Fledgling Wings

[x-crowdofone.livejournal.com]

It's Scott's day to interview prospective trainees, apparently, as Jamie shows up in his office with a list of questions. The answer to one of them may well prove to do at least as much good for Scott as it does Jamie.



Scott glanced at his watch, then shook his head as he leaned back in his chair. "The better part of an hour and I didn't even get to start on the usual lecture," he told Jamie mock-reproachfully. "Not only that, but I didn't notice you bristling. Did I unintentionally neglect to suggest this might be harder than you think it will be and thus cast aspersions on your ability to handle it? Because I could try harder, if so."

Jamie snorted. "If it's not harder than I think it will be, then not only would Magneto be relieved to hear it, but that gleeful evil little glint Alison gets in her eyes every time I grab her for another question is completely for no reason. But, y'know, if you miss the bristling, I could suddenly decide that three months in Asgard of falling ass-backward into helpful people and being luckier than I had any right to expect entitles me to second-guess you." He shook his head. "I'm trying not to go into this with any expectations, and I know I'm starting off at kind of a disadvantage in a few places. I just appreciate the chance to try."

"I don't think you'll be as disadvantaged as you think," Scott said, "and you certainly know what kind of questions you should be asking." And asking. And asking some more. He repressed a grin. "Which, to me, says that you're at least thinking in the right directions. And action follows thought, or so the principle goes..." He trailed off, picking up his now stone-cold coffee and taking a sip. "To be fair, the training's pretty successful in showing anyone that they don't know as much as they think they know pretty quickly. Keeping an open mind just means you'll be less shocked by it."

"Well, I gave myself a long time to think about it. I wanted to make sure it was the right decision. And that it stayed the right decision when I changed." Jamie gave Scott a wry grin. "Now I just have to see if it stays the right decision even after I see what I'm really getting into. But I think it will." He thumbed through his notes, "So you're going to send me the code for the mission reports and files I need to read, and meanwhile I report to Alison for fitness evaluations etcetera? If I have questions when I read the files, can I post them up to the team board? You and Alison and Ms. Munroe might not always be around when I get curious about something."

"Your new password will be in your inbox the next time you sit down in front of your computer," Scott said, "and don't look so cheerful about having Alison for fitness evaluations." He gave Jamie a wry grin. "All that means is that she smiles when she tortures you." He set his coffee cup back down. "As for questions, by all means, post them to the team board. A lot of the missions you'll be reading about hinged on choices made by individual X-Men, not just the choices the CO or XO made. Asking them to clarify what they were thinking, or in some cases not thinking, is entirely fair game."

"Heh. I'll keep that in mind." Jamie shuffled his notes nervously. "I guess . . . I just have one more question, then."

Scott raised an eyebrow. A question he hadn't felt comfortable asking during the blizzard of questions earlier? "Shoot," he said amiably.

"Well, here's the thing," Jamie said hesitantly. "I don't want to make you uncomfortable, and I don't know your timeline, or whatever, for your recovery, but when I was pitching to Alison, one of the things I mentioned to her that would be an advantage of me being on the team was, you'd never have to decide between leaving a useful teammate behind in the plane or leaving it empty, and that there were, well, situations, where having the person in the plane be a trained pilot could save a valuable few minutes. But for that to be true, I'd need to be a trained pilot." He ventured a smile. "So I was hoping you'd teach me. Only if you had time, and, and wanted to. I don't want to put you out. But I think it makes sense, from a team perspective." Jamie's smile turned shy. "On top of it being the coolest plane in the world and I just . . . would really like to learn how to fly."

Scott opened his mouth - and then closed it again. Gut replies were not always the best replies, not on this subject, not since Seattle. He raised a hand without thinking of it, his fingers brushing the scars almost unconsciously. "I can still run a flight simulator," he said finally, remembering the conversation with his grandfather at Christmas about Wiley Post. He hadn't thought about it much since. Avoiding the issue? "Flight training's time intensive," he said, then smiled a little. "Although in your case, probably less so."

"Well, that's what I was thinking," Jamie replied, nodding. "That there'd be enough stuff to do on the ground that, when I was ready to actually go up in the air, maybe you would be too. And I don't mind waiting, if it comes to that. Whenever you're ready to teach, I'm ready to learn."

Scott's smile grew a little, but stayed wistful. "You know, part of me always suspected this day would come," he said, keeping his voice light. "You've always been a devoted admirer from afar. I think we can probably start the book work and the simulator training right away," he said more briskly. "No point in wasting time, huh?"

Jamie's face lit up. "Definitely not. I've never believed in wasting time." He checked himself. "Well, okay, not on important things. Thanks a lot, Mr. Summers."

"You're welcome. And I'm sorry," Scott said with a perfectly straight face. "The codename is liable to be pretty terrible, I'm afraid."

Jamie winced. "Doug gets to help pick it, doesn't he? Ooh man, I'm in trouble."

"My best suggestion," Scott said, still not smiling, "is to make the most of it, whatever it winds up being. Live up to it. Or down. Whichever."

Jamie shot him a curious look. "What was yours?"

Scott laughed softly. "We weren't nearly so well-organized back then. And given that I was more or less the boss, right from the start, I managed to avoid the alarming nicknames. Fringe benefit of sitting in the big chair." He studied Jamie for a moment. "I was twenty-one, when the Professor told me that was the role he thought I was born to play. Scared the hell out of me, to be honest."

"See, now I'm starting to think I should ask Dr. Grey about yours, is all. Maybe they just didn't tell you what it was." Jamie smiled. "But yeah, that'd be a hell of a thing to hear. Twenty-one or not. How long did it take for you to decide he was right?" He snorted. "If you hadn't already figured out that he tends to be, about stuff like that. Heck, just that tendency is a little scary sometimes."

"The jury's still out, up here," Scott said, tapping his head. "There are times it feels right, times it doesn't. I can look back at what happened in Seattle... or what happened in Youra, or a half-dozen other places, and think that there's not a chance I'd have wanted to be anywhere else but right there doing my part. Other times," he said with a wry grin, "I feel the need to run for the hills."

"Noted." Jamie grinned back. "I'll try not to cause too many of those. It's worth it, though, on balance?"

Scott thought about it for a long moment. "Back in August," he said thoughtfully, "we were called to this school, in Rio de Janeiro. They'd just launched an integrated curriculum - mutant kids being educated right alongside baseline human kids. An anti-mutant group -you'll read about this mission, so I won't get into too much detail -occupied the school, held all the kids hostage. We helped the police storm the place, took down the hostage-takers and got all the kids out without a scratch." Scott's smile was reflective. "When it gets hard, I think about watching those kids being reunited with their parents out in the parking lot. There are enough moments like that to keep you grounded."

"And enough of the other kind that you need to be kept grounded?" Jamie asked, mostly rhetorically. "Well, I'll take that deal. Had enough hard times already to know about holding on to the good."

"That's a good attitude to be heading into this with," Scott said with a certain amount of quiet approval. "I think you're going to do just fine, Jamie."

Jamie's shoulders straightened, and he let out a long, quiet breath. "Thank you, sir. I hope so."