Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel or X-Men. Getting to watch the X-Men and Spider-Man cartoons on Disney Plus has been a blast from the past. Shout-out to my friend for account sharing.

Mwa-ha! Mwa-ha-ha-ha!

Chapter 37: After-Action Report

After we'd come back from Limbo, it was weird to settle into a period where nothing happened. And that nothing dragged on for a week.

While nothing actiony happened, that wasn't to say that nothing notable happened at all.

After Laura had spent the night with me that first time, it happened a few more times afterwards. She never asked in advance, never messaged me to let me know she was coming. She just showed up in the dead of night. Because I didn't sleep, she would curl up in my bed, while I puttered around the room, reading, doing homework, playing games, or watching movies and TV.

Not much of a talker, that one. Not that it mattered. Not being able to fucking sleep, ever, the long hours that I had to spend awake at night were kind of lonely. Having company was nice. Sometimes I would lay with Laura while I was doing these things, but I had a tendency to wake her up when she dozed off. She slept a lot lighter than Megan did.

Speaking of whom... we started talking again during this time frame. It was easy for her to try and reconcile what had happened in Limbo with me, because if any of the students at school could relate with being thrown into something they were in over their head on, it was me.

Also, in hindsight, a lot of my struggling during that episode was done trying to fight for her in some way, shape, or form. If it hadn't been clear that I still cared, despite her breaking up with me, it was afterwards. That had to have been confusing for her, because it definitely was for me.

Her girlfriends still hated me, and let it be known that they did, but I didn't give a shit, because I didn't have to interact with them. However, in this instance, they kind of had a point. Megan was chatting with me, smiling at me, and even flirting a bit again. Yet, I had Laura more or less spending nights with me in my room, and as pedestrian as it was, it still wasn't nothing.

While this was inevitably going to blow up in my face somehow, I had no idea how to navigate those waters. So why go there? I was going to kick that can down the road until I couldn't anymore. There were other things to focus my attention on.

After taking hit after hit after hit of bad things coming our way, having a bit of time to try and get all of our ducks in a row was very welcome.

About two weeks of actual training, actual gelling as a team, actual opportunity for me to see who worked well with who, and a chance to take real notes that could help.

Mister Summers had spoken to me after Limbo and given me some advice. As the guy who walked into leading the team when he was my age, it was in my best interests to at least hear him out. And it wasn't like what he told me was bad information. First of all, he said it would behoove me to take notes. Done. I even did them handwritten, because I was not about to make it easy for someone to steal my observations by hacking me.

Things were coming along as well as could be expected. Everyone was getting used to the way things were, and I'd kept Noriko and Julian from killing each other. Although... Julian really hadn't been as big of a problem as I'd expected him to be at first. After the incident with Nori in the Danger Room, he was almost subdued, more thoughtful, at least when she was around.

That was not the aspect of the team that was giving me any trouble at the moment.

One morning after history, while everyone was filing out to head to their next class, Laurie Collins held me up to have a bit of a talk. She waited for Miss Moonstar to leave first, and she had been the advisor for the New Mutants, so whatever it was had to be something she didn't want someone she held in regard to hear.

I didn't speak to Laurie very much, especially by herself. It wasn't because I disliked her, we just didn't really click. If it weren't for the fact that she was good friends with some of my other friends, or that she was on the team, I couldn't imagine hanging around her. And she never seemed comfortable around me at all, which was fair, given who I was as a person.

Even when she'd come up to me to talk about something, she seemed so mousy, "Bellamy, I'm sorry to bring this up now, but... I just think that maybe I'm not cut out for this."

I leaned my back against the nearest wall to relax, one leg crossed over the other, "I can't really blame you. I'd kind of question everyone's sanity if what happened in Limbo didn't have them at least thinking about dropping out of the team," If she thought I was going to be upset, she had been mistaken.

"It's not that," Laurie said, eyes cast to the floor shamefully, "I felt kind of useless there. While everyone was fighting for their lives, there wasn't much I could do. My powers have just as good a chance of helping as hurting…"

She wasn't the only one who didn't contribute much in the grand scheme of things. David hadn't been able to do much, and from what Eddie had told me, all he'd been able to do was fly around and get beaten up. I didn't hold any of that against them. It didn't mean either of them were useless. Sometimes life gave you a bad matchup.

"Well, Laurie, I don't think you or your powers are useless," I told her, "I think they're kind of broken, actually. Good broken - as in, I'm really glad you don't just use them to get whatever you want, because you could."

I'd read everyone's file time and time again while working out possible lineups. Laurie's power seemed mundane, until you actually thought about it. Wallflower generated strong airborne scent-based pheromones. They affected the chemical balance in other people, which messed with their moods and influenced their minds.

Apparently, she used to be unable to control it at all, and she'd cause everyone around to match her moods. If she was happy, everyone else was too. If she was sad, scared, or pissed off at something, so was anyone close enough to catch some pheromones from her. She was getting more control now though, which was good, and also kind of freaky.

For instance, if Laurie used her powers on me, there wouldn't be anything I could do about it. I'd have to deal with her before I got a whiff of her pheromones, or I'd be screwed. Most all of us would be. Santo wouldn't. Cessily wouldn't. Maybe the Cuckoos wouldn't, if they took on their diamond forms. They were the only ones on the team I could think of that could resist Wallflower's pheromones.

Laurie's expression darkened at the thought of ever exploiting her powers in such a manner, "I don't ever want to be that kind of person."

It was good that she felt so strongly about not being evil, but did it really warrant such a strong reaction? I hadn't ever seen her so resolute about anything, "I don't think you need to worry about that so much. I was just saying," I tiptoed past the topic and back to what was really important, "Anyway, Im not going to beg you to stay if you're dead set on dropping out, but do you really want to quit?"

Despite bringing the subject up with me, when I pressed her on it, she seemed torn, "I... no," She eventually decided, "No, I don't."

Good, because I didn't want to have to replace her or be down a man/woman.

I wasn't much for the inspirational talk, but I gave it a shot, "Laurie, you must have proven enough already to get invited to the team in the first place," Mister Summers and Miss Frost wouldn't have wasted a pick on someone they didn't think could hack it. If Laurie was there, it was because they thought she had what it took, "I wouldn't worry so much about earning your keep just yet. If last week was any sign, you'll get more chances than you want."

Yesterday was just supposed to be practice, and we wound up fighting real demons and sorcerers. I would bet my parents' house that things like that would happen many, many more times.

Laurie laughed self-consciously, "I guess you're right. Sorry," She apologized, "Maybe I should have thought about this more before bringing it to you. It's just been bothering me ever since, you know?"

I scoffed and pushed myself off of the wall, walking over to her, "I don't mind. I'm supposed to be the one you bring this stuff to. You don't have to hide it from me like you'll get in trouble. What am I now, student faculty? The fucking R.A.?"

"The dorms don't even have R.A.s," Laurie pointed out in an effort to kill my comparison.

I threw my hands up as I exclaimed, "That's what I'm saying! That's why it's kind of insulting," I wasn't staff. I was still a dumbass student who got in trouble like the rest of them. It hadn't even been that long ago since the last time I was in trouble, "Just remember, I'm one of you guys too."

Laurie smiled. Finally, I'd started to get her to loosen up around me. Good. I wanted my teammates to trust me and like me, "I don't know. You might make a good guidance counselor."

I smirked down at her, "You want some guidance? Okay. Ignore everything I do for myself, because it's all bad decisions. I only tend to save the good ones for taking care of people that I like," She giggled. I had only been half joking. And speaking of guidance, "Have you had a checkup with the school shrink yet?"

Suddenly, her temperament did a 180, right back to being nervous and uneasy, "I... uh... n-n-no," She stammered out meekly.

I raised an eyebrow at her reaction. I understood not liking psychiatrists, but that seemed a little much, "Well, if you're having trouble stomaching some of the stuff we had to deal with in Limbo, make sure you go bend Dr. Garrison's ear for a bit. That dude gets paid way too much to not make him work for that shit."

I tried to joke again. This time, it didn't land. Laurie didn't even nod to signify she'd heard me. She just slunk out of the room.

Weird. She'd seemed less skittish about telling me about quitting the team than an offhanded remark about Dr. Garrison.

XxX

Being team leader, I had to do all kinds of things that others didn't. Things like train to protect X-Men secrets. That meant hours spent doing interrogation training and telepathy defense. Just in case you weren't aware, both of those things suck.

For telepathy training, they'd just stick me in a room with the Cuckoos, tell them they had a set amount of time to get something out of my head, and let them go to town on my brain.

Miss Frost observed the training, her foot tapping impatiently on the ground, "Come on, girls. How long could it take?"

Longer than she'd like. In past sessions, the Cuckoos hadn't been given enough time to pull whatever they were after out of me, so they were given more and more time to do it in following attempts. That pissed them off, because it didn't make them look very good, so they tried harder and harder to beat me.

This particular session had me on the floor, dealing with the kind of splitting headache only reserved for concussions.

Meanwhile, all three Cuckoos were focusing as best as they could, their hands placed near their temples to help them focus, "His defenses are stronger than you told us," Phoebe said.

"He trains with Blindfold," Celeste followed up, "He's used to defending against telepaths."

Mindee seemed to be the most eager of the three of them to wrap things up, "We only have to get the HBO GO password to finish."

I didn't know how much time had passed. I was more focused on the feeling of my brain splitting, "Get the fuck out of my head," I said through gritted teeth, "I am not giving up my streaming accounts for this stupid exercise."

Because then they'd use them, and if they weren't putting in on what I had to pay every month for them, they could fuck off. As a man who never slept, I got lots of use out of my streaming services.

The struggle went on for I didn't know how long, until the pressure suddenly passed. The melodic sound of the three sisters' voices saying, "Got it!" in unison.

"Goddamn it!" I slapped the floor as Celeste quickly wrote down the password she, Phoebe, and Mindee had yanked out of my skull, "Great! Now I've got to change everything!"

Miss Frost looked at a watch with a raised eyebrow, "Twenty-four minutes, twenty-eight seconds. You girls only had thirty-two seconds left to spare," She informed the relieved Cuckoos, before turning to me, "Well done, Mister Marcher."

It was honest praise, but I was more annoyed that I had to change my privacy settings, "Well done, my ass," I snapped, phone already out so I could go through my apps one-by-one, "Way to almost scramble my brain, guys. I thought we were cool."

The girls seemed offended at the thought, "We would never do anything permanent to you," Phoebe insisted.

"We lost the last two times we did this," Celeste reasoned, "We didn't want to make it three."

Fair enough. I didn't like losing either.

Miss Frost walked over to me as I picked myself up off of the floor, "I don't think we'll have to do this again, if that helps. You'll be hard-pressed to find any single telepath stronger than the Three-In-One. If they find it hard to read you, you should be able to defend yourself from any others, at least long enough for help to arrive."

I also could have just blasted the Cuckoos to make them stop, but that wasn't the point of the exercise, "While that won't help my headache go away, that's good to know. Can I go now? I need pills."

I could have sworn her expression softened for a split-second before Lady Hardass returned, "Go see Henry and make sure nothing is wrong, darling," She directed.

I wanted to make a remark, asking what exactly he could do for me if there was, but I refrained. I liked Dr. McCoy, and any excuse to expose myself to the wit of Beast was cause for celebration. Unfortunately for me when I got down there, he wanted to do a scan of my brain. While I did have all the time available in a day, I still didn't want to sit around waiting for a PET scan. I was a good boy about it though, and eventually I did get to leave.

When I did, I spotted the container full of ooze that was Quentin Quire. He had been quiet for a while, at least in my head. I was cool with that, but it was a bit weird. He had to know he'd been pissing me off, so why did he just let off? Did he get bored with me? And if I was right there, thinking out loud in front of his face, why didn't he respond?

It was then that what Miss Frost had said dawned on me. It took all three of the Cuckoos almost half an hour to fight intel out of my head when we were all in the same room. If all of my practice and experience with Ruth really had been paying off to that kind of degree, Quire probably couldn't do anything to me from where he was in the second basement. Even in front of me, as long as I kept my guard up, it was probably hard for him to get inside my head.

If nothing else left me feeling smug that day, this was it. So smug, I felt the need to voice it aloud.

I stared down Quire's containment device as I walked around it, "Hah, you can't read me, can you? Which means you can't talk to me, or hear me," I gloated, knowing that I was doing it entirely for me. As he was, he didn't have ears to physically listen, "Well, I'd say it was nice knowing you, shitbird, but I'm not much of a liar."

XxX

My smug demeanor lasted up until it was time for one of our team sessions. On this day, to vary things up, I wanted to work on things we could do without our powers. At one point, that meant hand-to-hand sparring. That meant someone had to fight Laura.

...It was me. I was someone.

"Oh, shit, haha, he's coming to."

Our resident buzzsaw may have had a thing for me, but fighting was fighting. She could like me all she wanted, it wasn't going to stop her from handing me my ass. Even though I was used to sparring with her, that didn't mean I was good enough to win. And so, despite my best efforts, that eventually left me on the cold floor of the Danger Room, flat on my back, staring up at the lights with the sound of my teammates' amusement to serenade me.

"Ugh," I droned, choosing to wait until I could properly process colors instead of trying to be macho and pop right back up off of the ground.

The last thing I remembered was Laura somehow catching me in a triangle choke. I'd felt her trying to sink it in, but it hadn't been deep enough to actually put me out... until suddenly it was, and everything wound up going black. All I knew was that one minute, I was standing up, bent over, with Laura hanging off of my head and arm by her legs. I'd had a plan to work her legs free, and had been setting up for it when, *boop*, I dropped.

There were worse ways to lose, I guess. And Laura had sat down right by me to wait for me to come to. Sweet of her.

"I'm sorry," Laura said, body language showing remorse. It seemed like she thought I would resent her for beating me in front of others.

There was no reason to apologize. She bled for that skill and had earned it. It was hers to lord over those who challenged her in that domain, "Don't be sorry for being better than me. I work harder when I have someone to chase," I winked up at her.

She turned a little red and gave me a slight smile in return, "That would make two of us," She whispered so only I could hear, the little flirt. Clearly, she couldn't go too hard in front of others.

That little moment aside, even though it bit at my pride, losing to Laura in a fistfight was nothing to be ashamed of, "Yeah-yeah-yeah, laugh it up," I addressed the others as Laura helped pull me up, "You understand there's levels to this, right?"

"Yeah, and X is above yours!" Julian quipped.

I rolled my eyes, "And last time I checked, I'm above the rest of yours," I immediately shot back with a grunt as I stood up, "If Laura is the only one of you who can beat my ass, I think I'm on the right track."

"I can beat your ass too!"

I turned in the direction of the challenge, only to stop when I realized who made it, "You're made of rock, Santo," Only armored up Hisako could deal with him in hand-to-hand, which was what we were doing, "Alright, two more volunteers, or we can ask the random number generator instead."

Fist-fighting wasn't popular with a lot of the team, so there were plenty of groans, but two who would rather go of their own volition instead of being forced to do so stepped up. I sat back and spectated until the end of the session, taking great care to keep Julian and Noriko away from each other. We all hit the showers, and after leaving the locker room, I came across someone I hadn't seen in weeks.

Logan, dressed in more denim than I'd seen anyone in since anything from the mid 90s, arms crossed and leaning against a wall. Needless to say, I was ecstatic to see him.

I threw my hands up into the air, "You're back! And you've got both eyes!" I then saw that both of those eyes were glaring at me, "...And you're pissed. Why are you pissed?"

Logan gestured with his head for me to follow him, "You and I need to chit-chat, Glowstick."

I fell into step next to him as he led me to the hangar, and idly wondered if he was going to take me on some kind of personal mission. I was half right. He wanted to talk to me because of a personal reason, but it had nothing to do with flying somewhere to do something.

Something told me this wasn't going to be pleasant, and I just wanted it over with, "So, what do you want?"

Logan growled under his breath, "I'm only gonna ask you this once, so answer right the first time. You messing around with Laura?"

He had just gotten back. Why did he know about that? "Huh?" I intelligently replied. It was the wrong answer, apparently.

I quickly found the index finger of one of his hairy hands pointed uncomfortably close to my face, "Don't play dumb! I can tell when you're lying! Her scent was all over yours when I got down here!"

I swatted Logan's hand out of my face and scowled down at him, "Because I just got through fighting her at practice, genius! We were all over each other!"

Logan's body language immediately relaxed, "...Oh."

"Yeah," I said, adding a little something extra once things had calmed down, "...You're not too far off-base though," And just like that, his hackles were raised once more, and I felt very unsafe, "Why does it even matter to you anyway?"

Logan shoved his hands into his pockets and leaned against the Blackbird, "I'm her fucking DNA original, and the closest thing to family she has. I do try to look out for her."

I scoffed, "Yeah? Well, so do I. Apparently loyalty is one of my redeemable qualities," A short silence hung in the air before I decided to go for broke and get everything out in the open, "Look, I'm just going to be honest, since the only reason I care if you're mad or not is because you might try to stab me."

Logan raised an eyebrow, neither confirming nor denying this, "Okay?"

I just went ahead and blurted it out, "Laura is finer than all hell, and there's a 33% chance we're probably going to be dating by New Year's."

*SNIKT!*

I winced at the sound of Logan's claws coming through his skin, "Don't pop your claws at me. We're having a discussion here, like adults. What's your problem? I thought we were cool."

"You're a little shit, Marcher."

Compared to who, exactly? I was a high school kid. From what I'd seen, most of us were little shits. In a perfect world, who did he want trying to woo Laura? "-In my own way, yes. And I'd understand if I was dealing drugs, or leading people into bad stuff, or two-timing," I paused and thought about everything that had been mulling about the rumor mill lately, "...What exactly have you heard since you've been back?"

Logan shrugged, "Not much."

"Killer," I said to myself. At least this conversation wasn't driven by preconceived notions from inaccurate information, "Anyway, it's not like I go out and get trouble to come to me. All of the trouble I get into is exclusively because I go to this school and inherited all of the X-Men's grief."

Logan knew that. He thought highly of me. I knew he did. Most importantly, he knew he did.

The wind went right out of Logan's sails as he sighed and slouched his shoulders, "She ain't ready for a relationship like that, Glowstick. She's still getting used to interacting with people normally," He explained, "She... you're the only person other than me she really trusts. If you get bored with her and dump her, it'll probably fuck her up something fierce."

Understandable, and yet, it felt like a pretty raw opinion, "You talk to Laura about this yet?" I asked.

"The fuck do you think?" Logan snapped back.

"I think that you came down here planning to strong-arm me into agreeing with you to leave her alone."

Logan shamelessly nodded, "Yep."

To be fair, that probably would have worked on most anyone else my age. The only mistake he made was forgetting that I barely cared about my own well-being, so threatening me with bodily harm wouldn't do much of anything, if I even believed him at all in the first place.

Logan being a scary mofo was the only leverage he tended to have in cases where his being faculty wasn't enough. He didn't exactly go around maiming students, even if he really wanted to sometimes, like right then at that moment.

"Well, you might have better luck talking her out of it instead of me, because I'm not stopping her," I said, "I got dumped last month, Logan."

Where I'd meant to go with that was taken somewhere else entirely by Logan's over-aggressive brain, "So you're using Laura as a rebound!?" He bellowed.

I recoiled in confusion, "What? No, dude, shut up. I'm making a point here," It seemed like everything out of my mouth was subconsciously designed to somehow piss him off, "My point is that this shit happens. It's gonna happen - to all of us. Probably a lot. And if you really want her to get adjusted to being a functional person, she's gonna have to deal with it like the rest of us."

Being normal wasn't just learning how to talk to people, or getting accustomed to not being an assassin. It wasn't just learning how to enjoy the good things in life. It was learning how to cope with the garbage. Being a goddamn teenager meant that there were plenty of those pitfalls you had to learn how to climb out of. Hell, this was when we were supposed to figure out how to handle those things.

I continued on from there, "And who's to say I'm gonna break up with her if we get together? Maybe she'll dump me? There's already a precedent," I joked self-deprecatingly, "Maybe we won't break up at all? You don't know. No one does... except maybe Ruthie, and I didn't plan on asking her."

All of my attempts to try and sound rational must have picked at the skeptic in him, "You're a high school kid. Unless your life is in danger, you'll always think with your dick first. Hell, even if your life is in danger, you probably still will."

If he was going to keep being difficult, I was prepared make things exceedingly uncomfortable, "Believe me when I say, if I thought with my dick first and foremost, we'd be having a different talk right now," I said, trying not to look too smug when I realized he knew what I was alluding to. I still rubbed it in though, "When she turns it on, your clone is a baddie."

Clearly the last thing he wanted to think about was Laura being attractive to some stupid kid, "Just... just stop talking, or I really will stab you," He said, holding up a hand to get me to stop, "You're gonna do this the right way, aren't you?"

"Yes!" I exclaimed, offended at just how little my friends and acquaintances thought of my romantic habits, "Jesus Christ, first Hisako, now you. What, do I look like I'm gonna pay to get the poor girl into my bed?" Once again, another strike at making Logan uncomfortable, "I'm gonna take Laura on a proper date with all of the bells and whistles, and maybe not the whistles, because I'm sure that shit hurts you guys' ears. But come on! Give me some credit here!"

"Good," Logan said, taking one last opportunity to try and threaten me, "You'd better, Glowstick. Because if you don't-."

I stopped him before he could get going. It would just be a waste of both of our time, "-Stop pulling the daddy/big brother crap. It's just pissing me off. You should know better. I'm not in the business of letting my friends down on purpose," Amazingly enough, that did work in getting him to let it die, "So, are we done?"

Logan pointed his thumb in the direction of the exit, "We're done. Get out of my face."

I gladly left this uncomfortable conversation behind, "You dragged me here, ass."

Already in the bad mood that was my default setting, getting the third-degree from Logan only made me irritable. When I was irritable, I was spurred into action, and thus, I immediately took action regarding the topic of our talk.

Roaming the campus with a mood like a T-Rex with gout, I eventually found Laura hanging out in the dining hall with Cessily, Hisako, Noriko, Sofia, and Laurie. I ignored the rest of them and made a beeline for Laura herself.

My unruly self didn't even spare the time for greetings, given than I'd last seen her all of twenty minutes ago, "Laura, are you doing anything Friday night?" I abruptly asked. She shook her head no, "Wanna go out?" Her green eyes went wide and she froze in place. Eventually, she slowly nodded her head, not trusting her mouth enough to speak, "Cool beans. It's a date."

And with that, I walked away, leaving a very shell-shocked Laura and company behind. It had definitely been the most assertive example of asking someone out that most of them had probably seen. As I got farther and farther away, I heard a loud squeal of joy from what I assumed had to have been Cessily.

Perhaps it would have been a better idea to wait until it was just me and Laura alone to ask?

XxX

"Have you ever known that you're my hero?"

I sighed as I got comfortable at the desk in college biology class, surrounded by Eddie, David, Josh, and Sooraya, "I swear to God, Eddie, if you start singing 'Wind Beneath My Wings', I'll kill us both," Aside from the embarrassment, it also doubled as a pun worthy of being executed over.

Eddie didn't press his luck, but he didn't let go of the point behind his good mood, "Seriously, after what Cess told me you did yesterday, I don't know how you can fit at that tiny desk, what with the size of your balls and everything."

I took a half-hearted swing in his general direction, "Dude, language. There's a woman of religion around," I said, gesturing to Sooraya, who didn't seem to care.

David rolled his eyes, "I think she'd be used to it by now. You say worse things than that around her all the time. "

"Do as I say, not as I do," I replied referring to the niqab-clad young lady, "Also, I apologize for that, and I try to tone it down around her."

"Because she's religious?" Josh asked.

I scoffed. As if I cared about something like that. I dropped F-bombs and killed people in a church not too long ago, "No dummy, because she's a better person than me, and I have a corrupting presence. Mark my words, you will all become worse people from spending time with me."

Eddie nodded in agreement, "Believe it or not, Hisako used to be way nicer before she met Bel. Then she got all stressed and started calling us idiots all the time."

Josh didn't seem very concerned, "Meh, how much worse could we get? We already got sent to Hell."

"Is Limbo Hell?" I asked, bringing up the same question I asked while we were there, "I swear, I thought Hell was supposed to be way hotter," And speaking of the elephant in the room, "...By the way, I still have to check on all of you jerks and make sure you're all good after what we did there."

Eddie and I had talked about Limbo extensively, but I hadn't brought it up with much of anyone else. David, Josh, and Sooraya all looked a bit pensive at first.

David was the first willing to say anything, "I don't like thinking about it, but out of sight out of mind, I guess. We all made it without too many permanent issues."

"-Other than Megan losing a part of her soul," Sooraya reminded us. Such a thing was hard to forget when I watched it happen firsthand.

Josh scowled, thinking about everything, "Ugh. I'd rather not remember all of what went down in that suckhole. I spent way too much time putting you all back together to keep fighting Belasco."

I wasn't sure if he meant that literally or not. Knowing how overpowered his healing abilities could be, and how vicious everything we came across in Limbo was, there was every chance that he'd meant it.

"I get it," I said, "Hey, if any of you want out of the team, I totally get it."

All four of them looked at each other as if I'd grown a second head, "Want out? No way!" Eddie exclaimed, "Dude, we did one thing. And it wasn't even a real mission. It was just some guy with a hard-on for Colossus's sister."

"None of us ever thought this was going to be easy," David said, adjusting his glasses, "I'm with Eddie. I don't plan on going anywhere until at least graduation."

Josh snickered at his friend, "Yeah, David with his big Harvard dreams," He said before turning to me, "I'm definitely not going anywhere. I've personally put the X-Men back together after something tore them apart, you included. I shudder to think of what'll happen if I'm not around."

Sooraya's answer was markedly more reserved, "I feel like it is the right thing to do. I plan to keep going."

I couldn't help but smile. I should have known better. I knew Eddie would be too hard-headed to give up, but the rest were all made of tougher stuff than I was afraid they were, "I just figured I'd bring it up. I don't know if Laurie told some of you already, but she had a bit of a moment earlier where she talked about quitting. She's not-," I quickly added, "-But I wanted to make sure that everyone knew they could drop out if they wanted."

"Laurie thought about quitting?" Sooraya thought to herself, before asking generally, "Has she been alright ever since we got back?"

David seemed thoughtful, "I haven't noticed anything off. Josh? How about you?"

Josh frowned and took a moment to consider it, "I don't know, man. You think something might be wrong?"

I shrugged. He and David would know better than I did, "You tell me. I saw a lot of fucked up stuff happen in Limbo, but I'm used to seeing fucked up stuff. You guys aren't. She seemed a bit hesitant to go see Dr. Garrison."

"She's never gone to see him," Josh told me, "Even when we were all supposed to, she just skipped it."

Seriously? This was getting weird now. Did I have to get involved in this somehow?

XxX

For days, I wracked my brain thinking of something to do with Laura when I took her out. Eventually, I realized that it didn't really matter what we did, as long as we were spending time together. I didn't really have to try to impress her, I just had to give her my full attention, so I was pretty sure that she would be cool with whatever reasonable thing we did.

With that in mind, I decided I would just wing it. Laura didn't seem the type who would expect me to have the perfect outing planned from beginning to end.

We met up in Salem Center, away from school and started with dinner, because common sense dictated that at the very least, in case it was a terrible date, one should as a bare minimum courtesy be properly fed.

I couldn't help but grin as our food came, remembering what Laura had ordered, and seeing it placed in front of her, "There's so many spices in that, I can smell it from across the table. I'm amazed just getting the food that close isn't killing your sinuses."

Laura didn't rise to my remarks, neatly tucking into her food instead, "In the lab, I was never fed anything but a protein mix. No color, no taste. With the X-Men, all of the food in the cafeteria is fast, and always the same - hamburgers, pizza..." She recounted, in an effort to explain herself, "...I like trying things that are different."

I laughed and followed her lead, "It's not like I have a problem with this place. I'm the one who asked you where you wanted to go, after all."

I remembered her saying that she didn't mind it when I talked a lot in the past, so I figured she didn't mind me flapping my gums until I hit on a topic she could get some mileage out of. She wasn't really the kind of girl who put much stock in small talk.

It took most of the meal, but eventually, she chipped in all on her own, "I didn't think you would take me on a date," She said suddenly.

I raised an eyebrow, still smiling at her, "That's normally what people do when they're trying to get into a relationship, Laura. To see if they like each other, if they can even stand being around each other for long periods of time."

For whatever reason, she still didn't see the point, "But we've already spent plenty of time around each other. I already know that I like you... and that you like me."

Fair enough. Her and her goddamn logic. If it was a logic battle she wanted, it was one she would get. I was the king of asinine arguments, "Well, maybe I just want to get you alone away from all the others. Or maybe I want to show you off," I reasoned back, "Maybe I just want to get to know more about you."

Something about what I said and the way I said it left Laura unable to meet my eyes for a moment, "You do know me."

"Do I?" I shot back, eyebrow raised, "Yeah, I know a lot about where you come from and stuff, but what do you like? What do you want to do? What makes you want to do what we do now?"

Laura wrapped her arms around herself, "I... don't like talking about myself. I'm afraid I'll tell people something that will scare them, or make them hate me."

After Ruth had given me the 'greatest hits' of Laura's experiences and traumas, one would have thought that she wouldn't have said that to me, "What else could you tell me that would do that?" She shrank in on herself, and I quickly diverted the train of conversation, "You know what? Don't worry about it right now. I'm supposed to be showing you a good time, not grilling you on stuff you don't want to talk about."

Laura smiled, her eyes still down, "That's it," She said quietly.

I barely caught that she'd said something, "Hmm?"

"That is why I like you," She said louder, her gaze coming back up to meet mine, "I have trouble sharing. I'm terrible at trying to fit in. Cessily tries to help. So do you, and Eddie, and Hisako. But I know that I'm strange, and nothing will probably ever change that. And you... don't mind. It only ever bothered you when it risked our lives."

We went to a school for mutants. What did I care if someone was weird?

Besides, who wanted to hang out with people when everyone was the same? Things were more fun when everyone was different. Variety was the spice of life.

"Normal is seriously overrated," I deadpanned, "Besides, I like trying to figure you out. It's like a jigsaw puzzle or something. Maybe one day I'll get to see the whole picture."

At that, Laura's smile became a little less pronounced, "When you do, I can't imagine that you'll like what you see."

If her smile fell a bit, mine dropped into a frown entirely, "And I thought I took the cake for self-loathing. One of these days, I swear, I'm gonna make you see how great you really are," I couldn't have been the only one who told this girl she was awesome.

What else did she have to do? She was an amazing fighter, even when she was holding back. She was a nice girl; I had hardly ever seen her lose her temper. Even if she was supposed to be a living weapon, she was the most cordial weapon I'd ever met.

Laura seemed a bit taken aback that I would say such a thing, "I can't imagine why you would think that, knowing what I am. What I've done." She said, shaking her head.

"Why would I think that?" I repeated rhetorically, "Because every day you wake up and you try. You try to be better. You try to help others. You try to be a good girl," I gave what I hoped was a flippant gesture, "Yeah, you did awful shit; back when you didn't have a choice. Back when you literally didn't know any better."

Knowing what I knew, and seeing how Laura went about her every day life now was kind of inspiring.

To be even half as good as she was, she had to fight against every instinct that was beaten into her for the first 80% of her life. And she meant every bit of her change. She dreaded going back to what she was before.

"That is not an excuse for the things I did," Laura said, and I didn't agree.

My reply was smooth. I barely had to think about it, "If that's not an excuse, then no one has an excuse. And no one can ever get better."

"Miss Frost does not think that I can," Laura said, sounding dejected at that fact.

I just scoffed, "You're gonna believe that from the lady who used to be a supervillain?" She didn't exactly have the highest of ground to judge from.

I was finally able to get a smile back on Laura's face with that, "When you put it that way, you have a point."

I reached out across the table and grabbed her hand, gently running my fingers over her knuckles, "No, you have points," I tried to joke about her claws, "I'm just really great at arguing the way I see things."

Laura looked down to where our hands were joined, "Do you really think I can?" She asked hopefully, soulful green eyes peering up at mine.

There was always such a deep sense of melancholy in her eyes. It was so sad to see something like that in someone so beautiful. I was completely honest with her, "You can be whatever kind of person you want to be. As far as I'm concerned, you're already better than me."

Laura smiled, "Thank you, Bellamy," Slowly, her expression shifted to one of intrigue, "Now I have a question for you. Why do you seem to regard yourself so poorly, when other people hold you highly?" She asked, a slight tilt to her head, "You believe in your capabilities and those around you, but don't seem to value yourself or your own contributions at all."

Oh boy, talking about what made me tick. Easily my least favorite topic. Even so, how could I expect her to eventually up to me if I couldn't do the same to her. So, I tried.

"I feel like anyone put in my situation can do the things I've done, and probably do 'em better," I said, giving my best self-assessment, "When I think back to everything I've dealt with since I got my powers, I keep plugging other people into my place, and I see them handling it better."

When I put people like Noriko, Sofia, or Julian into certain battles I'd fought, I saw them getting through it with far less collateral damage than I had. When I put people like David into conundrums I'd come across, with the benefit of hindsight, I always saw the negative consequences that came with my decisions compared to his potential decisions in his favor.

I couldn't help myself. It was just how I was. When the world was active for at best 16 hours, and you were awake for 24 hours a day, you had plenty of time to think about everything. That led to a lot of scrutiny over mistakes, either perceived or otherwise.

I continued speaking, "If you think about it, I never really win, so much as I don't lose everything I could have," She seemed thrown off by what I meant, "Take Limbo, for example. We won, but what did we win? We lived, barely, and that was all. Nothing I've ever been involved in ends up with us being better off for it."

"Sometimes, there is no coming out better off," Laura said, "Sometimes, the best you can do is keep what you have."

"You're right," I admitted, "But I can't help but feel like things would be different if I weren't there. If someone else had been in my spot instead."

Laura furrowed her brow in frustration, "But someone else wasn't there. You were there. You are always there. You never run, or blame others when things go wrong," Now she was grasping my hands, tightly, determinedly, "Every day, you do your best. Everyone can see your effort; your care. Even when awful rumors circulated, they didn't last long for you. From students to staff, you have just about everyone's respect and trust. I... envy that."

Aw. My heart. That officially usurped the top spot as the nicest thing that anyone had ever said about me. Of course, as I went over her words again in my head, the last part stuck with me, "...Are people still getting on your case about Megan breaking up with me?"

Laura winced, almost imperceptibly, "It... has not been as bad with everything that has happened since," She didn't sound very convincing.

"That wasn't a no, Laura," I said chidingly.

Pulling a pro move, Laura turned the scrutiny around without necessarily changing the topic, "Do you want Megan back?"

Not exactly good date conversation, discussing one's ex, "I seem to remember us having this talk already," I said.

Laura was insistent, however, "We did, but your answer wasn't exactly a no either," Of course she remembered that. I wasn't even surprised, "Bellamy, tell me, if you could have Megan back right now, without having to change anything about yourself, would you?"

Why would she ask that? Did she want me to say yes? Did she consider herself my second choice? Was she trying to give me a way out?

I sighed and looked at her seriously, "Laura, I chose to be here with you," I said, in an attempt to validate her, "That by itself should answer the question. But in case you need to hear it – no. That was a moment in time, and this is another. It's ours."

I closed on that, thinking I'd said something touching, something poignant that touched at the soul, profound that made Laura think. Then she shattered all of my illusions, "I don't know what that means."

"I don't either. It just sounded cool in my head," I eventually admitted, embarrassed at being called out, "I'll give it a meaning later. Give me a break here, woman! I'm not good at heart-to-heart conversations."

"Yes, you are," Laura said, never failing to surprise me with her frankness, "Is it strange that the most comfortable I've ever felt since returning to Xavier's is being around you?"

Oh, there went that warm feeling in my chest again, "So, the reason you keep coming to my room at night-?"

Laura was quick to interrupt me, "-It has been the best sleep I have ever had."

Wow. That was a hell of a compliment, even knowing that we hadn't done anything intimate together. I had to try and offset my embarrassment with a self-deprecating joke. My specialty, "Well, I don't sleep, so I do serve as a really good guard, just in case. And I guess I double as an emergency nightlight."

"That isn't what I meant," Laura replied in annoyance, before picking up on my delivery, "You're picking on me."

Yeah. I was. Because it was fun, "To be fair, it's like my second-favorite thing to do with you."

"Second-favorite?" Laura asked skeptically.

I chuckled to myself, "Number one is watching you try new stuff for the first time. It's the only time you're really expressive. I should start taking pictures of the faces you make."

Laura seemed annoyed by the idea, "Please don't."

"Sure," I replied casually, "Just find me something to replace picking on you in my 'things to do with Laura' top five," I almost jumped out of the booth when I felt Laura's stocking-clad feet rub against the inside of my thighs. The girl had guts. She had slipped her shoes off in the effort to fuck with me.

She was so smug. Anyone could have seen it on her, not just people who knew her well, "I believe I can do that," She said.

It was so sweet to see that look wiped clean off of her face once I started running my hands up and down her feet. Her whole body shivered. You love to see it.

She never pulled away though. In fact, she started wiggling her toes against my fingertips, "Down, girl. We're in public," I told her, before moving my index finger to the sole of her foot. I immediately felt her tense up, "I wonder, how ticklish you are."

Now, the tables had turned, "I will bring my claws out if you try," She warned me, trying not to smile.

No she wasn't, but I humored her regardless, "Eh, I'm sure I'll find out eventually."

XxX

It was a miracle. I had a date that didn't end in someone trying to kill me. That had literally never happened since I'd started going to Xavier's. And I'd had it with Laura of all people. It had gone well, at least from my end. I had fun. It was hard to know how Laura had felt about everything.

...At least until we returned to the dorms, that is. I really should have known better from how I caught her eyeing me like a lioness all the way back.

I'd expected to drop her off at the door to the room she shared with Ruth, see if she'd be interested in doing it again, and maybe get a kiss goodnight. You know – straightforward first date stuff. What I didn't expect was for the two of us to wind up at my door instead... and then on the other side of that door... and then with her arms around my neck and my tongue in her mouth.

We didn't even say anything to each other before clothes started coming off. In fact, I'm pretty sure we started while Saberwolf was still in the goddamn room. Neither of us cared, and it took him five seconds to realize what was happening and make himself scarce.

'Jesus, that escalated quickly,' I thought to myself by the time my shirt was over my head and off. I could only imagine Laura was as tired of beating around the bush as I was. Thus, I had a very naked, very hungry-looking young woman in my bed, looking just short of jumping me and forcing me to join her.

There was no need for any such thing.

I grabbed Laura by the ankle to pull her closer to the center of the bed. Placing myself between her legs, I lowered myself lightly on top of her until we were nose-to-nose, "...Hi."

Green eyes blinked back up at me, "Hi."

I leaned down a little farther and gave her another deep kiss. She gave a content sigh and held me tightly until I pulled away, "So, I figured I should kiss you properly at least once before-, oh my God."

While I'd been wasting time, Laura had taken the initiative to guide me inside of her, using nothing more than her legs and the slight wiggle room I had provided her, "Bellamy, stop talking, and do," She softly commanded, hand stroking my cheek.

Well, she had been very patient, "Yes, ma'am," I said, getting to work.

She didn't have to tell me twice. It wasn't like I needed the motivation. Between my being a living solar battery, and the stamina that came with her mutation, we had a very long night ahead of us.

And that's the chapter. Not nearly as long as the last one. A bit of a cooldown, compared to some of the crazier stuff recently. Just taking a minute to focus more on character interaction and keeping a few plot threads alive for later.

So... our boy and Laura did it at last. Took long enough. And of course, nothing bad could possibly happen as a result of this. Absolutely nothing, so stop thinking about it, right now.

Other than that, more than a few moving parts floating around. What's to be addressed next? We'll all just have to wait and see.

Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed. Until the next time.

Kenchi out.