Welcome to the SkyDisclaimer: Characters are not mine, but Marvel's. 
Continuity: Takes place after sometime after Warren gets his real wings back. 
Vague enough for ya? ;-) 
Feedback adored. Constructive criticism welcome. Poi could always use some 
constructing. 

Welcome to the Sky

By: Poi Lass 

Beautiful morning. Beautiful sky. Warren Worthington the third rolled on his 
back, flattening his wings, and stared out the curtainless window from his bed. 
The sky was calling to him. His delighted smile broadened. 
~Why not?~ 
"Betsy?" He touched the shoulder of the woman sleeping next to him. 
~She's so beautiful too...~ 
"Love? Wake up." She blinked awake with a start, looking annoyed as 
she slowly sat up and glanced at the clock. 
"God. Don't tell me we've got a mission..." 
"Uh -no. No. I just thought - you might like to come flying with me. Watch the 
sun rise...?" his voice tailed off as she glared at him furiously. 
"Warren, you _do_ know what time it is?" Her voice was cold as she pushed her 
hair out of her face. 
~Maybe not such a good idea...~ he thought, his heart falling. 
~But we've been so distant lately. I thought - maybe spending some time 
together- she used to love flying with me...~ 
"It's just - going to be such a beautiful day -. Sorry. I didn't think." He 
swallowed bitterly, turning away. The joy he'd felt on waking, on seeing the 
clear sky, and the first light drifting into the room, seemed to dissipate under 
her angry stare. He left the bed softly and went to the window, although he no 
longer really felt like flying. He was tired of flying alone. 
~Screwed up again Wings. Idiot. Should've suggested a picnic or something, not a 
pre-dawn swoop...~ 
"Sorry." He said again, trying to keep his frustration out of his voice. "Go 
back to sleep." 
Betsy watched him turn away from her, sensed his deep disappointment, and 
suddenly found herself wondering just why she was being such a bitch. 
~Yes, so it's an ungodly hour to be feeling romantic. But it seems like ages 
since there was any romance between us at all. So why am I stomping on it? Bound 
and determined to ruin your relationship, are you Braddock?~ 
She made her decision suddenly, and hoped it wasn't too late. 
"No." She came up behind him, and put her arms around his waist, hugging him in 
apology. 
"No, _I'm_ sorry. Let's fly. Just let me put something warm on first, okay?" He 
turned and looked at her, his mood rising again. 
"Are you sure...?" 
"Yes. Why not? I think I've lost my sense of spontaneity Mr Worthington. 
Although, then again, it could be that it just isn't working properly at _5 
am_..." She couldn't keep a small measure of sarcasm out of her voice, but her 
tone was warm, and she smiled as she said it. 
He ducked his head, mock wincing in embarrassment at the dig. 
"Okay, okay..." he looked at her from under the tangled blonde hair that fell 
over his face, and smiled his love at her. 
~I love you too.~ she thought, feeling it, and wondered why neither of them 
seemed to say it out loud anymore. 
He held her close as he flew through the cool morning air, treasuring every 
second of it. The feel of her body against him, and the scent of her hair, and 
the sound of her delighted, breathless laughter as he flew circles high above 
the school. 
For once he felt he could put away all the troubles that plagued them on the 
ground, their fights and their pasts; his depressions and her mood swings, her 
anger and his angst. He smiled again, unable to stop, finding it suddenly all so 
easy to ignore. 
Leave it on the ground. Just love the sky. 
Because it was going to be such a beautiful day. 
Such a perfect day. 
He whooped for joy and threw himself higher, stretching his perfect wings 
through the perfect sky, holding the perfect woman - who wriggled and gasped at 
his antics. 
"Warren!" Betsy protested, half laughing, half angry. He glanced down at her and 
grinned infectiously. 
"Ah, relax, why don't you Ms. Braddock. I'm not going to drop you, I promise." 
She glared at him, her hair a whip in the wind, but her mind brushed against his 
affectionately. He closed his eyes a moment, leaning into holding her, opening 
his thoughts to her. 
Leave it on the ground. Love the sky, love. 
They spun through a cloud of birds, scattering the flock in all directions, then 
slowed a little, gliding on winds so soft it felt for a moment he was drifting 
on the pale sunlight that was gently filling the air. He never wanted to go down 
again. 
Love the sky. 
But then suddenly there was static in his head, painful noises that he could 
make no sense of, messages he couldn't translate, too many voices speaking at 
once, too much, too much, and he yelled for Betsy to stop, and then realised it 
wasn't Betsy, and then stopped thinking at all. 
*helskwrrqaweloyskwehelcyoiiolokwhshhhellonnicomsewlcemmmeshelloleplo* 
He screamed without hearing his own voice. 
Betsy slid into shock as she felt his arms drop from around her, hands going to 
his head as he suddenly swooped downward. She stifled a yelp, and tightened a 
death grip around his neck as her body fell from his strong embrace. 
~Oh my God... he let me go...~ 
<> she yelled telepathically, but she couldn't touch his mind. Some sort of 
static seemed to be clouding it, and he answered none of her calls. 
"Damn it Warren. You did just promise not to drop me you know..." He ignored 
her, screaming again as he dived through the sky at a sickening speed. She held 
her breath as she altered her position, swinging her legs around his waist and 
clasping her hands around her wrists firmly. She breathed a sigh of relief, 
feeling slightly more secure, and tried once again to reach Warren's mind. He 
continued to fly his strange patterns, his attention utterly taken up by 
whatever was attacking him, his arms flailing wildly about his head. 
~Nada. Well. Time to call for some help, I suppose.~ 
She sent her mind call out to Jean, sleeping in the boathouse, far too far 
below, and shortly saw a streak of red come barrelling up from the ground. The 
woman called Phoenix kept pace with them for a moment, looking astonished at 
Warren's bizarre behaviour, and Betsy's ungainly hold on him. 
"What the--. No, never mind. It's not as if this sort of thing is rare around 
here..." The other telepath grabbed Warren and Betsy both in a telekinetic hold 
and began to pull them towards the ground. 
"Ahh - no -. I -. Oh my god. My god. Betsy?" Warren's arms came around her 
frantically and held her tight. His fierce embrace cut off her air, but she 
welcomed it. 
"What - what the hell just happened?" his blue eyes looked panicked as he stared 
wildly between her and Jean. 
"You tell me love." She managed to say lightly, not letting go of him. He seemed 
himself again, but she had no intention of releasing her hold until she was 
safely on the ground again. 
~Even if it was rather exhilarating...~ 
"How about we wait until we're down, okay?" Jean said calmly. "I'll take care of 
it Warren, you - you just lie back and think of England or something." Despite 
the situation, Betsy almost snorted with laughter at Jean's slight, knowing 
smile. She'd often wondered if any of the others knew how many times she and 
Warren had made love in the sky over Salem Centre. 
But Warren was entirely too shocked to be amused. 
"What do you mean _`you don't sense anything'_?" He demanded angrily of Jean 
twenty minutes later. 
"There was someone - some - thing, in my head! _Something_ --" he stopped in 
frustration for the countless time in the those twenty short minutes, trying to 
find the words for the `something' that had invaded him with such ease, and 
words for the invasion itself. 
"Warren, all I said was, that I can't find any trace of someone having been in 
your mind recently. _Or_ anyone nearby - and neither can Cerebro. If some 
telepath attacked you -" 
"I said it wasn't a telepath!" He snapped. "I've _been_ attacked by a tepe 
before Jean, I think I know what it feels like! I told you, it was _nothing_ 
like that!" She paused a moment before continuing. 
"Okay. So what was it like?" Her tone was calm, but seemed to suggest, very 
gently, that if he didn't change his, she'd soon change hers, and that he 
probably wouldn't like that. He stopped again, and tried to stop taking his 
anger and fear out on her. He hated the idea of being violated like this all 
over again. Hated even more the thought that neither Jean nor Betsy had felt 
anything, and still couldn't. And therefore, could offer him no protection if it 
happened again... 
He threw himself down on Jean and Scott's sofa once again - and then jumped up 
again, to wander their living room restlessly. Something out there had attacked 
him. Only... 
"It didn't - really - feel like an attack." He mused slowly, trying to recall 
the sound of it, the feel of it. "It was more like... I don't know. A... 
message. Or something. Only it hurt, because... I don't know. But - I don't 
think it was _meant_ to hurt me." 
"A message?" Scott frowned, entering the conversation for the first time in some 
minutes. "But if it was intended to be heard, if someone wanted to communicate 
with us, then why didn't Betsy hear it too?" 
"It wasn't _meant_ for her -" Warren dismissed him irritably, caught in his 
thoughts - and then stopped yet again, hearing his own words. 
"...It was just meant for me..." he continued slowly, to himself. 
~Meant for _me_...~ 
For a moment he thought he heard static. 
"Sorry, what did you say Scott?" He turned to the other man absently, shaking 
the noise away again. Scott looked at him curiously, but repeated his question. 
"What did the ...message... sound like? Could you get any sense from it at all?" 

Angry words leapt to his tongue at the doubtful tone in his friend's voice. He 
knew Scott was simply being typically circumspect, trying to get all the facts, 
and wasn't questioning that he'd experienced something. Nonetheless, the 
sceptical note irritated him. But he felt Betsy's hand on his arm, and held the 
words back, for once. 
"It didn't sound like anything." He simply said shortly. But in his mind he 
turned the question over and over, and tried to answer it again. 
~But it _didn't_ sound like anything. Except - sort of - ... hello...?~ 
The discussion went nowhere after that, and there was little else that could be 
done. Warren was quietly watched for a while, and the house stayed on careful 
alert, but the days went past without incident. And if Warren occasionally heard 
things that weren't there, he passed it off as stress and his imagination, and 
told himself he was ignoring it, because to do otherwise would mean telling the 
others. 
And, for some reason, he found he didn't want to do that. 
Scott took him off active duty for a few days, `just to be sure', and Warren 
didn't make a fuss about it - at least not after Betsy had telepathically made a 
few suggestions of what they could do with the time. But she was spending the 
morning in a training session, and so he wandered the house, feeling restless 
and jumpy, knocking his wings into walls and doorways with unusual clumsiness. 
They felt like lead on his back today - which was frustrating, but not 
especially unusual. Though he'd long since come to adjust to the weight, there 
were still, rare days when it felt alien and distant from him once again. A 
throwback to the early days, when his wings had been new to him, and dealing 
with them had been a full time occupation. 
He smiled slightly. They'd made his life hell in many ways; he'd been forced to 
bind them tightly down under his clothes, and avoid close friendships and 
relationships for several years for fear of being found out. It had been 
uncomfortable, and frightening, and very, very lonely. 
And he would never willingly have given them up, even then. 
Still, he shrugged his shoulders in irritation, feathers rustling at the 
movement. The weight felt too heavy and the noise felt too loud. Days like this, 
the only thing that helped make them feel natural again was flying - and he 
realised with a start that it had been days since he'd done that. 
~No wonder I feel weird. How long has it been since I spent this long on the 
ground, on purpose? I'm not sure I ever have...~ He paused, oddly reluctant, for 
once, to leave the house. 
~What's the matter?~ he asked himself mockingly, ~You frightened? Gonna add 
flying to your little list of things to have nightmares about?~ 
The thought was repugnant, alien. 
No. No way. He was not, would never be, frightened of the sky. He wouldn't know 
how. It was his home. It was who he was. 
And if there was something the slightest bit odd about that thought, something 
the slightest bit out of character, he didn't notice, only went to the nearest 
window and threw himself out. And up. 
The flight left him refreshed - after he managed to relax and stop expecting to 
be attacked at any moment. He glided to the ground near the lake and sank to the 
grass to catch his breath. His breathing slowed quickly, but still - 
~Out of shape already? This is ridiculous. I can't believe I've over- reacted so 
badly to one weird little... incident. I'm telling Scott to put me back on 
active duty, and he can stick his `sensible precautions'.~ 
He looked up, feeling better now that the decision was made, and watched a flock 
of birds circle the mansion in less than geometric patterns. He found himself 
wondering why they flew that way: around and around, sliding through and over 
each other but never colliding, in long, loose ellipses. After he watched them a 
while, he thought he could see patterns in their movements, amused himself 
trying to predict where they would go next. Lazily traced the lines they made 
with a outheld finger. Lost himself in those hypnotic, soothing, erratic shapes. 
Stretched his body, and his wings and threw himself gracefully into the sky to 
make a few more of his own. 
Heard static. 
"No - " He cried out - and it stopped. And started again, fading in and out, as 
if the source was moving closer and further away from him. 
For a few brief moments, it was bearable, and the noise hovered on the edge of 
his mind, waiting for him to understand it. And he felt he _could_, that he 
could tune into it, if he could just find the right - frequency, that he could 
decode it if he could just find the right - way of thinking. 
But then it got louder. Bigger. More urgent. 
*elhelsweklohellowellgocollyocmhmeshellocomwelcomwemohelyyshllyskyw* 
"No - d-don't -" He lost words again, lost control again, lost himself in the 
noise and the cries and the pain and the message that he couldn't understand and 
- 
~ -I'm trying, I'm trying, but I can't understand- ~ Someone heard, the static 
shifted, someone tried again. 
*Hellohelhellohelloskyhellohellowelcomewelcwewelcoskymhelhellowelcome* 
~I can't I can't _I can't_ -~ 
Then it shifted once again, the static seeming suddenly to coalesce, the 
multitude of voices settling on a single, clear message - that he _understood_. 
*Hello welcome to the sky* 
"Welcome to the -?" he started uncomprehendingly, and then suddenly his gaze 
flew up, and focused on the circling birds. 
*Welcome to the sky* 
~They can't - they _can't_ be talking to me...~ he thought, staring longingly at 
them - and knew suddenly that they weren't. They weren't _talking_, he was 
making the words to stop himself going crazy - but they were, oh they _were_, he 
realised, addressing him. And he was hearing, for the first time. 
That they liked him. Were glad to see him. Were glad to welcome him to the sky. 
"Oh." Warren breathed, his eyes shining as the message of 
interestaffectionwelcome shifted and slid through his mind, beautiful static. 
"Oh god I'm so dumb. Ohhhhh. I get it, I -" he tried to move but realised, 
finally, that he was held. He frowned impatiently at Jean, who was staring 
worriedly at him. Where had she come from? What was she _doing_? 
*Welcomewelcome to the sky* 
"Warren? What's going--" 
"I'm fine. Finefinefine. Let me go please. Now_now_ please." He tugged anxiously 
at the telekinetic cocoon he was encased in, needing to be free, needing to fly 
- 
*Welcomewelcome tototo the sky* 
Jean let him go, still trying to talk to him, but he ignored her, sweeping up to 
the flock, through them, he and the other birds avoiding crashing into each 
other with ease. They swooped and soared; he could feel the rush of air through 
a hundred sets of wings and hear a hundred delighted `voices' chattering to him 
in static and sensations - sending him the sense of air through feathers, the 
joy of soontobe hatched eggs, the delight in flight from predators, in being 
predators, of morningsandevenings and swoopinganddiving and having the wind as 
the most intimate lover, as a friend, as an enemy, as a parent. 
*I knowIknow!* Warren told them, excitedly, *I knowknowknow - except 
abouttheeggs...* They laughed at him in the way of birds, and he laughed too, 
like a chick fresh out of shell, new come to the sky. 
*Hellohellowelcome* they offered him with much kindness. 
*Thank you* he sent back, laughing breathlessly with joy again, ecstatically 
feeling the distance between himself and the ground as the distance between 
himself and the most hated prison. 
*Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou* 
*Welcometothesky* 
END. 



Does anyone else remember that Archangel: Phantom Wings one-shot? Just FYI, this 
was kinda sorta partially inspired by that. Kinda. Sorta. Originally. But you 
know how these things drift... ;-). 
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