FALLEN ─ marvel

VI. Vengeance

Chapter Six
Soroya

"How was it?" Ana asks me, taking a bite of a turkey sandwich. It's lunch time at the prison, which consists of a sandwich, apple juice, and a chocolate chip cookie. She's given me the other half of her sandwich, it's actually not half bad. Bucky and the kids are at home trying to get some sleep, because we barley got any last night because of the party. I couldn't sleep though, so I decided to pay my friend a visit. I'm supposed to only come every six months, but the past few years I've been coming a bit more.

"The ceremony was beautiful and so was the party, Shuri outdid herself. I'm just so happy for Khari, he deserves this." I say, taking a bite out of my own sandwich.

"I bet your kids loved going back home. You said you haven't been back there in a few months."

"Both of them are so busy with school it's been hard to find time to go back. We all loved it, I miss Wakanda so much, Long Island doesn't compare even in the slightest."

"When Steve goes to college will you move back?"

I shrug, picking up the cookie off her tray and splitting it in half, giving one of those halves to her. "I don't know. I'd love to move back but I don't want to leave my kids...I guess I'll have to eventually, they're growing up."

I eat part of the cookie while I fish for my phone in my pocket, scrolling through the photos I took last night. I show some of them to her, which makes her smile, pointing out what I already know: "They definitely aren't kids anymore. How old are they?"

"Olivia is eighteen and Steve is sixteen."

Ana looks back and forth between a photo of Livy, taking another bite of her sandwich. "Your daughter looks just like you, except the eyes."

I smile at the picture before putting my phone back in my pocket. I haven't shown Ana pictures of the kids in a little while, and her reaction makes me say with a sigh: "I'm so proud of her and Steve, they are so smart and so wonderful, they have so much they want to do...but after this visit I'm really worried about them."

"Why?"

I'm not sure if she's seen the announcement on the news, so I decide to tell her everything in case she doesn't know. "Ross retired his position as Secretary of State, we met his replacement just before Khari's coronation."

Clearly Ana doesn't know, and she has the same reaction I had: "Holy shit. What's the new guy like?"

"His name is Daniel Fai. He has an extreme hatred for the enhanced, even more than Ross did."

Ana scoffs, eating the rest of her sandwich and dusting the crumbs off her hands. "I didn't even think that was possible. Do you know why?"

I nod. "Shuri found an old article that explained why. His wife and child were murdered by two enhanced individuals over a decade ago."

A sense of clarity rolls over Ana's features, her tone more serious as she follows my thought train: "You're worried about what Fai being in power will mean for your kids."

I nod again, leaning my head back against the wall. I've been sitting on Ana's bed with her, and when she sees my distress she places her hand over mine, her tone growing graver, darker as she says: "You're right to be worried about him. Because of what happened to his family, he thinks that every enhanced person is a demon sent from hell. He thinks you're all evil, he thinks that you're no different from the people who killed his family. And when you think that someone is pure evil, you can justify anything, you can justify doing the worst things imaginable in order to stop them, because in your mind you're doing what's right and they're the ones in the wrong."