There had been a subtle texture to the morning following the Limbo mission.
Nothing heavy about it—more lightweight than he expected, given that there had been some serious living through the reality that had occurred and Ethan had chosen to live through it. He'd woken early and found Ilyana already up, at the window with a mug of hot liquid, watching the grounds at the beginning of July, the day fully arrived.
He poured his coffee and leaned against the opposite side of the counter.
For a few seconds, they said nothing. Not awkward, just comfortable.
Ilyana's silences had never been awkward, and Ethan had come to realize by now that that was just her default state if there wasn't anything to say.
"How are you doing?"
He didn't mean it in terms of the mission, and he knew she got the distinction.
"Better than fine," she said. She looked outside, at the grounds. "I've been thinking about that ever since we came back, the feeling of opening the chamber. I've held the memory of that experience since taking Limbo, and I assumed opening it would weigh on me more. Instead, it was not as heavy. It was lighter."
Ethan nodded.
"It's usually that way."
"I know that now," she said. "I didn't know that before we went."
She sipped her tea—or coffee? Ethan had no idea, and wasn't going to ask. Outside, Indominus appeared at the far corner of the greenhouse, conducting his territory assessment for the day in the careful, methodical way of a young hunter doing what he needed to do.
"I'm glad we went," Ilyana said. She didn't look at Ethan while she spoke. She didn't turn away from the window when she spoke, and he recognized this as the sign she used when she was speaking more personally than normal. "I didn't ask if I weren't ready, but I couldn't be sure of that until it was done."
"You were ready," he said.
She glanced at him, and gave him the look she reserved for things she wished unequivocally classed as accurate. Then she turned back toward the window.
A minute or so later she put down her mug and walked to the door, pausing there briefly.
"I don't regret having come here," she said. She meant it to encompass all of the events following her arrival; she turned toward him for half a second to add this to the statement: "I don't regret being part of your life."
It was, Ethan considered, the most personal thing she'd said to him since arriving in his household. It struck him as significant, but not necessarily significant in the sense of requiring more explanation.
It was just significant.
—
Raven had spent time among the Limbo creatures since before the household was fully awake.
They weren't under her direct care, but they required supervision in the early phases of acclimation, and Raven's skills lent themselves well to that. Over months of this sort of thing, she had developed the sort of patient focus needed to conduct this sort of supervision. She paid attention to their movements, their responses to one another, their individuality. She was a fixed point for them, the presence that might help them understand how to orient toward their surroundings.
Mira was the first creature that responded to this approach. When Raven entered the space, Mira moved closer, not in the sudden, friendly way of a creature whose trust she had earned, but gradually. Today, Mira came within two meters of her instead of four.
"Morning," she said.
Mira's sensory array responded in what Raven was coming to recognize as a positive reaction.
Sable was the second creature, the compact creature Ethan had caught when she emerged from Limbo in a fighting stance. Her focus was constant; she stayed near the corner, studying her surroundings carefully and remaining attentive to what she observed. Today, when Raven called her name a second time, she turned her head fractionally, indicating she had taken note.
Again, Raven noted this, and moved on.
The mutant had been in her own space since her emergence, and Ethan and Ilyana were helping her adjust. Raven left her alone, knowing better what the mutant needed.
Thori was conducting his assessment of the creatures at the edge of the grounds.
His movements weren't slow but they weren't hurried either. He was making his judgments. He stopped for a moment near Mira, and met her gaze with the unvarnished eye of a fellow predator judging her strength and determining that Mira had passed his test.
"Stronger than she looks," he said, to no one in particular.
He moved toward Sable.
"Not dangerous," he said. He studied the space where the mutant was located for a moment. "That one."
He was quiet for a moment, and then said: "I will watch."
This was useful information, communicated in the manner Thori had perfected. Raven processed it precisely as it was intended to be processed.
The guardian lion observed the newcomers from the edge of the grounds; she was giving them the space she needed to process their surroundings, and she was respecting the space they had been given. This was the last lesson they had left to learn, and Raven respected it.
—
Hank arrived at the front door late that morning, carrying the particular energy that indicated an urgent discussion.
Ethan allowed him entry, reading his expression.
"You tracked something," he said.
"An unregistered private spacecraft launched from a remote location yesterday afternoon," Hank said. He moved into the kitchen area with a determination he rarely displayed unless he felt the need to convey urgent information. "The design characteristics are consistent with private development. The technological signatures—"
He sat across from Ethan and spread his notes. "Indicate it was built by someone with access to cutting-edge technology."
"Reed Richards?" Ethan said.
"Yes," Hank said. He studied Ethan's face for confirmation, and received it with some satisfaction. "How did you—?"
"He's been on my radar since December," Ethan said. "Tell me what the instruments tell us about the launch trajectory."
"Consistent with an intercept course for a certain region of space," Hank said. He laid more papers out on the table. "I've tracked the cosmic energy concentration in that region for the past several months. Apparently, Reed Richards, if it is he, tracked the same cosmic phenomenon, and determined it had a more precise launch window than I suspected."
Ethan was quiet for a moment.
Of course it was coming. He had known it was coming, and known it wouldn't require interference on his part; he knew this and felt no regret at allowing it to proceed. He understood the importance of the journey, and its impact upon the people making it.
"They're going to be all right," he said. "It's going to be a complicated trip, and they won't be the same people at the end of it as they were when they started. But they're going to be all right."
"You are certain."
"Reasonably certain," Ethan said. "The people on that ship are going to become something the world needs, even if they aren't sure of it yet."
Hank didn't push the issue; he was a man who accepted Ethan's judgments when Ethan gave them to him. Now he moved into a broader set of questions, related to the cosmic phenomenon, its implications, and the nature of its energy signature.
They talked for an hour. It felt authentic: two people who knew something the other didn't and who bridged that divide seamlessly. For Ethan, like before, it became increasingly clear that the day would come when he would need to speak with Reed Richards himself. The man's brain was a resource of the world, and it seemed to be a wise idea to talk to him before everything changed.
Ethan filed the idea away. Then, he let Hank drink his coffee and left.
---
The phone rang in the middle of the afternoon.
Raven answered with the directness characteristic of most her actions. Within three words, though, her face softened in the unique smile reserved for certain people.
"Madelyne," she said.
The connection was not perfect: the edges of the phrases seemed to melt together; the background was full of noise, traffic noise and the noise of a large city with all of its activity and its people.
She sounded different.
There was nothing drastically different about Madelyne, and her voice still retained that carefully chosen quality of hers. Yet, she seemed more settled than before, in a way different from how she'd sounded while residing in Raven's home. The care she showed was now complemented by something different — comfort.
"Tell me about the house," she said.
Raven told her about the Limbo creatures briefly, saying enough to hint at the magnitude of the threat — a brief summary was possible because a detailed explanation would require more time than the phone call allowed. Then, there was a pause, and Madelyne laughed — truly laughed for the first time since the Savage Land episode. She'd done that once before, when Indominus sneezed on her, and now she did it again, the laughter richer, wider, with space for weeks of living her own life.
"Are you serious," she said.
"Raven is always serious," Jean said, from behind Raven.
"Jean says hello," Raven answered.
"Hello, Jean," Madelyne said, with the warm tone of those who've spoken something meaningful to each other and remembered the value of their conversation correctly.
They inquired about Indominus, and Raven assured them that the boy grew rapidly, the problem of him outgrowing the doorways becoming evident. Madelyne was delighted with the news and asked about the lion that protected them. She didn't say the word "lion" since she hadn't seen him yet, but she wanted to know whether there were new animals. Raven informed that there were several, making Madelyne laugh for the third time.
"I am in a city," Madelyne said, after a while. "I won't say which one yet, because I am not sure that I am staying. However, I have been here a week, met some people, and did some ordinary things. They seem — real."
"They are real," Raven said.
"I know," Madelyne said. "I am just getting used to the idea."
She assured that she would call again soon, that she wasn't ready to return yet, but she knew she would eventually. The certainty in her voice was different from the previous certainty: it was more assured. She thanked Raven with the gratitude that required more than any word could offer. Then, the connection cut off sharply — a typical thing for 1992 cellular phones.
For a while, the kitchen remained silent.
Rogue appeared at the doorway — she must have entered the room unnoticed at some point during the phone call — and looked at Raven.
"She sounds good," she said.
This was the entire verdict: it was final and did not require any additional commentary.
---
As usual, the afternoon found its natural course.
Amora and Raven were in the greenhouse wing, conducting a magic practice, the progress that Amora made due to her knowledge of magic from Asgard providing Raven with approaches to studying the Ancient One's books. The sounds coming from there were focused — human voices and occasional shifts in the air, caused by the magic that produced tangible results. At the edge of the wing stood the guardian lion, precisely where he'd been when Raven had begun her magic practice and no longer free to walk around the grounds.
Jean was outside, holding a book that she barely read, enjoying the shade cast by the eastern trees and the coolness of late afternoon sun. Ilyana was wandering the grounds, occasionally appearing at the edge of the woods.
Ethan was on the bench, Thori beside him.
The two rarely spoke — Thori commented on his observations, Ethan briefly answered, and silence resumed. This was the best use of an afternoon, at least for him.
A bird landed on the eastern fence. Thori raised his head.
"An avian species," Thori said.
"The avian species," Ethan said.
Mira walked the grounds, using her new powers cautiously, but with determination. Six meters from the bench, she continued walking at the same pace. Her sensory equipment detected Ethan, but she proceeded as if nothing unusual happened.
"He seems braver today," Thori commented.
"Four meters closer than yesterday," Ethan answered.
Thori took this statement as an interesting data point.
The light of late afternoon fell on the grounds in that summer fashion — slowly, steadily, in the fashion of something in no rush to go anywhere. Ethan sat there, looking at his own life from the outside: an eighteen-year-old with dead god's abilities, sitting on a bench in Westchester, beside a hellhound from Asgard. A creature from Belasco's collection wandered the grounds nearby, mapping them under supervision of the girl with whom he had settled. It seemed to accurately describe his current state.
---
In another location — one that cannot be fully described in geographical terms:
She watched.
From her scrying surface, she saw the house, the grounds, and the power collected by the sun and stored in him — saturated with it in such a way that she could easily read it from a distance as a mortal person would be able to read a face. He was on the bench with the hellhound, content in that peaceful way of being content with what one came for.
She was interested in this fact. It happened rarely: almost everything else she'd observed had shown her something different — activity, fear of power that was present but not well-understood, and restlessness that usually accompanied this fear. He seemed to have embraced his current state — an embrace marked by unusual calmness for something so young, even when the word was taken metaphorically.
She was not in hurry.
She had never been. Urgency was something belonging to beings who existed in time, whereas she was something above it: she had all the patience the universe held, and more, because the universe inherited its patience from her rather than vice versa.
The moment was not right.
It needed no clarification, only understanding, the ability inherent in what she was — just like the waves sensed the shore. She would know.
Until then, though, she watched.
She watched him on the bench with the hellhound and the mapping creature, watched a fascinating household that surrounded him from all sides. She watched him, dedicated herself to the task with all of her infinite patience.
Then, she turned from the scrying surface.
Not because she stopped being interested. She did not, and she never would.
The scrying surface darkened.