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blacknovelist · 7 years

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A Place to Be - BNHA Fic (Ch. 3)

As promised, here’s the third chapter, one day later!! Actually, I scheduled this to post at like, nine or ten in the morning along with a reblog of chapter 2 so y’all could see them at a relatively reasonable time instead of like, one or six in the morning or midnight. You’re welcome. Though as a result, chapters 1 and 2 might not have the proper links to chapter 3 for a while. Sorry.

Anyway, this is the first chapter outta two that I was really, really ready to fuckin’ write when I started this fic in the first place, since it was one of the scenes/parts me ‘n’ @guardianlioness actually talked about back when the concept happened. Though, since I made plot changes, I ended up shifting the dynamic of the chapter a lot from the original plan. There’s a throwaway or two to the old concepts I’m not actively incorporating in this chapter though.

I’m still a little ‘eh’ on Hisashi, but much less in this chapter than in the last one. Partway through writing this, it became really cathartic. I guess I’ve got a lot more feelings on all of this than I thought I did, haha. I hope I did everything alright in the end.

[AO3] [ffnet]

[Ch. 1] [Ch. 2] [Ch. 3] [Ch. 4] [Epilogue]

Chapter 3: Infelicity

To act or speak in an inapt, awkward, or inappropriate manner.

Aizawa sighed, sliding into his desk chair. He rubbed his eyes, a glance at the clock telling him it was already 9:00pm. As he reached for his eye drops, a name at the top of one of the documents caught his attention.

Surname: Midor Given name: Hisa

He frowned, pausing as his mind flew to the innocuous man who had accompanied his students to the impromptu evening lesson earlier. Why would an ordinary business man, and the father of one of his students, have a file on his desk...?

"Oh!" Aizawa's head shot up at the cry, along with the heads of the few teachers still in the office.

"The sensors picked up unauthorized use of an unfamiliar quirk down on the grounds," one of the faculty said. Aizawa narrowed his eyes. "I'm trying to track it now, but it only happened for a moment. I think it came from by one of the training-"

"Call security and send them down to delta gym immediately. I'm going to investigate."

They looked up, and only caught a glimpse of the white scarf trailing as he darted out the door. There was silence as the empty chair slowly spun and struck the table with a gentle 'thud'.

"I guess we know where he was earlier and what his students are doing, I guess," one of the teachers piped up. "Man, he's completely taken by those kids and he doesn't even know it."

"Absolutely."

"That's been obvious from the start."

"Security's on their way, but they probably already have everything handled down there anyway."

1-A stared, Izuku was more startled than a rabbit, Toshinori's face was stone, and Hisashi went pale. His hand clamped against his mouth like it just caused the ultimate betrayal, and in a way, it kind of had.

"I'm sorry," Hisashi said, after a moment. His hand dropped to his side. "Losing my temper like that was uncalled for, and my quirk coming out like that was even more so. I, I guess the long day's gotten to me more than I thought." He shifted from foot to foot, eyes darting from face to face. "It's important, but I can wait until the dorms before I talk to you, Izuku."

"Honestly, I think after that, it might be better if you come back another day," Tsuyu said. Hisashi's face twisted.

"Are you still-"

"I'm afraid," Toshinori interrupted, "that young Tsuyu is correct. As a member of the UA faculty, I cannot allow a breach in regulation from a visitor to be tolerated. Even if this was a burst of passion and emotion on your part, unless you're willing to impart your important message to young Izuku right here and within my sight I must ask that you leave campus for tonight at the very least. My apologies, Midoriya-san."

"Are you telling me I can't talk to my son properly before I leave?" He looked disgruntled, a contrast to the faint relief barely visible on Izuku's face. "I understand your rules are important, but isn't that a little harsh?"

"It's a necessary precaution in light of events as recent as a few months ago."

"Besides!" Sero sauntered up. "Not to accuse you of anything, Midoriya-san, but it wouldn't be hard for someone to impersonate a family member we're unfamiliar with."

"Plus Midoriya's told us about how he hasn't met you before. Or at least, not for a really long time," Kaminari spoke up.

"You already showed your judgement is impaired since you used your fire breath," Tokoyami said. "Forgive us for saying so, but many of us here are hesitant to put our trust in you after that display."

"A matter of trust?" Hisashi narrowed his eyes at them. "Well if that's the case we're talking, why should parents like me put trust in UA and it's rules? I can't be sure your school can look after my child sufficiently, or keep them safe when you're training them for one of the most dangerous careers in the world."

Izuku stepped up to the plate. "If you can't even keep a promise to make time to tell me important things and answer important questions, how can I trust you?"

"Of course you can and should trust me, I'm your father!"

Toshinori coughed. "UA has the best systems available to keep our students and staff safe. While I can understand you have doubts, given past inexcusable incidents, it's important that we believe in one another during this critical time."

"I wasn't even consulted when you pulled my son from home to live in these dorms. Isn't it your job to inform the parents of these kinds of changes?"

"You haven't so much as set foot in Japan for years. I know, because I accidentally asked Inko-san about it once and she told me herself." Uraraka frowned. "You didn't even call about the Sports Festival! Deku wasn't top three, but he put up a good fight the whole time."

"The Sports Festival is the reason I had to come back in the first place. I watched the footage - a quirk out of nowhere, ten years after it should have developed? It's unbelievable after the doctor reports, but now I can't deny it. Still." Hisashi turned to Izuku. "Fighting with something so damaging was reckless of you, but not as reckless as the people who let it happen." He whirled on Toshinori. "Being left in the dark is one thing, but letting my son scar himself permanently is another thing entirely!"

"That's why I'm here, to learn how to use it properly," Izuku said.

"What happened then was wrong on our parts," Toshinori said, hands held up. "We failed to be diligent, and young Izuku paid the price at that time. It-"

"You will not fail my son any longer," Hisashi growled. "That's why I'm here, to tell you that I want to pull him from UA."

Izuku froze along with the rest of the class, but Hisashi didn't. "Do you realize what it was like, for a father to watch his son, who he last saw as a small weak child, destroy himself on public television? He's lived what, fourteen years of his life without a quirk of any kind? It's not like he can't live without using it. Quirks aren't always needed for a good full life."

"Wait." Izuku's heart hammered. "Hold on, I-"

"What made you think someone who has less than a year's experience with their own quirk could be a hero in the first place? Isn't that kind of thing just cruel?"

Izuku flinched and, like the tide, his friends surged around him. Toshinori stepped between them and Hisashi, assured that his students would take care of each other. He said nothing as they clamored, scrambling to let their thoughts be known, and stood ready to intervene.

"That's not true at all!" Ashido yelled, waving an arm in Izuku's direction. "Midoriya is a great hero already!"

"Midoriya has proved time and time again that he belongs here as much as the rest of us," Iida said, glasses glinting.

Kirishima stepped in. "He's one of the stronger guys in our class too, with and without his quirk."

"And he's really really smart. He's like, fourth in class! I learned half our lessons by listening to him mumble while he's studying."

"Midoriya's our friend and classmate, you can't just take him away!"

"That's why I was going to talk to you, Izuku." Hisashi sighed. "I’m sure Inko will agree with getting you out. There's plenty of other places to go, things to do. You've always been sharp, surely you already know that UA isn't the best school for you."

"That's your own opinion, not to mention it isn't your call to make on anyone's behalf. Don't go putting words into Inko-san’s mouth, or Midoriya’s for that matter." If his quirk was sight-based, Todoroki's gaze would be a blizzard. "It's not your wishes or dreams resting on Midoriya's shoulders, it's his own. You don't have a right to come in here and try to take that away from him when he's come this far already, and not when you've spent this much time not here to witness that growth."

If Todoroki's look was cold, Hisashi's was blistering. "Even when it's what would be best for him? He's a teenager who was born quirkless and got into school because of some freak mutation that gave him one. That gap isn't something you can just forget about or change."

"Like fuck that's ever mattered to fucking Deku," Bakugou snapped. "Deku, who never shut up about quirks and his hero shit. Deku who fucking made into goddamn UA in the first place! Even if he's a fuckin moron who can't use his quirk for shit yet, he's here, isn't he?!"

"Midoriya's come incredibly far since school began," Shouji said. "Just like everyone else. You can't ignore that, either."

"He's smart enough to know better than to pick what you think over his dreams."

"That's enough." He moved to push through their ranks. "Who are you to stand between me and my son? This has nothing to do with you kids."

"I think, that is a question that needs to be asked of you."

Hisashi stopped, gaze locked with Toshinori's. The class stopped and stared, all but humming with anticipation. Unnoticed, Izuku snapped out of his shock and whirling thoughts (hethinksicantbuttheythinkicantheyremyfriendsbuthesmyfatherwhatdoidowhatdoido), looked up at the two figures in front of them, and felt understanding sweep over him.

"Who are you to come back into your child's life after years of being absent?" Toshinori asked, face impassive. "To call him son and take him away from his hopes and dreams? Young Izuku is here to learn and be a hero, like all these students here. What right do you have to claim that you know best when you barely know him?"

"I think I have more claim than their teacher, the retired shell of a man that's standing right in front of me!" Hisashi snarled. Heat twisted the air in front of his face, but not fire. "You've only known him for how long, two years? A year and a half?"

"Longer than he's known you, his birth father off overseas for work almost as long as he's been alive." Toshinori stepped forward. "Young Izuku is one of the most determined, heroic young men I've ever had the honor of knowing. I and his other teachers, at least, were able to be here for him when he needed us. The fact that you can't see how much he's thriving here tells me everything I need to know."

Hisashi regarded Toshinori for a moment, then spun on his heel to Izuku. "My son," Hisashi said. "Do you want to throw away your future so much? For the belief that your fledgling quirk will bring you anywhere in the little time you've had it?"

"Don't call me that." Izuku's expression was set. "I'm not yours, and I'm not the same son you left with Mom when you went overseas for the first time."

"Of course you're my son, don't say that. Honestly, I don't know why your mother let you stay."

"At least mom was here to decide in the first place," he said. "I'm not going anywhere."

"You're really convinced by all this?" Hisashi's eyebrows furrowed. "Honestly, Izuku, what made you think you could ever belong here, with people have been working with their Quirks for years? All the experience in the world, the things they want to teach you, they're worthless in the wake of how little time they actually have before hero society expects you to be forced out into the world! Just come back home, find something to do with your life that won't get you killed!"

There was silence, for just a moment.

The surprise faded from Izuku's face. "If you think I can't find my own way or place to be a hero or, or anything else at so all here at UA, you're wrong." He stepped towards Hisashi, and the rest of them shifted out of his way. "No one here is worthless-" like a quirkless boy, like me- "and the fact that my power manifested late doesn't mean I'm worth any less, or don't belong where everyone else does."

Hisashi blanched. "No, I, no, Izuku, I'm sorry, that's not what I meant-"

"Going home isn't going to make you happy with me, either," Izuku pushed forward. "Home isn't our old house, it's right here. It's this campus, these buildings, where I get to come back to my friends and teachers and mom every single day while I work towards my goals. I might not need to be at UA to be a hero, but at this moment in time? I feel like I'm exactly where I need to be." He rubbed the rough skin and dips of his right hand. "Somebody told me once, that, all of this, it's is what I've earned, with my own power and hard work. It's not much, but it's not something you can convince me to leave behind."

"I… You won't even hear me out as your father, concerned for your well-being?"

"That doesn't matter! Mom was worried, but she let me go, didn't she? I spent such a long time wondering about who you are, wishing I could meet you once in my life, but... There's more to being family than being related to each other. You might be my dad by blood, but we're as good as strangers right now. If you think I'll listen and leave with you after half a day, you don't know me at all."

The worry and underlying anger sank into hurt and incredulity. "You trust your classmates and teacher more than me."

"Toshinori-san's been there for me more than you have," Izuku said softly. "And so has everyone else. That's what's important."

“Izuku… I…”

Hisashi reached out, but Toshinori shook his head, stepping between them and next to his student. "Pardon me, Midoriya-san. I cannot speak for young Izuku, but... I think you would do well to come back another time. Talk to Inko, relearn your home, understand the differences in your family that came to be while you were gone." Toshinori put a hand on Izuku's shoulder. "Until you can tell me with confidence that you're willing and ready to be an ally and friend to my son before you make him see you as his father again, I'd like to ask you to wait before you think about coming back."

Hisashi’s lips thinned, but he said nothing.

"Yagi!" They both turned. "Security is on its way. What's going on here?"

"Ah, Aizawa." Toshinori blinked. "Just explaining a few things to Midoriya-san, and... Talking about a possible second visit date. He simply wanted to say something to young Izuku before he left."

"I, ah, that's...... yes. That's correct." He took a deep breath, and bowed. "I apologize for the trouble I've caused. I suppose the stress of travel before today might have had something to do with it!" He gave a weak chuckle. "Thank you for having me. I will see you around... Yagi-san. Izuku."

Hisashi brushed past Aizawa, who glanced at the trembling face of Izuku, the hand on his shoulder and the slowly dawning realization on Toshinori's face, and turned to follow him to the gates.

#Boku no Hero Academia #BNHA #My Hero Academia #MHA #BNHA Fic #Blacknovelist Writes #Dorm Life Series #Team 1A #Izuku #Hisashi Midoriya #Toshinori #in which hisashi gets fuckiin wrecked #nah I like this one tho #the next chapter is going to be a solid chunk of dad might and fam1-a at the end i hope y'all are ready

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zipgrowth · 6 years

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As Textbook Companies Try New Options, Many Students Say Price Is Biggest Factor

Professors assign textbooks (or other materials) that they view as required to succeed in their courses, but some students say they go in with a wait-and-see attitude: They delay a week or two into the semester, and then obtain only the materials that seem truly necessary to them.

“I try to read the vibe of the teacher and see how it’s going to be,” says Ursula Abdala, a senior at University of Texas at Arlington. “If I feel that one book will save my life this semester, I’ll break down and buy it,” she says. “I’m usually broke.”

When she and other college students do decide to buy these days, they face an increasingly diverse and often confusing range of choices. Besides just new and used print options from the campus bookstore, students might have their pick between print and digital, buying or renting, and in some cases, buying a subscription from a publisher that gives them access to multiple titles by that provider.

One crucial part of the decision is out of the students’ hands, of course, since it is the professor who decides what textbook or material to assign—or whether to skip commercial textbooks altogether and assign a free or low-cost open educational resource, or OER.

Forrest Spence, an assistant professor of the practice at the department of economics at the University of Notre Dame, thinks the textbook market is similar to the healthcare market in that way. He says physicians have more information than their patients, and may have financial incentives to over-provide or under-provide care, depending on how they’re being compensated. Likewise, in the textbook market, those assigning the textbooks aren’t the ones who actually have to buy them. And that “almost certainly” makes professors much less price sensitive than you would expect in a market where the person deciding what to buy actually has to pay for it.

What do students these days think of this changing landscape? EdSurge asked a half dozen students to share their buying habits and their views. Answers varied by the student’s major and type of college they attended, and of course it’s impossible to generalize about something as diverse as student views on anything. But we’ve included highlights from the conversations below to get a sense of how at least a sampling of students see the issues.

Looking For Options

Romina Gupta, a sophomore economics and politics major at Mount Holyoke College, says her professors assign a mix of print and digital reading. A lot of the academic readings in her economics classes are from sources like JSTOR, a digitized library of scholarly journals, and for some of her politics classes, most of the readings are academic works of other professors, research on the subject and books.

Gupta says she normally gets her reading materials from either Amazon or from a used book event at the end of the year, where students sell their books to students who’ll be taking the classes the next semester. Additionally, she turns to a Facebook page for people who attend her university where students sell their books. And students can also get their books and reading sources from the campus library, she says.

Gupta says she tries to not buy textbooks, because they’re expensive—such as her economics textbook in a previous class, which cost $600. “I try to just rent them for the semester,” she says.

McKenzi Morris, a senior public relations major at Texas Tech University, notes that once she got into her upper level-courses, professors moved away from “full fledged textbooks,” and instead assigned books relating to the major. For those books, she says there aren’t as many options to rent the title, which “can make it a little more expensive.”

When professors do assign textbooks, she usually opts to rent them from Amazon or a similar service. But if she can’t find the textbook online or can’t get it quickly, she rents from one of the on-campus bookstores. If she does buy a textbook, it doesn’t really matter to her if it’s a digital or physical version.

Caleb Hylton, a senior majoring in information systems technology at Seminole State College of Florida, says his assigned reading is “a lot more digital.” He says he’s had professors say the textbook is just recommended and will scan the needed sections from the book, or will assign PDFs or a website from a third-party so students can complete assignments. If Hylton does need to buy a textbook, he does so at either the campus bookstore or Amazon.

Unlike Morris and Gupta, he prefers to buy, not rent. He enjoys owning things, he says, and it’s sometimes difficult for him to pay attention to “what has to go back and when.” He tends to buy used textbooks because they are cheaper.

Responding to Subscriptions

Some publishers have recently started offering subscription options for textbooks. Take Perlego, a UK-based company which gives users access to a library of content, including digital textbooks. And starting in August 2018, textbook publisher Cengage will let students access all of the company’s digital higher education materials for $119.99 a semester.

Such arrangements most benefit students when they need to buy more than one book by the same publisher, and several of the students we talked to said they paid little attention to which publishers they encountered in assigned texts, so they weren’t sure how much such offers could help.

“There might be cases in which it works—if it’s optional,” says Abdala, the student from UT Arlington. “Having an extra option is always good.”

Christina Forgette, a sophomore at the University Mississippi, says that what she liked about the idea is the ability to pay by the semester. She complained that one online textbook she encountered required her to buy a year-long pass when she only needed access for a semester.

Hylton also thinks it could be a good idea, but only because it encourages students “to have the ability to perhaps read other materials that they might not be taking but might have an interest in.”

But Gupta is more skeptical. She thinks subscription fee models could work for certain courses—for instance, if someone is a biology major and the university uses books from the same publisher that get progressively harder. But if a student is taking courses in different subjects, like she is, it’s not the best idea. Gupta also points out that at her school, professors have different preferences as to which types of books they want to use.

Limited Exposure to OER

Of the six students we talked to, only one had taken a class that used an Open Educational Resource, or OER in place of a commercial textbook.

Forgette says she was assigned an open textbook that her professor created for a writing course. “Because she wrote it, it was very personalized for the class,” she says. And she found no issues with the quality. “I thought it was just as helpful as any other textbook.”

Morris had never even heard of OERs, but after she was given a quick definition, she said she wishes she’d known about them and they seem like they could be beneficial for students if they can find what they need on them.

Hylton says OER materials make sense if they’re on something that’s timeless, but for something where there needs to be revisions, there’s no guarantee “that those revisions are actually going to be released in a timely fashion.”

Abdala said she had never encountered OER in her courses, but she trusts that her professors would vett any materials carefully before assigning them. “Before I take a class I do research on the faculty,” she says. “And if it’s somebody that’s a good professor, I’m sure that they would not settle for something that is not good material.”

Student Advice to Publishers

We asked the students what advice they have for textbook publishers.

Morris wants them to keep in mind that they’re marketing to college students who “generally are not made out of money” and are getting the textbooks because “they’re being required” and not because they’re seeking them out or want to read them on a daily basis.

Hiral Mistry, a second-year student studying finance at Houston Community College, also mentioned cost, saying she wants publishers to stop making access codes to online supplements so expensive.

Hylton, who says he was part of a Cengage student advisory council about a year ago, says the one thing he wanted them to know was they need to make sure the information in textbooks is relevant, accurate and shows both sides of the argument.

Gupta wants the professors and experts in the field writing the textbooks to present material as if the person reading it is coming into the topic cold. “A lot of times they’re writing from a point of view where things are obvious,” Gupta says, “and sometimes I don’t think things are obvious to students who are just learning material.”

As Textbook Companies Try New Options, Many Students Say Price Is Biggest Factor published first on http://ift.tt/2x05DG9

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missizzy · 6 years

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Take a Year, Chapter 5: The News Breaks (X-Men)

(Read full story on AO3)

A matter of weeks, they had said. Scott was determined to put them to good use. Had he still been an X-Man, he knew, and one not broken by Jean’s death, he would have been exercising continually in the Danger Room, monitoring the whereabouts of anyone who might try to do something bad in response to upcoming events, making sure everything was in order on the jet, and so on.

Since there was none of that to do in his new position, he instead began assessing, as much as he could without drawing attention to himself, how everyone would feel about the news. One thing he discovered early on was that there were indeed students that now regretted taking the Cure, so at least the news would make them happy. He was left worried about the staff, however. Another thing he discovered early on was that he was the only teacher in the entire school who had ever even been a mutant, with the possible exception of one history teacher who did everything possible to avoid ever talking to him. Even around him, they often expressed how relieved they had been to have fewer mutant students to worry about, and he shuddered to think what they might say when he wasn’t around.

He also now spent nights searching for news articles about the mutant phenomenon, especially ones about it in the U.S., but also around the world. It was both shocking and unsurprising to learn that six of the world’s nations, mostly in the Middle East but also a couple in Eastern Europe, had, as Magneto had feared, forced their mutant citizens to take the Cure, with those who refused being thrown into prison if they were lucky. (It wasn’t necessarily easy to keep them there, though; there was at least one escapee who had turned vigilante). There were also accusations that the company responsible for selling the Cure overseas had secretly lobbied those laws into existence, which could just as easily be either true or absurd. Though Scott supposed this news would probably just mean more profits for them anyway.

He eventually concluded that he was largely in the wrong place to help out victims of backlash. There were multiple articles all insisting having less mutants on the street hadn’t changed New York City that much, although the statistics might have left it unclear whether or not NYPD harassment of mutants had gotten worse since remaining one had become a choice. Most of the consequences within the U.S. were going to be much worse in the south, and also in those other states that were denying their residents as much health coverage as possible. Although the debate as to whether the Cure counted as “preventative” treatment was still raging on with no clear resolution in sight.

Most of December 2 was ordinary enough a day. Scott woke up that morning from a dream where he and Jean were now traveling through snowy Catskills, and kissing several times. He breakfasted while watching the morning news; with the awareness that the story was going to break any day now, he had started watching morning and evening news both without fail. The first snowstorm of the year was expected later in the week, a New York State Government official had been caught saying something embarrassing on tape, and someone had been arrested in White Plains for murder. In national news, the president and congress were at loggerheads over several funding issues, a certain type of cranberry juice was being subjected to a recall, and the Prime Minster of Australia was coming for a visit.

Throughout the morning his classes were normal. He didn’t even have more than a handful of students who hadn’t done their homework. That did leave him with a lot of work to do, though, to the point that since he’d brown-bagged his lunch, he decided to eat it at his desk while working.

It was about twenty minutes since he’d sat down with his sandwich in one hand and a red pen in the other that one of his fellow teachers, a history teacher named Yonting Zhang, known to her non-Chinese colleagues as Alyson, came in, calling, “Mr. Summers? Mr. Connors needs to see you immediately. Bring your lunch.”

Scott’s first reaction was simple annoyance. It wasn’t easy to carry his sandwich somewhere when he’d already started eating it, and if this meeting took too long, it was going to leave him with a lot of grading to do in the evening. Then it occurred to him what the principal might want to see him for, and that required him to hide his anxiety over it as he thanked her and wrapped it up as best he could.

At least Mr. Connors apologized when he saw he’d interrupted Scott mid-meal. “I figured she’d find you quicker,” he explained, which sounded reasonable enough.

Scott took a large bite of sandwich before sitting down, swallowing as he did so. He thought he might not get around to eating much more of it.

He was right. Without any preamble, Mr. Connors said, “Look, Mr. Summers, I called you here because I just got a call from the superintendent; I was talking with Ms. Zhang, and I ended our meeting and sent her to get you immediately; that’s how important this is. Now he’s a guy who knows a lot of people, and will sometimes get big pieces of news a few days or occasionally an hour or two before they go public, and this hasn’t yet, so before I say anything else, I want you to promise you won’t repeat what I’m about to say to anyone.”

“I promise I won’t repeat any big secrets I learn from you,” was Scott’s reply, as he internally hoped Mr. Connors wouldn’t tell him any secrets he hadn't known and then would feel the need to email Ororo about, but he doubted he would. When the news wasn't going to break didn't really count as that, he thought.

“All right, prepare for a shock.” Scott watched him scrunch himself up, and wondered if he could fake shock. “The superintendent claims he’s just heard the effects of the Cure have started to wear off for those who first took it behind closed doors, before it was made available to the public, and this morning someone in some lab somewhere came up with some scientific proof that it doesn’t suppress the X-gene permanently. I don’t know when they’re going to announce this, but I think it would probably have to be within a couple of weeks at most, and they may even do so today. And when they do, the superintendent wants to know what all affected faculty and staff in his schools intend to do about it.”

“He expects me to have an answer for him possibly as early as this afternoon?” Scott demanded; he didn’t have to fake shock after all.

“Look, I told him you might want time to think it over, but he’s insisting you should at least have some idea as to whether you’re going to take the Cure again or not. You’ve got to understand, Mr. Summers; most of the mutated teachers in this public school system took the Cure, and the exceptions are mostly language teachers and other people specially qualified to teach certain electives, and that is something that has made his life much easier. Of course we didn’t force them to, but, well, I suppose that most of them did tells you something you probably don’t like about this system, but it’s not something that’s easy to change. We can’t do anything to you officially if you refuse to take the Cure again, and I, for one, certainly wouldn’t want to. But that doesn’t mean he won’t make both our lives difficult in every way possible if we don’t at least give him a solid idea as to whether you’re going to be an actively mutant teacher he has to deal with.”

To a point, Scott sympathized with the principal. He obviously saw himself as on Scott’s side, and he knew the superintendent probably could make his life absolutely miserable. But still he felt the anger rise, over this issue that never should’ve been an issue, and yet was probably about to get worse, now that people could say mutants *could* help being mutants, and here he was, already enabling all that against Scott himself. Especially since, as the weeks had passed, he had become more certain he wasn’t going to take the Cure again, at least not right now.

He supposed he might as well tell the guy that. “I’m not going to run out and dose myself again immediately,” he said, “that I can say right away. For one thing, I’d like to know if that’s even safe. We can’t know yet whether these scientists have even determined that or not. I’m sure they haven’t talked with your boss’ source about if even if they have. Think of the example that would set for our mutant students, if one of their teachers prioritized not being a mutant over his own health.”

“Fair enough,” said Mr. Connors. “I suppose that’s another thing you’re worried about, even outside any health risks.”

“Exactly,” said Scott. “I don’t want to make them think they must keep taking the Cure either. Especially not if it proves expensive to keep taking-and that’s another thing I’m worried about, by the way. You know perfectly well we teachers don’t get paid much.”

“I know,” said Mr. Connors, and Scott wasn’t pleased with how resigned he sounded. Especially not when he said, “Although the way you’re talking now, Mr. Summers…of course you may always be frank with me. But I want you to be a little careful about what you say to the students about this. You must realize how some of their parents will react if they see a mutant teacher as preaching to his students against taking the Cure again.”

“What?!” Scott felt dangerously close to a rare genuine loss of his cool on hearing that one.

“Of course you can express your concerns to them,” Mr. Connors said hastily. “Especially if they ask you any questions. But, forgive me, Mr. Summers, but I need you to avoid making statements too strong about it. One of them goes home and tells his or her parents he or she was bullied into taking it the first time, and, well, you know exactly what that parent will say.”

And that parent, Scott had to keep himself from yelling, would probably be dead wrong. “I will not advocate for it,” he said. “And forgive me, Mr. Connors, but I will not do so even with my silence, especially if I have any reason to believe one of my students might even being especially endangering his or her health. Surely that’s more important than avoiding an angry parent.”

That was a point the principal couldn’t deny. “If it really goes that far,” he conceded, “I suppose you can say and do what you must. But just…” He held out his hands and jerked them back and forth, as if trying to make himself understood while groping for the right words. “Use common sense. Please.”

“That I always intend to do,” said Scott, still coldly. “In any case, there will be some time to decide; I don’t *think* any of the students I have regular contact with took the Cure during the first week, and of course I took it very late. And rest assured that if I decided to take it again, or that I definitely won’t again, I’ll let you know immediately.”

“Thank you for that, Mr. Summers,” said Mr. Connors. “And of course, if you have any more questions or concerns about the whole business you feel a need to discuss with me, my door remains open.”

Scott thanked him in return for that, but he didn’t think he would be discussing such concerns with him unless he had to. He had just shown himself to not be the man for that. He regretted it, though. He hoped at the end of this, he’d still be able to like the principal.

Back in his classroom, he spent a few minutes not exactly regaining his composure, since he’d never lost it, but just centering himself, getting himself to a place where he knew he’d keep his head should the pending news break and cause chaos in the middle of any of his afternoon classes. He sat with his fingers interlinked together in his lap and his head bent down and his eyes closed, and he couldn’t help but notice he was only now not feeling even a split second of panic over his glasses being missing. Not the first time he felt the bit of regret over what he was about to give up. It would be harder too, now, when he was no longer used to not being able to see colors, to always having that little bit of anxiety that came of only having a pair of glasses keeping the world safe from one’s eyes, to enduring the looks of everyone who saw him and knew he was different, which now would be an everyday occurance.

When he felt capable, he took his new phone out, glad now he had gotten it, partly in anticipation of this day, although he’d been planning on it already. He considered an email to Ororo, but ultimately settled for a simple text: News to be out soon. Possibly today. Perhaps at some point in the future he might have cause to tell her about his meeting the principal, and what he had been told, but for now he would at least sort of keep his promise of silence there.

He was good and smiling, and had even gotten most of the homework assignments graded, when the lunch period ended and the first of his afternoon classes filed in, and his ordinary day resumed. He kept more of an eye than he usually bothered with on those students in the back who were obviously playing with their phones under their desks (they were rarely as subtle as they thought they were), but none of them showed any sign of receiving remarkable news of any kind. There were no murmurs or exclamations outside his classroom that he could hear; the buzz between periods was its normal unelevated self. When the final bell of the day rang, everyone looked their usual mix of tired and relieved. Plenty of them had their phones out before they were even out the door, but no exclamations came from them either.

He followed the students out of the building shortly afterward, but a comfortable amount of time before the next bus was to arrive. Here, too, the world was carrying on as usual, most of it still unaware of how the course of events was about to take a huge turn, especially for those of them with an X-gene. It was only when he was standing with the rest of his fellow commuters at the bus stop that something a little more unusual showed up: Emma Frost walking out of the adjoining building, accompanied by a man in black Scott had never seen before. Before he could think to turn his head away their eyes met.

You know already, don’t you? Her voice was in his head, obviously a telepathic transmission. She turned her head back towards her companion, was whispering to him, and he clearly had no idea he wasn’t the only person she was talking to, but he could still feel the presence of her mind focused on his.

He didn’t have to actively answer her question; he was sure she got a confirmation all on his own. Instead, he actively thought anger anger anger at her, only to be brought to awareness of her amusement.

The bus was thankfully approaching the stop, kept slow by traffic that had never seemed as annoying to Scott as it did then, when she broke away from her companion and went to cross the street, standing mere feet away from Scott as she waited for the light to change. He watched her toss her head as the man in black called something out to her which sounded like it was about the boss being mad again. The afternoon sun caught her neck and hair, causing them both to gleam as the breeze caught the latter, making it flutter around the former, streaks of pale flickering in front of a canvas of paler, caressing her throat as it rose and fell with her breathing.

When Scott got on the bus and sat down, he saw her walking across the street, and when she had reached the far curb she turned around and looked at the bus. He was pretty sure she couldn’t see him; he was in one corner, and the sun’s glare would make it harder. But maybe she could detect his mind and tell it apart from the others, because she looked at the right window, and he saw her mouth form the words, See you again soon. He was not looking forward to that.

It was about ten minutes later, and he’d spent most of them lost in thought, unable to stop speculating on just what that woman’s next move might be, when at last he heard two exclamations within ten seconds of each other, both from people who had been looking on their phones, although nobody else did more than glance at either of them. He pulled his own phone out. A look at the news website he’d been reading en route to work each morning confirmed it: Worthington Labs Announces Cure is Not Permanent.

The article was pretty much what he had expected, probably copied from the press release from the labs. They were trying to downplay the fact that this had gone undiscovered until the first cases had started to wear off, and emphasized that the Cure could be taken again, so anyone who didn’t want to live with their mutation still didn’t have to. Indeed, there was even some talk of their plans to expand the availability of the Cure, possibly try to make it in pill form and get it into pharmacies so it could be gotten easily with a prescription.

When he finished reading, he looked up, although very slightly, not wanting the other passengers to notice. People having their eyes glued to their phones was nothing unusual these days, but he saw one woman’s hand fly to her mouth in shock, and a man’s eyes bug out, before he started furiously typing something. Behind him someone murmured a soft, “Woah,” and further behind him, he heard furious whispers going around. He also noticed more than one person was showing the contents of their phone to someone else, and the people having things shown to them were also having shocked reactions.

He was so absorbed in following the news as it traveled around the bus that it took him a few minutes to realize more than one person had started looking at him. Careless of him, really, especially when he should have expected it. Even if he didn’t really know most of the people who rode the bus with him, inevitably there’d be someone who was going to recognize him, and from there they’d let the others know, especially with a story involving mutants having just broken.

The seat next to him had been empty, but after a furious conversation between a trio of teenage girls, one of them, a black girl with a grey-green coat that was way too big on her, came over, sat down, and said, “Excuse me, sir, but are you Cyclops?”

She looked so nervous that Scott didn’t have the heart to refuse to talk. “I’m not him again yet,” he told her. “But yes, I am Scott Summers.”

“Then can you believe any of this?” asked one of the other two girls. “I mean, obviously if you’re Scott Summers, you took the Cure, so you have to agree this false advertising was terrible. Do they really expect anyone to believe they had no idea that this free Cure that was going to fix any mutant who wanted it-or could be forced to have it-wasn’t going to conveniently going to need to be taken again and again, when they would be charging for it, of course?”

“I bet they were behind those laws in the Middle East, too,” one of her friends called over to her. “They probably lied to them too, of course.”

That one actually wasn’t something Scott had thought of. He wondered how many people back at the school had thought of it. Although Ororo might have; she had developed the good habit of thinking about everything. Even if she certainly wouldn’t assume any corporation would automatically go so far as to push such horrible laws in other countries-not that she’d rule the possibility out either.

Then there were other things to worry about, such as the fact that there was a boy on the bus who was in one of his classes, a certain Xiu Yu, who went by the name of Bernie, and he was staring at his phone and very obviously trying not to cry. What he said now, Scott knew, might play a vital role in what that boy thought about his current situation. He hadn’t been aware Bernie was someone who had taken the Cure, which made him think he was someone who absolutely had wanted nothing to do with his mutation.

The one who had made the suggestion about the laws in the Middle East continued, “I wonder how they’ll handle it in Russia, though. They didn’t make it mandatory there, of course but things are bad enough there for those who don’t take it, and this will probably just make them worse. Have you heard those stories, Mr. Summers?”

“Some,” said Scott. “Enough to agree it’s terrible what they’re doing over there.” This was all true, but he was sure to put more emphasis on it. Even though he still felt the need to add, “Though some of them seemed to me to be unsubstantiated allegations, and we want to be careful of those, especially right now. When a story like this happens, it always gets accompanied by all sorts of stories that turn out not to be true.”

“So these are all lies then?!” The black girl got close to blowing up. “You’re just going to tell yourself that now so you don’t have to do anything anymore? I bet you never would’ve done that back when you were Cyclops!” The other two echoed their agreements.

“Actually,” said Scott, “back when I was with the X-Men, whenever something happened, we would sometimes here multiple stories about things happening that we ought to go and intervene in, and it was very important for us to be able to sort out the truth from the fiction right away, so that we wouldn’t waste time responding to the wrong report. And that’s true even when you aren’t going out to be superheroes and rescue people. I think it’s something every responsible citizen should do.” He was pretty sure these were girls who would respond to the phrase “responsible citizen.”

Indeed, the black girl did look a little chastised. Still she pointed out, “But even if you can’t assume everything is true, I don’t think there are *that* many stories that can be dismissed out of hand, and anyway, they often have roots in things that actually are happening, I think.”

“Smart girl,” said Scott, and he meant it too. “We did often find that to be true, but that takes time. And if the exaggerated tale is touted as the truth, and then turns out to be false, it makes it harder to get people to believe the truth, so keep that in mind.

Anyway,” and here he deliberately spoke a little louder to make sure Bernie Yu heard him, “it is true that this is going to change the way things work around the world again, just like the introduction of the Cure did, in fact, just like the mutant phenomenon becoming public knowledge first did, and so did what happened when first all the mutants, and then all the humans were nearly killed.” He was very proud of how he kept his voice rock steady, even though the thought of Jean still flared bright and sharp in his mind. “But we’ve been through those before. We’re going to get through this one too.”

“That’s nice,” said the black girl, and she was clearly very unimpressed, and she turned and walked back to her friends. But when he looked over at Bernie, he looked comforted.

He went back to his phone, opening his email. Ten new messages already; the news had probably spread around Xavier’s pretty quickly. He opened the one from Ororo first.

It was simply, “I will have your full set of glasses and goggles sent to you. You may need any and all of them.” She didn’t mention his visor directly, but he’d be shocked if that didn’t show up in the package. Nor would he mind having it. Right now, it definitely felt like anything might happen, and it was best to be prepared.

That Evening

He intended for his evening routine to be pretty similar to usual. He even turned his phone off while doing grading. This was one school where classes would continue on as usual the next day, even if perhaps he did take a few minutes to answer questions and such if his students wanted him too, and he did not want distractions. Further news could wait until its usual time when he was cooking dinner.

It turned out to be a good thing he’d turned the phone off. When at least he had put his pen down and taken a moment to breathe in and out, a habit developed back when opening himself back up to communications meant possible news about the world needing saving, he turned it on and found he’d gotten a whole new deluge of emails. He thought just about everyone who knew about his current status had contacted him at least once, and more than one of his former students had asked him if he was coming back. He had to fight down an angry impulse to respond first by calling Ororo and demanding to know why she had given them his contact information. That could easily be the wrong message to send to the students right now, and besides, it was entirely possible they’d gotten it some other way.

Missives from Wanda and Pietro were included, of course. Pietro’s was short, and asked if they’d see him again. But Wanda’s was longer. It wasn’t the first time she’d contacted him; before this she’d written him a couple of short emails asking him how he was doing and telling him how she and Pietro were in training and also working towards become teachers. It would probably be years before they got certificates, but they could be ready to give some instruction in the right subjects earlier. She’d even expressed a regret he wasn’t more comfortably texting.

Now, she wrote to urge him not to take the Cure again, to find some other way to live with himself, and he found himself staring at some of her words: “I, too, have now spent these past few months trying to get away from a heartbreak that happened in my past. I’m still not ready to tell you about that, though maybe someday I will. For now, let me just say, it doesn’t work. You never forget. The only thing I’ve found to help is to keep busy doing productive things. I’ve also spent the fall hearing from the students how good you were to them as a teacher. Even if you don’t come back to us, you should do what you used to do at your current school. And you should do it as a mutant.”

A public high school wasn’t like Xavier’s, of course. The students Scott was teaching now mostly wouldn’t think to look to him for guidance in anything besides mathematics. But he was aware that the mutant students, of which there might be about to be more again, might.

He wrote back a simple note to Pietro and to most of his fellow X-Men, saying he didn’t know if he’d come back to the mansion, but that it was far from impossible. Wanda he put off writing to; his head was too muddled with thoughts to come up with words too easily. After dinner and the news, maybe. This students he would respond to after he’d given some proper thought about what to say to them.

At first the evening news was a repetition of everything he’d read already. There were a few more statements from big important people, including the President, but those were mostly bland. He did pay a little more attention to the statement released by Xavier’s. It was one he thought to be Hank’s creation, with its diplomatic vocabulary. It reminded everyone that anyone born with the X-gene was welcome at the school, no matter whether those genes were currently active or not, that their top priority was the wellbeing of their students, and that they hoped that Worthington Labs would release all information they had pertinent to the Cure and the health of all those who took it. The subtle accusation in that last part might have been more Ororo’s doing than Hank’s.

Then Hank himself was on Scott’s TV screen, in his office at the school, split with the news anchor, labeled as a representative of both Xavier’s and the Bureau of Mutant Affairs. Or maybe of mutantkind in general, since the first question was how the mutant community was taking this news.

“Well,” he said, “I am currently at Xavier’s School for the Gifted. The mood here is generally that this is good news. You know, of course, that a lot of mutants were especially worried the Cure might at some point be forced on them, or, even if it technically wasn’t, social pressure would take its toll. Although we did, of course, choose to forcibly subject Magneto to the Cure, that the government was doing it the way they were to his followers is also a practice which on their part we were concerned about. You must admit that authorities doing such things sets a disturbing precedent. But if one such act can no longer deprive a mutant of their birthright and choice for the rest of their life, well, I believe many of our students will have far fewer nightmares now.

Not that it changes what the government did, mind you,” he added, and Scott could tell he was definitely restraining himself now.

He thought the news anchor could tell too, and she apparently decided that wasn’t what she wanted, because she said, “You speak as if there is a lot of anger in the mutant community,” which was so painful and provoking a remark Scott wanted to snap something to her himself.

Hank tried not to rise to the bait too much. There was definitely a growl to his voice, though, as he said, “With all due respect, m’am, just yesterday I was called upon to testify as an expert witness in a case where a man was trying to get a judge to force his mutant ex-wife to have their pre-pubescent children injected with the Cure. Last week, we took in a student who had first been expelled from her city’s public school system after her mutation manifested, for the crime of failing to instantly figure out how to control her powers, and then kicked out of her private school too for refusing to take the Cure. And if you think those were the only two cases of such things happening, or that either of these were any kind of isolated incidents, well, I could go on for quite a while.”

“I understand that, Dr. McCoy,” the anchor said, semi-placating. “But you do know that there are many, many mutants in the world for whom the Cure has been, well, kind of a miracle. And this is not good news for them. The expense of the drugs are such that many of them won’t be able to take it constantly after all-”

Hank did lose a little bit of his patience, then, and interrupted her to explain as quickly as possible exactly why this was one drug insurance companies would be required to cover, thanks to the amount of influence Worthington had in Washington. Scott hoped he was right there/ That was a level of frankness Hank usually didn’t talk to reporters with either, and when Scott heard him come dangerously close to admitting he’d be going down to DC and practically stalking Worthington’s lobbyists in the upcoming days, he found himself worrying about the consequences of Hank’s words getting around. He’d be penalized for them by people far more than most people saying them would be.

Still, he thought, as the interview wrapped up and the news finally moved on to the day’s other stories, at least they’d all gotten through this day without any major disasters. Provided Emma Frost didn’t suddenly show up and cause one, but he had the feeling she was done with him for that day.

#xmen #Scott Summers #Emma Frost

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