notrosecolored

"Since we brought you in," Alan explained placidly enough. "The furry young man and the other young man with the wings made their way out once it was clear you were out of danger. I said I'd wait."

He reached over to the table nearest him and picked up a glass of water, holding it out to Scott.

"Not sure if that blood trick of your friend's helps with dehydration, but I've never seen a glass of water do someone wrong. How're you feeling?"

Scott's eyebrows went up in response to that answer. That was... weird. Better than coming face to face with Warren and Hank right now, but odd.

"I've seen that blood trick of my friend's raise the dead." Of course it didn't always work out that way, but there was some powerful properties in Warren's blood. The effectiveness really depended on compatibility, though.

Either way, he was thirsty enough to take the glass of water and drain half of it in one go.

"Thanks."

He'd noticed the eyebrows and he gave a short shrug.

"They thought it might be useful to bring the files you two managed to salvage up to the appropriate individuals," Alan told him as a faint circle of green flame filled another glass and brought it to his hand. Just in case Scott needed more.

"Don't worry. Your blue friend kept your feathered friend from bleeding himself out too much for you. And I got a few calories and some water into him as well before he made his way out."

Scott watched the display from behind the shield of his visor, giving the appearance of being utterly incurious but he was paying attention. He didn't remember much about the 'trip', but he did remember the flame. Even if to him it was a lot more dark, muddy, brown than green.

It was interesting but he wasn't going to go digging around in that.

"I wasn't worried about them." That much was true, he was just relieved they weren't hovering. "Where are the files now?" Ie: Who was the appropriate individual, dammit. "Did Allison get settled?"

"I'm assuming Allison is the little girl?" he offered before he continued. "Last I saw, she was holding onto Sandy pretty tightly, but he took her off with the friendly-looking young man and the white haired woman to go find a room and get some food in her. I'm sure she's fine."

Sandy wouldn't let anything happen to the little girl. He knew that down to his bones. Whatever else he was, Sandy was a good man.

"As for the files, you'd know better than I would where they'd be. I'm assuming you've got a protocol, after all. I've been here."

"We have protocol." Which meant they should have been handed to him, but he was willing to assume Warren had taken them to the professor for the time being. And, really, maybe the protocol was actually going to Charles and Scott just didn't let go easily.

Information gained and reassured, he stretched his back, rolled his neck, flexed his fingers and then pushed off the bed to stand up. "I'm fine. You can stop hovering."

"I thought we were talking," Alan said peacefully as he pushed himself up to his feet. Without much ado, he walked over to the other cot and picked up the clothing and the holsters, piling them on one arm.

"I suspect I should go find Sandy, get him some clothes so he'll be more comfortable. I'm assuming he's wearing something of yours at the moment?"

Alan was talking. Scott was being a remote, uncommunicative dickhead, and being even more of one than usual because he was feeling vulnerable. It might be balanced by not knowing Alan and therefore having less to worry about, as far as concern for himself and leadership went, though.

"I think so. He's probably swimming in them. If worse comes to worse, he should just about fit into Bobby's clothes, but I suspect they'd both be happier if that didn't happen. Bobby's fashion sense is crap, and he tends to lose and destroy enough of his own clothes as it is."

He'd... move eventually.

"I brought him some from home. He feels a bit claustrophobic when he can't travel the way he likes to," because Sandy was a closed off son of a gun, but Alan had eyes. The amount of money the boy spent on material from TylerCo was significant. Not significant enough to even dent what Wesley had left him, but significant.

He smiled a little at the comment on Bobby's fashion sense.

"Though you're right. Sandy does have a certain look he prefers. Takes after Wesley that way. The man was a sharp dresser, even with the lot of us running around in our longjohns."

"I didn't enjoy the spandex days much myself." There was a very, very faint twitch of a smile, and he realized that he might actually get some information out of Alan about Sandy. Not that he was digging around for very personal information, but he could learn.

And try as he might, Alan was... utterly inoffensive. Weird for Scott, on some levels, but hard to get worked up about at the moment. He just wasn't pushing buttons.

"Not sure I feel much better about leather, but at least it's functional. I keep hearing a lot about Wesley." In the margins. "He's the man who took Sandy in?" And whom he'd inherited the 'job' from, but he knew that part.

"Wesley Dodds," Alan clarified with a firm, respectful nod. "The first of us. The one who, in a sense, started it all. He was known by most as the Sandman."

He breathed in deep and took a sip of the water in his hand for himself. No sense wasting it.

"And yes, he took Sandy in. He was the nephew of Wesley's lifelong companion, a miss Dian Belmont if you can believe it." And that was a name Scott very well might have known, considering that she'd been a rather popular novelist in her day. The woman made friends with Hemingway, if one could believe that, as much for her brilliance as her unquestionable brass balls.

"Too bright for his own good, that one. Figured out what Wes was doing and decided to cut himself into the action. Oh, that was a mess." Alan ran a hand through his hair and let out a soft chuckle. "I still remember the whole thing. An absolute mess. But Sand's always been diligent. He worked hard to be an asset instead of a liability. Convinced Wes to get a bit more in line with the rest of us. Made his own uniform. Called it the 'best job in the world', helping Wes."

And then, of course, everything had gone to hell. His head dropped a little.

"It killed Wesley when the accident happened, absolutely killed him. Took the wind right out of him. Of course, we'd all told him it was a terrible idea and we laid into him about it. How could we not?" They'd all loved Sandy. "I stand by what I said then, always will, but I suppose we could have given the man a bit of time to grieve."

There was a lot there Scott could have and nearly did respond to, but he was a man more inclined to listen than talk anyway. So he held his tongue and his voice until he had one clear, obvious, question that needed an answer far more than anything else he'd just learned - about aunts and history or Sand - needed commentary.

"What accident?"

Alan raised an eyebrow at that, curious that Scott was unaware. The eyebrow dropped a little as he thought of it more rationally. It had been so immediate for them all, so painful. The JSA wasn't like the JLA; it wasn't a strikeforce. It was a family, had always been a family, and the loss of one of their own, their youngest, had left a mark on all of them.

"Wesley's only 'natural' ability, if you could call it that, was his nightmares. The nightmares that drove him out into the streets to start the whole business of mystery men in the first place. That's what I mean, of course, when I say he was the first of us.

"Instead, he made himself a lab and he built himself tools to use to accomplish his work. He made his gas mask, his gas gun, the wirepoon gun... but he was always trying to innovate."

Alan rubbed lightly at his temple.

"He was working on a silicoid gun, testing it, when the gun exploded. Sandy was caught in the blast and for a moment, Wes thought he was dead until he saw that he was changing. His body turned to sand, silicon, and he became a monster. Completely destructive, mad, howling."

The hand at his temple moved over to rub at his eyes.

"Wes used his sleep gas to knock him out, put him to sleep, keep him in a stasis. Then he put him in..." and it was clear Alan didn't like talking about this, but a part of him knew he had to. It was no secret, after all. And the other part of him knew that he had to be the one to tell the story. "He put him in what he called the velvet cage. He wanted Sandy to be comfortable even while he was... like that.

"Like I said, we gave him hell for it. Nearly kicked him out of the organization for endangering a kid like that. Wesley was almost shamed out of the business, and he spent years trying to cure poor Sandy."

For them it had been The Accident. For Scott it was an accident that had occurred not just a while ago but before he'd been alive and quite possibly before his parents had been alive. So, while he wasn't entirely surprised by the answer he got, it wasn't a leap he would have necessarily made on his own.

Still, he listened to the whole thing and grimaced faintly. The expression was faint, but it was there and it wasn't entirely brought on by the lingering wooziness of having just regained consciousness and stood up. He drank the rest of his first glass of water and tested out his legs by going to set the glass down on the nearest counter.

"He's." Lucky wasn't the right word, but the one he had for the moment. "Fortunate. Most of the time when that sort of tampering happens, they either stay insane until they're killed, or the change itself eventually kills them." There were a few times he could think of that sort of thing happening - either because Magneto was being an asshole and thought he was helping, or because of similar 'accidents'.

"Sometimes mutants don't survive their own mutations. What got him back?"

"There was an incident with an old foe of Wesley's. I wasn't really involved so I don't know all the details, but I know that the end result was that Sand woke up, exactly the same as he went in."

He took a sip of his water.

"He took some time off, spent a few years finishing school, devoured the library in the brownstone, and" he rubbed his chin, "I think it was just about the time Wes passed that he started having flare ups. Just... poofing into the floor, turning into a pile of sand. I'm not sure exactly how he straightened himself out, but from what he's mentioned, something happened while he was swimming down in the earth that got him settled with his powers. If anything, they've gotten more extensive."

He leaned back a little and took another sip of water. Then he looked over at Scott.

"Don't want to ask him about any of it?"

"I'm not going to ask him about any of it."

Which was different than not wanting to. He wasn't as driven by a need to know everything the way some people were, tended to prioritize and recognize what he needed to know as opposed to didn't, but he wasn't incurious. He was probably closer to it now than he would have been before Jean's death, but he also had fewer resources now than he'd previously had, because he was stretched so damn thin with the school, the team, and ignoring his own grief.

"Sandy and I have a deal. We don't ask each other uncomfortable questions." Yeah, he'd break that deal if it was do or die, but satisfy his own interest? No way. It'd open the door for the reverse, amongst other things.

"And most of those changes develop and grow with time, even when they're naturally occurring. When Iceman showed up here he could just about cover himself in snow."

Alan nodded as he heard about the 'deal' and he couldn't help but smile a little. It made sense, after all. He knew the folks at the brownstone, and while they were all people who wanted to help, to connect with him, most of them tended towards the pushier methods of handling issues that seemed to need work. Plus, Scott didn't have the history with Sand that most of them did. Sand could start fresh without anyone thinking of him as a bouncing teenager... or Wesley's shadow.

"You know, I've wondered if Sand might not have been one of you folks before the accident ever happened," Alan admitted as he listened to Scott talk. "After all, the gun might explain the transformation into sand, but it doesn't explain the connection he has with the planet itself. Doesn't explain a lot of things, honestly. But I've never known enough about the whole thing to do much more than wonder about it."

He shrugged.

"Idle musing. All the same, we should probably go looking for them. I'm sure you want to get your hand on those files" since he'd seen how interested Scott had been in them, "and check in on the little girl."

"It's possible. There weren't as many mutants then as there are now, but they were certainly around and had been for a while." Hello, Magneto. "It may even be probable, given the trajectory in the development of his abilities and that he survived the transformation into sand to start with." Maybe not on that one, but given how frequently those sort of forced changes broke down and led to death.

"It wouldn't be hard to find out, but I don't see much benefit to it, either." He glanced around, then remembered he'd given his coat to Allison. He'd grab that back, but he wouldn't be doing much checking in. He was good with kids, but he tried to maintain distance.

He headed toward the door, and was steadier on his feet. He needed to swap out the visor Sand had made for him for a pair of glasses, too. Grab a cup of coffee. Grab those files and settle in with them, while avoiding the hell out of Warren. "I'll make sure she's settled, but I'm sure Storm's taken care of her and she's asleep by now."

"Nor do I," Alan agreed. Because while he'd tried to figure out a few ways to help Sand, he didn't think that was precisely the way to go about things. It wasn't the fact that he had strange powers over earth that had him keeping himself awake for twenty-something days in a row like a madman half the time.

Alan followed along with the clothes and the briefcase, trying to be unobtrusive and mostly succeeding.

"I wouldn't bet against you," Alan assured him as they walked. "If Storm was that capable-looking woman who walked off with them. I think we might have skipped a few introductions in our haste earlier. That happens."

There was only one way out of the basement - with Cerebro, the Danger Room, and Medical Labs - and that was the elevator they'd come down in. Once they were up, Scott was plotting what was, frankly, a route of escape and avoidance. Not of everyone just... of everyone who knew him, and especially Warren.

"The guy with wings is Angel - Warren Worthington. The capable looking woman," who was also the only woman, "is Storm. Ororo Munroe. Weather control. The friendly looking young man was Iceman - Robert Drake. His relationship with water is... similar to Sandy's relationship with earth, with added temperature control. Moves through it, reforms from it, builds from it, heals with it, and occasionally turns up naked. The blue furry guy is Hank McCoy. Beast. I'm guessing his mutation's as obvious as Angel's."

"Good to know. And if I hadn't mentioned, my name is Alan Scott. I happen to have the privileged of being the Keeper of the Green Flame, which mostly entails making constructs and a few other things I've figured out over the years."

It wasn't like he was integrated with a significant portion of the conglomerated magic of an entire universe or anything. Alan had never been one to crow, after all.

"And all of your" he glanced at Scott, "associates seemed like splendid folks. I wasn't particularly troubled at the alliance that we've all been working on, but I'm now firmly convinced that Kara and Michael made the right decision, if you don't mind me saying so."

Scott got into the elevator and pushed the button that would take them to the ground floor, stepping out of the way so Alan could move past him easily. "I'm not prepared to call this an alliance." Because he was paranoid and skeptical and Alan had seen a lot more of them than he'd seen of the JSA, but. "This worked well, and I'm glad to have had the support and assistance."

Which was to say he wasn't rejecting anything. He was... reserving judgement. He had more than ample reason to do that, though he wasn't lying about being appreciative.

"Agreement, then" because he wouldn't call it that yet either. That's why they were working on it. Alan liked to think of himself as, if not an optimist, then at least a polite sort of realist.

"Have you gotten to meet Michael or Karen yourself by any chance?" because he'd never been one for 'leading' when it came to it. At least not in the JSA. Being the backbone suited him just fine, even the heart, and Ted always called him and Jay the moral compass of the group, but the head wasn't where his talents lay.

"I'll be honest and admit I wasn't really aware of how far along things had gotten when I got the call from Sandy. It's good to hear that you're feeling like it worked well enough, though. Especially since you both got a bit roughed up."

"I have not had the opportunity to meet with them," he said, levelly. He dropped a shoulder against the wall of the elevator and watched the indicator light. "I only met Sand moments before he left to do surveillance on the prison Allison was held in."

Which was enough of an explanation for him, and really he didn't feel like hashing out any kind of details at the moment. They were willing to help and were proving reliable. He would have more questions if those files weren't waiting, but they were and that was a ...positive sign of not being the source of any leak.

Then he looked toward Alan and made a low, bemused, sound. "It isn't the first time. It won't be the last." For him or Sandy or anyone else who did this work. "It worked out. Allison's here and safe. For now, anyway."

"I certainly know that old song and dance," Alan agreed with a soft nod and a light chuckle. "And I certainly agree with you: the girl's safe and among friends. That's the most important thing."

He watched Scott pick their floor and kept half an eye on him to make sure that he was as healed as he appeared to be, looking for any sign small or large that he still needed to heal. It was subtle, though. He'd had plenty of practice.

He backed up a little as he realized what Scott had said, though.

"Really? You only just met?"

That was... interesting.

Sandy

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