Relativity by Timesprite
She kicked at the rut worn in the dirt and sent herself swinging in a slow arc. She really was far too old for this sort of thing, but the park was empty. She'd seen it earlier in the day, and faced with the prospect of either more information gathering, or braving the crowd in the hotel bar, she'd decided the park was safer. She pushed off again, the movement tousling her hair as she closed her eyes. She wanted the sensation to be a familiar one, but it wasn't. It never would be. She sighed, and began to push herself off again when the sound of footsteps made her pause.
"Don't stop on my account."
The voice really wasn't that much of a surprise. She sent herself swinging again without turning her head. "I never had any illusions, you know. Those typical abandoned child dreams that there was someone out there who wanted me... I knew it wasn't true. But I used to try to imagine what my life before had been like. Thought maybe it had included things like this... I don't know. Something normal. Maybe I needed to believe that 'normal' existed."
"I know what it's like, Dom." He stepped into her line of sight, leaning against one of the support poles.
"Do you? That's funny, considering I haven't told anyone anything. Did you come all this way just to tell me that?"
"Theresa called me. You had her worried. She said you'd just... dropped out of sight again."
"I do that on occasion, Nate. Nothing new." She'd stopped swinging by now, the toe of her sneaker tracing circles in the dirt.
"She told me what you were looking for. If I'd known--"
She looked up, fixing her gaze on him. "You were right. I'm a big girl, Nate. I took care of it."
"You shouldn't have had to do it alone."
"Because you didn't? I didn't realize we had a reciprocal agreement. I figured I was just too stupid to say no to you when you called."
"Good to see you haven't gone soft," he replied dryly.
"I'm just feeling the irony, that's all. You know, when I called you to take care of the Neverland thing--it was because I couldn't stand the thought of the government using mutants--people--like that. And here I find out that's all I really am. Someone's experiment."
He shifted slightly, but his face remained impassive. "Want to talk about it?"
She laughed. It wasn't funny, but she couldn't help herself. "Why, so we can have some sort of 'who's been dicked around by the universe more' contest? I don't think so."
"Because it's obviously bugging you."
She started swinging again. "What makes you say that?"
He sighed. There was a long pause with only the wind blowing through the surrounding trees before he spoke again. "I came out here because I thought that maybe if you had someone you trusted to talk to, you wouldn't insist on bottling all of this up."
"And again, you're assuming you know things you don't, Nate."
"I've known you for years Dom. I know what this is. And for once, I'm trying to help."
She dragged a heel through the dirt and slowed herself. "You're also assuming I still trust you."
To his credit, he didn't do more than raise an eyebrow at her. Just as well that he'd called her bluff, anyway. Her heart wasn't in it. "I saw the place I was born, you know. I'm sure they'd remodeled since I'd been there, but it was the same place. Not bad, if you ignored the attached torture chamber."
"Dom..."
She tightened her grip on the chains, heat from her hands creating a sharp metallic tang in the air. "Don't. You want me to talk, I'll talk. They had an honest-to-god straight out of anyone's nightmares lab attached to that place. They strapped me down and poked and prodded and tried to get me to do what they wanted, Nathan. They rendered me fucking insensible to the world, and my psychotic bitch of a mother finally found enough pity in her heart to have me taken away. But she left me like that. For years she left me like that, until I stopped being terrified of the world around me, and woke up to a whole new nightmare. Fuck, I'll probably never know how I got from Chicago to Madripoor. They said I ran away. Somehow, that didn't surprise me."
"Having expectations shattered isn't easy," he offered.
"I never had any to begin with," she replied bitterly. "Just... fuck. I don't know. Thoughts on how it should have--had to have been. Never, in a thousand years, would that have been a scenario. I just wanted... something. Something that was mine. And I have nothing, Nate. You know what she told me? To my goddamned face, she told me she never came for me because I couldn't do what she did. I couldn't see the future, so I was expendable. And please, don't make comparisons. I can't let this be about you. For once, okay?"
He shook his head. "I wasn't going to. I wouldn't try. If I could make it better, Dom, I would."
"But there's no making it better. I know." She stared at her feet, toes of her shoes covered now with a fine layer of dust. "It just is." She tipped her head back to look at the black sky, stars strewn across it like carelessly scattered grains of sand. "I thought it was okay. At first, I thought I was at peace. It felt like it. I mean, I know someone cared, for a little while at least. But how hard is it, really, to care about a vegetable? Who wouldn't feel pity for a child locked in their own little world? I wanted to be loved for who I was, not what was done to me. That's fair, isn't it?"
"Of course." Chains rattled as he pushed his way through the swings towards her.
She tipped her head to look at him. "Gonna join me?"
"I don't think it'd hold."
She smiled thinly. "Probably not." She let go of the chains and flexed her fingers. "What the hell am I supposed to do now?"
"You're asking the wrong person, don't you think?"
"Probably." She got to her feet. "Well, mission accomplished, I guess. You got me to talk. Terry should be mollified."
He frowned. "I didn't come because she asked. I came because I was concerned."
"And if you hadn't been, you would have left me to hang. I see."
"I'm not the one you're angry with."
"You're right," she retorted. "I'm pissed at myself for giving a crap. What does it matter, anyway? It doesn't change who I am one fucking bit. Hell, it sort of underscored every conviction I've ever had. I'm getting too damned old to try reassessing my life now, anyway."
"You're just going to walk away."
"What the hell else am I supposed to do? Get revenge? I don't know who's ultimately responsible for it, and I don't know that I really care. The program was all but dead in the water, anyway. My mother's useless to them, and she's probably killed my brother already. Without them, there's only me, and I can take care of myself."
"Dom, don't do this."
She sighed. "How many times have I walked away from you, Nathan?"
"A few."
"Then take the hint."