Chapter 57: Working with Blinders On
The Institute was finally entering the final stages of construction and everyone was pitching in, even Gavin, though since he was still very much erratic he mainly stuck to working at night. Chelsea did some work, but nothing too strenuous so not to put stress on her growing baby inside her.
As of right now, Logan and Scott were currently in the middle of installing a satellite dish which Jean lifted up to them while Roberto, Sam and Roxy were planting trees and digging holes for said trees respectively. Jamie was painting the Institute with his duplicates, Amara and Pele were melting the walkway back together, and Bobby and Beast were setting up the central power grid.
Rogue was hanging up decorations with Evan putting down the carpet with Lance helping Devin with the furniture, Bast was restocking medical supplies, Romano was helping Forge tune up the Danger Room, Kurt and Kitty were bringing up tools for Scott and Logan, and finally Ray, Jubilee and Rahne we're helping with the lights while Kai and Storm filled up the fountain after Jean got its statue in place.
"Everything's really coming together, aren't they?" Kai mused as she looked around.
"Yes, it looks good." Storm nodded in agreement.
"Yeah, it really does." Jean said, though her gaze, which was fixed on a shirtless Scott, conveyed she wasn't talking about the Institute.
This action caused Gavin, who was with Chelsea, to let out a low hiss while Laura passed them carrying a vase into the house.
"What's your deal?" She asked him.
"I keep seeing something that's getting close to setting me off." He growled in reply.
"That being…?" The blonde questioned.
"Something personal." The boy responded.
"Okay." She shrugged, deciding to not push his buttons.
Meanwhile with Logan and Scott, they were still putting up the satellite when Scott kept looking at Jean. "Hey Logan, have you felt really attracted to someone before you met Chelsea? Ya know like your brain and heart were telling you: 'She's the one'?" The boy asked.
"Yep, once. Most beautiful motorcycle I ever saw. I was so speechless, someone else bought her." The clawed man said as he got the pliers.
"That's not exactly what I meant." Scott deadpanned.
"Yeah, well let me tell you this: If you don't tell her, I'll do it for you." Logan said knowingly, causing the shaded teen to take on a nervous stance.
"No no, I'll tell her." He replied. Right at that moment, a raven suddenly came out of nowhere, prompting Scott to shoo it away.
"Vait, vhat about Rogue?" Kurt asked as he teleported to them with more tools.
"What about her?" Scott asked.
"Vell, I can't exactly say for sure, but I'm pretty sure I overheard Laura talking to her friends and they mentioned she's had a crush on you for avhile." The blue devil told them.
"Huh?! Why didn't she say anything?!" The laser eyed boy questioned.
"You're asking the wrong person for zhat one." Kurt replied as he put the tools down and teleported elsewhere.
"Boy, that's going to be a nightmare to resolve…" Scott groaned as he facepalmed.
(Later)
Scott was walking to another part of the Institute when he bumped into Jean, causing them to fumble over their words.
"Oh, uh, hey Jean." He greeted her.
"Hey Scott." The redhead replied.
The two were silent for a moment before they both spoke. "Listen, there's something I need to tell you." They both said at the same time.
"Um, you first." The telepath said awkwardly.
"No no, you first." The shaded teen returned just as awkwardly.
"Oh for fuck's sake, just get it done already!" Gavin yelled as he finally managed to get his coffin into his room.
"Not helping, Gavin!" The cycloptic Mutant called back.
"Suck a cock, Summers!" The pseudo vampire yelled back.
The shaded teen sighed and was about to say something to Jean when the phone suddenly rang, making him groan.
"Sorry Jean, I gotta take this." Scott said as he answered his phone.
"Hey Scott, sorry to call you but I'm stuck in Mexico." His brother Alex said as soon as he could be heard.
"What are you doing in Mexico, anyway?" Scott asked his brother.
"I was heading back from a surfing competition in Cabo, and I lost my passport. Can you come get me?" The surfer asked.
"Oh jeez… Yeah. I'll be there as soon as I can get a flight." He replied, feeling stupefied that his brother lost his passport like that.
"Thanks bro." The blonde told him before he hung up.
"Sorry, I gotta go, we'll talk later." The teen told the telepath.
"Okay." Jean nodded.
"Hold it." Gavin said as he leapt down in front of Scott. "I'm coming with you. Something tells me this isn't exactly what it seems. Besides…" He then got up close to the teen. "We need to have a talk." He added.
"Um… About what?" The laser shooting boy asked in confusion.
"Oh, you'll find out." The vampire themed boy told him.
"O-kay…" Scott said nervously as the two left to get Alex. Once they met the blonde beach bum in Mexico, he suddenly took them into a side hall, and just like Gavin predicted, it wasn't Alex, but instead it was the one person that the pseudo vampire wanted dead more than anyone else in the world (save Scott): Mystique.
"Big mistake showing your face again, you blue skinned whore." The boy growled. "Cuz now you just gave me the excuse I've been waiting for."
"Excuse to do what, exactly?" Mystique asked in a snide tone.
"I thought it'd be obvious. I'm gonna kill you!" Gavin shot back with a glare as he lunged at the shapeshifter faster than Scott could stop him.
However before he could land on her, she sidestepped him and shoved something in his mouth, which exploded and filled his system with enough sedative to knock out an elephant before he collapsed on the ground and she threw a similar capsule at Scott and knocked him out as well.
'Payback time, you two.' She thought with a vengeful look on her face.
(Later)
Scott woke up around an hour later and then woke up to getting kicked in the stomach by a very pissed off Gavin, who had woken up thirty minutes before him.
"Well this is a fine mess you've gotten us into this time Scott, what's next? Ya gonna piss off the mafia so they'll send us to sleep with the fishes? Huh?!" He snapped at him angrily as Scott tumbled to the ground.
"What are you talking about? Where are we?" He groaned in pain as he got up.
"Where are we?! WE'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING DESERT!" He yelled furiously at their predicament. "You do realize that this is all your fault, right? If you hadn't been so preoccupied with fawning over your stupid crush you would have noticed how stupid and flimsy Mystique's attempt to get us down here was! And now we're stuck here, in the middle of god knows where, all because of you!" The pseudo vampire yelled and ranted before shoving Scott down onto the dirt again.
"Alright! I was being a complete idiot and I should've been more attentive. Can we please save the rest of this for after we're back home?" The teen asked before he noticed something. "Also, where are my shades?" He asked.
"Hell if I know. Hang on I got spare of my own right… here." Gavin said before he pulled out a pair of broken Oakley sunglasses. "... That bitch is gonna be begging me to kill her when I'm through with her." He growled.
"Great… well I'm gonna need you to help me move so we can find some help." Scott told him.
"You say that as if I don't know that, Captain obvious." The red eyed teen retorted. "Just shut up and hold on to my jacket, now come on."
(Much later, night)
Hours had passed and there was no sign of civilization, only the desert around them. Both boys were very tired right now, and they were pretty much starving at this point.
"If we don't find anything to eat soon, I'm eating your soul." Gavin told Scott as they decided to sit down after walking for so long.
Before Scott could say anything, the two stranded boys tensed as they heard growling nearby… And it was getting closer.
"We're surrounded by coyotes, aren't we?" The temporarily blinded teen asked warily.
"Let me handle them, I'm the one who has night vision." Gavin said as he started rolling up his pants legs and taking off his shirt and jacket to reveal he was wearing full locked on body weights. After he unlocked them, they all fell off with massive thuds, creating several craters as he stretched. "Now, who's first?" He asked.
"How much did those things weigh?" Scott asked.
"The same weight as a jumbo jet. And even with those, my strength and speed match both Pietro and Juggernaut. Now imagine how I am without them." Gavin said as he caught a lunging coyote by the throat and killed it by barely squeezing his hand.
Scott just stayed silent, opting to busy himself with what he was just told. He knew Gavin was already a tough person by the time he went on his global manhunt with the Sever siblings, but he had never actually seen that in action. If he was being honest, he thought letting the weights come off was overkill for a pack of coyotes.
"I've been wanting to take my anger out on something for a long time now. I don't know if I've ever told you this, Scott, but I never really liked you." He said as he backhanded a coyote over the cliff a few yards away and drop-kicked another in front of him. "You always pissed me off with how much of a simp you were towards Jean, so much that you didn't even realize that you had a girl who was already in love with you right in front of you!" He added as he ripped the jaw off of a coyote who jumped at him from the side.
"Yeah, I'm starting to notice." Scott groaned, feeling like a total idiot about how stupid he was being for so long.
"Yeah well, too little, TOO LATE!" Gavin roared as he released a shockwave of his smoke which sent the entire pack of coyotes flying. "... I really do hate you. I put my own feelings aside to help Rogue get you to notice her and you just ignored her like you thought she wasn't worth your time." He then hoisted Scott up by his collar. "Well guess what? When we get back to the Institute, I'm going to make you pay for breaking the heart of the woman I love." He growled, fully intent on carrying out that promise.
The normally shaded teen could only gulp nervously in response. Letting out a shaky sigh, Gavin threw him down and turned away. "I can hear a Jeep a couple miles from here, shoot a laser so they can see us." He told him.
Wanting to be out of this desert just as much as him, Scott did as told and shot a laser blast into the sky and maintained it for five seconds before closing his eyes again.
After a few minutes the flash of headlights slowly came towards them, and some telephone line workers came up to them in a Jeep. After explaining their situation to them, the workers quickly rushed both boys to the nearest hospital.
Unknown to them, Mystique was watching with a scowl at seeing her revenge interrupted before she changed into a vulture to follow them from the air.
(Elsewhere)
Back at the Institute, both Jean and Rogue woke up suddenly when both had a bad dream, and were also awakened by Damian who started crying for the Southern Belle having experienced a similar dream of his own.
"Ma Ma!" He cried while still in his crib. Rogue immediately rushed to his side and started calming him down.
"Shhhh. It's alright, sweetie. Mama's here." She said in a soothing tone. "It's okay, mama's got you." She cooed as the boy whimpered.
"Looks like we all had a bad dream." Jean said.
"This can't be a coincidence." Rogue told her. "Something's wrong, something's very very wrong."
"Da da…" Damian whined as he buried his face in Rogue's chest, seeking comfort from the girls soft bosom.
"If the conditions were different, I'd disagree with you. But since it was all three of us at once, something is definitely wrong." Jean nodded as they went to the living room. The redhead then decided to call Alex. "Alex, did Scott and Gavin leave after they picked you up in Mexico?... Wait what? You weren't in Mexico at all, then who-? Oh no…" She gasped as she realized what happened. "Oh my god…"
"What is it?" Rogue asked as she continued to comfort Damian.
"I think Scott and Gavin May have been tricked into going to Mexico by Mystique." She explained. Naturally, Rogue felt triggered instantly.
"How dare she do that and make Damian cry!" She growled. Even if it was indirect, the blue skinned shapeshifter still made him cry.
"We need to find them soon. Before Mystique can do anything to them… Or before Gavin can do anything he'll regret." Jean said as the two went to find the professor.
(Elsewhere)
Both boys were now in a hospital and Gavin was basically given a clean bill of health since his healing factor healed everything already. However, Scott was still being checked out and when the doctors tried to open up his eyes to check him for a concussion…
"I wouldn't do that if I were you." The pseudo vampire told them.
"This has to be done to make sure he's fine." The doctor replied.
"Well, he's got a nasty eye condition that makes him sensitive to light and if you shine that in his eyes, you might cause irreparable damage to them." Gavin explained, quickly coming up with a cover story and hoping the doctors would buy it. "Besides, I've been around that guy for most of the day, the only thing that he has that even remotely resembles a concussion is the headache he has from being pumped full of enough sedatives to knock out a horse." He added.
The doctors looked skeptical about the part about the sedatives, but the part about his eyes sounded solid enough for them to just leave that alone, wanting to avoid causing any serious harm.
With that, Gavin collapsed on the hospital bed. "Gavin, tell me something. If you really hated me, why didn't you just leave me out there to die?" Scott asked as the nurses left him a pair of shades.
"I may hate you, but I don't want you dead. That's too far." The pseudo vampire replied. The two then spent a few hours resting after getting patched up before they decided to leave, however, as they tried to make their way somewhere to find a way home, several men surrounded them. This was a bad move on their part since Gavin was ready to strike to kill at any moment since Mystique was still after them.
"Alright assholes, unless you wanna end up as stains on the pavement, I suggest you leave us alone." He growled.
"Oh yeah? Is that supposed to scare us?" One of them asked stupidly.
"It should." The boy replied before he slammed the guy into a wall before hurling him towards the others and then pinning the last one to the wall by his shirt while the others ran away. "Now leave us alone, or I'll rip your mother fucking throat out." He growled. The display caused the rest of the thugs to get scared and scatter.
"Bravo." The person he had pinned said in a very familiar voice. This caused Gavin to get uncomfortably close to Mystique as she transformed back. "Well? Are you going to kill me or kiss me?" She asked. Gavin responded by throwing her a few feet from him.
"I'm going to kill you so thoroughly, that your own children won't be able to recognize your remains." The boy growled as he snapped a reed bar in half with one kick and dashed towards Mystique before stabbing her in the stomach with it.
"Ngh!" The woman grunted in pain, blood seeping from the wound.
"I've been dreaming about this, the moment I finally get to end you after all the shit you put me through!" He growled as he pulled the bar out of her stomach. "Get up, I know you heal quickly, so get up."
Mystique growled as she got back to her feet, her wound closing at a rate slower than Gavin's, Wolverine's and Chelsea's. "I will make you feel pain!" She exclaimed as she lept at him.
"Heads up." Gavin said as he side stepped her and Scott blasted her into the air and then into the catacombs down below them. Gavin then leapt down towards her and got on top of her before he started beating the blue skinned woman over and over again.
"Gavin stop! You can't kill her, if you do then you'll just be as bad as she is!" Scott yelled down to him.
"I've been put through the damn wringer because of this bitch! How the hell am I not in the right to get some form of retribution against her?!" He yelled back, pausing in his beating.
"Because you'd just be committing a senseless murder if you kill her now. You're way stronger than her and she obviously can't defend herself against you, so you'd be committing a first degree murder if you do that!" Scott yelled.
Gavin looked at Scott before looking at the now out cold and bruised Mystique before he let out a sigh. "You're right… I would be doing that." He admitted before he got up and turned into smoke to get back to the surface. Though once he did he then punched Scott in the face, breaking the glasses he got earlier. "But don't get all high and mighty with me, got it?" He snapped.
"Got it…" The laser shooter groaned in reply. It was around that time that Jean and Rogue found them, both having passed out due to how exhausted they were.
"Come on, let's get these two out of here. They've obviously been through a lot." Jean said as she picked up Scott.
Rogue picked up Gavin and held him close, after they got into the X-Jet, both boys slowly woke up in the girls arms, and Jean gave Scott his shades back.
"I'm glad you're okay." Jean told him while kissing his forehead.
"Yeah. Thanks for coming for us." He replied as he relaxed and rested his head on her shoulder.
Rogue sighed sadly, seeing that her chances with Scott were definitely over, but decided that wasn't important right now. "Gavin… Ah was so worried about you, don't you ever scare me like this again. And don't keep your feelings hidden from me anymore. You're always there for me, so Ah want you to remember that I'm here for you. Okay?" She told him while squishing his head into her DD-cup chest.
"... Okay." Came the muffled reply of Gavin, who was blushing heavily right now due to Rogue's actions.
"Good." She smiled while kissing his forehead as well. 'Ah think tomorrow would be a good time to try and address everything that's happening between us.' She added mentally as the pseudo vampire fell asleep in her arms.
(The next day)
Scott flew backwards through the air as he was punched across the danger room the next day after school and he tried to get up as he looked at a still pissed off Gavin.
"I don't get it Gavin, we talked everything out, why are you still mad at me?" He asked before he slowly started to remember what the boy had told him the day before. "... Oh, right. That's why." He groaned as the pseudo vampire charged towards him.
This was not going to end well…
Dragon Emperor0: Hmmm, ya know, with how things are progressing, I wonder if we'd be dragging things out too long if we left Gavin and Rogue's confessions until Self Possessed.
ThermalsniperN7: Maybe, maybe not. Depends on how things turn out, the way I see it.
Dragon Emperor0: Though you have to admit Gavin did have a point, Scott was kinda simping on Jean this entire time. Didn't even notice how much Rogue liked him.
ThermalsniperN7: He really was. Seriously, exercise some sense of awareness for the people who have romantic feelings for you and try to address them carefully. If you don't… Well, you'll get something like what Scott's gonna be going through.
Dragon Emperor0: Join us next week for the next chapter: You Can't Stop a Heart from Breaking. The chapter where Gavin's anger reaches its climax and fall, and possibly where Rogue and Gavin get together depending on how things go. But until then, see you all next week!