#fallingdrabbles6

Politics was a game. Steve firmly believed that. If there was going to be someone in charge, it needed to be someone that Steve could trust. As it was, he found that he couldn’t trust either of the top candidates running for mayor. While he supported mutant rights and was part of the protests that fought for mutant equality, he couldn’t support extremist groups like the Brotherhood. He understood the need for equality. He understood being oppressed. While he had white male privilege in this day and age as well as class and fame privilege, he didn’t always have it. The time he grew up in, he was a part of the oppressed communities -- not able-bodied and queer and Irish. He wanted to be standing on the same level as everyone else. Freedom had a price. He would fight for it. But he wasn’t willing to kill innocents for his right to live, unlike the Brotherhood. That was what their ideals were made up of. Kill humans and establish mutants as superior. 

That’s not what Steve wanted -- a leader with that kind of ideology. 

And of course, there was the HYDRA leader candidate. His title already made Steve distrustful of the man. Yet he gave him a chance to speak. He went to his campaign tour stop, listened to him speak and answer questions from the press and various other citizens. Steve recognized a snake when he saw one. That’s what HYDRA was though -- a snake with too many heads. There was too much bad blood between Steve and the organization for him to ever be okay with the fact that the mayor of the city that he lived in could be HYDRA. No one would be safe with Lennon Wallace in power. It would be the SHIELD Civil War all over again, where too many innocent lives were put in danger. They were targeted for being threats to HYDRA. 

This isn’t freedom -- it’s fear.

Jane barely looked up as she made her way to the polling booth, disregarding the uniform clad gun holding men. It didn’t bother her any more. Not after seeing things worse than guns and magical sceptres and flying hammers. Flashing her id proof, she finally made it in with a bounce in her step. It had been a while since she last did this even the situation seemed desolate. 

She usually never bothered with the whole election process when she all but lived in her RV, roaming around as her stars took her. But now, being in a rebuilt city of New York gave her the sense of responsibility she had ignored previously in the name of her work. 

Not the Brotherhood and definitely not the HYDRA would improve the place any better than destroy it. And if her single vote could work as one for the best-- her fingers tightly gripped the pen and paper in her hands as she stood before the ballot box. 

The bad thing about giving up his US citizenship to go live in Genosha (which was not recognized as a sovereign country by the US) was: Pyro couldn’t vote in the New York elections.

The best thing about giving up his US citizenship to go live in Genosha was: he didn’t have to go vote. He could sit in his boxers and play World of Warcraft while keeping one eye on the news coverage of the election. 

He could also yell at his stupid fucking raid team, which was, frankly, a lot more entertaining than watching who became Mayor of New York.

“No, Drunktotems, you’re an awful fucking shaman and if I had my way, you wouldn’t even be in this raid,” Pyro snapped into his microphone. In the background, he vaguely noticed some coverage of a small mutant rally being held outside one of the larger voting booths. “Elemental shamans suck this expansion, fucking get used to it. We should bench you.”

In between listening to the raid leader drone on and on about how they needed to work on their rotations, Pyro glanced over at the TV again. One of the reporters was very gingerly trying to interview a women covered head-to-toe in golden fur. The reporter looked petrified.

“And? So fucking what if feral druids aren’t OP right now? I still do more DPS than all of you.” Again, Pyro tuned them out in favor of the TV. Then, “Frazgirl, what the fuck, you can’t still be using Demonic Bolt in your Meta rotation, demo warlocks got nerfed and you need to take another skill. It’s not MOP anymore, you’re not the dev team’s favorite class.”

Ugh. Why were both raiders and politicians so stupid? Thomas was on the TV blathering around mutant rights, blah blah, environmental concerns, blah fucking blah. He was a figurine. The token mutant. He’d never get anything done, he’d just get blocked in everything he attempted. If anybody had to win, Pyro would prefer he did, but still, he’d be useless.

Finally, as the reporter started babbling about how ‘greatly concerning it was that a mutant might become mayor’, Pyro shut the TV off. If he listened to any more of that drivel, he might just wind up torching his TV.

Bobby should have set his alarm, because by the time he finally managed to roll out of bed and locate a pair of pants, he was already running late. He only had about an hour of free time to actually make it to the voting poll, and hell yes, he was voting. Voting was a hard earned right, and he couldn’t exactly preach to all the students the importance of voting if he didn’t do it himself. 

Of course, in all of his lectures, he conveniently forgot to mention the fact that one wasn’t always given the best choices of two candidates. It came down to a Hydra member and a Brotherhood member, and it was obvious which one Bobby would choose if he had to pick one. A mutant, even a potentially anti-human one, over a Nazi any day. 

When he stood over the poll, he almost wrote in a name. There were a dozen other mutants out there who would serve better than Malcom Thomas, but what good were write-ins in the end? With a sigh, he checked off the mutant’s name. On one hand, there was definite excitement in the action. Mutant representation was a rare gift, and he’d savor this feeling while it lasted.

Oh, it was election season all right. People were shoving themselves into conversations with him in places he usually liked to be left alone. After all, if he wanted a conversation at the grocery store, he would have brought Fitz or Darcy along. Instead, everyone wanted to hear everyone’s opinion, and that included himself. He tried to respond with only a grunt when he could, but as election day finally descended upon them, he found himself unable to leave it at that. 

Politics were simply a farce; the politicians could parade around and talk about freedom all they wanted, but beneath the wide smiles was a pool of secrets. How could people vote for someone when their motives weren’t clear? People who had a taste for power would always do whatever they could to keep it, and so it was with that in mind that he kept a far distance from any voting areas in the city.

In the forty minutes it had taken for Darcy to arrive at the front of her line at the poll station, she had successfully developed a nervous tic. The muted clicking sound as she tap her thumbnails against each other repeatedly was only interrupted whenever she raised a hand to adjust her glasses. 

After months of political analysis and discussion, the day to elect this city's next tyrant was here...and it was every bit as awful as Darcy had expected. Citizens buzzed around her, some excited and some very solemn, both of which greatly worried her. How anyone could be excited to have either of the candidates win didn't make any sense, and it seemed she wasn't the only one who realized this; the people that stood in their lines with slumped shoulders and the ones who walk away from the voting booth with resignation etched across their features...Darcy could imagine how crappy they must have felt to have this settled like this. 

No part of this ordeal felt right, but that was the way it is when a choice had to be made between evils. There was no true victory. At the end of the day, the citizens were going to lose no matter who was crowned mayor. If the Brotherhood won, countless mutants would suffer at the hands of his horrible leadership; if worse came to worse (which Darcy bet would happen), this would lead to non-mutants turning their backs against the gifted people. They'd be in a bigger mess of inequality than the one happening right now. Yet, the thought of having Hydra reigning over New York City was absolutely sickening. 

These were the people that committed genocide, justified the lack of ethics with progress, and literally want to break the world in half because they want to start from scratch. Not to mention, that their higher ranks were filled with horrible monsters like Viktor Hartmut and John Garrett. One man was truly an evil person, spending half of his time terrorizing and murdering, and then the other half deceiving innocent people to get everything he wants. Darcy's stomach lurched at the memories. She didn't want to imagine what would happen if agents like Hartmut didn't have to dial down their awfulness anymore when their agency rules the city. It was still so horrible to think about the look on Hartmut's face as he sneered and threatened, but then, she always remembered the determination on Grant's face. He was the friend she had made against all odds, and he was the reason why her pencil was now posed over the box beside Malcom Thomas' name. 

Darcy would never support the people that stole away Grant's childhood and moulded him into someone he despises. Quickly (but not painlessly), she drew an "X" through the Brotherhood's leader box, folded the ballot sheet, and handed it in. 

Sam placed Pepper Pott’s name into the “write-in” section without hesitation. She’d seen the campaign posters around town--the “Vote for Pepper stickers on bumpers and light poles, and though she knew full well that the woman was not actually running for office--there’d never been a single interview to confirm it--Sam couldn’t stomach to vote for someone she didn’t believe in. The HYDRA scum--she’d long ago stopped using his real name for fear that it was like Voldemort’s and he’d appeared by her side suddenly, gun at the ready--could rot in hell for all she cared, and while Malcom Thomas was a better vote (almost anyone was better than a Nazi) he still wasn’t a good vote. The city was doomed either way, but perhaps--just maybe a hope rested in the farthest corner’s of Sam’s not yet rotted brain--if everyone refused to vote for these idiots, the city wouldn’t have to suffer through the horrible reign of either one. 

Peter tapped his pencil nervously. With everything he’d been going through, he hadn’t been keeping up with politics as much as he should have been, but water cooler chatter at the office (and a bit of last-minute research) meant that he was staring at the candidates’ profiles before he was gonna swing over to the polling stations.

Who to choose?

HYDRA meant terrorist.

To the good people of San Francisco, so did the Brotherhood.

Peter sighed, and pulled out a piece of paper to do the pros and cons. Malcolm Thomas was a native New Yorker, and while he might not have all the political connections, his work in HR might help the city the next time it got attacked by aliens. That he was a mutant didn’t matter so much to Peter -- as he wasn’t 100% homo sapiens himself -- and reports said that Thomas wasn’t anywhere near the Golden Gate Bridge.

On the other hand, there was Lennon Wallace. He WAS a politician. And while he hadn’t been linked to any terrorist activities, either, HYDRA had taken over the Citi Field what felt like just months ago, and Peter knew that the Avengers were directly opposed to them.

That made up his mind.

The Brotherhood might have used terrorist tactics, but they were fighting for the right to be legally recognized as people.

HYDRA had no such flag to fly.

Peter made his way down to the ballot, and ticked Malcom Thomas’ name.

And then he spent the next six hours watching and protecting the polling stations from ‘mischief’.