The More You Know (Part Two)

It took a few hours, but I finally got enough energy back to start safely throwing around again. Not that I did, mind you. It was just nice to have the knowledge in the back of my mind that if a brawl duked off, I could let loose with some delicious light.

Everything that happened, I just chalked it up as another thing that I wouldn't be telling my parents about once the summer rolled around. I wouldn't even know how to begin explaining any of it to keep them from getting heart attacks. For once, I decided to do something active outdoors to try and gather as much sunlight as I could, the purest light source available. Fortunately, I was able to find some people willing to let me join in on some of their festivities.

"So you're really better now?" Gold-skinned Josh Foley asked me as he smashed the baseball in his hand into his glove, "Man, when Pixie dropped you in front of me, I thought you were a goner for sure."

I stood a ways away warming up my arms to swing the bat in my hands. David stood behind me, ready to catch, "I should have been. You basically had to shove my guts back into me. I owe you one. Just say the word," I said, digging my heels into the grass, ready to hit.

Josh got the message and set himself up to pitch, "Nah, we owed you one in my book. If you want to call it even though, I'm cool with that."

"Good. That means I don't have to feel bad about this," I said just as he let loose with his throw. With a shift of my hips and a swing of my arms, the little white ball never had a chance of getting by me. The crack of wooden bat split the air, "Love that sound," As the ball soared through the air, the New Mutants' resident flyer Jay Guthrie caught it before I could bask in the glory of my hit, "Hey! Come on, Jay! Let my homerun breathe a bit!"

I was excited, which was weird because I hated baseball with a passion. But I loved winning... mostly as a side-effect of being competitive and hating losing.

"Nah! That ball wouldn't have even seen the track, bud!" Jay yelled back from the air, throwing the ball back down to Josh, "Light 'im up, Elixir!"

Josh didn't need the motivation, but he accepted it regardless, "Yeah, I've got something special for you this time, Bellamy," He stopped and turned to the side where three of his other teammates were sitting, making sure he got the attention of the blonde one, Wallflower, "Hey, Laurie! Watch this! Three strikes, coming right up! First one down the middle!"

She cheered back, because they were into each other, "You can do it, Josh!"

Good for them. It wasn't going to help him strike me out. My hand-eye coordination was that of a gamer, mixed with an athlete and a trained fighter. And that was before factoring in the superpowers, "Hey, don't bring other people into this. I didn't even bring my crew," I said.

From the sidelines, Noriko chimed in, "Isn't part of that because Hisako hates you?" She would know, seeing as how they actually hung out sometimes, "I don't think she'd cheer for you even if she was here."

I waved my hand to play it off, "It's not hate. She just doesn't always have the highest opinion of the way I carry myself. Which sucks, because I could really use some goddamn team spirit here!" I griped aloud.

Everyone was against me, even David, who usually went under the radar, "What's the matter, Bel? Can't take the pressure?" He said, still standing in place as the catcher.

"Not you too," I said to him, getting back into position to hit once again, "I don't know if you've noticed or not, but my best work comes when the lights are on me and shining bright. Now throw the ball, Midas," I finished with a taunt to Josh, trying to get a mental edge before I hit his pitch off of damn campus.

With Josh good and riled, we were all set to go. Just as he made the motion for the pitch, David stood up behind me and pointed elsewhere, "Pixie."

A sufficient distraction, at the worst possible time, "What?" I stood straight up and looked over only to take a hard-ass baseball to the arm, "Ah! Fuck!"

There was a quite unhealthy 'thwack' sound as it bounced off of me. Everybody winced at the same time while I hopped around holding where I was hit. It was the most reserved reaction I could muster. I wanted to drop to the ground, but that wasn't cool.

David, being the closest, walked over to try and see if I was alright while I kept pacing around like a wounded animal, "Ooh. You alright?"

I grit my teeth and tried to suck it up. I'd been beaten to a pulp and cut open before. Why did a baseball thrown by a teenager hurt so much? "It was in the bicep," Better than in the elbow. If I'd gotten a broken bone just after getting over what had already happened to me, I'd have been upset, "Come on, Elixir. You just fixed me, and I just got out of the infirmary."

Josh dismissed himself from blame, and granted, it wasn't really his fault, "Don't blame me. You stood up on the plate. I told you it was coming right down the middle. My fastball's as gold as I am," He paused and felt the need to specify something else, "That doesn't count as a walk, by the way. You left the box."

"Shut up," I said, with no real heat. Even if I had been mad, there were more important matters to attend to at the moment, "Hey, I've got to go handle something. I'll see you guys around."

That 'something' was the pink-haired girl that had wandered over to talk to Noriko, Laurie, and Sofia. We had made eye contact for a split-second before I'd been belted with Josh's pitch, then she'd tried to slip away.

Not today she wasn't. She figured as much too, looking back when I called out to her, "Megan! Hey!" I finally got her to stop neat the boathouse by the lake, "Why'd you leave? You could have said hi."

She turned around to face me, and the first thing I noticed was that she didn't seem happy that I was alright, "I didn't come to see you. You were just there, actually walking around in one piece."

Her tone was frosty. She couldn't have been upset that I was out doing things instead of wasting away in the infirmary to heal, "You're not gonna asked me why I'm out of bed or something, are you?" I asked.

"I already knew. People have been talking about it all morning," She said, not getting any more cordial with me as our talk progressed, "People kinda pay attention when you almost die."

Ah, there we go. Now we were at the heart of the matter, "You're angry about the whole Ord thing."

She turned to look at me. From how she did it, angry didn't even begin to describe the range of emotions she had felt, "You said you were going to die," She said, bringing me back to what I said to her when Ord was bearing down on us, "You told me not to do anything. I wanted to save your life. You were bleeding to death in my arms."

Maybe, but I didn't want her to get hurt the way I did, "I thought he would hurt you the way he hurt me. Maybe worse," I said, but it did nothing to pacify her. I didn't back down, "…I'm not apologizing, Megan."

She turned red, and not out of embarrassment. It was my last warning that she was about to blow her top, "I'm training to be part of the X-Men too! If you could fight back while that big jerk tried to take your head off, why can't I?" She asked heatedly, "I don't need you to protect me! I don't want to see anymore of my friends die while I'm standing right there and can do something about it! I thought you understood that!"

Oh. Hisako was right. I am a moron.

We all lived through the Danger Room kerfuffle. Things from that little event didn't stick with only me. We all got a piece of it. It screwed all of us up in a way. It wasn't even that long ago. And here I went running off, pushing Megan out of the way and making her see the same thing all over again. This time was worse! She actually had to watch me almost get killed instead of just coming across my body later.

All of it just proved what I thought before the date what I already knew. Megan was too good of a girl for me, "I do understand. I'm not sorry for what I did. But I get why you're pissed. If what I do doesn't actively screw over anyone, I don't think about how it could hurt them," I told her. I thought she was great, but I wasn't empathetic enough to be with someone like her and make her feel good, "I don't think you should hang out with me. I'm kind of an asshole."

Megan didn't seem very impressed with my self-aware admission, "Duh. I knew that already," Though as a plus, her expression softened, "I said you're a good person. Not that you're a nice person," She reached out and put a hand on my shoulder, "I… still want to get to know you."

I felt a few butterflies in my stomach. She saved my life, and still liked me enough to want to maybe go out again. As far as getting ripped open went, this was the best possible outcome from it I could ask for.

Megan leaned against the wall of the boathouse and held her arms, "God, Bel, there was so much blood. It just wouldn't stop. I don't know how I made it back to school with you. That was the scariest thing I've ever seen," She told me with a shiver, "Even when Josh put you back together... you still looked so bad. I thought we were too late."

I winced at how I'd probably made her feel. I really needed to work on being less of a son of a bitch, "But you weren't. You got me help. I'm okay now. Thank you."

Megan nodded, as though she barely heard me. More important than my gratitude was her getting to the bottom of my attitude toward myself, "Do you, like, hate yourself?" She asked bluntly.

"What? No! I'm awesome," I exclaimed, before remembering what Hisako had said about my ego being too much sometimes, "I mean-... yeah, no. I'm awesome. I'm not sugarcoating that. I'm the best."

There was the ego. I had missed it. Not talking myself up was like holding back a sneeze. I could do it, but it hurt to. I couldn't even try to hide it anymore. I didn't want to. I was who I was. She said she wanted to get to know me. If we got any closer, I didn't want to trick her into thinking she was dating someone that she wasn't. Bellamy Marcher was a full experience, not something that could be taken halfway.

...That was not a sex joke. I was being dead serious.

I eased in next to her against the wall, "Look, Megan. I feel like I can do anything, even when I can't, I guess. And I don't know I can't do something until I try it and fail."

Even though I knew I was in over my head from the very beginning of the confrontation with Ord, the thought that I would lose or that either of us would get hurt as long as I was taking action never crossed my mind. In my mind, there was always a way to win. There was always a way to come out in one piece.

Settling was for losers. Go for broke. You couldn't reach the stars if you kept your feet on the ground. And if you shot for the stars, but missed, there was still a chance you'd wind up high in the sky somewhere.

"I didn't just come here to learn to control my powers, and I didn't come here thinking this place was safe. I came here because the idea of being a superhero excited me," I told her, "It's been hard, and dangerous, and scary, but I knew it would be when I signed up."

"I just thought we would all be older before this all started being our problem," Megan said, eyes cast to the ground, "I dunno. I thought we'd just ease into fighting villains and stuff."

I wished we could have eased into it. At this point after everything that had happened, I no longer had any illusions of that happening, "I felt the same way, right up until the Danger Room turned a trick on us. The X-Men can't protect all of us all the time, I guess."

Megan drew her eyebrows together and leaned herself more against me than the wall, putting her head on my shoulder. She smelled really good; sweet even. If were low enough on energy to fall asleep again, I probably would have. She definitely did.

I didn't bother waking her up. She was fine just where she was.