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eliyesTitle: Breaking Point
Universe: Age of Apocalypse
Warnings: angst, death, violence, mild swearing (see Universe)
Author's notes: The Iceman in AoA is so different from the one in the main universe, I can't resist theorizing how he got that way.
Act I -- Defiance
When they came for her child, Maddie Drake refused to back down. He was only a boy. He was all she had left. Her brother and sisters, she hadn't seen for years now. Her last sight of her beloved Willie was his body dragged away from where he'd died in the street; he'd been attacked for the food he was bringing for her and little Bobby, then eight, and his irregular heart had betrayed him. She had lost all of her family but one, everything that made sense in her world but this: she would, by God, never give over her baby to these Nazi mutant scum.
For days, they fled and hid, then fled again as each refuge was uncovered. She had thought she must know the entire ghetto better than these lapdogs of Apocalypse, but their pursuit had been especially relentless in the last day. She'd been stupid -- tired -- harried into a position with only one exit. When a blast of energy shot out from behind and buried that exit in rubble before they could escape, she was cornered.
Maddie shoved Bobby behind her, feeling his hands clutch at her clothes. It was impossible to win this fight, but she would protect him with her dying breath.
Act II -- Vengeance
Bobby struggled against the mutant soldiers who were trying to take him away from his mother. She lay so quiet and still there on the ground, and there was so much blood. He didn't understand how his mother, who had been his protector all his life, could have been overcome so quickly. He screamed for her, trying to writhe free of the hands that held him back.
It was a blow to his head -- glancing; by coincidence he had ducked -- that reminded him that it was these men who had hurt his mother. She didn't want him to go with them. He wanted, very badly, for them to let to go, to stop grabbing at him, to leave him alone and never bother him again. And, wanting that, he felt a terrible force rise in him.
He lashed out, set the power loose. Men screamed and things shattered and crackled. There was carnage as he struck at everything that moved.
Then there was quiet.
He heard, miraculously, his mother say his name. Bobby went to her side instantly, locking the thing inside him away. He took her hand, and she shivered. Her breath sounded wrong, wet.
"Bobby...?" she said again.
"Mom." His voice broke.
"...sorry..."
"No, Mom, no, it's okay. You'll be all right," he told her desperately. "They won't hurt you again, Mom. I -- I made them all go away."
He dashed the tears from his eyes, saw her look beyond him and then focus on his face. It seemed to take a great effort.
"My... son," she said, so quietly that he hardly heard her. He bent closer. "You must go," she told him.
"No, Mom --" he whispered.
"-- not safe here, you're -- not --"
He gripped her hand tighter, insisting, "No, we'll be safe, I can protect us now, Mom --" He stopped when she squeezed his hand back.
"You... must go," she said again, and closed her eyes. "My... little..."
He waited. He even held his breath, the better to hear her finish the sentence, but it never came. Instead he heard her breathing stop.
"Mom...?" he asked, voice already choked with the tears that stung his eyes and scalded his cheeks. He crumpled forward, buried his face against her chest and sobbed with all the pain of a broken heart.
Interlude -- Reconnaissance
The guard patrol captain stared down at the hunter squad that had come haring into his sector yesterday after some fresh new prospect. What was left of them, anyway. He figured the mass of variously-sized pieces of gear and gore had to be two men, at least. There was a corpse slumped against a wall under a cluster of holes that matched the ones in chest, but curiously little in the way of blood there. He'd have no idea what got them if not for the fourth guy.
The captain walked over to look at him, splashing through cold puddles. The block of ice he was frozen in was still bigger than the locker room back at the guard post, even though it had clearly been melting for a while.
"Bet you're wishing you'd accepted our back-up now, huh?" he muttered at the corpse suspended in the ice mid-scream. "Jackass."
Anything else he might have said was preempted by an emergency call on his headset. Seems some kind of ice-man had breached the Wall. The mutant had escaped, and now reinforcements were needed to keep a mob of flatscans from following.
What a mess.
Act III -- Alliance
Victor caught Pietro glaring at where his father was talking to the kid they'd brought in. He'd already divested himself of the mud Victor was still scraping off his own boots.
"Tone it down," he advised. "Or do you want to make your dad go into another on of his lectures about the importance of working together against the big bad?"
"He called me a Nazi!" the white-haired teen hissed back. He was fidgeting so much that he looked a little blurry.
" 'Cause he thought you were one o' 'Pocalypse's," Victor replied mildly, turning his head to spit after he said the name. "Eric's made the same comparison, and he'd know." He started on the other boot.
"Yes, exactly!" Pietro waved an arm. "My father escaped from Auschwitz, I'm not a damned Nazi!"
"He didn't know that," Victor replied, keeping his voice patient with a will. "Look, he can't be more than twelve. He was probably born in one of the Hell Camps. We found him trying to bury his mother in a Jewish graveyard. I'd bed 'Nazi' is the worst insult he ever heard pass her lips."
Pietro huffed, arms folded sulkily across his chest. After a minute's thought -- a long bit of reflection, for him -- he grudgingly said, "At least he thanked us for helping with the grave."
Victor just nodded.
Act IV -- Reticence
"The most challenging thing about making that guy smile," Morph told Blink after Iceman left the room, "is that he doesn't have a mouth! I still haven't figured out how he talks."
She thought about her spiky teammate's unearthly voice, which was more a symphony of chimes and resonance, crackings and scrapings, than anything produced by a human throat.
"Maybe he uses his whole body?" she suggested.
"Body language? I like it!" Morph executed an undulating dance around her with an unlikely pile of fruit suddenly on his head.
"Stop looking so edible," Blink warned, wagging a javelin in his direction. "I'm hungry enough as it is." The hat went away as he sat next to her.
"I'm not sure Iceman eats."
"More for me, then."
"Is that a good thing? Rogue's making dinner today." Morph produced a nose just long enough to wrinkle it in dismay.
"I don't care," Blink admitted. "I would eat a rock right now, if it were given to me on a plate."
"If you're lucky, she's making rock soup."
She just snorted. Morph turned again towards the doorway by which the icy mutant had left. Icy in body and personality both, Blink thought. The guy was hard and sharp and hold; hardly the most inviting of traits in the first place, but he was also untalkative and aloof. The only thing he seemed to care about was killing the enemy; the only emotion he showed was an elemental fury that was all the more terrifying when you realised how much control he kept over his temper.
She shivered thinking about it.
"Aw, c'mere," Morph said, wrapping an arm that was also now a blanket around her shoulders. She wasn't cold, but she accepted the friendly gesture anyway. Even Morph, who could turn into anything, seemed more human-like than Iceman.
"You see him as a challenge, don't you," Blink realised.
"Eh, maybe. I just don't think it's good for him to be so uptight all the time. Even Sunfire had a sense of humour," he confided. "Don't let him know I told you that."
She leaned against him, smiling.
"I'm sure you'll crack his shell someday."
"Just doing my part for the team," Morph replied in a joking tone, but really, Blink figured it was true.
Cross-posted to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
frozen_breaths
Universe: Age of Apocalypse
Warnings: angst, death, violence, mild swearing (see Universe)
Author's notes: The Iceman in AoA is so different from the one in the main universe, I can't resist theorizing how he got that way.
Act I -- Defiance
When they came for her child, Maddie Drake refused to back down. He was only a boy. He was all she had left. Her brother and sisters, she hadn't seen for years now. Her last sight of her beloved Willie was his body dragged away from where he'd died in the street; he'd been attacked for the food he was bringing for her and little Bobby, then eight, and his irregular heart had betrayed him. She had lost all of her family but one, everything that made sense in her world but this: she would, by God, never give over her baby to these Nazi mutant scum.
For days, they fled and hid, then fled again as each refuge was uncovered. She had thought she must know the entire ghetto better than these lapdogs of Apocalypse, but their pursuit had been especially relentless in the last day. She'd been stupid -- tired -- harried into a position with only one exit. When a blast of energy shot out from behind and buried that exit in rubble before they could escape, she was cornered.
Maddie shoved Bobby behind her, feeling his hands clutch at her clothes. It was impossible to win this fight, but she would protect him with her dying breath.
Act II -- Vengeance
Bobby struggled against the mutant soldiers who were trying to take him away from his mother. She lay so quiet and still there on the ground, and there was so much blood. He didn't understand how his mother, who had been his protector all his life, could have been overcome so quickly. He screamed for her, trying to writhe free of the hands that held him back.
It was a blow to his head -- glancing; by coincidence he had ducked -- that reminded him that it was these men who had hurt his mother. She didn't want him to go with them. He wanted, very badly, for them to let to go, to stop grabbing at him, to leave him alone and never bother him again. And, wanting that, he felt a terrible force rise in him.
He lashed out, set the power loose. Men screamed and things shattered and crackled. There was carnage as he struck at everything that moved.
Then there was quiet.
He heard, miraculously, his mother say his name. Bobby went to her side instantly, locking the thing inside him away. He took her hand, and she shivered. Her breath sounded wrong, wet.
"Bobby...?" she said again.
"Mom." His voice broke.
"...sorry..."
"No, Mom, no, it's okay. You'll be all right," he told her desperately. "They won't hurt you again, Mom. I -- I made them all go away."
He dashed the tears from his eyes, saw her look beyond him and then focus on his face. It seemed to take a great effort.
"My... son," she said, so quietly that he hardly heard her. He bent closer. "You must go," she told him.
"No, Mom --" he whispered.
"-- not safe here, you're -- not --"
He gripped her hand tighter, insisting, "No, we'll be safe, I can protect us now, Mom --" He stopped when she squeezed his hand back.
"You... must go," she said again, and closed her eyes. "My... little..."
He waited. He even held his breath, the better to hear her finish the sentence, but it never came. Instead he heard her breathing stop.
"Mom...?" he asked, voice already choked with the tears that stung his eyes and scalded his cheeks. He crumpled forward, buried his face against her chest and sobbed with all the pain of a broken heart.
Interlude -- Reconnaissance
The guard patrol captain stared down at the hunter squad that had come haring into his sector yesterday after some fresh new prospect. What was left of them, anyway. He figured the mass of variously-sized pieces of gear and gore had to be two men, at least. There was a corpse slumped against a wall under a cluster of holes that matched the ones in chest, but curiously little in the way of blood there. He'd have no idea what got them if not for the fourth guy.
The captain walked over to look at him, splashing through cold puddles. The block of ice he was frozen in was still bigger than the locker room back at the guard post, even though it had clearly been melting for a while.
"Bet you're wishing you'd accepted our back-up now, huh?" he muttered at the corpse suspended in the ice mid-scream. "Jackass."
Anything else he might have said was preempted by an emergency call on his headset. Seems some kind of ice-man had breached the Wall. The mutant had escaped, and now reinforcements were needed to keep a mob of flatscans from following.
What a mess.
Act III -- Alliance
Victor caught Pietro glaring at where his father was talking to the kid they'd brought in. He'd already divested himself of the mud Victor was still scraping off his own boots.
"Tone it down," he advised. "Or do you want to make your dad go into another on of his lectures about the importance of working together against the big bad?"
"He called me a Nazi!" the white-haired teen hissed back. He was fidgeting so much that he looked a little blurry.
" 'Cause he thought you were one o' 'Pocalypse's," Victor replied mildly, turning his head to spit after he said the name. "Eric's made the same comparison, and he'd know." He started on the other boot.
"Yes, exactly!" Pietro waved an arm. "My father escaped from Auschwitz, I'm not a damned Nazi!"
"He didn't know that," Victor replied, keeping his voice patient with a will. "Look, he can't be more than twelve. He was probably born in one of the Hell Camps. We found him trying to bury his mother in a Jewish graveyard. I'd bed 'Nazi' is the worst insult he ever heard pass her lips."
Pietro huffed, arms folded sulkily across his chest. After a minute's thought -- a long bit of reflection, for him -- he grudgingly said, "At least he thanked us for helping with the grave."
Victor just nodded.
Act IV -- Reticence
"The most challenging thing about making that guy smile," Morph told Blink after Iceman left the room, "is that he doesn't have a mouth! I still haven't figured out how he talks."
She thought about her spiky teammate's unearthly voice, which was more a symphony of chimes and resonance, crackings and scrapings, than anything produced by a human throat.
"Maybe he uses his whole body?" she suggested.
"Body language? I like it!" Morph executed an undulating dance around her with an unlikely pile of fruit suddenly on his head.
"Stop looking so edible," Blink warned, wagging a javelin in his direction. "I'm hungry enough as it is." The hat went away as he sat next to her.
"I'm not sure Iceman eats."
"More for me, then."
"Is that a good thing? Rogue's making dinner today." Morph produced a nose just long enough to wrinkle it in dismay.
"I don't care," Blink admitted. "I would eat a rock right now, if it were given to me on a plate."
"If you're lucky, she's making rock soup."
She just snorted. Morph turned again towards the doorway by which the icy mutant had left. Icy in body and personality both, Blink thought. The guy was hard and sharp and hold; hardly the most inviting of traits in the first place, but he was also untalkative and aloof. The only thing he seemed to care about was killing the enemy; the only emotion he showed was an elemental fury that was all the more terrifying when you realised how much control he kept over his temper.
She shivered thinking about it.
"Aw, c'mere," Morph said, wrapping an arm that was also now a blanket around her shoulders. She wasn't cold, but she accepted the friendly gesture anyway. Even Morph, who could turn into anything, seemed more human-like than Iceman.
"You see him as a challenge, don't you," Blink realised.
"Eh, maybe. I just don't think it's good for him to be so uptight all the time. Even Sunfire had a sense of humour," he confided. "Don't let him know I told you that."
She leaned against him, smiling.
"I'm sure you'll crack his shell someday."
"Just doing my part for the team," Morph replied in a joking tone, but really, Blink figured it was true.
Cross-posted to
frozen_breaths