Template:Featured Articles/44-2016

From XPwiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
MoA Legion.png
Moment of Awesome - David Haller/Legion: Trapped in the minds of the mansion's two empaths and targeted by the psychic residue left from the world being destroyed and rebuilt, Haller provides an out-of-control Jean Grey with an anchor.


"Jean."


Haller was at the edge of her aura, already back on his feet. He'd only realized he'd pushed Meggan aside to do so once it had already been done. His head was still disordered, and the power and stress spilling from Jean had triggered something instinctual.

"Jean, it's okay. Take my hand." Hand extended, Haller started forwards.

Haller's voice made Jean jump, and she lurched away, sensing his presence as he came near her.

"No...NO! I'll burn you. I messed up...I keep messing up. I don't know what to do! I can't....make it stop."

Haller stepped into the flame. The colorless wash of his own shield glowed against the crimson, the focused effort easily repelling Jean's wild energy. Gently, he reached out and took Jean's arm. He met her eyes, his gaze clear and blue through the blood.

"You won't hurt me," he said, so low only she could hear him. "And now we're going to make it stop."

As he spoke calm flowed through their contact: acknowledgement of her fear, but equal belief it was surmountable. An understanding of the stresses she'd been dealing with, and how hard and fast she'd been pushed as both an X-Man and as an individual. And, above it all, the certainty that she hadn't failed -- she had been let down.

Jean took in a quick breath, and she slowly uncovered her face, meeting his eyes, her own still blinded by tears. For a few brief moments it almost felt like she were looking through him. Because there was something underneath. Pain, grief, and guilt he had been hiding from himself until the parasite had broken him open to show what was inside.

Staring at him wordlessly, she kept her attention on him as the fire seemed to dissipate as if a candle being blown out by a gust of wind.

"I don't think that," she said faintly.

Haller gave her a blank look, and in that instant it was clear he hadn't realized how much of himself he had revealed.

Like a leech sucking blood, the parasite had forced the buried to the surface. Steeling himself, Haller gathered up all the pain and ugliness, pressed it back into the hole that was his heart, and returned Jean's gaze.

"We'll get through this," he promised her, and turned to stretch out his other hand to the youngest psi. "Quentin."

For a moment, Quentin thought he would be better off without anyone. His faux Remington curved and shortened into a Godfather-inspired Lupara that was sure to annihilate the parasites swarming around them. What "help" did he really need from other psis who could barely keep it together any better than he could?

Or maybe they needed him. He'd been the one to discover they were walking inside a disease, Emma had asked for his help to bring together and stabilize the two minds, and now here he was, cleaning up the mess. So he shifted his gun to his dominant left hand and took Haller's with his right, opening up the flow of psychic power again so these chumps could do something right.