(no subject)
It’s all a bit of a mess, really, Molly Hayes considers. Well, rather more than a bit, but thinking like that’ll just have her curled up in a ball wailing like a kid, and she’s not a kid any more. She hasn’t been a kid in a very, very long time.
When the door home had reappeared in Milliways after well over a year, they’d none of them thought twice before charging back through it, back to the fight they’d left behind. After all, they had a job to do, didn’t they? They had responsibilities. They were supposed to be heroes, or something, or at least, as Gert sniffed dryly, they were supposed to not fail on purpose. She missed Gert the most, really, which was strange, considering she’d been dead the longest. But Gert had always known what to do, or at least she seemed to, and now that she was grown Molly appreciated the way the other girl had tried to mother the group baby, as unsuited to mothering as Gert really was, without smothering her. So when Molly ran with the X-Men, as she did, for a while, she’d taken the codename Arsenal, in tribute to the runaways’ Arsenic. The name had stuck, after a while, even if Chase still wouldn’t call her it. His voice always seemed to catch on the name, and he'd just call her Bruiser instead. Molly didn't mind.
They never knew why the door hadn’t reappeared. Molly didn’t cry about it, though; it would show up some day, right? It had to. She just had to keep looking.
At least, she didn’t cry where anyone could see her. And after a while she stopped crying at all, for anything. It never helped, and she was supposed to be the adult, these days. The leader, for what it was worth.
Nobody ever did find out how Magneto got his powers back. Back many times over, it seemed, the way he’d levelled the X-Mansion; this time, the old guy was taking no chances. Molly had only escaped because she’d been shopping in the city with a few of her team mates; they’d seen the carnage on twenty TV screens at once in a store. Nobody said anything, just watched in appalled silence, but when they saw Cyclops and Emma Frost on screen, twisted together like lovers in the same bodybag, they looked at each other. And they ran.
None of them looked back.
She thinks that was the last time she’d cried, hot and fierce tears like molten iron two nights later, when they’d made it to L.A. and the old Runaway hideouts. She doesn’t know if the last two survivors, Conor and Freakout, who’d never said if she had another name, had cried at all. She thinks Conor maybe did. Freakout never seemed to react to anything much at all, really; the voices in her head were more than enough emotion for the telepath.
When, the next day, New York City proper had been levelled, Molly had watched the Avengers fight Magneto on another shop TV screen. The grainy picture had been a blessing, really, had allowed her to force herself to believe that she hadn’t really seen them die, every last one of them.
Hadn’t watched Nico and Victor go out in a blaze of suicidally heroic glory, hadn’t seen Xavin crushed by the skyscraper he was supporting, hadn’t seen Karolina’s rainbow lights wink out all at once as she fell from the sky screaming Xavin’s name, and Nico’s, one after the other, until the words were a blur.
So when Chase turned up a week later with Old Lace and the Leapfrog, bruised and burned and sleepless, the brother she hadn’t seen since he’d run off on his own, appalled by their growing up and splitting up and leaving him alone, she didn’t cry. She just held him so tight she thought she’d never let go again. It was the last time she let herself feel like a child.
When Chase told her, in a cracked hoarse voice that if she didn’t know better she’d swear was a split-second away from tears, that he’d brought Karolina, she’d somehow expected a corpse, had wondered why he’d brought Karolina’s body back to them and not Xavin and Victor and Nico’s, Nico, Nico, so when the alien waved a hand in mute, shattered greeting none of them said anything for a long time. Chase had never said how he’d got her out of the carnage alive, but it had never mattered much. Only that he’d done it.
So, they had a team. Not much of one, maybe, but it was a team.
None of them were in any sort of fit state to be a leader, it was true- Chase was no leader, nor were Molly’s two mutants, Wildcard and Freakout, and Karolina was far too traumatised, for a very long time, to take care of anyone more than herself. Angelina, the genius human they’d rescued later from one of Magneto’s tech labs and who’d christened herself Anarchy, was far too obsessed with her beloved machines to think of anything beyond motherboards and electricity, so the job had fallen like a lead balloon to the group baby, who’d taken leadership lessons from Cyclops himself and who’d led an X-Squad.
For all of a month, before they’d been wiped out, but she’d done it. Sort of.
So Molly did it.
And when they’d found the petrified, speechless eight-year-old human girl in the wreckage of an L.A. mansion, none of them had thought it was a good idea to keep her, but equally none of them wanted to leave her to the mercy of Magneto’s army, either. So they picked her up, and ran like hell. The kid wouldn’t speak, and they couldn’t exactly stick around to go hunting for her personal effects, so Chase christened her Kitten, just as he’d christened Molly herself Bruiser nearly ten years before. Anarchy had earlier put together a new version of his old Fistigons, so when it turned out the kid was a baseline human, no powers at all, he gave Kitten Old Lace as protector.
Molly, who had somehow wound up as de facto mother to the girl, wondered, when she could bear to, how the hell Gert had done it. She never had an answer, really.
So, a team. A squad, sort of. Mascot and all. A team with an enemy.
The name they left on the bombs (and Molly never thought she’d wind up a terrorist; never thought she’d keep so close to her parents) was ‘Y Generation’.
None of them really knew why, just that having a name had seemed Important, somehow.
None of them really knew much, any more.
When the door home had reappeared in Milliways after well over a year, they’d none of them thought twice before charging back through it, back to the fight they’d left behind. After all, they had a job to do, didn’t they? They had responsibilities. They were supposed to be heroes, or something, or at least, as Gert sniffed dryly, they were supposed to not fail on purpose. She missed Gert the most, really, which was strange, considering she’d been dead the longest. But Gert had always known what to do, or at least she seemed to, and now that she was grown Molly appreciated the way the other girl had tried to mother the group baby, as unsuited to mothering as Gert really was, without smothering her. So when Molly ran with the X-Men, as she did, for a while, she’d taken the codename Arsenal, in tribute to the runaways’ Arsenic. The name had stuck, after a while, even if Chase still wouldn’t call her it. His voice always seemed to catch on the name, and he'd just call her Bruiser instead. Molly didn't mind.
They never knew why the door hadn’t reappeared. Molly didn’t cry about it, though; it would show up some day, right? It had to. She just had to keep looking.
At least, she didn’t cry where anyone could see her. And after a while she stopped crying at all, for anything. It never helped, and she was supposed to be the adult, these days. The leader, for what it was worth.
Nobody ever did find out how Magneto got his powers back. Back many times over, it seemed, the way he’d levelled the X-Mansion; this time, the old guy was taking no chances. Molly had only escaped because she’d been shopping in the city with a few of her team mates; they’d seen the carnage on twenty TV screens at once in a store. Nobody said anything, just watched in appalled silence, but when they saw Cyclops and Emma Frost on screen, twisted together like lovers in the same bodybag, they looked at each other. And they ran.
None of them looked back.
She thinks that was the last time she’d cried, hot and fierce tears like molten iron two nights later, when they’d made it to L.A. and the old Runaway hideouts. She doesn’t know if the last two survivors, Conor and Freakout, who’d never said if she had another name, had cried at all. She thinks Conor maybe did. Freakout never seemed to react to anything much at all, really; the voices in her head were more than enough emotion for the telepath.
When, the next day, New York City proper had been levelled, Molly had watched the Avengers fight Magneto on another shop TV screen. The grainy picture had been a blessing, really, had allowed her to force herself to believe that she hadn’t really seen them die, every last one of them.
Hadn’t watched Nico and Victor go out in a blaze of suicidally heroic glory, hadn’t seen Xavin crushed by the skyscraper he was supporting, hadn’t seen Karolina’s rainbow lights wink out all at once as she fell from the sky screaming Xavin’s name, and Nico’s, one after the other, until the words were a blur.
So when Chase turned up a week later with Old Lace and the Leapfrog, bruised and burned and sleepless, the brother she hadn’t seen since he’d run off on his own, appalled by their growing up and splitting up and leaving him alone, she didn’t cry. She just held him so tight she thought she’d never let go again. It was the last time she let herself feel like a child.
When Chase told her, in a cracked hoarse voice that if she didn’t know better she’d swear was a split-second away from tears, that he’d brought Karolina, she’d somehow expected a corpse, had wondered why he’d brought Karolina’s body back to them and not Xavin and Victor and Nico’s, Nico, Nico, so when the alien waved a hand in mute, shattered greeting none of them said anything for a long time. Chase had never said how he’d got her out of the carnage alive, but it had never mattered much. Only that he’d done it.
So, they had a team. Not much of one, maybe, but it was a team.
None of them were in any sort of fit state to be a leader, it was true- Chase was no leader, nor were Molly’s two mutants, Wildcard and Freakout, and Karolina was far too traumatised, for a very long time, to take care of anyone more than herself. Angelina, the genius human they’d rescued later from one of Magneto’s tech labs and who’d christened herself Anarchy, was far too obsessed with her beloved machines to think of anything beyond motherboards and electricity, so the job had fallen like a lead balloon to the group baby, who’d taken leadership lessons from Cyclops himself and who’d led an X-Squad.
For all of a month, before they’d been wiped out, but she’d done it. Sort of.
So Molly did it.
And when they’d found the petrified, speechless eight-year-old human girl in the wreckage of an L.A. mansion, none of them had thought it was a good idea to keep her, but equally none of them wanted to leave her to the mercy of Magneto’s army, either. So they picked her up, and ran like hell. The kid wouldn’t speak, and they couldn’t exactly stick around to go hunting for her personal effects, so Chase christened her Kitten, just as he’d christened Molly herself Bruiser nearly ten years before. Anarchy had earlier put together a new version of his old Fistigons, so when it turned out the kid was a baseline human, no powers at all, he gave Kitten Old Lace as protector.
Molly, who had somehow wound up as de facto mother to the girl, wondered, when she could bear to, how the hell Gert had done it. She never had an answer, really.
So, a team. A squad, sort of. Mascot and all. A team with an enemy.
The name they left on the bombs (and Molly never thought she’d wind up a terrorist; never thought she’d keep so close to her parents) was ‘Y Generation’.
None of them really knew why, just that having a name had seemed Important, somehow.
None of them really knew much, any more.