ax_main | Scott and Alex | Backdated to 12/08

The Summers brothers chat over engine parts in the garage, and realize that they're possibly more alike than their radically different experiences would suggest. And also--unfortunately--very different.

Once his arm had been stitched back together, and they were sure he wasn't going to go septic or anything, Alex had been released to the general population of the school. It was very weird, being in a place that wasn't Asteroid M or a secure laboratory. Not bad, exactly--the place was nice, if a little polished for his tastes--but definitely weird.

He'd been assigned a room, like all the other members of the Brotherhood, but he hadn't spent much time there. Without quite knowing why, he had found himself regularly gravitating toward the garage. It was a relatively open space, which made him feel somehow more at ease, and the smell of oil and machinery was familiar and relaxing in a way he couldn't place, but didn't think to question too much. Mostly, he just wandered through the rows of vehicles, admiring the ones worth a second look and poking at the tools neatly arranged along one wall. He didn't have any particular aptitude for mechanics, but the atmosphere made him feel a helluva lot calmer, in the present circumstances.

This time when Alex found his way to the garage, there was another Summers in there. Scott had retreated there earlier, and had immediately set about screwing around with a Ford sedan. The car didn't need the work in the slightest, but it also couldn't hurt to give her a thorough once-over, and it gave him something to do and focus on. Something other than the fact that his younger brother had been shot while engaging in some light terrorism, or the fact his home was now full of members of the Brotherhood, or the fact that he had very little idea what to do with any of that.

"I've got no head at all for this kind of thing," Alex noted ruefully as he paused beside the familiar tall figure up to his elbows in the guts of a sedan. "Even if it's nice to be around it again. I guess I'm just too blond for anything useful like that." Or possibly just too young to remember much beyond the vaguest impressions of their dad's tinkering in the garage, or at the airfield.

Scott snorted as he straightened. "What, you didn't spend your adolescence in random Nebraskan libraries reading mechanics books from the 70s?" He asked.

Alex smirked lopsidedly. "I spent part of it eating gross sandwiches in my adoptive parents' house. This part I'm still figuring out." The other part ... he preferred not to think about, or bring up around Scott. He seemed to take it hard, as though there were something he could have done something about it. It was done and in the past, and better forgotten. As much as possible.

"Probably all for the best. For some reason people don't seem to think compulsive engine maintenance is a normal hobby," Scott said, smirking back. He leaned down under the hood to check one of the belts. "So what's up?"

"Nothin' in particular," Alex admitted. "Just feeling restless. Needed to get out of the room for a little while. This seemed like as good a place to wander around as any. You busy? I can quite bugging you, if you're busy."

Scott shook his head 'no.' "The car is fine. I just come in here to, y'know...give myself something to do. Turn off my brain. But it's not like...a thing. I can stand company." Well, some company. Jean. Alex. Trowa.

"You say that now," Alex said, "but give it few minutes." He watched Scott work for a few moments, then, "This is weird, right? I can't be the only one who thinks all this is weird. I mean, not bad weird. But definitely ... Well, you know."

"Which part?" Other than all of it, Scott supposed. Basically all of it was pretty fucking weird.

"Us being here," he huffed, turning around and leaning back against the bumper. "I mean, I think it was cool for you guys to let us stay while Dr. MacTaggert and the Boss argue about how his recovery is going and all, but ... like, a third of the other kids here think we're bloodthirsty terrorists. Another third seems to think we can be recruited, if they just try hard enough. The rest are as confused as I am." Alex looked into Scott's ruby glasses. "Am I wrong?"

"You're not wrong." Or, if Alex was, it was only in the specific percentages, but not the general sentiments. "A lot of the kids here don't know what to make of you guys. Or of your boss."

He looked at Alex seriously. "Is anyone giving you guys trouble?"

"Nah," Alex said, waving that concern off with his good arm. The other, he still held gingerly; the medical staff had given him painkillers, but he avoided taking them as much as possible. "I think they're more afraid of what we might do than looking to pick a fight" He shrugged. "Anyway, what's to know? We kick in the dicks of would-be mutant oppressors."

He smiled slightly. "They tell me I can take classes while I'm here."

Scott gave him a slight smile back. "Looking forward to it, huh?"

"It's been awhile," Alex shrugged, though his expression grew slightly pained at the shifting of his injured side. "I'm not even sure I even remember what it's like. But I guess I'd like to have more in my head than what the Right put there." And some fractured bits of memory, but that didn't seem like it was worth mentioning.

"Yeah, that makes sense." Scott's brow furrowed as Alex winced. "Hey, are you okay? Following doctor's orders and all that shit?"

It was, of course, supremely hypocritical of Scott to insist on that sort of thing, but hey. Older brother's prerogative or something. Besides, Alex didn't know how bad about those things Scott himself tended to be.

"I'm getting plenty of rest," he protested. "And I'm not moving it around more than I have to. I just ... don't wanna take the Vicodin, 's all. I mean, it's just a little ache--it'll be fine. I don't want my head all fuzzy."

Scott looked at him hard for a moment. He was torn between not wanting to watch his younger brother endure unnecessary pain and understanding entirely the dislike and distrust of painkillers. Finally, he conceded, "Yeah, okay. But if it gets too bad, take them, alright? You're not any sharper if you are waylaid by the pain itself."

"I can deal with pain and still think straight." Well. As straight as he ever did, but there was no reason to say all that. "I'm used it it. I've just got ... too much baggage tied up with that strung-out feeling, I guess? Like being in the infirmary. It's, like, I know it's not rational, but it's still hard to make myself sit still, or not go all hyper-anxious and shit." He sighed and scrubbed his good hand through his hair. "Anyway. Yeah. If it gets too bad, I'll ... think about it."

Right. Well, Scott had made an ass of himself in nearly-record time. "Some stuff isn't always rational," he conceded. Alex had been on his own and handling this, or not, for longer than Scott liked to think about. He didn't need to be pushing him into stuff that Alex was truly uncomfortable with. "Do what you think is best."

"That's a terrible idea, and we both know it," Alex returned wryly. He punched Scott lightly in the arm. "Hey. Thanks for lookin' out for me. I mean, that's usually my job--looking out for somebody. So, y'know. It's cool." And felt better than he could really express in that moment, coming from somebody who wasn't Pam or Eileen. His cheeks colored slightly, and he pretended to examine ... whatever the hell it was Scott was working on inside the guts of this car.

"Yeah, well, I'm a bit rusty at the having family thing, and the big brother thing, but practice makes perfect or some shit," Scott said. He patted Alex gently, and awkwardly, on the back as he got closer, ever careful of his brother's injury.

"If it helps, you're already better at the big brother thing than Phantazia," Alex smirked. "Though it probably helps you haven't threatened to tie my organs into a halyard knot and then kick my tangled ass up and down the street if I don't do what you tell me to." He loved Eileen, but she really didn't set the bar very high, as far as nurturing older-sibling figures went.

"Yeah, I like to save those sorts of threats for special occasions," Scott said dryly. "Sounds like you've got a lot of people looking for for you, though."

Which could only be a good thing, really.

"I do," he asserted, because it was true. Wanda and Lance and Eileen looked out for him, because they were more or less responsible or had taken it on themselves. The other members of the brotherhood--Pietro, Mort, Fred, and Vance--he was reasonably confident would back him up, if it ever came to it. And Pam he could always rely on, because that was simply how it was. "They take care of me. But who's taking care of you, Scott?"

Scott shrugged slightly and turned his focus back to the engine, uncomfortable. "I can take care of myself."

"No, you can't," Alex said, matter-of-factly. "I mean, here, a the school, sure--anybody could take care of himself here. But this isn't the world. The world is out there," he gestured vaguely toward the far wall, indicating the spaces beyond the mansion's gates. "Big parts of it hate us. And the parts that don't hate us ... just don't care. Don't care if we live or die. Nobody's fine all by himself in that. Or do you want me to think you never leave the grounds? Because I know that's bullshit."

"I've been taking care of myself, out there, for a long time," Scott said evenly, picking at one of the belts. He hadn't had the experiences Alex had, to be sure, but Scott felt pretty confident that he had the ugly side of humanity. "Don't worry about it."

"Really," the blond returned skeptically. "All by yourself?" If that was true ... Alex reached out tentatively and put a hand on Scott's shoulder. "I've kinda gotta worry about it," he said. "That's what brothers are for. I'd be a lot happier knowing your here if I also knew you weren't here alone. Otherwise ... maybe you'd be better off with us. If there's no one here who cares either way." Wanda already liked him, and that was as strong an in with the Brotherhood as somebody could hope for. There might be some friction, at first, but he was pretty sure the others would warm up to him. Eventually.

Scott shook his head 'no,' almost without thinking. The mansion was a little bit insane, but it was home. The Professor was here. His friends. Scott wasn't sure if they would care either way if he left, necessarily, but...he would care. A lot. It was a kind of startling realization. He...had a home. He had something approximating a family.

Besides, he still thought Magneto was wrong.

He looked over at Alex, who seemed genuine in his concern and gave him a slight smile. "I've got friends here. The Professor is here. Besides," he smirked slightly, "I doubt sincerely you all would want me there."

"Maybe not, but give 'em enough time, and they'd come around," Alex insisted, and believed it. True, it would be more for his sake than Scott's, but that didn't make it any less true. "And it's not like I've got a style you could cramp, or anything" But the younger teen soon conceded with a sigh and a slow shake of his blond head.

"If you're sure. Just ... y'know, check in sometimes. Lemme know everything's good. Or even when it's not--I'm a great person to vent to." God knew, he'd had plenty of practice.

Scott stopped fiddling with the engine, and looked at Alex for a long moment. He didn't 'vent' to people. Not really. The closest he'd ever come was spilling his guts about Alex in front of Warren, and Bobby, and Jean. Other than that, and occasionally going and swearing at the Professor, he usually dealt with things by stuffing them away in dark recesses of his brain and coping by micromanaging everything else about his life. "I appreciate it. And I promise I'll try. You have to promise me the same, though, okay?"

"Sounds fair," nodded the fairer Summers brother. "Though I don't usually have a lot goin' on, y'know. Don't blame me if all you get are inane updates about what sandwich I'm eating for lunch, or how the dryer always eats at least one of my socks. You asked for it."

"It will be a welcome reprieve from the tedium of homework," Scott assured him dryly. "And will still be more interesting than the whole lot of nothing I usually have going on."

"You're a student at Mutant High," Alex scoffed. "I'm apparently a borderline terrorist--borderline, if you go with the kindest possible coverage of the Brotherhood in the mainstream media. Between the two of us, we should be able to come up with something interesting every once in a while."

Scott smirked, "And yet. So what do you do other than that? Like, for fun, I mean."

He actually had to consider his answer to that. He didn't dislike life with the Brotherhood by any stretch of the imagination, but it was hard to come up with anything he did purely for recreation. Well, nothing that was fit to talk to his brother about, and would't get the taste knocked out of his head by Pam if he did. So what did he do? Training, obviously. Looking out for Fatale. Random interludes with his teammates ... "We have a pool table?" he ventured. "I'm not very good at it, but it's fun, sometimes."

Scott's eyebrows went up. "You like pool?"

"Until Eileen or Pietro starts cheating," Alex nodded. "Even then, it's fun. It's just a different kind of game."

"Wanda cheats too," Scott offered. "Though she'd argue she's just evening the playing field."

He gave his older brother a quizzical look. "Does that mean your mutation helps you with pool somehow, or are you just really, really good at it?"

"Both, in this case," Scott said, smirking. "Though rules being what they are, I was forced to decline teaching one of my classmates how to actually hustle at it."

"You used to hustle at pool?" Alex asked him skeptically. Very, very skeptically. "I call bullshit," he said at last with a shake of his head. "If you were a pool hustler, then I was a fucking Mouseketeer."

"I will neither confirm nor deny that I have hustled at pool," he said calmly, probably too calmly considering. "The Mouseketeer thing sounds like a good gig, though. How'd that go?"

"Better than your face," came the inevitably lame reply. He just couldn't reconcile those two contrasting images of his brother, and his face remained screwed up in confusion. "Okay, leaving aside the maybe borderline-criminal activity which may or may not have taken place, how does your mutation help with pool?" That part was almost as confusing as the idea of Scott conning people in the first place.

"My blasts, they're released from my eyes. And something about how my body rewired itself," the Professor and Dr. MacTaggart thought because of his mutation, but had conceded it could be in part due to the brain damage when he'd landed. "Well, I see things differently now. I see motion the way most people see color. I see trajectories, angles....basically, my mutation made geometry, physics, and trig my bitches."

Alex whistled softly. "I definitely don't have that--I mean, I had to work on my aim the old-fashioned way. I guess maybe I could see you as a pool hustler, if your genes made it that easy for you. Hell, it'd be more of a crime not to take advantage of something like that."

"How does yours work, anyway?" Scott asked legitimately curious.

Taking a breath, Alex began rattling off facts he'd obviously overheard while in the custody of the Right, "Specialized cell structures distributed throughout," the subject's, "my body are constantly in the process of absorbing ambient background radiation and converting it into a biological plasma catalyst, acting as capacitors for the obvious manifestation of my genetic deviation. With conscious effort," the subject, "I can direct the collected energy through," its, "my arms, producing cataclysmic leaps in temperature up to a range of two hundred feet sufficient to explosively deconstruct most known forms of solid matter on contact. At full charge, after approximately seventy-two gigajoules of energy are expended, no less than eight hours complete rest will be required at normal conditions for capacitor cells to regenerate fully. This process can be expedited through exposure to highly radioactive conditions, though there appears to be no process by which the charge time can be reduced to less than three hours." His smile was distinctly strained as he added, "I'll spare you the details of how they figured that last part out."

Shit. Shit shit shit. Scott, you stupid asshole. He should have known that Alex's knowledge of his mutation had to be tainted by those fucking assholes. Jesus, what had he been thinking?

"Right." He swallowed. "Sorry."

"Hey, it's okay, Scott," the younger teen reassured him. "Really. It's the only kinda-halfway good thing to come out of that mess. At least I know more about how my powers work than 'I shoot plasma out of my hands'. Makes me more effective, and helps me keep things under control. Accidents with superheated matter can get really messy." Which he knew from firsthand experience. "Don't sweat it, all right?"

"True, I guess. Still." Scott went back to the engine, it was easier to figure out what was happening in an engine than it was to figure out how not to step in it every time he talked to his own brother. "But yeah. Special eyesight to go with the geeky eyewear, so....I'm damn good at pool."

"That's a pretty awesome fringe benefit," Alex said. "I got heat resistance and immunity to dangerous radiation. Which is pretty good, but not as good as hustling pool."

"Hey, heat resistance is cool. And I think if I was immune to radiation I'd become some kind of nuclear power super-spy," Scott said, shrugging. "Which, let's be honest, is going to have a much higher rate than a pool con, money-wise."

"Have you ever seen me try to be sneaky?" he replied dubiously. "To say I suck at it would be slander against sucking. I blow things up. That's pretty much what I'm good at. But I'm really picky about which things I blow up, which kinda limits my employment opportunities."

Scott looked at him seriously. "That's a good rule. Stay picky." Fuck knew he hadn't, and Scott doubted he'd ever forgive himself for it.

"Hey, I know how hard it is to un-explode something after a catastrophic temperature spike," Alex acknowledged with a shrug. "I'm really careful. And no matter what they say on Reddit or Facespace or whatever, Magneto's never told me to use my powers on a person." He seriously doubted he would, even if ordered. There were already too many faces of dead people rattling around inside his head. He didn't want to add any more.

Scott mulled that over as he fiddled with something on the carburetor. That, it told him something about Magneto. Or, possibly, about whoever had been controlling Magneto. But in any case, it was something worth knowing. Of course, the precise meaning of what he'd learned still wasn't clear. It could be that even Magneto had lines in the sand, that he wasn't trying to start a full-on, body-count-inducing war, just engage in the still-super-stupid light terrorism they'd been doing. It could be he didn't want to use his own kids as straight-up soldiers, though if that was the case his terrorism plan of attack still seemed unwise.

It could just be he was starting them small, with things that were (mostly) unobjectionable to them only to up the stakes later by slowly desensitizing them, a process Scott knew too well. There was no way to know. No yet.

"Good," he said. Alex didn't seem like he wanted to hurt people, but helping reinforce that line in the stand couldn't hurt. Even if Scott was generally loathe to give anyone insight into who he was, or who he'd been; this was his brother, and he'd do anything to protect him. Even from the mistakes Scott himself had made. "Killing someone. It's not...it's not the kind of thing that ever goes away."

"Watching someone die never goes away," Alex agreed with a nod. It wasn't exactly the same thing, but it was close enough to count. "God," he said, scrubbing a hand across his face, "I have got to be the most morbid person to talk to ever. Sorry about that. I swear, I'm trying to keep the conversation light and anxiety-free. I'm just failing really hard at it, is all."

"I'm sure it will shock you to hear that I'm not exactly considered a ray of sunshine myself," Scott said dryly. "So don't worry about it. Besides, I'd rather you just talk about whatever you want to."

"My track record with stuff like that tells me that's probably not a great idea," he admitted. "But thanks for the offer. If I ever come up with a halfway decent topic, you'll be the first to know."

"I'll get the balloons ready," Scott promised. He thought maybe a topic change, however abrupt, might be a good idea. "So what do you think of the mansion?"

"It's ... big," Alex admitted, face crinkling. "Kind of intimidating. But Tommy's helping Fatale and me settle in, at least as long as we're here."

Scott raised an eyebrow. "You're friends with Shepard?"

"Well, yeah. He was the first person we met from this school. We lived through the same crap. 'Course we're friends. Though Fatale probably knows him better than I do--they've spent more time together."

"Makes sense." That was all Scott would really say about it. He wasn't exactly on the best terms with Tommy, but him not being friends with Alex didn't mean that Alex couldn't. The kid could make his own decisions, after all.

"He had to tell me we were friends, of course," Alex confided with a rueful shake of his head. "I'm not ... I'm bad at reading people. You know, socially. I knew we were ... I knew we were cool. But I wasn't sure it went any further than shared experience and friendly acquaintance. I can't ever tell unless people just tell me. Otherwise, it's just ..." He trailed off, shrugged, and looked down into the engine Scott had been working on. "Confusing. Like this mess here."

At that, Scott looked somewhat sympathetic. He wasn't the best with people either, and Alex had been through such hell that it was frankly impressive that he could maintain any relationships at all. At least in Scott's estimation. "People are confusing," he agreed.

"I...I'm not the best at noticing stuff either. I mean, some stuff, sure." He'd had to get good at reading people and their intentions quickly, when he'd been in the group home and then with Jack. A misstep with the wrong person at the wrong time could get your ass beaten, or worse. "But not when it comes to people who aren't dicks and how they interact with me, specifically."

"Yeah," Alex agreed with sudden enthusiasm, resting his good hand on the edge of the fame surrounding the inner-workings of the car emphatically. "It's way easier to tell when people are dicks, and need to be beaten down. When they aren't dicks ... that's harder. I can't ever tell when they're just being nice for the sake of being nice or if it, you know, means something."

"Exactly," Scott agreed, sounding relieved. At least it wasn't just him. "I can't tell if they're just generally nice, or if they actually like me for some inconceivable reason. I mean, if they're working an angle, that I might get, but anything else? Fuck no."

"People are hard," Alex agreed. "At least, non-asshole people are hard. I get why you like engines better. I'm sure somethin' in there makes sense to you." He sighed. "It's the same thing for me with rocks."

Scott's eyebrows rose in genuine curiosity. "Rocks?"

"High school geology was about the only class I was interested in, back when I was in school," he explained, clearly expecting the laughter to start any second. "I guess now it's kind of a hobby? Rocks make sense. They have history. You can know them, and know the area they're part of through them. Way, way easier than people."

"Cool. I gotta ask, though, that thing where geologists lick rocks....do they actually do that?" Scott asked.

Alex tapped the side of his nose conspiratorially. "Trade secret. Maybe once I'm a real geologist, I can tell you. But us part-timers have to tread carefully."

"Would you want to do that? Be a real geologist?" Scott's question was utterly non-judgmental. He actually hoped Alex did want that, want to do something just for him because he loved it, rather than because he felt forced into it or felt obligated to someone.

"Well, yeah," Alex said, sounding faintly surprised. "Isn't that the whole point of all of this? So I can go do something totally normal and boring without reference to the fact that I can explode things at will? I'm pretty sure that's the endgame for your school as much as it is for us."

Scott blinked. There was a lot to unpack there, and he wanted to be careful in doing so because they were not at the point yet where Scott thought an actual debate about the merits of the Brotherhood's beliefs (or Xavier's, for that matter) was a good idea. "You know what you guys believe better than I do," Scott hedged, "but if that is the goal...it's weird to me that you guys aren't normally in school. How can you guys go on to do other stuff if you don't have any training in it?"

"Priorities," Alex shrugged. "The fight is now. Once it's over, there'll be time to catch up on the other stuff." He poked something hard and metallic inside the engine, just needing to do something with his hand. The whole mechanical mass was as much a mystery to him as ever. "And if not me, then the kids who come after. Like I said, it's a hobby. For now."

That was shortsighted, by Scott's estimation, and possibly even dishonest. But since he didn't know if it was Magneto lying to his recruits or Alex lying to himself, for the moment, Scott let it lie. Instead, he shifted the subject, gesturing to where Alex had tapped. "Do you want to work on her with me?"

"You know that if I try to help, it's just gonna take twice as long, right?" Alex replied dubiously. "I'm much better at rocks than I am at engines, and even that's pretty amateur."

Scott shrugged, apparently unconcerned, and smirked, "I didn't ask if you'd be helpful, I asked if you wanted to."

"Oh," he said. "Well, in that case, sure."

Scott tossed Alex a rag. "Then let's do it."