Chapter Text
His dad always told him that the most important thing in the world was to be careful.
It was right at the very top of the list of ‘Very Important Things’ that had been ingrained in Fitz’ mind since before he could even speak. It wasn’t ever a simple ‘be careful’, either. Fitz’ father always meant more than that, because those words weren’t just meant for when you cross the street or go out to play with your friends.
And Fitz always knew what his dad meant.
What ‘be careful’ actually meant in the Neves family was; ‘watch out for lingering eyes, don’t stand out too much, and for god’s sake, don’t start a thunderstorm at the skate park on a cloudless, sunny day’.
Fitz knew, because the one time he did start a thunderstorm at the skate park (accidentally), his father wouldn’t let him go back for weeks. It only happened that one time, though.
Years of swallowing down his emotions, years of hack jobs telling them how to get rid of Fitz’ unnatural abilities, ended up teaching Fitz a thing or two about keeping in control of himself. Even though ‘control’ and ‘repression’ are two very separate things when it comes down to semantics.
Fitz preferred to call it control. He liked to pretend he was in total charge of his own body, because otherwise he’d never be able to get through the day.
It wasn’t that mutants were being straight-out murdered anymore; most humans weren’t even trying to advocate complete separation between mutants and humans anymore either. But, just because it wasn’t legal to deny mutants their basic rights (and even this is rather debated upon), didn’t mean that it was safe for them to be ‘mutant and proud’.
On the bad days, when his moods were acting up and the weather was following, Fitz had a lot of time on his hands to sit at home and watch TV. He could count the number of mutant characters that were in various TV shows on one hand, and he could count the number of mutant actors in less than that. Some reality shows went lengths to have that one mutant cast member, who was more often than not a cruel mockery of mutants everywhere, and the other members of the cast made it well known that they had ‘no problem’ with being around a mutant, so long as they were safe and kind, just like mutant actor so-and-so, who was as one dimensional as they were perfect.
In all, Fitz didn’t watch TV much. It never helped soothe the swirl of emotions attempting to cloud his head. He didn’t need to get angry on top of being moody, or else he would cut the power to the entire neighborhood again. Or worse, he might set fire to some random building because of an unfortunate bolt of lightning. Either way, it was best to avoid that kind of reaction at all costs.
By the time he was sixteen years old, Fitz fully believed he was a pro at keeping that dark part of himself, that part that cried out for mists and rain and thunder, wrapped up tightly, shoved away to the deepest crevices of his heart. He hadn’t inadvertently ravaged a superstorm on the tri-state area in years; he hadn’t even mistakenly caused a rain shower since he was ten.
It was perfect, you know, until something had to go and fuck it all up.
It wasn’t like Lara meant for all this to happen.
In fact, she’d only meant to save their lives; nothing more, nothing less. And they were alive, thank you very much.
It’s just…they were alive in a world that happened to not be their own.
And, really? It could’ve happened to anyone.
Fitz was mad, and his words were curt and sharp for a good whole week before he finally sucked it up.
Lara took it all in with a smile and a joke, because Fitz got like that sometimes and she knew better than to take it personally (he didn’t hate her, he didn’t) so all she could do was take the attitude in stride. She knew the cold shoulder treatment was over when he sighed one afternoon, after she’d scrounged up some of the strange coins they’d seen the people around the city use and bought them a chunk of bread, because that evening he finally countered a joke she made with one of his own.
(“Doesn’t that man look like a bird to you?” she’d laughed, barely refraining from pointing a finger. “Looks like you when you got mugged by your grandma’s chickens last summer.”
The corners of Fitz’ mouth turned down at the reminder of what he considered a very traumatic experience, but it wasn’t quite a frown. Lara could tell, because she learned how to read his facial expressions ages ago, back when they started high school and he realized it was uncool to smile all the time.
“He didn’t just get mugged by a chicken,” Fitz drawled, the first words he’d uttered in days that didn’t come out mumbled or angry, “Freakin’ thing fuckin’ straight-up murdered him and took over his body.”
Lara’s laugh rang out loud and high-pitched across the dank alley they were in, attracting the attention of the man they were currently mocking, as well as a few other Darktown natives, who were slowly getting used to the presence of the two strange children who seemed so at home in the worst area of Kirkwall.
“It’s his – his Mc’Doppelganger,” she gasped, slapping Fitz’ arm as she continued to laugh.
Fitz had just smiled, and suddenly they were okay again.)
“Alright. I’m saying it.”
Fitz cringed, sending Lara a resentful look as she stood over him with both hands on her hips. He was keeping a look out, ready to bolt to the nearby food stand as soon as the merchant wasn’t looking, but food wasn’t at the top of Lara’s list of importance right now. She had other things in mind.
“We need to look for other mutants.”
“Lara, can this wait ‘til after –”
“I said I’m saying it now, not later,” she retorted quickly and her accent seemed to become slightly thicker with her uncharacteristically stern tone. Fitz bit his tongue, stomach sinking as it dawned on him that he wouldn’t be able to win this one. “We need allies. And by ‘allies’, I mean ‘mutants’, who can tell us where the fuck we are and why –” Lara took a deep breath as a man walked by, loudly talking about elves and their lack of work ethic. “And I need to know why we keep getting called elves.”
Fitz glanced around, eyes falling on the few people who also had long ears. That was basically where the similarities ended, except for maybe the wide eyes Fitz and Lara shared with the other so-called ‘elves’, because while Fitz wasn’t all that tall, these ‘elves’ were tiny. Lara, being the tallest of the two, was already gaining tons of odd looks, although those looks might’ve also been aimed at the unusual tattoos that covered her face. She had a headscarf covering her hair, because without it, she would’ve only earned herself more attention since it seemed like this place didn’t know about the art of coloring hair with unnatural colors (though, for Lara, those colors were completely natural).
Long ears seemed to be the biggest reason for their new founded ‘elf’ status, which was utterly baffling seeing as the length and pointiness of ears were pretty normal back home. It did seem to be that more mutants had long ears than anybody else, but nobody really thought that way anymore.
“Maybe… ‘elves’ are mutants for these people?” Fitz muttered, pulling on Lara’s pant leg in an attempt to get her to sit down (and become less of a distraction to the passersby).
“I don’t think so,” Lara replied firmly, sitting down with a huff. She wrapped both arms around her knees, leaning forward, and gave Fitz another uncharacteristically severe look. “This is some fantasy world we landed in. Those elves are just elves. You’ve heard the same gossip I have, Tomás.”
Fitz grimaced at the use of his given name, and would’ve scowled at his friend for it, if she wasn’t already moving on.
“This talk of magic,” she said, lowering her voice into a whisper that had Fitz leaning over to hear better, “and of runaway mages. It’s just like the mutant underground back home.”
“You want to find these…mages, don’t you?” Fitz whispered back, shifting in discomfort, and added in a mutter, “Probs not safe, ya know.”
Lara tossed her head, momentarily forgetting that she had her hair wrapped up, but proceeded to give Fitz an unimpressed look anyways. “I’ve told you before, our lives will never be safe. Mutants for life, fight for life. We won’t get anywhere staying as we are, hiding in the shadows and pickpocketing humans.”
“My dad always –”
“You dad isn’t here, Tomás,” Lara hissed, impatience coloring her words. “It’s just us. Do you want to get out of here and survive? Or would you rather wallow over our bad luck?”
Fitz scowled at her briefly before looking away. “I was just sayin’ we gotta be careful.”
Lara’s face lightened up, taking Fitz’ words for the agreement they were, and smiled.
“Of course we’ll be careful! Anyone so much as looks at you weird and I’ll send their ass into the harbor!” Lara stood up smoothly, throwing her arms out and gesturing for Fitz to grab a hand. He did, and she pulled him up with enthusiasm, throwing an arm over his shoulders as soon as he was standing. She began walking immediately, a bounce in her step that was noticeably absent in her friend’s gait. Lara pretended not to notice. “Oh! Once we find them, maybe they can tell me why I keep trying to go back to Stillwell Avenue and nothing happens. There’s bound to be a mutant with powers like mine, right?”
Fitz shrugged uncomfortably, wondering if it was truly safe to go looking for mutants. He was unwilling to admit that he’d never actually met many other mutants outside of Lara before, though she already knew that. Fitz had about three people in the entire world that he trusted, and they were all basically family, so it wasn’t really a surprise that he had no plans to trust some mutants he and Lara found hiding away in the underground of a foreign city. He just hoped Lara wouldn’t trust them either.
“I think we’re in the right place,” Lara announced, looking around at the hovels and the dark alleys that were already familiar after nearly two weeks of living amongst them. “If there’s a gutter and an underground bar, there’ll be mutants. And this place looks like the feeding ground for seedy dives. I believe it’s time we actually go exploring these lovely hovels.” Lara tightened her arm around Fitz’, pulling him closer when she saw him shove fists into the pockets of his oversized coat.
“Let’s find a door with a secret knock!” Lara exclaimed, sounding excited at the prospect. “And if that dude had a point – you remember him, right? It was that guy with the feathers, he told us off for loitering in dark alleys – and we get ourselves jumped, we’ll make it work. I’ll send their arms to another state, and you…you can hit ‘em with a bolt of lightning.”
“I can’t do that,” Fitz said stiffly, twitching at the casual utterance of his unnatural ability to control the weather.
“Pfft, alright, Fitzy, maybe you can just rain on them instead. Make it look like they pissed their pants.”
“Lara. Please.”
“Oh, ease up. Come on, Fitz, this is an adventure! It’ll be fun, and we’ll finally find our own kind!”
Fitz shrugged, nudging against Lara’s strong hold as he did, and aimed his eyes at the walls and alleys they passed. Usually, Lara’s excitement was infectious, but Fitz was too nervous for that now.
His dad always told him that it was better to avoid other mutants, not go looking for them, and Fitz knew what happened when mutants started ganging together; humans get involved, and they get scared, and when humans are scared, they get violent.
Fitz didn’t want anything like that to happen, and maybe he was being a bit paranoid, because Lara had tons of mutant friends back home and she was still alive. Hell, she was planning on going to a mutant school, which was more than Fitz could even imagine when she’d told him about it only a handful of weeks before.
Lara had invited him, too. She said the headmaster would love him, and while Fitz seriously doubted that, he also knew that even if they did, the other students wouldn’t. It was hard enough getting along with humans, but at least they left him alone. He didn’t think other mutants would be all that impressed with the fact that he’d rather watch the wind blow and the clouds pass by than actually talk to the people around him. He had learned through a rather unfortunate event that his tendency to watch shaking trees and swirling leaves with an eerie, silent intensity was usually a turn off to most people.
Lara was good with people. Really friendly, and she could talk to just about anybody or anything and manage to make a good impression. Just the other day she’d conned a woman out of a scarf with just a smile and a flutter of her eyelashes (there were words too, but Fitz hadn’t really been listening).
Still, she liked Fitz well enough, and they’d been friends for quite a few years now, much to Fitz’ surprise. In typical Lara fashion, only a day after moving with her aunt and uncle into the apartment next door to Fitz’, she had waltzed over to him and all but declared them to be friends. Fitz had stumbled off of his skateboard at the time, which he had been riding down the hall in an attempt to annoy the old man that lived a few doors down and who always had a mean word ready for Fitz and his dad whenever they passed each other by. And Lara had just laughed at him, asked what he was doing, and whether she could join him or not.
It only took Lara a few weeks to figure out that Fitz was special, and she immediately told him that she was too, and then they’d been inseparable since, even more so than Fitz had been with his old friend Scott. His dad hadn’t approved, like he had with Scott, but he didn’t tell Fitz to stop hanging around Lara, so Fitz supposed it was alright. He thought having one friend like him was enough. Just the one, though.
Which was why he was so damn nervous about finding these ‘mages-maybe-mutant’ people. But, Lara knew more about the underground and mutants than he did, she’d been involved in the one back home (in their home of NYC, as well as her first home in Santiago de Querétaro, Mexico) so she knew the ins and outs of finding people who didn’t want to be found by the wrong people.
It was hard, finding these mages, and even Lara admitted to it, though she was loath to. Fitz didn’t know what to expect, and maybe Lara didn’t either, because she seemed pretty damn surprised when they finally found a small group of mages hidden deep inside the sewers of the city.
It was disappointing, finding out that mages weren’t in fact mutants, and it was scary too, when they found out that these mages weren’t even the good guys.
They’d expected acceptance, and help, but all they found was yet another terrible situation.