Chapter Text
Fitz rubbed his temples, very frustrated with the oncoming migraine he could feel as soon as he stepped into the classroom. He couldn’t remember exactly what had happened but he could remember the way the dominoes fell to grant him the power that he had.
He was playing tetherball, with Alex and Louis. He had a bandage wrapped around his left thumb from a paper cut he’d received earlier while grabbing a paper out of his backpack. Louis had hit the ball on the pole hard, basically slammed it as if the world was going to end. Fitz jumped up to hit it as the tetherball soared down and hit him straight in the face. He fell backwards and hit his head, the world blanking out quickly.
The next thing he knew, he had woken up in the hospital and was able to read everyone’s minds. He had the sense not to tell anyone. They’d all think he was crazy, or they’d actually believe him and something horrible would happen, like in one of those sci-fi movies his older brother was obsessed with.
Fitz sighed, shaking his head as if it would get rid of the memory replay as he sat down in his seat. He took out his notebook, not like he would really need it but it was a necessity for him to have out or he’d get points taken off for the day.
“Mr. Anderson, why are you not attending your field trip?” his teacher commented with a clipped voice.
“Didn’t wanna go.” Fitz answered. He really didn’t. Not many of the kids here liked him, and he decided that if most of them were going on the field trip, then he’d be able to spend the rest of the day basically alone.
It sounded like paradise honestly.
His teacher sighed. Ms. Liv was always one of his more lenient teachers, nice most of the time too. “I’m guessing that Mr. Schonbrun forgot to inform you that it could help your final grade? And gains extra participation points in class?”
Fitz bolted upright. His teachers had been taking away most of his participation points for falling asleep in class, or not even being able to focus due to his chronic migraines.
Damn it. There goes his perfectly good Away From The General Population of Human Beings day.
Ms. Liv smiled. “The bus is still outside if you want to try and catch it.” Fitz smiled back at her, gratitude expelling from his very pores as he rushed off, throwing his notebook in his backpack annd zipping it up as he ran.
He skidded down a hallway, towards the exit near the bus loop. He had nearly memorized the layout of the school, but the exits were all in mind pretty well. As he continued along, he just barely managed to shove himself through the push open doors with the faded sign still taped to the glass.
Everyone was already loaded up, and the doors were about to close until Fitz put his hand in between them to stop them from closing. Dumb move, really, but he relied on the automatic sensors. Thank god this was one of the newer buses.
“Mr. Anderson.” The man at the front of the bus tutted, seeming annoyed by the boy’s mere presence. “You can go take a seat now.”
Fitz just nodded, thanking the bus driver before rushing to the back of the bus. As soon as he had gotten onto the bus, people were staring. He hated the seats up by the front of the bus. There was a system, but it honestly felt like a system only Fitz could see. The popular kids either sat in the very back or in the very front, depending on what class you were going with. The unpopular kids that were decently normal sat in between the middle and the front of the bus, almost like a separator for the middle of the bus and the popular kids. The unpopular kids, maybe ones with certain outcasted qualities, sat in the middle and miscellaneous students sat in the back.
Fitz fit into the miscellaneous category of students. The seats in the back of the bus were better anyways, since he could sink away from people in their corners.
After about an hour or so, they got to the science center. Not Fitz’s favorite subject but definitely not his least favorite. Science was interesting enough to keep him awake during lessons. He was thankful that his knees didn’t buckle once he stood up, due to the lack of use in the past hour or so. It felt great to stretch his legs, and he was even more grateful about being at the back of the bus, since nobody was behind him and urging him to move along faster than what the guy in front of him was doing.
Obviously, he couldn’t move at a snail’s pace but moving without stress and angry thoughts wafting from behind him was nice. He thanked the bus driver again before he hopped down the stairs of the bus, getting in line with the other students and waiting for the head count to be finished.
The teachers led them inside, and were given free roam as long as they stuck to their respective groups. Each group had a parent chaperone, and Fitz’s group chaperone was luckily one of the nicer ones. Older dad, probably in his mid forties, was a bit mad about ‘missing the game’ since he came on the field trip, but he was happy that his kid was actually excited about something. Fitz had gotten considerably good with his poker face considering the fact that everyone who was around him had their thoughts screaming like it was a Twitch chat. He just vaguely listened to what the chaperone had to say, much more interested in the closed off exhibit, covered with a tarp. A sign stood in front of the tarp, saying ‘Pardon our dust! New Exhibit … Coming Soon!’
That rich and heavy childish urge to tear down the tarp was real, but Fitz was good at containing himself. He forced himself to listen to the chaperone’s voice instead of his thoughts.
“... And that, children, is why you don’t go making bets with those kinds of people.” Oh. So Fitz hadn’t missed anything interesting, just another boring story. Most of the kids around him seemed to be thinking similar things, a few curious minds wanting to ask to see a nearby exhibit labeled ‘Earth Matters’.
Fitz knew they weren’t going to get anywhere with this, decidedly speaking up. “Could we head to that exhibit?” he asked, a very polite and formal tone as his eyes poured into the middle aged man’s.
That was one thing people could never seem to get over. His teal eyes. They were weird. Unnatural, freakish even. Even Fitz’s parents were confused by it sometimes. He’d heard them discussing things a few times as a child about his birth. How teal eyes weren’t in either of their genetic pools. His father always ended up winning with his somewhat shaky reasoning of ‘genetic lottery’.
“Oh. Uhm.” The man cleared his throat, clearly not having acknowledged Fitz until the moment he spoke up. His eyes were throwing the man off guard, he could tell. They did that to most people. It was fun, sometimes. Watching and listening as the people questioned his eye color and if he was really human or some figment of their imagination. “Yes, sure, that sounds great. How about that everyone?”
Everyone seemed to agree after about two or three people nodded. So they headed to the exhibit. Lots of activities were stationed in the room, different machines and screens that the other kids all ran to play with. None of it looked all that enticing to Fitz, though he was glad the lectures from their chaperone had ceased.
That was how most of the day continued on. Occasional random chaperone lectures, sometimes bumping into another group of students and avoiding eye contact. Moving from exhibit to exhibit. Eventually they stopped near the main visitors entrance, and the teacher who was overseeing the field trip began talking.
“And for the last half hour of our trip, you will be allowed to explore this area on your own,” he announced. “But do not exit these doors without an adult, and do not go farther past the gift shop.” Gift shop. The words rang through Fitz’s head like a bell. He’d been meaning to get his little brother something for his birthday that was coming up in a few weeks. He knew the kid wasn’t entirely excited with science, but was determined to find something.
And so it was decided. Fitz ventured away from the group after the announcements, making his way to the gift shop. He vaguely took note of the other people exploring the shop, which only seemed to be a blond figure in an aisle farther back. The cashier was sitting at the checkout counter on her phone. Fitz breezed past the snow globe area, about 75% sure that if he bought a snowglobe for his brother, it’d go mysteriously missing. He instead settled down in a crouch to look through the different mini-kits that seemed to excite anyone of just about any age with enough time and curiosity to complete it.
Rocks. Not something that Leo might be interested in. Maybe the magnets or the circuit building kit. The chain reaction did seem fun too. Of course, this was just his brain throwing facts up at him to try and ignore the blond boy’s ice blue eyes flitting over to him from the other side of the aisle.
Now that he was closer, Fitz was able to sneak in a few peeks to try and see what social threat he was up against. Rolled up sleeves, unzipped jean jacket with a gray shirt underneath, a faded logo of some band that Fitz couldn’t bother to name on it. Either wearing sweatpants or black jeans, Fitz couldn’t tell from the angle he was at and make it seem inconspicuous. Fitz tried to shove the staring out of his mind as he kept browsing through the kits, but after five minutes had gone by, he decided he had had it with the mysterious boy in gray and blue.
“Do you need something?” Fitz huffed impatiently, allowing his eyes to stare the blond kid right in the face. Intimidation factor, whatever he could use. Try to solve the case of the mysterious boy in gray and blue.
“A hello would be nice.” the blond boy shrugged, shutting his eyes momentarily before opening them again with a grin flooding onto his features as he stared through Fitz’s teal eyes, as if they didn’t bother him at all. That was the only surprising thing to Fitz. The boy’s lack of a reaction. It intrigued Fitz, but also concerned him. But he sighed, shaking his head as if disappointed in the response he received.
“Fine. Hello. Now why were you staring at me?” Fitz demanded an answer, still crouched down on the carpet of the floor in the gift shop.
“Why were you staring back if you didn’t want me to?” the boy asked, still all grins and lopsided smirks as he tilted his head in the way a curious cat would.
“Because I was confused as to why you were staring at me in the first place.” Fitz huffed defensively. He turned his head away to survey the options of kits again, decidedly grabbing the one with the circuits.
“You like circuits?” the boy asked, his gaze just all the more curious as he studied Fitz and the item he held in his hand.
“No,” Fitz found himself saying, then feeling his gaze drift down to the small cardboard box he had in hand. “My brother does.”
The boy smiled and nodded with a hum of acknowledgement, before slipping one of his hands out of his pocket. He extended it forward as a greeting. “I’m Keefe, by the way.”
Fitz felt his heart betray him by skipping a few beats once his eyes caught the wink thrown by the mysterious boy in gray and blue. Who was somewhat less mysterious, now that he had a name to his face. Fitz stared at the hand, fumbling in his brain before switching the box over to his non-dominant hand to shake Keefe’s hand with his left.
“Fitz.” he nodded curtly and politely, shaking Keefe’s hand before putting it back on the box. He turned away from Keefe, assuming—and assuming correctly— that he would follow Fitz to the checkout counter.
Fitz put the box onto the counter’s glass, while digging through his pockets for his wallet. He pulled it out a few seconds later. Not a very extravagant thing, just simple leather. Enough to get the job done. He pulled a twenty dollar bill from it, putting it on the counter next to the box before pocketing his wallet again.
“Will that be it?” the lady asked, scanning the box and putting it back on the counter as she typed into her keypad.
“Yes, that’ll be i—” Fitz was attempting to say, before the fire alarms went off like crazy.