A Good and Broad Land…Exodus 3:8
Westchester, New York. Heaven on earth, right?
Sure seems like it. Nice house, free room and board, clean sheets every night, everything provided except the beer. Which I can borrow one of sixty top-of-the-line cars and go get for myself. Giant screen TV, better workout facilities than the Olympic boxing team gets, and potentially the opportunity to save the world.
I’m going completely stir-crazy here.
This place—it looks perfect. There’s nothing concrete I can point at and say, Okay, this is the problem. (Well, not entirely true. There’s the asshole who’s second in command.) But generally speaking, it’s a pretty soft deal.
I just don’t belong here. Should probably just get the hell out. I get that. Did what I came for, found the kid a good situation where she’ll be taken care of, time to move on. It’s a no-brainer. She’s having a little trouble getting settled, but I can’t help her there. She just needs to loosen up, quit waiting for someone to hand her the answers to all her problems on a silver platter.
That is the problem, I think. This place feels like they should have all the answers. For a little while, she wasn’t thinking about it. Those few days in New Orleans, the kid didn’t have to think further ahead than what she wanted for breakfast. Lots of new stuff going on, places she’d never seen, probably the first time she’d met anyone her whole town didn’t already know. Took her out of herself, her own stuff.
Not sure I really did her any favors there.
This is all getting pretty ridiculous. I’m not a fucking idiot. I see what’s going on here. For a minute there she was getting to do whatever she wanted, it was an adventure, she got a little attached to me, and now she thinks that’s all going away. As soon as she figures out it’s not like that, I’m not just dumping her here, she’ll be fine and I can quit worrying about it.
Except it’s not really like that, and it’s starting to get to me. Got a little too used to playing hero, and I guess I got a little attached too, if we’re being totally honest here. Got used to someone looking up to me. Now I don’t know how to get out of it. Not that I’m saying I want out of it, just…
Like I said. Stir-crazy. It’s stupid. The sooner she starts getting on with her life, the better, and me sticking around is probably not going to help. She doesn’t talk to anybody else, far as I can see. There’s six hundred kids her age running around this place, all of them mutants with the same shit to deal with, and she hides in her room or the library and acts like she’s the only one in the world with problems.
The thing is, though—she’s not talking to me either, unless I go find her and talk to her first. It’s not like I don’t get that, either. She’s had a lot to deal with in a hurry, no question. The head guy, Xavier, tried calling her parents after we got here and apparently that conversation didn’t go real well. Can’t have done much for her confidence. So it’s this game she’s playing—not that I think she’s doing it on purpose, but it’s something about pushing people away just so they’ll prove they’ll keep coming back.
I don’t have a lot of patience with games, but I’m willing to cut her some slack. Just not indefinitely.
The game I’m really getting tired of is the one Jeannie’s into. What the fuck she thinks she’s doing—she’s no kid, she’s a grown woman, and this is bullshit. If she wants out of her marriage—and fuck if I know what she’s doing with that idiot in the first place—well, that’s one thing, but she should just cut to the chase and walk out. This act she has going on, flirting, standing a little too close, pretending she doesn’t see Summers doing the slow burn—it’s getting old fast. I don’t know whether this is their regular thing or if it’s something new since I’ve been here, but I’ve got no interest in sneaking around. She wants to do this honestly, well, I could see it, her and me.
But I’m not kidding myself. I’ve seen this before, believe me. Pretty lady, wants a thrill, likes playing with fire, thinks a quick fuck with the dangerous guy in the bar will give her life some excitement. I don’t even mind that. I do mind being played, and I don’t like that she’s doing this in her own house. If she wants a real fight, she’s going about it the right way, but it ain’t gonna be me who starts it. I’m sure that’ll be a real shock to this crowd, too. I fight when I get paid to do it, not because some bored housewife thinks it’s fun to try and goad her husband into taking a swing at me.
Yeah, well, that’s not exactly fair either. I don’t think Jeannie’s as devious as all that. She’s not happy, that’s all it is, and she’s not thinking straight about what she’s starting—probably doesn’t want to think about it at all. Wouldn’t even matter, if I wasn’t living here. If I was just some guy at the bar down the road, she could tease Summers by making eyes at me all she wanted and then they’d go home and channel all that tension into the screw of their lives.
Or the fight of their lives. Don’t much care, but it’s not working out like that, because I am here. Right down the goddamn hall, where if she gets up for a glass of milk at night he’s got to lie there wondering did she stop off for a quick fuck against the wall before she got back in bed with him.
Almost feel sorry for the guy sometimes.
Almost. Maybe I could find this amusing if I weren’t stuck right in the middle of it. But I am, and even though I keep telling myself I’m not playing into it again, it keeps happening. Like I said, I’m not starting anything, but Summers just has a talent that amounts to genius for pissing me off. I’ll be sitting around, minding my own business, and Jean’ll come by with some casual question or contrived reason to talk to me, put a hand on my shoulder, lean over me making sure Summers is as aware of the view as I am. And then he’ll make some sarcastic comment, half the time to her instead of me like I’m not going to catch it, and every goddamn time, it gets to me. So I call him on it, he glares at me behind the red shades, and it’s another fun day at Superhero Central.
I’ve got to think that’s part of it with Marie too. She’s young, but she’s not stupid, and she sees it. That pisses me off more than anything else. They’re supposed to be in charge of a school, right? None of them seems to be doing a goddamn thing for her. They call it ‘giving her time to adjust’. Well, I think they should get themselves adjusted first. They should be taking care of her, that’s what she’s here for. Especially Jeannie—she’s a doctor, for chrissakes, and she could actually be helping if she bothered to try. What with the rest of this bullshit, I can‘t even talk to Jean about the kid without it looking like I’m making a move on her. I’d tell Marie to just go talk to her, but she ain’t about to do that and anyway, the last thing she needs is get tangled up in a lot of adult maneuvering she doesn’t really understand.
And there doesn’t seem to be a damn thing I can do about it. Every time I try, it just makes things worse. Today I thought she’d gone with the rest of the kids, off to some museum or something. Instead, in the middle of the afternoon, I find her hiding in the library with a book. All by herself. Not just any book, either—kid was sitting there reading the Bible. This, after her holier-than-thou hometown preacher tried to fucking kill her.
I don’t have much use for religion in general, but that was just unbelievable. And when I called her on it, all I got was a lot of whining about how I just didn’t understand, that no one could fix her and she had to believe in something. All this crap, with her sitting there wrapped up in her scarf and gloves and long sleeves, even though no one else was even in the room. And darting glances at the door every three seconds like she was worried about getting caught alone with me.
It’s a game. I remind myself of that, but it doesn’t seem to matter. And it’s sure as hell not going to help, yelling at her. It was just on top of everything else—I told her to cut the crap, that I didn’t want to hear it from her. I told her to get rid of the magic charms and the book full of reasons to hate herself and get it together. And she yelled right back, I’ll give her that much. It was a relief, to tell you the truth, after all the pussyfooting around I’m getting everywhere else. Said I didn’t know what I was talking about and why didn’t I just leave and I should talk, I had my own magic charms. I’d been talking about that cross she wears, but she was talking about my dogtag.
A fucking useless piece of metal I’d be better off without, not that she knows anything about it. So I took it off, slapped it into her hand and said fine, you take it, see if that works any better for you. Real nice move, right? She started crying then, tried to give it back to me and started apologizing all over the place, and I just walked out. How’s that for a big finish? Couldn’t have done anything else wrong if I tried, I don’t think.
And what I was trying to prove with that, I have no idea. I’m trying to get her to talk to me, not count on me to fix things for her. If that’s what she’s waiting for, she can forget it. Doesn’t work like that. But she should understand by now that I do care about her, damn it. Why the fuck else would I be putting up with this shit?
Yeah, yeah, I know. She’s not a mind-reader. Get in line with the words of wisdom.
So now I’m right back where I started. I got out of the Mansion and out on the grounds where I can at least smoke without getting dirty looks, and all I can say is we’re all going around in circles. Unless the games stop pretty damn quick, this situation is going to go south fast. Everyone has their own little agenda, and short of hauling her out of here with me, there doesn’t seem like anything I can do to cut through the bullshit. And that is a way more appealing idea than I really want to admit.
Still. Not going to happen. So what else am I supposed to do?
Fuck if I know.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
They did go to the Mansion. This is how Logan thinks it's working out.
Chapter End Notes:
Psst! I have it on good authority that W/R fans have an average IQ of over 140 and are poised to take over the world, only no one will know it because they're so clever. They'll notice when the wars all end, taxes go down, and everyone has a pony, though.
You all rock!
You all rock!