—
The rooftop garden had sohow survived the attack. That was my first thought as I sat on the edge of what had once been soone's private sanctuary, thirty stories above Genosha's wounded streets. Sohow, impossibly, the plants here thrived despite being at ground zero of genocide just days ago.
Bioluminescent flowers that only grew in Genosha pulsed with soft blue light, their glow competing with the stars above. The air carried the scent of night-blooming jasmine mixed with sothing alien, sweet but not cloying. Below, reconstruction continued even at this late hour. Mutants who didn't need sleep worked through the night, their powers lighting up the darkness like fireflies.
Crazy to think they tried to destroy it all, I thought, running my fingers along a vine that responded to touch by changing colors. Not just people, but possibility itself.
"There you are. I thought I'd find you hiding sowhere dramatic."
Madelyne's voice didn't startle . Perhaps it was because a part of had been expecting her, or maybe because, after everything we'd shared, I could sense her approach like gravity pulling at my awareness. Telepaths and all.
She moved through the garden with casual grace, wearing a simple black dress that made her red hair seem to glow in the bioluminescent light.
"Not hiding," I said as she settled beside , close enough that her warmth cut through the cool night air. "Just thinking."
"Dangerous habit." Her fingers found mine, interlacing with the familiarity of lovers who'd discovered each other's rhythms. No hesitation or awkwardness there. After what we'd shared in Jessica's apartnt, after the way she'd fallen apart and been rebuilt in my arms, pretense seed pointless. "Penny for them?"
"Inflation's a bitch. Gonna cost you at least a nickel."
She laughed, and the sound was so light that it made her seem younger, less burdened by the cosmic entity sleeping in her soul. "I wanted to thank you. For sending Gwen and Charmcaster to during the attack. The Phoenix seed... it wanted to feed on all that death. I think it would have, if they hadn't helped stabilize it."
"You'd have managed."
"No." Her grip tightened. "I wouldn't have. You have no idea what it was like, Ben. Four million souls screaming as they died, and this thing inside wanting to consu them, to use their life force to birth itself into reality."
"Scary.
"Without Gwen's magic and Charmcaster's knowledge..." She shuddered. "We'd be having a very different conversation. Probably through the ashes of what used to be Earth."
The weight of that settled between us. Another apocalypse avoided by the narrowest margin. Story of my life lately.
"Cable's gone," she said after a mont, changing the subject with the subtlety of a sledgehamr. "Left this morning."
"The ti traveler? Good riddance. Guy pointed a gun at my head."
"He ca to see before he left." Sothing in her voice made turn to look at her fully. "Not Jean. . It was... strange."
"Strange how?"
She frowned, clearly trying to organize thoughts that didn't want to be organized. "He felt familiar, but wrong. Like looking at soone through frosted glass. And the way he looked at ..." She shook her head. "Whatever. Important part is that he asked about you."
I wasn't surprised. "What about ?"
"Everything. Who you were, where you ca from, how you got the Omnitrix." She squeezed my hand apologetically. "I'm sorry. I told him so things. About your transformations, about us, about what you did here."
"It's fine," I said, though my mind was racing. She didn't know anything crazy any way, not even the date when I got the Omnitrix, so it was alright. It must be a more subconscious choice by her mind, as Cable was her son. "What was his reaction?"
"That's the strange part. He was shocked. Not surprised you existed, but surprised by what you'd done. He kept saying it was wrong, that this wasn't how it was supposed to happen. Rember that day at the party? He seed especially confused that you were here, at Genosha, at all."
Interesting. The pieces clicked together in my mind like a puzzle I hadn't known I was solving. When Cable first arrived, he'd called a villain, the destroyer of worlds. But he'd also acted like Genosha's destruction was inevitable. Which ant...
His tiline had a Ben Tennyson. But that Ben either wasn't present during Genosha, didn't have my mories of Earth, or didn't have access to Clockwork. Maybe all three.
The implications made my head spin. How many tilines were there? How many versions of existed across the multiverse? And in how many of them did I beco the villain Cable feared?
"Ben?" Madelyne's voice pulled back. "You're doing that thing where you think too loud."
"What thing?"
"Your face gets all scrunched up and you mutter under your breath. Although I can't read your mind, I can tell." She smiled, moving closer until she was practically in my lap. "It's adorable in a 'plotting to save or destroy the world' kind of way."
"Can't it be both?" I said, relaxing a little, while my arms went around her slim waist. My fingers brushed against her warm skin, gently squeezing it.
"With you? Probably." Her lips brushed against my jaw, and I felt that familiar heat that seed to ignite whenever she was near. "Stay with tonight?"
The invitation was loaded with promise. Part of wanted nothing more than to lose myself in her warmth, to forget about tilines and cosmic entities and the weight of being everyone's savior. But...
"Tempting," I said, catching her face between my hands, "but Grandpa would really kill if I disappeared again. We're leaving tomorrow, rember?"
She scowled playfully, an expression that should have looked ridiculous on soone who housed a cosmic entity but sohow just made her more appealing. "Fine. But you owe a proper 'goodnight' later."
"Deal."
We stayed like that for a while, her in my arms, watching the city rebuild itself below. It was peaceful in a way that felt stolen, like we'd grabbed this mont from a universe that preferred chaos.
Eventually, she pulled away, pressing a kiss to my forehead. "I'll have to et the X-n. You should go. Before I decide to keep you here through force."
"The Phoenix Force or the other kind?"
Her smile was wicked. "Wouldn't you like to know?"
She disappeared in a flutter of telekinetic energy, leaving alone with the glowing flowers and the weight of tomorrow. I stayed for another minute, morizing the view, then made my way back down through the building.
****
I'd barely made it three blocks, waving at kids, and receiving so candies too. But then, another troublemaker appeared.
Charmcaster materialized from shadows that shouldn't have existed under Genosha's enhanced lighting, and I stopped to look at her. I didn't have the chance to appreciate it when she appeared at the end of the party a few days ago, but she looked different. Not dramatically, but in subtle ways that spoke of fundantal change.
Her silver hair was longer, braided with what looked like threads of actual moonlight. The perpetual tension in her shoulders had eased, replaced by sothing that might have been confidence if it didn't still carry echoes of wariness. Most striking were her eyes – still that impossible shade between blue and violet, but clearer sohow, like she'd stopped looking through the world to focus on what was actually in front of her.
She must have properly moved on from the regrets of her father, then. The thirst for revenge. It definitely was there sowhere, but not as hungry as before.
"Hope," I said, locking eyes with her and smilign. "You look good."
"Ben." She nodded, then surprised us both by adding, "You look tired."
"Playing god takes it out of you."
"I wouldn't know." She moved closer, and I caught the scent of ozone and lavender, magic made manifest. "I'm sorry I haven't co to see you. After helping Madelyne, I've been..." She gestured vaguely at the city. "Helping where I could. The magical resonance after your temporal reversal created opportunities to heal reality fractures. I thought you'd want that."
The fact that she'd considered what I'd want, that she'd prioritized healing over seeking out, said more about her growth than any grand gesture could have.
"You thought right," I said, aning it. "Thank you."
She shrugged, uncomfortable with gratitude as always. Then, business-like, she pulled a scroll from what I was pretty sure was a pocket dinsion. "You asked about Chi training."
"You found sothing?"
"Information, yes. The complete scrolls, no." She handed the parchnt, which felt ancient despite looking newly made. "Look, Chi training is really complicated stuff. If I really wanted I could grab so cheap stuff, but I want the best ones for you… and those are difficult. It's best we go to China. You and … you know?"
"Is that a date plan?"
"No?" she didn't sound convincing. "Anyways. One of the many options I found is this recent rumor, the spirit of a long dead Iron Fist that sohow is roaming the Earth. Ah, an Iron Fist is a dude who's blessed by dragons and shit. Like that ani Dragon Ball or sothing, I haven't watched it. Anyways. That spirit is hidden in a temple which doesn't technically exist in normal space. Many people are trying to search for it, while others run away at the ntion of it since it's the spirit of an Iron Fist. Sowhere in China, between heartbeats and breaths."
"Cryptic. Love that."
"I'll tell you more about it, but I don't think the spirit will just hand over its teachings to you. The knowledge has to be earned through trials that test more than just strength as far as I can tell." She pulled out a second item, a thin manual bound in leather that seed to shift between brown and black depending on the angle. "This is what I could gather. Introduction to Chi manipulation, basic exercises, theory. Enough to start, not enough to master."
Oh, so she does have sothing.
I flipped through the manual, noting diagrams that seed to move when I wasn't looking directly at them. "This is perfect, Hope. Even if the Omnitrix doesn't ti out anymore in most cases, there are still situations..." I thought of Cassandra, her telekinesis holding my arm in place, preventing transformation. "Being physically stronger, having my own power beyond the watch, could make all the difference."
"That's what I thought." She was studying with an intensity that would have been uncomfortable if I hadn't grown used to it. "I'm not so hero type, you know that, Ben… But what you did here, reversing death itself..."
I raised an eyebrow. "Yeah?"
Pink touched her cheeks, and suddenly she looked younger, less like the dangerous sorceress and more like the woman who'd fallen apart in my arms in Limbo. "I already loved you. Before, I an. But now..." She took a look around, visibly steadying herself. "Now I understand why the universe seems to bend around you. You don't accept its rules. You make your own."
"Um, it's not like you to say stuff like this..."
"It's just crazy!" she shouted. "Can you… can you…" as she hesitated, I realized there was a different reason she hadn't co to find these past few days. A question was gnawing at her. She hadn't fully moved on from her father's passing, after all. "Can you bring him back?"
"I can't. It doesn't work like that. And I've lose Clockwork." I told her truthfully, and she deflated a little. Then she brightened up.
"Well, whatever. A part of expected that. Otherwise, you would have done that already, right?" she continued quickly for she didn't need an answer to that question. "I just wanted you to know that watching you deny Death itself… I don't know, it just changed sothing in . Made believe that maybe my story doesn't have to end the way it was written either. Like you told ."
This wasn't good.
She'd finally accepted her father's passing and chosen the path to revenge instead. However, my show of divinity had returned her previous ambition that Quetzalcoatl had destroyed.
The scariest part was that I knew no matter what I said now, she wouldn't be convinced. Goddamit.
The vulnerability in her voice hit harder than any grand declaration could have. I reached out, pulling her into a hug that she resisted for exactly one heartbeat before lting into.
"Your story is yours to write," I said against her hair. "Always has been."
She pulled back, composed again so quickly I might have imagined the mont of softness. "The Iron Fist spirit won't be easy to find or convince. Be ntally prepared. Maybe research into Chinese culture a little."
"Oh, don't worry. I know how to talk to a Chinese Ancestor. Don't ask from where."
"Where?"
"Well."
****
Morning ca too fast and not fast enough.
The landing pad buzzed with activity as various groups prepared to leave Genosha. The Blackbird sat sleek and ready, while a smaller, more luxurious jet bearing the Hellfire Club's symbol waited nearby. Emma Frost stood beside it like she owned the world, which technically she could probably afford to.
"Benjamin." Xavier rolled forward, his expression carefully neutral. "Not many are aware of what you've done, but the world is watching now. Secrets don't remain that way for long. Everything you do will be scrutinized, analyzed, and weaponized by those who fear what you represent."
"No pressure, right?"
His smile was sad. "I'm afraid pressure is all we have now."
Magneto approached, and the crowd seed to part for him instinctively. He held out his hand, and I noticed a small tallic disc resting in his palm. "A token," he said simply. "It will always point toward Genosha, no matter where you are. Should you ever need sanctuary, or..." his eyes flicked aningfully toward where Anna Marie stood with the Brotherhood, "wish to visit."
The goth girl blushed, sighing into her hands. People didn't miss this exchange.
I pocketed the disc, feeling its subtle magnetic field. "Thank you."
"No, Benjamin. Thank you."
The sincerity in his voice, from soone who'd spent decades perfecting emotional manipulation, was almost unsettling. But before I could respond, Emma's voice cut through the morning air like silk wrapped around steel.
"If you're quite finished with the lodrama, darling, we have a schedule to keep. Ben boy~ co with to Massachusetts, will you? I'll show you around."
She stood by her jet's stairs, one perfect eyebrow raised in challenge. The Blackbird was right there, Grandpa and Gwen already boarding, but sothing in Emma's expression promised answers to questions I hadn't asked yet.
"No?" Gwen said from the side. "Our sumr vacation is still ongoing, you know? He doesn't have ti for an old lady."
"Actually," I said, making a decision that surprised everyone, including myself, "I'll take Emma up on her offer."
The landing pad went silent. Gwen's head snapped around so fast I worried about whiplash. Grandpa's expression could have been carved from stone. But Emma just smiled, that cat-with-cream satisfaction that should have warned I was walking into sothing complicated.
"Wonderful," she purred. "I promise to return him in one piece, Maxwell."
"That's what worries ," Grandpa muttered, but he didn't protest. He knew well enough to recognize when I had a plan.
As I walked toward Emma's jet, I caught Anna's eyes across the pad. She wasn't angry or jealous, just sad in that way that seed to be her default when it ca to . A silent acknowledgnt passed between us.
The only person that she'd managed to touch in a year was flying away now, leaving her behind amid people who flinched when she stood too close.
We'd found sothing on that balcony, a connection that transcended touch, but we both knew it wasn't enough. Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
After so words with Grandpa and a slightly grumpy Gwen and Charmcaster, to whom I had to convince that this was for business and not any personal interest, I walked toward Emma. The jet's stairs felt like crossing into another world. Emma's hand on my back, possessive and assured, guided inside where luxury replaced the utilitarian design I was used to.
"So," she said as the door sealed behind us, "shall we discuss why you really accepted my invitation? Or should we maintain the pretense a bit longer?"
I smiled, settling into leather seats that probably cost more than most cars. "Definitely the pretense. It's more fun that way. Where is that Shaw dude?"
Her laugh was louder than what suited a noble lady. "Oh, Benjamin. Shaw can jump off a cliff for all I care, this is my jet. And you and I are going to explore interesting things here."
As the jets roared to life and Genosha fell away beneath us, I let the realization pass through one last ti about everything that had happened since I landed here. The Chi scrolls, the mysterious Iron Fist, the world that now knew death could be reversed.
The Hero of Genosha was leaving, but Ben Tennyson, the guy who just wanted to figure out what ca next, was finally moving forward.
Tomorrow's problems, I decided, closing my eyes as Emma's perfu filled the cabin, can wait until tomorrow.
I guess that was why I'd hopped on Emma's jet. She'd be helpful.
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Author Note: Sorry for the lack of updates lately guys, going through a big important decision, this will bring a hugeeee shift in my life 😝all in a good way. God is Great.
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