Chapter Text
The freight elevator for Hank’s new building didn’t actually reach the top floor. Once he unloaded his things into the landing area, he and Jean had to sort what was going up the final flight of stairs first.
“I can get the mattress, you know. It’s not exactly heavy for me,” he said, as Jean extended her hands and lifted it into the air.
“Yes, but aren’t you telling me I should try strength training with my TK more often? This is perfect. You can carry the box spring,” she called over her shoulder. A box of books levitated to follow her as he herded the mattress up the stairs. She was getting better with multitasking, he noted.
He trailed her with his box spring, and then slipped ahead to unlock his door.
His new apartment was even tinier than his place in Inwood, if you could believe it. From the age of the building, it had probably started out as maid’s quarters before someone added plumbing and called it a studio.
But whatever. It was walking distance to his new hospital. He was just happy to take over the lease of some outgoing hospital resident, so nobody looked too closely at his registry card while he was signing the paperwork.
“You know, with a coat of paint, it would be quite homey.”
“I’m not sure there’s space to set up for painting, once the furniture is in.” He probably should have left his kitchen table on the sidewalk in front of his old building, but it doubled as a work bench for his personal experiments. He wasn’t going to let that slide, even if he was spending the next three years on call at all hours.
“If you don’t want anything, you can always donate it to the X-Men. We’re going to need some furniture in that big house,” Jean said. She must have caught his thought.
“I’ll let you know if it becomes an issue,” he replied. They returned to the floor below to retrieve the next set of boxes, and she helped him get his other essentials up the stairs. A dresser and his clothes. The kitchen table and his dishes. So many books.
He rummaged in his box of dishes to find two glasses, and filled them both from the tap. They sat, her at the table and he on the edge of his mattress, and rehydrated after their morning’s exertion.
“Have you talked to Scott lately?” he asked. Hank had been content to give the man some space when he went out west at the start of May, but when he reported back that his brother was a mutant, with powers not dissimilar to his own...well, Scott wasn’t very good at explaining what was going on, and Hank was eager for as much information as he could get. Even if it came as a third-hand report.
“Most days. I’m going out at the start of June.” Would be nice. If he’d had the time, he’d have gone out himself, in this gap between graduation and the start of his residency. But Jean was the girlfriend, and wasn’t subject to the Mutant Registration Act. He didn’t have time for a road trip to New Mexico and back, not on top of everything else.
“Let me know how he’s doing. And the brother.”
“He’ll loop you in soon, Hank. I promise. They’re getting to know each other. Fifteen years apart is a long time and Alex is freaked out about his own powers. Scott doesn’t want to sic the whole team on him while they figure things out.”
“I know, but--”
“But you’re a doctor, sure. But we all sorted out our powers on our own. Let Alex take his time and we’ll get to your medical tests soon enough.”
“I’ll tell Warren to put a rush on my science lab. So it’s ready when we can get him here.”
“Good luck with that. We’re supposed to be focused on the school, first. Not building out your dream research center.”
“Well, schools need a first aid station. I’m sure we can justify it,” he said with a wink.
She said she’d talk to Ororo and left it at that.
It got awkward. Hank was absolutely still on the team, still involved in decisions, and, frankly, still essential because he was the only one with medical expertise. But the team, and more importantly, the only people he had ever really called his friends, were moving out of the city. Moving on, while he pulled stupid long shifts at the hospital trying to prove himself, once again, as a doctor. He tried to remind himself that it wasn’t forever. And that some of them were going to stay in the city, at least part time. But he still got nervous.
“Don’t be a stranger now,” he said. She reached for a hug and he held her tight. “And come down so I can get a telepath to look at our favorite dirtbag illusionist when he comes in for his check ups.”
“Of course, and I’m not moving until after I get back from out west. You’re stuck with me for a few weeks, and we’re only an hour away on the train, anyway. You’ll spend less time getting out to see us in Westchester than you did traveling from Inwood to one of Scott’s practices in Greenpoint.”
“And Avengers Tower and the Baxter building are both within walking distance,” he mused. She raised an eyebrow. “Look. I am here for the X-Men, always, but it pays to keep your options open. Especially when your options involve a commute on foot, not on Metro North.”
“You’re still going to that poker game with Ben Grimm, aren’t you?” she said. He grinned.
“Don’t tell anyone, but I cleaned out Tony Stark last week.”
She laughed. Then told him that he should’ve hired movers, if he was making out that well.
“Well, what are friends for? And like you said. You should strength train your telekinesis more often.”
That got him a set of dishes flying perilously close to his head and into the lone cupboard. Which he rated as an 8/10 for technical complexity, but a 4/10 for form. He could see the individual dishes wobble; she needed better fine motor control. She just told him she’d take tips on form when he had mastered telekinesis himself.
He bade her goodbye and promised that he’d buy her a drink with his poker winnings before she left town as thanks. He had an appointment to get to.
It wasn’t at the hospital, like implied. He walked all the way to Sixth Avenue and into the grand lobby of a skyscraper at the edge of Bryant Park. The security system of the Baxter Building recognized him and ushered him into the appropriate elevator to get to the penthouse.
Susan Storm was the one who greeted him when he got off the elevator, but Reed Richards quickly ushered him upstairs. He was tinkering with a new propulsion engine and he wanted to show it off. Hank played along, waiting for the actual reason he’d been summoned.
“I heard you graduated. Congratulations, Dr. McCoy,” Richards said as they were peering into his prototype.
He beamed. He couldn’t help it. It was good to hear someone else say it.
“Thank you, Dr. Richards. I still have a residency before I’m board certified, but it feels good.”
“And I assume you’ll be doing research alongside your patient care duties. You don’t strike me as one to slack off with only one project at a time.”
“Certainly not. Plus the X-Men. There will be lots to keep me busy in the next few years.”
“Which is why I wanted to talk.” He gestured for Hank to sit and he pulled out a package, an oblong shape wrapped in paper. “My family thinks I’m jumping the gun, both because the X-Men are untested, and because you are just a medical doctor. But I know incurable curiosity when I see it, and I trust that you'll make good use of this.” He passed the package over and Hank opened it. It was a bolt of slippery, almost featherweight fabric.
“It’s woven with unstable molecules. I’ll send you a guide for whoever is doing your costumes. If you’re serious about getting into the superhero business, you’re going to need some proper clothes.”
He was, for the briefest of moments, speechless. Dr. Richards took advantage of his silence and kept going.
“Keep in touch. You’re just a few blocks away, after all.”
--
Bobby opened the envelope and a set of keys fell out. He knew this was coming, but it didn’t make it any more surprising when it happened. Keys to his own place. Well, Scott’s place, but he was going to stay there all summer and maybe for his senior year, if the landlord didn’t notice that Scott had gotten a subletter. The landlord wasn’t one for noticing in general, so the odds were good.
There was a letter in the envelope, too. He opened it.
Bobby,
Glad to hear timing is working out for the team to get the new house ready, just as Warren’s losing his apartment. I know commuting from Westchester to class is going to be a drag, so I’m glad to offer you my place for as long as it lasts.
I’d say take care of it, but it’s not in great shape to begin with, so I’ll just give you a few words of warning. I know you aren’t bothered by the temperature, but the AC unit is terrible; if you have friends over this summer you may need to deploy some of your own handiwork to keep it pleasant for other people. Only don’t make too much ice. I’m not sure where the meltwater will drain and I wouldn't want to add water damage to the list of other problems.
The far left window doesn’t latch very well. Make sure it’s properly shut, because if you don’t, then it is terribly drafty and will leak when it rains (see above re: water damage). Eat whatever you want of my food and sorry if anything has gone bad in the fridge. I didn’t think to clean it out before I left town.
Ok. Apartment logistics out of the way. Now, please humor me for an attempt at words of wisdom:
I cannot convey how proud I am of you. I know that’s going to sound patronizing and you don’t like being reminded that you’re the youngest, but I’m going to say it anyway because this is a letter and you can’t stop me. This year has been wild and the fact that you have handled going public and working towards our goals and still going to college full time is impressive. I know that whatever students we get at this school will have a good role model in you.
He batted his eyes, trying to keep the tears at bay because to do otherwise would be to admit that the thought of Scott seeing him as anything other than the one who cracks jokes was simultaneously moving and terrifying. Then he had to shake ice out of his eyes, because of course he had to freeze up. He couldn’t just take a compliment like a normal person.
Make sure Hank has fun on occasion. It’s not like I know how to make that happen, but I do feel obligated, as co-leader of the X-Men, to see that someone does. You and Kurt are holding down the fort on NYC team operations, and that includes getting Hank away from his experiments and out for a night, at least sometimes (Ororo agrees, to be clear. And she is more trustworthy on the work-life balance front, so listen to her.)
And thank you. I’m grateful to have friends who can help me right now; as strange as it is to find my brother, I had you all to help me process it and figure out how to connect. And as much as I hate to be away from the team just as you all take the next big step, I know you’re going to do great.
Thanks,
Scott
PS: Don’t you dare skip your sprints when you train. Until you develop the ability to fly or teleport, or move with superhuman speed like the rest of the team, people like us need to train as best we can. I am keeping up with my workouts out here and I expect you to do the same.
PPS: Don’t lose my mailbox key. That’s my only one.
Leave it to Scott to interlace a training regimen in with his pep talk and apartment logistics. But he was right. And Bobby was running late to meet up with Hank for a run.
--
Kurt buzzed Rogue up from the front and then waited for her to knock on the door, nervous about how this was going to go. They had met multiple times, but he’d lost track of her after open practice had to go back underground. He remembered her as being a bit reserved, perhaps not ready to trust people. And extremely powerful, though that was less essential when selecting a subletter for Ororo’s room.
She knocked.
“I’m coming.” He teleported to the door and opened it. She seemed relieved to be in the right place.
Rogue had all of her worldly possessions in a backpack. He offered to carry it, but she just laughed and said that she could lift a school bus and fly off into the sunset without breaking a sweat, so she did not need extra help on that front.
“Thanks for lettin’ me stay with you,” she said once he showed her the living room. Then her bedroom. Ororo had cleared out her personal items but left the furniture and sheets because they were all cheap basics. She had some stuff from her aunt to take up to the new place.
“You are most welcome. Ororo sends her greetings as well. She will be coming by sometimes, but will stay elsewhere or sleep on the sofa if needed.”
He let her unpack and then asked if she wanted anything to drink. She said water was fine and he poured her a glass while he made tea for himself.
“What brought you to New York, anyway?” she asked, once she joined him in the kitchen. He cleared off the tiny table and invited her to sit. She did, but carefully, turning in the chair to avoid her knees coming too close to his, despite the fact that they were both fully clothed. She was quite conscious of her gifts, he recalled.
“Work. Adventure.” He replied, almost automatically. But after a beat, he added the true one. “I am looking for my birth parents. I think they were mutants, and New York is where the mutants are.”
She snorted. “That’s funny. You’re looking for your parents, I came to get away from mine.”
“Well, this is also where people come to reinvent themselves, so you are not alone on that front.”
“Glad to hear it.”
He checked the clock. He had to be in Dumbo for a show tonight, and was going to follow a lead from Ororo’s mutant smuggling ring situation after that, just to see if he could find anything with his own stealth methods. He showed her which keys did which locks, confirmed that she was all set to pay her portion of the rent when it was due on Tuesday, and told her he’d be back late.
--
Most of the transaction was handled by appointed agents and lawyers. Their pooled funds transferred to the account for the LLC that was functioning as a holding entity until they could get full nonprofit status, to the escrow account, and then …away. In exchange for a key to a rusted padlock on the gate, and several more to (thankfully not rusted) locks all around their new home.
Keys in hand, Warren ordered an SUV from the family garage. He had access to his trust fund and all of its perks through the end of the month, per the settlement, and he was going to make the most of what it had to offer while he still could. He swung back to the apartment to get a few things, because the more he could move himself the less money it was going to take when he actually had to move out. Ororo met him there with her own suitcase. They were going to spend a few days assessing the situation, figuring out what they could do themselves and soliciting bids from contractors for the rest.
“Let’s go see what we bought,” she said, slipping into the front seat. Logan was meeting them there.
She was quiet on the drive up, no doubt as nervous as he was about what they were getting into. A school for mutants. A professional superhero team. And Scott not around to keep them organized.
For good reason, mind you. And he would be back. But keeping the likes of Bobby, Hank, Jean, and Kurt on task (and on the same task, no less) was more of a superhuman power than his optic beams. And they were somehow going to be running a boarding school at the same time? Warren trusted Ororo, but he still hoped for Scott’s speedy return.
Logan was already at the property when they pulled up, idling in his car with a motorcycle on a trailer in back. Warren undid the chains on the gate and they drove up to the front of the house together.
The landscaping was overgrown, but that was the least of their problems. Since they’d viewed the property and gotten the inspection, a window had been smashed in on the second floor. Vandals, or maybe storm damage from the tornado warning a few weeks ago, they weren’t sure yet. But the power was connected, like it should be. And the items that conveyed with the home were all present. Thankfully nobody had broken in to steal the wires or the appliances.
Logan sniffed.
“Gonna take a lot of work, this place.” Warren smelled it, too. A mustiness that had not been present on their original viewing.
“Well, we’ll have you here to help.”
Ororo was silent, walking through the rooms and ticking off a list of things she wanted to confirm. Foyer, formal living room, den, his and hers home offices, a room called “the conservatory,” which the listing declared was the perfect size for a baby grand piano. Aspirational, overdesigned kitchen. Breakfast nook, formal dining room. There was wear and tear, and the half-baked renovation that had finally driven the owner into foreclosure meant that some of the rooms had patches of unpainted drywall or even exposed studs. But toilets flushed, faucets ran. Outlets worked, despite it having been unoccupied for years.
“Everything is as we expected, let’s check the upper floors,” she said. Six bedrooms, a den on the third floor with a balcony that looked out over the grounds (which came with an algae-ridden pond, a tennis court, and a barn, as the original builder’s wife had been a hobbyist equestrian). The Most Home, his father would have said with a judgmental sniff. Not that the Worthington estate in Connecticut wasn’t similarly large, but this reeked of new money. A Gordon Gekko type who made it big and then tried to live the nice suburban life with his wife and two kids in the 90s and in the process built too much house to compensate for his boredom. Someone else had tried to salvage it by making the main house even larger and then installing a bunker somewhere out on the grounds in a vain attempt to guard against an impending apocalypse. And then…he could only guess. Spiraling renovation costs. Foreclosure. It had been bank-owned and on the market for months by the time they bought it. An absolute steal, the real estate agent insisted, because there was a tax break he would get when he started his school for special needs children.
The basement had a bar that someone had tried to turn into a home-schooling nook with only minimal success, a movie screening room with technology that was 20 years old, space for a gym, and a separate apartment for a housekeeper, an au pair, or your in-laws, if you didn’t like them very much.
“We’re doing this, aren’t we?” Ororo said, once they finished their walk-through.
“Yeah, we are.” He went back to the car to unload his items. An air mattress, a suitcase. His good Angel suit, so he could scout the grounds from the air. And his precious cargo.
“What is that? Ororo asked, when he invited them to join him in the kitchen. She had been helping Logan get the bike off his trailer.
He opened the carrying case and pulled out three champagne flutes. Then the bottle that had been chilling in a cooler, which he presented to her like a sommelier.
“Champagne, of course. We just bought a house.”
Ororo found it funny, to his relief. She inspected the label and let him pop the cork.
The bubbles were crisp and dense, the glasses took on a chill of condensation as he filled them.
“To our new home,” He said. “And whatever comes next.”
They clinked glasses and drank.
Logan downed his champagne with no apparent appreciation for the quality of the product, and set the empty glass on the counter.
“I have some stuff I have to do. Might not be back for a few weeks.”
“Wait, what?” he blurted out. But Ororo gave him a little shake of her head. They followed him out to the front, where he had already freed his bike and packed the necessities into the storage compartment. He tossed Ororo the keys to the car.
“Take care of it while I’m gone. You’re going to need it up here,” he said. And then he looked at Warren. “You listen to your team lead, or at the very least wait until Cyclops comes back before you do anything stupid.”
“He gets like that,” she said, once he drove off. “Should’ve known it when he said he was coming up on his own.”
“He just emptied his bank account for this, and he’s not sticking around to see it through?”
She shrugged. “He’ll come back. He always does.” She took the champagne bottle and beckoned him out to the deck. “We have a lot of work to do, but it can wait until Jean gets here in the morning. Come, Angel. Let’s drink to the X-Men.”