Memories
Mind, Body, Soul
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Silence. Okay, having a super-villain turning up on the Avengers doorstep wasn't that odd. But a super-villain who rang the doorbell? That was new.
"I need to speak to Thor."
Jarvis gulped.
"I doubt that is…"
"Thor. Now."
She marched in, went straight to the room with the Avengers were eating breakfast. There was a slightly wild look in her eyes.
"They have him."
"Whoa… Who? Who has whom?"
She gulped.
"They have Loki. I can't get him out myself. I need your help."
"Who has Loki? And why should we help you?"
She ignored Iron Man and stared at Thor.
"The people who tortured me as a child have your brother. I need your help. I don't know what they'll do to him. Please."
Thor gulped.
"This is a trick."
She swore violently.
"It's not a trick! Listen, when I met your brother we made a pact. I swore I wouldn't harm you! I swore! An oath! I don't care about that oath anymore, all I care about is not hurting him! I wouldn't hurt you because doing that would hurt him! And if you still don't trust me, look!"
She span around, tore down the shirt to reveal the tattoo, even more intricate but patchy and fading.
"You know what the extensions mean. But you also know what the fading means as well. Now, HELP!"
The hammer was already in Thor's hand.
"We go."
Iron Man stood up but she shook her head.
"Thor only. This is family."
"Wait… Family? Since when were you and Thor family?"
She whipped around.
"Since the ward tattoo changed. Understand?"
Then she nodded.
"We need to get him out. Please."
And then she stalked out, Thor following.
Stark raised an eyebrow.
"Okay, freaky Asgardian family dynamics. Before coffee. I'm just going to pretend this never happened."
xXx
They lay coiled together, warmth spreading between them as he gently cradled her head.
"Etana won't let him come after us."
"He wants Jamie. I saw it in his eyes. He wants to have Jamie because I betrayed him…"
"He betrayed you. He hurt you and lied to you and cheated on you."
"And I let him…"
"You had a reason."
"I still could have stood up to him. Told him he couldn't keep humiliating me in front of all the others."
"Tora…"
"You know, he once almost fooled me into thinking I had the old Logan back… And then his friends who were hiding watching us started making crass comments… I couldn't get to the bathroom fast enough…"
"He didn't deserve you. Not after what he did to you. You're worth more than he will ever be worth."
She buried her head in his chest and he felt her smile.
"You're just too sweet, you know that?"
"Careful. Last time you said that, we ended up with a shadow baby."
"That was twelve years ago and I'd just found out you'd gone and got all these papers so we could get married then handed me the register and looked at me soulfully. Oh, and told everyone I was dead so I could run away with you."
"Not to mention having demon babies."
She giggled.
"Yes. Demon babies. Remind me what part of 'this marriage will be childless, understand?' did you not get?"
He started shaking with laughter, his arms loosening from around her.
"I think it was the way you started cooing over Jamie when you got him back that made me think you weren't serious…"
She sniggered back and uncurled herself, smiling warmly at him.
"You do know me better than I appear to know myself."
"Well, you have all the others to contend with. I just have one Tora and she is the best one of them all, in my humble opinion."
"You do realise you've just got an infinite number of feral femme fatales out for your blood?"
"Yes, but they aren't here and you are."
She smiled again and leant in to kiss him before drawing back, eyebrow raised.
"You've been eating Stephan's Twinkies again!"
He grinned cheekily.
"What gave it away?"
xXx
Her coffin was a vast metal monstrosity. A clear glass panel revealed her face, covered in the black cowl. The classic X-Men uniform. As requested by her initial statements. To be laid to rest in a way that proclaimed to one and all that she was X-Man. Bobby stood up, dressed in a suit. Without the ice coating his body, he looked…so very normal.
"Thanks…Everyone, thanks for coming… I know Tora would have appreciated it."
She looked around. Kurt was standing there, holding Stevie in his arms, his great-nephew's head buried in his neck. Tora felt a weird fluttering feeling. Etana had begged Tora to look after her son when she fell to her knees, waiting for Osborn to kill her. She looked around again. Logan, with Eva and Jamie clinging to his knees. Emma, in diamond form, cut off from her emotions. Ororo, her face stonily expressionless, hiding behind the mask of Queen of Wakanda. Hank's eyes and the fur on his face soaked with tears. Peter, in his steel form, to prevent him from crying. Charles shivering, not quite sure what to do or say.
"I think we all know what I'm going to say. Only good die young. Remember that? We'd get annoyed because she only ever played that song, over and over again. She was a beautiful person. And there's this piece I want to read to you… I'm going to skip around some. But I always liked the song when I was a kid: "He asked me; Son of Man, 'Can these bones come to life'; 'Lord God,' I answered, 'You alone know that'; Then He said to me; 'Prophesy over theses bones and say to them; Dry bones, hear the Word of the Lord! …Thus says the Lord God to these bones; See I will bring Spirit into you, that you may come to life.' I prophesised as he told me and the Spirit came into them; They came alive and stood upright, a vast army. Then He said to me; 'Son of Man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They have been saying 'our bones are dried up, our hope is lost and we are cut off.' Therefore prophesy and say to them; Thus says the Lord God; 'Oh my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them, and bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the Lord when I open your graves and have you rise from them, O my people. I will put my spirit in you that you may live and I will settle you upon your land…" It's a nice thought anyway."
There was a pause, and then Storm spoke.
"She was always there for you. With a ready ear and a cup of coffee."
Peter.
"People thought me dead. I hope that we are mistaken in her case."
Sorry, Pete. Dead as a dodo. Charles.
"I could always rely on her to tell me exactly what she thought."
Scott.
"She never considered herself a hero. Yet she was the best of us all."
Emma.
"She was the one I could never shock. She made me laugh and feel accepted."
Hank.
"You could always rely on her to be there for you when you needed her the most."
Warren.
"She always believed in Heaven. If anyone deserves to be there, it's her."
Kurt. Choking back tears.
"I… Tora was my Makrrrst. I don't think anyone will understand that, so here goes –she knew only fear and hate and pain. And when I met her, I felt so angry that anyone could do that to her. But she was so forgiving And I saw the beauty of humanity. I saw the joy, the life, the… adventure. Tora was and is my hero. She is my soul. And without her, we are all nothing."
She saw more than one person crying. Good one, Kurt. Make everyone feel guilty when it was her own stupid fault.
"Logan…? Do you… Logan?"
"Yeah…"
She could smell the blood on his hands. She knew he was losing control. But he deserved that.
"Tora was the only woman I ever loved who looked me in the eyes like a man, and spoke to me like one, and treated me like one. No matter what I did or where I was or how I felt. She was my best friend and the one I loved more than anything and she never treated me like a damn animal. An' now she's—she's gone and—and for what?!"
He rounded on Hope.
"You better be worth this, I swear to God!"
He stormed off, surrounded by Laura, Warren and Dom. Kurt turned on Scott.
"Why are we still here? We have to find Bastion and destroy him. Now, before anyone else is hurt!"
"We wait, Kurt. We have to wait."
"I'm done waiting! We hang around, waiting for people to wipe us out! I won't stand for this any longer! If we weren't so passive, she would still be alive! We stop running today. Now we take the fight to them!"
Xixy stepped up and caught Kurt's arm as he stared Scott in the eyes, face twisted in anger.
And then Kurt collapsed and Xixy looked up guilty, needle still in his hand.
"I thought it would be easier this way. This is the first stage of the mental deterioration."
xXx
There were only whispers. Whispers of a team. A battalion, made up of special soldiers, the top of their game, coming from Delta Force, the SAS, the Special Operations Command, Jagdkommando, CANSOFCOM, the Jægerkorpset, COS, the KSK Kommando Spezialkräfte, NZ SAS, basically any of the worldwide special forces. The best of the best. They were shadowy, dark and exceptionally dangerous. What no one knew was exactly how special the Shadow Squadron was.
They answered only to one person, the Secretary-General of the United Nations and even then he only met with their leader. The leader who had been the one to propose the team back when the UN first formed. Her original team had been small. Very small. Herself and three others. They were still small, only numbering ten or so, even sixty years after their foundation. They were sitting in the common room when their leader stepped into the room. She was a general, a high-ranking one. But to everyone there, she was just Tan and only rarely 'The Boss'.
"Guys, we have a mission."
Natasha, a recruit from the Russian Spetsnaz after the end of the Cold War and the 'Bait' of the team smiled ruthlessly.
"At last."
Logan laughed. He was one of the three original members and second in command. He'd been a paratrooper back in WWII and had been more than willing to join.
"Come on, Tash! We can't go around being super-spies all the time! We only get sent into the most delicate missions."
Carol, transferred from the US Air-Force after an incident that left her with super-strength and invulnerability, grinned.
"Come on, Logan. Tasha misses when she was our enemy!"
Max, third in command and the fourth recruit from the beginning –he had been nineteen on signing up, a record only just beaten- smiled his shark-toothed smile.
"Logan, do you remember that wonderful occasion when you were seduced by Tasha and she left you for dead."
"Shut it, Little Brother, or I'll stab you!"
"Try it and I'll manipulate the iron in your blood and make you dance around like a puppet."
"Boys, boys!"
Tan grinned at them all.
"Now, we're all going. Even you, Bruce. I doubt we'll need much brawn –we have Carol for that- but we'll be happy with your scientific support. Clint, no showing off."
He saluted sloppily.
"Sir, yes, Sir!"
She laughed.
"Kurt," this was addressed to the only one of them without a military background, "we'll want you for infiltration."
He nodded.
"Nathan, leave the big guns. This is a stealth mission."
The big man chuckled good-naturedly.
"You never let me have any fun, Tan."
She smiled wryly then turned to the newest, youngest member. She wasn't from a special forces group, instead a trained spy, assassin and computer genius Tan had found aged fourteen and cared for until she was old enough to enter the team aged just eighteen.
"Seriously, for all the legends we're very close-knit. We operate on first name basis out the field but have code names in the field. I'm the Shadow, leader, weapons-expert, martial artist, katana fighter and sometimes executioner, although I'm not too fond of those missions. Logan here is Wolverine. He's our beserker fighter and close-range operative as well as second. Max is Magneto. He's the sheer power. Controls magnetism and happens to be an excellent strategist. He normally comes up with better plans than I do and he'll be working one on one to discover your strengths and weaknesses."
The man laughed.
"Only learnt from the best."
She smiled.
"Dr Bruce, as we all call him, is our scientific support and medic. He answers to Hulk and I sincerely hope you won't have to find out why on this mission. We'll introduce you to the Jolly Green Giant in training so he'll know you're a friend."
The shy looking man with huge glasses sighed.
"Please don't call me Green Giant. And I don't think the other guy is very 'jolly', do you?"
"Ah, Bruce, since we worked out how to let him out without you getting angry, he's been a positive dear in the field. We're still teaching him to read though. Natasha is the Black Widow or just plain Widow. She's our espionage expert and is wonderful as the tempting bait to her enemies, as Logan no doubt remembers."
"Thanks, Tan. I'd almost forgotten that mentally scarring incident. How do you ever expect me to get over it if you keep bringing it up?"
"Clint, or Hawkeye, is our sharp-shooter. I can normally beat him with the bow but he's also superb with a rifle. He can hit a dime from almost a mile away."
"Tan, you flatter me."
She smiled.
"Careful, Clint, or your head will be too big to go through the door. Carol, or Binary –thank goodness we stopped her calling herself Ms. Marvel- is our controlled strength and aerial support. And when I say aerial, I don't mean planes. Nathan –Cable- is a telekinetic and telepath. He also comes from the future and is very handy with thirtieth century weaponry. And Kurt, Nightcrawler-"
"The Incredible Nightcrawler."
"Nightcrawler, isn't military. He comes from a circus and is our infiltration expert and short-range transport as well as an amazing acrobat. And now there's you. I know your name –Tora- isn't your birth name but we need to give you a field identity. You'll be our computer expert, understand?"
The young woman smiled softly.
"I have a name."
They all looked at her expectantly.
"Tigress. I am Tigress."
"Oh, how…wonderful."
"Death, shut up."