Scott and Toby | Backdated to 6/11/15

[om_changeling]

Toby realizes Scott is injured. They don't really talk about it.



Fuck. She might actually win this fight. Toby focused, the training blade in her hand, and feinted to the right, then slashed, smirking a little as she forced Scott to jump back and avoid the "blade". She pressed in, eyes narrowing, but with confusion now rather than enjoyment. There was something about how he was moving...

She held up the blade to signal a break. "You're hurt," she accused.

"End simulation," Cyclops called out. The Danger Room returned to its default. He looked at Toby a bit speculatively. "How do you figure?"

Toby gave him a very definite "do you think I'm an idiot?" look. "You're not moving right. And your mouth gets tight every time you have to turn. Besides, you're better than this." Also, he'd been fighting dirty, which he normally didn't. She hadn't thought much of it at the time, just picked up her own game, but in retrospect, yeah. He was hurt.

Well, she wasn't wrong. Scott shrugged awkwardly, but then smirked. "Well, glad to know you're observant, then."

"You're just now noticing that? Fuck, Summers, I thought you were observant." She walked over to the side of the room and set down her knife. "Bad?"

"No, just commenting on it now," Scott said. He put the fake knife away. "And no. Temporary. Bruised ribs."

"Those suck." Toby rubbed her hands off on her pants and started rolling her shoulders. "You could've cancelled." She smirked. "I can always get in some extra practice without you."

"I know. But I wanted to at least make the attempt," Scott said. He'd been taking it easy, honestly, but he'd been almost leaping out of his skin. He was so used to using his time to do that being told he shouldn't was akin to being told he couldn't eat anymore.

"Well, if you're bound and determined to get your ass kicked, I'm not about to argue with you." After all, he'd said bruised, not cracked. Toby's smirk widened, though, as a thought occurred to her. "It'll still count for the ten questions, though."

Scott rolled his eyes behind his visor. "I didn't get my ass kicked."

"You would have if we'd kept going," Toby observed smugly.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Scott muttered in response. "Come on, smart ass, let's get something to drink. And you can pull out that list of questions."

"Nah, I'd rather win those in a fair contest." Toby shrugged and smiled. "I'm up for something to drink, though." She started towards the door. "So, the rescue thing got messy, I take it?"

"Not really, all things considered." No rescue involving a bunch of armed thugs and a sociopath would ever feel like it had gone off completely clean. Still, on the whole, it had gone off as well as anyone could've asked. "I just have incredible luck."

"Apparently. Bruised ribs suck. Cracked ones are a lot worse," Toby observed.

Knowing Midnighter, he'd intentionally hit Cyclops just hard enough to ensure he wouldn't suffer long-term injury. Which was actually an impressive amount of control, to the teen's credit. Not that it made Scott any happier about the bruising. "True. Could've been worse," he agreed.

"Got 'em taped?" Toby eyed him sidelong as they headed towards the door. "I'm not bad with first aid if you need help."

Scott shook his head. "That's what I used to do for it, but Tam told me not to."

Toby looked skeptical, but shrugged, then looked over at Scott curiously. "Did he do his MRI without a machine thing?"

"Yeah." Scott still flipped between wanting to avoid thinking about it and thinking about nothing else. He'd done what needed to be done - Simon scanning him was inevitable, and if it hadn't been then it would've been later and might not have been by his choice. He wasn't sure if he was better off knowing, though. And he knew he wasn't entirely comfortable with everything Simon had possibly seen. He and Simon were friends, of a sort, but his own brother didn't know that much about what had happened between the plane crash and when Scott had come to the school.

Toby glanced sidelong at Scott when it became apparent that no further information was forthcoming, then back. "He did me when I got here." She made a face. "I meant to ask him if I'd cracked mine this one time, but then we got busy talking about my blood and I forgot."

"He got too excited about it?"

"Nah, I got curious." Toby grinned a little. "I wanted to know how it worked. He couldn't really tell me, though."

Scott looked slightly surprised at that. "Tam couldn't tell you? Huh."

"He said he'd have to be scanning while it was doing its thing." She made a face, obviously disappointed. "I offered to go con someone into it, but he wouldn't go for it."

Scott snorted. "Question: how many blood banks have a picture of your face on the wall somewhere with a red 'x' over it?"

Toby shrugged, not rising to the bait. "None that I know of. It's not like I'm really into the blood drinking, y'know. I just want to know how it all works. No way to find out if I don't do it."

"True," and now he felt slightly bad for teasing her about it. Finally in the kitchen, he headed over to the fridge. "What do you want?"

"You. Sit. I can get it." Toby headed over to the fridge as well, darting around him to grab out a carton of orange juice.

He rolled his eyes, but didn't protest and went over to sit down as instructed.

Toby set the carton down on the counter and smirked. "Good plan. Now, what do you want?"

"Iced tea, if we've got it. Please," Scott said, managing to remember something about manners.

"On it." Toby grabbed the iced tea out and carried it over as well, then set to work pouring two glasses.

"Thanks." He gave her a slight smile as she handed him his glass. "Sorry I couldn't give you the work out you were hoping for."

"Hey, I can always hit up Abby later. She's usually game for a sim." Toby shrugged and put the drinks back in the refrigerator, then came over and took a seat. She grinned. "Or, y'know, just take the day off. I'm not looking to go save the world, I can skip a day here and there."

Scott smirked. "You never know," he teased. He took a sip of his tea. "You could wake up tomorrow and decide to be the next Spider-man or something."

"Fuck no." Toby laughed. "There's no way I'm running around New York City in spandex. Besides, he's probably got a copyright on it." She took a drink. "Is that what you're looking for LXQ to do? Take out muggers and shit?"

"Not really," Scott said. "That feels a little like a disproportionate response for street theft."

"I dunno, some of those assholes are a real pain." Toby took a sip and eyed Summers curiously. "So, your op went off okay, and you got out of it with some bruised ribs. What's bugging you? Just that you had to go down and get checked out?"

Scott's eyebrows rose. "Who says something is bugging me?"

"I'm not an idiot," Toby retorted. "You offered me my ten questions when I didn't earn them. You want to talk. So, talk."

"I offered them because you were right, you would've won." Scott had always been bad at vocalizing or sharing his feelings and this, other than talking to Lydia about it when he'd still essentially been in shock about it all, this was really personal. He could sanitize it of the most intimate parts, though. "But yeah. I don't like having to visit the infirmary for medical reasons."

"Can't blame you there." She smirked a little. "You should've signed up for a healing factor. They're all the rage in infirmary avoidance."

"I'll bear that in mind, the next time I'm shopping for mutations. I think flight first, though," he joked.

"Mmm, not gonna argue that." Toby grinned. "Though it's good to know that if the flight runs out while you're in the air, you're probably going to survive the crash."

"Probably better to stay on the ground then," Scott said wryly.

"What's the fun in that?" Toby shrugged. "Besides, I'm figuring out how long I can hang onto mutations. And flying is awesome."

"True." Scott loved flying. "Be careful, though. The falling from flight is less fun."

"You've tried it?"

He shrugged awkwardly, and then took a long sip of his iced tea. It wasn't something he went around talking about, but neither was it a secret. "Yeah. Years ago."

"Fuck." Toby set her juice down. "Sorry. I didn't know. Is that how..?" She gestured towards her eyes in reference to the head injury he'd mentioned before.

"Something like that," he agreed. "But really, not a big deal. Like I said, it was a long time ago."

Toby nodded and picked up her juice. If he didn't want to talk about it, she could definitely understand that. "Anyway, I get whoever I'm with to spot me," she said instead, resuming the previous topic. "So other than ending up stuck in a tree for a bit, it's all been fine."

Scott snorted. "Stuck in a tree, huh? Taking that whole raccoon thing seriously, I guess."

"Oh yeah. I scampered down and everything." Toby rolled her eyes, then grinned crookedly and shrugged. "Astrovik and I were playing hide and seek or some shit. I ran out of juice while in a tree."

"So how long to you keep powers for, when you borrow them?"

"Not sure, exactly." Toby frowned, considering the question. "As far as I can tell, it depends on how much blood I take in. Astrovik had a paper cut, so, not super long?" She made a face. "Mostly I've been practicing with Rankin. Who just copies my mutation right back and heals himself up. So, I've kept his for...maybe about an hour?" She shrugged. "That's about how long it lasted when I first got hold of Tybalt's, so I'm guessing that's pretty much the max."

An hour was a decently long period of time. Scott filed that piece of information away, just in case it would matter or be relevant later. "Who've you sampled so far, powers-wise? Tybalt, Rankin, and Astrovik, apparently."

"And yours," she reminded him. She shrugged. "I think Diaval'd be up for it, but I'm really not into the transformations. Or the scars. They look good on him, but I'd just as soon pass."

"And mine." He amended, nodding. "Got a favorite yet?"

Toby considered the question. "Well, Cal's comes with the nice How To manual when I use it to mimic someone else, so that's a definite plus. Beyond that?" She shrugged and grinned. "Anyone who can fly. Vance's TK was awesome, and Paul's - I mimicked his via Cal - it's like gravity doesn't even exist." Her grin took on just a touch of mischief and she added, "Though I've gotta admit, there's something to be said for blowing shit up, too."

Scott smirked at her, and said, "It doesn't look nearly as cool without the eye-wear."

"Maybe." Toby smirked back. "We'll have to try it when I'm not going around on four legs. Pretty sure it wasn't a fair test."

"Maybe practice with some of the more predictable mutations before you formally move on to the less predictable set," he suggested. Though, on reflection, it wasn't that his mutation was unpredictable. It was just predictably destructive.

"Oh please, I totally had it under control." Toby rolled her eyes. "I just really hated that tree."

"Ah, I see. It personally offended you at some point," Scott said. He finished his glass of iced tea. "I'll bear in mind what you do to foliage that crosses you."

"Just don't let me anywhere near rose bushes, and it's all good." Toby smirked, finished off her juice, and jerked her chin towards Scott's glass. "Refill?"

"Sounds good, thanks."

"So, what have you been up to, other than not-quite rescuing damsels in distress?" Toby asked as she picked up both glasses and carried them towards the counter.

"Very little," he admitted. "Or at least it feels that way. I'm mostly attempting to follow doctor's, or nearly-doctor's, orders, which means I only supervise practice and I can't go to the gym."

"Which is why you scheduled for the danger room." Toby rolled her eyes as she got the pitcher of iced tea from the fridge and, after a moment's consideration, poured it into both glasses. "If you've got all that extra time on your hands, want to give me a ride into town later? Word has it the library's having a book sale."

"Sure." Maybe there'd be something worth picking up. If he'd known it was going on, he might've gone himself. "No license yet?"

Toby made a face. "I failed the test. Can't retake it for a few months."

"That sucks. You been practicing since?" He asked.

"Not really." Toby shrugged. Asking Scott to give her a ride was one thing. Trying to beg someone into taking her driving? Yeah. Not a priority.

He knew he didn't like having to ask people for favors or help, so he couldn't really be shocked that Toby might not want to. Still, driving was a skill she might need at one point. "We can set up lessons, if you want."

Toby turned towards him with both glasses in her hands, surprised, then took a breath and smirked. "You've got a deathwish? There are easier ways."

"Always knew I'd go out in a blaze of glory," he said dryly.

"It's likely," she cautioned. "I'm pretty sure the guy who did my test passed out halfway through."

Scott wasn't that concerned. Driving was fairly instinctive, at least to him. How bad could she possibly be? "I think I can take it."

"If I prove you wrong, do I get my ten questions?" Toby challenged.

He rolled his eyes, exaggerating the gesture so she'd be able to tell. "Sure, why not?"

Toby laughed at the exaggerated expression. "Just remember you agreed to that when you come to."

"I'll do my best," he promised dryly.