Kindling Old Fires

Set in 2029 after the events of Logan, the former X-Men come together one last time to bid farewell to their mentors and friends, Charles Xavier and Logan Howlett.

Kindling Old Fires

By Ash

Part I

“A friend is what the heart needs all the time.”

I’m sitting in my office, fiddling with my new gel pen while I’m supposed to be typing up a report for the new mutant-friendly cold & flu antibiotic, when Betsy bursts through the door in a rushed flurry of exclamations and orders. Her eyes are wild as she runs over to my desk. I’m rather shocked, as she is a normally calm and collected woman in any and every situation, a reassuring safety blanket I’ve had the luxury of keeping. That’s part of the reason why we have stayed friends over the years, I suppose; she’s been the yin to my yang, even after we parted ways during...I close my eyes at the thought of my younger years; there’s too much pain associated with them, too many memories I have lost and gained. It brings so much discomfort to discuss them, so I shake my head and redirect my focus to Betsy, who is now gripping my desk with white knuckles and staring at me expectantly.

“What? My apologies, I think I drifted off somewhere, love.” I flash an apologetic smile her way, but I’m met, unusually, with an eye-roll and an angry sigh. This really is unlike her. “I...really am sorry, Betsy. With you looking so frazzled, some rather...unpleasant memories were brought up.”

“And if you would listen up for a minute, you’re going to be just as frazzled, Warren.” Her shaped eyebrows furrow like they do when she’s deep in thought, something I’ve always found adorable. The corner of her mouth plummets when she sees me staring with a small smile on my own lips. I have the decency to blush and apologize. At least that riles a smirk out of her, and she removes her heavy hand from the corner of my desk and rocks back on her heels.

“I’m all ears,” I chuckle as I stand from my desk and make my way over to the large conference room to my right. “Make it speedy, yes? I have some very important paperwork to ignore.” My wings stretch of their own accord from being pressed against my chair for so long, causing me to smile at the feeling: slightly ticklish when they brush each other, but overwhelmingly comfortable as the blood flow returns. I push down a relaxed laugh from bubbling up, as Betsy will be presumably short with me and I would prefer not to test her temper any more than need be.

I reach the office door but stop walking as her hand tugs my own back from the doorknob. I purse my lips and my eyes slowly get wider when she leans in close and begins to whisper frantically in my ear. As she speaks, my wings grow stiff on my back. When on earth did this room get so hot..?

The world drops out from beneath my feet. The walls I’ve worked so hard to build up over the years, the memories I’ve suppressed, all come crumbling down onto my shoulders again. Betsy supports me as I lean heavily against the wall. Tears prick at my eyes. She’s looking me up and down in a concerned manner as a mother might do when her child is sick, and that’s not too far from the situation at hand, oddly enough.

Presently, I do feel like a child: helpless and small and useless in a world of towering adults.

-ൾ-

    The first phone call I make is to my husband. While late-afternoon phone calls home aren’t particularly rare, he still sounds a bit worried when he picks up. I find that by his voice simply answering the call, I am calmed a little, but not enough to prevent my voice from cracking.

    “Honey,” I begin, and I have to sit down because the tears are making it hard for me to see. It takes longer than it should have for me to explain what’s happening to Kurt. At first he denies it, in shock probably. After a while all I can hear from his end is quiet hiccups.

    “Daddy?” a tentative voice says in the background of the call. Kurt shoos them away, probably May if I had to place it, and then turns back to the phone.

    “You’re...okay though, ja? You and Betsy?” he asks after a beat of silence, and I nod and respond.

    “I’m perfectly alright, hon. Don’t you worry about me right now. Go ahead and leave the kids with Bobby, he’s off today.” A sniffle punctuates my sentence, as a persistent jab in my chest suggests that Bobby should attend this meeting, as well. I push it aside; I will have time for more careful consideration later.

    “Okay. Okay. Alright. I…” Kurt sighs, a steady stream of air across the receiver. “I’ll do that. He’ll take good care of them, yeah.” I draw my hand across my face, which is already pretty wet. I feel like apologizing. I want to be mad at someone or something, but I know I can’t be. It was bound to happen. I just didn’t think it would be so soon.

    “Kurt?”

    “Yes, liebe?”

    I try to smile. “I love you.”

    There’s a hiccup followed by a watery chuckle. “I love you too, my Engel. I will see you in a few minutes.”

    We both have more we want to say, but I want to get this over with before I have a real breakdown. Consequently, neither of us say goodbye in very many words. I hate that phrase; it’s so final and sad and tight. Instead, I hang up with a kiss to the mouthpiece and grin despite my wavering lips as a kiss echoes back. I set the phone down back into its holder and sit quietly in my seat until Betsy comes up behind me. I turn to face her, and am somewhat surprised to see her with a gentle smile.

    “I’ve already called everyone I can get ahold of. Jubilee will fly her jet out here along with Peter and be able to meet with the rest of us by dinnertime. The others have all been contacted and are coming as soon as possible.” She drops to her knee to be at eye-level with me, putting a hand on my shoulder. I shakily inhale. “I can’t believe we’re getting the X-Men back together,” she murmurs, distant.

    Betsy is a blessing; she doesn’t mind tugging me to her chest and holding me as I start to hiccup with another round of tears.

-ൾ-

    The suit that I’ve chosen to wear for our impromptu meeting is from mine and Kurt’s honeymoon four years ago. It has dark blue stripes down the inner folding of the coat and it’s paired with a flashy white tie and navy dress shoes. I fiddle with my hair, struggling to wrap it neatly in a bun. My curls don’t seem to want to cooperate and I let out a frustrated sigh.

Whilst I battle with my outfit, memories come back in waves of mine and Kurt’s getaway to France and Germany and London; nights filled with wine and chocolates and kisses and, perhaps most importantly, no monsters or mutants for us to fight. There was no threat to our world or another, no word from the Avengers about some breed of domination-craving aliens attempting to destroy them, no. Kurt and I were alone for that week, and it was blissful as can be. If I were to spend another century stuck in a single day, it would have to be during that week. Truly I believe I had died then and gone to heaven, for nothing had ever been as sweet as that vacation.

So much has changed since then. I swallow back a lump in my throat, thinking about all those faces I saw at our wedding that I would never see again.

I push the thought back. There’s not enough time for me to wallow in my misery just yet. I grimace as I turn to my side and glance in the mirror.

    “Bets, I think I may have gained a pound or two since four years ago,” I joke, turning in her general direction with a grin. I hear a muffled reply from the next room over as she laughs in her special way: cool and nearly careless, more so a light-hearted sigh than anything else. My gaze wanders around her sparkly dress when she walks into the room, then I stop once she snaps and points at her face. For the second time today I redden and apologize. “Betsy, you know my bachelor days are long over! It’s...you just really brighten up the room?” What Bobby calls the Warren’s Trying To Avoid Trouble smirk stretches across my lips. A rush of happiness relieves some of the tightness in my chest when Betsy flashes a teasing smile back.

    “Why, thank you, darling,” she snickers, and makes her way over to me. I drop my arms from fixing my hair as her nimble fingers straighten the folds of my dress shirt and coat. I’m quite sure I heard her snicker at my beaming grin when she stepped back and admired her work. “Handsome as always, Mister Worthington.”

    I place my hands over hers as they settle on my shoulders. “Do you think you could cancel my four o’clock? I think this is a bit more important.”

    “Already done.” Betsy takes my hands and folds them in front of me, then motions for me to turn around. I obey, then chuckle as she unties my hair from the messy bun and begins separating it.

My cheeks, now pinkish, hurt from smiling.

    She braids my hair gently, and we fall into a companionable silence. My mind wanders aimlessly, quietly, dangerously.

-ൾ-

    The sounds of the crowd beating on the metal bars of the cage are drowned out by my heavy, ragged breathing. My chest is bleeding profusely at this point, and my vision is beginning to darken. I unsteadily flap up to the rafters to dodge the bladed hands of this mutant I’m fighting. Perhaps I should cut back drinking before fighting someone that’s literally made of knives, I think as I perch and press a hand to my ribs. I hiss in pain, glaring at my now blood-covered palm.

The broken bottles and the spit of the onlookers sparkle in the dim, dusty light. I roll my shoulders and wince at the sting of the gashes on my torso. One of my wings skims the fence accidentally, a shock coursing through my body. My muscles tighten, then release my hold on the metal beam. My vision darkens. The screams grow faint, and I don’t feel myself hit the floor.

    I wake up hours later. It’s dark outside, and foggy. The stone floor of the warehouse makes my back ache, and I groan loudly in protest as I’m moved and sat up. Betsy kisses me lightly on the forehead and smooths out the last bandage on my torso, then snorts as I shy away from the ticklish fabric. I attempt to make a snarky comment, but it dies in my throat as my jaw cramps and pulses painfully. She hums in amusement.

   

    “Don’t overdo it,” she warns, and I scoff.

    “Yeah, no. I still have four months left in this place. And that freak screwed up my streak!” I furrowed my brow, not enjoying the thought of my thirty-six-strong win record getting reset. All those gashes, scratched into the wooden arena floor by my talons after every victory as the crowd shouted, getting scrubbed away to begin anew. Betsy seems less concerned with my little coping method and more so with fussing over the injuries near my wings. She scoots on the concrete floor around to my backside, and I grow very stiff as her hands begin to work the gauze around the scraped skin.

    “You know I’ll heal soon,” I try weakly. She doesn’t stop and at this moment I’m thankful she rarely listens to me.

    It’s times like these when I realize I do truly need her. I need someone to kiss my scrapes and wipe away my tears and tell me that everything will be alright, even though we both know we aren’t going to make it out of Caliban’s mutant fighting rings anytime soon. Regardless we entertain the idea that by May, Betsy will have worked long enough to gain her freedom and Caliban’s trust, which she will then take advantage of to kill him in cold blood. She will rescue me from my holding cell and release the other 18-give-or-take fighters, and I would fly her to my special, secret warehouse and figure out everything from there.

    I smile at the thought of Betsy piercing Caliban’s chest with her plasma swords. The freak is a mutant too, but he makes his money capturing lost and beaten mutants and forcing them to battle each other like dogs. It’ll be nice to see him get what’s coming to him, delivered fresh and steaming by my girlfriend herself.

    Betsy and I met when I got my first serious internal bleeding injury, and she was the only person on “staff” that knew how to patch a wound. She had mixed German beer and a little vodka together and forced me to drink it -- “to numb the pain of this, it’ll hurt”, she said -- then proceeded to clean my gashes with 3-day-old alcohol. I screamed and sobbed my way through my first crude stitches in that cage, only four days after I had started to fight. But as I lay on Romeo’s lap (an empath turned in by his own family, who I had mysteriously befriended as of late) and stared up at Betsy as she dabbed blood from my stitches, I knew I wanted to make her mine one day.

    I ended up drunkenly cuddling with her that night underneath my wings, and Romeo complained in the holding cell next to us continuously. He muttered something about “...the bird and the glowing sword girl get to sleep together and I can’t get a change of clean underwear,” but eventually he passed out with his back to us.

    And here we are, for the millionth time, with her patching up my wounds and making me fall even harder for her with every bandage. I crane my neck and grin widely at her despite my aching muscles. With a smirk, she meets my lips in a sweet, silent kiss, and I feel like I’m flying again.

    I didn’t know what love was before I met Betsy, really. But that’s okay, because she’s with me. Even if we do stay in this dusty, dank fighting ring for the rest of our lives, I’ll be okay.

    We’ll be okay.

-ൾ-

The decorative couch in the breakroom squeaks in surprise as I flop down into it with an exhausted huff, and I groan right back. My hair has since undone itself from the French braid Betsy had tied it into, I note as I stare blankly at my reflection on the coffee table. My legs begin to cramp and I slide further down the couch, now resting on my back with my bum nearly touching the floor. I let out another strangled whine which prompts Betsy to tsk-tsk and call me a child. I make no move to disagree, though descend to the floor completely. I blow a strand of gold that’s dangling in front of my nose. I’m tired, I’ve acquired a splitting migraine, and -- oh dear Lord, there’s Kurt.

I scramble up to a standing position and smooth back my hair as best as I can, and face my husband with a breathless grin as he steps out of the elevator. He hums in amusement as he walks towards me, eyes scanning my outfit. It’s probably all wrinkled now from my journey from the couch to the floor. I laugh, hoping it didn’t reflect how nervous I felt. It came out sounding like someone hit a printer with a hammer.

Kurt narrows his eyes playfully and wraps his tail around my arm. I nod and avert my gaze, only to find it brought right back by his clawed hand. We have a nonverbal conversation with simply facial expressions, which ends with me ducking in for a quick smooch. He laughs and hugs me properly, whispering a sweet greeting in my ear as I lean down. I sigh gratefully, overjoyed to have him safe here by my side.

“Kurt! First one here, as always,” Betsy chirps as she scoots by with an armful of boxes that are filled with important paperwork (read: my embarrassing doodles from boring board meetings, ranging from caricatures of my coworkers to sketches of Kurt and our kids). She sets the load precariously down on the secretary’s counter and swoops in to hug him and kiss his cheek. He returns the gesture and takes her hands with a kind, toothy smile, as they fall into small conversation.

I nearly burst from the love surrounding the three of us, and probably would have if we weren’t about to meet with our former teammates in less than two hours. The thought causes a grimace to replace my soft smile. I know from past that most of us aren’t on the best of terms as of late, so this meeting makes my stomach churn at the thought of someone getting hurt like last time.

I wish we could have met on better circumstances. A funeral isn’t the best time to recoup with former enemies.

I swallow and focus on my shoes, then frown as I notice something pinned to the cuff of Kurt’s dress shirt. I furrow my brow. “Hon, is that Xavier’s emblem I see on your coat?” I flick my gaze up as he steps back from his conversation and smiles, though it’s wary.

“Ja. I felt like I should wear it, considering…” he trails off and stops when he notices my discontented stare. “It’s just a pin. Don’t worry.” He blinks slowly, then steps up to me and takes my hand. I refuse to look at him. I force down a rather crude statement about what that emblem has represented for the last three years.

“You know why we burned all of that. You helped me do that, love,” I whisper roughly in his ear. “Xavier’s School isn’t the Xavier’s school we once attended. It’s a house of torture now, it’s a military camp for mutants.” My throat cuts me off as it tightens with emotion. “Like hell I’m going to give any grace to that hellhole now.”

Kurt frowns and stares at my lips for a long time before speaking. “And like hell I’m going to let it stand for that message much longer.” His gaze meets my own shocked one.

“Kurt, what are you-”

“Let this play out, Warren. Maybe things can go back to the way that they were, before Sco-”

I press my lips into a firm line and glare at my husband, who fiddles with his ring like he does when he’s nervous. Me? I get angry when I get stressed. And hell, am I stressed.

Old habits die hard.

“Don’t talk about him here, Kurt. This place is my - our - sanctuary. He’s caused too much pain. He doesn’t deserve to wear Xavier’s pin or carry the professor’s title. He doesn’t deserve to have lived through all of this.” My ears are burning, the lights are beginning to swirl around my head. I can feel tears dripping from my eyes, landing on Kurt’s hand on my cheek. I inhale brokenly. “But sometimes I wonder if it would just be better to leave it all. Like death would be a greater mercy than this pain.” I choke on my breath as Kurt’s tail droops sadly behind him. He pushes his face into my neck and rubs the base of my wings. I can feel his tears on my skin, a cold, stark contrast to the flush.

“Oh Warren, my Engel, liebe, you know I won’t ever forgive him for what he’s done and doing.” Kurt cups my cheeks and kisses me slowly, then whispers against my lips, “He’s not going to hurt anyone else without going through us first, I promise you that.” He smiles sadly with eyes full of pity. He skips over my last observation and chooses to hide his face in my chest again, slowly swaying to an unheard beat.

“Charles would be proud,” Kurt says, swaying.

I’m very emotional today, it seems, and I wonder as I press my hands against Kurt’s back if I will run out of tears before the real fireworks even begin.

-ൾ-

After my little episode, Kurt explains that he’s going to get me a bottle of water and leave me with Betsy. He made sure I had stopped crying before leaving, but after he teleported away I collapsed into Betsy’s arms again, feeling more hopeless than ever. The fact that I had just slipped up to my husband that I had contemplated such things as the sweet release of death, makes an overwhelming wave of guilt wash over me.

I was taken back to my first nights in Xavier’s Institute, nights where all I would think about was the fact that I had lived through the end of the world. That I, one of four minions of En Sabah Nur, had been dragged out of the rubble of my certain death by those I had fought so harshly, and cleaned, kissed, and rehabilitated. It drove me wild, those nights, near the brink of complete insanity, and I lost my mind when it happened. I said things I knew weren’t true, and thought things I didn’t really believe.

Kurt’s expression when I told him about my depression all those years ago, I thought I would never see it again. Because I had gotten better, I was healing, with Betsy and Charles’ help, and I knew that for a fact. Evidently, though, it wasn’t something I could just forget about while I drowned myself in medicine or alcohol or paperwork. It’s sad, really, how many times I’ve tried to get rid of that terrible, aching feeling inside. It goes away sometimes, for days or months at a time, but it always finds a way back into my head and my heart.

Betsy helps me through my special breathing exercises while Kurt is gone, slyly using her telepathy to calm my mind. I melt into the couch again, all of my energy nearly drained. She, too, looks upon me with pity and regret.

One thing about Betsy that has stayed true through the years, is that she never sugarcoats anything. She whispers to me that I would have to stay strong when our teammates arrived in a few hours, and that seeing Scott would have a much greater effect on me than just the thought of him did. I bite my cheek and nod silently, because what else was there to do? She’s right; I have to keep it together for my team -- my former team.

Leaders are chosen because they can stay strong when their team is falling apart at their feet. They can pick themselves up after getting broken and move on from the terrors of life. I once believed I could lead a team, what with my strength and wit and financial stability. The moment I realized that I needed to have halfway decent mental health as well, was the moment I realized that a place of leadership on a crime-fighting mutant team was no place for me. I stepped down and out of the horror of it all, and several followed. I left the school and pursued a degree in business, then eventually gained ownership of my father’s company, but that’s another story for another time.

Only one person remains from that original team; he who now leads the new-and-improved group of mutants on his own malicious missions against people he deemed worthy of the sharp end of his agenda. He who I have vehemently despised for years. He who would show up at my doorstep in mere hours, and I would be forced to forget about the horrors he has enacted upon the world and work together with him.

I don’t look up from my little cloud of despair when Kurt bamfs back into the room, carrying a water bottle and a handful of butterscotch candies. He knows me well, and the thought tugs my lip up a millimeter.

He sits down next to me silently after whispering to Betsy, about me I presume. I don’t really mind that; I couldn’t care less at this point, wallowing in my fears and doubts. It feels like a permanent pout is stretched across my face. I feel so small, even when Kurt sits me up and ushers me to drink the water, all while rubbing my knees and my back and giving me reassuring kisses on my shoulder. I blink away tears at the sentiment and swallow down a few sips, then graciously accept the candy and pop it into my mouth. I push it around with my tongue, thoughtfully, and glance down at the blurb on the wrapper in my hand:

Greek Mythology 101: Know Your Stuff!!

Icarus is the son of the master craftsman Daedalus. Often depicted in art, Icarus and his father attempt to escape from Crete, the island on which they live, by means of wings that his father constructed from feathers and wax. Icarus' father warns Icarus of his arrogance, asking that he fly neither too low nor too high, so the sea's dampness would not clog his wings nor the sun's heat melt them. Icarus ignored his father's instructions to not to fly too close to the sun, and his wings melted off, depositing him into the ocean.

The candy goes bitter in my mouth as my own angel wings flex behind my back. I let out a strangled whine, flicking the wrapper away from my eyes that now sting with salt from my tears. Kurt grabs my shoulders and hugs me tightly, anchoring me to reality. I struggle out of his grip and go to stand, but my legs are numb from sitting and cause me to stumble towards the open window behind Kurt. I regain control of my body and kick the base of the screen, the only barrier that’s holding me back from open skies that are free of problems or evils. The wind catches my hair and lifts it from my face as my foot leaves the sill, my powerful wings stretching to their greatest length and carrying me into the wide, open airspace. I don’t look back for I know Kurt’s standing there alongside Betsy, feeling bad about themselves and about me.

Out of the bird cage, I think to myself - obviously not at all affected by the dark premonition gifted to me by the thrice-damned candy wrapper - and into the fire.

-ൾ-

   

    A beer bottle flies at my head and very nearly smashes into me as I hit the floor with a groan. It shatters somewhere behind me, but I can’t see it. My eyes burn as sweat rolls down my forehead and over my eyelids, blurring my vision. I begin to wheeze a request to pause the training but find myself standing and bringing my fists up to block Betsy’s punch. My hand flies back and knocks against my jaw as Betsy attacks me relentlessly, never ceasing, never tired, always hitting. I whine and stumble backwards until I trip over a chunk of concrete, falling back and weakly demanding that she stop her assault.

    Betsy doesn’t look at me as she steps away, sighs, and wipes her brow on her sleeve. I drop my head back with a resounding thunk.

   

    “Betsy…” I get no response, the warehouse dim and dusty and silent, save for my ragged breathing. “Betsy, my ribs, they hurt, real bad. I think I broke ‘em.”

    “That’s a shame, Warren. A real shame, isn’t it?” Betsy snaps and turns to help me up, extending her arm with a fierce look of disappointment and disgust. I can feel tears in addition to the pain of sweat and dirt in my eyes. I look away from her, focusing my attention on my leg that now is bleeding profusely and staining my torn leather pants. Damn, I liked these, I think, but I’m yanked from my lamenting as Betsy nudges me forcefully in the side with her boot. I shout in pain and clutch at my ribs, which pop and crack sickeningly in my chest.

    “Agh, oh my God, Betsy, it hur-”

    “Get up, chicken,” she hisses, and I bite my tongue hard at the name.

    “I can’t. I can’t move, you jerk.” Then, quietly: “...Don’t call me that.”

    “You’re gonna get up here in the next minute or I’m leaving, Warren.” She glares at me, something between concern and contempt. “What happened to you? I’ve barely been hitting you all day and you act like I’m using my swords.” She pokes her tongue into her cheek thoughtfully. “You’ve gotten so much weaker, you know that?”

    I don’t respond.

    “You used to be the best fighter in this cage, Warren. Now all you are is depression with wings.”

    At that, I try to growl angrily, but it comes out as a squeak. “Bull! I’ve won the last thirty fights I’ve been through, but since you always insist on training with me I wanna go easy.” I return her glare. “I’ve beaten everyone I’ve fought-”

    “Not me. You’ve never beaten me.”

    “And? Betsy, what is this?”

    She walks away from me with heavy footfalls. I’ve made her mad now, but I don’t really care. How dare she call me that? Who’s the one who’s been fighting every day for three weeks, just to stock up on rations for when we escape? Not her. “Betsy!”

    “You care about me, Warren, and that’s gonna be your downfall.” She appears above me, and I’m surprised to see tears beginning to spill over her eyelids. Her bottom lip is getting chewed to the point of bleeding. “I think we should...take a break” The sight of that crimson red only serves to help me along, and I wince.

    “Oh, so now you don’t want us to be together! I see how it is; use me until you don’t need me anymore, and throw me away. Just like everyone else!” I’m shouting now, the pain of my broken ribs having been numbed by my adrenaline and fury. “Forgive me for thinking you cared!”

    Betsy seethes through clenched teeth. Her tears drop onto my bare chest and catch in the cuts, making me hiss.

    “You absolute, massive idiot! I’m doing this because I care! I want to protect you from the mutants out there, ones that are gonna be a hellova lot stronger than the trash you’ve been fighting!” she screeches, grabbing my wrist and yanking my arm to sit me upright. I holler in agony as my ribs shift and dig into my stomach. “Not everyone is gonna be as terrible a fighter as Romeo, don’t think nothing’s going to change! You’re gonna get hurt one day and I’m not gonna be able to fix you!”

    The mention of Romeo makes me see red. “Romeo is a great fighter,” I growl, latching onto her blood-splattered shirt and pulling her so close I can see the faint purple pulsing in her eyes. “And a better friend than you’ve ever been. Say anything about him again, Betsy, and I’ll really have to fight you.”

    She rips away and glares daggers at me. Good. She deserves to be hurt.

    “You know what, Warren?” she whispers after a minute of tension-filled silence, “You’re on your own.”

    She grabs her leather jacket - the one that matches mine - and with one last furious glare in my direction, slices it clean in three pieces with her plasma sword. It drops to the ground, hissing in protest, the smell of burning leather stinging my nose and eyes. Some part of me wants to go after her as she slams the metal doors shut forcefully, but the other part of me, the angry, hurt, and abused part, convinces me that it wasn’t my fault she left.

    I stay in that warehouse, for hours or days, I’m not sure, until Caliban’s security finds me and brings me back to the fighting ring. After doing some amateur bandaging and questioning what I had been doing (with no coherent response), they toss me back into my holding cell. My ribs still ache, but they are healing faster than normal thanks to my secondary mutation.

    During our release period, in which us prisoners are allowed to roam the containment facility freely, Romeo replaces my bandages and runs a few exams using his mutation to see how my mental health was holding up. While he wasn’t a full-blown telepathic mutant - hell, he wasn’t even a mutant, he was of Inhuman heritage - he could still peek into my brain, to some extent, and rearrange some chemicals or something to calm me down for a while. It pairs nicely with some stolen German vodka, which I hastily gulp down when he offers me some. He looks at me strangely nowadays, a cross between concern and something else. I ignore it. Thinking too much makes my head hurt lately.

    Betsy doesn’t come around anymore. My wings ache in the mornings after being laid flat on the concrete and not sprawled over a body, keeping her and I warm. I begin to drink more as my thoughts cloud over with dark dreams and memories, things that Romeo can’t even block out, try as he might. I don’t look up when Betsy escorts more mutants into the ring for me to fight, and I after a while I realize she’s finally been promoted to Caliban’s security team.

    I’m proud, deep down, and I want nothing more than to run to her and have her hold me and kiss my hair and bandage my gashes like she used to. But that same pride is what keeps me from doing it. I slump onto the ground, drained after a grueling round of fifteen fighters; all of which, defeated; all of which, I couldn’t look in the eyes as I slashed my talons wildly.

    I ask Romeo one night as we lay in our cells, my back to him and his back to mine, if he can erase Betsy from my memories. I feel him stiffen against my wings and clear his throat. I don’t turn around when he reaches through the bars and places a warm hand on my shoulder.

    He tells me that it is possible, but under no circumstances will he ever erase someone from anyone’s memory. He could have gone the “it’ll cause you to get depressed and some other psychological junk” route, but instead he decides to explain the emotional part of it.

    “You and I both know that you are still attached to her, Warr. I can’t take that away.”

    Tears fall freely down my cheeks as I try to hide my sobs. “I just want to forget,” I whimper pitifully. “I don’t wanna remember any of this. I wanna be loved, Romeo. I miss her so much, sometimes I can still feel her next to me even though she isn’t here. I wanna be loved again.” I wrap my arms around my knees and rock, hiccupping and sniffling and crying. His hands massage small circles into my shoulders and my back as I break down.

    “I can fix that, Warr.” Looking up from my snotty, disgusting mess, I meet his bright blue eyes, filled with hope and sadness. “It’s not foolproof, but, at the rate you’re going…” He doesn’t have to finish for me to pick up what he was trying to say. I shake my head vigorously.

    “Do it, Romeo. I want to feel that again. I wanna be loved again. Please,” I beg, twirling to face him completely. I press my bare chest against the bars, shaking with anticipation. Romeo looks uncertain, and above all, guilty, but he raises up on his knees to meet my height and places his hands on mine. They’re small and soft for a cage fighter’s, covered in minimal scars and cuts and bruises.

    Because Romeo fights his battles on the psychological plane, where a punch to the face meant you shriveled up and hid in a corner while your mind deteriorated around you. For that reason alone, I should have known better than to convince myself that I love him.

    Just like with Betsy, when the time comes for me to fight him, I can’t bring myself to do it.

   

    He can, though.

    He does.

-ൾ-

    My pocket buzzes violently and it jolts me from my memory. Darn, I was having a nice brooding session there.

    It’s Kurt and he’s calling me. I squint in the sunlight, attempting to find the answer button or slider or hologram. This Stark tech is incredible. but it’s rather unintuitive to the un-technologically advanced. I finally locate the slider and raise the phone to my ear with baited breath.

    “Warren!” comes the exclamation. He sounds exasperated, and understandably so. “You’ve got to come back, the others will be here in a little bit!”

    I stay quiet for a few moments as I can practically hear him biting his tongue impatiently. I shake my head and answer. “Kurt, you know I love you, right?”

I hear him hum annoyedly and I can clearly picture his tail swishing behind him as he glares softly out the window. I lock my wings in place and glide on the warm updrafts as muffled words crackle out. I raise my eyebrow when he responds, spoken in a purr: “Then come back and show me how much, liebe.”

I nearly laugh. “That was fast.” His sigh erupts across the receiver.

    “Give me something to work with, here. What’s it going to take?” I chuckle at that.

    “What’s in it for me?”

    Kurt laughs out loud before bringing the phone back to his face. “A lovely kiss from your husband?” I smile as I dip my right wing and circle lazily back towards Worthington Industries. I never fly very far away, and especially not now. “Perhaps some more candies? A call from your children?” Then, quieter: “Betsy not taking your head off…?”

    I can see Kurt standing on the roof, one arm wrapped around his torso to provide a little warmth in the breeze. He calls to me from the roof, waving happily. I feel my chest clench as I land in front of him roughly and he comes rushing up to me. His cheek is warm against my wind-chilled chest as my shirt was unbuttoned to let the air cool me down during my little getaway. Kurt takes this opportunity to slip his comforting hands underneath the fabric and massage the bases of my wings. I groan again, into his hair, and he laughs.

    “So.” He taps my chin and I raise my head to look down at him. He has a glint in his eye that I’m not sure is totally comforting, a stark contrast to his tone of voice.

    “So…” I drawl, reaching a hand up to fiddle with his dark, slicked-back hair. He had stopped dyeing it a while ago, something I find myself missing more and more nowadays. I loved his little splashes of color, a new one every few months; our kids, they loved to see him come home with a new neon chunk of hair dyed. Our youngest, Marian - May, for short - loved to put her flower clips in his hair and color-coordinate. I smile and tug on a fading blue chunk gently. “When are you going to dye your hair again? Blue looks adorable on you, darling.”

    Kurt sighs, but plays along, reaching up and wrapping a clawed hand around my wrist. He brings my hand down to his lips and kisses my knuckles. I bite my tongue as a rush of emotion bubbles up to my chest. “I was actually going to go sometime later this week. It was going to be surprise, you know, for May.” There’s a faraway look in his eyes, but it dissipates when they focus on my face. “Cat’s out of the bag now, I suppose.”

I nod silently, then turn my head and embrace him again. We stand for several minutes, listening to the distant sounds of angry drivers and sirens and wind blowing through trees. Once more, I feel small, I feel young again; I feel like a part of me has been ripped out and I’m bleeding but I can’t stop it.  I feel like the world’s crashing down, and Kurt is standing underneath all of it, trying to hold it up for me.

“Kurt, baby,” I whisper, feeling dizzy. “Kurt, I miss them. What if we end up like them?”

Kurt tips my head down and briefly kisses me, his lips soft and warm and welcoming. “We are going to be together for the rest of our lives, just like this. Tell me,” he says, beginning to button up my shirt, “what will our ending look like?”

I take a deep breath. “Just like our wedding, right?” He smiles and nods and kisses the corner of my mouth.

“Right. And there’s going to be flowers and cake and celebration, and everything in white and blue.” Kurt closes his eyes halfway, leaning in close. “And it’s not going to happen for a hundred more years,” he murmurs.

I go to respond, but a sob comes out instead. “But what if it’s not? What if we end up like Charles and Logan and we aren’t togeth-”

Kurt connects our mouths swiftly, expertly, to shut me up. I’ll admit, I enjoy a good shutting up if this is the method by which it happens.

We stand on the top of my father’s former company as I wet Kurt’s dress shirt with my tears again. The sun is dipping low into the sky, and as I wipe my face I can see the outline of our shadows growing taller on the concrete. I tilt my head to the right and listen as a familiar black and gray jet arrives on the company launchpad, miles away. Kurt tugs on my hand after a minute and we walk down the steps and into the building, where Betsy has just finished lighting some candles around my office. When she sees me, she sets down the lighter (much to my relief) and hugs me tightly.

“Don’t you believe that not every one of us is behind you through this hell,” she tells me, squeezing my hand. “This is important to everyone, Warren. We love you.” I nod and kiss her temple (discreetly spitting out strands of purple afterwards), and turn to face the door as the elevator’s chime rings through the lobby.

Kurt stands to my right, Betsy to my left, both of them gripping my hands like a lifeline. Dress shoes tap closer to the door, which is parted. I inhale deeply, willing all of the tightness out of my chest and the fuzz out of my head.

Oddly enough I find myself smiling in greeting as Scott Summers steps into the room, stony-faced and with as menacing an aura as ever. He looks me up and down with a grimace, and I know right away that Jubilee’s won’t be the only fireworks we’ll see this night.

Part II

“They say to ‘keep your friends close and your enemies closer’.

See, nowadays it’s hard to tell them apart.”

    Whilst I lead Scott to the conference room, Betsy offers to take his coat. He nods and hands it to her and she drapes it over the coat hanger inside the doorway. I walk in silence into the room, making my way to the seat furthest from my former teammate and stiffly sit down. He glances around, sniffing in interest (read: disapproval, I’m sure), and chooses not to take a seat, rather lean against the chair instead.

    My stomach is in all kinds of knots. I can feel my lunch coming up as Scott’s ruby glasses cause a glare to skirt across the table. I chase it with my eyes, going down the length and onto the floor, then up the wall before it shoots directly onto my tie. I swallow and dare to look up at him. He’s tapping his fingers against the back of the chair lightly, the rhythm resounding throughout the silent room. It’s only us in here.

    “So. Angel,” he greets.

    I nod to him and grimace. “Scott. It’s...I’m glad to see...you’re doing...well?” My lip curls in disgust at my own stumbling around. I bite my cheek.

    “Yes, I am, thank you. I...see the company is coming along well.” After a moment, he gestures to the wall behind me with a flick of his head, his neatly-groomed hair tossing back gently, as if blown by a fabricated wind. “That’s your family?” he asks.

    I turn, silently thanking the painting for giving me a reason to break eye contact with Scott. I find myself grinning back at the portrait; back at my three kids and my husband. “Yep. My little ones, and Kurt.” I reach up and point to the fair-skinned girl in Kurt’s arms who’s sucking on her hand. “That’s Marian, our youngest--” I gesture to the blue boy standing with my hand on his shoulder-- “That’s Jacob, our oldest--” I look up and smile towards the shining eyes of my fluffy-winged baby girl-- “And that is Delilah. Kurt picked two of their names, and I picked one.” I shift in my seat to peer up at Kurt’s beaming face, his eyes squishing at the corners cutely.

    “I love them,” I murmur before I can stop myself. Scott does something akin to a laugh and a huff, which I’m not quite sure I enjoy. Where are Kurt and Betsy? I wonder as I swivel back and face Scott, glancing anxiously at the door as I do.

    “I can tell you do.” Then, quieter, almost silently, he says: “It would be a real shame if something happened to them.” I tense so violently and suddenly that my neck cramps, but I don’t feel it that much as I shoot out of my seat in a near comical flurry of adrenaline. My head begins to pulse, the room starts to spin. Scott lifts his head and raises an eyebrow, perfectly shaped and filled. “Stand down, Angel. I didn’t-.”

    I march down the side of the table and stop next to him. He cranes his neck to look at me, and I glare down into the ruby abyss of his visor. “Was that a threat I heard, Summers?” Then: “Don’t tell me what to do, Cyclops. I’m not one of your little terrorists-in-training.” As soon as the words leave my mouth, he stands up straight and grabs my collar in a fist, a bit awkwardly considering I’m a good few inches taller than him. It still serves to make me more upset, though, and I shove at his chest. My hands meet with tight muscles, bunched solidly underneath his suit. He doesn’t show sign of agitation other than his jaw twitching.

    Instead, Scott leans in close and I can smell the clean mint on his breath. I seethe an empty warning through clenched teeth. He curls his lip in a growl. “Just like old times, huh, Angel? Only this time, I’m not gonna hold back.” He throws me against the wall roughly. I shout in surprise, then yelp as I land on one of my wings. Stalking towards me, Scott raises a hand to his visor. It begins to glow, and I duck as the beam cracks the plaster behind me. I roll away and spread my wings before pushing off on my toes and lunging towards him, taking both of us down to the ground with a thud. I straddle his waist and raise my wings, my talons gleaming in the overhead light.

    Scott struggles to free himself, writhing in my grip. I slam my hands down on his wrists, preventing him from activating his visor. I’m breathing heavily as I lean in close and hiss, “Don’t you ever talk about my family like that, you hear me? God, and to think you would act mature enough for a goddamn funeral.” He makes a strange noise in his throat, which causes me to lighten up on my pressing into his chest. I ask him to repeat.

    “You’ve always been the dense one, Angel,” Scott wheezes after clearing his throat, clenching and unclenching his hands which are still tightly bound by my grip. “Do you think this is gonna change anything between us? Between any of us?” He turns his head the slightest and spits at me. It lands on my shoe. “Damn, you’ve gotten soft, Warren. I’d hate to see you if Kurt died.”

    I hear his nose crack and blood drips onto the carpet when I slam my fist into his face. I backhand him in the other direction as my vision blurs with tears. He shouts for Betsy, for Kurt, anyone, but I slap a hand over his mouth and nose. He begins to thrash around when my hand moves to his throat. I begin to squeeze, first as a warning, then tighter. He scrabbles at my arm, scratching and cutting and sputtering, but I don’t feel it. The world is dark, my office wall is crumbling, and Scott’s blood has stained my nice carpet.

    Everything goes quiet for a second. My eyes go wide as I feel the convulsions start.

I had made a promise that I wouldn’t let myself get this carried away, but my mind is now elsewhere.

My grip loosens on Scott’s neck as my head is tossed back, my vision blacking out every few seconds. My veins on my arms and hands expand and contract in a sickening way. I fall back and weakly roll off of Scott’s legs, who scoots several feet away in horrified shock. He has one hand on his throat, rubbing it, and one on his visor again, and it’s hesitant, but I can’t tell him to shoot. I’ve lost control of my body, which slams against the ground and the wall violently. I’m able to let a scream rise from my chest as my skin begins to darken, first to gray, then to a deep, steely blue. My muscles tense and expand painfully, my bones cracking and shifting in my body to make room for my transformation.

   

    Then my wings begin their reconstruction and I black out completely from the pain, dead to the world, but my body lays on my office floor, slamming against the floor. Scott has covered his mouth at this point, and he looks sick.

    I would think my spontaneous transforming into Archangel when I get angry enough should have come up sometime in the past few years. I guess not, I think to myself, with a final agonized shout that sends shivers up my spine.

-ൾ-

    There’s blood on my hands and underneath my fingernails I notice as I raise my torso from the floor by my elbow, which is still heavy from the exertion of my metamorphosis. I frown and glance around the room helplessly for a nail filer, but instead my gaze lands on a scared-looking man who is cuddling up to the leg of a table. I know this man, I remember, but refuse to wrack my memory for him; my head is already pounding hard enough.

My eyes shift to his throat and his face, which are both covered in bruises and blood. He’s holding his jacket sleeve to his nose while crimson liquid drips from it. I narrow my eyes as it nearly catches on the carpet. I really like this carpet, I think, and I believe it’s evident in my sneer because Man Hugging A Table Leg makes a squeaking noise and presses his other hand to his face. I would laugh if my chest didn’t hurt as bad as it does.

    “Human,” I greet, then I wince as my voice cracks. I’m not very effective at intimidation when I sound like a scratchy record. I clear my throat, then poke around in my mouth for injuries with my tongue. Luckily this time, Warren didn’t bite part of his cheek off when I emerged. I was barely able to do my evil grin after that happened, my cheek hurt so violently.

    I shake my head as white sparks appear at the edges of my vision. Rolling onto my side, I stretch and spread my wings to their greatest length; thirty feet of gorgeous, gleaming feathers, capable of slicing through anything but vibranium. I toss my hair from my eyes -- where is my cowl?! -- and put one leg underneath myself, then stand. My newly-adjusted body cracks and creaks and pops, as satisfying as it is horrifying. The man who I have decided to name Visor after seeing his red facewear, gasps in fear.

    “I like to hear that,” I explain to him. My shoes tap dully on the carpet as I make my way over to Visor, who shrinks back. “It’s really quite a self-esteem booster, to see such fear on a man.”

    “...Warren, what happened to you? Why are you blue?” he asks with wide eyes, and I roll mine in response.

    I bend down and get close to his squishy human face before responding. “Do I look anything like Warren to you?” I growl. His jaw sets behind his hand and he shakes his head gently. “Do you know who I am?” Again, Visor makes a muffled sound of disagreement. I sigh in frustration, mentally rehearsing my spiel. Ooh, this’ll be a fun one. I stand up straight and backpedal a few steps, giving him a nice view of my body, but stand close enough that I can shout and still scare him. It’s fun to do that.

    “I am the prophet known as Archangel, the Horseman of Death; I am the child of the great En Sabah Nur, and the one designated to replace him, ever should he perish. I am the Bringer of Death, carried by wings made of razors; I am what people fear about the dark, about the night.” I expand my wings and let the lights dance along the edges of the razors. I make eye contact as best I can with Visor through his mask and his hand, and I grin my signature smirk. “Tell me, human: are you afraid?”

    Visor swallows and hesitates before nodding. “I guess so, but...what happened to Warren…?” At that, I narrow my eyes. My wings droop the slightest in discontent.

    “Warren,” I spit out, as if the mere name wounds me to speak, “...is merely a...host, yes, a host, for me. I emerge when he is too weak to defend himself or handle the situation.” I flash a sharp smile. “Of course, we are two minds sharing one body, though. So I am free to do whatever I please, and he sits back and watches the bloodbath. And you, human, have done some very bloodbath-worthy things, from what he can recall.”

    Biting his lip, Visor shudders as his gaze wanders around my wings. I lift them again and I grin wider when he speaks. “Warren, I didn’t mean any of that, what I said earlier, I swear on my life.” He looks up at me, feebly, weakly. I can sense Warren giving off small waves of satisfaction at that, which serves to make me huff a laugh.

    “Warren is no longer here, human. And shortly,” I begin, spreading my wings and puffing up my feathers, “...neither will you.” Visor shields himself with his arms pathetically as I arch back to shoot.

    I don’t really feel the needle go into my neck as much as I feel a flying kick directly to my head. Heels hurt, and I’m sure Warren will have a nice, nasty bruise on his temple when he awakes. I hiss and struggle as Kurt injects the sedative serum into my bloodstream. Yes, I know and remember Kurt fondly. Kurt, my husband, and our offspring. Never will I lay a finger on them, for they are the only ones who have taken root in my empty heart. My husband looks forlorn and slightly scared as he slips the needle out of my neck, but he leans down to peck my forehead which is beginning to lighten into gray as I transform. I hum in disappointment.

    “You’re no f-un,” I sputter before my muscles relax and I slip back into Warren’s subconscious, dormant until he needs me next.

-ൾ-

    Scott hasn’t looked at me squarely in the eyes for nine - no, ten minutes now. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not; I don’t really want to face him after my other self just attempted to end his life. Which, granted, it wasn’t totally Archangel’s conscious that directed him to do so. Part of me knows that the world would be a better place without Scott Summers in it. I suck on my tongue to prevent another round of crushing guilt from consuming me.

    My better half sits down next to me, reaching up to run a finger over the mark on my neck that the needle caused. There’s a Band-Aid on it now and it was sealed with a kiss from Kurt, which made me happy. I tilt my head to the side to give Kurt more room, hoping I’d get a smooch or two. He doesn’t move much other than walk around the sofa to my front, where he kneels and peers into my face. I blink back at him.

    He shakes his head. “So, are we going to talk about what just happened, Warren?” His tone is concerning me. He sounds like a mother who just found her son’s stash of Playboy magazines underneath his bed, and is shocked beyond belief that he would just up and let said Playboy magazines take over his body and very nearly commit homicide of his former teammate.

    Admittedly that was a bad analogy to use, but my point has been made, and I, for one, never want to see another Playboy magazine again. I sigh and shift in the squishy cushions, my feet brushing the floor.

    “Well, I have blood on my shirt now,” I mumble, sadly fiddling with the hem of my now blood-splattered dress shirt. “And Scott has a broken bloody nose. And I have his blood on my carpet. Oh yeah, and Archangel emerged without me giving full consent.” I glance up, miserable. “Does that fulfill your wishes, dearest?”

    Kurt rolls his eyes and moves to hug me. I wrap my arms around him gingerly. “Warren, we’re going to talk this over with Hank when he arrives. This is serious.”

    I nod, but I’m screaming no in my head over and over again, faster and faster with every word that comes out of my husband’s mouth. No matter what happens, from now until the day I die, those Playboy magazines that I hid under my bed for so long, rarely ever bringing them out to read them, are still there. Those magazines were bought with my own money, and stored under my own bed. Regardless of how much guilt I possess when they get found, there’s no changing the fact that they’re there.

I’m attempting to come up with a better analogy when Betsy walks over to the couch. She looks disappointed, and slightly angry, but it could very well be her resting face. She has that effect on people. Kurt pulls away from me.

    “I...don’t really know what to say, Warren, to tell you the truth.” She sits down next to me as Kurt stands and motions to Scott.

    “I’m...going to check on him.”

    I say nothing as Kurt walks over to him, nor when he sits down and pulls Scott into a half-hug. Scott removes his visor and wipes down his face with one hand. He’s shaking, and visibly so.

    “It took you longer this time to stop me.” I can’t help but blurt it out, and I feel guilty after the words leave my mouth.

    Betsy nods and gestures with her chin in my general direction. “We thought… that you would be able to stop yourself.”

    “I didn’t,” I say as I watch Kurt pull a tissue out of a box and hand it to Scott. He takes it and gently pads around his nose, and it comes away clean. He deflates against the wall like he has for the last few minutes, refusing to stand. “I could have, if I had tried hard enough. But I didn’t, Bets. I wanted him gone so bad, Bets, and I still do. He triggered this. He made this happen.” I find myself getting more worked up as I talk. Betsy’s hand on my knee travels upwards and to my back, pressing into the bases of my aching wings. They are feathered again, but a few razors are still present, scattered among the fluffy down.

    “I won’t fight you on that. Every part of that is true.”

    “I feel a ‘but’ coming on.”

    Betsy smiles in a pained way and nods towards Scott. “But you nearly broke his nose and he’s too shaken to say more than a single word to us. And you couldn’t control your impulses because of your rivalry with him.”

    I narrow my eyes at my shoes. “What are you saying?”

    “Nothing, really.” She shrugs and stands up before I can interject. “I guess the best thing to do would be to keep you two away from each other until the others arrive.”

    Nodding, I push myself up off the couch and move to stand in front of the window. “I’m scared,” I whisper, but Betsy has already gone to talk to Scott again. The sky is painted red and gold as the sun just barely peeks out above the horizon line, and I stare thoughtfully at it in silence.

    We are so small, so fragile, compared to that huge ball of fire. Our troubles are laughable and silly to the sun, who looks down at us all, every day. I’m small, I think. But not small enough. Kurt walks over to me and takes my hand, muttering something about apologizing to Scott, but I’m far, far away from him right now; I’m in a warehouse in 1983. I’m reliving a nightmare and I feel small, sinking through the cracks.

-ൾ-

    I feel disgusting. Sweaty and bloody and dirty in places that dirt should never touch. My own pounding chest is loud in my ears in the empty fighting ring. It’s a cool night in May and I have chosen to perch on the rafters to get a whiff of the breeze coming in from the top windows. I bend at my knees and stretch, groaning as I feel my skin tear a little at the cuts left over from the last fight. I’m preparing for my next, in just over a half an hour. My eyes shift around in the dim lights, then land on a familiar worker at the circuit breaker.

    “Hey! Moss! Whatcha doing?” I holler, sitting down roughly on the rafter and swinging my legs. I lean back on the cage, fluffing my wings. The worker, Moss, looks up and narrows his eyes when he sees me. He doesn’t respond, but goes back to his tinkering. I frown and spit in his direction to get his attention.

    I shout in surprise as I feel a current rush through my wings, and I jump back in shock as the fencing around the cage suddenly springs to life, sparks flying off of it in an array of colors. Feeling sick, I hover in the air for a minute before letting out a stream of curses, mostly directed at Moss. He wipes his brow before turning to look at me properly. I frown.

    “Sorry, Engel. You’re fighting a teleporter tomorrow. We’ve gotta turn on ze electric,” Moss explains, leaning against the staircase. I sneer and drop heavily back onto the rafter, then cross my arms.

    “It’s tomorrow though, ain’t it? Why’re you activating them now?”

    A look of regret glazes over Moss’s face for a second before it shifts into a practiced blankness. “Boss changed ze policy. No more mutant powers allowed in ze cage.” He shifts from one foot to the next, visibly uncomfortable. I personally am ready to fall off of the rafters, and I latch onto a pole to steady myself. It hums underneath my hand. I feel bile rising in my throat, but force it down.

    “Wait, why...Moss, come on man, that’s a joke, right?” But he shakes his head wordlessly.

    “I wish it were.” Obviously content with his answer, Moss turns and grabs his rag and toolbox and makes his descent down the stairs. I shout after him, flapping down the side of the cage but being careful not to touch the walls. I drop the last five feet onto the wooden floor and glare at Bee and Dee, Caliban’s largest guards, who are holding machine guns and standing solidly next to the cage door.

    “Guys.” I hold my hands up defensively and walk towards the door, which is closed and padlocked. Dee tenses and raises his gun, and I freeze. “Seriously?”

    “We have orders,” Dee grunts, but he doesn’t lower his weapon as I raise my hands higher on my head.

    “I’m not the teleporter, though. I’m not dangerous.” My eyes flick to the heavy lock. “What’s going on?”

    Bee steps up to the cage and motions for me to come closer after looking carefully behind him. Dee kicks his leg and glares at him, but Bee shakes him off, muttering in German. “Come. Here,” he commands, and I walk closer, hands still raised. My wings are fluffing up in agitation. “Look, Engel. Caliban got word zat a fighter was going to break free tonight. Zo he told us to secure ze cage.” He narrows his eyes. “Caliban’s rarely wrong, you know.”   

    My eyes grow wider as he talks. How could Caliban have found out about mine and Betsy’s plan?! I panic internally and take a step back from the cage. Dee clicks his gun into place.

    “Cool it, Dee. This is crazy, this is insane! I’m not part of this. I just want to go back to containment, boys.” I tap my wrists together above my head, the signal that we want to return to our holding cages. But Bee grunts in disagreement.

    “Can’t do it, Engel. You stay here for now.”

    It’s standoffish, the three of us, the tension thick in the air, until I hear familiar boots tap along the floor. I tense up as much as I relax, which I’m sure looks like I just took a very large dose of acid. Betsy looks me up and down as she approaches Bee and Dee, putting a hand on their shoulders. They grin down at her, but she doesn’t look at them. Instead, her gaze is focused solely on me, specifically the marks on my chest. I try to flex. My wings puff up stupidly; God, I hate them sometimes. She has an amused look on her face as she leans close to Bee and whispers to him. He nods and motions with his gun to the doorway that leads to the holding cells.

    They walk away, and Bee looks back and throws me an apologetic look, which both confuses and terrifies me. The heavy metal door slams shut.

    It’s me and Betsy left in this ring. I smirk, then sneeze heavily.

    “Hey, baby, how’s the murder squad treating you?” It’s a sore subject, but I’m also pretty sore after four months of not seeing her. She scoffs.

    “Just great, baby, I get to sleep in Caliban’s quarters, on a nice, warm bed.” She narrows her eyes as she speaks. “You don’t know how much you miss something until you don’t have it for months on end.”

    I walk around the edge of the cage. She follows me slowly, after a minute. “Is that so?” Pursing my lips, I abruptly stop walking and face her, leaning in so close I can smell the electricity just waiting to zap me. “Because if you had every chance to get that thing back, wouldn’t you take those chances?”

    “If this is about not seeing me, Warren, take a pill. I’ve been busy.”

    I laugh loudly. Betsy jumps a little. “Busy? Busy spilling to Caliban about our plan, maybe. But not busy with anything else important.” I grin as my eyes get misty. “Not like you care. Don’t make me laugh, Bets. As if Romeo or I would even want to see you.” She looks hurt, and that fuels my rage. “How long has it been that we’ve planned for this, and now you go and spill?” I spit at her feet. “Traitor,” I hiss, and turn my back on her, letting tears drop onto my bare chest.

    “That’s not true,” she tries. She sighs heavily and steps back to lean against the alcohol-stained stadium seats with faux casualty. “You don’t understand. I would never-”

    I whirl around furiously. “Not understand what, Betsy? What exactly do I ‘not understand’? Because the only thing I can’t grasp, is how you could just up and leave me in a dank warehouse with a broken rib cage after all we’ve been through together!” She’s shocked into silence. “Riddle me that, Psylocke,” I sneer as my voice cracks. I flap up to the rafters while wiping my face angrily, then curse as one of my feathers brushes the side. I glare down at my former girlfriend, who is sobbing quietly. My tears shine as they fall like the diamonds I would never be able to give her.

    Just as Betsy turns to leave, I shout after her. “I’m happy for you! I really am. Congratulations on becoming an official member of the world’s greatest mutant slaughterhouse.”

    It was at that moment, as I felt my mind go numb, that I learned of Betsy’s secondary mutation. Boy, did I learn.

-ൾ-

    “He’s in the breakroom. He’s feeling a little under the weather, though, so…” I open my eyes as Betsy strolls into the dark office with Jubilee and Peter in tow. I make a move to sit up and make myself presentable for my guests.

    Jubilee’s smile is sad, but beautiful as always. She leans down and hugs me tightly as we greet each other. It looks like she’s been crying. I mention nothing of it as she sits down with Peter beside me.

    Peter bumps me with his shoulder. “Birdbrain,” he greets lightly with a half-hearted grin. I force a chuckle.

    “Speedy.”

    We fall into small talk as Jubilee and Betsy converse amongst themselves. Jubilee makes a grab for the box of tissues on the coffee table after a while, and it reminds me of something.

    “Don’t use those,” I say quickly, making a grab for them, but she goes to wipe her eyes and shrieks when she sees the blood splattered on them.

    Her eyes are wide as she turns to look at me, horrified. “Warren…?”

    “There was a little fight between Warren and Scott earlier. No one was seriously hurt,” Betsy cuts in, and I silently thank her.

    Peter zips over to the doorway and looks into the main office, where Kurt and Scott are standing, chatting. Scott has a gauze bandage on his nose. “Sure. That’s why his face is destroyed?”

    I find myself seeing little humor in his words. “Yes,” I bite out. “Scott caused Archangel to come out when he-”

   

    “He did this, she did that, come on, Warren, you two can’t behave for an hour together?” Peter huffs and zips over to the open window, gazing out. “This is more important than your’s and his hissy fits.” The laughter is gone from his eyes and his voice, and is replaced with an empty sadness.

    “I don’t know if you’ve heard,” he starts, “but Charles and Logan are both dead. They’re dead, Warren. We’re all together right now to attend the Professor’s funeral! And Logan’s funeral right after!” He whips around and glares. There are tears on his cheeks. “You can’t set aside your differences for a single day? What would Charles think of you two?!”

    I stand up and puff out my chest. “It’s not like that, Pete.”

    “Better not be,” he hisses. His hair brushes against my arm as he runs out of the room and nearly collides with Kurt as he goes. Kurt looks startled and sad as he gestures to where Peter went.

    “He’s taken it roughly, we both have,” Jubilee murmured into a clean tissue. “You know, Charles was like a father to him.”

    “You say that like not all of us feel the same,” Scott huffs. He pushes past Kurt and enters the room, looking carefully at everyone until his gaze lands on me. “But he’s right, Warren.”

    I grimace at the extreme change of his tone. It’s sweet, almost sickly-so. I don’t trust it. I don’t like it. “That you shouldn’t go around threatening my family?”

    He shakes his head. “I shouldn’t have done what I did, that much is true. We need to support each other if we want this to go smoothly.”

    “As if,” I mutter under my breath, but I nod and wrap an arm around Kurt’s waist as he steps up beside me.

    “Let’s leave, then. The funeral service should be starting in about a half hour.” Betsy begins walking towards the doorway, but pauses abruptly when she passes by Scott.

    “I want you to get this straight, Cyke: today, we’re all X-Men. Today we mourn the loss of some of the greatest men we have ever known. After this, we all go home to our corners of the world and may not ever speak again. But until then…” She extends her hand out to him, and he takes it with a flat-lipped smile. “...welcome back to the team, Scott.”

    “I’m happy to be back, Elizabeth.” Scott holds the door for everyone as we file out and meet Peter in the waiting room. A chill runs up my spine when I pass by Scott.

    I don’t like this. Not in the slightest.