fic for willowaus: snowmelt - X-men
Title: Snowmelt
Author: jazzypom
Receipient:willowaus
Disclaimer:Characters and situations are the property of Stan Lee and Marvel Comics. No profit is being made off this fan-written work.
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Universe: 616
Beta : yes. Thanks to mucca and faerie for looking, ani_bester and joasakura for canon picking, and valtyr for asking me when this would be done. All mistakes are mine.
Word Count: Approximately 2300 words.
A/N: Story takes place in Nation X: Volume1. Heavily drawn from the issue, so consider this entire piece of fic a spoiler. The prompt is Comic: New Mutants Characters: Magik, Colossus Prompt: Their reunion; what Colossus thinks of this shell of his sister. Hope it suits.
Life, according to an old Russian proverb, was not always a straight walk in an open field.
Peter narrowed his eyes against the heat, his hands guiding the laser gun as it etched letters into the slab of metal, almost laughing aloud at his errant thought. Being a member of the X-men had only underscored the truth of that statement over the years. From a young student standing beside Professor Xavier to an acolyte in service to Magneto; fast forward to now being in concert with both men on Magneto’s abandoned asteroid base lifted from the depths of the Pacific Ocean.
Peter's steps had circled and looped in on themselves over the years.
Before his mutation, before Professor Xavier and a dream, he lived in the Ust-Ordynski collective, repairing machines, marking time, because that was an occupation in itself. Now - the circumstances had changed, another loop stretched, and he was here.
Peter raised his head at the tell tale BAMF and sniffed at the air. In his armoured form, his olfactory senses did not register the pungent odour of sulphur that always accompanied Kurt’s presence.
“Very impressive, old friend.” Kurt greeted. The lilt of his native Germany still gave his words their softened edges despite his many years stateside.
“Kind words. These hands are clumsier than they used to be,” Peter replied as he tugged the heavy material over his work. It was time for a break, for he had been at this for a while now, he thought, as he absently smoothed the cloth over the sculpture. A good artisian respected his tools, and his work area. Besides, it was no hardship to put work away, and focus on his friend and the moment.
Kurt Wagner, ever the acrobat, clad in red and gold garb of the X uniform. His shoulders thrown back just so, his grin jaunty, his eyes hinting of the mischief that he was still able to do.
There was no devilment to be had at this moment though, as Kurt tossed the canister in his direction. Peter absently caught it, while Kurt continued: “I’ll bring some more on the next pass. Then come outside with me, Piotr? It is harsh terrain. In many ways, there’s a stark beauty to this place.”
Another proverb came to mind - not Russian - about all Friday evenings not being the same. A lifetime ago, giddy from being with friends who were like him, who didn’t fear him, Peter would have said yes, and gone on an adventure, taking in the attractions of the asteroid Kurt spoke about. Not tonight, however, he still had much to do.
Peter folded his arms across his chest, staring at the covered sculpture in front of him. "We will see," he said at last.
Another BAMF and Kurt vanished in a pop of smoke and sulphur, leaving Peter alone with his thoughts.
Utopia.
The mutants’ last stand, an attempt to reverse the notion of diaspora by creating their own homeland. Instead of being scattered like seeds in the wind, Utopia might be the centre; a magnet drawing errant children to where they could loved and understood, to look beyond what they were to what they could be. A culmination of dreams longed for, of battles fought. A resting place for all the souls who fell in battle, and Peter shivered at the macabre thought.
Or something el- the movement at the edge of Peter's peripheral vision hauled him out of his reverie.
"Who's there?" he shouted, pivoting to face his unknown assailant.
The sheet of white blonde hair hit the light first, then the scarlet and gold of her X-men hair band.
“Hello Piotr,” a greeting, in a voice too husky to be his little sister. Illyana, back then, felled by the Legacy virus. A little girl, back then, scared of the unknown. Only for her to come back some time later, more than a mutant, a little less human. But still, his sister. Illyana was now here, coming to him of her own accord. Peter never knew that joy could be a wild song in the heart, did not realise that despite everything, in the face of her studied reticence, he still had hope. He couldn’t help himself, spreading his hands open, ready for a hug, a touch - whatever Illyana would allow. Little sisters always grew up too quickly, and Illyana more quickly than others.
“Forgive me, I thought -" he began, not caring that his voice gave his elation away.
“I’m here to ask a favour, Piotr.”
Piotr. Despite her years in limbo, Illyana still carried his name easily in her mouth. Piotr, the syllables a smooth trip off the tongue.
“Of course, Snowflake,” Peter touched her shoulder, taking extra care due to the heaviness of his armoured form. His heart lurched at the flex of Illyana’s muscles under the palm of his hand, her face still smooth and inscrutable as she spread her arms, throwing off his hand. Despite the thickness of his form as Colossus, Peter still felt the pull of her power around them, saw her hair float up from her shoulders and around her face. The suction of the teleportation disc around them, now, a flash of light, and they were outside, on the surface.
The day was bright, above surface, the air sun warmed, and beyond the surface of the asteroid, the sea slumbered in the background. Peter dropped to his knees, feeling the grit of dirt and rock underneath his knee and palm.
A favour, Peter saw and agreed easily enough. The new generation of X-men; working to make the asteroid liveable.
“Scott put us in charge the garden,” Roberto - he was not sure of the young mutant's name- said, sheepishly rubbing the nape of his neck. Sam couldn’t make the machine work, and Peter tilted his face to the sun, closed his eyes for a brief moment. In a way, it was being back at Ust Ordynski, everyone pulling together in the spirit of the collective. The teams changed, but the spirit was always the same.
"Ah." Peter replied, as he moved towards the harvester. All oversized, and yellow, with a gaping maw that broke the hardened crust of earth prepared it for life. Each step towards the machine pushed him back in time. He had been younger then; not so broad in the shoulders, and Illyana insisted on coming with him, her peals of laughter a counterpoint to the ragged thrum of the machines. It was nothing to endure long days and backbreaking work as long as his little sister was fed, too.
Peter took his time as he walked around and poked at the harvester. The basic checks of oil chains, and belt tightness, brought everything back. After he was satisfied with the checks on the outside, he hoisted himself up on to the seat, looking at the young students who stood before him.
"This joystick operates the tilt and the this one on the left elevates the blade, see?" Peter shouted over the heave and growls of the engine. Illyana stood some distance away from the others, her arms folded across her chest. For a fleeting moment Peter wished he had the power to reach into her mind, to share the memories that assailed him now, as thick and continuous as the smoke streaming from the exhaust.
Do you remember, my little snowflake, when we rode the harvesters? How you'd laugh as the grain hit the stalks, and the bits floated in the air. You called them snowflakes, and the name stuck to you, like white to snow. Each summer, each time on the harvester, the same, yet each trip of its kind different. Once, we had Mikail with us, before he was called away to serve Mother Russia. Remember?
Times were hard, back then. But we had the harvest, and the machines, as -
The machine shuddered to life, the roars and the whoops of the young X-men made Peter grin; a few more minutes going through the basics, and it was enjoyable; before the X-men, there was farming, and family -
Another pull, as if the air itself twisted, and they were back in the dark, the temperature a drastic switch from warmed and bright skies to the cool surroundings of the room, with the smoky touches of scorched metal.
"Wha- what are we doing back here?" Peter questioned, but he knew the answer before Illyana gave it. "The past is past, Peter. Stop living there."
"I miss you." Peter raised his hand, palm up. When the harvest was done, we would press the flat of our palms together. Bobby might have called it a 'high five'. We had no such term there, only affection."
"You don't miss me," Illyana batted his palm away with her hand, her voice brusque, another blow to Peter's heart. How could she shy away from memories that made him warm, that had made life in the USSR bearable? Before the X-men, before Magik and Colossus, they were-
"You miss the past, you don't see me, Piotr. You don't -"
"I -"
Llyana turned away from him, muscles shifting under skin and snug top, her hair flying as her hands gripped the folds of the heavy sacking over the metal structure.
Peter stretched out his hand in a mute plea of supplication. Hoping for a pause in her tirade because her words were concrete fists on and around his heart.
"This." Illyana hissed, and Peter cringed at the malicious triumph in her tone as she unveiled the statue before him. An oversized X, with the names Peter lasered into the steel. Each name connected to person, a memory, representing pieces of history they were forced to witness and endure.
Suddenly, Peter felt smaller, his efforts pointless, as if he had spat in a gale force wind.
"You want to take a tip from your sister?" Illyana gestured to the names on the giant X. "If you want to be happy, forget the past."
Illyana as a frightened girl, huddled under the covers aware that she's dying, a victim of the legacy virus. Of her hand in his, small and trembling and chilled. Her Russian - they still spoke Russian to each other, then. A language of childhood, of joy and intimacy and history.
Peter had just realised that in all their conversation, they had only spoken in English. An adequate language, yes. A language that both were fluent in, but still.
"Illyana -"
"Take care, Piotr."
Her form encircled by the pink light, half her body displaced, her features still set in lines of chill and resolve, and she was gone.
Not that she had ever been here.
Peter raised his head, his eyes now lit on the sheet of metal before him. His progress marked by the names he placed there. Sean Cassidy, Mikhail Rasputin. The elder Summers. Jean Grey. Kitty Pryde.
He didn't move for a long time, stared at the names as they blended and blurred, and realised that Illyana's name wasn't on the memorial, because she was still alive, and perhaps, she might have had a point.
Perhaps.
"Goodbye, snowflake," he whispered, realising for the first time that Illyana might have cast off his nickname for her, that it and her hold to it might have melted in Limbo, replaced by brimstone and magic. A world away from harvesters, from USSR, from collective farming the first time around, from Russian being the only tongue they knew.
Another BAMF - like the distant pop of a fire cracker, and Kurt's voice wafted to his ears. "Piotr," - Kurt had always deferred to the Russian when it came to Peter's name - "were you talking to someone?"
"No," Peter shook his head. As soon as he said the words, he realised their truth. "Just myself."
"I brought you two, this time around." Kurt held up the canisters in his hands for Peter to see, but Peter only shook his head.
"I'm ready for that walk now," he decided, as he stepped away from the memorial, talking care not to look at the names, because he knew them all. While cutting them into the metal, they became a tattoo against his eyelids, on his heart.
Now, it was time to see what Utopia was, and what venture he had pledged himself to. Another collective, perhaps. Probably a new Ust Ordynski, where you broke the earth, planted seeds and tended to them, and there might be snowflakes that danced on the air in the summer with the chaff of wheat, or perhaps not. Another way of being wedded to the land, to a cause. To start something new, and in doing so, creating another aspect of history, perhaps the foundations of a better one.
Kurt's smile was a flash of white against midnight skin, the touch of his hand on Peter's shoulder a balm to his battered heart.
They left the room, carrying the names and memories of their fallen comrades with them.
There's an old Russian saying: "The nest is the eggs, not the sticks." And maybe it means that home is isn't about the place or its history. It's not about the past. Maybe it means that home is about the present, what's in front of you, and planning for what is to come. I'm not sure anymore, I haven't lived in Russia for a long, long, time.
Life isn't always a straight walk in an open field.
Fin.
Author: jazzypom
Receipient:willowaus
Disclaimer:Characters and situations are the property of Stan Lee and Marvel Comics. No profit is being made off this fan-written work.
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Universe: 616
Beta : yes. Thanks to mucca and faerie for looking, ani_bester and joasakura for canon picking, and valtyr for asking me when this would be done. All mistakes are mine.
Word Count: Approximately 2300 words.
A/N: Story takes place in Nation X: Volume1. Heavily drawn from the issue, so consider this entire piece of fic a spoiler. The prompt is Comic: New Mutants Characters: Magik, Colossus Prompt: Their reunion; what Colossus thinks of this shell of his sister. Hope it suits.
Life, according to an old Russian proverb, was not always a straight walk in an open field.
Peter narrowed his eyes against the heat, his hands guiding the laser gun as it etched letters into the slab of metal, almost laughing aloud at his errant thought. Being a member of the X-men had only underscored the truth of that statement over the years. From a young student standing beside Professor Xavier to an acolyte in service to Magneto; fast forward to now being in concert with both men on Magneto’s abandoned asteroid base lifted from the depths of the Pacific Ocean.
Peter's steps had circled and looped in on themselves over the years.
Before his mutation, before Professor Xavier and a dream, he lived in the Ust-Ordynski collective, repairing machines, marking time, because that was an occupation in itself. Now - the circumstances had changed, another loop stretched, and he was here.
Peter raised his head at the tell tale BAMF and sniffed at the air. In his armoured form, his olfactory senses did not register the pungent odour of sulphur that always accompanied Kurt’s presence.
“Very impressive, old friend.” Kurt greeted. The lilt of his native Germany still gave his words their softened edges despite his many years stateside.
“Kind words. These hands are clumsier than they used to be,” Peter replied as he tugged the heavy material over his work. It was time for a break, for he had been at this for a while now, he thought, as he absently smoothed the cloth over the sculpture. A good artisian respected his tools, and his work area. Besides, it was no hardship to put work away, and focus on his friend and the moment.
Kurt Wagner, ever the acrobat, clad in red and gold garb of the X uniform. His shoulders thrown back just so, his grin jaunty, his eyes hinting of the mischief that he was still able to do.
There was no devilment to be had at this moment though, as Kurt tossed the canister in his direction. Peter absently caught it, while Kurt continued: “I’ll bring some more on the next pass. Then come outside with me, Piotr? It is harsh terrain. In many ways, there’s a stark beauty to this place.”
Another proverb came to mind - not Russian - about all Friday evenings not being the same. A lifetime ago, giddy from being with friends who were like him, who didn’t fear him, Peter would have said yes, and gone on an adventure, taking in the attractions of the asteroid Kurt spoke about. Not tonight, however, he still had much to do.
Peter folded his arms across his chest, staring at the covered sculpture in front of him. "We will see," he said at last.
Another BAMF and Kurt vanished in a pop of smoke and sulphur, leaving Peter alone with his thoughts.
Utopia.
The mutants’ last stand, an attempt to reverse the notion of diaspora by creating their own homeland. Instead of being scattered like seeds in the wind, Utopia might be the centre; a magnet drawing errant children to where they could loved and understood, to look beyond what they were to what they could be. A culmination of dreams longed for, of battles fought. A resting place for all the souls who fell in battle, and Peter shivered at the macabre thought.
Or something el- the movement at the edge of Peter's peripheral vision hauled him out of his reverie.
"Who's there?" he shouted, pivoting to face his unknown assailant.
The sheet of white blonde hair hit the light first, then the scarlet and gold of her X-men hair band.
“Hello Piotr,” a greeting, in a voice too husky to be his little sister. Illyana, back then, felled by the Legacy virus. A little girl, back then, scared of the unknown. Only for her to come back some time later, more than a mutant, a little less human. But still, his sister. Illyana was now here, coming to him of her own accord. Peter never knew that joy could be a wild song in the heart, did not realise that despite everything, in the face of her studied reticence, he still had hope. He couldn’t help himself, spreading his hands open, ready for a hug, a touch - whatever Illyana would allow. Little sisters always grew up too quickly, and Illyana more quickly than others.
“Forgive me, I thought -" he began, not caring that his voice gave his elation away.
“I’m here to ask a favour, Piotr.”
Piotr. Despite her years in limbo, Illyana still carried his name easily in her mouth. Piotr, the syllables a smooth trip off the tongue.
“Of course, Snowflake,” Peter touched her shoulder, taking extra care due to the heaviness of his armoured form. His heart lurched at the flex of Illyana’s muscles under the palm of his hand, her face still smooth and inscrutable as she spread her arms, throwing off his hand. Despite the thickness of his form as Colossus, Peter still felt the pull of her power around them, saw her hair float up from her shoulders and around her face. The suction of the teleportation disc around them, now, a flash of light, and they were outside, on the surface.
The day was bright, above surface, the air sun warmed, and beyond the surface of the asteroid, the sea slumbered in the background. Peter dropped to his knees, feeling the grit of dirt and rock underneath his knee and palm.
A favour, Peter saw and agreed easily enough. The new generation of X-men; working to make the asteroid liveable.
“Scott put us in charge the garden,” Roberto - he was not sure of the young mutant's name- said, sheepishly rubbing the nape of his neck. Sam couldn’t make the machine work, and Peter tilted his face to the sun, closed his eyes for a brief moment. In a way, it was being back at Ust Ordynski, everyone pulling together in the spirit of the collective. The teams changed, but the spirit was always the same.
"Ah." Peter replied, as he moved towards the harvester. All oversized, and yellow, with a gaping maw that broke the hardened crust of earth prepared it for life. Each step towards the machine pushed him back in time. He had been younger then; not so broad in the shoulders, and Illyana insisted on coming with him, her peals of laughter a counterpoint to the ragged thrum of the machines. It was nothing to endure long days and backbreaking work as long as his little sister was fed, too.
Peter took his time as he walked around and poked at the harvester. The basic checks of oil chains, and belt tightness, brought everything back. After he was satisfied with the checks on the outside, he hoisted himself up on to the seat, looking at the young students who stood before him.
"This joystick operates the tilt and the this one on the left elevates the blade, see?" Peter shouted over the heave and growls of the engine. Illyana stood some distance away from the others, her arms folded across her chest. For a fleeting moment Peter wished he had the power to reach into her mind, to share the memories that assailed him now, as thick and continuous as the smoke streaming from the exhaust.
Do you remember, my little snowflake, when we rode the harvesters? How you'd laugh as the grain hit the stalks, and the bits floated in the air. You called them snowflakes, and the name stuck to you, like white to snow. Each summer, each time on the harvester, the same, yet each trip of its kind different. Once, we had Mikail with us, before he was called away to serve Mother Russia. Remember?
Times were hard, back then. But we had the harvest, and the machines, as -
The machine shuddered to life, the roars and the whoops of the young X-men made Peter grin; a few more minutes going through the basics, and it was enjoyable; before the X-men, there was farming, and family -
Another pull, as if the air itself twisted, and they were back in the dark, the temperature a drastic switch from warmed and bright skies to the cool surroundings of the room, with the smoky touches of scorched metal.
"Wha- what are we doing back here?" Peter questioned, but he knew the answer before Illyana gave it. "The past is past, Peter. Stop living there."
"I miss you." Peter raised his hand, palm up. When the harvest was done, we would press the flat of our palms together. Bobby might have called it a 'high five'. We had no such term there, only affection."
"You don't miss me," Illyana batted his palm away with her hand, her voice brusque, another blow to Peter's heart. How could she shy away from memories that made him warm, that had made life in the USSR bearable? Before the X-men, before Magik and Colossus, they were-
"You miss the past, you don't see me, Piotr. You don't -"
"I -"
Llyana turned away from him, muscles shifting under skin and snug top, her hair flying as her hands gripped the folds of the heavy sacking over the metal structure.
Peter stretched out his hand in a mute plea of supplication. Hoping for a pause in her tirade because her words were concrete fists on and around his heart.
"This." Illyana hissed, and Peter cringed at the malicious triumph in her tone as she unveiled the statue before him. An oversized X, with the names Peter lasered into the steel. Each name connected to person, a memory, representing pieces of history they were forced to witness and endure.
Suddenly, Peter felt smaller, his efforts pointless, as if he had spat in a gale force wind.
"You want to take a tip from your sister?" Illyana gestured to the names on the giant X. "If you want to be happy, forget the past."
Illyana as a frightened girl, huddled under the covers aware that she's dying, a victim of the legacy virus. Of her hand in his, small and trembling and chilled. Her Russian - they still spoke Russian to each other, then. A language of childhood, of joy and intimacy and history.
Peter had just realised that in all their conversation, they had only spoken in English. An adequate language, yes. A language that both were fluent in, but still.
"Illyana -"
"Take care, Piotr."
Her form encircled by the pink light, half her body displaced, her features still set in lines of chill and resolve, and she was gone.
Not that she had ever been here.
Peter raised his head, his eyes now lit on the sheet of metal before him. His progress marked by the names he placed there. Sean Cassidy, Mikhail Rasputin. The elder Summers. Jean Grey. Kitty Pryde.
He didn't move for a long time, stared at the names as they blended and blurred, and realised that Illyana's name wasn't on the memorial, because she was still alive, and perhaps, she might have had a point.
Perhaps.
"Goodbye, snowflake," he whispered, realising for the first time that Illyana might have cast off his nickname for her, that it and her hold to it might have melted in Limbo, replaced by brimstone and magic. A world away from harvesters, from USSR, from collective farming the first time around, from Russian being the only tongue they knew.
Another BAMF - like the distant pop of a fire cracker, and Kurt's voice wafted to his ears. "Piotr," - Kurt had always deferred to the Russian when it came to Peter's name - "were you talking to someone?"
"No," Peter shook his head. As soon as he said the words, he realised their truth. "Just myself."
"I brought you two, this time around." Kurt held up the canisters in his hands for Peter to see, but Peter only shook his head.
"I'm ready for that walk now," he decided, as he stepped away from the memorial, talking care not to look at the names, because he knew them all. While cutting them into the metal, they became a tattoo against his eyelids, on his heart.
Now, it was time to see what Utopia was, and what venture he had pledged himself to. Another collective, perhaps. Probably a new Ust Ordynski, where you broke the earth, planted seeds and tended to them, and there might be snowflakes that danced on the air in the summer with the chaff of wheat, or perhaps not. Another way of being wedded to the land, to a cause. To start something new, and in doing so, creating another aspect of history, perhaps the foundations of a better one.
Kurt's smile was a flash of white against midnight skin, the touch of his hand on Peter's shoulder a balm to his battered heart.
They left the room, carrying the names and memories of their fallen comrades with them.
There's an old Russian saying: "The nest is the eggs, not the sticks." And maybe it means that home is isn't about the place or its history. It's not about the past. Maybe it means that home is about the present, what's in front of you, and planning for what is to come. I'm not sure anymore, I haven't lived in Russia for a long, long, time.
Life isn't always a straight walk in an open field.
Fin.