18 A year

"How did he escape?" Fury asked calmly. "I recall someone telling me that he wouldn't be able to."

"Sir, it appears that Mystique helped free him." Coulson stated from behind him.

"And did we or did we not have countermeasures against her?"

"We did, sir. They're gone now."

They were standing amongst the ruined remains of the mobile plastic prison. Bodies littered the ground around them as medics hurried about, trying to ascertain if anyone survived.

"Well, they certainly were shit measures. Prepare better ones for the future." Fury said as he turned to walk away, before fishing out a device from his pocket and speaking to it. "Restart the operation."

"Yes, sir!" The reply came instantly.

/-/

"Come on! Even my dead grandmother can last longer than you!" Logan yelled at the few people still struggling to reach the finish line.

Most of the people that had already finished found it hilarious, while the ones still running looked depressed, except for one girl that flipped Logan off.

"If you spent more time training instead of playing around, this wouldn't be a problem for you, Kitty!" Logan didn't seem to mind the hand gesture at all, in fact, he looked amused in his own right.

"Where is the limit?" Scott panted beside Harry. "How many more rounds is he going to add?"

It was the same grumbling Harry had heard from him almost every day in Logan's class for a while now.

"You could opt out anytime you want, you know." Harry said as they both sat down on the cool grass.

"And go back to that pile of homework I have? No thank you." Scott scoffed at the idea. "Still, I wonder why they decided to do something like this all of a sudden."

"Maybe it has to do with Magneto." Jean appeared out of nowhere and sat down next to them. "They started this just a few days after our encounter with him."

"Maybe." Harry nodded and thought back to that day. It had been exactly a year ago that they had had their encounter with Magneto.

"A second-generation X-man, huh." Scott stared into the sky. "Well, at least they ease off on the homework because of this."

"I wonder who else aside from the teachers here were a part of the first-generation." Jean wondered. "It's hard to get anything out of them and the internet doesn't have anything pertinent, just constant news articles about the Iron Man."

"My brother might have been a part of them, but I'm not sure." Scott said. "He doesn't talk about that time much, if at all."

"Maybe it has nothing to do with Magneto." Harry said. "Maybe it's just a countermeasure against the ever-increasing amount of people running around wreaking havoc."

"Eh, it's all speculation anyways." Scott said, looking at the direction of the gravel road they used for their runs. Kitty was limping towards them, completely exhausted.

"True, the professor only said that it was the time to do so." Harry raised an eyebrow as he saw Kitty walking towards them.

Scott turned to look at him and was about to say something but was cut off before he could even start as Kitty almost fell down on him.

He turned around in time and managed to catch her in his arms. Scott laid her down on the grass next to him and checked to see if she was okay.

"She's just asleep." Scott sighed in relief. That turned into exasperation. "Who does something like this?"

"She does." Jean pointed at Kitty and laughed even though she had been worried a moment ago, too. "She just trusted you enough to catch her."

She picked her up with her powers and started walking towards the mansion. "I'll get her to our room." She waved her hand towards them. "See you guys later."

Harry and Scott just sat there without saying a word to each other for a while, waiting till everyone around them had disappeared inside of the mansion or walked so far away that they couldn't hear them.

"You should just go for it, Scott." Harry said as he looked at Scott in the eyes.

"I'm not ready for that kind of risk." Scott said and looked away.

"Then when will you be?" Harry sighed in frustration. "You've said the same thing for months now."

"I could ask you the same question." Scott turned it around. "When are you going to do it?"

Harry looked in the direction where Jean and Kitty had disappeared to and then at his hands.

"It's not the same thing," Harry said as he looked inside his mind. "You like Kitty, and she obviously likes you back."

"It's the exact same thing, man." Scott sighed. There were a lot of sighs being emitted right now. "Jean will figure it out eventually."

"What do you mean?" Harry tried to add as much confusion to his voice as possible.

"I don't know how neither of them have figured it out by now, but I know you're not as dense as you pretend to be around Jean."

"Huh?"

"I don't understand why you pretend to be like that."

There was no point in trying to deny it at this point. It seemed like Scott had known about his act for a while now, too. That meant that he had kept it a secret, as Jean didn't know.

"Why haven't you told Jean, then?" It was a question that was meant to distract Scott so that Harry would have time to come up with a believable response. "If you already knew."

"It isn't my secret to tell." The reply was almost instantaneous, leaving Harry with no time to come up with a convincing lie.

His friend was many things but being easy to lie to was not one of them. So, Harry should have given up on that route before he even tried to embark on it.

"Fine, you really want to know?" Harry looked at the ground.

"Yes." Scott replied.

Harry took a deep breath and collected his thoughts; they had grown much clearer in the past year.

"She can't read my mind or even hear my thoughts if I wish so. So, I just had to pretend not to notice that she likes me."

Scott didn't say anything to stop him from speaking, Harry hoped that he would. When he said nothing, he continued.

"If I show no interest in her, if I don't pick up on anything, maybe she'll give up." Harry let out all the air that had built up within his lungs. "That's why."

"You're stupid." Harry turned to look at Scott who had just spoken and was now looking up at the sky.

"I don't want to hear that from you, you dunce." Harry shot at him, a weak shot, but one, nonetheless.

"If you think that Jean will lose interest in you because of something like that, you're an imbecile."

"Oh? Where'd you learn such a big word?"

"Shut it." Scott bit at him. "Your lie is full of holes; I know for a fact that you like her too. So, tell me the real reason why you're doing this."

It was worth the shot, at least now he could convince himself that he had tried to keep up it as long as he could. Maybe even ignore the desperate need that he wanted someone to find out.

"You know the thing living inside my head." Harry said. "It should have recovered it's full strength in just a couple of days, who knows if I'll even be alive next month."

Scott didn't say anything, just a nod of acknowledge and an intense stare, urging him to continue.

"I'm like a ticking time bomb, what good could come out of her dating someone like that?" Harry finally said the real reason. "Anyone brave or stupid enough to do that would only get hurt by the explosion when it happens."

"And you think it won't hurt if she's just a friend with a crush on you?" Scott asked, being careful to mask his voice and facial features as neutral as possible.

Harry couldn't know what Scott was thinking about. It was an annoying ability his friend had.

"It'll hurt less."

"Fucking idiot." Scott let his emotions bleed into his voice. The anger there was palpable.

"Who gave you the big idea that you're going to die to that thing?" Scott rose up and pointed at him. "Haven't you been training constantly to try and avoid that possibility?"

Harry stayed quiet, it only seemed to incense Scott even further.

"Did you do all that for vain?" He asked. "Do you want to die? To disappear from the world because of some lizard inside of your head?"

"No!" Harry rose up to Scott's level. "I don't want to die, but I will! I'm never going to be able to live safely, that thing is like the detonator, just waiting for the right time to press the button and take over my body and kill everyone around me!"

"So kill it before it ever get's the chance!" Scott stepped right up to him, almost yelling in his face. "That's what this all boils down to, isn't it? That fucking thing inside your head!"

Harry didn't back off, if anything, he put even more strength into his legs to hold his ground.

"Yes! That's why I'll never be able to live a normal life!" It felt like there was a fire burning behind his eyes.

"Didn't they say that you would be able to control it?! Are you giving up before even trying? She'll never forgive you, neither will I!"

"It isn't that easy! I've tried and tried! Nothing worked, nothing at all!"

Scott took a step back, and Harry was about to chase after him, but didn't get the chance as Scott suddenly dived into his bag on the ground, taking out a mirror and shoving it at him.

Confusion won over the boiling anger that had been brought up by Scott's words. He lifted the mirror to his face while glancing at Scott.

His eyes were still the same color, a mixture of orange and red with slight hints of the previous brown sprinkled in there randomly. Except this time, the pupil of his right eye wasn't that of a human. It had a slit in it, almost serpentine in nature and almost exactly like the depictions of dragon's eyes he had seen.

"What?" Harry gripped the mirror tighter and stared intently at the reflection before letting up a little and delving into his mind. The walls of energy Charles had erected were still present, but there was a hole in the wall, through which the dragon's right eye was visible. "How?"

"HOW!?" The dragon echoed his question, its voice rumbling and echoing throughout his mindscape. "HOW DID YOU DO THIS?!"

Its voice was louder than he remembered it being, even when he punched it a year ago. Yet, there was no static, no pressure that the dragon had created back then. Only the single eye peeked through, glaring intently at his manifestation.

Harry didn't bother replying to the dragon's question. Even if he had the answer, he wouldn't have done so, much less now, when he didn't know.

He brought himself out of his mind to see Scott staring at him intently, with his arms crossed.

"See? You can do it." Scott walked towards him and patted his shoulder, which caused him to flinch a little, but Scott paid it no mind. "Stop talking about dying."

Harry didn't even have to fake the guilty expression that appeared on his face. Having a friend say that he was going to die with the defeatism that Harry had wasn't something pleasant to hear.

Harry steeled himself, the same glint appeared in his eyes that had been present the day he had declared he would make the dragon pay. His right eye was still that of the dragon's.

"I've got hope now, I won't give up."

"Good." Scott took a step back, smirked at him and extended his hand. "The one who confesses first gets to gloat about it for the rest of their life."

"Like you have the balls to do something like that before I get control of this lizard." Harry smiled and took hold of his hand. "It's going to be really embarrassing once you lose."

They stepped back from each other a little and just stood there for a moment, before Harry remembered that he still had the hand-held mirror Scott had given him. He looked at a little more closely and noticed that it was decorated with flowers.

"Why did you have something like this in your bag, just lying around?" Harry looked at Scott with a curious smirk on his face.

"It's not mine." Scott managed to actually blush; it was a rare expression to see on him. "It's Kitty's and she likes to keep it there."

"Dude…" Harry just sighed and handed the mirror back to Scott.

He managed to catch another glimpse of his reflection in the mirror and noticed that his eye had reverted back to normal.

That eye was proof that he had a chance. The past year had been full of disappointments and desperation, a race against time to figure out a way to either kill it or control it.

Now, he knew he had the chance to do something like that. He wouldn't let it slip away; Harry still wanted to experience all that life had to offer. A big ass lizard wiping his mind and taking his body would make that a little difficult to do.

And as they both started to walk back towards the mansion, he swore to himself.

Harry Ballard wouldn't give up, ever again.