First Impressions (Part Five)

One of my worst problems was passing the time.

Not during the day, I mean. There was plenty to do between classes: exploring the Institute, squad training, and more. No shortage of interesting activities there.

Nighttime was a different beast altogether.

When curfew hit, we all had to be inside of our rooms. That was fine, because most people actually slept. Not so much for me, because I was effectively rendered an insomniac courtesy of my powers. The nature of them made it much harder for me to feel physical fatigue.

If I went outside where the amount of energy I took in wasn't so bad at night, I could get myself down from green to red in an hour or so if I didn't stop for anything. But by the time I walked across campus, through the dorm and back to my room to get myself ready to go to bed, my eyes would be yellow again.

Eventually, I just stopped trying to sleep. If it happened, it happened. It was a waste of time to try, and if staying up wound up tiring me out, great! That was the point. It never did though. In the few weeks I had been at the Institute, I had only had more than three hours of sleep once.

It made homework a lot less of a worry. I could knock it out whenever I wanted to. Say for instance, three o'clock in the morning. Why not? It wasn't like there was much else to do.

Fighting the still life became too much to keep at bay with the riveting pastime of studying to use as a weapon against it. One night when I ventured outside of my quarters, I learned that the aforementioned curfew was only as effective as the guards who were awake to enforce it.

As long as I wasn't stupid and didn't decided that running amok on the lawns where all of the goddamn motion sensors and security measures were set up, I had my run of the place.

It was a nice environment for nighttime walks. The air was fresh and clean. It was quiet. What more could you ask for?

…Some entertainment, for one, but a nice stroll around the premises was good enough on most given nights. Beggars couldn't really be choosers.

"Kind of late to be up and about, isn't it?" I heard someone call out to me before I got to the entrance of the hedge maze. From inside, Mr. Logan stepped out, dressed in his more casual attire of jeans and flannel. He nonchalantly lit a cigar as he stepped towards me. Silence reigned until he got enough of his fill of tobacco to raise the point again, "Well? I'm waiting? You got an excuse?"

"H-Have you been watching me this whole time?" I asked, trying to gauge how much trouble I was in.

"I can smell you moving around some nights. Never seem to be up to anything, but the moment you let your guard down around here, something bad happens. So, what are you doing, kid?" He asked again, "The curfew is actually for your protection."

"I can't sleep. Ever," I said bluntly, laying my cards on the table. If I wound up on someone's shit list, so be it. These were extenuating circumstances in my opinion, "I can get like, an hour at most, even if I wear myself down as much as I can. Then I'll just wake right back up."

"A little young to have insomnia, ain'tcha?"

"It's how my powers work," I held up my hand, making it to glow to show him what I could do, "I absorb light. Even moonlight. I haven't gotten around to getting to town to buy curtains that'll shut out the light completely."

"Neat."

"Yeah, I like it. Most of the time, anyway. Side-effect, because there's always light, I'm always charged. I miss sleep."

"And I know how important a good night's rest is for you growing boys."

I blocked a laugh with a snort. Dignified, "So, I'm just gonna ask, because I'm curious. Whether you feel like answering or not… meh," I was already in trouble and thought that he didn't think much of me in the first place. Making it worse wasn't really an issue, "Did I do something to piss you off? Like the car crash. Was that it?"

He seemed confused until a look of realization crossed his face, "This about me stomping eight shades of shit outta you earlier?" He ventured.

"It's about you stomping eight shades of shit out of me… sir."

He took his time to answer. I hadn't taken Mr. Logan as someone who measured his words carefully when I first met him, "I didn't bust you up because I don't like ya. I really don't care one way or the other. I've had enough kids around here latch onto me. Don't really need one more," He explained coolly, "I did what I did because you're one of the only ones takin' it serious."

I thought he was screwing with me at first, "What? You mean the training?" I thought it went without saying that I would. When people were punching at your face, it was intelligent to put your best foot forward, "You told me to fight you. Of course, I'm taking it serious."

"And that's what I'm talkin' about. Everyone else treats it like a class, which it is, but… grr… you know what I mean."

I did. Even most of the students in the advanced course didn't take it that seriously. On the sidelines they would chat and screw around until it was their turn, possibly because of the thought that a teacher would never really hurt them. Maybe it was because I didn't really have any friends in the class, or because I was really interested in the nuances of how to hit and not be hit, but I paid rapt attention.

"What about that one kid, David?" I asked, remembering one of the kids from earlier who did quite well from what I saw, "He did much better than me."

To my surprise, Mr. Logan shook his head, taking a moment to breathe out the smoke from his cigar grumpily, "He's really not learning anything in there. Just standing near me, he knows everything about fighting that I do as long as he's around. S'how his powers work," The man told me, "He'd get a better feel for fighting that'd be more useful to him during team sims than working with me. Nothing'll ever stick because he'll lose it as soon as we get far enough apart. You though. It looked like you wanted to fight. You actually try to pick up what I'm hammering into your head, even when I'm literally hammering it into your head."

Well yeah. That was the entire reason I started attending the school in the first place; to learn how to not get beaten to a pulp by the bad guys, "I'm at superhero school. If I had problems with getting slapped around a bit, I probably signed up for the wrong thing."

Mr. Logan gave me a lopsided grin, his teeth chomping a cigar, "Just needed to make sure," He seemed somehow satisfied by what I'd been saying since the conversation started, "Figured you were gonna tell until the day ended and I hadn't gotten an earful. If I'd have bloodied anyone else's nose like yours, I'd have been sitting in an office having a conversation with Slim and Frost about being too hard on the students."

"I'm no wuss," I replied. Did I really give off the impression that I would snitch instead of trying to solve my own problems? And that wasn't even a real problem. It was just a trial to deal with, "Just as long as I can learn something while you're ripping me to shreds in front of all the other kids, I'll deal with it. I can't wait to make your face look like you did mine. One day."

"Feel free to use that receipt… whenever you're good enough," He said, basically challenging me to get good enough to rearrange his face on my own terms, "…What are you doing right now?"

I looked around at the empty courtyard we were in. Not even the sprits of the dead X-Men and other students that probably haunted the place were awake at that hour, "Not sleeping," I said with a shrug.

"Want to try again right now?"

And that was how I found a new way to spend certain nights when I couldn't sleep: getting my ass handed to me by Wolverine. Apparently he got just as bored as I did at three o'clock in the morning.

Recreational drinking and smoking had to lose its luster at some point, I guess.