Molotov Heart {Alex Summers | X-Men}

15. énouement.

and when the day's done anything ive l o s t
is worth w h a t e v e r cost

Hank’s lab is where Aoibheal finds herself after the school day ends, perched on his desk which is covered in notes and schematics; some she recognises from long ago, early, early drafts of Alex’s flight suit. Hank’s trying to find a substance that won’t be conductive to Scott’s lasers, but will allow him to see; he keeps asking her opinions on things like ruby quartz, but the ginger just shrugs in response. Drifting away, she promises to bring him food, and makes a beeline for the kitchen. Pasta is what she decides on, as it was her go-to dish, making enough to feed a veritable army, but only plating up three serves, putting the rest in the fridge for kids to heat up of their own accord.

The first goes to Hank, and he thanks her faintly, but she doesn’t stay long enough; the other two she takes up to the third floor. Knocking softly on the door, Alex invites her in, and Scott, who had been slumped on the bottom bunk of the room, straightens up immediately at the smell of food. Scott thanks her gruffly but practically inhales his, as Aoibheal explains the school’s updated facilities.

Alex is quiet while he eats, letting Aoibheal talk, watching her explain this place, her home, to his little brother. He’s still not sure why she’d stayed for so long, knows from talking with Hank that things had gotten very bad over the past twenty years, not the extent, but enough to wonder what had kept her grounded. When she looks at him, he makes himself smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. Vaguely, he remembers the home he and Sean had rescued her from after Cuba, but then everyone left, and something had lit a spark inside of her. The Aoibheal he knew was a hurricane of a girl with a desire for change, how had she let herself fall into this life.

“About earlier-“ it’s only at the sound of Scott’s voice is Alex pulled from his thoughts. Once again, Aoibheal tries to assure him that she’s fine, but he brushes her off, “no. I mean, I’m glad you’re okay, but you’ve made that very clear; I wanna know how.” With an empty bowl on his lap and ankles crossed where he’s sitting on the edge of his bed, he looks younger than Alex knows him to be.

“I was born with temperature immunity.” Aoibheal explains carefully. “It’s technically my primary mutation, in that it was the first one I had developed; some mutants are born with them, some develop them, like you.” There’s a long pause before Scott asks faintly.

“So my lasers don’t hurt you at all?” He sounds surprisingly hopeful and Aoibheal’s heart is in her throat. Touching her own cheek faintly, she thinks over her answer, looking to Alex.

“No.” Finally she answered, and Scott’s relieved smile flickered over his lips before turning into a smirk.

“Alright, cool. Thanks for dinner.” Offering the bowl to the empty air in front of him, Aoibheal lurches forward instinctively to pluck it from his grip, and swivel around to grin at Alex and hold her hand out for his empty dish. He too thanks her, and she’s gone soon after that, wishing them both a good night’s sleep.

Later that night, after her paperwork has been finalised for the day, she finds Alex on the sofa, chatting to Jubilee who is up way past her curfew. The teen scurries away at Aoibheal’s soft insistence and the ginger curls instinctively to Alex’s side. Instead of pushing her away, he wraps an arm around her shoulder and shifts to make himself more comfortable. Together they watch a few episodes of the Twilight Zone before Aoibheal feels her eyelids begin to droop, and she calls it a night. Alex stands with her, catching her arm as she turns away, spinning her back to face him and pull her into a hug.

“I didn’t think you’d still be here.” Admitting into her hair, his arms wrap loosely around her waist while her hands grip the fabric of his shirt tightly. He can feel it when she yawns against his chest and when she speaks it’s warm and tired.

“I don’t have anywhere else to go.” It’s so casual it almost stings, the dependence she’d built up on the people around her only confirmed in her words, “Hank and Charles are the only family I’ve got left.” After pulling away, she takes a moment to look at him, to study him, before bouncing smiling softly, “I chose this, Alex.” Slowly, like a creeping fog, a sense of dread begins to fill the house; Aoibheal knows what it is right away, but Alex is uncertain and on edge. A tremor runs through the house that makes even Aoibheal wary as Alex follows her up the stairs to the wing of the house where the bedrooms are located.

Jean’s bedroom is located on the third floor, as far away from Aoibheal’s as was physically possible, but it seemed the house’s movement had woken some of the other students, and Aoibheal does her best to usher them back to bed, voice sweet and understanding at the sight of their nervous little faces. When she speaks, it’s with a softly British inflection and Alex has to swallow a surprised laugh. At the end of the corridor, Hank is standing guard by the bedroom in question, and Aoibheal asks quietly how she is.

“The Professor's in with her now." After heaving a deep sigh, he looks from Aoibheal to Alex, and then to the face of a small child peering out from a doorframe behind them. 

"Hey, sweetie," voice a low murmur, Aoibheal bends down to smile at the kid, who hesitantly smiles back, casting a nervous look at the door behind her, "it’s just Jean, everything's okay, you can pop back to bed." Nodding weakly, the kid turns and heads back into their room while Hank gives her a half smile.

“You sound like Charles.” His voice is low, but fond, and Aoibheal smiles back, the two seeming to share an inside joke that Alex wasn’t privy to. However, before he could ask, Hank’s expression soured. “But it wasn’t Jean- I mean, yeah, the mood and the despair and everything, but not the house shaking.” When Alex asked him what it was, Hank could do little more than shrug, a gesture Aoibheal mirrored when he turned to her. The three parted ways, or rather, Aoibheal and Alex parted ways and left Hank to stay with Charles, none of them getting easy sleep that night.