As everyone except Scout and Mr. McCoy shuffled out of the Danger Room, Hector kept thinking about Scout's sleight-of-hand. Was the Brotherhood up to something and using Scout as their stupid pawn? She would be that stupid.
Hector slowed his walking pace until he was behind everyone and he slipped away to eavesdrop on the conversation in the observation deck.
From what he could pick up, it seemed that amnesia came with incredible disadvantages, and he almost felt sorry for Scout's situation. Then Mr. McCoy said, "Knowing the training schedules, how about 10AM to 2PM from Monday to Friday?"
That was what Hector wanted to hear, and he was thrilled to hear Scout accept those terms. She would be around every weekday for at least four hours, but Hector stopped himself from celebrating when he remembered that the whole arrangement still reeked of a spy operation.
As he heard the conversation wind down and footsteps approaching the door, he bailed and ran to the dining room. On his way, he saw Kitty walking towards him with a booklet in her hands.
"Kitty?" Hector asked.
Kitty phased right through him to avoid a collision. "Hm? Oh! Sorry Hector," she said and dashed away without even a backward glance.
The brief exchange irritated Hector, but his mood brightened when he entered the dining room and saw a bubbling pot of beef stew on the table, but Renée restrained his arm when he tried to grab the ladle. He would have snapped at her, but then he realized that everyone was looking at Xavier. The man had his hands together in that chapel position that meant he had something important to say.
"Ah, there you are, Hector," said Xavier. "Now we just wait for Kitty to return." They didn't have to wait long, and after Kitty dashed back and took her spot between Kurt and Rogue, Xavier began, "Everyone here? I have an announcement to make."
That was obvious. Get to the point. Hector's stomach pained as he stared at the stew.
"Ever since the battle with Apocalypse," Xavier said, "Magneto has disbanded the Acolytes as a formal group, and though a few of them have remained with him for protection, I hope you will all join me in welcoming two more new members to the Institute."
A tall, broad-shouldered man with closely shaved black hair came into the room, followed by a lean brunette man in a worn trenchcoat and striking eyes, with red irises on black sclera.
"Everyone, I would like you to meet Piotr Rasputin and Remy LeBeau," Xavier said. "You've known them as Colossus and Gambit."
Piotr waved, but ducked his head as if trying to shrink to better fit the room. Remy, on the other hand, gave a jaunty wave and "Bonjour!" and Hector didn't quite know what to say at the moment. He became irritated again when he saw Remy cast a lingering glance at Renée.
"I see we're not your only new recruits," said Remy. "Like he said, I'm Remy."
"A pleasure to meet you both. My name is Ace."
"I'm Renée. I've heard great things about you."
"Hector."
"No last names?" asked Remy.
Renée and Hector made a moment's eye contact. "It's complicated," Renée explained. She wrung her hands a bit and glanced at Xavier.
"You may speak about it on your own time, unless I feel the information is of urgent importance," Xavier said. "I think we better get started. Hector's been eyeing the stew ever since he arrived."
The statement was true and Hector felt no shame for being hungry as he helped himself to generous portions and chewed on a succulent chunk of beef. Remy took a seat between Hector and Renée and struck up a conversation.
"So you know 'bout our powers?" asked Remy. Ace answered with a nod. "What can you do?"
Hector was just finishing his first helping of soup, gulping down the broth. Ignoring the weary look Renée gave him for the noise, he unleashed a small tendril of miasma to retrieve a small drumstick from a plate in front of him.
Remy made a "Hm" sound and asked, "That all it does?"
"No," Hector replied, and went right back to eating in the hopes that he wouldn't have to talk anymore.
Ace held his water glass and made the water boil like last time.
"You control heat?" asked Piotr.
"Yes. Do you believe your steel form will withstand it?" Ace asked with a small smile.
Piotr blinked. "Are... are you challenging me?"
"If that is how you take it," Ace said, smile widening to show teeth, "it is a friendly challenge."
A few low whistles and whoops sounded throughout the table. Hector tried to start a betting pool, but Ororo shut that down before he could even say "Five bucks minimum".
"And what about you, m'lady?" Remy turned towards Renée, making eye contact and leaning in a bit.
Hector enjoyed the slightly strained expression crossing Renée's face, though he really couldn't blame her. Rogue rolled her eyes at the scene. Renée forced a smile and explained that she could control brain activity through eye contact."
"Like a psychic?"
"No," Renée shook her head, breaking eye contact and turning back towards her plate. "I can't read thoughts, but I can make you feel sleepy, encourage hallucinations, or even shut off mutations." Renée reached for her fork, but Remy grasped her hand.
"I'd hate to think what would happen if we ever fought," Remy said. Hector started getting out of his seat when Remy brought Renée's hand up to kiss it, but Renée did all the work herself by jerking her hand away at the last moment and slapping Remy across the face.
Laughter erupted from the students badly muffling their giggles or not even trying. Rogue let out a snort, while Logan smirked, and Hector realized that somehow his knife had gotten into his hand.
Remy glanced at Hector. "Something wrong?"
Hector wanted to say "You", but bit his tongue instead and focused on Renée, whose shoulders had hunched over and was currently pink with embarrassment. "You okay?"
Renée's intense concentration on her food broke for a second, and she sighed. "I'm fine, just a bit skeeved," she said. Turning towards Remy, she calmly stated, "I realize that seemed harmless to you and you don't know me, but please never, ever, do that again." From how strongly she was glaring, Hector craned his neck to see if Remy's eyes were changing color.
"No, I won't," said Remy, surprised and remorseful. "Désolé. I mean-"
"Pas de quoi," said Renée, her smile returning. She held out her hand. "Friends?"
This time Remy shook her hand, and even Hector had to smile at that.
Through a fog that danced about her and shined with the indigo colors of her glass pendant, Scout heard someone's voice shouting in the distance. She floated and swam through the fog towards the voice, and it became clearer to her what he was saying.
"There you are, it's been so long."
Scout opened her mouth to speak, but the fog became thicker, and she found she had no words. Frightened by the indigo pressing in on her, she was pleasantly surprised when a strong pair of warm arms wrapped around her.
"Are you alright?" All Scout could do was embrace him back. His voice sounded so soothing that she could just melt into him and stay like this forever.
Her thoughts interrupted when a hand trailed down her neck and touched her indigo pendant. "This necklace..." he murmured. Scout tried to step back, but found that the fog was pushing against her body and preventing her from moving.
The fog above her began to clear, and Scout glanced up to get a good look at his face.
A loud, piercing voice cut through the fog. "Oh, nuts. You gotta be kiddin' me!"
Scout's eyes snapped open, but she quickly shut them so that reality wouldn't make its way through her eyes into to her brain. She groaned and turned on her side, hoping to return to that warm embrace. It didn't matter that the annoying, unfamiliar voice was still rambling just feet away from her. That voice wasn't here, she wasn't in her bedroom in the boarding house, and at any moment that kind man would-
"You're not staying here!" Lance shouted, stomping into her room.
Scout said a silent prayer that she'd meet that man again and sat up, eyelids half-shut. There was a wild-looking man with orange hair and a wide grin sitting on her bed and Lance was glaring at him.
Rubbing her eyes, Scout introduced herself to the maniac.
"I'm John and I'm the one who's supposed to get this room," the maniac said with a broken Australian accent. "You mind moving out, or maybe sharing?"
Scout closed her eyes and fell back onto the bed, relishing how soft the pillow was.
"So, sharing?"
"No," Scout grumbled and Lance snarled.
The weight lifted from her bed and she heard fabric and zipper rustling. Scout began to form a bone needle in her right index finger just in case a fight broke out. John explained that Magneto was paying for his stay, and Scout heard the rustling of paper bills. She opened her eyes to see that Lance had calmed a bit, though his eyebrows were still furrowed and his mouth in a tight frown.
The expression made him look so much older than when he had been laughing with her the previous night. She didn't like it.
To John's cheer, Lance finally accepted the money and decided to talk with the others at dinner about sleeping arrangments. At this point, Scout gave up on ever finding that warm, kind stranger again, so she wiped the light sand from her eyes and slid off the bed. As she slid on her jacket, she remembered. "Hey Lance, did you find th-"
"Yeah," Lance smiled. "Thanks."
The clock in the living room said it was 3:42 PM, so Scout went outside. She took a deep breath, relishing the fresh air, and then strolled into the forest where she first woke up. Crouching down, she examined the area, looking for footprints, signs, anything that might be a lead. She then circled the tree she woke up under, and she found a few strands of hair stuck in the bark. Upon close examination, the short brown hairs were likely her own, and so she was back to square one.
With a disappointed sigh, Scout lay down and gazed at the clouds and blue sky filtering through the trees. Gazing at the branches, she remembered the Danger Room session and was struck by inspiration. She stood and burst from her hands bone-and-cartilage grappling hooks, one in each hand, and looped them around the lowest tree branches she could find. With a bit of climbing work, she got higher and repeated the process with other nearby branches, and soon she was swinging too and fro and hollering at the top of her lungs.
Her fun quickly ended when, with a creak and a snap, a branch that looked sturdy fell out from under her when she landed, and only by jamming her hooks into the trunk did Scout slow down enough not to land with a soft thud rather than a crunch.
"Plan B," Scout muttered, dusting herself off. She searched the trees near the boarding house for a low, thick branch that had plenty of room underneath it, and found one near the fence in the backyard. She went inside, took off her shoes, and went to the front hall closet. There hadn't been a large-enough tire when she and Lance had dumped through it last, but surely there would be rope?
First though, she wanted to organize this closet. As she peered inside, a ski fell, smacking her head. Narrowing her eyes, Scout rolled up her sleeves. She had to organize the closet.
Through trial and error and stacking and unstacking, Scout had found a way to arrange the larger objects securely inside the closet when a mouth-watering scent hit her nose. Abandoning the pile of sports equipment and board games, she made her way into the dining room.
Fred was stirring a pot of pasta. Toad was blowing raspberries at John, who was trying to strike up a conversation with Wanda, who looked like she wanted someone to shoot her.
"Get out, Pyro," Toad yelled. "I was here first!"
"I don't see your name carved here, wart," John sneered back.
Wanda rubbed her temples. "It won't matter who's sitting here if you both won't shut up."
"Sorry my lady," John said. He turned back to Toad and scowled. "You hear that? Scram." John's scowl turned into a fiendish grin and he drew from his pocket a Zippo lighter. With a click, a large flame burst in front of Toad's face, sending the poor guy yelping out of his seat.
"Hey!" Fred brought the pot of spaghetti over and set it firmly on the table before grabbing John by the collar. "You don't do that to my friend." He snatched John's lighter with his free hand and crushed it. "Got it?"
"Absolutely," said John. His lower lip was trembling, but the grin was still on his face. He did a salute and Fred shoved him back into his seat.
Scout took a seat across from Wanda, and Lance and Pietro finally joined them all.
"All right, so before we eat, we might as well decide right now where John's sleeping," Lance said. There were six rooms, all of which were already occupied by one Brotherhood member.
"Which means someone will have to share a room," concluded Pietro.
There was a moment of silence before six voices shouted "Not me!" simultaneously.
"What? Oh come on. C'mon, Wanda," John begged. "Can't you spare a little-"
"No," Wanda's hands had a faint blue glow to them as she pinned John down with a glare.
Toad was scared that John would fry him, and Fred was angry with John for scaring Toad. Pietro simply turned up his nose, and John's grin turned downright nasty for a moment, as if he would punch Pietro across the face right then and there. "Well John, until we agree on something else," Lance said, helping himself to some pasta, "you can probably sleep on the couch in the living room."
"And Mags made you all sound so hospitable," John groaned.
That night, Scout had finally managed to organize the front hall closet, but she hadn't found any rope or tires. She saw John testing out the couch and tossing and turning, and she pulled out a blanket she had found and aired it out, waving it a few times to rid it of dust. She brought it over to the living room.
"Can I help you?" John asked when he saw her.
"I think I can make it more comfortable. Stand up, please."
John quirked an eyebrow and did so. Scout adjusted the pillows to the right positions and draped the blanket over the couch, smoothing out the gaps between cushions and where the arms met the seat. Rubbing her thumb and index finger together, she created some pins from her bones to keep the blanket in place. "Try it?"
John plopped himself down and stretched himself on. "Much, much better," he sighed. "You're not so bad. Can I share your room after tonight?"
"No!"
Scout giggled. She had heard Lance's voice overlapping hers.