words-writ-in-starlight:

(the post with the tags)

Let’s just pretend that Evo
takes place in the 2010′s, shhhhhh.  But also I haven’t paid attention to
comics canon in like thirty years and I’m not about to start now so we’re just
not gonna use that canon at all because…I don’t know things.

Steve’s been out of
the ice for four months.  He’s–adjusting.  Going for a wander on his
bike helped a little, but now he’s back in Brooklyn, waiting for SHIELD to
decide what to do with him and hating every second of it and more or less on
self-imposed house arrest.  He goes for a run every morning, he goes for
groceries once a week out of his suddenly full bank account–back pay for seven
decades racks up quick–and he watches the news between compulsively reading
historical texts and Wikipedia.  It’s…

It’s not a great way
to live, to be honest, but what else is he going to do?

Steve is making
himself eggs when the news story comes on CNN.  BREAKING NEWS, the screen declares.  Steve has the
most basic TV he could find at a Best Buy, courtesy of a helpful young man who
took pity on Steve’s obvious choice paralysis, and it still cost what would
have been a month’s wages for a family of four.  It’s bright and
colorful and he gets an apparently infinite number of channels with absolutely
nothing worth watching, and the breaking news banner is an eye-catching red, and Steve tries not to think about it too much.

Steve is still
absently scrambling eggs when the image cuts to a pan of a mansion, red-roofed
and behind a high stone wall with an iron gate, helpfully labeled in white on
the bottom of the screen.  Xavier’s Institute for the
Gifted.  The name rings a dim bell.

“This footage is coming to us live from Westchester
County,” the anchor says seriously, “where the fourth protest in a week is
threatening to turn violent outside the Xavier Institute, an all-mutant
boarding school.  Charles Xavier, a mutant himself, has been an outspoken
proponent of mutant rights since the issue came to light four years ago. 
Senator Robert Kelly of New York has put forth a bill this week that would ban
mutants from public schools across the nation–Kelly, of course, ascended from Westchester high school principal and school board member to senator in under a year,
running on a platform of mutant registration.  We go now to Sherry Jackson
on site for more detail.”

The split screen
changes again, to a full screen view of a dark-skinned woman standing in front
of a line of protesters pressed up against the iron gate.  The dull roar
of a chant–Steve can make it out through the din with his enhanced senses, but
just barely, a ragged Freaks go home–sounds
like an onrushing train behind her.

“Thank you, Frank,”
she says.  “As you can see, these protests have grown more aggressive
by the day.  A professor here, Doctor Henry McCoy, and one of the
students, a young woman named Jean Grey, are scheduled to speak tomorrow at
Capitol Hill, in defense of allowing mutants to attend public school, and this
protest has been organized by the well-known Human Rights Activist group in an
attempt to prevent them from leaving.  Two people have already been taken
to the hospital after scuffles broke out on the fringes.”

“Have we heard
anything from the Institute, Sherry?”

“Professor Xavier and
another resident, Ororo Munroe, have both approached the gate to request that
the protest disperse to let the students through to attend school, as the
younger students attend the local middle and high schools,” Shelly says
neutrally.  “Their requests were denied, but–”  She holds up a
finger, eyes flicking away from the camera.  “One moment,
Frank–really?  All right.  Come this way,” she orders, and beckons
her cameraman around the crowd until they manage to get a narrow shot of the
gate.

“Sherry?”

“One minute, Frank, I
think we have someone coming outside the Institute–Johnny, get a better shot
of the road, will you?”  She nods to someone out of the shot and resumes
her professional stance, off to the side to keep a clear shot of the other side
of the gate.

Steve watches, and his
hand slows to a stop–the figure in the road is stocky and broad, with dark
hair framing a scowl, and for a second, Steve thinks he might be
hallucinating.  

Because, see, it’s
been seven decades and Logan never really lived his life like he planned to
live a long one.  

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