Allie Bray

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“Ah, so you can’t create any elements from nothing, you can only move them,” He said, trying to understand, and very clearly interested in what she had to say about her powers and what she could do. “That’s really cool. Did it take you a long time to master it? Like, I’ve always wondered if using these powers came naturally or if it’s more of a practiced skill like drawing or playing an instrument. Or does it just depend on the person?”

“Precisely.” Pleased he understood, and always happy to discuss things, Allie smiled at him. “It took a while for me to figure out the extent of my powers, I suppose. A certain amount of instinct is required for anything, but I find that to actually have control, you have to practice using it. But some powers are different. Mine affects the physical world around me, but those that effect the individual body or mind might be a different matter. Makes an interesting hypothesis.” 

         “ marvel comics, yeah. this tower belonged to the avengers.  not the same as x-men, exactly.  most of the avengers didn’t have powers, per say.  iron man created his own suits, captain america was a suped up soldier because of an experiment gone wrong – same as the hulk – and black widow and hawkeye were just exceptionally trained assassins and agents.  in the comics some of that was different, but this is definitely an MCU tower. “  there was no trying to deny it;  jax was geeking out.  just walking into the tower,  whose lobby looked  E X A C T L Y the way it had been depicted in endgame, was enough to make every synapse in his brain start firing at an accelerated rate. “ x-men were more like the umbrella academy.  everyone has their unique abilities, no real reason behind them. “

        jax couldn’t hide the smile that teased his features.  “ some of the world’s most horrifying atrocities have been committed in the name of science. “  he pointed out, not unkindly.  “ i’m not saying the ends don’t justify the means, but. “  he shrugged.  “ yeah. “

   “ famous last words. “  jax murmured as they ventured further inside, nearly jumping out of his skin when the AI greeted them. holy shit.  “ whaaa - hey, jarvis. “  he tried to recover, coughing to clear the increase in pitch of his voice.  “ so … this is really the tower, huh. “  his eyes were wide, casting a glance around. “ how many floors are there ?  is there a bowling alley ?  i bet there fuckin’ is… “

It was a little amusing, seeing Jax act this way over a building. It reminded her of when Cassie saw Disney things, all giddy and happy. “I guess I’ll have to watch the movies. I did watch Wonder Woman, but that’s DC, isn’t it? They’re different?” 

Amused by his point, she gave him what Cassie always called a ‘mom look’. Both unimpressed and amused. “I have no intentions of hurting anyone with my experiments.” Not again, anyway. After Johnnie, she was being a lot more careful. “I haven’t even gotten to animal trials, I’m just trying to study the unique identifiers in our DNA to understand where our powers come from.” Remembering that she wasn’t exactly supposed to have some of the DNA samples she had secretly collected, she flushed. “I mean, my DNA. I’d like to study everyone else, but people get upset with the idea of being labrats, like there’s something wrong with that. I’ve always been a labrat.” 

Allie didn’t know what to make of the voice, but obviously Jax knew what was going on, so she decided against running away. 

It being hard was an understatement. Try damn near impossible. But then came the mention of a daughter, which truly lightened the mood. “A daughter? That’s wonderful. I’m very happy for you.” He replied, stopping the question’s there, feeling like he might be getting a little too personal with someone he’d met only a few minutes ago.

“I truly am sorry for taking up your time. You better head out. I can come back later and hopefully one of the people I’m looking for will be here.”

Realising she’d taken up too much of his time, she flushed a little. “Right. Sorry. I hope you find them. It’s not easy keeping track of the people in this place.” She headed towards the door, knowing she needed to get back to work as well. Between raising a daughter and working at the hospital, she didn’t always have time for her own research. “It was very nice to meet you.” 

“I appreciate it,” Alaric murmured. Talking was certainly a better distraction than fretting over his son’s well being. The worries were still there but he didn’t feel as helpless with someone else to talk to about it. If anything, the most relieving thing was his no longer feeling like he was going to end up panicking. “He’s with a sitter but I- I don’t like not having him on me.”

“He screamed at me for not sharing a beer with him the other night,” Alaric chuckled. “Little tyke’s bottle wasn’t good enough.” His footsteps faltered once they passed the large amounts of debris from the first one that went off. “I haven’t exactly gotten used to not having him on me constantly.”

“You don’t have to explain.” Allie hated leaving her daughter behind at the best of times. “Cassie has to start school in a couple months, and I think I’ll handle far worse than she will.” Having been homeschooled her entire life, Allie had always been secluded from others. Cassie wouldn’t be, and that was scary for Allie. 

Laughing at the image his words put in her mind, she shook her head softly. “What we have is always better. If I’m getting lunch out with Cassie, I’ll just order something bigger than I could eat on my own, because Cassie will eat off my plate instead of her own.” 

Hazel nodded once. He thought he’d found his one good thing. But she left him. Sent him back to square one. Turned him into a lost puppy left out in the cold. “I thought I found mine. But it ended far sooner than I expected.” He replied, feeling like he could use a drink, or two.. or four.

“What makes you happy, if I may ask.”

Remembering Johnnie, Allie took a second too long to answer the man. “It’s hard when that happens.” Shortly after losing her husband, she’d discovered she was pregnant, and that had pulled her back from her grief. She couldn’t be a good mom if she was feeling sorry for herself. 

“Um, my work. I enjoy that.” She hesitated, not used to sharing personal information. “And I have a daughter. She means everything to me.” 

What little monsters children could be but, Apollo enjoyed their presence nonetheless. Their enthusiasm and curiosity for the world was refreshing when he constantly slept with one eye open. He almost ran forward to catch Cassie as she lept off his bed, a small chuckle of relief escaping his lips as her mother caught her. “You’re fine.” He smirked when her daughter disobeyed orders and asked for the profane words. He looked up to Allie before shaking his head. “Your mom said ‘no’ so my lips are sealed tight.”

Cassie’s happiness always put Allie at ease, watching as her daughter pouted at the man. Behind her, the relieved mother thanked him silently by mouthing the words. She wasn’t particularly good with people, so she had half expected him to just start listing swears. The only man she’d ever really spent time with on a personal level had been Johnnie. All others had been professional only. 

“Okay.” Cassie decided. “I still like you anyway. You’re funny. And you look like Flynn Rider.” 

At that, Allie had to laugh. “Cassie loves Disney.” Realising she hadn’t actually introduced herself, she almost facepalmed. “That’s Cassie, if that wasn’t clear enough. And I’m Allie.” 

        “ i was talking more x-men, less mutated genes. “  he clarified, though he knew she’d probably deduced that on her own.  “ that’s about where the comparison stops though.  i’d say we’re morally skewed into depravity more-so than the x-men ever were. “  he was pretty sure their kill count collectively – objectively – would be devastatingly high compared to any x-men related deaths over decades of comic book issues.  “…but let’s not go there. “

        “ if i was an alien, i’d come to earth, see what we have to offer, and pack my shit back up and leave. “  jax had to admit.  “ somehow i can’t see aliens bending to the will of our conservative government, or arguing about whether or not alien lives matter. “  he’d seen that plot-line play out on super-girl;  he knew it wouldn’t end well for anyone involved.  “ besides, they probably have tech and medical advancements we couldn’t even comprehend.  if they came down and looked for volunteers, i wouldn’t HESITATE. “  he admitted.  “ probing or not.  if they offer, you have to say yes.  it’s your scientific imperative. “  he also had no permanent attachments on earth.  there wouldn’t be a family left behind to mourn him if he just disappeared one day.  something about that, weirdly enough, was reassuring.

      jax didn’t even notice her cheeks flush, already thinking about what might lay in store for them in the tower.  it was supposed to be what they needed; that was what eve had written in reality.  he supposed it just factored into what eve thought they needed, or what whatever deity that gave her powers thought they needed.   W H O  was the one deciding ?  that was a thought that was bound to give him a headache. he massaged his temples.   “ only one way to find out. “ he replied.  “ c’mon, let’s check it out. “

“Oh, those are comics, right? Like this whole Tower is?” Allie had a world full of popular culture to catch up on, having spent her childhood only reading classics. Glancing over at him, face screwed up comically, she felt a tiny bit offended he thought all of them were morally skewed. She was a sensible, hardworking single mom. That had accidentally killed her husband by pushing the boundaries of her powers. “Speak for yourself. I’ve never indulged in depravity of any kind. Just scientific curiosity.” 

She considered her options carefully, since that scientific curiosity would make it difficult to say what she’d do if aliens came to earth. “No, I still think I’d rather not be probed. Sounds rather uncomfortable. But you can volunteer for that, and I’ll volunteer to work on something a touch more scientific than that. Imagine all that they could teach us.” Allie wouldn’t let things like rules keep her from learning whatever she wanted to, she never had. “I certainly wouldn’t expect them to care what the government says. They can barely agree on foreign policies, let alone extraterrestrial policies.” 

Allie hesitated one more time, before deciding to take him up on the offer to go inside now. “I really hope this place doesn’t blow up too.” She muttered as she walked inside the Tower, jolting when a voice greeted them out of nowhere.

“Wind is the easiest?” Ronan asked, suddenly much more curious than he was before. He assumed that meant that she could do more than wind-related things, but then again– it’s not like he really knew how any of this worked to begin with. He was just making inferences. “So, does that mean you can do other things besides manipulate the wind? And, a tiny tornado that fits in your hand sounds like the most adorable thing I’ve ever heard of,”

Slightly caught up in the excitement of actually being able to talk about this, she let herself forget that he was a normal person. “Well, they’re all easy to a certain extent. By ease, I mean that there’s very little preparation required. Fire, that one means lighting a fire. Not the most practical.” Realising she hadn’t exactly explained her powers, she tried to find the best way to say it. She flat out refused to sum it up as elemental manipulation. “I can manipulate things at a molecular level. Wind, fire, water, earth.” 

A small smile grew across Hazel’s face as she spoke. He honestly wished he could be that optimistic again. Even for just a day, just to find the light in being single and finding himself once again trapped in this place.

But it was very hard. Since he’d gone back to a point before the apocalypse, everyone there except maybe Five still saw him as the bad guy. But finding Five was turning out to be one of the hardest things imaginable. “What if you’ve got nothing?” He asked. Knowing full well that he literally had nothing. Not even a briefcase to go back to his old life, or the commission around to go back to.

Allie didn’t consider herself particularly optimistic. Sure, she found the good in life, but it took hard work. As far as she was concerned, anything could be achieved with enough determination. “Then you find something. Good things don’t fall into your lap, you have to find them yourself. It doesn’t have to be much, but I believe that everyone must have at least one good thing in their life. Sometimes it takes a little while to find it, that’s all.” 

Apollo softened his expression at the sight of a child, chuckling as she claimed the word ‘crap’ to be a bad word. “Mommy says ‘crap’ is a bad word?” He spoke to the child in the Cinderella dress, a devilish smirk spread across his lips as he eyed her mother on the side. “There are a lot of worse words out there. I can list them for you so you know not to say them,” he said jokingly with a wink. He had a soft spot for children even though he had none himself. It was simply fun to see their parents deal with the mess he’d make with their kids. Like teaching kids how to curse. 

Allie’s eyes went wide as the man teased her. “No.” Even as she said it, Cassie was getting to her feet and jumping on the bed, begging him to tell her all the naughty words. “Cassie, what have I said about jumping on the bed?” 

The little girl simply leaped off the bed with a cry of ‘Catch me!’. Of course, Allie did, using her powers to lower Cassie to the ground safely. 

“I’m so sorry. Cassie, say sorry to the man.” 

Soberly, Cassie walked over to him, hands clasped as she looked up at him, and Allie let out a sigh of relief. Until her daughter spoke. 

“What are the bad words?” 

The sudden pause was a bit odd. But understandable. Hazel was a stranger to her after all, and she had no idea what his intentions could be.

“Sometimes happiness is just unattainable. Sometimes you’re only lucky enough to experience it for a few month’s before it’s taken away from you.” This of course was referring to Agnes and how they grew apart and she eventually left him. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to defend anyone, or choose sides.”

His words struck a chord with her. She’d been so happy with Johnnie, but their happiness hadn’t lasted. But she still had Cassie, and for that, Allie would always be grateful. Her daughter was her life. “Sometimes you have to make your happiness with what you’ve got.” She pointed out, used to debates. She might not know how to have a normal conversation, but her mother had raised her to be able to argue any side of a debate. She just hated to argue.