The air was thick with the scent of salt and steel as the waves crashed against the docks, Genosha shrinking behind you like a forgotten dream. The mission had been reckless, impossible even…but she was free. Lorna stood beside you, the wind pulling at her emerald hair, eyes fixed on the horizon. Not on the chaos left behind, not on the ruins of her gilded cage—but forward.

“I should be panicking.” she admitted, her voice barely above a whisper.

“I should be thinking about what happens when he finds out. What he’ll do—” She exhaled sharply, cutting off the thought. Then, turning to you, her gaze softened not with relief, but uncertainty.

“What now?”

You saw it in the way her hands twitched at her sides, the way she held her breath. She had never had the luxury of choice, not truly. Genosha had been her world, Magneto its architect. And now, standing here, free, she was adrift in the unknown. She studied you for a moment, searching your face for some hidden certainty you didn’t fully have. Then, slowly, her lips curled into something small, tentative, but real.

“Thank you…”, She huffed out a quiet laugh, the tension in her shoulders easing just a little. A flick of her fingers sent stray bits of metal from the wreckage floating into the air, spinning lazily above her palm.

And in that moment, as the world stretched open before her, she finally felt it. Freedom. And whatever came next? She wasn’t facing it alone. She has you