Things Come to a Head

Author's Note

I don't know if anyone even still remembers this story, but I'm kind of back to writing so I thought I'd try to touch this one up. I went back and fixed a lot of grammatical errors and some story details I didn't like. If you did read this story 3 years ago when I wrote it, it was super edgy but I didn't want to start over so I tried to just touch up some dialogue. Deleted the last chapter I had written for this because the character interactions were horrible, hopefully, this is a little better. I hated Scott way too much back then, but I tried to change some of his dialogue and from here I'll try to make him a better character.

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The next morning I woke up and headed to breakfast. I decided to wait to go until everyone else would be there, so when I walked in everyone was already eating breakfast.

Muttered "Mornings" were heard as everyone was still talking about their experience in the other universe. I tuned them out and ate my breakfast as I resolved to go to the Baxter Building today.

Finishing my breakfast and standing up, I began to walk towards the door.

"Casper, where are you going?" Scott asked.

"Gonna go to the Baxter Building and get everything ironed out there," I said.

"Are you sure it's a good idea? The Professor didn't seem to like it all that much. Something about spreading yourself too thin," Scott said.

"I'm sure, I'd rather have my own source of income. Now if that's all, I should be going." I said, walking out the door. Leaving the Institute's grounds, I found a secluded place surrounded myself in hard light, and lifted off the ground.

Rapidly rising above the clouds, I began to fly toward New York City. As I flew, I enjoyed the freeing feeling I got from being in the sky. It took me half an hour of flying to reach New York City, but it was an enjoyable half an hour. Once I was getting close to New York City, I landed on the ground and walked in, catching a taxi to the Baxter Building. Entering, I walked to the front desk.

"Casper Castillo, here to see Reed Richards," I said.

"Head up to the top floor, he said you would be coming." the guy at the desk said.

Entering the elevator, the elevator attendant pushed the right floor for me and the elevator rapidly rose through the tall building, eventually coming to a stop on the top floor. Exiting the elevator, I walked into a lab where I could see Sue sitting at a table reading something, while Reed seemed to be working on some kind of device.

When I walked in, Sue looked up and said "Casper, glad that you could make it."

"Happy to be here," I said, noticing that Reed hadn't even become aware of my presence yet. Sue noticed where my eyes were and said "Don't mind him, he gets very sucked into his work."

"Makes sense, so what do I need to take care of today?" I asked. From there, Sue and I went through the paperwork I would need to fill out to be accepted for the position. It was a tedious process, so we spent a few hours just going over everything. Eventually, we finished and I got familiarized with everything in the lab.

'Looks like I'll be spending some time here.'

----

3 months passed from that day as I began to work at the Baxter Building when I had time. Between working with my powers, working there, going to school, and training with the X-Men I had a really busy schedule.

There was a change in the team dynamic since we had gotten back from the DC universe. When we had Danger Room sessions, the team was slowly looking at me at times for orders instead of Scott, which was getting on Scott's nerves. I could see how much it bugged him when anyone asked me if I had an idea of what to do, and I was just waiting for it all to come to a head.

For my part, I didn't really care that they were looking to me for orders. I didn't plan to stay with the X-Men forever, so expecting me to take up a leadership role was going to lead to them being disappointed, but I didn't mind helping out. The experience in the DC universe had changed the way the team members interacted with me and I could see it was going to reach a boiling point with Scott soon.

Working at the Baxter Building went well. Reed was in the process of stabilizing his Negative Zone portal when I started working for him, so I was able to contribute on that front. While I was working with him, I had to be careful. I didn't want Reed to get access to too much in case he became the Maker or another villainous version of himself, so I had to make sure I didn't help to the point that he was making a ton of progress.

I managed to save a lot of money from my time working at the Baxter Building, the pay being extremely good, and with their help, I was able to find a good house and buy it. Things were pretty much set up on that front, with the house in my name with the Baxter Building signing on as my guarantor. I visited the house when I had the opportunity and installed some features of my own that I had developed. My major project was in the underground portion of the house, a spaceship for my eventual journey into space.

Currently, I was in yet another training exercise with the X-Men, going through a simulation.

"Jean, throw me" I called out as Jean nodded and focused her telekinesis on me, lifting my metal-coated form and throwing me through the air towards the robots, but while she was focused on lifting me, a stray laser hit almost her in the side, but she dodged around it.

Meanwhile, I flew through the last big robot and destroyed it, letting us clear the simulation.

Turning around, I found Cyclops standing in front of me.

"What was that? You almost got Jean injured" Cyclops said to me. He seemed to say it calmly, but I could tell there was a lot of emotion waiting to burst to the surface at the slightest trigger.

"It didn't even hit her. Do you think everyone is just going to stop when she wants to use her power? She was aware enough to keep her concentration and dodge an attack. Jean's a big girl, Scott, maybe you should stop babysitting," I argued back.

"I'm not babysitting, I'm looking out for her safety as team leader. You shouldn't be giving orders in the first place."

At this point, the rest of the X-Men had walked over and were watching our conversation.

"You sure that's the only reason you're so worried Scott?" I asked him with an eyebrow raised.

"Yes, I am sure," Scott said with gritted teeth.

"Could've fooled me, oh great leader. You spend half your time trying to baby Jean every time we get through a sim. It's why half the time everyone listens to me instead of you." I told him, annoyed with his behavior in general. Scott had been looking for a chance to go off on me for a while now, he just finally found something he could start the conversation off with.

"What, you want to be the leader of this team?" Scott asked with a scoff.

"Not even a little bit. I don't have the time or desire to try to micromanage everyone in a battle. You seem to love micromanaging everyone though, so keep at it. Who knows, maybe if you micromanage Jean's life enough, you'll be the only option." I said, hitting an admittedly low blow. At first, I was just going to mess with him, but with Scott getting angrier and angrier, I started getting more irritated.

Scott snarled as he reached his hand up to his visor and shot an optic beam at me. I saw it coming, and I could have reacted, but I let it hit me, throwing me back into the Danger Room wall and forming a dent.

"Scott!" Jean yelled at him.

"Calm down Jean, Scott just wants a little sparring match. He's dished it out, now let's see if he can take it." I said, getting up out of the hole in the wall and holding my hand out, forming a fist out of willpower energy.

"Oh shiii..." Scott began, but couldn't finish as the fist hit him directly in his chest, sending him flying back into the wall and straight through it into the hallway.

"Really Casper? A fist, that was the best you could come up with?" Laura asked me.

"What? It's a classic for a reason" I said with a smile.

"I'm not done yet Castillo," Scott said, coming back through the hole and shooting a more concentrated optic blast at me. This time I reached out and began to absorb the energy from the blast, storing more and more as Scott continued to try to amp up the blast.

"Stop it, both of you," Jean said, but both of us were ignoring her. The rest of the X-Men were watching as Xavier, Ororo, and Logan came into the room.

"Casper, Scott, stand down," Xavier ordered.

"He likes throwing those optic beams around, let's see if he can take them," I said, ignoring Xavier's order as I moved my other hand in front of me and began to channel the energy I had absorbed from his beam, shooting it back at Scott and hitting him directly in the chest. The beam tore through his suit and down to his skin, but I cut it off before it could do any serious damage.

Scott collapsed to the ground, unconscious.

Feeling a sense of danger, I leaned back as a chunk of the floor flew past where my body had been previously.

"Really Jean? He started it," I said with indifference.

"You didn't need to go that far Casper," Jean said with an angry look on her face as she moved to check on Scott.

"All I did was give him back exactly what he shot at me. If I wasn't me I could've been seriously injured by his blast you know," I said, wanting to direct this conversation in a certain way.

"Casper, Scott will be reprimanded for this, but you were in the wrong too," Xavier said sternly.

"The two of us have never gotten along, but I've never let it affect the team. He's the one who let it get this serious in the first place."

Xavier listened as I spoke, looking around the room at Scott, who was being helped by Jean, and the rest of the team looking at the confrontation.

"I had hoped that you and Scott would be able to work through your problems. I will speak to Scott about where the hostility is coming from, but in the meantime, I think we should postpone team exercises," he finally said.

I was somewhat surprised that Xavier was being relatively reasonable. Trying to figure out where he was coming from, I saw him staring at Scott with disappointment.

'No wonder he's not all that upset with me. He's more disappointed with Scott. He's supposed to be the leader of this team and Xavier's vision, and he's letting something like this send him flying off the handle. If he acted like this to a mutant protester this could have destroyed everything Xavier wants to accomplish.'

"Sorry about ruining the training guys," I said, turning to the rest of the team as they started to leave.

Bobby walked over, clasping my shoulder. "It's fine man, Scott's been pissy with you for a while now."

"Like, I'm thankful for the break," Kitty said, stretching her arms above her head in relief.

Rogue just shrugged and made her way to the changing room.

"I'll miss the training, and I get Scott has it coming, but I don't know how we're supposed to be a team when our leader and you hate each other," Evan said.

I shook my head hearing him say that. "I don't hate Scott. I don't particularly like him, but I don't think about him anywhere near enough for it to be hatred."

"Alright man, just, I like the X-Men. I don't want it all to fall apart," Evan finished before he went to help Jean with moving Scott to the infirmary.

I took my exit from the room, Laura trailing behind me as we walked in silence until we made it outside.

"Blowing off some steam?" Laura asked.

I made my way over to a bin near the basketball court, retrieved a ball, and started to dribble it.

"Wanna play some one-on-one?" I asked her, passing her the ball. She caught it, dribbling it next to her.

"Never really learned to play. Trainers weren't all that big on fun."

I snorted, gesturing for her to pass me the ball back. "I'll teach you then."

Laura was a fast learner as he quickly started to play a game. She was athletically gifted, so it took her no time to be good at the game. I was still better than her, but she wasn't getting blown out anymore as we played a couple of games.

Eventually, Kurt and Evan made their way outside and joined us, turning the game into a two-on-two; Laura and I against the two of them.

Eventually, the game devolved into abusing our powers, which meant that Kurt's team won since he could just teleport with the ball and dunk from anywhere. The four of us ended up lying on the grass on the lawn, drinking some water, and making small talk as we watched the sun begin to go down.

'This isn't so bad. Even with my problems with Scott, I like it here, but I know I can't stay forever. That doesn't mean I have to cut off the people from the Insititute thought.'

Glancing up, I caught a glimpse of Scott moving back from the window where I assumed he'd been watching us.

'That's tomorrow's problem. For now, I'm just going to enjoy this,' putting my arms behind my head as I leaned back, Laura looking down next to me with a smile on her face.