Elizabeth had two library books in her arms and a backpack full of textbooks, notebooks, and binders as she walked down the sidewalk toward the high school. Her gloves were the kind that became mittens when she wore them a certain way, like she was doing now. She was wearing a heavy coat and rain boots because New York's chill winter had begun. Her hair was braided up and covered with a beanie. She wasn't paying attention, her head in her daydreams, so she didn't hear the sound of wheels approaching from behind her. She definitely noticed when the teenage boy on a skateboard pulled up quickly next to her and abruptly jumped from his board.
"Crap," she said, startled.
"Yo. Sorry," he said, but that grin from beneath his cap and mop of disheveled hair was her favorite, "I guess that's what you get for having a skater boyfriend."
"Lucky, lucky me," she murmured, grabbing onto the front of his jacket as he leaned in to her. His lips were chapped from the cold, dry air but that didn't bother her. His arms wrapped around her waist. After he pulled away from the kiss she buried her face in his neck and kept him close.
"The tattoo guy told me I have to wait until I'm eighteen," Todd told her.
"You turn eighteen in March," she reminded him.
"It costs money for the classes I'd have to take to get a license," he continued.
"You can save up money from your job at the diner or from selling your art online," Elizabeth told him, but her brow was furrowed.
"I have to have a diploma or my GED," he added.
"You'll graduate in June," she said.
"No," he told her, feeling like a man in a guillotine, "I won't."
"What do you mean?" Elizabeth was horrified.
"I failed a few classes here and there," he told her, trying to be casual but he he how upset she would be with him.
"Why didn't you take classes over the summer to make those grades up?" she asked him, feeling a little panicky.
"School didn't matter to me. I wasn't going to give up my summers just to get a grade," Todd was frustrated, "The only reason I didn't fail anything last year was because I was going in every day to see you. Passing my classes was basically an accident. The only reason I passed English this past year was because it gave me an excuse to do something with you on weeknights."
"So, it's just because you didn't show up?" she asked, feeling a headache coming on, "It wasn't a matter of you trying and failing?"
"Well," he scuffed his high tops against the cement but stopped because she'd gotten him this pair for his birthday last year, "I'm not great at English but you've helped me with that."
"Did you fail an English class?" she asked, her green eyes wide and unhappy.
"I failed freshman English and Science, then failed Science again my sophomore year," he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck.
"So," Elizabeth started to think about it, then heard the bell in the distance, "Oh, damn it. Let's talk about it over lunch."
"Okay," he said, slowly, "Hey, you're not angry with me?"
"I'm upset, of course I'm upset," she huffed at him and gave him a dark look, "But we're going to figure this out. There are solutions. You're not the first person to spend five years taking high school classes."
"Okay," he said and walked with her into the school, "Thank you for not-" He trailed off.
"Yelling at you?" she asked knowingly, "Treating you like dirt? It wouldn't solve anything or change what's already done. You know how I feel about apologies."
"Don't apologize unless you intend to do better," he quipped, giving her one last kiss goodbye and disappearing down the hall with his skateboard in hand.
Over lunch they worked out that he could after hours take classes offered through the high school. During the day he could work, either at the diner or somewhere else, and save up the money for the licensure courses. He could take the safety courses he needed to through the local community college.
"I'll be busy," Todd said, examining a mock up of his schedule Elizabeth had written out.
"We'll have a date night once a week," she assured him, "We'll get through it."
"I've never taken a college course before," he told her nervously, "What if they don't accept me?"
"It's a community college. They'll make you sign a paper saying that you know you might not pass the class and you can't get your money back if you don't," she spoke from experience.
"Why?" he asked, suspicious.
"Because you won't have a GED or a diploma yet," she told him, "I've taken a class through the college before. The administration there gave me grief. The lady there assumes that if you don't have a high school diploma then you can't read, write, or calculate basic math. Remember last summer? We met at the college a few times. I signed one just to get her off my back."
"Yeah," he agreed, "So, I'm in high school for an extra year, basically, and that'll give me extra time to work and save money. But I don't particularly want to stay at the boarding house anymore. I don't feel like I believe what Magneto and Mystique believe anymore."
They looked at each other for a moment. They both knew Elizabeth was one reason he wanted to break with the Brotherhood. She didn't think she was the only reason. The way things had been lately in the news she was relieved and grateful that he wanted to leave the Brotherhood. She wouldn't have asked him but it was becoming difficult to justify to herself how a man who loved her so much and treated her so well could belong to a group that was actively working to make her a second-class citizen, at best.
"What do you want to do?" she spoke quickly, dropping her other line of thought, "I know the tattoo artist thing was my idea originally. Is this what you really want?"
"I didn't let myself think about it," he answered her honestly, "I'm afraid to want things too much, I guess. It feels worse when you get your hopes up and something doesn't work out. But I do really want to do something that helps me to get paid for my art. Besides, tattoos are cool."
"Okay," she said slowly, "You get a gold star for self-reflection. Okay. So, you can talk to the Professor about your options. He might know about some low income housing, better paying jobs, or scholarships."
"You don't think I could be an X-man?" he asked, a little hurt. As he spoke to bell rang to signal the end of the lunch period.
Elizabeth sighed, "I'll explain later. I think you could be an X-man if you really wanted it. I just don't think you really want it."
"See you later," Todd told her, irritated.
"See you," she replied quickly, "I love you."
When Todd and Elizabeth next spoke it was on the way from the school to the Institute. He had taken to walking her home and then walking himself home after. Once in awhile Scott would volunteer to give Todd a ride back to the boarding house, especially if it was late.
"What did you mean about me not wanting to be an X-man?" he asked her, still kind of grumpy.
"I love you, but I know more about hand to hand than you do at this point," Elizabeth spoke as they walked, "You're just not motivated in that area, as far as I've seen. If you really wanted to work toward that goal then I would support you."
"Babe, you've never really seen me in action," his tone reminded Elizabeth of the new students before the try-outs, "I've got superhuman strength in my legs, slime spit better than glue, and a tongue that could literally rip a somebody's head off."
She gave him a horrified look and he rushed to reassure her that he hadn't actually ever taken any heads off with his tongue.
"A lot of students think they want to be X-men until they start the tough, relentless, and often tedious training," Elizabeth proceeded with honesty, "I think all other plans involve less of you bleeding. If it's human rights that motivates you then there are other professions or careers that aren't so physical. Dr. McCoy does a lot of talks and writes a lot of persuasive material for the cause."
"You mean mutant rights," he tried to correct her.
"No," she looked at him curiously, "I meant human rights. Mutants are human. You and I are both human. I know that discrimination based on mutation is different than discrimination based on gender identity or sex or skin color. But I also know that saying that mutant rights are not a human rights issue is just as ridiculous as saying that gender identity rights are not a human rights issue or saying that black rights are not a human rights issue."
"Okay, okay," he held up his hands in a gesture of surrender, but he was grinning, "That's already a better defense of mutant rights than mine."
"Dr. McCoy told me once that one of the best things I can do as a non-mutant is to support the voices of people who are the ones facing discrimination, rather than shouting at jerks when I hear about how they treated people with mutations so badly," Elizabeth confided in him, "I try to keep my mouth shut. Keeping it bottled up makes me want to stab those awful people. So, what does your defense of mutants sound like?"
He shrugged, "I don't want to be treated like shit and I'm a mutant."
"What if you woke up tomorrow and you didn't have a mutation?" she asked him, curious.
"Would you prefer that?" he asked, his face solemn.
"No," her response was so automatic she surprised herself, "I don't know. I fell in love with you for the person you are. I guess, if you weren't a mutant then you might be another person and I might love with that person, too, but I don't know, because being a mutant is a part of you. You wouldn't be the same without your experiences as a mutant, although I guess that might have more to do with your being born a mutant and not whether or not you woke up tomorrow without a mutation…" She trailed off, realizing that she was rambling and nearly incoherent.
"I guess I've never thought about it. I wouldn't change you but if you did change then I would probably adjust," she told him, more slowly this time, "If you woke up tomorrow without an x-gene then you would still be you. If you had never had an x-gene to begin with then I don't know who you would be or how I would feel about that person. Does that make sense?"
"Yeah, I guess. I know that I'm pretty selfish," he admitted with surprising honesty, "I don't think I would care about how mutants are treated if it didn't affect me directly. I'm not affected by all those other things you mentioned and I don't worry about how those people are treated. No one treats me like shit because I'm a guy or because of my skin color except that it's caused by my having an x-gene. Hell, I don't even know what gender identity rights is about."
"You and I are called cisgendered," Elizabeth informed him, "In this case, we are both members of the majority. People get assigned a gender at birth based on what sex organs they are born with but for some people their assigned gender just isn't right for them."
"Oh, yeah," he nodded, "Like those men who have surgery to become women."
"Eh," Elizabeth struggled to explain, "Not everyone person who feels a different gender on the inside has the need to make their physical body match with surgery. It's complicated. You wouldn't compare all mutants to Kitty by saying that all mutations and all experiences of having a mutation are like her mutation and her experience with it. For starters, Kurt's mutation and his experience being a mutant are very different when you compare him to Kitty. Talking about the technical or physical details of someone's gender is like talking about the way an x-gene works genetically; it doesn't speak to the human experience so it misses the point and it can be kind of dehumanizing."
"Kitty can pass for a sapien. No one looks at her and immediately knows she's a mutant like they do with me or that ratty blue plush doll," Todd didn't sound bitter, which Elizabeth thought was pretty mature of him, "Even when assholes know what she is they might treat Kitty differently compared to me or Kurt. She's a girl, she has one of those faces that makes anyone want to protect her, and her mutation is defensive instead of aggressive."
"Right," Elizabeth agreed, "Being a mutant is complicated and different for everyone. Gender is a like that, too. People's expressions and feelings about their own gender are about as varied as all the different manifestations of an x-gene. But there's one thing that is simple."
"What's that?" he asked.
"People should be treated with basic respect and dignity," Elizabeth was emphatic on this point, "No one should use any excuse to do otherwise."
"You're face is all red," he pointed out, enjoying her.
"I turn red when I get angry," she muttered, "I can't help it."
They arrived in the atrium of the Institute and Elizabeth looked thoughtful.
"You should talk to the Professor about your living situation," Elizabeth's eyes were intense, "I really think he'd like to help you if you would only ask for help."
"Sure," Todd shrugged nonchalantly, a sure sign he was trying not to care too much.
"Afterwards," she added, "I'll help you with your English."
"Sweet," he responded, much more excited about spending time with her than asking the Professor for anything.