Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel. God, I wish I had superpowers. I need technology to come up with a way to develop them before I die. You can test it on me, I don't care if it kills me in the process. The dream is real.

Chapter 28: Out Of Time

I lost track of just how long I'd spent sitting around outside of a containment cell, staring at the individual inside – Skip; the man I had beaten to a pulp less than 12 hours ago. Amazingly enough, he was awake to stare back at me. Impressive, because I'd legitimately beaten the dog shit out of him. Both of his arms were immobilized for his own health and the rest of our safety.

There were scratches, bruises, and bandages all over my face, arms and body. It was weird how used I was getting to being left a mess after various encounters. One of these days, all of this violence against me was going to leave a scar.

...A physical scar. I was sure at that point I probably had more than a few mental ones.

Eventually, I was joined by my senior X-Men advisor, who pulled up a chair next to me and sat down, "Hey, Mister Rasputin," I greeted offhandedly.

"Hello, Bellamy," He replied, acknowledging me before focusing on my nemesis, "So... this is him."

"Yep. In the flesh."

"How in the world did you-?"

"I had Saberwolf track my signature and lurk," I explained. The second anything happened, Wolf was supposed to either come and get me himself, or if I was too far away – namely out of his tracking range – he was supposed to go and get the X-Men to find me, "He'd have been able to ID Skip at the time too. Even if he'd gotten away, Wolf still could have found him later. That was the plan."

It had never been my aim to confront him and settle things the way we had. I had backup at the theater, and plenty of it. My strategy had been to utilize that backup to send Skip scurrying. Then, with Wolf getting his signature, we would have been able to come up with a real attack plan that we could have launched on our terms.

Mister Rasputin let me speak my piece and actually listened to me, "So, when you said you said to Logan that you wished to deal with this as well..."

I smiled at the man grimly, "I didn't want to fight the f'n guy by myself. Not really. It's just... if he was going after me anyway, I might as well do something to get the upper-hand, you know?" I was going to do the legwork and then tag in the big boys to get their hands dirty, "He preempted me, and I had to fight him, so I did."

It sounded like I was trying to defend myself, which Mister Rasputin keyed in on, "No one is upset," He started to say, "Well, no one is upset that you fought and won. We are upset that this occurred. But it is becoming more obvious that you do not need protecting."

Wow. That was one hell of a compliment, "I wouldn't say all of that," Seriously, what a stretch. I was merely in the process of learning how to not suck. A never-ending process at that, "I'm just trying to step things up. The last time I needed other people to do the heavy lifting for me... well, my teacher got lost in space. Because I like you, I'd rather not have something like that happen again."

And it started with me. After all, if I couldn't fight for myself, how could I expect to be able to fight for anyone else?

Mister Rasputin chuckled and set a massive hand on my shoulder, "For what it is worth, I believe you have done very well," With that bit of bonding done, he focused back on our captive time-traveler, "Now what?"

Where we had questions, others had answers; namely, an approaching Miss Frost, "Now, Piotr, we figure out everything we need to know about our new friend here," She stopped by the two of us and spared me a glance, "Mister Marcher, I assume you would like to sit in?"

Sit in? I planned on more or less driving the damn interrogation, "You kidding? I stayed up for this."

Emma let out a laugh and moved to open the door, "I thought you stayed up because of your insomnia."

She had a point, but didn't have all of the facts, "He beat the brakes off of me bad enough where I'd be out like a light in a minute if I went to lie down," I slumped my shoulders to try and display just how awful I felt at the moment, "I'm really tired right now."

But there was no way I was missing this. I'd have stayed up for three more days if I had to.

I entered the containment cell behind Miss Frost, with Mister Rasputin bringing up the rear, standing guard by the door. With two broken arms, there wasn't much that Skip was going to do to escape, but better safe than sorry. Of course, he was enthused to see us. Me in particular.

"Fuck you," Were the first words out of his mouth, directed at me, of course, "Little punk-ass bitch. You think you're better than me? Think you've won?"

"What was that?" I said, sitting down in the chair in front of the interrogation table, cupping my hand to my ear, "Oh, I'm sorry, I can't hear you. I keep thinking of the sound your arms made when I broke those shits!"

"Mister Marcher, be civil," Miss Frost chided me weakly. Clearly, she had no problems with my gloating.

I rolled my eyes, hard, though not with any malicious intent towards her, "Not a chance. Civility ends when you drop me from a mile above Manhattan."

Skip, the smug fuck had the unmitigated gall to laugh at the reminder of his penultimate attempt to kill me, "Yeah, I liked that one."

"Yeah, that was great," I drawled, "Mister Logan liked it a lot too. You're lucky. I just broke your arms. Mister Logan would have cut those shits off. You'd never get to beat off again – fate worse than death for you. I mean, you wouldn't even be able to make a tiny wormhole to fu-."

Miss Frost was quick to cut me off, "-I believe that's enough of that."

I shrugged my shoulders, "Hey, he knows how he got the most practice with his powers," I said, making a jerking off motion to kill any subtlety. I could feel Miss Frost's consternation at my lack of tact. Whatever. She knew who I was by now.

We were different people. Miss Frost got under everyone's skin by being a snooty, condescending, know-it-all; which she was good at because of her telepathy. I didn't have the benefits of mind-reading powers, so I got under the skin of others by being sarcastic, abrasive, and vulgar. It worked for me more often than not.

"So," Miss Frost said, looking dignified as she prepared to pump Skip for information, "We can start with something simple, such as your name. I really don't feel like calling you something as absurd as Skip."

"Is really bad name," Mister Rasputin chimed in from his spot by the door.

Skip was just about to say something stupid to Miss Frost, which would have led to him being mind-fucked for something as inconsequential as his name. He seemed to realize this and decided to simply part with this information, albeit begrudgingly, "Riddick."

I couldn't believe it. I was stunned, "That's your real name? That's way better! Why didn't you just use that instead of Skip?" I spat out his alias with complete disdain, "You're from the future! It's not like you're in any kind of system we can track!" Why would someone make up a crappy fake name when their real one was so badass?

Skip wished his arms worked so he could slam them on the table, "Because my dad named me after a fucking movie character!" So what?

"An awesome movie character," I emphasized. I took a second to think and came up with another remarkable individual that shared the name, "And Riddick Bowe is one of the best goddamn boxers of the 90s!" Fucking philistine. Seriously, I kind of wished my name was Riddick, "...The more I hear from you, the less I like you."

"The feeling is mutual. Trust me."

"I wouldn't trust you as far as I could throw you, you-."

Miss Frost interrupted us before the impotent dick-swinging contest could go any further, "-We are getting off topic. We came here for a reason," At this, she looked pointedly at Skip, "You say you came from the future. One where Mister Marcher destroys the world. Tell us what you know about what happened. You could save billions of lives."

The appeal to Skip's sense of morality did nothing but draw a scoff out of him, "If you really cared about saving lives, you'd end his right now."

Best of luck with that. Even if he did happen to be that persuasive, there was no way I was going down without one miserable fight, even against the X-Men.

Miss Frost continued down the path of diplomacy, giving Skip every chance to do things the easy way. Plausible deniability for when she finally psychically split his wig, "If you don't cooperate, we have no reason to believe anything you say. So far, you've been more of a menace than he has."

I wanted to go 'aww'. That was one of the top five nicest things she'd ever said about me; that I wasn't as much of a menace as an attempted murderer. What did that say about our interactions over the last several months?

Eventually, Skip accepted his position and loosened his lips, "Fine. I know you're going to take a joyride through my head while I talk, so get ready," He turned his gaze to me. I felt slimy, "Where to start with you? Well, your powers kept growing, by leaps and bounds. On the X-Men main team by college graduation. Hell, you were considered an omega-level mutant by the time you had your first kid."

Kid? First kid? What the fuck? "Whoa..." There were so many things to unpack there, I didn't know which one to pay attention to first.

"Yes, I know," Miss Frost said in agreement to my stunned demeanor, "You graduate college? And you have children? Well done, Mister Marcher. I can't imagine what self-respecting woman would allow you to father their child. Though, I guess you could change over time. No offense intended."

It had been an attempt to needle me, but truth be told, there was too much truth there to take any rightful offense, "No-no. You... kind of have a point," In my own head, I made for a crappy dad, "Does he have a timestamp on that 'me having kids' thing?"

"I think it's more amazing that he survives for thirty more years," Mister Rasputin commented, arms crossed as he stood by the door, "You are magnet for trouble, Bellamy."

"I... also accept that."

Skip lurched and kicked the table to get everyone's attention, "This isn't funny. You all can't even imagine," He said, glaring straight at me, "If you knew what was good for you, you'd let me get rid of this guy."

He had three tries and hadn't been able to pull it off. Too bad for him, "You don't seem to be having a lot of luck with that, seeing as how I just whupped your ass."

Instead of getting riled up, he chuckled and shook his head, "I honestly thought I would have a chance to finish it here in this time," There was something very unsettling about the calm demeanor of the smile he'd fixed me with, "Oh well. From how much trouble you had surviving me this time, the next trip I make back, you definitely won't be good enough to stop me."

I tried to hide my uncertainty behind more bravado, "Oh, so you got your ass whupped against other Bellamys too. Cool. Good to know," He was beaten and captured, so why did I have such a bad feeling?

"Yeah, I did. And you know what? The farther I go back, the weaker you are, obviously," Skip said, "You're 17, right? Next time I go back, you'll just be a kid. You won't even have powers."

The confidence that he was going to get the chance to do anything against me intrigued Miss Frost, "And who says you're going anywhere, let alone to any other time?"

That was as much as he was willing to tell us on his own, "Oh, now that's one you're going to have to pry for."

"So be it," Miss Frost said as she went to start reading his mind. Across the table, Skip twitched as he tried his best to fight it off. Best of luck with that. He was dealing with one of the premier telepaths on Earth. At this point, there was nothing left to do but kick back and wait for the answers to all of our questions. It didn't take long to get them.

Miss Frost's eyes stopped glowing and a pensive look came over her face, "Good lord," She said quietly.

"What is it, Emma?" Mister Rasputin asked, edging closer, just in case.

Miss Frost shook her head and questioned me, "You said his power was to create portals. Did you ever go through one?"

Indeed. Several times when Skip was putting a hurting on me, "Yeah, but, I mean, it was in and out. I didn't look for anything to it, if there even was anything to see."

"That's not his mutant ability," She deadpanned bluntly, "Creating portals to transport himself through, that's not his power. It's magic, not a mutation."

Okay... so that only begged one obvious question, "What the fuck is his power then?"

"Time travel," Miss Frost said, as though she couldn't believe it herself, "He can move backwards and forward through time on his own."

Mister Rasputin looked at Skip in a new light, "Is impossible."

"It's what it is," Miss Frost said, as a way of reiterating, "He can go forward or backwards. But his control isn't precise."

"That's right," Skip said, seemingly taking glee in the reaction he was getting, "It takes a ton out of me to do it. The farthest I can do it is seven years. The least is three."

Miss Frost explained what she'd come across while digging through Skip's mind, "He's been moving back through time, trying to find an opportunity in the past according to him to kill you, Mister Marcher. He's had no small amount of trouble. Between being savagely beaten by you every time, his body needs time to rest from every trip. About 14 months when he uses it to its limit to perform it again."

What a drawback. But that being said, there were other obvious things that needed to be brought up, "Do you realize that this won't change anything? Killing me in this time won't fix yours. All you can do is prevent that outcome in this timeline," And even then, God knew something else would come along that might screw Earth to the wall.

Skip nodded in agreement, "Right. I plan on living in this time, and I'd rather it didn't go up in smoke while I'm in it. There's nothing that can be done about my time."

I wanted to pull my hair out. I didn't need the bad guy agreeing with me. That was even more infuriating, "But just by telling us this, you've basically ensured things won't be like they were. Something will change, likely for the better. Go back to your time!"

Skip scowled at me, but it was different. He seemed sad. Remorseful, "My power... really sucks. I can go back, and I can go forward, only... when I go back and do something big, everything changes."

"His future doesn't exist anymore," Miss Frost summed up, based on context clues and what she'd gleamed from telepathy, "You've gone too far back and meddled in too many timelines to return home, haven't you? You poor fool."

"The funny thing about having a power no one else has-," Skip said, head lowered to his chest, "-Is that there isn't anyone around who can teach you how to use it. No one around to teach you how it works, the kinds of drawbacks it has. I got lucky when I discovered it. Didn't go back that far. Mom was there in the past I went to, and she understood. She helped me get back."

Miss Frost continued the important parts of the story, "In his quest, he traveled back to before he was born, fought against you, and when he tried to return..."

Skip finished for her, "Nothing was like it was. I wasn't born. My mother didn't know me," He looked up and eyed me intently, "I was 16."

Like it was my fault that he traveled back to try and kill me, "So you messed up, got mad, and sat in it for... how old are you now?" Take some responsibility for you own actions, you git.

Miss Frost of all people, tried to curb my attempts to cut into him with words, "Perhaps, in this instance, you would like to practice discretion," Even she realized how odd it was to hear that coming from her, "Goodness, I can't believe I'm saying this. I used to be evil, you know."

"You mean you're not anymore?" I shot back cheekily. She didn't get upset or show any amusement. The lady was serious, "Why do you care? Better yet, why would I care?"

At this, she hesitated. Big red flag, because Emma Frost didn't hesitate when it came to saying anything, "Because he's your son."

…

…

I slowly turned to Skip, who had become very smug in the meantime, "Hi, dad."

"...Nuh-uh," It was all I could say to respond.

Skip laughed from his belly at having shaken me up, "Go ahead and DNA test us. I guarantee it'll say that you are the father. Put us on daytime TV. Maury Povich is a thing in this year, isn't it?"

All of this was so much to unload. But every time it seemed like I was overwhelmed, something in my brain just... compartmentalized it all. My anxiety shut off and let me clear my head. It happened all the time when I was dealing with something that was too much, but this was the first time I really noticed it, "...Weird and scary as this is... I still don't give a fuck."

I sounded cold. Mister Rasputin clearly noticed, "Bellamy," He tried to reach out to me.

I pushed his hand away and shook my head, "No, sir. Don't 'Bellamy' me. Fuck him. He tried to kill me..." I stopped to count how many jumps Skip had taken in a thirty-year span, "...Four times over the years, at least," I held up my arm in front of Miss Frost to try and keep my momentum going while my dander was still up, "Miss Frost, let me try to save you some trouble and sum this whole thing up. After I popped and destroyed the world, he finally found a use for his powers, planned on going back in time, stopping me and saving everything. Only, he got his ass handed to him by badass future me once or twice."

"Spot on so far," She muttered loud enough to be heard. Despite what she'd said before about my attitude, part of her was enjoying how vindictive I was being. I didn't care. I was on a roll.

"-So, he hides and licks his wounds for a year or whatever, then tries to go home, only to find it ain't home anymore," I continue, my eyes never leaving Skip's as I continued cutting him down, "Now he's scared, and he's pissed. All he's got left is killing me... and no matter how far he goes back, he still can't do it. After that, he gets even angrier about it, and stews in it."

By the time he got to me in particular, he was probably so bitter and spiteful, simply warning me that I'd destroy the world and then just living out his life in this timeline never occurred to him. By then, he just wanted me gone.

With every word I said, Skip seethed more and more, "You don't know anything about me," He said, barely holding his rage back.

If he was teetering on the edge, I gleefully poked him over, "But of course, I do, son."

I threw his own previous taunt back into his face. I said it to mock him. To rub it in. It was cruel. I didn't care. He wasn't my son. I didn't raise the motherfucker. I wasn't there when my wife/girlfriend/whatever popped him out, and I damn sure wasn't there to put him in her in the first place. He was some other me's son, and we were not the same person. As far as I was concerned, Skip was a stranger. At best, his closeness to me was the equivalent of some distant cousin I'd never met that would only come out of the woodwork if they heard I won the lottery.

"I'm gonna rip you apart, you piece of shit!"

...Just a tad more homicidal.

Skip lunged at me, bucked against his bonds, trying to get to me and tear at my face. From how he was restrained, there was no chance he would reach me. I didn't flinch, "Hm. Not in this timeline you won't. We've already proven that. You'll have to travel back and kill a me who can't even fight back," I continued to dig into him, "Even at the worst version of me you're going to see, after years of experience that I don't have and you do, you still couldn't beat me. How does that make you feel?" His hateful stare was all the response I needed, "I'm done with you."

As I went to leave, Mister Rasputin stopped me at the door. I turned to him when he set a hand on my shoulder. His face was full of concern, "That was cruel Bellamy," I knew that. Maybe I would feel bad about it later, but in the moment, I couldn't be assed to, "Do you not care that he's going to travel back and kill the past version of you?"

"Why? It's not going to do anything to present me. Different timeline," I said, softly, "If that makes his stupid plan that he wasted part of his life on worth it, good for him. He couldn't even beat me on easy mode, so now he's gonna go back through the tutorial?"

Skip still heard me. It was hard to tell which part of my tirade he'd taken the most offense to, "I'm not leaving this timeline until I kill you," He declared.

I looked over my shoulder at him. There were tears in his eyes. Tears of pure pain and hatred. I accepted that, "You know where to find me."

Maybe he wasn't anything but an enemy to me, but despite trying to murder me several times, to him I had still been his father... and I had said all of those things without remorse. If there had ever been a chance of compromise and possible reconciliation, I had ended it.

XxX

The first thing I did after finding Megan in a common area near the girl's dorms was hold a fresh cherry slushie in front of her and say nothing. She looked at it, then at me in complete confusion until she understood. Then she smiled, "You're so dumb."

Fair enough, "I figured opening with a stupid joke was a good way to show you that I'm not hurt," Also, who didn't want a slushie ever? When would someone not be in the mood for one? "I'm sorry I got kidnapped and forced to fight a deathmatch with a man from the future."

A very specific apology, but a heartfelt one as well. Those were the best ones, in my opinion.

Megan didn't seem to think that it was necessary, seeing as how I had smartened her up to the possibility of shenanigans before they actually happened. Besides, I'd texted her after I'd mopped the floor with Skip and sat down one the Blackbird so she'd know I was alright, "You told me you were expecting something to happen. Eddie said you had a plan in case it happened."

Having heard my voice, Hisako took that moment to head over and make sure that I was indeed alive and in one piece, "And that plan did not happen," She said, slapping me on the back with the back of her hand, "Look at you. You got beaten to a pulp again, didn't you?"

"I won, believe it or not."

"No, I believe it, seeing as how you'd be dead if you didn't," Hisako said, "That jerk was really clear on what he wanted from you – your head."

"Yeah? Well, all he got was the finger," I lifted a glowing digit for emphasis.

"You shot him through?" Hisako replied, a tad impressed with my decisive action, "Wow. That's... brutal. I thought you only did that to Ord because he made you spill you guts?"

True, but I hadn't killed Skip the way I'd been trying to kill Ord when I shot him, "Yeah, well let's just say I really wanted Skip to stop trying to kill me. It's even more messed up when you find out that he's my kid from the future."

Trying to casually slip that in there had been a mistake. The girls had sharp ears. Both of them caught it. Megan went red in the face and kind of looked away sipping at the drink I'd gotten her, Hisako was openly more vocal about her surprise.

My walking Japanese tank of a teammate stammered for a moment before she found her vocabulary, "B-Bel... you can't just drop something like that out of the blue! No setup at all!" She complained, "That guy was your son?"

Megan shook her head as she processed everything, "I don't even know what this 'Skip' person looks like!" She managed to squeak out, "I've never seen him!"

At that, Hisako got uncomfortably close to my face, followed by Megan, "I didn't put two-and-two together of him looking like Bel. Then again, when a guy kidnaps you, the first thing you start looking for isn't which one of your friends he most looks like."

I hadn't either, because Skip being related to me in some way had been the last thing on my mind when we'd been beating lumps out of each other. Even now, it was hard to think about. Then again, as far as attitude went, it wasn't a stretch. I was a dick, so it would stand to reason that my kid would be a dick. Learned attitudes, and all that.

It was at that point that my girlfriend brought up a point that I had neglected to consider, "Well… if he was your son, who was his mom?"

Dead silence. That had gone unsaid, what with Skip hurling insults and curses at me, and my relentless belittling of his efforts.

"Huh... didn't think to ask," I was too busy trying to emotionally obliterate him to inquire as to who I'd shacked up with to have him in the first place, "Probably should have before I went nuclear running my mouth."

"I mean, does it matter? You're not having a Skip," Hisako declared resolutely, "Over my dead body are you going to have the kid that goes back in time to try and kill you. You should have found out who the mother was, so you could spend the rest of your life avoiding whoever it is like the plague."

...Probably not the best thing to say with my girlfriend standing a foot away.

Either Megan was the mother in the future, and she would wind up having a child that hated me and wanted to kill me, or she wasn't the mother, which meant we'd break up somewhere down the line and not get back together. This was very likely, seeing as how we were goddamn high school students. OR, I had a kid with somebody else, meaning I two-timed future-Megan... or the opposite – I cheated on someone else with Megan. Every considerable possibility here was unpleasant in its own way to think about.

And if I came to that conclusion, it stood to reason that it would only be a matter of time before Megan and Hisako came to a similar one, if they hadn't already. These were relationship-poisoning thoughts, and I would not entertain them.

I made a hand-washing motion as I made to end the conversation, "Fuck that. I don't want to know," I said, "Chalk it up to one of those things like with Ruth. Just because she sees certain bad shit coming in the future, doesn't mean I have to know every painful detail. Same with this."

It seemed like Hisako could accept that much, "Whatever. It's your future," She said, trying to suddenly seem disinterested.

"No, it's not. I stopped it," I finished succinctly. I offered my arm to Megan as we started heading away, "Remember, even though it's Saturday, we've still got squad practice later."

Hisako scoffed and smirked at me with her hands on her hips, "Do you really think Mister Rasputin's going to let you practice today?"

Likely not, but then again, I didn't want to. I was beginning to crave sleep, but there were too many things to do during the day for me to just crash, "He's not gonna let me do any live training, no. But I can still do something. Anyway, I'll see you later."

With that, Megan and I parted from my teammate. She threw my arm around herself and leaned into my embrace as we headed back to one of the class buildings. I was mentally trying to move past everything that had happened in the last week, but it was clear a lot of it weighed on one of our minds – hers. She quietly sipped her slushie in thought before talking to me after enough time had passed.

"Are you okay?" Her fingertips drummed across the hard cast that still rested on one of my hands. It had been through some serious wear and tear, but the important part of it remained intact.

"I was slapped around a bit, but nothing really serious," I told her, trying to placate any of her fears.

My physical state of being wasn't what she'd been alluding to, "No, not that. If you weren't good to go, nobody would have let you go out," True. I'd have still been down in the medical wing, "I'm just saying, a LOT of stuff has happened. It's got to be a lot to deal with. Do you want to talk about it?"

Ah. She wanted to know where my head was at. It was something I wondered about a lot myself lately, "I don't really know what to say."

Not because I didn't have anything to say, but because I was afraid that maybe she was starting to catch on to some of the things I was wary about when it came to myself. I didn't think that my head was on straight, and showing the amount of detachment I had for Skip, my apparent seed from another timeline, probably put that front and center.

It was getting progressively harder to not be an asshole.

XxX

Squad practice wasn't extremely tiring. Mister Rasputin believed in preparing our brains for missions instead of our bodies, more so than Miss Pryde did, even. Instead of splitting us off to get us to spar, he would keep us together and drum up mock scenarios that we'd have to walk through, going over possible solutions to whatever problems came up. And using fighting as a solution was often frowned upon.

That was fine with me. Ruth was never going to be a combat specialist. Eddie didn't have a taste for fighting unless you got him mad. Laura was the best fighter out of all of us, and wasn't going to get much better slapping us around. Hisako and I got enough training on our own time. In addition to working with Mister Logan, she'd even started asking Saberwolf for help.

Regardless, a slow day was just what I needed. I didn't want any more aches and bruises to add to the other ones I already had to try and sleep off. My body wanted rest, my mind wanted rest. Maybe that was why on this particular day, I didn't get it.

The moment my body sank onto my mattress and my eyes drifted shut, an annoying cackle rang out in my head, 'Quire, can this wait for like eight hours?' I complained in my head. Not that I would be willing to deal with his brand of bullshit even after a nap. I would just be better equipped for the task, 'I'll yell at you all you want later. Have a heart.'

"Now why would you ask someone else that when you don't even think you have one?" Of course, he was privy to my own thoughts about why I sucked. It wasn't like I kept them at the back of my mind, "No, this is good. You're less mouthy when you're tired. Easier to get into your head too."

Oh. He had to take advantage of me being tired and fed up to get at me again, 'So, you've been silent because you couldn't get into my head. I thought you were a top-class telepath. I don't even have any mental defenses,' I taunted.

"Bullshit. It's like a wall of flubber in your brain. I hit it, and get a little way in, but it just bounces me right back," He sounded frustrated. Good. Stay the fuck out of my head, "I agree on one part though. You definitely didn't do anything."

Sure. Go ahead and try to save some face, just because you couldn't use your magic brain to throw your weight around, 'I sure stopped you from messing with me.'

Quire's aggravation deepened at that, and he lashed out the only way he could at the moment, "No. You didn't, you arrogant ass," Quire said in my head. I had a response ready, but he got another word in before I could fire back, "Genius, did you ever stop to fucking think about why you just accept everything going on around you and move on? You never freak out? You never lose you shit?"

'Because dwelling on anything won't solve the problem?' I thought as though it were obvious. It was how I'd adjusted to the school. How I'd learned to roll with the punches that kept coming my way. It seemed to work so far.

"Yeah, but why would you think like that?" Quire said, continuing to make his point, "Before you came here, you were just some dumb brat who went to regular high school like the rest of the normies. Why!? What have you ever done before this that prepared you for this!? NOTHING!"

I wanted to say that I had been well-trained. I wanted to say that I'd been prepared for anything. But it wouldn't have been true. Other kids were trained too, and they froze up inside of the Danger Room. Hisako was an incident away from a panic attack before we got to Breakworld.

Nothing prepared you for getting randomly shot off into space like a test monkey. Nothing prepared you for a near-death experience where you were literally holding your own entrails inside of your open belly. Nothing prepared you to fight a motherfucker from the future, one that you apparently spawned.

Yet, I did. And I did my best to brush these things off. For the most part, it worked, and it really shouldn't have. I had nothing to go back at Quire with, and he knew it.

Quire's words were sharp, antagonizing. They jabbed at me like a needle, "That's what pisses me off the most about you. You walk around like you're so bad. Ha!" He let out a bark of laughter, "You moron. Every bit of real swagger you have, you got from a blind girl with a broken mind."

I was very aware of the tightening in my jaw, '...What are you on about?'

"You don't get it yet? Think. Who else would have tried to block your stupid brain from me? Who else would have benefited from you thinking you were more lion than sheep?" Not Miss Frost, and not the Cuckoos. Frost didn't like me, and I didn't know the sisters nearly well enough for them to jump into my head and start adjusting the wiring, "Face it. The best parts of you as an X-Man are all because Blindfold wanted a hero."

I couldn't believe what he was getting at, 'You're saying Ruth did something to my head?' My Ruth? My favorite mind-reader, with all of the power but none of the ego? 'I don't know how to break this to you, but her stuff isn't that subtle that I wouldn't have noticed it.'

"Why would she have to be subtle? You trust her. Any time you realized she was in your head; did you tell her to get out? It's not like she was hurting you, or making you do anything. Of course... maybe she was."

What did Quire know? Just because that's what he would have done, because it was the only way he could get anyone to be around him, that didn't mean someone else would.

"Only one way to find out, hero. But who's to say she won't just scramble your brain when you bring it up?"

Because I said so. Ruth wasn't like that. She didn't do that to people who deserved it. She'd never manipulated anyone to think better of her, even when tons of kids thought she was creepy. Even Eddie hadn't thought the best of her for the longest time, and she'd never done anything with her powers to try and manipulate that.

I trusted her. That being said, a seed had been planted. Now that I'd thought about it, there wasn't any reason not to go and see her before I went to sleep.

XxX

It took me less than three minutes to get from my room to hers. Before I could even lift my hand to knock, a voice from inside stopped me, "It is open, yes."

I raised an eyebrow in return. Well, she could have either seen this conversation coming through precognition, or she could have read my mind while I was headed there, so it wasn't a surprise that she knew I was about to show up.

I opened the door to find Ruth sitting on her bed on her side of the room. The semester before, she hadn't had a roommate, but at the start of the new school year, she'd gotten Laura to share a room with. That had to be the most silent pairing of people in the entire academy.

She was fidgeting with her hands from the very moment I walked in. Not a good sign. To try to get her to loosen up, I tried to make some small talk, "You know, I'm glad they roomed you two up this year. You're both good girls, and I really doubt you'd bother each other much."

I gestured to sit down, and she nodded, so I pulled a chair from her desk and tried to make myself comfortable. No matter how disarmed I made myself to be, Ruth still seemed tense, "Are you okay?"

Ruth's hands continued wringing her hands in her lap, her head down, "No. Pardon. You are upset with her."

Man, she was prepared for a scolding. I didn't know how to play this. Nothing I did could chill her out. Anything I thought, she could see. She knew why I was there. Eventually, I just decided to plow right ahead into it, "I'm not mad. Actually, I don't even know if I'm mad or not. Are you doing something to me now?" A casual accusation that had the effect of making her wince, "Okay. Sorry. I just had to ask."

I had no idea where I was going, but there was something to this. She wouldn't have seemed so downtrodden if there wasn't.

I felt bad. But I had to soldier on. If I didn't, if I backed off, did that mean I had been conditioned? I had to know, and the quickest way to get a response was to be direct, "I'll just pull the band-aid off now. Did you do anything to my head?"

There was no dancing around the truth, or stalling.

"Yes, she did," Ruth admitted. I felt a flash of anger, but more disappointment than anything else, "She was scared, so scared, when the Reavers attacked. She was scared, and Bellamy was scared, and she just wanted someone not to be scared!" I waited for her to get herself together and keep going, "…So, she took Bellamy's fear away. She did it so he could save us. She didn't mean to."

All of a sudden, everything made sense. It all lined up. Before then, when everything started, I was piss-my-pants scared of running from idiot militia townies. But somewhere in that hole Ruth and I were held captive in, it just clicked. I thought about all of the things that should have sent me screaming and crying in fear. Armed, racist terrorists. A cyborg who wanted to harness my powers and turn me into a battery. An A.I. built to kill mutants with a chainsaw in his back. THAT was when I should have been scared!

I dealt with all of that shit within hours of each other, with everything piling on, and I'd only been frightened up until I got to Ruth. Then I mellowed to being healthily afraid of what was going on around me and started thinking. And it never stopped from that moment on. I never went back to being terrified to the degree that I couldn't do something in return.

In the grand scheme of things, it helped me. She altered the way I thought and went about doing things, but without it, I likely would have been killed by then. Even then, I was still using it, trying to think instead of letting the anger I felt move me. However, it was causing problems, and it would cause more problems further down the line if what we'd been dealing with was any indication.

I revealed to her as much, "Ruthie, you didn't just turn off most of the fear. I think you turned off a lot of my empathy too, which isn't good, because I was enough of a prick to start with," Now, if I figured it was necessary to shoot somebody, well, that was it. I wouldn't give it a second thought. It was that way with a lot of things. Think it out, act quickly and decisively, regret next to nothing, "Apparently, in the future, I'm enough of one that my own son wanted to go back in time to kill me even though he knew I didn't destroy the world on purpose,"

Every time he'd come across me, I just made it worse. This time, in the brig, I might have just turned it into an outright blood feud... with my own flesh and blood.

"Did you mess with anything else?" I asked. She shook her head silently, keeping her face turned away from me, "Seriously, I need to know."

Ruth doubled down on her response, "Quentin would just tell you if she was lying. He wants Bellamy to be angry with her."

"I know he does," I admitted. And goddamn it, part of it was working. I didn't want to ask these questions. I didn't want to be a hard-ass with her, "This is... this is really messed up, you know."

"Sorry," Ruth mumbled, "Fixing it may be possible, pardon. That is, if Bellamy wants her to do it. Yes?"

"Fix it?"

Ruth had hopes that I would go for it, that she could make everything okay, "She believes if she has the time, she can do it. It's so deep though, yes. She can't undo it as easily as she did it in the first place," Ruth said, "She will try. She will do anything Bellamy asks of her. Just... please do not hate her."

"I can't hate you. And it's not because of any head stuff, I know that. You're the first person I met here, and you've always believed in me. I'm returning the favor."

Ruth leaned forward, reaching out to put her hands on the sides of my head, "Then she will-," The hope left her voice when I grabbed her hands and moved them away, "No?"

"No," I repeated. Trying to change things back now would do more harm than good. It was better to try and work with what I had, "You don't have to do anything. Keep it the way it is."

My hold on Ruth's hands was as gentle as I could make it, and even then, she still shook. She shook like she was a wrong syllable away from crying, "She didn't mean it."

"I know you didn't," I didn't say it was okay, because I didn't know if it would be or not, but I could give her that much at least.

"She never did it again, thank you. No matter how scared she was, no," The more she talked, the more her voice broke. If she'd have thought to throw herself at my feet, she might have, "She didn't realize she had done anything until long after everything was over. She couldn't change it, and she didn't know what to say."

That made two of us. I opened my arms and she clamored across the little space there had been between us. Had I been any less ready for it, she'd have knocked me out of my chair going for a hug, "Come here. I've got you."

Her arms squeezed around my neck for all she was worth, "Sorry... sorry... sorry..." She just kept repeating herself. If her eyes had been like everyone else's, my shoulder and my chest would have been soaked.

If she wanted me to not be mad, she could have made up my mind for me. She didn't have to do anything else, let alone cry. The fact that she didn't struck a chord with me deep.

Quentin Quire could go fuck himself with all of his shit-stirring. Ruth wasn't some malevolent mind witch, working some kind of shady angle to get an edge. She was a 16-year-old girl who reacted involuntarily one time, and it screwed up the only person in-range when she lost it – me.

She fucked up and lost control. It happens to literally all of us. I've seen my own team use their powers without meaning to. I've done it.

We're all just stupid kids. No matter how much we train, no matter how intelligent your powers are supposed to make you, no matter how responsible we have to try and be, we're just a bunch of dumbasses. We're going to do the same dumbass things human teenagers do, only there's a chance that our consequences will be greater when we inevitably screw something up. Some powers require more responsibility than others.

You might be a pyrokinetic showing off, and then you start a fire that winds up burning down a building by accident.

You might be a telepath who got mad or scared and accidentally think about something that alters someone's fundamental way of thinking forever – maybe give them brain damage.

You might not pay attention to how you're flying and get sucked into a jet turbine – then you die and a plane full of people goes down. I could make this point all day.

Some people liked to argue that Mutants were like everyone else, but they absolutely weren't. Things worked differently for us in tons of ways, and getting your powers as puberty set in was probably the very worst time to get them. For Christ's sake, figuring things out was complicated enough in your teen years when you didn't have the added pressure of potentially dangerous superpowers attached. That's why we have a fucking school.

XxX

The next morning, the X-Men called S.H.I.E.L.D., and they came in to do what they do, which was to haul off the superpowered bad guy to somewhere he couldn't hurt anyone anymore... until he somehow got away. I was there when the convoy of armored vehicles showed up prepared to remove Skip from our custody.

He'd kidnapped Hisako and attempted to kill me at least two times that were capable of being proven. Yeah, he was getting locked up. He went quietly, though it wasn't like he could have fought back. His arms were broken, after all.

We made eye contact as Saberwolf marched him at blade-point into the back of the van meant to take him away. Neither of us backed down from the stare-off. The piece of shit really was my son, wasn't he?

I wasn't on my own. Once Mister Summers had finished with the rigmarole that came with the transfer, he came over to me to make sure everything stayed calm.

I looked over at the headmaster/leader of the X-Men, "What are they going to do with him? Like, where's he going?" I asked.

Mister Summers stood stern, arms crossed and serious. With what I'd heard about him, I knew he had to be sick and tired of time-travel bullshit, "Most likely, he'll be imprisoned in The Raft. A prison for superpowered individuals. Don't worry. S.H.I.E.L.D will know how to handle him."

On that, I wasn't so sure. But it was out of my hands at that point. If I really wanted him gone, I should have made sure I killed him after our fight.

Mister Summers noted how Skip and I tried to murder one another via eyesight, "Do you want to say anything to him before they take him?"

We were saying plenty with what we weren't saying. No need to ruin that tension with something petty like words, "No. I've said all I need to say. I'm pretty sure I'll see him again soon enough anyway."

"Oh, ye of little faith in the system," Mister Summers chuckled, "I'm just kidding. If he comes back, you'll be ready."

Damn right I would be, "Not gonna say you'll protect me?" I asked rhetorically.

Mister Summers raised an eyebrow behind his visor, "You need as much protection as I do at this point. Go enjoy your Sunday, Bellamy," He gestured with his head, signaling for me to get out of there.

"With pleasure," I replied. There were plenty of things I could do instead of dwell on something that was out of my hands.

XxX

The 'plenty of things' I could have been doing on my Sunday included gambling with my fellow miscreants while watching football in the common area.

Such miscreant luminaries included my main man Eddie, as well as Julian, Kevin, and Santo from the Hellions, and Victor Borkowski – a lizard kid from one of the other student training squads who was friends with the Hellions.

We'd been playing Texas hold 'em for less than an hour, and Julian had to buy back into the $20 pot four times already, because he always bet high. All of us beat him at least once when he went all in, which meant the rest of us were up.

"Fuck!" Julian threw his cards down on the table after going bust yet again. By now, the rest of us were used to his reactions and barely flinched.

Julian's own teammate rolled their eyes at his theatrics. Kevin, the winner of the hand, pulled in the chips he gotten from the rest of us, "You do realize that folding isn't just an option, sometimes it's encouraged."

"Don't need your shit right now, Kev," Julian grumbled, getting more money out of his wallet to join back in, "Deal me back in, Wing."

Eddie gathered up the cards, as it was his turn to shuffle for the rest of us, "Why are you complaining about losing? You're rich! Being down $50 for us is like being down $2 for you."

Not that we were necessarily playing to take any significant amount of money, but if he kept handing it over by trying to play out stupid hands, the rest of us were more than happy to take it.

"Because Jules hates admitting he isn't good at something," Victor said, "Heaven forbid he actually have to learn a new skill that doesn't involve lifting stuff with his mind."

"Is there anything else I need to know?" Julian shot back, "We go to a school for superheroes-in-training, not MIT, you nerds."

Ah, the root of the Hellions' approach to everything, "Yeah, because running face-first into the problem is always gonna solve it when we're fighting bad guys," I added, leaning back in my chair to take a glance at the game on TV, "Stop going in on every hand. Learn probability, dude. Take the small loss now to win big later."

Eddie snickered at me as he mixed the cards, "Don't you have to learn calculus and math shit from Armor, Bel?"

His attempt to take a dig at me simply glanced off my back, "Yeah, that was calculus. Probability is stupid-easy. There are 52 cards. Work backwards from there according to how much money you have left," I made it a point to gesture across the table directly at Julian, "Also, you can't bluff for shit."

Julian sneered and flicked his hand out to lift my bucket hat a few inches off of my head, "That's rich coming from the guy wearing a hat to cover his eyes."

"Hey, you never watched the World Series of Poker on ESPN?" I said with a grin, reaching up to pull my hat back down, "People wear hats and sunglasses during these things."

The game continued. We had snacks, TV, and conversation. It was the kind of relaxation I needed after everything that had been going down. We just chatted on about random stuff. Of course, I had to regale the table with Skip's very recent attempt to kill me and the subsequent beating I ended up laying on him. Thankfully, we didn't linger on that for very long.

Santo raised a point in the middle of one of our hands, "Who's moving into the office down the way from Frost and Summers?" The giant rock boy asked, barely able to hold his cards, "I saw them talking to some guy in there, said they would give him a tour of the place."

"What guy?" Julian inferred.

"That's what I'm asking," Santo reiterated, scratching his head.

I was also aware of what was going on, as I'd seen them out and about walking through the courtyard before, "I think a psychiatrist is taking that office to work with students," I said, throwing them a bone. Eddie knowingly shot me a glance.

Santo let out an interested hum, "The school is getting a shrink? A real shrink?"

"Basically," I said with a shrug, idly raising the stakes of the hand, "The guy was making butt-tons of money working as a therapist to celebrities and superheroes and whatnot," I already had a good idea of what was happening, so I figured there was no reason to keep it quiet now.

Santo chuckled and laid his cards down, folding for the hand, "He had to have been raking in the jack doing that. Why would he take a pay cut to come to this death trap?"

"Because he believes in the cause. Children are the future," I said sarcastically, getting a few laughs around the table. I wasn't being malicious, though. I had no beef with the man they'd hired for the job, "I don't know. His paychecks are probably still fat."

Most everyone let out sounds of agreement and started speculating about his salary. It was no secret that Xavier's had deep pockets. It kind of had to, what with the fact that the school bankrolled a superhero team, and had to repair big chunks of the school.

After having been quiet for a while, Kevin finally piped up when we started throwing around numbers on how much he was making, "Dr. Garrison just wants to help. He's a good doctor."

Julian sent a questioning glance Kevin's way before slowly realizing why he was defending the guy they didn't know. The Hellions must have been privy to his therapy sessions. But that didn't explain about me, "Why do you know so much about this, Marcher?"

I up and spilled the beans I'd been keeping to myself, "Because I've been the guinea pig for whether or not this would work in the first place," There was no point in hiding it at this point, seeing as how I wasn't going to be the only one dealing with Dr. Garrison soon enough, "I guess it got the stamp of approval."

"This is the shrink the powers-that-be made you go to?" Eddie asked, more to confirm his own assumptions, "So, does that mean you don't have to do it anymore?"

I snorted in amusement. As if. I probably needed it now more than ever, with what I'd recently learned, "No. It just means everybody else in the program has to do it now too," I took great pleasure in the looks of shock from Julian and Santo, "All of you have to sit your asses on the couch. Don't worry, it's comfortable."

Julian scoffed and flicked his cards down on the table, folding for the hand, "That sucks. I don't need therapy, though," He insisted.

I had my mouth open to rip into him, but Victor Borkowski beat me to the punch, "Are you kidding? Between the narcissism, the temper-tantrums, the classist traits, and God knows what else I'm missing, I'd say you need it more than anyone sitting here."

Julian's face started to turn a bit red at the accurate shots at his personality traits, "Shut up, Victor."

He did not shut up. In fact, the lizard boy just kept going, "-In fact, I'm pretty sure the only reason you haven't gone yet is because your family's rich. Can't take that status-hit," Very brave, to stir shit in the face of a moody telekinetic who wasn't used to not getting what he wanted. I could respect that. It seemed like a 'me' kind of move.

Seeing as how Julian couldn't just pick up his friend with his mind and pitch him across the room, he tried to change the subject... albeit, with his jaw clenched, "Are you gonna play cards, or play armchair psychiatrist?"

Victor chuckled, waving his hands to diffuse Julian's aforementioned temper, "No need for me to do that, you know, since we're getting a real one."

I had to agree with him for the most part. With Julian's usual first-impression attitude, especially to people he felt threatened by, he could have used some counseling. But, seeing as how Victor had already said everything I could have leapt at, I had nothing left to pick at Julian for, and no need to drive the point home any longer.

"If I had to do it, you have to do it," I tried to reason, knowing no one there was aware of my own thoughts on self, "I'd say Santo and Eddie don't need it, but I could be wrong. Wing-man, you hiding any deep-seated trauma from the rest of the team?" I tried to joke to lighten things up. There was no need for anyone to go into this with any stigma. There was nothing really wrong with requiring the help.

"How I feel? Feeling great, feeling good. How are you?" He replied with a shit-eating grin.

It got a chuckle out of me. I got a kick out of the Outkast lyrics, even if no one else at the table got them, "Well, no matter what, it's gonna happen now. I think it's an official part of the program. Just grin and bear it. Part of training to be an X-Man."

Santo rumbled with laughter, "You think half of the X-Men would have gotten to be X-Men if they had to be cleared by a therapist first?"

Despite coming from the most academically challenged amongst us, that was still the best point anyone around me made that day.

And that's the chapter, guys.

A lot to unpack there, from various things that have transpired, and more yet to come. Some things were wrapped up, while more questions have been presented. One conflict has ended... for now, at least. But others continue, and others continue to simmer, some that aren't physical in nature.

So what comes next? Not all is golden with the Paladins. But maybe some things can be worked out with some psychiatric help through Dr. Garrison? Maybe he can help some of the other less than well-hinged kids at school. Anyone else think so?

Whatever. We're finished for now, and I have Kenchi things to do. I'm certain you have your own. Your own personal things to do, I mean. Not your own Kenchi things. No one who enjoys their health should ever try to do Kenchi things. They usually tend to cause physical harm to one's self over time.

I hope you all enjoyed. Kenchi out.