The Blues

Posted on Tue Aug 6th, 2024 @ 11:01pm by Jean Grey & Hank McCoy

Mission: Episode 0: X Lang Syne
Location: X-Mansion Attic
Timeline: October 1986 - Post Morlock Encounter

It had been several days since the Morlock incident. Life moved on at the mansion. Injuries were tended and classes resumed. Outside, the air grew cooler and the leaves fell to the ground. All was as it should be.

But one thing was missing.

Nobody had seen hide nor hair of Hank since they had returned.

Though his homework turned up completed every day, it became quickly obvious that he had put in minimal effort. He did not show up for classes or drills. He did not even turn up at meal times. His bed had not been slept in, but all of his things were in his room just as he had left them. It was as if he had simply gone on vacation.

He had not, however, gone on vacation. He had instead retreated to his little out-of-the-way spot in the attic that he had created behind some old bookshelves back when he had first arrived at the mansion. There he had set up a single chair along with an old mattress and a lamp. Of course there were books available, but he had been in no mood to read lately. Instead, he just sat and stared out the tiny window, wallowing in self-pity. This space he had created as a safe haven to which he could get away had been visited less and less over the years, but the past few days he practically lived up here, only venturing down when everyone was asleep to get food.

He had been seriously contemplating leaving, at least for a time. He didn’t know how to come to terms with what had happened. He didn’t know if he even could come to terms with it. The implications had jarred him and he had quickly sunk into a deep depression.

And he didn’t know if he could ever get out of it.

Jean spent the first few days after the Morlock encounter in the school’s infirmary. Her broken arm had been set and was now in an oversized cast that looked like something out of a science fiction movie. It hummed and occasionally glowed yellow as it protected her healing arm. The break would be healed in a couple weeks rather than the normal eight thanks to the advanced medical device.

The mood around the mansion had been off since their return, The Morlocks had taken some sort of toll on all of them but Hank seemed to be suffering the most from it, at least mentally. Dark thoughts and hopeless feelings clouded his mind and they bothered Jean enough to seek him out.

The redhead made her way to the attic space, a task that would have been impossible in her current state but her telekinesis allowed her to effortlessly open the attic’s door and enter the dusty and cluttered space.

“Hank?” Jean called out to him, announcing her presence before she approached. “I baked cookies… chocolate chip… I brought you some… Can I come in?”

Hank’s mind grew dark. He wasn’t sure he wanted to talk to anybody, but he knew Jean wouldn’t go away unless he agreed to talk to her. And maybe he should talk to her; she always has a way of making him feel better. She certainly can’t make me feel any worse, he thought. “Come in,” he called weakly, his usually booming voice sounding small.

Jean’s feet finally touched the ground and the soft groan of wood announced her approach. She paused for a moment and surveyed the makeshift living quarters that Hank had set up for himself. It was dismal and it looked uncomfortable, especially for someone of Hank’s size.

“This is quite the setup you’ve got for yourself up here.” She offered him the plate of cookies she was holding in her freehand. They were soft and chewy, especially compared to store bought. “What brought you up here as opposed to your bedroom?”

Hank glared at the cookies as if they had just insulted his mother, but took one anyway. Jean’s cookies were famous around the school, after all. He wasn’t about to pass them up. “I needed to be alone,” he said, and bit into the cookie, getting half of it in one bite.

Jean nodded her head in agreement, her ponytail bobbing along with the motion. “Sure, being alone while you think about things can be great. But sometimes talking to someone can be even better.”

She set the plate down onto a stack of boxes in order to place her free hand on Hank’s shoulder. “This isn’t you Hank, you’re miserable. Can you please talk to me about it? I hate seeing you like this.”

How could he put all this into words? He mulled it over while he finished the cookie. He took the time to lick the crumbs from his fingers and then he went back to gazing out the window for a moment. “I am strange,” he said finally. “I know that. I’ve always been strange. I’ve accepted it. I’m a mutant and I look like it.

“But the one thing that felt normal was my intelligence. Oh, don’t get me wrong; I know I’m unusually intelligent,” he added and there was no hint of conceit in his voice. “But intelligence is something that existed outside of my mutation. it was purely me and nothing else. I alone was responsible for it. I studied. I did the work for it. It was something I controlled!

“Then, down in the Morlock tunnels… my mind left me. All the preparation I’d made, all the studying I’d done- it was all for nothing. I was reduced to mindless rabble! Nothing made sense to me anymore. I couldn’t make my brain focus on anything and all I wanted to do was to hurt the people who hurt us.

“It wasn’t until the power blocker- Leech, was it?- withdrew that I realized the implications. My intelligence that I had always believed to be all me is actually a result off my mutation. The one thing I had that was all me and it’s not me at all. There is absolutely nothing about me that I control at all. And that… that’s more than I can bear,” he finished with a heavy sigh.

“You don’t consider your mutations to be a part of you?” Jean furrowed her brow from Hank’s statement “Are they not coded into our very DNA?”

While Jean’s discovery and initial use of her mutant abilities had been stemmed in tragedy she now loved her abilities. Her telepathy and telekinesis were like a sixth sense for her.

“If I wear a blindfold, I know I still have sight when it’s removed. My broken arm will heal. These things might be temporarily removed from my use but they still exist, they are still part of me. Why would an attribute provided by my mutation be any different?”

“No, it’s-“ Hank started, frustrated. “I’m not explaining it properly. One moment.” He took a minute to collect his thoughts before continuing. “With my abilities gone, I became little more than a brute. I always thought that without my mutation, at least I would have my intelligence. And now it turns out that without my mutation, I’m no better than the big oafs who bullied me as a child.” He scowled at the cookies before swiping a second one. “It’s all artificial,” he said. “I’m not in control and I’m not who I always believed myself to be.” And he chomped almost aggressively into the cookie.

“Hold on…” Jean lifted a hand up into the air as she contemplated everything Hank had just said. There were so many fallacies in his statements that she had to take a moment to really take them all in. “Let’s unpack all of this.”

Rather than looking for a chair to sit in Jean simply criss crossed her legs mid-air using her telekinesis to sit on nonexistent furniture. A sign that she didn’t plan on leaving anytime soon.

“I wasn’t with you in the tunnel but from our debriefing and the events everyone shared, you still had your abilities during that attack. The attack where you were upset that you became a ‘brute’ that was still all you, nothing was missing or taken away. And you merely intimidated someone, you didn’t actually hurt anyone.”

“As for losing some of your intelligence when your mutations were suppressed and that made you feel less, you’re not the only one who feels that way.” Jean reached out for one of the cookies on the plate she brought with her. She nibbled compared to Hank’s bites. “My telepathy and telekinesis are such a huge part of who I am. They are huge factors in my identity.” Jean looked down at her floating, seated self and laughed a little because of it. “I use my abilities every single day to help me navigate life. If I wasn’t able to read someone’s thoughts or empathize with their emotions, would I be the person I am today? Would I have fallen in love with Scott? Would I have become your friend?”

Jean shrugged her shoulders at all the what ifs she had proposed.

“On the other side of that same coin. I have an eidetic memory because of my telepathy. I could cheat on any test I take. I could win any debate. I could make someone fall in love with me against their will. I could cheapen myself to all those conniving and manipulative facets my mutation could provide, but I know that isn’t who I am either.”

“There is a balance inside of all of us when it comes to using our abilities. Good or bad, I embrace all of it because it’s part of me. I am in control and I choose to do the right things with or without them. My mutant abilities aren’t artificial, the loss of them is.”

She was right, of course. Hank knew she was. And if he were completely honest, he could admit that he felt a little better, but only a little. He sighed deeply. “I suppose you’re right,” he said. “It’s still a depressing thought, though, knowing that I owe my whole being to a random mutation. That nothing I am would exist without it.” He sighed again, looking at her broken arm. “That’s my fault,” he said miserably. “I’m sorry. I should have at least tried. I legitimately believed we were all as good as dead. I just wanted them to be as angry and unsettled as possible before they executed us.”

“It’s not your fault, Hank.” Jean looked down at the high-tech cast on her arm. “Callisto made the choice to break my arm, not you. You couldn’t predict what she would do next. Besides, I should be fine once I’ve recovered.”

Jean took another bite of her cookie before she continued. “Our whole lives are just a series of random events. From conception to death an enormous amount of our life is determined by chance. Who we are is shaped by circumstances that are often beyond our control. Your mutation and what it gives you, it is just a reminder of the unpredictability and fragility of our existence. I know that sounds a bit esoteric, but I think there is something beautiful in that unknown. You are singular in your existence Hank, your mutation has made you something special and amazing. That should be celebrated.”

“I know,” he replied miserably. “I suppose I just need to get my heart to agree. It still feels wrong, though. Contrary. Or… something.” He sighed. It hadn’t made him want to abandon his isolation, though. How could he face his friends after all of that? After acting so… so stupid? How would they ever look at him the same again? He eyed the cookies, but decided against it. He didn’t really have much of an appetite.

"Are you embarrassed?" Jean proposed as she finished her cookie. "Are you afraid we'll think less of you because the sum of your parts are defined differently?" She couldn't help but chuckle a little from that question. "It doesn't matter to any of us, Hank. We saw you in a moment where you lost your brilliance, so what? We're family, we'll love you no matter what."

“I know!” growled Hank, frustrated. “But knowing it and believing it are two different things. I still feel less than everyone else and I don’t know how to fix that. I’m not even sure it can be fixed. Maybe I’m just doomed to feel like this forever.”

“I can’t make you believe anything…” That wasn’t entirely true, Jean could make Hank forget or believe anything that she wanted him to. But she would never do that, Jean’s moral compass matched Xavier’s paragon behavior. “But I can help you understand things better and hopefully come to a conclusion that you believe in on your own. Would you like me to help you do that?”

Hank considered that for a moment. He was absolutely miserable, but he was also apprehensive about feeling better. Maybe he felt like he deserved to be miserable for awhile. “Would I like it or do I need it?” he replied with a wry grin. “Because I believe it would be two different answers.”

“I can’t answer that question for you.” Jean said with a shake of her head that made her red hair bounce. “If you want to be sad, then take all the time you need. We can be happy for you. But if you’re dissatisfied with feeling like this, we can work together to help you overcome it.”

She paused for a moment and looked at Hank until he finally made eye contact with her. Jean’s eyes were a vivid green, like spring grass or budding leaves but there was an honesty in her gaze because Jean always spoke from the heart.

“But I can tell you what I want and need… I want you to see your true value and to be proud of who you are and I need to know that my friend is going to be okay.”

Hank afforded her a small smile. He had often theorized that her telepathy and empathy always gave her the right things to say, but somewhere deep in the back of his mind, he felt like it was just in her nature, that she was just a good person who knew her friends well and was able to be completely honest with them as a result. “Thanks, Jean,” he replied. “It means a lot to know that at least someone thinks I’m valuable.” He sighed and took a third cookie. “Go on, then,” he said with a vague gesture. “Make me feel better.”

“I appreciate your faith in me, Hank. I will definitely try to make you feel a little better.” Jean smirked in a way that made him momentarily doubt what she was capable of. Messing around in someone’s mind could be disastrous if done incorrectly. But before he could think about that any further or before he could protest, Hank felt the gentle pull of Jean’s telepathy upon his psyche. It was like she was taking him by the hand and leading him down a hallway into his own thoughts.

Jean brought them back to the moments surrounding Hank’s hesitation and his response to Callisto’s request for blood. She inhaled deeply as she took in the emotions and thoughts that Hank was feeling in that memory.

“Do you feel that?” Jean said out loud in response to what they were experiencing. “That… right there…” Hank hadn’t identified the sensation until Jean had pointed it out to him.

In that moment Callisto had demanded violence and bloodshed from Hank, and he in return experienced an immediate inner tension with an increase of adrenaline and heart rate. An immediate state of “fight-flight” filled Hank and the response it manifested was that angry and hopeless reaction. As the interactional conflict between Hank and Callisto continued, he entered into a “vapor lock” phase, in which the intensity of his negative emotion became overwhelming. The science behind that moment was the pre-cortex and frontal lobes of the brain functioning were compromised. It made Hank emotionally stuck, tense, and unable to think clearly as he was flooded with the negative effects. The reasoning capacity had short circuited and Hank was left stupefied in response.

“Do you understand what happened?” Jean asked him as they reviewed the science behind his hesitation and his reaction.

Of course! In the fight or flight reaction, Hank’s instinct was to fight. However, the only person there was to fight was not his enemy. With the inability to flee, his brain had completely shut down and refused to do anything. It all made perfect sense. “Yes,” he replied finally. “I think I do.”

“Good, I’m glad to hear that.” Jean said with a grin as she patted him on the shoulder. “Do you feel well enough to at least come downstairs with me?”

“I don’t suppose there’s really any point in hiding any longer,” he said almost sadly. But whether he was sad to leave his solitude or sad that he had even considered continuing it was unclear. “Yes, let’s go,” he added.

Jean’s grin softened into a warm smile as Hank agreed to leave the attic and return to mansion. She was sure it would take him a little bit more time to come to terms with what happened with the Morlocks, they all would. But at least he was willing to leave his self-imposed isolation, they were better together.

“You picked a good night to come back for dinner, it’s meatloaf night.” Jean said with a laugh as they opened the stairs to the attic and began to descend. “I’ll even make sure you get the end piece everyone fights for.”