. He stared at the rest of the class with uncharacteristic defiance, although his shoulders still hunched protectively around his ears.

"D'ya see 'im?"
"Wossee doin' 'ere?"
"It's th' Toad."

Felix had enough of the whispers.
"Attention!" The students scrambled to stand up, still shifting and casting confused and hostile glances in the direction of the mutant boy. Felix gestured to Mortimer, who hesitated for a moment, then came forward, his eyes darting wildly. "I'm sure that most of you know Mortimer. He will be joining our classes." At his side, Mortimer stood warily with his hands behind his back.

"Eh, 'e's too stupid ta be in a class. Everyone knows that," a boy Felix recognized as Halbert said loudly. His statement was met with muted snickering and murmurs of agreement. Felix saw Mortimer sink into a half-crouch--to make himself smaller or to attack, Felix wasn't sure, but he put a hand on the boy's shoulder to stifle any rash action.

"I don't believe that he is, Mr. Halbert," said Felix coldly. "And you will not forget that while in this dojo, you will treat your fellow classmates--all of them--with respect." He turned. "Mortimer, why don't you go line up with the rest of the boys," he said in a softer tone of voice. After Mortimer had found a spot somewhat removed from the other boys, Felix addressed the rest of the class, and began to teach them their first kata.


Felix smiled and hummed to himself as he made his way back to the gym for an extra session with Mortimer. After the class, he had asked the boy if he still wanted to continue solitary classes as well, and had been pleasant surprised by the eager, hungry expression in the boy's eyes when he nodded vigorously. Things were starting to work out even better than he had planned them; in addition to being about to help the mysterious mutant boy he had heard about, Felix felt that he had gained a star pupil, a student who would not just learn to copy what he was taught, but how to treat what he learned as an art form and to truly embrace it. It felt good.
He was halfway to the gym. when he heard the scrunch of small shoes on gravel running up behind him.

"Brother Felix, Brother Felix!" Thomas ran up, panting. Felix turned. "In the...east dorms...they're...gonna kill 'im..." the boy wheezed. Felix didn't waste any time asking who; he sprinted to the dorm entrance and bounded up the stairwell. As he raced down the hallway, he could hear dull thumps and shouting.

"Fink yer good enough t' be in classes like the rest o' us?" A thud. "Wot, y'fink yer human now or somefin?" Another, followed by a small grunt of pain. "Y'stinkin', green mutie." Coherent words gave way to a babble of muffled expletives and shouts. Felix reached the room where the sound was coming from and slammed the door open.

"RYANS! HALBERT!" he thundered furiously. The two boys leapt out of their skin and whirled around guiltily. Three other boys that Felix didn't recognize were also crowded around a trembling figure curled up on the ground. "Mother of Mercy! What in God's name do you think you're doing?" He advanced on them, trembling with rage. There was a clamor behind him.

"That's quite enough everyone!" The abbot and another monk were trying to get into the room. Felix didn't even turn to face them. His eyes never left the fetal figure and his tormentors. "Brother Felix, I...ah...what exactly, is going on?"
"I just came up here to find these boys abusing a fellow student, Father Abbot."

"I...see," said the abbot slowly. He and the other monk walked further into the room. "Of course you know you will be punished most severely for this," he said to the boys, a little less sincerely than Felix would have liked. As the bullies were lead from the room, Felix got the impression of children being scolded for throwing rocks at a stray dog, instead of for beating a fellow human being within an inch of his life. The abbot turned to Felix once they were gone.
"And the, ah..."The old man's eyes flickered towards the cringing boy.

"Mortimer. I'll take care of him," said Felix shortly. "Father Abbot," he added belated. There was the briefest of pauses from his superior, before the old priest nodded and followed the punished children, leaving Felix and Mortimer alone in the dim room. Felix rushed to the boy's side, angry tears stinging his eyes at the damage. Whatever color the mutant child's skin, he bled red, and there was more than enough proof of that staining his clothes and the floorboards around him. His face was covered with blood, snot, tears, and spit, and he whimpered quietly through clenched teeth as Felix picked him up, gentle though the monk was.

Felix carried the boy to the monks' bathrooms on the first floor and carefully removed his blood-stained clothing, noticing even through his mechanical motions how thin and underfed he seemed. He lowered the boy into the only tub and began running a warm bath. Mortimer remain curled up, shuddering and sobbing quietly. Felix wet a washcloth and began gently sponging the worst of the blood and grime from the boy's head and face.

"Shhhh...shhhh, Mortimer. It's okay now. You're safe," he whispered soothingly, and continued to murmur calming nonsense until the boy's sobbing had faded away to the occasional soft hiccup. Felix took this time to examine the damage done. His face darkened at the many deep purple bruises already blossoming on the boy's side and back, and noticed worriedly that he was cradling his right hand to his chest. He softly wiped away the remaining tears from the boy's eyes and lifted his head so their gazes met.

"It's going to be okay, Mortimer. You're safe now. I won't ever let that happen again. Do y'hear me? I'll protect you--I promise." Gold eyes met blue eyes, and for the longest time, neither moved. Then all of a sudden, Mortimer flung his arms around Felix's neck and buried his face in the monk's robes.

"Sensei..." he sobbed. Felix put his arms around the boy and held him until they both stopped crying.


Well, there we go. Some progress at last. Felix was bugging me while I wrote this. He just seems way too emotionally involved in a kid he just met, which seems to suggest to me that Felix has some transference issues that don't exactly scream stable and calm like I thought he was. Ah well. Eventually the whole bit behind Marty will probably come out, and then maybe all of this will make sense.

Or not.

...And to anyone freaked out by the bath scene...0.o; Deal. Mort's a kid here. And there is none of that going on. Savvy?