Author's note: So it's me again! I know, I know. You're thinking, another Hank/OC story from brigid1318? Shocking, I know.
So here's the thing: I never went and saw Dark Phoenix. I didn't need to. I knew exactly what was going to happen just from watching the trailer- Mystique getting impaled, Hank's entire motivation for the rest of the movie being about her death, and I didn't want to subject myself to the anger I knew I'd feel because for the love of God, Hank deserves so much better than that! And so did Mystique, to be honest. Mystique is not supposed to the the X-Men's "mom." She's a bad guy, and a fun one. The last two movies ruined that, and I had no intention of writing anything set post-Apocalypse.
And then I found out that there was actually a script floating around for Beast to be the main character of his own movie, set after Apocalypse. It's called Fear the Beast and it's available online if you want to look it up. I read it, and while it wasn't outstanding or anything, it finally sparked some plot bunnies. The love interest in the script is kinda "meh" so I made a new one. Roxanne is kinda a mix of Zoey and Vivien (who is, by far, my favorite OC that I've ever created) in some ways, but she's also a character in her own right. Where she came from and her family history will provoke further plot lines down the road.
This story is me having fun and exploring a different writing style. I'm so used to writing first person point of view, it's a challenge to do something different. And I missed writing for X-Men. So... here goes! Reviews are always appreciated, but not required. I don't have a posting schedule as of yet, so keep your eyes peeled for updates. Thanks to all of you who give this story a peek!
Quitting Dr. Cartier
It's the heart of an Alaskan winter, and there are no signs of life in the barren, snow-covered landscape. Mother Nature is sleeping, waiting for the faint whisper of spring.
For now, as the snow falls thick and heavy from the sky, springtime seems an almost impossible dream. All of the forest animals have wisely taken to their dens- nothing short of an emergency would cause any of them to leave their hideaways.
And then-
A black tailed deer bounds through the woods, the urgency of her pace speaking to her desperation. This is no leisurely prance through the forest.
Something is chasing her….
Seven Months Later
The sound of a familiar old truck approaching rouses the old man from the light dose he'd fallen into whilst doing a crossword puzzle. He glances at the clock above the mantle, visible from his worn old armchair, and frowns.
It's too early for Roxanne to be back yet, he muses to himself. Did Robert take the truck?
You'd think a man of one hundred and forty-six years of age would struggle to hear a vehicle from at least two miles down the road, but you'd be gravely mistaken.
This heightened sense of hearing is one of his many gifts, abilities handed down by his ancestors for uncountable generations. Enhanced senses of sight, hearing, and smell, speed, strength, agility, and of course his lengthy life span- all of these traits, and the strong instincts that come with them, have been part of his family for hundreds and hundreds of years.
"Feral mutants," his granddaughter once explained the phenomenon as. "The scientific world thinks this is a fairly new anomaly."
"How little the white man knows," the old man scoffed.
He may mock the white man occasionally- especially the racist hicks that make up the vast majority of the tiny town of Eagle Village- but his words usually hold little venom behind them. He cannot fully hate the race his grandchildren belong to.
The old man calls the twin boy and girl who've lived with him for over twenty years his grandchildren, but in truth there are no blood ties between them. Their family is based on a bond of love stronger than mere genetics. He raised Roxanne and Robert from infancy, when he found them abandoned in the woods many miles from town. It was easy to see why- their pointed, elven ears and little claws already marked them as different, as being like him. Though he was old, he couldn't bear to leave the tiny infants to a slow death in the snow, nor the hatred and disgust of a human orphanage. Instead he raised them as his own, giving them American sounding names and sending them to school in the next town over, in the hopes they wouldn't be associated with his reputation as Eagle Village's resident oddball.
His results were mixed, to put it lightly.
Right now the old man rises out of his chair with a little difficulty- his creaking bones protest at the action, and the sunken, worn out piece of furniture is loathe to let him go- but he manages it.
He catches sight of his reflection in the window as he shuffles to the door. Hair that was once thick and black is now wispy and white atop his wrinkled head. He left behind vanity much too long ago to feel self-conscious about it. He's pretty sure there aren't many centenarians who can claim to even look as alive as he does.
Roxanne has parked and hopped out of the truck by the time the old man reaches the front door and opens it. He can't help the pride that swells within his frail, sunken chest at the sight of his granddaughter, even as he takes in her dark expression and the scent of anger and- fear?- swirling around her.
His granddaughter is the apple of his eye, and has been since that day he found her and her brother as four month old infants in the forest. She's both beautiful and smart, and as fiery as her coppery red hair would suggest. He's proud of her accomplishments, of the fact that she graduated high school a year early with a full ride to Columbia and just completed a master's degree in biochemistry on the eve of her twenty-second birthday.
"Roxanne?" he asks. "What's wrong?"
Roxanne's lips curl back, revealing her dainty little fangs. "I quit Dr. Cartier's internship, Gramps," she explains, voice shaking. "I'm sorry."
Gramps doesn't bother to hide the disappointment he feels.
Roxanne has been gone at school down in New York for the better part of the past five years. When he saw the advertisement in the local paper for a laboratory assistant for Dr. Paul Cartier, a scientist who recently moved to the area, Gramps was thrilled to let Roxanne know about it. Knowing how much Gramps and Robert missed her, she turned down a position in California to return to Eagle Village following her graduation a mere three months ago. But now…
"What happened?" Gramps asks.
"Dr. Cartier, he- he tried to…."
The non-ending of her sentence, and the self-protective slump in her shoulders, speaks volumes.
Gramps suddenly feels about a hundred years younger, the old feral slumbering in his chest roaring back to life at the thought of anyone trying to hurt his cub. It doesn't matter that Roxanne is a grown woman in her own right and not his child by blood- a feral cares nothing for such pedantic logic. His cub has been threatened, and that is all that matters.
"He tried to what?" he demands. His demeanor has now completely shifted from a grandfatherly old man to a warrior ready to defend his own.
Roxanne winces- she's already regretting coming home like this, still gripped by her anger and other emotions. She should've gone elsewhere to cool down, knowing how Gramps would get too upset if he found out that Dr. Cartier tried to corner her in the lab and kiss her.
If she's honest with herself, today's events were simply the final straw on a growing pile for Roxanne to quit Dr. Cartier.
She'd thought him an odd duck from the moment she first met him (which is saying something, coming from her), but decided she could tolerate the awkward staring and nervous laughter. Scientists are weird as a general rule, and anyway- Roxanne knew how much it meant to Gramps for her to stay in Eagle Village. He wasn't doing so well, though he was too proud to admit it. She only knew from speaking to Robert about Gramps' true condition.
So she started to work for Dr. Cartier.
It was fine at first. He wanted her to reverse engineer some kind of compound, which was easy enough. When she asked what it was for he told her it was a mutation suppressing formula, which obviously gave her pause.
"It's for people who can't control their mutations," Dr. Cartier assured her, noting her alarm. Though Roxanne's mutation wasn't blatantly obvious- she was careful to hide her ears, fangs and claws from strangers- it was noticeable if one paid attention enough. The doctor knew what she was, she was sure, but her secret was safe with him. She could smell that the doctor was a mutant from the moment they met. "People who struggle and can perhaps be a danger to themselves or other people."
His expression when he said that made her uneasy, and she watched him carefully after that. His behavior started to become more erratic, and he refused to give her more meaningful tasks in regards to work. Dr. Cartier was hiding things from her, though she had only theories as to what.
And then he began to look at her differently.
Roxanne felt him intently watching her all the time, felt the animalistic desire in his gaze. Being a feral, she could smell that his thoughts were certainly not platonic in nature. As the days went by she could sense him fighting the urge to act on his impulses, which she was certainly grateful for. There was no chance of his ardor being reciprocated by her. Roxanne didn't consider herself a shallow woman, but being thought of as a sexual object by a squirrely- looking man old enough to be her father was definitely unwanted.
It all came to a head today, just three months after she began working for Dr. Cartier.
Roxanne was busy running a spectrophotometric assay when she became aware of his eyes on her. "Do you need something, Dr. Cartier?" she asked, masking her wariness with politeness.
He didn't answer at first. Instead he came closer, close enough that Roxanne could sense his intentions in his aura, sliding across her skin like slippery eels. The scent of his arousal tickled her nose unpleasantly. She tensed.
"N-no," he stuttered. The timidity in his voice didn't match what she sensed he was feeling. To her it seemed like there were two people in the room with her, two people in Dr. Cartier's body. One, an awkward scientist in his fifties.
And the other… a darkness she found deeply unsettling. Almost like Dr. Cartier was a new incarnation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Roxanne tried to ignore him behind her, but he came to stand right next to her on the bench. Her hyper-awareness made it easy to notice when he reached out- to touch her hair, she guessed.
Her hand darted up in that lightning fast way only a feral can move in, grabbing his wrist. "Please don't," she said, making her tone as assertive as she could considering her heart had just taken up residence in her throat.
Roxanne turned to face him, noting the changes just two months had wrought on him since they met. Dr. Cartier had lost weight, his skin becoming more pale and ashen and his behavior more unstable as the weeks passed.
But more worrisome at the moment- something dangerous and hungry was lurking behind his eyes, reacting to her distress with a sick pleasure. "And why not?" he asked, his voice suddenly almost a growl.
Roxanne stomped on her anxiety, choosing to react to this situation with righteous anger instead of more weakness. She had a feeling the ugliness in him would enjoy her fear, and she refused to indulge him. "I'm not interested in men old enough to be my father," she replied cooly. She flicked his hand away from her, fighting the urge to dig her claws into his flesh.
Dr. Cartier reached out and grabbed her arm in a vice-like grip that gave the lie to his apparent frailty. He started to pull her towards him, his eyes suddenly blood red, with cat-like pupils.
Roxanne's reaction was pure instinct- she grabbed the nearest glass beaker and smashed it against his head. When he released her arm she stomped on his instep for good measure before darting away from him.
"That's it," she snapped, though she was shaking like a leaf. "I quit. Don't ever come near me again. Mail me my last check."
And she turned on her heel and ran out of the lab, barely remembering to grab her things.
As she left, Roxanne could've sworn she saw white fur spouting out of Dr. Cartier's face.
"Don't worry about it," she declares to her grandfather now. "I took care of it."
The old man frowns. "Roxanne-"
"Seriously, Gramps, it's fine," she interjects. "Let's go inside."
Something in the air is making her disquiet grow. She doesn't want to be out in the open like this, not with her frail grandfather exposed. She can't hear anything out of the ordinary, but she still feels like they're being watched.
She's not wrong.