Chapter Text
The November sun set cold and pale over the remains of party and battle, wrapping Dani in a robe of shadow and Bay chill. No matter how familiar it got, it would never feel right to her. Not the clinging gray that seeped into her bones, colder than any winter in Westchester or Lame Deer. Not watching Amara incinerate the rubble Nate didn't struggle so much anymore to float into piles while Doug and Warlock did some kind of techno-organic linguistic hoodoo, from where she sat, taking a break from poking through trash and memories with fingers as numb as sticks, all without being able to touch them, know their minds.
Keep going, Logan had said. You're doing the right thing. Right before he'd pitched her an empty beer can. One more X-men mess to clean up, she'd wanted to say, but there'd been no time in the chaos. Now it all tumbled around in her chest, making a knot with the text message from Havok that asked her to call ASAP, non-urgent.
"What are you going to tell him?" Sam asked as he loomed up behind her. Again. This time, at least, he had the decency to bring her a beer.
She popped the top off it and pushed one braid over her shoulder to look at him and shrug. Was it the shock of blond hair in his blue eyes, the eager hopefulness lurking there, or his hand reaching for hers that made it all feel both normal and completely surreal? Like Tyro crashing a party, a wake for their mentor -- and maybe a little bit for the Cyke they'd known too -- was a trip to the State Fair or a Madripoor festival compliments of Blink? Look over there! Can we ride that one? What are you going to eat?
A trip to Madripoor with a hyper-active man-child on a sugar-adrenalin rush, while she moved slow and heavy and gray in her shroud of fog, with lurid, seething rage in brackish, blackish red pressed down beneath her skin. Funny how her own emotions seemed so loud, when the rest of the world was silent.
"Answer hasn't changed since you asked me half an hour ago, Sam." Her voice hung in her throat with a dullness Sam had never learned to hear. Once upon a time, she'd been better at warding it away or faking it. "I don't know what Alex wants, so I don't know what I'm going to tell him." That felt like treaty talk, but even if she knew her emotions, knew the patterns of what had been happening, she didn't know what they meant.
"C'mon, Chief. They asked Bobby n' me. You know they're going to--"
"Stop, okay? I don't know." Slim was on the money with your team, Dani. Why did that rasp like a file against the grain? He believed in you. "I really don't. What he wants, what I want, what I'll say. It's not--"
When his jaw firmed with the same muleheaded, boneheaded stubbornness that had saved her life so often she'd stopped counting, Dani swallowed down the rest of it, how it would never be the same, the two of them leading a team together or even being on one and he had to stop trying so hard because he was driving her insane. His eyes clouded, graying out with an unfamiliar anger, and she ached, an empty, dry ache, for the absent feel of his mind that left her own jaw tense, her shoulders stiffened. She turned her gaze aside -- the Cheyenne way, Dani's way. It used to be to give him privacy, but now it was her eyes that gave too much away.
"Did you talk about it with Nate?"
Her beer-free hand came up, a sudden burst of energy into his shoulder to shove him back. That dried-blood red beneath her skin seeped into her eyes, turning them flat and rattlesnake-mean like the right hook that was coming if he didn't shut it.
It looked like he might push, but then he shrugged, lifting his hands in a fake surrender that just made her want to punch him more. "Okay, okay. Out of line. I just--"
You just. He just. Everyone just. Everyone but her. "Shut up, Sam."
Instead of fighting, she pulled her feet up onto the table and wrapped her arms around her knees. After a few silent swallows of beer, staring out at the raven perched on the skewed fence that teetered on the wind, she said, "I don't know how you can think about anything anyway. My head feels like Thor took Mjolnir to it, trying to smash home everything that's happened."
Everything that's happened. There was some fine treaty talk if she ever heard it. But she couldn't seem to get her mouth to form the words 'Scott killed the Professor'. Forget about her mouth. Her brain, body, soul kept puking them out like a morning-after tequila hangover.
Sighing, Sam wrapped an arm around her. It was good enough for an apology between them, for something like this anyway, and she rested her cheek on his shoulder. He kissed the top of her head, and right there for a minute, the endless, clinging gray loosened its hold.
"You'll shake it off, Chief. You always do," he murmured to her. Solid, steady, same-old Sam.
And then somehow it seemed harder to breathe than ever.
As soon as possible, not urgent, turned out to be the next morning, after breakfast at the corner bakery on Bobby. It was always on Bobby, but this time it was on Bobby with the hand not dipping into his wallet wrapped around Amara's and Amara's eyes glowing with something that wasn't lava, something so warm Dani wanted to huddle up to it. Her cheek still stung with the goodbye-kiss from Sam she'd given a miss when she finally parked it on her bed, flipped open the laptop and phoned in on Skype.
He never got to see his dream come to pass. There's no changing that, Logan had said at the funeral. But Look around, Moonstar. Xavier's dream of human/mutant integration. Keep going. You're doing the right thing, was what he'd told her last night. For days she'd been replaying snatches of old conversations, the Professor inviting her back to teach at the school, asking her to call him Charles and that still being weird, her students and X'ian asking her to stay, Kevin shoving her away, Emma firing her and her leaving Josh, Scott sending her out on the X-men's unfinished business, Cap sending her team away…
They were so loud in her head now that she missed Alex coming on. Blinked when his finger grew large in the Skype window, tapping against the camera on the other end. "Hey, Moonstar, are you with me?"
"Whuh-uh, yeah. Sorry," she said. "Right here."
Alex smiled that Summers smile, steadying and sincere. "We heard what happened yesterday. Good to see you in one piece."
She couldn't help smiling back. Once upon a time, she'd had a crush on that smile. Once upon a time, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. "All pieces present and accounted for." Which wasn't exactly the same thing as being all in one piece, but good enough.
"Everyone else all right?"
"Warlock's doing that thing he does whenever we run into the Technarchs--" The techno-organic equivalent of beating himself up. Sometimes she wondered if that was why Cable was such a broody s.o.b. but now really wasn't the time for that kind of mental wandering, and she pulled it back again to shrug. "Other than that, fine."
The nod that greeted her 'debrief' might've come from Scott, except Scott's ruby lenses had never hidden his feelings from her like Alex's steady-soldier neutrality. Not even after M-Day. "You're probably wondering why I wanted to talk to you, so I'm going to skip the formalities and get right to the point."
Now she was the one giving Cheyenne brave-face with her nod.
"Not to put too fine a point on it--" Even across the distance, it sounded a little wry. "I want you."
Anyone else (except Cap) and she might've cracked wise or at least a smile for that, but she could only think of recruiting posters. "For the new teams," she supplied.
"Yes." Before she could ask why, he answered, "While we were busy fighting each other over the Phoenix Force--" He grimaced at that. "You were on the ground holding things together. You're a unifying factor, Dani. You always have been." Alex paused and reloaded. "Charles saw it. My brother saw it. I'm not stupid enough to miss it. We really need that right now."
Pretty much what Logan had said. Just keep doing what you're doing. "I turned 'Ro down the last time." Stalling and she knew it.
"Last time, you turned it down to fight for Charles's school. For the kids. This time, I'm asking you to say yes for the same reasons," Alex said, not missing a beat, not batting a lash, like someone - Sam - had told him what she'd say.
Her shoulders tightened, chin started to lift, every bit as stubborn as Guthrie's. "My team needs me, Havok."
"I'm not debating that," he said with a shrug of acknowledgment that relaxed her a little. "But you're needed more here. Ask yourself what Charles would want."
She'd been asking that question over and over and over since she first heard. Logan said keep on keeping on. Sam and Alex said join the new teams. Scott…at least the one in her head, couldn't answer. His jaw was wired shut from when her fist smashed through it. Nate went all shaman on her and asked if that was what mattered. "I'll think about it."
"After M-Day, most people gave up. You kept fighting." Another grimace from Alex, but she couldn't guess at the reasons. "No matter what happened."
'What happened', again. They'd all reverted to treaty talk. 'Euphemisms'. Too shell-shocked still to talk openly about what Wanda did. Maybe too ashamed and guilty.
Suddenly sick of it, sick with it, Dani snapped, "What happened," no apology in her tone, "Was that one of the people you want me to team with mutilated me and my students and my friends, and when I stuck around, what happened was the Queen Bitch fired me, because I didn't belong anymore. What happened was Tony Stark, another person you want me to work with, split the effing Phoenix Force into five parts and one part turned one of my team back into a monster. 'What happened' was that your brother, my friend, killed our teacher!"
Alex's hand clenched in a fist on the desk. Direct hit. "Dani," he began, voice tight with strain.
The twisted surge of triumph in her gut died with how hard he worked for that calm. He'd been through hell, too. "Sorry." Her eyes closed and she shrugged down into herself. "I just--"
"I know. Believe me, I do know what I'm asking of you." His brave-face faltered. He noticeably glanced at his fist and forced it to uncurl. When he spoke again, there was less solider and more Summers, "Please, just…give it some thought. You're right about everything, but that's why we need you. You never give up."
Another direct hit. Dani sighed and twisted her hair back, shoved it down the neck of her shirt. "Scott never gave up either, and look what happened to him," she said, gray exhaustion creeping in again. "I'll think about."
"Good. Thank you." Alex's expression steadied out, but the conversation had clearly cost him. She knew, because he'd never looked more like Scott.
"Alex…" Dani bit her lip. "I'm sorry. Not for what I said, because that's all true. But about everything. He's your brother, but you're all my family too."
The grayish ceiling of Dani's room refused to part to let in the sun, no matter how long she stared at it. In good news, it wasn't spinning, but she might have felt better about that. At least it would match the churn in her stomach and the pounding in her--
"Dani?"
At her door.
"Yeah?"
"Can I come in?"
Score one for asking, and two for not asking if she was decent. Minus one for probably thinking it and hoping the answer was no. Still, she smiled beneath her arm over her eyes and made -- a little -- room on the bed.
"How someone as skinny as you can take up so much space is one of the great mysteries of modern physics," Nate informed her on his way through the door and then dropped himself onto his side next to her, propped up on his elbow.
She pretended not to notice the way he looked at her, at her face, not her body, blue eyes warm and concerned. Knowing. Had it ever been like that to talk to her, back when she still dreamed? "It's practice, not physics." Being an X-man didn't leave a lot of room for learning to share a bed.
Nate stretched a hand out toward her hair. She glanced over from under her arm, eyebrow lifted, and it fell back to his side after tugging her shirt straight like he'd meant to do that all along. "Did you talk to Havok?"
"Yeah."
"What'd he want?"
Score another for not assuming he knew. "Me."
"Polaris probably wasn't too happy about that, huh?" His mouth twitched with a little crooked smile that reminded her of Cable -- or Cyke -- on a good day. "But I can't argue with his taste."
Minus half. At least he didn't say Havok couldn't have her. "That ship sailed a long time ago," she said. Let him wonder. It was good for him.
"His loss." Dani gave him another Look, but he just shrugged. "It is. Lorna's hot but you're a hell of a lot better pilot."
That made her laugh, only a soft burst of sound, but laughter'd been in short supply lately. Short enough that she stopped counting points and rolled up on her side to face him. "Not going to ask me what I told him?"
Nate's eyes went kind of soft, like he wanted to reach for her again. Pull her into his arms. Maybe try to kiss her. Thank gods he only said, "You'll tell us when you're ready," because she still didn't know how she felt about that.
"I told him I'm flattered he's recognized my talent for kicking Summers-Grey male asses, but even I can only handle one at a time." Thanks.
His fingers twitched off his thigh, but he still kept his hands to himself. "Don't sell yourself short. You were managing me and Scott pretty well for awhile there."
Whatever light there'd been in her eyes died with the mention of Scott. She looked away from Nate, tracked her fingers along the edges of the squares of her quilt. "I told him I'd think about it, but I don't think I can do it."
"Obviously."
Her head came up, gaze narrowing and shoulders stiffening. "Obviously?"
Nate nodded, that same, stubbornly Summers smile on his face, expression intent and body as relaxed as hers was tense, as relaxed as if he belonged here on her bed. His twitching fingers finally touched down over her hand, too, gentle but not tentative. "Obviously. When you see with the eyes of the heart, it's obvious when the emperor's naked."
She rolled her eyes and tugged her hand away. "If you start telling me there are no spoons, I'm gonna punch you."
His nose wrinkled up. "Spoons?"
"…the Matrix?"
"Never saw it."
She shook her head and shoved his leg with her foot. "Sad. Seriously. Sometimes I think Cable's more in touch than you are."
"Ouch."
"I was seeing with the eyes of my heart." She smirked, a sharp twist of a smile, and poked him in the shoulder with three stiff fingers. "Obviously."
Nate sighed and twined his fingers with hers, revenge for her lack of sympathy. "Whatever you decide will be the right decision."
Sometimes, even though he was a mushy, broody, pain-in-the-ass Summers, Nate said just the right things. But she couldn't exactly let him know that, so: "Even if I decide not to tell the emperor he's naked? I mean-" A beat, a grin. For the first time in days the only gray in sight the salt-and-pepper fringe along the white stripe in his bangs. "Your uncle's kind of hot.