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xp_logsHaller saves Hope from an ignominous end.
The wallpaper needed to be stripped. That, Hope had confirmed with the appropriate parties. And who better to strip the ruined wallpaper than the culprit of the fire that had ruined it? So there she was - a small, determined figure in slightly oversized sweats, standing on her tiptoes on top of a ladder in flagrant violation of OSHA standards and common sense.
Just a little bit higher -
That last stretch was the fatal one; as she reached up with the wallpaper razor, one foot slipped; and, slipping, she overcorrected with the hand holding the tool, overbalancing herself so that she fell straight backward, arms windmilling.
An unseen force arrested her fall before her feet could even fully leave the ladder. The telekinetic safety net lowered the girl carefully to the ground, not releasing her until both of her feet were oriented below her and placed securely on the floor.
"Careful," said Jim, lowering his hand. The cadence of his voice wavered just slightly between his own and Jack's. "Your spine isn't as easy to repair as the wallpaper."
Hope blinked, suddenly upright again, then looked at her unexpected savior. "Oh, TK!" she said. "Nice. Thanks. You're tall." She sighed. "If I was taller - anyway. I broke the wallpaper, so I'm trying to fix it. But I don't know what anyone does, so it's hard to know if I can borrow something helpful or if I'll just set everything on fire." Her mouth pulled wryly. "Again. But don't worry - I can just grab a healing factor, it's fine."
Oh god, this was already a bad sign. "Um, try not to rely on that too heavily," Jim cautioned. "Most of the people who carry one are on mission rotation. It's not necessarily going to be there when you need it."
The slightly abstracted look in Hope's face when she said, "Yeah, of course, I won't," was perhaps not a positive sign that Jim's caution had been heard. "Anyway," she added brightly, changing the subject, "I'm Hope. Hope Summers. Who are you?"
"David Haller. Sooraya asked me to say introduce myself, actually." Jim automatically extended his hand.
"Oh, you know Sooraya!" Hope reached out with her own hand. "She's been really nice to me. Her and Marie."
"Yeah, they're both-- wait." Just in time Jim caught himself, snatching his hand back before he could actually make physical contact.
"Sorry," Jim said, giving the diminutive girl a smile of apology, "my telepathy's been acting up. I didn't want you to get hit with bleed."
"Oh," Hope said, disappointment inexpertly concealed - not about the handshake, either. "Right, telepathy. With the TK. That makes sense. Are you okay? Did you just manifest? Do you need help?”
"Injured in the field. I'm still recovering." His reply was without rancor. Jim was certain she hadn't meant to be condescending. You needed a degree of emotional awareness for that, and he was already getting the sense that was perhaps not her most strongly developed area. He arched an eyebrow at her, noting her expression. "You don't like telepathy?"
The small girl shifted, not meeting his eyes. "No, it's fine," she said, the lie obvious. "It's helpful in a crisis situation, and, um, it's - you know, not creepy at all and the astral plane isn't completely scary. Telepathy is great."
"It's not for everyone. All the more reason to be careful about it." With some relief, Jim noted her response seemed to stem more from a user-end experience than trauma. He was glad. The complications that came with being stranded in an alternate past were going to be more than enough.
"Is your dad a telepath as well as a telekinetic?" he asked, thinking about the version of Cable he'd known.
The girl brightened at the mention of her father, nodding. "He's really good at both," she said. "But - um, I can only have powers for a few hours a day, so I practice mostly with TK." This was an obvious excuse that she skimmed past easily. "Plus it's more useful in combat. Unless you're really - um - powerful."
"I've found the same thing, actually. I don't use telepathy for combat. Was it your dad's powers you used the first night you came here? Sorry if that seems invasive," he added, "it's just that powers are one of my areas of interest. You came with a lot more experience than most of your peer group."
Hope nodded. "It's his," she said. "They're kind of - they're the ones I'm best at. Because I've been using them since, well, forever. But," she hastened to clarify, "I have to learn them. It's not like I just know what he knows or anything. DNA doesn't work like that."
"DNA?" Jim recalled something from the post Sooraya had made about what she'd found in Hope's personal effects and took a wild guess. "Oh, is that the hair you brought with you?"
The girl simply nodded. "I had more at home, but I don't take them everywhere," she said. "Now I guess I just have Dad's. But there are a lot of mutants here, so it's fine."
For a split second Jim's training failed as the implications of this statement washed over him.
"Um, please don't take DNA here without asking," he said, hoping he had managed to repress the mild horror he desperately wanted to express. "A lot of people will give it if you ask," he added, "but some people would find it invasive if you just start going through garbage and stealing from hairbrushes."
"Oh," Hope said reassuringly, "I don't need anything like that really and I'd never take it without asking. It's just if I want powers and someone's not around. But I can copy an X-gene from a person just as easily."
"Well, good." Jim wasn't sure that was true, but maybe if he passed it through his mind enough times he could convince himself otherwise. He shook his head. "If you want to do some training with powers, we can definitely arrange that. Did your team have a Danger Room?"
Regretfully, Hope shook her head. "They used to," she said, "But we have to conserve resources for mission-critical stuff. And we don't always even run the generators all the time." She brightened. "Do you really have one here, though? For training?"
"For supervised training, yes," Jim replied, placing not-so-subtle emphasis on the second word. "There are plenty of preloaded programs for solo or cooperative training. If you want experience with a wide array of mutations it's a great resource to have. You could probably get someone to help tailor scenarios directly to what you want to focus on for each power, actually -- I know both Scott and Garrison Kane are experts at that."
If Hope heard the 'supervised' in that sentence, it was more than she let on, the stars in her eyes fully focused on the Danger Room and its possibilities. "That's so cool," she said enthusiastically. "Who's Garrison? I know, um - Scott."
"Garrison is an X-Man -- well, usually. He's not on active duty right now either, but that doesn't really make a difference." Jim paused to smile despite himself. "And yeah, I heard about Scott. Your world's version is your grandfather, right?"
Hope nodded. "I know he's not the same person here," she hastened to add. "I get that. But it is kinda weird, even if everyone's younger here. Dad never really mentioned how weird it was. But he'll be back soon - everyone's been really nice but I won’t be here long, I promise.”
Jim nodded. "Stay as long as you need to. We have plenty of space, and since you knew about the mansion it'd make sense it would be one of the first places he checked." Jim heard himself refrain from reassuring her that her father would return and hated himself for it, just a little. No matter how much he hoped it was the truth, it was a promise he knew better than to make. Especially if her Cable lived a life even half as risky as the one he'd known.
Hope didn't exactly tear up, but there was a subtle shift in her eyes that showed she certainly could. Instead, she nodded and said, "He said it's usually a safe place. Except when, um, when the X-Men are bad or violent or under the thrall of an elder god - um, that's why I tried to sneak in." The remnants of her subterfuge hung around them in strips of burned wallpaper.
Jim's eyes lingered on the fire damage just long enough to make it clear he was intentionally refraining from sharing his thoughts on the subject of her stealthiest efforts.
"We're here for as long as you need," he repeated. "I don't think we've had an elder god here in at least fifteen years, anyway. Is this your first time visiting another dimension?"
Hope flushed, noting Jim's gaze, and nodded. "Everyone said I was too young before. But now I'm sixteen, so I guess I'm old enough now, except Dad didn't explain anything - " She vented an exasperated breath. "He always does that. Grandma says he has trauma and that makes him too secretive but he could just say something, I think."
Oh god, maybe he was like the Cable Jim had known. "So interdimensional travel's got the same age-restrictions as a driver's license here? I guess that makes sense. I think it's eighteen for the Wormhole- um," he said, suddenly unsure whether anyone had introduced Hope to the concept of the Wormhole yet and desperately not wanting to find out, "anyway, unfortunately that's just how it is with parents sometimes. Usually it's because they think they're protecting you, or they honestly don't know how to get at the issue. My dad and I had a few of those issues too."
Hope nodded. "He had to prepare me for everything, and he's the best at what he does," she said matter-of-factly. "But," she added, the irritation creeping back into her voice, "He didn't say everything about what everything was and how am I supposed to do something I don't even know about? Like - like this mission where I don't even know where he went, or if he got kidnapped, or what."
"That . . . sounds like him, yeah," Jim agreed, not really meaning it as a compliment. "But it also sounds like they're equally tenacious, which is a good thing. Is there anything you'd especially like to do to help you pass the time while you're here?"
"Well," Hope said thoughtfully, "If I'm here, I should take advantage of all the new powers and try everything out if people are okay with that. I can only do Dad's powers right now and they're kind of, um, I mean, they're not boring, they're just, um, familiar? And of course I have my regular training. And Shatterstar knows swords, I wonder if he'd teach me? And - "
"Oh, you've met Shatterstar?" That might go . . . either very poorly or very well, and considering Hope had instantly invoked bladed weapons it was honestly difficult for Jim to decide what would be the better outcome. "I recommend open spaces if he loans you his powers. They're sonic-based. Terry mentors him. Similar power set, and she's mastered a high level of technique. It might be a good connection to make." If for no reason other than the fact he had a feeling Terry might be one of the few people capable of coraling both Hope's enthusiasm and destructive potential in the course of powers training. She, too, was a small, spirited redhead, and she had twice Hope's experience at it.
"Oooh," Hope said, stars in her eyes. "Sonic powers. That sounds really cool - there are some really cool powers here. Um, no offense. Telepathy is, um, very useful." This was probably more offensive than saying nothing would have been, not that the small girl noticed. "I met Shatterstar," she added, confirming. "He told me about fighting consensually. And said I could ask him for help if I needed. And I wanna learn swords."
"Of course you do," Jim muttered before he could stop himself.
"Right?" The sarcasm flew right over the girl's head - the height difference between the two having nothing to do with it - and the starry look in her eyes only faded when another thought occurred to her. "Oh, hey - I wonder if you know, I was just thinking about it while I was doing the wallpaper. Why'd you guys send Uncle Charles to an island?"
The wallpaper needed to be stripped. That, Hope had confirmed with the appropriate parties. And who better to strip the ruined wallpaper than the culprit of the fire that had ruined it? So there she was - a small, determined figure in slightly oversized sweats, standing on her tiptoes on top of a ladder in flagrant violation of OSHA standards and common sense.
Just a little bit higher -
That last stretch was the fatal one; as she reached up with the wallpaper razor, one foot slipped; and, slipping, she overcorrected with the hand holding the tool, overbalancing herself so that she fell straight backward, arms windmilling.
An unseen force arrested her fall before her feet could even fully leave the ladder. The telekinetic safety net lowered the girl carefully to the ground, not releasing her until both of her feet were oriented below her and placed securely on the floor.
"Careful," said Jim, lowering his hand. The cadence of his voice wavered just slightly between his own and Jack's. "Your spine isn't as easy to repair as the wallpaper."
Hope blinked, suddenly upright again, then looked at her unexpected savior. "Oh, TK!" she said. "Nice. Thanks. You're tall." She sighed. "If I was taller - anyway. I broke the wallpaper, so I'm trying to fix it. But I don't know what anyone does, so it's hard to know if I can borrow something helpful or if I'll just set everything on fire." Her mouth pulled wryly. "Again. But don't worry - I can just grab a healing factor, it's fine."
Oh god, this was already a bad sign. "Um, try not to rely on that too heavily," Jim cautioned. "Most of the people who carry one are on mission rotation. It's not necessarily going to be there when you need it."
The slightly abstracted look in Hope's face when she said, "Yeah, of course, I won't," was perhaps not a positive sign that Jim's caution had been heard. "Anyway," she added brightly, changing the subject, "I'm Hope. Hope Summers. Who are you?"
"David Haller. Sooraya asked me to say introduce myself, actually." Jim automatically extended his hand.
"Oh, you know Sooraya!" Hope reached out with her own hand. "She's been really nice to me. Her and Marie."
"Yeah, they're both-- wait." Just in time Jim caught himself, snatching his hand back before he could actually make physical contact.
"Sorry," Jim said, giving the diminutive girl a smile of apology, "my telepathy's been acting up. I didn't want you to get hit with bleed."
"Oh," Hope said, disappointment inexpertly concealed - not about the handshake, either. "Right, telepathy. With the TK. That makes sense. Are you okay? Did you just manifest? Do you need help?”
"Injured in the field. I'm still recovering." His reply was without rancor. Jim was certain she hadn't meant to be condescending. You needed a degree of emotional awareness for that, and he was already getting the sense that was perhaps not her most strongly developed area. He arched an eyebrow at her, noting her expression. "You don't like telepathy?"
The small girl shifted, not meeting his eyes. "No, it's fine," she said, the lie obvious. "It's helpful in a crisis situation, and, um, it's - you know, not creepy at all and the astral plane isn't completely scary. Telepathy is great."
"It's not for everyone. All the more reason to be careful about it." With some relief, Jim noted her response seemed to stem more from a user-end experience than trauma. He was glad. The complications that came with being stranded in an alternate past were going to be more than enough.
"Is your dad a telepath as well as a telekinetic?" he asked, thinking about the version of Cable he'd known.
The girl brightened at the mention of her father, nodding. "He's really good at both," she said. "But - um, I can only have powers for a few hours a day, so I practice mostly with TK." This was an obvious excuse that she skimmed past easily. "Plus it's more useful in combat. Unless you're really - um - powerful."
"I've found the same thing, actually. I don't use telepathy for combat. Was it your dad's powers you used the first night you came here? Sorry if that seems invasive," he added, "it's just that powers are one of my areas of interest. You came with a lot more experience than most of your peer group."
Hope nodded. "It's his," she said. "They're kind of - they're the ones I'm best at. Because I've been using them since, well, forever. But," she hastened to clarify, "I have to learn them. It's not like I just know what he knows or anything. DNA doesn't work like that."
"DNA?" Jim recalled something from the post Sooraya had made about what she'd found in Hope's personal effects and took a wild guess. "Oh, is that the hair you brought with you?"
The girl simply nodded. "I had more at home, but I don't take them everywhere," she said. "Now I guess I just have Dad's. But there are a lot of mutants here, so it's fine."
For a split second Jim's training failed as the implications of this statement washed over him.
"Um, please don't take DNA here without asking," he said, hoping he had managed to repress the mild horror he desperately wanted to express. "A lot of people will give it if you ask," he added, "but some people would find it invasive if you just start going through garbage and stealing from hairbrushes."
"Oh," Hope said reassuringly, "I don't need anything like that really and I'd never take it without asking. It's just if I want powers and someone's not around. But I can copy an X-gene from a person just as easily."
"Well, good." Jim wasn't sure that was true, but maybe if he passed it through his mind enough times he could convince himself otherwise. He shook his head. "If you want to do some training with powers, we can definitely arrange that. Did your team have a Danger Room?"
Regretfully, Hope shook her head. "They used to," she said, "But we have to conserve resources for mission-critical stuff. And we don't always even run the generators all the time." She brightened. "Do you really have one here, though? For training?"
"For supervised training, yes," Jim replied, placing not-so-subtle emphasis on the second word. "There are plenty of preloaded programs for solo or cooperative training. If you want experience with a wide array of mutations it's a great resource to have. You could probably get someone to help tailor scenarios directly to what you want to focus on for each power, actually -- I know both Scott and Garrison Kane are experts at that."
If Hope heard the 'supervised' in that sentence, it was more than she let on, the stars in her eyes fully focused on the Danger Room and its possibilities. "That's so cool," she said enthusiastically. "Who's Garrison? I know, um - Scott."
"Garrison is an X-Man -- well, usually. He's not on active duty right now either, but that doesn't really make a difference." Jim paused to smile despite himself. "And yeah, I heard about Scott. Your world's version is your grandfather, right?"
Hope nodded. "I know he's not the same person here," she hastened to add. "I get that. But it is kinda weird, even if everyone's younger here. Dad never really mentioned how weird it was. But he'll be back soon - everyone's been really nice but I won’t be here long, I promise.”
Jim nodded. "Stay as long as you need to. We have plenty of space, and since you knew about the mansion it'd make sense it would be one of the first places he checked." Jim heard himself refrain from reassuring her that her father would return and hated himself for it, just a little. No matter how much he hoped it was the truth, it was a promise he knew better than to make. Especially if her Cable lived a life even half as risky as the one he'd known.
Hope didn't exactly tear up, but there was a subtle shift in her eyes that showed she certainly could. Instead, she nodded and said, "He said it's usually a safe place. Except when, um, when the X-Men are bad or violent or under the thrall of an elder god - um, that's why I tried to sneak in." The remnants of her subterfuge hung around them in strips of burned wallpaper.
Jim's eyes lingered on the fire damage just long enough to make it clear he was intentionally refraining from sharing his thoughts on the subject of her stealthiest efforts.
"We're here for as long as you need," he repeated. "I don't think we've had an elder god here in at least fifteen years, anyway. Is this your first time visiting another dimension?"
Hope flushed, noting Jim's gaze, and nodded. "Everyone said I was too young before. But now I'm sixteen, so I guess I'm old enough now, except Dad didn't explain anything - " She vented an exasperated breath. "He always does that. Grandma says he has trauma and that makes him too secretive but he could just say something, I think."
Oh god, maybe he was like the Cable Jim had known. "So interdimensional travel's got the same age-restrictions as a driver's license here? I guess that makes sense. I think it's eighteen for the Wormhole- um," he said, suddenly unsure whether anyone had introduced Hope to the concept of the Wormhole yet and desperately not wanting to find out, "anyway, unfortunately that's just how it is with parents sometimes. Usually it's because they think they're protecting you, or they honestly don't know how to get at the issue. My dad and I had a few of those issues too."
Hope nodded. "He had to prepare me for everything, and he's the best at what he does," she said matter-of-factly. "But," she added, the irritation creeping back into her voice, "He didn't say everything about what everything was and how am I supposed to do something I don't even know about? Like - like this mission where I don't even know where he went, or if he got kidnapped, or what."
"That . . . sounds like him, yeah," Jim agreed, not really meaning it as a compliment. "But it also sounds like they're equally tenacious, which is a good thing. Is there anything you'd especially like to do to help you pass the time while you're here?"
"Well," Hope said thoughtfully, "If I'm here, I should take advantage of all the new powers and try everything out if people are okay with that. I can only do Dad's powers right now and they're kind of, um, I mean, they're not boring, they're just, um, familiar? And of course I have my regular training. And Shatterstar knows swords, I wonder if he'd teach me? And - "
"Oh, you've met Shatterstar?" That might go . . . either very poorly or very well, and considering Hope had instantly invoked bladed weapons it was honestly difficult for Jim to decide what would be the better outcome. "I recommend open spaces if he loans you his powers. They're sonic-based. Terry mentors him. Similar power set, and she's mastered a high level of technique. It might be a good connection to make." If for no reason other than the fact he had a feeling Terry might be one of the few people capable of coraling both Hope's enthusiasm and destructive potential in the course of powers training. She, too, was a small, spirited redhead, and she had twice Hope's experience at it.
"Oooh," Hope said, stars in her eyes. "Sonic powers. That sounds really cool - there are some really cool powers here. Um, no offense. Telepathy is, um, very useful." This was probably more offensive than saying nothing would have been, not that the small girl noticed. "I met Shatterstar," she added, confirming. "He told me about fighting consensually. And said I could ask him for help if I needed. And I wanna learn swords."
"Of course you do," Jim muttered before he could stop himself.
"Right?" The sarcasm flew right over the girl's head - the height difference between the two having nothing to do with it - and the starry look in her eyes only faded when another thought occurred to her. "Oh, hey - I wonder if you know, I was just thinking about it while I was doing the wallpaper. Why'd you guys send Uncle Charles to an island?"
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Date: 2024-01-05 03:00 am (UTC)"Why'd you guys send Uncle Charles to an island?" ashajal HOPE