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'Dude, you need to calm down, seriously,' Banshee says, somewhere around the time when they're half going by their own names (their old names) and half by their codenames. Today Sean's definitely Banshee, though, and his chin's so high up in the air, Alex is amazed he can see anything but the sky. 'What's with this you-against-the-world attitude?'
Alex has to clench his fists. 'You get that in jail,' he growls as steadily as he can.
'This isn't jail,' says Banshee, and he looks Alex in the eye, all cockiness. 'You've got us now, man, we're with you.'
'Yeah?' Alex asks, against what better judgement he has, (and that's something the Professor has taught him, that he can have better judgement). 'Like Angel was with us? Like Darwin was with us?'
'Havok -'
'People who're with me get hurt,' Alex says.
'We all make our own choices,' Banshee retorts. 'Angel chose to go. Darwin chose to try and help her - you chose to try and help her.'
'Went well, didn't it.' Alex turns on his heel, and leaves, because he can feel his power building, and he can't let it go, not here.
'Hey, don't walk away from me -'
Alex turns back, and thrusts his face right into Banshee's, staring him down. 'You want me to walk away from you right now,' he growls. 'Because you won't like it if this argument goes any further.'
Alex barely gets the bunker door shut before he's letting it off, all the anger, all the pent-up energy and emotion. The target dummies are twisted, burnt blobs of nothing by the time the argument is out of Alex's system. Hank, who always seems to know when someone's using his gadgets, comes down to check Alex's chestpiece, and doesn't even say a word, just tweaks a couple of things. His expression is bordering on the sympathetic.
(Alex calls him Hank, because Hank didn't pick a codename, still just calls himself Hank. They both have that choice. It's something to do with hiding, Alex thinks.)
There's a moment when Alex thinks Hank's gonna pat him on the shoulder, or something, and he'll seriously throw a punch if Hank tries, although Hank would probably just catch Alex's fist in one of his big hands, and look at him like the cow-eyed nerd he is, and Alex'll maybe say some shit and Hank won't, and then eventually the Professor will give Alex the eyebrow, and fuck, if people have to be this hard then Alex will happily go back to solitary, thanks.
But instead Hank tugs on the fastenings and the thing tightens around Alex's body, weirdly solid, and comforting.
***
They call him Havok because he has no fucking control - he breaks and burns pretty much everything he touches. They call him Havok because he wreaks it. Yeah, he'll take that point, and that name.
This house is too big for them, even filled up with all the bullshit they're all dragging behind them, and none of them really get on, they've just been thrown in here because they don't get along anywhere else either. They're like animals in a zoo, like they have to be kept away from the normal people. Oh yeah, that's different from what they 'rescued' him from. Although here, Alex'll admit, he's got company and a place to let off steam, and that's something.
They're not locked up here, though; they could leave, but where would they go? Alex's only option would be back behind bars, and the others all think exactly the same thing except less literal. This is the best option for all of them, even if they are just here to be used. All the weapons in one neat armoury. It's another reason to set shit on fire. Alex wasn't in jail as what they call a 'preventative measure', y'know? There are things he doesn't want to relive.
But the President's speech starts something in Alex, something like a fire, something like a need, and the Professor's hand on his shoulder banks it into embers. Alex could help with this, maybe. Maybe he could do something.
He doesn't like the way Erik looks at him, though. And he wishes Mystique just wouldn't look at him at all. Hank and Banshee don't look at him, and he doesn't look at them. They don't need to. All the angst is for the other three, in and out of each other's heads and probably each other's beds as well if Alex knows anything - but he and the guys are here to train, because they've decided this is their fight. Because they don't have anywhere else to go. Because fuck it, what else are they gonna do?
There's something good here, if only Alex could find out what it was amongst all the other shit.
***
Alex wakes in the middle of the night to the sound of his door opening. 'It's me,' the door-opener whispers before Alex can do something stupid, like attack.
It's Banshee, although in his pyjamas and peering round a door with the corridor light spilling around him, he looks like just Sean again.
'What the fuck do you want?' Alex asks, getting out of bed to shut the door. It leaves him in Sean's space, too close for comfort, but he put himself here, so he can't back away.
'Just let me, okay,' Sean says, and leans in. Alex's brain fuses.
There's no other point of contact - no holding, no touching - just Sean's mouth opening against Alex's, just warm breath, just the sense that Sean is giving Alex this because he thinks Alex needs it.
Alex pushes him away, because he doesn't need a goddamn thing, but Sean follows him, back further into the room. 'Please Alex,' he says, codenames gone again, and reaches.
The bed is soft and unfamiliar still under Alex's hips - Sean kneels astride him and pushes his shoulders back into the mattress and kisses him again, and his mouth is soft and searching, tilting, finding the angle they fit at best and then locking into it. His hands dent the pillow either side of Alex's head, and Alex's own hands come to fit over Sean's narrow hips, feeling the jut of bone and the swell of muscle under skin just above where his loose pyjama pants have dropped to.
Eventually Sean sinks low, puts his weight on Alex, still straddling him, keeping him down, channelling him into kiss after kiss after kiss, wet and sloppy now after howeverthefucklong it's been - their lips are starting to go sore and soft, and Sean's nudged Alex's chin up so that he can mouth at the join of neck and jaw.
'You never kissed anyone before, huh?' he asks scratchily, licking.
'Never had the chance,' Alex points out, and if Sean were a girl, a smartass sassy girl, maybe he'd make a joke about prison sex (not that he had any, in solitary, in juvie), but with Sean's hard-on pressing into his hip somehow a line about dropping the soap in the showers would hit too close to home - would be a hint.
'That's hot, man,' Sean says, and starts to suck hard where he's been licking and biting.
They wake up in the morning still sprawled all over each other, and when they meet the others Mystique gives him a look she totally learnt off the Professor and presses two fingers to her neck. Alex mirrors her gesture and then winces.
Figures Sean would be the kind of little shit to give you a fucking enormous hickey. Alex bets Hank's eyes will go round and judgemental and a bit jealous, and he's kinda looking forward to that, but Hank's nowhere to be found, so he has to make do with the Professor's amused silence and Erik's cool, knowing glances. He tugs his shirt collar up a bit higher, and punches Sean in the arm, and Sean smacks him on the ass and grins.
Mystique rolls her eyes.
***
The suit covers his hickey. The suit holds him tight, to keep him safe under pressure. The suit channels his power. Hank made the suit, and yeah okay, so Alex isn't gonna thank him or anything, but he's gonna give him a nod, or whatever.
And then Hank walks in out of the shadows and fuck.
And he's not ashamed any more, either. Can't hide any more. Maybe Alex - maybe Havok can learn from that. 'I've got a new name for you,' he says without thinking about it first. 'Beast.' It has an edge to it he doesn't understand, but it fits, it works. And Beast seals it with a snarl, and the mark of Banshee's mouth under Havok's suit throbs hot.
The codenames are half fucking stupid and half the reason Havok's standing so straight.
***
Afterwards, the Professor tries to hide how much he hurts, but Alex can see it cos he knows how you feel when your family walk away from you. But the Professor isn't his business unless the Professor wants to be - Alex isn't the mind-reader here.
Moira disappears. That isn't Alex's business either.
Alex's business also isn't Hank barricading himself in his lab and Sean flying every minute of the day the Professor isn't trying to jam lessons in Mutant Ethics into their heads.
Alex's business - Havok's business - is the new chestpiece Beast made him, and the way Beast's hands curve around Havok's ribs when he fits it, and the way their eyes meet when Beast's concentrating too hard on doing things to remember that he thinks he's ugly, and the way their mouths meet just after that. Havok's business is target practice with Banshee, and the way they own the fucking sky between them.
Havok's business sometimes is with Beast and Banshee in his bed, when they're just Alex and Hank and Sean - when the uniforms come off, the names come off, the job comes off, and they're just three guys together again. And yeah, maybe they have to be careful, because Hank's too strong and Sean's noises when he's coming can be dangerous and Alex can't ever let his control go, even for a second, but they deal with it. Like a team.
The Professor keeps telling them to work as a team. He doesn't mean like this, but he doesn't say so out loud. He can't without being a hypocrite, Alex knows it. Alex has seen things the Professor wants him to, about how being too close is dangerous. Warnings, from the Professor's memories. But Alex - Havok - won't let it be like the Professor and Magneto. He won't let it be that destructive.
He knows how to rein that shit in, right? That's his mutant superpower. Havok's business isn't peacemaking or healing or whatever. Havok's business is fighting the best way he can, and that means not fighting on his own. That's something he can manage.