Disclaimer: I own only my characters. Obviously. They aren't all listed because some of them are coming into existence as I write, but Seraphim is mine. Everyone else is not. :)

Summary/info: To clear up any confusion about my character. Seraphim was a product of fiddling around when the first Xmen came out, when I still only had Xmen background from watching the sweet 90s cartoon (yeeeeeesss!) on Saturday mornings. So. I didn't really know that Archangel actually existed at that point, so Seraphim is NOT, I repeat, is NOT a copy of Archangel/Warren Worthington. She was never meant to be. As for her powers: she contains dozens of strands of animal DNA within her own genetic code. She can isolate a specific animal to become, or a specific attribute of an animal to use on her human person, hence why her wings are literally "retractable" and can retreat back into her flesh. If you have any other questions feel free to ask. This is set after Jean's actual death, as the first two sentences make clear. :)

Pairings: Rogue/Bobby & others to be revealed:)

Hope you have fun reading. I had fun writing.

People liked to pretend that everything was okay now. Now that Jean was gone and Magneto was no longer a threat. People liked to pretend that because the Golden Gate Bridge was being rebuilt and that all the "bad" mutants had been "cured" that everything would go back to normal. Like mutants never existed. Or that they were just something odd. Like a birthmark or a scar. Something you stare at for a little bit, and then get used to after awhile. She wasn't going to get used to it. It was impossible to ignore.

They'd weaponized that thing they called a "cure." She knew it couldn't be. You can't fix something that isn't broken.

Seraphim ran a hand through her hair as she sat, balanced on a stone railing of the balcony that overlooked the grand campus of Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. The late Charles Xavier. Seraphim had shed many tears on that subject. He'd been like a father to Seraphim; The first one to tell her that her wings were beautiful and not ugly, or scary, or wrong. The first one to smile at her with love. It was also hard to ignore that Jean Grey had been the one to take him from the world.

And then there was the matter of which side to choose. The Professor instilled ethics in her. Seraphim knew what Eric was doing was wrong. She knew John had chosen the wrong person to look up to. But at the same time, she could understand. Eric was a holocaust survivor. He knew what it was like to be treated as less than human. Now he was out to prevent history from repeating itself in his lifetime. As all idealistic theories turn out to be, Eric's plan was noble, but the ways in which he carried it out were horrendous. They did more to hurt the movement than help it. And now, it had destroyed him.

The wind was soft. It trickled through her hair like dancing fingers and Seraphim gave an involuntary shiver. Her feathers ruffled in the breeze. She gave a very bird-like twitch of her wings and stretched them to their full length, an impressive fifteen feet. She used to hide them, pull them back inside her. Now, especially since meeting Warren, she'd returned to keeping them out. He didn't have a choice. She did. So she made the right one. They'd hit it off right away, Seraphim and Warren. The younger kids had taken to calling him Angel. That was his X-name now. He'd asked her what her real name was, and she told him she didn't have one. He was surprised at first. But they were good friends after that. Routinely flying together, training together, talking about almost everything. He confided in her that he really, really liked Kitty Pryde. Seraphim smiled. They'd have to talk about that. Warren wasn't too good with girls, despite his blonde hair, blue eyes, and astonishing good looks. Seraphim chuckled. She fell in love with him the moment they met, but in a completely different way. She knew she'd found someone who would understand her inside and out from that day forward, without having to be intimate with him. Warren was her best friend. Bobby might've been a little miffed at that.

"Aren't you cold?"

Seraphim started. She turned her head to look at the intruder with one purple eye. "You scared me!"

Piotr smiled. "Sorry. What're you doing out here by yourself?"

"Thinking."

He walked up next to her, touching her wings lightly, with the air of someone stroking something breakable.

"That tickles," she giggled, spinning off the railing to push him in the chest. Piotr chuckled and wrapped her in his strong hug. Another best friend, someone she longed to be more with. Everything had been so crazy.

"We're watching a movie, you want to join us?" he asked, looking down at her. Seraphim wasn't short, but Piotr was tall. It wouldn't have made much of a difference anyway.

"Mmmm, what're we watching?" she asked as they walked inside and shut the window-paneled doors behind them to keep the cool evening outside where it belonged.

"Some sci-fi flick," said Piotr, shrugging. "I don't know, something that'll scare Rogue so she'll be attached to Bobby the whole time."

Seraphim laughed a silvery laugh. "Tactful of him."

"There she is, our little recluse!" said Bobby from the large couch in the entertainment room.

"Hello to you, too."

They'd adapted well, teenagers that they were. Warren was probably the best off, despite the fact that his father had tried to force the cure into him. Warren smiled at Seraphim as she sat down between him and Piotr. Piotr always had to sit in the middle of the couch, otherwise it'd tip over. That always made Seraphim laugh. Kitty sat next to Rogue, and Bobby next to his handsome girl. Seraphim had always loved Rogue's Louisiana accent. It was too beautiful to be called a drawl, a word that sounded a lot more like "drool" than anything Seraphim had ever heard. Looking down at Rogue's thigh, Seraphim happily noted that she and Bobby were holding hands, and Rogue was not wearing gloves. She smiled. Rogue had taken the cure, and no one blamed her.

The movie cast a flickering bluish-white light on the group, highlighting faces, expressions, eyes. Seraphim curled between Warren's wings and Piotr's massive arm. She didn't really pay attention to the movie, instead laughing and cracking jokes at how horrible the acting was. The couch shook with the laughter of the six youths. One by one their eyelids drooped and the girls fell asleep against the student next to them. Bobby and Rogue were too preoccupied to fall asleep. Seraphim was somewhat of a nightowl, but snuggled betwixt warm bodies, one can hardly expect to stay awake, especially for a bad horror movie.

It was never a pleasant sleep.

"Blackhawk..."

Seraphim woke with a start, and Piotr's face was leaning down at her forehead, peering curiously as beads of sweat broke out over her skin. Her eyes fluttered in the darkness. The movie was off and the TV was that garish blue color that always came on after the player was turned off. She shivered.

"Pete?"

"You were talking again," he said quietly.

"What?" Seraphim blinked rapidly and shifted to look up at him.

"Talking. You talk in your sleep. You keep muttering random shit," he said. Soft breathing beside them gave the quiet announcement that everyone else was asleep. "You dreaming about Alkali?"

"In a way," she murmured. "I'm sorry to have woken you. What time is it, Pete?"

"Midnight." His voice was dark and low. Invisible, except for the fact that his arm was around her. Seraphim's night vision was starting to kick in. Sometimes she just wanted it to stay black. His face was now outlined in a liquid-purple light. His eyes were the same color. "Tired?"

"Yeah. I think I'll kip on the other couch, I'm squished," she replied, chuckling. "Warren's getting fat."

Piotr laughed and lifted Seraphim from the cushions. Her feet brushed the ground and she found her footing again, but her head still wasn't in the right place. The night, his smell, her heart. They pulled blankets from the closet and moved over to the second of three couches in the room. Seraphim lay with her back against Piotr, tucked securely beneath two blankets. His arm draped around her. In any other situation, something like this, she thought, was bound to lead to something, if not all-out, hormonally-crazed sex. But Seraphim just closed her eyes and sighed. She would not dream again tonight.

Storm opened curtains throughout the main floor of the mansion, letting the sunlight stream in as it illuminated a sleepy Saturday morning. A low static hum caught her attention; maybe Jones left the tv on again. He didn't sleep, but sometimes he managed to doze off in the early morning hours. Upon striding into the entertainment room, Storm let her jaw drop in amused surprise. Six of the oldest students, her best students, lay sound asleep on the couches, or, on each other, rather. She strode around the room softly, her eyebrows furrowed curiously as she observed the sleeping youths. Piotr, called Colossus by many of the teachers, lay peacefully beneath a blanket with Seraphim, the winged changeling. They were nearly inseparable, even in sleep, it seemed. As expected, Bobby and Rogue held each other at one end of the largest couch. Storm had fought the idea of a "cure" fiercely, but she understood why Rogue had taken such a drastic measure. Love was a powerful thing. Her eyes turned curiously to the opposite end of the couch. Kitty Pryde lay sidled against Warren Worthington, one of the newest students since Xavier's death. His left wing was wrapped around her shoulder. Storm raised her eyebrows and tapped her foot, inwardly battling whether to wake them up and lecture them on curfew, or to let it go. After all they'd been through, it made sense that they would look to each other. These six had been through the worst of it. Warren was still new, but the other five…had seen too much battle already. Storm sighed. Punishment would have to wait for another day. There was breakfast for three hundred hungry children to make.