Author's Nota Bene : Long note today; read it at the end. So sorry it took so long, I caught the writer's block in the very last part, so it took me a few months to write three paragraphs -- was supposed to be a whole page, in my defense...

Oh, and I know nothing about lack of oxygen and altitude pressure problems. Enlighten me if you are sure that I'm wrong and I'll correct it, but it doesn't matter much; the point is to understand that Warren isn't affected by either.

Enjoy!

Wings

Chapter 6

The first months went by fast. My parents were easy to convince to let me stay there. The security it offered (I did not tell my father that I was going to be trained to fight evil; I didn't think he'd like the idea much) convinced Dad, and since my mother still had no idea that I was a winged mutant, the fact it was a very private, very expensive private school convinced her.

We worked hard. The prof did insist we continue studying; he dropped books in our laps and—damn the man for being cultured—became a true professor. Hank helped, and even though it might sound nice to go to school with only three students and two teachers, one of which was a blue beast¸ it was even more work to us.

Aside from studying, we did what we were there to do: work on our powers. I spent that time working on my flight, and after learning to land (which I still couldn't do until a long time, rather curling up in a ball to protect myself and hoping the wall would be merciful) and take off from the ground, I moved on to more complicated ways of flying, spending most of my time above the mansion rather than inside.

You could say that life was good, and for the first time in a year, surrounded by friends I could trust, I felt that being a mutant might not have been so bad. I even came close to thanking the sentinels.

But not quite. Just close.

We were all frozen, glaring down at the things on the table. Oh they looked inoffensive enough. Pretty much like dead animals. Even Hank had a little black boxer shorty thing of his own to glare at, as the prof looked at us. "You're supposed to put them on," he said, lips twitching up.

The damn man sounded amused.

Of course, his prof X uniform was a dress suit. It had a tie, but it still was just a suit.

We, littler mutants, were given spandex.

"No way," Bobby said, reaching out and poking his own black bundle of fabric. "We'll look like total geeks."

I snorted. "I think it's too late for that." I reached for my own white and blue folded uniform, tracing the small embroidered golden circle on the chest. My lips turned up despite myself. An angel? "I thought we were supposed to decide of our own codenames," I pointed out, looking up at the prof.

He smiled. "You decided of it by yourself, Warren. You don't have to say it out loud for me to hear it."

I smiled back, reaching for the uniform. I pulled it up, letting it unfold. It tied in two places in the back, above the wings, allowing me to wear something else than torn or cut clothes, and had a half-face mask, the professor understanding my need to hide my face. White boots and gloves were on the table as well, as was a small golden X-shaped thing that was probably a way of communicating with each other. I looked up. "It's not that bad, Bobby. Yours is black, at least."

He had unfolded his own and was raising an eyebrow at a black and silver uniform. "Yeah, I guess." He glanced at Scott, whose eyebrows were raised high above the ruby-lens glasses as he unfolded his own blue and yellow uniform, and proceeded to cackle like an annoying hyena, doubling up. "At least I won't look like I'm wearing my underwear over my pants!"

"Alright, Angel. That's enough now, come back down."

I ignored the warning in the communicator on my chest, flapping my wings to go higher. A glance at the altimeter at my wrist showed 6,000ft; it didn't even feel hard at all, and I kept pushing. The clouds were coming closer and I grinned, flapping towards them. "Angel," came Scott's voice again. "Down. Now."

I rolled my eyes, smirking, and reached to tap the X-shaped communicator. "Breathe, Slim. A little more and I can tell you tomorrow's weather forecast."

"My codename is Cyclops when we're in training, Angel, please try to stick to it. And I don't care much about the forecast, this isn't the reason we're doing this."

"Aren't we doing this so we can know how far he can go?" another voice chimed in, and I grinned, taking it as acknowledgement to go further. I was in the clouds now; I could see nothing below, and nothing above, but the altimeter showed 7,500ft.

"Stay out of this, Drake. We're doing this to know if he could reach the clouds. Now we know he can, and I want him on the ground. Angel!"

I didn't reply, emerging above the clouds. My breath caught at the sight. It was one thing to see it from a plane window, but it was another to just be there; a shiver of pleasure ran through me as I glanced around at the sky, a pale pink at this time of the day, the sun setting far in front of me, and the white carpet of fluffy bluish white clouds beneath me. The wind was blowing hard, but it didn't bother me; we had discovered that my sight was not only much more piercing than a regular human's, but also that my eyes were resistant to strong winds. I simply opened my wings wide to let myself glide, letting the peace of the view settle in my chest.

A year ago, I was complaining about having wings. Ha.

I glanced at the altimeter at my wrist: 10,000ft. I laughed, and then realized that the communicator was yelling at me. "Warren!" came Scott's voice, worried and tense enough to forget about the codenames. I quickly gave the communicator a tap.

"Here! I'm here. Sorry Slim, I just got… distracted."

"How high are you?" he asked, sounding very annoyed, but also curious.

I looked at my wrist, and grinned. "11,000ft."

"And where are you?"

I arched my eyebrows. "Hard to tell. Over the clouds, I'm heading west, towards the sun. It's nice here, Slim, you should come with me one of those days. 12,000ft now."

"Of course, I'll think about it," he said in a dubious tone. "And it's Cyclops when we're in training."

"Can you breathe well?" asked Hank, cutting in.

"What will happen if you dive? Are you high enough to catch on fire?"

"Drake…" came Scott again.

"It's Iceman when we're in training."

There was a short silence, and I decided to cut in before Scott's reply. "13,000ft," I said, rolling my eyes. "And I'm fine, Hank. I mean… Beast. I shouldn't be?"

"Not on such a short term, I don't think… but the pressure is quite low at such an altitude as yours, and you certainly are not getting the right amounts of oxygen your body should require. Are you not feeling dizzy at all?" he asked worriedly. "Are you breathing faster? If you should start hyperventilating, or…"

"I'm fine." I frowned and pushed higher. I was tiring, but determined. "13,500ft."

"Alright, Angel, that's enough. You'll never even need to go as high as that."

I flapped my wings a bit more for challenge, but gave in to turn in a wide U-turn towards east again when I started to feel my muscles strain. I still remembered what happened the last time I ignored it. "I'm coming back, Cykes." I frowned as the wind ruffled my feathers; I was picking up speed very quickly. "Approximately how fast will I be going when I reach the ground, Beast?"

It took him a few moments before the communicator crackled again. "Mmph. Interesting question."

"Now he worries about it," Scott grumbled.

"Fast enough to catch on fire, like an asteroid."

I ignored the last statement, and apparently Scott did too, or decided to manage with its owner face to face. In either case I didn't care. The wind was blowing harder and my eyes narrowed into slits.

"Be careful not to hit a bird," croaked the communicator. Surprisingly that helpful statement didn't come from Bobby, but Scott. As I felt the strain of speed painfully stretching my wings, it occurred to me that it wasn't a vain warning; hitting a bird would likely make me lose control and make me fall the rest of the last 10,000ft like a rock.

Or an asteroid.

I entered the clouds and came out in a flash, letting out a small gasp at the unknown view. I wasn't at all where I thought I was; I had probably not turned around enough to head back towards the mansion. The present matter, though, was to slow down. I knew I could reach nearly 130mph on normal flight. I had nearly broken my neck on the few times I tried diving, and reached well over 150mph on those times; I was probably around that at the moment, or more, judging from the roaring of the wind in my ears. My communicator was silent; Scott knew better than to break my concentration.

I did as I learned (by myself) over the last months, and started my descent in stages. I would stay at the same height for a time, long enough to slow down, and would go down a little while, before doing the same again. It took a long time, and I would have tried something a bit more adventurous had I been close, but all I could see at the moment were farms and endless cornfields. Not a good place for an emergency crash. I sighed when I reached my normal flight altitude, and tapped the communicator. "Cykes?"

"Yes?"

"Is there any way to figure out where I am?"

It was only when Scott laughed—not to mention he pressed the communicator so I would hear it—that you realized he didn't do it often enough.

I felt the air escape my lungs at the same time as I heard it gasp its way out of Scott's mouth. We were standing, all four of us, two on each side of the prof's desk as he slowly hovered across the study. We had been called to his office much too early in the morning, but I was fully awake now as I stared at the doorframe.

She was standing there, staring at each of us. She didn't look older than us, but looked normal, too. Which, after Hank's blue fur, the prof's hover chair, my own wings, Cykes' visor and Bobby's perma-grin, it was unusual for us. Normality included bright red hair cascading over her shoulders and down her back, small freckles dusting her pale cheeks, under a pair of the brightest green I had ever seen. My heart was going mad in my chest as I simply stared at her, and I could feel my fingers itching to move and touch her hair. Damn. Three times damn.

I snapped my head around when the prof started speaking, and the girl stepped in, her lips turning up in a soft smile. "Gentlemen," the prof said, smiling wide at us as he outstretched his arm to take her hand. "Let me introduce us to the newest member of our team. This is Jean Grey."

I know it's not what his real costume was, since he ices all over, but I wasn't going to put Bobby in nothing but a spandex Speedo and boots. I'm sure Marvel won't mind much, and he's not sexy enough yet to look good in something that doesn't leave a lot to imagination.

Not that a full spandex suit would, mind you.

Thank you all for reviewing. I might have forgotten to reply to quite a few reviews, and if so I'm very sorry. Know that I still appreciate it very much. Welcome to the new readers, and I'm quite surprised about the number of people telling me they're SO thrilled to finally see a story about Warren. If he has so many fans, why isn't there any fanfics? (not true, there's a few, but not a lot) And fan websites! The poor guy has none; finding good pictures of him is hell.

I was asked in a review if Scott was going to be a jerk and/or and asshole in this story, because they didn't like it much when he was depicted as so. I couldn't reply to the person directly; I'll reply here since it could interest others. I don't think Scott is such a mean character, I'd rather think fanfiction made him look much worse than he really is. He is, in my opinion, a very loyal man, both to his team and his love, very devoted to the cause (probably the X-man most devoted to the team's cause, or at least in the most selfless way), and willing to do anything to keep his team united. I think he lacks social skills, isn't much of a diplomat when it comes to telling someone something bad, and isn't the most merry character of the bunch, but I think that, aside from being hot (the visor makes us forget it, but damn, he is), he takes leadership very seriously, is a responsible and a good guy, and deserves more than the fate given to him in most fanfics. A perfect character has no conflicts, no plot, and usually no story; it's a boring character. A character with flaws is fun to work with and sounds more human; he's interesting to write and read about. Warren isn't perfect either, and can be an asshole as well. A lot of people see him as a stern, snobbish, spoilt little billionaire, and he is all of that… that's what makes him adorable.

Besides, I learned over time that no matter how mean, frowning, party-crasher, serious and overall pretty much anti-social I'll make a male character, if he looks pretty, someone somewhere is bound to fall in love with him and ask for more. -WINKS-