The day I died was like any other day really. I woke up resting on Bucky, we went to train with Steve, Clint and Natasha before heading to eat in Tony's fancy kitchen where Bruce would cook for everyone—he always made us have a shower before we ate though and used that time to get Tony into the kitchen so he actually ate something.
It was a normal day, no wannabe super villains or criminals that needed to be tracked down, SHIELD mess was slowly being cleaned up.
It should have been a good day, a normal day for once in our fucked up lives. But Fate was the biggest Bitch in the world and enjoyed fucking with me.
Hope rolled her eyes as she heard Tony and Steve bicker, Steve wanted Tony to stop playing with one of his tablets—probably designing something that he shouldn't—as he wanted the team to have some bonding time.
She was just about to take a sip of her orange juice when the screaming started and the glass slipped out of her suddenly limp hand and smashed on the floor as her hands clapped over her ears and she almost screamed.
Panicked, fearful screaming echoed in her head, psychically calling for help for anyone they knew. Irma, Phoebe and Celeste's (The Cuckoo Triplets) and Ruth's (Blindfold) voices screamed for her help as panicked images filtered through her mind of the school being attacked.
"—ope! Hope!" she vaguely heard familiar voices call but she was too focused on the horror that was being brutally shoved into her mind.
Hope, Charles' voice cut off the onslaught of images and she could breathe freely again. We need you.
Clarice, was her answer and a small hum in the back of her head told her that Xavier had understood.
She opened her eyes and found herself staring into Bucky's eyes, so close that she could see the hint of green in the otherwise blue depths. She didn't even have to say anything, he knew and his face tightened brief and he pressed a quick kiss on her forehead before he let her go, knowing he could possibly be letting her go forever, and turned to tackle Steve—Steve being the only one that could take Bucky barrelling into him without breaking a few ribs—and thus ripping the attention away from her.
Her feet shifted and she barely heard Natasha's voice—raised and hurried—as the Russian realised what was happening as she raced towards the window that Tony had once been thrown out of.
"HOPE!" her name was shouted by different voices as she leaped towards the window, one of Clarice's portals appearing just before she crashed through the glass, for a brief moment she was both deaf and blind and then she was falling, free-falling from the sky, and she braced herself as she hit the ground with earth-shattering force.
Her landing had made a massive breach in ground and plain metal faces turned to her and fury burnt through her veins as she stared at the faceless killer robots that had dared to attack her home, attack her family.
When you're in the heat of a battle, especially a battle for the lives of your family, you don't really take notice of much. You don't take notice of the wounds that you've gained, you don't take notice to how slowly they were healing as you threw yourself again and again at the Sententials that were attacking.
I guess that was why I was so surprised by my coming death. I hadn't noticed the signs until it was staring at me in the face.
Hope gurgled blood as she stared down in almost surprise at the spear of metal that was piercing through her body and Rogue stared with wide-eyes up at the form of her friend that had just saved her life.
There was something different in Hope's expression as she stared down at the wound, blood slipping out of her parted lips, and Rogue inched forward—only partly aware of Logan being thrown at the Sentential that had attempted to kill Rogue and had hurt Hope—as Hope fell, knee buckling under her weight and falling into Rogue's arms with a choked cry of pain.
"Hope?" Rogue's voice was pitched high in her panic and fear as she cradled her friend close and brushed dark curled locks out of her pale face with a gloved hand. "Hope? What's wrong?"
"I'm," she choked on blood as she stared up at Rogue with wide mismatched eyes. "I'm not healing."
How many times I had wished for the release of death? How many times did I go under Duerr's knife with the half-hearted hope that my heart would finally give out?
I had never consider killing myself like Simon had done so many years ago. Suicide wasn't an option to me as I had learnt to survive and had honed my survival instinct over the years—I wouldn't be a coward and fall victim to my own fear.
I had lived for ten years in this world, I have learnt to be brave in the face of fear, and in the face of what could be certain death to another 'normal', and I have learnt to be cruel and ruthless in my need to survive and to protect the people I had come to care about.
I have waded into war, fought against aliens, and had blood staining my hands and leaving its mark on my soul.
I had been called a murderer—true—and a hero—I'm no-one hero—and many names over the ten years I had lived in this world and this was how I was going out?
At least I wouldn't die alone, Rogue would be with me and perhaps I could actually do something heroic in my final moments—or perhaps it is just as selfish as I have become. I knew Rogue's future, knew she would be long dead before Logan went back and fixed things in the seventies. Perhaps I could give her a fighting chance against this metal monsters?
Rogue was startled by Hope's warm hand on her bare cheek and her eyes widened as she moved to remove it before she finished her off for the Sentential—whenever she got too emotional she lost some control of her power and Hope knew that.
"Don't," Hope choked out. "Take it all, protect as many as possible and live, please?"
So Rogue just held her and rocked as her veins started to stick out with a sickly grey hue and it seemed the very colour of her hair drained as life slowly began to leave Hope's unique duo-coloured eyes and didn't flinch from the battle happening around them—nothing mattered at the moment.
Slowly Hope's hand fall limply though Rogue clutched it tightly as she began to rock the still body of one of her best friends and cried.
"Ah've got you," Rogue whispered hoarsely into curly hair. "Ah'll live, for you. Ah promise. You will be remembered."
There was something about finding Rogue cradling Hope's still body that stirred something deep in his memories, but Logan didn't care as he fell to his knees next to 'his' kids and wrapped his arms around them.
Hope's head lolled to one side, her gaze vacant and distant in her final death, and Rogue sobbed harder as Logan gently reached out to close Hope's eyes—she wasn't coming back from this death, he knew and part of his heart wretched at the thought that this young woman, so like what he thought his own blood daughter would be like if he ever had one, never waking up again.
"Come on, Kid," Logan said after a while but she stubbornly shook her head and held Hope tighter like she was afraid that Hope would disappear if she let go.
"Rogue!" Bobby called out as he rushed towards them, his steps faltering before fully halting as he caught sight of exactly what—and more importantly who—Rogue was cradling. "Oh god, Hope!"
Hope had never been one they had thought would fall in battle, she was like Logan in a way, seen as totally immortal and able to heal from anything. And yet, there she lay in Rogue's arms and she was dead, she was gone and she wasn't coming back.
Tony Stark had threated the whole of America if they dared to unleash any Sententials during Hope's funeral with destruction and had promised he would sell every weapon he made to America's enemies if he did find them any were—Captain America standing silently by his side added more fear to the threat as the Good Captain didn't even attempt to stop his billionaire team-mate as he made his very public threats.
Her plain coffin had been covered with flowers and was carried by Hank, Logan, Thor, Bucky, Steve and James.
There was no priest, no church, Hope was to be buried in the place she felt at home. She was to be buried at Xavier's.
Rogue was numb as she watched them placed gently down Hope's coffin and took their seats, Bobby's comforting cool arm wrapped around her and Logan reached out to squeeze her hand as he passed her.
"Hope was a remarkable woman," Xavier began to the mixture of mutants, superheroes and few normal humans in front of him. "Who suffered greatly in her life though never stopped loving people, she was one of us despite whatever she thought and she was family. People—even some amongst us—would call her hero, a title she'll have to accept in death that she never did in life.
She was brave in a way that should inspire us, fierce when it came to those she loved and fighting for a cause she truly believed in." Xavier paused briefly as he gazed out at the sea of faces in front of him, all holding their own type of grief. "I will not lie as say she was a fault-less woman or that she was perfect as I know Hope would never appreciate me lying to make her seem better.
She was selfish and she could be cruel, but her cruelty, her ruthlessness and her selfishness was something that life taught her and kept her alive so no one should fault her for that. She raged against the world that cared little for the suffering that happened under their very noses, she raged against cruel men that had changed her and she fought to protect people—though she would always claim she was fighting for herself alone.
I will say she was kinder than she thought, that she was a good woman, and she will be sorely missed from our lives. I dearly hope she'll have a peace she was denied in this life."
Rogue didn't remember standing or walking to the front but she must have as she was staring at a sea of faces, half she only knew from Hope's memories.
"It was clear Hope was different from the first time Ah met her," Rogue began. "She didn't shy away from us despite how the world looked down at us and treated us, she took it in her stride in a way no non-mutant has ever done. She didn't care what our mutation was, if it showed in a way that made the world look at us as freaks, she would barely blink before introducing herself and acting like normal—Ah think that's why so many of us loved her.
Once you earned her loyalty, Ah don't think you ever really could lose it. She was one of my best friends and never cared about my power, often touching me bare handed if Ah was hurt so Ah could heal like she could always with a smirk or a smile on her face as she batted my hands away.
She cared more deeply than she let on," Rogue's hand absently drifted up to touch the side of her head. "She went through so much that Ah am only now realising, but she didn't falter and she kept on going.
Hope foresaw a horrible future, one Ah am inclined to agree with because of latest events, and in her final moments made sure to give me her strength so Ah could live through all of this and protect as many as Ah could. And Ah will, if only for her." Rogue paused as she placed her hand down. "She had powers that she didn't want, went through stuff no one should go through, but she fought against anyone that threated the world and those she loved. Ah will do the same."
Death was meant to be the end, the end of Life, of pain and suffering. I had already known that it wasn't always true and yet I had thought I deserved that type of Death. But yet again I was denied.
Death's just the next great adventure, huh Dumbledore? Well I didn't sign up for this shit.
AN: And that's the end of Hope's adventure and onto her next life, at the moment I don't think I'll write out her life in the Pokémon world, which she will have, and I'll just go on to her life as a mutant. Her mutation will be Regenerated Healing by the poll results.
Sorry it took so long but I have just discovered the wonders of Skyrim.