Storm can fight all she wants, and have the most stubborn will of all, and be the strongest woman alive, and still find herself staring death in the face, her dark eyes widening with shock as the enemy turns to give her a wicked smile, right before he makes his way over to her, and all the lightning and thunder and rain and snow in the world couldn't keep him from her.
Nothing can protect her, the spikes peeking out of his skin tipped with poison that glistens in the shadows, and Logan yells behind her, beaten and bruised himself. He's slowly recovering from a bullet to the head, wincing as he tries to crawl to her aid, and Storm is frozen, not even thinking about her third companion as she stares on in helpless fear, heavy hail beating down on the man as he continues to make his way over to her.
The weather tears his skin, and yet he's relentless, just a few feet from her, and she barely notices the way his eyes flicker somewhere to the dark corner of the alley, and Storm doesn't think anything can save her-not until a flash of blue appears before her, familiar hands wrapping around her waist in a quick effort to help her.
But then, just after he arrives, Kurt stops, his body tensing against her like coils wrapped far too tight, a small gasp sounding in her ear as she looks over his shoulder.
The man is grinning, his arm extended in front of him, and for a tiny moment of time, Ororo doesn't know.
She doesn't know- but then she does, and the cry of anguish that escapes her rips through her body like nothing she's ever felt, her grief so great that it nearly brings her to her knees, but she clings to Kurt with all she has, her grip as steady as iron as she starts to sob, looking down at his chest with sorrow.
For there, protruding past the small gap between Kurt's ribs, is a hand, one that belongs to the man behind them, and Kurt's blue skin flickers in and out, as if his mutation is instinctually trying to preserve his life, giving Storm a view of the blood seeping from his lungs as he coughs out a half muttered prayer, words jumbling together and dying out as soon as they roll off of his tongue. Weakly, he assures his grip on her, and his rune marked face scrunches up in pain as he teleports them both somewhere behind Logan, who's running at the man with razor claws and a battle cry.
The battle rages beyond them, but Storm doesn't care one bit, splayed out on the ground as they land roughly across the pavement. She scrambles to her feet and rushes over to him, dark liquid pooling around him in shining puddles, her arms wrapping around his shoulders to pull him onto her lap, embracing him as she cries into his shoulder. His chest barely rises, and his breaths are short and pained as he pulls his head from her grasp, looking into her saddened gaze with a small smile, the fangs that peek through coated crimson.
"You can't-You can't leave, you hear me?" Storm says, pressing her forehead to his as she runs a hand through the indigo strands of his hair, the blood on her fingers rubbing off as she does so, and she prays that he'll live, prays to whoever will listen, slowly chanting to herself a barely remembered prayer from her youth as she rocks him back and forth, safely cocooned in her arms as he makes a noise, his hands trembling.
"This world needs you. You have to stay. You have to stay."
He gives her a grin, a trademark smile that takes her back to days long gone-he hangs from the ceiling, laughing down at her as she yells in surprise, and his face sends her heart pounding for a whole different reason-and just manages to lift his hand to her face, brushing the tips of his fingers across her tear drenched cheek, and she shakes her head violently, her white hair falling into her eyes, and she tightens her hold around him, feeling the warmth leave his skin as his body tenses.
"You deserve to live, god, everyone needs you," she whispers to him, blinking past her tears to catch the fall of his smile, the twinkle in his yellow eyes as the light-the light once so brilliantly shining there-begins to dim, and his hand falls from her face, softly landing against his blood-stained chest as his whole body goes limp in her arms, and those eyes she had adored for so long shut of their own accord, blue eyelids going slack as they flutter, and she can no longer feel the struggling heartbeat through his back, "I need you."
And if Logan is triumphant, if he skewers the man who's just killed the one person she doesn't think she can live without, she doesn't realize it, her whole body pressed to Kurt's as she hugs him close, sobbing into his shirt.
And if the world seems a little less bright, or if the sun peeks through the clouds with a dimmed shine, cutting past the harsh rain and hail falling from the sky, or if the wind rolls across them all, sighing its melancholy sigh with the faintest hint of an echo-you don't need me-Storm doesn't take notice.