Excalibur (Marvel Comics) - Broken Dream (Politcs)
Title: Broken Dream
Author: Little Firestar
Rating: T
Fandom: Excalibur (Marvel Universe)
Characters: Pete Wisdom/Christine Stark [OC]
Summary: “Xavier sent us to fight for a world that fears and hates us, and since he founded the school, so many of us died to protect humanity, and at what price? What changed? Why do we keep doing what we do, when we just don’t get anything in return?”
Spoilers: None
Genre: Political (well… Marvel Comic Political, at least)Notes: mentions of the Days of future and Messiah Complex story-lines, but no specific knowledge needed; set, again, in the Blackdragon Universe.
The scenery that welcomes Wisdom as soon freezes his blood into his veins, and he can’t help but cringing; ruins everywhere, flames embracing what used to be called civilizations, death machines, like from some futuristic movies, running through the streets of London, hunting down everyone, doesn’t matter if they are mutants or plain humans, taking them, and, in few cases, even killing their targets.
For a second, he wonders if this is how London- and Britain - used to be during World War II, but then, he pushes the thought aside, a silly thought. This is nothing like Word War II, because, simply, this is something that has never happened before.
This is the end of the world, and not simply “the end of the world as we know it” like teenagers like to define what they think should be an epochal change, but it’s really the end of the world.
Of course, he isn’t been there, but he knows people that did, people that lived there and came back to warn them of this or that… or maybe, this has nothing to do with the end of the world, maybe, at the end, they did it, changed history enough to preserve humanity and the planet altogether, damning, though, their race in the end.
He takes a couple of tentative steps towards the woman standing in from of him, and even given the circumstances, he can’t help but feeling lost in her, drinking into her very presence, every time like it was the first time, or like he had gone for too long without being unable to see her, hold her- even if, like now, it has been just few hours.
She is embracing herself, lost into the destruction that she can’t avoid, can’t stop, and even if he can’t see her eyes, he is imagining them, teary, sad, almost closed, dark and stormy, and he feels the sudden need to protect her, even if he can’t do anything for this and she doesn’t, never did, need protection, not from him nor anyone.
She shivers when he embraces her from behind, freezing on the spot, and Pete would like to grin in the mass of reddish rebellious hair, because he just surprised Christine Antoinette Stark, one of World’s most powerful telepaths, but he can’t, not with everything taking place in front of them. This is not the place, nor the time.
Green and black lines and dots series of zeros and ones suddenly appears in front of them, taking the place of the post-apocalyptic scenario, and they are not any longer in the streets of London, but back at Excalibur HQ, inside a big, almost immense, white room- the danger room.
He’ll never get used to this, it was so real, and even if he knew, he still does, that it was just a lie, a solid, 3-D hologram generated by an alien AI, programmed to make it as real as it gets, he is still… he doesn’t know how to vocalize his feelings. It didn’t look like the end of the world. It felt like the end of the world. It was the end of the world.
Christine frees herself from the embrace, and leans against a wall, looking at the hand - Pete’s hand - strongly but yet calmly massaging the skin left uncovered by her Kevlar uniform, the one a long time ago Jean Grey gave her, just few weeks before the redhead died to save the world from a crazy Magneto wonnabe.
“Have you ever considered that maybe he is right? That, maybe, we pick the wrong side to fight for?” The words leave her mouth before she could actually think them- and maybe she didn’t tell them at all, Pete acknowledges, maybe he just heard them because of their psychic bond, the mental proof of their feeling for each other. Because he doesn’t need to ask her to explain herself furthermore- he already knows where this is going, and what she is exactly talking about, and, moreover, whom.
He takes a big breath, and looks at her, really looks at her, waiting for her to go on.
“Because… Eric, he told… I remember when he told me….” she closes her eyes, massaging the bridge of her nose, stopping, like she couldn’t voice her own feelings, her won fears, like she would like to. “This world, it’s few billions years old, and in just a couple of centuries the Homo Sapiens has been able to create an environment that will able to sustain the human race for less than half that time. It’s the Homo sapiens who invented war and wrote manuals about torture. Humanity is the only animal who takes pleasure upon inflicting sufferance on others, and sometimes, I can’t help but ask me if it’s worth it. Because I remember when Eric told me that he just wanted to make this world beautiful and perfect, and raise healthy grandchildren who could breathe unpolluted air.”
He doesn’t talk, but keeps looking at her, waiting for her to go on, because he knows her, and he knows there’s more. There’s always more when she is concerned, especially in moments like this, when she feels more than the usual the pressure of having been, even for a small amount of time, two people at once, of having been through both sides of the coin, having lived in Eric’s world, where Homo Sapiens Superior reigns supreme, while, at the same time, her heart and soul kept believing into what Xavier thought her, the dream he instilled in her, the hope for a better tomorrow, where mutants where’s hated or feared, but could live in peace and harmony with every other human being.
“This was the end of the world. In less than a century, humanity will produce on mass-scale sentinels to hunt down mutants, and when we’ll be all either dead or secluded into camps, they’ll systematically kill every being that could threaten their dominion; another century, two on tops, and no living being will walk the Earth. This is the world Eric wanted to avoid, and yet, fighting him, we may have just doomed everything and everyone on this planet.”
His eyes turn from blue to almost black out of sadness; this isn’t the woman he has fallen in love with, this isn’t his Chris; she shouldn’t be so cynical, shouldn’t believe in the words of a terrorist, he should be the one without any emotion left and Chris should do anything in her power to make sure that this world will never happen and that Xavier’s dream will come true.
He takes a big breath, as other hand cups her cheek, while he keeps massaging her shoulder. He leans over her, not a threatening presence but a welcomed one, making her feel secure and cared for, something she hasn’t felt so many times in her life, something that, after the turmoil she just fell victim to, she really needs.
“There was a world, where Charles Xavier never founded the X-Men, and even if mutants ruled there, it was still on the brim of destruction” he lifts her chin while he talks about that other Universe, the one they never visited but knew because of many allies from there, Nate Grey and Victor and Lucas Bishop in particular. “And besides, the future is not written in stone. We know what will happen and we’ll do everything in our power to prevent it.”
She closes her eyes, and look in the distance, like that future, that destruction was still there and she still could see it.
“It’s just… Xavier” he clenches he teeth, hoping she’ll not notice it like she didn’t noticed his presence earlier, because the direction this talk is taking, he isn’t sure he doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like that his girlfriend- this woman, actually, because he has always been fond of her, even when they were merely team-mates, describe a well-known terrorist as “Eric” and her mentor by his surname. “Xavier sent us to fight for a world that fears and hates us, and since he founded the school, so many of us died to protect humanity, and at what price? What changed? Why do we keep doing what we do, when we just don’t get anything in return?”
He embraces her, and wonders why she is having this breakdown now, after having been a part of their “community” for so long, never questioning before the dream. He can only guess that Lucas’ betrayal is still too fresh, or that she buried too many friends in just few months’ time - Piotr, Betsy, Jean, Sean, and Xavier himself among the others - and even one of her closet friends, Clint.
Or maybe, and this is what really scares him, her time undercover at Eric’s service has changed her in ways no one has fathomed before, changed her so much it has shaken her belief system.
“It’s important that we keep doing what we do” he starts, unsure of his words, never letting it go of her “what we do… we need to fight if for the good of… the common man. We fight because we don’t want others to do so, because we don’t want other people to go through what we… our people… had to endure. Not now, nor never. Someone has to take the hit, and it is better us than them.”
She buries her face in his shirt, the silk of his red tie rough on her skin, but she doesn’t care; she doesn’t know if this is right or wrong, what he just told her, but she knows something for sure. Pete believes it. He believes it because this is why he has chosen this particular career, this is why he keeps fighting.
And maybe, for now, this is enough.
Two notes: One, Pete Wisdom's icon. Second: well, it's past midnight here, so it kind is Febraury 2nd...
Author: Little Firestar
Rating: T
Fandom: Excalibur (Marvel Universe)
Characters: Pete Wisdom/Christine Stark [OC]
Summary: “Xavier sent us to fight for a world that fears and hates us, and since he founded the school, so many of us died to protect humanity, and at what price? What changed? Why do we keep doing what we do, when we just don’t get anything in return?”
Spoilers: None
Genre: Political (well… Marvel Comic Political, at least)Notes: mentions of the Days of future and Messiah Complex story-lines, but no specific knowledge needed; set, again, in the Blackdragon Universe.
The scenery that welcomes Wisdom as soon freezes his blood into his veins, and he can’t help but cringing; ruins everywhere, flames embracing what used to be called civilizations, death machines, like from some futuristic movies, running through the streets of London, hunting down everyone, doesn’t matter if they are mutants or plain humans, taking them, and, in few cases, even killing their targets.
For a second, he wonders if this is how London- and Britain - used to be during World War II, but then, he pushes the thought aside, a silly thought. This is nothing like Word War II, because, simply, this is something that has never happened before.
This is the end of the world, and not simply “the end of the world as we know it” like teenagers like to define what they think should be an epochal change, but it’s really the end of the world.
Of course, he isn’t been there, but he knows people that did, people that lived there and came back to warn them of this or that… or maybe, this has nothing to do with the end of the world, maybe, at the end, they did it, changed history enough to preserve humanity and the planet altogether, damning, though, their race in the end.
He takes a couple of tentative steps towards the woman standing in from of him, and even given the circumstances, he can’t help but feeling lost in her, drinking into her very presence, every time like it was the first time, or like he had gone for too long without being unable to see her, hold her- even if, like now, it has been just few hours.
She is embracing herself, lost into the destruction that she can’t avoid, can’t stop, and even if he can’t see her eyes, he is imagining them, teary, sad, almost closed, dark and stormy, and he feels the sudden need to protect her, even if he can’t do anything for this and she doesn’t, never did, need protection, not from him nor anyone.
She shivers when he embraces her from behind, freezing on the spot, and Pete would like to grin in the mass of reddish rebellious hair, because he just surprised Christine Antoinette Stark, one of World’s most powerful telepaths, but he can’t, not with everything taking place in front of them. This is not the place, nor the time.
Green and black lines and dots series of zeros and ones suddenly appears in front of them, taking the place of the post-apocalyptic scenario, and they are not any longer in the streets of London, but back at Excalibur HQ, inside a big, almost immense, white room- the danger room.
He’ll never get used to this, it was so real, and even if he knew, he still does, that it was just a lie, a solid, 3-D hologram generated by an alien AI, programmed to make it as real as it gets, he is still… he doesn’t know how to vocalize his feelings. It didn’t look like the end of the world. It felt like the end of the world. It was the end of the world.
Christine frees herself from the embrace, and leans against a wall, looking at the hand - Pete’s hand - strongly but yet calmly massaging the skin left uncovered by her Kevlar uniform, the one a long time ago Jean Grey gave her, just few weeks before the redhead died to save the world from a crazy Magneto wonnabe.
“Have you ever considered that maybe he is right? That, maybe, we pick the wrong side to fight for?” The words leave her mouth before she could actually think them- and maybe she didn’t tell them at all, Pete acknowledges, maybe he just heard them because of their psychic bond, the mental proof of their feeling for each other. Because he doesn’t need to ask her to explain herself furthermore- he already knows where this is going, and what she is exactly talking about, and, moreover, whom.
He takes a big breath, and looks at her, really looks at her, waiting for her to go on.
“Because… Eric, he told… I remember when he told me….” she closes her eyes, massaging the bridge of her nose, stopping, like she couldn’t voice her own feelings, her won fears, like she would like to. “This world, it’s few billions years old, and in just a couple of centuries the Homo Sapiens has been able to create an environment that will able to sustain the human race for less than half that time. It’s the Homo sapiens who invented war and wrote manuals about torture. Humanity is the only animal who takes pleasure upon inflicting sufferance on others, and sometimes, I can’t help but ask me if it’s worth it. Because I remember when Eric told me that he just wanted to make this world beautiful and perfect, and raise healthy grandchildren who could breathe unpolluted air.”
He doesn’t talk, but keeps looking at her, waiting for her to go on, because he knows her, and he knows there’s more. There’s always more when she is concerned, especially in moments like this, when she feels more than the usual the pressure of having been, even for a small amount of time, two people at once, of having been through both sides of the coin, having lived in Eric’s world, where Homo Sapiens Superior reigns supreme, while, at the same time, her heart and soul kept believing into what Xavier thought her, the dream he instilled in her, the hope for a better tomorrow, where mutants where’s hated or feared, but could live in peace and harmony with every other human being.
“This was the end of the world. In less than a century, humanity will produce on mass-scale sentinels to hunt down mutants, and when we’ll be all either dead or secluded into camps, they’ll systematically kill every being that could threaten their dominion; another century, two on tops, and no living being will walk the Earth. This is the world Eric wanted to avoid, and yet, fighting him, we may have just doomed everything and everyone on this planet.”
His eyes turn from blue to almost black out of sadness; this isn’t the woman he has fallen in love with, this isn’t his Chris; she shouldn’t be so cynical, shouldn’t believe in the words of a terrorist, he should be the one without any emotion left and Chris should do anything in her power to make sure that this world will never happen and that Xavier’s dream will come true.
He takes a big breath, as other hand cups her cheek, while he keeps massaging her shoulder. He leans over her, not a threatening presence but a welcomed one, making her feel secure and cared for, something she hasn’t felt so many times in her life, something that, after the turmoil she just fell victim to, she really needs.
“There was a world, where Charles Xavier never founded the X-Men, and even if mutants ruled there, it was still on the brim of destruction” he lifts her chin while he talks about that other Universe, the one they never visited but knew because of many allies from there, Nate Grey and Victor and Lucas Bishop in particular. “And besides, the future is not written in stone. We know what will happen and we’ll do everything in our power to prevent it.”
She closes her eyes, and look in the distance, like that future, that destruction was still there and she still could see it.
“It’s just… Xavier” he clenches he teeth, hoping she’ll not notice it like she didn’t noticed his presence earlier, because the direction this talk is taking, he isn’t sure he doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like that his girlfriend- this woman, actually, because he has always been fond of her, even when they were merely team-mates, describe a well-known terrorist as “Eric” and her mentor by his surname. “Xavier sent us to fight for a world that fears and hates us, and since he founded the school, so many of us died to protect humanity, and at what price? What changed? Why do we keep doing what we do, when we just don’t get anything in return?”
He embraces her, and wonders why she is having this breakdown now, after having been a part of their “community” for so long, never questioning before the dream. He can only guess that Lucas’ betrayal is still too fresh, or that she buried too many friends in just few months’ time - Piotr, Betsy, Jean, Sean, and Xavier himself among the others - and even one of her closet friends, Clint.
Or maybe, and this is what really scares him, her time undercover at Eric’s service has changed her in ways no one has fathomed before, changed her so much it has shaken her belief system.
“It’s important that we keep doing what we do” he starts, unsure of his words, never letting it go of her “what we do… we need to fight if for the good of… the common man. We fight because we don’t want others to do so, because we don’t want other people to go through what we… our people… had to endure. Not now, nor never. Someone has to take the hit, and it is better us than them.”
She buries her face in his shirt, the silk of his red tie rough on her skin, but she doesn’t care; she doesn’t know if this is right or wrong, what he just told her, but she knows something for sure. Pete believes it. He believes it because this is why he has chosen this particular career, this is why he keeps fighting.
And maybe, for now, this is enough.
Two notes: One, Pete Wisdom's icon. Second: well, it's past midnight here, so it kind is Febraury 2nd...