Fool Me Once
by Lacrimula Falsa
Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the X-Men universe. Written because inspiration struck, not to make profit.
Summary: "Once a traitor, always a traitor."
Warning!: Character death.
Angel knows about being quiet. About stealth and sneaking out of places.
She's not stupid. She knows that someone is following her the moment she leaves the abandoned house they're using as a hideout.
She tries to escape the person trailing her, but behind every corner they're there again. It takes her about half an hour of senseless turns and shortcuts through dark alleys and narrow side streets to realise that it's no use.
By then, it doesn't matter. Because she's reached the arranged meeting place, and even if it's for nothing in the end she has to try.
Angel knows about right and wrong, and she knows about obsession and no longer seeing things for what they are.
She's surprised that it's Banshee who's waiting for her, but she'll take what she can get.
"Hi Sean."
He gives here a crooked smile, and it's still the same one she knows from before, before everything went to hell.
"Hi Angel."
"You're probably wondering why I'm here."
Sean rubs his neck awkwardly, shifting from foot to foot. Angel sighs.
"Too be honest, I am, too."
He looks up at her, surprised.
"Well, you can tell me. I mean even if you're…with them, you know…"
He does the neck-rubbing thing again, before he seems to shrug it off and goes on.
"…we flyers have to stick together, right?"
Angel smiles, and it feels strange to do that again.
"Yeah."
There's a pause where they both watch an empty plastic bag drift by, before she marshals her courage and just spits it out like on of her acid fireballs.
"I wish I'd left with you."
Sean looks surprised, then…disappointed.
"Why?"
She huffs out a breath, blowing her hair out of her face. Why? Well, she knows why.
"Magneto's mad."
When there's no comment forthcoming, she just ploughs on.
"He made us attack a school. Yesterday. He said…something…about how children will be adults and how that would show them they're vulnerable… It was messed up."
She drags a hand through her hair and leans against the dirty brick wall behind her.
"It was all so messed up. And fuck, I didn't sign up for this. I didn't sign up for…"
There's no need to say it. When she looks up, there's sad understanding in his eyes.
"You get it, right?"
"Yeah, I do."
Suddenly Sean's face transforms, and he looks angry.
"I thought you were on our side."
Angel gets the blink of an eye to wonder what's going on, before Sean's body ripples and turns blue.
That's when the person that's been following her steps out of the shadows in to the light of the flickering street lamp.
It's Erik - Magneto, and he's pointing a gun at her head while Mystique sneers at her.
"Magneto."
He nods at her.
"Angel."
"I thought you were with us."
"Well, not anymore."
Mystique spits at her feet.
"Blood traitor."
Angel doesn't take her eyes of the gun. In her mind she sees her brother, advancing on her with a water pistol.
"Never take your eyes off the guy with a pistol, Angel. That's how you've got a chance."
The last thing he ever taught her, before some drunk asshole killed him for money he didn't have.
And fuck it, but her brother was human.
She doesn't even notice Mystique abandoning her to her fate, slinking away quiet as a cat. Her eyes never leave the weapon.
"You're insane, Erik."
He tilts his head, the stupid helmet casting shadows over his face so she can't see his expression.
"Magneto." He sighs like he's fucking disappointed. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised. You left with Shaw after all. Once a traitor, always a traitor."
He steadies his aim, pointing the gun at the centre of her forehead and stepping a little closer to her.
"But you know what they say. Fool me once…"
"Yeah, sure."
And suddenly she wants to hurt him, to just get one last stab in before he shoots her.
Because Angel isn't naïve. There's no way she's leaving this alley alive. In a way, she's not surprised. She's a mutant freak, a dark-skinned chika that comes from a piss-poor family in an ugly neighbourhood, that worked at a strip club once.
People like her don't die peacefully in their sleep. They die like this, shot in a dirty dark backstreet by some psycho with a gun.
But if she's dying, at least she'll go out with a bang.
"Hey Erik."
Magneto looks up at her face, but doesn't move the gun an inch.
"While we're talking about Shaw. You know what, I think it's contagious."
He sounds almost bored, probably thinking she's playing for time in the hope that she'll find a way out.
"What is?"
"Being a Nazi."
Angel sees the fury in his eyes for less than a second before he shoots her.
In the stomach, the fucker.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
She smiles through the pain, because that stab hit.
Someone like Erik Lehnsherr doesn't waste three bullets on a dying person unless he's really, really angry.
She hopes he looks back and sees her giving him the finger as he walks away.
It's with death already clouding her vision that she pulls herself onto her side. It hurts like hell to unfurl her wings with her last bit of strength, against the resistance of her top's straps. But she'll be damned if she doesn't fly one last time.
Angel doesn't make it even an inch of the floor.
But she feels the wind against her wings, and suddenly she's completely calm.
It's the last thing she feels.