X-Men: Necessary Evil [2/?]
Title: Necessary Evil [2/?]
Fandom: X-Men: The Movie
Characters/Pairings: Pyro, Iceman, Magneto, Northstar, others.
Rating: PG
Genre: AU
Word Count: Hell if I know.
Notes: WOW, this came to me fast. Huh. Anyway: AU all the way. What would happen if Magneto had succeeded in killing all the humans on earth? Set after X-2.
His life is in his backpack. No place to go. No one to bring him home at the end of the day.
This feels familiar, John thinks. But there is a difference.
There will be no Xavier at the end of this road.
--
Halfway to San Francisco, Wanda finds him in a diner, writing a letter on a napkin.
"Not your usual hangout, Pyro," she says in her accented English, looking around the greasy spoon with a vague sort of distaste. The waitress, a green girl with a second thumb on each hand, takes their orders. She has a beautiful smile.
And Wanda, it seems, is a chicken fingers type of girl.
--
Three days later and Wanda is still with him.
"I go back with you," she says simply. "It is my choice."
John contemplates going back just to get rid of her; she reminds him of too many things, too many people. Pietro is there in that long, straight aquiline nose; Colossus is there in that faint Eastern European accent; Jean is there with that long red-brown hair.
Instead, he just steals away in the middle of the night, the only note a "Post this please," in his near-unreadable script. Beneath it is his napkin-letter neatly placed inside a hotel envelope.
Wanda knows enough of his secrets to know who to send it to.
--
"--respond to claims by the X-Men's Katherine Pryde that the events of last year are the equivalent of a modern-day Holocaust?"
John pauses in the middle of wiping down the bar in order to stare at the television.
Then he grins.
Fucking Kitty and her guts. Magneto, on-screen, is pissed.
"A necessary evil," John mouths to the audio of the television, and resumes cleaning up.
Typical.
--
The first Radical Anti-Union state John ever enters is Arizona. It is the first, and the worst, and is apparently barely any comparison to California, where they burn Magneto posters for fun.
John is literally about five minutes in the state when a huge guy with unnaturally large pectorals stops him.
"Hey - Hey, I recognize you. You're one of Magneto's bitches!" He laughs incredulously. "Yeah! Yeah, yeah, you're the Pyre one. The flamer! What the fuck is a guy like you doing here, huh?" By now a crowd has gathered all around. Hostility crackles in the air. John tenses, clutches tight at the lighter in his pocket.
"Fuck off, man. You don't wanna piss me off," he tries, all the while thinking, Shitshitshit not gonna win this one, Johnny, run while you've still got kneecaps.
"Shut the fuck up, flame-boy," the huge ringleader says, and throws the first punch.
--
Sound.
"--rist, Hank, what are we supposed to do with him?"
"...don't know. ...concussion, I don't want..."
"He can't stay here!"
"...voice, Robert. ...sleeping."
"Fine, but..."
"...deal with..."
John slips back into unconsciousness.
chapters: one | two | three | four | five | six
Fandom: X-Men: The Movie
Characters/Pairings: Pyro, Iceman, Magneto, Northstar, others.
Rating: PG
Genre: AU
Word Count: Hell if I know.
Notes: WOW, this came to me fast. Huh. Anyway: AU all the way. What would happen if Magneto had succeeded in killing all the humans on earth? Set after X-2.
His life is in his backpack. No place to go. No one to bring him home at the end of the day.
This feels familiar, John thinks. But there is a difference.
There will be no Xavier at the end of this road.
--
Halfway to San Francisco, Wanda finds him in a diner, writing a letter on a napkin.
"Not your usual hangout, Pyro," she says in her accented English, looking around the greasy spoon with a vague sort of distaste. The waitress, a green girl with a second thumb on each hand, takes their orders. She has a beautiful smile.
And Wanda, it seems, is a chicken fingers type of girl.
--
Three days later and Wanda is still with him.
"I go back with you," she says simply. "It is my choice."
John contemplates going back just to get rid of her; she reminds him of too many things, too many people. Pietro is there in that long, straight aquiline nose; Colossus is there in that faint Eastern European accent; Jean is there with that long red-brown hair.
Instead, he just steals away in the middle of the night, the only note a "Post this please," in his near-unreadable script. Beneath it is his napkin-letter neatly placed inside a hotel envelope.
Wanda knows enough of his secrets to know who to send it to.
--
"--respond to claims by the X-Men's Katherine Pryde that the events of last year are the equivalent of a modern-day Holocaust?"
John pauses in the middle of wiping down the bar in order to stare at the television.
Then he grins.
Fucking Kitty and her guts. Magneto, on-screen, is pissed.
"A necessary evil," John mouths to the audio of the television, and resumes cleaning up.
Typical.
--
The first Radical Anti-Union state John ever enters is Arizona. It is the first, and the worst, and is apparently barely any comparison to California, where they burn Magneto posters for fun.
John is literally about five minutes in the state when a huge guy with unnaturally large pectorals stops him.
"Hey - Hey, I recognize you. You're one of Magneto's bitches!" He laughs incredulously. "Yeah! Yeah, yeah, you're the Pyre one. The flamer! What the fuck is a guy like you doing here, huh?" By now a crowd has gathered all around. Hostility crackles in the air. John tenses, clutches tight at the lighter in his pocket.
"Fuck off, man. You don't wanna piss me off," he tries, all the while thinking, Shitshitshit not gonna win this one, Johnny, run while you've still got kneecaps.
"Shut the fuck up, flame-boy," the huge ringleader says, and throws the first punch.
--
Sound.
"--rist, Hank, what are we supposed to do with him?"
"...don't know. ...concussion, I don't want..."
"He can't stay here!"
"...voice, Robert. ...sleeping."
"Fine, but..."
"...deal with..."
John slips back into unconsciousness.
chapters: one | two | three | four | five | six