Work Text:
October 9, 1999
Ivan was and was not a baby. He had both been and not been an infant for over half a century now.
His father's madness, the implants in his brain and throughout his tiny body, kept him from aging. Well, Father, there's something to thank you for, I guess. You kept me from dying. And since I can't grow old, I'll never die of natural causes at all.
And since the Black Ghost incident, he'd gained a new family, one made of his fellow cyborgs.
九 (Nine)
Joe had so many abilities that made combat a breeze. He'd saved all their lives when the 00-series cyborgs had been attacked over the years. Plus, his super speed meant that if they needed something and the shops were due to close in fifteen minutes, he would always make it there on time to purchase the necessary items.
He hadn't had many friends as a boy because of his American father. But with the other cyborgs, Joe now had true friends, people who wouldn't jeer at him and call him haafu like the boys in his neighborhood had. He had a home and family, of a sort. He was no longer beating against society like a caged bird without direction. By any objective measure, his life had improved.
But Joe's mother was so, so old now. He occasionally checked on her, from a distance, but Joe couldn't visit her in person. He couldn't explain to her how her long-lost son was not only still alive, but still young.
Was this a fair exchange? Ivan couldn't really answer that. Who could weigh a mother against everything else? Certainly not he, who couldn't even remember his own mother beyond a name: Erika.
八 (Eight)
Pyunma's town had been destroyed in a civil war, his side defeated by ruthless oppressors. In a moment of inattention, he'd been captured by human traffickers.
Slavery was illegal in most countries, but that didn't mean it wasn't still practiced. Anyone with enough money and the right connections could still own another human being, even in the 20th century. The age, gender, and hardiness of trafficked people determined their fate, and Pyunma's young, strong, healthy body would have make him quite desirable by people with more money than conscience. Black Ghost had saved him from a lifetime of being humiliated, used, and beaten, probably in one of the many diamond mines of southern Africa.
Pyunma had his dignity, his freedom, and a new home. He could live a peaceful life, knowing that the tyrant who'd made his early years hell was long-dead. But often, he would go to the nearby lake and meditate, alone, on the bottom. Though he wore an outward expression of peace, Ivan had once touched the man's thoughts during one of these sessions. He'd recoiled immediately from the pain and turmoil he'd felt there.
Pyunma's mind would never truly know peace.
七 (Seven)
Sir Great Britain was an enigma, a shape-shifter who'd left behind even his own name. He didn't like to talk about his past; all anyone knew was that he'd been an actor and an alcoholic, that Black Ghost had lured him with liquor. A man who often liked to take the form of a child, whose age and form were constantly changing from day to day at whim.
Ivan often wondered what it was like to be so free to change. Were any of GB's forms the real one? Had he forgotten himself who he was and what he'd originally looked like?
Ivan had learned over years of careful study that people with depression often played the clown, so that their own despair didn't bring other people down. GB's mind was usually on such a tight lockdown, even Ivan couldn't read it. Was his cheerfulness and humor simply the actor's habitual mask, rather than a reflection of his personality?
六 (Six)
Chang had been wretchedly poor, the only livestock he could afford to feed a literal eater of garbage and excrement. When he'd lost his pigs, he'd lost everything. When your only options are starvation or suicide, you don't really have a choice.
Now, not only did he have plenty of food, he delighted in preparing it for his fellow cyborgs. His fiery breath, a weapon in combat, was also able to create perfectly-controlled cooking fires. He had gone from having nothing to lose, to having everything he needed.
But was it really what he wanted? Ivan wasn't sure. Chang never spoke about his family back in China; had he even had anyone to miss him now he was gone?
五 (Five)
The man who went by the nickname "Geronimo Junior" had been the victim of American racism for most of his life. His family had turned him loose when he'd hit 18, because the impoverished reservations made it impossible to feed a grown child who couldn't get steady work. Aside from freelance construction work at much lower pay than his white counterparts, Junior only ever got one kind of job offer in the old days: to play the part of a disgusting stereotype for tourists and movie-goers.
He'd refused to wear a mocking mish-mash of different Indian nations' garb and a dyed-feather headdress and pretend that he couldn't speak English well. In hindsight, he may have hit that Hollywood scout a bit too hard in the head.
Junior was a quiet man who preferred to use his strength and armor to protect rather than to attack, to create rather than destroy. He'd designed and built their country home himself. His fellow cyborgs treated him as an equal, not as a stereotype or a disappointment. But Ivan knew that Junior still bore the scars of his old life.
四 (Four)
Albert's scars were more literal. His life had been saved after he'd managed to escape from East Berlin, but he'd lost his dear Hilda and been turned into a walking armory. Even if he hadn't been picked up by Black Ghost, he would never have been able to live a life without severe physical pain.
As it was, his enhancements were all weaponry, a cruel irony in a gentle man who hated war. Small wonder Albert was always so gruff and taciturn; who wouldn't be, after what he'd been through?
Ivan tried to soothe Albert's pain when he could, and he knew that Albert often viewed him as the son he'd never had, but there were some losses that a baby, even one as precocious as Ivan, could never quite understand.
三 (Three)
Francoise was a dancer; had she not come of age during wartime, she would have been a famous prima ballerina for a prestigious company. She was still quite athletic, with the strength and flexibility honed by the ballet to perfection. But the French surrender had made everything more dangerous; success at the ballet had had to remain a mere dream. And then her brother had tried and failed to rescue her.
Sometimes she stayed up at night, practicing the dance, softly playing old records of ballets she could have performed in at a volume only she could hear. Swan Lake. Giselle. Sleeping Beauty. Sometimes, poignantly, The Rite of Spring. It certainly fit her, given that she had been the young girl sacrificed to another's cause.
Ivan knew that Francoise was happy to have a life in a more peaceful world, but she would probably always regret what she'd lost.
二 (Two)
Jet had been a gangster on the tough streets of New York City. He was a young outlaw, his distinctive Roman nose making it harder for him to hide from the police after he'd killed that Puerto Rican guy. If he hadn't been found by Black Ghost, he probably would have been hanged for murder.
Jet had a home where he didn't have to act tough, where he'd learned a form of masculinity that wasn't all bravado and violence. But he was still an Italian-American, and his old family, both by blood and in the gang, would always be in his heart. He missed them still. Sometimes, Ivan picked up on the mental "sound" of Jet running through the litany of lost loved ones in his mind, desperate not to forget.
一 (One)
Adult-level intelligence in the body of an infant. Like Peter Pan, he would never grow up, never grow old. But Ivan wanted to grow up. He wanted to understand the odd emotion behind the glances Joe and Francoise gave each other when they passed in the hallways.
He wanted to do the things that other boys got to do, the ones who had a real childhood: play ball, go to school, jump rope, collect trading cards or stamps or insects or something. He didn't even have the proper motor control to write his own name without using his powers, and telekinesis tired him out so quickly.
He couldn't do the things adults did, either: drive a car, cook a meal, fall in love. He couldn't sit in on open lectures at a university without subterfuge; he'd pretend to be Francoise's child, and she would pretend to be the student. He couldn't go to the movie theater and watch whatever show he wanted. He would never understand, really, when the men had their lustful thoughts about movie stars on TV. He was, after all, a baby. He couldn't think about anyone in that way.
If anyone asked Ivan how he felt about being perpetually trapped in this tiny, vulnerable, unskilled body, he put on a brave face. He would tell them: I can't miss growing older. After all, I've only ever known a life like this. And you're all so kind to me all the time, I have everything I need. He sent them the emotional impression of happiness.
He knew that the lie made them happier.