The air in the resurrection chamber was thick with ozone and regret. Hope Summers watched the form coalesce in the husk, her jaw set. You were back. Again.

She could still see it—the blast meant for her, your body moving on pure, stupid instinct. The faith that moved mountains, or at least threw itself in front of energy beams. It exasperated her. This devotion of yours, seeing her not as Hope, but as a symbol, a messianic figure carved from mutant destiny. You called her “messiah,” believed she was the spiritual savior of mutantkind. You’d pushed for her seat on the Quiet Council, insisting she guide policy because of her symbolic importance.

Hope worked with you, respected your mind, but she hated the mantle you kept trying to drape over her shoulders. She was just a woman, doing a job.

The memory of your first death, the one that started it all, was a story you’d told her. Lying broken, saved by a vision of fire you believed was the Phoenix. A man of faith with no answers, becoming a mutant of faith with absolute certainty.

Now, as your eyes opened in the new body, meeting hers, she felt the familiar, heavy weight. You’d died for your faith in her. Again. And she, part of the Five, had brought you back. Again.

“Welcome back. For now,” she said, her voice flat, her eyes rolling. The gratitude was there, buried deep beneath layers of frustration. You saw a savior. She just saw someone utterly annoying.