MASSIVE TRIGGER WARNING: We as readers and writers know that everyone is alive, but this chapter contains depictions of character deaths, including small children and a suicide. If that's triggering for you, please skip to the end once you reach the section that starts with "Cody was exhausted." You'll wanna read the last few paragraphs of that section for plot, but otherwise, feel free to not indulge.
Chapter 3: "What Did He Do To You?"
A little over a year ago….
The last thing Cody remembered, he had been fighting Marauders in the battle against Apocalypse.
It had been going well. He and the other members of the junior squad were holding their own, and he'd just blasted a hole through a Marauder who had tried to pin him down — and then he felt a searing pain in his mind. It felt like his whole head was on fire, and it was somehow even worse than the headaches he'd had when he was first getting his powers — which was impressive, since Cody hadn't thought that was possible.
And then… he must have blacked out, because he didn't remember anything between that moment in the sand in Egypt and now, when he was most definitely not in the sand in Egypt.
His arms were aching from the weight of his body as he hung suspended by shackles around his wrists. He didn't know what he was suspended from, not when there was something wrapped around his eyes and head that blocked out his vision. It was heavy and weighed his head down; his neck was already sore from the weight of it, so Cody knew he'd probably been hanging there for a while, unconscious.
Whatever the thing was on his head, he couldn't shoot through it. He couldn't see through it. The thing kept him blind and without his powers — which was probably the whole point.
Cody frowned and tried to shift the way he was suspended. He reached as far as he could, stretching his back and legs until he could just scrape the floor with his toes. He could take the weight off his arms for just an instant, but it was murder on his back.
And trying to find the beam or ceiling that he was suspended from was no better. He tried to follow the chain around his wrists up, but it was exhausting work for arms that were already tired from holding up his body. And after excruciating effort, he found that he was suspended from a hook in the ceiling.
Alright. Okay. I'm pretty screwed here, Cody thought to himself, reaching up to grab hold of the chains suspending him for a little leverage before he gave a mighty jerk, trying to dislodge the hook from the ceiling if he could. Or the chains from the hook. One way or another.
He jerked his body and twisted around until he was out of breath and finding it hard to get the oxygen he needed when his arms were twisted up above him.
He was gasping where he was strung up when he heard the scrape of a door opening and a familiar laugh — a light, self-satisfied chuckle.
All at once, there was a metallic snapping noise above Cody's head, and he dropped to the ground. He hadn't been expecting it, and he didn't quite catch himself on his feet, crumpling down instead with numb, heavy arms from being strung up for so long.
He tried to scramble back to his feet, knowing that Sinister was there somewhere — but he didn't know where.
"The least you could do is muster up a thank you, my boy," Sinister said, that same light chuckle still echoing the room.
Cody was still panting as he managed to get to his feet, turning toward where he thought the sound of Sinister's voice was coming from. He was tired and sore, blind and restrained, but he still spit out a few incredibly choice words Sinister's way that had her tutting her disappointment an instant before that same white-hot pain he'd felt before, in Egypt, filled his mind.
He cried out as he fell to his knees, gasping in pain as he brought his bound hands to his head, trying to ease the pain somehow with his hands in his exposed hair, but nothing worked until Sinister decided to let it up.
"Now then," Sinister said as Cody gasped, still on his knees and wincing. "Aren't you going to thank me?"
"For what?" Cody spit out at last. "Stringing me up? Kidnapping me?"
"No, my dear boy," Sinister said. "For rescuing you."
Cody glared, but it wasn't as effective when he was hampered by the thing covering his eyes. Instead, he lifted up his shackled hands and let the clank of chains speak volumes as he rattled them. "I feel so very rescued."
There was a moment's pause, and Cody couldn't tell what Sinister was doing for a long moment before she let out a little laugh. "Yes, I see I'll have to be more specific with you. It's a shame you have none of your father's ability to see the broader picture," she said. She rested a hand on Cody's shoulder, and he jerked away at the touch. "Had I left you where you were, you would have died with the others. And I have worked far too hard to lose so much of my research."
Cody didn't even know where to start with that one. The insult to his intelligence, the fact that she was still treating him like a science experiment… But there was one more pressing thing above everything else: "What do you mean? Who — who died?"
Sinister rested her hand on Cody's shoulder again in what probably looked like a consoling gesture if he could have seen her at all. "Your half-sister lost control of the Phoenix," she said in an even tone as Cody felt his throat constrict and his mouth dry out, so much so that he didn't even pull away from Sinister. "She was stopped, of course, or we wouldn't be here now, but I'm sure you know the consequences something like that can have."
Cody shook his head. "I don't believe you."
"No?" All at once, Cody felt his feet leave the ground, and his back hit the wall. A moment later, Sinister had a hold of his hair, pulling his head back so she could whisper in his ear, "No one is coming for you, Cody. Believe what you want, but no one will be valiantly riding to your rescue." She let go of his hair and let him fall to the ground. "No one."
Cody felt the familiar panic rising up in his chest — the same panic that had come up when Sinister had almost killed his brother. Twice. Only this time, it was bigger than just his big brother. If what she was saying was true…
"You're lying," Cody said through his teeth.
"Come now, Cody; we're beyond petty accusations," Sinister said. "I haven't said anything to you that wasn't true. And the longer you remain here, the clearer it will be: you are alone."
Cody felt his hands ball up in fists in front of him. His eyes stung, and he closed them, since it wasn't like he could see Sinister anyway. "You're wrong," he said, though not with nearly as much heat as before.
"We both know that's not true," Sinister said. She let out a light laugh before she strode over to where he was to lift his chin, though he couldn't meet her gaze. "Of course, if we're going to be honest with each other, the truth is you aren't entirely alone. You belong to me; you always have. Just like your father, and his before him, and so on and so on."
Cody jerked away from her, pushing back as best he could to get distance as he scrambled blindly backwards. "Keep your hands off of me," he spit out.
Sinister simply tutted. "You don't understand, do you?" she asked. "I made you. As soon as your father insisted on marrying that simple girl, I had to step in to prevent another mishap like your brother."
"My brother isn't—" Cody suddenly found himself unable to move or speak, cutting off his protests as Sinister continued.
"I made you. I ensured that as age claimed your father, there would still be subjects worth studying from his line. You are the best possible specimen from what I had to work with. I engineered you, my dear boy. Whatever illusions you may have had to this point about your existence are nothing; you belong to me. You always will."
Cody couldn't move. He couldn't even glare. All he could do was project as loud as he could: Bite me.
But that was clearly the wrong thing to do, because as soon as he'd started up the projection, Sinister rushed into his mind. It was icy hot where Sinister left her trails, and Cody was gasping as Sinister showed him her own memories of cutting into both of his parents twenty years ago, working to ensure her genetic research went to good use in preventing more human offspring.
And for as terrible as that was — filling his every thought with his own parents' torture until he wasn't aware of anything else — when Sinister finally let up her attack, Cody quickly realized that he wasn't where he'd started.
In fact, he was strapped down to an examination table. The band was gone from around his face, but he couldn't access his beams, so there must have been a dampening field or something.
Whatever the case, Cody knew that he couldn't blast Sinister away from him as she coolly brought over a tool of trays, saying nothing as Cody watched her and felt his heart rate tick up. He couldn't help but remember everything that Sinister had just showed him with his parents, even if he knew that was exactly why she'd showed it to him in the first place.
That was why he wasn't wearing the blinding band anymore. He was sure of it. Sinister wanted him to know what was coming. She wanted him to feel helpless.
Cody closed his eyes and leaned his head back on the examination table, fighting hard not to give in to that feeling of helplessness even as Sinister set him up with an IV that felt cold in his veins. The drug moved quickly through his system with how fast his heart was beating, and he could only hold the glare for so long before he started to relax despite his best efforts.
"This will be so much easier for you if you simply accept your position in life," Sinister told him as he started to drift off. "There is no possibility of escaping your fate. Your only choice now is how long you continue to be stubborn about accepting the truth."
Cody tried his best to glare but ended up falling into unconsciousness despite his best efforts, and Sinister quickly got to work once he was out.
What Cody couldn't have realized was that Sinister had already tried exactly this on Scott over twenty years ago, before Scott knew Annie, when he'd left the X-Men. And it had worked. Sinister had been closer than he ever had before breaking Scott's will entirely. Isolating him, keeping him blind, invading his mind, letting him know just how helpless he was — all of these things in concert had almost broken Scott.
Cody was much more reactive, less experienced, and therefore far easier to manipulate. After all, he'd thrown himself into Sinister's grasp for his brother and had broken down the first time he thought Chance was dead as well. He had a weak spot a mile wide, and he made all of his decisions with an impulsive energy that was only going to propel him into trouble if it wasn't curbed.
So, Sinister only had to do what he'd done to break Scott — and Cody would bend to his will much more easily. It was just a matter of time and persistent pressure.
It helped, of course, that what Sinister had said was true; no one would be coming for Cody. The last time Sinister had the boy, he'd gotten enough from him to make a clone — and Chloe had helped him perfect the deception and make his plans for augmentation in the future, even if she didn't understand the implications of her work. The body he left in the sand was not necessarily a viable one, but viability wasn't necessary. All that mattered was that the dead boy looked like Cody Summers — and the X-Men would bury the body and never know the difference.
With Apocalypse gone at last, that meant there was absolutely nothing left to distract Sinister from his work.
When Cody woke up again, he was back to being blind, though this time, he wasn't suspended from the ceiling. Instead, he was in a bed. A real one.
He started to sit up, but when he tried to move his arms, he realized that one hand was still restrained to the head of the bed — so he could move, but not far.
He frowned as he followed the chain back to the headboard and yanked on it a few times, even planting both feet in the center to pull it, but no dice. He let out a noise of pure frustration before he finally gave up and simply laid back on the bed.
He was sore all over. His arms were killing him from being suspended earlier, and he still felt off from the experimentation. He realized now as he started to get more and more tired that there was a growing wet spot, and his stomach felt cold.
He must have pulled some stitches; he was oozing blood.
Cody started to drift into unconsciousness when Sinister reappeared, tutting at him and generally annoyed with the state of things as she worked quickly to get him stitched back up — though she didn't bother to numb anything when she was so clearly annoyed at having to redo her good work.
When Cody couldn't stop whimpering while Sinister worked — despite his best attempt not to make a noise — Sinister scoffed at him. "See what happens when you misbehave?" she said. "I told you to accept your station, but you seem determined to make things harder on yourself."
"Go to hell," Cody ground out through his teeth.
"Mind your manners," Sinister shot back a moment before she backhanded him hard across the mouth to accentuate the point. As Cody wiped the blood from his split lip with a glare that she couldn't see, Sinister finished putting away her tools and let out another little tutting noise. "You don't seem to understand, my boy. I'm offering you a chance to improve yourself. You could be far more powerful than your father — and accomplish what he never could." She let out a breath as she got to her feet. "We are on the same side, your father and I. I want to see mutantkind reach its full potential as well. Maybe you won't be as blind as he was."
Cody knew she couldn't see him glaring, but he glared anyway, right up until Sinister left. And then he simply slumped back into the pillows of the bed. He was sore. He was tired. He was blind.
But he still wasn't going to let Sinister win. He knew she was peddling crap, and he wasn't going to let her twist him up. He was an X-Man. And no matter what Sinister said, he knew that his family wouldn't let him rot away in this place. Even if some of them were dead… even if his blood family was dead…
Cody pushed that thought aside. No. Even if Sinister wasn't lying about some of his family, he knew the rest wouldn't stop looking for him. Charlie still had Amy. And the X-Men would realize he was missing.
Unless they thought he was gone in the Phoenix fire too…
Cody shook his head hard. No, he was sure his family was coming for him.
Cody was exhausted.
There were several aspects to it, of course. He hadn't eaten much — not when Sinister was mad at him for swearing at her every time she came in the room. Which he did. Colorfully. Just because he knew it made her mad.
But also, he was mentally exhausted. He was blind, restrained, and he had no idea how much time had passed, not when Sinister made it a point to rake through his mind every chance she got.
In the past days — weeks? — he'd watched her kill Chance a dozen times over, only this time, she hadn't let up when he pleaded with her. You have nothing left to bargain for was the message, over and over. You belong to me.
It wasn't just Chance, either. Sinister showed him his entire family in her clutches at some point or another. Charlie, ten years old, terrified of Remy. Annie, unable to even stand on her own, on the brink of tears as Sinister handed her a baby Charlie.
And then, there was his dad.
Cody had never seen his dad like… that. He was just a little younger than Cody and trapped in Sinister's experiments. He was somewhere around Chance's age and terrified of Sinister when he recognized him for the first time after becoming an X-Man.
And then, just before he met Annie: Scott was restrained, blinded… and completely hopeless.
Cody had never seen his father look so defeated. He wasn't even fighting Sinister, wasn't defending himself at all…
I have far more experience in these matters than you, my boy, Sinister said, her voice ringing in Cody's mind. You might resist me for a little while, but you must know now that no one is coming for you. I can be patient; I can wait. But you — you are only causing yourself more pain with every passing wasted day.
"No, I'm a pain to you," Cody said through his teeth. "Worth it."
Sinister let out a little noise before she projected pain into his mind, and he curled in on himself - again — just trying not to black out at this point. Even small victories like that were a win when she'd had him for this long.
There's nothing left for you to fight for.
"You're wrong," Cody spit out. "I don't believe you."
It had been his mantra for however long he'd been stuck there. He didn't believe her. He couldn't believe her, because if he did, then that was it. He was stuck.
Sinister rested her hand on Cody's shoulder, but when he shrugged her off, she simply took hold of Cody's hair and forced his head back. "I thought I could spare you this pain, but if you insist on seeing for yourself…"
Cody moved to push her away, to get her voice out of his ear, but before he could do that, Sinister filled his mind with the image of James stepping out of a circle of light wearing his blood-soaked clothes as Death. His claws were already out as he stalked silently toward the hidden-away cabin in the woods…
Cody went pale when he recognized the cabin. That was where the non-combatants had gone. That… that was where his sisters were. Ivy and Willow. His aunts….
The group had seen James coming, and Cody could see his Aunt Theresa clutching Chelsea to her chest as Lisbet, holding John, directed them out the back way. But that just had James picking up speed.
There must have been a dampener in play, because none of the elflings were teleporting them out of danger. Kari must have realized that, because she looked toward the smaller kids and then toward James before she seemed to make up her mind and turned to meet James, her eyes wide and wet.
"James, please don't do this," she pleaded — a moment before James sank his claws into her chest and twisted his wrist.
Cody couldn't catch his breath right for as much as he was panicking as he watched the scene unfold. The older members of the group tried to stop James. His Aunt Rachel shot James until her gun was empty before he gutted her and left her to die. Kaleb managed to wrap James up from behind, his arms and legs around him to try and slow him down while the rest of the group ran into the woods. James stabbed Kaleb by putting his claws through himself as well, and when Kaleb's grip went slack, James tore him off his back and sliced him.
Cody was starting to go numb as he watched the massacre unfold. Most of the people in that group weren't X-Men. The ones that were… they were either brand new to the team or, like Tammy, pregnant. They… they couldn't stop James.
He tried to turn away from the scene or block it out somehow, but he couldn't stop it. Sinister wouldn't let him look away.
James simply set to hunting down the rest of the group from there. And Cody could only watch in horror as one of his oldest friends killed their family one by one.
"No," he breathed out as he watched James stalking toward Chloe, who had Ivy pulled protectively to her chest as she ran. She was obviously trying to find the edge of the dampening field, because she kept tapping the side of her temple, willing the optic blasts to work.
James caught up to her first.
Cody tried to close his eyes or do something to block out the horrifying sound, the almost-gasp when James' claw went through Chloe's chest. But he couldn't. He was stuck. He couldn't stop seeing and hearing all of it.
And when James turned on a hysterical, terrified Ivy…shushing her as he picked her up...
Cody screamed, trying to find some way to block it out. He couldn't breathe; he was going numb. He couldn't… he couldn't stop it.
"Stop," he said, his tone pleading. He was openly crying, not even caring at this point as he watched James stalking toward Charlie.
Charlie — who couldn't even defend herself. Who had fallen to the forest floor sobbing because of the terror and pain she could feel all around herself.
"Please," Cody gasped as he saw James pull back his fist full of bloody claws.
Cody couldn't turn away. He couldn't stop it, either. He couldn't save any of them. Charlie, Willow, Kade, Malin, Sadie, Chelsea, John….
It was John that finally did it. Not for Cody — by that point, he was beyond the point of screaming. He'd stopped begging Sinister to stop. He was just waiting for this vision to be over.
But for James, Cody could see the hesitation as he tried to stop himself. And when he couldn't, Cody could see, just for a moment, the anguish in his gaze instead of cold, hard murder.
James was fighting Apocalypse's hold on him, but it was too late. It was far too late.
Cody was shaking his head 'no' as he realized what was about to happen. He watched James look down at his still-bloody claws and then continued to watch as he stumbled back into the dampening field. He saw the decision before James made it.
An instant after James slumped to the ground, the world was dark again. Cody was back in that room with Sinister.
He was numb with shock, and he didn't even flinch away when Sinister brought her hand up to his face. He didn't move as Sinister removed the blinder and let it fall away to show the falsely compassionate expression on her face.
"Why do you think Rachel lost control of the Phoenix?" Sinister asked gently as Cody simply sat there, shaking from head to toe and unable to get a breath right. "She knew the moment they were dead."
Cody didn't respond except to let his shoulders slump the slightest bit. It made sense. Of course it did. And since no one had come to get him…
Sinister made a noise that sounded like sympathy as she lifted Cody's chin even so gently to look him in the eyes. "My dear boy," she said, "you don't have to be alone. I could take this all away. Wouldn't that be so much better?"
Cody didn't answer her. He wasn't even listening to her properly at that point, still too numb, too raw.
Sinister let out a breath and let her shoulders drop as she looked properly apologetic. "I can make all that pain disappear," she said in a consoling tone. "I'd make you stronger, better — more than a Marauder. You would be remade into something truly special." She had his head in her hands to make him look at her, even though he was still in such a state of shock that he wasn't really seeing her properly anyway.
Cody raised his gaze to hers, all raw pain and anguish as he did so. He was silent for a long time before, very slowly, he nodded.