Scott and Hank, Saturday night

[x-cyclops.livejournal.com]

Scott and Hank talk briefly on the Blackbird on the way back from Youra. (OOC: Meep! Forgot to stick this one up...)


Scott grimaced and shifted, wincing at the very, very, very loud protest from his knee. He reached out and tugged at the ice pack a little, wishing that he could find some position other than 'awkward'. He was squeezed up against the corner of one of the benches in the rear cabin of the Blackbird, swiveled around sideways with his leg propped up on the bench. The pain pill one of the government medics had pushed on him before they'd taken off was definitely having some effect. He felt very slightly hazy, and the pain in his knee was definitely duller than it had been at first.

Hank hobbled over, putting most of his weight on his hands, still. "Scotty?" he said softly. "How're you doing?" Things were still busy, but... well. He had to at least check on his adopted brother.

"I'll live, Hank," Scott said, mustering a weary smile. His eyes flickered to the bandage on Hank's leg. "You sure you shouldn't be sitting down, too?"

Hank waved a dismissive hand. "It's bandaged, and I have three other limbs to walk on. And I still have a lot to do." He smiled a little. "I just wanted to see how you're doing. Make sure my little brother is okay,a nd that Alex won't have to kill me when I get home."

"There won't have to be any killing," Scott reassured him, then sobered a bit as he looked back over his shoulder. "Maddie's with Nathan and Sam?"

"Yes. And I should get back to Anika in a moment." Hank sighed. Poor Anika... nobody should be hurt that badly all at once, lose so much that she cared about.... another evil to put on Mistra's account. "This has been rather a nightmare all around, hasn't it?"

"In ways," Scott said quietly. "But there are fifty children being airlifted from Youra with a hope of having something approaching a normal life again. And there won't be any more victims following in their footsteps. You have to look at both sides, Hank."

"I just wish they hadn't had to go through all this to get that normal life," Hank said wistfully. The little girl he'd rescued was gone... she was going to be all right, though. "Oh, for a magical sleeping spell we could have spread over the compound, retrieving the children and those who could be helped without a fight, and leaving the others to have briars grow up all over them until a handsome prince shows up."

"They had their prince," Scott murmured, letting his head sag back against the cool metal. "In a matter of speaking, at least. He just wound up in the middle of the mess with the rest of us."

Hank nodded, reaching out to rest his hand gently on Scott's shoulder. "We did our best," he said softly. "And we saved a lot of lives. In the end, our best is all we can do, I suppose."

"The colonel in charge of the government teams thanked me," Scott said after a moment, almost wonderingly. "Told me to pass on to the rest of you how impressed he was by how we handled ourselves out there."

Hank blushed. "I, I fear, rather let my temper get the better of me at one point," he admitted. Scott had seen Hank really lose his temper once or twice, in a fight, and would know what he meant. "I... came upon the indoctrination team. While they were working on a child."

Scott raised an eyebrow, but didn't answer for a moment. "That would've done bad things to anyone's self-control," he finally pointed out, calmly.

"True." Hank nodded. "They won't be doing it again. And the little girl is all right..." He smiled a little. "And, hopefully, knowing that the white room and those who reside within are most decidedly gone now will help to ease their nightmares."

Scott nodded slowly. "We'll have to tell Kyle," he said. "I know, not all the details... but he needs to know that, too."

"I'll tell him." Hank nodded. "And Nathan, too, when he wakes up. And the other children from the last time..." He wasn't particularly proud of what he'd done, in the white room, but it had been richly deserved.

"Don't fret about it, Hank," Scott advised a bit fuzzily. "If it's still bothering you in the morning... or tomorrow morning, because I think it is this morning, talk to Charles. Or to me when I'm not on drugs."

"I will. And it's not bothering me, exactly." Hank patted his shoulder gently. "I must get back to work. Enjoy your drugs."

"They're nice drugs," Scott agreed with a sigh and closed his eyes. "They take the edge off everything."

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[xp_daytripper]

"Oh, for a magical sleeping spell we could have spread over the compound, retrieving the children and those who could be helped without a fight, and leaving the others to have briars grow up all over them until a handsome prince shows up."


*flips through the books* You know, there is one of those here somewhere...