X-MEN! Just sayin... I should probably also reiterate that in addition to not owning any super soldiers, I don't own any mutants either. :(
"School for Gifted Youngsters," Steve reads slowly, frowning down at the sign in front of them. He lets out a small, disapproving grunt as he glances around at the perfectly kept, lush green grounds surrounding them and the ivy-strewn stone walls of the mansion up ahead.
"Come on, Cap," Natasha encourages dully as she moves out in front of him, making a beeline for the door.
Before either of them can hit the buzzer, though, the large oak door slowly swings open. A tall mocha-skinned woman with shock-white hair stands before them, an open smile on her face. "Captain America," she greets, tilting her head in Steve's direction. Then, looking over at Natasha and raising a single assessing brow, dropping her smile just the slightest bit, "And… Black Widow."
"You know us?" Steve asks, guarded expression peeking out from beneath his sunglasses and ball cap.
The door opens wider to reveal a huge foyer, spotless and shiny, flecked with mahogany and walnut. Around the staircase, a small group of children can be seen peering out at the guests. They giggle, darting back around the corner when he removes his glasses and makes brief eye contact.
"Everyone knows who you are," she tells him, shooting an amused glance behind her at the children. "Shouldn't you be in class?" she says to them, laughing lightly as they bolt around the corner, scurrying off into the depths of the mansion. She turns back to her guests and extends a welcoming hand. "I'm Ororo Munro," she says simply.
"Storm," Natasha mutters, tentatively shaking the woman's hand.
"So you know me too?" she questions casually, stepping back to allow them inside.
"SHIELD kept files on all of the known X-Men," she explains, ignoring the warning look from Steve.
"So they did." She closes the door behind them. "So, what can we do for you?"
Steve's the one who responds, leaving Natasha to pivot slowly, taking in the area. "We'd like to speak with you about a friend of ours. We think you might know her."
Nat snorts indignantly at the might part of that sentence as she begins to pull away and meander down the hall.
Storm nods, her expression tensing. "Tessa," she says simply. He looks up at her, connecting eyes, and taking note of the concerned semblance hers take on. "She mentioned you," she says warmly. "We don't talk often, not since…" She pulls in a deep breath and steels herself, putting on a new, more convincing smile. "She said that you got her the job at Stark Industries. She was so excited," she laughs, remembering that happy phone call.
He gives a small nod and takes a moment to think about what to say next. Part of him wants launch into accusations. What is this place? What are you planning with those children? What did you do to Tessa? The other part is remembering back to the handful of stories Tessa managed to parse out about herself over their few years together. It wasn't just a school… it was home. They were my family. "Something's happened," slips out idly from his lips as the vying thoughts continue to run through his head.
Her expression shifts. "Is she alright?" she shoots out quickly, face contorting into a worried grimace. "I've been trying to get ahold of her for months. Sometimes she needs her space… distance. But she usually calls back eventually."
Steve opens his mouth to respond, but is cut off by a deep shout of, "Storm!" They both pivot to look down the hall at the approaching man – a grizzled, angry-looking beast of a man – who's dragging Natasha by the elbow. "Did you let this in?"
He flings the redhead toward them, narrowing his eyes at the strangers. "Not the most welcoming hosts," Natasha gripes as she rubs her likely bruised elbow.
"Logan," Storm starts with a sigh. "Calm down. They're friends of Tessa."
His eyes ping back and forth between them before settling on Storm. His gaze is steely, jaw clenched as pulls in a tight breath and says, "Don't call her that."
"Logan," she warns, voice deep and threatening.
He continues to stare at her, countenance hardening for a brief moment before his resolve seems to crack and he lets out a low, relenting growl. "Did she send you here?" he asks the strangers, his eyes remaining fixed on the woman in front of him.
"No," Steve says simply, his own tone carrying a dangerous note.
Logan's eyes flick over to him, a curious, cautious quality to them. "Where is she?"
Steve takes a step forward, bringing himself to his full height. "Seems like if she wanted you to know that, she would've told you herself."
Logan takes a large step forward as well, growling under his breath as he does so. "Listen here, bub. I don't know who you think you are, but – "
"I told you," Storm interjects, stepping between the two. "They're friends." She turns to Logan and tells him in a low, commanding tone, "Back off."
"They're Avengers," suddenly sounds from behind in a soft, subtly accented voice. Steve and Natasha turn to find an older man in a wheelchair. His bald head shines in keeping with the dark walnut wood behind him. So do his eerily captivating eyes. He smiles thoughtfully at the small group. "Come in," he says, sweeping his hand out towards the room he just emerged from.
Without hesitation, Natasha saunters into the large study and begins to case the place, strolling slowly around the periphery. Steve waits for both Storm and Logan to move past and enter the room before he so much as budges.
"Let me guess," Natasha, intones, running a finger lazily along a shelf as she reads over the titles of the books atop it. "You're the Professor."
"Charles Xavier," he offers, extending a hand to her as she rounds the room, ending up on his left. She studies his hand for a long moment before finally reaching down and giving it a firm shake. "This is my school. And, yes, I suppose I am often called the Professor," he says with a small chuckle.
She looks him dead in the eye. "You're the leader of the X-Men," she says without emotion.
"Yes," he intones. "I suppose that I am."
Storm closes the door to the study and steps forward. "They're here about Tessa," she says to the Professor.
"Of course they are." He shares an odd sort of look with her, one that seems to communicate… something. Whatever it is, it sends a shock of goosebumps along Steve's arms.
"Stop calling her that," Logan mutters bitterly from the corner.
Steve turns on him quickly, eyes narrowed. "What should she be called?" he asks challengingly.
"Her name," he spits out.
Professor Xavier holds up a stilling hand. "Logan, please. I'd like to hear what our guests have to say." He looks to Steve and offers him a small, conciliatory smile. "Captain?"
Steve's expression is wary, his entire body tense and on edge. He's not sure he's ready to talk about Tessa yet, to reveal his concerns to these strangers. Not when he's unsure of what role they may play in her… issues. "What is this place?" he asks with a bit too much rancor. "There are children here."
The Professor simply nods. "Yes, of course. This is a school."
"And what are you teaching them? How to be soldiers? How to fight in some sort of mutant war? For you?" He's not entirely sure where all of this venom is coming from. After all, Tessa had never so much as implied that this place was anything other than a safe haven for her as a child. But if it was such a great home, why had she left and never looked back?
"Captain," he starts, smile falling from his face. "You've led soldiers for quite some time, no? Tell me, does it seem as though Tessa was raised to be a soldier? Is there, in fact, anything particularly soldier like about her at all?"
His eyes veer towards to Logan when he sees him bristle at the mention of Tessa's name again, grumbling slightly as he seems to fall deeper into the shadows in the corner of the room. Then he looks to Natasha, who shows off a coy and knowing smirk. "No sir," he says, coolly.
"No," the Professor repeats, chuckling softly as he gives a slight shake of his head. "No, she never has been good at following directives. I've no real military experience myself, but I expect that's a necessary trait to being a good soldier."
"But she was a part of the X-Men," Natasha states, drawing all eyes to her. "You may not be particularly… militaristic, but you are some sort of… what? Crime-fighting team."
"I'd like to think that we are… enemies of injustice."
"We're a family," Storm interjects, jutting out her chin defiantly as she stands just behind Xavier. "Did you read the files you released?" she directs toward Natasha. "Did you actually see what was said about us?"
"I skimmed it," she replies coolly.
"SHIELD," she starts, huffing out a bitter breath and shaking her head. "The whole damn world… they don't know us. They don't understand us. And they don't trust us. That's why those files even exist. They wanted to keep track of us… watch us."
"Like we're wild animals just waiting for our chance to bust out of the zoo and eat all the people," Logan asserts with a bit of an amused grin.
Storm glances over at him and when her gaze returns to Natasha, the redhead can see that her eyes are quickly developing a sheen of tears. "We never did anything to warrant that mistrust. This is a school. It is a home. We take in children who – like the rest of us – were abused or abandoned… misunderstood or mistreated… children who are living in a world where they can never truly be themselves, not even with their own families. And we show them that there's more available to them. We show them how special they truly are."
Natasha continues to stare at the woman, not a hint of sentiment on her face. "And that's what you did for Tessa," she states simply.
"We raised her from the time she was just six years old. Her brothers brought her to us and…"
Logan steps forward, out into the light. He rounds the desk and stands staunchly at the corner, just behind Storm, with his arms folded tightly across his chest. "And now they're gone," he finishes for her. "And we're all the family she has left."
"You're her family?" Steve asks sneeringly "You don't even know where she is. She told you she got a job at Stark Industries, but did she tell you what she does there? Did she tell you about the Avengers? About any of us? And before that? Did you even know where she was then… what she was doing… who she was with? Because my understanding is that she cut you all out of her life a long time ago." The three X-Men remain silent in front of him and he feels his cheeks grow hot with a sort of righteous rage. "I don't know what happened here, but – "
"No, you don't," the Professor interrupts, a finality to his suddenly stern tone.
Steve looks at him long and hard for a moment before saying, with as much authority as he can muster, "But we're her family now."
"Yes," he utters, still locked onto the Captain's seething eyes. "You seem very protective of her too." Steve's lips pull into a tight line as the Professor moves his chair closer to him. "And yet you didn't protect her those months ago," he states with a pained sort of sincerity.
Steve's face falls and he sputters. "I don't… what do you mean?"
"I know that something happened," he says slowly. "I felt it. I felt her energy… call out to me, panicked." Steve and Natasha share a quick look before turning back to the Professor. "I felt her… fade away," he says, a single tear cascading from his eye. He looks away, gaze shifting off into the distance.
"How do you know," Natasha starts before changing gears. "What do you know?"
He looks her in the eye, blinks out a few more stray tears, and says with a sad smile, "I know more than you could fathom, my dear."
"We've been trying to get ahold of her since then," Storm says. "For nearly six months now." She looks at the two with a pleading gaze. "The professor has felt her since then… felt that she's been… troubled. He promised her… years ago… he promised her that he wouldn't reach out to her with his powers. So I've been calling instead." She shifts her eyes to connect with Steve's and she asks him simply, for the second time, "Is she alright?"
He holds her gaze and slowly shakes his head. "No."
Xavier pulls in a long, mournful breath and Natasha turns to him and asks, "Do you know what's wrong with her? You know so much, apparently."
"You got a real attitude on you, lady," Logan chimes in. "Why don't you tell us what you know. Since you're her family and all. Start with what the hell happened six months ago."
"She drowned," Steve issues out as he drops onto the small sofa behind him, gaze falling to the floor. His voice is languid, dejected. "It was my fault. It was my mission. And she almost died."
"Almost?" the Professor asks. Steve looks up. "Or did she… die? For a time, that is?"
He nods. "She wasn't breathing when we pulled her out. Her heart wasn't beating." He looks down to his hands laying in his lap as his fingers twist together, and he repeats, "It was my fault."
Xavier shakes his head slowly. "There was a time when it was up to us to keep her safe," he says somberly. "And we failed." Again, Steve's eyes rise to meet the Professor's. "I did what I could to fix it then, to fix her. But… well…" He gives him a small, sad smile. "I always feared that there'd come a day when that would all unravel."
"What does that mean?" Natasha asks carefully, her voice carrying more than a hint of accusation. "How did you fix her?"
He turns to the redhead, but says nothing. It's Logan who steps up to reveal the truth. "He turned her into someone else. When the going got tough…" He looks down at Xavier, bitterness in his tone when he says, "He made her forget who she was and he drove her from her home. And her family."
The professor's head drops, woeful eyes blinking shut. "All to save her life," he utters. "All so that she could have a life." Slowly, he raises his gaze and meets Steve's eyes once more. "Like you, Captain, I couldn't save her. I could only… bring her back… and give her something new."
