1¹ | Dexter ▷ Scott Summers | ✓

T H I R T E E N

Ruth stepped into the hall, wearing the gray sweats and hoodie combo. Charles seemed to have a surplus of them and it worried her that he had them in extra-small.

"You look ready," Scott commented, coming out of his room. He was dressed in his suit, a visor on his eyes in place of his glasses.

She smiled and walked down the halls with him, their hands brushing every few arm swings. "My work in the lab is exhausting. Sometimes, I have to stand up."

He laughed, shaking his head. "How do you manage?"

She sighed wistfully. "I wish I knew." She laughed, then bumped his shoulder. "How's training?"

He sighed. "Exhausting. But Mystique's toned it down a bit ever since Kurt got hurt."

Ruth frowned. "He did?"

He nodded. "Yeah. You weren't here, but he got trapped between two sentinels and he couldn't get out. He had a panic attack, something about cages. He doesn't like small spaces."

Ruth felt a pang in her chest, imagining the usually happy mutant in that state. She knew what panic attacks felt like, she wouldn't wish them on anyone.

'It's okay, Ruthie, it's okay," ten-year-old Lionel cried, trying to calm down his friend on the floor of the bathroom, 'Breathe, Ruthie, breathe! Please, calm down! Please!'

"Ruth," Scott said, pulling her back to reality, "Are you okay?"

She nodded. "Yeah. Uh, hey, Lee."

The two smiled at Jubilee who was bounding down the hall. She stopped in front of Scott. "Mystique said you're exempt from training until Ruth is ready to work with us. She said it's best if you help her since Hank's notes said her mutation shifts most when she's with you. Are you gonna burn him alive?"

Ruth shook her head. "I don't think so."

Jubilee shrugged. "That's a shame. I'll catch you two later!"

Scott waved, then looked down at Ruth. "Let's go. Alex is probably with Hank right now and I don't want him to get any ideas."

The two sprinted to the lab, Ruth considerably slower than Scott due to her lack of physical anything.

Scott burst through the doors, expecting to see something that would be burned in his retinas until the day he died, only to find Erik standing in the middle of the room, Alex sitting in the corner, a barricade of chairs keeping him prisoner.

"Why's Alex in time out?" Ruth asked, jogging into the room.

Erik lifted his hand, closing the lab door. "He tried to distract Hank while he was working."

Scott nudged Ruth. "I called it."

Hank sighed, trying to pull the chairs away. "Well, now that you're here, he can come out and help us. Erik, please get him out."

Erik sighed and flicked his wrist, all the chairs returning to their original spot; Ruth was impressed. He sighed long-sufferingly when Alex practically jumped on Hank, proclaiming that he nearly died of boredom.

"Alex, you're an adult, please be a good role model to the children," Erik said, pulling Alex away from Hank by his belt buckle.

Scott snorted. "Alex couldn't be a good role model if he tried."

Alex pointed a finger at him. "When you were eight, you had to fill out a paper on what you wanted to be when you grew up. You drew a picture of me. When you were eleven you had to write a paper on who your hero was. You wrote three pages about me."