Thanks to hippiechick2112 and Melissa hearts fiction for reviewing!
The structure was a strange sort of place. It was like half a building, an outbuilding with no 'in' to it—or at least, an outbuilding where the only 'in' was behind lock and key. Ororo was surprised she had never discovered this place before. Somehow only now, as she searched the property in desperation for any scrap of diversion, did she find it.
The exterior was a small pavilion area. It had been planted with vines once, and those vines had been well-maintained for a time she had no doubt. They were wild now, half dead-brown and half bursting violet flowers.
She grinned and reached out to run her finger along a vine. The pavilion provided shade, too, a welcome relief from the July swelter. Had she been the type to settle down and read, Ororo would have read there. Even not being the type, she was tempted!
Instead she wandered around the side of the pavilion's wall. A case of wide stone stairs led upward, but Ororo was far more interested in the door. It looked old, made of thick pieces of wood held together with metal bars. A heavy padlock kept the place locked up tight.
She giggled. Who exactly did they think she was?
The lock thrilled her. Since arriving at the mansion, she had been free to go just about anywhere she wanted. Of course there were courtesy rules. She wasn't meant to go into other people's rooms without permission (although she did sometimes) or Hank's lab for safety reasons (she followed this rule because she liked Hank). Nothing was really forbidden, though.
This was.
This was clearly, obviously, pointedly forbidden.
Delightful.
Ororo had lost a lot in her life, but one thing she held onto was a set of lock picks. They were small enough to roll them up and hide them in her underwear—at least in America, where they wore the underpants with elastics around the legs. That made hiding the lock picks almost too easy—but 'too easy' did not stop Ororo.
She slid the picks out now. They were rolled up in a gray cloth so old it was worn soft all over. She opened the roll on one of the steps. Normally the large padlock would be no challenge to her. Normally she would have two hands! With a cast on her left arm, she held two picks in her right hand and pinned her tongue between her lips.
It took a while. Between her focus and the heat, sweat began to soak into her hair and roll down her face. The lock was a simple one, but she had not picked any in ages. Combined with the single hand, the should-be-simple padlock seemed to take ages.
When the shackle finally gave a rasping sigh as it fell free of the body, Ororo grinned in triumph. She pulled the lock off the door and set it gently beside her picks. Then she pushed the ancient door open.
It opened into a dim space with damp-tasting air. It was a big space; she felt that from the hint of air currents. But it was dark and unfamiliar. Excitement mingled with fear in her chest as she took a tentative step forward. Under her foot were sounds of settling wood. She risked another step.
On her fourth step, the floor wasn't there.
She over-corrected her lost balance and crashed back. It wouldn't have been such a bad fall but for her instinct to break it. Her arms shot out. The left one connected hard with a stair, sending a jolt through her. It pinged hard against the healing bone.
Her eyes filled up and spilled over with tears. It hurt! It hurt and it wasn't fair! (She had no particular reason to attach to this unfairness and—even more unfair—she knew it.) She scrambled up the dark steps and out of the strange little room, back into the light and heat.
Ororo returned the padlock to its ostensibly useful position, then rolled up her lock picks again and stuffed them into her underpants. Sometimes she used a pocket, but wanted them to feel especially secret today.
Then she continued to the top of the pavilion. It was a crenelated wall, old-fashioned and without much of a view to the south, where the mansion blocked views of anything but the mansion, but to the north she was higher than the estate wall. She focused on that over-the-wall place and thought about her power. She drew the wind to her from so far away—from over the wall.
It wasn't the same as leaving the grounds, but the fresh, cool air on her face felt a little like being able to go.
She had nowhere she wanted to go. Last Friday had been the first time she left the mansion without being prompted in months. She thought about what Chris said, what felt like ages ago but was really last week. She didn't want to go, but she wanted the option of going.
She stayed there, gathering the wind, until Ruth found her.
"What are you doing up there?" Ruth called.
Well, that was… taxing.
"Nothing," Ororo replied after a pause.
"Well, stop sulking and come down."
"I am not sulking!"
"Then start sulking and come down."
Unable to argue with that, Ororo only hesitated. She looked down at the ground and remembered being in an airplane, so high up she saw a long line where the ocean met the coast and the land below looked like puzzle pieces. Compared to that, she wasn't so high up now. Compared to that, she was only one step off the ground.
She bounded carefully down the stairs.
Ororo knew she had been a pain that day and told herself she couldn't help it. She had a restlessness in her and an anchorless frustration, impossible to deal with because it wasn't attached to one thing or person. It just was.
Finally, she asked, "How much am I grounded?"
Charles and Ruth glanced at one another.
"You said Scott could go running without telling you because he runs on the property."
Understanding, Charles told her, "You may go anywhere on the property."
"Grooves."
"Grooves?"
"Like groovy, only… grooves."
"Grooves it is then."
Ororo winced. "It's not groovy when you say it, Professor."
Charles laughed. "Excellent notion," he amended.
She nodded her approval before leaving the mansion.
If she was to be confined, at least her confinement allowed for privacy. Sometimes she needed to be by herself. It wasn't that she felt crowded or even intruded upon—she hated that and didn't know how Scott endured it. Charles was always keeping after what Scott did.
Ororo made her way to the end of the driveway. She drew the gate open and stood there, the toes of her sneakers at the edge of the drive. Then she edged forward. She put the toes of her sneakers over that line, the rubber crossing from Xavier land to public land. The toes of her shoes broke the groudedness rules, but the toes of her body didn't.
Scott took his time arriving. He was riding his bike, but slowed and hopped off when he saw Ororo. "Hey," he said. "Are you waiting for me?"
Yes.
"No."
He looked so… right. He looked American, but like Charles, too, a little wild from the ride but dressed tidily, with a button-down shirt and all. There was an unnerving evenness in the way his shoes were tied, the bows identical.
"Nerd."
"Gnat."
He pushed his bike over to the post box and fished out a few letters, then started up the drive.
Ororo tagged after him. "You don't call me gnat," she said. "You're not allowed."
"Okay, what am I allowed to call you?"
She thought for a moment. She had been called so many things—she was the Wind Rider to the Maasai, Squatter to a group of young thieves in Cairo, Ororo to the world she forgot in Cairo and the one she tried to inhabit now. Alex called her Gnat and he was allowed. Were names important? She wasn't sure. They felt like either everything or nothing at all.
"Queen of All That Walk the Earth."
He laughed. "Okay, Queen of All That Walk the Earth—so not birds or fish?"
"Birds walk."
"Rarely."
"Birds walk!" she yelped, not sure why that made her so angry. After a few furious breaths, she said, "Anyway, I need you to go somewhere with me."
"Go? Where?"
"Just… somewhere."
"You're grounded."
"It doesn't matter that I'm grounded."
"It matters to me. You—"
Ororo stopped still in the middle of the road. "Could you stop playing junior jailor for five minutes?" she snapped. "Just… stop trying so hard to be a grown-up. You're not, and you're not the Professor, and stop pretending you are when I want you to be my friend!"
Scott stared at her. Even through the glasses, she could tell. She imagined what they must look like to someone else. Like Alex, Scott had a couple of major advantages. He was white and he was a boy. He had no idea how much that mattered. Now he looked so intentional in every way, whereas she was a lopsided mess who couldn't even brush her hair properly with one arm busted. She hadn't let Ruth give her braids this morning.
Mistake.
Scott put down the kickstand on his bike, tucked the mail into his bag, then walked over and quite matter-of-factly put his arms around her. The hug made her shiver at first. She felt strange and then strangely at ease, letting herself lean into him. Scott looked scrawny, but, well, he was solid enough, wasn't he?
"Better?" he asked.
She hated to admit it: "Yes."
He stepped back and took the handlebars of his bike, then nudged up the kickstand. "So where is it you want to go?"
"I don't know. It's not part of the mansion but it's still on the grounds, so it's okay even though I'm grounded," with an unspoken 'Mr. Rules-Are-Best'! "I just… I don't know. Just trust me on this one, okay?"
"Okay. Now?"
"Later. At night."
"Okay."
"But when everyone else is asleep."
"Ororo, we're not supposed to! Besides, you want to get up after Professor Xavier reads to you? I thought you said it calmed you down."
"It does," she admitted, "but…"
He had a point. Being read to was the only time she liked reading and a nice way to move from daytime into night. But… when else were they going to explore?
"Let me think about it more," she said, lowering her voice as they passed the ship. It had become quite commonplace for them, the space ship on the front lawn. Chris must have been working inside, because she didn't see him when they walked by.
Scott nodded. "By the way, Mae wanted me to give you this." He took a book out of his bag and handed it to her. It was thick, probably a million pages (or maybe more like three hundred), and had a silly-looking title. It seemed made up, like those books Scott and Hank liked so much. If they wanted to read about hobbits, they could do that—but she liked real things.
Ororo took the book with only mild disdain. "If this is a trick to make me read, you're going to need a lot more cleverness."
"It's no trick," Scott assured her. "Mae said you two had a talk and she really thinks you'll like this one."
Ororo sighed. Scott was a misguided fool sometimes, but he was being nice and she felt the lingering warmth of that hug. She held the book at her side. "Okay," she ceded, "maybe I'll try it."
Scott grinned.
"But only maybe!" she insisted.
"Only maybe," he agreed.