It had been nearly three weeks. Three weeks of getting to know the scientists at U-Gin. Three weeks of studying the equipment and facilities. Three weeks of meeting with doctors and engineers and architects to plan out every detail of the future research facility in Seattle.
That was the worst part.
As much as Tessa lamented working with others – she was always better doing things on her own, going at her own pace – she had found enough brilliant, like-minded people at U-Gin that the getting to know you part actually turned out to be pretty great. And the fast-paced tutorials and in-depth analysis of the equipment and experiments currently under way… well that's the kind of shit that she lived for. Especially since it gave her an excuse for working such excruciatingly long hours – I'm only here for another week, I need to learn as much as I can.
But planning the new development? Sitting in meetings for hours on end and talking about how large a room should be or what kind of safety equipment would be needed where and why and what they could or couldn't get away with in terms of liability… God, it was a nightmare.
"I'm starting to think Tony gave me this job just so I'd have to deal with all of this shit instead of him," she laments to a snickering Helen Cho as the two take a much needed break.
"Oh I imagine that's exactly why he did it," she tells her with a wide grin.
Tessa finishes the last of her coffee and grimaces. How Koreans can think that instant coffee is coffee is beyond her. "I just want to be done with all of this. Have everything set up and ready to go so we can start actually working."
Helen laughs again, light and airy. "You're one of the only people I know who says that word like it holds the promise of sex. Working," she mocks, drawing out the word in an exaggerated moan.
She frowns dramatically. "Thanks for reminding me. Not only do I not get to work today. I get no sex either. My life sucks."
"Hey," Helen starts after her giggles fade. "Can I ask you something?"
Tessa perks up a bit, looking curiously at the woman across from her. "Sure."
Helen stares down at her tea as she slowly drags the spoon back and forth along the interior of the mug. "I heard… I mean, Mr. Stark mentioned… that you did some work at the Mutant Research Center on Muir Island." She glances up shyly. "Is that true?"
"Yeah," she says with a forced casualness. "Yeah, I did. A long time ago." She sits up straight, her shoulders tensing and stiffening.
"What did you do there?" Helen asks in a conspiratorial whisper. "I mean… can you say?"
Tessa opens her mouth slightly and pulls in a long breath, thinks about just how to answer that. The facility on Muir Island is a private one. Beyond being privately owned, it was built amid nearly inaccessible islands off the coast of Scotland. Everything about the place is meant to remain… private. "I… uh…" she sputters.
Helen waves a dismissive hand. "No, no. I understand. I imagine a place like that makes you sign all sorts of NDAs." She looks up at her with a dreamy sort of countenance. "I just bet it's just so fascinating there. I mean… being able to study actual mutant genotypes? We've only ever been given access to four. And the X-gene is so complex…" She lets out a small laugh. "Well, you know that, I suppose."
For a brief moment, Tessa's heart stops. She plays back all of her time with Dr. Cho, back to just before Ultron. Did she ever use her powers in front of her? Had someone mentioned that she's a mutant? Had she herself let it slip? "What do you mean?" she asks in a shaky voice.
Helen gives her an odd look, one filled with both confusion and intrigue. "Well, you just said that you were at Muir Island…"
A breath of relief. "Oh, yeah." She shakes her head absently. "No… sorry." She reaches over for another packet of instant coffee. "I'm not totally with it right now, I guess."
"I can't imagine that more of that will help," Helen offers, nodding down at the coffee. "Too much more and your heart will explode in your chest."
She scoffs – "This is barely even coffee." – and gets up to fill her mug with more scalding water from the spigot in the corner of the cafeteria. When she returns, she notices that Helen seems to be assessing her with concern in her eyes. "What?" she asks, slowly sitting back down at the table.
"I can appreciate a hard worker," she starts. "But Dr. Han said you were here when he left last night. And I saw you when I came in this morning. And now here you are filling up on more caffeine to undoubtably work through the night yet again?"
She blows on the boiling drink in her hand. "I need something to keep me awake in those planning meetings."
"Hm," she issues out simply.
Tessa looks up at her. "Hm?"
"Coffee can only get you so far," she says with a frown.
"You sound like James."
Helen's face lights up. "Do I?" She pokes playfully at Tessa's arm as it lays on the table. "How is your soldier?"
"My soldier?" she giggles over the lip of her mug.
"Sergeant, right?" She nods. "Still gorgeous as ever?"
Tessa takes a quick sip before setting down the coffee. "Well, he's no Thor…"
As expected, the woman in front of her begins to burn bright with blush as her eyes fall to the tabletop. "And how is he?" she asks hesitantly. "Have you heard from him lately?"
Tessa shakes her head simply. "Nope. Not since just after the whole Ultron thing."
"Yes," she breathes out. "The Ultron thing."
It occurs to Tessa in that very moment, as she watches the woman's face in front of her gradually shift from a somewhat embarrassed smirk to a deep, troubled frown, that she hasn't once asked Helen about anything not U-Gin related over the last few weeks. She hasn't once asked her… "How have you been… since then?"
She looks up and locks somewhat sad eyes with Tessa. "It was hard for a while," she states, seemingly fine with laying it all out there. "I had… trouble. For a while. But it's been better." She lets out a deep sigh. "And with everything going on now, with this merger… well, I guess I haven't really had time to worry about any of it anyway."
"Exactly," Tessa enthuses. "Work is the perfect escape. If you have a job you love like we do, at least," she says with a wink.
Helen gives her an appraising look. "What are you escaping from then, Dr. Sullivan?"
Tessa picks her mug back up, holding it with both hands to absorb the warmth. She takes another sip before answering. "Existence as we know it," she replies finally, a crooked smile on her face.
000
She dreams that night. Actually dreams… not tosses and turns as troubles and turmoil flit endlessly through her subconscious. Not slumbers only long enough for some unknowable thing to rip her, viciously, from sleep. No. Tonight, she dreams.
The moment she fades away from this word into the reverie, she's instantly comforted by the recognizable feel of home.
She's outside the Professor's study, waiting for someone, perhaps… simply milling about, when she hears her name sound from inside the room. Leaning in, she hears it repeated again just before Jean insists, rather heatedly, "She has an agenda, Charles. Moira MacTaggert may be your friend, but she's dangerous –"
Dr. MacTaggert? They'd been introduced years ago so long ago, Tessa couldn't even say when. It was as though Moira MacTaggert had been a distant, though somehow ever-present fixture in her life. The dark-haired woman with the sad smile and stunning accent only visited the school rarely, each time lighting up upon seeing her dear old friend, Professor Xavier. Each time making it a point to speak with Tessa in particular.
"Such a smart girl," she'd coo as the two sat together on the terrace catching up on all that she'd been learning in school. "You're going to be a scientist one day, yeah?" she'd ask with an eager smile. And Tessa would nod emphatically.
She never knew why Dr. MacTaggert had taken such an interest in her. She honestly never cared enough to give it much thought.
"Nonsense," the Professor interrupts with a slight laugh. "Moira is merely trying to help the girl find her way. She reminds her of herself, so many years ago."
Tessa leans in, just a bit further, just enough to be able to peek in through the crack in the doorway. She can't see Jean's face, a curtain of long red hair obscuring her view. But she notes the way her shoulders sag as her arms wrap tightly around her middle. And she can feel the fearful energy filtering out of her, like steam off a hot cup of tea. She shakes her head, red locks waving. "No," she tells him, voice firm. "No, that's not it."
Jean walks over to the Professor and plants her feet firmly in front of her. Her arms remain crossed in front of her chest as she pulls back her shoulders and rises to her full height. Immediately, Tessa recognizes it as the you're in big trouble stance. It's the posture she takes on when someone interrupts class. Or when Tessa was little – after she'd first come to the school – and she'd run off to hide in small, out of the way places throughout the old building, supposedly scaring Scott half to death. Or that time that Jean found Tessa and John making out in the pantry. No, wait, that was Anna, she thinks suddenly.
There she stands, the woman she'd for so long called her sister – even though Scott was far too chicken shit to ever ask her to marry him. The woman who was her least favorite teacher because she always expected so damn much and never settled for anything less than excellent. The woman who had been more like a mother to her than anyone else in her life. There she is, standing tall before Professor X, the single most powerful person that Tessa has ever known. "You tell me to trust what I feel," she says to him. "I'm telling you, what I feel is that she wants to use her."
The Professor's face changes, his soft smile dropping as he asks, "What on earth for?"
Jean leans in to respond, her voice so low that Tessa can barely hear a thing. The only word she's able to make out is, Proteus.
She wakes with a start, startled from sleep by that single word. Proteus.
She stares up at the ceiling in her hotel room, plainly seeing every detail, every paintbrush stroke, every odd stain and imperfection. She must've been so exhausted that she fell asleep just after getting in, not even having the energy to flip off the lights. She looks down at herself and sees that she's still wearing the suit Tony insisted she wear to the meetings that took up her entire day.
"Uhhhggghhh," she moans, rubbing the heels of her hands deep into her eyes as she begins to slowly roll off of the bed.
The moment her eyes close, however, she again sees the image of Jean and Professor X talking quietly in his study. It isn't a faded, dreamy sort of image, though. Rather – somehow – it's as though she's truly there, looming just outside his door, watching and creeping closer to better hear what they're saying.
"Moira would never do anything to hurt that child," he says to Jean, his voice sounding so clear, even if a bit distant. "Not even to benefit her own."
Tessa can feel herself leaning forward. She can feel her hip teetering on the edge of the bed. She can feel her fists balled up and pressing into her eyes. But she can also, strangely, feel the lively energy of the school, the calming power of the Professor, the protective vigor of Jean Grey.
It's the strangest thing… She can actually feel, with the tips of her fingers, the cool wood of the paneling outside the room as she lays her hand upon it. She can smell the familiar aroma of the Professor's study – sandalwood and old books, burning wood from his fireplace mixed with, oddly, hints of tobacco.
And all at once, it comes flooding back to her. This memory. This moment from so long ago.
She knows exactly what happens next. Jean tells the Professor that she doesn't want Tessa to go to Muir Island for the summer, as Dr. MacTaggert had invited her to do. And Tessa, livid with the kind of self-righteous indignation only a teenage girl can spawn, kicks open the door and begins screaming about how she has no right to take this away from her.
Oh, yes. Now she remembers it all. The shouting match between her and Jean. The sad, disappointed looks Professor X cast at them from his spot by his desk. Scott rushing in, grabbing her – hard – by the arm, and marching her upstairs as though she were a little girl in need of a time out.
She didn't get to go to Muir Island that summer. Scott had said it was because of how she behaved – not just that evening, but the next day too, when she abruptly interrupted physics class to call Jean a manipulative, back-stabbing liar. He said that she wasn't allowed to go, and that was final… because he had said so. The next day, she stole his bike and was almost to Niagara when Logan found her and dragged her ass back home, sniggering most of the way.
How could she have forgotten that?
"I won't ever let her get close enough to try," she hears Jean say, a biting, threatening note to her voice. "Over my dead body will she spend any time on that island, alone with that woman."
Yes, Tessa thinks, shaking her head slowly, dreading what's about to come. Yes, this is it.
But what happens next is… not at all what she remembers.
"That is true," she hears the Professor say, his voice slow and melodic. Tessa's gaze shifts from Jean to him. And she sees that he's looking right at her, right into her eyes. "It isn't until after Jean's body dies that you go to Muir Island, isn't that right?"
She rips her hands away from her eyes, lids flying open wide. She lets out a startled gasp as she falls off of the bed and hits the floor with a hard thunk. The room slowly swims into focus around her… her shoes laying haphazardly by the wall, kicked off the moment she got in. The television playing low, dramatic music over a woman crying in some Korean soap opera. Her reflection to the right, a full-length mirror showing a terrified looking woman sitting curled in a heap on the floor of a 5-star hotel in downtown Seoul.
She stares at her reflection, watches in the mirror as she slowly flexes her right hand, then her left. Yes, she thinks. Okay, I can feel that. She blinks rapidly, too afraid to let her eyes linger shut.
Her cell rings. It's on the bed above her, but she doesn't reach for it. She looks curiously back at her reflection, notices something… different about the woman in the mirror. Slowly shifting to all fours, she begins to crawl across the room until she's face to face with her, mere inches separating them.
How could you not remember? she hears, a voice so clear and crisp that it must mean someone is in the room with her. She swings her head around, looking for the owner of the voice as she falls to her butt and scurries backwards until her back is pressed firmly against the bed's footboard. But there's no one there.
"I'm losing my mind," she whispers to herself, fingers entwining in her hair, clawing at her scalp.
How could you not remember? the voice repeats. How?
She begins to rock back and forth on the cold floor, wide eyes staring straight ahead at nothing. Again, her phone rings.
Anna? she hears. Stopping the rocking, she loosens her grip on her hair, just slightly and she twists her head side to side, once again looking for the voice. This one sounds familiar… so, so familiar. Anna, look at me. Her eyes meander back to the mirror, slowly focusing on the reflection in front of her.
She sees herself, still in the designer suit Pepper helped her pick out before the trip. Her legs are curled up into her chest, her hands still gripping and ripping at her hair. But there's something… wrong with them, with her hands. No… her wrists. There's blood seeping from her wrists, oozing down her forearms. Her hands go cold, numb, as so much blood pours from her body, soaking into the Italian silk of her suit.
The woman in the mirror locks eyes with her just as her vision begins to blur. She parts her mouth just slightly, bluish lips tumbling open. And she screams, in a sharp, piercing, deafening tone, Look at me!
Author's Note: This would probably be a good time for me to remind everyone that, in addition to owning none of the MCU, I own no X-Men either.