Disclaimer: Domino and other assorted characters are not mine. They are, in fact, the property of Marvel, but I'm not making any money off of this thing. In addition, a short segment of dialog contained herein originally appeared in X-Force 30, penned by Mr. Fabian Nicieza, who wrote the conversation I was going to write anyway much better than I would have. An additional three lines come from the last issue of the 2nd Domino limited. And that's probably more detail than anyone ever needed.
Notes: Written for the 'identity crisis' challenge on the comicsgenfic livejournal community. I think I sort of fulfilled it. It's certainly... something, anyhow. Feedback is always welcome, even if it's to ask "Were you sharing crack with Grant Morrison or what?"
Reverse Soundtrack
by Timesprite
"You going to be okay?"
He was watching her closely--he knew her, so she wasn't surprised--and she scratched absentmindedly at the gauze he'd patched over the inside of her elbow. It hadn't wanted to stop bleeding, at first. "I don't know. I'm not sure what they did to me." He'd tucked her into the hotel bed and left her there for several hours so she could sleep, though he couldn't have gone far. He'd been at the door again not long after she'd awakened. "Thanks." She wanted to sit up--didn't like having to talk to him in her semi-reclined position, but her body wasn't listening anymore. They'd kept her sedated for so long, and she was still feeling nauseous. "For the rescue," she continued. "I wasn't sure anyone was going to come." Left in the hazy dream-world of her drug addled mind, she hadn't minded so much. Too preoccupied by the sensation of continual drowning to give much thought to whether anyone had missed her. It was only the rare moments, when the men who had taken up the mantle of those who'd 'created' her let her mind thaw, that she wondered. It had taken a year, the last time. Was there anyone left who even cared?
"Theresa called me after you missed your second call in." Nathan was sitting yards away--giving her so much space it was nearly laughable--his large frame dwarfing the chair that supported it. "It took me another two weeks to even begin to know where to look. They had the facility heavily shielded."
"For their own protection." Her head hurt and her skin felt clammy. She wanted to make use of the tub she could just glimpse in the adjacent bathroom, but getting from where she was to there would have involved some embarrassing crawling. She hadn't moved much in the last few months, and her limbs weren't working right anymore. "You know what they were trying to do."
He nodded. "It's like the nuclear arms race all over again. Everyone's got their pet mutant project working away in a dark corner. For profit, for an edge. This one was old, though."
"No kidding." They'd made her, after all. She wasn't what they wanted, but with her brother--their real weapon--most likely dead, and her mother deranged, she was all they'd had left. And if she wasn't any good, it didn't mean her genes weren't. A shiver crept down her spine as half-suppressed memories flickered through her mind like distortions in a funhouse mirror, warped beyond all recognition outside the ever-present cold.
Numbness that had been a blessing. She couldn't feel what they were doing. She didn't really want to know.
"Oath. You could have told me, Dom..." He ran his hands back through his hair. It was shorter than it had been in years. He was thinner. There were new lines on his face. He was Nathan, but not, and she felt, suddenly, like she'd missed much more than three months.
More of her life swallowed up in a half-remembered abyss. They'd taken her childhood, and now this. She didn't even know what 'they' were calling themselves now. Even the most deeply buried references to 'Project Armageddon' had vanished shortly after she'd compromised their Florida base. It had made tracking them difficult. Of course, that hadn't mattered much. They'd come looking for her instead.
"I would have helped you." He would have, too. That was what he did these days. Self-appointed savior of the whole damned planet. Protecting them from each other. She called it a mid-life crisis, but only in the guarded part of her mind where he probably couldn't hear.
They'd drifted far apart, but she knew she could still trust him. Had to, because she was going nowhere fast. Whatever they'd done, it wasn't really wearing off. She hoped he planned on sticking around. She turned her head, resting it on the pillow, and closed her eyes briefly. "I need a doctor."
"I know." And then, though she hadn't heard him move (simply too tired to hear him?) his fingers were lightly brushing through her hair and down her cheek. "I'll take you to Westchester."
She opened her eyes. "Errant children. Think they'll welcome us back into the fold?"
"I'll make them."
And she smiled. "Of course you will."
Instinct told her she'd seen too many rooms like this, even though memory failed her. Cold white ceiling and walls, cold eyes staring from behind white surgical masks. Gloved hands on her body. Her scream had lodged somewhere in her chest, where it was slowly choking her.
"I'm glad you could come."
Sincerity in his voice. Nathan had never been one for apologies, but he never bothered to hide his gratitude. He hadn't bothered to hide his desperation when he'd called, and that was why she'd come. She had a bad track record of not being able to say 'no' to the man before her now. "Let me get this straight--you want me to hang out with you here--in these... barracks?"
"You never were one for silk lace and soft carpeting."
"I'm starting to regret that, Nate. What do you expect out of me?"
"I expect you to be yourself. The kids need that. They need you."
"Oh, I get it--isn't that rich? Be myself... How can I do that when the Domino all these kids knew was that scheming metamporph Vanessa Carlysle impersonating me!" Vanessa had won their confidence. Won their hearts. The real deal was bound to be a disappointment.
"And I've impersonated a heartless soldier, and Stryfe has impersonated me... around here, we're used to that kind of thing."
Resignation. She really did need to work on resisting him. No good could come of this sort of arrangement. "Y'know, I should have my head examined for this..."
It came in a rush. She should have been faster than him, but it had been a long time since she'd been attacked in a cab. Toronto had seemed like a good move on her part. From there, somewhere more remote. But it had been a start.
So much for feeling magnanimous. She was never sharing a cab again.
The thought flittered away from her as ice swirled through her blood, spreading out from the prick on her wrist that was lost now in the lack of feeling, lost as the numbness crawled over her skin and the cold leaked into her bones.
Her head listed to the side of its own accord.
Never again.
She'd long since stopped feeling the cold on her back. Smooth this time, no rough brick. No scurrying of rodents, just the low, constant hum of machines and the rasp of her breath.
She wasn't dead yet, but that didn't stop the impression of being pinned out like a specimen for dissection. Cut neatly down the center while eager students gazed down in rapt fascination.
Where had that memory come from--TV? A movie? She'd never been to school. She knew that much now.
Funny how involuntary surgery seemed to be the one constant in her life.
Did it say guinea pig across her forehead in invisible ink, visible only to practitioners of warped science?
Did she scream 'Tie me down, I like it?'
She would have laughed, but it was all she could do to breathe.
She stared down at her feet, white on the white tile. The whole place was white, clean, sterile. Enough to make a girl feel as if she were fading away. Fingers trailed down her spine and she sighed.
"What's the matter?"
He didn't understand. For all the insight Dr. Milo Thurman had into the intricate workings of mankind, he couldn't seem to understand why their 'home' bothered her as much as it did. The institutional atmosphere the NSA kept him in didn't bother him in the slightest. He found it orderly, simplistic. Soothing.
It made her feel like a caged animal, and some days, she hated the part of her that had agreed far too readily to spend the rest of her life with him. Here.
"It's nothing." She gripped the edge of the mattress with her hands, silently prayed he couldn't hear the lie in her voice. She was better than this. Stronger than this. She'd come here to start a new life. To give order to the chaos. It was what she'd wanted. To be someone new. Find a way to leave the betrayal behind.
Sheets rustled as her husband moved beside her, resting a dark hand on her bare knee. "You haven't been happy lately. Something's wrong."
Everything was wrong. Had been since she'd agreed to their farce of a marriage. He couldn't leave, and that left her trapped. It was hard to be happy when the walls were pressing inwards. The person she'd tried to be for him--the one who had fallen for his blunt brand of charm and warm exuberance--was withering away amidst the never-ending white. She'd tried so hard to be the person he loved, but she knew she wasn't. Not really. She just couldn't stand to break his heart.
"I'm... I've just been off, lately. Things are stressful. I'll be fine."
His hand moved to her chin, tipping her face towards him. "Sure?"
She pulled away. "My shift is starting soon. I'd better get ready."
Just keep breathing.
"I've worked too long and too hard to let some past failure waltz in here and ruin things."
She was long past the point in her life when such recriminations mattered. It didn't matter.
"Ah, but you were a failure."
Only in design. She knew her own worth. She'd spent her life proving it. Still, nothing like being reduced to the smallest denominator to make a girl feel useless.
"You were of no use to me."
"Yeah. Love you too, mom."
She sighed. Didn't matter. She'd gone looking for her past and discovered there was nothing there worth knowing. Another ridiculous life story to throw on the pile. She was beginning to like her own inventions more and more. At least with them, she had a past that mattered. Years locked in her own head didn't count as a past, after all.
She sorted through the documents one last time, finished fitting herself into the identity of the week, and closed her bag.
Walking away had always been easier than trying to care.
Light, and something other than cold. She swallowed, throat raw, and felt the restraints biting into her wrists and legs. Lifted her head enough to tell that she could, though the dizziness forced her to lay flat again.
She clung hard to her lucid state, taking slow, even breaths. Closed her eyes, tried to assess the damage from feel alone, and couldn't.
A hand rested lightly on her shoulder, and she flinched.
"Quite the godsend, aren't you?"
She couldn't decide if she recognized the voice or not. A chuckle.
"You know, you're not half the failure they thought you were."
Fresh start. Time to become someone new, leave the nightmares behind.
A rough, fatherly slap on the back, masking a kind of gruff concern.
"You don't have ta do this, Neena."
She didn't have to, but there wasn't much else out there for her. She couldn't be normal, and she didn't want to be.
"It's not an easy life."
"I know."
She didn't want easy. She'd seen too much of what the world could dish out in her few years to ever be able to hide behind the clean mask of civilization. There was no forgetting the things she'd seen, no way to unlearn the ways she'd had to survive. This was best. This was something she could choose. She was good, and with time, she could get better.
Time to be her own person, even if she wasn't quite sure yet who that would be.
"Take care, kid."
-Fin-