So Many Faces

[Selina Taylor]

    If anyone could read her mind right now, all they would hear would be a litany of swear words, each more colorful than the last. Some might think she was overreacting, but Jesus Christ they’d never been burned by boiling soup. She held her arm out away from her body, while trying not to make it too incredibly obvious that the angry red blistering skin on her arm was so painful that she was getting nauseous. She’d been so good at keeping up a face while she was around Rhett, but now that she didn’t have to worry about him overreacting or trying to “help” in some other way, she was pretty sure that some of the curses that had repeatedly been running through her head had become audible.


    Selina quickly made her way to the nurse’s office, ignoring the looks of the students. She’d been used to open stares since high school, so the rabble was quite easy to ignore… didn’t mean she appreciated it though. Selina quickly opened the door without knocking and paused as she saw Corey Spencer. Well, at least it was someone she knew. She’d been hoping a woman might be around but this wouldn’t be so bad. They’d been training together, so she’d slowly gotten used to being around him… sort of.


    There was still an underlying anxiety, but it had gradually lessened a bit from the time they’d first met. “Some soup spilled,” was all she said in a flat tone as she showed him her injured arm. Soup that had been superheated by a mutant who couldn’t yet control his powers. So much fun. Fucking hell it was hard to think right now.   

    Maybe behind the controlled front she'd shown Spencer, she was gritting her teeth and once again using every swear word she knew in both languages, even making up a few that were an interesting combo of English and Spanish. Maybe. Even though she was somewhat more relaxed around him than she was around the other men at this academy, she still wasn't comfortable with admitting pain or weakness in front of him.  

[Corey Spencer]

As the weeks had gone by Corey found himself falling into a comfortable routine. Complacency was still his bitter enemy, but he still went about his day to day duties with a certain routine that seemed to suit him just fine. Especially in the summer when the dangerous training sessions, school-wide events and general activity on campus slowed, Corey had a great deal of free time spent milling about in the nurse's office. Few emergencies were called in though his trusty medic's bag was never far behind should it be needed.

When the door to the nurse's office opened, Corey was sitting behind the desk, leaning back in the chair, a weathered and worn copy of Sun Tzu's The Art of War in his hands. Dark brown eyes flicked up from the dull pages and focused on the brunette girl who stepped into the office. The book was immediately set aside and Corey pushed himself quickly up to his feet. Burns of all sorts, it seemed, were a common injury. Rounding the counter he moved to meet Selina halfway. "Here, let me see." He said, reaching out to gingerly take hold of her arm, being careful to do so in an area well away from the burn, and looked over the injury. There was just a few short seconds of a pause as Corey's mind analyzed the necessary course of action before he started. "Let's get you into one of the exam rooms." He said quickly as he began to move methodically toward the room in question.

Corey held the door for Selina and took care to use the small metal and rubber foot near the bottom to keep it open. The last thing he wanted was for her to feel claustrophobic while in such close proximity to him. He sat her down on the padded exam table and immediately went to work. "How did you get soup this hot?" He asked, curious as to how such a thing could happen while taking the opportunity to get Selina talking and, hopefully, pull her mind from the injury.

[Selina Taylor]

    Selina actually didn’t flinch back at his touch, and she was quite proud of that small victory, nor did she attempt to back away when he examined her injury. She tensed a little but other than that, she let him do his job without interference on her part. She then followed him quietly, mainly because she was focused on not cussing out her injury.


    He’d been careful, gentle, and had even left the door to the exam room open for her. Selina looked up at him as she sat down on the table, “Thank you,” she offered, her voice slightly rougher than it had been. Perhaps it was because the pain had made it difficult for her to maintain her distant and controlled composure, or maybe it was because she genuinely wasn’t used to people, much less men, being that considerate of her. Perhaps it was a combination of both. Either way, the moment of raw honesty was brief, and she found herself grateful when he asked her about the burn. Too much honesty led to vulnerability, and that was something she couldn’t afford right now… or likely ever.


    “A brand new mutant who couldn’t control their powers ended up super heating a bowl of soup and somehow making it explode,” she replied, her tone even once again. Her grip on the edge of the exam table had her knuckles turning white, but other than that, there was little outward sign that she was in pain. She should have been angrier about the whole incident… but the boy had been covered in the liquid that had burned her so viciously and she’d honestly been worried. Not that it mattered, since he was apparently immune to the heat. By the time she’d figured that out though, most of her initial anger had dissipated.

[Corey Spencer]

Corey nodded faintly at the thanks. Selina's relative ease around the big man was enough to cause a small smile to tug at the corner of his mouth. He didn't know Selina's story and nor would he ask. Trust was something that had to be earned and, in the case of the young woman with the deep red, blistering patch of skin on her arm, Corey was well aware he still had a long way to go. It didn't matter. Corey would continue to treat her with the respect she'd proven deserving of.

"That's the kind of shit you can't make up." He commented with a shake of his head. There was little humor in his voice, though, as he went about the painful process of disinfecting the burned skin. It was a decent burn, just barely drifting into second degree territory but Corey had seen far worse. It would hurt for a while, of that he was sure, though there wasn't anything that looked as though it would go beyond that. "Hate to tell you this but this is going to keep you out of any training for at least a couple weeks." He said with a wince that was directed more toward the news that Selina wouldn't be medically cleared to do any sparring or grappling than the actual physical pain tending to the injury was causing.

[Selina Taylor]

    Selina hissed in pain as he disinfected her burn. She knew it was a necessary part of the healing process, but that didn’t mean she appreciated it. When he mentioned not being able to train for a few weeks Selina looked up at him, the pain in her arm momentarily forgotten… or at least ignored, “What? I mean a few days I could understand,” she offered instead, hoping he was just being overly cautious. “But I have work, I can’t afford to be out of training,” she added with the half-plea escaping in her tone despite her best efforts to be calm and controlled.

    Shit. She couldn’t really lie about her condition and push through it either, as she had a feeling Drew would somehow figure out what was going on. He and his sister had a weirdly effective way of finding out shit that they had no right knowing. Selina was still torn on how she felt about it, because it was without question a complete invasion of privacy, but at the same time, it was also how she’d gotten her job in the first place so did she really have a right to complain? 

    Selina blinked as she pushed those thoughts aside for the moment and internally debated how she should break this to her boss. Simplest way would probably be a text she supposed, but she'd wait until she heard Spencer's answer before telling Drew.