"Do you know where things are?" I asked Pietro. "I don't want to make a mess."
"Yes." he said, and began opening cupboards. While he did that, I took off my improvised apron of newspaper taped over the armor, stripped off the rubber gloves, and washed my hands. Kitchens tend to relax people—there are so many good associations to them.
"What are they going to do to get rid of the tumor?", he looked at me as he filled the coffee maker with water
"Surgery, to start off with. What you saw in there was just to relieve the fluid build-up—she'll have to go to a hospital. Not all of the tumor is in an operable part of her brain, so for that she'll have to have radiation and chemo. Doctor Strange wants to brew up a batch of his Serum of the Seraphim for her, as well, but since the tumor is healthy tissue, only growing where it shouldn't, it has to come out first. The Serum can't differentiate like that. She'll also probably undergo a series of radiation treatments, chemotherapy—it'll take a while. She's going to need you—and her other friends—to help her through it."
"I'll be there." He turned the machine on, and sat. "She's always been there for me. What was it you have to tell me about?"
"I know you have a quick temper. I'm going to have to say some things you won't like to hear. Are you going to listen anyway?" I raised an eyebrow at him.
"I—You helped my sister. You've earned the right."
"Thank you. You're a father, Pietro. Your daughter lives on the moon with her mother, right?"
"That's right." He looked very tired. "Crystal and I have been fighting…"
"I understand. Do the Inhumans—Crystal's people—celebrate a child's birthday as we do? With cake, and ice cream, presents, games, things like that?" I asked.
"Yes. I don't see what you're getting at."
"I bet your Luna, if you asked, would say she'd like it to be her birthday every day. All the cake and soda she can cram in, sparkly princess hats, being the center of everybody's attention, playtime all day long—."
"I suppose so. Why?"
"I know you're a responsible father, though. You refused to let your little daughter be exposed to those mutagenic Mists—which I think was absolutely the correct decision." The Inhumans, Crystal's people, exposed all their children to a mist that would give them powers—and many of them wound up with especially strange ones. Like the Black Bolt, whose voice was so powerful—able to shatter mountains—that he never dared speak. "So instead of giving her what she wants, you make sure she gets what she needs, like vegetables, and little tasks to do, afternoon naps, lessons in good manners, and her ABCs."
"Yes, that's right." he replied, and got up to take mugs from another cupboard. "I try to do what my father didn't do—which is be there, even if her mother and I are fighting."
"That's good. She needs that. Well, since you know the distinction between them, why did you think it was a good idea to give your father—and the other people you loved—what they wanted, rather than what they needed?"
He slammed a carton of milk down on the counter, whirled so fast he was a blur, and leveled a finger at me. "You have—. Oh, shit. Oh, shit." He seemed to be cursing at himself rather than me, so I just looked at him as sympathetically as I could. "Everything I've ever done has just turned out—to be a disaster. It always goes wrong, and it's always my fault!"
"That's a fine way to talk about your own daughter. Two sugars, please, and just a drop of milk. That isn't true—and you know it. It's just more dramatic to feel sorry for yourself." I gave him a roguish smile. "You have good judgment, even if you don't always use it. You have—not a good, but a great heart, an enormous one. How many sons who had endured what you have from your father, would still find it in their hearts to give him the world?
"That's the next thing. Your father has some of the worst judgment I've ever come across. You know how he knows me? A few days ago, he and four of his people—Malice, Sabertooth, Toad, and Mastermind—abducted me, took me to that island in the Bermuda Triangle, and were going to kill me. Then, when your sister's illness got so much worse six months ago, what did he do? Take her to a hospital?"
"He doesn't trust hospitals." Pietro mumbled. "He believes hospitals won't give mutants the same treatment they do humans—or that they'll run tests on us."
"Your father needs to get his head out of his butt. He was going to run tests on me. Look at what all has been done to me, by mutants, over the course of the last week, between you, your father and your sister. Do I now hate and fear mutants? No. Would I be justified in hating and fearing them?"
"I—wouldn't blame you."
"I'd blame me. This is the twenty-first century. People don't look at minority groups in the same way they used to. 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy' is one proof of that. There are lots more. The problem is that—mutants don't have a good public image, largely because your father makes a lot of unfortunate decisions. Looking again at your sister's case—instead of going to a hospital, where she might have had six months worth of treatment by now, he brought her to Genosha, where she's been kept under heavy sedation and telepathic suggestions by Professor Xavier—who isn't blameless either. Was she having trouble seeing and keeping her balance when she tried to walk six months ago?"
"No. She did complain about having headaches, though." He said, and sipped his coffee.
At that point, the Toad, his arm in a cast and sling, appeared in the doorway, did a double take when he saw me, and vanished.
"Things seem to be getting back to normal." I remarked. "Your sister got a lot worse in those six months, then. Is your father the best person to be representing mutants to the rest of the world? Is he a leader with a good track record?"
"At least he's doing something!" Pietro flared up. "Nobody else is!"
"Why not? Why not you?" He wasn't the leader I envisioned for mutantkind, but who was to say my vision was the right one? "If you use the wisdom you show in raising your daughter, and show the world the sort of people mutants truly are—."
A superhero walked in, wearing black and purple. He had a bow and a quiver of arrows slung across his back. It was the Avenger calling himself 'Hawkeye'. He was supposed to be dead.
Doctor Strange was following him. He was there in the flesh, having sent his astral self back to his body, and then teleporting in by magic. "Look who turned up." The Sorcerer Supreme was smiling. "Wanda didn't kill him—she tucked him into a pocket dimension. Once the pressure on her brain was eased—it turned inside out, so to speak."
"I'm like that bad penny." The Avenger grinned. "I always turn up. Is that coffee?"
"Yes." Quicksilver said. "Help yourself. You too, Doctor."
"Thank you." Both men fixed themselves mugs—Hawkeye taking his, and saying that he was going to let the other Avengers know he was all right, he left.
Doctor Strange sat down. His smile turned wry. "That was one of the more humbling experiences of my life—when you saw, and pointed out, what I should have seen from the moment I entered. And I was a neurosurgeon…How did you see, when I did not?"
"I think it was a matter of perspective. I've sometimes thought (only every waking moment, but I didn't say that!) that having powers, and being a superhero, skews people's thinking—you went in there looking to save the world, and you were concentrating on that."
"Whereas you went in there to save one woman—and you were concentrating on that." At my look of surprise, Doctor Strange nodded. "I spoke to the Silver Surfer. He told me that Victor was going to kill her—and he has the mystic knowledge to do so permanently—to bar her soul from returning to this plane."
I—hadn't known that… "When you save one person, you save the entire world. Every single person on this earth is the world—to themselves, and those who love them."
Several mutants I recognized poked their heads around the kitchen door. "What the hell happened?" demanded Wolverine. "We were attacking, and then—the opposition vanished. What gives?"
Doctor Strange explained. Partway through, Magneto arrived, and had to be filled in on things. Victor entered and stood quietly.
"I see." Magneto said. "I—don't know what to say, other than to apologize—no, to beg your forgiveness—for my children, for what they did, for what I have done—and most especially for your forgiveness, Lady Doom. I am most grateful for what you have done for my child—and you, also, Victor. You have been a far greater man than I could have, given the same circumstances."
"Fortunately, that was not hard." Victor could not resist rubbing it in.
Magneto drew in breath sharply. "I deserved that." he said.
"For my part," I said. "If you were to translate that feeling into a friendly welcome and active cooperation with the people from Latveria who will be arriving in a few days, to help turn Genosha into the place your children dream it could be—I will be well satisfied."
"I will try. I will do more than try—I will do it." The Master of Magnetism held out his hand, first to me—and then, albeit reluctantly, to Victor who took it.
"I fear we will not have the pleasure of seeing you at the wedding." Victor said. "Your daughter's health must come first. I recommend you call in Doctor Ella di Uzzano—she is an excellent surgeon." That was the name of my lawyer, Robert Angevin's, wife, I recalled.
"Yes, she has an excellent reputation." Doctor Strange added. "Are you ready, Victor?"
"Yes. My dear, it is time to go home. You need not fear that we have been missed—as we will be returning to the exact moment and circumstances when we 'left'. Doctor Strange has been holding off the full reversion."
TBC….