Vigil
by Diamonde
Disclaimer: These characters aren't mine, they belong to Marvel and I'm just doing this to procrastinate about studying so I'm not even making any money.
Continuity: Probably early in the Mutant X title, before Madelyne did her Goblin Queen bit.
He scares me.
Strange, isn't it? I'll tell large, angry, insane men who could swat me like a bug that what they're using as a reason to live is utterly and completely wrong, and they don't scare me this much. Which is saying quite a bit, because they quite frequently terrify me. But there are only two things which can give me that horrible, all-pervading guilty fear that I've got right now. One is my own powers, when I can't control them and I know that I could kill or maim without ever meaning to. The other is this little tiny person who's asleep against my side.
I'm not his father. I still don't know exactly what happened when I came here, but I know that much. And so does he. I could have been, though. And that bothered me a bit at first, I admit. I'd never really thought about having kids or even really about getting married, no matter how much people hinted.
Then all of a sudden it's 'be careful what you wish for' and I'm living a twisted version of Scott's life. I didn't want to be _this_ much like him. A horribly powerful kid that I don't know and a marriage almost literally made in hell. Because I do love Madelyne but not in the right way, which just makes it worse. I think I'm starting to understand some of the reasons he did the things he did, and I'm not really sure I like it. It was much easier when I could feel self-righteous and not have to admit that there really wasn't any way he could have fixed things without hurting everybody.
I wonder if he feels the same way about Cable as I do about Scotty. Guilty as hell for not being the father he needs and scared to death that something will happen that I can't protect him from. Of course, people would say that Cable doesn't need protection and that Scotty's one of the safest kids in the world. They'd be wrong though. It's not the things outside we want to protect them from, it's the ones inside. I don't think Cable realises, but the way he obsesses over his mission and duty scares Scott for the same reason Scotty's power terrifies me. Those are the things that scare us about ourselves.
Scotty can't control his powers. He hasn't really noticed that this is a problem yet, which makes it worse. But he'll get bigger and they'll get stronger (I paid that much attention to Professor X), and if he got his control genes from me and not his mother then he's going to be in a lot of trouble. And I'd do anything to protect him from it. He's a miracle among mutantkind right now. His powers aren't strange or scary to him, they're something amazing that he completely accepts as an integral part of himself. He can't imagine being without them, let alone wishing for it.
I want him to stay that way. But he's a Summers, so chances are that's never going to happen. Someone, Apocalypse or Sinister or some other psychopath from this universe who I don't know yet, is going to try to break him and use him. And even if they don't manage it, chances are they'll teach him to be afraid of himself, hate himself for what he is and can't change.
First they'll have to get past me, though. That's why I'm still awake, even though I'm nearly dislocating my jaw every time I yawn and my eyes are burning. It's stupid, I know. I can't protect him all the time, but I can try.
Because I'm afraid.
Afraid he'll end up like me.
~end~