Memories
Fear and Loss
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If you want to use Tora, or any of my other characters, PM me.
She stared around the empty rooms, her rooms, a basic bedroom with another added on next door, in which a bed and a cot rested. She sighed and Logan turned.
"What's wrong?"
"I'm just thinking about all the other places we stayed."
"Go on."
"Our first room in the mansion. That might be my favourite in the States. Then the room in Japan. That one's my favourite overall. Then back to the mansion and another set of rooms. Then we converted the mansion into a school full time and got a whole apartment by the looks of it, you know, rooms for all the kids, dinette, bathroom instead of the simple showers… Then that was destroyed and we came to Greymalkin. And that was tiny, with barely any room to move and Jamie and Eva was all scrunched up in the same room and Curt couldn't even stay with us… Are we falling further and further into some sort of decline?"
"Look… this is just temporary. Until Osborn is out of power. Then we can go back to the mainland and actually buy a place near Greymalkin, close enough to be a part of the main group but separate."
She smiled wryly.
"But we both know that's not going to happen. We're too sucked in, too entrenched. We're X-Men Logan. That defines us now. We can't simply be Logan and Tora. We will forever be remembered, even in the eyes of our friends, as Wolverine and Dragon. You with the Avengers, me being famed as the woman who made the Skrulls flee and who fell at the feet of the Hulk, telling him to take her instead of the others. When we're gone, that's all that will be remembered. The shells."
"I never understand how you persuaded Hulk to take you instead of Charles. I hated you then. Hated that you'd give your life up for Chuck, hated that you even considered it."
"I told him the truth."
"Which was?"
"I was more guilty than any of the others. They could not help it. I am the World-Healer. I should have been there, healing that broken world. And I wasn't. I have so much blood on my hands. Bruce hates me, and with good reason. I could have saved everyone on Sakaar, his wife, his friends, his people. And I didn't. Elloe Kaifi was right to call me the worst kind of monster."
"Tora…"
"Tell me truly Logan, who do you hate more? The men who persecute us or those who stand aside and let it happen, thinking 'it will never happen to us'? Who do you despise the most?"
"Tora."
"Wait, don't answer. Because I already know. You hate those who stand aside, allow the horrors to happen. You hate the fact that when Jersey was annexed in World War Two, there was only one Jew on the whole island, one Jew from London who worked as a maid for a family on holiday there and instead of hiding her, as they could so easily have done, they handed her over to her death. And I am just like that Logan. You should despise me."
"No. You're not. You're just human. Dragon should be the one dealing with this, not you."
"But I am Dragon Logan. Can't you see? I am not Tora anymore."
"No. You are Tora. Just Tora."
She sighed.
"Tell me truthfully, have you every wished me to not be Dragon?"
He looked away then nodded.
"And sometimes, when I say or do something that quite obviously isn't… Tora, you wish you married someone else."
"NO!"
"Logan, it only happens rarely but I see it. Scott was just the same but a lot more frequent. I read people. And you're, not to put too fine a point on it, one of Eva's picture books. As in, 'The cat sat on the mat' easy."
"Tora…"
"It's so fleeting, the first couple of times I thought I read you wrong. But then… It was that training session when I made you all fight Dark Dragon and you just looked at me and you were scared. And I think that shocked me a lot more than I could ever imagine. I scared you for a moment Logan. And I don't know how to fix that."
Phoenix nodded.
"Fear destroyed my marriage. That and a lack of communication."
"Excuse me, you had a telepathic link!"
"Yes, but we didn't talk. That was the problem."
Jamie was doing what most four-year-olds whose birthday had been last week most certainly didn't do. He was carefully picking up wooden blocks with numbers on them and placing them into complex sums. Valeria was sitting beside him.
"And if you divide by 36.748, you get… FRANKLIN!"
For her brother had just shot around the corner, laughing wildly and slammed right into the blocks of long division. Curt charged round after him, froze then gave a big grin.
"Sorry?"
Jamie started hitting his brother's legs.
"YOU RUINED IT! YOU RUINED IT!"
Tora swept in and picked him up, jerking her head to tell Curt and Franklin to move out sharpish, comforting the crying children whilst Jeanne carefully patted all the blocks back into place. As soon as the last double negative was in place the kids stopped crying and Tora leant back, finally relaxing. She wasn't entirely sure how this had ended up happening. How Sue Richards and Jessica Jones-Cage had ended up inviting her to these meetings where the general rule was; bring along the kids and see how much trouble they can get up to in an hour; she would never know. But she enjoyed it. At the last check, Eva and Danielle had been having a word competition, to see who could speak the most. This had resulted in the conversation of 'how the hell does your kid know the words disembowelled and temporal manipulation!', where apparently the statements 'her father' and 'she listens in on me and Hank' weren't considered acceptable excuses. What other excuses were there than Eva hearing Logan's rants about what he was going to do to Sabretooth. Or Gorgon. Or Osborn. Or whoever else happened to have annoyed him. It was the price to pay for staying with Logan. At least she'd stopped the swearing, smoking and most of the drinking through gentle pressure and not so gentle screaming matches. And hiding any vaguely tobacco related products in the sea. As in, handing them to Namor and telling him to drop them somewhere interesting.
Jamie looked up, his bright blue eyes sparkling.
"What do you think Maman?"
"Très bon Jamie. Very good."
Valeria smiled as well, her blond hair and pale eyes making her look like an angel with an acid tongue.
"Yes. It is, isn't it Aunty Tora."
She still wasn't certain how she'd ended up being an aunt to the Richards children. She supposed that going to see Sue when Jamie and Val were both babies may have had something to do with it. She shrugged it off and tried calling for Sue, to get her to stop Franklin and Curt charging around like headless chickens.
"How is Curt by the way?"
Death shrugged.
"Insanely cheerful, spends far too much time with Deadpool and appears to have discovered Asgardian mead."
"And the symbiote?"
"Still a part of him. The two can't unravel. They've been together so long, for most of their lives, that they would instantly die without the other."
Curt lay in silence in the dark room, Hellion's final accusation still ringing in his ears.
"What are you even doing here! You're not a mutant, not anymore! You're a freak, an alien!"
He didn't want to speak to Xixy. Xixy who was treated with wary politeness since his 'betrayal' during the Skrull Invasion, which was actually a canny political manoeuvre to make the Skrulls think the K'Meer were preparing to annex Earth. It had cost more than the thirty-thousand K'Meeri lives in the space battle. It had cost Xixy's popularity, the friendly face of the X-Men, who insisted on keeping the alien conquistador on their team.
I hate everyone.
(Not true. You don't hate me or Poison or Maman.)
Please say you love me! I love you! You're SPECIAL!
I like you. I just hate everyone else. Maman never listens and Dad is Dad.
(Either that was very, very deep or very, very stupid. I wonder which?)
"I pitied him at times."
"No. You shouldn't pity him. He was happy with what he was. He wasn't dead. That was all he ever wanted."