The X-Project

Arthur Centino arrives at the mansion.

Blink teleports Arthur away from the scene in Nevada, and right into Wade's open arms.

Wade had his feet up on the fuzzy, mirrored coffee table in the common area of the suite he shared with Clarice, remote control in hand as he prepared for an epic Mythbusters marathon. Which was, of course, when a purple portal opened at the end of the sofa and his roommate popped pop, a familiar looking blond dude in hand. The mercenary was already opening his mouth to say 'no' when Clarice dropped Arthur onto the couch and disappeared back through her portal. "Dammit, Skittles," he yelled, knowing it was pointless even as he did it.

The blond in question was a mess. His hair was ruffled, his clothing was torn, and he seemed to be missing one shoe. His expression, wide-eyed and spooked, was overshadowed by the glow from his left eye. The man's gaze locked on Wade confusedly, and he tried to scramble backward but ended up seating himself uncomfortably on the sectional.

Every computer on this story of the mansion suddenly experienced a blue screen of death.

"Goddammit, Skittles," Wade yelled, adding extra emphasis this time as his laptop went belly up and turned all kinds of blue. He was pretty sure not even Doug or Sarah could bring Maude 2.0 back from the brink this time. "What the hell, Centino! Aren't you dead? Is that a dog?" There was definitely a small dog in the reality star's arms.

The man wasn't listening. He frantically scanned for exits as he made to find footing against the upholstery, but the wooziness of teleporting was taking its toll. He started to bolt, but instead tripped over the back of the sofa ungracefully, nearly losing his hold on the puppy.

Something loud and fragile sounding fell over in the hallway with a plink. This was followed by a similar chorus of small porcelain deaths.

Entirely unimpressed, Wade started throwing things at Arthur. "Fucking stop it, glowstick," he shouted. "Calm down or I'ma limp my shot-assed self up and throttle you and Doc Cece will yell at me and probably punch you again. I think your dog is safe, though."

Arthur, still moving, was beaned by the first object thrown, but quickly moved to block each subsequent throw. "Wha--" Bonk. "Stop." Smash. "Really, this is --" Thud. Each deflected object hit something expensive nearby even if the geometry of things didn't quite add up. The blond paused, awkwardly, as the last projectile -- a television remote -- hit Maude 2.0 dead-on and put a dent in her screen.

Completely deadpan, Arthur turned back to Wade. "Well, that sucks."

"She was dead, anyway," Wade said, patting his laptop almost sadly. She was the next thing on his list of items to chuck at Centino if necessary. It was a good thing he had accurate aim - didn't want anyone accusing him of animal cruelty. "So now that you're, y'know. Still glowing but not doing whatever the hell you were doing before, how about you take a breath and we can figure out why the hell Skittles dropped you almost literally in my lap."

The new situation had finally caught up to the other man, and the causal nonchalance of Wade's words was disconcerting enough to pull him back from the edge due to sheer WTHity. Arthur, breath calming, took this moment of clarity to fully appreciate that he was suddenly not in the wilderness. Nothing was on fire. There was a television. The room smelled of tacos. His puppy squirmed impatiently in his arms.

He blinked, and suddenly the questions came rapid fire: "Where the fuck am I? Who is Skittles? What's going on? Why does my eye feel like it is on fire?"

"You're in Westchester, New York. Skittles is the purple chick in black who just dropped you through a portal and into our suite. That's not her real name, obviously, but I don't know what your clearance level is so that's all you're getting from me on that front until I get some answers of my own. I have no idea what's going on, but if you have anything to do with me and my bff getting shot yesterday, I'ma smack the shit out of you. And your eye probably feels like it's on fire because it's still glowing like a mini sun so you should probably stick your head between your knees before you pass out or something," Wade said, reaching over to the end table for his plate of tacos. He took a bite of one, chewed for a moment, then offered the plate to Arthur and said, "Want one?"

"Wait. Hold up a minute. New York?"

"Upstate. Nowhere near the city. Well, that's a lie. We're like an hour from the city. Are you gonna eat a taco or do I get this massive plate of deliciousness all to myself? Cause I'm totally good with that."

Arthur snatched the taco before Wade could pull the plate back, but held it hostage. Questions before tacos. "I was on the West Coast. How does that even work? Are you working for Mojo?"

Wade made a mental note to ask the ladybird who Mojo was even as he said, "Skittles is a mutant. Her power is being able to open portals wherever she wants. I think she needs coordinates for that, but I'm not sure. We've never really gotten into details about how hers works. Mine's a gimpy healing factor." He took another bite of his taco and chewed for a moment before saying, "Also, no. I got shot yesterday. I don't know a Mojo. Eat your taco." Holding out a piece of seasoned beef, Wade made a cooing little 'c'mere' at the puppy even as the small animal wriggled free of Arthur's loosening grip.

Arthur eyed his taco cautiously, but other things were falling into place behind his gaze. "Mutants. Everything that happened. I'm a -- " His left eye pulsed once more, but then the glow died. "You were shot? Shouldn't you be in a hospital?"

"Healing factor," Wade reminded the other man around another mouthful of taco. "Besides, we've basically got a hospital here. Doc Reyes would kick my ass if I tried to leave, anyway. She yelled at me a lot yesterday. Kinda want to avoid a repeat of that if I can. So what were you doing on the West Coast that got you all riled up and shiny?"

"I... was being chased," Arthur responded as he decided to stop awkwardly shifting toward the exit and take a seat, "I was in a train wreck. Everything is kind of blurry. Turns out my agents were evil and there was a truck and explosions and a motel may have fallen apart around me."

He shrugged, testing the taco like it might be a figment of his imagination. "This is surreal compared to that, but I wager a dream would have better company."

"Pssh," Wade said, waving his mostly eaten taco in front of his face for a moment. "I'm infinitely better company than a dream, don't even try to lie. Unless I find out you intend to do dastardly thing to Cece, in which case I will be awful company for you."

"I have no idea who that is." A nibble. "Well, at least the tacos are good."

"The tacos are excellent. And Doc Reyes - Cecilia. You paid like 30k for her back in July at a charity auction. I should know, I tried out outbid you but she gave me her patented 'Wilson, stop being an asshole' look from the stage, so I stopped waving my little paddle thing around. Hang on." Grabbing his mobile, Wade speed dialed Jean and said, "Sup, doc? I've got a sitch up here with that dude with the cheesy brain. I think you should come intervene on my behalf, seeing as I'm all incapacitated with holes and he's broken my laptop." Looking back at Arthur, his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone, Wade continued, "You should eat another taco, dude. The food in the medlab's not bad, but it's not as good as this stuff. Seriously." Then he shifted just enough so he could pet the puppy now sitting near his elbow, small tail wagging so enthusiastically that he almost fell over where he sat.

Arthur eyed the other man suspiciously, but took a big bite of his taco. He may either be dead or knocked out, but food was food and he hadn't eaten a real meal in days. He figured it was important to take what you could get in hallucinations. As for the explanation, Wade got a shrug. "No, last month I was in California. I do not know what you are talking about."

"We're talking the charity auction from July, my man," Wade said, listening with a half an ear as Doc Jean did her thing on the other end of the line. "But HDJ did say you were like Swiss cheese or something. So I might forgive you for being a jerk if it's by accident. Do you remember getting punched last month? And where did you get this little dude from? He's the cutest little mutt I've seen in ages. And he has excellent taste in food if his appreciation of this taco meat is any indication."

"Felix," and Arthur beckoned, attempting to lure the pup from the stranger with his own taco, "Was a gift from the fair and loving people of..." He blinked. "I stopped a bank robbery in the midwest. I impaled a man's hand with a pen. But, see, the bank was next to an animal shelter and..." His gaze drifted away as if trying to recover fuzzy details. "But that was last month. In July. That doesn't seem right. Felix has been with me ever since. He was on the train."

He petted the puppy absently. The sound of heavy shoefalls could be heard coming down the hall.

Wade nodded along for a moment as the footsteps got closer, debating whether or not to do the obvious thing. Shrugging as he swallowed his last bite of taco, he said, "Yeah, it's definitely December, dude. So last month was November. Not July. But don't worry, HDJ and company's on their way. They'll get things sorted." As he raised his next taco to take a bit, a knock sounded from the suite door.

Arthur stared blankly at the man and his tacos. The golden retriever had turned and grabbed what was left of the star's remaining food, and munched on it happily.

"Mr. Centino," came a disembodied voice, and a rush of medical coats and fussing about self-bandaged wounds took the blond star out of the room, leaving only Jamie, Adam, Wade, and Felix to appreciate a fizzled explosion as the music from the television swelled dramatically.

"Busted," Jamie intoned sadly over the television speakers.

---

Arthur is moved to a holding cell in the basement and debriefed by Jean.

Arthur sat up quite suddenly as the polished, metal door slid open. He looked completely awful: puffy eyes, mussed hair, and a patchwork of bruises and burns along his arms and legs. His expression, quite like a cornered raccoon, didn't help.

He pointed accusingly at the door. A bulky bracelet clanked against chair as he shifted to better assume an accusatory pose.

"You, you can't keep me here." His tone was neither convincing or particularly threatening.

Jean stepped into the small holding room, closing the door behind her. She was wearing her labcoat, something she'd gotten used to having on like a favorite necklace, and a simple pencil skirt and sweater with high heels that added to her already 6 ft. stature. The two of them were a study in reversals from their initial meeting: one bleary eyed, the other one calm and confident.

Taking a seat in the chair opposite from Arthur, Jean shook her head. "I'm sorry for how things turned out. After what happened we had to take precautions due to the unpredictable nature of your abilities and your mental state. You're perfectly safe here, I promise."

His gesture quickly turned into an exaggerated full-body shrug. "I don't feel safe! I don't even know where 'here' is! I have rights!"

"You're at the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters," Jean said, sympathetic but unwavering. "We help and teach mutants how to control their abilities. You were brought here because your powers were out of control and were hurting people. I know this is very disorienting and scary. I promise we won't hurt you, but you also have to make that promise if I remove the cuffs. There are other people here, children, and if you hurt them I will have to break that promise. Do you understand?"

"I..." This was accompanied with a blank stare of incomprehension. "What? No. What?"

"What was unclear?" Jean said.

Arthur flinched away from the harshness of her words, and his tone wavered with uncertainty. "Well, I've only recently learned I have powers. I have no idea what you're talking about. You're saying that all of that — everything back in the mountains — was me?"

His gaze fell guiltily down to the inhibitor pulsing on his wrist. "One minute I'm running for my life in a forest from my agent's boss and the next I'm a prisoner in a school and no one is giving me any details."

The reaction she received from him made Jean soften, and she shook her head. "I'm sorry," she said softly. "I believe you have a form of probability manipulation, which makes you very lucky, but it also seems to have a trade off...while you receive all the benefits of your power, bad things can happen to other people to compensate somehow. Since it can be a subtle power you likely never noticed it. But the more you used it, the more things kept happening, and the more people noticed you, like Mojo. And he used you to further his own means. We didn't notice either until we began to put the pieces together. I know of a few people who have similar abilities. They were eventually able to learn how to control their power. I think we'd be able to help you too."

She herself glanced down. "Again, I'm sorry you had to be brought in under such circumstances. The introduction of people to our school is usually less rough."

"You're saying that I'm a mutant and my power is being... lucky?" This was obliviously hard to process for the man. "If I'm that lucky, why would people ever try to kill me? Seems barely useful."

"You'd be surprised," Jean mused. "People can find a way to do anything. But yes, you're a mutant. As far as abilities go you are lucky in the figurative and literal sense. There are worse powers to have."

"I guess, well, I suppose I never noticed?" The glaze in his eyes and his slack-jawed expression hinted toward the beginnings of a downward existential cycle that, had he had slept much in the past few days, Arthur would never stand for. "You said this was a school."

"Like I said, It can be a subtle ability. It doesn't mean it's bad. It's just who you are," Jean said, a look of sympathy shadowing her face. "We have a number of younger students. The X-gene generally manifests at puberty. We also have the occasional guest, like yourself. I can show you around, if you'd like."

He squinted skeptically. "So. Say I have these bad luck powers. Why did you lot decide to drop me in the middle of a school with kids? Isn't that putting them unnecessarily at risk?"

"There are many here with abilities, including the students themselves, that could arguably put people at risk. But they need our help, and we are not going to turn away someone just because of what they can do," Jean said.

"If it comes down to it, we have another facility designed specifically to help with people whose powers can be incredibly dangerous and out of control. But I don't think you fall into that category."

"You just said my powers were out of control and that I hurt people!" His hands were in the air again, and his voice pitched high toward exasperation. "I also have a life! A career!"

Jean remained calm as Arthur descended into hysterics, a sympathetic look in her eyes. "I know. But that place is for those who have tried and tried to control themselves but they can't. I think you can. Otherwise we wouldn't have brought you here. Many of us have been in the same situation...myself included."

She looked away, shaking her head. "I don't know about your career. Mojo built so much of it...now with him as your enemy..." She let out a breath.

"I'm asking you to take some time to recover and regroup here, a couple of days at least. We have plenty of room. You've had a very traumatic experience. "

"Oh," but then the weight of her statement hit him. "They would never... I built my career... I mean... oh." Arthur frowned, an expression that seemed to snag everything he had built up in defense down with it. "Nothing is going to be the same, is it?"

The look in his eyes made Jean fall silent for a few moments. The cuffs seemed to unlock on their own as Jean tentatively reached out to put her hand on his shoulder.

"Yes, but you don't have to do it alone," she said quietly.

His gaze was too focused inward to register any sort of reaction. "What do you do when everything is a lie?"

"You start over," Jean said. "Throw out the lies and look to yourself...figure out what's important, and then begin again. It's hard, but sometimes that's all you can do."

Arthur sighed and looked down, hugging himself as a shiver went down his spine. He was suddenly a very small and fragile thing. His voice was distant, uncertain. "What I'd really like to do before that all is get some sleep. I want to feel safe. Am I safe?"

This side of Arthur was a complete departure from the man she had met at the charity benefit. Once the untouchable, confident celebrity who basked in the limelight, his eyes had now been opened the darkness that the limelight masked by it's irrepressible glow. It was a harsh reality to face, to come down like Icarus when he used to fly so high in the clouds. But the school was often a place of second chances.

"Yes, you're safe," Jean said with a soft smile. "Rest awhile."