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masterofmagnetism · 4 years

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so you want to start a war || side b ( the un )

“Fantasy. Lunacy. All revolutions are, until they happen, then they are historical inevitabilities.”

David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

WHO: Erik, Jean @jeangrcysummers, Scott @firstxman, and Raven @mysteriousdumbass

WHEN: August 2, 2020. 11 AM.

WHERE: The United Nations Secretariat Building, Midtown Manhattan

WHAT: The Brotherhood makes the war between humans and mutants official, by way of a coordinated attack on New York in response to the Accords and resurrection of the SENTINEL program. The launch of the plan goes off perfectly--well, almost.

( In which Erik monologues a lot, Scott proves he should be the one in charge, Jean stretches her figurative telepathic legs, and Raven teaches everyone how to make an Exit TM. )

WORD COUNT: 7.6k

TWs: murder, mind control, mentions of ptsd and past trauma incl. child abuse and death, mentions of historical genocides

ERIK: He'd once told Charles, an eternity ago when the sun was beating down on them in Cuba while the professor laid on his back with a bullet in his spine, that they wanted the same thing. He'd meant it, then, and there was a large part of him that still wanted to believe that was fundamentally true.

But he wasn't so certain, anymore. Because the feeling he had now, that electric feeling crackling under his skin that always happened in the lead-up to a battle, was something that said that perhaps this wasn't solely out of necessity as he'd so long claimed. This feeling said that there was a part of him that enjoyed it, that relished in war the way he'd said he didn't for so long, And there was no denying that there was an element of excitement sparking through his veins, because in three days' time, if all went well, his life goal would be achieved.

If all didn't go well, Erik would either be dead, or a murderer on a scale that didn't bear thinking about. ( He hadn't thought about it, because he wasn't sure if he was as upset as he once would have been at the prospect--and if he wasn't, whether that was because of him or the bird. He'd not talked about it with Jean, and he wasn't going to. There were some things Jean was better off not knowing. His eyes cut to the clock at the thought, because in nine minutes Jean would have something else to ask him about when they left this building. And for the first time in his life, he would have to lie to her. )

Normally, he would be in his helmet. But he didn't fear any telepaths, this time around--Jean and Emma were on side, and Charles wouldn't move against him now even if he could have. The man had been quiet, in recent weeks, apparently resigned to the war they all felt on the air. Jean needed access to Erik’s mind to keep the teams connected, and so he left space for her to press into it--though walls were up around the things she didn't need to see. No need for distractions.

It didn't matter. He didn't need the helmet to terrify the humans. He heard Raven out on the UN floor, giving an admirable performance as the Secretary-General. In a few moments, they would get their cue. But for now, Erik looked over at Jean and Scott where they waited a few steps away down the hall. Right now, they didn't need him to be a father. They needed him to be the general he'd made of himself. So he was calm, steady, unreadable as he spoke up.

"Are you ready?"

SCOTT: It had been getting harder, in recent days, to ignore that quiet whispering in the back of his mind. It was a voice that had been with him, in one way or another, since he’d opened his eyes in the cemetery where he’d been buried, since he’d breathed new air in lungs no longer damaged by the bullet that tore through him in that park, and Scott knew exactly what it was. He remembered Jean slipping into his room at eighteen, remembered the way she sat on the corner of his bed and spoke to him in his mind, where only the two of them could hear. It talked in my head, too, she’d said. It’s gone quiet now, but I think it’s still here. She’d told him it felt warm. He’d never known what that meant until now.

He told himself that it was a good thing. The Phoenix, while undeniably dangerous, offered incomparable power. Something like that wasn’t just good at this stage… it was necessary. Erik’s plan was ambitious, but Scott didn’t see any other way to ensure peace for their people. Humanity had made it clear long ago that they were finished listening to platitudes. If mutants turned the other cheek, humans would respond by cutting their exposed throats. The time for meek attempts at convincing an inferior race that they deserved a goal as simple as equality was over. This was war now.

(And perhaps that, more than anything, should have scared him. Scott had never thought like this before. He had never considered mutants superior to humans until after his resurrection. He’d assured Jean and Alex and anyone else willing to listen that the Phoenix hadn’t changed him, but thoughts like this proved the contrary. He was different now. Maybe he needed to be. Maybe this Scott Summers was better than the one who had died in that park. Maybe this Scott Summers never would have died at all.)

Raven spoke from the stage, and Scott half-listened with his fists clenched tightly at his sides, ready for a fight he knew was coming. Jean’s presence in his head was a familiar comfort, Erik’s warmth at his side steadily growing towards the same. Part of him felt, as he always had, that it was undeniably off to be on a side opposite Charles, but he pushed it away. They were all on the same side in the end, all had the same goal. Charles would understand that someday.

Erik spoke, so different from the warm voice he’d used at the wedding or just after Scott’s resurrection, and Scott didn’t smile as he nodded in response. He’d always been good at this --- turning his heart off when he needed to, morphing into the mold of the perfect soldier who did little more than follow orders. It was who he had been raised to be, by every authority figure he had ever known. “As soon as she says the word,” he said, glancing out to the stage.

JEAN: There were more than a few hard truths Jean had been forced to accept in her life. Number one: you couldn’t save everybody. Sometimes, when it came down to the wire, the only thing that you could do was make the hardest choice possible, and hope that you could live with the consequences. Jean learned that young, a teenage soldier in every way, and soon she learned where her priorities always lay — with her family. If it came down to it, she had a responsibility to every person who fought alongside her, to everyone who grew up in the Institute learning what they were capable of, to everyone who had supported her and loved her and been there for her when blood never was.

She had a responsibility to mutants, and it wasn’t just because of the gene she carried. It was because of love.

Number two: sometimes love made you do crazy things. She wouldn’t go so far as to say they were bad things — but from the outside looking in, it might appear that way. Raising Scott from the dead. Messing with people’s minds so they’d turn away from her teammates, making it so they couldn’t fall asleep at night without knowing that the most sacred, private part of themselves could be intruded as well as everything else.

Storming the United Nations.

Number three, and perhaps by far the most important, at least today: mutants had been fighting a battle since the moment they first existed. They’d been waging a war, and losing it, because they wanted to be the bigger people. Because they were afraid. Because they were so very few, and the humans were so very many.

Because they’d never tasted the fire before now, never known they were capable of holding it. But they were.

Jean had been dead for most of that war. She fought as a teenager, she fought as an adult, she fought in her own way as a medic, but she’d been dead for a long time. She’d been dead, and when she came back, she thought the world was different.

Now she knew it wasn’t. It never would be. If she wanted the world to be better — and she did, always, that’s everything she’d ever fought for — then she’d need to make the change herself, with a little help from her friends.

Scott and Erik’s presence was a strange mix of comforting and foreboding. It was an oxymoron, really, that she could think of no better people to go into war beside, yet wanted them to be at home, safe, more than almost anything else. Her entire world, almost, was condensed into this one building. It was now or never, a gamble that the Phoenix wouldn’t allow them to lose …

But she’d been confident before, and she’d still died. She’d still lost her husband. Her father still walked away.

Jean heard Scott’s voice in her mind. She milled through the crowd watching the Secretary-General — watching Mystique, who Jean was only convinced wouldn’t betray them at the first turn because she knew where the woman’s motivations lay — with a telepathic shield masking her from being spotted. For all intents and purposes, Jean was invisible, their minds blocked out to her moving between them, their subconsciouses filling in the gaps if she brushed against their arm as she moved past.

Just the wind. It’s my imagination. I really need to get more sleep.

Humans could compensate for anything. Even if the truth was staring them in the face, they’d come up with another explanation.

Jean looked back towards the stage. “Ready,” she said, her voice breaking through the illusion, several of the spectators turning towards the sound with wide eyes in the split second before the plan kicked into action.

RAVEN: God, humans were so boring. Every second she spent in this skin was a unique kind of torture, bearable only for Erik's sake. Her betrayal at the park was far from forgotten, even with Scott up and walking around again. (No, she hadn't known that would happen. But she wasn't entirely surprised either.) Still, the consequences of her recent actions were not why she stood where she did.

She had always believed in the cause. Her loyalties were a constant question, and she reveled in the rumors that surrounded her. Being predictable would've been boring. But it wasn't that she didn't wish to see Mutantkind rise up. She simply lacked the desire to martyr herself for a lost cause, the way so many other Mutants wished to. If she were going to act, it would be with purpose. It would be to achieve something truly great.

And maybe it was the ‘bird’ as they so lovingly called it -- but Erik finally seemed ready to take the leap he had always been destined for.

True revolution.

Charles could eat his heart out.

“If we are not vigilant, we will be overrun!” The speech she was giving was boilerplate, simplistic in the way that only blind prejudice could deliver. “The Sentinels are absolutely necessary for our survival,” she continued with gusto. She gestured to the demonstration units. “And already we see the results they have brung. It may seem cruel. Terrible, unfair. But this fight has never been fair. The playing field has always been leveled against us. Unchecked, mutants, Inhumans, super-powered scum will defeat us before we even know they are here.” She gazed out towards the back of the room, a slow smirk spreading across her face.

Erik and Scott stared up at her. Waiting. Expectant. Counting down the final seconds to glory. Jean’s eyes blazing, voice trembling with ferocity as she spoke. Not to the fools who turned at the sudden voice, but to her. Mystique grinned, and fell silent, much to the confusion of the room. She held up a hand.

“That’s for me, ladies and gentlemen,” she explained. The crowd settled somewhat, only a few whispers and murmurs. “My colleagues,” she said, sweeping her arm out towards the three of them. “You might recognize some of them. They’re here to highlight a little of what I was saying before.” Mystique stepped forward. “We are in a new age. Progress unprecedented in our time. The change we have all been waiting for. The change we’ve all… feared.”

With that, she let the disguise fade away. The blue scales sprouted across her body, crimson hair falling past her shoulders, and yellow eyes burning into the crowd. “As I said,” she continued, staring straight at Erik. “This fight is already over.”

ERIK: He couldn't have asked for a better introduction if he'd written Raven's speech himself. She'd always had a way with words, a skill at manipulation that exceeded even Erik's own. Slipping into the role of the Secretary-General looked like it'd been practically effortless, and he could feel the agreement to what she was saying ripple through the crowd until Jean's voice broke and Raven played her hand and slipped into her natural skin.

These were professionals, and there were no screams as the realization settled. Only gasps and murmurs as the mental shield Jean had been putting up lifted and they realized who was amongst them.

Scott Summers, the mutant they'd let be ripped through with a bullet in Central Park and yet had come back--and come back angry.

Jean Grey, the mutant who had shredded the Raft, deatomized people with only a thought, freed some of her fellows for the coming war, broken through a power suppressant collar and lived to talk about it.

Mystique, the shapeshifter who had terrified the government all the way back at the beginning of their understanding of mutantkind due to the fear she could take the place of one of them. The very real fear that would never have materialized, had the humans not been warmongers.

And Erik, of course, who most eyes in the room eventually settled on even before he spoke, because his reputation was intertwined with the very public trail of bodies he tended to leave in his wake.

The inclination was there. It wasn't in the plan, but the thought crossed his mind, had been an inkling since the little titters of agreement to Raven's obvious bait.

Humans were unsaveable. This building was run through with rebars, there were electrical systems through every desk in the hall. It would take nothing of his current power to electrocute everyone in their chairs, to bring this building down around their heads, to bring every building down. The humans deserved to be punished, to have to beg on their knees for mercy from the species that was ordained to replace them. It'd be natural, to end them all--Charles' own papers on mutation had said as much, that the inferior species never survived the evolutionary leap of their betters for long.

No. Not yet. In three days' time, perhaps things would look different without the bloodshed. Perhaps not. But he owed it to Jean and Scott to try.

Focus. All eyes on him. "Thank you for the warm welcome," he deadpanned into the silence, starting his walk between the rows of tables toward the podium. Some of the cameras that were livestreaming turned away from the podium to follow his movements and those of Jean and Scott behind him, the others stayed trained on Mystique. He could imagine the chaos erupting in newsrooms even now. They'd seen nothing yet.

"An old friend of mine once told me that I have a flair for the dramatic. Despite appearances," he smirked wryly, "That is not the case. There was a time not so long ago--within some of your lifetimes--that I would have loved nothing more than to live entirely out of the limelight. A time that I was content to live in a cabin in the woods with my wife and child. To work, like you do, a simple 9-5 job. There was a time that I was a child of war who only wanted it to stop, like so many of my brethren desire. None of us come into this world wanting war, we come wanting to coexist, to improve this world we share. But that is not the human way."

As if to emphasize the point, his senses, burning on double-time, take note of sudden warmth against grips. Security. Handguns. Erik smiled bitterly, glancing over his shoulder at Scott in time for a shot to ring out. The bullet froze in front of Raven, and Erik inclined his head in the direction of the gunman, even as he spoke up so the humans could hear. "Really. No lesson learned from the Park? Let's try this again."

SCOTT: It was almost funny, the idea that someone could be afraid of Jean’s voice. For more than half his life now, the sound had served as a comfort to Scott. It had been a light in the darkness, sometimes literally showing him the way when his visor was damaged and he was flying blind after a battle. To him, the sound of her voice was safety. It was home.

But the people in this room were not Scott Summers.

He’d seen Jean angry. He’d seen her in fights, in battles, in warzones. He remembered being sixteen and seeing her fight for the first time, remembered thinking he was glad that she was on their side, remembered feeling embarrassed at the memory that she could hear that thought. Jean was a force of nature when she wanted to be, and right now? Right now, she wanted to be. The people glancing at the three of them in fear were right to be afraid. They were smart. It was like Scott had said in his letter to the Bugle a lifetime ago --- this war had been around for a very long time. And right now, everyone in this room recognized that a battle was about to be fought.

Erik spoke, and a part of Scott ached for him. He’d had a life once. Scott didn’t know the full story, but he’d heard bits and pieces. He’d heard of a wife and a daughter, heard of a tragedy, and he could only imagine what it felt like. Scott had lost people before. He’d buried the woman he loved more than once, choked on his own blood on a grassy knoll, died wheezing and sweatstained and shit scared. Scott had lost people before but, to him, those losses had always been expected. He’d always known, on some level, that they were coming. Soldiers fought in wars, and wars took everything you had. Losing people had been the most constant thing in Scott’s life since his mother pushed him from a plane with the only parachute strapped to his back and his baby brother clutched in his arms. Losing people was familiar. He’d never once allowed himself to believe he could live without loss.

Things had been different, he suspected, for Erik. No one expected to bury their child. No one planned for that. And war cared so little for plans.

(Humanity cared so little for plans.)

Security stormed the room, and Erik caught Scott’s eye for a moment before shots rang out. For a fraction of a second, Scott was back in Central Park. He waited for the bullet to tear through his chest, waited for blood to flood into his lungs, waited for Logan to offer that merciful release, but it never came. This was not Central Park. Scott was not dying. The bullets froze in the air, and Erik was there. Scott let out a quiet breath, meeting Erik’s eye again and nodding once.

Stepping forward, he moved one of the stray bullets to the side with a finger, glancing around the room to meet the gaze of the few people who didn’t immediately look away. “You know who we are,” he stated the obvious with a quirk of his brow. “You know we didn’t want it to come to this. We tried, for years, to keep the peace. We fought alongside you, fought for you, and look where it got us. We’re finished with peace. We want results now.” He glanced back to Jean, taking strength in her presence for a moment. “You can try to fight us,” he said, looking back to the crowd, “but I don’t think it will go the way you want it to go. Your best option is to listen. To negotiate. Results don’t have to be born from violence alone.”

JEAN: Erik described their powers — their abilities — as gifts. He looked at Jean and she didn’t need to read his mind to know where his imagination was going. She was capable of so many things, a sentiment that had been repeated to her since she was five years old and her parents didn’t realise the irony of what they were saying, that the ‘special’ they boasted about in their youngest daughter would one day tear their family apart.

Because Jean’s ‘gift?’ It got her killed. It got her shot in the middle of a fight that should’ve been easy. Her gift meant she was reckless, and it meant she was arrogant, and it meant that she had only a split second to see a flash of red and Scott running towards her before she hit the ground. Her ‘gift’ cost her a sister, her parents, more friends than she could count. It cost her a life with a white picket fence, and it took Scott’s life, and as an extension, it ruined Erik’s too.

Because Jean’s gift wasn’t just hers. It was one they all shared, the four of them standing in this room. Mystique’s cool gaze met hers, and Jean met it for only a split second before turning back to one she knew like the back of her hand, one she could trace out in her sleep.

(Erik’s way of thinking had always been easier for her to follow. Charles said telepaths had a unique responsibility, and he was right. He said they had to protect people’s rights to their own privacy, that they had to be the most staunch defenders of free will, but it was never people’s thoughts Jean wanted to intrude into. It was never their minds or their internal lives that she was interested in. When Jean was angry, her first thought wasn’t how she could tear them apart, slowly, with memories and soft spots and traumas long since buried.

When Jean was angry, she just wanted to burn the world down. She’d always been that way. She’d always seen that in Erik. She’d always been afraid of the fact that may have been why the Phoenix chose her.)

The guns went off, and for the first time in her life Jean flinched at the noise. She flinched, but there was a shield around them, bullets hanging suspended in the air.

This time, she did listen to their thoughts.

We knew he could do that. They will come with reinforcements — plastic guns, polymer weaponry. Shapeshifters revert with enough pressure, we could screen everyone coming in, we could adjust. If the girl wanted us dead, we’d all be gone already. We’d be agreeing already, if she could really get in our heads. They’re bluffing.

The one thought that stood out amongst them all, the one that came from a man without a single ounce of fear on his expression, all stony rage—

We killed Summers once before.

Jean took a step towards that man. She lifted her hand, twisting her wrist so one of the suspended bullets could follow her until it was resting against the centre of his forehead. One of his colleagues made a huffed breath as they briefly considered intervening, but that was the thing about humans. For the most part, they fell short on doing the right thing, even when they knew it was the right thing. They had a certainty in front of them, and they ignored it to follow orders.

The bullet dropped to the floor with a clatter. The man jumped.

“I can hear what you’re thinking,” Jean said, still a mere metre away from the man in question, but loud enough that the room could hear — and her voice echoed in their subconscious, the same as Jean elevated Mystique’s voice, and Erik’s, and Scott’s. They weren’t gods, far from it, but sometimes a little drama was needed. “You’re wondering if this is all a little overkill — if we’re just here to throw our weight around. If we’ll just kill you anyway, or why we haven’t done this before.”

Jean tilted her head, hair falling off her shoulder. “This man is the perfect example of why we remained hidden, why I was scared as a child to go to school. Do you want to share with the group what you’re thinking?”

The man stayed silent, jaw tightening. Jean tilted her head even further, and with a little nudge, the man’s mouth fell open.

“Mutants are freaks,” he said, eyes widening as the words left without his permission. “They come into our countries, our towns, they take our jobs, our security — they indoctrinate our children, and they…”

Jean waved her hand, and the man fell silent. “I don’t know about all of you,” she said, “but it kind of sounds like the other way around, to me.”

ERIK: Scott was trying to play nice. Even after everything, he was trying to talk to them, coax them into negotiating before the threats were even made. Jean was talking, getting in their heads, forcing one of the men to speak the bigotry lurking in his mind out into the crowd. She could hear the hate in his heart, could hear what everyone in the room would like to do, and yet she was calm, level-toned. Not for the first time, Erik wondered what the Phoenix was like for them, because he was itching to tear crowd and building alike apart at the seams. It would be easy. Not for the first time, Erik was grateful that he'd learned long ago how to keep up mental shields, how to control how far he let a telepath into his head, because he didn't want Jean to see that the man's words made him want to stop his heart where he stood. He knew those thoughts were there, expected it--that was the point of all this, after all. But it didn't make him less angry. And judging by the way Raven was watching him, she knew it. Scott and Jean might or might not, but Raven knew. She always did.

Not a minute in, and they'd already tried to kill his family. They deserved to pay for it. It would be so easy. But there was a plan, one Scott and Jean were expecting him to follow unless things went unexpectedly wrong. So Erik bit down the fury that itched through his palms, the urge to send the bullets flying right back into the skulls of the security guards who'd fired upon them, and let the bullets drop to the floor. "Do you know," he said as he continued toward the podium, smiling frigidly, "I'm almost glad to hear that, my mutant-hating friend, because I'm sure that means you all will be nothing but ecstatic to hear my proposed solution." He was at the front, now, all eyes on him as he stepped to the podium. "If history has shown us one thing, it's that humans are not good at coexisting, despite those little bumper stickers I imagine are on half of your cars."

His gaze swept over the crowd, and his eyes were colder than ever. "You claimed to build this hall as a place where humanity could come to work towards peace. To avoid another World War, like the one that killed my family, that left me marked like cattle. Once upon a time, the world said 'never again.' And then you all sat idly by while millions of Bengalis were killed in Bangladesh. You looked away while in one hundred days, a million Tutsis were massacred in Rwanda. Your so-called Peacekeepers stood and watched while the Serbs murdered 8,000 men and boys in Srebrenica. And now, you would not simply watch, but encourage the United States government in stripping its mutant population of their rights: to force them to register, as Hitler did the Jews. To force them to work for this new regime, to perpetuate harm against their brethren as I was forced to do in Auschwitz. To throw them into prison without trial to be tortured--I witnesssed the abuse with my own eyes in the Raft." His voice had risen slowly, steely but rolling with righteous fury. "Perhaps you don't care as our human rights are stripped away because, as you people are so good at doing against those who are different, you've stopped seeing us as human at all."

The smile now was nothing but venomous. "In that much at least, you are correct. We are better. I warned you that war was being declared with the passage of the Accords, and even my own people called me alarmist. But no one doubts now that this is war, when you have these roaming the streets to hunt us down," he said, waving at the inactive Sentinel on display. "Not since humans ambushed my people in Central Park for doing nothing more than existing. You wanted to make us afraid. To make a point. Well, here is mine," he said, nodding at Scott. "We will always rise. We are the next stage of human evolution. Never before in history has the less-evolved form of humanity managed to live alongside their more evolved kin--not for long enough to matter. Your extinction is inevitable. Now, I am content to let that end come about naturally, to let evolution run its course until you are wiped from existence. Continue to fight us as you have, and I will personally ensure your extinction is dramatically accelerated."

The room had gone quiet enough that you could hear a pin drop. "My children have requested that humanity be given a chance to do the right thing. I'm willing to give you the opportunity--albeit with an incentive. There are two million people on the island of Manhattan. Every person who came to work this morning here on the island will remain here for the next three days, along with residents. People attempting to leave will not survive the attempt. You have 8 hours to dispatch someone with authority to make decisions to Stark Tower to begin negotiating the cession of land to my people for our own nation, so you needn't worry about the mutant plague displacing you. Within 72 hours, I expect to have a signed agreement in my hand. If not, we will dismantle your buildings, your monuments, your world. We will destroy this island and tip it into the sea as if it was never here at all, and then, if you lot still prove to be intractable after our demonstration, we will move on to the rest of this city."

SCOTT: It was easy, listening to him speak, to understand why Erik was able to command people so effortlessly. It was easy to understand why people flocked to him, why mutants came to stand by his side without hesitation, why Scott had found himself among them. The way he commanded a room wasn’t something that could be matched, wasn’t a thing he’d seen in anyone else save for perhaps the Professor himself. Erik had a way about him, and when he spoke, it was hard not to listen.

Between his words, Jean’s righteous anger, and Mystique’s impressive display, they were certainly a sight to behold. Not an eye in the room could turn away from them, not a person among them looked unafraid. Some part of Scott, the part he tried to keep buried deep inside, the part the Phoenix seemed to amplify --- it took joy in that. He knew what Jean meant when she said she’d been afraid as a child, because he had been too. He’d been terrified the moment his powers manifested, been called a villain for trying to help people, been taken advantage of by people who should have tried to help him. Part of him was ecstatic about the idea of these men, men so like those he had feared as a child, being afraid of him now. For so long, their people lived in fear, in terror. Could anyone blame them if they wanted to ensure this was never the case again?

“All we want,” he said, locking eyes with the man whose words Jean had forced to the surface, “all we have ever wanted, is to live our lives in peace. We want to be able to let our children go to the park without worrying about men pointing guns in their faces. We want to be able to walk outside with wings on our backs or fur on our skin without you putting collars around our necks and throwing us in cells. We want to be able to exist without having to sign a piece of paper allowing you to track us. We want to live. That’s all we want.”

And then Erik launched into his demands, and Scott let his gaze sweep the room to gauge responses. They were asking for something extreme. He knew that. He also knew that they hadn’t been left with much of a choice. They had tried, for so long, to live in harmony with humanity. Some of them had even managed to achieve it for a time… but only so long as they hid who they were. For people like Kurt, whose blue fur and tail made it impossible for him to blend in, or Warren, whose wings ached every time he forced them beneath a jacket, or Scott, who couldn’t be without his glasses no matter how dark it was outside or how many hours he spent indoors, even that was out of the question. And it wasn’t right, and it wasn’t fair. No one should have to pretend to be something they weren’t for the comfort of bigots. What they were asking for was extreme, but humanity had made it clear that it was necessary. There was no world where they could exist in harmony. It simply didn’t exist.

JEAN: Jean was tired of a lot of things. She was tired of hearing every disgusting thought that was passing through these people’s heads about her people, about her family, every justification they brought through for the dehumanisation of the people she grew up surrounded by, the people that she defined herself by. She was tired of fighting, tired of running from robots designed entirely to hunt her down, tired of fearing a life spent behind bars or with cuffs around her wrists for things that she couldn’t control. She was sick of being out of control. She was sick of not knowing where her limits were, never being entirely sure whether she could stop herself if she crossed that line that seemed to creep ever closer.

She was sick of people dying. She was sick of mutant children avoiding hospitals because they were afraid of being carted away from their families. Most of all, though, Jean Summers was sick of making mistakes. She’d made more than her fair share, in the past six months — more than her fair share in the past thirty years. Her heart, her gut, guided her, and she was always told to go entirely by their compass, but the consequences seemed to be far reaching no matter what way she moved.

She hadn’t prayed in years. She wasn’t praying now. But she was asking something, someone, to watch over and make sure this wasn’t a repetition of the same pattern.

(Maybe she was asking the bird. What did that say about her?)

Erik mentioned extinction, and Jean knew him well enough at this point that she didn’t flinch. She didn’t release her hold on the man in front of her, didn’t stop scanning through their minds, predicting any movements they might make and quickly making them forget about any plans to fight back. A little persuasion never hurt anyone, but she still felt sick at the thought, still felt that prickle on the back on the back of her neck at the fact she was exerting her will, and she hadn’t done that since she was sixteen, and wasn’t she better than that now …

Her gaze flickered towards Scott, and he was looking at her already, and Jean allowed herself to breathe.

“We have never asked for your world before,” Jean said. “We have never intruded, never stepped into your land like you tore ours from us. We’ve never had a place to settle — we’ve never had a history to look back on. It’s been stripped from us in every generation, in every form. That changes today. Our children will be born into a world where they can be as proud to be a mutant as you are to serve and protect your people. We want the same things. We all want the same thing. Peace. Security. A place to rest. We wouldn’t have done this, but you left us no other option.”

(She wanted to explain it more. In a sudden, fierce burst, Jean wanted to make them all see what she had when the Phoenix tore through words. She wanted to make them all see their colleagues’ perceptions, the strength of hatred the world held towards her kind. Maybe if they could see how she saw, they would understand — but maybe they wouldn’t.

This was the only way.)

“We don’t want to hurt you,” she said, looking this time towards Erik, face hard in a way she had to have learned from him, or from dying, “but we will, if we have to. I’m sure you can see now that it wouldn’t be difficult for us to achieve.”

RAVEN: She wanted to hurt them. Jean and Scott, the happy little newlyweds, they could say whatever they wanted, they could claim this was a last resort and something they never wanted to do. But Raven wouldn't lie to herself. She had always seen this moment as an inevitability. Perhaps Charles himself was the first one to make her think so. To put it in scientific terms -- this was evolution. Revolution.

And she would kill every single person in this room to achieve it. Why should they get to go home to their families, their children? She had never gotten to be a child. She had to abandon her own time and time again, just to survive in this hateful, twisted world. A backwards world, where the weak oppressed the strong. No more.

She stepped forward, off the stage. Approaching the man Jean had forced to speak. She leaned over him, stroking a hand down his cheek. The scales on her fingers were sharp, left a thin red line against his pale skin. "We're here to start a revolution," she said. "And what would a revolution be without reparation?" She chuckled, and made her way around behind him. Everyone was frozen in fear, eyes wide as the strange blue figure leaned down, wrapping herself around the man. "Don't worry," she whispered in his ear. "We won't try to indoctrinate you."

She grabbed his neck and twisted. There was a sickening crunch of bone, and he slumped forward. There were screams, gasps, someone in the corner retched. Raven's laugh echoed louder than any of it.

Peace without bloodshed was impossible when the wounds were so fresh.

"Choose your representative wisely, Homo Sapiens," she called, as she sashayed her way back to the stage. "We will know if you lie. Count yourself lucky my colleagues want change and not revenge," she said, gazing out at the crowd. "Because if it were up to me alone, I would not be so kind. You have 72 hours," she echoed, straightening her shoulders. "This world belongs to Mutants now. Your fate is in our hands." She held up her own, wiggling her fingers. "And you know what our hands are capable of now."

ERIK: Raven’s inclusion in the plan hadn’t exactly been well-received, in the beginning. And it was understandable why—Erik himself had been furious enough with Raven to threaten her life when he’d found out about her involvement with the catastrophe in Central Park. Scott had been the one who died thanks to her machinations, and Jean had lost the man she loved more than life itself for weeks.

And that was why Raven was here. Everyone else here was dangerously sentimental—Jean and Erik and Scott were fearfully attached to the people they loved, were prone to letting that attachment skew their decision making even without the Phoenix. With the bird running in their veins, it was all the more dangerous. But Raven? Raven loved her family, but she had no qualms about doing what was necessary for the sake of the mission. The faintly nauseous feeling that had plagued Erik for the last few days since the confrontation at L-Corp never seemed to have materialized with Raven regarding the Park. She did what she saw to be necessary, without hesitation and without guilt. And while the number of people Erik trusted wholly could be counted on one hand ( one finger, in fact ), Erik had no qualms about trusting Raven to with the mission, even if that meant she didn’t always play perfectly by his playbook.

He knew Raven better than he knows nearly anyone else. So he knew, as she stepped off the stage, as he took in the way she was walking and carrying herself, what she was going to do. They’d been practically in sync since the beginning, save for the Central Park incident, and no doubt her head was exactly where his was. Scott and Jean were taking part in the revolution, as he’d always hoped, but they were still framing things as if they were X-Men. We don’t want to hurt you.

That wasn’t, strictly speaking, entirely true. Jean might not. Scott might not. But Raven had always been in a similar way as Erik, and Erik had spent the entire last few minutes wanting nothing more than the blood of all the hypocrites gathered in this room, all the people who dared to stand here and preach peace while throwing their support behind the World Security Council. She wanted blood. And despite Erik’s assurances to Jean that he would not kill anyone here today unless his hand was forced, he was not going to stop her. He would stop no mutant from acting against a human in the midst of war. Especially not Raven, with all she’d lost.

But there was part of this that was overfamiliar, dangerous, and it took only a few moments for Erik to piece together what it was before he was reaching out to Jean’s presence in his mind as everyone focused temporarily on Raven, a warning contained in the tone around one word.

<<Jean.>>

Too long ago, Erik was in a submarine reactor with the man who killed his mother and made a choice. Charles was in much the same position as Jean was now, mind reaching out to the entire team for support, spread-thin. Erik had blocked him out of his mind with a stolen helmet and run a coin through Sebastian Shaw’s skull, knowing entirely well that Charles, with his grip on Shaw, would feel every agonizing second of it. And he’d done it anyway, because Erik couldn’t leave the past behind while the man who had set his life on its downward spiral and destroyed the lives of so many others still breathed. Erik had made Charles live a death vicariously, a death at his own hand, and ten minutes later put a bullet through the man’s spine far less deliberately but no less painfully.

Jean had killed before, had felt lives wink out on the Raft at her own command. But he would not have her experience what Charles had, death at the hands of a teammate. Not unless it was a choice. One he hadn’t given her father the chance to make—no, one that Charles had been forced to make.

Focus. This is not Cuba. Pay. Attention.

<<Do not react.>> That was the only other warning he could give, before Raven’s hands twisted and left the man in a heap on the floor. The humans screamed, and Erik felt a curl of vindictive pleasure that crept through with an amused quirk of his lips. That was less important, though, than Scott and Jean maintaining apparent neutrality. It was of paramount importance right now that they show a united front, that the death of a human didn’t appear to perturb any of them. They could give no reason to doubt that their threats to New York would be followed through on if the humans failed to cooperate.

Erik didn’t laugh as Raven did, but his smile didn’t falter for a moment. “I couldn’t have said it better myself.” Erik offered an arm to Raven, held out his hand for Jean and Scott to come up toward the stage—they needed to be holding hands, to be transported by Azazel ( the same way they’d run in Cuba--stop ) and get out of here before the police gathering outside decided it was worth the risk to move in. “We’ve made our stance clear. Whatever happens next rests squarely on your shoulders. Choose wisely.”

Jean’s hand slid into his, Scott’s already tangled with hers, and Erik cut his eyes to the camera. Azazel would be watching, from the base, and sure enough, the man appeared in a crack of smoke a moment later, earning a few more bit-back screams. “You know where to find us.” Stark Tower, where the others would be waiting already, finalizing the securing of one of the most famous buildings in New York. “We’ll be waiting.”

Azazel squeezed his shoulder, and the group of them disappeared moments later. And the hall erupted into chaos.

#c: scott summers #c: jean grey #c: raven darkholme #f: discord #d: so you want to start a war ( side b )

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hope-for-olicity · 6 years

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Fabulous Olicity Fanfic Friday - May 4th, 2018

(Source: https://hafuboti.com/2014/09/25/may-the-posters-be-with-you/)

Happy Friday! So this is my attempt to both thank awesome fanfic writers for their amazing work and offer my recommendations to anyone who is interested. Here are the fantastic fanfic stories I read this week! They are posted in the order I read them.

Oliver on Vacation multi-chapter complete by @tinaday3w - Olicity AU. When Oliver Queen’s best friend, renowned psychiatrist Dr. John Diggle, encourages the stressed-out CEO to go on vacation, Oliver can’t believe Digg’s “vacation” choice is actually a psychiatric retreat nestled deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Oliver simply doesn’t think he needs this kind of intensive therapy. And he definitely doesn’t think he needs the attentions of Felicity – the frivolous, frolicking forest fairy who flits her way into his life and challenges all his assumptions. What Oliver doesn’t know is that he’ll never be so happy to be proven wrong. https://archiveofourown.org/works/4662243/chapters/10637169

A Dance With The Devil multi-chapter WIP by @it-was-a-red-heeler - A Season Five re-write http://archiveofourown.org/works/13792770/chapters/31707645

Time for a Story multi-chapter WIP by @smkkbert - This fic shows Olicity and their life as a (married) couple with family. Although Olicity (and their kids) are the protagonists, other characters of Arrow and Flash make appearances. YOU NEED THIS STORY IN YOUR LIFE. http://archiveofourown.org/works/3912157/chapters/8757172

The Story of Tonight multi-chapter WIP by @arrow-crack - Set in the Revolutionary War. Felicity, a rich daughter of General Smoak meets a strangely charming soldier under her father's command, Oliver Queen. https://archiveofourown.org/works/14073570/chapters/32423250

Another Chance at Love multi-chapter WIP by @smkkbert - It’s been almost two years since Oliver lost his fiancée Detective McKenna Hall when she died in the line of duty. He closed his heart to love ever since, unable or unwilling to give love another chance. That changes when he meets Felicity Smoak at the annual gala of the Starling City Police Foundation. Is he ready to give love another chance, though? http://archiveofourown.org/works/13561101/chapters/31119801

Guilt Trip by HopeShannon3000 - John, Rene, Curtis and Dinah go to see Felicity after finding out Oliver was arrested, Felicity's had enough and emotions are high while she tells them exactly what she thinks https://archiveofourown.org/works/14462955

Honey, I Shrunk the Girl multi-chapter complete by @felicityollies - Felicity just wanted to help her friends with their latest scientific project. The last thing she expected was to end up only inches tall. LOVE THIS SO SO MUCH! http://felicityollies.tumblr.com/post/160670321697/honey-i-shrunk-the-it-girl

Elizabeth Grace Smoak multi-chapter WIP by @lynn8828 - What if Felicity and Oliver briefly had met before he got on the Gambit? Despite her best efforts, Felicity was unable to get in contact with the famous Oliver Queen after having a one night stand with him and getting pregnant with his child. After raising their child for five years after finding out that Oliver died on the Gambit, she finds out he is alive and knows that she needs to tell him about their daughter. But will he believe her? AMAZING STORY!! http://archiveofourown.org/works/13639371/chapters/31322715

Periods, Timelines and Exclamation Points multi-chapter WIP by Izzyface - Felicity Smoak has a PLAN for her life. At 25, she is the youngest Director of IT in the history of Queen Consolidated and on track to be the next VP of Technology for the Fortune 250 company. But that’s before everything in her life starts to go haywire. https://archiveofourown.org/works/14062422/chapters/32395548

To Sacrifice the Sun multi-chapter WIP by @emmilynestill - Oliver and Felicity are ARGUS agents working on a mission in Mexico, the two share some very important history. http://archiveofourown.org/works/7510744/chapters/22505918

Tempest multi-chapter WIP by @so-caffeinated and @dust2dust34 - Three years ago, tragedy struck Julianna Queen’s life. Now, she wears a mask and fights at her father’s side, looking for closure and justice as she tries to find a path to move forward with her life while holding on to her past. But that may a bit more complicated than she thinks… http://archiveofourown.org/works/13309731/chapters/30461850

Damn It, Why Won't the Eagle Just Land Already? multi-chapter WIP by @smewhereelse - President John Diggle would really appreciate it if everyone would stop gossiping about his security detail and his science advisor and get back to work. He’d appreciate it even more if his best friends would pull their heads out of their asses and get together already. A White House romantic comedy AU. https://archiveofourown.org/works/13132602/chapters/30040788

Not Wanted Anymore by @cruzrogue - Felicity kicks out Curtis, Rene, and Dinah as John stays behind. My take of the last few episodes. https://archiveofourown.org/works/14488920

Above All Else multi-chapter WIP by shesimperfect_butshetries - A different take on episode 6x14: Rene shoots but Oliver jumps in front of Felicity. https://archiveofourown.org/works/14101470/chapters/32490537

QC w/Smoakin Party of Two multi-chapter WIP by @cruzrogue - A party to celebrate Oliver’s one year’s anniversary of coming home bash by his mother. The Hood is busy taking out a drug ring. Felicity is asked by him to go in his place and create a cover story. Felicity isn’t haven’t a very good time since arriving at the party which has her leaving Starling City. (Not for Laurel lovers.) https://archiveofourown.org/works/11691210/chapters/26320578

Untitled by @smoaking-greenarrow - Arrow Out of Context Prompt: “Once you let the darkness inside, it never comes out.” Post 6x20 fic http://smoaking-greenarrow.tumblr.com/post/173467515524/13-if-youre-still-taking-prompts

The Missing Puzzle Piece by @tdgal1 and @green-arrows-of-karamel - Oliver Queen's search for love https://archiveofourown.org/works/14491410

Our Two Worlds (They Collide) multi-chapter complete by @bokayjunkie - When Oliver gets into a shoot out with some bank robbers, Thea calls the one person she knows who’s smart and capable enough to help them. https://archiveofourown.org/works/10932066/chapters/24319170

I'm Coming Home To You multi-chapter complete by @foreverfelicityqueen and @holysmoaksoliver - Felicity's life in New York is perfect. Perfect job, perfect friends, perfect boyfriend. But the life she's been living for the last seven years is a lie. And there's only so long this lie can last... https://archiveofourown.org/works/3483224/chapters/7649618

Real Love (Is Never a Waste of Time) multi-chapter WIP by @callistawolf - Oliver and Felicity are CEOs who are more partners than they are rivals, but they still bicker whenever they meet up. Constantly pestered by their families and board members, they turn to each other for a simple solution. But marriage is never simple, especially when these two are involved. When Oliver's younger sister decides to hold her much-anticipated wedding on a tropical island and insists her brother and his wife attend, will the island paradise prove to be the tipping point in their carefully balanced relationship? https://archiveofourown.org/works/13604955/chapters/31233603

LA Devotee by @imusuallyobsessed - Inspired by “La Devotee” by P!ATD - LOVED THIS!! https://archiveofourown.org/works/14506083

Re-airrowing 1x16 by @lostolicityscenes - As for a 1x16 : What if Oliver witnessed Diggle training Felicity at the beginning of the episode? https://lostolicityscenes.tumblr.com/post/173497284781/swordandarrow-mentioned-you-in-a

Felicity's Party Raver Hangover Supreme Cure by @felicityollies - The story of how Felicity got her industrial piercing as told by Felicity to her very curious husband. https://archiveofourown.org/works/14515560

Given a Chance by @the-shy-and-anxious-fangirl - When Felicity confronted Ra's Al Ghul about his plans for Oliver, intending to attempt to appeal to his humanity- she didn't expect that conversation to end with Ra's granting her the chance to tell Oliver everything that was in her heart before she lost him forever. Nor was she expecting to come out of it with a plan, more desperation than anything else, to stop the wheels Ra's Al Ghul had set in motion. https://archiveofourown.org/works/14511372

Now and Forever multi-chapter WIP by @smoakinggun - Oliver Queen is a single dad who has a 5 year old son. He has been pretty content with how his life is going and how well he is raising his son without his son's mother. But what happens when Oliver decides to pick his son up from school instead of having his sister Thea do it and he meets Felicity Smoak? https://archiveofourown.org/works/10985181/chapters/24464178

Allergic multi-chapter WIP by @ihatethatchick - Just a little soulmate AU idea I'm putting out there as thanks to all the great Olicity authors out there. https://archiveofourown.org/works/11040660/chapters/24610440

Felicity's Sweet Revenge multi-chapter complete by @tinaday3w - Olicity AU - After six years as Oliver Queen's secretary, Felicity is finally quitting her job at Arrow Architecture. And now that she's finished being the stony architect's office slave, Felicity has decided to go out with a bang (hee hee!) and get some fun-and-sexy fantasy fulfillment before she walks out of his life for good. But nothing ever goes the way you plan, does it? https://archiveofourown.org/works/3606600/chapters/7957536

Compulsory Figures multi-chapter WIP by @machawicket -SUMMARY: A series of moments in Felicity Smoak and Oliver Queen's road to becoming partners on the ice -- and maybe off. Or: it's that figure skating AU no one asked for, because parlez-vous Olympics?? ;) https://archiveofourown.org/works/13731807/chapters/31549149

// @emmaamelia95 // @mel-loves-all // @oliverfel4 // @green-arrows-of-karamel // @coal000 // @miriam1779 // @memcjo// @captainolicitysbedroom // @tdgal1 // @spaztronautwriter // @lalawo1// @quiveringbunny // @wrongshipper // @thebookjumper // @vaelisamaza // @myhauntedblacksoul // @lovelycssefan // @laurabelle2930 //

#FabulousOlicityFanficFriday #olicity fanfiction #fic recs

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