Instinct

Alex doesn’t dare blink as he watches Raven throw herself down onto Emma, knocking them both to the ground. A glint of light and Raven is burying a thin scalpel into Emma’s shoulder. The shard of glass shatters on impact with the tiled floor.

He glances across at his father. Still breathing. Still alive. He too is turned towards Raven, watching her wrath descend on the room.

Raven is all efficiency. Brutal grace. Cold. She follows through with a swift blow to her opponent’s head, rearing back for another. The motion is aborted mid swing and her head snaps up to meet Alex’s gaze. He has heard the sound too. 

The other woman, Moira, is moving. The rustling of movement above him. The disturbance in the air. A gun swinging down from behind him. He cannot see her but he knows her weapon is angling towards him. He is still pinned with nowhere to go.

Erik’s hand is taut, extended towards him. A furious frown wrinkling his blood smeared face.

But Raven has already released her weapon. He hears a groan and a clatter. The gun crashes down into view. Free from the hand that held it. The pressure releases from his back and a hand comes into view, fleshy palm pierced by a silver scalpel.

Alex rolls to the side as Raven leaps over him. His back connects with Erik’s raised palm and at last he is beside his father. The hand, reassuring against his back, is proof that his father is alive. A simple point of contact more comforting than his own sight.

Raven lunges for Moira but her hand is already scooping down to reclaim the gun. Alex sweeps his leg out in a wild arc, catching the weapon against his shin and propelling it beyond her reach.

Raven’s fist collides with Moira’s collarbone and she is sent crashing to the floor. As soon as her shoulder hits the ground, Moira’s arm juts out, slamming something into Raven’s approaching thigh.

A pen.

Raven grunts, tugging the object from her flesh and angrily tossing it aside. Her foot slams into Moira’s temple and the woman slumps, dazed and boneless. Raven reaches down to tear a strip off the bottom of her shirt before reaching down to secure the wrists of her fallen opponent.  

“Raven.” His father repeats from behind Alex. His voice is quiet, disbelieving.

Raven stands and sucks in a breath, hair wild but stance composed, ready to react. “Hank called me.” She offers, unprompted. “You need to fill me in on a heck of a lot.” Her hands move to her hips and she strides around them, moving towards Emma’s limp form.

Erik hums in tired agreement. Raven reaches them, crouching down to place a hand on his father’s shoulder. She looks up at Alex, a silent question in her searching stare. Alex waves off her concern and sits up, moving closer to his father as she turns her attention to him once more.

“I didn’t think we would have to do this again, Erik. Once was more than enough.” She speaks with a smile but her face is drawn. There are secrets and memories between them that Alex cannot know, cannot touch but this is Raven and he needs someone to trust.

She moves quickly, turning towards Emma and reaching down to tear another strip from her shirt.

“How far does this go?” She asks, her back to them.

And Alex cannot answer. This is a world he cannot understand. His head throbs, a distracting reminder of his dehydration. His throat is stinging and raw, the marks of a stranger’s hands embedded in his skin. He is lost and so, so tired. He just wans to feel safe. Just wants to be safe.

He slumps down next to his father, blocking his own view of the door to the lab. The door that leads to two dead bodies and the scene of a horrible crime. He lays his cheek on the tiles beside his father and finally lets himself cry.

Erik forces another lungful of air into his chest, drawing it in painfully. Alex cries quietly beside him and he reaches out a hand to comfort him, to hold him. It feels like an age since he has been able to protect his son.  

His fingers hover in the air, just shy of Alex’s hair.

Raven’s harsh cry forces him to turn away. Emma has sprung awake and hooked Raven’s ankles sending her tumbling backwards. Raven is already rolling with the fall and regaining her balance but Emma is already pushing herself up with her elbows and grasping at the scattered pieces of glass.

She lunges in a final, silent attack and Erik is too tired to feel fear. Instead he gives in to the anger swelling in his gut. The humming rises up in his ears and it thrums through his chest, through his fingers. Shaw. Frost. They have taken so much from him. Broken him down. Taken his son. Shattered his safety. Threatened his life.

But now they have given him something to fight back with.

His fingers connect to the metal surrounding him like strings in the air. The resource that has been a constant companion for many years but is only now a true part of him is calling to him. His left leg is no longer an addition, he feels every inch, every strand in his very core.

His fingers reach out into the air, grasping the ligament thread, the metal cord coiled at his left knee. He tugs and it comes free. Comes to him.

He opens his palm and releases it like a whip. Slicing through the air. Strong. Light. He snaps it around Emma’s outstretched wrist, curving it, constricting it until her arm is ensnared. He sends her flying backwards to the door. A flick of his wrist, so easy.

A twist of his fingers and the cord is threaded through the door handle. Secure. Emma’s corrosive words bite through the air, vicious cursing aimed at him but she is drowned out by the humming.

He feels so powerful. He could destroy everyone who has every wished him harm. All with a twitch of his fingers.

It terrifies him.

He fights through the white noise in his head, bringing Raven’s carefully schooled expression into focus. He cannot decipher what is swirling below the surface but he knows that she has seen something dangerous in him. He knows it because he feels it. He feels dangerous.

His vision swims and he cannot hold his head up any longer. He lets it fall to the side, towards Alex. He does not want to think anymore. He does not want to act.

He just wants to sleep. He wants Alex to be safe. With Raven standing guard above him, he knows that he will be.

Alex is safe.

Now he can rest.

He closes his eyes and lets oblivion take him.