Chapter Text
Alex can go weeks without speaking to anyone. He doesn’t need to, because he knows he can survive on his own. He always has. Or, well. He did for the first few years of his life, anyway. He was kicked out when he first chose to come out, and it wasn’t a surprise when a few years later his younger brother ended up at his doorstep with his own overnight bag that turned into an ‘everyday’ bag. They survived together, just the two of them.
He knows he doesn’t need Hank. He only needed Scott.
But he spends 3 weeks alone, in Scott’s house. When he does come home? He doesn’t do much. He eats in his room, he does his work in his room, he films in his room. The place he felt safest was his room . His own version of solitary confinement.
Hank doesn’t seem to be around often when he does leave his space. In fact, he’s rarely around. Usually, he marked his territory as the kitchen table, the wood underneath barely visible from the scattered papers and his laptop.
Alex doesn’t acknowledge this- the fact that he’s not around. It’s none of his business anymore. There’s no room for his love; none for his feelings. He lost that right. Or, well, he never had it. He should’ve spoken up when he had the chance.
He knows he should forget. But it’s hard when everywhere he turns he sees black hair and glasses and hears the soft hum of a voice so angelic that he could cry.
(He does. Every night, he cries himself to sleep and dreams of a boy who’s so close, yet so far, and he just once wishes he could reach him).
There comes a day (the exact date he will never know. Time felt false in those days. But he would never forget the way his breath fogged up and the way he shivered, drenched in blood as his friends tried to carry him somewhere, anywhere to get help) when Peter would run into him. He opens his mouth to apologize because he’s fucked everything up, hasn’t he? And the least he can do is apologize for what he put them through.
Peter glares, head swiveling around in a motion that makes Alex wince. “Shut the fuck up, Summers.”
He blinks. Once, twice, because as much as they disliked each other, he didn’t think he really deserved that. After all, Hank had seemingly chosen Peter. He wasn’t home, after all. He didn’t run for Alex like he presumptuously assumed he would. He doesn’t respond right away, because he thinks he might just lash out and punch him out of anger, or out of jealousy, he can’t tell, but he doesn’t do that, surprisingly. Because instead of it being him to lash out- it is Peter.
Peter punches Alex in the face. Alex can’t blame him, but fuck if it didn’t hurt like hell. He stumbles backward, too shocked to fight back, and he is pushed onto the ground. The crunch of his nose sounds absolutely disgusting as he hears it, his brain sending him into a dissociative state. There’s punch after punch, and he notes, idly, at one point, that Peter is sitting on his chest, effectively cutting out what little air he could intake anyway.
There’s something about laying in the snow, blood flowing freely, dotting the snow with shades of red and pink, that is lovely and sad. It’s the drop of pain that breaches into innocence, from what you once thought would be lovely. But still, as white turns crimson, he notes that it is snowing. Huh. The first snowfall of winter, and he’s lying it in, wet, cold, and utterly broken.
How fitting.
Alex wants to laugh at himself. He’s not poetic. He’s a pathetic coward who is bleeding out in the snow. There’s nothing lovely about it.
Peter jumps away from his body, beaten to the brink of unconsciousness. There’s a soft murmur of “Oh shit,” and Alex is alone again.
Like always.
And as he fades to the unconscious, he thinks that dying with a broken heart could be the least painful ways to go.
The next time he wakes up he’s in warm, but weak, he notes, arms. They smell like spices and herbs and he knows immediately that it’s Raven and Charles carrying him because nobody cooks the way they do, and they smell just like it, and they smell just like home and love and he misses them, he realizes. But that’s not important because he’s in so much pain, and a loud sob comes from his mouth and that makes things worse and oh GOD he was going to die.
Oh GOD, he was going to die in Raven’s arms. His soul was going to bond to her and he was going to be stuck haunting her ass for the rest of ETERNITY.
Wait what?
Yeah, maybe he was dying.
He passes out again, after a huff of deranged laughter escapes from his mouth, and just after he hears his name and feels his body go numb because of that voice.
It’s Hanks.
Huh. Huh.
It’s warm again when he wakes up for the final time. He’s in a hospital bed, and as he comes to, he sees everyone there, save Erik, who he assumes is out looking for his sibling.
He doesn’t look for anyone but Scott.
And Hank.
And he finds Hank first and notes that they’re holding hands. He also notes that Hank is halfway on his bed, and he tries to smile, but the bandages on his nose only allow a weak grimace at best.
He squeezes that hand, and when eyes meet, he knows he’s found his home. Before anyone can say anything to him, he blurts out,
“I love you.”
And for once, he’s never meant those three words more than he did right then.
And nothing feels better than when Hank looks up and says it too.
Alex Summers didn’t need anyone. He only needed him, and his brother. That was a fact. But maybe, just maybe, Alex Summers needed Hank McCoy, too.