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Oh, so they'd met. There went Aiden's usefulness, and now this whole thing was just aw-

To his credit, Aiden realized what was going on quickly enough that he didn't make any move to forcibly remove Iggy from his wrist. The lack of desire to hurt was a continual thing, so it wasn't as if he trained for his first reaction to be violent, but this was also clearly just excitement, clueless and h-a-r-m-l-e-s-s so there was absolutely no reason to panic or freak out or do anything other than watch his footing going down the stairs. It wasn't even as if he'd never been dragged down the stairs by someone with more enthusiasm than sense, just... it had been a while. And he barely knew this guy. Kind of a trust failure in comparison to the brother you grew up with, who consistently went out of his way to help and protect -

Aiden's head was still spinning midair when Iggy let him go, but habit and experience were more than enough for his body to react. His bare feet twisted on the ice, flattening against it to increase friction and spreading to correct his balance. It was a quick, graceful sweep, and the flurry of snowflakes in his trail hard to miss.

Breathe.

"What do you think?" Not about the sharp comparison between physical agility and emotional awkwardness, or about how the snowflakes Aiden had kicked up were drifting toward him and bleaching his skin and hair and clothes, washing away the unscarred colour a fleck at a time.

"Some days I can't go outside at all without risking heat stroke. Then again, I don't feel cold at all." That had been a weird realization. It wasn't just that he didn't get cold, which would have made sense on its own. Perhaps he'd lost his ability to perceive cold in order to make space for his more recent ability to perceive where all the bits of him were when he went and got himself knocked apart. Except when he was snow that was basically his only sense, so he shouldn't have had to make space.

Mutations did not always make sense. Even the parts that seemed to make sense often had elements that lacked any sort of objective rationale or cohesion.

In this case... "Is it just the light, then, or is heat part as well?" Juliette might be a good training mentor for Iggy if it happened to be the former. If it was the latter, then Aiden would probably work directly with him very, very little. Especially if Iggy had some level of cold intolerance. Which would probably come into play very quickly. Hm.

"Does cold affect you? More than anyone who does have any powers involved, at least?" Clearly not a heat issue even if he didn't use heat. Running seven miles in the afternoon. In the summer. That might very well kill Aiden. In the winter, though... well, if it was snowing, since he outran his own snow. He headed up the stairs to the God Room overlooking the main part of the Danger Room, and called up his preset programs. And dropped the ambient temperature a few degrees, at least to take his edge off until he knew if Iggy could handle cooler weather.

Maybe everything just sounded cool to Iggy. Some people were like that, he supposed.

He-

Wh-

Er-

Nope, this guy was just weird and said weird stuff without thinking or intent. Just random words, chitter chatter and jibber jabber. Something something - oh, Danger Room? If it meant getting out of here, Aiden would agree to a whole lot right now yikes. "If it's open. I don't usually supervise it but I can. But no, I'm not running any of the major programs or turning off the protective functions, even if you can prove you can heal better than me."

Aiden was on his feet almost fast enough to avoid spinning a few snowflakes into the world, but not quite, and then his restlessness (better than freaking out openly, at least) fueled a quick stride toward the door.

And there was the recognition. And excitement, apparently. And more questions. "Yeah. I've been with the team for a while now." He tried to avoid sighing at the sheer amount of social energy, but it wasn't like he really had the energy to fight anything right now, much less start one by being rude. Too hot. "It's a lot of work. And you will get hurt. And you will have to do things you would really rather not." Like unbury corpses days after terrorist explosions, trapped between summer sun and that particular smell.

What? Eyes-

Oh. Aiden's vaguely confused glance was incredibly short lived, and then he was looking away so that Iggy would at most be able to see his profile, and just his dark eye. It was instinctive, automatic, even though he wanted to kick himself for still being... not bothered, exactly. He'd come to terms with being a mutant years ago.

But his eyes in particular drew attention, and attention definitely bothered him. And was a lot harder to deal with. What was he supposed to do with it? Before it, under it, however it was phrased. It was -

It was harder on his nerves than a potentially fatal mission. Not that he'd rather die - again, he'd come to terms with enough - but dying on the job was less stressful -

Had Iggy at least stopped looking at him yet? Did he dare peek? His peripheral vision wasn't good enough to tell.

TV show stuff. Implied plot development. Character drama. Marketability. Fanser - anyway. It was a TV show doing TV show things. Aiden could both see why people talked about it on the internet and why he hadn't gotten around to watching it yet.

"I've heard of it, but not seen it." That didn't quite explain the vague familiarity of some people, but it was probably just from the internet. It wasn't like Aiden was great at recognizing people anyway. That involved interacting with them in some form. "I've never watched a lot of TV, and, well, what I did watch I lost track of."

Why did he say that? Now he had to keep going; leaving that sort of half explanation was rude and just going to lead to more questions anyway. "It's kind of old news in mansion rumour terms, but I kind of... got stuck in Alaska for a while." As part of a glacier. It was super dry.

Actually, did this guy even realize that Aiden was an X, if only/still a trainee? He'd been one for a while. A long while. His skills weren't bad, sure, but between social confidence and reliably not getting stuck as snow he was nowhere near ready to try to go up the next step.

Sun. Of course. Aiden totally understood that some people were critically dependent on sun and heat. Like firebirds. He just wasn't one. He was the opposite, and now he was apparently sitting on the floor where the sun wasn't shining, because it was still somehow a better idea (and less blatantly sulky) than leaving. "I guess this is your season, then." His own never seemed to last long enough. It also now carried the risk of being stranded until the snow melted...

Fun? Aiden glanced at the TV at the same time the newcomer named the sport. Actually, hadn't sun-guy given his name? Felt like a Molotov-happy lizard. Iggy.

And now he was thinking about molotovs (personal experience; fire and snow weren't a good mix, and while he would show up if called again, he really wasn't fond of riots at this point) and soccer (old history that still stung when he thought it had faded past pain). He tilted his head back against the couch and closed his eyes. "S'fine." Barely a mutter, but he got the sounds out, if not all of them.

He still hadn't brought himself to playing, not in all the time he'd been here. But it had always been his brother's favourite, and it was a team sport. And didn't have a purpose like the X-Men.

And also it was usually outside in the heat.

And he hadn't played in years. One of the teams on TV was pretty good, though.

Ignacio Ramírez

Was there any end to chaos? Maybe everyone was right, and he should look into going back to school and finding himself some career that society considered a, well, career. Except he honestly enjoyed his work, his team. Even if there was always something new going wrong, new emergencies in the middle of the night (or worse, the middle of the day in the middle of summer). He had long since lost count of the number of times he'd woken up in Doc Prof's care, but since there didn't seem to be a way around that aspect of his power, and it was part of what kept him from needed Doc Prof's medical skills, well... there were worse things.

Like someone messing with the air conditioning again; the whole residential wing was acting up, probably thanks to some enterprising and heat-loving student. It was too hot to go outside - at least for Aiden - all overcast and muggy and completely oppressive. Which did excuse him from non-critical mission calls, since he'd be about as helpful as a wet paper bag, but... he still had to deal with it.

At least the air conditioning seemed to be in working order in the living room. The trainee paused with just his head inside, grudgingly dressed in shorts (and an old, super faded t-shirt; he'd seen it at a thrift store while trying to rebuild his closet and couldn't help but laugh at the ghostly shadow of Cafas' dramatic, actorly face), and then plodded in. Weekend in summer, so most people who could were out doing social stuff. Which was great for them. Especially if they didn't drag him into it.

Aiden tugged a set of curtains closed enough to shade an empty couch, and then dropped into it with the inverse grace of a sack of potatoes. It was somewhat intentional; it got a local chill going, if briefly, and dusted the couch with traces of snow. Both good things when cold was the ideal. Or at least the not-threatening.