Regenerate | X-Men/Avengers - Pt. 1

Ch. 29

Every morning when I wake up my head swims, followed by a gnawing hunger, and an ache. Lead weights on every limb, and my lungs filled with dead air. I comb my hair, splash my face, and try not to sink to the floor. My knees will drop me if I'm not alert.

I set water on to boil. Today is unusually cold. There's even a patina of frost on the front steps. I cross my arms and lean against the table watching Bruce while he sleeps. The impression of him still lingers from a few nights ago when I interrupted his transformation. If that's indeed what that was.

The water boils and I tap dead leaves over its turbulent surface. The bed creaks gently. Bruce rubs his eyes, toes curling when they touch the cold floor. I'm not doing this right.

Plastic smile as I butter the bread. He relaxes at the table with the steam clouding around his nostrils. I wipe butter off my thumb with a damp rag.

"Oh, did you want jam?"

He shakes his head. "Don't worry about it. Thank you."

I put the buttered bread and the jam on the table both. My tea tastes like hot water. I could use a hot bath, submerge myself in it, clear past my nose, no part of me above in the frigid air. He asks about the weather. I left the curtains closed.

"Clear," I say. "Light frost. Nothing spectacular."

He nods, hardly aware of the individual words. "Were you going to cook that pork today?"

I look away from the window. "Yeah."

He watches me out of the corner of his eye as I get up. "You don't have to. I was just curious."

"I was going to cook it today," I insist, getting the canned meat down from the shelf.

The mug clinks against the plate. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it."

I close the door carefully behind me. The cabin is tidy; my things are bundled up and out of the way. Perhaps he'll find a use for them. I left dinner to simmer in the pot. Maybe he'll be back before it cools off. A ghost of an owl glides over my head, and my skin stings as I walk barefoot. I keep walking. Should I have left a note? That would use up paper, and he doesn't have much. Keep walking.

Everything is still at this hour, when night creatures are settling down to sleep and day creatures have yet to rise. I forgot about nature's lull period. Even dusk is speckled with bats and mosquitoes, but pre-dawn is a time when nothing is noticed and no one is there to notice it. There's a drunkenness that accompanies this early morning dreamtime when thoughts stagger and memories slur. I haven't the meekest clue where I'm going, but everything else, my legs, my shoulders, my heart, knows the way. I go over the list again, and as it always does, it comes down to just two people. Yet even they don't need me.

I smell the lake long before I reach it. Pine needles sink underfoot in the moist earth as more brush my face and clothes leaving brisk, sappy scratches behind them. There are a number of lakes and reservoirs in these mountains. This one is over three miles away from the cabin in the opposite direction of Bruce's morning hike. The sun, still struggling on the other side of the mountain, hasn't yet ousted the tender mist nestled over the waters.

When I first saw Bruce, standing outside that ramshackle little cabin, he reminded me of the friend I'd run away with when I was twelve, whose people had taken me in even though they didn't want me. We grew up together; or rather he did the growing while I barely inched along. When we eventually ran from the political upheaval of his world, he was past forty. After changing our names and getting as far off the grid as possible, we settled down to wait it out. He fared better. He also died first.

I can't do that again, and there's no way in hell I'm watching Bruce grow old too. Five years ago I stood looking over Alkali with every intention of walking out to the middle until it swallowed me up. But I was too busy listening to the growling of my stomach, and to the earthly stranger who thought he knew me. They won't see it right away, but this is a good thing. Logan won't have to carry me around, the X-Men won't have to shelter me, Matt won't ever know what I'm capable of, and Tony won't even remember me. Three weeks is eternity for him, so that's probably already accomplished.

These stones are like marbles under my feet, some rolling me towards the edge of the water, and some away. Is this right? I wouldn't want a monster like me roaming the streets, would you? Ethically, though. I killed five men in cold blood, what do I know about ethics? Is this you? I am tired, I am ancient, my head is saturated with memories I can't blot out. I wore myself thin, lost, and now I just want to sleep. I don't know who else you want me to be, but I've been enough people. I just want sleep.

When I found Bruce on the edge of the path and took his hand in mine, he squeezed so tight I thought my bones might shatter. Just as I thought I'd fought his last wave of anger, this cold memory of Bruce's absorbed me. He was standing in ice, surrounded by it. Futile, desperate, and weeping, he pulled a handgun out of his coat. It lay obscenely in his hand for several seconds, until he raised it to his lips.

My bare foot slips beneath the surface of the freezing water, so I follow it. Slowly, perhaps waiting for a compelling objection, I follow the ripples out toward the center, the mud and pebbles squelching and clinging between my numbed toes, trying to hold me down.

I am so damn tired.

---

The valley shudders before he crashes through the tree line.