Baba Yaga (allsystemsgo) wrote in superbabies, @ 2013-03-06 01:45:00 |
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Entry tags: | henry power, yoko oyama |
LOG: zero-g & pilot
WHO: Henry Power and Yoko Oyama
WHEN: Last Wednesday
WHAT: Henry had invited Yoko to the Bronx Zoo, where they talk about Yoko's past. The conversation covers subjects like her surgeries, their partners, and Henry's family dynamic, revealing doses of both her complicated and layered relationship with her mother and his insecurities trying to fit into a family of heroes.
Going to a zoo on a cool late February Wednesday with a young man she'd previously tried to kill was not a scene Yoko would ever have thought she'd be cast in. But she and Henry got into his car at nine am (he could keep his keys, she drove them there in half the time it'd take anyone else) and arrived at half past ten. Dressed in absolute black from her button up top to her thigh-highs, she went without a jacket and didn't mind it. 45 degrees wasn't at all unbearable to her.
She knew this outing was for more than looking at Henry's monkeys or giraffes or penguins. While talking wasn't her forte, nor was making friends, she wanted to change things with Henry. Wanted to try. And from what she'd gathered from their last conversation, Yoko realized there was far more beneath the surface to him. Spiral was important to discuss, but the assassin was curious.
Walking alongside him as they headed towards an exhibit, hands clasped behind her back and eyes having been darting around at the relatively populated grounds of families and couples and school groups, Yoko finally peered at him. "So. We can talk now?"
Despite the cold, Henry had ice cream. He had no idea what compelled him beyond the fact that this is what you got at the zoo, even if everyone looked at you like you were nuts. Sure, the snow jacket didn't help, but he only had a shirt on under. Things worked out like that. But he knew most of the curious looks they got were because of Yoko; the few patrons who had brought their children out looked, at least until Henry made a face at them.
They were at the lion enclosure when she asked if they could talk. Twisting the corner of his mouth up, Henry shrugged nonchalantly, finally nodding. After everything that had happened, he trusted Yoko like he trusted Ian, but maybe a little more. Sometimes it was hard to tell. They had both become good friends lately and he had come to respect her. Yoko piqued his interest with Spiral, even if it came with having to discuss himself.
"Yeah, okay. Where'd you want to start with this?"
Yoko set her hands on the rail, looking into the enclosure, admiring the large feline beasts lounging around on a stretch of grass. Henry, with his eccentric combination of ice cream and winter coat, made her smirk a little, but it was precisely who he was.
“Spiral.” She said. “I promised I would talk about Spiral and I have confidence that after I do, you will still tell me about yourself.” She turned and learned on the rail, scooting a touch more in his direction when a father and his two children came up behind her, their small hands on their rail and her own shoulders tensing. “Rita. She was chosen by a man named Donald Pierce to turn my mother into a cyborg. And my mother, after she and I were reunited, elected to use her services again.” There wasn’t too much of the personal details she didn’t want to go into. If Henry asked, she’d be very cautious as to how much she wanted to say, but the facts he wanted, so facts he would get.
“Oh.” And so, Henry listened, slowly eating his ice cream cone while watching Yoko and the lions. “So, the services, they were to put adamantium into your body and make you a cyborg, too? Your mom was a cyborg? How did that work out? How did she give birth, or. Well any of that. How did you come to be?”
Then, he hesitated, unsure if he should ask his next question. Part of him really did, he was always the curious cat who got itself killed, but he didn’t want to be disrespectful, either. Yoko didn’t have to do this, she didn’t have to tell him anything. That she was was proof enough that they had a budding friendship and respect and truth. All of it meant a lot to him. But he wanted to know so he asked, wording it carefully and kept his voice low, “Do you think about nothing being your job? Or what life would have been like if you weren’t introduced to Spiral?”
The first set of questions elicited a wry half-smile from Yoko as she kept her eyes on the giant cats, these kings of the jungle. The train of thought and the subsequent questions were to be expected, even if the rate at which he asked them was rather impressive. It didn’t make it any more natural to answer them, though. Ian didn’t always ask and she didn’t always tell. For the most part between them, these topics came up when relevant and not when interviewed.
“Becoming a cyborg was the first step. The implants were wired into my brain and throughout my musculature.” Leaning in very closely so that no one could see, especially those agog children behind her, a single two-inch metal nail slid its way out of the nail bed of her right pointer finger. She rolled up the sleeve on her opposite arm and with precision, sliced open the skin and tissue. Below the surface, swathed in blood and muscle, were strips of flat, patterned wiring. It could be glimpsed for only a second before the wound closed and she dabbed the remaining blood with her sleeve, never bearing a single indication that the self-inflicted wound had caused pain. “Most of my mother’s augments are on the surface. But these maintain my temperature, my pain tolerance, my healing, my strength. And more. And deeper you would have seen the metal. The adamantium came afterwards. It was...” worse than death? one of the ugliest memories of that time? constantly causing her acute physical pain? “...the last step. There are cracks, however, one each on the side of my head, where one can pry open the adamantium skull. That’s how the implants are inserted or removed.” As for her mother, that would have to come with less detail: “Deathstrike gave birth to me before she received her enhancements.”
Toying with her sleeve after she rolled it back, the next questions didn’t sit well in Yoko’s gut. This was where feelings came in and feelings had long ago been cast out of her world. They had been useless, frivolous, and distracted from what was truly important.
“It wasn’t Spiral’s fault.” She murmured after a time, her voice betraying nothing but the fact she couldn’t look at him more than answered her thoughts on the matter. “Deathstrike would have found another way. Whatever she wanted. You have to understand, it...”
No. No, there wouldn’t be talk of how much she’d wanted to love her mother, how she’d wanted to please her, to earn her affection. Of how when Yuriko Oyama returned to the orphanage that fateful day twelve years ago, Yoko thought she’d know love for the first time in her life. And how she’d spent every day since then being nothing but a husk for her mother to fill with her own demented, sordid plans, still so wrapped in the desire of being wanted that she let herself believe it had been her choice the whole time. That she had let it happen to herself.
“One time I dreamed of a beach. Aquamarine water, white waves. Golden sand. Endless. It was a nice thought.” Tobias’ words of how that child in Belarus had viewed Yoko as a monster came back. They always came back. Dreams were another thing monsters should not have. Dreams of a family she would always be deprived of. “But no. Never. Not even after the surgeries when I was near death.” When her mother wouldn’t visit her but to put a bullet in her head to satisfy her curiosity. “I wanted the life I had.”
That Yoko was really telling him this---her story, her upbringing---was enough, but Henry wasn’t prepared to see the wires that made her be. He blanched when he saw them, but then wished she hadn’t healed so quickly. Henry wanted to try and touch those wires, to see what they felt like. If they felt like wires or if it was more... tissue like, maybe? could a simple computer wire be inside her arms or were they really different. And her nails, those crazy adamantium things. That her body and skull were laced with it. Just knowing how painful it was to get a cut and knowing the amount she endured made Henry feel sick to his stomach.
Yet he still kept eating his ice cream, listening to her tale. Nothing could stop him from his ice cream.
Taken by some surprise that she’d never want to find another career, he did understand what she meant that her mother would find a way. Of course she would. If not Yoko then another person, another girl subjected to that lifestyle; if that happened, then two girls would be broken and who knew if the hypothetical second one would be as emotionally stable and strong?
“Had?” he found himself echoing and, sadly, nearing the bottom of his cone. All interest had been lost with the lions. “So you’re done, turned a new stone? You don’t want to find her and kill her?” No, not that. Henry shook his head.
“What if, and I’m speaking hypothetically, but what if you and Ian get married? have kids? What’ll happen to them or you if your mom comes back or if Spiral decides to get to know the new Yoko?”
If Yoko had been any less focused on trying to maintain an air absolute calm and detachment, she herself would have paled at his next line of questions. Of course they made sense to ask, but they weren’t ones she’d wanted to hear.
Hypothetically was right. The thought of marrying Ian? She could barely determine if she was in love with him; she’d had so little experience in her whole life with the emotions she’d been introduced just these past few months, that how was she to know? It didn’t change how deeply she felt for him, but - would he marry her? Something like her? That was not something she’d think about now.
To make matters worse, there was the subject of children. Having children. Having children her mother would pursue. Her hands on the rail squeezed tightly, but not too tightly lest she warp the metal. Already this was somewhere Yoko didn’t want this to go. As her mother had taken her options away, it was evident that Yoko was supposed to be the Ultimate Answer. There had been no Plan B. Everything she had become after coming to Xavier’s had been a betrayal of the past twelve years of both of their lives. There would be no end between them until one was dead. Yoko was to be the last. Family...babies? Again, something like her wasn’t meant for a life like that.
“Unlikely.” She answered. Realizing that this wouldn’t answer Henry’s questions and the thought of him asking more about children frightened her, she added: “I still intend to kill her. That scenario will never happen.” It was true, even if it was a deflection. “And for future reference, we don’t refer to Deathstrike as ‘mom’. Or anything like that.
“Besides, this conversation was about Spiral, wasn’t it?” She turned her head and gave him a knowing look.
It didn’t take him long to realize he had touched a subject that Yoko wasn’t ready to face. Maybe. But the way she gripped the railing made him consider and do a mental reverse. Children were out of discussion.
“Right, and your... Deathstrike, she isn’t.” Which was too bad, because that was also sounding just as juicy as Spiral. “Okay, so back to Spiral. I could ask you why someone would participate in doing that to something, but that’s a psyche matter and I’m not Ian, so.” Henry wasn’t sure where he was going with that, pausing to eat some more of his ice cream cone and observe the majestic African felines. Their lives seemed so easy.
“Spiral did all this, but she also took care of you. Why?”
It really must have been a case of ignorance being bliss that these cats would never know that they were confined and did not truly grasp what it was to live as their natural selves. Animals in cages. Wasn’t that what they all were to some degree? Akiko spoke of fate and the destiny of one’s path. Was a life like hers truly fated to live in the cage that she was in now?
“Taking care of me is a bit of an...overestimation.” Yoko considered, her tone tilted more towards pondering. “No one else would guard to make sure I would survive my operations. Spiral needed to be certain I would live and she was the only one who knew how. And if I died, that would be days to months worth of energy and time wasted.” There was the phantom sensation in her palm from when Spiral held her hand, the first true contact from another person that had been some degree of affectionate. These days it was Ian’s hand.
“But she did far more than she needed to. Beyond the call of duty, so to say. Kept my mother at bay. I can’t say I’ll ever fully know her reasoning behind it, but I was sad when she was gone.” Then it was only Yoko and Deathstrike and the tutors and trainers and soldiers for the following year until she was sent out at sixteen to begin her career. It would be a lie to say she kept hoping Spiral would come back and realize she’d made a mistake in leaving, taking the teenaged cyborg away.
A pause and a small laugh as Henry neared the end of his ice cream. “I still can’t believe you bought that thing.”
Mulling over this, Henry chewed a bit on the cone’s edge, confused by Spiral, which only meant that Yoko was still confused. Motherly senses and maternal feelings wasn’t something he could lay claim to feeling, but he understood them. Spiral seemed to have thought herself a stepmother for Yoko, to care for the girl when she went through her surgeries and transformations, since Deathstrike clearly had no compassion.
“I love ice cream. It’s what you get when you go to the zoo, or it’s what I get, I guess. What I don’t get is why Spiral felt the need to care so much? No, correction: I do get it. She wanted to see her project through, but it sounds like she... maybe favored you? I’m not going to say love---love is defined differently by everyone, but maybe in her way she did,” Henry was thinking out loud, not looking so much at Yoko as he was at the ground, slowly recounting everything she had said.
Something dawned on him though, her tone and, maybe deflection at the end? Unsure, he squinted, looking at her directly. They were close to the same height, which while giving him a minor inferiority complex, it was also fair for eye-to-eye conversations, even if he had trouble with that. “Do you miss her? Do you miss Spiral? Because I feel like you might. I would, if someone had been there for me during the hardest and most painful part of my life.”
Henry’s squint garnered her attention, and Yoko looked back at him squarely, expression smooth as glass. While she didn’t think the ice cream redirect would get them wholly into new conversation, it had provided enough of a pause to help her collect her thoughts.
“I suppose I do.” She said, contemplating. Truthfully, she’d stuffed so much down inside from that time or any emotions associated with it that she’d never allowed herself pause to think on it. But then, that was true of most of her life. “I never thought about it before. I think I miss what she represented, if anything. Not her, though.” No, because even then Spiral was not her mother. And the only one she’d wanted love from was Yuriko.
“Truthfully, there isn’t much more to say on the matter.” She turned and leaned back against the rail, eyes scanning the crowds. “Spiral left when there was no longer a reason to stay. And the rest is history.” The father and his children had wandered off. Yoko crossed her arms in front of her chest. At this juncture, Yoko was feeling the stress of the subject matter. As she rarely thought on it, it was dragging up all sorts of feelings she didn’t want to deal with. “Now. Your monkeys are that way.” Pointing in the direction of the sign, she lifted herself from the rail. “And we have some things to discuss on one’s self-esteem, do we not?”
“You miss having a mother figure,” he said quietly, thinking outloud. Henry had come to realize that that was what Spiral represented in her own destructible way. Yoko wanted someone to care for her---which was probably why Ian worked out so well. He was a good paternal figure and could sense what she needed.
“Monkeys!” was his childish cry, throwing both arms up and nearly smacking Yoko in the process. Henry was giddy but didn’t open his mouth except to finish off his ice cream in a last few bites. Now people would look at them less weird and he had a full stomach, which was what he needed if she wanted to bring up his lack of self-esteem.
Looking around at the scattered zoo-goers, Henry knew he couldn’t put it off. Yoko had the patience of a thousand saints, and even if she didn’t, he was still marginally afraid of her nails. “It’s kind of what happens when you grow up parallel to Reed Richards and his family, and when your dad and his brother and sisters were all teenage superheroes. I don’t... I don’t have a mutation, I wear alien technology. My suit is my power. I mean, look, my dad was gone most of my childhood fighting crime, and then he was working for Reed at the Baxter Building for the rest of it. I don’t know how much you know about them, but the Fantastic Four are really famous, and smart, and the Power Pack were not as famous but did some really good things. I grew up under that, and all the Richards’ kids are mutants, and Charlie’s an alien-mutant-rainbow thing, Rudy’s a magical unicorn, Wren is a genius, Ryan’s on fire, and... then it’s me.
And I’m kind of the family fuck-up, even if Rick swears it’s him. It’s not, Rick just has a dad with really high expectations. Hell, Reed’s kids aren’t really even family but I think of them like it? so that doesn’t help. I had to beg my dad to let me go to Xavier’s, and even then it was only after I thought I could stop a robbery. I didn’t. It kind of made things worse. But.” Henry shrugged, feeling blue. These were things he didn’t even tell Tomas; it was personal for him, and Yoko could understand. She went through things to be who she was. In a way, they were similar.
Yoko heard his first comment and chose to act as though she hadn’t. They weren’t discussing this.
Rather, she watched him watch the crowds, knowing full well what was going through his head. She’d been there too. With silence, she kept an eye on him, in some sense guarding him, almost poised for whatever way he would react.
As he began to speak, she walked, and had him walk with her. Standing still felt stifling for the subject matter.
Now that life had provided her and Henry the opportunity to talk for the first time in their relatively short enmity-turned-friendship, she was learning more about the younger man than she’d ever guessed on the surface. Some people called her the consummate actress. But it seemed even people like Henry held regrets and insecurities beyond imagining, stuffed behind a facade that was meant ultimately to mislead. In more ways than she had previously realized and despite the differences of their upbringings, Yoko felt she could relate.
“You think it takes...rainbows or fire or rich parents or...claws and machinery to make you a good person? A worthwhile individual? Someone who deserves to be noticed?” She asked as she paced, hands again linked behind her. “If that were the case, the world would be different. We would be different people. But we’re not. We’re the same.”
Hesitantly and nervously, she did something that was particularly unlike her, and put a hand on his shoulder. “You told your father to let you come here. You begged for a chance. That is not what a weak person does. Or a forgettable one. That is what a strong person does; one who deserves to be recognized. Acknowledged. Some people, they have to fight more than others. Despite our parents, despite what holds us backs or propels us forward.”
Her head cocked, her eyes softened. “You almost killed me. People with ten times your powers haven’t succeeded in that, let alone stood up to me. Your tenacity, sometimes it’s a bit...foolhardy. But it takes time and skill. You have to hone it. But you have it and that’s what makes you better than so many others.”
For once, he agreed. Inside, where it mattered, and where he hid everything, he agreed. Yoko was right and he knew it; it didn’t take magical powers to make a hero. A hero was born from the ashes of nothing to become great, they were selfless and strong and helped others. Heroes could be enemies who turn stones and assist.
Her hand on his shoulder startled him, head rocketing around to look down at it. She wasn’t going to hurt him but it was unexpected affection and it caused him to lift the corners of his mouth in a small smile. “I know, yeah, and its. It’s hard. Half the kids there now, and I mean the students, they’re all pre-destined. Famous parents. But then I’m just... kind of holding out, I guess, until my cousins are old enough for the four of us to do something. I want to be strong and go out and do stuff but I’m either not ready or no one trusts me. I don’t feel strong.”
Remembering their first encounter had him cracking a larger smile. “I still think you let me.” Inwards he knew she didn’t, Henry did have that kind of power if he used it right, able to go until there was no oxygen left in the atmosphere and drop down, to sink into the earth and crush things with gravity. “I still only have a suit. Take it away and I’m human. I don’t want to be human any more than you want to not be you. Laid up and useless like a body on the side of the road. That’s a horrible comparison but it’s how I feel.”
If Yoko could better comprehend how her heart worked, she would admit she felt odd sympathy pains for Henry. She didn’t know how to quite fit his feelings and her feelings together, and could only see where they made sense. It would have been so much simpler if he were a mark and she was feeding him psychology. But this was a friend.
“It’s not horrible.” She admitted. “But I’m biased. Because I understand.” Now that she was without her job of killing people, which, in a sick way, she missed, she’d been left with trying to figure out who she was. And she was in a school with students and adults alike who had purposes, either because of their families or because they had been given the opportunity to find theirs. It was rarely easy to be around.
“What about being human is so bad?” She wondered out loud. “They are weak in mind and in body. Easy to break and to manipulate. Their character sometimes leaves a lot to be desired. They wage wars and they abandon their children.” She blinked. “Many mutants are no better. Why? Because they can fly? Because they can read minds? We should want to be them because that is what it means to be somebody. I don’t think so. You don’t think you’re strong, but I’ve seen your strength. You have courage. You have aspirations. You told your father you would come here and now you want to forge a new path of heroism with those you love. Isn’t that what it is to admire another person? That I can look at you and see greatness because greatness is what I know you will achieve?”
It all sounded oddly comforting. She wasn’t used to boosting one’s morale, even if she felt she was speaking the truth. “You can make yourself ready. There are people at your disposal. I can train you.”
“I suppose you’re right, humans and mutants and everything in between are pretty normal. Some humans have heroics, like Jack’s dad---Matt Murdock, he was Daredevil, he wasn’t a mutant---and so were the Richards’ and my family. None of us are exactly second-generation mutant either.” First generation, like immigrants, feeling out a new world and holding on to expectations from both sides. To be a hero and to be normal. That was another part of it, but he thought maybe Yoko knew that already. She struggled with her own version of it as well.
And it was comforting to hear. Sassy may have been sassy but right now she was honest and he believed her. “Really, telling my dad I wanted to be here wasn’t the big issue. Eventually I think he knew I’d take his suit, and my cousins just followed, but. I’m dating someone, whose parents were famous X-Men, and he’s going off to college, so what. That leaves me back here, alone until they’ve all graduated and can join me? What’ll you do if something comes up for you, leave Ian behind?”
It also took a moment to to process that she’d train him. Henry had gone through Xavier’s as being a pretty good student and he retained some of that skill set still, but it didn’t compare to the prowess she had. “We could train. I’d like that. I don’t think I want anyone else knowing, though.”
“Make the most of your time here.” She advised. “You can’t wait for tomorrow to give you answers. You look for them today. If you have to wait for your relatives, then you prepare yourself in the meantime. So yes, I can train you, and no, I won’t tell anyone. You have my word.”
The mention of his Tomás, and in turn, Ian, brought about a bit more to ponder. Aside from her plans to hunt down Yuriko and kill her, what could possibly ‘come up’ for her? Nobody wanted her now; she was worthless as an assassin. Furthermore, unless the relationship fell apart with her and the psychologist, she didn’t foresee any reason to want to leave him. She wanted to take care of him and to make sure he was happy. Safe. Being at Ian’s side was more than a mission or an initiative. As abnormally romantic as it was for her to think so, it was where she belonged and she knew that.
“Do you love your boyfriend?” She asked before she thought.
“You know, that goes the same for you,” he chided, looking over at her with a caring smile. It did. Yoko had freedom now, there was no Spiral and her mother was most likely not coming near the school. “You get to make the most of it as well, and I’ll use up some of that time. I’m a horrible student.”
At the question of love, he turned his head away, shyly nodding. Love was a concept that Henry wasn’t really used to, but he did, and he had even told him once. “I do, yeah, and I think it’s mutual but I can’t tell. He’s dealing with having died and everything... but, he’s stopped sleeping with other people and I met his folks last week, so there’s that. How’s Ian? Are you two... you know, happy?”
It was nice of Henry to say that. She appreciated that he tried. While she didn’t want to be a hypocrite, she knew she had a lot further to go in her own life to feel like she could be something with these people. As someone who’d spent twelve years being told what to do, where to go, what to steal, and who to kill, to suddenly be deposited in a place where she had no one to tell her anything and with no skills to offer, trying to figure out how to make the most of it seemed like the very definition of a challenge. But it was still a step. “Thank you, Henry.”
Yoko took the opportunity to observe Henry as he reacted to her question. She’d faked being in love, but it was kind of fascinating to observe someone who truly felt it. Like she was discerning cues as if to better understand how she herself felt. Knowing little of Tomás other than his apparent death and reanimation the other month, it left a lot of questions. Especially with how Henry was dealing with it. But he seemed - hopeful. “Monogamy is a good sign, yes.” She nodded. “As is the introduction of parents. That is - by my understanding, a very significant move.” When she thought on Ian, she bit her lip. “We’re - yes. We’re happy.” It was strange to still think of them as as a ‘we’, but they were. And it was also strange to feel vulnerable. “I know I am. I hope he is, too. I try. And in some ways I’m better at bringing more to the table than in others. But he’s patient and he understands. He’s wonderful. And it’s...” she dipped her eyes, feeling her cheeks inexplicably heat up, and looked away to a point in the distance. “...I see the monkeys.”
If he felt comfortable doing it, this is when Henry would have grabbed Yoko’s hand and given it a squeeze. He thought about it, at least, but didn’t know if she would feel alright with it. Comfortable. Smell steps.
“I don’t like polygamy,” he admitted, chewing his lower lip while gathering how to best put it. “I don’t... I guess I can’t say I understand giving yourself to more than one person? I-okay, I admit, I’ve slept with different women without being in a relationship, but I never boasted about it,” he admitted, feeling a little better having said that. He didn’t know why but it was like lifting something off his chest.
“You know, I’m glad you have Ian. He’s good for you. He’s a good person and---ooh, monkeys!” it didn’t take much for Henry’s attention to be distracted by the orangutan exhibit, which he ran to like a little kid. Henry loved the big red beasts. “Their faces are so crazy.”
Yoko got the sense that Henry’s admission was one he’d been needing to express for a while. With a curt nod, she responded: “You aren’t the first and you won’t be the last. It’s fine.” Besides, she figured, she’d never been in an actual relationship before Ian and she’d had plenty of sex with both men and women. Really, she wasn’t aiming to be a hypocrite on that many levels.
With his focus now wholly attended to the orangutans, Yoko breathed a sigh of relief. The last thing she wanted was for him to witness her trying to somehow process everything she was feeling, from Spiral to Deathstrike to Ian. She remained a step behind the avid monkey-lover and smiled, going along with his discussion of orangutans as though it were the most natural thing in the world. Despite all she’d feared talking about, she was glad she went today.