Fic Post: Stand My Ground
Jul. 3rd, 2011 08:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
harborshoreTitle: Stand My Ground
Fandom: X-Men: First Class
Pairing(s): Gen
Rating: PG
Word count: 1185
Summary: One morning, there's a foot in the courtyard. Post-movie AU.
Author's notes: Some things need fixing. The title is from Bob Dylan's "Mississippi". Thanks so much to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
torakowalski for looking this over for me. ♥ Here on AO3.
The world doesn't end. Unfortunately, Xavier and the remaining children make it out, as do Lensherr and the others, and the CIA cannot find them. Any of them. The facilities that once housed the short-lived "Freak Division" are still empty. Too many people died there; it obviously wasn't secure enough. Better to build elsewhere. Besides, it's fucking creepy out there.
So the facilities remain empty, burnt-out and crumbled, only the bodies cleared away. Nearly all of them, anyway.
One morning, there's a foot in the courtyard.
--
The mansion's too quiet in the mornings. Alex hates it. He gets up first because he spent six months in prison and before that, the family who adopted him liked to start their days with a song and a smile at 6:30 AM. Years of conditioning are nearly impossible to overcome, as it turns out, no matter how much he'd like to sleep in.
Even if that weren't the case, he's having bad dreams.
Breakfast is complicated. He's not very good at keeping his internal energy in when he's tired, so a spark knocks into the toaster, singeing the toast and probably killing the toaster. Again.
At least Hank stumbles in before Alex has time to kill the coffee machine as well, and before long Alex has a mug full of steaming coffee and is starting to feel more like a human. Mutant. Whatever.
"I killed the toaster," he says, because Hank is poking it with a puzzled look,
all the funnier for the way the fur on his ears twitches when he does.
Hank snorts, stopping. "Again, Alex?"
"Tired," Alex says by way of explanation.
Opting for cereal instead, Hank sits down opposite him at the table and they finish their breakfast in silence. It's easier between them since the island. Alex kind of likes it, though he'd never say so. Hank is the only one who doesn't really try to make him talk; he likes that too. The only person who could successfully make him talk was--is. Was.
Alex shakes his head, hoping the professor didn't catch that. He's not in the mood for another discussion of the six stages of grief. He likes anger; plans to stick to it.
(It should't have happened. If they had practiced like Darwin wanted, kept asking for, it wouldn't have.)
--
There's a spark.
Another one.
The air is warm. Very locally warm. Cracks are appearing and disappearing, shimmering red.
There are two feet in the courtyard, and the suggestion of legs. Something is building.
There's a face, eventually. There's Darwin, falling to his knees and gasping for air, his skin still trying to close the cracks. The flagstones are heating beneath him, but he's got it now, he's back.
He falls over, still trying to remember how to breathe, and then he can't move. It's been weeks and weeks of pain (he thinks, he's not sure, fuck), and now he can't move.
--
Miles away, Charles Xavier blinks.
--
"Oh, I fixed your suit," Hank says.
"Fixed it?" Alex bristles a little. He doesn't need the suit for control anymore; Hank was there when that became obvious, so why is he--
"Modifications," Hank says hurriedly. "Not, like. Just some stuff that might be fun, now that you have more control."
Alex blinks. "More fun?" He's never thought of his power as fun. Even when they asked him to demonstrate, the others, laughing and goading him, it wasn't fun, exactly. Though he liked that they weren't scared, even after they saw.
"Yeah," Hank says, and he's sitting up straighter now. "I thought you could get some real fine-tuning, you know, and if we try it together we might be able to really tap into the energy waves--"
Alex shakes his head. "You're a real piece of work, Beast," he says. "But sure, I'll be your lab rat." He grins when he says it, so Hank'll know it's a joke. Alex is maybe trying to get better at saying what he means or being clear about when he's joking. It's just easier that way.
"Your experiments will have to wait, I'm afraid." The professor is at the door of the kitchen, hands resting on the wheels of his chair. (That had been Hank's first project when they came back: a lightweight, non-metal, easy-to-use wheelchair for the professor. Hank stayed awake for five days working on it, until the professor put him to sleep and Alex and Sean dragged him over to a cot in his lab.) "We're going on a fieldtrip. Suit up, children."
And god, but Alex hates that he still calls them that.
--
They take the chopper. There's a new plane, or there will be, but Hank has to rebuild it from scratch himself and it's taking a while. But they still have the chopper.
The professor is pale, looking out at the ground beneath them. Alex hasn't seen him this focused since he was fighting to get his body working again, after the island. It scares him a little to see it again.
Neither Alex nor Sean know where they're going, but Hank must, and he doesn't look happy. It's not a smooth ride. Alex wonders how the professor's taking it. He finds it bumpy, and Alex is still, he works. Everything is working. Better than before, even. He smooths a hand down the front of his new suit.
They touch down outside the facility and the professor has a finger to his temple. "No one is here," he says. "We can go in."
And they do and Alex realizes the professor didn't mean no one was there, he meant no one dangerous, because someone is definitely here, someone--
"You're dead," he blurts. "I watched you die."
Darwin shifts on the ground, slowly, like it's hard to move. He grins at Alex. "I adapt, remember?"
"You--I killed you."
"Nah," Darwin says, coughing a little. "Would have taken more than your wimpy little lightning bolt to kill me."
"'s not lightning," is all Alex can manage before he's on the ground next to Darwin, carefully helping him sit up with an arm under his shoulders. He swallows down against the burning he can feel in his eyes and the back of his throat; he doesn't think anything else is building but fuck if he's going to cry in front of anyone.
"Havoc?" Darwin says, sounding a bit puzzled.
"He missed you very much," the professor says, and his voice is warm. "Shall we go home, gentlemen?"
And it's not all pretty, because they have to fill Darwin in on what happened, tell him about Eric and the professor and Hank (though those two, at least, are kind of obvious) and Raven leaving and everything going to shit, basically, but Alex can't really be bothered to feel all that upset. Darwin's leaning on him as they walk back to the chopper, all warm and solid and alive, and it kind of feels like the world's alright, just now.
Fandom: X-Men: First Class
Pairing(s): Gen
Rating: PG
Word count: 1185
Summary: One morning, there's a foot in the courtyard. Post-movie AU.
Author's notes: Some things need fixing. The title is from Bob Dylan's "Mississippi". Thanks so much to
torakowalski for looking this over for me. ♥ Here on AO3.The world doesn't end. Unfortunately, Xavier and the remaining children make it out, as do Lensherr and the others, and the CIA cannot find them. Any of them. The facilities that once housed the short-lived "Freak Division" are still empty. Too many people died there; it obviously wasn't secure enough. Better to build elsewhere. Besides, it's fucking creepy out there.
So the facilities remain empty, burnt-out and crumbled, only the bodies cleared away. Nearly all of them, anyway.
One morning, there's a foot in the courtyard.
--
The mansion's too quiet in the mornings. Alex hates it. He gets up first because he spent six months in prison and before that, the family who adopted him liked to start their days with a song and a smile at 6:30 AM. Years of conditioning are nearly impossible to overcome, as it turns out, no matter how much he'd like to sleep in.
Even if that weren't the case, he's having bad dreams.
Breakfast is complicated. He's not very good at keeping his internal energy in when he's tired, so a spark knocks into the toaster, singeing the toast and probably killing the toaster. Again.
At least Hank stumbles in before Alex has time to kill the coffee machine as well, and before long Alex has a mug full of steaming coffee and is starting to feel more like a human. Mutant. Whatever.
"I killed the toaster," he says, because Hank is poking it with a puzzled look,
all the funnier for the way the fur on his ears twitches when he does.
Hank snorts, stopping. "Again, Alex?"
"Tired," Alex says by way of explanation.
Opting for cereal instead, Hank sits down opposite him at the table and they finish their breakfast in silence. It's easier between them since the island. Alex kind of likes it, though he'd never say so. Hank is the only one who doesn't really try to make him talk; he likes that too. The only person who could successfully make him talk was--is. Was.
Alex shakes his head, hoping the professor didn't catch that. He's not in the mood for another discussion of the six stages of grief. He likes anger; plans to stick to it.
(It should't have happened. If they had practiced like Darwin wanted, kept asking for, it wouldn't have.)
--
There's a spark.
Another one.
The air is warm. Very locally warm. Cracks are appearing and disappearing, shimmering red.
There are two feet in the courtyard, and the suggestion of legs. Something is building.
There's a face, eventually. There's Darwin, falling to his knees and gasping for air, his skin still trying to close the cracks. The flagstones are heating beneath him, but he's got it now, he's back.
He falls over, still trying to remember how to breathe, and then he can't move. It's been weeks and weeks of pain (he thinks, he's not sure, fuck), and now he can't move.
--
Miles away, Charles Xavier blinks.
--
"Oh, I fixed your suit," Hank says.
"Fixed it?" Alex bristles a little. He doesn't need the suit for control anymore; Hank was there when that became obvious, so why is he--
"Modifications," Hank says hurriedly. "Not, like. Just some stuff that might be fun, now that you have more control."
Alex blinks. "More fun?" He's never thought of his power as fun. Even when they asked him to demonstrate, the others, laughing and goading him, it wasn't fun, exactly. Though he liked that they weren't scared, even after they saw.
"Yeah," Hank says, and he's sitting up straighter now. "I thought you could get some real fine-tuning, you know, and if we try it together we might be able to really tap into the energy waves--"
Alex shakes his head. "You're a real piece of work, Beast," he says. "But sure, I'll be your lab rat." He grins when he says it, so Hank'll know it's a joke. Alex is maybe trying to get better at saying what he means or being clear about when he's joking. It's just easier that way.
"Your experiments will have to wait, I'm afraid." The professor is at the door of the kitchen, hands resting on the wheels of his chair. (That had been Hank's first project when they came back: a lightweight, non-metal, easy-to-use wheelchair for the professor. Hank stayed awake for five days working on it, until the professor put him to sleep and Alex and Sean dragged him over to a cot in his lab.) "We're going on a fieldtrip. Suit up, children."
And god, but Alex hates that he still calls them that.
--
They take the chopper. There's a new plane, or there will be, but Hank has to rebuild it from scratch himself and it's taking a while. But they still have the chopper.
The professor is pale, looking out at the ground beneath them. Alex hasn't seen him this focused since he was fighting to get his body working again, after the island. It scares him a little to see it again.
Neither Alex nor Sean know where they're going, but Hank must, and he doesn't look happy. It's not a smooth ride. Alex wonders how the professor's taking it. He finds it bumpy, and Alex is still, he works. Everything is working. Better than before, even. He smooths a hand down the front of his new suit.
They touch down outside the facility and the professor has a finger to his temple. "No one is here," he says. "We can go in."
And they do and Alex realizes the professor didn't mean no one was there, he meant no one dangerous, because someone is definitely here, someone--
"You're dead," he blurts. "I watched you die."
Darwin shifts on the ground, slowly, like it's hard to move. He grins at Alex. "I adapt, remember?"
"You--I killed you."
"Nah," Darwin says, coughing a little. "Would have taken more than your wimpy little lightning bolt to kill me."
"'s not lightning," is all Alex can manage before he's on the ground next to Darwin, carefully helping him sit up with an arm under his shoulders. He swallows down against the burning he can feel in his eyes and the back of his throat; he doesn't think anything else is building but fuck if he's going to cry in front of anyone.
"Havoc?" Darwin says, sounding a bit puzzled.
"He missed you very much," the professor says, and his voice is warm. "Shall we go home, gentlemen?"
And it's not all pretty, because they have to fill Darwin in on what happened, tell him about Eric and the professor and Hank (though those two, at least, are kind of obvious) and Raven leaving and everything going to shit, basically, but Alex can't really be bothered to feel all that upset. Darwin's leaning on him as they walk back to the chopper, all warm and solid and alive, and it kind of feels like the world's alright, just now.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-03 06:36 pm (UTC)Love this. :D :D :D
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-03 07:09 pm (UTC)♥!
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-03 08:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-03 10:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-03 07:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-04 09:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-03 07:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-04 09:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-03 07:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-04 09:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-05 11:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-06 03:31 pm (UTC)And yes yes yes, you should write that fix-it. Yes please!
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-06 03:41 pm (UTC)sulkingbrooding tragically? <3I think I probably will! :D
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-03 08:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-03 08:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-04 05:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-04 05:25 pm (UTC)And I've pretty much decided Darwin will be alive in every story I write in this fandom. Because come on.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-04 05:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-04 05:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-04 06:47 pm (UTC)Instead, she just looks dismayed, because it's the 60's an the writers have seen Mad Men and know what gender relations were like then, somehow completely forgetting that their character is a powerful telepath and also Emma Frost. Even if you assume a complete personality transplant, even if she's completely conditioned by her era, being a telepath would have some effect on how she acts and sees the world. Someone who can make people respect her just by telling them to isn't going to be a Little Woman archtype. (And maybe she's wary of him, and playing nice, but there was absolutely no indication of any of that.)
I'm pretty sure the only way to make sense of Emma is that she was the mastermind all along, and Shaw only thought it was his plan.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-08 09:05 pm (UTC)Emma was absolutely either the mastermind or playing along because it got her something else she was after. I tend toward the latter, because it gives the story a continuing arc after the end of the movie (and because I like to think she can come up with better and more subtle plots than Shaw's). So yes, the only thing that makes sense is if she was playing some sort of long game. I mean jesus, it was as if the writers hadn't even read the Wiki entry on Emma Frost. The reason she has the diamond power? SHE SURVIVED A WHOLE CITY FALLING DOWN AROUND HER.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-10 03:42 pm (UTC)I'm a little warmer towards the idea that it was Emma's plan, now, with the idea of her being so bored with everything that a giant reset button has its appeal; but yeah, that's still a different Emma than the one in my head. I could forgive it as the result of her being younger and different, but unfortunately, I'm pretty well convinced it's down to bad writing. I don't think they knew anything about her beyond 'blonde', 'telepath' and 'white underwear'.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-12 07:53 am (UTC)Yes, it doesn't fit at all--a story I'm thinking about but not writing yet, is the one that takes some actual Emma Frost canon and combines it with the movie. I don't know quite what shape it'll take yet, but yeah, no, there needs to be some other things to that characterization.
Oh, hey, I have two or three tropes left--if you are so inclined, you could go prompt me for X-men--I'd love a not-major-character prompt. ♥
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-04 05:43 pm (UTC)Thank you, dear. ♥
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-03 09:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-04 05:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-03 09:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-04 05:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-04 02:31 am (UTC)Darwiiiiiiin. How is this so perfect? ♥
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-04 05:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-04 02:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-04 05:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-07 11:38 am (UTC)You made it better! :D :D
Here's hoping there's more to come
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-08 09:08 pm (UTC)And ha, yes, there's definitely more to come. They won't leave me alone, man.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-09 10:38 pm (UTC)I saw the film for the first time last week, and the entire drive home I kept thinking, "B-b-but ... Darwin can't die! That makes no SENSE."
So, this story and all the other fix-its I've found have made me very happy. What I particularly liked about yours was the humor (Alex killing the toaster and Hank's nonchalant response made me laugh), the insight into Alex, and the suggestion that their becoming a more cohesive team.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-12 07:55 am (UTC)♥ Thank you, it's awesome to hear that those things worked.