Xaviers!

Tosh knocked on the door to his own dorm room. He was carrying a box from a bakery and a hesitant, guilty expression.

"Yes, yes, enter, come in."

He entered and held out the box.

"I... brought you a cruller," he said weakly.

"...Whhhhy?" Cam asked, raising an eyebrow suspiciously.

He sighed. "Because I've been an asshole and a peace offering seems as good a place as any to start setting it right."

"Have you? Been an asshole, that is," Cam asked, taking one of the crullers dubiously.

Analysis complete! It was a real pastry.

"I chewed you out over just about nothing and made unjustified comments about your mental well-being. And if I'm honest with myself, I've been pig-headed and irrational towards you since the minute we met."

He thought for a moment how better to talk to Cam about personal matters.

"In other, more scientific, words:

Hypothesis: I have a problem. Theory: Past experience with my brilliant but disturbed grandfather is leading me to jump to negative conclusions about your single-minded pursuit of knowledge."

"He literally is locked away for public safety."

"What did he do?" Cam said, after a moment's silence.

Tosh was silent for another moment. He hadn't even thought about his grandfather in years, let alone talked about it.

"He was always pretty horrible to my parents. Especially towards my dad. But he was usually nice to me, if a bit weird, which just made it worse when the truth came out."

"That truth? When I was eight, he was unmasked as local supervillain Doctor Evo. He used these hybrid animal things to help him steal things and sometimes set them loose on his enemies. So... murder, grand larceny, eco-terrorism, et cetera."

"What kind of hybrid animal things? Just electric powered, or...?"

"No," he answered with what was almost a smirk, "Like... alligators with tentacles or monkeys with eight limbs. Crazy shit like that."

"What...what would be the benefit of giving an alligator tentacles? What...what was his end-goal?" Cam asked, confused.

"Your guess is as good as mine," he shrugged, "He was definitely a mad scientist."

"Not a scientist at all. If you don't have a purpose, you're just a...just a genetic tinkerer."

"Those were just theoretical examples. I don't know. I was eight and haven't had any reason to dig up the details. But now you know where that part of my misdirected outburst came from. I'm sorry I ever thought you were remotely like him."

"There are probably a great many ways in which we're alike, to be fair."

Tosh gave Cam a curious, moderately surprised look. "Well... okay maybe a few... like the perpetual lab coat," he observed with a smirk.

"What's wrong with lab coats? You never know when you're going to run into something potentially hazardous, especially if you're out looking for things that are potentially hazardous."

"Oh, there's nothing wrong with them. They're practical. I just like other clothes when not rocking the science. Plus... getting one for Bruce might be a challenge."

Cam stared at him, blankly. "We have one of the world's most modern and up-to-date manufacturing plants in the bowels of the school, and you're having difficulty fabricating a lab coat?"

"It was a joke. Other me would look ridiculous. He doesn't do science anyway."

Totally would Bro.

"We all do science, Tosh. Every one of us.

Some of us are just aware of what we're doing."

"Well, yeah, we all experiment to navigate our lives. I should say my other half doesn't particularly care about science. Critical thinking isn't his thing either."

"That seems like it would be...problematic."

"He's more... primal? A creature of impulse. There are occasions when it's advantageous to act without wasting time thinking about acting and that's the role he serves. And, yanno, fighting things and being a general big brave idiot."

"But wouldn't it be better if he was a big brave genius? I'll spot you action over thought in several rare edge cases, but shouldn't that action be well thought-out?"

"Of course I'd prefer if I could keep my intellect intact when I'm using my powers. But that's just not how they work. Besides, I've grown quite fond of my brain buddy."

"Well, maybe we could enhance Bruce's cognitive skills. Give him more of a leg up on the competition."

"How would you suggest we accomplish that? And without undesirable side effects to my default state?"

"...Define "undesirable", here. Because that seems to be a very subjective term."

"Brain damage, mostly. So definitely nothing invasive. Some kind of enhancement headgear maybe?"

"You're the cyberneticsist, so that would make sense. The main issue, as I was trying to explain down in the hall, was that a shark's brain is so small. Your brain's about 2% of your body weight. For a shark, it's about .008% -- maybe a little more in a SharkMan of some kind, but still. Plenty of brain there for sensory input and motor skills, but learning and memory, not so good. You've probably noticed this, yes?"

"Yeah. When I'm him I can remember most things but have difficulty recalling complex information. It's just sort of... slippery."

"It's because of the lack of grey matter. It's like trying to run a AAA game on an old laptop; it just can't handle the lack of room."

"I don't actually know if there's brain shrinkage. Nobody's ever needed to get an image of Bruce's brain. An MRI wouldn't work due to electrical interference, buuut a CT or PET might work."

"It's simple biology," Cam insisted, "but we do have all that sort of equipment in the medical lab."

"Sharks are cartilaginous too but I keep my bones. So normal shark biology doesn't necessarily apply," he pointed out.

"They don't breath air or have arms or bioluminescent battery glands either."

Cam waved his hand dismissively. "Details. Fine points of differentiation which do not address the root of the issue."

"I'm just saying we can't know what that root is without more data. We're scientists, right?"

"Of course we are. No time like the present," he said, standing up and dusting himself off.