Strong, Free, and In Charge
Mar. 6th, 2020 07:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
queenkatyastarTitle: Strong, Free, and In Charge
Author: Katya Starling
Fandom: X-Men
Characters/Pairing: Storm, past T'Challa/Storm, mentions Gambit/Rogue and Cyclops/Jean
Rating: PG/K+
Challenge/Prompt: FFFC S.93: Bingo - Fortis et Liber - Strong and Free
Word Count: 2,500
Date Written: 4 March 2020
Warnings: Spoilers
Summary: Storm comes home . . . again.
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to their rightful owners, not the author, and are used without permission.
Tears mixed with the slanting raindrops as she flew the long, sorrowful flight back home to the States. She never would have thought, growing up, that the United States would become her home, but it had. Africa was no longer her home, and although it would always hold a special place in her heart, she had, if she was truthful, missed her true home the entire time she'd been gone.
She circled around the State of Liberty just to take a view of the grand, old lady and remember what so many people before her had thought upon seeing the majestic figure. For millions upon millions of people, the sight of Lady Liberty had meant freedom, and although her people had started out in this grand nation as slaves, they had not been gifted with such a sight upon entrance. Yes, America had meant slavery for her people for well over a hundred years, but despite what many people still refused to acknowledge or accept, it had been their own people who had first turned them into slaves.
She couldn't imagine being turned into a slave by her own kind, even despite everything she'd endured over her years as a thief, a wanderer, a homeless urchin, and an X-Man. She couldn't imagine hating her own race so greatly or loving the all mighty dollar so much that she would gladly allow another living being to be beaten just to gain a fortune, let alone the hundreds of black people who had originally been sold into this land.
So much blood had spilled in America over the centuries, but then, too, so much blood had spilled in her homeland. A great deal was still being spilled, both here and abroad. Ororo took her time flying over one city after another. On occasion, she would dip low enough to check out the nightlife, and upon spotting the inevitable thief, she would strike them down with a quick lightning bolt. Breezes carried purses and even televisions back to their original owners through the rain that accompanied her every move.
She couldn't stop crying. A part of her was glad to be coming home, but she still could not stop crying -- or regretting all that had happened to bring her home at last. She should have just left T'Challa, but she had tried so hard to be everything he and their nation wanted her to be -- not just wanted, really, but needed. They needed a strong, leading lady. They needed a ruler who was not afraid of anything and would face impossible odds and turn down temptations to do what was truly best for the country. They needed someone who would lead them into a bright, glorious future not just for themselves but for the generations to follow.
She had thought she was that person. When the Goddess had apparently blessed her by bringing T'Challa back into her life, Ororo had believed that it was a sign. She had believed her time here in the States was over, that it was time to go home, and most of all, that he and she could bring Africa into the future it and its people deserved as its King and Queen.
But she had not been a Queen. She had not even been a ruler. She had had to argue with her husband for the simple right of connecting with her friends back home. She had had to sneak out of her own home to do anything freely. She had been left with marks on her face and tears on her pillow every single night for so very long now that memories of pleasant, untroubled sleep seemed but a dull dream. She'd been fighting for the rights of every African to be whatever they wanted to be; yet, she herself, had been cast down from freedom in the skies and in her life to a mere housewife, a woman meant only to carry her husband's heir and to never, ever question her husband or his guard.
Lightning crackled through the sky with Ororo's mighty anger. She should no longer be sad, she thought. She should not be grieving. Her grief, her sorrow was over. She was free. So why then, she puzzled, did she not feel free? Why did she feel as heavy as the clouds that hung so low and pregnant with torrents of rain? Why could she not just let go?
Even entering Westchester County did not bring with it the relief and happiness that she had once felt at coming home. A part of her was happy or, at least, far happier than she had been since very shortly after leaving this great country to marry a man she could now acknowledge had never loved her. Love, true love, had never entered into their relationship. She knew what true love was. She had experienced love twice before in her life. She had not yet experienced the kind of grand love that Scott and Jean, some of her dearest friends, shared, but the loves she had experienced had given her strength to do things she never otherwise would have been able to do.
She'd thought her love for T'Challa would enable to do that, but whatever it was she had felt for T'Challa had not been love. She had not married him for love. She had married him to help their nation, their people, and she had married him, in part, she could admit to herself now, because she'd been afraid. Once before, a man had asked her to be his wife, and she had narrowly missed that adventure because she had paused to consider her duties with the X-Men and had lost the opportunity to be Forge's bride.
She wondered, not for the first time, how her life, and those of the X-Men, might have changed if she had married him. They could have been the King and Queen of the X-Men. She would not have had to leave. After all, Forge was still working for the X-Men's dream of a better tomorrow for all mutants and humans, only under a different team. They could have forged a brighter future for mutant and human kind together, and she now realized they most likely would have had far greater success with it than she and T'Challa had had in building a future for the African country.
Yet there she went again, Ororo recognized. She was doing the very thing she had tried to explain so many years prior to Scott and Jean both was not good for her. She was placing duty above all else, just as she'd done when she'd chosen to leave the X-Men, where she'd actually been happy, to try to build a better future for their people with T'Challa. She had wed him not out of love but out of duty, and out of the naive belief that they could build love and a better future for all together.
Thunder roared her anguish and the winds swept higher as Ororo neared the mansion. She had wondered who had left since her own departure and how many new faces would look at her and not even know who she was. The last thing she expected was to see the mansion lit up with bright, golden lights. She had told only Logan that she was coming home, having asked him, quite shyly and, if she admitted it only to herself, with more than a little fear, if she would still be welcome.
His response had been fierce. He'd assured her in his gruff, strong way that not only would she always be welcome at their home but he'd gut anyone who said or acted otherwise. He'd actually made her laugh, the first laugh Ororo remembered emitting in far, far too long. Indeed, even now, she couldn't remember the last time she'd so much as smiled with amusement.
Still she had not expected the light show she was receiving, or the people her blue eyes, which were widening with her growing surprise, were already beginning to recognize as she began a slow, circling descent. Jubilee stood in the shadows, looking as much at home in the darkness as any Vampire or Morlock had ever been. Ororo winced suddenly with the thought of those people. She should have learned her lesson, she realized, back in the '80s. She could not be a Queen, a mother, or a leader to more than one people at a time, and she had tried, through marrying T'Challa, to build a future for mutants, Africans, and the Wakandians, the latter, of course, for whom T'Challa had given everything. No one else could ever compare to the Prince of Wakanda, or accurately compete for his affection, than his own people.
She couldn't blame him for that, she realized as she continued to look around her home and her own people, for no one could ever take the place in her heart of her own people. The Morlocks had failed to do it, and so, too, had her own countrymen. Hank was swinging through the trees in her direction. Rogue and Remy huddled together on the rooftop. He had waved to her, though Ororo had only acknowledged them with a mere nod of her graceful head.
Scott stood looking out his window, gazing directly up at the night sky, while Bishop had chosen to clean his guns underneath the open garage. She knew there was only one reason why a warrior such as himself would do so: he was watching the premises, waiting for the arrival of an enemy or perhaps, she preferred to think, a friend. Bobby was making snowmen though out of season, and each one's head was pointed upward with a charcoal smile at the night sky.
Warren glided through the night sky, holding Betsy close to his heart; she was glad to see they were still together. Kitty burst into a huge grin at the sight of her, and Lockheed circled around Pryde's head, cooing so loudly and excitedly that Ororo could hear him clearly over the distance that separated them. Even X-23 was stalking the premises at full alert, and Ororo nodded the sly smile the girl grinned before she turned away from her.
Yet, of all those clearly waiting for her, it was Logan beside whom Ororo finally landed. "I . . . I did not realize that you were going to tell everyone." She would not meet his gaze.
"I didn't," he said, tossing back the last of his beer, "believe it or not." She watched him through narrowed, blue eyes. "I didn't," he insisted. "Your breakup with T'Challa's all over the news, 'Ro, and when the freak storm showed up -- "
She let him witness her wiping tears from her eyes. "They assumed it was me."
"They knew it was you."
"And we were thrilled!" Kitty exclaimed, throwing herself at Ororo and hugging her tightly.
Finally, Ororo smiled truthfully, and her tears began to subside. She returned the tight hug, relishing in her old best friend's warm, reassuring embrace. Hank pounced onto the ground next to them, quoting Shakespearean about how though no matter where a soul might roam, only one place was ever truly home.
"I . . . I suppose you are right, Henry."
"It does this old boy's heart good to see you, Ororo."
"It's good to see you too."
Thunder rumbled away into the distance, and the rain had stopped falling when Rogue and Remy arrived.
"Hush your complaints, chere. You'll get everything righted soon enough." Remy reached out and hugged Ororo even more tightly than Kitty had. Into her ear, he whispered, "You never should have been brought down by dat bastard anyway. You're too strong for him, too strong an' too good, and you're free at last."
He was right, Ororo knew, her heart beginning to surge. She was strong, stronger than almost anyone knew, any one except herself and just two of the people standing in this small but growing circle. And she was free. She'd been freed at last not only to leave Wakanda but to come home where she belonged, where she'd learned decades ago that she belonged and where she never should have doubted was her destiny.
Remy stepped away, and Rogue moved forward. "Shugah, Ah'm gonna tell you somethin' a very wise, brave, an' strong woman told me once before what feels like many years ago." She laughed. "Ah feel like an' old woman -- "
"You're not old, chere."
" -- even though Ah'm not." Rogue flashed her boyfriend a bright smile. "But this person . . . She meant th' world to me, an' Ah thought she was th' bravest, strongest woman Ah'd evah met. Still do, matter o' fact. But she came to me when Ah was scared an' runnin' like a child an' she told me that it didn't mattah what anyone else thought. Mah home was where Ah felt like Ah was home, an' no one had any right to keep me from it." She looked directly into Ororo's eyes. "You don't let no man tell you where you belong or don't belong ever again. You hear me, girl?"
Ororo's smile continued to grow though new tears pricked her baby blues. "I do," she whispered in admission.
As Rogue was still hugging her, Logan's strong hand clapped her back. "An' if you do, I'm gonna gut the bastard."
"If I don't fry him first."
"We'll all get him," Kitty said, and Lockheed cooed in agreement. "Kurt, Peter, and Brian once told someone that they were going to tear his head off, doodle all over it, play soccer with it, and then bamf it into the sea if he hurt me. If anyone ever tries to take you from us again, 'Ro, we're going to do all that and way worse."
"Agreed, liebchen," Kurt said, having appeared from the black shadows. His tail whisked. "Now zen, group hug!"
Laughter spilled from Ororo as she was surrounded by her true family, all eager to hold her, hug her, reassure her, and never, ever let her go again. This was where she'd belonged, she remembered. She'd learned it so many times over. She should have known it would not change. She was going to fight to forge a brighter future for her people, but she was going to do it from right here right beside these people she loved and who loved her in return, not as a pregnant, barefooted wife but as the strong, free, and even glorious Queen the Goddess had made her.
Thunder blasted through the night sky again, but this time, it wasn't accompanied by rain. She had no more reason to cry. She was strong, free, and home again. The world would be her oyster, and together, the X-Men, her family, could accomplish anything with enough time, including the dream of peaceful coexistence between species, and countries, that would one day become reality.
The End
Author: Katya Starling
Fandom: X-Men
Characters/Pairing: Storm, past T'Challa/Storm, mentions Gambit/Rogue and Cyclops/Jean
Rating: PG/K+
Challenge/Prompt: FFFC S.93: Bingo - Fortis et Liber - Strong and Free
Word Count: 2,500
Date Written: 4 March 2020
Warnings: Spoilers
Summary: Storm comes home . . . again.
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to their rightful owners, not the author, and are used without permission.
Tears mixed with the slanting raindrops as she flew the long, sorrowful flight back home to the States. She never would have thought, growing up, that the United States would become her home, but it had. Africa was no longer her home, and although it would always hold a special place in her heart, she had, if she was truthful, missed her true home the entire time she'd been gone.
She circled around the State of Liberty just to take a view of the grand, old lady and remember what so many people before her had thought upon seeing the majestic figure. For millions upon millions of people, the sight of Lady Liberty had meant freedom, and although her people had started out in this grand nation as slaves, they had not been gifted with such a sight upon entrance. Yes, America had meant slavery for her people for well over a hundred years, but despite what many people still refused to acknowledge or accept, it had been their own people who had first turned them into slaves.
She couldn't imagine being turned into a slave by her own kind, even despite everything she'd endured over her years as a thief, a wanderer, a homeless urchin, and an X-Man. She couldn't imagine hating her own race so greatly or loving the all mighty dollar so much that she would gladly allow another living being to be beaten just to gain a fortune, let alone the hundreds of black people who had originally been sold into this land.
So much blood had spilled in America over the centuries, but then, too, so much blood had spilled in her homeland. A great deal was still being spilled, both here and abroad. Ororo took her time flying over one city after another. On occasion, she would dip low enough to check out the nightlife, and upon spotting the inevitable thief, she would strike them down with a quick lightning bolt. Breezes carried purses and even televisions back to their original owners through the rain that accompanied her every move.
She couldn't stop crying. A part of her was glad to be coming home, but she still could not stop crying -- or regretting all that had happened to bring her home at last. She should have just left T'Challa, but she had tried so hard to be everything he and their nation wanted her to be -- not just wanted, really, but needed. They needed a strong, leading lady. They needed a ruler who was not afraid of anything and would face impossible odds and turn down temptations to do what was truly best for the country. They needed someone who would lead them into a bright, glorious future not just for themselves but for the generations to follow.
She had thought she was that person. When the Goddess had apparently blessed her by bringing T'Challa back into her life, Ororo had believed that it was a sign. She had believed her time here in the States was over, that it was time to go home, and most of all, that he and she could bring Africa into the future it and its people deserved as its King and Queen.
But she had not been a Queen. She had not even been a ruler. She had had to argue with her husband for the simple right of connecting with her friends back home. She had had to sneak out of her own home to do anything freely. She had been left with marks on her face and tears on her pillow every single night for so very long now that memories of pleasant, untroubled sleep seemed but a dull dream. She'd been fighting for the rights of every African to be whatever they wanted to be; yet, she herself, had been cast down from freedom in the skies and in her life to a mere housewife, a woman meant only to carry her husband's heir and to never, ever question her husband or his guard.
Lightning crackled through the sky with Ororo's mighty anger. She should no longer be sad, she thought. She should not be grieving. Her grief, her sorrow was over. She was free. So why then, she puzzled, did she not feel free? Why did she feel as heavy as the clouds that hung so low and pregnant with torrents of rain? Why could she not just let go?
Even entering Westchester County did not bring with it the relief and happiness that she had once felt at coming home. A part of her was happy or, at least, far happier than she had been since very shortly after leaving this great country to marry a man she could now acknowledge had never loved her. Love, true love, had never entered into their relationship. She knew what true love was. She had experienced love twice before in her life. She had not yet experienced the kind of grand love that Scott and Jean, some of her dearest friends, shared, but the loves she had experienced had given her strength to do things she never otherwise would have been able to do.
She'd thought her love for T'Challa would enable to do that, but whatever it was she had felt for T'Challa had not been love. She had not married him for love. She had married him to help their nation, their people, and she had married him, in part, she could admit to herself now, because she'd been afraid. Once before, a man had asked her to be his wife, and she had narrowly missed that adventure because she had paused to consider her duties with the X-Men and had lost the opportunity to be Forge's bride.
She wondered, not for the first time, how her life, and those of the X-Men, might have changed if she had married him. They could have been the King and Queen of the X-Men. She would not have had to leave. After all, Forge was still working for the X-Men's dream of a better tomorrow for all mutants and humans, only under a different team. They could have forged a brighter future for mutant and human kind together, and she now realized they most likely would have had far greater success with it than she and T'Challa had had in building a future for the African country.
Yet there she went again, Ororo recognized. She was doing the very thing she had tried to explain so many years prior to Scott and Jean both was not good for her. She was placing duty above all else, just as she'd done when she'd chosen to leave the X-Men, where she'd actually been happy, to try to build a better future for their people with T'Challa. She had wed him not out of love but out of duty, and out of the naive belief that they could build love and a better future for all together.
Thunder roared her anguish and the winds swept higher as Ororo neared the mansion. She had wondered who had left since her own departure and how many new faces would look at her and not even know who she was. The last thing she expected was to see the mansion lit up with bright, golden lights. She had told only Logan that she was coming home, having asked him, quite shyly and, if she admitted it only to herself, with more than a little fear, if she would still be welcome.
His response had been fierce. He'd assured her in his gruff, strong way that not only would she always be welcome at their home but he'd gut anyone who said or acted otherwise. He'd actually made her laugh, the first laugh Ororo remembered emitting in far, far too long. Indeed, even now, she couldn't remember the last time she'd so much as smiled with amusement.
Still she had not expected the light show she was receiving, or the people her blue eyes, which were widening with her growing surprise, were already beginning to recognize as she began a slow, circling descent. Jubilee stood in the shadows, looking as much at home in the darkness as any Vampire or Morlock had ever been. Ororo winced suddenly with the thought of those people. She should have learned her lesson, she realized, back in the '80s. She could not be a Queen, a mother, or a leader to more than one people at a time, and she had tried, through marrying T'Challa, to build a future for mutants, Africans, and the Wakandians, the latter, of course, for whom T'Challa had given everything. No one else could ever compare to the Prince of Wakanda, or accurately compete for his affection, than his own people.
She couldn't blame him for that, she realized as she continued to look around her home and her own people, for no one could ever take the place in her heart of her own people. The Morlocks had failed to do it, and so, too, had her own countrymen. Hank was swinging through the trees in her direction. Rogue and Remy huddled together on the rooftop. He had waved to her, though Ororo had only acknowledged them with a mere nod of her graceful head.
Scott stood looking out his window, gazing directly up at the night sky, while Bishop had chosen to clean his guns underneath the open garage. She knew there was only one reason why a warrior such as himself would do so: he was watching the premises, waiting for the arrival of an enemy or perhaps, she preferred to think, a friend. Bobby was making snowmen though out of season, and each one's head was pointed upward with a charcoal smile at the night sky.
Warren glided through the night sky, holding Betsy close to his heart; she was glad to see they were still together. Kitty burst into a huge grin at the sight of her, and Lockheed circled around Pryde's head, cooing so loudly and excitedly that Ororo could hear him clearly over the distance that separated them. Even X-23 was stalking the premises at full alert, and Ororo nodded the sly smile the girl grinned before she turned away from her.
Yet, of all those clearly waiting for her, it was Logan beside whom Ororo finally landed. "I . . . I did not realize that you were going to tell everyone." She would not meet his gaze.
"I didn't," he said, tossing back the last of his beer, "believe it or not." She watched him through narrowed, blue eyes. "I didn't," he insisted. "Your breakup with T'Challa's all over the news, 'Ro, and when the freak storm showed up -- "
She let him witness her wiping tears from her eyes. "They assumed it was me."
"They knew it was you."
"And we were thrilled!" Kitty exclaimed, throwing herself at Ororo and hugging her tightly.
Finally, Ororo smiled truthfully, and her tears began to subside. She returned the tight hug, relishing in her old best friend's warm, reassuring embrace. Hank pounced onto the ground next to them, quoting Shakespearean about how though no matter where a soul might roam, only one place was ever truly home.
"I . . . I suppose you are right, Henry."
"It does this old boy's heart good to see you, Ororo."
"It's good to see you too."
Thunder rumbled away into the distance, and the rain had stopped falling when Rogue and Remy arrived.
"Hush your complaints, chere. You'll get everything righted soon enough." Remy reached out and hugged Ororo even more tightly than Kitty had. Into her ear, he whispered, "You never should have been brought down by dat bastard anyway. You're too strong for him, too strong an' too good, and you're free at last."
He was right, Ororo knew, her heart beginning to surge. She was strong, stronger than almost anyone knew, any one except herself and just two of the people standing in this small but growing circle. And she was free. She'd been freed at last not only to leave Wakanda but to come home where she belonged, where she'd learned decades ago that she belonged and where she never should have doubted was her destiny.
Remy stepped away, and Rogue moved forward. "Shugah, Ah'm gonna tell you somethin' a very wise, brave, an' strong woman told me once before what feels like many years ago." She laughed. "Ah feel like an' old woman -- "
"You're not old, chere."
" -- even though Ah'm not." Rogue flashed her boyfriend a bright smile. "But this person . . . She meant th' world to me, an' Ah thought she was th' bravest, strongest woman Ah'd evah met. Still do, matter o' fact. But she came to me when Ah was scared an' runnin' like a child an' she told me that it didn't mattah what anyone else thought. Mah home was where Ah felt like Ah was home, an' no one had any right to keep me from it." She looked directly into Ororo's eyes. "You don't let no man tell you where you belong or don't belong ever again. You hear me, girl?"
Ororo's smile continued to grow though new tears pricked her baby blues. "I do," she whispered in admission.
As Rogue was still hugging her, Logan's strong hand clapped her back. "An' if you do, I'm gonna gut the bastard."
"If I don't fry him first."
"We'll all get him," Kitty said, and Lockheed cooed in agreement. "Kurt, Peter, and Brian once told someone that they were going to tear his head off, doodle all over it, play soccer with it, and then bamf it into the sea if he hurt me. If anyone ever tries to take you from us again, 'Ro, we're going to do all that and way worse."
"Agreed, liebchen," Kurt said, having appeared from the black shadows. His tail whisked. "Now zen, group hug!"
Laughter spilled from Ororo as she was surrounded by her true family, all eager to hold her, hug her, reassure her, and never, ever let her go again. This was where she'd belonged, she remembered. She'd learned it so many times over. She should have known it would not change. She was going to fight to forge a brighter future for her people, but she was going to do it from right here right beside these people she loved and who loved her in return, not as a pregnant, barefooted wife but as the strong, free, and even glorious Queen the Goddess had made her.
Thunder blasted through the night sky again, but this time, it wasn't accompanied by rain. She had no more reason to cry. She was strong, free, and home again. The world would be her oyster, and together, the X-Men, her family, could accomplish anything with enough time, including the dream of peaceful coexistence between species, and countries, that would one day become reality.
The End
