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Their powers had never strained.
It had never felt like straining or reaching to use their powers.
Using their powers had always been as easy as breathing, even if the unintentional collateral damage had been annoying to clean up at times.
But actually using their powers had never strained. And it had certainly never fucking hurt.
This hurt.
This hurt like a bitch.
Alex couldn't put their finger on it, but even the most mind breaking impossibilities had been easy to make reality in the past, so they didn't know why this was so hard.
If Morgan were here, listening to their internal monologue, they'd probably mention something about emotional pain not helping the situation, and maybe even offer something along the lines of 'everyone sucks the first time they do something.'
But Morgan wasn't here.
That was kind of the whole fucking problem.
And maybe most people sucked the first time they did things, but not Alex.
Regardless of the pain, regardless of how utterly wrong their powers felt as they did this, regardless of how their actions seemed to finally be having real consequences on the basic facts of the universe, they knew they had to keep going.
Morgan couldn't stay fucking dead.
-
Morgan died on a Tuesday.
Alex didn't regret very many things in their life, but this, they knew, would be something they'd regret for a long time, even when Morgan wasn't dead anymore.
(Because Alex was dragging Morgan back to the land of the living, that wasn't even a fucking question.)
He shouldn't have even died in the first place.
His work was dangerous, Alex knew, even if it was hard for them to fathom at times (due to Morgan being so much.. squishier than them).
But Morgan had a knack for just-in-time escapes, to the point where he could plan other people's just-in-time escapes from his death traps.
And even then, as a last resort, Morgan had his power. His 'panic button' as he'd once referred to it. He could summon the S tier, and whatever life-threatening situation he'd gotten himself into was no longer life-threatening. At least for him. Not much could be said for whoever was causing the life-threatening situation.
This latest heist wasn't even supposed to be this dangerous.
The facility wasn't supposed to have any armed guards at the time (the only one rostered who was licensed to carry had been indisposed by Morgan lacing his food was laxatives the day before).
It was supposed to be easy for Morgan and his small group to get in, get the goods, and get out.
Morgan had said so himself, when Alex had asked him about it the night before.
They’d even asked if they could come with him on the heist, but Morgan had refused, saying something about how Alex was too noticeable, or not stealthy enough.
Morgan would just have to deal with Alex being ‘unstealthy’ during heists because there was no way they were letting him go without them ever again.
Alex didn’t know what had gone down.
Didn’t know what had caused the gunfight, why there were even guns (because there wasn’t supposed to be any stupid guns, they never would’ve not been paying attention if they’d known there would be guns), or what had caused Morgan to be shot so many times they could barely tell the individual holes apart.
All they knew was they’d felt something in the world shift. Something had suddenly felt incredibly wrong with the world, and seconds later, they’d gotten a distraught phone call from one of Morgan’s minions telling them Morgan was hurt, badly, and they needed to go get him.
It was brave of them to call, Alex would admit, but they were grateful.
They didn’t know how long it would’ve taken them to figure out the wrongness must’ve had something to do with Morgan and search him out.
As it was, Alex located Morgan before even hanging up the phone, and was at his side in a matter of seconds.
Not that they could do anything.
The distinct wrongness in the world, Alex had realised, looking at Morgan’s bullet ridden body, the shift, was the world no longer having Morgan in it.
In less dire circumstances, Alex might’ve cringed slightly at the implications of the entire world feeling different to them because Morgan wasn’t in it.
Right now, they didn’t have any room to think, too focused on pushing through the pain they’d never felt before to bring Morgan back.
-
They did it.
Of course they did, they were Alex.
It had felt like an eternity, but it was really just a matter of minutes until Alex was carrying a breathing, bullet-hole-less Morgan out of the building.
They would have just teleported out of there, but for the first time, they felt like they needed to rest a moment before using their powers again.
So, with the excuse of reassuring Morgan’s team, Alex took him, alive, out to the van the team was waiting in.
“Oh thank god,” Melanie, the girl that had called Alex in the first place, had said when Alex climbed in the van, laying Morgan across the seats, “He’s okay?”
“He is now,” Alex said shortly.
“Thank you,” she said sincerely, before turning away and instructing the driver to go, and to drop Alex and Morgan at Morgan’s closest safe house.
None of the minions spoke to Alex again for the drive, and they didn’t know if it was out of respect, gratitude, or fear. They didn’t really care either way.
Melanie would probably receive a basket of flowers or baked goods in the next few days, and she’d only know who it was from because of the dark red ribbon tied around the handle, but she would know why, and that would be enough.
Nothing else needed to be said.
So Alex sat in silence and watched the slow rise and fall of Morgan’s chest.
He was alive.
And the world had shifted back.