om_main | Harley and Roberto backdated to 16/04/2013

Bobby cannot sleep so heads to the gym for something to do and meets one of the new students.

Bobby: Bad night, PTSD issues

Roberto couldn't sleep. It was one of his bad nights, a night where he saw Juliana and Kurt and Lil shot and bloody everytime he closed his eyes. Instead of risking waking up Blaine with his terrors and moving around too much, he threw on some clothes and slipped out quietly with his ipod in hand. Maybe a late night run would tire him out enough to sleep.

The gym was in darkness of course and he didn't bother turning a light on in case someone was still awake and felt the need to disturb him. There was a chance some teachers might still be around after all. So he started setting up in the almost darkness, he was pretty familiar with the room so it was no issue.

Harley poked her head into the gym, glad to find it dark and empty. She'd been in here briefly earlier, just long enough to spot all the gymnastics equipment in a far corner. That was the goal tonight. The moonlight offered just enough light to see by, so she slipped inside and padded towards the mats like a little blond mouse. When she got there, she quickly stepped out of her ballet slippers and shrugged off her sweatshirt, leaving her in grey sweatpants and her bright red competition leo.

Her body was already warm from scampering down here, afraid she'd get caught (no one had mentioned a bedtime, but sneaking out in the middle of the night had to be against at least one rule, right?), so she launched straight into stretches: shoulder circles, arm swings, torso twists. She kept bouncing lightly from foot to foot, to keep warm and to dissipate some of her nervous energy.

Bobby had frozen when the doors had opened, concerned that someone might have followed him before realising he didn't recognise this girl. At least it meant he didn't have to put on a brave face and lie to someone about being ok with all the shit that had happened. New kid, blank slate, no knowledge of Bobby's fuck ups: brilliant.

On closer look though, he frowned. This was less of a student and more of a little girl. Not someone who should be dragged into this mess, not when mutant girls kept getting shot. It was just wrong that someone as young as her had to be here.

Harley kept wiggling, stretching out her muscles, but the moment of truth had come. Her fall at Nationals had been caused by her hand disappearing, by her power. She'd been playing with it for the past two days, and was pretty sure she could keep it from happening again, but she hadn't actually tried anything since Josh had fixed her. It was time.

She shook her head, focused her mind on keeping both hands in *this* reality, and launched into a brief series of front handsprings. About as easy as it gets, and no problem: her hands met the mat every time. Success! Encouraged and relieved, she carthwheeled in a small circle before springing lightly back onto her feet with a big smile.

Since watching her for too long in the dark would seem creepy, Bobby decided to speak up immediately. "Impressive, you are far more spry than you first appear." He told her, moving forward so that he was more easily seen in the moonlight. "Forgive me if I startled you, you startled me when you first came in. I didn't expect anyone else to come down at this time."

Harley's heart was pounding, and she'd definitely just squeaked like a small dog. Yeah, 'startled' was a word for it. At first she thought she'd been caught, but he was definitely a student too, so he probably wasn't supposed to be here either. As he stepped out of the shadows, Harley wondered how she'd managed to overlook him when she came in.

She blushed, embarrassed. "Sorry! I thought the place was empty. I can go! I mean, I can if you want, I didn't mean to, uh, intrude or whatever. I just..." she trailed off, not sure what to say. She didn't want to leave, but she would if he wanted.

"Oh do not worry, this place is certainly big enough for the two of us." Bobby smiled to reassure her that it really was ok. In fact she was quite a welcome distraction really. "Do you often come to the gym at such a late hour to flip around or is this some strange new form of sleep-walking?"

He had a great accent, one she'd never heard before. She relaxed a little. "Um, no, I generally spend all day in the gym and all night in bed, actually. But it's been a weird couple of days, so... Why, did you sleepwalk out here?" she asked with a smile.

"No but it would be more interesting that the truth: I had too much energy to sleep." Not the total truth but close enough that he didn't feel like he was really lying to her. "My name is Roberto da Costa but most people here call me Bobby. And yourself?" He move closer to introduce himself properly.

"Nice to meet you," she said a little shyly, offering her hand. "I'm Harley Quinzel, I'm new."

"A pleasure to meet you Harley." Bobby look down at her with a friendly grin as he shook her hand. "You come to the gym often, you say? You seemed to know what you were doing with the, uh, tumbling thing." It wasn't often these days that words escaped him, perhaps it was a sign of his tiredness.

"Oh, that was nothing," she said quickly, blushing. "I was just testing something about my power. It mani... manifestoed? I'm no good at this, it started on Saturday, really messed things up."

"Some mutations are like that." He nodded thoughtfully "So I take that as a yes, you do go to the gym often."

"Yeah, I pretty much live at my gymnastics club back home. It's one of the best in California! My dad's the head coach," she finished with pride. Her blue eyes skimmed his body in an oddly professional once-over. "You look like you spend a lot of time at the gym yourself."
He did seem very fit, though his musculature was all wrong for gymnastics. He also looked a little haggard, more anxious than energetic - Harley definitely knew the difference. Not that she'd say anything, but she did give him a curious look.

Little Harley was far too young for any of his usual comments about his good body and working out so instead he confirmed "Soccer player, I was intended to go to the Olympics but then I manifested during a game. Goodbye career."

Well that hit home in a hard way. Without taking her eyes off Bobby, she let her knees buckle and sat down hard on the mat, rubbing at her right hand. She looked up at him, her face the picture of sincere sympathy. "Dude, that sucks. What happened?"

After a moment Bobby followed suit in sitting down on the mat, turned in to face her. "It does. It uh, my powers are based on solar energy, you know the sun so I recreate that energy. There were fires, a lot. People were scared, chaos, guns, it ended very badly. So here I am. What is your story, your power came in on Saturday you say?"

"Wow, that sounds really terrible," she said earnestly. The whole thing scared her, and she was genuinely sorry it had happened to him.
"Nothing that bad happened to me. I was at Nationals, and my hand disappeared on the beam." She poked her fingers into the bubble to demonstrate; they disappeared smoothly in the darkness. "Luckily the cameras didn't catch it, but it made me fall and break myself pretty badly."

"Injuring yourself is not nothing, Harley." He told her seriously before adding with a smile. "But I see that you are fine now so you must have met our resident miracle healer, Josh." He suppose the demonstration of her powers might have startled him some months ago but he was beginning to get a little jaded by the whole mutant school thing. That and he was tired and tense.

"Believe me, I know. It's only nothing because of Josh," she said, thinking about how different things could be. She wasn't sure which was better at this point: being broken for months at home with her family and normal life, or being being a healed 'mutant' off at some crazy school. His cursory glance at her power was kind of a relief, really, like confirming they were both freaks.

But she was a freak who could probably still go to the Olympics if she was careful. She bit her lip a little guiltily, and her heart broke for him again. But she didn't know what to say about that, so she timidly asked, "So your power is fire?"

"Uh, not quite. It is hard to explain. I take the sun energy and convert it. It was be made into projectiles, heat blasts and fire yes. It can change my form to make me stronger and harder to hurt, more durable but not impervious. It can change how I look too." He explained it as best he could for her since even if he wanted to show her he could, he largely relied on the sun after all and it was night-time. "And yours? You make your hand disappear or is there more?"

Harley listened with wonder, her mouth open a little. She didn't even understand all that, but it sounded amazing. Like Josh or Mr. Lensherr, a real super power. "I guess I don't really know yet. I mean, my hand doesn't just go invisible, it actually goes somewhere else. That's why I fell." To demonstrate, she pushed her fingers into the pocket again and ran her other hand smoothly through the space where they should be. "And I guess I made a candy bar disappear too."

Bobby's eyebrows rose at that "And can you retrieve things from this other place also?"

It... hadn't even occurred to her. Her focus had been on learning the feel of the bubble, so her hands wouldn't accidentally vanish. She thought back, remembering the hospital. She'd felt the chocolate bar, but she hadn't tried to bring it back; at the time, having an invisible hand seemed more important.

"I dunno, actually." She glanced around, but didn't find anything she wouldn't mind losing to another dimension. She curiously poked both hands into the pocket near her legs. With her hands missing and her legs bent and splayed beneath her, she looked like a little broken doll.

Bobby watched quietly almost as if this were everyday. Then again he did live with a lizard boy, a furry blue guy and girls who had real claws. This was everyday to him. Everyday but also interesting and would certainly be more interesting at a more awake time of day.

"Well, it's only been a few days. For me it's been months and I'm still learning about my powers everyday." He told her as he watched.

"Oh!" Her face lit up with surprise. She pulled both hands back into view and stared at the small square packet in her left hand for a second. Then she flinched, letting go as if it might bite her. With a quiet crinkle, a bar of Ritter Sport (dark chocolate with hazelnuts) fell lightly onto the mat between them.

"Impressive." Bobby commented, eyebrows raised as he eyed the seemingly intact and unmarked bar of chocolate. "Your own little hidey-hole, that is a strange and useful power."

Harley paled. That was definitely the chocolate she'd lost on Friday night. Oh man, why did things just keep getting weirder? It was one thing to have your hands disappear; that just felt like dreaming. But finding something solid, bringing it through the wall of the pocket and into existence - that felt very, very real. Still in shock, she looked up at Bobby, slowly processing what he'd said. She felt like she was going to be sick.

"I don't want a power," she bit out finally, looking down at her hands with anger and fear. "I just want to go home, and be normal! Why is this happening?"

"I know how you feel." Bobby told her softly, moving closer to pat her back gently. "I often hate mine too, it is dangerous and destructive but we cannot change our DNA Harley. We were born this way for a reason."

Harley was used to physical comfort. She leaned into his arm, letting the touch ground her. "But why us?" she asked petulantly.

"Dumb luck? Misfortune? Divine plan of a higher being? I cannot answer this, Harley. I do not think anyone can, I'm afraid." He did his best to comfort the little girl, feeling overwhelmingly sorry for her. It was hard enough for him and the others but she was so very young and scared that it was heartbreaking to hear. "At least here we are not alone. We are with people who understand."

His voice was so sad, Harley thought as she mulled that over. No one else Harley had talked to had said things like this about powers. Not that she'd met a lot of people, but they'd seemed pretty pleased with the whole thing. Bobby seemed really sorry for her. She looked up at him, reading between the lines.

"Something really bad happened because of your powers, didn't it?" she asked carefully. Not chaos and fires, but something personal, something she could practically see wrapped around his chest. She wasn't asking for the details, though, just to understand.

"It did, yes." Bobby confirmed softly, after a moment he decided his issues were publicly known enough that he might as well explain "Someone I loved died."

Harley's blue eyes went wide and she looked away. That was horrible. She couldn't even imagine... "I'm sorry," she said, but it felt hollow. She met his eyes again, hoping he'd see how much she meant it. "Really."

"Obrigado. Thank you, you are very sweet." He nodded appreciatively before continuing "This is a good place, the headmasters saved me from my own death and they do seem to care about us. I am not sure if I wholly trust them but they seem to right now have out best interests at heart. Being a mutant is not easy and I will not lie to you and say that it is, however, I think it does help to know that there are others who understand what we are going through, you understand?"

Harley nodded. Bobby made her realize there was a lot about being a mutant she didn't understand, serious things that could get people killed. She trusted him naturally, the way she would a coach, or one of the older gym boys she'd grown up with. He knew this world much better than she did, and was willing to let his experience help her; that was something to pay attention to.

"I am sorry if I have scared you, unlike mine your powers seem to be less likely to harm at least." Bobby continued, a little worried about how quiet she was now.

"It's not that," she said, shaking her head. She'd probably feel scared later, but right now she mostly felt... sad. "I just feel like everything normal has gone out the window. It's scary, definitely, but I mean, I should be in a wheelchair, weeks away from what I was doing tonight. Er, not that I would've fallen without the mutation," which she hadn't thought of before, "so I guess I'd be home in bed, totally clueless about all this."

Her eyes drifted sadly to the mat again, where they landed on the Ritter. Her lips quirked in a little smile. "But hey, at least sometimes there's chocolate?"

"Where there is chocolate, there is hope." Bobby told her kindly with a smile, after all the last thing his conscience needed was guilt from scaring a little girl. He may no longer be a practising Catholic but he still carried guilt around like one. Guilt with no hope of absolution.

Harley picked up the chocolate. It still freaked her out that it was here, but it looked perfectly normal... and it was her favorite kind. Some things you just didn't argue with. Not at two in the morning when you just realized that "normal" wasn't just out the window, it was also down the block, around the corner, and never coming back. And the window was probably barred up, too, just in case.

"You could be right, but we'd better check," she smiled, wrestling the wrapper open. She broke the bar in two and offered him half, noticing again the darkness in his expression. "You look like you could use some hope tonight too."

"Thank you, Harley." He accepted the chocolate with an echo of a smile, one arm still around her in a comforting manner.

Harley took a bite out of her piece and closed her eyes happily. A friend next to her, a gym mat beneath her, some chocolate her dad would yell at her for eating... She relaxed a little as she opened her eyes again. "I think it's working. You?"

Bobby nodded with a mouth full of chocolate, of course if he couldn't work out until he was fit to drop, alcohol or some of those stupid sleeping pills were a better bet but at least he was a little less tense. Chocolate could do something.

Harley crumpled up the empty wrapper, unsure what to do with the trash. Then, with a little "oh," she used her power, poking her hand out of existence and bringing it back empty. "I guess you're right, that is kinda handy."

"See, told you. Things are looking up already." Bobby nodded before suggesting "You know, it is rather late. This training can wait until morning, how about I walk you back to the girls wing?"

"Sounds good." She bounced upright, then turned to offer him a hand getting up. "It was kinda spooky on my own."

Bobby accepted happily and kept a hold of her hand as they headed to the door. "Do not worry meu amiguinha, Bobby is here."