Llyra

Jim wasn't sure how Bucky had pulled this off.

Bucky hadn't lured quite all of the Invaders back to his place for drinks.  Roger and Jackie hadn't wanted to make the trip.  And Toro was still in New Attilan, learning about the Inhumans.  

(Jim hoped this would make Toro happy.  Sometimes Jim worried that he hadn't been a good enough guardian for Toro.  Jim had been young when he'd become Toro's guardian.  Strictly speaking, he'd been younger than Toro.  And he'd never been a child, so he'd relied on research, guessing, and other people's advice to figure out what Toro needed.)

Bucky opened another bottle of beer.  "Yeah, my first time, that was back during the war.  Marie Jeanette."  He smiled.  "It was an old barn, and let me tell you, hay can be a lot scratchier than it looks."

"Wait, your first time with a woman was the night you and Marie Jeanette were out all night in that barn?" Steve asked.

"Yeah."

"You told me you were hiding out from Nazi patrols!"

Bucky laughed.  "I mean that was one of the things we were doing."

"I was worried sick!"

Bucky shrugged.  "I was seventeen, and I met a cute French girl.  Don't tell me you wouldn't have done the same thing."  He paused.  "Maybe you wouldn't have.  So, Namor, what's your story?"

"A mere gentleman does not kiss and tell.  A king is even more circumspect."

"Come on," said Bucky.  "You don't have to name names or anything.  It's a boy's night out!"

Namor paused, then took a sip of the beer.  "I was sixteen.  ...nearly sixteen. My mother took me along on a tour of the outer colonies.  One young lady, only a little older than myself, was training to serve in the army, and assigned to our security contingent for the voyage.  It was a peaceful journey, and I would have been more than equipped to handle any threats, but as the only two young people on the trip, we became close.  And then...extremely close."  Namor smiled.  "She later married a young man she served with in the army, but she and I are still on friendly terms."

"I was...in my seventies," said Jim.  "The first time I actually slept with a woman.  I mean if you count years spent deactivated, that is."

"That doesn't count," said Steve.

Bucky grinned.  "You're just saying that because you don't want to admit to having been the eighty-year-old virgin."

"I wasn't good with women," Jim continued.  "And I was afraid that my flame might kick in during an intimate moment.  It's harder to control precisely when I'm...emotional.  And so it never got very far until I lost my powers.  And then, I was working at Oracle, and this woman, Phobe Marrs...well, I thought she was Phoebe Marrs, she started coming onto me pretty intensely.  I'd never had that happen before."  He'd had mixed feelings, but he'd wanted to know what it was like.  He'd wanted to know what it felt like to be a real man.  "So I went along with it."  It had been...not as great as everyone made sex sound, but a fairly pleasant experience.  Up until he'd found out who she really was, and then it just felt weird.  "It turned out she was a shape-shifter.  It was awkward when the real Phoebe found out."  It had made Jim feel weird and uncomfortable learning who she was.  He would never have agreed if he'd know she was Llyra.  "So yeah, that was my big experience."  He smiled, hoping he'd successfully managed Guy Talk.

From the look on everyone's face, he hadn't.

Everyone was looking at him.  Bucky's smile had faded into a look of confusion.  Steve seemed worried.  

And Namor looked angry.

"She did that to you as well?"  The beer bottle in Namor's hand shattered.

"Um, yeah."  Jim felt like he was missing something.  He knew Llyra had seduced Namor, and he had not been happy about it.

"She tricked you?" Steve asked.  "She made you think she was someone else?"

Bucky had gone pale.  "That's...not right.  That's really not right."

"That is rape!"  Namor stood up, scattering broken glass all over the floor.  "I should have killed that woman, long ago!"

"It's not rape," Jim said.  "Is it?"  He'd learned about rape, back when he'd been on the police force.  It was when a man forced himself on a woman.  There'd been nothing about trickery, or women doing it to men.

He'd asked once, back in 1939, if it was still rape when a woman did it to a man.  Everyone had laughed.

Namor stood, trembling with fury.  "It is!" He drew a deep breath.  "I will be outside." He stormed out.

Namor was close to losing it, Jim realized.  He was close to losing it because he was that angry that Llyra had tricked Jim into sex.  

Jim started to stand up.  "I should -"

"I'll go find him," said Steve.  "I'll talk to him, and see if I can get him to calm down."  He left.

That left Jim and Bucky.

"Another beer?" Bucky asked.  

"I'm good," Jim said.

Bucky nodded.  "As someone who's been through a lot of messed-up shit, I've had my share of 'Wait, that part was bad?' moments.  Generally about half the time I want to get it off my chest on the spot, and about half the time I'm just dying for someone to change the subject and let me think about something else for a bit.  Which is it for you?"

"Change the subject, please."  The whole topic was making Jim feel gross and queasy.  He wanted to get his mind off it.

"Okay," said Bucky.  "See any good movies lately?"

—

"Namor?" Steve stepped outside.

In the distance, he heard a scream of fury. 

Steve ran towards the scream.  He found Namor, out by the side of the road.

Namor had torn up a street light, and was angrily shredding the metal with his bare hands.

"People are going to need that," said Steve. 

Namor didn't look up.  "I will pay to have it replaced."

"Good," said Steve.  This was, by Namor standards, fairly good anger management.  He hadn't hurt anyone, he hadn't put himself in danger, and he'd held it together long enough to step outside and not trash Bucky's place. 

Steve sat down by the side of the road.  "I wanted to see if you were okay."

"I should have killed her!" Namor snarled.  "I should have crushed her skull and destroyed her body, to be certain she was dead!"

"The shape-shifter?" Steve asked. "You know her?"

Namor nodded.  "Llyra."  His voice was pure venom.  "She has tormented me and my loved ones for years!  She and her lacky killed my father.  She killed my wife."  Namor tore a chunk of metal off the street light.  "She poisoned Namora and left her for dead!  She cruelly mistreated Nita!  She violated Jim!  And I have wasted so many chances to kill her!  Twice I nearly crushed her skull, but was persuaded to be more lenient!  Twice I left her for dead, when I should have destroyed her body beyond repair!  Once I even had her arrested and brought to Atlantis to stand trial."  Namor sneered. "Captain, you would have approved."

"I'm sorry," said Steve.  Llyra...he'd heard of her, she'd been involved with that one attack with the Serpent Crown, but he hadn't known everything that she'd done to Namor.

She did that to you as well?

Steve was starting to get a clearer picture, though.

"Do you know if she's still alive?"

"I believe she is dead," said Namor.  "But she has a history of returning like a curse."

They sat in silence for a few minutes.

"I know Jim means a lot to you," Steve said.  "It must be hard knowing that you couldn't protect him from this."

"I should have known."  Namor was methodically shredding a lump of metal into smaller and smaller fragments.  "She said...she made a remark indicating she had been with him.  But I was emotional and distracted.  If I had known, she would never have manipulated me into leaving her alive.  She would never have escaped justice to cause even more harm."

"You can't beat yourself up for not killing someone," Steve said.  "Sometimes it's necessary to kill, but when you can stop someone without killing someone, that's a good thing.  Part of being a hero is choosing justice over vengeance."

Namor let out a frustrating scream.  "I am not a hero, Captain!  I am a king!  I do not have the luxury of clinging to rules and systems and refusing responsibility for the outcome of my choices!  You speak of justice, but in Atlantis, I am justice!  If I fail, it all fails!"

Steve fought back the urge to give a lecture on the benefits of democracy and strong institutions over absolute monarchy.  He disliked many things about the system of government in Atlantis, including how that much power and responsibility led to Namor isolating himself, killing himself with stress, and making bad choices because he thought he had to do everything alone.  But now was not the time for that conversation.  

"You can't blame yourself for everything," said Steve.  "You can't control other people, or predict everything they're going to do.  And you can't just kill everyone who might turn out to be a...a rapist."

Namor looked thoughtful.

"Namor, you can't just kill everyone who might turn out to be a rapist."

Namor sighed.

—

"You never saw that one?" Jim asked.  "Oh, you have to."

"I don't watch a lot of cartoons," Bucky said.

"Yes, but Miyazaki!  He's one of the greats!  His work is beautiful!  Just watch Princess Mononoke and you'll see what I mean."  Jim paused, and realized he was feeling a bit better.  "Thank you.  For the distraction."

"You're welcome," said Bucky.  "I know how it is.  People think they're helping if they talk trauma all the time, but sometimes you just need to take a break and be normal."

The word 'trauma' felt jarring.  "Do you think...I mean would you call what happened rape?"

"I don't know," said Bucky.  "The rules have changed since our day.  Mostly for the better.  Bu I don't think anyone knows what the rules are when it comes to shape-shifters.  What do you think?"

"I don't know," said Jim.  "It doesn't seem like it's bad enough."  It wasn't that bad.  Yeah, sometimes he thought about it and he felt weird and gross, like he'd been coated with something disgusting.  And it felt uncomfortable to remember, and made him want to shove it to the back of his mind so he wouldn't think about it too hard.  

But that wasn't how people felt about something like rape, was it?  He'd seen movies.  They cried in the shower, or crawled into bed for days.

"Not bad enough?" Bucky asked.

"I mean I wouldn't have done it if I'd known," said Jim.  "And finding out, afterward, it...wasn't good.  But I don't know if it's that bad."

"Okay," said Bucky.

"What?"

"It's not like you have to know.  It's not like you have to decide right now how bad it was.  And you definitely don't have to agree with Namor."  Bucky sighed.  "Look, it sounds like it wasn't good.  And that's good to know.  But it happened to you, not any of us, and none of us get to decide how you're supposed to feel."

That was the other thing.  It had happened to Namor.  Llyra had gone to bed with Namor, because he'd thought she was Sue Storm.

And Jim had let her sneak into Namor's bedroom.

Jim had been head of security, responsible for keeping Namor safe, trusted to keep Namor safe, and he'd let Llyra in.

If what Llyra did was rape, then Llyra raped Namor.  

And Jim had been the one to let her in.

—

Steve took a deep breath.  "I have a question."  He'd been hesitating, but he needed to ask.  If Namor didn't want to answer, that was fine, but Steve was going to ask.  "When Jim brought this up, you said 'She did that to you, as well?'  Did she do that to someone else?"

Namor looked at Steve, then looked away, and squared his shoulders, as if preparing for a fight.  "Llyra, she did this when I was running Oracle.  Reed Richards was missing, and widely presumed dead.  One night Susan Storm, or so I thought, came into my bedroom.  She said her husband was dead, and she was ready to accept that and return my affection."  He clenched his fist around a chunk of metal until it started slipping out through the cracks between his fingers.  "I learned, the next day, that this was not true.  The murderer, Llyra, she deceived me. She knew I would never go to bed with her of my own free will."

"My God," said Steve.  "I'm sorry."

"I do not ask for your sympathy."

"You don't have to ask," Steve said.  "You're my friend.  I care when someone hurts my friends."

Namor grunted and went back to crushing the metal.

"Have you talked to anyone about this before?" Steve asked.  

"Susan Storm, the next day.  She was...kind."

"That's good."  Steve nodded.  "If you ever need to talk, I...I wouldn't really know what to say, but I can listen."  

Namor silently continued crushing metal.

"Sometimes it helps to talk."

"Vengeance is what helps!"

"Vengeance doesn't solve anything," said Steve.

"On the contrary," said Namor.  He took a breath.  "My grandfather, the Emperor Thakorr, he was a cruel man."

Steve nodded.  Namor had only mentioned his grandfather back during the war.  And back then, he'd made it sound like Thakorr was the greatest ruler.  Even back then, though, some of the stories Namor had told had sounded...off.  Not the way a loving grandfather would behave.

"He used to torment me as a child," Namor said.  "He despised me for being born.  When he died, he was infected with vampirism.  Recently, he attacked Atlantis, and I killed him.  It was, as you surface-dwellers would say, therapeutic."

"That's not... I mean I can understand how that would be satisfying, but there's more to dealing with trauma than that."

Namor gave Steve a confused look.

"It's...complicated."  Steve didn't one hundred percent understand it himself.  He'd been trying to learn, especially after Bucky came back.  He'd gotten books on the subject.  And he'd learned that there was a lot going - fear, anger, hurt, trauma triggers, all kinds of things.  He took a deep breath.  "I know people who've really been helped by a good mental health professional."

"No." 

Well, it's not like Steve had expected that to go over well.  "I mean a lot of people seek...mental health treatment."  He caught himself before letting the word help slip out.  With Namor, that didn't tend to go over well.  "I think most of the Avengers have met with Doc Samson at some point.  It helps people stay strong enough to keep going."

"No psychiatrists."  Namor looked off into the distance slightly, as if he was watching something Steve could not see.  "It is not done in Atlantis."

Steve paused.  "Why not?"

Namor looked off into the distance again, then looked at Steve.  "It is not our way.."

"I mean mental health care didn't used to be the surface-dweller way.  People adapt.  And that means a lot of people who would have been left suffering, even dying, are being helped.  It's hard to change attitudes, though.  It takes leadership and courage."  Steve paused.  "I expect it would take a really brave person to do that in Atlantis.  Someone strong enough not to be controlled by other people's opinions."

Namor began rubbing his forehead.  "I hope you don't imagine you're being subtle.  I know exactly what you're trying to do."

"Sorry."  Steve sighed.  "But it's the truth.  After everything people in Atlantis have been through, I can't imagine how many people are dealing with some sort of trauma.  Knowing how manage it in a healthy way with it would make a real difference."

'I do not choose to see a psychiatrist."  Namor gathered up the metal scraps and placed them in a neat pile.  "I am calm.  Let us go back to the house."

—

"Namor?" Jim asked.  "Can we talk?  Outside?"

Namor nodded.  "Of course." 

Jim stepped outside.  Namor followed and closed the door behind them.

"So, I've been thinking, and talking to Bucky.  What Llyra did, if it was...rape - " Even the word felt strange.  "If it was, then what she did to you, when she pretended to be Sue Storm..."

"I know exactly what she did to me," Namor snapped.

Jim looked at Namor, then nodded.

"However," said Namor, "I should have better protected you.  I should have killed Llyra long ago.  I should have - "

"I shouldn't have let her into your bedroom."

Namor blinked.  "What?"

"Phoebe Marrs...well, I thought it was Phoebe Marrs who told me that you were expecting a guest in your room that night, and I should make sure she could get in. So I didn't stop her, and I left the door unlocked."  Jim looked at Namor.  "I'm sorry.  If I'd been more careful, it might not have happened."

"If I'd killed her long ago, this would not have happened!"

"You can't blame yourself," said Jim.  "You do know it's not your fault, right?"

Namor paused, and put a hand to his mouth.  "It is...not precisely my fault, however...a king is responsible for his choices...all of the consequences of his choices...if I had known..."

"You didn't know," said Jim.  "You couldn't have known.  Even a king is not responsible for everything.  You can't blame yourself.  Not for what Llyra did to me, or what she did to you."

Namor looked at Jim.  "You had less reason to suspect Llyra's treachery than I did, and yet you blame yourself."

"Good point," said Jim. "I'll try not to.  Will you try, too?"

Namor paused, then nodded.

Jim looked down.  "So, um, Bucky recommended I see a therapist."

Namor snorted.  "Rogers suggested the same thing to me."

"I'm going to go," said Jim.  "Just to see what it's like.  To talk, and see if there's anything helpful."  The whole thing felt strange and uncomfortable, and Jim figured being able to talk out all of the questions in his head would be helpful.

Namor's jaw clenched.  "I hope this goes as well for you as it has for Barnes.  However, if the psychiatrist gives you any difficulties, or attempts to force a treatment on you that you do not want, tell me.  I will make him stop."

Jim tilted his head.  "What do you think psychiatrists do?"

"Whatever they have decided is in your best interests, regardless of your wishes."  Namor looked away.

"I don't think it works like that.  I mean Bucky's been seeing a therapist, and he says it helped him."

"He is human.  Perhaps their assumptions about what he needs are...more accurate than they would be for someone who was less like them."

There was definitely a story behind Namor's reaction.  Maybe when Namor had his amnesia, something had happened?  Jim could picture a hospital encountering a homeless Namor and coming to entirely the wrong conclusion about what he needed.

"So you're not going to give it a try?" Jim asked.

"No."

"Okay," said Jim.  "Look, if you need anything, or there is anything that would help..."

"I do not need help," said Namor.  Then he paused.  "However, there is one thing you could do, if the opportunity arose.  I would be...grateful."

"Name it."

"I believe Llyra is dead.  However, I have been incorrect before.  I am not asking you to search for her, but should you encounter her, kill her. Kill her and burn her body to ash.  Burn it beyond any hope of restoration.  And then, as my friend, find me and give me your word that she is dead."

Jim hesitated.  He wasn't supposed to do that, kill people out of vengeance.  

But Llyra had been given mercy.  And she'd come back, again and again.  She'd destroyed lives, and made Namor suffer more than Jim could bear to think about.

Jim nodded.  "I will."