Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Every important figure that New York City had to offer had seemingly turned out for opening of the new museum. There were the celebrities that would never miss a red-carpet opportunity. Politicians who felt the event was a safe chance to show support for something while not having to claim support of anything. Internet celebrities there to lure in the attention of the youth, or maybe just brighten their own diminishing fame with fast interviews and overexaggerated reactions. And yet despite all their claims to fame, every one of them sought out the heroes in attendance with all the enthusiasm of a small child meeting Captain America or Iron Man—the former even being one of the night’s guests of honor.

It made sense considering that the museum opening night they were in attendance for was the National Hero Museum. The long awaited project that promised to be a tribute to heroes throughout the country’s history was finally opening its door to the masses; after a night of letting the rich and famous get their obligatory first glimpses.

For the bigger heroes, it looked like a lot of work. Just a never ending meet and greet of people who wanted things that ranged from endorsements to a one night stand. For Jim, though, he had spent the better part of the appetizer portion of the evening watching Steve go from one request for a signature to another request for a selfie. Once America’s sideshow attraction, always America’s sideshow attraction. And Jim didn’t envy him one bit.

If anything, it made him grateful that most people who came up to him did so thinking he was either Steve or Johnny Storm, two people he was happy to point them in the direction of. The only people whose excitement about seeing him was accurately placed was Johnny, who had seemed seconds away from accidentally catching fire from sheer enthusiasm, and an older donor that spent a good fifteen minutes regaling Jim and Toro about his old comic book collection and how they had even saved his father during the war. And even that felt like ages ago given Toro had wandered off in search of food after that and had yet to return.

Checking his watch for the time, Jim’s brows drew together as he curiously eyed the room for any sight of him. The tour would be starting soon, according to the program he had memorized between accepting and declining offers for hors d’oeuvres from the staff, and still there was no sight of Toro. Popping up a little on the balls of his feet, he could see Steve, blushing redder than ever at something a young woman was saying so it was doubtful he had seen Tom. And without any other Invader around, he doubted any other guest would be as helpful distinguishing out an adult Toro from any other dark haired man in a suit there. Not that he had expected Jackie or Bucky to show. But Jim would be lying if he couldn’t admit to himself that he wished Namor, at least, had chosen to show up.

The museum seemed serious enough about honoring the country’s heroic origins and, he mused as his gaze settled on the large MARVELS sign that rested over a closed door, Namor was a part of that origin, for better or worse.

“Jim, try this,” Toro said, as he walked over brandishing some sort of mini sandwich in lieu of a ‘hello’ or ‘I’m back’. Just an appetizer shoved into the taller man's face like he'd been doing since he was a child.

Turning his head away in an effort to avoid a public force feeding from his son, Jim took hold of Toro’s hand and held it still. Taking the sandwich from him, he gave him a rather pointed look as he popped the whole thing in his mouth, quietly hating the fact that it actually was actually delicious. Not that it stopped him from doing his best to look put upon as he chewed. As if he could hide something as simply as his pleasure from someone who had spent the better part of his youth at his side.

With a triumphant smile, Toro practically preened as he crossed his arms over his chest proudly. “Waiter said it was some kind of smoked salmon deal? All I know is, the moment I ate it I wanted to marry it. So I decided to share with you.”

Jim choked as he tried to swallow and laugh at the uncouth joke. Coughing to clear his throat, he gratefully took a flute of champagne from a concerned looking waiter who had been passing to help ease his discomfort. If he expected any help from his ward, it wasn’t coming. Toro just watched him and tried his best not to laugh at the blonde’s suffering. When the worst of it was over, he met Toro’s entirely too-pleased gaze, and said, “Yeah, I’m fine, Tom. Thanks for the concern.”

Toro chuckled as he gave a small shrug. “Oh please. There’s enough heroes here that someone would’ve saved my pappy.”

“Or put me on display with the rest of the animatronics.”

“Tempting as that might be, I don’t think they’d allow me to dedicate any more space to you,” laughed the honeyed voice of a woman.

Turning to her, Jim found himself looking down at a woman in a formal figure hugging blue dress that seemed right out of the forties. She looked like a perfect pin-up with her raven haired victory rolls and an era appropriate soldier on her arm as the perfect accessory. Not that he was foolish enough to think Steve was doing more than being the perfect gentleman and helping to make introductions while escaping his hoard of fans.

As if on cue, Steven gestured between them, “Elizabeth McCarthy, this is Jim Hammond, the Original Human Torch, and his…”

“I swear to God, Steve, if you call me his sidekick—”

“Son, Thomas Raymond.”

“Toro,” he corrected as he took the woman’s offered hand and placed a gentle kiss to the back of it. “Pleasure to meet you, Ms McCarthy.”

“Call me Birdie. Everyone who matters does,” she said before holding out her hand to Jim.

He didn’t bothered to hide the amused arch of his brow as he took her hand and kissed the back of it just like Toro had. “And we matter?”

“Some would say more than anyone else, Mr. Hammond. After all, you three make up some of the first marvels.”

He chuckled. “And are you part of that some?”

Letting go of her hold on Steve’s arm, it was impossible to miss the way she looked him over before nodding. “Yes, but you have to promise not to tell anyone. Can’t have people thinking I have favorites.”

At his side, Toro snorted before nodding toward Steve. “Just like the old days, huh?”

To which Steve gave a soft laugh of agreement, oblivious to the curious glint in Birdie’s eyes. None of them bothered to explain the comment, though, even as Jim felt his face warming with a blushing rather than flames. It had been almost a century since the last time someone was more excited to meet him than Steve and he wasn’t interested in letting that high go. Instead he allowed Steve waved off Birdie’s gaze with a muttered, “It’s nothing.”

Thankfully, she was more than willing to let them have their memories. With a fond roll of her eyes, she turned toward Toro. “Mr Raymond, I hope it doesn’t sound hollow to say that your presence is just as important tonight after all that.”

He scrunched his face up in thought. “Oh it’s definitely hollow, but that’s ok. Jim was a whole hero long before he ever took me in. I mean, without him, I doubt we’d still have Coney Island.”

“Oh, but he did so much more than that,” the overly excited voice of a young man interrupted. As he came over Birdie made room for him, smiling fondly at the guy who looked out of place with his ill-fitting suit and wild brown hair. Adjusting his thick, bright red glasses, he smiled almost manically. “I mean, he was a beat cop, and he saved the city from Namor tons of times. He killed blew up Auschwitz—”

“Part of it,” Jim corrected.

“And then there’s the whole killing Hitler thing.” The man’s wide blue eyes had a truly fanatic quality about them as he gesticulated wildly as he spoke. “I mean, the fact that he’s not more of a legend is insane to me given all he’s done. Like, how many heroes have other heroes named after them. Like that’s-tha-that’s how you know you’re a big deal.”

Laughing off his excitement, Birdie took hold of the man’s arm, holding onto it the same she way she had held Steve—albeit with the clear purpose of keeping his hands in check. “This is Finn James. He’s been my greatest help in bringing this museum to life since, as you can tell, this is a bit of a passion for him. Finn, I’m sure you know misters Hammond, Raymond and Rogers”

And as though a flip had been switched, Finn seemed to curl in on himself as he realized just who he was talking to. Finn held up a hand with a mumbled greeting Jim was sure not even Steve could hear. His face was red as a tomato, though he tried to keep it ducked to hide his own embarrassment. Every time he even chanced a glance at them, he quickly locked his eyes back on the ground any time he caught their gaze. “Jesus. you know… I mean… Sorry. God. It’s just my luck meeting you three like this. I-I-I-I just… I thought Birdie was just talking like we… me and she… us.. . Uh—Like we do together. Just talking.”

Patting him on the shoulder, Steve shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. Namor and I talk about Jim killing Hitler the same way since all he ever does is blush about it like it wasn’t a big deal.”

“I do not,” Jim muttered as he looked anywhere but at their little crowd as his face began to warm.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Steve gesture to him in a silent ‘told you so’.

If nothing else, it broke the tension as they all decided to focus on Jim’s suffering instead of Finn’s. Each of them quietly laughing, though in it quickly went back to the awed looks Finn and Birdie had been giving him before. Jim desperately tried to ignore that too. Even if he sometimes missed being noticed, being the center of attention was something that fit Steve more than him. The man knew how to brush off the wide eyed gazes of people who looked at him in wonder in a way Jim couldn’t.

“It’s a shame Namor declined the invitation. Having him here would’ve just made this whole thing perfect,” Finn blurted at random. Looking to Birdie with an ‘I told you so’ kind of stare, he kept his focus on her as he spoke. “I told Birdie that if she really wanted him here, she had to play the family card. Really make it hard for him to say no, but she swore she didn’t want to have to name drop people in order to land a guest.”

A look of annoyance passed over her face in the blink of an eye. Then, just as quickly, she was smiling in that polite way people did around important guests. Too bad none of them were willing to put manners before their curiosity; each of them staring at her in expectation of an answer. With a shake of her head, she sighed to herself. “My grandmother was the sister of Officer Elizabeth Dean.”

“Betty,” Jim said, the words falling off his tongue in an unintentional whisper.

She met his look of surprise with a reluctant nod. Wrapping one arm across her chest, she shifted as casually in a nervous sort of way. Her gaze distant as she tried to find the right words. “Yeah. God, stories I would hear from family members always… They always made me want to know more. And then to tell everyone I knew about the prince from the sea and the man made of fire. This,”’ she said gesturing around them, “is me finally getting that chance.”

“I told that Water Rat he should’ve came,” Jim muttered to himself.

Granted, he hadn’t been as forceful as he would’ve been had he known who was behind the museum, but still. Steve’s careful frown he directed at floor, hands he had shoved into his pockets to hide how they likely balled into angry fists, meant he had also pleaded a case to Namor. And had likely been told no in a far harsher way than Jim, himself had.

But Birdie was quick to hold up her hands to placate the annoyance that seemed to be rising in them. “I knew he wasn’t likely to show. I don’t blame him. His story isn’t always one of the hero. And even when it is, it ends in things like being sentenced to the electric chair as a teen.”

“Had he known—”

“I know,” she assured him. “But I didn’t want anyone to feel obligated to be here.”

“Except me,” Finn added. It took another few beats for him to notice how all eyes fell on him. Then, growing nervous under their gazes, he rushed to blurt out, “Oh I’m not a people person. I get nervous and stutter and uh… Ju-jus-just really don’t like crowds, but uh… I have to be here because I helped engineer the animatronics and… Holy shit! Uh… Yeah. Mr. Torch, sir, I’d love to speak with you about them after to see what you think but uh… Right now I need to go. Check on the machines, I mean. Yeah, because it’s almost speech time right? So I’ll do that while Birdie speeches and yeah. Bye it was lovely meeting you.”

Practically vibrating from his renewed nerves, he still managed to shake all their hands in turn. First Steve, who seemed to be holding back the urge to laugh. Then Birdie, who was simply next in line, at which point Steve came close to cracking. Intent on making it happen, Toro shook Finn’s hand then saluted the man, who saluted back like a stiff wind up soldier. It was enough to make Steve and Birdie look away as they tried to hold onto their composure.

But strangely, when Finn went to shake Jim’s hand, he actually stood up a little straighter—tall enough to meet Jim’s gaze dead on with wild those wild eyes—and smiled. “I can’t wait for you to see the first exhibit. We took great pains to make sure it was perfect.”

Then, without a second glance at the concerned look on Jim’s face, he rushed off in a near collision with no less than three guests and a waiter.

“Well he was fun,” Toro chuckled. “A little weird, but fun.”

Carefully dabbing at the corner of her eyes in an effort to dry her tears without ruining her makeup, Birdie nodded in agreement. “He’s just nervous. Wouldn’t you be if you met all the people you admire most in the world?”

Before any of them could respond, one of the event organizers was coming by with her clipboard held tightly to her chest and the faint sound of voices crackling over her earbud. She made a bee-line for Birdie, whispering something in the woman’s ear that made her eyes go wide before pulling out her phone to check the screen. Then, with a look of regret, Birdie nodded toward the stage.

“I guess it’s time for my speech. Once we’re inside the Marvels exhibit proper, would you three mind doing a little photo-op? The museum and the donors would really appreciate it.”

She graced them all with a hopeful look, but as Toro looked to Jim, and he looked to Steve, she followed suit until they were all staring at the man in quiet expectation.

Being the leader of so many teams, Steve stepped up to the plate and nodded. “We’d be honored.”

“Thank you. It’ll be right after the first exhibit so I don’t take up your entire evening,” she said while the organizer gently guided her to the stage.

As soon as her back was turned, Steve shoved Jim. Ignoring the way the other blonde laughed at him, he then tried taking a menacing step toward Toro to give him more of the same, but the man was quick to back up as he held up his hands in surrender. A move undercut by the fact he was barely restraining himself from laughing at Steve as well.

“Why am I suddenly in charge of our schedule?” There was a hint of a whine to his voice that made the two pyros snicker despite trying to compose themselves. “You’re both old enough to speak for yourself.”

“Oh come on,” Jim teased. He placed an arm around Steve’s shoulders, leaning in a little to make it more of a side hug. “You’re Captain America. Everyone listens to you.”

Clearly not feeling affectionate, Steve shrugged him off then glared at Toro for his dramatic gasp. “Yeah? Well you two can go fuck yours—”

The sharp whine of the microphone drowned out the rest of the insult, but Jim and Tom had heard enough to make them both stare at Steve with feigned shock and horror. Complaints about the behavior not befitting Captain America were on the tips of their tongues—both of them just dying to mess with Steve until he broke character enough to act like that boy from the ar. But a clearing of a throat over the loud speakers forced their attentions to the stage where Birdie fidgeted under the spotlight.

“I would like to welcome all of our esteemed guests to the National Hero Museum.” As a wave of applause followed Birdie brushed a lock of dark hair behind her ear. He watched as she looked over the crowd like a newly crowned prom queen, brushing a lock of dark hair behind her ear as she demurred under the attention. “I could not be more pleased to share these exhibits with you as they detail an under appreciated aspect in the lives of many in this country, especially this great city of New York. Heroes have long been a part of our history here, but it wasn’t until November 1939 did the world find itself thrown into a new era thanks to the invention of Doctor Phineas Horton.”

As a few knowing eyes fell upon him, Jim did his best to hide his wince. He was an invention, that was true enough. Horton had spent ages along with Bradley working to create the perfect man. In the end, Horton wound up with his first Adam and Jim was always hard pressed to claim it as a success. Rather than dwell on that, though, he gave a polite nod to those looking at him, then braced himself for whatever was to come next.

“Horton did what only those geniuses of myth could and created a new life. A life that would forever leave a mark, not only on New York City, but the world. One that would inspire many to take up the call to fight for the less fortunate and protect us all against evils great and small. From alien invasions to great floods that would swallow swaths of the city. So many heroes today came from the spark Horton offered the world and now, without further adieu, I invite you all to join me as we bear witness to the birth of the Heroic age.”

With a grand sweep of her arm toward the Marvels Hall, the doors that had been closed all evening, opened and people began to file into the room.

Rolling his eyes, Toro snorted as the crowd began to filter into the room. “Why do they always do that? Talk about him like he’s not a fucking person. I mean, she was just talking to us like people,” he complained, voice filled with a lifetime of bitterness. The kind of long simmering rage that even Steve wasn’t immune to—just better at controlling given the way he stood with his hands on his hips and gentle scowl on his face. Toro shook his head before pointedly looking at Steve. “You and I both know Jim does all the same things that we do.”

Steve nodded with a sigh. “Yeah. Well, I mean, I’ve never slept with Namor, but aside from that, I’d agree.”

The younger Torch struggled to keep his anger going despite that twinkle in his eyes and the way he bit at the corner of his lips to keep from laughing. “I haven’t either, but we did both date my wife so… Maybe it’s a Torch thing?” He shrugged as he finally began to follow after the last of the crowd.

Going along with him, Steve paused when he noticed that Jim hadn’t moved. Nor had he commented on the jokes about his sex life. He just stood still, eyes going a little hazy from how long he had been staring at the door without so much as blinking. Later, he would make sure to get back at Steve and Toro—though mostly Steve. But in the moment, it was all Jim could do to steel himself against what horrors were about to unfold. Despite how the world saw them as ancient relics that seemed to refuse to death, none of the original Marvels or even the Invaders had been in any position to bear witness to the early days of his life. That inglorious achievement was his alone.

Startling from his thoughts as Steve gently patted his arm, he forced himself to pay attention as his friend asked, “Are you coming?”

Knowing he would regret it, Jim nodded. “Ye-yeah,” he stuttered, voice catching on the simple word. Clearing his throat, he forced a bit more confidence into his voice and tried again. “Yeah. Right behind you. Also, stop people I slept with Namor.”

Dutifully ignoring the small break in his voice, Steve scoffed at the request. “Then stop sleeping with Namor.”

The room into which everyone had funneled into was just big enough to contain them all. Press waited with their cameras in hand in front of a wooden stage, with a thick red curtain hiding the majority of it from prying eyes. They were the only ones who didn’t seem jammed in like sardines thanks to the red velvet rope that created their separate space like one might see at a concert. The rest of the esteemed guests were shoulder to shoulder, casually talking while they waited for the show to begin.

Being some of the last to enter the room, Jim and the other two Invaders settled into the back of the room where it was only marginally less crowded. Likely due to the fact that the stage was considerably harder to see from such a point. Not that witnessing the act was something that any of them needed. They intimately knew what it looked like when a man caught fire—especially one that wasn’t fire proof. However, it was a shock to see Birdie in the back, arms wrapped around herself as though it was possible to be cold in such a crowded room.

“Shouldn’t you be upfront?” Steve asked as he settled at her side. Toro and Jim took place at her other side to complete the small huddle they found themselves in.

Biting down on her red painted lips, only to immediately stop when she remember her lipstick, Birdie ran her tongue along the bottom of her teeth with an audible exhale. “I—” It took her a moment to shake off the false start. A moment where he eyes glanced over the audience with a look that was hard to place. Not simply nerves, but something deeper. Turning toward Jim, she gave her best attempt at a show of excitement, regardless of the fact that they could all see the worry in her eyes. “I just hope it’s everything you remember.”

“I’m sure it will be fine,” he assured her in spite of the growing urge to be sick.

Shocked murmurs spread across the room as the lights went out. Moments passed slowly through the increasing anxiety of the crowd until a spotlight shone onto the stage and the curtains began to part. There, under the white-yellow glow was a sight that made Jim’s throat catch. Horton, in all his animatronic glory, looked exactly as Jim remembered; from his neatly kept mustache and slicked back brown hair to the ill-fitting suit that befit a man on the desperate edge of scientific advancement.

He blinked a little faster, fighting back the sudden moisture that spread over his eyes. Horton had been a money hungry man that only saw the men he made as a potential for greatness and wealth beyond anyone could imagine back then. Even with all he’d forgotten over the decades, Jim could never forget that.

Yet those memories still didn’t compare to the childlike part of him that still saw Horton as his father.

“Welcome, gentlemen,” the animatronic Horton said, ignorant of the crowd’s amusement. Uncaring of how Jim’s face went soft at the perfect recreation of the man’s rich, silvery tone. “I’m glad so many of you could come.”

Glancing at Birdie, who was mimicking everything the false Horton said as he boasted about the problems with the synthetic man he had been creating, Jim wanted to ask how they did it. How they recreated the sound of Horton so perfectly when there was so little to go off of. But that would involve making his mouth work and, frankly, he felt as incapable of moving as his silhouetted stand-in was at the moment. And, maybe, Jim had to admit as he closed his eyes, maybe he just wanted to enjoy the moments he never had—enjoy the near giddy way Horton spoke of him like he really was some kind of marvel.

“Now,” Horton began, already having moved from the podium to the glass tube when Jim finally reopened his eyes, “I’ll allow some oxygen to enter the chamber—”

Blinking, Jim frowned as he leaned forward as though that would help him pinpoint what wasn’t right. The height, the build, the hair; it was all good but something wasn’t right. He was almost certain he had seen a shallow rise of his stand-in’s chest.

“— and you’ll see—”

No. It couldn’t be. It didn’t make sense. Standing on his tiptoes, Jim tried to get a better look at his stand-in when he saw a twitch in its closed eyes.

Turning to his friends, Jim whispered, “I think I saw it move.”

”—why I call him—”

“It’s too early for that,” Birdie assured them as Steve asked, “Isn’t that the point?”

“No. Not until—”

“—the Human Torch!”

At that the false Horton turned on the oxygen and flames began to climb stand-in as jeers were piped through the speakers.

Check your calendar, Horton. Halloween’s not for weeks yet.

What’d you do? Douse a mannequin in kerosene?

We should’ve brought marshmallows!

The audience laughed softly, in on the joke that the flames served a purpose as they climbed the encased figure until they covered him like a second skin and made it hard for most of the crowd to look at him for too long given how the plasma flames weren’t all that different from the ones that made up the sun. But Jim stared, watching for those movements. For life to come from the flame like in some ancient myth. Yet his stand-in stood still.

Stiller than even Jim expected.

“Shit. I knew something would go wrong,” Birdie swore as scared cries spilled out across the room through the speakers.

On stage, the false Horton held up his hands to placate a confused audience. “But gentlemen—”

That thing is a danger to the whole city. Destroy it—or we’ll force you to!

With that the life drained out the animatronic as the spotlight faded, but still the stand-in burned, much to Birdie’s shame as she hid her face in her hands. Voices began to rise as with the house lights, all murmuring about why the man kept burning.

Moving toward the stage, Jim ignored the outraged noises of the audience and the way Toro tried to follow after him. The uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach grew in tandem with his urgency. Gentle shoves becoming outright pushing as he forced his way onto the stage. Then standing before his double, his eyes went wide in horror.

Without thinking, he punched a fiery hand through the glass—thick globs of melted glass spilling down the cloche. Behind him, the audience began to cough and gag as the smell of burning filled the room. Distantly, he was aware of Steve clearing people out of the room, but Jim couldn’t tear his gaze away from the burn of true Horton cells as he forced them to extinguish against their nature, leaving behind the charred remains of a man dressed up like Jim in place of whatever machine was supposed to exist in the tube.

“Who is—Was that?” Reed Richards questioned.

Turning toward him, it wasn’t a surprise to see the man spread out like a makeshift curtain so that those in the audience unfamiliar with the smell of human skin burning wouldn’t have to witness the source of the awful aroma. Even if that meant having to be front and center for the smell.

Glancing back at the blackened body, Jim shook his head. “I don’t know. But whoever did this knew what they were doing.”

Chapter Text

He couldn’t help but watch Birdie. Held tightly by Toro, to whom she had latched onto at some point Jim missed, she was a vision of utter defeat with her face hidden in the space between his neck and shoulder. An attempt to hide her shame in a room filled with SHIELD agents and a few remaining heroes assisting with them. But her efforts to disappear were undone by the wet, hitching sound that escaped her on every inhale.

Thankfully, Toro knew how to make himself useful in moments like that. Call it the upside of being the sidekick. One couldn’t spend years being left alone with a civilian in over their head without figuring out how to manage them. And Toro, Jim realized, had seemingly mastered the skill. From the idle way he rubbed her back, to the murmured words that mustered up little nods from her, Tom had made a great deal of headway in calming her. Always keeping her attention on him and not the S.H.I.E.LD. agents that had turned the room into a crime scene or even Jim, as he stood there watching.

Not that Birdie tried to look at him.

When the initial shock had died down—with the Fantastic Four acting quickly to usher everyone out—he noticed she couldn’t stop staring at him while he stood on the stage between the animatronic Horton and his charred doppelganger. Lord only knew what she was thinking as Steve rushed to the stage, ready to take command while Reed began the initial inspection of the body. But he could feel her wide eyed stare boring into him until the reality finally hit her. From then on she seemed to go out of her way to avoid looking at him.

He half thought that maybe there was something about off putting about himself.

It would make sense. He certainly felt off-putting as he stood there with his hands shoved in his pockets, the sleeve of his suit burned away to his forearm thanks to his earlier heroics. But then, perhaps he was over thinking it because, like her, he was trying to avoid something he couldn’t bear to involve himself in.

The only reason he found himself watching her was because he was too much a coward to be on that stage again. Once was too much for a lifetime, he realized only after the second time he found himself there. Caught between Horton and—god, he couldn’t think of that replica as himself—the body during his conversation with Steve and Reed, he felt the weight of those thoughts, those memories, pulling him toward a spiral he couldn’t afford to go down. It must’ve been apparent because as soon as S.H.I.E.L.D had arrived, Steve suggested he go help Toro while he handled the agents.

Forcing himself to look over at them all, where Reed, Steve and Maria Hill stood going over everything under Horton’s mechanic stare, he felt his eyes drifting back toward the agents surrounding the body—a male about his height and build, charred beyond recognition—and then quickly squeezed his eyes shut and turned his head.

He was breathing too fast. His pocketed hands balled into fists so tight his nails dug into palm. It wasn’t him up there. It wasn’t his fault. But Horton…

Jim inhaled too noisily for his own liking then opened his eyes.

Toro was watching him. His jaw clenching slightly as he continued to rub Birdie’s back. “You ok there?” He asked, his voice steady even as his brows were lowered in concern.

It didn’t make sense lying to the man. They knew each other too well for that. When Jim managed a small upturn of his lips in a modest smile as he nodded in the affirmative, Toro’s could easily see the way it didn’t manage to reach his eyes. Just a show for anyone who wasn’t his son and hadn’t grown up with his particular brand of lies meant to comfort.

Because Toro wasn’t comforted. Granted, he didn’t question them. Just nodded tightly despite the thin press of his lips. But Jim knew that the man wasn’t likely to question it in a room full of strangers. It would be a talk for later, which was fine. He was almost certain that in the time until then he might be able to make sense of his emotions—or at the very least, make Toro forget to check in on him.

And frankly, Jim had been banking on that when he lied in the first place.

“To think, even in death Horton still knows how to throw New York into a panic.”

Jim startled before turning toward Hill as she made her way over to their little group. Steve was still at her side, but moved with the purpose that told everyone around that he was on a mission. A mission that had Jim standing a little taller in response, though he still shifted closer to where Toro held a teary eyed Birdie in an effort to close ranks around her.

Birdie, who had managed to put on a brave face between dabbing away at her eyes with what had once been Toro’s pocket square.

Maria looked them all over with an undecipherable gaze. From the bare portion of his arm to Toro, who rubbed at Birdie’s arm as she sat up as well. Everything quietly up for inspection until she settled her attention on the teary eyed woman behind the museum. Crossing her arms over her chest, she said, “I know it’s been a long night, but I have a few questions I need answered before I can let you go. You understand.”

“Of course,” Birdie agreed readily. Her eyes just as locked on Hill with equal intensity. “Ask anything you need to.”

“I heard this whole museum was your brainchild, Ms. McCarthy?”

Momentarily stunned by the simplicity of the question, Birdie looked at Jim and Toro in equal turn as though they had the answer. With another dab to the corner of her eyes, she finally nodded. “Yes. I worked on it for years alongside my partner Finn James. I used my name and family history to get funding and Finn… Well, he made the machines and displays. The interior may as well have been his doing.”

“Finn James,” Maria repeated slowly. “And where is he?”

Birdie’s mouth opened as she inhaled to answer, but nothing audible followed. Just the confused way her gaze drifted from side to side as she replayed the evening for the last time she had seen the man. She reared back slightly as it hit her, at first disbelieving as she looked around the room searching him out. When that failed, she looked to the three members of the Invaders, seeking a reassurance that none of them could give as they reached began to reach the same conclusion she had.

Certainly the last time they had seen Finn couldn’t have been the last time anyone had seen the man.

Jim looked to Steve, who was looking around the room, himself, with knit brows. But when their eyes met, he could only give a small shake of his head.

Maria, having noticed the ping pong of looks between them all, pinched at the bridge of her nose. “Well, seems like we have a clear suspect.”

“No!” One could see the immediate regret sink in as Birdie noticed all eyes fall to her with the outburst, but she didn’t back down. Meeting Hill’s arched brow head on, she said, “Finn wasn’t responsible for this. He wouldn’t do that. This museum and even this evening meant everything to him. I just haven’t seen him since the cocktail hour.”

“And what were you doing when you last saw him?”

“They were talking with us and he…” Jim ran a frustrated hand through his hair as he sighed. “He said he had to check on something in here.”

“No!” Birdie scowled at him then looking back at Hill, she continued in a calmer tone, “I mean, yes, he did say that, but it wasn’t insidious! He spent the whole day checking and rechecking everything. He wanted it all to be perfect from Horton’s voice to the flames. Dr. Horton was Finn’s idol. Everything that man did to advance living machinery was like gospel to him.”

It was funny, Jim noticed, how the words hit others harder than him. The subtle twitch in Steve’s jaw. An open scowl crossing over Toro’s face for just an instant;—not that Birdie saw anything beyond her concern for her friend. Even Hill looked to him with an slightly raised eyebrow. It was as nice as it was nauseating.

“I don’t know about the Horton portion,” he said, forcing the conversation forward. “But he was pretty excited to meet us. A little annoyed Namor didn’t show, but…”

“Namor was never going to show,” Steve finished with a roll of his eyes.

“If that’s the case, where is he?” Maria gestured vaguely around the room. “What happened to him during the first exhibit? If he was excited to meet you, seeing you in action sounds like it would’ve been a dream come true.”

“He didn’t do this,” Birdie said, growing annoyed with Maria’s implications. “Maybe he just slipped out with the rest of the guests when things got… scary. Did you ever consider that? There was a lot happening very quickly, after all.”

She looked to the three men with a furious desperation for them to back up her claims. The fact that they all gave each other quick glances, quiet throughout, had to look horrible. Birdie couldn’t make sense of what those careful glances said, but she could look almost stricken by their silence.

Finally, Toro nodded reluctantly. “She’s not wrong. The room was fairly dark with all the focus on the stage and there were enough heroes here that a tall brunette with glasses wasn’t exactly going to stand out. Not with everyone in eveningwear instead of costumes.”

Taking his words with a bit more consideration than that of a desperate friend, Maria nodded. With a glance back at where her agents seemed to be wrapping up their evidence collecting, she said, “Even if that’s true, we have a missing man. Best case scenario, he ran when things went south.” She held up a hand, silencing Birdie’s complaints before they could begin. “Worst case, he’s involved, willingly or not, and we need to find him in order to figure out how his display killed someone.”

“It wouldn’t be hard to do.” The words spilled past his lips before Jim even realized what he was saying. The urge to shut up quickly followed, but with how everyone suddenly focused on him, that wasn’t an viable option. He nodded toward the display tube. “Everything a person would need is part of the display. You have the supports to keep a person upright. Oxygen that gets piped in and…”

“And what?” Maria questioned.

“Horton cells.”

“Horton cells?” Steve jumped in. “That’s not something easy to come by. I mean, that’s basically what makes you up and if that’s the case… The guy shouldn’t have burned. You don’t burn.”

Jim shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t know what happened. I just know that I felt it when… When I went to put it out.”

“Which you did because?” Maria asked in a leading tone.

“Because a guy was on fire, Hill.”

“In a room full of heroes all watching the same thing as you. Yet you acted before anyone else, from what everyone said in our reports so far. Why?”

“I lived through it. After Horton’s… speech, he gave me air and—” A chill made its way down his spine. Or maybe it was better categorized as dread since Jim couldn’t recall ever being cold. Either way, he managed to take one deep breath and then another before forcing himself to carry on. “I remember the audience fleeing in anger and horror. The threats. But after they were gone, Horton didn’t just stop the oxygen. He… confided in me, I guess, about how they were all fools and they didn’t understand his genius or me. That he wouldn’t let them ruin his crowning achievement.”

Never mind that Jim couldn’t make sense of any of it at the time. His entire existence until that moment had been disjointed flashes of Horton’s face during tests broken up by samplings of death. And humans were simply these volatile animals who expressed everything in extremes. He didn't know how exceptional an introduction to life or had been until much later and by then it hardly felt as though it mattered.

Clearly he was as wrong then as he was now given the looks directed his way.

“I never heard mention of that before,” Birdie whispered in awe.

“Me either,” Toro replied in a far flatter tone. So obviously annoyed to learn about Jim alongside everyone else.

Jim’s mouth twitched to explain, but the words were big as the moon, taking up too much space inside him and moving with a force all their own. They churned up excuses and memories like a viscious tide, but only the words that found sound felt pithy and almost cruel to say. Not that that stopped him.

“Yeah, well, it is with considerable difficulty that I remember the original era of my being.”

There was that subtle shift to the temperature again as Toro opened his mouth to snap at him, but Maria jumped in before the moment could devolve further. “So which part made you—”

“He moved at the wrong times. I saw him breathing before the flames, briefly, barely. And then didn’t move at all once he was on fire, which is odd.”

The meaning of his words spread across them slowly, but hit them all in a similar fashion. First in the shocked look on Steve’s face as he remembered the warning he waved off. Then in Birdie’s quiet gasp, her eyes once again growing wet as she processed what they all witnessed. Toro’s mouth moved to question everything but no words came out between his frantic glances from Jim to the stage. Finally, swallowing down the unpleasant comfort of knowing that the man likely didn’t burn to death—simply burned—, Maria nodded.

“So, you act, you burn through the glass and then you… What?”

“Turned off the Horton cells.”

“And, crazy question—” She turned her attention back toward Birdie. “But was that the only way to get this display to work? Or was that more commitment to the bit from our missing man?”

“… It was Finn’s insistence,” Birdie ground out reluctantly. “Once he and his team got access to Horton’s diaries, he said that he realized the process wasn’t that hard to recreate. So they wound up making this…I guess a coating for the animatronics? Almost like a lotion, only one that…”

“Would turn a guy on and off like a light switch?” Maria gave another curt nod given the obviousness of the suspect.

“I swear, everything here was supposed to be a machine,” Birdie shot back. “Especially the Human Torch.”

She said it so plainly that th-e ‘duh’ may as well have been spoken. It was ludicrous that they would go through all the effort of making a robot Horton with a perfectly re-created AI voice just to make the Human Torch, the real machine at the center of it, a real person. One only had to look at her to know that thought rested at the center of her annoyance with Maria’s accusations. Maybe that’s why Steve and Toro didn’t look at her, eyes more focused on Jim, who encouraged their silence by saying nothing as well. Though, Toro visibly struggled to keep himself quiet judging by the way his nostrils flared with every angry breath.

Maria also didn’t take the bait found in Birdie’s tone, though she did arched an unimpressed brow at the woman. Slowly looking at the other three, she said, “Right. Well, I suppose our first step is to find this Finn guy. If we have any more questions, Ms. McCarthy, we’ll be in contact.”

Jim watched as Birdie watched Maria walked away. Her stiff upper lip lasting as long as it took the director to move out of earshot. As soon at it happened, Birdie’s pleading gaze was on Steve as she grabbed hold of his hand.

“He didn’t do it,” she said with the conviction of a zealot. “I know Finn. He wouldn’t… hurt people. He’s not that sort of man.”

Resting his hand over hers, Toro gently forced her to release her hold on Steve, instead settling both their hands on her lap as she looked to him in confusion. “It’s been a long night. Why don’t I take you home, huh?”

Birdie wavered for a moment. That Dean urge to see things through shining brightly, if briefly. Then, in the span of a breath, her shoulders sank a little and she nodded in agreement with a forced smile. “You’re too kind. And likely right. I’d be happy to take you up on your offer, if it’s not an inconvenience.”

Toro waved the comment off. “I’m a hero. We help people.”

Birdie tittered at the response, unaware of how perfunctory Toro’s kindness was after her earlier comments. Truly a master in the art of taking care of people.

Standing up, they both gathered their belongings before saying their goodbyes. Birdie, thankful, if not obviously annoyed as she shook their hands while Toro hugged Steve and Jim tightly. Then, with exhaustion beginning to win out over her ire, she let Toro lead her to the door, not even looking back as he gave a final wave to the two of them.

At his side, Steve took a deep breath, then let it out in a noisy huff. “You off as well?”

“I think it’s best.” He lifted up his bare arm to show off his burnt sleeve. “Hill knows how to reach me.”

With a tired laugh, Steve nodded. “Yeah. By sending me.”

“Yeah, well, you know where I keep my spare key.”

Steve rolled his eyes. Of course the smile he couldn’t fight gave away his affection while inspiring Jim to do the same. Pulling Jim into a tight embrace, they patted each other on the back like they wouldn’t see each other again—a natural response for men who had died before. “Get some rest, Jim.”

“You too,” he said, knowing neither of them would.

Not when Steve made his way back over to Hill as Jim made his way toward the exit.

He was a man on a mission and nothing was going to stop him seeing it through to the end.

In any other case, Jim would’ve been there with him, but as the chilly night air hit him, so did a wave of exhaustion that seemed to go to his very core. It was a small mercy that he managed to quickly call a cab, unwilling to deal with a busy subway or burn his clothes further by flying back to his apartment. Everything requiring more effort than it tok to stare out the window at the bright lights of the city felt beyond him.

Everything aside from the memories of Horton he’d been fighting all evening.

The man had created Jim with the ability to forget, like any other person, yet the blonde remembered his creator all too clearly. The excited smile on his mustached face as Jim came to life for the first time—only for it to fade just as quickly. The night he introduced Jim to the world. Perhaps it was natural that the man had imprinted on him in such a way when so many of his first moments of life were directly tied to him.

Or, perhaps, it was the horror of thinking he had killed the man in an infantile fit of rage when threatened with being nothing more than the man’s way to success.

Squeezing his eyes shut until the stinging in them stopped, Jim tried to think of something else, but all he could see was the lifeless stare of the animatronic Horton. It would’ve been easy to call it irony—the fact that the creator had become the machine—but Jim couldn’t delude himself of the truth. Horton was long dead and if he had to think of himself as many did—a machine given life—he was certain he was going to be sick in the back of the cab.

Thankfully, he managed to make it all the way to his apartment building without ruining the poor driver’s night.

Standing outside, he looked heavenward as he took a deep breath. The will to drag himself inside was there, he just had to find it. And if, in the mean time, he stood there in a partially burned suit looking toward the sky, there weren’t many people in New York who would think to question him for even a minute.

Chuckling to himself, he shook off the worst of his malaise and headed inside. Moving still took too much effort, but the will to get inside and lie down kept him moving through halls and up stairs. He undid he tie and shoved it into his pocket as he fantasized about crawling into bed and cuddling Niels until he fell asleep. Even managed to undo the first three buttons of his shirt, uncaring of who saw him, by time he reached his door.

Pulling out his keys, he tried to find the right one before getting distracted by the noise of a tv. Not normally something he would worry about given the relatively thin walls of the building, but the fact that it was coming from inside his apartment was strange. Flipping around the welcome sign hanging from his door, Jim let out an annoyed huff at the lack of spare key he kept hidden there.

With a deep breath that wasn’t enough to steel himself for danger or do away with his annoyance with the never ending nightmare that was that evening, he opened the door to his apartment and glared at his intruder.

An intruder that had made themselves at home in his absence for reasons Jim couldn’t fathom. There was an opened bottle of wine Jim knew he didn’t own along with a half filled glass sitting on his coffee table. Not to mention a bag that was meant to contain two bagels lying empty and partially clawed on the floor. But what really caught his attention, aside from the bracers and armor tucked into a corner almost considerately, was the barefoot king of Atlantis sprawled across his couch boredly watching the news as he stroked Niels’s back, his traitorous cat all too happy with the entire thing given the volume of his purring.

Turning to look at him, Namor smirked. “How was the event?”