By the end of this chapter, you will understand why I'm internally screaming. I couldn't wait to get to this chapter.
Chapter 198: Camp's Witch Trials
Camp SHIELD - 8:39 AM
Xavier and James knew that if they wanted to win the prank war, they had to make the first move. None of their cadets knew if Communications was even planning something so that made them even antsier. The Academy taught them that a healthy sense of suspicion will always prepare them for every possible danger. And if there's one thing Sigyn and her first-year cadets don't have, it's Academy training.
Fuck Vander's rules about going easy. This is war.
"Okay, here's the plan," Xavier states.
"Why do we always assume you have a plan?" James questions. "Maybe someone else has one."
"Go ahead."
James freezes. " … so Xavier, what's your plan? Nothing too physical."
Xavier looks at him. "Why?"
"My knee fucking hurts."
"... get that checked out."
James waves it off. "Later problem."
-o-
After a morning where all her cadets' cabins, belongings, work, and food were soaking wet as if they were dunked in the lake or left under a running faucet, Sigyn called a meeting with some of her cadets in their cabin. Her stuff was all dry which made it feel like a personal attack despite not being directly attacked.
Operations or Sci-Tech started the prank war and Communications needs to retaliate.
They were sitting on the cabin floor they dried off when the ground jolted as if there was an earthquake. Sigyn and her cadets scramble out of the way as a bunk bed falls over. They all stand and they fall back as if the ground was a bouncy castle ... but the floor itself hasn't changed shape.
"Nobody move," Sigyn orders. No way James would repeat a prank.
Her cadets are still as she heads over to the window to look outside. She isn't seeing the campgrounds' greenery but blue waves. It takes a moment for her to process that their cabin is floating in the lake. It's like their cabin shrank, was put in a hamster ball, and chucked into the lake. How did they not feel any of that?
"Okay," Sigyn states, closing the curtains to cover that up, "that explains the uneasy walking."
Before she could explain, a giant splash hits the side of their cabin and the entire house spins. Sigyn and her cadets fly off their feet, lying on the wall that has now become the floor. A window shatters and water pours inside as decor from the cabin starts falling on them. Sigyn lights up her hands and envelopes them in a bright green shield of her magic.
The cadets look at her in awe as her hands glow and she screams holding her shield up as the cabin tumbles and debris keeps bashing against her magic. She's happy there are only three of them in here with her so she didn't have to make as big a dome.
"You're a wizard?" One of her cadets asks in excitement.
"I'm not a wizard!" Sigyn screams.
She has no time to be offended. Their cabin lurches forwards, causing Sigyn and her cadets to flail forwards as their cabin rotates the other way. Sigyn's mind flips and spins, she barely sticks the landing on the other side. The cabin is a mess, the ceiling is the floor, water is splashing in through broken windows.
She isn't even sure if she's upside down.
Sigyn blasts magic forwards, demolishing a bunk bed's frame before it swung around to collide into them. She waves her hands forwards to stop the water from rushing in. For the only moment of calm they've gotten in a while, they take a moment to breathe.
"Fucking Sci-Tech," another cadet curses.
Sigyn doesn't argue because only James could shrink their cabin. Time for revenge. Before Sigyn could give orders, something splashes beside their cabin and they spin to the side. Instead of staying in the cabin, Sigyn balls up some magic and shoots it behind her. A portal opens where they would've landed and they fall through.
Sigyn and her cadets roughly land on the ground just on the edge of the forest. She quickly checks them and is glad they're okay. They're more amazed by their head counsellor being a wizard than the entire cabin incident.
Sigyn gets up and waves a hand over herself to dry off and clean up, doing the same for her cadets. She looks over at the pier, expecting to see James and some Sci-Tech cadets laughing, thinking she and her cadets haven't escaped the cabin yet.
Instead, she spots James and Xavier in his Camp Dad windbreaker, laughing together as they skip rocks on the lake, aiming towards what she imagines to be their shrunken cabin so they would boggle around mindlessly.
"They're teaming up…" Sigyn mutters. "Oh, this changes everything. They threw the girl into the lake to test if she's a witch and turns out she is because she didn't drown. Sad for them to say they know who they're messing with."
"What idiots," a cadet states, making Sigyn grin. "This is why Communications doesn't get involved with their stupid shit."
"So what's our plan?" Another asks.
Sigyn takes a breath to calm the boiling rage inside of her. A breeze passes them, prompting her to look up. She never noticed how beautiful the pine trees are and how useful they could be.
"I'll need your best strategist and the tallest tree, stat," Sigyn orders as she vanishes in her magic.
-o-
Xavier and James knew they would be in shit the moment they came up with their plan, expected returned destruction when they executed it, got confused when their cadets kept finding pine needles everywhere from their clothes, their beds, and their food.
And then the boys blinked and knew death was coming for them.
Xavier was tied to the top of a pine tree, right to the trunk. He notices a separate chain attached to his binds, angled and tied to the middle of the branch he's standing on. Tied to that knot is a bounded James who is holding on to the rope with his teeth, bent back all the way with no wiggle room. His arms, legs, and ankles are tied separately. He's literally holding himself up with his teeth. For someone who's scared shitless of the dentist, James has very strong teeth.
Xavier wonders why James doesn't just shrink and fly out of it but then Xavier studies the contraption again. Sigyn took away James' powers and his ability to talk. God, he loves her. James is holding himself up with his teeth. God, he loves her so much.
"Okay," Xavier states, "I'll break through."
James shakes his head, wincing panicked noises through his teeth. Xavier pauses, realizing that if he breaks his bounds, then the ropes connecting him to the tree break and James will fall down the pine unable to shrink and fly. Xavier glances down and can't even see the ground. He looks out ahead and can't spot Camp from the foliage.
"Same plan," Xavier says, "I'll break out and catch you."
James makes whimpering and pleading sounds, shaking his head as subtly as he can while his eyes are open so wide in an extreme panic that they could bulge out of his skull. Xavier is offended James doesn't have faith in him.
"Trust me," Xavier says, sounding like an order. "Okay, on my mark."
James whines, starting to cry. Xavier ignores him as he counts out loud. Once he reaches three, Xavier thrusts his arms outwards, breaking free. As James falls back, his teeth clench harder on the rope and Xavier jumps off their branch. He catches the other end of James' rope with one hand and reaches for the branch they were just standing on with his other hand but it's Sigyn. She catches his hand, interlocking their fingers as she appears in full form, lying on her stomach on the branch. She smiles brightly at them as she kicks her feet behind her. Xavier can hear James' whimpering as he swings against gravity and Xavier's hold on him (or really Sigyn's at this point).
"Your witch trial was a success!" Sigyn exclaims with a maniacal laugh. "I didn't drown so I must be one. So tell me this, boys, if a Camp Dad and a Fresh Ph.D. are dropped from a tree but nobody is around to listen, what sound would they make?"
Xavier smiles, laughing nervously towards Sigyn. "Don't drop us, please. James has a fucked up knee."
"Tell him to fall on the other one," Sigyn states. With her free hand, she waves down at James who continues whimpering.
"Come on, babe…" Xavier whispers with a cheeky smile. "Mrs. Rogers?"
Sigyn looks at him and smiles a little. She grips Xavier's hand tighter. "Can we come back next year?"
Xavier is taken aback. Even James is making confused noises. "Seriously?"
Sigyn nods. "Maybe I can wear a matching Camp Mom windbreaker. The windbreaker is mostly why I took over Communications. This victorious moment too but the windbreaker, Xavier. You looked so happy when you put yours on and I called you a dork because it was dorky, but now I get it. This is fun."
Xavier exhales a small laugh in disbelief before noticing that she's waiting for an answer to her previous question. "Wait, are you serious? You're not saying things because you're dangling us from a branch, are you? Do you mean it? Do you want to come back here?"
"I'm serious. I love it here. This is so much fun. Camp really is a special place." She looks down at him. "Gods, Rogers, don't cry on me."
"I'm not," Xavier says as he looks away from her and blinks away tears. Her saying she wants to come back and have a matching windbreaker was something he never knew he ever needed. "Hey, open the zipper above my elbow on the arm you're holding. I got something for you in there."
She narrows her eyes a bit. "This isn't gonna be a prank, is it? Remember that I'm still holding you and James' fucked up knee."
"Do you want to come back here next year or not?"
Sigyn still looks at him skeptically as she opens his pocket her free hand. She pulls out a small transparent zip-up bag. Inside, she sees a small S charm that matches the other letter charms on the bracelet he gave her when they were teenagers. Far from a stupid Camp prank. The bracelet she never took off because not only did it come from him but it always reminded her of who she is and who she always will be.
The bracelet dangling down onto the hand holding him up. The letters are upside down, reaching out for him.
Her mouth dries and she doesn't know what to say. She can barely see Xavier through the tears forming in her eyes but he's nodding.
"I said I'd buy you the S charm, didn't I?" Xavier says. "I've wanted to give it to you for a while. I was thinking sometime here but then we went to our respective programs as program enemies, then had a depressing conversation on the pier when I was originally wanted to give it to you, and now we're up in a pine tree. I figure now's the best time to give it to you than any since you're holding on to me for my dear life — and James' — and want to come back here for some cursed reason. Look, you know this, I'm a sad camp counsellor and team captain who's been in love with you for a decade and have been telling you since I first saw you again. So what do you say, Sigyn Lokisdottir, will you be my Mrs. Rogers? My Camp Mom?"
Sigyn looks at him, tears streaming down her face. She glances at the S charm before facing the man who gave it to her. The man who waited eight years to give it to her. Without breaking eye contact, she kisses his hand, the one she's holding, before dropping him and James down the pine tree and disappearing in her magic.
-o-
Xavier didn't process he was falling until he was breaking through branches and his mind caught up with gravity. James screams from nearby, probably happy he has his mouth back. Xavier balls himself up to cover his face, feeling splinters and pine needles stab him on the way down. He's lucky he broke into a branch before hitting the ground since that slowed his fall.
Xavier groans as James lies next to him. As his mind tries to wrap around what happened with a ringing in his ears, he thinks about Sigyn holding the S charm and kissing his hand before he fell. He looks at James who blasts himself out of his restraints, relieved to be free and have his powers back, before firing a falling branch that would've crushed them.
"How's your fucked knee?" Xavier asks.
James shrugs. "The rest of my body hurts more at the moment, so I'd say my knee is fine in comparison."
"Still get that checked out."
When James lowers his arms, he exhales. "Communications is fucking terrifying, man. To think one of them actually wants to come back here by choice." He turns over to Xavier. "Did you propose up there or was I dreaming?"
Xavier hesitates. "I'm not sure."
"It sounded like one. You had a ring or something like a ring. You asked her to be yours with a dramatic speech. That's a proposal."
Xavier laughs to himself. "I did propose."
"Could say it was a prank."
"I could."
"Congrats, man. You deserve it." James sits up and pats Xavier's back. "Did she say yes?"
They look up and see Sigyn hanging upside down on a branch above their heads. She holds out her wrist to show them her charm bracelet where she clipped the S charm beside the others. Smiling brightly, she flips over the branch and lands on her feet before brushing herself off and helping Xavier up. Once she has his arm, she doesn't let go of his hand.
"So what are we?" Sigyn asks. "Dating? Engaged? Was that a proposal up there or a prank? If so, yes to both. Yes to you and yes to everything involving you."
Xavier laughs, thinking about the conversation he just had with James. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
Sigyn grins, nodding. "Can we really?"
"James is ordained. He got drunk at Daniel's bachelor party and ordained himself online in case Fury got ambushed on the way to Stark-Banner's wedding."
"You heard him, James."
James looks up from the ground, not even remembering when Sigyn appeared and when Xavier stood up, despite hearing their whole conversation. He sees their expectant faces, waiting for him to respond but the fall from the pine tree rattled his brain.
"Fuck…" James mutters, shaking his head. "Are we having a wedding? This better not be a fucking prank. Shit, wait, we're having a camp wedding!" He jumps to his feet. "We have to prepare! Hold on!"
James shrinks and flies away at top speed.
-o-
Once James returns to the main campground after zipping through the forest, he grows back to his normal size, skidding on his feet since he didn't make the landing. He doesn't fall and grabs the megaphone from the nearest cabin's front door. As he turns it on, he sees the many cadets along the field doing whatever they wanted since this is one of the few moments during Camp where they get free time.
Now it's being interrupted with something better.
"Attention, all cadets!" James screams into the megaphone. All the cadets turn to face him. "All activities and drills for the remainder of the day are cancelled due to an impromptu wedding. One rep from each cabin report to me immediately for new orders to be distributed. Camp Dad and his fiancée, Camp Mom, are getting married now!"
I told you this Camp SHIELD arc would be the most chaotic.
James is us right now, minus the fucked knee.
Add this to the list of things I added last-minute while planning this arc. This is why I've been internally screaming for days, months, and a good year.