Miss Moony would like to say that she doesn't own Maximum Ride and that she had no help with this story from Miss Wormtail, Miss Padfoot or Miss Prongs.
Also, I am trying to use American English for this fic, because it's set in America, but only where that pronunciation's different from British English, rather than just the spelling (also, this will probably only be during first person parts, and in direct speech).
Finally, this fic features two original characters, who may or may not be Mary-Sue/Gary-Stus. Sorry if they get on your nerves.
Pairings: Max/Fang, Iggy/OFC.
------- I solemnly swear that I'm up to no good -------
Some Kind of Beautiful
My dad always knew there wasn't much chance of my mom surviving childbirth three times over, and he was right. My grandma died giving birth to her second child, my mom, and my mom died giving birth to me. Her first husband, Jerry, was the father of my two brothers, Jason and Alex. Jason was stillborn, no one believed that Alex had survived, and Jerry died soon afterwards, of lung cancer.
About two years later, she married my dad, and I was born almost a year afterwards. My dad was in love with money, and nothing else. I'd say he'd be glad to sell his soul, but he'd be more likely to sell mine. Which he did, I guess, in a way.
Before I was born, I was injected with lizard DNA, or some kind of reptile, at least. And as soon as my mom was dead, my dad delivered me to the Institute, and that's where I met Alex; part human, part bird. You see, the hospital he'd been born in had only pretended he'd died as well as Jason.
And how do I know all this? I mean, it's not like they told me. We escaped when I was four, and managed to track down my dad, who told all, with a little encouragement. He'd been involved with the Institute for years.
But that was when we made the biggest mistake; staying with Dad. The Erasers found us soon enough, and it was a long while before we managed to get away from the Institute again. In fact, it wasn't until we were freed by six kids from someplace else when I was thirteen, where they obviously had the same stuff done to them as we had, since they were all like Alex.
My name is Ixchel: Call me Ix.
-------
Heading towards Washington DC, the Flock flew in silence. It wasn't as though they had nothing to talk about – quite the opposite, in fact –, but none of them knew exactly how to begin. They'd found their families, those who had them, and now they were to meet them. They moved on.
It was Max – the one with the hero-complex – who noticed them first, surrounded by good-looking men and a few wolves, all of whom could be nothing but Erasers, and the two figures were completely overwhelmed.
Max and Fang were the only ones to swoop down, the only ones needed there, and, rather than join in a fight they knew they couldn't win, they seized the two figures and flew them high, away from the Erasers.
Slipping slightly from Max's arms, the boy revealed that he, too could fly, and he flapped awkwardly across and took the younger girl from Fang shortly before they all landed in a nearby tree.
'Who are you?' Nudge demanded. 'Where did you come from? Are you from the Institute? Is that why the Erasers were after you?'
Looking startled, the boy said, 'Alex. Er… the womb. Yes, and yes.'
Nudge looked vaguely confused, and then, piecing together his answer in her head, she nodded. The others all turned to look at the girl who he'd had with him (minus Iggy, who just listened).
She was sitting down on the branch, right near the tree trunk, and her grip on it was so tight that her knuckles were turning white. Ginger hair fell over her face, hiding it from view, except for two dark sparkles which stared up at them warily.
'What's your name?' Max asked kindly.
There was a brief movement beneath her curtain of hair, as if she were sticking her tongue out, and then silence for a moment, before she said, 'Ick.'
'She's his half-sister,' Angel announced to the group solemnly. 'And she can't hear what she's saying. Her name is Ixchel.'
Looking between Angel, Alex and Ixchel with the same horror in her eyes as had been there when she'd first found out about the white coats making Iggy blind, Max said suddenly to Alex, 'She's deaf? What did they do to her at that place?'
'Oh, no,' Alex said, shaking his head. 'I suppose it is the Institute's fault, kind of, but she was born that way. Like snakes, see; they don't have ears, so they use their tongues to sense the vibrations in the air. She knows what we're saying just fine; it's just that she can't talk and listen at the same time.'
'Why aren't you with the other Flock, anyway?' Nudge questioned Alex, always the blunt one.
He shrugged. 'I'm no good at flying, especially when I've got a passenger. We fell behind.'
'Well,' Max said, sticking her chin out stubbornly, and Angel was quick to agree with her, 'you can stay with us, then.'
-------
It wasn't long before the Flock had Alex flying properly, if not particularly confidently, and Ixchel – Ix – generally sat on the ledge, and watched her brother fly with the eagles and the Flock.
On one such occasion, Nudge and Angel alighted on the ledge and sat themselves between Ix and Iggy. Tapping on Ix's shoulder, Nudge said, 'You'd be able to see better if you moved your hair out of your face.'
The familiar movement came from beneath Ix's hair as her forked tongue poked out, and her eyes seemed to harden, though Nudge didn't notice.
'Why do you think you're too ugly to look at?' Angel asked, all wide-eyed curiosity.
In answer, Ix looked at the three Flock-members for a moment, and then raised the longer of her mismatched arms, brushing her hair away from her face and tucking it behind her unhearing ears, then she tugged at the neckline of her sweater, showing off a mass of skin seemingly made from nothing but scar tissue.
'The Erasers did it,' Angel said. 'To test the limits of your healing capability. That's how your right arm got so short, too, isn't it? They wanted to see if it would grow back, so they cut it off, but the second one wasn't as long as the first.'
Ix nodded after a moment, and let her hair fall back over her face, turning back to watch Alex fly. Nudge and Angel exchanged glances, and then rejoined the Flock, but Iggy stayed put.
------
'The two of you would be a good match,' Max and Nudge told Iggy when Nudge reported the incident later.
Snorting, Iggy said, 'Yeah, sure: Let the blind guy fall in love with the girl who's convinced herself she's too ugly to look at.'
'That's the thing,' Angel said. 'To you, it won't matter that she's scarred, because the only beauty you can see is what's on the inside.'
'And just think,' Nudge added wickedly: 'I'll bet that forked tongue can work wonders.'
Iggy felt his face heating up, and, in a final protest, he said, 'How would we even communicate?'
With an uncertain look, Max shrugged and said, 'I'm sure you'd figure it out.'
-------
'Take care of her,' Alex said, placing a hand on Iggy's shoulder to let the blind boy know where he was.
Ix looked up in bewilderment, glancing between Iggy and her brother, the latter of whom left her alone with the former only a moment later.
Sighing, Iggy moved towards where Ix was, sitting only a little distance away to his right. 'What d'you say we give it a try?' he asked her, reaching up and tracing a hand over her face, trying to form an image in his head.
For a few moments, she just looked surprised, then she tipped her head to the side and regarded him through chocolate-brown eyes. 'Sssoor,' she managed to hiss out. Sure.
Removing his hand from her face, Iggy said finally, 'You've got beauty, you know; you've just been looking for it in the wrong place.'
Ix didn't answer him, but rested her head gently on his shoulder as she turned back to watch her brother fly.