Chapter 22
The ground started to crack under his feet, the sky filled with lightening that kept striking the ground around him.
Currently, he was pretty much stuck between his true form and his human body. He didn’t even know what he looks like anymore. He was just teasing the line between heaven and Earth at the moment.
He could feel the pure power running through him. The power that will either save everyone or doom them all.
He was running out of time. It took him too long to reach this point. But it was working. He could already feel the warding quiver in front of him.
His wings spread out by his sides for a while now, like they were reacting to the amount of grace he was using and wanting to bask in its power.
Just a few more minutes. A few more to reach the amount he exactly needed.
He was losing himself slowly. Memories of the past ten years flickering to the back of his head, in its place, everything that reminded him that he wasn’t human. He was an Angel of the Lord. His mission was to eliminate the abominations inside that mansion. Without hurting any humans.
But then, Dean’s voice would ring in his ears, and he was reminded why he was doing this. Why he was risking his life, his body, the entire city, in order to get inside.
He was doing this to save his family. The family that he found on his own. Not heaven, not his brothers even helped him in finding it. He found this family because he had a heart. A heart that cared about that dysfunctional, loud, insane family. Cared about a hunter with a big heart and a loud mouth. Cared about saving a soldier that trusts him with his life and sees him as a brother, and a mutant with a heart big enough that it naturally attracts all the lost souls towards him, knowing they will be found by him.
These two deserved to be saved. If not for them, then for their distraught husbands and family. Their husbands, who linked their entire existence to them and could no longer live a day without them.
No one deserves to lose the ones they love. No one deserves such pain. These four deserve to live a long life together. No one will take that from them.
Same for him. After everything that happened. All the pained they endured. The separations, the misunderstandings, the pain, the deaths. Him and Dean deserved a break. Deserve their future.
No power in heaven or hell will take that away. No one.
He just need to focus. Just for a few more minutes.
***
Mizaru just stood silently, not commenting on what Charles just said, but that alone was confirming enough for the telepath.
“I could just search for that answer myself.” Charles stated calmly, after the silence went for too long. “You sensed how powerful I am. I might be trapped, but it is only a matter of time before I manage to find my way out. So, why don’t you just tell me the real reason why are you doing all of this.”
“You are more arrogant than I thought.” The demon stated coldly, but his posture was tense and angry. “You are not as moral and filled with virtues as you seem.”
“I never intended to make anyone think that.” Charles just shrugged casually. “All the people close to me knows I am far from being innocent and pure. I have my beliefs and morals, of course. But the moment my family is threatened, I feel sorry for whoever dares to do it.” Charles’ face hardened, then as he stared the demon down. “Why do you want to take revenge from Castiel? What did he do to you besides trapping you?”
“You want to know what your friend did? You sure you can handle it?” the demon snarled as he stepped towards him. “He destroyed the only woman I have ever loved!”
“It is kind of hard to believe to see a demon with feelings like love.” Charles raised an eyebrow at him. What he was doing was working. To get the demon worked up enough and distract him, while trying to fiddle with the other two minds at the time.
“Yes, we normally don’t, but sadly, I spent way too much time on Earth then, and I started to develop some kind of feelings.” he spat bitterly, getting agitated more by each second. “I met a woman. She was sweet and didn’t care I was blind. She didn’t know I was a demon then, and wasn’t planning to tell her. Things were good. Until Heaven decided to send Castiel. Did you know how he managed to defeat us?”
“No, but I have a feeling you are about to tell me.” Charles shrugged as he kept fiddling with Steve and Dean’s minds, while listening to the demon.
“He used her as a vessel.” The demon announced with a growl. Now, that got Charles’ attention and he stared at the demon with wide eyes. “Yes, that’s right. He used her to bring us down! Knowing that neither me or my brothers will attack, not wanting to hurt her. Then, while using his grace to trap us, her body was destroyed in the process! He didn’t care that will happen! He just did it! Like the heartless bastard he is!”
“Oh, and you the kind of demons, who heal people and save little kittens stuck in trees?” Charles snorted with a roll of his eyes. “You destroyed lives! Ruined families and broke many humans! Castiel did what he had to do to rid the world of you and save as much families as he could. That’s him doing his job. You and your brothers are the heartless bastards.”
The demon growled, and, suddenly, he was right in front of Charles and gripped him by the throat.
“I will take my revenge!” Mizaru screamed in rage at Charles’ face. “I will destroy everyone he ever loved! I have you, his best friend and the love of his life in my hands! I will make him watch as the three of you kill your own family, then we will kill you! Forcing him to feel the same pain he made me go through! I will make sure he suffers every single day of his immortal life.”
“You will fail.” Charles retorted in a steady voice, not even bothered by the hand around his throat. Eyes boring into the black ones in front of him.
“Oh, really? Why is that?” the demon mocked with a hysteric laugh.
“There’s a future waiting for us. A future we deserve.” The telepath said firmly, his voice ringing around them. “You can’t take that future away no matter what you do. You will be found. And you will be stopped. If it’s not us, our future will be the one to get here and hunt you down. Remember that.”
The demon was taken aback by the conviction and confidence in Charles’ voice, despite his situation, the telepath was still determined and hopeful.
“Humans became harder than the last time we were topside.” Mizaru huffed, as he pushed Charles away and took a step back.
“You just messed with the wrong family.” Charles just shrugged with a sweet smile.
“You are too blind to see the holes in your ‘family’.” The demon mocked with a snarl. “Your husband for example is the one who crippled you! Yet you still willing to share a bed and a life with him. Your only childhood friend spent years avoiding you, because his fragile heart couldn’t handle seeing you crippled. He married a soldier that literally killed himself seventy years ago. You accepted an Angel in to your family that could kill you with a thought, who is married to a killer and hunts monsters as a job with his brother. These are the highlights of your so called family, should I go on?”
“Every family has its ups and downs. I didn’t say mine is perfect.” Charles just smiled, not fazed by any word the demon had said. “Erik redeemed himself over and over again, and I forgave him a long time ago. Just like I forgave Tony, whose life wasn’t easy either and suffered a lot for years. Castiel is more human than most of the humans I have met and we trust him with our lives. Dean and his brother saves lives, that doesn’t make them killers, it makes them heroes.”
“This is what you tell yourself to sleep at night?” he mocked with a snort.
“We might be crazy, dysfunctional and most of us have a dark past and made so many mistakes, but we made it through. Became better than we were. You have no right to judge any one of us for their mistakes, after what you and your brothers did to any human that came in your path.” Charles stepped towards the demon defiantly. “You are monsters. Even after you acquired a semblance of feelings, you still continued to destroy lives. You have no right to claim of being the victim in all of this.” His eyes hardened as he said his next words. “You deserve everything that comes your way. Believe me when I say this, your end started the moment you thought you could take us down.”
“Earth’s mightiest heroes are on their knees in front of me, because of your powers. I won! There is nothing you could do now!” the blind demon pretty much screamed at his face.
“You forgot one of them.” Charles smirked confidently, rattling the demon a little. “And he is coming to finish his job. Any minute now.”
***
Cold.
It was so cold; he was barely able to breathe.
Why is it always cold with him?
More importantly, why did he suddenly felt it?
He was asleep. Like he did for seventy years. He doesn’t know if the seventy years had passed, or if didn’t actually woke up and all his life with his family, with Tony, was just a dream he had in his frozen sleep.
If it was that case, then why was he awake? He wasn’t supposed to be awake when he was in the ice.
He couldn’t remember anything. Everything was so hazy, he couldn’t tell what was real or what was just a dream anymore.
He did remember being held down by-by a chandelier? Was that even possible? There was an explanation, but he wasn’t sure what at the moment. He just remembered pain, panic, the look of absolute horror on Tony’s face.
Actually, that was the only thing he remembers in vivid detail. Tony’s face, and how wrong it was to see horror on that face.
Was Tony real? Or was he just on his imagination all along, while he was frozen? He knew that he was real, he saw him before crashing the plane, and he was certain of everything that happened before that.
Was his life with Tony just a dream? Tony could be unaware of his existence now, or even wasn’t born yet.
Or did he never exist in the first place and what he saw in the past was just an illusion?
He didn’t know anything anymore. He didn’t know if his family was real or not. Didn’t know if Bucky was really alive, or did he indeed die when he fell from that train. Didn’t know if the Avengers were real either.
Did he make up Castiel and the Winchesters too? That would be really unfortunate, since he considered them his brothers by now. Honestly, he didn’t know how lonely it was to be an only child, until he saw the two brothers bicker and at each other’s throats almost all the time. Bucky was always his brother, but then he had three more now.
Or at least he thinks so anyway. It was hard to tell.
‘Steve’
He frowned. What was that? Could it be the same voice that woke him up? He did think he heard someone calling him, but who could it be?
‘You know who I am, Steve. You are trapped in your own mind. Just focus on my voice.’
Well, if he was trapped in his mind, then there was only one person who could talk to him here.
Charles Xavier.
‘Glad that didn’t take long from you to figure out’
He opened his eyes, only to see himself inside the frozen fallen plane. His body was covered in ice as he still sat on the pilot seat. Ice pretty much covered everything around him.
Except for the telepath that sat in front of him with crossed legs and a soft smile. Looking too comfortable despite the ice cold surrounding them.
***
‘Hello there, Dean. We need to talk.’
Dean looked up sharply, when he heard that very familiar voice echoing through hell.
Yup, he was currently in hell. He was strapped to the rake, being torn apart by Alistair for what felt like forever now.
Everything around him was scorching hot. Every part of him was either burned, torn or broken. Literally every part of him.
He was violently reminded of every single thing Alistair did to him. Everything. Things he never dared to tell a soul about it. The things the demon did to break him apart.
Things that for the longest time, made him feel ashamed and undeserving of Castiel for long years.
At first, he was aware of being trapped inside his own memories, but slowly, as all the torture he endured kept repeating over and over again, he started to question if he even ever got out of here and had dreamed all his life after hell.
That couldn’t be possible, right? He couldn’t have imagined Castiel, the angel that literally saved him from hell and owned his heart and soul in the process. He couldn’t have imagined his years with the amazing angel, that loved him despite everything wrong with him. Despite what the angel saw him do, when he pulled him from here.
He also couldn’t have imagined his years with Sam. His brother who will get married in two months. Who finally found the woman that will spend the rest of her life with him. No, he couldn’t possibly had imagined that.
Specially not the Avengers and The X-family. His friendship with Tony couldn’t be just an imagination. It was real. So real he could feel it and couldn’t convince him otherwise. Even his friendship with Erik, Steve, Bucky, hell! his family! His family couldn’t be a new way Alistair had found to torture him! he refused to believe that.
When he heard that familiar voice call for him, he opened his eyes as much as he could from how bruised and swollen they were, to find Charles Xavier, standing right behind Alastair.
Charles Xavier? In hell? How that even possible? Even the words didn’t make sense.
“Charles?” he called out in a strangled voice. Probably because Alastair had slashed his throat a while ago. “H-how are you here? Are you dead? But you should be in heaven. Not here.”
‘I am not dead, Dean. Neither are you.’ he smiled gently at Dean, as he side stepped the laughing Alistair to stand directly in front of the hunter.
Dean tried to shout at him to stay away from the demon tormenting him, but the telepath didn’t seem to be bothered by anything happening around him, he just focused on Dean.
‘Like I said, Dean.’ Charles said calmly as he snatched a knife from Alistair’s hand, that was about to be plunged into Dean’s open wide stomach, then started to use that knife to release Dean from the rack. ‘We need to talk’
***
It was time.
He reached the right amount to overcome the warding.
Nothing could stand in his way right now.
He was pure, burning celestial energy.
He was an angel of the lord.
And he had a mission.
To destroy the demons.
And save his family.
With that in mind, he attacked.
Walls crumbled in front of him.
Nothing will stop him.
Literally nothing.
Nothing could possibly stop a storm once it was released from his human body.
Especially, if it was released after being trapped for years.
And that storm will wipe away anything that comes in his way.