Molotov Heart {Alex Summers | X-Men}

8. nodus tollens.

i b e l i e v e if i knew where i was going
i'd l o s e my m i n d

France is beautiful when they land in the late morning, stepping off the plane in another bare field aside from their waiting car. Erik can’t meet Aoibheal’s gaze as they share the back seat, and she’s just petty enough to feel proud of it. The car was another rental, Charles really had to sweettalk the company into leaving it in the middle of nowhere, but it’s the fastest way to get to the Paris Peace Conference. Inner city Paris is a nightmare, but Erik is there deftly sliding cars out of their path with little collision, getting them past security with ease. They’re racing up the stairs of the hotel the conference had been scheduled in, following the sounds of movement and violence ahead, Aoibheal creating a clone to hang back and serve as backup if needed.
 
Raven, every bit as gorgeous and statuesque as Aoibheal remembers, stands poised to shoot the man everyone’s calling Trask and to doom them all. Calling her name, Charles distracts her, giving one of the humans on the floor enough time to taser her, even as her brother keeps calling her name. Erik’s the one who disarms the human, the taser’s electrodes being pulled from Raven’s skin and forced against the human’s until both of the tasers victims were writhing. Amongst all the commotion, a quiet beeping draws Aoibheal’s attention to a short-statured man with an ungodly moustache that makes her whole body tense up with fear. He’s so familiar that it hurts, pain shooting through her ribs at the mere sight of his face. But then all she can see is the way Erik’s gaze is captivated by Raven’s fallen gun, and her stomach drops. Hank sees it too, but it’s far too late, and Raven is suddenly staring down the barrel of a gun as Erik gives a flat apology, claiming her survival to be a threat to all mutant-kind.

"Use your powers, Charles, stop him." Raven pleaded with her brother, but Charles looks pained, remorseful. The beeping from the short man, Trask, is getting louder and it finally clicks for Aoibheal where she knows him from. He had overseen the experiments on her and her brother, and now he’s looking back at her as if he’s shocked to see her alive.

"He can't." Erik’s voice, meanwhile, is cold and triumphant. The world falls apart in a blur of movement. The gun goes off just after Raven jumps and makes a break for the window, the bullet curves as she crashes through the glass, following her on the way down. Tackling Erik earns Hank a mean right hook to the jaw, but Aoibheal’s there, looking at Trask like a dear in the headlights, memories whipping through her head like a hurricane - the sick fuck looks pleased to see her  tells her – her mouth falls open and she screams. She and the clone scream in tandem, their voices supersonic as the surrounding people clutched their ears for dear life; struggling to keep a hold of the feeling in her chest that caused her to explode, the clone detonates like a firework, scorching the wallpaper while Trask is stumbling to the door. There’s blood leaking from his ears but Aoibheal can’t move, can only scream and relive the memory of her brother’s murder over and over again.
 
By the time she calms down, the other human, the one with the harsh face who had tasered Raven, was unconscious with blood dripping from his ears, while Logan looks lost, looks angry, demanding to know where he is. Shoving Aoibheal out of the way, he confronts the Professor, ignoring Erik who floated himself out of the window.
 
“Hank, Vell, take care of Erik, I’ve got this.” Charles assured them, his gaze locked on Logan’s as a now blue-and-furry Hank leapt from the window and Aoibheal found herself scrambling down the stairs as fast as her legs can carry her. Cars are drifting towards the fountain of their own accord by the time she's made it to the scene, though she’s rather focused on the sight of Hank trying to drown Erik in a fountain as terrified humans watch on in horror. Forgetting the cameras, forgetting the crowds, she pushes to the front and tries to muscle her way past the guards. They stop her easily, going so far as to laugh at her demanding tone, but suddenly there’s two of her with identical looks of determination and shoulders squared, unflinchingly. In unison, the duo demands for them to move, but she needn’t have, as the humans scramble away, giving her a chance to surge forwards as the fountain’s metal fixtures are poised to attack Hank. Arriving too late, she watches as he’s ripped away to hang in the air, Erik rising and looking murderous. Thinking on her feet, Aoibheal hedges her bets and screams without hesitation. It works enough for Erik to falter and she allows the clone to move closer, away from the civilians and into Erik’s range. Teeth clenched, he stalks towards her on shaking legs, taking her by surprise as he flicks his wrist and the clone is struck by a car. Aoibheal’s knees buckle from the pain, even as she detonates the clone in a wisp of smoke, but there’s another replacing the first, though it too is taken out just as soon as the first. Aoibheal is cursing the civilians for their proximity. This power is new to her, but she’s seen what her brother could do with it, how he could use it for good; seeing these people on the ground weeping for her to stop as they clutch at their ears, she truly feels like a bad guy. Her brief bout of self loathing comes to an end as the real bad guy as two metal barriers curled around her in an instant, one of the bars firmly wrapped around her head, pressing down on her tongue like a horse’s bit, forcing her into a shocked silence.
 
Erik stalks off and she feels like a failure.