It feels strange, to be made whole again. There is no three way delegation between Bruce Thomas Wayne, the sole survivor of a horrifically engingeered crime who sought out vengeance, who trained himself every way he could, and fell into the arms of Project X; The Bat, the creation of Project X, who can make anyone feel fear the moment they make eye contact; and Michael, the identity created between The Bat and Bruce, who was able in the end to reclaim humanity, and the one who could help blend in all three.

It's at least, on paper, an easy thing to say that En Sabah Nur healed him. That all three personalities are now technically just one.

It's not exactly like that though, by experience. Some days he wakes up and he knows he's more Bat than Bruce, opting for very few words, quick movements, divvying things into tasks. Some days he wakes up and he knows he's more Bruce than anyone else, knows that the weight of what he's done weighs heavy on him, as much as he feels a broad determination that he has to avenge his parents deaths, knows that it's not mutants who gunned them down, knows it's not mutants who manipulated and bisected his mind. Some days he's simply Michael, attempting to balance or meld it all together, help work things out into a cohesive person.

With that comes of course, an accounting of everything: that En Sabah Nur, Apocalypse, is Mutant-Father, All-Father, Eternal Pharaoh, is the oldest mutant, the one who hired him to rescue Joseph. He is the one who paves the way for a future where homo superior is the strongest, fittest to survive. He is the one who has taken them to Akkaba Metropolis with it's still mostly empty cities where they bring as many mutants as they can find to live, he is the one who has deemed Michael consort to Joseph, and he is the one that they all trust.

He is the one who is going to give Joseph his wings back, the one who is helping Michael to keep his mind together, and the one who has promised to accelerate his mutation in the right way.

It's strange, it's a new world, but it's at least a world where he has a choice to be in it or not.

And he's made his choice, as he gets to choose his own clothes, his own name, his own identity, his own partner. A place where he can choose to look at the faces of the people who deemed his parents' murder acceptable, needed, and he can decide how to take care of them, how to exact vengeance so that no one else can suffer because they're mutants.

(there is a part of him, growing quieter by the day, that says not all humans deserve to be crushed underfoot. that what happened to his parents was part of a cover up. that he knew plenty of humans that wouldn't hurt anyone. that his parents wouldn't want him to kill anyone. the more En Sabah Nur counsels him though, the smaller that voice gets.)

he's determined to see it through, no matter what.

"I should have died," Joseph says, sweat still on his back, eyes still wet with tears, his hair still matted to his face, yet Michael doesn't do anything other than let him stay on his lap. It's a miracle he can still talk, voice hoarse from screaming, from writhing. "When I got pinned. I — living just gave everyone new problems. Worse problems. You should've killed me."

Michael strokes his hair, letting him talk, letting him say things that he used to only hear in the manor. Letting him cry out the pain, letting him try to scrabble for something he can hold onto. Every day, they hook him up to the humming machines, every day, En Sabah Nur tells them, I can give you revenge for what they did to you. I can help you become more than what you were. and then he experiments. Michael can't do anything other than wait, grind his teeth, pace as it goes on and on. When En Sabah Nur experiments with him, it's different. It's not through needles, it's not through physical augmentation. It's through his cells being set on fire all at once while being held between En Sabah Nur's hands or it's through a psychic meeting, on a plane that resembles home. It's where they go through memories, where they break down parts of him that are locked away and just need to be reopened.

It's giving him less human like features, from the fangs that are beginning to crowd his mouth, to his skin growing paler, to his fingertips turning an inky black.

It's not like this, where they have to load him into a machine, where Joseph says, Again! even though he's barely holding on.

"I wasn't told to. And I didn't want to. I still don't want to," Michael says, as Joseph sniffs, as his back shifts within sight. Joseph can't really see how every session changes him in minute ways that are geting stronger, faster. He can't see that there's blue sprouting from the area that's slowly encroaching on the rest of his body or that there are metal wings starting to come in.

Michael can, though. He can see that he is changing, that he is going to have his wings back and he says, "I'm here. I don't want you to die. I want you to fly again."

Joseph clings to him.

there are four horsemen: war, famine, pestilence, and death. in the sprawl of the city, michael has time to learn. it takes only five minutes for him to pick up on the archaic language that is long dead, and it has him busy for hours, reading what's available to him. about arakko, about okkara. the first horsemen, genesis, the succession, all of it. he spends his time putting it altogether, understanding, and when En Sabah Nur speaks to him, he seems pleased when michael can speak to him back in his old language.

there is a kindness there on his face, an affection when it comes to michael and the horsement. it's that kindness that allows michael to be consort to joseph, sharing in his room and reverence, that allows him to appear at the war council even if he's not allowed to speak. it's that kindness that allows michael to see what he's doing with his plans for joseph's wings—and it allows En Sabah Nur to say, "you seem to be troubled at this. is the work frightful to you?"

"no," michael shakes his head, "i just think it can be done without leaving him in that much pain, every time."

"pain is necessary to learn," En Sabah Nur replies, the glow from the controls highlighting his skin. michael looks back at him, aware that he's on the edge of a knife, and aware that En Sabah Nur wouldn't have just allowed him to be here because joseph asked. En Sabah Nur thinks that michael has value, that there's more to him and that's how he pushes forward, pointing to a piece of the equipment he feels is unnecessary.

"that's causing too much pain, and it's overtaxing him. if he overtaxes too hard, it'll tear the muscle, which means it'll take longer for everything to settle," he says, and En Sabah Nur looks pleased.

"i always apprecited the work of your parents," En Sabah Nur says, keeping up the pace with michael in the memory of the alley. it's the third time here, where the snow is falling and he can see him and his parents talking together outside of the theater. "they were brilliant minds, with brilliant works ahead of them. that humans were so threatened by their sense of morality, their humanity that they killed them is an affront to you as their child and to all of us, in mutantkind."

michael looks ahead, knowing what is going to happen, knowing what will always happen. knowing that the man will step out with a gun, that his parents can't use their powers on time and that he, alone, will survive with their blood splattered on his face. he knows that he will stare at their lifeless bodies and feel terror coursing through him.

and he knows that when he feels it, En Sabah Nur will begin to dig into the emotion. that he'll take the howling pain and terror and expand it. force every part of michael's brain to concentrate on it, to let it overwhelm him, until the power stabilizes. until he's not simply experiencing it, he's able to hold it, wield it, direct it.

this time it works better than the other times, this time when he opens his eyes and glares at the servant standing with a towel, she shrieks in terror.

he doesn't know what scares, what frights she sees; only that when he wills it, she drops to the floor, shaking and afraid.

it feels good, to be feared.

one mistake he knows not to make is to let his body, the other more human skills go to waste. he feels more like bruce as he trains himself again, remembering old routines, remembering how to pick locks, how to find the right space to slip into to be unnoticed.

joseph comes with him sometimes as the wings come in more, and they spar together, beneath the eternal pharoah's eyes. michael can't read his mind; he can read his body language though, how he leans in closer when they're exchanging more blows than they are dancing together. he can tell that whenever joseph wins he seems more assured than ever and when michael wins, it feels as if he's amending a calculation in his mind.

sometimes he concentrates on the way joseph takes a swing, sometimes he pays more attention to how he's compensating without the wings, sometimes he just likes the cocky look on his face.

sometimes he's thinking about sensei's he's had in the past, sometimes he's thinking about when project x had forced him to use a gun even though he hated it, sometimes he's just lost in the movements between them.

he never turns his eyes onto joe or En Sabah Nur—he does, however, turn them on war when he steps into the ring one day. he can see that there's a thirst, a need for him to prove himself in front of En Sabah Nur, in front of joseph, in front of the servants and the other horsemen.

for michael, he can cut loose in a real way. kieros might be chosen to be war, might have been good at clapping his hands together to create explosions, but he is not good at being fast, at being able to think on his feet, and he is not able to hold his temper back when michael kicks him to the ground.

when En Sabah Nur claps, that's when keiros' eyes turn wild, that's when he tries to play dirty.

it's not the right move to make. it has all of him angry, at him ignoring the rules of engagement, at the jealousy on his face, and when he pins keiros down, he grasps his neck, and allows his eyes to make contact with his.

his eyes don't feel as if they're burning or as if they're going to bulge out of his face—michael simply feels them connect with the soldier's mind, can feel his powers latch onto his psyche.

and then fear seeps out of every pore the man possesses. he screams, writhes, and even when he breaks contact, the fears, the nightmare doesn't subside.

that is when En Sabah Nur says, "no war of mine can be so weakminded."

michael's hands grip onto kieros's neck.

snap.

the matter is settled, of who is and who isn't war.

time is something that runs funny now. sometimes he's eight years old again and his parents are dead, and he doesn't know what to do. he's then the bat, forced to hold a gun, forced to put a bullet between the eye of a man he doesn't know and when he's the bat he throws up in a corner of the room when it's done, fights the guards. then he's bruce again at a party, explaining to someone a new article he's read and saying that he's wearing sunglasses because he fell down drunk, not because the last target was able to get him in the eye before he strangled them. then he's michael, putting together clues and telling joe that he won't let himself kill himself, won't let him die no matter what. then he's war, snapping the neck of the soldier knowing that it's wrong and knowing that in order to survive he has to kill him, that this is survival of the fittest and even then a part of him doesn't want to do that again. then he blinks again and a human is trembling in front of him, begging for his life and the bat knows what he has to do, war knows what he has to do but bruce and michael both hesitate, both don't want to take the man's life but en sabah nur is right behind him, saying my war must have a sure hand and then he wakes up and joe's wings are around him and —

they're mutating at an accelerated rate. michael understands that better day by day, session after session.

before, the machine had been strange to him. now, he can see what it's doing for joe, what it's meant to do, what it's limitations are. when he looks at pestilence, he understands how her mutation can web out in different areas, and he starts to think about how he could do it himself. when he and joseph to fishing together in the river, he can predict how much bluer joe's skin is going to look by dawn.

and for himself, he begins to understand why project x would've failed eventually. can tell that parts of his psyche are mending differently, can tell that the fear that he can project now can be deployed in more specific ways, can understand that the victims of it feel every sensation he wants to give them.

languages unfold themselves for him. weapons become more readily understood. he can tell when one of the mutant girls they save is on the verge of having a panic attack and he soothes her before she can try. he looks at the mangled body of a man they were supposed to kil and knows that he'll never walk again.

when they're stuck one night, unable to get back to the clan, joseph tries to put on a good face about having to hide from humans, try not to mask the bitterness he feels.

it's michael who says, "you'll probably be able to control it one day. when he's done."

joseph seems to pause at that, looking outside of the window where snow falls. "you think so?"

michael reaches over, running his thumb on the patch of blue, mingling with pink. "i think so. i'll still love you then."

i know what he wants us to do. i know what he wants us to be. i know it. i just think maybe — it doesn't have to be this way. we don't have to have mass casualties to prove that we're the dominant species. killing people isn't a sign of real strength or a show of the fittest.

he starts keeping a list of names in his head, of the names from the project x assignments. names, the method of death, the time of death. starts going over the memories, starts to think about what he could've done, would've done if he had control.

begins to m make sure whenever they go to retrieve another mutant, that there are as little to no casualities as he can make it. infuses the visions he gives to the people there as bad as he can make them, bad enough that they will have nightmares for the rest of their lives.

but they won't die. and the ones who are hurting mutants, he sends out cluesknowing that the x-men might show up in time, or might never.

slowly, he starts to think at the machines with more disinterest, if only so that no one can know that he's thinking of what he has to do, to take him and joseph out of here, together.

tomorrow, they're going to meet the x-men again. they'll make themselves, this nation, their mission known. in the light that drifts into their room, joseph's skin is in shades of blue beneath michael's darkened fingers. his golden skull helmet sits next to the michael's own, both glimmering.

michael wonders if this will go right, wonders if there's a way out and through of this that leaves them intact.

"do you think you're ready to see them?"

joseph leans closer to him, both of them able to hear the hum of the technology around them, able to hear the distant sounds of celebration of a new dawn.

a kiss is his answer, sure and slow.

i think — oh my god, i think that's warren! warren's alive!