Chapter Text
It felt a little odd to be back in the park where it all began.
Some of the oaks had lost their lustre after fall had taken their harvest and the rolling meadows of grass were emptier than that day, but it was the same park where Sara had been taken from her. Sara's last spoken words to her echoed in Jean's mind as she dragged the knife blade through the wood, carving a circular curve in the shape of a 'O'.
One mint, one chocolate?
Jean wished that she'd never asked Sara to go to the park that day. Or nod her head when Sara asked if they wanted ice cream. Or allowed Sara to go fetch it from that ice cream truck. If she didn't, maybe, they would have been able to escape. Run away. Hide. Even dying by her sister's side would have been better than being without her. The image of Sara's body pinned to the ground by black-suited men would be permanently burnt into every corner of her mind until the day she died.
She bit her tongue as she wiggled the blade out and stepped back to admire her work. Chips and splinters had wedged themselves under her fingers during her work. It had taken a good hour for someone who had never used a pocket knife before but she was willing to learn fast for her. She looked at the memorial she had carved, the letters capitalized and legible as a third grader's chicken-scratch.
SARA ELAINE GREY
2004–2028
THE BEST SISTER YOU COULD ASK FOR
She knew that she could have had it done in a matter of minutes with her telekinesis, maybe even control someone to do it for her but it wouldn't be as satisfying. She wanted to feel every grain of wood peel underneath the blade, feel her palms ache, her skin chafe. She had used a Swiss Army knife from a stranger she'd possessed in New York.
She squinted her eyes in memory.No, not a stranger. It was an Uber driver named Ted. Broke college student from Empire State. Single parent. A normal, good man who skateboarded in some bowl park in Rhode Island and loved a banh mi cart down by Central Park. She scratched her fingernail against the red-and-white cross shield and thought about giving it back. She banished that fanciful thought with a tinge of regret. She had a lot of things to give back to the people she had controlled back in New York.
The old man whose hip had collided with the car. The helicopter pilot she'd left stranded on top of a crane. The old lady whom she'd forced to drive an armored tank into a restricted government facility. Sara had taught her to embrace her powers, to hop between people as casually as one would breathe, but she'd used and discarded living people who had done no wrong against her in her single-minded quest to rescue her sister. And what did it amount to in the end?
She stood there for a while, the guilt burning within her like an inferno of all the people she had harmed in New York. One name came to the forefront of her mind out of all of them.
Peter Parker.
The man who took a bullet for her.
He was an enigma wrapped inside a corny red-and-blue spandex costume that she just couldn't banish from her mind. Not after keeping him alive for the last three days, forcing air into his lungs, making sure he held onto the edge for just one second longer. It was the least she could do after all of the torture she had put him through. She winced as the memory of how she'd puppeteered MJ flashed through her mind. She remembered the look of absolute rage in his obsidian gaze as he called her a monster. It was a far cry from the simple person in the hoodie who had comforted her when she'd peeked into the deepest crevasse of his mind that he guarded against her telepathy. She thought she would be uncovering some dark secret, a skeleton in the closet, but all she saw was a boy who desperately wanted his aunt back.
You have me.
She sniffled as the summer wind picked up, the tree branches singing in the breeze. That was his promise to her and she believed for a moment, in that resolute, stoic glance of determination, he could do it. Then, the bullet broke the fleeting moment of quiet between the two of them. Her nails bit into the skin of her palm as she remembered the splatter of his blood on her, the way he collapsed on the ground like a puppet with no strings. She didn't want to see him die for her. Never again. So, it was back to the same old familiar pattern of running away, but not before finishing what she had come here to do. She coughed as she stared intently at the carving, swaying on the balls of her feet, wondering what to say.
"Hey, Sara." Jean gulped, throat heavy with regret. "I met a guy. Not that kind of guy. Definitely not. He showed me something I didn't think people like us deserved. That you taught me. And maybe that was right once. Even when I thought I was a monster, he saw me as a person. He was brave, he was kind, he… he got himself hurt for me. He wanted to be there for me, but I'm not so sure whether that would be good for him. I think you would have liked him."
The words tumbled out of her with no grace. She had so many things she wanted to say and yet nothing to say at all at the same time.
"All those months chasing V-Max. Fucking V-Max." Blades of grass around her rippled as her powers flared out, rage boiling over. She breathed out to calm herself and the grass stilled. "Time wasted chasing your final words. If I'd only put in more effort to find you…"
She had hoped Metzeger had some secret locked away when she had him surrounded by glass shards, the broken remains of the prison the bastard had locked her sister up in. Some fleeting hope that Sara was locked away inside some weird government black-ops site, comatose. She scanned his mind, peered through every memory for any indication that Sara could be still alive.
No. He didn't.
He had her body vivisected, studied like some lab experiment before sending it down into permanent cold storage. She saw every minute of every excruciating detail and then, there was nothing she wanted to do but to skin the man alive with her mind, flay away every molecule slowly piece by piece to visit every molestation and pain he had forced upon her sister, but then Peter intervened and the thought of revenge somehow became easier to let go when he sat by her side in that bedroom.
"Maybe I didn't manage to find you, but I found something else instead. Something good. I'm not sure whether I deserve him. " Jean pressed her palm momentarily against the carved bark and hesitantly pulled away.
"Goodbye, Sara."
What a shitty, fucking eulogy. Jean shook her head, searching for more words to say but failing. She tossed the hood of her oversized denim jacket over her head, ready to leave the park before she froze. There was a presence. Barely imperceptible without concentration. It was like discovering a small scratch in a painting or a drop of oil in water. It normally wouldn't have been of any concern, but Jean had made sure to telepathically move people away from her and had been maintaining psychic awareness of any living soul within a hundred meters.
She turned on her feet and saw a brown-haired man in a motorized wheelchair sitting quietly. He was dressed in brown slacks and a white polo shirt, with black leather loafers resting on top of the footrests. His eyes were a pale grey, chipped like granite, and he regarded her calmly, patiently, waiting for her to make the first move.
"Who are you? Are you from Damage Control?" she said, guarded. Her eyes twitched around and the tree branches creaked. There was no one else around. Just him. The stranger slowly shook his head and spoke in a vaguely accented voice, cultured without being pompous.
"My dear, I don't believe a government agency is willing to hire quadriplegics as field operatives. I would not dare involve myself with such individuals, especially having learned of your experience with them in New York."
He knew who she was. In a panic, she let her mind radiate outward reflexively to peer into his mind, to control him before he could made any untoward moves. She didn't have the time or effort to guess whether he was innocent or not. Jean however ran into a wall in the first few seconds. The man's mind was slippery, like trying to scoop up water with your bare hands. What little memories she could obtain were breadcrumbs. Blurry memories of a swing. Memories of a hand wrapped around his throat. Pictures of frothing mugs of german beer.
"I can't read your mind," Jean said nervously. How the hell was this man resisting her powers?
"Who are you?"
"I sometimes forget common courtesies," The man scratched her head, seemingly more embarrassed by his lack of formalities than her attempts at psychic intrusion.
" I'm Professor Charles Xavier. Please accept my dearest apologies for what happened to your sister. What Director Metzeger did to her was simply inhumane. If I had been more aware of the activities that Damage Control was conducting on our kind…"
Sorrow briefly tinged his face and Jean couldn't help let her rage stab into her heart. How could this stranger have regrets for a person he had never known? For her? If he wanted to provide help, where was he when she was living on the road by herself after Sara was kidnapped? Wandering from every gas station with only fifty cents in her pocket? Being forced to rob strangers for money. Where were you when I needed you? Bile began to bubble in her throat and she wanted to spew out something hateful, something to break the perfect facade of calm, but a brown-haired face with a wry grin made her relent. Peter would want her to be better.
"I hurt a lot of people in New York." Jean admitted both to herself and to the professor in front of her. "I hurt someone who cared about me, even though I didn't deserve it. You know that, right?"
Yes, I do.
Jean stumbled on her feet momentarily, blinking twice. It was the first telepathic communication she'd had since Sara had been kidnapped by Damage Control. She looked at Xavier in a new light as she shivered, mentally willing forth a sentence in the aether of her mind.
Then why aren't you afraid of me?
Xavier's expression didn't change, blank as a statue. His telepathic reply was crisp, exact, betraying no emotion yet firm as a mountain.
My dear Jean, I have no need to fear someone who fears herself. I think you've had more than enough of that in your life.
Jean didn't bother to mull on his words, instead, surging forward a reply that battered against his will like a tidal wave.
Are you here to use me for my powers? Use me for your own means? Experiment on me? Go on, say it.
She waited, almost eagerly awaiting the same cynical answer that had haunted her since Sara was ripped apart from her. No one cares for you. You either use people or they use you. It was a simple binary equation that the world fitted neatly into until Peter Parker entered her world.
The professor let her anger wash over him and Jean had some momentary curiosity for how he constructed his mental shields. Instead of meeting her will head on, he allowed her emotions to flow around him like a stone in a river, always receiving but never yielding. He thumbed a joystick on the right armrest on his wheelchair and the wheels crunched forward until he was but a few feet away from her in arms reach. He then spoke, this time physically.
" I would never intend ill upon you and I am sorry for your pain, Jean. But I want to ask you a question in return. You shouldn't be asking what I want with you but what you want to do, Jean." The professor paused to let the gravity of his statement sink in. " What exactly is your next move after you walk away from here? Travel to the next state? To lie in some safe-house out of fear of being hunted? You've been running all your life. Now you can either continue running or you can choose change. The question is what kind of change you want to accept within yourself."
Change. Jean pondered the meaning of the word, chewed on it. She had to pry the answer slowly out of herself, each word an admission of weakness that she was afraid to unveil to the world, lest, it used it against her.
" I don't want to feel alone anymore."
Xavier gave a curt nod, the lines on his face relaxing, seemingly satisfied with her reply.
" Then, in that regard, I can help, if you'll let me."
Jean bit her lip. What if it was a trap? She tried once again to pierce into his mind, but she noticed that Xavier had left an opening deliberately for her to enter without resistance. Like Peter did. She stepped into that opening and felt her feet land in a carpeted hallway. Around her were the towering hallways of a mansion, suits of armor standing like silent guardians on the side, and walking around her were people her age.
Laughing teens chatting on phones, sharing pictures with one another. A blue-skinned boy in an oversized Knicks T-shirt dragging a forked tail behind him. A boy with red sunglasses sharing jokes with a pony-tailed brunette who had half of her arm phased through a wall. All of them had powers, just like her. The sun momentarily shone through the stained glass windows, cascading its prismatic brilliance through the dream she didn't want to end.
The vision slowly felt apart as though someone pulled a thread from a tapestry. She was back in the park and Charles Xavier now had his hand outstretched, a warm smile on his face. Not demanding her to join him but inviting her to be a part of a future she didn't know existed.
You have me.
Jean decided to choose hope and shook the Professor's hand, afraid but not alone anymore.