outside the cell
Alex looked for a moment at his uninvited guest, and then he shook his head slightly to Colossus and Jubilee. Any violation of the school defenses was by its nature serious, but not every one was an emergency. This appeared not to be.
“It’s all right,” he said clearly, and then slightly relaxed behind his desk, not wishing to escalate an already tense situation. “Morningstar is an old… acquaintance.”
The two X-Men considered the situation, and shook their heads silently in reply. Peter transformed from organic steel back to flesh and bone, and opened the door for Jubilee. With a curious glance back over his shoulder as he exited, he closed the door, leaving the other two mutants alone.
Warren Worthington III regarded their exit with a bemused grin, just visible below the edge of the scarred iron helmet which covered most of his face.
“You couldn’t just say I was a friend, Alex? Not even after all this time?” Worthington folded his wings close to his body, and hopped up lightly to perch on the edge of the credenza. He pushed the scabbard and sword at his side into his lap, almost casually, as he sat.
“You could at least call me ‘Angel,’ considering where we are,” he continued.
“No.” Alex wasn’t angry, but he also wasn’t accommodating. “The day you picked up that damned sword, you gave up the right to that name as far as I’m concerned.”
“Your opinion,” Worthington allowed dismissively. “Enough of the pleasantries. I need to know, once and for all, what happened to Wolverine.”
“No, you don’t. Wanting isn’t needing, Warren.”
“Don’t get holier than thou with me, Havoc,” Worthington said impatiently. “We’re getting it from both sides these days. You got your Second Brotherhood saying he’s dead, murdered by the government. Then there are the Blue Wavers, claiming he’s being held hostage in some secret prison, a-waitin’ for the Judgment Day. I’m the only one both sides might believe, and you know it.”
“I understand, but again, that’s not my problem.” Alex sighed and drummed his fingers on the desktop. It wasn’t as if he’d never imagined this day would come, but now it was here he was stalling. Still, it would almost be a relief to share the truth with someone else at last. Almost a relief. Almost the truth.
“Don’t make me say it, Havoc.” Worthington was getting agitated. Alex could see the knuckles of Morningstar’s hand tightening, gripping the famous Sword of Vengeance. The living blade was sleeping restlessly in its scabbard, singing songs of righteous fury. Worthington stood, and the sword slid to its position on his hip with the ease of weary years.
“Don’t make me say San Antonio.” Worthington’s body language wasn’t hostile, it was defensive, as if he knew the danger and pain and insult of the buttons he was pushing.
Alex pushed up from his desk, not attacking but moving with abrupt purpose. A faint nimbus of energy surrounded him, lifting his hair and crackling with parastatic power as he took the remote from his desk and aimed it, not at Morningstar, but at the back wall of his office, the wall that contained the vault.
“Fine,” Alex said after a long moment, “You want to know what happened to the Wolverine? See for yourself, Morningstar, Light-bearer, Lucifer. See for yourself, and then have the will to judge me.”
The panels concealing the vault had swung open in response to his thumbprint on the remote’s pad. Now three reinforced panels of vibranium steel withdrew, moved by mighty engines both mystic and mechanical, to reveal the inner vault of the Xavier School, something only slightly less unknowable than the conscience of God.
A platform slid into view, and small lights flickered and buzzed to life, showing the contents in stark relief. Worthington took a half step forward, drawn to the terrible sight.
“It can’t be destroyed,” Alex said, grief and loss erasing all traces of spite or teasing between them. “It can never be destroyed, just as it can never be allowed to fall into the hands of those who would use it for evil. So it sits, and waits, buried here in darkness.”
“Like the Grail,” Worthington breathed softly. “Like Excalibur, waiting for the return of the King.” The eyes behind his iron mask were rimmed with tears.
“For a champion,” Alex agreed, moving to stand next to his former friend. “A king who will never come again.”
Alex triggered the switch again, and the platform began to retract. As the lights failed, darkness took the form on the platform, the glistening bones, the mythic claws, as the unbreakable skeleton of the Wolverine, gleaming dully in the vault, retreated from the view of mortal man.
“How?” was the only word Morningstar could manage.
“A woman. An accident. A sacrifice.” Alex shrugged. It was close enough to the truth that Worthington never guessed he was being lied to. “It didn’t have to happen. If he hadn’t been who he was, doing what he did, he could have lived forever.”
Worthington shrugged, stepping forlornly onto the balcony. He looked back at Alex.
“If he wasn’t who he was, what would forever have meant?” He leapt into the air, wings not spreading until he was already hurtling the railing. With a few mighty beats of his startlingly bright white wings, he was gone, into the night.
Alex went back to his desk, to his students, and to his ghosts.
**more coming after exam week**
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