#invaders 2019

Next up, Nora and Fred Raymond. Betcha didn't see that one coming! Obviously learning you're an entirely different species is going to re-contextualize some shit about your parents, but not necessarily in the way you'd expect. See, Toro's parents were both brilliant chemists (or otherwise chemistry adjacent scientists. the details of how the fuck horton cells work is sketchy at best). Toro never got to know them well, both because of a number of things they were keeping from him and how young he was when they died. Toro himself says he never knew much about his mother when she's brought up in The Torch, and a part of his motivation is specifically to find out more about his parents. Because his new powers are heavily reliant on chemistry, he'll probably be doing a lot of research in that area, which in a way brings him a little closer to his parents.

Iron Cross (the Clare Grueller incarnation) is a character Toro literally would not have met without being an inhuman. Sadly we don't get to see much of them interacting besides mutually telling inhuman eugenics guy to fuck off and/or fight them (a great basis for a friendship if you ask me) Here we enter head canon territory. I personally think it would be really cool if Toro and Clare continued to have a relationship, bonding over inhuman stuff/invaders bagage/generally wanting to make the world a better place without ending up in the news. Maybe Toro helps Clare cope with the implications of becoming one with her suit (he's got a lot of experience with cyborgs androids and the like) and maybe she builds him a computer to integrate into his suit that helps him identify unfamiliar chemicals on the fly, or that can show him how to make specific chemicals (like the human-atlantean switch stuff).

Namor. Oh boy. Um, Namor is complicated. As a mutant he's kind of expected to have some thoughts on the inhuman business, and while it seems like he does in the invaders part of the hydra supreme mess, this isn't necessarily the case. (I'm totally writing a fic on this scene later, but he's faking it to try to get toro to leave/distance himself from toro so he can act like he doesn't care) meanwhile, when it's first revealed Namor's actually pretty chill abt it. So may or may not be a factor, more likely to be a problem if Toro's working with/for/ int the interest of other Inhumans, or trying to mediate between Namor and Blackbolt or something.

Anyway, Namor knows what it's like to be something different than you thought, and even something that doesn't really exist outside of you (toro is inhuman, but he's also a hortanesc cyberg a-la-spitfire, and maybe still a mutant- i'll get back to that later) I think much like Jim Namor is very caught off guard by the new powers. Underneath everything, I think he's still tempted to see toro as a little kid, a painfully vulnerable surface dweller who took a bullet to the chest in berlin (bucky's whole 'that could never be you in there so you don't understand' speech really hit a nerve i think) Oh, and Namor also WATCHED TORO DIE after toro PURPOSEFULLY PUT HIMSELF IN DANGER TO SAVE NAMOR. so yeah, no matter how powerful toro gets, no matter how smartly he uses his power, i think namor has a really hard time seeing toro as anything other than vulnerable. Which brings us to the real hard pill to swallow-

Toro can kick Namor's ass now. At least, if he has the drop. Toro can dehydrate him. Toro can manifest vibranium or other super strong metals that can actually leave a mark on Namor. This is a factor with all the invaders, in that toro has all sorts of new tools at his disposal that can make them miserable, but Namor's the one he's (historically) most likely to come to blows with.

And one final point with Namor (godsdamn, you'd think this post was about him) as i mentioned he sees Toro as vulnerable, perhaps more so than even Jim. And this is important. This is good. Toro needs people looking out for and protecting him, even if he's a lot more powerful now.

Alright moving right along hey look it's Bucky. So, unsurprisingly, powers were never that big in bucky and toro's relationship. And power escalation hit them both, only in different ways, so the power imbalance really feels like it's in Bucky's favour if anyone's at this point. The only real effect I can see this having is if Toro gets sucked into some inhuman/Kree/space thingy that involves Bucky as the Man on the Wall (is that even a thing anymore? I feel like I haven't heard about it in a while but i haven't really kept up with Captain America comics lately) Anyways it could be interesting to see these too in that context. See them have a moral debate. How do they handle conflicting duty. How much chaos can they get into on an enemy starship? the possibilities are very fun

Steve. okay, i could write a whole post about Steve and Toro's relationship and how they're foils/reflections of each other. But that's not what we're here for. There are two major points that define Toro and Steve in this context (and tbh most of their on screen interaction give me more marvel pls) 1. Toro's in humanification and 2. Hydra Cap. Starting off with the safer option, Steve was the first person Toro interacted with as an inhuman. Steve was there when Toro first came out of the cocoon, he's the one who explained everything to Toro and probably the one who got to here unadulterated fears/emotions about it. and given toro's history of being used as a lab rat/weapon/both, i'm betting some things came out. maybe some things other people don't know, which puts Steve very suddenly in a position to become Toro's confident. Someone he can trust and lean on with the stuff he'll never mention around the others. Which makes point 2 hurt even harder.

Even though hydra steve and real steve are different people, even though the steve we have now has tried very hard to make up for his evil clone's actions (oversimplification but whatever). It was still steve's face, and steve's voice, and the damage was still done. Toro, who had confided his deepest darkest fears in Steve, got to hear someone who was for all intents and purposes Steve say publicly that inhumans were so dangerous that they absolutely had to be locked away, with no nuance, no consideration. OUCH.

Toro's also in a tricky spot here, bc thanks to our dear friends Mad Thinker and nebulus soviet scientists (probably dept X) Toro knows first hand what it's like to be forced by forces out of your control to be something or someone else. He knows what it's like to come back from that and face the consequences for actions that both were and weren't his. He feels for Steve, but that doesn't mean he can just let it go.

As far as Steve goes, i think it's just really, really awkward now. He's very clearly still trying to heal the damage as recently as Invaders (2019). He's painfully aware that Toro is an inhuman and was thus very personally wronged by Hydra Steve, even if he isn't aware how far down that broken trust goes. He's spent years mending bridges with friend foe and stranger a like. But toro never mentions it, it's just floating there between them.