Love At Last
Apr. 24th, 2020 08:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
queenkatyastarTitle: Love At Last
Author: Katya Starling
Dedicated To: My own beloved and fearless leader Mistah J ;) <3 <3 <3 Love you, baby! Thanks for all the support; this is one of those I wouldn't have dreamed of being able to pull off in one sitting if not for you, my sweet King! :X
Fandom: X-Men/Batman
Characters/Pairing: Cyclops/White Queen, Joker/Harley
Rating: PG-13/T
Challenge/Prompt: HC Bingo: Haunted, Telepathic Trauma, Loss of Powers, AND Drugged, What If AU 37: Reunion Anniversary Challenge, and 12 Months Challenge: Aprilladies
Word Count: 3,861
Date Written: 20 April 2020
Warnings: Future Fic, Sexual Abuse
Summary: Emma's abducted, but rescue is (finally) on the way. And it may go better than she ever would have truly dared to hope it would.
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to their rightful owners, not the author, and are used without permission.
They're here! she thought, her soul crying out in jubilant relief. He had actually cared enough to come, she realized, tears springing into her bleary, blue eyes. She had doubted he would, and it had only been a momentary lapse of judgement and weakness that had caused her to cry out to him when she'd first realized she was being taken. She had tried to give up all hope of a rescue coming, tried to convince herself that she was on her own as she had been nearly her entire life, but a tiny voice in the back of her mind and the recesses of her heart and soul had continued to cry out for Scott.
And now he was here! She could scarcely believe it, but she knew well the sounds of X-Men battling. He was here, and this, she had been able to deduce, was the room where all the prisoners were kept when not being chained to beds and forced to do things about which she still did not want to think. She had thought those days of her life were over, had promised herself they were, had fought with everything in her to make damn certain she never had to be any one else's slave ever again. What she had endured previously was why she fought so hard for the next generation of mutants. No one, not mutants, humans, or even animals, deserved to be any one else's slave. She had killed before with nothing else but her fingernails to make sure it never happened to her again; yet, it had.
But not for much longer, she promised herself. She could hear him now calling out commands to his team in that strong, sexy, take-charge voice of his. Damn it, but the man knew he had! He could play the Boy Scout card to its hilt, pretend that he was still a shy, nervous kid in so many ways, but in truth, he knew he had herself and Jean ready to kill over him, for him . . . And he was killing for her now, she knew, her heart giving a little leap. He was killing to come to her, to save her, to rescue her!
She wanted to cry out to him, but the iron gag that clamped her mouth shut kept her silenced just as the metal collar around her neck kept her powers from working. She could still scarcely tolerate the fact that there were some mutants who hated their powers so greatly that they would do anything to get rid of them, which was what had caused such technology as the damn collar to be created in the first place. Powers were gifts -- but then, if she was like Rogue, unable to touch any one because of her powers, she admitted silently that she could understand how it could be a curse instead.
For one moment, she considered how she would feel if she could never touch Scott again. Granted, not too long ago, before this had all happened, she had been afraid of that very thing happening. She could admit that now, even if only to herself. She had thought she repulsed him, that he hated her, and that he would never, ever care for her again unless she used her telepathy to force him. It had been tempting, but having been a slave herself, she was determined never to force any one to love her, no matter how much she wanted it or missed him.
She hadn't been supposed to let the man get under her skin, she reminded herself with no small amount of anger. Getting with him in the beginning had been a ploy to stay with the X-Men and continue to fight for a better future for their people. Bedding the leader certainly guaranteed that none of the minor players would openly question her place on the team. But somehow, for the first time in her life, sex had led to more than pleasure and power. It had led to something of which she had not even thought herself capable, but she had been wrong. She loved the man, even if he didn't love her.
She couldn't blame him for not loving her. She'd known since the start that his heart belonged to his dead wife. She couldn't erase Jean from his mind unless, of course, he asked her to again in another moment of weak grief, but even if he forgot the blasted redhead, every other X-Man alive would remember and remind him of how great she had been. Bile rose in Emma's throat at the thought, and she blinked back tears.
A new voice shouted, one she actually didn't recognize. Another voice in the same room with her whimpered pass her gag, and Emma looked over at the younger, weaker woman in surprise. She was a little, limp dishrag of a blonde who looked like she could barely fight her way out of a wet paper sack. She clearly recognized the new voice, however, for her big, blue eyes were wide with excitement. Gunfire followed by laughter erupted through the warehouse, and the blonde actually leapt to her feet, squealing now through her gag rather than just whimpering for attention.
Emma watched her curiously as she pushed herself to her feet. She gritted her teeth against the red-hot pain that screamed through the leg her captors had broken the first time she'd tried to escape. She hadn't stopped trying, but she also had not had the first bit of luck -- until today, until Scott had proved that he still cared for her enough to come to her rescue. Of course, she reminded herself, he was a blasted goody two shoes. He would have come after her even if he didn't care about her.
It was, in a way, his job. Although she had not noticed any other X-Men among the number of women who cowered together day after grueling, torturous day in this large room, she had spotted several other collars and knew she was not the only mutant here. Then, too, of course, the X-Men prided themselves on caring for mutants and humans with equal passion and sacrifice; they would have felt obligated to come if they had learned of this place and there had not been even the first mutant here. It was the right thing to do, she knew, and she was lucky they were so bent on doing the right thing. Otherwise, they might not have come after all.
The room spun as she pushed her way through the throng of teeming, smelly bodies. She needed to be at the front, needed to be seen and ready to help fight. She knew it wouldn't take Logan's claws or Kitty's phasing ability long to break the collar; even Gambit or Beast could help free her of the thing. And once she was free, Emma thought, she would rain Hell down upon the men and women who had been so ignorant enough of her capabilities to think she could just be taken and forced to be one of their countless sex slaves.
She would visit just as much trauma upon them as they had on her and the others here, and they would feel every inch of their pain, sorrow, and misery through her telepathy before she killed them. Actually, she wasn't going to kill them, she thought, wicked glee dancing in her fierce, blue eyes. She would set each of their minds to relive every second of torture they'd put them all through until they finally opted to take their own wretched lives. She heard maniacal laughter again and would have been tempted to join in the merriment if she had not still had her mouth imprisoned by the gag.
The women nearest her moved suddenly as a agile figure somersaulted into their midst. Emma looked in surprise at the same blonde she had eyed earlier and dismissed as being unable to fight. She somehow appeared stronger now. Moreover, she was free of her gag and grinning from ear to ear. "You look like I feel, girl. What?" She shrugged. "Surprised I can talk now? I knew I could get that thing off. I just couldn't take on all those guards by myself, but I don't have to now. Come here. Let me help you."
Emma eyed the stranger warily but stood still as she worked with a broken piece of a plastic fork she had somehow confiscated from one of their rare meals. Their captors had fed them just enough to keep them alive throughout the grueling weeks they had been here, suffering at their hands. Emma had tried to pick the collar once with a handle she'd broken off of a spoon but had been shocked straight through to her bones for her efforts. She gasped for air the moment the gag fell away, and in the very next second, she was screaming. "SCOTT," she yelled at the top of her lungs, forgetting, for the moment, the need for code names, "WE'RE IN HERE!"
The blonde cocked her head to the side as she watched the older woman scream. "Why didn't I think of that?" she asked, and then giggled, which made Emma look at her even more warily. "I guess I wanted to see how much longer it would take the Caped Crusader and my Mistah J to find us. MISTAH J! HELP!" she screamed before dropping her voice back to normal tones. "So what's your name, and who's this Scott fellow? Is he Batman? I'm Harley Quinn, by the way, and my Pudding's one of the ones coming to rescue us."
"Pudding?" Emma repeated coldly. Clearly the blonde's man was in their rescuers, but she could not imagine calling Scott by such a ridiculous pet name. Of course, she had never really called him by a pet name. She had never tried to let herself soften with him, which she realized now perhaps she should have. Perhaps she should have been more honest with him, more forthcoming. Maybe he could have learned to love her before Jean had been resurrected after all.
"You know why they had so much trouble finding us, don't cha?" Harley continued, unphased. "We're in this, like, pocket dimension. I'm guessing you're from another dimension, 'cause I saw how you looked when I said my name and Batman. You have no idea who Batman is, do ya?"
Emma quirked an eyebrow at her. "Why would I care," she demanded, "to know a man who names himself after a bat?"
"'Cause he's only like the best hero around!"
"No," Emma said quietly, her voice falling to a hushed whisper as an optic blast hit the wall before them and made the metal come crumbling down. Through the smoke, she began to make out the tall, lanky form that had haunted her every dream, both good and bad, since they'd parted. "He is." Maybe there was a God after all, Emma found herself thinking in surprise, and maybe she did deserve better than to rot away in this cell. This wasn't a dream after all; Scott really had found her at last!
"EMMA!" The passion with which he cried her name took her even further by surprise. She stood, as still as a statue, as he raced to her side, threw his arms around her, and brought her to him in an immense bear hug.
"MISTAH J!" she barely registered the girl beside her crying as she raced off to . . . Was that a clown? she wondered, catching glimpses of their reunion out of the corner of her left eye. She mentally shrugged it off in the next second, however, for she quite simply didn't care. All she cared about selfishly, perhaps foolishly, was the man currently holding her close.
Scott's hands stroked her dirty hair through his gloves. "Are you all right?" he asked. "How bad did they hurt you? I'll kill 'em!"
His words surprised them both, but even more surprising was the depth of his concern. She touched his face gingerly and ran her thumb over his open lips. He kissed her thumb pad, and Emma finally started to cry. She was so tired of being strong, of being brave, of holding everything in, and most especially of all of not letting this incredible man know just how much he meant to her. A sob broke free, and he gathered her closer into his arms. One hand patted the back of her head as the other pressed close into the beaten small of her back. Her blood ran onto his gloves as her tears soaked his shoulder.
"They're never hurt you again," he promised, kissing the side of her head.
"They'll never hurt any one again," a gruff voice growled from nearby.
"We should not kill them. That would make us no better."
"You wouldn't say that if your Cat was among them!"
"Cat? Did he seriously just say cat?"
"Yeah." Jubilee laughed. "He did."
"Maybe it's a nickname, like with me," Shadowcat pointed out.
"If we let them live, they'll do this again."
"They're not living."
"You'll have to go through us first -- "
"He's right, Batman. I hate to say it, but he's right."
"Nightwing -- "
"If Barbara or Selina were here, wouldn't you feel differently?"
"We still can not take the law into our own hands!"
"And which law would you have try these bastards?" the usually eloquent Beast questioned. "We are between worlds, my friends. It was no small feat to find them."
It was a blessing, Emma realized, shaking to her core. It was a blessing they had found them at all, and an even greater blessing that her own beloved Scott had led them. She looked at him now through her tears and remembered the one thing she'd ached to say to him for so long. She was weak; she was stupid! She shouldn't be thinking such thoughts! She knew he didn't love her and worse yet, love was a weakness, perhaps the greatest weakness.
"No, it's not, and as much as it pains me, you two have my blessing." Scott and Emma both looked in surprise at Jean. "He loves you, Emma, even if he won't say it, just as much as he once loved me, perhaps more." Sadness flickered in the redhead's green eyes. "But if you ever hurt him again, I will summon every bit of the Phoenix's force and make you pay a thousand times greater than what you have here."
A retort was on the tip of Emma's sharp, swollen tongue, but the other woman looked like she was ready to cry at any second. She had seen so many women crying over the months she'd been here; she was as tired of women hurting as she was of mutants hurting. Besides that, she had said something she had thought impossible, and if any one besides herself knew Scott and every one of his deepest secrets, it was his former wife.
"You . . . " She looked back up into his face and knew instantly that he was more than troubled. He was scared, and it had nothing to do with the enemies all around them, which the others were currently keeping at bay. She could hear explosions and lightning bolts frying the meager humans who had thought technology would make them gods. There were no manmade gods, she thought, but perhaps, just perhaps, there was One Deity who understood she had paid for her sins and was ready to grant her a better life, and a love she'd thought impossible. It was a comforting thought, but she wouldn't give it much heed not yet, not until she'd had the time and mindset to do far more research. It was a reassuring thought, too, that her deceased students might be waiting for her in some kind of nirvana.
But whatever did await her beyond death was a far, far ways off, and right now, she had a blessing right here in her very arms, a blessing she'd thought impossible. "You . . . " She caressed Scott's face and watched the movement of his eyes beyond his ruby quartz visor. It wasn't something everyone knew, but she could read him as well with the visor as without it. And right now, he was extremely nervous. He was scared, she thought again, and his fear had nothing to do with their human enemies or this horrid place that she knew would haunt her nightmares for a long time to come.
"I . . . " She tried again and fumbled once more.
The warehouse shook, and she vaguely became aware that an argument had been running around them this entire time. They were arguing with the Batperson about rather or not these people should live, a question to which she definitely had the answer. He was being as stubborn as Scott once had been about keeping their foes alive. Scott followed Emma's glance over to them. "They're right. If we let them go, they will only go to another place and do this all again. There's only one way to stop them and make damn certain they never do this to another woman ever again." His hand tightened at her back.
He looked back down into her teary eyes, almost apologetically. "Perhaps another time -- " he started to say but fell silent when she shook her head.
"No. I've put this off for far too long. A wise man once told me that it takes more courageous to be truthful than it does to form a lie." She cupped his handsome face in her eyes and held on more tightly than she really needed to, subconsciously realizing that she was still afraid he was going to disappear on her. "I love you, Scott. I have for years." She pressed her lips to his in a kiss filled with so much searing heat and passion that, for the first time since she'd been abducted from her office, she was not only warm but hot.
She hated moving from him, but there was work to be done, retribution to be had, and bastards to make pay. Even when she lifted her mouth from his, though, and called out another name, she kept touching him. She turned within the safety of his arms, dropped her hands to his, and entwined her fingers with his.
"Damn lovebirds need to get a room," she heard Wolverine growl.
"Leave them alone, Logan," Jean spoke, surprising Scott and Emma again. "They've suffered far too much, and besides, I have a feeling you're going to be one happy man when we get back home."
"Is that right?" he asked. Emma could hear his wide grin in his voice. "Then let's make short work of these buffoons!"
"Yes, let's," she agreed as he raced back into the fray. She looked to Harley, who was still busy hugging on her Mistah J, who -- Emma realized she was right -- did indeed look like some kind of pale, sadistic clown. "Miss Quinn?" she called. "Do you think you could alleviate me of this collar as well?"
"Here. Let me," a voice said from behind her. She felt a tingle as someone touched her without making contact and knew a second later who that person was as her collar fell away. It was the very girl who had hated her for so many years even after Emma had joined the X-Men. It was one of three X-Men who Emma had previously thought would never forgive or accept her. One of the others had all but given her her husband while the third was busily throwing lightning bolts on Emma's behalf.
She smiled the radiant smile of a woman who had finally been given not just a reason to live again but limitless happiness at her disposal. There was nothing left in her past to stand in the way of her future! "Thank you, Shadowcat." Her voice rose. "Now leave these . . . creatures to me."
Every one of the people who had kept her imprisoned for so long began to scream. They fell to their knees, clutching their heads. A few more were fried by another lightning bolt. Logan's adamantium claws split two in half, and what looked like a mere playing card took out another handful. But the rest stayed on their knees screaming as horribly as they had made their female captors scream.
"What's happening?" the masked hero they called Batman demanded to know. "What's she doing to them?"
Harley grinned like a satisfied predator from her place in Joker's tight embrace. "She's paying them back. She's letting them feel every damn thing they've made us feel for the past six months."
Emma heard her and registered surprise somewhere within the back of her mind. It felt like years, but she had only been here for a few months. The girl with the clown had suffered here for six months and been one of the first to break free and start fighting again; she'd seen her take out several of their captors, after all, before settling into her lover's embrace and the argument that had piqued about what to do with the rest of the scum.
"But I'm not killing them," she called to the Batman. They'll do that themselves, she thought with no small amount of wicked glee.
"Let's go home, sugar?" she heard Harley ask her Mistah J. "This's over with. She's got it. It's finally over with."
"You heard the lady, Bats," Joker responded, scooping his girl up into his arms. He kissed her cheek. "Let's go home." He turned and walked away. The Batman remained hesitating even after Nightwing and Robin walked after them, but when Green Lantern squeezed his shoulder and then also started to move away, he finally followed.
It was Harley who called back to Emma over Joker's shoulder. "Remember," she said with a wink as they moved through a shimmering, green portal, "we're stronger than we look!"
It takes a great deal of strength, Charles had told her, Emma remembered as she fell backwards into Scott's ready arms, to be honest, and sometimes, admitting our weaknesses is a strength of its own.
She finally had, she thought as she withdrew from her enemies' minds, leaving them all shrieking and writhing. "Where do we go from here?" she asked Scott in a tiny, weak voice. She had already been weak, but now she was barely conscious.
He scooped her up with ease into his arms and held her close against his chest. "We go home," he said, kissing her chastely as her blue eyes at last slid closed, "and you rest and let me care for you." And that was exactly what she did, for the first time in her life readily allowing and even welcoming a man to take care of her and make every call that concerned her, a man who she loved with all her being, a man who, in her another first for her, she trusted entirely.
The End
Author: Katya Starling
Dedicated To: My own beloved and fearless leader Mistah J ;) <3 <3 <3 Love you, baby! Thanks for all the support; this is one of those I wouldn't have dreamed of being able to pull off in one sitting if not for you, my sweet King! :X
Fandom: X-Men/Batman
Characters/Pairing: Cyclops/White Queen, Joker/Harley
Rating: PG-13/T
Challenge/Prompt: HC Bingo: Haunted, Telepathic Trauma, Loss of Powers, AND Drugged, What If AU 37: Reunion Anniversary Challenge, and 12 Months Challenge: Aprilladies
Word Count: 3,861
Date Written: 20 April 2020
Warnings: Future Fic, Sexual Abuse
Summary: Emma's abducted, but rescue is (finally) on the way. And it may go better than she ever would have truly dared to hope it would.
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to their rightful owners, not the author, and are used without permission.
They're here! she thought, her soul crying out in jubilant relief. He had actually cared enough to come, she realized, tears springing into her bleary, blue eyes. She had doubted he would, and it had only been a momentary lapse of judgement and weakness that had caused her to cry out to him when she'd first realized she was being taken. She had tried to give up all hope of a rescue coming, tried to convince herself that she was on her own as she had been nearly her entire life, but a tiny voice in the back of her mind and the recesses of her heart and soul had continued to cry out for Scott.
And now he was here! She could scarcely believe it, but she knew well the sounds of X-Men battling. He was here, and this, she had been able to deduce, was the room where all the prisoners were kept when not being chained to beds and forced to do things about which she still did not want to think. She had thought those days of her life were over, had promised herself they were, had fought with everything in her to make damn certain she never had to be any one else's slave ever again. What she had endured previously was why she fought so hard for the next generation of mutants. No one, not mutants, humans, or even animals, deserved to be any one else's slave. She had killed before with nothing else but her fingernails to make sure it never happened to her again; yet, it had.
But not for much longer, she promised herself. She could hear him now calling out commands to his team in that strong, sexy, take-charge voice of his. Damn it, but the man knew he had! He could play the Boy Scout card to its hilt, pretend that he was still a shy, nervous kid in so many ways, but in truth, he knew he had herself and Jean ready to kill over him, for him . . . And he was killing for her now, she knew, her heart giving a little leap. He was killing to come to her, to save her, to rescue her!
She wanted to cry out to him, but the iron gag that clamped her mouth shut kept her silenced just as the metal collar around her neck kept her powers from working. She could still scarcely tolerate the fact that there were some mutants who hated their powers so greatly that they would do anything to get rid of them, which was what had caused such technology as the damn collar to be created in the first place. Powers were gifts -- but then, if she was like Rogue, unable to touch any one because of her powers, she admitted silently that she could understand how it could be a curse instead.
For one moment, she considered how she would feel if she could never touch Scott again. Granted, not too long ago, before this had all happened, she had been afraid of that very thing happening. She could admit that now, even if only to herself. She had thought she repulsed him, that he hated her, and that he would never, ever care for her again unless she used her telepathy to force him. It had been tempting, but having been a slave herself, she was determined never to force any one to love her, no matter how much she wanted it or missed him.
She hadn't been supposed to let the man get under her skin, she reminded herself with no small amount of anger. Getting with him in the beginning had been a ploy to stay with the X-Men and continue to fight for a better future for their people. Bedding the leader certainly guaranteed that none of the minor players would openly question her place on the team. But somehow, for the first time in her life, sex had led to more than pleasure and power. It had led to something of which she had not even thought herself capable, but she had been wrong. She loved the man, even if he didn't love her.
She couldn't blame him for not loving her. She'd known since the start that his heart belonged to his dead wife. She couldn't erase Jean from his mind unless, of course, he asked her to again in another moment of weak grief, but even if he forgot the blasted redhead, every other X-Man alive would remember and remind him of how great she had been. Bile rose in Emma's throat at the thought, and she blinked back tears.
A new voice shouted, one she actually didn't recognize. Another voice in the same room with her whimpered pass her gag, and Emma looked over at the younger, weaker woman in surprise. She was a little, limp dishrag of a blonde who looked like she could barely fight her way out of a wet paper sack. She clearly recognized the new voice, however, for her big, blue eyes were wide with excitement. Gunfire followed by laughter erupted through the warehouse, and the blonde actually leapt to her feet, squealing now through her gag rather than just whimpering for attention.
Emma watched her curiously as she pushed herself to her feet. She gritted her teeth against the red-hot pain that screamed through the leg her captors had broken the first time she'd tried to escape. She hadn't stopped trying, but she also had not had the first bit of luck -- until today, until Scott had proved that he still cared for her enough to come to her rescue. Of course, she reminded herself, he was a blasted goody two shoes. He would have come after her even if he didn't care about her.
It was, in a way, his job. Although she had not noticed any other X-Men among the number of women who cowered together day after grueling, torturous day in this large room, she had spotted several other collars and knew she was not the only mutant here. Then, too, of course, the X-Men prided themselves on caring for mutants and humans with equal passion and sacrifice; they would have felt obligated to come if they had learned of this place and there had not been even the first mutant here. It was the right thing to do, she knew, and she was lucky they were so bent on doing the right thing. Otherwise, they might not have come after all.
The room spun as she pushed her way through the throng of teeming, smelly bodies. She needed to be at the front, needed to be seen and ready to help fight. She knew it wouldn't take Logan's claws or Kitty's phasing ability long to break the collar; even Gambit or Beast could help free her of the thing. And once she was free, Emma thought, she would rain Hell down upon the men and women who had been so ignorant enough of her capabilities to think she could just be taken and forced to be one of their countless sex slaves.
She would visit just as much trauma upon them as they had on her and the others here, and they would feel every inch of their pain, sorrow, and misery through her telepathy before she killed them. Actually, she wasn't going to kill them, she thought, wicked glee dancing in her fierce, blue eyes. She would set each of their minds to relive every second of torture they'd put them all through until they finally opted to take their own wretched lives. She heard maniacal laughter again and would have been tempted to join in the merriment if she had not still had her mouth imprisoned by the gag.
The women nearest her moved suddenly as a agile figure somersaulted into their midst. Emma looked in surprise at the same blonde she had eyed earlier and dismissed as being unable to fight. She somehow appeared stronger now. Moreover, she was free of her gag and grinning from ear to ear. "You look like I feel, girl. What?" She shrugged. "Surprised I can talk now? I knew I could get that thing off. I just couldn't take on all those guards by myself, but I don't have to now. Come here. Let me help you."
Emma eyed the stranger warily but stood still as she worked with a broken piece of a plastic fork she had somehow confiscated from one of their rare meals. Their captors had fed them just enough to keep them alive throughout the grueling weeks they had been here, suffering at their hands. Emma had tried to pick the collar once with a handle she'd broken off of a spoon but had been shocked straight through to her bones for her efforts. She gasped for air the moment the gag fell away, and in the very next second, she was screaming. "SCOTT," she yelled at the top of her lungs, forgetting, for the moment, the need for code names, "WE'RE IN HERE!"
The blonde cocked her head to the side as she watched the older woman scream. "Why didn't I think of that?" she asked, and then giggled, which made Emma look at her even more warily. "I guess I wanted to see how much longer it would take the Caped Crusader and my Mistah J to find us. MISTAH J! HELP!" she screamed before dropping her voice back to normal tones. "So what's your name, and who's this Scott fellow? Is he Batman? I'm Harley Quinn, by the way, and my Pudding's one of the ones coming to rescue us."
"Pudding?" Emma repeated coldly. Clearly the blonde's man was in their rescuers, but she could not imagine calling Scott by such a ridiculous pet name. Of course, she had never really called him by a pet name. She had never tried to let herself soften with him, which she realized now perhaps she should have. Perhaps she should have been more honest with him, more forthcoming. Maybe he could have learned to love her before Jean had been resurrected after all.
"You know why they had so much trouble finding us, don't cha?" Harley continued, unphased. "We're in this, like, pocket dimension. I'm guessing you're from another dimension, 'cause I saw how you looked when I said my name and Batman. You have no idea who Batman is, do ya?"
Emma quirked an eyebrow at her. "Why would I care," she demanded, "to know a man who names himself after a bat?"
"'Cause he's only like the best hero around!"
"No," Emma said quietly, her voice falling to a hushed whisper as an optic blast hit the wall before them and made the metal come crumbling down. Through the smoke, she began to make out the tall, lanky form that had haunted her every dream, both good and bad, since they'd parted. "He is." Maybe there was a God after all, Emma found herself thinking in surprise, and maybe she did deserve better than to rot away in this cell. This wasn't a dream after all; Scott really had found her at last!
"EMMA!" The passion with which he cried her name took her even further by surprise. She stood, as still as a statue, as he raced to her side, threw his arms around her, and brought her to him in an immense bear hug.
"MISTAH J!" she barely registered the girl beside her crying as she raced off to . . . Was that a clown? she wondered, catching glimpses of their reunion out of the corner of her left eye. She mentally shrugged it off in the next second, however, for she quite simply didn't care. All she cared about selfishly, perhaps foolishly, was the man currently holding her close.
Scott's hands stroked her dirty hair through his gloves. "Are you all right?" he asked. "How bad did they hurt you? I'll kill 'em!"
His words surprised them both, but even more surprising was the depth of his concern. She touched his face gingerly and ran her thumb over his open lips. He kissed her thumb pad, and Emma finally started to cry. She was so tired of being strong, of being brave, of holding everything in, and most especially of all of not letting this incredible man know just how much he meant to her. A sob broke free, and he gathered her closer into his arms. One hand patted the back of her head as the other pressed close into the beaten small of her back. Her blood ran onto his gloves as her tears soaked his shoulder.
"They're never hurt you again," he promised, kissing the side of her head.
"They'll never hurt any one again," a gruff voice growled from nearby.
"We should not kill them. That would make us no better."
"You wouldn't say that if your Cat was among them!"
"Cat? Did he seriously just say cat?"
"Yeah." Jubilee laughed. "He did."
"Maybe it's a nickname, like with me," Shadowcat pointed out.
"If we let them live, they'll do this again."
"They're not living."
"You'll have to go through us first -- "
"He's right, Batman. I hate to say it, but he's right."
"Nightwing -- "
"If Barbara or Selina were here, wouldn't you feel differently?"
"We still can not take the law into our own hands!"
"And which law would you have try these bastards?" the usually eloquent Beast questioned. "We are between worlds, my friends. It was no small feat to find them."
It was a blessing, Emma realized, shaking to her core. It was a blessing they had found them at all, and an even greater blessing that her own beloved Scott had led them. She looked at him now through her tears and remembered the one thing she'd ached to say to him for so long. She was weak; she was stupid! She shouldn't be thinking such thoughts! She knew he didn't love her and worse yet, love was a weakness, perhaps the greatest weakness.
"No, it's not, and as much as it pains me, you two have my blessing." Scott and Emma both looked in surprise at Jean. "He loves you, Emma, even if he won't say it, just as much as he once loved me, perhaps more." Sadness flickered in the redhead's green eyes. "But if you ever hurt him again, I will summon every bit of the Phoenix's force and make you pay a thousand times greater than what you have here."
A retort was on the tip of Emma's sharp, swollen tongue, but the other woman looked like she was ready to cry at any second. She had seen so many women crying over the months she'd been here; she was as tired of women hurting as she was of mutants hurting. Besides that, she had said something she had thought impossible, and if any one besides herself knew Scott and every one of his deepest secrets, it was his former wife.
"You . . . " She looked back up into his face and knew instantly that he was more than troubled. He was scared, and it had nothing to do with the enemies all around them, which the others were currently keeping at bay. She could hear explosions and lightning bolts frying the meager humans who had thought technology would make them gods. There were no manmade gods, she thought, but perhaps, just perhaps, there was One Deity who understood she had paid for her sins and was ready to grant her a better life, and a love she'd thought impossible. It was a comforting thought, but she wouldn't give it much heed not yet, not until she'd had the time and mindset to do far more research. It was a reassuring thought, too, that her deceased students might be waiting for her in some kind of nirvana.
But whatever did await her beyond death was a far, far ways off, and right now, she had a blessing right here in her very arms, a blessing she'd thought impossible. "You . . . " She caressed Scott's face and watched the movement of his eyes beyond his ruby quartz visor. It wasn't something everyone knew, but she could read him as well with the visor as without it. And right now, he was extremely nervous. He was scared, she thought again, and his fear had nothing to do with their human enemies or this horrid place that she knew would haunt her nightmares for a long time to come.
"I . . . " She tried again and fumbled once more.
The warehouse shook, and she vaguely became aware that an argument had been running around them this entire time. They were arguing with the Batperson about rather or not these people should live, a question to which she definitely had the answer. He was being as stubborn as Scott once had been about keeping their foes alive. Scott followed Emma's glance over to them. "They're right. If we let them go, they will only go to another place and do this all again. There's only one way to stop them and make damn certain they never do this to another woman ever again." His hand tightened at her back.
He looked back down into her teary eyes, almost apologetically. "Perhaps another time -- " he started to say but fell silent when she shook her head.
"No. I've put this off for far too long. A wise man once told me that it takes more courageous to be truthful than it does to form a lie." She cupped his handsome face in her eyes and held on more tightly than she really needed to, subconsciously realizing that she was still afraid he was going to disappear on her. "I love you, Scott. I have for years." She pressed her lips to his in a kiss filled with so much searing heat and passion that, for the first time since she'd been abducted from her office, she was not only warm but hot.
She hated moving from him, but there was work to be done, retribution to be had, and bastards to make pay. Even when she lifted her mouth from his, though, and called out another name, she kept touching him. She turned within the safety of his arms, dropped her hands to his, and entwined her fingers with his.
"Damn lovebirds need to get a room," she heard Wolverine growl.
"Leave them alone, Logan," Jean spoke, surprising Scott and Emma again. "They've suffered far too much, and besides, I have a feeling you're going to be one happy man when we get back home."
"Is that right?" he asked. Emma could hear his wide grin in his voice. "Then let's make short work of these buffoons!"
"Yes, let's," she agreed as he raced back into the fray. She looked to Harley, who was still busy hugging on her Mistah J, who -- Emma realized she was right -- did indeed look like some kind of pale, sadistic clown. "Miss Quinn?" she called. "Do you think you could alleviate me of this collar as well?"
"Here. Let me," a voice said from behind her. She felt a tingle as someone touched her without making contact and knew a second later who that person was as her collar fell away. It was the very girl who had hated her for so many years even after Emma had joined the X-Men. It was one of three X-Men who Emma had previously thought would never forgive or accept her. One of the others had all but given her her husband while the third was busily throwing lightning bolts on Emma's behalf.
She smiled the radiant smile of a woman who had finally been given not just a reason to live again but limitless happiness at her disposal. There was nothing left in her past to stand in the way of her future! "Thank you, Shadowcat." Her voice rose. "Now leave these . . . creatures to me."
Every one of the people who had kept her imprisoned for so long began to scream. They fell to their knees, clutching their heads. A few more were fried by another lightning bolt. Logan's adamantium claws split two in half, and what looked like a mere playing card took out another handful. But the rest stayed on their knees screaming as horribly as they had made their female captors scream.
"What's happening?" the masked hero they called Batman demanded to know. "What's she doing to them?"
Harley grinned like a satisfied predator from her place in Joker's tight embrace. "She's paying them back. She's letting them feel every damn thing they've made us feel for the past six months."
Emma heard her and registered surprise somewhere within the back of her mind. It felt like years, but she had only been here for a few months. The girl with the clown had suffered here for six months and been one of the first to break free and start fighting again; she'd seen her take out several of their captors, after all, before settling into her lover's embrace and the argument that had piqued about what to do with the rest of the scum.
"But I'm not killing them," she called to the Batman. They'll do that themselves, she thought with no small amount of wicked glee.
"Let's go home, sugar?" she heard Harley ask her Mistah J. "This's over with. She's got it. It's finally over with."
"You heard the lady, Bats," Joker responded, scooping his girl up into his arms. He kissed her cheek. "Let's go home." He turned and walked away. The Batman remained hesitating even after Nightwing and Robin walked after them, but when Green Lantern squeezed his shoulder and then also started to move away, he finally followed.
It was Harley who called back to Emma over Joker's shoulder. "Remember," she said with a wink as they moved through a shimmering, green portal, "we're stronger than we look!"
It takes a great deal of strength, Charles had told her, Emma remembered as she fell backwards into Scott's ready arms, to be honest, and sometimes, admitting our weaknesses is a strength of its own.
She finally had, she thought as she withdrew from her enemies' minds, leaving them all shrieking and writhing. "Where do we go from here?" she asked Scott in a tiny, weak voice. She had already been weak, but now she was barely conscious.
He scooped her up with ease into his arms and held her close against his chest. "We go home," he said, kissing her chastely as her blue eyes at last slid closed, "and you rest and let me care for you." And that was exactly what she did, for the first time in her life readily allowing and even welcoming a man to take care of her and make every call that concerned her, a man who she loved with all her being, a man who, in her another first for her, she trusted entirely.
The End
