Chapter 5
Lane’s head was on a swivel as they crept down the corridor of student dorms, cutting their eyes to every passing shadow as they reached the corner and crouched low. Their knees smarted with the movement, a slight twinge running down their lower back as their muscles adjusted to the position; their body could heal itself almost instantaneously, but the pain seemed to linger. Not like there had been any time to stretch beforehand, either.
After this I’m taking a bath, the world’s longest and hottest bath with all the bath bombs Wade keeps putting in Scott’s toilet. And a nap - I’m gonna break the world record for the longest nap.
Their shoulder ached, tacky blood binding the skin of their shoulder to the fabric of their sweatshirt. Dried blood had splattered up the sleeves as well, rusty droplets almost going to the elbow from where they had smashed the intruder’s nose against their knee. They'd have to throw the garment out, a bullethole in the shoulder and bloodstains that couldn’t be touched by stain remover. Some part of Lane should've been sad about that, but the thought fled quickly as they whirled around at the sound of footsteps coming from behind.
“Piotr!” They whisper hissed at the large man while flapping their hands at his approaching form, “stay back there!”
Piotr looked sheepish as Lane poked their head around the corner and strained their ears for any sound, only to find none and stand to face the group. They gestured for their approach and watched as they all lumbered forward. Piotr still held his three charges, two in his arms and one wrapped around his neck, and the older two students crowded behind him while periodically checking over their shoulders down the hallway where they had come.
“Okay, I think we’re clear.”
“Down this hall, the very end. There is a hidden entrance in the rec room.” Piotr explained, shifting the children in his arms to get a better grip as one of the girls curled her head into his chest and began crying again. Not loudly, but her body shook with cries muffled by Piotr’s t-shirt.
Lane’s own relationship with the students had been…complicated. For the most part, the student body went out of their way to avoid Lane, and that was fine with them. Children were loud and unpredictable, and Lane thought it best to avoid them while doing their duties at the school. Not out of any disdain or dislike, but more out of an anticipatory fear of accidentally having an episode with a child around. Hell, tonight had probably been their most interaction with any of the student body since they had arrived.
All of that being said, Lane found their heart tugging ever so slightly as they observed the child in Piotr’s arms. Tonight had just been full of new sensations, but this was actually one of the more pleasant ones as Lane approached and slowly reached out a hand to comfort the crying girl. It was an oddly…parental feeling that engulfed their body as they gently rubbed the girl’s shoulder, coaxing her head out of Piotr’s chest to find a moonlike face with pale hair plastered against her forehead. Lane pushed some of it out of her eyes and met the little girl’s gaze, trying their best to keep their tone even as they spoke.
“Hey, hey sweetie, it’s okay. You heard Mr. Rasputin right? It’s just down the hall, we’re almost there.”
“B-but the bad men…?” The girl whimpered. “They’re, they’re here t-too.”
It was just then that Lane noticed that all of the children, and Piotr now too, were looking at them. Looking to them. Some eyes watched expectantly, others with a sort of glazed-over fear, but it was Piotr’s that Lane settled on. He was watching them with a curious expression, those gorgeous blue eyes meeting theirs and a warm sensation filling Lane’s chest; they’d be lying if they said they hadn’t missed that feeling since pushing him away.
“It’s okay,” Lane began, breaking their eyes from Piotr’s to address the posse of students. “I can take care of those…bast - I mean, jerks. Just follow my lead, we gotta move quickly and quietly. Can you all do that?”
The students nodded, all looking just as exhausted as Lane felt but now somewhat more determined at the prospect of safe harbor being just around the corner. Lane caught Piotr’s eye and nodded, stepping out from the corner and taking a tentative step forward into the open hallway before then motioning him forward.
“Watch your six.” They murmured.
“...my what?”
“Your back. Watch your back and wait here for a minute, I don’t want us walking in on an ambush. It’s the room at the end of the hall?”
Piotr nodded, his mouth opening as if to say something but then quickly closing into a firm line. His brows dipped and formed the familiar forehead crease that, despite not being in his usual metal skin, Lane knew it meant he was either displeased about something or had something eating at him. Had it been a different time and a different place, Lane might have pressed him on it; they had neither the time nor the energy to do so now, and so they crept forward.
The TV was still on, static dancing across the screen as Lane poked their head into the doorway and quickly looked around. The room itself was another rec room, the very same one that Lane had been cooped up in earlier in the afternoon when the news of the riot had broken out. Standing there now, looking at the impressions of bodies in the bean bag chairs that lined the walls, that felt almost like a lifetime ago. It was eerie, the coffee table where Wade had put up his feet now overturned and a long crack running down the dark wood of its top.
At Lane’s signal to approach, Piotr and the children scurried down the hallway and into the room where Piotr quickly set down the children in his arms onto the sofa at the center of the room. He moved hastily, pushing aside the bean bag chairs on the far wall and knocking hard on a section of the plaster that then slid open to reveal a passageway of sorts. It was dark, impossible to tell how far down it led or where it opened up to, with an earthy smell of dirt that wafted up from the darkness. Morbidly, Lane had the sudden thought of an open grave.
“Okay, you all know where to go from here, yes?” Piotr asked as he lowered one of the younger children down into the darkness. “Down this tunnel until the very end, and then out of the grate and into the woods. Then what?”
“Follow the path to the safehouse, and we wait for a teacher to come.” One of the older students answered, taking Piotr’s hand for assistance as they jumped down and disappeared.
And if a teacher doesn’t come? Lane wanted to ask, but thought better of it as they watched the final child, the little girl with the pink pajamas, get lowered into the tunnel and out of sight. Their running footsteps echoed up from the darkness, and then everything was strangely quiet again as Lane and Piotr took a moment to catch their breath. Neither of them said anything; Lane wasn’t sure they still had the capability to speak with their heart in their throat like this.
Piotr had slumped against the wall, still on his feet but just barely as he wiped his hands over his face to flick off the perspiration that had gathered on his forehead. His shirt was stuck to his chest with every muscle in sharp relief against the sweat-dampened material. Lane had to tear their eyes away as he stood and motioned them over to the tunnel.
“Do you need help? It’s not a far drop but is hard to see.”
Lane quirked their brow, frowning slightly as it took a moment for them to register what Piotr was asking.
“I’m not leaving, Piotr. If anything I should be helping you .”
“I am not helpless like this -”
“I’m not saying you are!” Lane fired back. “But you need to go, be with your students. You’re more helpful to them like this than…than you are dead.”
A brief look passed over Piotr’s face, so quick that they almost missed it in the storm of emotions playing over his features. Exhaustion was plain to see, coupled with a sort of resigned anger that hardened his eyes into two icy spheres and pushed his lips into a thin line, but then there was a small glimmer of something that Lane couldn’t quite place. That same curious expression from earlier had softened his eyes, just for a moment, and Lane found that warm sensation filling their chest again.
The moment burst as Lane’s head whipped to the doorway, the sound of footsteps down the hallway erupting the silence and pushing aside the momentary warmth. Fear now filled the space, lodging in their lungs and clawing icily up their throat. When they found their voice, it was a low sound somewhere between a croak and a sob.
“Shit, Piotr, go!”
Unceremoniously and with no warning, Lane shoved all of their weight against Piotr's back and watched as he tumbled down into the tunnel. It wasn’t a far drop down, but the sound of his body hitting the dirt below made them wince; they’d add that to the list of things they’d apologize for later. If you live, if he lives, if any of us get out of this alive, the morbid little voice at the back of their head whispered.
They pushed on the wall and the panel slid back in place not a moment too soon, the footsteps stopping just outside the open doorway and the bullets beginning to fly. Rounds tore through the plaster with reckless abandon, a hair’s breadth away from Lane’s form as they scrambled to the ground and ducked behind the overturned coffee table. Another shot pierced the wood of their makeshift cover but did not go further, giving Lane a moment to suck in a breath and pray that Piotr and his kids would be okay.
“We’ve got movement in the upper right sector of the house, advising all remaining internal units to converge on this unit’s location.” A voice just outside the doorway echoed, followed by a tinny, static-laden voice that answered with something Lane couldn’t hear as their heart began to pound. This intruder had a walkie, and Lane had to choke down a scream of frustration at the realization.
Of course, the last ones standing have to be the most organized. Fucking lovely, Lane thought bitterly. Their hands found one of the short legs of the overturned coffee table and with a grunt, tore it loose into a splintering stake. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but the solid feeling of the wood in their hands stopped their fingers from shaking and gave their hands something to clutch in a white-knuckle grip. More footsteps began to sound down the hallway, heavy footfalls that made it impossible to discern how many of these intruders were left and now converged outside.
Lane closed their eyes, willing their exhaustion to fade and begging every muscle fiber in their body for another burst of adrenaline, just one more. They’d even take another moment of instinct-driven clarity where their body wasn’t their own, no matter how uncomfortable and downright freaky it was to have their body move and hurt in ways they didn’t think possible. Even if it meant surrendering to it completely, just to keep Piotr and his kids safe.
Piotr, smiling down at them with the sun reflecting off his cheeks.
Piotr, his head drifting to their touch as they rubbed his shoulder.
Piotr, kind and gentle and strong and grounding them to this world whenever their mind started to slip.
Piotr.
The intruders had started to enter now, their footsteps like those of giants as Lane shrunk further against the wood and clutched the table leg in their hands. They knew what they had to do, knowing that if these men got past them and found the entrance to the tunnel system would mean certain disaster, but it didn’t stop their legs from shaking as Lane slowly stood up. They raised their hands in a gesture of surrender as the mounted gunlights found their form and pinned their shadow on the wall.
“I’m surrendering!” Lane shouted as several conflicting orders were barked in quick succession (‘ do not move, hands on the ground, hands where I can see them’) and they exhaled a trembling breath.
A hand found the back of their neck and dragged them out from behind the coffee table, then forced them hard down on their knees. For the second time tonight a barrel of a gun was pressed to their forehead, and Lane looked into the eyes of their captor. They hadn’t looked at any of the faces of their earlier attackers, partially due to the heat of the moment and partially to further dismiss the men as nothing but faceless targets, but this man looked down at Lane with such revulsion that Lane knew that they’d remember him. His lips were curled, eyes deep set and dark with a burning malice that Lane felt all the way down to their core.
“I am alone and I don’t have any powers that can hurt you,” Lane said, keeping their voice as monotone and even as they possibly could as more of the men surrounded their kneeling body with their guns drawn. They were circling like vultures, a dozen eyes looking upon them with similar revulsion that made Lane want to shrink into themself.
“We heard others, where are they?” The one with the gun at their forehead questioned.
“I just told you I’m alone. Look, I’m just the groundskeeper,” Lane floundered, stalling to think of a plan to prevent a bullet in their forehead. “I…I can talk to mushrooms a-and that’s it.”
There was a pause, a quiet moment of thirty seconds as Lane felt the eyes of the intruders roam their form. Lane swallowed, arms still raised above their head and the table leg they had stuffed in the sleeve of their sweatshirt parallel to their forearm. They’d have to be quick to grab it, wield it, and then…and then the barrel of the gun was dug deeper into the forehead. The gunman wielding it stooped down, close enough to where Lane could smell the stale coffee on his breath and count the pores on his nose.
“Then why do you have blood all over you?”
Shit, fuckballs, titty-fucking shit, Lane thought as their face blanched and their stomach bottomed out. The floor beneath their knees was swimming, their body trembling in every limb but unwilling to move from the spot; they had cashed the last check, clocked out, Elvis had left the building and taken any idea of how to get out with him. I’m sorry Piotr, I’m sorry I pushed you down a tunnel, I’m the last real conversation we had was a fight, I’m sorry I’ll never -
The sudden movement before their eyes made Lane jerk back and instinctively cover their head, their arms thrown up in front of their face in a defense that they knew a bullet would easily tear through. But the bullet never came, and it took Lane a moment to realize that the movement was the gunman before them dropping his gun to the ground. Looking around in bewilderment, Lane realized that all the guns of the intruders had been dropped to the ground; the men, now empty handed, stared blankly at Lane.
Lane blinked as one by one, the men broke formation and walked out of the room with no explanation. None of them even batted an eye as Lane stood and pulled the table leg out of their sleeve to poke at one who had been holding them at gunpoint as he passed by - nothing, just another sleepwalker as he exited the room and left his weapon and Lane behind.
“What…the fuck?” They exhaled in confusion.
It took a moment for their brain to communicate the motion to their feet, but Lane slowly walked out of the door and into the hall to find it empty. They could hear movement further down the hallway, pairs of feet walking calmly and orderly to the main staircase and then descending the stairs like they had just come by for a friendly visit. So nice to see you, but we must be going now. Ta-ta!
“...the fuck?” Lane repeated, now moving down the hallway to find that even the earlier men they had run into were gone. The bullet holes were still there of course, even the large hole in the wall from where Piotr had thrown the one man like a ragdoll, but the bodies were nowhere to be seen. They hurried further down and reached the mezzanine level just as the last body calmly walked out of the foyer and passed through the front door - hell , he even shut the door behind him.
Lane wasn’t the only one here now. Out of the corner of their eye they could see several groups of students emerge from behind closed doors and various hiding places, some wearing collars and others just beat and bloody, but all looking just as confused as Lane to watch the procession. They flocked to each other and followed as Lane walked down the stairs, keeping some distance behind but following nevertheless.
The rain had stopped and left a fine, dewy mist suspended in the air under the remaining floodlight; only one stood, the other had been knocked down and littered the lawn with its shattered bulbs and broken pieces of metal. The lawn itself was a mess, the freshly raked and mowed grass now a wasteland of mud and torn vegetation marred by boot prints and the occasional crater in the earth. The intruder’s convoy was in a similar state, one truck completely upended and the other bisected down the middle, the smaller jeeps all pushed and piled off to the side like a child’s discarded toys.
And then there were the men. Motionless, at least sixty bodies all side by side with their backs to the mansion and their hands at their sides - puppets with their strings cut. None stirred as Lane opened the front door, not a single acknowledgement or a turn of the head as they padded onto the porch and waved back the students who had followed them out. Some part of Lane reasoned that it could be an ambush, some bizarre, last-ditch tactic for the men to then turn and cut them all down in a firing squad. But looking over the line of men Lane could see that most, if not all of them, didn’t even carry a weapon.
It was at least a full minute before Lane tore their eyes from the line of men as they noticed movement just on the edge of the lawn. Fog swirled over the hull of Xavier’s private aircraft (the Blackbird, Lane had heard it called) as it descended just before the treeline, silent as a phantom despite its massive size. A ramp slid open from the main body of the jet as soon as the wheels made contact with the grass, and Lane’s heart swelled to see two familiar figures exit.
Professor Xavier’s motorized wheelchair practically glided across the lawn as he descended the ramp, the red-haired figure of Jean Grey close behind him as the two crossed the distance to the front lawn where the line of men stood like they had been waiting for their arrival. Xavier had a hand to his temple and a look of deep concentration on his features, but showed no sign of effort as he rendered the minds of the intruders into nothing more than putty.
Shit, no wonder he’s in charge, Lane thought as Xavier wheeled himself front and center. It sent a chill down their spine as all of their previous notions of Xavier were quickly thrown out the window; they had only ever experienced Xavier as a mentor of sorts, his abilities nothing more than a gentle prodding in their mind to help them put the pieces back together. This display made Lane shudder to think of the ramifications of the man’s powers. Moreover, to think of the restraint he possessed.
“You all will leave here, and remember nothing of what you saw,” Xavier said, his voice not quite shouting and yet somehow amplified to the point where Lane could feel it down to their very core. “You will return to your homes with no memory of this night, and no memory of the Friends of Humanity. You will all lead very good lives, and harm no one .”
Then, as if Xavier had suddenly snapped his fingers to break the spell, the line of men dispersed. The few trucks and jeeps that could be salvaged were quickly driven off the property, but the vast majority of the men simply walked away. Off the lawn, out of the drive, and then out of sight down the road without a single passing word between them as they left. Not a single backwards glance to even suggest an ounce of ill will left in their bodies.
Lane exhaled and let their eyes drift close for a moment, just a moment, as a wave of exhaustion fully crested over their body and crashed up against the shore of their nervous system. The students that Lane had encountered earlier now rushed past onto the porch and to Xavier and Jean, some laughing and cheering while others openly wept and were pulled into the waiting arms of the two telepaths. Lane could see the other staff members approaching from the other side of the house - Scott running to greet his fiance, Kurt supporting Ororo as she limped forward, and Logan tailing not too far behind. They all looked a little worse for wear, but all in one piece.
The same couldn’t be said for Lane as they suddenly felt their body slump forward and land hard onto their knees. There was no pain, no jolt of cold stone against their palms as they braced themselves to keep from collapsing entirely, and they didn’t make a sound as their body crumpled. The sounds of the children and the emerging faculty members seemed to go quieter, soft in their ears like someone was gradually turning down the volume around them. They wanted to laugh, to cry, maybe, but all they could focus on was how everything today had been so, so much and they were so, so tired .
There was a hand at their back, gently lifting them to their feet and then a blanket thrown over their shoulders. Logan or Scott, maybe - they couldn’t recognize the owner of the voice but listened as they were brought back inside and urged to sit down. More bodies were moving through the halls now, flashes of unfocused movement passing through Lane’s eyes as more students emerged, some now triumphantly holding up their broken collars like trophies of war. Which, in a way, they were. Souvenirs, at the very least.
It’s over, it’s finally over, Lane thought with an overwhelming sense of relief.
They barely had the energy to register the sensation as their head began to droop, and exhaustion weighed down their eyelids and ushered in a dreamless sleep.