"Introduction"
The action of introducing something; a formal presentation of one person to another, in which each is told the other's name.
Anything in italics and underlined is in French.
"So, you're Charles's little sister?" Marianne asked with surprise. She never would have guessed - Charles seemed too much like an only child.
"If anything, I'm his adopted sister," Raven said with a grin. "But we're more like childhood friends who've always lived together."
"What are the chances of that?" Darwin laughed. "Adopting another mutant!"
"You're lucky, you got to meet another mutant early on," Sean said almost enviously. He glanced at Marianne. "Or you knew you had met another."
"I told you, I showed you when we first met," Marianne said. "It isn't my fault you forgot. And I could say the same about you."
Raven laughed, but it sounded a bit forced. "Yeah. Lucky."
Marianne stared at her, brows furrowed in concern. Raven met her eyes, gave a smile that wasn't really a smile, and looked away.
"A son?"
Marianne nodded. "Yes, he's twelve. He is staying with some friends while I am here."
"What's his name?" Raven asked eagerly.
"Henry Schulman," Marianne said. "He has my husband's last name."
"And you don't?" Angel questioned. Sean shot her a look. Angel glared right back when she noticed.
Marianne shrugged. "I started using my maiden name again after he died. My last name still is Schulman, but I prefer Ouellet." She smiled a little sadly. There had been too many memories attached to the name Schulman for her to keep using it. Her last name was still legally Schulman, however, as it would have made things too complicated to have a different last name than Henry.
"I wouldn't have pegged you as a mom," Angel said, clearly sensing this was a sensitive topic and changing the subject. "You don't seem like one."
Sean laughed and Angel shot him another look. Marianne gave him a look as well and he stopped laughing, though he was clearly still smiling as he drank his soda.
"A stripper?" Marianne repeated, barely managing to keep the horror out of her voice.
"It pays the bills, and I'm good at it," Angel said, sounding a bit defensive.
"I get it," Darwin said. "You have to do what you have to do. I was a cab driver before I got here. That's how Charles and Erik found me. They got into my cab and told me to drive them all the way to Richmond. We were in New York."
This diverted into a conversation about what they had all been doing when Charles and Erik had come to find them. Alex was cagey about his answer, whereas Sean happily told everyone about bringing his little sister to the aquarium. Hank described how Charles had accidentally exposed him when they met, as Hank worked with the CIA even before their arrival. Raven sighed and rolled her eyes when Marianne described the men's almost predatory arrival in her store. But even as the conversation continued to flow, she kept glancing at Angel. The girl was only nineteen, and she had been a stripper. Marianne was no stranger to sex workers; she had grown up in the Depression and had witnessed many prostitutes in her neighbourhood trying to make ends meet. Had Angel chosen to become a stripper? Or had she become one because she had no other choice?
Marianne really needed a drink.
"We should come up with code names," Raven suggested during a lull in the conversation.
Marianne, who had been thinking about taking out the book in her pocket as she examined the array of snacks in the fridge, looked over at her. "Any particular reason?"
"We are government agents, after all," Raven said with a shrug. "We should have secret code names."
"Do government agents have secret code names?" Marianne asked with a slight frown. She had never been one for the spy thriller novels, so she wasn't sure if agents really had code names or not. Even then, she doubted the authenticity of such novels. She shut the fridge when she realized that most of the food in the fridge was junk food. Disgusting.
"Yeah, of course they do," Sean said as she returned to her seat. "Everyone knows that."
"I want to be called Mystique," Raven said.
"Mystique - French for 'mystical.' Very nice choice, but of course, I'm biased."
"Someone approves!" Raven gave her a thumbs up. "Mystique it is, then!"
"Damn, I wanted to be called Mystique," Sean joked.
"Well, tough, I called it," Raven teased back. As she spoke, a ripple of what looked like blue scales ran over her body, too quick for Marianne to process what she was seeing until it was over and there were two Sean's sitting across from each other. The original Sean jumped in his seat, startled at the appearance of a second him, while everyone else had the same reaction or whooped at Raven's display of her powers. Marianne laughed in delight, especially as Raven-Sean smiled almost seductively at the real Sean and said, "And I'm way more mysterious than you."
As everyone clapped for Raven, both she and Angel laughing at Sean's surprise, she turned back to her original self so quickly Marianne could have blinked and missed it.
"How about you, Darwin?" Raven asked as the applause died down.
Darwin considered the question for a moment. "Well, Darwin is already a nickname, and it fits - adapt to survive, and all." When he noticed their curious stares, he smiled and stood up. "Watch this."
And so they watched as Darwin approached a fish tank on one side of the room, confidence evident in his every step, and they watched as Darwin stuck his head into the water. To their amazement, giant gills grew out of the sides of his face, and as Darwin proved to them by opening his mouth underwater, they worked as actual gills did.
"Amazing!" Marianne declared, clapping with the rest of the team. Everyone was laughing and cheering as Darwin pulled his head out of the water and shook himself dry. "Truly, amazing!"
"Thank you, thank you," Darwin accepted their praise with open arms, grinning at them all. He pointed right at Sean. "What about you?"
"Ooh, yes, Sean, what about you?" Marianne asked eagerly. She leaned forward, placing her chin on her fist and propping up her arm on her knee. What could he do here that he couldn't do on the plane? It must have been something less self-centred than Raven's or Darwin's, or he would have been able to show her.
"I'm going to be…" Sean leaned forward, thought for a second, and grinned. "Banshee."
Of course, honouring his Irish heritage with his name would be the obvious move for him to make. But why Banshee? Marianne wondered. Hank asked what she had been thinking, and instead of answering Hank's question, Sean grinned once more and stood up.
"Mrs. O, you might want to step out of the way," he said, gesturing for her to move. Marianne stood up and moved behind the couch where Raven and Hank sat, now even more curious as she watched Sean crouch down in front of the table. "Everyone, cover your ears."
Marianne put her fingers in her ears. Once everyone had done the same, Sean inhaled, looked at both sides of the room to make sure they were watching (Marianne smiled encouragingly at him, which made him smile in return), and gave an absolutely piercing whistle that completely shattered the second ceiling-to-floor window, opposite to the one overlooking Cerebro. The window, now in millions of tiny pieces of glass, crashed to the floor, some of the shards spilling into the break room while other pieces fell into the garden outside. Marianne had to react quickly so none of the pieces hit anybody, but no one noticed her casual display of power. It was clear from Sean's embarrassed expression that he had not meant to hit the window, but rather the glasses on the table lined up in a perfect row. However, as everybody was laughing in delight over his display of power rather than at his mistake, he didn't seem too bothered by it.
"Amazing, Sean," Marianne repeated her praise of Darwin's powers, shaking her head in awe. She understood why he couldn't show her before. "Absolutely amazing! Incroyable!"
It was amazing; it was amazing how suddenly, after years of hiding their powers from the world, everyone was so ready to show what they could do. They were among people like them now, and they could show off what they had hidden their entire lives. Marianne could feel the energy rising in the room with each new display of power and could feel herself getting swept along with it. She wanted to show these people what she could do.
She cast a glance at the shattered pieces of the window. "Sean."
"Yeah, I know." Sean sighed, messing up his hair. "I'll fix it."
"How?" Angel laughed. Sean shrugged, grinning unashamedly.
Marianne shook her head at the destruction, but a thought was forming in her mind.
Angel stood up, now grinning cockily as she slipped off her leather jacket. "My stage name was Angel," she said. As she took off her jacket she revealed an intricate series of tattoos on her back and shoulders that looked like the pattern of a dragonfly's wings. "It kind of fits."
Just as quickly as Raven had changed forms, the tattoos on Angel's back split from her body, growing membrane and veins, forming wings that looked exactly like a dragonfly's. They even shimmered in different colours as dragonfly wings did, and the way they fluttered made it obvious they were not just for decoration.
"You can fly?" Raven marvelled. Angel grinned over her shoulder.
"That's not all." Angel turned to look into the garden. She seemed to focus on something, took a deep breath, and spat. A flaming ball of something flew from her mouth, arcing over the garden and landing on the head of a statue in the center of the garden. As the statue began to dissolve and smoke rose from the smouldering head, Marianne realized that Angel had just spat out acid.
While the rest whooped in absolute delight at the destruction of property, Marianne wondered for a second if she should try to calm them down. A window and now a statue were broken, and this was a government building, after all.
When she looked around at everyone's utterly joyful expressions, though, she couldn't bring herself to. They were like her; they had been alone for so long (except for Raven), and they were finally in the presence of others just like them. She couldn't bring down their spirits right as they had started to rise. If things got worse, then she would step in.
Angel smiled at Hank as she pulled her jacket back on. "How about you?"
Hank looked down on his feet. Marianne, who hadn't moved back to her chair since Sean had told her to get out of the way, couldn't see his expression, but she saw the tension in his shoulders at Angel's question. Hank hadn't shown them his mutation, but he had briefly described it to them earlier, and the clear reluctance in his voice and on his face as he had done so kept anyone from asking him more questions about his ape-like oversized feet.
"How about Bigfoot?" Alex asked.
Marianne looked over at him with a frown. He had sounded just a bit too mocking for his comment to be friendly teasing. Even if it had been meant as teasing, it was over the line - Hank looking away and the way his shoulders raised was proof of that.
"Alex, that was uncalled for," she said.
The few chuckles that had started up at Alex's comment died down quickly. Alex blinked at her, taken aback. Marianne stared at him, a small, disappointed frown on her face. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that everyone was either looking at her or at Alex or looking back and forth between the two of them.
"Um." Alex looked around at the room. Marianne watched as he looked to Sean, who mouthed something at him. He finally turned back to Marianne, stared at her a few seconds, before he finally looked back at Hank. "Uh, sorry, man?"
Hank sounded just as bewildered as Alex looked when he said, "It's fine."
Marianne nodded, satisfied with this. She could have left the comment go, but with Hank's clear discomfort with his mutation and his reaction to Alex's teasing, she couldn't bring herself to. As she perched on the back of the couch - her own chair was right in the path of disaster, as Sean and Angel had both proved - she noticed Hank glance up at her with confusion in his eyes. She casually patted Hank's shoulder.
Darwin cleared his throat and asked, "Alex, what is your gift? What can you do?"
The initial stunned silence of the room was broken. Alex shook his head as though trying to clear it. "I, uh, I can't do it. Not in here."
"What about outside?" Marianne asked, gesturing to the garden outside the broken window.
"Yeah, can you do it out there?" Darwin asked. The rest of the group started asking the same question, prodding him to show his powers outside until they began to chant his name. Alex looked more and more reluctant with every passing second as their chant rose in volume, until finally he sighed, set down his drink and stood up. Everyone cheered.
As Alex approached the window, grumbling all the way, Marianne said, "Alex, you don't have to do anything if you don't want to."
Alex looked back at her as the others groaned in protest.
"I'm serious," She insisted over their groaning. "You don't have to show us if you're uncomfortable." Even though Alex had made Hank uncomfortable, it wouldn't be right for him to be pressured into showing them his powers if he was truly worried about them.
Alex stared at her for a second. Then he scoffed and said, "I'm fine, mom, don't worry about it."
Marianne raised her hands in defence, although she hadn't taken offence to his tone. "Alright, I only wanted to make sure you knew."
"Okay, well, whatever," was Alex's reply. He stepped over the remains of the broken window and onto the concrete sidewalk running around the perimeter of the garden. "Get down when I tell you."
Marianne couldn't help but smile as she heard Sean and Raven mocking Alex's warning as they all followed him to the window. As glass crunched underneath her shoes, however, she fiddled with her locket. He had been so reluctant to show them. What could he do that he couldn't do in the room, and what could his powers do that made him so resistant to showing them?
She and the rest of them leaned out the window, watching as Alex stood in a corner of the garden and faced the still smoking statue. As he was steeling himself, he glanced over and noticed them leaning out and staring at him. He told them to get back. Marianne was the only one who didn't, but the rest leaned forward again only two seconds after they leaned back. Alex noticed and gestured more forcefully, repeating, "Get back!", but this time, none of them listened.
"Alex, whatever it is, I can deflect it with my own powers," Marianne assured him. Although she didn't know what he could do, the last thing he needed after being pressured was to feel anxious about hurting any of them.
"Whatever," Alex repeated under his breath, turning back to the statue and beginning to rotate his body in circles. As he did, his body began to glow red.
Marianne's eyes grew wide as fluorescent red rings of pure energy burst forth from his skin, swirling around and across his body as he continued to rotate, almost reminding her of hula hoops. Alex had started slow, but as he continued, he began to spin faster and faster, and the rings responded to his speed - they started flying out in all directions, aimless and dangerous. They did as Alex had asked them to, finally - they leaned back and ducked, some of them even yelping as one of the rings flew right by them, with Darwin stepping in front of Raven and Angel, the two closest to him, and Marianne instinctively raising her hands. The rings sizzled as they flew, hitting the walls, the ground, and nearly everything surrounding them, leaving only black burn marks and gashes on every surface they met. The statue was sliced in two with no effort whatsoever, the top half tumbling to the ground, both halves flaming where they had been cut.
The rings stopped flying after the statue fell over. There was a second of stunned silence before Raven let out a shocked laugh that led the way for more laughter and cheering.
Marianne continued to stare at the damage along the walls and ground, her mouth slightly open. No wonder Alex had been so reluctant to show them.
As Alex stepped back into the room, looking a little proud of himself, Marianne closed her mouth, shook her head and clapped along with the rest of them.
She had discovered her powers when they had activated on their own. Until she had learned some sense of control, things had reacted without her consent. A glass would shatter when she got upset. A chair would fly to the ceiling when she got angry. Objects would float harmlessly in circles when she was excited. Things happened whether she wanted them to or not.
What sort of things could have happened to these teens when they were still learning? When their powers were still developing? When they didn't know what was happening to them or what they could even do?
She swallowed hard.
"What do you got?" She heard Alex ask, bringing her out of her thoughts.
"See, I don't know!" Raven said.
"We'll think of something soon," Sean said. "How about Sparky?"
"No," came Alex's flat reply.
"Energizer."
"No."
"Hula."
"No."
"We'll think of something," Raven said. "Promise."
"I'll keep my fingers crossed," Alex remarked sarcastically before he turned to Marianne. He crossed his arms and raised his eyebrows almost challengingly. "How about you?"
Marianne raised an eyebrow and smiled as she turned to the broken window. She held out her hands, palms facing up; every single piece of broken glass scattered across the ground, no matter how small or unnoticeable, rose into the air, flying out from underneath the chairs and couches, rising out of the carpet, pulling themselves free from underneath people's shoes. She turned her hands over, and the glass flew to the window, putting themselves back together like a puzzle. Marianne didn't have to think about which pieces fit together - they simply went back to where they were supposed to be, each of them fitting perfectly into place.
While the pieces were in place, they weren't fixed. It was still obvious the window was broken. Marianne focused, imagining the shards melting into each other, mending, the cracks between them disappearing as they became one again.
There were faint crackling noises as the cracks in the glass slowly faded away, leaving behind one whole, perfect window.
Marianne lowered her hands and smiled as the young adults around her cheered. Because she was in the mood for showing off a bit, she flicked her wrist. Out in the garden, the statue's flames had mostly died down, but a few sparks flew as the top half lifted from the ground and spun in the air before settling down on the bottom half. She stared at the statue and the pieces came together - a little uneven, but in one piece again. It was still smoking and a chunk of the head had been dissolved, but for the most part, it was fixed.
"Let's keep our celebration a little more contained, yes?" Marianne asked.
"That was awesome!" Raven cried, ignoring Marianne's request. "So, like, you can control things?"
"Telekinesis?" Hank supplied the word.
"Yes!" Raven pointed at him enthusiastically. "Thank you, Hank!"
"That is what I can do, yes," Marianne said, grinning. She held out her hand and her glass of water floated from the table and into her hand. She took a sip, paused, and then said, "For the record, I will not be cleaning up anyone else's mess."
"Oh, come on," Alex groaned. "Lighten up!" Angel and Sean both agreed, lightly teasing her ("Lighten up, Marianne!" "Yeah, lighten up, Mrs. O!"). Marianne rolled her eyes. Teenagers.
(And god, her heart panged at the reminder.)
"Relax, you guys," Darwin laughed. "Alex, you heard her, no more messes."
"I wasn't the only one who destroyed something!"
"Any ideas for a name, Raven?" She asked, ignoring Alex's protests and complaining, Angel and Sean's teasing and the slight pain.
"None."
"Well, I'm sure you'll think of something wonderful." Marianne glanced at the clock on the wall. Would the meeting be over by now? Almost an hour had passed, surely it had to be over. "Do you have any ideas for Charles or Erik?"
"Didn't you say Charles just became a professor?" Angel asked, appearing at Raven's side and flashing Marianne a grin. "How about Egghead?"
The two younger girls laughed. "Maybe," Raven joked. "I'll keep it in mind."
"And Erik? What's a name for him?"
"I had an idea, actually," Hank spoke up. When everyone turned to him, he looked down at his hands. "Maybe."
"What was it?" Marianne asked.
Hank glanced around at the room before his eyes landed on Raven. "Well, Erik controls metal, right? Well, more accurately, he controls the magnetic fields. There's this machine, an electrical generator, actually, which uses permanent magnets to produce periodic pulses of alternating current. It's called a magneto, and a permanent magnet produces magnetic fields, and since that's Erik's power, I thought-"
"Oh!" Raven clapped her hands together, interrupting Hank's rambling. "I get it! Oh, that's perfect, Hank!"
"Nerd," Alex scoffed.
"It's brilliant," Marianne said firmly.
"I understood half of what you said, man, but I think it works." Sean shrugged, nodding his head in approval.
"That's really good, Hank," Angel agreed.
"So, Magneto it is, then?" Darwin asked the group. "Then Charles, Marianne, Hank and Alex are the only ones without a name."
"We'll figure it out! We have to put in Charles' nerdiness into his name, somehow."
"I liked Angel's idea."
"Thank you, Sean."
"Good job with the name, Hank," Marianne said, patting his shoulder as she passed him by. "I'll be back in a moment, everyone."
As soon as she shut the doors firmly behind her, she fell against them with a heavy sigh. She shut her eyes and breathed in deeply.
She opened her eyes, stood up straight, and marched down the hallway. She had to stop an agent passing by to find out if the meeting was over or not. Luckily for her, it was, and the agent was nice enough to point her in the direction of the meeting room. After thanking him, she continued her walk, more determined now that she knew where she was going.
After walking down a few more hallways and turning a few more corners, she finally found the ones she had been looking for, and they were heading her way.
"Marianne, hello," Charles greeted brightly.
"Hello, Charles," she said. "Hello, Erik, Agent."
"Lucky we ran into you," Agent MacTaggert said, breaking her stride for a moment to allow Marianne to fall into step with her. "We just got Shaw's location and the go-ahead from my superiors."
"Charles, these kids are not ready for Shaw," Erik insisted.
The way he said "kids" struck Marianne, and she felt a surge of anger. They knew they were too young and they were still willing to use them? But he didn't think they should face Shaw either.
"About that," Marianne began, "I had some questions for the two of you-"
"I assure you, both of you," Charles interrupted, "that these young people are exceptional. They will surprise you."
"That is not what I was-"
"I know, Marianne, but I think-"
Agent MacTaggert cut them all off. "What the hell?"
Marianne had heard the sound of rock music in the distance but had thought nothing of it except to assume it was the kids having a good time. She had been right; she had been far too right. Rock music was blaring on the jukebox, at least five times louder than it needed to be. The couches had been shoved around the room, and a leg of the table in the back had gone missing. Angel was dancing several feet above the floor, a drink in one hand, while Raven bounced up and down on the couch, waving her hands in the air, both girls singing along to the music. Hank had somehow gotten up on the chandelier and was hanging upside down from his bare feet, shoes and socks discarded on the ground, his earlier nerves apparently gone. Darwin stood at the center of the room, covered in a protective layer of rock as Sean and Alex took turns hitting him with various items around the room while he yelled at them challengingly to do better.
Marianne glanced at the other adults. Agent MacTaggert had her hands on her hips, looking livid, Erik was staring in disbelief, and Charles just looked disappointed.
MacTaggert turned to look at the statue and squinted at it. "Does the statue look different to you?" She asked Marianne.
Marianne pursed her lips and didn't answer.
"It has a hole in its head," Erik supplied. "And it's smoking."
"Yes, I noticed that," MacTaggert snapped. "What happened?" She directed this question at Marianne.
"Things got… a little... out of hand," she said slowly, trying to figure out how to say it in English. "That's the right way to say it?" She looked to the others. Erik nodded while Charles continued to stare at the young adults who had yet to notice their presence. "I fixed it but I could only do so much." She decided not to mention the broken window.
MacTaggert closed her eyes, took a breath and headed for a door in the wall. The other three hurried to follow her as she yanked the door open, turned a corner, and pulled open the set of doors leading to the break room.
"What are you doing?" She yelled as soon as she had stepped inside, Marianne, Charles and Erik right behind her. The singing and shouting stopped; Hank dropped from the ceiling and rose to his feet, the boys stopped beating each other up, Angel floated back to the ground, her wings still spread out, and Raven stopped dancing. The music continued to play, but a glance at the jukebox from Marianne and a gentle tug of her mind made it stop.
"Marianne said she fixed the statue," MacTaggert said angrily, her hands returning to her hips. "What happened that made it need fixing?"
"Alex," Hank blurted out. Alex shot him a glare.
"No!" Raven said, turning to the two boys. "We have to call him Havoc now. That's his codename." She turned back to face the four elders, pointing at Charles. "And we were thinking you could be Professor X," she pointed at Erik, "and you could be Magneto!"
"Exceptional," Erik remarked sarcastically before turning and walking away. MacTaggert followed him, sighing, leaving Charles and Marianne standing together. Marianne bit her lip as Raven's face fell.
"I expect more from you," Charles said coldly as he, too, walked away.
Marianne looked at the teens, who were all watching her, looking embarrassed. All she said before following Charles out of the room was, "I was gone for five minutes."
She was more disappointed in herself than she was with them, if she was being honest. She had allowed them to mess around the way that they had, even if she hadn't encouraged it. Of course, they would take it to the next level once she was gone. But they were young adults surrounded by other people like them for the first time ever; of course, they would want to let loose. On the other hand, she had asked them to calm down and it hadn't taken them very long to cause the damage they had. She sighed.
It wasn't really her place to be disappointed in them, though.
"Charles," she said, grabbing his shoulder. "Charles, they didn't mean any harm."
"I know that," Charles said in a clipped voice. "That doesn't mean they didn't cause harm."
"No one was hurt," she said with a frown. "They were just excited."
"They represent something new; they're the face of all of this. They can't afford to be excited if this is what happens."
"Charles," Marianne said forcefully, forcing him to stop and finally face her, "they are young. They are young and they are with people who are like them for the first time ever. You cannot expect them to be perfect."
Charles frowned. "I don't expect perfection."
"Even so, you expect too much from them." She crossed her arms. "They are young. Sean is only eighteen, Alex and Angel are all nineteen. Hank is twenty. They will make mistakes." She was silent for a moment.
"And," she continued, "what exactly do you expect from them?"
Charles frowned further. "I expect a certain level of maturity. They all have extraordinary gifts, they should be able to act like adults."
She opened her mouth, but he spoke before she could. "I know you think they're children-"
"I don't think they are children, I think they are young enough that most of them cannot even vote and you brought them into a war."
Charles looked taken aback by the steel in her voice. "We-"
"Sean is eighteen," she interrupted. "Hank is twenty. Alex and Angel are nineteen. Darwin and Raven are the only ones who should be here, and I use 'should' very loosely. You and Erik both recruited a bunch of young people to fight in a war, to possibly give their lives, and you criticize them for acting their age."
Charles bit his lip and wouldn't meet her eyes.
"Sean is still in college, did you know that?" She continued. "Of course you did. He only graduated last year. I don't know about the others." She breathed in deeply. "How could you and Erik do that? Ask them to fight? There must have been others our age."
"There weren't," Charles said, shaking his head. "Not many, not enough."
Marianne stared. What did that mean, 'not enough'?
"I've been working on a theory about mutants and mutations," Charles began to explain, seeing the confusion on her face. "My theory is that while mutants have always been among humanity, they've always been incredibly scarce and very rare. But the beginning of the nuclear age was a catalyst for the evolutionary process, so there are more now than there were before." He sighed. "Unfortunately, that means that most of the mutants we could find are younger than I would have liked."
"You don't find a problem with this?" Marianne demanded, spreading her hands.
"I do," Charles insisted, reaching out and putting a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Believe me, if there was another option, I would have taken it. This was the only option."
Marianne closed her eyes and shook her head, trying to focus her thoughts. This was too much. This could not have been the only option. But if Charles had a machine that let him read the minds of everyone on earth - then maybe it had to be. But he could have been lying.
She opened her eyes and met his. His crystal blue eyes stared at her, wide and desperate, pleading with her to believe what he was telling her.
Her shoulders sagged. She pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. "I believe you," she said finally. "Does Erik think the same?"
"Yes, he does," Charles said, removing his hand from her shoulder and smiling in relief. "He's more determined to find Shaw and defeat him than I am, but he has the same feelings you do. Besides," he added, "you saw what they could do. Their powers are very strong, and we're going to help them all get stronger. We can do this. You have to trust they can handle it."
Marianne wanted to shake her head, but she didn't. Knowing Charles had the same reservations she did may have made her feel better but nothing about this situation was good.
"Why did they agree to this?" She asked. "Was it to meet others like them? Were they really so eager to go to war?"
"It was mostly the first one," Charles admitted, putting one hand in his pockets. "They wanted to develop their powers, meet other mutants. Did any of them want to go to war? No, but they were willing to fight for their country." He smiled slightly. "There's something to be said for their dedication."
"So, none of them-" Wanted to die. Were leaving something worse.
"No," Charles said quickly, taking a step forward and putting his hand on her shoulder again. "No, none of them are death seekers or anything like that. Don't worry about that."
Too late, she thought grimly.
The departure of Erik, Charles and Agent MacTaggert had been awkward; not for Marianne but for everyone else. Erik merely nodded at the group, MacTaggert said goodbye but also made the younger ones promise not to do any more damage (glaring at them all sternly as they each promised), while Charles gave Raven a tight hug and said a sincere goodbye to them all. The young adults had all reacted as anyone would when they had been embarrassed and pretended the earlier incident had never happened at all, when it was clear it was all they were thinking about.
Marianne, thankfully free from any embarrassing feelings, was able to say goodbye easily. She shook hands with Erik and said goodbye, and while doing the same with MacTaggert, the other woman told her, "Just call me Moira," which made her beam and Moira smile back, albeit somewhat awkwardly.
"Take care of yourselves," Marianne had said as the three departed. "Au revoir."
"Until we meet again," Charles had said with a wink and a smile. Marianne shook her head, and she heard Raven snort. Moira gave a wave, Erik didn't look back, and the three were gone just like that.
The rest of the evening passed normally, with Marianne going to bed earlier than the others. The next day she also woke up earlier than they did, which meant she had some quiet time in the break room.
Apparently, out of the entire CIA facilities, the break room and their own rooms were the only places that were suited for them. While they were technically allowed to go anywhere, they were heavily discouraged from doing so. It hadn't been said in words, but the looks she received from the guards and agents in the halls certainly implied it. It wasn't the normal looks she was used to receiving from men - while there were certainly the same looks from a few of them, these looks were more… hostile. It was like they were waiting for her to do something. If they weren't hostile, it was like they were looking at a circus freak.
So Marianne stayed in the break room, which had been cleaned up over the night. The table was fixed and everything was back in place.
Once again, there was nothing but junk food - what were they expected to eat, exactly? She would have to bring that up with Agent Platt.
The others came in slowly, with Raven showing up first, bright and chipper, and Alex and Sean tied for last. As the day progressed, it became clear that the energy from the previous night had disappeared. The reality of being stuck in one room seemed to have drained them all of any excitement.
Fights were picked, mostly by Alex and mostly whenever Hank stopped by from whatever he was working on in his lab. Marianne and Darwin were always quick to end anything before it escalated, Hank would leave, and Alex would go back to whatever he had been doing. At around noon, Raven got bored, sat next to Marianne on the couch, and started trying to come up with codenames for her.
("How about… um, Enchantress?"
"I like that, but no, thank you."
"The Librarian," Sean said, spreading his hands in the air.
"I'm not a librarian."
"The Book Keeper, then."
"That doesn't have anything to do with her powers!"
"So then how about…")
And on and on it went.
"So, a bookstore?" Raven asked with her eyebrows raised. "So you're a nerd just like Charles?"
Marianne rolled her eyes. "I suppose so."
"How long have you owned it?" Angel asked.
"Almost thirteen years," Marianne said with a proud smile. "I was still pregnant with Henry when it opened."
"And you're thirty-one?" When Marianne nodded, Angel whistled, impressed. "Nineteen years old and you owned your own store? Nice."
"Wait, so you were only nineteen when you had a child?" Hank questioned, looking surprised.
Marianne shifted in her seat. "Yes." Before anything else could be said, she turned to Angel. "So, Angel, what about you? When did your mutation develop?"
Angel grimaced but described the morning she woke up at fourteen years old to find herself in a cocoon and emerged with a pair of dragonfly wings that stuck to her back like tattoos and the ability to spit acid. It did not sound like a pleasant experience.
"What did your parents think?" Marianne asked. She could only imagine what it would be like to wake up and find your child going through something like that.
"I don't know." Although Angel shrugged, her shoulders seemed stiff. "It happened the day after my stepdad kicked me out of the house."
She sounded like she was talking about the weather.
Marianne stared.
"That's awful," Raven said, sounding sympathetic. She hesitated and then said, "My parents abandoned me when I was around nine. I met Charles when I was ten."
Marianne stared.
"Lucky you met Charles," Angel said with a sad smile. "I was on my own for a while. I met some nice people and they took care of me, but it wasn't quite the same as a family. I still had to hide these." She gestured to her wings.
Marianne stared.
"How about you, Hank?" Raven asked, turning to the spectacled boy, who suddenly became more interested in polishing his glasses on his shirt than looking at Raven. Raven nodded and didn't ask again. "Marianne? You?"
Marianne stared. She blinked and cleared her throat. "I'm- I'm sorry, you said you were fourteen? And ten?"
Angel and Raven nodded.
"I see." She could hear her heartbeat in her ears. Fourteen and ten years old. Children. Children abandoned by their parents. Children left on the streets. Angel's stepfather hadn't even known about her mutation and he had thrown her out. Anything could have happened to her. Anything could have happened to either of them.
Marianne cleared her throat again and shook her head. "My parents… well, they knew. They didn't understand, but they knew about me. There was not much they could do, so they would just try to get me to keep myself relaxed."
Angel nodded with a bitter smile. "Lucky you."
Lucky her. Her parents had been good in that regard, at least. Better than they could have been.
"When was the first time you found out about your acid spit?" Sean asked, changing the subject.
Angel grinned, a real one this time. "Well, that one took a bit of time to figure out. See, I was fifteen…"
While Angel entertained them with the story of spitting at some catcaller on the street and burning a hole through his leg, Marianne looked around the room at all of the young adults. Darwin and Alex were playing with a pinball machine against the wall. Everyone else was sitting around on the couches and chairs listening to Angel's story.
So young, Marianne thought, her stomach twisting. To be thrown on the street like trash… she knew Sean hadn't experienced that, and she certainly hadn't. But what about Alex or Darwin? Or Hank? Hank didn't seem to have had a good experience, if his avoidance of the subject was anything to go by.
She watched as Sean tossed some peanuts into the air and tried to catch them in his mouth. Two of them bounced off his nose and onto the floor. Hank laughed at something Raven had said about Angel's story. Marianne clenched her teeth and clutched her glass, making sure not to shatter it or any of the others by accident. What sort of parent abandoned their child like that?
A tap on the window pulled her out of her head and the chatter of the others stopped. They all turned to look at the window. Two agents stood on the other side, grinning mockingly at the inhabitants of the room.
"I didn't know the circus was in town!" One of them taunted.
Marianne's eyes narrowed. The smile on Raven's face disappeared, and Sean, Angel and Hank all now looked very uncomfortable.
"Hey, come on, honey," the other agent said, smirking at Angel. "Give us a little show!" He flapped his hands around his head in a poor imitation of wings.
Angel glared at them.
"No? Come on, let's see the foot!"
Marianne placed her glass on the table and stood up, staring straight at the two men. They grinned.
"Hey, sweetheart, how about you come on out and show us what you can do?"
Sean began to rise to his feet, his face screwed up in anger, but Marianne held out a hand to stop him. Without a word, she strode towards the window, not breaking eye contact with the agents, who's taunts grew louder as she came closer. She held up her hand. The window cracked with a shattering sound. The taunting stopped as the two men yelped. With a flick of her wrist, the curtain closed, hiding the men from their view. She heard one of them yell "Freak!", and then heard the satisfying sound of one of them tripping over the piece of sidewalk in the courtyard she had raised. She smirked and turned around, waving her hand over her shoulder and fixing the window. Moira didn't need to know about that.
"You'd think men in their position would have better manners," she said sarcastically as she sat back down.
Angel angrily set her glass on the table and glared at the window.
"They're just guys being stupid," Raven said, sounding just as upset as Angel looked.
Angel scoffed. "Guys being stupid I can handle. I've been dealing with that my whole life. But I'd rather have guys staring at me with my clothes off than the way these ones stare at me."
"At us," Raven said after a moment, looking down at her lap.
Marianne opened her mouth to say something, but whatever she would have said died in her throat. A chill ran down her spine. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up.
Something was wrong.
She did not know what, but something was wrong.
A muffled sound came from outside. Then came a thump.
She wasn't the only one who had heard it; she heard Darwin asking what it was.
The sound and thump came again, and again, and again.
Marianne stood up and approached the window. Every instinct in her body was telling her something was wrong. She heard the others standing up and joining her at the window, and Darwin stood right next to her. He hit the button that opened the curtains.
The courtyard was empty.
Marianne looked up.
There was a silhouette up in the sky, right up against the moon. It looked like two people.
"What is that?" Darwin asked in an eerily calm tone.
One of the figures disappeared. The other plummeted to the ground.
It's Platt, Marianne realized distantly. An electric shock ran through her body and she threw out her hand to stop his fall -
She acted too late. Platt's body hit the ground with a sickening smack. Everyone jumped back and Raven screamed. Marianne stared at the body, broken and bleeding, her mouth open slightly. His neck was bent at an odd angle.
A body fell into the courtyard. Then another. Then another. Each hit the ground with the same smack and crunching sound as Platt's. One fell right through the glass ceiling that hung over the garden, his body becoming bloody and mangled as the glass tore through him. His body hung limply from the ceiling - like a doll, Marianne thought with a sense of detachment.
The others were yelling. Raven was screaming. Marianne just stood there, staring at the body. Her mind felt fuzzy, and yet somehow perfectly clear at the same time.
She felt Sean grab her arm. "Mrs. O!"
She was back to herself in an instant. "All of you, away from the window!" She yelled, pushing Sean behind her and reaching out towards Angel. When Angel reached her, Marianne pulled her closer and then pushed her behind as well, not taking her eyes off the window.
Several agents swarmed into the courtyard, each of them carrying rifles. Their leader hit the window, yelling at them to get back and to not leave the room. They were under attack. Without any warning, a man appeared in the center of the courtyard in a poof of red smoke. Marianne's immediate thought was that the devil had come for them all. The man's skin was blood red and he had horns and a tail, and he smiled broadly as the agents turned their guns on him. When the agents started firing at the devil man, everyone started screaming.
Marianne and Darwin exchanged looks for a split-second. Then they acted.
"Everyone behind the couches, now!" Marianne screamed, turning and herding the others behind the closest couch. Darwin raised his arms in a defensive stance at the front of the group, ready to shield them from any stray bullets. Once everyone else was hidden behind the couch, Marianne spun back to face the window and held her arms out, doing her best to shield them herself. She glanced at Darwin and took a step forward, standing just a bit ahead of him.
The devil man disappeared and reappeared next to an agent, grabbing him and turning his firing gun towards the window. The window shattered. Marianne threw her hand out and the glass flew back, aimed straight for the devil man like millions of miniscule daggers. When he disappeared again, she willed them to fall to the ground before they hit any of the agents.
A roar coming from behind them made them all turn. Right outside the other window, a tornado swirled across the field, right into the path of Cerebro.
All the while, there was a buzzing in Marianne's ears. Something more was happening somewhere else. She could feel it in her bones.
The sound of clashing metal brought their attention back to the courtyard. The devil man had brought out a pair of swords and was cutting down the remaining agents like they were made of paper.
"Stay here, my ass!" Darwin yelled. "Let's go!" He gestured for them to follow him and took off towards the door. When they didn't follow quickly enough, Marianne started grabbing them by their arms and shoulders, pulling them to their feet and pushing them towards the door. She didn't follow until everyone was in front of her. They rushed down the hall, Marianne looking behind them every so often, but were stopped by the agents at the end of the hall. Despite Darwin's protests that they could help and the attempts to get past the agents, they were held back.
A pop went off in Marianne's ears. "Everyone get down!"
Only a second after she screamed it, an explosion went off at the end of the hall. The ground shook and the walls were bathed in the oranges and yellows of fire. As the agents started shooting down the hall, Darwin started pushing them back to the room they had come from, with Marianne leading the group this time. As soon as she was in the room she had her arms held out, looking around for any threats. The others slid into the room, Sean reaching her side in seconds. She patted his shoulder, assuring herself he was alright, before her eyes were drawn to the tornado still whirling around the facility grounds. It tore into Cerebro, breaking it down into pieces that were then sucked back into the winds.
In the courtyard, the devil was still taking down agents with the grace and skill that could only come from a trained killer. He used every advantage, leaving his opponents with none. When there was only one agent left standing and aiming a gun at his head, he twisted his tail around the neck of another agent, swaying the man in front of him as a human shield until the free agent shot at him and hit the other agent in the head. Raven buried her face in her hands and let out a loud sob. Marianne grabbed her shoulder and gave it a squeeze, then spun around just in time to break the window and outstretch her arms. The agent that would have been smashed through the glass, sent flying by the tornado, flew straight to her, nearly bowling her over. Sean and Alex rushed to help her put him down on the floor, and Hank quickly checked his vitals. The man was unconscious and bleeding from his temple, but he was alive. That was what mattered.
The sound of a body hitting the ground told Marianne that the only agent still in the courtyard was dead. Raven sobbed again, and Marianne got to her feet and wrapped one arm firmly around the girl's shoulders, holding her close.
As the devil man stepped into the room through the window, acting as though he had not just murdered dozens of people, the tornado had come to a stop and evaporated into the air, leaving only a well-dressed man who mirrored the actions of the devil man. Marianne released Raven's shoulder and stepped forward, looking between the two men.
"Who are you?" She demanded. "What do you want from us?"
"All in good time, my dear," the devil man said in a Russian accent, smiling pleasantly at her. Marianne bristled at the title.
Darwin reached out and took her arm, but instead of pulling her back, he stepped forward and joined her side. They were the ones with the best defensive powers. Protecting the others was up to them. Glowering at the two men, Marianne held her arm out, once again shielding those behind her.
Gunshots fired down the hall on the other side of the doors. Someone was coming. The hairs on the back of her neck stood straight up and her hands began to shake. Someone was coming, and whoever they were, they were not good.
"Wait!" A man's voice called, right on the other side of the doors. "You want the mutants? They're right through that door. Just let us normal people go!"
What felt like a stone dropped into Marianne's stomach. She heard soft gasps and a curse (Definitely Alex, she thought dimly) from behind her. They were being betrayed by the ones meant to defend them.
A white-hot fire burned in her chest, so fiercely that strands of her hair began to float around her face. All of that, all those deaths in defence of them, and the last man standing was going to give them up? He was going to let the young people behind her die? He was going to let his fellow agent's sacrifices be in vain?
The sound of a body dropping, which was becoming far too familiar to her, came from behind the doors. A sick feeling of what could have been called satisfaction tempered her rage, and her hair fell back down.
But now they had to face whoever was on the other side of the doors.
The doors opened. A man stepped through and shut the door behind him. He wore a nice suit, but a rather stupid looking metal helmet ruined the look. If things had been less tense, Marianne might have laughed in his face.
"Where's the telepath?" The man asked.
Charles flashed through Marianne's mind. Charles. He and Erik and Moira had no idea what was happening. They were on the other side of the world.
The devil man shook his head. "Not here."
The man in the helmet frowned. "Too bad," he said, as though he was talking about some bad weather. "At least I don't have to wear this silly thing any longer." He removed his helmet, and Marianne had a thought that was definitely inappropriate: At least he knows it looks awful.
The man tucked the helmet under his arm and faced them. Marianne held her arm behind her and herded the others back, while Darwin once again took a defensive stance next to her.
"Good evening," the man said, smiling cheerfully at them. "My name is Sebastian Shaw. And I am not here to hurt you."
Charles' reasoning for the ages of the mutants comes from the scene where he's explaining mutants to the CIA people for the first time: "The advent of the nuclear age may have accelerated the mutation process. Individuals with extraordinary abilities may already be among us."
Angel's backstory comes from her backstory in the comics. I think Angel (the version of her in this movie, anyway) is the kind of person who like, doesn't necessarily like talking about her personal history, but won't shy away from talking about it either.
Marianne's role in this story has been revealed. She is not only a mom, she is The Mom Friend.
Sean mouthed 'Apologize' at Alex.
Hope you liked this chapter! Don't be shy, leave a comment, please. Let me know what you thought - if you liked it, why you liked it, whether or not you thought the characters were In Character (that's definitely important, so let me know your thoughts on that), your thoughts on what may come in the future? Anything. I appreciate all and any comments left on my stories.