My legs were asleep. Shouldn't the universe have been better than that? My wife had just died in front of my face. I stumbled when I tried to stand up, but on a second try I managed it. I touched the side of my face, where there was a nasty bruise. My improved senses had never translated to increased pain, thank God, but it still really hurt.

I looked down on the body that had once been wife and felt hollow inside. Something was missing now, the warmth in my belly. I couldn't imagine tomorrow. I just wanted to sleep and not think.

I had to tell my daughter.

I walked over to the door to the steps and saw Captain America leaning against the wall, looking at me with a surprising amount of sympathy. "Do you want them disciplined?"

If Andromeda had gotten away, she would've gotten millions of people killed. "No," I said without any particular interest. What did it fucking matter? Would it bring her back from the dead? I hadn't grieved for Arden and I wasn't going to insist on revenge over Andromeda.

"Where are you going?" Steve asked as I opened the door.

"To tell my daughter and son that their mother is dead," I said, feeling the deadness in my tone. Maybe I should try to inflect more, get more sympathy, but it didn't make much sense when you said it like that.

"You should get cleaned up," Steve said, "and maybe take a nap if you're thinking it would be a good idea to tell them in this state."

I looked down at myself and saw the blood on my shirt. I hadn't been this bloody since I had beaten Nicole to death. I wondered which of my subordinates had those tapes. I had never gotten ahold of them – But they were almost certainly inside one of the hideaways that I was sending Cap to, along with a lot of our other skeletons. I wondered where they would put her body, what they had told her children.

Certainly better than what I was going to have to tell mine.

"Yeah," I agreed belatedly. "Yeah."

I went down to my room and got a change of clothes. I made sure to change my step balance so that Persephone couldn't realize it was me. I nodded to Cap as I stepped into the bathroom and started to shower.

I did feel dirty before I started trying to wash my wife's blood out of my hands. But it did not help at all. I wondered if I should preserve the blood, some little scrap of her. But that didn't make any sense, so I just kept scrubbing.

Finally, I was clean and I stepped out into my room in more casual dress, just a button up and slacks. I was barefoot but it didn't matter. I walked down toward where I could hear Ellen being interrogated by Persephone.

I walked into the room and sat down on the ground, looking at the small beds that were laid out for my children. Persephone came over and sat down across from me. "Why is your face bruised?"

Ah, right, that. I had forgotten it. Captain America was right, I should've taken a nap. "I got hit."

"By Mommy?" Persephone asked immediately. Fucking super-genius human assessment bullshit.

"Yes," I said. "We had a fight."

"Is Mommy okay?"

"I didn't hurt her," I said. I wondered what there was to say. Is there some way to tell a little girl that her mother is dead?

Persephone started bawling before I could find any words to say anything at all.

I held out my arm and scooped her up, "Mommy's died," I said, my voice trembling as the words slipped out of my lips. Persephone started crying even harder and Pericles started crying too and I walked over and scooped him up to.

The crying went on and I got to feel even worse with every statement.

But eventually Persephone asked, "How'd Mommy die," with her head buried against my chest.

"Well," I said slowly, "I told you we all have to do what we think we have to." I bit my lip and continued, "And for a long time, that meant Mommy and I were on the same side."

"The side that hurt Gert," Persephone said. More of a comment then a question.

"Yes," I said, feeling guilty as Ms. Ellen left the room. "But when Gert was hurt it made all our friends really mad, you remember that, right?"

"Yeah," Persephone said.

"Well," I said slowly, "A lot of people's friends were hurt last night and I decided," I slowed my speech to a crawl, "I decided that I didn't want to hurt our friends any more. And I told Mommy and she was mad."

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"And your secret service protectors stopped her?" Persephone asked.

"They tried," I sort-of lied. Technically, the Fireflies were not secret service, but it wasn't an important deception. "and then Mommy tried to run away," I said slowly, "and the secret service were worried she would hurt a lot more people." There was no point lying about this. "So she got hurt while they were trying to stop her and she didn't get better."

It sounded nicer than, 'she was impaled on a burning hand and died.' I held my kids and didn't let them go for a long time. But eventually I heard Captain America's footsteps paired with Ms. Ellen's. I let them go and kissed them on the forehead before the door knock came. They'd probably heard the footsteps too, because they were quiet. Me and my mutant children, my legacy that wasn't ashes and bodies at the end of this.

"Come in," I said. Steve and Ms. Ellen stepped inside, looking at me with consideration. Steve made a jerking motion with his head. I sighed and stood up, "Be good for Ms. Ellen," I said to Persephone and Pericles, who instantly started bawling again. Totally understandable. The last time I had left them with Ms. Ellen their mother had died, I turned my eyes to Steve and made a pleading face.

"Sorry," he said, holding up his hands. "We're ready to execute the strikes on the helicarriers and Hydra bases with the honest Fireflies. We need you to give an address."

I kissed my kids and told them, "Be good," and left them crying.

I followed Captain America limply to the Oval Office, where a camera was set up in front of the desk. A crew of dozens was in front of "No script?" I asked as I walked up to the desk.

"Say whatever you need to say, it'll be a pre-recording, we'll screen it,"

I sat down at the desk, looked into the camera and said, "My fellow Americans,"

"Oh," Steve said with a bit of a blush, "you need to get a make up for the bruise."

"Right," I said as a woman walked up and started applying it. There was no polite small talk, everyone in this room hated me, soon everyone in the world would hate me. After the makeup was done, I looked dead into the camera, waited for the little red light and began what would unquestionably become one of the most famous public addresses in human history.

"My fellow Americans," I said, "it is my grave duty to report to you that the public accusations you have heard are true. I am a member of a surviving faction of the Nazi science organization known as Hydra. Together with other world leaders whose names I have rendered to Captain America, I have been engaged in a years long campaign to achieve global domination through deceit and treachery and the exploitation of the global security apparatus which the democracies of the world built to save us all from mass destruction. With our economy ground to a halt by the strike and with both ignoring it and violent suppression failing to stop you, I have been unable to find any way of stopping you without making a desert and calling it peace. Unable to stop you, I have done the reasonable thing and surrendered to Captain America. My co-conspirators are, unfortunately, unlikely to be similarly reasonable, so I have rendered their names over to Captain America as well as the locations of their technology and forces.

I am not proud of what I have done. It did not work. It is not what I wanted. It is clear that it is not what you wanted. It perhaps could never have worked. You may be proud in knowing that you defeated me and proven on behalf of all popular governments that the people are indeed sovereign over all. The coming days will be dark for the world and now I can only beg you to prove more worthy of that sovereignty than me."

It was a bit heavy handed and overstated, but now was not the time for quibbling.

Captain America and the "patriotic" Fireflies managed to destroy the helicarriers using my scry and die advice. I was surprised when I discovered they aired my surrender uncut but I was not surprised by the mass of cheers that went up outside when they did.