James hoped that no one needed him for anything important as Lorna dragged him further and further away from the crowd of supers. Not that there's any reason that they would need him, since it would probably be a while before any kind of organization occurred, let alone before a plan could be made. And he was sure that Torunn could handle this on her own. He felt good about the pep talk he'd given her, even though he knew that she'd have been more than capable of doing this even if he hadn't said a single thing to her.
After a while, he couldn't help feeling grateful that he was a bit more durable than the average human being, because it seemed as though Lorna was intent on taking him halfway across the city at least before she could tell him about whatever it was that was so important. Not that he blamed her for wanting to get away from the crowd. It was a lot to handle even for James, and he'd grown up constantly surrounded by crowds of boisterous supers. And Lorna seemed eager to keep her entire family, obviously including herself, a secret from as many people as possible.
It felt like forever passed before they couldn't hear or see any sign of the massive crowd, and there were civilians strolling around on the sidewalks and cars jamming the streets, and everything looked perfectly normal. Lorna pulled James into a little coffee shop on the corner of some street that he hadn't been paying enough attention to to catch the name of, and she shoved him down into a corner booth. Even though he was confident that he was physically stronger than Lorna, he let her have her way, and patiently waited for her to go up to the counter. Though he couldn't help grumbling under his breath about the fact that she could've easily grabbed herself a coffee before coming to find him so that they could save some time.
She finally came back to the table, and slid into the seat opposite of James. She pushed a steaming cup in front of him. "Hot chocolate. I don't believe in giving coffee to children."
He wanted to protest, since there had to be benefits to being in an adult body, but then he decided to just save his breath, and sip the cocoa. It was good enough to quell any complaints anyways. "So what's so important that it couldn't wait? I was surprised to see you braving that crowd. What if someone had tried to drag you in to everything? You don't exactly blend in."
Lorna reached up to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear, and then she shrugged. "I've tried artificially dying my hair before, but it's never worked. I don't know why, but mother nature seems determined that I look so unnatural. At least it's easy enough to play it off as being dyed, though. There are others who are far worse off in terms of their physical appearances. People who can't even pretend to fit in with the society we live in. I've got it comparatively lucky."
When she didn't say anything else, and just went to take a drink from her own cup, James couldn't help leaning back in his seat, and giving her an impatient look. "You still haven't told me what the so called important stuff is."
Lorna sighed and put her cup down. "I've gotten into contact with my sister," she said softly. "Her and my brother are both doing fine. My brother even has two little brats running around, though nowhere near as fast as him." She sighed wistfully. "You may think I sound a little bit crazy for saying so, but I learned all of this in a dream. Not one of my own, but one that my sister directed towards me. I told her that I'd met the man she'd told me about, and asked for advice on how to get you home. She said that it is rather complicated, but that we can do it." She sighed, and took another sip of her drink to give herself a moment. "Unfortunately, she said the trickiest part is finding the only person who can return you home. It has to be the same Wanda that sent you here."
James blinked, then let out an uncomfortable laugh. "But that's impossible. She's still…" he trailed off, and took in a deep breath so that he wouldn't just start screaming from frustration. "At least this confirms that they are definitely two separate worlds, right? Before we suspected, but there was still the possibility that somehow this is the same world, but simply transformed."
Lorna shrugged. "I'm not going to call myself an expert on transdimensional stuff, but yeah, that would probably make things easier. Because then technically my sister here would be the same Wanda who sent you. Instead, you have to find a separate person. And to do that, you'll need to find someone powerful enough to contact the Wanda of your world, while leaving her in your world."
James wasn't an expert with non-physical powers either, but even he thought that something in Lorna's words seemed pretty obvious. "But that's got to be impossible. And if there's someone who could do that, why wouldn't they just be able to send me home? And why can't this Wanda send me home?"
Lorna shrugged again. "You're asking the wrong person, kid. I can't actually do anything to help you except try and get into contact with my sister again. I've done as much research as I could, but there isn't exactly a lot of scientific literature on the subject of hopping from one universe to the next. If there are people who have done so intentionally and successfully, then they haven't tried very hard to make themselves known. I'm sorry, James. But getting into contact with my sister felt important enough to alert you to it. I wish that you found the information more useful."
James quickly shook his head. "No, it's not that I find it useless, and I'm not trying to act ungrateful, I swear. This whole situation is just a confusing mess, though, and I have so many questions that I wish I could get the answers to."
They both sat there in silence for a few minutes after that, neither of them entirely sure of what else to say. James was slightly startled when Lorna cleared her throat and spoke again, though it was in a soft voice. "I can't believe I'm an aunt. Have been for the past four years, and I didn't even know it. How messed up is that? I wish I could've gone with them, back then. I wish we could've stayed as a family."
"I'm sorry," James muttered, not sure of what else he could say to that. "But why didn't you go?"
"I was needed here," Lorna said with a sigh, as if this were something that she thought about all the time. "I needed to be here for you. But you shouldn't blame yourself!" she quickly added. "It's not like anyone forced me to stick around. And I do have a life here. Or at least more of a life here than I thought I could have out on the run somewhere. And you're not the only one who's come to me for help. Believe it or not, but the world doesn't revolve around you. My sister gave me a short list of a few names, some who I've met by now, some who I haven't. And there are others who find their way to me too."
James tilted his head curiously. "What do they go to you for? What problems do they have? What kinds of people are they? What do they expect you to do for them?"
Lorna's eyes flicked across the interior of the small coffee shop, which only had a few people in it, all of them engrossed in soft conversations within their small groups. Then she suddenly stood up and stretched her arms up over her head, before grabbing her cup. "Honestly, your people decided to wake up way too early for all of this. At least my sister has the excuse of living in a different time zone. Come on, let's go back to my place. I think you probably need more than just a cup of cocoa to keep you going." She started towards the front door, tossing her half-empty cup in the trash can before stepping outside.
James quickly hurried after her, though he didn't like the idea of wasting when someone else had been the one to pay for his food, so he quickly chugged down the cold remainder of his drink, and then threw his cup away as well before going outside. She was waiting for him on the sidewalk, and he noticed that it was busier out now that it was actually a reasonable time for any sane human being to be awake.
They weren't exactly close to Lorna's place, and while James could easily survive a walk of that length, he didn't want to waste time. He felt like all he was doing these days was wasting time, but he didn't want to waste any more than he had to. Not only was there the threat going on in this universe, which Jim was probably much better equipped to handle, but there was also the fact that he didn't want to go home and find time had passed. The most unnatural feeling was waking up in what felt like someone else's body, and to hear about all the things he'd done that he had no memory of. It was bad enough for that to happen when he was getting a glimpse at someone else's life, but he definitely didn't want that to happen in his own life.
He hailed a passing cab, and Lorna gave him an amused look before sliding into the backseat with him. She told the driver her address before turning to look at James. "If I wasn't the type to dislike making a scene, I could've gotten us to our destination much quicker and for free." She rolled up her sleeve to reveal a slim wire band that spiraled up her entire arm. "I put one on each limb before heading out, because you never know when you'll need some metal to work with."
Then they were silent the rest of the way. When the cab stopped, Lorna handed some money over to the driver, and then they headed to her apartment. Once the door was closed behind them, James watched with wide eyes as Lorna shrugged off her jacket, and then what looked like molten metal spilled out from both her sleeves and pant legs, only to float up into the air and form into four perfectly smooth metal balls that landed down on the small table next to the door. "You really do have such an amazing power. Your entire family is truly something else. Much greater, and more diverse, than mine could ever claim to be."
"We all have our uses. But my family also suffers from a different situation than your own. You and I are most similar, as we gained our powers through the genes our parents passed to us. But both of your parents got their gifts from a bottle, just like both of my siblings have." She sighed as she sank down onto her couch, and leaned back to stare up at the ceiling. "The way we gained our powers isn't the only thing that makes you and I most similar. We've both, through various means, witnessed our fathers as heroes and villains."
James sat down on the other end of the couch so that there was a reasonable amount of space between them, but he couldn't help leaning closer as if that would help him learn everything quicker. "You did say you take after your father. But honestly, I can't remember either Wanda or Pietro ever mentioning their father."
Suddenly Lorna looked overwhelmingly tired, despite the fact that it was still so early in the morning. "It's strange to think that Pietro is a part of your Avengers team. He's always been a bit of a selfish bastard. Though I'm sure he's mellowed out some, now that he's a father. Anyways, I imagine that they never mentioned our father because it would be a difficult situation to explain. Your father is a hero in your world, and was a villain in this one. Mine has never been so easy to figure out. I would think he'd be just as gray in your world as well, and no hero wants the stigma of a family that's done wrong." James thought of the Torunn of this world. Here, she had a secret identity, but it mostly seemed to be to protect herself from the other heroes, and not from the villains. In his world, everyone recognized Torunn's face. He tuned back in as he realized that Lorna hadn't finished talking yet. "I can't entirely blame my father for the things he's done. His ideals are admirable, but he's always had a rather unpleasant way of going about achieving his goals. I wouldn't call him a bad person, but he has too much blood on his hands for many people to consider him anything else."
"I'm going to go out on a limb here- and I'll definitely feel like an idiot if I'm wrong- but I want to guess who your father is. I hadn't given it much thought before, but I only know of one person who's entire ability is metal manipulation, and who also has a history of being seen as both good and bad. Is your father, by some bizarre happenstance, Magneto?"
Lorna snorted, but before James could try to defend his guess, she nodded once. "Yup," she said, popping the 'p'. "Personally, I've never even met the man before. I had no idea we were related, despite our similar power. Like I told you before, I was raised in foster care. Wanda and Pietro were the ones who eventually tracked me down, and told me that I was part of their family, even if we don't share a mother. They said that they only knew him for a short amount of time. Apparently he actually lived in domestic peace with them and their mother for about nine years before something bad happened between them, and he grabbed the twins and took off without her. Then they were taken away by some bastards who wanted to hurt their father, and they hadn't seen him since then. They searched for him after getting free, but he's been off the grid for a while. While they looked for him, they eventually found me, and well. Stuff happened from there. Mostly stuff that I've already mentioned."
She turned her head to look at James, and he took a moment to gather his thoughts. "I don't think I know of a single super family that isn't fucked up in some way or another."
Lorna nodded. "Me neither. Not that I know very many, mind you. But it seems insane that so many people who were created to be an advanced form of human being can still manage to be so utterly dysfunctional. Maybe it just comes with the territory of being a super."
"So do you even know who your mom is? Didn't you ever wonder about how you could do what you can?"
Lorna shook her head. "She was never listed on my birth certificate. I was a found baby. My dad probably doesn't even know that I exist. My guess is that it was some one night stand kind of thing, and then she dumped me off as soon as I was born. Doesn't really matter to me. Unlike the worst case scenarios shown on television all the time, I had a pretty good foster family. A dad, and a mom, and a brother. The perfect nuclear family. We had our issues, of course, but it was mostly the normal kinds of problems. And even though they knew I was mutant from the time that I was very young, they never treated me any differently than my brother. And then eventually I got Wanda and Pietro too. So I've never been lacking family. And I don't need more parents. The ones I've got are just fine."
There was a short pause before James couldn't help adding, "And they were all normal?" When Lorna nodded, he laughed. "More proof that normal families function a lot better than super families."
Lorna laughed too. "You're right. I hadn't even thought about that part of it. Honestly, for a kid growing up with superpowers, I had a very average, normal home life. I've got to be one of the luckier supers out there. I can't even imagine what it would be like growing up with parents who actually expect you to be able to train and use your powers and get better. I was just happy when I could pass the salt shaker hands-free and get my whole family to feel impressed."
James leaned forward. "God, we're all a bit messed up, aren't we?"
"I guess so. You're more messed up than I am though."
James rolled his eyes. "This isn't some kind of competition, you idiot." He sighed. "Didn't we come here so you could tell me about the other people who've come to you for help? Who they are, and what they thought you could do for them, and all that?"
Lorna sighed, as though it was a pain that she had to actually answer the questions that she'd brought him here to answer. "I try to stay off the super radar, for the most part. Of course, I didn't go burn all my papers and move across the globe like my siblings did, but I try to keep my head down. Doesn't stop word from getting around here and there, though. The people who come to me are mostly mutants, with occasional other supers thrown in. They need money, or advice, or help, or passage out of the country, or any number of things. I do my best to help them however I can. I don't want to see them get hurt."
James furrowed his eyebrows. "Why would they need so much help?"
Lorna stood up, and began pacing back and forth across the room very slowly. "I don't know what things are like in the world that you come from, but here, things can be difficult. There's a registry for everyone special, and some of them don't feel comfortable putting their name down. But if they don't and they get caught, they get in a lot of trouble for it. And if you are on the list, even though they aren't legally allowed to, plenty of people will discriminate when it comes to hiring employees or providing services if they know someone is different. It doesn't help that there are so many powerful supers causing nothing but fear and crime all the time."
James frowned. "Wait. If the Avengers are all villains, then who supported the Accords? I can't imagine that any villains would want to be stuck on a list like that." It was an argument he'd heard many times before, though it was usually in a playful manner more than anything, thanks to how much time had passed since the initial dispute, and the way things had been peacefully resolved in the end.
Lorna gave James a strange look. "No one knows exactly where the idea stemmed from, but one of the biggest supporters for it was your father. As far as I know, he thought it would be the easiest way to find and recruit new Avengers for his team. Everyone else agreed with him, and they completely warped the original intention of the list. I think the only one opposed to it all was Stark, but I could be wrong. All of that was a long time ago. I wasn't even born yet when all of that went down. Don't forget that I'm only a few years older than you are."
It was strange that James hadn't actually seen Tony yet, now that he thought about it. They'd been in the man's tower, but there had been no sign of him, and no one had really talked about him at all. They didn't seem to dislike him, at least not as far as he could tell, but it was strange that someone who'd always been so loud and in the public eye was nowhere to be seen. And James hadn't spotted the iconic suit of armor anywhere at the big meet up earlier, but Torunn had definitely referenced Tony like he was still alive today. Was it possible that at some point in the past ten years he'd retired? Though Tony had always seemed like the sort of person who wouldn't retire until he wound up in a body bag. "How much do you know about Tony Stark?"
If Lorna thought the sudden topic was odd, she didn't say anything about it. "Not much. He was a big deal a long time ago, with all kinds of weapons being produced by his company. When I was a little kid, there was this huge press conference, where he claimed that he was no longer going to make weapons for anyone. It was a huge deal, especially because he disappeared like a week later, and no one's seen or heard from him since. I think the common assumption is that the shareholders of his company were afraid of losing money, so they paid for him to be killed."
But hadn't Natalia said that James had a suit made by Tony? He couldn't have made a suit for the James' adult body if he'd died over twenty years ago. Something here didn't make any sense. But he couldn't blame Lorna for not knowing everything. "Thank you for everything that you've shared with me. I think I should probably go and take some time to think about how I could contact my world's Wanda. If you hear anything else from her-"
"I'll be sure to let you know," Lorna assured him. "Don't worry, James. We'll figure this out and get you home, I promise."
