Alison and Scott, Thursday morning

[x-cyclops.livejournal.com]

Scott tests out a Danger Room program Alison has prepared for a certain someone. He manages to walk back out under his own power. The two of them talk about the purpose of the program, then get off on more abstract subjects.


Ow.

Ow.

Ow.

Alison was waiting for him outside the Danger Room doors as Scott
tottered out. Wincing with each movement, he stared at her
incredulously, carefully propping himself up with the nice, handy
wall. "What," he wheezed a little, "the hell was that?" Okay,
so that was the absolute time he ever let her talk him into a Danger
Room scenario, no questions asked...

"Um." Well, he wasn't looking at her quite the way Ororo had. Her hair
had started to stand on end from the energy that had been still
crackling in the air, when she'd walked out of the training session to
give Alison one of those Looks before stalking off. "Well. It's a
'pound sense into Nathan' scenario?" She paused, then grinned a bit,
not quite twiddling her fingers. "One of many scenarios actually?"

Scott shook his head, then winced. "Ow. Alison? The modular
environment shifting? Not to mention the many, many things shooting at
me? You could have warned me." He laughed, a rueful, breathless sound.

Alison stared at him blankly for a moment. Oh, she remembered
saying that last sentence to him, over a year ago. On a considerably
louder tone of voice too. Slowly, she smiled. "But that would have
been telling."

Scott blinked, then sighed at her. "Point for you, if we're keeping
score," he said wryly, rubbing at his side. "But I would also point
out that everything I put you through... well, made sense.
That?" He waved a hand at the Danger Room. "That was everything and
the kitchen sink hurled at the speed of light."

"It was too good to pass up." She beamed at him brightly, not quite
bouncing on her feet - making these scenarios meant testing them, and
she had ended up being very much flattened at one point. Using
unpredictable variables meant not knowing them either, after all.
"Huh. I think I'll throw in a kitchen sink in the next one just for
kicks." And the look on Nathan's face might be interesting. "And that
was the idea." A grin of relief. "So it works then."

"I don't know, Ali." Scott started to limp in the direction of the
locker rooms, Alison following along. "It's maybe a little too
tough. I mean, I backed off, and even so, I think I'm still going to
be on close personal terms with a hot shower for the next hour or so."

"You backed off," she pointed out. The logic was perfect and she felt
some of the worry lightening. "He won't." She nodded to herself, then
glanced at Scott, feeling a touch guilty for the not warningness but
still more pleased with herself than anything else. "Rememer what we
talked about? How we needed a healthy telepath in the team pool?"

Scott's lips twitched in a not-quite-smile. "I remember." Ow. His knee
felt wrongish. "It's not just the telepathy, you know - he'd be
fantastically valuable in the field, if we can get him over this
Spartan crap."

"Not over it," Alison murmured, shaking her head a bit. "Just...
refine it some." She glanced down at the leg he was favoring,
wondering if the ice packs she'd set out would get her in trouble for
being too aware of what condition he'd be in once he stepped
out of the Danger Room. "There's a lot of good in the way he
approaches things - it's just the Mistra extremes that," she paused,
then continued pleasantly, "need to be blowtorched out of existence."

"I know. As much as I worry about the 'with my shield or on it'
tendency, it's not hard to imagine situations where that might be
exactly what we need." Scott snorted softly, rotating one shoulder
experimentally. "You know, I ought to have the biggest damned qualms
in the world, trying to give orders to people like him and Sean..."

Well now, he wasn't getting away with that. Alison snorted
softly and gave him a pitiless glance - if anyone was having those
sorts of qualms, it was the former jetsetting around the world
rockstar, thank you very much. "The newbie corner's mine, mister." She
softened that with a smile though, even as the realization that she
might soon be getting very irked questions from the medlab occured to
her. Oh boy.

"Hey, now, we're both amateurs, Blaire, remember? Charles and his toy
soldiers..." He paused, smiling a bit oddly. "But you know, I wouldn't
trade places with Nathan, or Sean, or Pete... and certainly not Remy."

"We're not supposed to be hardened soldiers," Alison murmured and then
paused to lean on the wall. "You, Ororo or myself. We're supposed to
question and wonder. Not just ourselves but everything else too." She
went on, resisting the urge to make a crack about Remy's fashion
sense. "I wouldn't either."

"It's not just that. We can gain the experience - it's inevitable, in
the end. They can't lose the baggage the experience saddled them
with." Scott paused again, tilting his head. "Then again, whether or
not we actually manage to find a better way, over time... I guess
that's still up in the air."

"Isn't everything, really?" Alison smiled just a bit. "I mean, look at
the lot of us. You don't get as varied or motley as we are, really -
that many different people coming together and finding ways to work
together for a common goal..." She shrugged, just a bit. "There's
already something better in just that, don't you think?"

"Well, I would hope so." Scott gave her a grin. "Otherwise, there's
not much point in any of it, is there?" His smile turned abruptly into
a wince. "Okay, I really need to have someone take a look at this
knee, I think... I don't think I backed off quite soon enough in
there."

She flashed him an apologetic look at that, though there was no guilt.
Wasn't a bad thing to remind everyone that there were no win
situations, after all. "Heh. I'll hold off on having any team leader
go through it again until you're cleared. Falling down to only one
active there would be embarassing." She paused, then winced. "The
medlab staff is going to geeeet me, aren't they?"

"Almost certainly." He grinned wickedly at her. "You'd better stock up
on chocolate."

Alison grinned suddenly, remembering the weekend's plans. "Or run
across the border and hide!" Laughing quietly stuck her tongue out at
him. "C'mon. I'll walk you to the medlab, oh Limping One."