Work Text:
PARADIGM SHIFT
by Scorpio
"That's what happens when you treat someone like dirt beneath your fingernails for their entire life, Father."
Even now, he isn't listening to me. He has already turned his attention to Charles Xavier. I committed the ultimate betrayal imaginable and he didn't even say my name. Just a whispered "Dear God." as I yanked his helmet off of his head while I ran passed him. I don't really expect him to acknowledge me when faced with his old friend-turned-deadly-enemy, but it still cuts like a knife to my battered heart.
Slowly, I turn my back to the two combatants, cradling that purple and red helmet in my hands as if it were the most precious of all creations. And in an odd way, it is. Physically, it's the only object in the world that can block the mind of the most powerful telepath on the planet. Personally, it is my rightful inheritance as my father's heir. Forever it will be a solid and unforgiving reminder of how I murdered him in front of the entire world in order to save the sniveling race of humans that nearly destroyed my own people.
And I make no mistake about just *who* is my father's murderer. I don't lie to myself. At least, not anymore. *I* pulled this off of my father's head in order to *use* Xavier as a weapon of patricide. Or is that political assassination? Either way, it is a cold comfort to know that my father will never underestimate me again.
The almost overwhelming pull of my father's magnetic powers whips me around and I have to cling to his helmet with all of my strength to prevent it from being yanked out of my arms like a bullet aimed at his body. Gritting my teeth and narrowing my eyes, I watch silently as metal debris from all over the city flies towards him, bonding to his body until it forms a large ball of crumpled girders and ruined car engines.
As the nuclear missiles streak towards him there is a tiny part of me, the last remnants of the young innocent boy I once was, who cries out with fear and love for his father, but that boy's voice is drowned out by others. The bitter man in me is viciously glad to see my life-long tormentor finally get his own and the professional terrorist-slash-assassign in me watches with cruel clinical detachment. There is even the newborn and slowly growing voice of the soon-to-be-leader of the Savage Lands inside me that is turning over angles and ideas on how to make this event one that will protect and provide for my people.
The blast from the warheads detonating on the hovering orb of metal that my father has become rocks the earth and knocks me to my knees. A stab of pain runs through my heart at his loss, but I ruthlessly ignore it and push it aside. After all, why should I treat his death any differently than he treated my life?
I can't think of a single reason.
Standing up, I don't even bother to turn and check on Xavier or Wolverine. I merely put my father's helmet on my head to keep Charles out of it and slowly wander away from the scene. I have a lot to think about and process in my mind and I know I won't be able to do that with all the chaos that's going on around here. Besides, my father's helmet might protect me from Xavier's awesome powers, but that won't do me a bit of good if Wolverine decides to gut me. Granted, he'd have to catch me first, but unlike my late unlamented father, I don't underestimate my opponents' abilities.
Making my way around the building in the same direction that I came, I once again come across Marvel Girl. She's using her telekinesis to lift a large crumbling piece of masonry off of a partially crumpled car that has several scared humans trapped inside of it. Dropping it over to the side, she turns and looks at me for a long moment. Her bright red hair is dark with sweat and dirt and her green eyes sparkle with determination and power, yet her expression is inscrutable. I watch silently as her vision lingers over my father's helmet upon my head. I know that she has a million questions for me all rushing through her complex mind, but only one makes it to her lips.
"Why?"
There are so many ways to answer that simple question and none of the answers are easy ones. All of them are painful and draw blood from the soul like a knife would against flesh. I almost don't know how to answer or what to tell her. Then, I decide to go with the obvious one. A sad smile that is more bitter than I actually intended flashes across my face even as I tap one finger gently against the helmet covering my temple.
"It's my inheritance. The people of the Savage Land find themselves in need of a new ruler. When a King dies, the Crown Prince is expected to take up the mantle of leadership. This helmet is the crown and I am that prince."
I sketch a slight bow before her. Gracefully. Self-mockingly.
"Now, if you will excuse me, I have a burning city filled with terrified people to see to. Hopefully, they won't tear me to pieces before I get a chance to explain my betrayal to Magneto to them."
Without waiting for her to reply I turn and run off, leaving a blur of color and a trail of ruined concrete in my wake. However, I don't head for the open water. That was how I arrived, but it isn't how I am going to return. I plan on returning with a plane full of supplies that I know my people will be in desperate need of. Medicine. Clothing. Food.
As I run I find that Marvel Girl's damnably simple question keeps rocketing through my mind. Bouncing off of memories and rebounding into other things, like my conscious and my sense of self. Such a simple question, really. The answers, however, are anything but.
Why? Why did I turn against my leader, my *father*?
The answer to that question is so complex that it would keep a whole flock of psychiatrists busy and entertained for a decade. To be honest though, I barely understand it myself. I haven't really had time to sit down and think my way through it yet. I've been acting on pure gut instinct since I was
jarred out of my well worn rut by Cyclops only a very short time ago. Less than an hour, really.
I can still feel his strong fingers clutching painfully at my shoulders as he shook me and yelled directly into my startled face, "Isn't it about time you stood up to your freakin' Dad for once in your life anyway, you little snot?"
At the time, I was standing waist deep in the warm tepid water of the bay with my city burning to the ground behind me as a former-enemy-turned-ally screamed in my face, literally demanding that I grow up. You would think that I would have screamed back at him to mind his own business, or inform him that I had to worry about my *own* people and not the humans. Anything but what happened. Instead, that single moment opened up my eyes in a whole new way. I suffered an epiphany.
Yes, suffer *is* the correct adjective. Anyone who has ever had an epiphany can tell you that they are intrinsically painful things. They rearrange your entire world view in one illuminating flash, not to mention the sudden shift in how you perceive your *own* place in that world. It's quite humbling and
frightening to realize that everything you thought or believed to be true was merely a skewed and twisted version of the truth.
And oddly enough, I don't think anyone else on the planet could have brought me to that point. It *had* to be Cyclops that did it, because he is so central to many of my issues. Or at least, *his* participation highlighted things so much better than anyone else could have.
Magneto *respected* Cyclops. Obviously for his deadly mutant abilities, but also for his inner strength and convictions as well. And in a weird twisted way, Cyclops respected Magneto right back. He didn't *trust* him fully, but he respected my father's determination to make a safe haven for mutants.
Neither of them respected me.
As painful as that thought was, and still is, it was almost drowned out by the realization that Cyclops *knew*. He knew all about Magneto's twisted plans to play us off each other. He somehow figured out that he had become another pawn in my father's endless head games against Wanda and I. He *knew*.
The bomb in London that was detonated in three minutes instead of the promised fifteen was a setup to hurt Cyclops, to break him down and get him used to employing deadly force. At least, that's what father told me when he ordered me to detonate them after three minutes. It also effectively made Cyclops my pseudo-enemy, for in his mind I had botched the mission with my own personal bloodthirstiness.
I realized as soon as the orders came to detonate the bombs early that the real reason behind it was because father didn't want to risk Cyclops and I becoming friends. Or more than friends. He would be too powerful an ally for father to allow us to become close. He needed to drive a wedge between us right from the very start. Paranoia whispering in his ear about how power-hungry sons were eager to overthrow their ruler-fathers made him colder and crueler than the wintery land of ice and snow just beyond the Savage Land borders.
Just to add insult to injury, father tried to force a relationship between Wanda and Cyclops. That bit of matchmaking was also a weapon aimed at me. I wouldn't be surprised if Cyclops had figured that out as well. Just the tiniest hint of my appreciation and desire for Cyclops' strong body, his mysteriously dark and brooding ways, was all the excuse father needed to try and meddle. It was painfully obvious that Cyclops didn't have any feelings for my sister, and to give Wanda credit, while she *did* agree with me that he was beautiful to look upon, she had no interest in him romantically. He's really not her type, anyway.
Father either didn't see that, or he didn't care. Them being together would hurt me by making Cyclops into a weapon that could be used to sever my tight closeness with Wanda. A marriage between them, even a purely political one, would turn her into a competitor for the throne as well. Cyclops is many things, but no one could ever miss his ability to be a strong effective leader.
It was all there, laid out bare in the scathing and almost pitying tones of his voice as he shouted at me. He *knew*. He could see it all. Many people tend to think of him as being blind to what's truly going on around him, but I don't. I believe that he sees the world much more clearly than most of us
behind that visor of his. What must the world look like to one who sees it forever painted in shades of blood?
I fancy that it might look something like my soul.
I've spent my entire life focusing on nothing beyond trying to please my father. It never is enough. *I* am never enough. Not for him. God help me, but I do love him. He's my *father* and I love him. In amounts almost equal to my hatred of him. And I often flip-flop in the reasoning for my disgust with myself about that as well. One moment I am disgusted because I love him and in the next moment I am disgusted because I hate him.
I have always feared my father. Ever since I was a young child. I feared his rejections, which always came anyway. I feared his resentful silences which often filled our home to deafening levels. And at times, I feared that he would destroy me in a fit of manic rage. More recently, I began to fear that he might actually express *some* form of love for me, because then I would have to face the fact that he had done all of those things to me with love in his heart and that is something that I don't think I could handle.
Despite my heart being torn between love and hate, despite my own self-loathing and my all pervasive sense of fear, I never stopped trying to please him. Any task he asked of me, I attempted it with everything I had. I never gave anything less than all of me. I stole, I lied, I killed in cold blood. All for him. All for some tiny scrap of attention and approval that I never once received. I had this strange sort of hopeless despair that he never planned to acknowledge my talents and abilities, even in private when it was just the two of us. Yet I never gave up and stopped trying.
Until now.
Wanda had always been my sole confidant. The only one that I ever shared my true thoughts and feelings with. The only one who ever knew of my desperate need for approval and love. She was the single person I ever let see behind the cocky mask of arrogance and brutality. And yet somehow Cyclops had figured it all out without any help.
He *knew* and then he turned that knowledge on me with the same devastating skill with which he used his deadly, red optic laser beam, *demanding* that I finally grab hold of the reigns of my own life and fulfill my true destiny. Not as the team leader to Magneto's terrorist squad, but as his Heir.
I suddenly realized that I would *never* earn my father's respect, but I might just have a chance to earn Cyclops' respect. Vague physical lust for the warrior melted into a smoldering love for the man and before I could even form an answer to his shouted question or comfort the frantic panic in
Wanda's eyes, I was off and running across the bay, away from the Savage Lands.
So, I guess when you take everything and cram it all together into one big lump, the answer to Marvel Girl's question *is* simple, after all.
Why?
I could say that I did it for myself. I could say that I did it for my sister. I could say that it was for my people. I could even say that it was for the entire world. But I would be lying.
It was for Cyclops.
That's why.
*fini*
~*~ scorpiofic@aol.com ~*~