X-Men: the Evils of Necessity

Scott didn't wash the dust of the destroyed buildings off when they got back to the Savage Land. He didn't even go inside the vast, interlocking complex Magneto had built of his native metals. Instead he stayed inside the plane, powering it down, filling out the flight check, letting the rest of the Brotherhood depart to blow off steam. Once they were gone, he left, skirting the edge of the compound until he came to it.

The wing that had once been Xavier's. A monument to integrationism. Books on humanity's great minds, dormitories that had been planned to house baseline humans, and other testaments to peace. All burned down to an amputated limb of Magneto's now sprawling edifice.

The jungle had reclaimed it, opening pathways through the burnt and twisted metal for Scott to follow until he came to the hollow of a tree, growing out of the nutrients of the destroyed kitchen. Already it had grown tall enough to shoulder aside what was left of the roof. Scott brushed the dirt off one of its pale roots, finally pulling out a discarded medical kit. Inside the aluminum box was all that remained of Xavier since the schism. Like antibodies after an illness.

Scott opened it up, wondering if today he would look at all of them, all his lost friends. Beast, Colossus, Iceman. But no. Today, like most days, he was only concerned with the photograph atop the pile. Jean's precious portrait, the Polaroid complete with her handwriting scrawled at the bottom. Loving sentiments that he had committed to memory long ago, leaving the actual ink something of a sigil. The looping letters and neatly dotted Is like a little piece of Jean.

He sat down in the dirt to look at it. It was hard to remain standing under her gaze.

He was always useless after a bombing. Later, he would calm and mellow. He would be able to replay his crimes in his mind's eye, figuring out who had performed exceptionally and who had fallen short, deciding what combination of praise and criticism to employ as team leader. Under his purview, the Brotherhood had evolved from an unruly mob unified only by fear of Magneto and hatred of the human world; it was now almost a team. But it would never be a family.

For now, his mind was miles away from that. Back before all the bombings, all the rhetoric, all the costumes. To the night of the schism. The night everything had gone wrong—he wondered if that applied to him.

"Do you ever think of that night?" he asked the photograph—his red vision and the photograph's own fading making it a mosaic, an impression of the girl he had once known. "Or have you let it go? It hasn't faded for me. It's as vivid as last night. No, more alive. It's like it keeps happening to me. Every day, I make the same choice."

He remembered everything. Bobby bursting into his room in the middle of the night, announcing that the Senate had passed the Sentinel Act. Him and Jean calming the younger students, though some even older than him were in tears. The conference room doors shutting as Magneto and Professor X sat down to talk.

Neither of them had bothered hiding their thoughts, not in the heat of the moment. Jean had relayed the information. Magneto wanted a preemptive strike. Destroy the factories before one of those monstrosities could be built. Destroy the creators before more could be ordered into production. And Xavier, of course, had urged peace, calm, restraint.

They'd talked until morning. It wouldn't have taken that long if they could've agreed. Before, they'd always been on the same page.

When Scott saw Magneto with his helmet on—the helmet that kept Xavier out, the one

given to him

by the professor as a gesture of goodwill—he had known what was coming. He just hadn't thought it would happen so fast. The exodus of those loyal to Xavier. The loss of Xavier's legs.

The attacks.

Scott had wanted to go with them. Wanted to believe that hope and a good heart could save the world. But he'd known the truth even then. Eyes like his never turned back into baby blues. Women like Jean Grey did not fall in love with men like him. And the world did not work as Charles Xavier swore it could.

And now he set off bombs. They had killed people, but he was not a killer. Not in the final refuge of his heart. As much as he could, he minimized casualties. The targets were always property. As Magneto said, homo sapiens tended to value things over people. A million African children dying was a typical day. But the destruction of the Washington Monument—a hunk of marble and granite—that made people pay attention.

He wished it wouldn't. He wished they would listen to the professor and his talk of peace. But Magneto was right. All they understood was violence.

"Scotty..." Involuntarily, his pulse raced, his heart rang. Jean's voice. But not here. He could barely tell the difference, but if it

were

her, he would've felt her mind touching his, as affectionate as a hand ruffling his hair. There was nothing. His thoughts remained alone. "Won't you come back to the X-Men? We want to sing kumbaya and smoke s'mores. It's just not the same without you..."

Scott watched Mystique thread through the vines and ferns that obscured the violence of this place's jagged metal. She wore Jean as a caricature—the graceful stride exaggerated to flouncing, the coy look turned to puppy dog eyes, the voice drowning in sugar.

"It's a good impression," he said tightly, "but it doesn't impress me. A cheap shot like that. Try turning into my favorite comedian. That would at least take some wits." He watched her redness flatten into one shade: her natural, nude color. All but the blood-red drip of hair down her neck. So vivid to him through the visor.

"You think it's tiresome for me to turn into her, imagine how I feel—seeing you fixated with the same girl year after year. Why can't you obsess over Jennifer Lawrence like a normal person?"

"It's not a fixation," Scott argued. "It clears my head. She's calming."

"I could calm you down," Mystique said, reaching up to take hold of a dangling creeper and hanging off it. Her body bounced enticingly. Part of the reason she went naked, he was sure, was so that no one knew if such motions were intentionally directed at them or not. She liked hiding in the ambiguity. "You really want to get over her, say the word. I'll put her back on, you can use us like a cheap whore—bet it'd be cathartic." Although there was something to be said for the direct approach.

"Or I could talk to Mastermind and make him think there are seven Jeans giving me a sponge bath." Scott shook his head. "Not interested."

"She's the enemy now."

"She's not."

"She and her people nearly took Blob's head off in Singapore."

"Who would listen to Xavier otherwise?" When he focused on someone, really looked at them, he could make them know it even through the visor. "We're on the same side. The carrot and the stick. We make the humans fear us, then by opposing us, the X-Men win what little respect they can. It's a symbiotic relationship. Without them, we would incur unrelieved fear toward every mutant on Earth. Without us, they'd just be hippies in fashionable leather outfits."

"Interesting theory." Mystique released the creeper, dropping and twisting, in one smooth motion, to land beside him atop one of the tree's gargantuan roots. "That's what I like about you, Scott. However many merit badges you have, you're not a hardliner. You can see the merits of peace without being a pacifist like Charles. And you can see the merits of violence without being an extremist like Erik. It's because of you that the more liberal news shows call us 'radicals' instead of 'terrorists'." He wondered if her smile now was genuine or hard-won to look so. "Someday we may even be freedom fighters. Wouldn't that be interesting."

"Somehow I'm starting to think this isn't about a booty call."

"Oh, no, it's still about sex. But then, everything is." She reached out to him, and he was surprised by how coolly reptilian her hand felt against his cheek. Through his visor it had looked red-hot. Like a branding iron. "You have potential, Scott Summers. You've come so far from being Magneto's wind-up soldier. You don't just follow orders now, you give them. And Erik's around less and less. Soon he'll be little more than a figurehead. Who would he trust with mutantkind?"

"His son?" Scott asked. And people thought he didn't have a sense of humor.

"Pietro... no. Magneto kills for the cause. Quicksilver kills to impress daddy. He'd drive the Brotherhood off a cliff. But congratulations, by the way. I see he actually followed orders on the last mission. You finally convinced him that slaughtering apes wholesale wouldn't get him that hug."

"You have the death toll?"

"A dozen injuries, no fatalities. You left the authorities just enough time to evacuate, but not enough to bring in the bomb squad." She watched his exhale. "I should've known we couldn't have a polite conversation before I told you that."

"My parents were human," Scott said unapologetically. "So were everyone else's."

"In most of our cases, that doesn't say much for humanity." He watched her tongue trace her lips and wondered what color it really was. "Does it scare you, the thought that you might actually be well-adjusted?"

"Yes. This is the face I make when I'm terrified."

"A sense of humor now. Guess that proves secondary mutations exist." She clapped her hand on his face before withdrawing it. "You have potential. And now, you have me. I want you to lead the Brotherhood when Magneto steps down." Her voice dipped. "I want you to give me orders..."

"You have seniority. Don't you want the job?"

"Absolutely not. The righteous superheroes of the world need someone to go after when their toast lands butter-side down. Times like those, I prefer to be the power behind the throne. You saw how loyal I was to Erik. I can be just as loyal to you. Let me prove it to you. Let me show my unconditional support..."

Her hands slid up his chest, the leather molded tight to his pectoral muscles, and the chill of her skin shocked him when her palms flowed up his neck, over his chin, to his visor...

He automatically shut his eyes as she removed it, leaving him blind.

"Give it back," he said humorlessly.

"I just swore fealty to you, King Summers. Doesn't that earn me a measure of trust? Besides, I have some friends who'd like to see you. They're just too shy to look you in the eye."

"Friends? I swear to God, Raven—"

"Shh. Don't embarrass me in front of the girls."

And then, strange as it seemed, Scott could feel their presence. No footsteps, just the tenor of the space changing, fitting itself to the breathing and heartbeats of four new bodies. His eyes clamped shut even tighter as he froze up like a deer in headlights, fearful of the single slip that would unleash his optic blasts. It couldn't be allowed to happen.

"Здравствуйте, comrade," one voice came, deeply accented with a Russian burr. Female. "Raven told us this is hot shit leader of Mutant Brotherhood, all pretty and big, but no girlfriend."

Scott placed the voice. Natasha Romanova. The Black Widow. He'd seen her do press conferences. Not to mention fought her on the handful of occasions the Brotherhood had crossed swords with the Ultimates.

He liked her accent. He liked it a lot.

"We're sure he's not gay?" Scott recognized—or 'recognized'—the punkish quality of Ororo Monroe's voice. As regal as she could appear, she always defused her own gracefulness with a crude aside or dirty joke.

"Oh no." This voice he couldn't place, though its purr was definitely American, compared to the foreign accents of the others. "Definitely not. He likes redheads, remember?"

"I am redhead," Natasha declaimed. "Could make him feel very good. Very sexy."

"No, the last thing he wants is another redhead. He needs someone to help him forget 'Marvel Girl'. Someone his own age. Someone he can teach as much as learn from." Wanda's Eastern European accent, similar but distinct from the deliberately accentuated act Natasha put on, cinched it for Scott.

None of them were here. It was all the power of suggestion; Mystique throwing her voice. With his eyes closed, the illusion worked wonders. "Like I said, Raven. I'm not interested in your celebrity impersonations."

"Silly boy." The American again. Her voice was very posh, but he picked up a trace of New York in it. "We haven't even decided to take you out yet."

"He is very handsome without those ugly visors in the way," Wanda said, Mystique putting a schoolgirl crush into her voice. "He should wear sunglasses more often."

"If he's gonna wear anything on his face, it should be my pussy!" Ororo declared.

"Strutting around everything in those tight leather pants, in those shirts that always show off his big, thick arms—" the American breathlessly panted.

"I'm sorry, I can't place you. Are you some sex symbol from before I was born?" Scott aimed the jab at Mystique—a reminder that he had figured out she was functionally immortal, countless years old already.

"Noooo, Scotty," she purred lovingly. "Let me give you a hint."

She took his hand—hers were long and tapered, a piano player's hands—and brought his fingers up to chest-level. He felt her brush it over an expanse of cool leather, then fur trim—then warm flesh. Curving buoyantly, up then down then back up. A very impressively sized set of breasts.

"That cat burglar from New York. The one Toad is always staring at online..."

"Black Pussy?" 'Natasha' asked innocently.

"Call me Felicia," the American said. "And

enough

of the foreplay. Let's see what fearless leader's packing where it really counts."

Scott felt and heard his zipper rolling down his crotch. This was a test. Mystique calling his bluff on whether he was really over Jean, or whether he was an X-Man at heart. He'd expected something like this from Magneto's truest believer, but he thought it'd be a test of bloodlust—Mystique wanting him to kill some mutie-hater or other. Trust Raven to be more subtle than that.

He decided to lay his cards on the table as well. Call her bluff. He had no loyalty to Jean. Whatever resistance he'd put into his body's burgeoning arousal, he stopped. As Natasha's short, callused fingers wrestled him out of his underwear, he grew to his full length, giving into the fantasy of the four women really being there.

"Well, well!" Ororo chimed. "Guess he's not compensating for something after all."

"Bigger than Pietro's!" Wanda gasped, and Scott wondered if Raven was speaking from experience.

"I've seen bigger," Felicia quipped.

"So comrade Scott passes big boy test with flying color," Natasha puffed out dismissively. "But it takes more than big пенис making boyfriend material. We need to apply taste test."

"Oh yes, we do! We certainly do!" Wanda cried, Scott imagining her hands pressed up to her cheeks. Assuming she wasn't just a third head on Mystique's shoulders.

"So then," Ororo said, and Scott could swear he heard a rush of zipper parting leather. "Who goes first?"

"We could pick straws?" Wanda suggested.

Felicia made an MMMM noise that put Scott in mind of her pleasuring herself as she awaited her turn. It was probably supposed to. "He's going to be the boss, right? Let's let him pick."

"Watch him pick a white girl first," Ororo snorted.

"It's his choice!" Wanda said defensively.

Felicia spoke next. "Who do you want, Scott? But keep in mind, you get to try all of us." He thought he caught a hint of Raven slipping in at the end there.

Scott remembered the sex tape of Tony Stark and Black Widow that had gone viral. Natasha's breasts jiggling one way as she rode him, then another as he took her from behind, always seeming impossibly perky. Though they weren't as big as Felicia's, any man who criticized them was a fool.

"Natasha." He let his voice caress the name as he said it.

"Thought so," she quipped as her knees hit the floor.

He felt her kiss his parted thighs, her lips burning through his trousers, then she brought her lips to the side of his shaft. They parted, traveling up and down to encompass his cock inch by inch, until finally all of his swollen cockhead had slipped inside. Then they shut tightly, forming a vacuum seal over his penis that only grew tighter as Natasha slipped further down his length.

"Not bad!" Felicia said admiringly.

"Lots of practice," Ororo sneered.

"Or maybe she's just a natural," Wanda said, and Scott wondered how Mystique could speak so eloquently with her mouth full before deciding that was a mental image he didn't want to dwell on.

He reached out to grip Natasha's—Raven's—head, even as self-aware a man as him not able to resist the feeling of power that came from that position, but his hands were grabbed by two other pairs. Even as he felt Natasha's callused fingers braced on his thighs, Felicia brought his left hand up to feel one of her prodigious breasts, while Ororo—or was it Wanda?—claimed his right hand for her sex.

He could only imagine what kind of morph Raven had put herself through to accomplish this seamless illusion—he imagined her as the six-armed Kali and it seemed like a fitting choice. Goddess of destruction.

"I can see you thinking," Felicia chided, running her sly thief's hands over his chest. As if this were a signal, he then felt the two sets of hands pry his shirt over his head. "Don't think. You never have to think with us. Just relax. Enjoy."

"We're your muses," Ororo breathed, voice strained with enjoyment of Scott's efforts between her legs. "Your harem. You can trust all of us, because we're all one. No jealousy. No dewy-eyed looks at Wolverine..."

"I wanna kiss him," Wanda interrupted, just as Scott's pique rose. And she did, her mouth suddenly on his, tongue dancing nervously with his. She was as soft and vulnerable as Jean had been, once. It was an illusion, but a convincing one.

She pulled away, leaving his lips wetly branded. Somehow he

felt

her gaze on his cock. "Oh my." The words were so affected as to give him a mental image of her, wide-eyed and jaw slack. "He's really big!"

Scott puffed out air at the clumsy come-on. Maybe Raven was just staying in-character, but did she really think he was the kind of guy who needed to be told he had a porn star dick?

"Maybe... too big," Wanda continued fearfully.

"Just the right size for me then," Felicia answered, prying Scott's hand from her breasts. And, impossibly, he felt her tongue lavishing itself on the texture of his scrotum, sucking whorishly on his testicles, even gently nibbling at the slack skin. "Move over," she ordered.

Scott heard a pop as loud as a champagne bottle as Natasha left his cock. It only spent a split-second in open air before it was seized on by Felicia. What her costume promised, she delivered, deep-throating him like a pro, taking him to the back of her gullet without ever gagging.

"Boize Mo!" Natasha cried, gasping for breath. "Now that is skill!"

Considering it was Mystique praising herself, that said more about Raven's ego than her ability. Not that she was lacking in that department, Scott thought, his fabled self-control now tested to the limit by both the blowjob and the insinuation of two women fighting over his cock.

"If only you could see her, bossman," Ororo said. "Those cheeks of hers are pulled nice and tight, she's looking up at you like she wants to burn a hole in your skull."

While she said this, 'Natasha' took his free hand and brought it to her voluptuously well-formed ass. He squeezed it appraisingly.

By the panting gusts of air hitting his body, he could imagine all four women crowded around his parted legs, watching from just off to the side as Felicia went down on him.