Memories
Accountability
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Tora raised her head and looked at Steve.
"I need you to tell me what I did. Steve, I can't live not knowing what I let myself do."
"Tora, believe me when I say you did nothing worse than what we have done."
She looked down.
"Then why are you keeping me like this?"
She raised her wrists, clasped in adamantium chains.
"I can feel the energy mesh, Steve. This isn't just a cell for show. You've got me in here almost without powers. You've even strapped my fingers straight. You mean this."
"Tora, we need to…"
"Where's Hope?"
"She had no trace of the Phoenix. We released her. Tora, we need to know the truth. What happened?"
"I don't know. I can't remember."
"I'm not talking about what you did! I'm talking about the sudden surge in mutant manifestations! Don't lie and pretend you don't know anything about it!"
She sat in silence.
"Tora."
And then she spoke, in a low, dead voice.
"The Phoenix Hope had was merely a fraction –a shard if you like. We dissipated it across the world, burning through the 'No more mutants' spell. She knows what the burning is like. So when the Phoenix returns, she'll be ready."
"Tora, we need to talk to you about this…"
"No. You need to listen! You think any of this would have happened if Tony hadn't attacked us! Steve, the Phoenix isn't malevolent! Maybe the stupid firebird's a little blunt at times but it doesn't mean harm! I find it exasperating and irritating and a nuisance but there's no malevolence there! It's like a child, that just happens to be immensely powerful! It stops everything from stagnating, from dying! You've met Celestials! How do mad you think they'd be if they found out that their precious experiment was wiped out!"
"Tora, that is not the point!"
"It is, Steve! It always has been! It's always been mutants against the world! Us against you! You let Wanda and Pietro on the Avengers but you wondered, didn't you?! When the hate mail started flooding in, when death threats started turning up in the post! You considered quietly dropping them from the team! Oh, don't lie! I knew! You'd have to think it, because there were barely any other options! Steve, we've been left to our own devices! The Avengers defend humankind! The X-Men defend human and mutant alike! What does that say, Steve? What does that say! Look at you, Steve! When I was out of it, I know you were searching for the Dragon Protocol. Yeah, I know all about that! Eight syringes around the world, a cocktail of chemicals capable of putting me down permanently. You weren't looking to arrest me. You were going to kill me. I trusted you, Steve! I trusted you and Tony with that secret and you betrayed that trust! You think they just magically found out something that could kill me!? No, I gave that to Fury for situations a whole lot worse than this!"
"What sort of worse can there be!"
She leapt up and slammed her manacled wrists to the observation window.
"You know what I was trained to do, to be! Imagine that! Imagine that, in my body, with my knowledge, with my power, without my morals or beliefs! Imagine something that has only ever known hurt and wishes to lash out at the world, with the ability to destroy everything! That's what the Dragon Protocol is there for! Imagine something so twisted, it was capable of killing Jean Grey in cold blood! Imagine something so terrifying, that it can turn a hardened murderer into a quivering wreck! Imagine something with so much power it can distort space-time to suit its own needs! That's what I'm constantly fighting, Steve! You think I can live with this! It tears me apart and I spend all my time keeping my dark side down and out! "We are absolute. Fear us for we could wipe you from history. You wouldn't die, you would simply never BE. It would be so easy. One word and you would never exist. And we can ignore all those fiddly little paradoxes." I said that once! I said that, I made Poacher scream in fear because she knew it was true! I was so powerful I could wave a hand and change history! I could have stopped all suffering! I could have stopped you falling! Did you ever wish that, Steve!? Did you ever wonder what happened if you weren't frozen? I'll tell you! Etana saves you, she joins the Invaders with Max, you get married, she dies in childbirth and you grow old and bitter, hating your son for what he took from you! Because Etana didn't have to die! She gave her life for your son! See, Steve! You see why I never talk about this! I live with all this pain, right at my fingertips and I have to be strong to keep from going insane! Do you know how many times I've died! Do you know how many times I feel life slip away from under my fingers! I've been drowned, burned, suffocated, broken so many times I swear I know what every kind of death feels like! I live like this for all of you! Do you know how this all turns out! If you arrest me, countless die because Scott, Emma, Namor, Colossus and Magik end up with the Phoenix Force instead of Hope! All because Tony shot them! Wakanda burns! You scream and beg and I just turn away! Second, you don't get there in 'time'! I complete the bonding, Hope returns to Earth, restarts the mutant race and the Phoenix Force leaves! No fuss, no deaths, no bother! The only variable the fiascos have in common is you, Steve! You and the Avengers! You caused this! You broke us and destroyed us! You condemned us the moment you decided to play around with Wanda's memories!"
She fell back into her chair and Steve suddenly felt a flush of embarrassment. The cell she was in had three sides, two two-foot walls of concrete impregnated with Antarctic vibranium meeting at right angles where the seat was and the third, curved glass wall. Tora could stand up and sit down but that was it. None of her usual pacing. She seemed incapable of sitting still most of the time. Steve had always regarded it with some humour. She could sit for hours meditating, not moving at all but at team briefings, she'd be pacing back and forth, unable to stand still. If she was sitting, her legs would be jiggling or her feet tapping, as if she wished to be walking. He knew why that was. He'd seen it in Bernie's cat almost every day. Quite happy to spend hours sleeping in the sun, but if it was hunting it couldn't stop moving. Tail would twitch back and forth. Tora didn't have a tail so instead paced. And right now, she'd be wanting to move. As it was, her feet were tapping out the familiar rhythm. She seemed to have lapsed into silence and all Steve could think of was what she said.
The only variable the fiascos have in common is you, Steve! You and the Avengers! You caused this! You broke us and destroyed us! You condemned us the moment you decided to play around with Wanda's memories!
He's always wondered about that. But Tora's anger was total. She saw so much, suffered so. He'd remembered asking her once about how she enjoyed having the alternate selves to chat to. She'd just fixed her amber gaze on him and stated, quite softly, that seeing alternate realities wasn't a gift but a curse.
"Tora… What… What could we have done to stop M-Day?"
She shrugged.
"32% of realities with powers avoided the Decimation. Call it by its proper name, not the euphemism you created to make yourself feel better. In 15% of realities, Wanda was killed either before having kids, or between being mind-wiped and remembering. In 10%, she never married Vision or had kids. In 3% she killed herself in a brief moment of sanity, when she realised what she'd done to the Avengers. In 2%, she responded to Charles' treatment. In 1% you killed her. In 0.5%, you let me heal her, before taking her to a quiet retreat on the edge of the Shi'ar Imperium. In 0.45%, I heal her then you kill us both as threats."
"What about the remaining 0.05%?"
"In that world… In those worlds, Wanda didn't say 'No More Mutants'. She said other things, like 'No more fighting', 'no more hate', 'no more bigotry'. And the world was so beautiful."
"Tora…"
"You have no idea…"
"Tora…"
"WE AREN'T AFRAID THERE!"
She was standing now, slamming her fists against the glass, cracks appearing there. That cell was supposed to be unbreakable. He could see the blood on her hands. Of course, even if she hadn't use of her claws, her hands were still adamantium. He'd once seen her punch a hole in concrete. Her fists had been bloodied and bruised but they healed quickly.
"I could live there without being afraid that my kids could be killed the next day because of what we are! Steve, I live every day afraid that the FOH or the Purifiers or the MRD will kill my children! Not because of what Logan and I do but because of what they are! You think I can live with that! It kills me, Steve, because the world hates my children before they're even walking because they're mutants!"
She pressed her fingers to her temples.
"That's why I fight. To try and keep my kids safe. It stopped being about the dream years ago. Now all I fight for is a world where my children aren't going to be killed because of their blood. It's as simple as that, Steve."
"Tora…"
She was crying now, silently, softly, angrily. Like she thought the tears were weakness. Knowing Tora, she probably did. She viciously wiped her eyes. Yep, angry. Angry that he had to see her at this moment of weakness, when he'd pushed her so far she had to cry. She turned away, curling up into the wall.
"Look… Steve… Just…go… I'll be ready for whatever charges you press against me. You know as well as I do, even if we do go to court, I won't spill out all those secrets. I won't talk about what Tony did to me, what you did to Wanda. I won't say a word in my own defence and they'll sentence me with prejudice for my mutant blood. I won't mention the Dragon Protocol, I won't talk about the times I've saved you. I will only talk about Phoenix and Dragon and explain what they are. And what I became."
Steve choked back a curse. Because Tora would do just that. She would keep all their dirty secrets hidden and in doing so, condemn herself. Her mutant status would just increase her sentence. He knew a non-mutant Avenger would probably get off scot-free. Tora? She'd be looking at a long time in the Raft or 42, surrounded by those she had once fought. She'd be lucky to survive one riot. She might be close to indestructible but enough concentrated firepower and she'd be down and out.
She was ignoring him and he knew from experience that she'd not pay attention to him when she was like this. So he quietly slipped out, letting her silently cry.
"She really was a wreck."
"Jean, of course she was. She hadn't a clue what had happened to her, she was suffering horrific nightmares and as far as she knew, she might be sent to the Negative Zone."