by Gouki
Chapter Five
Parker
Peter Parker was not looking forward to getting home from his job at the Daily Bugle that evening. He had forgotten that his wife Mary Jane would be getting home from work earlier than usual that afternoon, and he hadn't had time to prepare her for the three "guests" that Spider-Man had invited over. She wouldn't be happy with him for letting three "fugitives from an alternate timeline," as the Blink girl put it, in their apartment without at least telling her first. He'd have to make this up to her big time.
He just hoped that the three of them had the sense to take advantage of his bathroom and shower up before she'd gotten home, otherwise he'd really be in for it.
Mary Jane Parker was a professional super model, and as such, she occasionally left town for photo shoots. Peter usually hated it when she went out on business because she added some spice to his life, but this time, he genuinely wished she had taken that photo shoot in Hawaii.
She'd always tell him about the adventurous life of being a super model. Peter hoped that the trip home would not be too adventurous for her.
All of a sudden his Spider Sense went ballistic. Some crazy supervillain-wannabe had started to terrorize City Hall. He sighed as he ran off to change into his Spider-Man costume. Boy, was he gonna get it when he got home. But, those were the breaks.
Sometimes, he hated being a super hero.
The Guests
Mr. Creed had spent the last couple of hours explaining to Mary Jane how he, along with Blink and Wild Child, were all from an alternate timeline, how they traveled to her timeline via the M'Kraan Crystal, their brief tussle with Spider-Man, and his invitation to this apartment. He didn't tell her too much about the timeline which they originated from, since he suspected she didn't believe very much of it, as her eyebrows kept popping up during the more unbelievable parts of his tale.
"It's not like I don't believe your story, Mr. Creed," Mary Jane said after he had finished, "but I'm not so sure I understand the whole M'Kraan Crystal thing."
Mr. Creed shrugged. He didn't completely understand the whole idea himself, except that it worked. "I really can't help ya out there, MJ. I was never really good with the whole sci-fi aspect of this whole mess."
Wild Child scratched at his right ear while he admired Mary Jane Parker, who was at the refrigerator searching for a beer. She didn't drink often, but she suddenly felt the urge to let some alcohol help her cope with her new situation. She was no longer intimidated by her guests nor angry at her husband for inviting them, but it was still difficult to take all of it in. Having this "Wild Child" staring at her constantly didn't help much, but at least now he was clean. Before they had told Mary Jane their tale, she had insisted that Wild Child take a shower and clean up his old dirty X-Man uniform before she would take him up on his offer to give her a neck massage. Wild Child had emerged from the bathroom half an hour after she told him this, scrubbed clean and shaved, wrapped in one of Peter's bathrobes, immediately disappointed that Mary Jane wasn't exactly serious about accepting his offer. Blink had assured her that Kyle was harmless to her, and that he would behave himself for the most part.
Blink was surprised to see Mr. Creed after a shower and shave, but she literally didn't recognize Wild Child after he had done so. She suspected that Mary Jane was very relieved to see Kyle cleaned up. While Mr. Creed and Wild Child were examining the effects of soap and razors on each other, Blink decided that it was her turn for the same treatment.
Upon reaching the bathroom, she noticed she was missing something. She ran out of the bathroom, and back into the kitchen. She turned to Mary Jane.
She tapped Mrs. Parker on the shoulder. "Yes?" Mary Jane asked, sipping from her can of beer.
"Um," she mumbled, "I think Mr. Creed and Kyle used up all of the soap an' um-" Her voice trailed off. Hygiene was one of the many things she didn't generally discuss with strangers.
Mary Jane looked at this girl, who Mr. Creed had told her was a rough soldier who fought against oppression in a hellish world where death and misery were common facts of life. But Blink didn't look so battle-hardened to Mary Jane. She believed that this kid was cast into a role which she wasn't necessarily meant for, at the expense of a normal life. A normal life full of day to day stuff that she took for granted. This girl seemed scared to face the normal aspects of life that everyone else took for granted.
Mary Jane smiled. "Wash up," she said. "I'll show you where everything else is, and how to use the stuff, 'kay?"
Blink nodded, and headed for the bathroom.
To tell the truth, Mary Jane didn't really buy much of Mr. Creed's story at first. All her guests had done since she had arrived home was drink beer and empty the refrigerator. But as she watched Blink, she noticed the nervousness of her step, the constant looking over her shoulder, the tenseness of her muscles, as if the mutant girl were pumped full of adrenaline, ready for some evil attack. Whether or not Mr. Creed's story was true, Blink was certainly someone who had never known a moments peace, that much Mary Jane was certain of. And she didn't trust anybody, that much was also clear. The girl had cringed when Mr. Creed had told Mary Jane the real names of himself and Wild Child, and she didn't bother to give her own real name, just Blink.
And Wild Child. At first, she found him slightly annoying with his constant, deliberate staring. He did look much better after a shower and shave and some clean clothes, but his attitude hadn't changed much. As a model, she had learned to live with the fact that millions of men had fantasies about her, and when she walked down the streets most days, she could feel the stares of the men who wanted her, as well as the glares of their girlfriends or wives. But Kyle, this so-called "Wild Child," looked at her with something different in his eyes, something more than the obvious sexual craving that his eyes boasted. Mary Jane suspected that he lived a type of life that didn't allow him the luxury of falling in love.
The only one she wasn't so sure about was Mr. Creed. So far, he had thrown down enough beer to get a least a half dozen hard drinkers to pass out, but he hardly looked even tipsy. The only thing she could read from him was a sense of shame, something that he kept buried deep down. From the look of him, Mary Jane didn't think it would be wise to dig any deeper than that.
For now.
Blink
Blink couldn't remember the last time she'd had a bath this comforting. The water was as hot as she could stand it, with a thick layer of soapy foam resting above it. She let herself submerge completely into the water, clamping her eyes shut and holding her breath for as long as she possibly could before surfacing again. She could feel the skin on the palms of her hands wrinkling, and struggled to remember the last time she had experienced this.
She was eight years old back then. It was a time when she spent more time trying to get out of taking a bath, more interested in spending just a few more minutes watching television.
She sighed contentedly. Taking bubble baths was definitely something she would do more often in this new world. She had been clean for a couple of hours, but didn't feel like getting out of the tub. She was too comfortable.
Comfort is a drug. Blink lived most of her life without it, and now she was positively intoxicated. The soothing aromas and perfumes of the soaps that cleansed her had now permeated her senses, and she breathed in the pleasant scents of violets and spice.
For the briefest of moments, she wondered how Mr. Creed and Kyle had spent only a couple of hours each taking showers, but she had the answer as soon as she'd finished asking the question. Mr. Creed and Wild Child knew the dangers of letting their guard down in the Age of Apocalypse, and those instincts certainly carried on over in this new world. Blink herself intended only to spend about half an hour cleaning up, but her survival instincts were soon forgotten after she spent just five minutes with bubble bath.
But, she knew that all things, good or bad, had to end sometime. The hot soapy water in which she lazily relaxed was starting to cool down. She reached for the switch below the tub faucet which controlled the drain and flipped it, and then watched as the water around her spiraled out of sight. She then grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her body, which felt about ten years younger after the shower.
Walking over to the fogged mirror, she wiped it clear with a smaller towel and looked at the reflection with deep curiosity. She hardly recognized the sixteen year old girl who stared back at her.
She couldn't find her uniform after she had finished the bath, so she wandered over to the bedroom of the apartment to borrow some of Mary Jane's clothes. Unfortunately, all of Mary Jane Parker's clothes were a size larger than what would fit her. She gave up searching for clothes that would fit after five minutes of running through the closet and drawers. Frustrated, she sat down on Peter and Mary Jane's king-sized bed, holding the towel that was tightly wrapped around her body securely in place.
"Well," she sighed, "this is just great. I can just see some sort of sudden emergency arising, and here I'll be, naked and dripping wet, with nothing but a towel to defend myself." Yeah, fat chance of that. She'd find something to wear, the emergencies would just have to wait until she got some clothes. She looked around once again, wondering if Peter's clothes would fit. He wasn't much taller than she was, and he was kind of skinny, or so he appeared in the pictures of him and his wife that she had seen so far. She hopped off the bed and examined Peter's clothes.
"These'll do," she murmured after selecting a pair of faded blue jeans and a sweatshirt. The jeans looked like they would be slightly tight on her, but at least they were somewhere in the vicinity of her size. She didn't care too much for the blah-gray sweater, but it was practically the only thing that she could find that wasn't slightly see-through. Really, that wouldn't have mattered to her, except that all of Mary Jane's bras were a couple of sizes too big for her. Since she couldn't find one that fit her, see-through clothing (and yes, even the stuff that was only slightly see-through) was totally out of the question.
"Well," she said, thinking out loud, "I hope Peter doesn't mind me bumming his clothes."
She ventured out of the bedroom, dressed in clothes that were, incredibly enough, tight even on her small frame, to find that Peter Parker had arrived home. She saw him walk over to the couch, where Mary Jane sat, sleeping peacefully alongside a loudly snoring Wild Child. Mr. Creed was asleep on the floor, laying next to the couch. Peter nudged his wife gently, trying to wake her up without startling her. She mumbled incoherently as she awakened.
"Peter?" she moaned sleepily. "What're you doin' home so late, Tiger? It's almost 2:30"
He smiled guiltily. "'Spider-Man' had to stop some crazy super villain-wannabe from wrecking City Hall. It was on the news, babe, didn't you see it?" She shook her head. "Well, anyway, I had to stop the bad guy, get pictures of the whole adventure, and then go back to the Bugle with the pictures, before I could get home. I'm sorry I didn't call you."
Mary Jane looked at the young man sleeping next to her before she continued her talk with her husband. "You're, uh, guests have been quite entertaining," she said with a yawn.
Peter prepared for her to freak out. "Listen, baby, I would have called you to tell you about them, but-"
Mary Jane took Peter's face in her hands and kissed him passionately. "Don't worry about it, Tiger," she said, "we all had a good time, talking about parallel timelines and other great science fiction."
Blink coughed politely to get their attention. She had already arrived at the couch, unnoticed by both of them.
"Um, hi," she said with a smile. "Peter Parker? I'm Clarice Ferguson."
Peter grabbed her right hand and shook it vigorously. For such a skinny, diminutive guy, he had a strong grip. "Pleased to meet you, Clarice."
Blink looked down at the clothes she was wearing and then back to Peter. She smiled, a tad embarrassed. "I hope you don't mind me borrowing some of your clothes, but I seem to have lost my uniform after I finished my bath."
Mary Jane carefully eased her way out of Blink's view, suddenly feeling guilty. She had thrown away the girl's ripped, bloodied, and otherwise mysteriously soiled uniform after it had shrunk two sizes in the wash. She looked to her husband, the guilty look on her face indicating that Blink's missing uniform was her fault.
Peter shrugged. "Yeah, that's okay. At least until we can get you and your friends some new clothes."
Mr. Creed rolled around on the floor, snoring softly. Peter looked at him and Wild Child and then back to Blink. Blink leaned down to Wild Child and examined her sleeping friend's right ear, which was red from all the scratching Wild Child had given it in an attempt to stop the constant itching. She sighed and then gently scratched behind his ear as he slumbered.
"We know we can't stay here forever," Blink said to Peter and Mary Jane, "but we don't have any money or jobs or-"
Peter nodded. "We understand, don't we MJ?" He looked to his wife, and she nodded. "I know a person that might be able to help you out. His name is Charles Xavier."
She nodded. "Yeah, I think I've heard of Xavier," she said softly. "Isn't he in charge of some group called 'X-Men' or something?"
Blink already knew the answer to her own question, but she asked anyway to discover just what the Parkers knew about the X-Men and what kind of new information she could get about this world. She needed information if she was going to survive, but the information she needed wasn't just the kind one could just go ahead and ask for. The world looked alright, especially the way things were going, but Blink knew that Apocalypse had some pretty creative telepaths that were capable of making their victims see anything the High Lord wanted them to see. She knew that the idea of the three of them being under a telepathic trance was unlikely, especially since she was able to be suspicious of it, but she did not want to completely let her guard down, as Mr. Creed and Kyle had apparently done earlier that evening.
She carried a conversation with Mary Jane and Peter for an hour and a half, going over the holes that Mr. Creed had left in his descriptive story of the events and timeline that had brought the three of them to the Parker home, being very careful not to give away what she knew about the X-Men in her timeline, and subtly picking up information about the status of mutants in this new world. She carefully steered the conversation toward finding this reality's version of her when she was satisfied that Peter and Mary Jane were indeed not cleverly placed spies of Apocalypse and that they didn't have any information past what she pretended not to know. Finally, Peter led her to the modest PC that he owned, and revealed to her a method of potentially tracking down her "other self."
"It's called the Internet," Peter said as Blink sat down in front of the computer, "and you can find almost anything on it. Only be careful. Some of the stuff is pretty useless, but most of it should help you out. But maybe we should wait until morning. You look like you haven't had much sleep, kid."
She shook her head. "No, really, I'm not tired right now."
Peter shrugged. "Okay."
He explained the basics: how to sign on, how to get to places, typing addresses, search engines, until she finally waved him away with a "Yeah, yeah, I got it" and he finally went off to bed, leaving her to the near-mesmerizing glow of the computer monitor. She found this computer a lot easier to use then the ones from her "world." Back home, the computers were a lot more confusing, and required many codes to be typed in for it to carry out commands. Here all she needed to know was how to point and click with the strange little "mouse" device.
Mouse? she thought. What a strange name for a computer instrument.
Slowly, she typed in the address of one of the search engines that Peter had given her in his brief lesson, and then typed in her own name, not expecting much for results.
Of course, when the search engine brought up 5,698 documents on the Internet that matched either "Clarice" or "Ferguson" she discovered that she might be a while searching. After a half hour of scanning titles of pages, she narrowed her choices down to sixteen. It took another half an hour to look through all of the pages to discover that none of them were of any use to her. She leaned back in her chair, frowning thoughtfully.
She tried a different search engine, again typing in her name. Once again, she was faced with thousands of pages to choose from. Frustrated, she chose the first page that the engine brought up. It was a home page of a YMCA swim team in Central New York. She didn't think it was likely she would find much concerning her there, because she remembered being terrified of water when she was little. Morbid curiosity compelled her to research the page further, just to see exactly what the whole "swim team" deal was about.
Nothing. Just a name. No photos on the page, no past history. Of course, Blink hadn't fully expected to find any of that information. The whole page was just a list of names of members and events the team had accomplished or was about to accomplish. She'd almost exited the page when she saw something else that caught her eye.
"Oh my God," she whispered. She walked away from the computer, not bothering to turn it off.
And without another thought, she split open the fabric of time and space with her teleportation powers, stepping out of the relative safety of Peter Parker's humble New York City apartment, through her trans-dimensional portal.
Into the fire.