Chapter 5
"Who can be truly ready for a pass from Roman the All-Star?" Namor fell back, ready to catch the football.
He caught sight of Randall talking with an unfamiliar man.
The man looked young, but he had no hair.
Namor started to pull up the hood on his sweatshirt, to cover his gills and ears.
Don't bother, said a voice speaking directly to Namor's mind. I know who you are, Prince Namor.
Namor tensed up. Don't, he thought. Don't reach into my mind.
The man approached. "My apologies, Prince Namor. I was merely attempting to show you my abilities. I understand you have mutant powers as well?"
"Mutant?" Namor wrinkled his nose. In Atlantis, mutants were called "malforms" and driven from the community. They were ugly, at least going by the pictures Namor had seen. (A prince of the blood was not introduced to malforms.) The idea of being one was...unpleasant.
But this man did not look malformed.
Namor was prince of a dead kingdom, half-breed survivor of a lost civilization, taken in on charity by people who were kind, but were profoundly different. The idea of finding people like him, sounded appealing.
And wings were not seen among Atlanteans or among surface-dwellers. Namor's mother had always insisted they were the result of Namor's hybrid ancestry, but that explanation was...strange.
Among the surface-dwellers, mutations often came on suddenly in adolescence, much like Namor's wings.
"I'm Professor Charles Xavier. I'm a mutant telepath, looking for more mutants. Can we talk?"
Namor nodded. Then he looked over at Roman, who was still clutching the football.
"I have promised young Roman a game of catch," Namor said. "We can speak after."
"I'm sure the boy can..."
"We can speak after Roman and I finish the game. Prince Namor has spoken." Namor turned back to Roman. "You want to keep playing out here, or go around back?"
-
He and Roman finished the game of catch.
For the rest of his life, as he considered the decisions he made, the one he would always be grateful for was that he'd chosen to finish the game of catch.
The one that would haunt him was saying goodbye to Roman the next day.
-
"When will you be back?"
"I don't know," said Namor. "It could be a long time. I can come back and visit after a few months." He looked at Xavier.
Xavier nodded. This grated on Namor. Namor had been giving an order, not asking for permission.
"When will you be home?"
"It could be a while," said Namor.
Roman was at the age where he didn't like to be seen crying, Namor knew. But his lip was starting to wobble, and he was swallowing hard. "Are you going to come home for good?"
Namor knelt down and put a hand on Roman's shoulder. "I will come back. I promise."
"You're not going to go off and do grown-up stuff and forget about me?"
"I promise, I will never forget you."
Roman nodded and swallowed again.
They hugged.
And Namor got in the car with Charles Xavier.
-
The amnesia that came was worse than before. He developed a fear of the water, and would become dehydrated and badly confused. He became ragged and unkempt. He grew more dependent than he would like to admit on a surface-dweller named John, who was an alcoholic and unable to take care of himself, but good at getting enough water into Namor to keep him out of hospitals or prisons.
Neither Namor nor John were able to take care of themselves, but together, they managed to stay alive.
Through it all, in the back of Namor's head, there was a voice. It was faint first, and hard to hear.
It promised Namor that if he could make it through this, if he could endure, there would be a way to fix everything.
There would be a way to save everyone.
-
The young American naval officers were laughing as they walked out of the bar.
One of them, a Lieutenant, looked familiar.
Namor stepped forward. "Roman Peterson?" Was this the correct one? "Roman" was not a common name.
The young man looked up. "Who's asking?"
One look at his face, and Namor knew.
"An old friend." Namor stepped out of the shadows and removed the hat covering his ears.
The other young officers gasped and fled.
Roman didn't. He stood, staring, as if he didn't dare believe his eyes. "I missed you," he said.
"I lost my memory," said Namor. "I would have come for you sooner otherwise."
Roman nodded. "Professor Xavier, he came and told us what happened. He apologized. He tried to help us find you, but you'd flown off somewhere and we didn't know where to look."
He rushed forward and gave Namor an intense hug. "We looked for you. We looked for you so many times."
Namor hugged Roman tightly. "And now I have found you."
"I used to volunteer at soup kitchens," said Roman. "I'd ask homeless people if they'd seen anyone who looked like you. I took that pictue of you, from when you came to my school play, and showed it around to everyone, in case anyone had seen you. I left notes." He broke the hug and looked Namor in the eye. "Were you...Grandpa told me that the time before, when you had amnesia, you ended up drifting. Were you okay this time?"
"I am now," said Namor. "And that is all that matters."
Oh, this one's in the navy?, went an odd thought in Namor's head. He seems like he could be of use.
Namor shrugged the thought off. Roman did not exist to be of use. Family was not treated that way.
"Are you back for good?" Roman asked.
"I have much to do," said Namor. "But I can stay for a little while. I want to hear everything about your life. And this time," said Namor, "when I leave I will come back." He put his hands on Roman's shoulders. "We will never be torn apart again."