A Bond Can End
“You d-don’t have to do this,” You voice wavered as you stared across the room at his turned back, his frame hunched over to tie up his boots. Green skin peeks out from the collar of his leather jacket, his fingers steadily tying each shoelace as he ignored another plea. This wasn’t the first time this issue had come up and with each growing disagreement and argument, you could feel your Bond slowly regressing back into itself, the tethers weakening more and more each time you stayed up crying at his departure.
No matter how much you tried to show him what true love was, he’d push you away and throw your feelings back at you. And it felt so horrid, so hurtful, to be treated as if every word out of your mouth was a lie. And as much as you wanted to blame Mortimer for the sudden change- you knew that him being indoctrinated into The Brotherhood was the catalyst for his sudden disgust with you being anywhere near him. Magneto had done something to him; he’d shown him power and privilege and made promises you knew he wouldn’t keep.
You thought that being True Bonds would be enough for him to put away this broken view of the world that had turned his back on him, had cast him aside since he was younger and told him he never had a place among humanity. But you had made one for him, had given him the biggest space in your chest and poured into him the time and affection and pure, unbending love, the way no one else in your life had ever loved you. The two of you used to speak late into the night expressing true feelings and fears. You knew that he was scared of being alone again without a place to call home; you told him that you would always have a home for him if he wanted it.You told him he would never be alone again
Then why are you the one who is left in the small apartment alone, crying for someone who has suddenly turned their back on you? Toad had changed and it was far from the better. He’d left in a hurry, pushing past you and only pausing when he made it to the door, his pointed ears at attention.
“Don’ wait up again, (y/n). I dunno when I’ll be back.” And in an instant, he was gone again. Who knows, maybe he would be gone for two weeks this time instead of just one. He stopped telling you what he did as part of The Brotherhood when you saw Magneto’s anti-human, pro-mutant rights rhetoric broadcasted on your tiny television set. Watching it had set in that first sensation of dread but it only morphed into disappointment and sadness to see Mortimer by his side. Why would he choose to side with someone like Erik Leshner? The answer glared at you in the face but you refused to see it, to think it, even if it were obvious and true. Erik understood Mortimer than you did even if you grew up without any parents or guidance, even if you had been a product of foster care and shelters for a long time. Erik would alway mean something to Mortimer’s sense of self because he was also a mutant whereas you were not. You were just a little, insignificant human that kept this place for him over and over again, constantly hoping that he would change back into the kind person he was.
“You know wha’ I wan’ fa’ us?” Mortimer asked as your eyes traced along a sentence from your favorite book. You stop reading mid-sentence to glance over at him, reaching out from your side of the Bond to stroke along his soul. It’s something you do often in moments like this, closing the book and setting it on the floor before stretching out on top of him. Despite his skin being green, it isn’t as rough as people think when they glance it from afar. It’s a bit dry, but relatively smooth even, and he kisses at your forehead as you grow comfortable.
“I wan’ ta’ take you to England, where I’m from. I wan’ ta’ take you all ova’ tha’ world.”His words are soft spoken and fill you with an exhilarating feeling of promise and adventure. The idea that the two of you would one day make it out of this small, shabby apartment to see the world and where Mortimer grew up had always been something you secretly wanted and to know that he set his sights on that same dream proved to you that this was real. You made the right choice to trust him with your heart after constantly being turned away by people who you thought cared for you. The foster system had left you broken and worse for wear and yet you still had the energy and ability to smile.
You weren’t smiling anymore. Dragging yourself into bed, you fall into a fitful sleep full of obscure images of Mortimer speaking, but it doesn’t sound like him anymore. It sounds like Erik. More tethers of your bond weaken over night before you wake in the morning, countenance pallid and skin flushed from another restless night. Still, you shower sluggishly and don your work clothes, attempting to apply concealer to hide the fact that you are breaking down inside.
Your job is the only real source of income because Mortimer stopped taking on odd jobs whenever Erik called for him to go on some sort of mission. You stopped asking when he stopped opening up about it and whatever Erik would ask him to do. He felt proud about it, about being needed, and it felt like Erik’s needs outshone and outweighed your own. It didn’t matter that he’d missed your birthday and anniversary again. It didn’t matter that all of the plans you made began to dwindle down to none.
Before Erik, Mortimer was on the mend. His eyes had become clear and his sentimentality was an asset. He was honest and soft and shy but sweeter than anyone else who had come into your life had been. Mortimer had been real. And back then, it didn’t matter that you weren’t a mutant with any special abilities that Erik could use for his benefit; he had been happy with you, (y/n), the human with (e/c) eyes and a tiny smile.You being human had never mattered to either of you even if people on the street would stare and make comments about the two of you being together. You had never been afraid of proving and showing your affection for him, holding his hands with others watching, whether human or mutant. Mutants didn’t like your relationship either because you were a part of the race that wanted to exterminate them and eradicate their existence. Humans saw it disgusting and an act against humankind to be with someone like Mortimer, who’s mutant abilities manifested down to the color of his skin.
You’d always liked the color green. You used to run away from your foster home in the morning to dash through the grass and search for four leaf clovers. Green reminded you of sweet nature and earthly magic. It reminded you of simplicity and happiness. You used to love the fact that Mortimer’s skin turned green from his mutation and a running joke between the two of you was “At least I’ll always know when you’re green with envy-”
Green no longer had that magic or care. It no longer gave you that sense of safety and home that it used to. It reminded you of nights lacking sleep and rage and feeling small. You Bond is so frail, so close to bending and finally breaking and you began to suspect that Mortimer would be fine without you and your humanity holding him back from truly throwing himself at Erik’s feet. You’d probably die like the doctors said. Would Toady even care? Toady, a moniker Magneto had bestowed upon him.
“I never knew my parents. My foster mother told me that my father killed her and then himself a few months after I was born. She said they could take the pressure of raising a child in this environment. They had no money, no support outside of each other, and my mother suffered from postpartum depression after I was born. Sometimes I think about how my life would be if they had stayed. Would they have been proud of me? I was the first one in my family to graduate high school… to go to college… Would they have cared?” You mumble into the darkness of the room, Mortimer clutching at you when you begin to shake.
“You a’ amazin’, (y/n). Amazin’. An’ I’m grateful to them fa’ givin’ me tha’ bes’ thing I eva’ had before.” He kissed the back of your neck after the utterance, always so full of short sentences with the most meaning. It had been enough that night to keep you from sobbing into the sheets when your depression hit you violently. He always had a way of calming your deepest storms with a few words, a few soft touches, and a kiss to your crown. When he can’t use words, he chooses to use touch and you can tell that it surprises him every time how easily you allow him close. You love his body against yours even if it looks different and feels different; you love him.
You type away at a document, trying to prepare the files for the litigation happening in the next hours. Your phone lays abandoned on the corner of your desk, turned over and ignored. He stopped responding to texts a month ago, and would answer a phone call irregularly. And no matter how much you try to hold onto the feelings of the past, you know that you are reaching your emotional limit. How could he call himself your True Bond when he stopped caring and confiding in you about anything? He turned into someone else slowly. It was worse than a change over night because you were forced to watch everything that made him wonderful be chipped away at piece by piece. Your emotions teeter on erupting as you finish up the document and email it your higher up. It’s the last document of the day and even if it weren’t, you could stay idle at your desk anymore when your fingers are shaking and you can’t breathe. You leave before your boss and coworkers see you on the verge of a panic attic, holding everything in once more until you are safely behind closed door.
By the time you slam the shabby front door closed, you are inconsolable, dropping everything and falling to your knees because there is no longer any control at all. It’s been months of ignorance and emotional abuse and feeling like all of your feelings don’t matter. You lose yourself in your misery with your sobs reaching the apartment next door through the thin walls.
The apartment is small and can’t hold in your voice or emotions any longer. Tears lead a trail down your cheeks and cause a streaky mess across your cheeks as you hiccup and try to inhale a breath. Nothing else can reach you here in your pain, not even Mortimer Toynbee.
You can faintly sense his arrival but you are too far gone in your crying fit to feel him when he raises you from the floor and carries you over to the tiny bed you two share. His touch no longer brings sweet relief, but reminds you of what you miss and cannot find. Still, small fingers clutch onto the leather jacket he always wears, your eyes blinded with too many tears. Your Bond pulses weakly from touching him but you know- you just know.
“M’ sorry,” is the quiet response that is almost lost among your cries. You can’t remember the last time Mortimer apologized for anything, for ignoring you and your concerns or brushing your worrying aside. It’s strange. He never yelled back at you or fought you physically; but his actions hurt more than anything he could’ve said. He stopped accepting anything and everything from you. You can’t remember the last time he’s held you like this; it’s all lost in a daze of tears and shaking shoulders.
“I..” Your Bond twists, more strands tearing apart and you feel the moment your Bond is wholly and completely broken, “Can’ do this ta’ you anymo’.” Before you are cut off from his feelings forever, within your chest, you feel every single ounce of his feelings, his thoughts, his mind open to you for the last time.
“I will always love you, (y/n). But I can’ put you in danga’ anymore. You deserve so much more than wha’ I can give to you.. I regret no’ bein’ able ta’ take you to England.. But you were ma’ home, (y/n). I’ve done so many things I regret- but you aren’ one of th-” Before the voice can finish, everything goes quiet and you are left drenched in a cold sweat. The pain of a broken Bond is worse for a human than on a mutant and you suffer the brunt of it, of suddenly having nothing but you in your head and an empty hole in your heart. His grasp on you weakens as he rests you against the sheets and pulls the covers over you, the room too dark and your vision too blurred to see that his eyes are wet. He lays beside you, simply holding you as the pain expands to your toes and fingertips, and you suffer in silence, your cries quieting to a dull hiccup and endless sniffles.
His tattoo feels cold to the touch, numb, the once black letters now a dull grey to display it’s end. You touch it in the morning, knowing that he is gone before you open your eyes. Even if you had energy the night before, you didn’t have it in you to yell at him for crushing your spirit and soul when you knew that neither of you could continue on like this. It was best to end it all, even if the love you possessed for him had come from a very real place. You stare at the empty apartment with new, wet eyes, knowing that where Mortimer has gone, you are not allowed to follow after him like you promised you would time and time again. He had decided that whatever was asked of him, he needed to do. Erik had cast his net and Mortimer was the unsuspecting carp waiting to be caught and devoured by Erik’s ideology about humans and mutants being unable to coexist with each other.
You call in sick, knowing that the loss of your Bond will hurt you more than anything else in the world. And it does. You can still smell him faintly on the sheets as you lay there motionless for hours, ignoring the hunger pains to try and feel absolutely nothing. But how can you not when the love of your life decided that everything you were trying to build just wasn’t enough? Closing your eyes to the sun streaming through your window, you turn away and curl up even tighter, crying out of necessity, crying out of disbelief, and crying for a relationship that deserved more than it was given. You feel weak, inside and out, but the best you can do is push yourself up after time has passed and find your only suitcase.
Being here would only be a painful reminder of your relationship, but you have no known family or true friends to depend on or confide in. Mortimer’s friends are not your own and you have a suspicion that many of them are also in The Brotherhood. You pack with shaky, cramped up hands and have to pause every few seconds to wipe at your eyes. You don’t have much, and despite your job paying you well enough, you saved most of it because you wanted to go there with him, to make England a good memory for him instead of one full of hate and ugly memories. But since- since you were… alone again…
You quit your job that same day out of impulse, apologizing profusely for not giving any heads up or forewarning but admitting about the situation to your boss. She gives you the severance pay you have no right to and tells you “Go find yourself, (y/n). I wish you the best.”
And with that small gesture of kindness, you find yourself walking through security at John F. Kennedy International Airport with a one-way ticket to Heathrow Airport, your heart bruised and hands shaking, feet tripping and eyes burning; but you don’t turn back, even when your old Bond twinges when you make it to the other side.
Losing Mortimer taught you that you were worth more than a Bond that was meant to last and that the only person who would never let you down… was you.