The Completely Authorised, Un-sensationalised, Biography of Dr. Faiza ‘Excalibur’ Hussain

[beatrice_otter]

Fandom: MARVEL COMICS, Captain Britain and MI-13
Pairing: Gen
Length: 4227 words
Author on LJ: dhobikikutti, dhobikikutti
Author Website: AO3
Why this must be read:

I've never read Captain Britain and MI-13, and yet through the miracle of Yuletide I've fallen in love with one of the characters from it, Dr. Faiza Hussain, aka Excalibur. She is kind of awesome.  This is not the story that made me fall in love with her, but this is another great story about her.  I've chosen to rec it because it is also a great meta about identity, about leading a double life, about family, and all kinds of other things having to do with being a superhero.  Faiza is a new superhero, just recently joined up with the British superhero team and the journalists and papparazi want to know all about her.

This story is funny, it's serious, it's got a message without being A Very Special Story, and all the characters and relationships are so incredibly real and three-dimensional even in the short scenes we have for each.  Even if you've never heard of MI-13 or Excalibur or Dr. Faiza Hussain, go and read.  You won't regret it.

"Augh, mum! Do you... I bet you store these horror stories up just to humiliate me in revenge for being polite to the media and not telling them I don't keep my room clean or something."

"What revenge? You think they won't blame me if they find out that a grown up doctor like you still throws her dirty socks underneath her bed? They'll say I must have been a terrible mother who didn't raise you properly, and then something about what can you expect from a working woman who is too busy to pay attention to her child. And then no wonder you took to running around the streets after monsters and demons and what not."

"Now you're just taking the piss, Mum. You know very well I don't... run after monsters, I mean, not in that way."

"What about that time in Hounslow?"

"That was a succubus, and it was just the one time, and alright, I don't even know why I am having this argument with you when you were there and if I remember correctly, which I do, you were the one wanting to take it home and feed it a decent home cooked meal and saying how much more handsome it was than Dane and... what are you laughing about?"

"I am laughing because the reporter asked me if I had ever seen you during one of your assignments and I gestured vaguely at the telly because all I could think of was the two of us telling that demon-thingie how we didn't drink alcohol and so couldn't go with him to a bar, but we would be delighted to invite him out to dinner."

"Oh my god. The reporter would have loved that."

"Yes, exactly. That's why I didn't bring it up. As it was she kept going on and on about how interesting it was that the sword of England fell in the hands of a Muslim girl. I cut her right off because I figured you wouldn't want to talk about that sort of stuff to the papers."

"Right. Good. Yeah, I don't want to be the Muslim for that lot."

"Well exactly, that's why I thought you could be the Doctor. I mean, they're always going to look at you and add Muslim in the back of their minds to anything, but I think Doctor Excalibur is a pretty decent headline on the whole, no?"

"I suppose. But I think giving the papers appalling baby pictures of me is a bit much, Mum."

"It wasn't a baby picture, you were five years old! And I thought you looked very sweet all dressed up in my lab coat and with your Abba's stethoscope around your neck."

The Completely Authorised, Un-sensationalised, Fact-Checked, Permissioned Biography of Dr. Faiza ‘Excalibur’ Hussain