AA Prompt 1.4 "If you are brave too often, people will come to expect it of you."
I'm not a brave man.
I've never served in the military. Never aspired to be a hero of any kind. Most of the decisions I've made that other people might define as "brave" somehow, were really driven by fear.
Two years ago, I made the decision to escape from the Brotherhood - something that entailed falling jumping off a cliff, swimming miles through stormy seas to land, and then finding my way without money, clothes, directions, or even my glasses, to the X-Men in Westchester. I could have died at any stage. I had no idea what my newly-acquired mutation could do. It was sheer luck that it allowed me to survive the fall and the swim (or, possibly, the mutation developed in response to those stimuli).
But was it bravery? Had I stayed, I knew that I would either be killed, or used as some kind of pawn by terrorists. They'd already killed Henry. I was absolutely convinced that, if I didn't take the chance, I'd never see my wife and my little girl again. So I jumped out of a simple need for self-preservation.
A couple of months ago, I stood up in front of Congress and argued for the Mutant Hate Crime bill, outing myself as a mutant, knowing that I might be killed. Bravery? No. I had to do it for my kids, for my friends, for all the young people who are or might someday be mutants. I was shot. I almost died on the operating table. But we got one step closer to assuring that my unborn son grows up in a world where having a mutant for a dad might not be as bad as having a politician for a father.
Even my earliest decisions - joining the track team, going to college - were driven by fear, by a need to get away from a bad home environment. There was no deep-seated ambition there. There was no bravery. And, when I started working as a lawyer, I was terrified of failure, both for myself, and for my clients. Could I watch them sent to jail? Could I watch myself going home, tail between my legs? No. So I found bravery in a bottle for a while. It's easier to take risks when you don't think about the guilt, when you don't believe you can fail.
It's harder, these days. I'm stone-cold sober, but the fear doesn't go away. People sometimes say that bravery is being afraid, but doing it anyway. I wish I could believe that. I'd just prefer not to be afraid at all.
muse: senator robert kelly
fandom: x-men
word count: 433
I've never served in the military. Never aspired to be a hero of any kind. Most of the decisions I've made that other people might define as "brave" somehow, were really driven by fear.
Two years ago, I made the decision to escape from the Brotherhood - something that entailed falling jumping off a cliff, swimming miles through stormy seas to land, and then finding my way without money, clothes, directions, or even my glasses, to the X-Men in Westchester. I could have died at any stage. I had no idea what my newly-acquired mutation could do. It was sheer luck that it allowed me to survive the fall and the swim (or, possibly, the mutation developed in response to those stimuli).
But was it bravery? Had I stayed, I knew that I would either be killed, or used as some kind of pawn by terrorists. They'd already killed Henry. I was absolutely convinced that, if I didn't take the chance, I'd never see my wife and my little girl again. So I jumped out of a simple need for self-preservation.
A couple of months ago, I stood up in front of Congress and argued for the Mutant Hate Crime bill, outing myself as a mutant, knowing that I might be killed. Bravery? No. I had to do it for my kids, for my friends, for all the young people who are or might someday be mutants. I was shot. I almost died on the operating table. But we got one step closer to assuring that my unborn son grows up in a world where having a mutant for a dad might not be as bad as having a politician for a father.
Even my earliest decisions - joining the track team, going to college - were driven by fear, by a need to get away from a bad home environment. There was no deep-seated ambition there. There was no bravery. And, when I started working as a lawyer, I was terrified of failure, both for myself, and for my clients. Could I watch them sent to jail? Could I watch myself going home, tail between my legs? No. So I found bravery in a bottle for a while. It's easier to take risks when you don't think about the guilt, when you don't believe you can fail.
It's harder, these days. I'm stone-cold sober, but the fear doesn't go away. People sometimes say that bravery is being afraid, but doing it anyway. I wish I could believe that. I'd just prefer not to be afraid at all.
muse: senator robert kelly
fandom: x-men
word count: 433