My first thought, waking up flat on my back in an unfamiliar place, was to ask myself if I had died. What a lame way to go out, in a car crash.
Granted, it was a car crash that came after an evening of running from my life from mutant-hunters, but it was still a car crash. Not exactly riveting stuff when you're swapping stories with other people in eternity.
No, I wasn't dead. I wasn't in heaven, because it was way too dark. If I had been in hell, I doubt my wakeup wouldn't have been so uneventful.
I started moving around, unable to see anything, and once again, to chalk one up to my amazing coordination, I fell right out of the bed I was in.
My head hurt like hell. I couldn't see my own nose in front of my face. On the plus side, I didn't feel overloaded and hyper anymore. Now I just felt tired and in pain. Apparently me clamoring around in the dark was all I needed to get someone's attention.
The door opened and the lights came on, blinding me for a moment as my eyes adjusted.
"Good morning, Mr. Marcher. Or should I say good afternoon?"
"Kinda weird that everyone knows my name without me telling them," I said as I tried to pull myself up on the bed. A sharp pain shot through my torso, forcing me to stop halfway and flop face-first on the mattress, "Oh, man," I gasped.
A large, furry, blue paw set itself on my shoulder, easing me up into a more relaxed, seated position. I looked up into the face of a gigantic cat-beast-man smiling down at me, "Easy now, my boy. You had quite the evening."
"I think you can extend that a little further than just the evening," I told him, not so subtly alluding to the fact that I was being looked over by… whatever he was? I was trying to figure out what kind of animals his mutation had mixed in for him. I gave up pretty quickly, "Hi. I'm Bellamy," I said, extending my hand.
No reason not to at least try and be well-mannered. I was probably staring at him, so at best, introducing myself first would just break me even on the politeness/rudeness scale.
He regarded me with a smile. Yes, points for me. Way to break the ice, Bel.
"Dr. Henry McCoy," He reached out and shook my hand, allowing my second impression to come across significantly better than my first, "It's very fortunate we heard of your situation on the news and went to retrieve you when we did. You're a little banged up now, but I shudder to think of what may have happened if the Friends of Humanity had confronted you alone."
He began seeing to the average tests that were normally done to deal with a person who had suffered a concussion; impact tests and all that. In the meantime, I tried to make conversation to try and learn more about what had happened after I crashed. The X-Men had gotten me out, but that much was obvious.
"I'm guessing those were the psychos with guns," I ventured to ask, "I'm pretty sure they shot up a good part of that park. I hope they don't blame that on me," I muttered.
My parents were probably going to catch hell as it was for me tipping over that cable car. Oh man, I didn't even want to think about how pissed off they probably were. I didn't call them or pick up my phone after I had my little breakdown. I didn't look forward to that conversation, or to them coming here to get me.
…Where was here?
"I was informed of your powers from the X-Men. Logan even got a demonstration," Dr. McCoy said, as though I were supposed to recognize who that was. He realized I was confused and tried to change his method of identification, "Wolverine," Still nothing, "The angry one with the claws," There we go. That rang a bell, "In so many words, your body is capable of absorbing light and storing it. You can then convert into energy that you can use to temporarily enhance your physical attributes, or the pure blasts of concussive force that you used to try and fight back against your attackers."
That wasn't 'in so many words'. Even so, hearing someone else tell me what I could do sounded awesome. He sounded interested. That was a nice change of pace. Positive reinforcement I could live with. Someone else who thought my powers were cool, instead of someone who wanted to kick my ass because of them.
"These powers are so sick," I said, drawing upon the glow behind the skin of my palms. It was considerably harder to do than it had been yesterday, but I made it happen, "Getting shot at aside, so far they're great."
"I'm glad you think so. It's not all positive though, I'm afraid."
"I shoot light from my hands and do other stuff. What's not to love about that?"
"Not light. It was a byproduct of your body processing light," Dr. McCoy corrected, "You absorb all light – be it from the bulbs in your lamp, the fluorescent lights in your schools, the television, the sun especially – and you have no control over your intake. You are always absorbing light as long as it is on you. You're doing it right now."
True enough, I felt significantly better than I did when I'd first awoken, "Not seeing a downside yet, doctor."
"You can only hold so much," Dr. McCoy said, shaking his head as he continued gravely, "If you absorb more light than your body can handle, you will do yourself harm. You may even kill yourself, in quite the… explosive manner, if we're correct."
"Really?" I asked incredulously. Everything had to come with a catch, didn't it?
"We had to bring you here in a light-proof container, just to make sure you wouldn't overload without our knowledge," He told me, adjusting the glasses on his face, "It's also why we kept you here in the dark. You were dangerously overcharged when you were retrieved from San Francisco. Thankfully, your body used up most of the extra energy healing you overnight."
"Wow," I said, at a loss for words, "…That sucks."
"Don't be afraid. It is manageable. It will be difficult for you to deal with for some time, though."
"But it's not like I can go home," I argued, "You just told me that there's a good chance I'll blow up on a sunny day."
Despite my circumstances, he didn't seem too concerned, which did wonders for my nerves, "My advice would be to use as much energy as you safely can before you go to sleep, preferably in a pitch-dark environment. In the meantime, I'll see what we can do about finding a technological solution for you."
I opened his mouth to respond, but didn't have anything pressing on the tip of my tongue to say. All I could do was relay my gratitude, "Thank you," I said, eyes cast down at my lap. It was the only thing I could do.
Had it not been for them, I would have likely been killed. Only a complete ingrate would just brush something like that off.
"Think nothing of it, my boy," Dr. McCoy checked his clipboard over to make sure everything about me was in order, "Well this Institute is a place where young mutants like yourself can come and learn to understand and control their gifts. If I weren't asking and answering questions to try and help you find a better way to do so, I wouldn't be seeing to my responsibilities very well, now would I?"
He meant it in a supportive way, and it was a nice approach to take with people who probably had a tougher time with their powers than I had with mine. A good number of mutants probably didn't think their powers were as cool as I thought mine were.
Wait. Institute? Like a school? Was I at a school or something?
"The potential your power holds is great, if you can learn how to safely harness it," The good, blue doctor continued, "I believe that with enough fine-tuning, you could find a number of practical uses for your ability."
He was being very flattering in speculating on my powers, but my ego didn't need the stroke, even if it did enjoy it. My brain needed information more, "Wait, wait, wait," I felt like a jerk for cutting him off, but I felt like he was going to go on for a while if I didn't, "I'm sorry, the Institute? Where am I exactly?"
Dr. McCoy seemed embarrassed at somehow leaving out that important bit the entire time we'd been speaking, "My apologies, Mr. Marcher. I'm afraid I got ahead of myself after hearing you talk about your gifts," Fair enough. My powers were admittedly awesome, "This is a school for young mutants like yourself, situated in upstate New York."
From doing the math in my head, that didn't make a lot of sense. A regular flight across the country would have taken at least six hours. I had been comfortable when I'd woken up, which meant I'd been there a while. Getting knocked out wouldn't have put me under for longer than six hours unless it was a head injury serious enough that I wouldn't be sitting up and talking to my doctor.
"How long was I out?"
"Not as long as you're probably thinking," Dr. McCoy must have figured out my train of thought easily from the chuckle it got out of him, "I must say, you're taking this a lot better than most others do, me running your checkup, I mean."
We had been speaking for quite some time, most of it done with him checking over what was left of my wounds from the car crash, and other than the initial surprise from seeing someone like him standing over me, I'd basically gone with the flow. First meetings or whenever new people showed up to this… 'Institute' in the manner I did must have usually been more hectic.
"I think it's because all of this just keeps on moving," I replied, wincing as he drew blood from my neck with some strange device, "If I get a good hour or two to myself to stop and think, I might wind up having a nervous breakdown. I had one in park before you guys found me."
A big paw/hand set itself on my shoulder in an effort to reassure me, "Well try to remain calm, and just remember, most things that you may see during your stay here are fairly normal," I got the feeling he was trying to warn me that I was about to see a lot of weird shit. Good to know, "Seven staples in your head and bruised ribs are all that remain of what were much more catastrophic injuries from last night. You'll be sore for a while, but you should be right as rain before long. Just take it easy."
He gave me a mirror to look myself over. The first thing I noticed were the stitches in my head. With how short I normally kept my hair that would probably leave a visible scar for little while. The next was that my eyes weren't brown like they were supposed to be. They were kind of yellow.
Fuck it. The color of my eyes was the least of my worries right then.
I gingerly stood up and tested how well I could walk without jostling my injuries, "I'm not so good with new places on my own, but I'll try. Thanks doctor."
Dr. McCoy escorted me through some kind of state of the art medical hallway outside of my room. Sure, this was a school. A school from the future, maybe, "Welcome to the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning, but if you don't feel like staying, I understand," He said as I walked alongside him, "Your parents have been informed that you are in our care for the time being. They said they'll be taking a flight to New York to bring you home tomorrow."
The relief I felt at that moment was the inexplicable feeling that came with the thought that your parents were coming to help you. No matter what the issue was, they would be able to solve the problem.
But reality set in a moment later and I thought to myself, how exactly would they solve this? A group of guys attacked me out of the blue and had chased me blocks and blocks through a major city. As far as I know, they had gotten away with it once, and it had taken superhero intervention to bail me out of trouble.
My parents were anything but super.
"…Would those guys come back?" I asked, "The Friends of Humanity. Would they come back?"
The way I said it was enough to give Dr. McCoy pause, even if the subject matter had been grave enough as well or not, "It's hard to say, Mr. Marcher," He said, probably trying to think of a way to word things delicately, "They are quite adamant in their beliefs that mutants are evil, and they're willing to act on that belief. With a power like yours, especially after what you've already done, it's not likely they would let that notion go, especially if they knew just where to find you all over again."
Going home would have been great. The thought of a familiar setting with the same, old boring routine seemed like just the ticket after everything that had been happening. Some normalcy.
Did I even want that? Was it even possible? Not without moving far, far away, which sort of defeated the purpose of wanting to go home in the first place.
"Can I make a phone call, please?"