Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men or Marvel. Man, Marvel Studios has an assload of money at this point. Everything they make is seemingly a license to print money. It's hard to believe that superhero movies were a struggling medium at one point. Well, no longer, children. I'll tell you that much.
Chapter 23: Fighting the Still Life
As I had expected, I did get in trouble for all of the problems that had gone down with Laura and the Facility. Not as much as you would think when you looked back on all of the terrible things that had happened, but there was a reason for that. I didn't give the whole story. I omitted the unnecessary parts.
You know... the me likely killing several people. The illegal border-hopping. The car thefts. All of those juicy details. No one needed to know about that.
On the flip side, I kept in the things that would garner sympathy. Mostly relating to Laura's hardships, again leaving out the unnecessary stuff, like her coming just a hair away from having her organs harvested. You left certain things out when talking to people about superhero stuff when they had no idea what that world was like.
It worked. I got off much easier than I thought I would have. I didn't even get grounded, I just had to stay somewhere my parents could keep an eye on me for a while, which just meant more shifts at the theater. Hell, they even let Laura work with me.
God, maybe Laura was right? Maybe I was good with people? There was a word for that. Charismatic? No. Magnetic? No, not that either.
Manipulative. I might have been a manipulative piece of garbage. Rallying a team together into a solid crew was one thing. Getting a group of kids who had no allegiance to you to fight for you was another. So was being able to talk your way out of serious trouble.
It made me feel like a jerk to think about it that way. But I was not going to spend the rest of the summer on lockdown at my house. What kind of a vacation was that?
...Probably more relaxing than the one I ended up having, but not nearly as stimulating!
"I can still smell popcorn," Laura complained, sitting around with me in the living room. We had finished an afternoon shift and had since changed out of theater clothes, "After showering and changing, I can still smell popcorn."
"It's on our uniforms, hon. You want it out, you've gotta wash 'em," She went to stand and do just that when I grabbed her and sat her back down, "You are not wasting detergent and water to wash our uniforms after one shift. You get used to the smell."
Laura remained obstinate in the mindset that I was not making a big enough deal of this, "You do not experience smell the way that I do."
"I don't experience most things the way you do," I acknowledged with a shrug, "So did you tell Logan about the whole Facility thing?"
Laura nodded, "Yes. He is on his way here," She revealed with no fanfare whatsoever.
"What?"
"I called him late last night, and he said he was coming here in the morning. I told him that you and I had to work today, so he said he would be here this evening."
"So by this evening, do you mean-?"
*DING-DONG*
"Now," Laura 'helpfully' informed me right after the doorbell rang.
I gave her a look before giving up on my attempt at relaying my annoyance with my eyes, "...For future reference, this is the kind of thing you're supposed to give me a heads up about," I said, "What's the use of having insomnia if people don't tell you about shit when it happens?"
Laura and I got up and headed to the door. My parents weren't home, still at the theater for the late shift, so that left me as the man of the house, for all that meant. It was probably for the best. Mister Logan probably wouldn't be subtle about what he wanted to talk about.
I opened the door, to find him standing there, dressed in a cowboy hat, cowboy boots, and more denim than I had seen anyone wear since the late 90s, "Laura. Glowstick," He greeted before taking a whiff of the air, "Hm. Smells like popcorn."
Laura gave me a look that said 'I told you so', "Goddamn claw people," I muttered, stepping aside to let him in, "I didn't know you were coming here until thirty seconds ago," And that was not an exaggeration.
At this, Mister Logan looked befuddled, "Laura didn't tell you?" He asked, scratching at his stubble, "Huh. I told her last night."
Laura was quick to defend her failure to inform me of important matters, such as her guardian dropping by, "Isn't it courteous to observe curfew rules in someone else's home?"
Come on now. I didn't buy that for a moment. She had been at my house long enough to know better, "We don't have curfew rules. Just don't be a jerk and wake other people up. That's it."
Speaking of other people, Logan wondered why the two of us had been the only ones to see who had been at the door, "Where's your parents?"
"Working," I answered vaguely.
He accepted that he didn't need to know any more than that, "They know?" About what had happened to us, specifically with the Facility and all of the fighting.
"They know what they should," I said, remaining unclear. I didn't know how much Laura had told him or wanted him to know. Not that any of it mattered at this point.
Mister Logan eyed me closely before nodding in acceptance. He then grabbed Laura's chin and looked her over, as though he would be able to see anything wrong with her just by giving her a quick check like that, "You doing alright, darlin'?"
Oddly enough, she didn't react to this. If it were me, I probably would have gotten slugged or stabbed, "Bellamy was able to reach me before anything irreversible could be done."
"Yeah, totally," I said, trying to play up my role in helping her out, "...You can't grow back organs, can you?" I whispered to Laura.
She took a moment to think about it. Thankfully, this was one thing she hadn't had to experience, "I'm not sure. I don't want to find out."
"You can," Mister Logan confirmed, getting a weird look from the two of us, "Don't ask how I know that."
With that behind us, Mister Logan came in, and Laura apparently had enough of the lingering theater popcorn smell that I couldn't notice, "I'm going to do something about this scent."
We had been over this already, and I expressed as much, "I told you, you're not gonna wash all of our clothes after every shift-."
"-I am going to do something about this scent," Laura reiterated with emphasis. I backed off. I didn't care that much, I just didn't feel like getting admonished by my parents for using up all of the detergent, "I will be right back."
With Laura traipsing off upstairs to gather up her work uniform, and presumably mine, that left me alone with Mister Logan. For the record, having a teacher in your house is really weird. It's even weirder when he raids your fridge for your dad's beer. I had to explain that later.
It didn't take Mister Logan long to get comfortable, kicking his feet up after taking a seat in my living room. Was he just going to hang out the whole time like that was cool? Not that I had a problem with it, but I really didn't need to bring any X-Men weirdness to my parents' doorstep. I had dodged a bullet with the Facility. Still, with Mister Logan being there, it opened up a solution to a problem that I'd put on the backburner for days.
"So, I need something from you," I ventured to ask, given that he was in my house, intruding on my hospitality. He raised an eyebrow and took a sip from his can, but he kept silent and didn't shoot me down outright. "I'm okay with tech for a kid, I think, but Saberwolf's stuff is way out of my league. After what happened, he needs someone to patch him up. And Laura told me about this guy the X-Men know – Forge."
"Let me guess. You want me to take robowolf to him?" I nodded, glad that he had caught on. He was less enthused about it than I was, "Why should I have to take your goddamn pet to get fixed?"
"Other than the fact that I don't know this guy? Because you owe me one for having Laura stay with me."
"Right. She stayed with you and she went and got kidnapped. Great job."
Now that was a sore spot. A very sore spot, "Fuck you," I said, much to his surprise. I didn't need to be reminded that this happened while she was my guest, "You seriously aren't blaming that on me. Look me in the eye and go ahead and fucking blame that on me."
He had probably been trying to make a joke. He did things like that sometimes. That was just how his humor tended to swing – to sarcasm and dark humor. If he had really been blaming me about it, he would have been a lot more fired up when Laura and I saw him. But I didn't see it that way at the time. The whole thing made me angry to think about.
I didn't care if squaring up to him got my ass beat. I'd take that beatdown all day to get my own shots in if he insinuated for a second that Laura got hurt because I was negligent. I would defy anyone to deal with that same situation under the same circumstances without advance knowledge and handle it.
He knew. He held my gaze for a long time to see if I would back down, because he would be damned if he was going to let a teenager get away with talking to him like that. I was already running through excuses in my head as to how the house got ruined because of a fight with my teacher. But that never came to pass.
Eventually, he got bored of the standoff and turned his eyes back toward the TV, "No. It happened on your watch, but it wasn't your fault. You did the best you could," I winced at that crap excuse for things not going right. I'd heard it already, too many times – once with the Danger Room, and again with Breakworld. Mister Logan noticed, "...Kid, I-."
Whatever he was going to say, I didn't want to hear it. The only thing that mattered was making sure my friend got patched up, "Are you gonna help Saberwolf get to this Forge guy, or not? I'd ask you to just give me the address, but I don't think my parents will let me out of San Francisco again for the rest of the break."
He seemed surprised to hear that I was going back, "They're still letting you go to the school?"
There had never been any question that I was. I was in too deep to go running scared back to public school now, "You say that like bad shit happening is exclusive to Xavier's school."
"Hm. Touche," Mister Logan admitted, lifting his hat off of his head as a form of kudos, "...You alright?"
I frowned at the question. I wasn't physically hurt. I'd been a little banged up after the incident, but it wasn't anything I couldn't just sleep off to recharge from, "I'm fine. Why?"
Mister Logan shook his head, "Not because of this. I mean, with everything. Up here," He said, tapping his temple, "A lotta shit's been dumped on you lately. No one ever checked with you after Kitty went missing either. A lot of us had our own things to work out after that. Armor came to me for more training, like you do. She's gettin' real good too."
"Just don't make her too good. Like, better than me, good," I requested, dreading having a Hisako that could beat me consistently around, "The fact that I can kick her ass is like one of the only things I can hold over her head."
"Guess I just have to train you harder when you get back," He offered. I would for sure be taking him up on that when classes were back in session, "Seriously though, Glowstick. It's not good to keep all of this shit inside, or so I'm told. I ain't much for counseling, 'specially with kids, but do you have anything you need to say?"
The funny thing was... I really didn't, "No," I said, sounding amazed. I did have all of these nasty, cynical thoughts about the things that had happened to me, but after I had them, I let them go. That couldn't have been normal, to just get past such drastic events so easily, "I think that's the problem. I don't have anything I want to whine about."
"This ain't whining," Mister Logan growled, "You manned up and dealt with fucked up situations while they were happening, and you didn't make a peep. Good. I'm never gonna complain about having to work with a brat that doesn't act like one. But this shit sticks with you after the fact, and you don't seem like the 'drown your sorrows' type."
"No, I mean I really don't have a need to get anything off my chest," I said, trying to explain myself, "Mister Logan, I killed people. Killed soldiers working for the Facility. Killed U-Men."
"You did what you had to do to protect yourself and your friends. I know it's a drag to think about, but they'd have done a lot worse to you if-."
I held up a hand to stop him from his stock-standard survivor's remorse speech that he'd probably had queued up just for instances just like this, "No, dude, shut up. You're not listening. I'm trying to say I don't care," I deadpanned, "I killed them, thought about it for half a second when things got quiet and then-," I snapped my fingers, "-I let it go, just like that."
"Uh... well, just don't get used to it and you should be fine?" This was clearly unfamiliar ground for him. He might as well have shrugged at me, to give his confusion a physical act.
Ineeded to drive home just how foreign these thoughts of mine really were, "After we beat Kimura, my first idea was to drown her just so we'd be rid of her. The only reason I didn't was because it clearly freaked out the Hellions. That's not normal, right?"
No, it wasn't, because again, the Wolverine hesitated to say anything. It was a damning silence if ever there was one, "Did you like it?" He finally asked.
"I nothing'ed it," I grunted out sulkily, "It was like swatting flies... if the flies were racist and had hermetically sealed gear. It pissed me off that I had to do it for a second, and then it was over."
He took a moment to digest everything that I'd told him. That left an uncomfortable silence only broken by the sound of M*A*S*H reruns on the TV, "...You know I've got to tell Slim and Frost about this, right?" It sounded like he didn't want to but was aware that he had to.
In all fairness, he did. Having a mentally unstable kid in training with the other would-be X-Men was a ticking time bomb just waiting to happen. Besides, the whole X-Men don't kill was a load of crap for better p.r. with the general population.
Humans didn't like mutants to begin with. Having a team of them that could match the mighty Avengers and had no qualms with killing off human extremists that tons of people agreed with, whether they admitted it out loud or not, wouldn't go well. That was the reason why they didn't kill in the field. These were the things that went unsaid. You had to read between the lines for it, and a lot of people didn't. People like most students. The New Mutants were on the morality kick that killing was always wrong. The Hellions had the belief that we couldn't kill because we had to be better than our enemies.
I didn't have either of those one-dimensional mindsets, but to have no aversion to spilling someone's blood because they were bad guys trying to kill me? I remembered feeling disgusted about it back when I'd first met Saberwolf, and by the end of that same day I felt close to what I did now. It was that fast of a transition.
"I kind of want you to," I said honestly, "I don't know what's going on. I mean, I should feel something, right?" I didn't want to be a bleeding heart, but what if there really was something wrong with me? "Am I a sociopath?"
Fortunately for me, that leap of logic didn't pass muster for Mister Logan, "If you were, you wouldn't care enough to ask. Besides, you like people, and people like you. You're a surly, sarcastic dick a lot of the time, sure, but you ain't antisocial, and you do think about others."
XxX
When I said that I was in trouble, it wasn't just with my parents. That by itself would have been enough, but I had gotten in trouble with someone else.
Eddie had been right. When Megan found out that Laura was staying with me, she had been less than pleased. And this was a new experience for me. Not having someone upset with me. That happened so much, I just assumed it to be everyone's default response to most things I did. No, the new experience was having someone upset at me that I actually liked and cared for the opinion of.
Megan found out that Laura was staying with me. If I had told her, it probably wouldn't have been so bad, but that wasn't how she found out.
She got the scoop from a group picture I'd taken with Laura and the Hellions before we'd parted ways after kicking ass. Cessily had posted it on Facebook a few days later and tagged me in it, so it automatically showed up on my wall. Talk about a shitty way to find out your apparent boyfriend was staying with another woman.
...God, I'm stupid. How did I think this wouldn't be a problem?
By the time we had our first call after this particular social media post, everything had clicked. The moment I saw her face on the screen I immediately fell into apology mode, which was a big deal because I almost never apologized to anyone.
Still, even after admitting fault. I don't think the words 'I'm sorry' ever came out of my mouth. I really suck at apologizing.
"Please don't be upset," I was almost begging by this point of the conversation. Whatever it took, just so long as she stopped giving me that goddamn look, "I would have loved to have you come to California and hang out with me."
Megan just sat there on her bed, arms crossed, glaring at me. I had never been more rattled by someone surrounded by so many stuffed animals and different shades of pink, "But I didn't, and I'm not," She said, not cutting me any slack, "Bellamy, you didn't even ask me if I would have wanted to go with you."
"We haven't been dating that long," I explained, "And you had already planned to go back to Wales for the summer. I couldn't go with you, so I went home."
What I said had nothing to do with my unmentioned guest, which Megan picked up on, "And you brought Laura because she was available?"
Having disagreements with girls was awful, especially when you knew you were the one that fucked up. But I had to cover Laura's ass. She hadn't done anything wrong, "I brought Laura because she's my teammate – I'm responsible for her, even outside of school. More than that, I'm her friend too, " I said, "She didn't have anywhere else to go, and she isn't really a social person. She'd have been all alone at school for eight weeks."
Again, manipulation via words. I hadn't lied. That was how I really felt and thought. It was just that I was so honest and direct about the whole thing, it turned the tide of the conversation. Anyone with passing knowledge of Laura knew how lonely she usually was at school. And my failing to inform Megan of her presence hadn't been malicious. Just dumb.
From the turmoil on Megan's face, she wanted to keep a grudge, but couldn't find something worth holding onto without being petty, "How can I be mad when you put it like that? It makes me sound like a... a... not nice person to have a problem with it," It would have been easier to say 'bitch', but Megan tried to keep from cursing more than most kids our age that I knew, "I just wish you would have told me. We talk like every other day. How did it take over a month for it to come up?"
I didn't have an excuse, other than my crappy communication skills. Or more like, I had an excuse, but it was complete garbage, "That's how little I thought of it, I guess. It didn't even occur to me that it would be a problem."
-Which sounded stupid. I had to be more intelligent than that. Laura was fine as hell. Most people could see that. I could see that, even though I kept any comments about it to myself. Teasing her the way I did Hisako and other girls I knew would have little benefit for me, if she even reacted to it in any way at all. But facts were facts. We were together almost all of the time. Even more after the Facility thing. Sometimes, she stayed up all night to keep me company during my insomnia kicks. All by ourselves for hours.
Wolf didn't even bother chilling with me anymore. A few weeks in, most of the time he would ditch me to go to sleep in a heartbeat.
So yes, hindsight being what it was, I could absolutely see Eddie's point and why Megan would have had a problem. But as much as I was a fan of the female form, I wasn't going to cheat on anyone. What an awful thing to do to someone that cared enough to make themselves that to you. I guess I wasn't a sociopath after all, because if I was, that wouldn't have mattered to me. As things stood, I felt like more of an asshole than usual because I'd inadvertently made Megan feel bad, and all it would have taken to prevent it was a sentence in passing.
"If it makes you feel any better, karma got me back already," I said, pointing to the spots on my torso where Kimura put two bullets in me, "I got shot. Wanna see the scars?"
My shirt was halfway off before Megan could fully react, "Bel! Are you alright?" I was not showing off how hard my body was. I popped my shirt off purely for the scars. The fact that she liked it was not intentional on my part. Honest, "I mean, of course you are because I'm talking to you, but- you know what I mean! You got hurt again! Oh my God, I told you to take care of yourself!"
"I know, I know. I tried," I said, chuckling at her half-hearted attempt to admonish me, "I'm a crap-catching magnet."
From there, the call mellowed out into our usual thing of talking about random stuff, keeping each other up-to-date, and trying to entertain each other. I was just glad she hadn't stayed angry at me. Hopefully it wouldn't come up again later, but I figured it probably wouldn't if I didn't do anything else absentmindedly.
When our call eventually ended about an hour later, I dropped back on my bed and sighed, "I've really got to do better when school starts again. I suck."
I knew I would be a poor boyfriend, but that didn't mean I wanted to be, or that I wasn't trying to keep that from being the case. The last thing I wanted was for a girl to look back on her time with me and regret it.
Either way, the particular stretch of trouble with me and Laura staying together wouldn't be an issue anymore. I looked to the side and saw all of my stuff packed up and ready to go. We were heading back to the school whenever Mister Logan turned back up the next day. It was probably for the best. It had been nice to head home, but if things were still going to be crazy no matter where I went, it was best to keep it away from my family. I was the one who signed up for this, not them.
I felt relieved. I was supposed to feel more comfortable at home than in some different place, wasn't I? I didn't even know how my parents felt about it. When Mister Logan brought it up earlier that night, they didn't seem surprised or against it. One thing was for certain, though. Things weren't the same as they were the first time I left.
I wasn't the same either. We all knew that.
XxX
It was weird being at school and not seeing a ton of people around during the daytime. The place was like a ghost town if you compared it to the way it was normally when classes were going.
The basketball courts were empty, which gave me plenty of space to burn time throwing up shots and playing the invisible opponent all by my lonesome. I was alone, just working up a sweat, at least until I was joined by the two people in charge of the school.
I saw Mister Summers and Miss Frost coming when I jogged off to grab a rebound from a missed shot. To acknowledge their presence, I threw a pass Mister Summers way. He caught it with a grin and took a shot the moment he stepped on to the court, a long three-pointer. It went in.
"Show off," I remarked, fetching the ball so I could idly dribble back over to the two of them, "I'm bored, but I don't think you're here for a game."
Miss Frost raised an eyebrow before gesturing down to her heeled feet with a scoff, "Please, darling. In these shoes?"
"I've got time. You can go get some flats and come back. I'll wait," The look on her face showed me just what she thought about that idea, even as a joke. I turned to Mister Summers, who probably would have been more up for it, "What about you? Let's see who wins one-on-one; the leader of the X-Men, or one incandescent boi."
"Maybe later," Mister Summers said, deflecting before getting down to business. "We actually came to talk to you about something. Logan came to speak to us about a talk you had."
I stopped dribbling and pressed the ball between my hands hard, "About me being a sociopath?"
Miss Frost leveled sharp blue eyes on me, clearly not liking my choice of self-description, "Your own words, Mister Marcher. You are no such thing. But if you feel concerned, we will do our best to help you. How do you feel about therapy?"
I winced at the idea, "It hasn't really changed since the last time we did something like that," It was a different situation though. Then it had been because everyone thought I was crazy when I wasn't. Now... well, it just took a little longer than everyone figured for me to start losing it, "I don't have a problem at least trying," I had more or less asked for this, after all.
"We have a proposition for you," Mister Summers offered, "At the start of the new year, the school will have a new guidance counselor. He's very good. He's been doing great work with Kevin Ford. From Emma's team-."
I held up a hand to keep him from explaining further, "I know. We're acquainted," Kevin seemed moody and, for lack of a better term, emo. But he mostly seemed to have his head on straight, despite having death touch powers, "So, you want me to go see this counselor guy? Lead the way on this one?"
I must have gotten it right, because Miss Frost and Mister Summers looked at each other, "While his work with Kevin has been outstanding, it would be best if we had more of a sample size to work with," Miss Frost explained, "You're very different from Kevin and have different issues."
Oh, so I had 'issues' now? Well, they weren't wrong. That was the entire reason we had this conversation to begin with. I was apprehensive to sit down with someone outside of this world. It was why I didn't talk to my parents about it. It was why I didn't talk to anyone else my age about it that hadn't dealt with anything similar.
"If it helps, he's a very famous counselor," Miss Frost offered, "Sean Garrison. He works with athletes, superheroes, all kinds of public figures."
A guy like that should have been swimming in cash, and with way better options than talking to a bunch of ornery mutant kids, "Why is he taking a position as a guidance counselor then? Do you guys really pay that much?" I tried to joke.
Mister Summers took my joke seriously enough to explain the circumstances around the hire, "Dr. Garrison is a renowned supporter of mutant rights. He's been championing our cause for years. It isn't so strange that he would wish to help the children that are going to be our future."
I agreed, simply because I needed an outside opinion that I was crazy, "So how much should I tell him about all of the insane things that happen around here? Because that might scare him off, and I really don't want to talk about some things, but he probably needs context of what he's gotten into."
Mister Summers reached out and put a hand on my shoulder, "He has files on our students in the X-Men training program. We plan to have all students in the program meet with him. When it comes to recent events involving the student body, he should be aware," He explained, "...This isn't a punishment by any means, Bellamy."
I didn't think it was, but I nodded. It was good to have that confirmed.
"We want you to be as adjusted as can be. None of what you've been dealing with is easy," Miss Frost said, "You've done an admirable job taking charge of the Paladins after what happened on Breakworld. None of this should have been on your shoulders."
"I've said it before – you are being trained to deal with threats in the future. The distant future," Mister Summers specified, a glare off of his visor making him look more serious than normal, "We need to make sure you can carry the load that comes with what that means. You and the rest of your peers. You would just be going first."
They didn't need to do any more convincing as far as I was concerned. If they were just practicing part of their spiel for the other trainees, that was fine. I had already made my decision, "I'll do it. But I wouldn't count on anyone else being told to go to therapy without a fight, just because you've got me going first," I said, getting an amused look from Miss Frost, "What? Did I say something wrong?"
Mister Summers spoke instead, "There's another reason we're having you lead the way with this, other than you being the first one we could talk to about it. You don't understand just how influential you are to the student body, do you?"
Miss Frost took that opportunity to interrupt, "Influential enough to throw a party off-campus that half of the student body attended," The basketball slipped from my hands and bounced off to the side of the court, "Mmm. Yes, that face was worth waiting almost two months to see."
They knew? I thought I'd pulled a major coup making sure that party went off without a hitch. I patted myself on the back about it for days afterwards. I still got 'too sweets' from the few people left in the hall who had to stay back for vacation! Why didn't they just bust me right after they found out about it, instead of letting me think I'd gotten away with it?
Miss Frost reached out and took great pleasure in pushing my lower jaw shut, "Close your mouth, darling. There are mosquitoes out," I shook myself loose from her grip and glared at her, "The point is, you are a figure here. This institute doesn't have sports teams or any other means for students to be major symbols representing the school. It only stands to reason that all of the student squads would be."
It made sense. Everyone knew us. Everyone saw us all over campus in our uniforms, clearly being trained in something more than just learning how to control our powers. And the damn school spectator sport that Field Day was. Sheesh.
Mister Summers added onto his lover's point, driving the nail of my status home deeper, "-And out of all of the trainees, you've been through arguably the most crap since you joined, so everyone knows about it."
Miss Frost casually flipped her hair, "Honestly, we were probably going to ask you to see Dr. Garrison first, even if this sudden concern over your value of life didn't come up. You have issues that we could see visible difference in if taken care of, and out of all of the trainees that have similarly prevalent issues, you're the most agreeable."
I had to stop and run things through my head with three of the most extreme personality examples amongst my fellow X-Men trainees that I could find.
Julian Keller from the Hellions? The guy was narcissistic and had an inferiority complex, which sounded like an impossibly dangerous combination with the amount of power he had. There was no way he would take well to this if he had to go first.
Noriko Ashida from the New Mutants? Attitude problems and a nasty temper with dangerous powers to boot. She was fine if you could deal with how in your face she was, but if you were at odds with her for any reason, things got difficult quick. She was a very obstinate sort. Definitely not the type to test the waters on with the new school shrink.
Laura Kinney from my own team? Yeah, we're not even going to start there. I didn't care how good this Dr. Garrison was supposed to be. The Gordian knot that was Laura's scrambled noodle was not the problem you approached to prove you were a capable of working with kids in high-stress situations. It was a masochist's run... which explained why I spent so much time trying to help her adjust. God, I'm sick in the head.
No, Miss Frost was absolutely right. Dealing with the lot of us was like dipping into a fucking rainbow stew of teenage angst and instability. We all had problems, most of us thought those problems were the center of the universe, and when we lashed out we just so happened to have superpowers we were still learning to control to back it up. How the hell had a designated counselor not been implemented sooner? Advisors couldn't handle everything on top of the duties they already had. Then again, as far as I knew, this had been the first full year for X-Men training squads, so they were still working the system out.
And it just so happened that yours truly was the perfect guinea pig for it.
"Well look who's turning into the head honcho's new favorite," A voice said inside of my head, "You're just a good little toy soldier, aren't you?"
What kind of a thought was that to have? What the hell was wrong with me?
XxX
During the tail end of summer, it was lonely at school. There weren't a whole lot of people around that I knew to do stuff with. There was Nicky from the Paragons, Josh and Noriko from the New Mutants, but we weren't great friends.
Laura was off somewhere with Mister Logan, probably on some bonding excursion for fathers and daughters… brothers and sisters… err, DNA originals and clones. This gave me plenty of time alone with my thoughts, which was always a dangerous thing.
There were a lot of issues for me to deal with when school started up again. And it wasn't just the me being crazy thing, or the being a better boyfriend to Pixie thing. Those were things I needed to deal with, but I already had things in mind for those.
Having some time away from the institute after losing Miss Pryde could have only done the Paladins good, but we still didn't have an advisor. None of us had ever brought it up, and none of us wanted to, but the fact was that we needed one. That would be an uncomfortable thing to deal with once it happened, both for us and whoever was unlucky enough to be slotted in to look out for us.
Then there was me and Hisako basically being X-Men reserves. I hadn't forgotten that discovery. We were basically forced to step up to the plate or die on Breakworld, and now the X-Men knew we could deal with it. We weren't supposed to have to, not yet at least, but who was Mister Summers kidding? Whether it was designed or not, we would be on the front lines again sooner rather than later.
Until then, I was in charge. Legitimately in charge. Oh joy. I'd dabbled around with it around the end of the school year, but who knew how long it would last from here on out. Things were going to get harder before they got any easier... if they ever got easier.
"Oh yeah, you're the new hotshot big-shit around here now, just like Frost said, right? For someone who's supposed to be badass, you're an insecure pussy."
That stray thought caused me to stop and look around. That couldn't have been me thinking to myself. It didn't sound like my voice. It was a dude voice, but therein lay an inconsistency. I didn't know any dude telepaths. Ruth, Miss Frost, the Cuckoos – all the telepaths I knew were women.
Not to say that there weren't dude telepaths, but hell if I knew any.
...And that did seem like something I would say to myself when I caught myself in my feelings, or indeed acted like a pussy about something.
Cool. Just more evidence that I was losing my shit. The more I thought about it, the more my going to this school shrink seemed like a good idea. Boy did I need a friend at the moment. But sometimes, when you want something really bad, the universe provides.
Without fanfare, without a word, Saberwolf wandered into the room and plopped himself down on the floor at the foot of my bed.
For months, months, Wolf had insisted that the stay at Xavier's was temporary. He always said that when he had the opportunity he would go wherever he wanted and do whatever he wanted; that he would not hang out with me like a pet forever, not that I would ever personally consider him one.
We were square now, if pride were the thing keeping him around. I'd freed him from captivity, he'd helped me free one of my friends from captivity. I'd saved his life, he'd saved my life. I expected him to shove off after Forge was done with him, and yet there he was, as though leaving had never crossed his mind.
I just stared at him for several seconds, eyebrow raised, until I finally broke out in a grin.
"...Welcome back, buddy," I said before changing my statement, "No. Welcome home."
That was all it took to piss off the cantankerous A.I., "Be quiet," He demanded. However, I didn't let up.
"I knew you loved me."
"I told you to be quiet."
"You could have been anywhere in the world right now, but you're here with me," I continued to insist, hand on my heart, "Mister Logan had the Blackbird. He could have dropped you anywhere your little synthetic heart desired, but you came back to me!"
"I hate you."
"Aw, you're my friend too, Saberwolf," The panel of his back opened up to reveal his chainsaw, "I know you tend to think of yourself as a one-man wolf pack. But when you met me, you knew I was one of your own, and you thought to yourself, 'Could it be?' And now you know for sure. Your wolf pack had grown by one," By now the chainsaw was actively revving, held in the grasp of his tail, "Now there are two of us in the wolf pack. You were alone in the pack, and then I joined in later. Now it's two of us wolves, running around the world together, tearing shit up."
He could threaten me all he wanted. I knew full well he wasn't going to Texas Chainsaw Massacre me indoors and mess up the walls and the floor and the bed, and he did too. After all, my Wolf had home training.
When he put the weapon away, I hopped up from the bed and walked toward him slowly, my arms extended wide, "Aww... get ready, big guy! I'm coming in for a hug. Here comes the Bro Train, pulling into Friendship Junction!"
"Yes. Give me a hug," Wolf said, standing up and suddenly becoming very sharp and pointy, "I can think of nothing I would rather do right now."
It was at that point I noticed that the dangerous edges he used to have now folded in flatly to make him safer to the touch, "...Those are new," I got closer to poke at the razor-sharp additions to his form, "Did you get a new body? I thought you were just going in for repairs! I didn't think you'd get hooked up with new stuff!"
Wolf had always been kind of dangerous to touch. He had a lot of edges that could cut you open if you weren't paying attention. Now though, he still had them, but they were retractable, making him much sleeker when he wanted to be. That was awesome.
"It is new armor," Wolf said, putting his sharp bits away, "I asked Forge for upgrades. His understanding of my systems is... frightening. All he needed was a look at my inner workings to repair my injuries and upgrade me."
Forge did all of this over the course of a few days. That was impressive. Wolf seemed impressed as well, and that wasn't an easy thing to do, "Huh. Maybe that guy should be a teacher or something? Then maybe I could learn to fix you myself."
Wolf shook his head and paced over to my Playstation and box full of games to find something for the two of us to play together, "He has said that he is a terrible teacher. His knowledge is intuitive, not something that he can necessarily show someone else."
Damn. Well, we couldn't always get what we wanted. I'd just have to keep studying on my own and in classes to get my technological know-how, as slow-going as it was.
I kicked my feet up to relax, and Wolf linked up with the Playstation to get our game going. No point in procrastinating in getting back to the school swing of things, "I'm glad you're here. This place is a lot creepier without all of the other students around," I told him, "I have to walk around and look to find any people, but it feels like someone's watching me all the time. It's weird."
Wolf lazily flicked his tail as we set the match up in our fighting game, "I would say that you are being paranoid, but history has proven in the past that this is not often the case with you. Be vigilant," He warned.
I scoffed as our bout began loading up to play, "Of course. I never sleep, because sleep is the cousin of death. Have you learned nothing from Nas?" Wolf didn't react past turning his head to look at me, as if to ask what the hell I was talking about. I was disappointed, "...All of my friends are uncultured swine."
XxX
TV had to be one of the worst inventions for productivity ever created. It didn't matter what you had planned that day to be useful, plop down in front of a TV and have your attention stray for a moment. The next thing you know, bam! Forty-five minutes flies past, and you don't care.
I was so comfortable where I'd been sitting on the couch, just hanging out and preparing my snack, felt like I had just melted into the cushions. It had to be illegal to be this lazy. I wasn't even tired. I was just content with turning my brain off for a moment. There wasn't even so much as a stray thought running through my head. There was only a feeling of lucid comfort.
My brain rebooted when a stray figure moved past my field of vision, catching my full attention. A girl wearing itty-bitty blue shorts and a pink tanktop that looked to be a tad tight on her chest. The metal gauntlets on her arms and her electric blue hair clued me in that it was Noriko. In her case, bravo.
Goddamn it, I love summer. Also, I was a shitty person to have as a boyfriend, jeez. Was it really that easy to distract me? I was supposed to be a superhero trainee, but I clearly had a weakness. Just stick a hot girl in front of me and watch me tune out everything else. An assassin could have rolled up and put a bullet in my head from up close, and I wouldn't have noticed it.
Maybe I just needed to get laid? I hadn't seen Megan in-person in almost two months. Keeping a trans-Atlantic relationship going, especially a new one, was a bitch.
Noriko walked up and stared at me with an odd expression on her face as she observed me. I froze like a deer in the headlights. Had she caught me checking her out?
She raised an eyebrow and pointed at what I was holding, "What are you eating?" She asked about my snack wrapped in aluminum foil.
"Baked potato," I said resuming my chewing after having gone still for several seconds to ogle her, "...It's good."
So lame. At least saying that had rebooted my brain enough to the point where there was more on my mind than T&A. Far too many fine women went to this school.
Noriko watched me munch on the morsel in my hand with distaste, "You microwaved a potato just to eat it straight up? No butter, cheese, sour cream? Nothing? Gross."
I looked down at the potato, then up to her, back and forth several times, "There's butter on it. Besides, I didn't use a microwave, or an oven. I cooked this stupid thing in my hands," I let a glow come to my hands to show how I heated it up, "Oh yeah. I've got it like that, baby."
Despite Noriko's initial misgivings, she did seem to be intrigued, "Huh. Do you think I could do that with these?" She asked, holding up her gauntlet-covered hands.
Maybe, if she didn't mind getting crud from food on those things, "I dunno. How much control you got over your output?" I asked, "Also, I have no idea what food cooked with pure electricity would taste like."
Her nose wrinkled up at the thought of probably burning whatever she cooked black, "Probably bad," She said with a sigh as she took a seat nearby further down on the long couch, "I'm bored, Bel."
That drew a scoff out of me. That made two of us. Why the hell else would I have baked a potato with my bare hands? I didn't come up with asinine, mundane ways to use my powers when I had tons of stuff going on.
"That sucks. Where's your crew? Mine are all off at home," I said, trying to make conversation. Not that I really cared about her being bored. My own entertainment took priority.
Nori gestured inconclusively, "Josh is around... somewhere. Everyone else is gone though."
It explained why she stopped to talk to me. We were cordial, but we weren't super-close. She was good friends with Hisako though, making us acquaintances by default. When we weren't getting chippy with each other, we got along well enough, "Not you?"
"Not me. Nowhere to go," She seemed to leave it at that, so I didn't bother trying to pry. Her problems were her problems. Unless she wanted to share, that was how they would be, "So how was your vacation?"
"It was alright when people weren't trying to kill me. But that was only like... three days of it," I said, waving off the life-threatening aspect of my time away. There were other pressing matters on my mind, and there was a chance that she could help, "...Hey, how many telepaths are in this place?"
My spontaneous question garnered a confused look, "Why do you care?"
I shrugged my shoulders in response, "Just humor me. I think I've got them all listed," I said, tapping my own head with my baked potato. I may or may not have gotten butter on my hat in doing so, "Just trying to make sure I have my bases covered."
Noriko remained pretty skeptical about my intentions, but I guess she couldn't find a reason to dig any deeper, "Fine. There's Emma Frost, the Cuckoos, Blindfold. There's Rachel Grey and Psylocke too, but they aren't around here much…"
I picked up on a pattern that leaned heavily toward my original hunch, "Are there any telepaths here that aren't chicks?" Nori narrowed her eyes and a stray bolt of electricity flicked away from her body. She must have been annoyed, "I'm not being sexist. I keep hearing a dude's voice in my head sometimes. It's not mine."
"You sure you're not just losing your shit?" She shot back as a joke. I didn't laugh or smile, "…Oh, you're serious."
"Dead serious," In addition to everything else, schizophrenia was the last thing I needed heaped onto my pile.
Nori crossed her arms, trying to wrack her brain to give me a hand, "I don't know any, other than Professor Xavier, but he hasn't been around here forever. I don't think I've ever met the guy."
I shook my head in the negative, "It wasn't some old dude, unless he can disguise the sound of his mind. The voice sounded younger," Besides, what would the guy who founded the damn school want with me?
She was running out of names, so she decided to throw out one more possibility, "Well… there was one other guy. This was before my time here though. I haven't been here much longer than you, remember?" I nodded and gestured for her to go on, "Right. Well, before I got here there was a big riot on campus. This one guy started it. Did you know there used to be more Cuckoos here?"
That was news to me. My eyebrows rose underneath the brim of my hat, "There were more of them? Jesus, that sounds terrifyingly hot."
Noriko rolled her eyes, letting my hormone-driven remark slide, "Yeah, well one of them died during the riot. I don't know any more. You'd have to talk to them about it for more details. I think Laurie is the only person who was around for that one, and she's not exactly here to ask about it."
Right. Laurie Collins. Wallflower. She actually had a mother that didn't live very far away from the school. But I wasn't going to go and bug a girl I barely knew to get some info to help chase shadows.
That left me one primary option – to talk to the Cuckoos. I didn't foresee that going well at all. To begin with, they were kind of intimidating, what with the whole psychic triplets hive mind thing they had going on. They didn't really like most people and seemed stuck up. Even worse, they could probably tell that I thought that, no matter how I approached them, and that would color whatever interaction we had after that point.
Well, what was a new school year without expanding one's horizons? Reaching out to new people, establishing contacts, and making friends. Learning from and about other people. And maybe having your brain melted by sexy psychic triplets. But by now I had gotten used to there being risks in any random thing I decided to do around there. Only at Xavier's.
...God, I love being at school.
That's the chapter, guys. More of a downtime chapter to set up a return to the school for more hijinks. There are several irons in the fire for starting plot points to begin the school term with. Let's see what shakes out for our main man and the people associated with him. There's never a lack of shit to be slung in the direction of the mutant crew.
I hope you all enjoyed. Things gon' get going again next time around.
Until then, Kenchi out.