The House of M story line showed a cross section of a world where a sad woman tried to make everyone happy. The saddest thing is, some people were so much happier in her new world.
The story of Julio Richter and Shatterstar, as reworked by Wanda in the House of M. House of M and recognisable characters all the property of Marvel. The story line as it exists here is my creation.
You don't need to know the story line to enjoy this. Hell, I don't.
Many thanks to Rahne42 and angualupin, my muses.
--
Chapter One
"Of course, you will be compensated for the trouble caused. But it is most imperative that we take young Julio with us. The lives of all these women and men may depend on your little boy's presence at this fight."
Julio sat on the front steps, watching his mother and father talk with the impressive looking man. Behind him were men and women, Mutants his father said, fighting for a mutant dominated world.
That doesn't mean much to Julio. At ten, his world isn't much bigger the the tiny property his family lived on and the three neighbouring blocks. The war didn't mean much to him, not as much as the understanding that his little brother and sisters don't have clothes without patches or holes.
"He's just a little boy!"
"He is a little boy who can control the very earth. That could make the difference between the complex standing and everyone dying. Eventually, they will turn on you. On him. If we act now, Julio will not have to go through what we have."
His mother turned to his father and with a nod she is collapsing into his arms, crying. Julio got up at that, running over. "Mama?"
It was not his father nor the stranger who stopped him before he reached his parents, but one of the women; she knelt to look him in the eye, holding him away from the talking adults. "Julio. Your mother is all right."
Her Spanish was heavily accented, her voice too rich on the words.
"What's wrong? Why is she crying?"
"You need to come with us, Julio. We will explain on the way."
"Where am I going? Mama? When will I come back?"
His mother did not answer. His father just watched him with dark eyes and the woman stood and started guiding him to the waiting truck. "You will come home tomorrow, Julio. We need you to help us. To help lots of people like you who need to be protected. Do you want help people, Julio?"
"Yes."
"Come along then. We'll explain everything in the way."
They didn't really explain a lot. The woman told him that they were going into a human compound and that the humans had a weapon that made earthquakes. And if he felt an earthquake, he was to make the ground stop shaking and be calm.
He didn't know if he could do that, but he told her he'd do his best. Then she had given him some chocolate and told him to go to sleep.
He woke up when the truck stopped. The woman who gave him the chocolate helped him put on a heavy vest and tied her bandana around his head. It smelt of oil and something else, but he didn't think about it.
She told him to stay up the back of the group and to keep out of sight. It was easy, just crouching down by the wheel of the truck as the men and women slipped into the shadows and approached the gate.
The first gun shot was fired five minutes later, from inside the complex. Following behind them, Julio couldn't see the fighting but he could hear it, people shouting and screaming and gun fire. The guns were so loud, echoing off the concrete walls.
The earth was stable. Despite the chaos raging on top of it, the earth here was very stable and secure, calming to poor Julio's nerves as another burst of gunfire came from his right. He didn't scream, even though he was scared. He pressed himself against a door, barely noticing the rattle of keys.
Barely. He glanced to look at the door knob where two keys hung, one jammed into the lock. The keypad next to the door was lit up, the words "Access granted" blinking at him.
He looked down the hallway. No one, then another burst of screams from further away. He flinched and made up his mind, twisting the handle and slipping through the open door, taking the keys with him.
The stairs were metal, but his sneakers were silent on them as he descended. Deeper, and the earth was around him now, not just below him but all around like a calming balm.
He kept going down, stopped only by the gate at the base of the stairs. He looked at it for a moment then tried the key he had taken from before, pleased when the lock clicked and the gate opened.
It was like the games he played with Juan and Marco, pretending they were spies. He pocketed the keys and continued on, foot fall soft on the concrete.
For all the security, down stairs was pretty boring. No labs, no machines, just a large room. There was a shelf on one side with poles and chains and one of the metal loop and pole things the dogcatcher used on the dog that had been running wild in the street.
And a cell.
Eyes wide, Julio crept closer, trying to look into the darkness of the little cell. His heart thumped against his chest, around him he could feel the earth starting to react, taking in his nerves.
He wrapped his hands around the bars and looked in.
There was a mattress. On the concrete floor. No sheets, no blankets, no pillow. Just a mattress in an otherwise bare cell.
Lying on the mattress was a too pale body. Bare chested, dressed only in off white pants. Head shaved to stubble, sweat shining on his face in the dim lighting.
He didn't look much older than Julio himself.
"Hey?"
The boy didn't move. Julio wondered if he was dead and if that was why he was so pale. It smelt bad down here.
"Hey, kid?"
Still nothing.
Biting at his lower lip, he wrapped his hands around the clunky padlock. For all the fancy locks he had to pass getting down here, the lock on the cell was pretty primitive, even to Julio's standards.
He concentrated. Called on the quake that rumbled in his chest and pushed it out into the lock.
With a whine and crack, the lock fell apart in his hands, the door swinging open.
In the same instant, the boy's eyes opened, flicking to look at Julio, and he was struck by how very pale they were. Like all the colour had been bled out of the kid.
They stared at each other, Julio's breath racing, the boy barely looking like he was breathing at all.
"Hey. You okay? You look sick?"
The boy didn't respond. Just kept looking at him with those eerily pale eyes. Julio swallowed and knelt down on the floor at the door, leaning his head against the metal. "You got a name, kid?"
A slow blink and slower swallow.
"Guess you can't talk, huh? So there's not much point me asking you what you're doing down here. Hey, do you not speak Spanish? Do you speak English? You look like an American, you're so pale, and your eyes are really light."
The boy didn't react, his head just lolled to the side slightly. Julio watched the light streak over his face.
"Wow... you really are pale, don't you go outside much? Are you sick a lot of the time? Oh, right, you don't speak. That's okay, I like talking. Papa says I talk too much. Hey... why are you down here, kid? You look really sick. Are you down here because you're sick? The doctor said I was sick, but I'm not. I'm a Mutant."
He shuffled closer on his knees. The smell was no better or worse, just different as he got closer.
"The lady who brought me here says the people here don't like Mutants. That they're fighting them to make a better world where people like me don't have to go through bad things because we're different. I'm not really sure what she means. Do you?"
The boy blinked again, his lips parting. Julio paused, breath caught, waiting for him to speak.
He licked his lips, his tongue swollen and his lips cracked. Julio's brother had looked the same when they'd brought him back after he got lost in the desert one winter's day.
"Oh! You want a drink?" He patted the vest, grinning when he felt the water bottle. "I got water if you want it. But you gotta sip it or you'll make yourself sick. That's what Mama told me."
When no response was forthcoming, Julio crawled forwards and knelt by the mattress. The boy looked up at him, lips parting.
"You gotta sit up."
No response. He really didn't understand Spanish.
Julio slipped his arm under the boy's shoulders, just like Papa had done for Enrique. The boy flinched at first, but when Julio tugged, he sat up weakly.
He took off the cap and rested it on the boy's lips, tipping just a little. The other gulped at the water, trying to follow when he pulled the flask away.
"Hey, you'll be sick doing that. You can have some more in a minute."
Even if his words weren't understood, the boy relaxed back into his arm, a faint look of nausea passing his features before vanishing again. Julio tipped the canteen back up, drawing it away again after a few moments.
They continued until most of the flask was gone. Julio took a short drink – the dust was clinging to his throat – and let the other finish off the remaining water.
The pale eyes closed for a long moment, and Julio realised he hadn't heard gun shots for a while now.
"I should probably go find the adults. Do you want to come with me? Cause I don't think there'll be anyone here to look after you while you're sick."
No response.
"Okay, I think you should come with me. These people won't put you in a cell, at least. They can take you to a hospital... hey, you're looking better! That's probably the water helping."
He stood up, helping his companion to his feet. He was unsteady, so Julio wrapped an arm around his skinny waist and slung the kid's arm over his shoulders. "Think you can walk?"
"Mm."
The low hum was barely audible, but it made Julio grin. "I knew you weren't mute. C'mon, we're going upstairs."
With some effort, they got Julio's new friend up the stairs. He flinched as they passed the cupboard, pressing into Julio as though to shrink away from the contents contained in it. Julio kept talking to him, asking him question he couldn't understand about things he probably wouldn't know anyway.
Upstairs, Julio went right, where the gunfire had been. He and the boy stepped their way through the corridors, seeing traces of blood but no bodies.
It was scary. Like one of Enrique's horror movies. Blood and trails and no bodies. The lights were off, only emergency power was running the place.
It was almost a relief when he heard voices, at the end of the hall and through a door. "Hey, that's the people who brought me. C'mon, not far now."
They pressed on, Julio listening to the voices inside as they got close.
"...can't locate the weapon. It looks like we'll have to double back and find access to the lower levels. What I want to know it, why didn't they use him?"
"I don't know. Send teams, we've seen what this guy can do."
"I hope he's not–"
The sentence cut off as Ric pushed open the door and all the soldiers looked up at him and his friend.
There was a scream of his name and the world seemed to slow down as the guns came up to bear on the two of them.
So slow he couldn't stop it, he was grabbed and twisted. His poor, sick friend sprung to life, lips twisting into a vicious snarl, and growl rumbling from deep inside him.
He was being twisted, thrown to the ground and backwards, crashing under the weight of his protective vest. In front of him, he watched the boy drop down low, spreading his hands and snarling again, shuffling backwards, trying to nudge Julio back.
The guns were all pointed at this boy. Julio could see the fear on their faces.
The world sped up.
"Don't shoot him! No, don't shoot! Stop it!"
Over him, everyone else yelling, stand down, back away from the boy, get a lock, that's him , that's it, stand down kid or we'll shoot and the room was starting to rattle and over it all, or maybe under it there was a noise, like someone humming just too low to be heard.
The boy's hands were starting to glow white.
"Stand down! He's reacting to the guns, he's trying to protect the boy! Lower your guns, he thinks you're threatening the kid!"
"You sure, Helena?"
"Yes, I'm sure! It's the only solid thought in his mind."
"Guns down!"
The guns lowered. The boy shuddered, the growl and the hum trailing off into silence.
The light vanished and the boy collapsed to the ground in a heap.
Julio could barely see through his tears. People were rushing to them, he shoved off the woman to collapse on his knees by the boy's side.
He was trembling, and Julio wandered if he was the one doing that to him. He grabbed at the pale face, tapping it. "Hey? Wake up. Please wake up?"
He didn't hear the soldiers being told to back off, just the harsh breath escaping from the cracked lips. He didn't notice Helena kneeling by him, her eyes blank as she scanned the pair of them.
He saw the way his tears left clean streaks on the dusty, pale skin. Saw the pale eyes open and look at him, sad and hopeful and on a dim level, he realised something had changed forever.
He pulled the boy onto his lap, confused about why the soldiers would call his friend a weapon, confused why this kid he barely knew would stand in front of twelve heavily armed soldiers for him.
The soldiers looked at the boys and then to one another, but it was Helena who found her voice first.
"They're just... a pair of scared little boys."