𝒻𝓇𝑜𝑔 𝑔𝒾𝓇𝓁.

{yang hye-ji, twenty-two, cis female, she/her} || april honey is a mutant with the ability of amphibian physiology. they’ve been in new york for three weeks where they spend most of their time as a student at xavier’s school. when i think of them, i think of still water, toadstools, and the scent of morning dew. they are affiliated with xavier institute. 

ARC ONE FINALE RECAP!

         “of course i don’t have to, but i did.” she pulls the little ziplock baggie from out of her jacket, revealing the chocolate covered crickets. “i just thought you could do with something nice. could even be a nice snack to curl up with in the library!”

Levi almost laughs, but manages to swallow it down — the traitor wants to talk to the traitor. It’s not nearly the same and he knows this, but the frustration feels the same. So does the hurt. “Haven’t seen him for days.” The chill in his tone is obvious, but whether or not April can tell it’s directed at Daichi and not her remains to be seen. “We don’t exactly talk anymore.”

He shuffles from foot to foot, quietly uncomfortable. It’d be easy to walk away. It should be easy to walk away. Levi doesn’t. “Hi,” he finally says, still wary, but not as chilly. “You, um. You doing okay?” He knew April hadn’t been held and tortured like Finley had by Ezra, but he’d heard about the damage done to April all the same.

April wants to ask what happened between Levi and Daichi, but she knows better. There’s no way she’ll get information out of anyone from the Brotherhood anymore. She’s a traitor, and she knows she’s lucky that Levi hasn’t taken off his gloves and ended her life there and then. He’s always seemed kinder than most members of the Brotherhood, though. She wonders if he’s always been that way or if Riley had a hand in it. 

“I’ll try and do that.” And just for April, she’ll use her ability to capture a fly and to really look at it. “Oh, nothing really. Just been trying to rest and heal up, and, you know, cope.” Theo was gone and so was her best friend, Roxi should be on the floor crying nonstop. But instead she was working hard to be a hero that would make both of them proud. She was just built different. Roxi let out a sigh of relief. “Thank God! I was worried that it tasted terrible.” 

          “I  don’t  know  much,   but  that  I  am  right  about.”   She  had  experienced  a  lot  of  strange  people  and  situations.   Holland  kind  of  liked  it.   Strange  people  and  things  was  part  of  experiencing  life  in  a  big  city  where  people  just  accepted  things.   It  was  nice.   “You  lived  in  a  swamp?   That’s  kind  of  cool.   Not  usual.   Really  cool  actually.”   Holland  smiles.   “I  lived,   well  basically  in  a  fortress.”   She  shrugs.   “Holland.   Nice  to  meet  you  April.” 

         “not—”  a severe wince seems to prove them wrong, but the change in question isn’t painful. just uncomfortable. and it doesn’t help that, despite knowing it’s futility, he continues to resist. “not exactly, no. i’m not… hurting.” thick, blunt claws sprout from their fingertips, pebbled scales scattering up along their arms. “just uncomfortable,” he continues, dismayed. “sorry, i’m not—it’s not dangerous, just—” happening.

“No, but I should have. You aren’t that kind of person and I know that. No one changes that drastically.” Laurel’s head hangs until April utters those precious words that her heart had been looking for. 

‘I forgive you.’

Her glow sparkles to life as relief and joy wash over her. Near instantly, she moves to her usual spot on April’s bed– only, instead of the nosedive, she perches on the edge. Careful of how close she gets to what’s left of April’s injuries. Gently, she places her hand on Apirl’s, her smile muted but warm. “But he didn’t.” She starts quietly, the air around her full of that edge of hope and optimism that she’s become known for. “You survived, April. You made it back.” No small feat for what her mission had been. “I don’t know which of those homicidal losers Ezra is, but whoever he is– he underestimated you. He tried to kill you,” For a half a second, the words are stuck on the lump in her throat. The gravity of the statement making its mark. “but he failed. You’re here. And that means that you won.” 

Laurel nods softly, letting the weight of that truth settle between them for a long few moments. She squeezes April’s hand in her’s, her voice dropping to an emotional near-whisper. “Not only am I glad for that, but April.. I am so proud of you. We all are.” Proud of both of the spies that made it back. “But more importantly, you should be so proud of yourself.”

“Who knows what kind of person I would’ve become if I stayed with them. It’s okay that you doubted me. Being with them changes you — I watched Daichi impale someone with ice. I watched others kill and not feel anything.” If she’d stayed, would she have turned so cold and hateful? There’s no way to know, but she doesn’t blame Laurel for thinking badly of her. 

April smiles when Laurel sparkles. She’s missed seeing that. Her hand gently squeezes her friend’s, and she tries to ignore her anxiety. “Ezra is Entropy. The same asshole who tortured Finley and stabbed her.” Speaking those words makes her feel sick. They leave a bad taste in her mouth. Ezra deserves nothing short of a painful, horrific death. She’s never hated someone so much before. In fact, she’d never hated anyone until she met him. April gives a gentle nod of her head — Laurel is right, she did win. Ezra’s attempt to kill her had failed; she’s still alive and still has her friends. Hopefully, he has nothing. 

April being a spy broke her heart. She always made a point to welcome new members like they were family, and accept them as part of the group without question. But, after red one and two and April, she wasn’t sure that was possible anymore. Her trust had been betrayed time and time again. It made everything out of April’s mouth sound like nothing more than lip service. “You expect me to trust a single thing you say? Every word out of your mouth since the day I met you has been a lie, April.”

She’s weak. An easy target, and an easy take out in the state Ezra had left her in. And, maybe that’s what she’s supposed to do, but she can’t. Maybe she’s going soft, but she really doesn’t want to kill April. She continues to plead her case to Mari, and all she can do is scoff. “You care about us. You miss us. But, you sell us down the river for god knows how long to fucking spit and shine baldy, Xavier? Maybe if you had the good sense to come clean, give up your little spy friends, and actually commit to us, we could have made it work. But you chose to sit on the fence, and where did that get you?”

“No it hasn’t! Everything I’ve told you about me has been the truth. I only didn’t tell you about being a spy, but everything else was real.” April doesn’t know how to fix things. She doesn’t know the magic words that will make Mari forgive her. Maybe what she’s done is unforgiveable. “I had to tell Xavier the things I knew. I was sent in as a spy, and I can’t exactly lie to him. He can get inside my head if he needs to.” She didn’t know whether he would actually go that far and be so invasive, but it felt easier to tell him the truth than risk waking up one morning with his voice echoing in her head. Everything feels unfair — she can’t win, no matter what she says. 

Yunjin’s nothing short of amazed by the girl’s mutation and her mutant pride, it’s really a breath of fresh air to hear someone so proud of who they are. It encourages her to be more open, less worried of how other people perceive her, “I’m half-bird. Look-” She let’s go of April’s hand and shows her how her hand turns into a part of her wings, it’s covered with feathers and her fingernails are now talons. “I can fly,” She states as if that’s not obvious enough with her mutation. “Jeromio’s like your baby then. Oh, by the way, I’m Yunjin. It’s really nice to meet you, sorry for bumping into you. I was just really distracted, I just kept looking at your face.” 

“Wow! Your feathers look very soft,” April compliments, running her fingertips over the back of Yunjin’s hand gently. “You can fly? That’s so cool! I know someone who has wings. He’s my ex-roommate's new roommate.” Does she say the last part with a little bitterness? Yes, but only because she misses living with Laurel. ‘Jeromio’s like your baby then.’ April is glad the toad isn’t around to hear that. It would surely earn her a grumpy frown. “He’s more like a brother,” she chuckles. “I found him outside my front door when I was young. I lived in the swamp, so my mom agreed to let me keep him. We’ve been inseparable ever since. When I left my home to come to NYC, I brought him with me. He lives in a pond near Xavier’s now,” she tells Yunjin, before realising that the other woman probably doesn’t want to hear about the backstory of how she and Jeromio met.

The turn of events is too quick for Yunjin, she barely registers everything, it didn’t even sink into her that this pretty stranger finds her pretty as well. She’s too nervous about how she has potentially put herself in a difficult situation, but that slowly gets exchanged with relief, “Oh!” She slowly reaches out and mindlessly touches her hand. “Wow, I haven’t really met any mutant since I got out of Essex,” She blurts out, too glad she’s not alone, too glad that she won’t feel alienated, “Your hands are really pretty, I mean they’re pretty rad, cool really.” She heaves in a breath and smiles through an exhale, “I’m a bit nervous, I’m sorry.” She composes herself. “It’s really cool you’re part frog, like you’re already so pretty and then you’re also a mutant like me, so it’s very exciting!” 

Evening; somewhere Brotherhood-adjacent || @aprilhoneys​

Levi’s steps slow and then stop, when he realizes who he’s faced with. “You shouldn’t be here,” he warns, tone careful but, by some miracle, not sharp. Levi can be hypocritical, but to get mad at April when he’s carefully cultivated a friendship with Finley seems unnecessarily cruel, even for him.