⚜️ Saga 0: The Ash Years
📍 Location: Devil May Cry | Lower East Side, NYC
🕯️ Year: Spring 2007
🎯 POV: Dante / Jean / Wanda
🛡 Sin System Status: Anchor Defense Phase Initiated
⚠ Emotional Tension: MAXIMUM | Identity Exposure Risk: Moderate
___
"You only ever knock on doors that aren't really meant to be opened. The rest, you walk straight in—sure the world owes you a welcome."
___
Wednesday, like many others, started with the comfort of ritual.
Coffee—bitter, strong.
Vinyl jazz that still managed to sound smooth in a battered bar.
Wanda drifting by the stove, turning eggs with a slower kind of magic.
Jean trailing Dante's shirt, barefoot and a little less haunted in the spring light.
Pietro, on a campaign for a sweeter life, pocketing cinnamon rolls in twos.
If you listened, you'd believe nothing would ever change.
Then came the knock.
Not loud, not desperate—just three sharp taps, inviting themselves in.
The world outside was drenched—rain boiled off the pavement, ghost-grey and rising.
Inside, Jean froze halfway to the hooks, caught by a shiver that had nothing to do with the weather.
Dante felt it, but not in a magical way.
Some part of him—a careful, watchful part—stood up before he did.
Wanda's fingers curled in silence, ready for the next fight.
The door was already opening by the time they reached it.
—
Five people arrived. They wore their certainty like old uniforms you couldn't quite take off.
Charles Xavier's chair lingered at the threshold, eyes both fond and frighteningly tired.
To his right and left: Ororo, electric even when holding her power close, Scott Summers with a visor too bright for the shadows he cast, and two silent followers clutching at Genosha secrets.
The air in the bar changed.
It was as if the world had come to collect an overdue library book and found out it owed more than fines.
[Sin System Alert – "Legacy Interruption Detected"]
⚠ Threat Focus: Jean Grey Only
Wanda Maximoff – Identity: Red Status (Classified)
Dante Sparda – UNKNOWN STATUS TO X-ENTITY
Hostile Presence Level: Ideological Intrusion
Rival Phase: Suppressed → Defensive Unity Engaged
Xavier spoke, his voice dragging regret behind it:
"Jean," he said, gentle and grave as a eulogy,
"We didn't plan to let it go this long. It's time to come home."
Jean's mug trembled once. It had nothing to do with magic and everything to do with disappointment.
"No," she said plainly. "Not tonight."
Scott stepped forward, ideas of command tight around his shoulders.
"You're exposed. Surveillance twisted and snapped. Astral signatures through the roof."
His fingers tapped at nothing, unwilling to look directly at Wanda.
Wanda replied, voice soft but iron:
"Her life isn't yours to monitor."
Scott didn't answer her.
"All of you are compromised. They're coming. You can't keep this place."
Dante's face, when he let it be seen, was patient and unimpressed.
The room—his room—was holding itself steady on his silence.
"They're not leaving," he said, softly, so no one mistook it for a threat.
Even the bar seemed to lean in.
Pietro moved, as if conjured by wind, standing for the uncertain side.
"If this is an extraction, try the next address. You forgot to bring backup."
[Sin System — "Anchor Zone Engaged"]
- Bonds: Tighter now
- Walls, ever so slightly, glow with the memory of fire survived
Charles closed his eyes as if the world had finally said something he recognized as the truth.
"We know there's someone here," he whispered, "Something you've tied yourself to."
Jean didn't blink.
"This isn't about fear," she told him.
"This is about where I want to stay."
Charles frowned, voice going small.
"And what if there are people, Jean, who won't let you have what you want?"
Jean met his gaze and smiled in a way that only someone who'd lost everything and survived could manage.
"Then we'll show them how little luck they have."
—
Thunder dragged itself along the windows. Ororo shifted her weight, lightning beneath skin.
Dante emerged from behind the bar, hands empty but heavy with intention.
"If you come back, come with some respect next time," he told them, mild as an autumn storm.
Charles saw something in Dante's eyes just then—a flicker of understanding, too quick to hold.
—
They left quietly, doors closing without dramatic flair.
Jean watched them vanish into city traffic, and the world slowly righted itself.
[Sin System — "Presence Logged: Exited"]
- Danger level falls, pride and warmth remain.
- The secret: still safe
—
Inside it was still.
Pietro poured whiskey, Wanda leaned against Dante, and Jean just clung to the bar.
A note, written plainly on a napkin, landed on the counter:
"Next time, they'll know you're not just the bartender."
—
The rain picked up, a soft white noise.
Dante said, "They came for you."
Jean smiled. "They stayed because of you."
Wanda's voice was feather-soft:
"Let's keep our secrets a little longer."
[Sin System — "Home Stands"]
Some storms come to take what they think belongs to them.
Sometimes, a family says no.
And for tonight, that is enough.
_____