Work Text:
2005
"I'msosorryGodI'msorrypleasedon'tkickmeofftheteam?"
Scott had only a vague idea of what Marie was trying to tell him with that barely whispered jumble, panted in lightning speed, her face a bright shade about the color of his glasses, tears of mortification welling in her eyes. It wasn’t awfully hard to guess though, judging by the looks of the four-year-old in her arms who was a similar mess … and, incidentally, happened to be his own daughter.
Scott bravely wrestled down his first natural and indeed not exactly benign reaction of anger and choked worry, just silently raising one brow in question at Marie, reaching out his arms when his younger teammate strode close, in such a hurry that he didn’t need to jump up from his office chair heedlessly. That would only have startled the little one even more. He softly pulled Saskia against him instead, mindful to not possibly hurt her. There'd been a time right after his daughter's birth when he'd been a lot easier to throw off course when it had come to the little one, as he supposed was somewhat normal for first-time parents. But a first quick glance said, all limbs were still at their right angle, nothing was off that should be on, nothing outside that didn’t belong there, the little one's clothing was intact save for it being caked with sand all over and some funky smelling stains which didn’t make the story hard to guess, really … Not to mention Saskia was making enough noise to be pretty sure, whatever it was, it couldn’t be catastrophically bad, and not in a frequency and intensity that would have indicated a worrisome high entry on the pain level scale either.
First things first. "It's alright, Hobbit. Daddy's here, okay? You'll be okay." A few soothing kisses to Saskia's neck, those slow, calming strokes up and down her frail back helped to have her shake a little less in his arms quickly, fortunately, her sobs turning to little whimpers and sniffles against his shoulder. When he reached out with his free hand to his phone, opening the line to his secretaries next door for an instant order of two coffee and a huge mug of hot chocolate, the noises died down completely.
What it was though that had left those thin tears in the sleeve of Saskia's blouse and the fortunately small stains in the color of Scott's glasses on it, from a few faint rivulets trickling through, he needed to know right now anyway.
After another arduously patient but still strict frown Marie's way, she fortunately found her composure back as well. She went to get the first aid kit from the wall without any further prompting, the big steaming mug landing on her side of the table, courtesy of the green-skinned angel that helped Scott not lose his damn mind every fucking day over the duties Charles had left him with, ignored for the moment.
"It was my fault, Scott, really. I know you said it's too early but she was watching the riding lessons for the others, and she wanted to get in the saddle so badly … It was supposed to be just a few rounds in a walk on the longe line, I swear. But then …"
That then wasn’t hard to guess, from the way Marie buried her face in her hands in distress, or from the tiny splinters of wood also decorating Saskia's blouse and skin.
Scott made an absent mental note that he'd have to call in a carpenter to smooth over the riding hall lining so that the next fall of one of the students would end with fewer needless abrasions. But mostly, he was busy now, carefully, with a newly sparked hint of worry, looking over and cautiously feeling down Saskia's frail little body since the little one only buried her face harder against his shirt upon the question of where she was hurting.
The wince at the touch of a slightly discolored spot on her temple was pretty telling though, and the next mental reminder was the far more urgent one to stop by the sick bay in the foreseeable future for a brief Shi’ar med scan. In Scott's experience, earned thanks to co-raising dozens of kids in this house long before his own already, tiny humans tended to be made of rubber and usually be more resilient than even certain ferals living at Mutant High. But ruling out a concussion from hitting a wooden panel on the way to soft sand ground would be good not only for his own but also for his wife's nerves.
There were a few other damages to tend to first, though, and not all of them of a physical nature.
"Hot chocolate's here, Hobbit. You want to have it while we're fixing your arm?"
The almost violent way Saskia was shaking her head, clinging to his shoulders only tighter, was far more unsettling than her crying. Something that couldn’t be fixed with sweets for his daughter must really have gotten to her. "Not me. Twister …"
Scott looked across the desk again to where Marie was holding on to her cup all the harder, staring glumly into her jet-black lifesaver, a clueless shrug answering Scott's confusion. "Lesson was on my horse, yeah. Always on Wednesday. And that was always fine. You know that sloth, Scott. He's never bolted before. Until … I'm sorry, I should have looked out better, I should never have …"
"Rogue." This time, Scott had to softly stop her, mostly because Saskia was still in pain and panicked for some reason, and to counter both conditions, he needed the whole story. Maybe after living a couple of years with a walking guilt complex by his side, his patience with martyrdom outside his marriage was just limited. "Do I need to ask you for a mission report about a riding lesson before you stop stuttering?"
Scott didn’t exactly love being the asshole in his role as team leader but maybe especially because it wasn’t pretty, it was often what worked best without leaving too much collateral damage; that was one of those lessons he'd picked up from his former biggest rival in his team, in fact.
Now, too, Marie threw him an offended glance from brightly flashing dark eyes but then straightened her shoulders and crossed her legs, dusting off her riding breeches, her hand no longer shaking when she raised her cup to her lips. "Sassy wanted to go faster. She must have seen the leg aids for a trot at the other pupils, and Twister is too much of an obedient mule not to go right into gear. When she threatened to lose balance, Sassy got scared, I guess. Her powers must have slipped, and the sudden coldness had Twister bolt before I could get there. I …" This time she fortunately stopped herself before she could start apologizing all over, ducking her head in shame once more instead.
"It won't happen again, I promise. I know now she's not ready yet …"
Scott stopped his younger workmate with a sharp gesture of his hand held high because Saskia immediately started wailing against his neck again. Next point on this incident debriefing would definitely have to be another pedagogy course ordered for the younger stuff members. He was perfectly aware how much especially Marie despised college, and with their natural talent and the amicable understanding they treated the students with, she and Remy had never needed much teaching about the job they'd taken in this house after they'd all lost Jean for good back then. But there were some things that only either time, experience or books taught, and Scott simply didn’t have any capacity for the first two options, not since he had to do approximately six jobs in this damn house himself.
For now, it would hopefully suffice to get something both in that stubborn southern head and in his daughter's that was one of the most important things to understand for any mutant from an early age on.
"Hey, Hobbit, want to look at me?"
Sassy stubbornly refused to, her little hands painfully clenched around his shirt. The heated temperature of her skin made it easy to guess how much she was really ashamed of that stupid accident. "Hurt … Twister …"
"Oh, sugar, you didn’t!" Finally, it dawned on Marie that she'd involuntarily scared the kid even more with her own exaggerated reaction. She quickly joined Scott behind his desk, parking her behind right on two contracts for new investment partners that technically, Scott should already have read and signed an hour ago which had rapidly sunk in his priority top ten the moment this door had opened though. She leaned in to the girl, tenderly brushing fingertips on Saskia's cheeks supposed to stop the girl from hiding …
When Saskia flinched under the rough scrape of Marie's gloves on her tear-sensitive skin, she pulled back with tight lips, harshly shaking her head at Scott before he'd even opened his mouth for the same shallow words of comfort that couldn’t make a difference about certain things. No one knew that better than the two of them.
"Twister's just fine, sweetheart, he was just surprised. Probably thought snow came early, that's all. Horses always get funny when winter first comes. We'll go back down to make sure he's fine later, alright? But for that, you gotta give us your arm first so we can take care of it. Alright?"
Her slightly forced grin immediately grew warmer with relief when Saskia hesitatively raised her head to look at her Godmother, visibly still skeptical about these assurances, but that broad, open shine on those heart-shaped lips was hard to withstand even for a preschooler far too smart and perceptive for her own good already. "There, that's much better. How about I go see if I can find some Spider-Man bandaids? I think I know where your mom keeps her stash."
Finally, a small smile shone on Saskia's lips too, and it was a relief to see Marie's steps far more composed and lighter at the same time when she left to make good on her promise.
But symptom treatment never cut it when the first issues with mutations developed as Scott knew from painful experience himself. "You know that wasn’t a good idea, Hobbit, right?" He produced one of the straws he preferred for his own drinks from one of his drawers so that Saskia could handle her cup easier even with only one hand, and held the hot chocolate out for her so she would understand he wasn’t anywhere near angry with her just because they needed to talk this through.
"Because you and Mommy said no." Saskia nodded dejectedly, tears already glistening in her eyes again but the overwhelming fragrance of sweetness and carbs right before her nose seemed too tempting after all, and both drinking and crying famously didn’t work.
"No, that's not it at all, Sassy." When he could be sure the little one was sufficiently distracted, Scott carefully helped her out of the ruined blouse sleeve to finally take a look at the fortunately small and shallow wounds, reaching for the disinfectant in his first aid kit with the long year routine of someone in the field since they'd been 17.
"That's gonna sting for a moment, alright?"
The little one all but shrugged, slurping on her beloved drink, indeed hardly even startling at the spray touching her skin, and though Scott couldn’t help but be proud of her a little … That had never been the problem in the first place. This wasn’t about her hurting.
It was frightening how deeply some patterns ran in this family. "If you want to learn how to ride, you will, Sassy, I promise. We're happy with that. You know, your Mom was in the saddle before she could walk, from all your grandmother tells. Your Mom and I just didn’t want you to start yet because you're a little too small yet to really communicate with your horse from up there. And if something happens like it did today, you can't really hold on properly, you see? Being hurt kinda sucks, you know. If you'd broken something, the gym wouldn’t have seen you for a month or so."
"'m sorry," Saskia mumbled around her straw; it sounded sincere and a good deal reluctant about that prospect of possibly not being able to do her beloved gymnast training for so long. "And I'm sorry that I make it cold, Daddy. I don't mean to …"
"I know, Hobbit. There's nothing wrong with it, I promise." Scott interrupted the treatment for another badly needed firm hug, another soft kiss on Saskia's round cheek. "Everyone in this house felt the same when their gift first came. You'll learn how to not let it happen by accident soon enough, just like your Mom did. Until then? Weather is something you can dress for and keep warm against." A mischievous little grin on his lips, he bent over to Saskia's cup and stole a sip from her beloved chocolate, chuckling with her when she finally did.
"Hm." Saskia still didn’t seem entirely convinced – self-confidence issues sadly were yet another flaw far too common in this family –, not yet, but after the small fright, she was visibly getting tired, watching silently when Scott rummaged for a basic Shi’ar healing salve in the kit next, carefully spreading a thin layer on the abrasions around her elbow that immediately started to scar over.
They watched it together with their respective drinks in their hands, Saskia's beautiful round eyes growing bigger by the second, the tension from the little discomfort fading from her small silhouette more and more. "It's magic, Daddy …"
"Something like that. Little help from some friends in very faraway places. Come here, Principal Summers, gotta fill in there for me for a second." Scott helped Saskia slip down from his leg and onto his chair where she sat enthroned, with a proud smile while he brought up an intact shirt for her somehow from the depths of a supply cabinet in the corner so she wouldn’t have to run through the mansion in ruined clothes.
When he came back to the desk, for once it didn’t seem all the fancy lights and holographic shapes on his monitors that his daughter seemed to be fascinated with, in spite of naturally not understanding yet a lot of it. She had the tube with the salve in her hand again, scooping off the small bits of the transparent liquid that had collected at the closed cap and holding them out to him when he knelt down next to the chair to help her redress. "You should take some of the magic cream, Daddy! For your eyes! Then you don't need your glasses anymore!"
Completely oblivious to how Scott immediately froze, a familiar painful knot in his stomach forming, she turned toward the office door with the chair, legs dangling in excitement as she waited for the third in their round to return. "And Rogue needs some, too! Her skin will be all better in no time!"
"It doesn’t work that way, Hobbit. Wish it did, believe me." Though Scott fought hard to keep up his smile when he wiped the last salve traces of Saskia's skin with a tissue and then helped her put one of her favorite unicorn shirts on to make the new disappointment forgotten, there were more things than a similar mutation that the little one shared with her mother, and extremely fine-tuned emotional antennas were part of that.
As if Saskia would have seen that he'd been blinking away a treacherous veil from his sight behind his glasses, she wrapped her arms around him tightly again the moment she looked somewhat proper again and showered his face with kisses, careful to keep away from his glasses, the way he'd had to teach her the moment she'd been old enough to understand.
"Can we go find Rogue now, Daddy? I want my bandaids, and a piggyback ride! Until I'll be big enough for the horses!"
And though Saskia actually was getting a little old and big for that, today, Scott had absolutely no objections to carrying her through the school on his back for a while.