1X04 – Midsummer Night’s Dream – Act II

1X04 – Midsummer Night’s Dream – Act II

Ororo was greeted at the front desk by a plain looking gentleman in a decently expensive suit, “Miss Monroe?”

“Yes?” she asked as she looked up from a Forge Technologies pamphlet which listed all the different industries the company was involved in, from prosthetics to jet propulsion.

“Raymond Bond,” he offered his hand, “Mr Silvercloud’s personal assistant. He is currently in the middle of an experimental engine test,” the man added lightly, “he’ll be finished in about half an hour or so, would you like to wait?”

“I don’t see a choice in the matter,” she answered dryly.

“Then would you follow me, please?” the assistant proceeded to lead her through two security checkpoints to end at a large freight elevator. Using a card key, he was able to select the top floor of the fifteen story building. “Mr Silvercloud has a personal apartment on the top floor, he asked that you wait for him there, but suggested we use the freight elevator.”

Of course he would, Silvercloud knew of her claustrophobia. The freight elevator was about three times larger than a normal one. She took several deep breaths, telling herself she’d be out of it soon enough, she was not trapped. Not that her mind chose to listen to her in such matters and she felt the walls closing in during the not brief enough ascension.

When they exited the elevator they came into a small vestibule leading to a locked door, again Raymond used the key card to access the room. This opened into the kitchen and storage areas where the elevator would be used to bring up food and supplies. Covered in stainless steel, the kitchen could have come out of a restaurant it was so well stocked. Which was hilarious considering the man she knew, for all his talents, could hardly cook.

Through a swinging door, Ororo was met by a wide expanse of white. Minimalist was key in his design, white walls and brown furniture. An Impressionist era painting over a fireplace was the only real dash of color other than the Crimson and Cream of the University of Oklahoma’s football team which decorated his desk set off in a side room. A stairway led to a second level where his bedroom was presumably located.

But the real marvel of the apartment was the glass ceiling that covered half the room, slanting at an angle to catch the sun. Ororo always preferred the wide open spaces, to be close to the elements. It occurred to her that other than a lack of plants, which could be easily corrected, this was the kind of place she could see herself in.

“He asked you make yourself at home,” Raymond gestured around the apartment, then to a phone set on a side table near the front door, “if you need anything, dial the operator.”

“Thank you, Raymond,” she said politely and with a nod the man disappeared through the front door.

Taking a long breath, she was annoyed that he was keeping her waiting but had expected nothing less.

Storm’s eyes caught on an image on the fireplace mantle and she was instantly drawn to it. Picking up the framed photo, a much younger Ororo stood with the Giza pyramids in the background. She was dressed in ethnic garb which belied her radical haircut, a mohawk of white. Her arm was slung around a dark haired Native American dressed in the combat gear of a US Marine.

Her thumb traced the man’s face, “Forge…”

…

Rogue walked up to the rather plain but not exactly cheap house, the neighborhood being a fairly upper middle class area. She tried the door and it was locked, it usually was, even if someone was home, so she pulled out a separate set of keys and let herself in.

“Irene,” she said as she closed the door behind her, “it’s me, Rogue.”

“I’m in the kitchen,” came a soft, elder, voice.

Heading to the back where the kitchen was situated, Rogue saw Irene, a woman in her early fifties with graying hair and delicate bone structure, a pair of pitch black glasses perched on her nose. She was pulling out coffee grains and a filter to make herself a drink.

“Here,” Rogue moved forward, “let me do that for you.”

“I’m quite capable of making coffee,” she said dryly.

“Yeah, I know,” she replied cheekily, “but what’s the point of having kids around if you don’t make them do all the work for you?”

“I suppose,” a wry smile formed on the woman’s lips and she turned away, heading for the living room. Irene could get around her house without her cane, she knew every angle in the walls, every dip of the floor, by heart. She had lived there for as long as Rogue had known her, going back to when Rogue was adopted by Mystique.

Rogue busied herself with making the coffee, insuring that she put the containers back where she found them in exactly the same spot. Worn Braille adorned them, “I should get all these labels replaced for you.”

“I don’t bother with them anymore,” Irene said from her seat on the lounger, “there is no one here to put them back in the wrong spot.”

Rogue frowned, “Sorry about that.”

“You were a child,” the woman said dismissively, “you, St John, Pietro, Wanda, children and teenagers. You had to be taught that the world is much larger than yourselves.”

“Yeah,” she said quietly, waiting for the heated water to drain through into the pot.

…

Bobby was ripping into a Twinkie and the sugary smell instantly filled the cabin. He took an appreciative sniff before pulling the plastic completely off. About to stuff the whole crème filled cake into his mouth at once, he looked up to see everyone staring at him, even the pilots.

“What?” he looked between them, then sighed, pulling the box out of his backpack, “just because none of you ever think to pack snacks that aren’t trail mix,” he tossed the box to Kitty, “and I haven’t forgotten about you all calling me fat, I’m just that nice of a guy.”

“Thanks, Bobby,” Kitty said gleefully as she grabbed one of the cakes. She offered the box to Logan who waved her off and she instead leaned over and gave it to JP who gave her a nod of thanks.

There was a small jerk of the plane and Jean spoke up, “Scott, take the controls.”

Bobby glanced up nervously but realized Jean had her fingers to her temples as she concentrated, the Professor sending her a message. Sighing, Bobby sat back in his seat and waited. He wouldn’t lie, flying made him a little nervous and it amazed him that Scott could even look at a plane after what happened to his family.

Jean lifted her head and started to fiddle with her touchscreen, “The Professor gave me some coordinates outside Juneau, thinks the new mutant is holed up in a small house or shack.”

“Probably afraid,” Scott said what they were all thinking, “doesn’t know what’s happening, how or why they have these new powers.”

“Chuck see what kind of mutant we’re dealing with?” Logan spoke up, the cabin taking a solemn turn.

“Energy based,” Jean looked over her shoulder, “something to do with controlling sound waves. Jubilee found local news reports of a sonic boom taking out a lot of store fronts last night.”

“Poor kid’s probably hiding where they can’t do any more damage,” JP commented.

Bobby leaned back in his seat with a sigh, “Been there, done that.”

…

Storm stood out on the balcony, staring up at the blue sky, fluffy clouds drifting across the sun. She had slipped her shoes off, her shawl forgotten inside as well. Closing her eyes she let the elements swirl around her, she always felt more alive, more like a whole person, when it was nothing but her and the weather.

“Thought I’d find you out here,” a deep tenor with a slight country accent said behind her.

She remained still for a moment. “I admit, I never saw you here, in New York, running a large corporation,” she tilted her head and looked over her shoulder slightly, “what happened to the man I knew?”

“If I remember correctly,” he looked at her evenly, “you broke his heart.”

Turning to face him, “I’m sure the feeling was mutual.”

They stood there, casually looking each other over as they hadn’t talked in at least a decade. Forge was dressed casually in a grey suit, light blue dress shirt, glove on one hand to cover his prosthetic. His long brown hair was pulled back into a neat pony tail, the only sign of his Native American heritage outside his tan skin and high cheek bones.

The man looked good, real good.

“Join me for lunch,” he gestured back into the apartment.

“It’s a bit early for lunch,” she frowned.

He acted as though he had to think about that, “Then I guess we’ll have to drag it out a bit then.”

“I called you over a dozen times in the last month,” she stalked towards him, “you wouldn’t answer a single message and yet you want me to sit down and have a meal with you?”

“Why talk to you over the phone,” he grinned and she remembered all those times that devious look on his face ended much differently than a casual lunch, “when I could have a little patience and see you in person.”

“You could have asked me here any time,” she pointed out.

“Would you have come?” he asked her in all seriousness.

She opened her mouth to answer but then stopped. Just seeing him brought back wonderful memories of their time together, of long Moroccan nights. But so too did she remember why things would have never worked out between them…

Storm hadn’t realized how close to Forge she had gotten, or maybe he had stepped towards her, but their bodies nearly touched and there was a nearly irresistible pull between them. But resist she did, right now was not the time to rehash the past.

“I thought so,” he turned and headed towards the kitchen, “I’ll answer any question you ask, after we eat.”

It was only with little reluctance that Ororo followed him, wishing she didn’t miss him so terribly so.

…

Placing Irene’s mug in front of her on the coffee table, Rouge moved to sit across from her in another of the high backed chairs. The blind woman reached forward and gently took hold of the cup, bringing it up to her lips for a tentative taste.

“How you been?” Rogue asked before taking her own sip of coffee.

“I manage,” the woman said simply, “as I have done most of my life.”

“I know you have,” she frowned, “but you and momma were together for a long time, the peanut gallery agrees,” she tapped her temple, “you don’t just move on when a relationship like that ends so abruptly.”

“The peanut gallery agrees, does it?” Irene said wryly, tilting her head a bit, “Still trusting them for relationship insights? I’ve always said there is no substitute for personal experience.”

Rogue shook her head and rolled her eyes, sometimes wishing Irene would just drop the subject already.

“Don’t roll your eyes at me, young lady,” Irene said stiffly.

“Ah…” she was going to say she didn’t roll her eyes but Rogue knew better than that, Irene may be blind but she was smart. “Tried the whole relationship thing,” Rogue curled her legs into the chair, “didn’t exactly work out.”

“Then perhaps you were doing it wrong,” the lady offered, “or not trying hard enough. Experience is earned, Rogue, not given.”

“I tried real hard,” Rogue spoke bitterly, “tried not to put him into a coma. Really Irene, what’s the point…” she paused as a thought made her look up at the woman, “unless, you seen something, Irene? Something about my future?”

“I see many things,” the woman sat her mug back down on the table, “not all of it by choice.”

Rogue thought about this and sighed, shaking her head, “Not like you’d tell me if you did, at least not straight forward anyway. I’m still waiting for your ‘when you see him, trust the Eskimo’ prediction to come to pass.”

“And trust the Eskimo you should,” Irene said gravely, “but what I can say right now is that you are still the same insular little girl you always have been.”

“I ain’t insular,” Rogue automatically defended.

“You’ve wrapped yourself up in a neat little shelter,” the seer spoke simply, “played your part as daughter for Raven, as solider for Erik, and as friend to the others,” her head tilted to the side. “Did you ever stop to ask yourself if this was what you wanted? Or do you hide in these boxes willingly so you don’t have to face reality and properly deal with it?”

“What! That you’d even think…” Rogue was incensed at the woman’s words and she nearly jumped from her chair, her gloved hand clenching the arm rests. Irene, for her part, sat there passively. There was no malice in her words or her posture. No air of anger, just a touch of sadness.

“Wait,” Rogue thought back across all the years she had known Irene, “is this… is this what you and momma got into a fight over? Me?”

“Parents often have differing opinions on how to raise their children,” Irene picked her mug up and had another sip, “I wouldn’t concern yourself.”

“But…” she started to feel sick to her stomach, “if you two broke up cause of me…”

“It did not take a prognostic to see that things were coming to an impasse between Raven and I,” Irene said with a touch of sadness, “one argument or another, the content does not matter.”

She frowned, not comforted at all by the woman’s words, “Still…”

“Hush now, child,” Irene said softly, “finish your drink before it gets cold.”

Rogue wanted to say something, but instead she curled back into the chair, coffee cup in hand, her mind reeling.

…

A pack had fallen over and a cup rolled down the aisle of the plane. More thunder crashed outside as they jerked up and down, side to side.

“A little weather,” his father said sarcastically.

“We’re just a few minutes out, Christopher,” his mother spoke from the co-pilot’s chair, checking the navigation. “You’ll want to veer five degrees to the North.”

“Right,” the plan shuttered as he tipped it slightly to angle towards where the runway was supposed to be.

Scott glanced over at his brother who was holding onto the arm rests of his chair, his knuckles gone white. “Hey,” he nudged him with his shoulder, “it’ll be alright.”

“I know,” Alex’s tone belied his words, his eyes a little wide, “dad’s flown in worse, right dad?”

“Much worse,” he told them, his teeth a little gritted as he held the controls in a death grip, “remember, I lived Black Hawk Down. This, this is just a little wind and rain.”

Lightning continued to streak around them, thunder echoing around the metal hull.

One bolt stuck too close, impacting on the wing, heading for one of the twin engines with a loud pop. The plane jerked again, this time more violently than before. Stuff came loose from the rear of the plane and flew forward, bags, tools, whatever didn’t get caught in the seats.

Alarms started to screech and Scott saw a metal box strike his mother from behind, his father shouting, “Katherine!”

“Mom!” he also yelled, but then Scott was hit with something solid but soft, his backpack.

His head snapped forward then back as the plane jerked and when he opened his eyes… and all he saw was red.

The optic compression beam he was able to channel ripped through the hull of the plane, nicking the other engine before he managed to shut his eyes.

“Scott!” his brother shouted from beside him over the now howling wind.

“Sorry!” he clenched his eyes tight, feeling the pressure but willing it to subside. He opened his eyes to see the gaping hole he had made, the wind grabbing hold of the edges and tearing it wider, rain pouring in.

He had done that? It would be a miracle if the plane didn’t break apart before they could get the runway.

“Ah!” Scott shut his eyes as he felt the pressure build again much too rapidly.

“Scott,” his father was still gritting his teeth, trying to hold the plane together, “you got to calm down, son, remember. Deep breaths.”

“Deep breaths,” he practically choked, reaching for his glasses, they would help while he tried to get his ability under control. All he felt was his hair. “My glasses!”

“There they are,” Alex said beside him and he heard the click of a seatbelt.

“Alex, get back in your seat,” his father shouted.

His brother ignored him and moments later Scott felt his glasses in his hand and quickly put them on. Adjusting his vision he could see that the hole he had created was much larger, being ripped by the wind, and the lightning struck engine was now on fire.

“Thanks,” he told his brother who was half sitting sideways in the seat next to him.

“No problem,” Alex smiled and then the plane wrenched violently as another bolt of lightning danced across the fuselage.

Alex went flying backwards and landed against a piece of the plane’s structure which jutted out from the wall. His father cursed as he tried to keep the plane from tipping any more to the left, more warning sirens sounding.

“Alex!” Scott unbuckled his seat, grabbing hold of the bolted down leg to try to reach his brother.

“Scott!” the younger boy shouted, trying to reach up and take his hand.

The plane lost altitude suddenly, tipping sideways, and all the loose bits that had been rattling around went flying towards Alex who struggled to maintain his handhold.

“ALEX!” he screamed as his brother slid down, the boy desperately reaching for any handhold before flying out into the dark through the hole in the hull Scott had created.

“ALEX!!!!” he kept shouting the name as if somehow that would make his brother reappear.

“Scott,” a soft voice nudged at him from under the howling wind and screeching alarms.

“Scott,” a hand touched his shoulder.

“Sorry,” he took a sudden increase in breath and looked over at the woman sitting next to him, “what were you saying?”

“We have landing clearance to refuel,” Jean gestured towards the radio in her hand, of course, he had asked her to call it in. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” he shrugged it off, checking the systems, getting ready for a descent, something he could do in his sleep, “just lost in thought,” he covered. “We want to get to this kid before they cause any more damage. I’m sure Cooper and her lot would love to use them as just another example why mutants can’t be considered as anything less than WMD’s.”

“Yeah,” she said after a moment, not believing for one second that was what he was thinking about but accepting that he didn’t want to talk about it.

“I don’t want to be on the ground for any more than forty-five minutes,” he told the passengers behind him then turned back watching the dials as the plane slowly dropped.

All the indicator lights were green and the sky was clear and blue… but all he saw was red.

…

Jean was stretching after the several hours on the plane, she had gotten up and moved around on occasion during the flight but it felt better to be flat footed on the ground.

“Hey,” Bobby came up beside her, handing over a chocolate bar of some sort, “try this.”

“Kinder Bueno?” she eyed the candy suspiciously as she tore it out of its wrapper.

“It’s good,” Bobby assured her, snacking down on one of his own, “I found them in the waiting area.”

Jean took one bite of the hazelnut crème filled wafer covered in chocolate and her eyes went wide, “Oh my god.”

“I know right?” he laughed at her, “I’m going to buy a bazillion of them when we come back through.”

“Make it two bazillion,” she eagerly took another bite, “my dentist is gonna kill me.”

Bobby chuckled and finished off his Bueno. He then glanced around and saw Scott was still talking to the man in charge of the petrol truck. “Is he doing okay?”

“Hhmm?” she tried to play his question off, not feeling comfortable talking about the man behind his back, well, any more than she already had.

“Come on,” he wasn’t buying her feigned innocence, “I saw how he got all zoned out. I mean, I trust him, but, well, I can’t say it doesn’t worry me a bit.”

Jean sighed, also glancing over to make sure Scott was still occupied, “He’s come a long way since I first met him, which was a year after the accident. But honestly, I don’t think he’ll ever get over it.”

“He doesn’t talk about it either,” Bobby frowned, “I’ve been told that’s not good.”

“I know,” she let out a long breath, wondering if she should bring up Bobby’s inability to talk about what happened between him and Sabretooth, but instead shrugged, “but it’s not in Scott’s nature. He feels like he has to be the strong one.”

“Strong for who?” Bobby continued to frown, “there’s no one left, except his grandfather, but the old man is ornery enough for the both of them.”

Scott nodded to the guy he was speaking to and headed back in their direction. He stood tall, as he always did, a sureness to his steps and purpose to the set of his jaw.

Jean said thoughtfully, “Their memory is still alive to him, and that’s enough.”

X-Men: The (fan fic) Series

A series of short stories in a fictional X-Men TV Universe.