What's the Blackdragon? It's a fan-fiction, monthly serie I'm working on from more than 2 years, related to the marvel Universe.... and this is how it started.
BLACKDRAGON #1
ANALYZING CHRIS featuring Doc Samson
"Christine Addison? The doctor is waiting for you…" As soon as the door opens up and a man in his 40s leaves the cabinet, Christine leaves her seat in the waiting room and goes through the same door the man went before. Biting the internal part of her inferior lip, hands in her pockets, the brown-head with black eyes goes direct to the small red sofa, sitting on it at crossed legs, arms on the back of the same piece of furniture, and look lost somewhere out of the window, in the view of Central Park.
"Did you do what I asked you to?" The green-haired mountain turns the recorder off even before to speak, knowing already her too well, and, from his seat, he observes her.
"Samson, what I tell you, it's just behind you and me, right?" She takes a proper position, almost jumping from her previous spot to her new one, and look at him in the eyes, like to read him, or to ask him something.
"You know the rules, Christine. I can tell them what I think of you, but not what you tell me. – he answers her with a grin, as he grossed his hands at the height of his right knee – neither to the director of SHIELD"
"Do I really have to?" she bites again the lip, and, again, a bit annoyed, looks outside the window.
"This kind of exercise is often used by addicts when they go to meetings for the first time, to introduce themselves to the others. And it helps in understanding where the problem comes from and how to solve it. – sceptical, he looks at her, arching his green eyebrows – I thought you went to some AA meetings with your brother…"
"First – she says, still looking outside, underlining the numbers with her fingers – we weren't that close at the time. Second, the names stands for something, it means that not everybody can go. Third, I know what the problem is, and I'm not an addict, since I don't smoke, drink and I'm not into drugs. It's even been a life since the last time I had sex, so it's not that either…"
"Christine…" again he arches his eyebrows at her.
"Ok, ok, I got it, boss, the sooner we start, the sooner I'm out of here…"
"I could stop you to ask you some questions…"
"If you are worried about the fact that I could improvise or lose the strand, you have to know – she grins, a lock of brown hair covering the right side of her face – which it's something that never happens to me. It's the reason I'm a genius…"
My name is Christine Addison-Stark, but for my friends I'm just Chris. Half American and half English, I'm a young engineer, a specialist in electronic and electro-mechanical, former MIT student… but that was a long time ago.
When I was 13, I met a certain Alec Addison; we had a long relationship, we even get married not so long after we both turned 18. Although no one believed in us, it lasted, until, one day, he died. And, something like a year and an half later, I'm still, well, alone. It was very hard at the beginning, but now, now it's a way easier, because I've got a lot of good friends, and then, there's my brother, too.
"That's all you have to tell me about him? – Len asks her, looking at her, curious – that you met him at 13 and get married at 18 and then he died?"
"It's not like there's that much to tell, really…" she still looks outside the window. But Len knows her well enough to understand she is just trying to skip the subject.
"Have you two been together for the whole 11 years? Did you never have second thoughts about your story, or giving up to temptation?"
"well, before to marry him, I had a crush on my best friend, it lasted just a couple of weeks, then I understood that he was just a friend, more like a brother, but Alec has been jealous of him even after we got married. I think – she continues – he has been jealous of him until he died…" he died because of me, she mentally adds, almost without noticing that she transmitted him the thought.
"You spoke about your brother… let's go on with him."
My dear big brother, the famous Anthony "Tony" Stark, industrialist, rich playboy, armoured Avenger better known as Iron Man, and now, director of SHIELD, too.
We have a particular relationship, and always had. I still remember when we were kids, we had such a strong bond, and I was like his shadow! Well, the truth is, I was like him, a little genius, and, having problems in hanging out with the "kids" of my own age, I preferred stay with my big brother and his friends, who were a way more interesting than mines. Can you believe that I see those years as the most beautiful ones of my life? I was so happy, we both were. Still childish, I believed that this happiness was going to last forever, but, shortly after, I found out that I was wrong. After the loss of our parents, things started to change, drastically. Each day, I saw my brother became darker and darker, furtherer and furtherer. As I told before, I was still a child, and I didn't totally understand what was going on, what was happening to him, and, like most children, I started to believe it was my fault. That, until one day I saw him while he was putting his armour on… he was Iron Man, and he was keeping it secret from me. I was so angry, that I decided to give him a taste of his own medicine. I became more distant, darker, and, when I found out something very important about me, I decided to keep it secret. I decided to not tell him I was a mutant… a telepath and a telekineth. I hadn't the intention to keep it secret forever, at least from him, because, still, I continued to repeat to myself that my brother was going to return to me, damn, he had to return to me! But, again, I was wrong, because things started to go even worse; at this point we were so distant that reconciliation was almost impossible. So, I finally decided to go on with my life, leaving Tony out of it; I decided to give a real try to my relationship with Alec, I moved in with him, I married him, I even changed my surname in "Addison", and, over all, I, we left the USA for my native land, England. Yes, because, genetically speaking, I'm not a Stark (you remember that I told you I'm half American and half English, right?); my real parents, Michael and Tanya Johnson, were Howard Stark's employees, and died less than 4 years after my birth, in a car accident.
"What do you remember about your real parents?"
"What I remember about them is almost nothing. To me, it's just like they never existed. I just see my life after I become a Stark. To me, Howard and Maria are my parents. And Tony is my brother. I've always felt like we were really related… well, almost always. Things went relatively well, until he was kidnapped. Once come back, he was different, I couldn't understand why. I couldn't for quite a long time… and it's not thanks to him that I found out what's going on with him."
"Yes, you told me about it… about the fact that he never told you he was Iron Man…"
"I thought we've already talked about it…"
"Ok, as you whish… let's get going on."
Ok, well, returning to the main topic, in England, I started a new, happy, life, thanks to the help of some new friends me and Alec met along the way: while we were in Britain, we met the super-group called Excalibur. I helped them a couple of times (although the first time happened just for a case), and, in exchange, they helped me to find my real goal: I decided that I had to use my powers to help the world, to make it a better place; I decided to become a hero, a heroine called Blackdragon, as one of the figures from the Middle-aged mythology I always liked so much.
But again, when my life was starting to became a little more decent, my world turned upside down: because, in a dark day, I found out about a creature called Onslaught, and about what "it" did to my brother and many other heroes. I decided to return to the USA for a while, although Alec didn't accept my decision, creating a fracture between us, and once here, I decided to confront the one and only reason Onslaught was born in the first place, the one and only guilty for Tony, Avengers and F4's deaths… Charles Xavier. One of the most powerful mutants of the planet, he confessed me many things: that he already knew about me and my powers, that he was observing me from a while; he told me more about the X-Men than what I already knew about, he narrated me what events bring to Onslaught's birth, and, over all, about one of the other many secrets Tony had; Charles told me about a secret society, called "The Illuminati", formed by the two of them plus Namor, Doctor Strange, Reed Richards and Black Bolt. Charles told me about one of his own secrets, one no one knew about, a secret about an agency called XSE, Xavier Security Enterforces, a unit of mutant secrets agents at his service. He told me about it because he wanted to ask me to become his new agent; he told me I had some potential. I not only believed him, but I forgave him, too, and so, I accepted, I became a XSE agent, like the woman now known as Sage already was, and when, time after, the heroes come back from wherever they were, I, well, I accepted to spy on Tony, too. It was like a little revenge for his behaviour towards me during the previous years, and I know it was stupid, maybe this is one of the reasons I started to regret it something like a week later. But I had given my word to Charles, and so I continued, until he told me I was now needed in an other place, so I did as he ordered me, and I went away. After a while I returned, for my own reasons and for others, but I was still full of regrets, but now, I was really alone, and I decided to escape from my life, again.
"We've already talked about it, don't we? You've decided to come back after Genosha… May I ask you how it felt to be there?"
"There wasn't a person trying to crucifix me every day; that was a good enough start."
"Did your husband know of your double life?"
"Alec couldn't lie to my telepathic mind, and so I adopted a "don't lie, don't keep secrets" policy with him."
"And he accepted it?"
"He thought I was always right."
"How did you live there? He was a human, and Genosha was a mutant tyranny."
She turns to look at him, eyes red, rage and madness in them, but it's with a soft voice that she speaks with him "Genosha was a monarchy" she pointes out.
"I asked you about Alec"
"Genosha was open to everyone. Erik didn't hate everyone, just the ones that tried constantly to kill us. And, in the end, it happen that he was right. I mean, look at what happened… more that 16 millions of human beings were slaughtered there, just because many of them were different."
"Ok, well, maybe it is better if we came back to the main topic…"
I panned to stay away for a bit longer, even forever, but during the last 9 months, too much happened, to me and Tony as well, and I had to come back, for the both of us. Tony is alone as I was, he needs someone who could help him, maybe me. And so, here we are…
"How did the reunion go?"
"I knew you were going to ask it… so here there is the exact recap of our joyfully family reunion…."
Sitting on a chair in his office at Stark Towers, I look outside one of the windows, wondering about what's going to happen, as I see him enter in the room, still wearing his armour. I try to read his mind, a bad habit hard to loose, but I fail; not so strange, I think that maybe he has some kind of psy-firewall or something like that. I don't know exactly why, but I can't look in his eyes. He tries to look at me, in my brown eyes, but as I did with his mind, he fails; avoiding eye-contact, we both remain in silence for a while.
"I'm… glad that you decided to return from wherever you were" false. There's no sign of happiness in his voice, I don't need my powers to see it. He tries again to look at me, in my eyes, but again I look outside that damn window, still in silence.
"Listen Chris, I know that you went through a lot, but – he pauses, putting his armoured hands on my shoulders, forcing me to look at him – but this isn't an excuse for what you did to me and to Reed, too. After all, he was your teacher at MIT, after you graduated you became friends, and then, look at what you did to us…"
"I don't know what you are talking about" Again, I try to avoid eye-contact with him. Liar, I'm really a bad liar. And I used to be a spy. Well, it looks like I was a bad one.
"Chris, please, I'm not an idiot. I know who and what you are, and what you did, too. That you worked for Xavier, and, and… and I forgive you. You are my sister after all; we are a family, right?"
Part of me wants to tell him what I think about him, to remember him all the times I needed my "family" and he wasn't at my side, but I can't. He has me. Because he is giving me the one and only thing that I need, that I want, and I still could have: my old family, or at least a small piece of it, back.
"Have you here, it's really important for me. It means a lot. And in my heart – he pauses again, lowering his eyes – I just hope that you are here because you want to support me, to stay at my side."
He can speaks about family for all the time, if he wants, but I don't know if this is still his nature – the one of a man who wants a piece of his past back, his life with his family – because what I think it's that he isn't asking me if I'll be at my brother's side, he is asking Blackdragon if she will support the SHRA or not, if she will be an obstacle or not.
A little sad, I look in his blue eyes. I don't know if he is right or wrong about this Super-Hero Civil War, but, right now, I don't care. I know that, one day, I'll eventually have to take a real stand, choosing which side I'll be on, but this is neither the right place nor moment, because I'm having my old Tony back, doesn't matter if he is pretending or if it's not going to last, I'm content with I'm having right here and now.
"Tony, you are my family, and whatever mistakes we did in the past, whatever will happen in the future, it's something it will remain. Whatever happens, I'm on your side". Or at least, I'm on your side for now.
"Is it the truth?"
"Are you asking me if it was what I meant or what happened?"
"You're world worst liar, and Tony knowing you was a spy proves it. No, I mean, if you really meant what you told him, about being on his side for having a family again, because you fully support him and the SHRA…"
"I think that the SHRA is bullshit, and that it will not end well, like any other kind of registration. Rachel Grey saw this coming, even tried to prevent it, but looking at the event, I'm not sure she did it."
"You mean that…"
"I mean that I love my brother, but that I think that he could be wrong about it, and when the times will come, if it will come, I want to be the one to stop him. That's all. And – she pauses as she is already at the door, ready to go – get used to call me by another name… say hi to Chris Addison and welcome back to Chris Stark."
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Tecnically, there were supposed to be images as well, but, well, my crappy laptop decided to die, so I'm waiting for the new one so that the data from the old one could be transfered there, untill then.... see ya!
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