Tommy and Stephanie - April 2
Apr. 2nd, 2018 06:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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ax_mainKitten meets baby. Newbie meets Tommy. It all goes rather well.
Ben had noticed the kitten first. He'd been sitting up on the floor in front of Steph, quietly knocking plastic cups together when he'd suddenly let out a delighted cry and threw himself forward onto his hands and knees.
"Ba, ah ba!"
Steph looked up from her phone (her mom was texting 'helpful' reminders about baby care) and looked across the hall to see what had captured his attention.
"BA!!" he declared and took off for the little gray cat.
Steph scrambled up to follow. Ben wasn't in any serious danger, but if he got his chubby little fingers on that kitten, the poor little thing might not enjoy it. Apparently, it understood because after a moment it started trotting down the hallway of the boys' dorm. That wasn't going to stop Ben: he crawled right after it.
"Ben, slow down, dude. You don't want to scare it." As if he was going to listen. He did look back at her, but only long enough to let out a giggle before he was off again. Total stinker.
The kitten wasn't having any of it, and it bounced further down the hallway until it came to an open door and scooted inside. Ben followed, puffing along like a little locomotive until he came to the same door, and there he stopped, looking back at Steph in confusion.
"Oh little dude, it went home. It was sleepy!" She stopped a few steps short of him. He was pretty good about listening; no need to scoop him up yet.
"Ba!" he insisted and looked back at the doorway.
"No, Ben. It went to bed. No."
He looked at her and smiled. Trouble.
"No."
The smile grew and his eyebrows popped up. Uh oh.
"Ben! No!"
He let out an earsplitting squeal and charged into the room. Damn! It was only a few steps, but Steph poured on the speed, and in an instant she'd nabbed him, swooped him into the air and up into her arms. Her sparkles, always present, burst into a thin shower in reaction to her speed, and Ben began giggling and swiping at them as they floated around her.
"Oh. Boy. You sir are going to get me into trouble." She smiled at him, then past him, then dropped the smile. Oops, maybe he already had, because the room wasn't empty.
Relatively confident that Pita could get herself out of whatever shit she got herself into, Tommy'd started leaving the door open when he was in his room, more often than not. he'd meant what he'd said to Kitty way back when. If Pita wanted to come back to him, cool. If not, he wasn't going to be the one keeping her stuck in a 12 x 12 box. (Which wasn't to say that he didn't stress out some if she wasn't back in the evenings... but so far she'd always come home.)
So he didn't take too much notice when she trotted happily back into the room after going on walkabout, her tail high in the air. He was sprawled on his bead, headphones on and watching D.Va's latest stream, only vaguely aware at first that the cat was back. He sat up a whole lot faster and dropped the headphones around his neck when strangers followed the cat in. Worse, a baby? And then the air filled with glitter, not entirely unlike the crap he and the guys had funneled into the bathroom water supply. "The fuck?" Tommy asked, more bewildered than annoyed.
"I'm sorry!" Steph blurted out. "I let him wander a little too far. My fault, not his!"
Tommy hit pause and shut the computer, staring at the weird gold stuff in the air before raising an eyebrow at the girl and ... her? baby. "Xavier's taking them kind of young now, isn't he?"
Steph smiled, relieved that he was joking about this rather than chewing her out. "He's mine, but he's just visiting for a couple of days, and then he's heading home again." Not that she wanted him to, but school came first for now so that Ben could come first when she had her mutation under control.
"So who are you?" Tommy couldn't place her at all. She sure as hell wasn't one of the recent rescues, not looking so ... normal, which was an awful word, but no-one who was days out from being held in one of those places was that chill. Not to mention the baby.
Pita chose that moment to notice that the baby wasn't chasing her anymore and she jumped up silently onto Tommy's desk to get within the kid's eyeline. She stuck her tail straight up in an obvious taunt and walked back and forth along the edge.
Ben leaned forward and started swinging his arms at the damn cat, all the while chattered on excitedly in the two or three syllables he liked to use lately. Steph hitched him up to get a better grip. "Oh god, I'm so sorry. My name is Stephanie, but Steph works. I just got here last week."
"Tommy," he replied, distracted by the cat vs baby face-off, except it wasn't exactly a face-off, was it? The cat, Tommy decided with a burst of appreciation, was trolling the kid. Awesome. "That's Pita, but watch out -- she's cool with people, but babies are new. If she takes a swipe at him, it's not my fault. What's with the sparkles?"
"Mostly a hassle, but they sort of get a little more crazy when I use my powers; I sped up a bit to grab Ben before he got in her so," she waved her free hand through glimmers of light still floating in the air, "i>sparkles."
He still wasn't sure that she wasn't putting him on, but whatever. Pita started a butt-waggle, her eyes on Steph's shoulder, and Tommy zipped over to grab Pita and bring her back to his bed before she could launch herself and cause problems. "No shit," he replied, barely missing a beat in the conversation. "That's got to be a bitch if you're trying to be sneaky."
Her eyebrows jumped. She couldn't help it, because holy moley, he was fast. "I don't... really do... um, is that what you do? Speed?"
"That's the name, don't wear it out," Tommy answered, holding a wiggling Pita to make sure she didn't go right back to trying to divebomb the new girl and her kid. "Superspeed, and if I vibrate other things fast enough, they explode. You too?" he guessed, given the way she'd described chasing the baby.
"Wow! Uh, no, not really. I mean I can go faster than I should, but not like you. And I don't make things explode." Ben started bouncing in her arm, trying to push himself off her hip. His protests were getting a little more insistent, but he wasn't quite into anger territory yet. "I heal mostly, me and others, boost energy too. Dad says I'm better than coffee. But it means I'm stronger and faster too, which is handy with this little dude."
"You'd be better off with Otabek's bubble-of-silence," Tommy observed. He didn't hate babies - he had no opinion at all about them most of the time. He just had absolutely no idea what to do with one, and limited desire to learn. Pita squirmed and tried to pop out of his hands and he grabbed her again before she could take off.
He didn't sound annoyed when he said it, but Steph was suddenly aware of how loud Ben was, then how much the kitten was squirming, then how she'd disrupted a total stranger's afternoon. Her cheeks were getting hot, and she took a step back.
"I'm sorry. I'm used to him and forget that other people aren't."
"Babies gonna baby, right?" Tommy shrugged, not sure what else to say. "I don't have- I didn't grow up with siblings, so that's pretty much what I know about them. Noise and diapers."
"That's ninety percent of it." Steph smiled, relieved that he didn't seem put out. She wasn't going to wear out her welcome, but a small chat was nice. "But the ten percent fun makes up for that."
"I'll take your word for it." Tommy gave the pair of them a deeply skeptical look, and Pita took the chance to bite him on the thumb and wriggle free, diving for the floor. "Hey!"
Ben let out a squeal of pure joy that quickly turned to giggles as he watched the kitten cross the space between them. It stopped about halfway between Steph and Tommy, just close enough to give the baby a teasing come-hither look. Steph lifted Ben to her shoulder and looked over at Tommy with concern. "Any blood? I'm not allowed to try and heal anything big, but I'm sure I can handle kitten-tooth punctures."
"Nah, I'm good." Tommy shook his hand out and rubbed at his thumb, no marks really visible. "Her claws are a lot more dangerous than her teeth, anyway. Alex wrestles with her for five minutes and it looks like he stuck his forearm in a lightweight lawnmower."
"We used to have a cat that would do that to us. No wrestling though, he'd just ambush us as we walked past. We'd hearing screaming and know that Oscar had struck again." She crouched down to give Ben a better view of the kitten. It backed off a step and laid its ears flat which sent Ben into another giggle fit. Steph smiled. "He's Ben by the way. I should have probably told you that right off."
He'd been about to say something snide about babies not being able to carry on a conversation, but then again, he'd introduced the cat by name. Keeping his mouth shut on that was probably smarter. "So is his dad here too?" Tommy figured that was unlikely, but getting sideswiped by missing gossip about Warren having a love-child or something would just be embarrassing.
Steph frowned. "Nope. A school full of mutants is the last place that hateful asshole would be."
Pita unsheathed her claws and took a swat at the baby, now in paw's reach. Tommy dove for the cat before she could make contact, tucking her - in all her now-growly glory - under one arm. He ended up about eye to eye with the kid, so he nodded at Ben in pretend-serious solidarity. "Welcome to the club, little dude. It's too bad we don't get to pick our sperm donors in advance." He held out his knuckles and pretended to fist-bump the drool-monster's sticky hand before standing up again and letting Pita go. She took off like a shot, landing on his pillow - then very deliberately turning her back to him before sitting down and beginning to furiously wash her side.
"Nope, picking the sperm donor was my thing. I had one job." Steph sighed and stood, tossing Ben up once before tucking him back into her shoulder. "Well, little booger, have you seen enough of the kitty?" Ben tried to twist around a couple of times before resigning himself to settling against Steph's shoulder.
"No offense, but I think the kitty's done with all of us for the day." Tommy headed back to the bed, where he'd left his laptop.
"And I've imposed enough. Time to get this guy back for a nap." Steph kissed Ben on the top of his head before looking back at Tommy. "But thank you. Putting up with us was really kind of you."
He really had no idea how to respond to that, so he just shrugged with a grin. "Welcome to Xavier's. We try not to alienate people until week two, at least."
Steph laughed. She picked up Ben's hand and in possibly the lamest parent move ever, made him wave bye-bye to Tommy. "I can't wait. In the meantime, I'm in room 216 if you ever want to drop by."
"I don't babysit." The snark was out of his mouth before he could stop it, that time, but whatever. "But I'll see you around, I'm sure."
"See you!" Steph smiled and backed out of the room. It wasn't until she was halfway down the hall that she rested her head on Ben's and whispered to him, "as if I'd let some teenage boy I just met babysit you!"
Tommy flopped back down on the bed and didn't watch her go. When the footsteps receded down the hall he rolled his eyes at Pita, who was being an enormous drama queen. "If you're going to start leading girls back here," he told the cat, blowing at her ear until she flicked it, and turned her head to glare. "How about picking the ones without existing dependents? That is the kind of drama I really don't need." Pita took the high road, and ignored him.
Ben had noticed the kitten first. He'd been sitting up on the floor in front of Steph, quietly knocking plastic cups together when he'd suddenly let out a delighted cry and threw himself forward onto his hands and knees.
"Ba, ah ba!"
Steph looked up from her phone (her mom was texting 'helpful' reminders about baby care) and looked across the hall to see what had captured his attention.
"BA!!" he declared and took off for the little gray cat.
Steph scrambled up to follow. Ben wasn't in any serious danger, but if he got his chubby little fingers on that kitten, the poor little thing might not enjoy it. Apparently, it understood because after a moment it started trotting down the hallway of the boys' dorm. That wasn't going to stop Ben: he crawled right after it.
"Ben, slow down, dude. You don't want to scare it." As if he was going to listen. He did look back at her, but only long enough to let out a giggle before he was off again. Total stinker.
The kitten wasn't having any of it, and it bounced further down the hallway until it came to an open door and scooted inside. Ben followed, puffing along like a little locomotive until he came to the same door, and there he stopped, looking back at Steph in confusion.
"Oh little dude, it went home. It was sleepy!" She stopped a few steps short of him. He was pretty good about listening; no need to scoop him up yet.
"Ba!" he insisted and looked back at the doorway.
"No, Ben. It went to bed. No."
He looked at her and smiled. Trouble.
"No."
The smile grew and his eyebrows popped up. Uh oh.
"Ben! No!"
He let out an earsplitting squeal and charged into the room. Damn! It was only a few steps, but Steph poured on the speed, and in an instant she'd nabbed him, swooped him into the air and up into her arms. Her sparkles, always present, burst into a thin shower in reaction to her speed, and Ben began giggling and swiping at them as they floated around her.
"Oh. Boy. You sir are going to get me into trouble." She smiled at him, then past him, then dropped the smile. Oops, maybe he already had, because the room wasn't empty.
Relatively confident that Pita could get herself out of whatever shit she got herself into, Tommy'd started leaving the door open when he was in his room, more often than not. he'd meant what he'd said to Kitty way back when. If Pita wanted to come back to him, cool. If not, he wasn't going to be the one keeping her stuck in a 12 x 12 box. (Which wasn't to say that he didn't stress out some if she wasn't back in the evenings... but so far she'd always come home.)
So he didn't take too much notice when she trotted happily back into the room after going on walkabout, her tail high in the air. He was sprawled on his bead, headphones on and watching D.Va's latest stream, only vaguely aware at first that the cat was back. He sat up a whole lot faster and dropped the headphones around his neck when strangers followed the cat in. Worse, a baby? And then the air filled with glitter, not entirely unlike the crap he and the guys had funneled into the bathroom water supply. "The fuck?" Tommy asked, more bewildered than annoyed.
"I'm sorry!" Steph blurted out. "I let him wander a little too far. My fault, not his!"
Tommy hit pause and shut the computer, staring at the weird gold stuff in the air before raising an eyebrow at the girl and ... her? baby. "Xavier's taking them kind of young now, isn't he?"
Steph smiled, relieved that he was joking about this rather than chewing her out. "He's mine, but he's just visiting for a couple of days, and then he's heading home again." Not that she wanted him to, but school came first for now so that Ben could come first when she had her mutation under control.
"So who are you?" Tommy couldn't place her at all. She sure as hell wasn't one of the recent rescues, not looking so ... normal, which was an awful word, but no-one who was days out from being held in one of those places was that chill. Not to mention the baby.
Pita chose that moment to notice that the baby wasn't chasing her anymore and she jumped up silently onto Tommy's desk to get within the kid's eyeline. She stuck her tail straight up in an obvious taunt and walked back and forth along the edge.
Ben leaned forward and started swinging his arms at the damn cat, all the while chattered on excitedly in the two or three syllables he liked to use lately. Steph hitched him up to get a better grip. "Oh god, I'm so sorry. My name is Stephanie, but Steph works. I just got here last week."
"Tommy," he replied, distracted by the cat vs baby face-off, except it wasn't exactly a face-off, was it? The cat, Tommy decided with a burst of appreciation, was trolling the kid. Awesome. "That's Pita, but watch out -- she's cool with people, but babies are new. If she takes a swipe at him, it's not my fault. What's with the sparkles?"
"Mostly a hassle, but they sort of get a little more crazy when I use my powers; I sped up a bit to grab Ben before he got in her so," she waved her free hand through glimmers of light still floating in the air, "i>sparkles."
He still wasn't sure that she wasn't putting him on, but whatever. Pita started a butt-waggle, her eyes on Steph's shoulder, and Tommy zipped over to grab Pita and bring her back to his bed before she could launch herself and cause problems. "No shit," he replied, barely missing a beat in the conversation. "That's got to be a bitch if you're trying to be sneaky."
Her eyebrows jumped. She couldn't help it, because holy moley, he was fast. "I don't... really do... um, is that what you do? Speed?"
"That's the name, don't wear it out," Tommy answered, holding a wiggling Pita to make sure she didn't go right back to trying to divebomb the new girl and her kid. "Superspeed, and if I vibrate other things fast enough, they explode. You too?" he guessed, given the way she'd described chasing the baby.
"Wow! Uh, no, not really. I mean I can go faster than I should, but not like you. And I don't make things explode." Ben started bouncing in her arm, trying to push himself off her hip. His protests were getting a little more insistent, but he wasn't quite into anger territory yet. "I heal mostly, me and others, boost energy too. Dad says I'm better than coffee. But it means I'm stronger and faster too, which is handy with this little dude."
"You'd be better off with Otabek's bubble-of-silence," Tommy observed. He didn't hate babies - he had no opinion at all about them most of the time. He just had absolutely no idea what to do with one, and limited desire to learn. Pita squirmed and tried to pop out of his hands and he grabbed her again before she could take off.
He didn't sound annoyed when he said it, but Steph was suddenly aware of how loud Ben was, then how much the kitten was squirming, then how she'd disrupted a total stranger's afternoon. Her cheeks were getting hot, and she took a step back.
"I'm sorry. I'm used to him and forget that other people aren't."
"Babies gonna baby, right?" Tommy shrugged, not sure what else to say. "I don't have- I didn't grow up with siblings, so that's pretty much what I know about them. Noise and diapers."
"That's ninety percent of it." Steph smiled, relieved that he didn't seem put out. She wasn't going to wear out her welcome, but a small chat was nice. "But the ten percent fun makes up for that."
"I'll take your word for it." Tommy gave the pair of them a deeply skeptical look, and Pita took the chance to bite him on the thumb and wriggle free, diving for the floor. "Hey!"
Ben let out a squeal of pure joy that quickly turned to giggles as he watched the kitten cross the space between them. It stopped about halfway between Steph and Tommy, just close enough to give the baby a teasing come-hither look. Steph lifted Ben to her shoulder and looked over at Tommy with concern. "Any blood? I'm not allowed to try and heal anything big, but I'm sure I can handle kitten-tooth punctures."
"Nah, I'm good." Tommy shook his hand out and rubbed at his thumb, no marks really visible. "Her claws are a lot more dangerous than her teeth, anyway. Alex wrestles with her for five minutes and it looks like he stuck his forearm in a lightweight lawnmower."
"We used to have a cat that would do that to us. No wrestling though, he'd just ambush us as we walked past. We'd hearing screaming and know that Oscar had struck again." She crouched down to give Ben a better view of the kitten. It backed off a step and laid its ears flat which sent Ben into another giggle fit. Steph smiled. "He's Ben by the way. I should have probably told you that right off."
He'd been about to say something snide about babies not being able to carry on a conversation, but then again, he'd introduced the cat by name. Keeping his mouth shut on that was probably smarter. "So is his dad here too?" Tommy figured that was unlikely, but getting sideswiped by missing gossip about Warren having a love-child or something would just be embarrassing.
Steph frowned. "Nope. A school full of mutants is the last place that hateful asshole would be."
Pita unsheathed her claws and took a swat at the baby, now in paw's reach. Tommy dove for the cat before she could make contact, tucking her - in all her now-growly glory - under one arm. He ended up about eye to eye with the kid, so he nodded at Ben in pretend-serious solidarity. "Welcome to the club, little dude. It's too bad we don't get to pick our sperm donors in advance." He held out his knuckles and pretended to fist-bump the drool-monster's sticky hand before standing up again and letting Pita go. She took off like a shot, landing on his pillow - then very deliberately turning her back to him before sitting down and beginning to furiously wash her side.
"Nope, picking the sperm donor was my thing. I had one job." Steph sighed and stood, tossing Ben up once before tucking him back into her shoulder. "Well, little booger, have you seen enough of the kitty?" Ben tried to twist around a couple of times before resigning himself to settling against Steph's shoulder.
"No offense, but I think the kitty's done with all of us for the day." Tommy headed back to the bed, where he'd left his laptop.
"And I've imposed enough. Time to get this guy back for a nap." Steph kissed Ben on the top of his head before looking back at Tommy. "But thank you. Putting up with us was really kind of you."
He really had no idea how to respond to that, so he just shrugged with a grin. "Welcome to Xavier's. We try not to alienate people until week two, at least."
Steph laughed. She picked up Ben's hand and in possibly the lamest parent move ever, made him wave bye-bye to Tommy. "I can't wait. In the meantime, I'm in room 216 if you ever want to drop by."
"I don't babysit." The snark was out of his mouth before he could stop it, that time, but whatever. "But I'll see you around, I'm sure."
"See you!" Steph smiled and backed out of the room. It wasn't until she was halfway down the hall that she rested her head on Ben's and whispered to him, "as if I'd let some teenage boy I just met babysit you!"
Tommy flopped back down on the bed and didn't watch her go. When the footsteps receded down the hall he rolled his eyes at Pita, who was being an enormous drama queen. "If you're going to start leading girls back here," he told the cat, blowing at her ear until she flicked it, and turned her head to glare. "How about picking the ones without existing dependents? That is the kind of drama I really don't need." Pita took the high road, and ignored him.
