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Katara was surveying the room that had been her home for the past four years. Four years was two years longer than any place she'd ever lived before. She was excited and scared and worried and full of hope at the same time.

And she had no idea what was best to pack. She'd never had a chance to accumulate this much stuff before. One bag, one carry-on, and that was it. Military grade. Edges sharp.

Normally she'd go bother Sokka about it as he had a better eye than she did for stuff in general, but he'd been... even more distant and upset lately. So as it was there was just a pile of stuff on her bed that she was sorting through slowly.

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Sokka hated it. On one hand, he was glad to get out of Barrow, sure. The hero status was great and all, but he was pretty sure Hahn knew. All those questions at school. Those subtle suggestions and veiled accusations. Sokka had come close to throwing a punch when they met in town, but held himself. Not because he felt it was wrong. He was terrified of what he might do if his powers manifested in some expected way. So Sokka had walked home, fuming in anger.

Filling this bag was hard. How was he supposed to pick up and leave again? He'd stuffed in some clothes, a few electronics, a picture frame of their parents, and a few other things. It didn't seem like enough. And he soon decided something was missing. Which meant barging into his sister's room.

"Katara, where's my headphones?" Because obviously if they weren't in his room, then she must have them.

She glanced up when he entered the room, mildly startled, but not too surprised. "I don't know. Where was the last time you saw them?"

"In my room. By my bed. Did you borrow them?" Because clearly he didn't move them. Or knock them over or something.

Sighing, Katara stood. "No, I didn't borrow them. Why would I borrow them? I have my own pair. Let's go take a look in your room."

She started towards the door.

"I don't need help looking for them." The objection was automatic. And a little more snappy than he intended. He turned around, heading towards his room. "I'll find them myself."

She was getting so tired of him taking this out on her. "Fine." She stopped at the door, let him leave, and then slammed it behind him.

In about ten seconds, she'd follow after him to confront him, but right now she wanted to send a message to him - You are being a jerk.

He winced at the slammed door. But he didn't feel bad or guilty. It just angered him more. And he stomped across the hall to his own room, slamming his door in turn. If Kanna or Hakoda were at home, they'd be investigating. But they were off making final preparations.

Sokka returned to his room and sat on his bed, grumbling to himself about how much he hated this. And even though it was what made him a freak, he pulled out the lump of metal he and his uncle found and rested his hands on it. Trying to change its shape into something else. Not a weapon. A face.

He sighed as he stared down at the misshapen slab. It looked nothing like her.

She knocked. But she didn't wait for an answer, she just opened the door, stepped in, and shut it behind her. "All right, let's hear it. Because tomorrow morning, we're getting on a plane, and then it's just you and me. And I'll do a lot of things for you, Sokka, but I won't be your emotional punching bag."

Let me be there for you instead.

Edited 2012-08-08 01:29 (UTC)

The moment the door open, he shifted the metal back into a solid block and set it aside. Hoping she didn't notice, while he remained surly at her entrance. He didn't want to talk. I just want things back to normal.

"I'm not asking you to do anything, Katara. What do you want? For me to be happy about this? I'm not."

"I can tell!" she shot back. It would be so easy to rip into him right now, to try to show him how his attitude was making her feel, how it just reflected everything she'd ever been afraid that he'd thought about her.

But that wouldn't be what their Mom would want her to do. So she sighed a little and set her heart and moved to sit next to him on his bed.

"Look, I know that this wasn't in your plans. I know that you're not happy about it, and I know that you wish it hadn't happened at all. But Dad isn't making you go to the Institute. If it makes you that miserable, you can stay here. You can probably work on hiding your abilities - everyone knows Hahn is a jealous jerk, and I bet you'd be able to make it so they wouldn't go off in public on your own. But it's miserable, Sokka."

She'd know. She'd been doing it for the past four years.

"I guarantee you that you would hate it worse."

It wasn't that simple. Sure, Hakoda wasn't making Sokka go. But Katara was going because Sokka could go. Was going. He didn't expect that she'd be going if he stayed. No matter how she put it, their dad put it, or Professor Xavier put it - it was all the same. He didn't have a choice. This was his future, whether he liked it or not. Refusing to go was like the choice between standing and falling.

"I don't want to hide anything. I didn't ask to become some fr-" Freak. He caught himself immediately before he said it. Because it's what his sister was. And he'd never said it out loud to her before. "This. It's not like I can stay here even if I wanted to."

Oh. He'd finally said it - or almost said it.

Some part of her had always known.

That didn't make it hurt any less.

For a moment, her eyes flew wide opened.

This was usually the part where she'd fight. Where she'd stand up and declare what she truly believed, what she had to believe. Being a mutant didn't make you a freak. It didn't make you "gifted," and it didn't make you "special," and it didn't make you "evil" and it didn't make you a "mistake." It made you responsible, just like everyone else, to use what you had for the good of everyone else. If what you had was the ability to walk on walls, then that was what you used, and if what you had was the ability to add math equations in your head, that was what you used. They weren't freaks. They were just different.

But she exhaled, doing her best to be there for her brother - he was seventeen, he'd lived his whole life without this and... and...

God, but she was sick of this attitude.

She rested her hands quietly on her lap and looked straight ahead, towards the wall. And she finished his sentence for him, because there was no point in tip-toeing around it anymore, no point in the pity and sympathy their dad and GranGran had been giving him, no point at all in pretending like this would just go away, or in pretending like it was the end of his life. She refused to bare that insult alone. It was okay that she was shoved to the side and told to hide it, okay that she was a mutant because the family could deal with that, but now that it was him it was all sympathy and what can we do - their dad had left her alone to deal with her powers. And he'd flown up immediately when Sokka uncovered his, he'd stayed for months trying to work something out. And that hurt.

"Some freak."

Edited 2012-08-08 04:01 (UTC)

He'd heard the speeches. Not on the receiving end of them. No, he was usually on the sidelines, awkwardly wanting to disassociate himself from her as she laid it all onto some ignorant local. Only he never did that. Agree with her or not, he always stood there and listened to it. And when it went bad, stepped in to try and diffuse things for her sake. And his.

Some freak.

He'd never said it. Not even to others. Or to dad. Or even out loud to himself. But now he felt immensely guilty just hearing her voice what he'd never openly said. It was what he'd thought. He'd loved her, of course. She was his sister. And while he hadn't liked what she could do, that was just a part of her he disapproved of. It hadn't effected anything else. Right?

His shoulders sagged as he lowered his head, his fingers tightening around the lump of metal. He wasn't looking at it, but it was shifting into another shape without his notice.

"You're not-" He quickly corrected himself. "We're not freaks. I mean. That's not what I meant." He raised his head a bit. "Do you know what they're saying? That you started your club thing because of me. That I've been hiding this all along. The coach asked me not to sign up when classes start. They can't prove it, but they all know."

We're not freaks.

She heard him say it, but she knew he didn't believe it. Not yet. And if her own brother couldn't see her as a person, what was she doing out there with her silly little club, trying to make people see--

She was doing whatever she could. She wouldn't stand for this. She wouldn't settle for it. It wasn't right.

And as Sokka continued to speak, that righteous indignation got funneled right into what he was saying.

"Then he's a bigot." She finally glanced back over to him, her eyes hard. "And if you and Dad would let me, I would march right up to him and show him exactly why I started my club."

"And do what? Freeze him to a wall?"

Sokka was no fool. Sure, he knew about the X-Men. But the news wasn't always fair. And the way he saw things, they were the rare exception. The do gooders trying to make a point. Meanwhile, most mutants used their powers to get their way. And people got hurt for it. How often had he seen that story on the news? Too many times to count.

Katara looked at him incredulously before lifting her eyes towards the sky and spreading her hands. "Right, because that would solve everything. Clearly the way to achieve understanding is through bullying! Why hadn't I thought of that?"

She slanted a look at him then, frowning. "When I said I would show him, I meant just that. If it bothers you so much to be suspected as a mutant, I have no problem telling them exactly why I started that club. Heck, last week they thought I started it because I was in love with Andy! I wouldn't mind settling their doubts."

Poor Andy was the only one in their community with a visible mutation - webbed fingers that allowed him to swim faster.

"The problem isn't with who we are. It's with what they think. And we can't change that by hiding who we are, or by using what we can do to hurt people."

She took a deep breath. "I'm a mutant, Sokka. Look."

Because he might have stumbled on her practicing before, and walked away, and he might have seen her use her abilities to save Yue, but he never really looked. She gathered a small amount of water from the glass on his bedside and made it chase itself in a circle over her hand.

Edited 2012-08-08 05:14 (UTC)

He didn't disagree with her. He was far from being a person who would condone bullying. But this was different. He didn't believe people would ever see mutants differently. Sokka had only been using his powers for a few months and in its first moment, he had killed a polar bear. A monster of a beast. He should be dead, but his power was so potent he'd beaten Mother Nature in the most unnatural of ways.

He didn't want to watch her little trick. But he did. Yeah, it was impressive. It always had been. She'd done something like that when they had to prove their mutation to the Professor. But this time he did watch. Carefully. For only a few moments, before looking down at the lump of metal. He'd made a face in it. His own scowling face. He dashed his fingers across it, to return it to its proper shape.

"I know you're a mutant." He set the metal aside, into his bag. "We both are. But that's it. That's all we'll ever be."

Mutants didn't do important things, except be mutants. It had been on the TV recently about Senator Tarrlok stepping down from his position when it came out he was a mutant. What kind of political career could a mutant have? None. Just like how a mutant could have no military career.

...he still didn't see it. She sighed quietly and returned the water to its glass. "I refuse to let anyone tell me what it means to be me. And I refuse to give up on working to change it so that when people see mutants, even if they're scared, they'll also see people. And that's what we can learn to help do at the Institute. I'm sorry that it changes your plans, and I know that a lot of things have been hard for you lately. They've been hard for both of us."

Yue was my friend too.

"But I hope you can try to see that this isn't the end. It's just different."

She moved to slide off his bed as she moved to close the conversation. She knew when he wasn't listening anymore. "Your headphones are under your pillow. I see the cord."

He didn't say anything. This wasn't how he wanted to change the world. He wanted to be like dad. Working for something bigger. Important. Not struggling to just get people to look at him and not see a monster. A life where his biggest hope was to change public perception enough just for him to do things normal people do every day without extra scrutiny was not how he wanted to live his life. It was stupid and unfair. He didn't want this power.

As she started to leave, he plucked the headphones out from under the pillow. He didn't look up at her, but instead just passed them along into the bag. This conversation may have put things into perspective for him, but a few words weren't going to make things better. He wanted the time alone before they had to get on the plane.

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