Chapter 44: Campfire Confrontations
Note: We did NOT meet the goal, but I'm posting double-chapter anyway to not cliff you guys. Better start voting!!😞💔
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The scent of pine and roasting marshmallows drifted through the evening air, mixing with the lingering sulfur from Kurt's teleportation. My muscles ached in that satisfying way that came after a good fight, though 'good' was relative when you'd just killed a planet-eating parasite from the inside out.
Jean Grey sat across from me at the campfire, looking pale but steady. The psychic feedback from the Great Tick had hit her like a sledgehammer to the brain, but she was tougher than she looked. Had to be, to survive Xavier's tutelage – indeed, more than being the host of the Phoenix Force.
"I wanted to thank you properly," she said, her voice carrying that particular tone of someone trying very hard to be formal while exhausted. "What you did today... it was impressive as Jubilee said, but also heroic. To rush into that creature's insides without caring about dangers, it took courage. We would have lost people without you."
I shrugged, poking at the fire with a stick. "Just did what needed doing."
"No, it was more than that." She leaned forward, green eyes intense despite the dark circles under them. "Heroic spirit isn't in everyone, Ben. Trust me, I've read a lot of people's minds to know—something I regret, by the way. I'm just saying that the way you maintained your calm and navigated the situation was commendable. And how you used each of your transformations strategically, too. Quick thinker. I'd have loved to have someone like you as a student. If only you were a mutant."
The stick in my hand went still. Around us, the other X-Men were scattered across the campsite – Bobby creating ice sculptures to amuse himself, Roberto and Jubilee arguing about music, Kurt resting with an ice pack on his fuzzy blue head. But they were all within earshot, and I saw several heads turn at Jean's words.
"And that," I said quietly, "is exactly what's wrong with you guys."
Jean blinked. "I'm sorry?"
"Isn't that pretty racist?" I set the stick down, meeting her gaze directly. "You'd want me as a student, but only if I had the right genes? Only if I was born special in the specific way you approve of?"
"That's not what I—"
"But it is." I kept my voice calm, but I could feel everyone listening now. Even Grandpa Max had looked up from his conversation with Gwen. "You mutants try so hard to be a 'different race' when there's literally no difference between you and, say, Captain America. He became special through a serum. Spider-Man got bit by a radioactive spider. The Fantastic Four flew through cosmic rays. But somehow, you're fundamentally different because you were born with your powers?"
Jean's mouth opened and closed, but no words came out.
"Why does Xavier's school have to be mutant-only?" I continued. "Why not a school for all super-powered individuals? What makes the X-Gene so special that you need to segregate yourselves? You talk about fighting prejudice while literally building walls between yourselves and everyone else."
"We're protecting young mutants from a world that hates and fears them," Jean said, but her voice lacked conviction.
"Are you? Or are you creating that hate by insisting you're separate?" I gestured around the campfire. "Look at Spider-Man. He's beloved in New York. The Fantastic Four are celebrities. But mutants are feared. Ever wonder why?"
Kitty phased through a log to sit closer, her eyes wide. "Because... because people are scared of us?"
"No. People are scared of the unknown. Of separation. Of groups that insist they're fundamentally different and need their own schools, their own teams, their own everything." I looked back at Jean. "Magneto's a supremacist who thinks mutants should rule. Xavier's a separatist who thinks mutants need protection from humanity. They're two sides of the same racist coin, and their views are the main reason the world hates 'mutants' but celebrates the Fantastic Four. You're a smart woman, and, as you said, read a lot of minds, be it civilians and mutants. Am I wrong?"
The silence that followed was deafening. Even the crackling fire seemed to quiet down.
"You're saying..." Bobby's voice was uncertain, "that by trying to protect ourselves, we're making things worse?"
"I don't know man, I'm no philosopher," I shrugged. "But if you're curious in my nonsense opinion anyway, well, I'm saying that by insisting you're a separate species needing separate institutions, you're creating the very prejudice you claim to fight." I picked up the stick again, drawing patterns in the dirt. "Imagine if Captain America started a school only for super-soldiers. Or if Spider-Man said he could only work with other spider-powered people. It'd be weird, right? Divisive?"
"But we're born this way," Roberto protested. "We didn't choose—"
"Neither did I." I held up my wrist, the Omnitrix gleaming in the firelight. "This thing chose me. Does that make me fundamentally different from you? Should I start an Omnitrix-bearer school?" I added, "And for what counts, I can become any species I want to be. But not into any of you here. Because you and I are the same. 'Humans'. Not some different species. Then again, maybe this is just a dumb technology, right?"
It was no dumb piece of tech. If 'gene' and 'DNA' was truly the special thing about mutants separating them from humans, as the bearer of the Omnitrix, I probably had some say on it.
Kurt laughed despite his concussion, then winced. "Mein Gott, he has a point."
Jean stared into the fire, her expression distant. When she finally spoke, her voice was soft. "I... I never thought of it that way. We've been so focused on protecting our own that we never considered we might be... self-segregating."
"The path to hell," Grandpa Max said quietly, speaking for the first time, "is paved with good intentions."
Gwen looked at me with something like surprise. Maybe even pride. It made my chest warm in a way that had nothing to do with the fire.
"I'll consider these words carefully, Ben," Jean said, her expression serious. "I really will. Professor Xavier... he needs to hear this perspective."
"Good luck with that," I said, but I smiled to soften it. "From what I've heard, he's pretty set in his ways."
"Most telepaths are," she admitted with a rueful smile. "When you can read minds, you tend to think you know better than everyone else."
"Must be tough," I said, and meant it. "All those voices all the time."
We talked for a while after that, the tension from earlier completely gone. Jean told me about the school, about students struggling with powers they couldn't control. I told her about some of my transformations, carefully leaving out the parts where I knew exactly what was coming thanks to memories from another life.
Eventually, the groups merged back together, conversations flowing easier now that the philosophical bomb had been dropped and processed. Jubilee kept shooting me looks from across the fire, clearly working up to something.
Finally, she made her move.
"Mind if I sit?" She didn't wait for an answer, plopping down beside me with a rustle of her torn yellow jacket. Close. Too close. I could smell her strawberry lip gloss and the faint ozone scent that clung to her from her powers.
"Nice night," I said neutrally.
"Nice night? Dude, you just saved the world and that's what you're going with? Well at least Yellowstone, if not the world itself. If nobody came in time, Kurt might have been able to bring backup before things truly got planetary, but yeah." She laughed, the sound bright and genuinely amused. "Those moves earlier were insane. The way you just dove into that thing like it was nothing..."
"It was something," I admitted. "Pretty gross something, actually."
"But you did it anyway." She shifted closer, her shoulder brushing mine. "Well, I'm just saying whatever Professor Jean said, but that was hot. All your forms that buff?"
The flirtation was about as subtle as her plasma blasts. From across the fire, I felt more than saw Gwen watching us. Her spellbook was open in her lap, but her eyes weren't on the pages.
"You into Armadillos?" I asked sarcastically, giving Jubilee a polite smile while my eyes flicked to Gwen for just a second.
"Ow, you're no fun," she whined.
"It's just a tiring day, you know?"
That little rejection was enough. Gwen's lips curved in the tiniest smirk of victory, there and gone so fast I might have imagined it. Except I didn't, because the moment our eyes met, hers widened. A blush crept up her neck as she realized I'd caught her reaction. She snapped her gaze back to her book so fast she probably gave herself whiplash.
That non-verbal exchange said more than hours of conversation could have.
"Right," Jubilee said slowly, catching the undercurrents even if she didn't understand them. "Well, if you ever want to hang out in Westchester..."
"I'll keep it in mind," I said, still friendly but clearly uninterested in what she was offering. She was a hot one, one who I'd definitely said more than that on a different day, but I wasn't blind and knew I couldn't keep avoiding the greater situation.
She got the message, popping one last bubble before rejoining Roberto and Bobby's debate about whether disco was actually dead or just hiding.
The fire burned lower as conversations wound down. People started drifting toward their tents. The X-Men had their own setup about fifty yards from ours, close enough for safety but far enough for privacy. Grandpa Max was already snoring in the Rust Bucket, his ability to fall asleep anywhere still impressive.
I watched Gwen slip away from the dying fire, muttering something about checking the ley lines. Or maybe she said she wanted to watch the stars. I wasn't really listening to her words so much as watching the tense line of her shoulders.
I gave her a minute. Then I followed.
The forest at night was a different world. Moonlight filtered through pine branches, creating patterns of silver and shadow. I found her in a small clearing, head tilted back to look at the Milky Way sprawled across the sky like God's own graffiti.
"Big sky out here," I said, keeping my voice casual.
She didn't turn around. "Bigger than New York's."
"Most things are."
We stood there in silence, the weight of unspoken things pressing down like the dark between stars. I could have let it go. Should have, maybe. But I was tired of dancing around whatever this was.
It was time I confronted her.
"So," I said, "what was that smirk about earlier?"
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