CATACLYSM || X-Men

9| do you believe in magic?

Westchester, New York, 1962

| Havok |

"Who's first?" Alex asked as they had breakfast together in the dining room. Charles finished his glass of orange juice, and looked over at him.

    "You. Come on," he nodded towards the door, Alex sharing a look with Sean before he got up. Rose picked up her mug of coffee as she waved with her free hand at Erik, a slice of buttered toast in her mouth as she followed behind them.

    "Don't kill each other!" Erik called to her, her middle finger flicking up at him, his laughter making the two teachers smile as they made their way downstairs with Alex. As they arrived at the metal door, the youngest of the three picked up a mannequin at Charles's request, while he opened the door.

    "My stepfather took the possibility of nuclear war quite seriously. That's why he had this bunker built down here," he spoke as the three of them entered the room, Charles flicking on the lights to illuminate the space. "Thought we could use it as a practise range of sorts."

    "You don't think I'm gonna blow through the walls?" Alex asked, walking with Charles as Rose took in the even more claustrophobic bunker.

    "No," the man chuckled. "He had this place built to withstand a nuclear bomb, I think it can handle you, Alex."

    Placing down the figure they turned back to walk towards Rose, who finally finished her slice of toast, and letting anxiety consume her, and instead waited for them to come back.

    "You know when I do this, bad things tend to happen," Alex spoke, seeing Rose watching him with slight concern.

    "That's because you can't control it. It controls you. That's why we're here, Alex," Charles assured him, stopping at Rose, turning back towards the plastic doll.

    "That's why we're training," the girl nodded.

    The young man let out a sigh, accepting that Rose felt he could do this. "If you're serious about doing this, you might want to get back," he told them both, eyes lingering on the girl who had seen him use his power, and fail at controlling it.

    "Sure," Charles nodded, taking a few steps.

    "He means outside," Rose corrected, leading him out, and once he felt the need to clarify the position of the door, they let Alex do his thing.

    Which, apparently, was to set fire to every piece of insulation in the cracks around the room.

    Once the door opened to reveal the state of the room, Charles panicked and turned to grab a fire extinguisher, Rose letting out a small laugh, instead pulling one of her gloves off with her teeth. While Charles extinguished the area behind Alex, she sent the boy a small reassuring smile, facing her palm towards the rest of the room.

    "Get an extinguisher and help me, Alex! Don't just stand there!" Charles exclaimed.

    "I warned you," the boy shrugged, watching Rose absorb the energy of the fire, slowing down the atoms as the fire died down.

    "This isn't funny, in the field you would kill-"

    "Charles!" Rose snapped, making his voice die in his throat, Alex not meeting either of their eyes. "Go upstairs, Alex. Take the rest of the day off."

    She didn't miss the dirty look he shot the man, who immediately apologised, while Rose finished the rest of the room. "I didn't mean-"

    "It doesn't matter," she shook her head. "Alex is different. He doesn't have control because he's careless or because he doesn't know how to use it. He's scared of it. He can't concentrate on a target because every time he sees one, he sees the guy Emma made him see, or now Darwin. He's killed two of his teammates, and one was a mutant like him. Even someone with the ability to survive through all couldn't save themselves. Even I can't hold onto his power for long enough to make him safe. He needs to be able to concentrate it, and once he can do that, he'll be fine."