It didn't take long for there to be fallout from my perfectly justifiable actions during my trip into town. Almost the moment we made it back onto campus, I got mind-buzzed to go to the headmaster's office.
Once I walked in, without saying anything, Mister Summers turned on the TV where he had the 6 o'clock news from that evening saved. There I was, standing at the head of my group, running my mouth, profanity bleeped. It was a twenty-second soundbite.
"Huh... didn't know there were news cameras there," I commented after the story had run its course.
"There weren't," Mister Summers deadpanned, "Someone took that on their phone."
Really? That was good video photography for an amateur on a phone, "I'm a minor, and they didn't blur my face. They didn't get permission for that. I'm suing."
Mister Summers sighed at having to deal with my troublesome self, "Don't antagonize the protesters, Bellamy."
"Why?" I droned. They were antagonizing us, "If you tell me to turn the other cheek, I'm walking out right now. I don't care how much detention I get."
He raised an eyebrow, implying that he had planned on no such thing. It didn't lessen his disappointment, "Of course not. If someone goes to hit you, hit back. But Bellamy, things like this make the school look bad. You used your powers as a threat."
"I threaten to shoot people in the face every day," Sometimes multiple people, multiple times. Sometimes I said it to friends. Sometimes I actually did it.
I could feel Mister Summers roll his eyes behind his visor, "And you don't see a problem with that?"
I paused before giving what would have been my obvious wrong answer, "…If I say yes, can I not have detention?"
"No," He walked over and sat down in front of me, hunched with his hands folded in front of his knees, "This sort of thing will only give anti-mutant personalities more ammunition to bring people to their side."
Oh yes, because I would be the tipping point that set the masses against us in droves, "If that was all it took to send people flocking to people like Reverend Stryker, they wouldn't have needed much convincing in the first place."
"You're not going to admit you were wrong, are you?"
"Yes. I was wrong."
"…It doesn't sound like you're very sorry about it."
That's because I wasn't, and I told him as much, "I'm not going to apologize for trying to check people who say my friends are subhuman and deserve to be smote for being born."
It wasn't a mob of dumb high school kids who thought being edgy and offensive to others was cool, it was a group of full-grown adults who were legitimately mad that there was a school teaching kids how to not kill themselves and everyone around them with their God-given powers. No one in that crowd outside of the gates telling us all to go to hell was younger than 25. Being stupid should have more consequences the older you are.
...Yes, I realize that sounds hypocritical, given all of the dumb things I found myself involved in, but there wasn't one mistake I made that I didn't wind up paying for in some way, shape, or form.
XxX
Local news was one thing, but within 12 hours of me running my mouth outside of Xavier's, my face was plastered all over every station that could obtain the footage. It was visual wildfire. It had gone viral, if you will, and beyond.
Everyone in school was all over the news all week long, which didn't do anything for my temper, having to deal with everyone's looks and comments on whether what I did was awesome or stupid, the right thing or the wrong thing, helpful or harmful, depending on who was talking to me.
I say 'talking to me', because I usually stopped replying by about nine in the morning. Most of my days were spent communicating in scowls, glares, head gestures, and monosyllabic grunts. Some would say there was little difference from how I usually interacted with most of the school.
Eddie had come to find me after my last class of the day so he could show me the latest stuff he could find in his social media feeds, "Man, Bel, you really messed up this time. They're burning effigies of you in downtown Manhattan."
I didn't care about it, but he'd waited all day to show me, so I humored him, "Note to self: don't go any farther south than Harlem next time I go to New York," I said while yawning, "Besides, Manhattan is the part of New York everybody goes to, so I'm sure the concentration of idiots is that much higher."
Eddie was a good friend. He was angrier for me than I was for myself, "It's bullshit that every anti-mutant crack pot in the country is going to use you as the poster boy to hype their cause."
"Dude, what?"
He looked at me like I had been living under a rock, "Haven't you been listening to what assholes like Stryker are saying? Even just today?" I shook my head no, "They're saying that you're the face of what's wrong with the next generation of mutants."
Oh really? I rolled my eyes at the concept, "As opposed to the old generation that they loved so much… and most people didn't know anything about until a few years ago."
"When you put it that way, it sounds stupid."
"Because it is stupid. This whole thing is stupid," I stopped in front of the elevator to the lower levels where I was supposed to be serving my detention that day, "Now I've got to help out down there. I don't think Cyclops will stay and let you hang out while I'm cleaning the hangar, unless you want to help."
Eddie's eyes went wide and he backed away from the elevator as if it were full of snakes, "That's just fine. Me and manual labor don't mix very well. I'll catch you later."
I grunted and bid him farewell before getting in.