Maternal Struggles

Maternal Struggles
By Tergon


Sara sang softly under her breath. True, she wasn’t singing *words*, per se, but it qualified as singing nonetheless, if only because there was no better term to describe the tune she was making.
Lately she’d had reason enough to sing and then some. Several times during childhood she’d pictured her future; a writer, a musician, a politician, queen of the Universe, a teacher, a business owner. For some reason, the thought of being a mother and work-from-home Hausfrau had never really appealed to her.
Not that she was complaining now that she found herself in that exact situation. With her own man, her own child, and her own home, she couldn’t imagine a more appealing scenario. Well, aside from being queen of the Universe, but she’d take what she could get.
Currently, besides singing and thinking, she was swiftly tapping keys. Maternity had, at first, meant that she spent a lot of time at home; to reduce boredom she’d taken on a few projects of her own. Writing short stories, experimenting with recipies, sketching images of various figments of her imagination, and so forth. Website design, however, had been a passtime she could get *paid* for, and was the one she was undertaking at that moment.
Abruptly her head jerked up, warned by some sixth sense. “Mommy senses… tingling…” she murmured. As if in answer, a faint mewling wail came from the room that housed hers and Todd’s newborn.
Standing up and stretching, she walked easily toward the door.
“What disturbs the fruit of my loins?” she called as she came through the door.
And the answer came from the shadows behind the crib. “I do.”

Every bone in her body froze into place; thoughts whirled through her head, mostly centering around who this mysterious figure was and exactly how much damage she was going to inflict if they had laid so much as a finger on her child. Then the former mental inquiry was answered as the figure stepped forward into the light.
“How… pleasant… to finally meet you, Chameleon,” Magneto said softly. “I’ve heard a great deal about you. And a great deal of it was very intriguing.”
Sara’s mind split into fragments, each part focusing on a separate task. One part concentrated on keeping herself steady and not flinching, twitching, falling over, or running away screaming. Another part began listing her surroundings – Possible exit via door or windows, though he can probably make one of his own from what people say… metallic objects on the table and ceiling, plus the frame of the crib… - and the larger part of her focused on answering Magneto.
“I’d be lying if I said I haven’t heard much about you. Though I *would* be lying if I said I felt any intrigue at all, or an inclination to meet you.” He smiled faintly. “Indeed?”
“Indeed indeed. Is there something I can *do* for you, Dr. Lensherr? Since I can only assume this isn’t a social call?”
“Why yes, now that you mention it. There is a certain matter I would like to discuss, regarding a debt which you owe me.”
“A debt? Strange, I don’t recall borrowing anything from you,” she said coolly.
“Fitting, since I don’t recall lending you anything,” he retorted. “I was referring to something of mine that you *stole*.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“The Toad.”
“*Todd*?”
“Yes.” He nodded slightly. “The first young recruit of the Brotherhood of Mutants, a talented thief, a young man with great potential. A young man whom you stole from me.”
Sara blinked. “Todd’s told me about you a few times,” she informed him. “I don’t ever recall him saying you were so complimentary toward him. In fact, I seem to remember him referring to you as something of a cold-hearted bastard who considered Todd’s value as a living being to be somewhere in the vicinity of pond slime.”
“One must often be cruel to be kind, Chameleon,” he answered stonily. “The Toad grew up in an environment devoid of caring; to be soft with him would have led him to mistrust me, and to take advantage of anything I offered him. He may not have loved me, but he respected me.”
“I think if he were here he’d disagree with that statement.”
“You would, of course, say that.” His smile returned, with an edge of ice to it. “But I digress from my point. We were discussing the debt you owed me, were we not?”
“If you would call it a debt, or this conversation anything so civil as a discussion… then yes, we were.”
“Then you would recall the statement that you stole from me a member of the Brotherhood. One of my children.”
“…Yes…” Sara said slowly, not liking where the conversation was going.
“Good. Very good.” His eyes, barely visible under his helmet, narrowed. “Then quite simply I am calling in my debt by returning the favour. My child… for yours.”

In the split-second moments in which the mind works, Sara summed up her options.
If he tries to go, I can’t keep him here. No illusions of grandeur there. Ergo, options are to either find some way to keep him here, or to let him go.
Screw the latter option, then.
“Really, now,” she said, forcing a tremor out of her voice. “Is that the best evil plot you can come up with?”
Magneto paused. “What?”
“I was told that you were dangerous because you were powerful and cunning, or something along those lines. Instead you’re an old man who goes around trying to kidnap babies.”
He glared at her. “Careful now, Chameleon. I’m willing to be kind and let you live after I take what I’m owed. Don’t tempt me to become angry with you.”
“Oh, please,” snorted Sara. “Tell me, do you write these lines down before you go out to commit your ‘evil deeds’? They’ve been used before, Dr. Lensherr, by much more threatening people and to much better effect.”
“I will not warn you again-”
“Give it up, won’t you? Not only are you a walking eyesore, you’re a talking cliché as well. It’s just sad, really. And at your age…”
The Master of Magnetism spluttered impotently. “Eyesore?”
“Eyesore, indeed. Now I *know* you’re trying to look evil, and I’ll fully concede that a colour combination of red and purple, with a cape and a bucket for a helmet, *are* evil. But I think we’re operating under different definitions of the word. Whatever happened to the days when a villain was content with good, old-fashioned black body armour?”
That was enough. Anger plainly visible on his face, Magneto strode forward. “I did warn you, Chameleon. But then I suppose it doesn’t hurt to make an example of you as well as your brat. To teach the Toad what happens to those who anger me would be somewhat… satisfying.”

Trying not to hyperventilate, Sara quickly ran through what she’d been told about Magneto. He was the kind of man who enjoyed gloating over opponents; he had several decades of experience under his belt; and he could turn anything metallic, from a car to a bobby pin to iron in human blood, into a ballistic weapon.
That, and he was an asshole.
Common sense and self-preservation wanted her to get out; maternal instincts wanted to rip Magneto’s lungs out of his chest and beat him with them. Hardly surprisingly, maternal instincts had a firm upper hand by the time it was too late to back out.

The attack came from behind. She hadn’t expected that. All she was aware of was her spatial awareness going suddenly berserk and she acted instinctively, diving low and rolling to one side. The instant she hit the floor, a chair from the kitchen shot through the space she’d just vacated and smashed into a table on the opposite side of the room, destroying it.
More by accident than design she kept rolling; as a result a low-flying barrage of diaper pins missed her and embedded themselves in the floor. By the time she’d regained her feet, Magneto was no more than a yard away from her.
“You’re fast, Chameleon,” he commented; suddenly one gauntlet-clad hand shot out and grasped her throat. “Unfortunately, not fast enough.”
His other fist backhanded her across the face, and he allowed her to fall to the floor. The chair that he’d drawn in from the kitchen rose into the air, buckled, and reshaped itself into a spearlike object; it began to float toward her. “A pity, really,” the Master of Magnetism mused. “I had actually thought that with the right persuasion you may have joined my Cause. But, I suppose… sacrifices for the Cause must be made…”
The chair-thing shot forward.
And abruptly, Sara vanished. There was no warning. One moment she was crouched on the floor, looking up at Magneto, and the next moment she melted into oblivion until no trace of her could be seen. The makeshift spear thudded into the rug where she’d been and stuck there, quivering; Magneto blinked in surprise.
“Unexpected,” he murmured. “Now where did you…”
Something hit him from the side. Hard. Thrown sideways, Magneto landed painfully on the floor, thudding his head; moments later an invisible weight landed on top of him and pinned his hands down. Before he had time to try and free himself, the air above him seemed to melt into a humanoid shape, which in turn sharpened its lines, changed colour, and morphed into Sara. Magneto blinked.
“You know,” she remarked, “when I concentrate and keep shifting fast enough, a change of colour can be as good as invisibility. Just something you should think about.”
Her left hand crashed into his jaw, the impact knocking his head into the floor again; with an enraged growl Magneto threw her off him.
Turning in the air, Sara pressed her hands into the floor and lashed out with one foot behind her, connecting solidly with Magneto’s shoulder.
Then a hurtling storm of baby toys, all containing about as much metal as a pin, flew into her and formed a lashing cloud that hit her from all angles.
Sara shrieked and flailed ineffectually at the barrage of miniature animals. Her spatial awareness was once again going berserk, but this time in a completely ineffectual manner; more than half blinded by the items whirling around her, she became only vaguely aware of what was going on in the rest of the room.
It was when she swatted a wind-up penguin out of her face that she realized the toys weren’t doing a great deal of damage to her. They were annoying, and distracting, but they weren’t actually helping Magneto to defeat her. Unless, of course, he was *using* them as annoying distractions, which meant…

The chair-spear shot through the whirlwind of random items – unexpected, unstoppable, unavoidable.
Directly into, and through, Sara’s right shoulder.
The sound she made then was no shriek of fear, or anger, or surprise; a full-blooded scream of agony tore out of her lips. Stumbling back, she fell onto the floor with the metallic spike still embedded in her flesh. Across the room, Magneto smiled.
With a wave of his hand, he withdrew the makeshift weapon and aimed it between her eyes.
“I was *going* to make an example of you, Chameleon,” he grated. “As it’s turned out, I feel that I’m truly going to *enjoy* killing you. On a much more personal level than I would have thought five minutes ago.”
Unable to offer any resistance, Sara closed her eyes and waited.

*SMASH*

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

What was that? One of her psychoses asked.
That’s death, came the answer. We’re dead, now.
That doesn’t make sense, argued the first. We were going to be stabbed. Death via stabby-thing makes a squishy or a splattery sound. Not a crash.
How would you know? was the response. Have you ever died before?
Look, we’re still in pain from the shoulder wound. That means we’re still alive. So the big crash could have been something else. Who knows?
…Maybe, allowed the skeptical thought.
Well, can we at least have a look? The suspense is killing me.
Sara’s consciousness cut in. Alright, I’ll look, but there’s something horribly wrong with me when my own psychoses make puns that nauseate even *me*.
And with that, she opened her eyes.

The sight that greeted her was one of the last things she could have expected; in front of a large hole in the wall leading to the kitchen, an extremely frightened-looking Magneto was being held three feet off the ground by the enormous individual that could only have been Fred Dukes. Who was looking very, very angry at the sight of one of his friends being beaten to a pulp in her own home. Seeing her open her eyes, he turned his head to look at her.
“Came by to visit,” he said by way of greeting. “Hope I’m not disturbin’ anythin’ you don’t want me to.”
Sara coughed. “Please, you’re more than… welcome.”
Magneto made a strangled gurgling sound; Fred peered closely at the now seemingly diminutive man being held up by one meaty paw.
“Somethin’ you wanna say?”
Magneto gurgled again; Fred dropped him and crossed his arms impassively. “I’m waitin’.”
“How…” on all fours on the floor, Magneto coughed. “How *dare* you lay your hands on me?”
Fred said nothing, but his scowl deepened.
“I! I, who found you and *trained* you… made you so much *more* than you were…” Magneto climbed to his feet, still ranting. “You owe me *everything* you have! I come here to take vengeance on the one who tried to destroy the Brotherhood of Mutants, and you *defend* her?”
Fred growled softly, his expression more thunderous by the minute.
Magneto, meanwhile, was working up a rage of his own. Standing stock still, his shoulders shaking with anger, his voice went cold.
“So be it then, Blob. If you will betray me also…” – the metal spike lifted off the floor once more – “…then I will deal with you in the same manner.”
Magneto’s hand dropped down in a sweeping motion; in a flash, the spike hurtled across the room, aimed directly at Fred’s – Fred caught it. One huge meaty paw shot up and snatched the spike out of midair. For a moment Magneto’s face showed the strain, testing his own powers against Fred’s formidable strength; then Fred simply hurled it away from himself and took a gigantic step forward. With one snatch, Magneto was again held off the ground in Fred’s powerful grip. “There’s a whole lotta reasons why you *shouldn’t* a’ done that,” he growled in Magneto’s face.
And then he wound up and hurled Magneto into the wall, through it, into the garden beyond – and lumbered out, eyes squinted in fury, coming after him.

Before he reached Magneto, a table from the porch of a house across the street intercepted him and smashed into him like a battering ram; it didn’t so much as slow the behemoth down. Fred knocked it aside with frightening ease, his enormous legs eating up the distance between himself and Magneto.
The Honda parked on the street, however, was markedly more successful in stopping him.
Struggling to his feet, Magneto paused for a moment to regard the incredible sight before him; Fred Dukes, still standing, wrestling the combined forces of gravity and Magneto’s power, by holding a small car above his head and bellowing furiously as it forced him slowly back. Deep rivets of earth showed where his feet had been pressed into the earth and slowly pushed backward by the sheer power being exerted against him. Yet somehow, Fred still stood.
Magneto paused a moment longer to fully catch his breath; then he focused all of his energy on the car, forcing Fred back with an amount of power that not even the Blob could withstand –
And suddenly he became aware of the figure next to him. Sara, sporting a ragged, bloody hole in her shoulder. And wielding a broken wooden beam from the destroyed wall in her left hand.
“I don’t like you,” she informed him. And then she belted the Master of Magnetism across the face with the chunk of timber.
The sadist in her – alright, virtually every fibre of her being – felt a great sense of satisfaction at the sound of Magneto’s jaw snapping under the impact. For a moment she considered a witty line to say, gloating over him; then the sound of Fred’s roar changing pitch changed her mind. Instead she leaped out of the way.
And immediately behind her, swinging the battered-looking car like an enormous blunt weapon, Fred charged in and sent Magneto flying across the street with a well-aimed swipe.

Magneto felt at least one of his ribs break as he landed. A cry of pain shot out of him; painfully he raised himself up on one arm. The other wasn’t responding terribly well, and he suspected a collarbone could join the list of broken bones he was rapidly expanding.
What he saw across the street, however, took his mind almost entirely away from his current pain; the sight of the injured but enraged Sara, backed by the just-as-infuriated Fred, quickly moving in on him.
Eric Lensherr had earned the title of Doctor. He was not a stupid man. Which was why, when he had to decide his next move, he chose to let discretion be the better part of valour.
In lay terms, he turned tail and ran.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Sara fidgeted on one of the remaining kitchen chairs. Despite her vehement objections and valiant attempts to pursue the fleeing Master of Magnetism, Fred had picked her up and carried her back inside her home. Once entering, the fight had promptly left her; the adrenaline faded away and deep, throbbing pain started from her shoulder.
She’d point-blank refused to let him call for help, however, before she’d examined her child.

Fred re-entered the kitchen, hunched over a blanket-wrapped bundle. With almost unbelievable gentleness for someone of his size and reputation, he handed the baby over to Sara, who almost snatched the bundle away from him in her eagerness. A quick check revealed the baby to be unharmed, and she sighed with relief.
“He didn’t do nuthin’,” Fred mumbled. “I think he wasn’t gonna do nuthin’ ‘cept take the kid. ‘M sorry I wasn’t here sooner.”
“Nothing, Frederick,” she corrected absently. “And I, for one, think you have absolutely impeccable timing. I only wish you came to visit more often.”
A big, broad smile crossed his equally big, broad face. “I was only gonna see you an’ Todd an’ see how the baby was…”
“We both got a surprise, then,” she agreed. “Could you please call the Institute? I think I might need Hank to take a look at this shoulder.”
Fred nodded, the smile being replaced by a frown. “Y’r lookin’ kinda pale…”
“If it makes you feel better I can make myself a few shades darker. But I *am* in rather a lot of pain…”
“Oh, right, right…” Fred bounded away and snatched up the cordless phone. Sighing, Sara returned her attention to the tiny child in her arms.

“We,” she informed the focus of all the previous chaos, “are going to have a *very* interesting story to tell your Daddy…”


Fin.