A grounding.

[x-wildchild.livejournal.com]

After Scott sends Wanda to fetch Kyle, he flees to the woods. But, he didn't plan for Wanda to be able to get him out of a tree.



When this had all started, Wanda had not been mad. She had been frustrated by Kyle's actions, by the entire situation if she allowed herself to think on it, and had been the one picked to track him down. Xavier had neglected to tell her, when she had first taken over Wisdom's job, that the counselor position would require this much "search and ground".

Now, after a solid thirty minutes of looking, she was edging up into rather annoyed. Hands on her hips, she stared around the forest before calling out, "Is hiding really going to do any good?"

Kyle looked down at the ground. "I'm not hiding! I'm just not coming out." He wasn't hiding. It was his tree. He knew all the best places to sit and he'd put a old towel in it so that he could not get bark marks on his face when he napped.

Aha, there he was. Moving easily through the underbrush, Wanda peered up into the tree. She could see Kyle through the leaves and the branches and it was obvious he was comfortable. "When do you plan on coming out, then?"

"I was thinking maybe next week..." Kyle mused. He had a bag of leftover pizza, and waterbottles, and if need be, he'd just go eat some rabbits or something. "Or, you know, when fair is fair and the bigoted jackass gets grounded too."

"Are you a telepath?" she asked, walking around to get a better view of her, well, sulking student. "How do you know that he is not being handled? That does not excuse your behavior or what you did so I would suggest you come down and back inside so we can discuss this." If she got a crick in her neck she'd be tempted to tack on another day of punishment…

"He gets to walk around saying how we're all freaks, that totally excuses it." Kyle climbed out on one of the limbs of the tree, straddling it. "I didn't hurt him, and it's not like I wanna kill the guy.." He crossed his arms, gripping the branch with his knees. "And no, I'm not coming down."

Wanda scowled, the pounding headache in the back of her head getting worse. "Have it your way, then," she said, simply, watching Kyle's eyes widen at the sudden flicker of red from her hands. A slender string gently touched was all that it took for the old tree limb—one of the ones that Cain had been planning on cutting down—under his weight to give way with a sharp crack.

"You can't make... aw, fuck." Kyle hit the ground in a crouch, landing on the balls of his feet and his hands. "I liked that branch!"

"You should have thought of that before you refused to come down," Wanda said mildly. "I understand why you are frustrated, Kyle, and having him here does not sit very well with me, though I do welcome the chance to possibly change his mind on certain issues. But that does not give you the right to hurt him, not after Xavier has welcomed him into the school." The look she shot him was one of amusement. "Though I have this distinct feeling that whatever punishment Scott has for you, you still won't feel sorry."

Kyle snorted. "I did less to him than he did to Jay. Couple of bruises at worst." He shook his head. He was -not- going to growl at a teacher. Even if he was really angry. "Anything Mr. Summers does it me is worth it, if it means that the bigoted creep will leave Jay alone."

"I could spout things about how two wrongs do not make a right at you all day, but that would leave us here, in the cold, while you stare at me like I'm growing two heads." Wanda glanced at the school over her shoulder. "The staff person in me needs to report you to Scott but the other part…" She gave him a wry smile. "I probably would have done the same in your place at your age. Not that it makes it right."

"You could say you grounded me and buy me a pizza instead..." Kyle said. Because -His- pizza was up in the tree and he didn't think she was going to let him go get it. "And I'll never tell... "

Laughing, she gestured out of the school. "That is called pressing your luck and not doing very well at it," she teased, tucking her hands in her pockets. "Besides, the all knowing telepath with the horde of tea would be might suspicious to discover you happily eating pizza and not cleaning gutters with Cain."

Kyle stood up, following behind Wanda towards the main building. Maybe he'd get to clean gutters. That was -fun-. Climb around all over the mansion with a pokey stick and push leaves at people. That wasn't punishment, that was his idea of a great afternoon.



Kyle does as he's told and goes to see Scott. Alas, his grounding is not to be gutter-cleaning, much to Kyle's disappointment.



Kyle was just glad that Ms. Maximoff hadn't dragged him to Mr. Summers' office by his ear. His ears were sensitive, and didn't much like getting pulled on. By the time he trudged all the way to the office, the sore spot on his butt from being unceremoniously dumped out of his tree had mostly faded. Out of habitual politeness, he knocked on the door, trying not to scowl too obviously. Looking really really cranky would just make this worse, and it was probably going to be pretty bad, he figured.

"You," Scott said as soon as Kyle opened the door. "Sit down. Not a word until I say you can speak." He was getting that itching sensation again, and Scott's jaw clenched as he closed his eye.

~Aw, hell~. It was going to be pretty bad. Maybe worse than that. Kyle dropped into the chair, trying his damnest not to fidget or complain. Even with the eyepatch, Mr. Summers had a scary intense look. Maybe more intense with the patch than without.

"We're more lenient with you and your temper than we should be, possibly," Scott said, opening his eye again once the itch was gone. No blasting students by accident. It was his new rule. "Because you're feral, and because you had quite a bit of empathic damage done to you by Mistra. You got a token grounding the last time you tried to beat the crap out of a classmate mostly for that reason, and because it was a first offense. This? Would be a second offense. Plus, you decided to attack someone just out of the medlab, which is a particularly cowardly thing to do."

Kyle really tried to be good. Mr. Summers hadn't said he could talk yet, but the urge to respond was strong. Really strong. "But he mutters and complains and he called Jay a -fag-!" He started, and then remembered that he wasn't supposed to be talking yet.

"That would be because he's a bigot," Scott said sharply, his eye narrowing dangerously. "I don't see anyone denying that, do you? But he's also a convalescent, which makes you, Mr. Gibney, a bully. Plain and simple."

Kyle let out a groan. "No, I totally didn't go up there like I was going to beat on him. I just was going to bitch him out. I didn't slug him in the jaw until after he started mouthing off and calling me a freak..." He shook his head. "I don't care what he said, I didn't do anything until he opened his fat bigot mouth."

"And that makes hitting him all right?"

"It made me feel better." Kyle said. "And he beat up Jay, so fair's fair."

"And it would make me feel better to ground you for the rest of your natural life," Scott said ruthlessly. "Would that be fair?"

"Hey! You can't ground me past eighteen!" Kyle protested. "And... and... " He slumped down in his seat. "It's not fair! He beat the crap out of Jay and he gets to walk around and mouth off and bitch about how we're all freaks, and no one gets on his case about it, and I mean..." He struggled not to stand up and start pacing. "I had to go to jail for something totally stupid that didn't hurt anyone. He's a bigoted jerk who beats people up and sets stuff on fire and he gets to go here? What the hell?"

"You want the short, simple answer, Kyle? Or the long and complicated one?" Damn it, but his face hurt.

He thought about it for a minute. A really long minute that felt like Mr. Summers was looming over him with the wrath of God himself upon him. "The short one. Unless that one's like "Shut up and accept it.", because I'm really bad at shutting up and accepting. My folks do that way too much. I just " He cracked his knuckles absently, and then all the words came out at once. "Jay's all freaked out over this guy and I didn't know why before and I wish I didn't know why now because knowing didn't help me feel any better and I wanna be able to tell Jay it's gonna be okay, and I don't know if I can or not and I know that maybe that doesn't make punching a guy in the jaw right, exactly, but... "

"He's staying for three reasons. Firstly, he needs to get control over his powers so that he doesn't hurt anyone. Secondly, it's entirely possible that his former friends would kill him if he tried to leave, and that the same thing would happen to him in jail because he's an ex-FoH mutant. Thirdly," Scott said tightly, "because we are not the Friends of Humanity. We're better than them."

It wasn't that Kyle had any more arguements, exactly. He knew it was wrong, in a vague sort of way, to have gone and punched Tommy. But it didn't make him feel better to know it. "But.. but... Jay!" He frowned and stared down at the floor. "What are we supposed to do when he starts bitching about how freaky we all are? It's one thing to have to put up with it outside, but now we gotta hear it here too? This... this was supposed to be where we didn't have to!"

Scott couldn't help a wince at that. "Kyle," he said as patiently as he could. "I know this isn't clear-cut, from your perspective or that of a lot of the students here. He's done some awful things. You happen to be one of the few who know about the worst of them. You don't have to trust him, you don't have to like him, and you don't have to associate with him. If he opens his mouth and start spouting garbage," he said a bit more forcefully, "you turn and walk out of the room. He's not worth debating on that subject. He's repeating what he's been taught by people who share the same sort of mindset that led to things like Mistra."

"I hafta go to classes with him, next semester though." Kyle said. "Can't walk out of classes." He had a hard enough time with that in the first place, when the classroom was indoors and stifling and the outdoors was so temptingly -outside-. "But, yeah, okay, I ... I can do that. Not sayin' I'm not gonna rat him out for mouthing off though.."

"Kyle," Scott said wryly, "can you see any of the teachers putting up with him mouthing off like that in class? No," he said when the boy would have answered, "that was a rhetorical question. Outside of classes... feel free to rat. If you think he's intimidating or upsetting one of your fellow students, especially any of the little kids, rat away. Trust me, I'll deal with it."

Kyle frowned. He hadn't thought about Tommy messing with one of the little kids. And now he was thinking about it, and he was thinking that it was going to be twice as hard to keep from punching him -again- if he did something bastardly like that. Damn. He'd probably used up his only chance at causing Tommy some pain too. "What... What's he do, anyway? I mean, so we know. Because, well, if I were a bigoted jerk with superpowers, I'd probably use them on people I hated." Kyle paused, and the irony of that statement hit him like a punch to the jaw. "Uh, you know, case in point here with the hitting, only not with the bigoted."

"He manipulates matter," Scott said, with a definite air of 'that's all you're getting' about the explanation. "And trust me," he said, almost flatly, "he will not be using it on people. Ever."

Kyle nodded. "I .. I trust you. But knowing helps, cause then, just in case." Not that he entirely understood what "manipulates matter' meant, but he'd been more worried that Tommy'd be another mind-reader or fire-starter. He wasn't much up for finding his pants on fire someday.

"No," Scott said very quietly and very firmly, "more fighting, Mr. Gibney. Because that would be a third offense, and you wouldn't like my reaction to a third offense. Trust me on that, too."

"No more fighting." That didn't count self-defense, Kyle figured. And even then, it'd probably be a damn good idea not to fight back. Much. "Cause, not liking the reaction this time, actaully." Then he frowned. "Crap. Brain. Mouth. Total disconnect."

"Speaking of which," Scott said. "You're restricted to school grounds for two weeks. And you're to report to Shan in the library to help her with her December book inventory. You're at her disposal for however long it takes."

Two weeks. Kyle did some mental calendar math, and figured that would unground him right before Christmas. Which meant he'd probably have to beg off Clarice to get a port to his grandparents. "Inventory?" He winced. "Oh God... That's going to suck." He covered his face with one hand and groaned.

"And you earned every tedious moment of heavy lifting and writing things down on clipboards," Scott said with the smile that most of the kids found very disturbing at moments like this. "Next time, don't be so stupid. Right here and now, you're a far better human being than Tommy Jones. Act like it."

The heavy lifting wasn't so bad. It was the unending counting and recounting and re-recounting that he just knew was going to happen. But, Kyle thought, on the other hand, he didn't have to go apologize. He was still half-sure this had been worth it. Maybe. "I.. um.. okay." He wasn't sure what else he -could- say, but to agree.

"And consider just avoiding him whenever possible," Scott said, turning his attention back to his computer. "There's no reason that you need to subject yourself to the aggravation, especially when you know that your temper's touchy thanks to your mutation." He waved at the door. "Go. Out. Sin no more."

Kyle stood up to go, and made it all the way to the door before stopping and turning to stare in confusion for a moment. Then he shook himself, and left the office, very, very confused. Teachers were -weird-.