Okay, first story! This is going to be an eventual Logan/OC romance, but there's a few things that need to be covered first. This story is going to cover everything from X-Men: First Class to X-Men United, but there are going to be changes throughout. This first chapter is a little short since I'm just starting out, but I'm going to try to make future chapters a little longer.
This chapter takes place at the beginning of First Class. The main OC's name is Joni, and it's pronounced like Johnny.
CHAPTER ONE
TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS
1962
"Heads up, we're not alone," Finn whispers and then leans back in her diner seat. Joni props her elbows on top of the table, on either side of her breakfast plate, and quickly scans the room. Nothing looks out of the ordinary. There's a family of four sitting behind her, she can hear the kids laughing while the parents try to get them to eat, and a couple of old timers are gossiping with the waitress at the bar. At the other end of the bar, closest to the front door, two men are sitting side-by-side and talking quietly in between sips of their drinks.
"Don't see nothing suspicious. I think you're getting paranoid in your old age," Joni thinks while looking straight into her sister's angry brown eyes.
"Looks can be deceiving, as I'm sure you already know." Joni is used to hearing a voice other than her own inside her mind, it's expected when your sister is a telepath, but that wasn't Finn. It was a man's voice, a different accent than the southern one she shares with her sister, and she's guessing that Finn heard him too because her eyes are wide and she looks ready to hit something.
"Mind if we join you, ladies?" Joni and Finn look up at the same time, and the two younger men from the bar are standing next to their table. The one who just spoke out loud, the one standing next to Joni, isn't the same one who spoke into her mind. The accent is different.
"If we say no?" Finn asks. Finn distrusts strangers , and Joni doesn't blame her. Finn knows more about people than Joni would ever want to.
"Then we will leave you in peace," the other man says. That's the voice she heard. He must be another telepath. Joni's never met another telepath before.
"Take a seat," Joni decides and scoots over. She hears Finn huff as she does the same, and the two men smoothly slide into the booth to sit next to them.
"My name is Charles Xavier," the man sitting next to Finn says first. He looks normal enough. Brown hair, very blue eyes, early twenties maybe. The telepath had been right though. Joni knows that looks can be deceiving.
"Erik Lehnsherr," the man sitting next to Joni says. She turns in the booth so that her back is against the wall, so that she can see all three people now packed into their booth, and the man sitting next to her looks normal as well. His brown hair has a little more red in it, his blue eyes are a little icier, but he looks to be close to the same age as the other man. While Joni is cataloging all of this new information, Erik turns and meets her gaze directly. "It's your turn to introduce yourself."
"Doesn't he already know everything about us?" Joni asks. She keeps her eyes locked with Erik's as she inclines her head towards Charles, and Erik's lips tilt in a barely-there smile.
"That would be very impolite and rude of me." There's a hint of humor in Charles's voice, so Joni breaks her little staring contest with Erik to look over at him.
"My name is Joni McKenzie, and this is my sister Finn. Why are you here bothering us?" Joni asks as pleasantly as possible. Her and Finn don't always spend a lot of time together, so she's not exactly happy that they're being interrupted.
"Well, it's quite complicated, you see and-"
"Skip to the part where you tell us what you want," Joni interrupts. She can see Finn starting to fidget , so she knows her sister is starting to feel crowded. Cornered. Overwhelmed.
From there, the two men speak quickly. Something about recruiting mutants to help the CIA take down a group of mutants that are up to no good. When some details are mentioned, like the name Sebastian Shaw, Finn flinches. Something about this mission of theirs is personal, for at least one of them, but Joni keeps her mouth shut. She lets them finish explaining and then raises an eyebrow in question at her sister when they go silent.
"Sorry, I don't do the whole team thing. I'm sure you understand," Finn says with a pointed look at Charles. The other telepath is looking at her calmly, but Finn is so tense that it looks like she's vibrating.
"If you come with us, we can help teach you how to control your ability." Charles sounds so sincere, it actually plucks at heartstrings that Joni thought were long ago severed, but Finn only looks more murderous.
"Which ability?" Finn grits out. Joni watches Charles's eyes widen, and Erik leans forward. Finn continues before either of the men can say anything. "The telepathy? Can you teach me to keep the voices out? While teaching me to block out the emotions of every person around me? Oh, and let's not forget, will you also teach me to stop moving things with my mind whenever I lose a little bit of control? I don't need you to teach me anything, boy."
Joni bites down on her bottom lip to keep from laughing as Charles is smoothly moved out of the booth and held in a standing position next to the table as Finn slides out of the booth, and Finn turns to meet her eyes once she's standing. She knows that Finn is going off on her own again, and Joni nods once in acknowledgement. She knows she'll see her sister again, in either a couple of months or a couple of years. Charles is moved back into the booth as the diner door closes behind Finn, which means Finn has kept her telekinetic hold on him ever since she moved him out of the booth. As Joni looks at him, Charles looks a mixture of awed and confused. So Joni takes pity on him and explains.
"Finn is what you'd call psionic. She's telepathic, empathic, and telekinetic. It took a couple of decades, but she's got them all under control. She just doesn't like being around people," Joni drawls out.
"Just how old are you?" Erik asks her.
"It's rude to ask a lady her age." Joni grins even as she says it, because she's never really cared about certain forms of etiquette. "A few years over a hundred. Now, boys, this has been lovely but I'm afraid I can't help you either."
"You don't look a day over twenty," Erik says with a smile.
"Flattery won't change my mind." Charles seems to check back in, and Joni looks over at him as he prepares a question. She can see it in his eyes.
"You both have healing abilities?" Joni's met a few other mutants over the years, but answering this question has never been easy.
"Not exactly. Finn has no healing abilities whatsoever. She just doesn't have to worry about disease or aging. We're not sure why, but we think it's related to my ability."
"Which is?" Erik asks her.
"You first." Joni already knows that Charles is a telepath, and she's sure that's his only ability because he'd looked so shocked at hearing about Finn's numerous abilities.
"I'm afraid I'm quite simple," Erik says and props an elbow on the table. Joni watches as Erik moves his index finger in a circle, and the spoon sitting in Joni's forgotten coffee cup starts spinning. So he controls metal. That's very interesting, and she's sure that Erik's ability is far from simple.
"I've got you beat on the simple front. I can't die." She looks back and forth between the two men, watches them exchange a startled glance, and licks her lips. "I can't heal or anything like that. If you punch me in the face, I'll keep a black eye for as long as any human. If you kill me, I'll come back. No aging or sickness, but still basically human. So I'm no help to your cause."
"You can still fight with us," Erik says while holding her eyes.
"I'm not a fighter, but I wish you both the best of luck. Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to finish my breakfast in peace." Erik inclines his head and moves out of the booth, and Joni settles back into the center of the seat. She would have gone back to finishing her soggy pancakes, but she can feel the two men still looking down at her.
"If you change your mind," Charles starts.
"I'm good at finding people. Take care of yourself, boys," Joni says and waves a little. The two men nod at her and then start to walk out of the diner, and she waits until the door closes behind them before finishing her breakfast. Such a strange morning.
[X]
It became annoying very quickly. Whenever Joni's mind isn't focused on some task, she thinks of the two men from the diner. Remembers the sincere sound of Charles's voice, the barely-there curl of Erik's lips, and the way Finn had flinched when Charles mentioned the other mutant's name. No matter the cause, it isn't hers. It's not her fight, and she's never been much of a fighter. Just because she can't die doesn't mean she's going to fight someone else's battles, so why can't she get those two particular mutants out of her head?
"Watching you is giving me a headache. Are you still thinking about the diner boys?" a voice asks from behind her.
"I can't explain it, Kat. I just feel like something big is coming," Joni attempts to explain.
"You a precog now?" Joni's eyes roll, because the mixture of sarcasm and humor is clear in her closest friend's voice.
"Be serious for a moment. Have you heard anything?" Joni asks. She twists sideways in the old wingback chair and tilts her head back, and Kat is stretched out along the top of the chair. She's in her feline form, as Joni already expected, and she crosses her arms to resist the urge to pet the cat's soft-looking black fur.
"About your diner boys? No." Green eyes flick over at her, and Joni's eyes briefly glance up to watch Kat's tail lazily swish through the air. "Shaw though, I've heard of him. Remember hearing about him looking for powerful mutants. Rumor has it that he even has a teleporter."
"So he really is up to no good?" Joni asks uselessly. She already knows that he's up to no good. She can't explain exactly how she knows, but it's a feeling deep down in her gut and she trusts her instincts.
"For sure. Your diner boys don't stand a chance," Kat answers in a dry tone. Maybe they don't. It doesn't matter if they stand a chance or not, because it's not her fight.
"Probably not." Joni's tone is distracted, and Kat huffs before smoothly jumping down from the back of the chair. Four padded feet land on the wooden floor, and Joni lets her head fall back so that she's looking at everything upside down as Kat changes back into her human form.
"You need to stop thinking about them, Mack. Nothing good will come from it," Kat says as she walks into the kitchen. Kat's cabin isn't that big, so the living room and kitchen are basically the same room, and Joni's eyes watch Kat's long black hair sway against the pale expanse of her bare back.
"Consider the thoughts totally banished, Mac," Joni replies with a wide smile while still looking at everything upside-down.
"I mean it, Jonquil Verity McKenzie." Kat's standing in front of the open fridge, still completely naked, and Joni twists around as she fights off a pout after hearing her full name. She'll always love her mother, but the woman saddled her and her twin with some ridiculous names.
"I'll do my utmost best, Katerina Eva MacManus," Joni throws back since Kat hates her full name as well. As Kat's green eyes look at her in a glare, Joni hears the soft tone of Charles's voice and sees Erik's finger lazily circling in the air.
"This really isn't going to end well."
[X]
By the time Joni gives in and goes looking, Charles and Erik have already recruited a few other mutants and have sadly lost a couple of them. One of them dead and the other with Shaw. The mutants have also left the CIA, so it takes Joni longer than she wanted to hunt them down. She had to call in favors and endure Kat's angry grumbling, but she's done it. She's found the home of Charles Xavier.
"Well, it's certainly bigger than the shack I called home," Joni says to herself as she looks up at the mansion. Because this is most definitely a mansion.
Joni's sunglasses have slipped down to the edge of her nose, so dark brown eyes are scanning her surroundings now that she's snuck past the front gate. Her long dark brown hair is in a sloppy bun, and a few dark pieces are sticking to her sweaty cheeks. In her tan shorts and threadbare blue button-up, along with her clunky brown boots, she probably looks like the help. A gardener, maybe.
"Charles Xavier," Joni thinks before she can change her mind and run for the hills. "This is Joni McKenzie, from the Georgia diner. I thought I'd drop in and see if you still need help."
Everything around Joni is quiet as she stands on the lush green lawn and looks at the mansion, and she shifts her weight to her left foot. Her hands raise to prop on her hips, and she feels sweat pooling at the base of her throat. It's a beautiful day, but she's still feeling nervous as she waits for a response. Surely he heard her? She's had plenty of practice at projecting her thoughts.
"You are always welcome here, Joni."
First chapter down! I'd love to know thoughts and I'd be happy to answer questions. Thank you for reading!
