Title: Their Goddess, Their Queen, His Ororo
Author: Katya Starling
Fandom: X-Men
Character/Pairing: Hank/Ororo, Kurt, Ensemble
Rating: PG/K+
Challenge/Prompt: Fan-FlashWorks 259: Light
Warning(s): None
Word Count: 1,753
Date Written: 5 April 2019
Summary: Beast and other X-Men struggle with depression but cope as they should, together as a family.
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to Marvel Comics and Disney, not the author, and are used without permission.






He sighed as he gazed up at the black, night sky. There wasn’t a single star to be seen tonight; even Venus seemed to have vanished behind the cloud coverage. Yet here he was once more looking up at the sky and wistfully, and foolishly wishing, it could possibly hold the answers he was seeking. It never did. It never had. It was even less of a comfort than science.

At least science did provide some resolutions, Henry thought, carefully setting down the beaker he held. He had cured many viruses, many sicknesses, but he remained powerless to kill the worst sickness of all. He still could not defeat the pain that filled the human, or mutant, heart. He still had no cure for grief, for sorrow, for loneliness . . .

Henry leapt up onto his windowsill, leaned out, and examined the sky more thoroughly. He still could not see any light in the sky. Then, suddenly, as he leaned further out until his blue fur almost touched the bark of the tree outside his window, Hank spied a light. It was a silver light gliding amongst the clouds and immediately caught his breath and held his heart still underneath its regal command, her regal command.

He swallowed hard, licked his lips, and swung from his window to his tree. He made his way instinctively over the branches, which had just recently, within the last Spring, grown strong enough to hold him. That was one of the many sad things about their lives as X-Men: it seemed that no matter where they lived, or how hard they tried to survive, someone was always going to come along, destroy everything they owned, and force them to start anew.

Just, he reflected with grief still weighing heavily upon his heart, as they were always going to take someone from them and make the whole team feel as though they’d been torn apart. He had been one of the first X-Men, one of the first to leave, and one of the first to return. Since those early days, he had seen so many bright and promising youngsters not even get their chance to shine and even more valiant souls be killed, sometimes in the line of duty, sometimes not.

Sometimes, he thought, looking around the ground, just to hurt them. For a moment, his brilliant mind flashed back on the night that so many young mutants had been crucified on the school’s lawn. He’d had a count at that time. He still had it in his records, along with every name of every mutant who’d been murdered who they had been able to identify. He swallowed hard again, this time in an entirely different manner.

It was the gentle, early Summer breeze he felt rising from the ground beneath him that made him look back up. Ororo was still up there, darting in and out of the clouds and shining like a silver beacon. Like the silver beacon of hope she was, Hank thought, his yellow eyes growing wide. She gave him hope when he could find no other, and he knew he wasn’t the only one. She inspired everyone on these grounds.

He’d seen her give hope to the hopeless so many times. He’d seen her take countless young mutants, as countless as all those who had been killed on that dreadful night, nurture them, and bring them back into life, much as she did with every dying plant they came across. Much, he thought, feeling the bark underneath his claws, as she did with the trees. Trees never grew as fast as they did on whichever campus the X-Men were currently making their home, but then plants were never nurtured as well as Ororo Munroe cared for them. No one was.

He flashed back to the last time she’d touched him. He had been so close to tears, and whereas every one else had simply walked by him with seemingly not notice, she had seen. She had witnessed his sorrow, and she had touched him with the gentlest touch he ever knew. Her touch was always that gentle, always that sweet, always that . . . redeeming.

He leaned into her breeze now, remembering it. She paused in the air, and he thought he saw her glance his way. Quickly, in case she should realize that he was truthfully watching her, he flipped on up to the highest branches and hid among the leaves of the tree’s green canopy. She seemed to no longer see him as she turned back and, with gentle hands, cast the clouds from the night sky.

The stars came out and shone on him. Suddenly he was aware that he was not the only X-Man out so late this evening. Jubilee wandered the grounds, exactly where Angelo had been crucified. Logan and Remy sat drinking on the roof. Several of their members leaned out of their windows, much as he’d done earlier. Nightcrawler literally hung from his windowsill by the tip of his speared, blue tail. Shadowcat walked on the air, looking as forlorn as she watched what they could see of the cosmos, as he himself had earlier.

Earlier -- until he’d remembered her, until he’d remembered their maternal Goddess. Hank looked up again, and this time, there was no doubt in his mind. Ororo was watching him, and she smiled at him as she vanished the cloud that hid Venus. The sky was now so full of bright stars that she was almost hidden from view, but his catlike eyes could still see her. He could still see every intricate detail of her gorgeous beauty as she smiled so kindly and radiantly down upon him.

His breath again caught in his throat. The night she was giving them was beautiful, but she was more beautiful by far. He also knew what she was doing, chasing the clouds away from the midnight sky in an effort that perhaps seemed almost feign to chase the depression away from clouding their own people’s hearts and souls. Her smile almost seemed to be encouraging him.

Suddenly Hank remembered something he’d not done, outside of battle or just simply out of the desire to move swiftly, in years. He sprang from the top of the tree and flipped three times through the air. The claws on his feet grazed the green grass, but before he could land, he leapt again. He twisted and turned through the Summer, night air.

He heard Jubilee hiss with surprise and knew her fangs were showing before he ever turned to look at her. He winked at her, saluted her from an upside down position, and somersaulted through the air several more times. Suddenly three-fingered hands were grabbing his. Hank didn’t pause; he simply flipped Kurt through the air. He heard laughter actually sound from their resident Vampiress, grabbed his friend again, and tossed him through the air.

The night sky suddenly lit up. Lightning bolts streaked through the sky, illuminating the night in a beautiful fashion. Remy tossed cards into the air, setting explosions that only seemed to add the natural light of Ororo’s lightning bolts. Someone beat out a seemingly natural rhythm on the roof. Hank knew, without looking, that it was Logan from the Native American style in which the makeshift drum beats sounded, but he also knew his friend would never admit it.

Kitty began to spin on the air. Ice shot up into the sky, spiraled down to the ground, and started carving sculptures. A guitar joined the makeshift drumming. Someone started to sing softly. Hank smiled. Yes, there were still many problems in this life. There were still countless questions he had yet to answer, countless problems for which he possessed no answer nor did the sky or science.

There was still much sorrow, much grief, too much pain in the world, but in the end, they suffered it all together. In the end, they suffered together as a family, and they came together not just in the suffering but in the redemption and in the struggle to repair not just themselves but one another. Hank’s head jerked up in surprise, his yellow eyes widening slightly, as Kurt teleported away without warning.

He didn’t have time to question him. He didn’t have time to look where he had gone or to even away the putrid stench of brimstone that followed his friend’s teleportation. He had no time for any of that for, in the very moment Kurt vanished, Ororo seemed to suddenly appear, dropping down in front of him.

Once again, his breath caught in his throat. Only this time, his heart hammered in his ears, leaping up within him with as great a force as he himself had previously been bounding through the air only a few seconds prior. She glided before him, looking every bit the Goddess he knew she still was, their Goddess.

“May I have this dance, old friend?” she asked, holding out her hand. She didn’t hold it as though to take his. She held it with her fingers pointed gracefully downward, like the Queen she also was.

He took her hand and kissed its back. “Of course, my lady.” He purred, swiftly rubbing his soft, blue fur against her luscious, dark skin. She smiled again at him, and that smile was more beautiful than anything he’d ever witnessed. It made his heart pound even harder, to the point he was certain she must hear it if others who, like himself, possessed superior hearing did not.

Perhaps it was his imagination, but her smile suddenly seemed to be only for him. Her gentle winds lifted them off the ground, and they spun together through the night air in a beautiful, elegant dance that, had he been paying any attention to them, he would have noticed all their friends stop to watch. But he didn’t notice. He didn’t notice -- he didn’t see anything but her, but he did notice one little thing. With her hands in his, her smile bestowed upon him, the pain had finally stopped. At least for tonight, he hurt no more. Instead he glided in a dance of love and redemption and healing. He glided with the woman he loved, the only one who could make him happy no matter what else was happening, the only one who still seemed capable of healing them all, their Goddess, their Queen, their Ororo -- or, as he’d love to be able to one day call her, his Ororo.


The End