The Uncanny R-Man: Yeah I just had to throw that in there at the end. Yep this chapter should be fun to read.
Episodic: That's nice, snowing on Christmas in Texas, that's one to remember. Yeah I always try for something different. Yeah I wanted to show Mystique as more complex then most people think of her.
Ruby631: Yeah I know, I figured she might as well get that line in at least once.
Ldypebsaby: I'm glad you like the way I'm taking this.
Moonjava: I just love exploring characters and I love writing about them and to put the focus on them.
Slickboy444: I'm glad you think so, I didn't want to have to go through all of that other stuff to get to this part with Rogue and Kurt when I could just do it like I did. Wanda and Magneto will have a little 'father/daughter' time much later on.
Red Witch: Hope you enjoy it and I was wondering about her, but I think yours is better since the comic one is kind of obscure and I doubt anyone even remembers the original.
Mimato-4eva: Basically Mystique gets Fred before Jean and Logan, he has an anger management problem, trashes some lockers, Jean is nice to him and he takes it the wrong way, kidnaps her for a 'date' the X-Men come and kick his butt. That's basically it.
Thanks to: Rogue14, ayu, GothikStrawberry
WANDA'S LIFE
CHAPTER 11: TOGETHER AT LAST
Rogue was sitting in the living room watching the TV, the past few weeks had been so surreal to her, first her powers kicked in and just her luck she was cursed with the worse possible kind. She could never touch ever again. They didn't know this but she had actually cried a few times, when she was sure she was alone from just thinking about how she would never know what it would be like to touch another living person, to kiss, to…anything really. She would always be alone, never be able to have the choice of raising a family.
That was what killed her inside, having no say in how her future would turn out.
Xavier had said he would try and help her but she wasn't too hopeful, she had learned that when you had hope you only ended up disappointed. But the fact that she had a brother, all right technically foster brother, but still a brother was a blow. She kind of had to be left alone to digest it all. Even the fact that the principle was their mother and also their enemy.
It was weird seeing her every day as the principle for the both of them and they just tried to ignore her but sometimes it was just so hard not to look at her.
She remembered what she pulled on her when they first met, making her believe the X-Men had been after her didn't make her much of a mother in her books, she may had adopted her but she left her all alone with Irene. That was most likely the only good thing that woman had done for her. Rogue sat there not really watching the TV anymore just lost in thought.
She heard giggling and laughing was turned her head to see Kurt and Wanda being playful with each other in the hall as they passed by. She smiled seeing those two together and she was happy for Kurt, she knew from the memories she had from him that he had always was afraid he would end up alone because of his looks. But seeing him now with his first ever girlfriend even her heart was lifted at the sight.
She was happy that he had found someone but then her smiled turned into a frown and looked away. She couldn't stand to look at couples lately mainly due to the fact it was just a reminder to her cruel fate. She felt despair in her heart now knowing that she would never know what it was like to have someone like that in her life. Besides who would like her? So far most of the boys at school didn't really pay much attention to her but then again she seemed to be the only Goth in the school.
That and most of the good-looking guys were usually jerks. Sure there was Scott and she had to admit he was hot and attractive…but not for her. Even if she kind of did like him, it might be because he was the only cute guy to be nice to her and everyone knew that he only had eyes for Jean.
Jean…little miss perfect, she thought sourly to herself but then sighed and put that thought away. Jean had been nice to her the entire time and it wasn't fair to lash out on her. It was just that Jean was the type of girl that back home had made her life miserable. Girls like her, the pretty popular ones always had looked down on her and teased her all her life so it was hard to get through all that hurt and not look at Jean like she did as those other girls. She was slowly getting over that, but she would need time to warm up to Jean. It didn't help matters that Jean seemed to have it easy, loving parents and family, a great guy after her, popular…okay so maybe some of what she felt was from jealousy but it was just so unfair at times.
Rogue turned to TV off going to her room to read. She just wanted to be alone for the moment and hoped Kitty was still out tutoring Lance, what that girl saw in him she would never know.
Elsewhere in the kitchen, Scott was fixing up a snack to calm himself. He was waiting for Jean and Logan to get back with a potential new student who preformed at this monster truck show. Evan showed up seeing him there. "So Jean's not back yet huh?"
"No."
"So are you two officially a couple yet?"
"We're…just friends Evan." Scott said but even to him that sounded lame to him and he could see Evan thought so too.
"Come on man, everyone can see that you two like each other, so what's the problem?" He asked getting a soft drink from the fridge and sitting down with him.
Scott sighed not sure how to go on with this. He had always liked Jean but lately his feelings seemed to have grown, they had gone out together a few times just by themselves, they weren't official dates but he found himself wishing they were. "Look Evan I just…I just want to do this at my own pace okay? I mean I've been friends with Jean for years and to go form that to more is…difficult."
He just shrugged off Scott's comments. "Sure whatever man, but I'm telling you that you two are just wasting time, just go for it." With that he left to get some homework that was due for the next day leaving Scott to wonder and not for the first time, how to ask Jean out for a real date.
It wasn't until later when Jean and Logan got back with the X-Jet, everyone who found out they were back came to see them. "Hey Uncle Logan, did you bring me a souvenir this time?" Wanda asked innocently even though she knew he hated being called that, it was kind of a thing she came up with, the longer he left the more she would call him that. It was her way of making sure that when he took off he didn't stay gone for too long.
Logan just growled at that and shot a look to Storm who was covering a smile on her mouth. "Not one word Ro." He warned her, sometimes she would get in on the act too and now was not the time for that, not with the mood he was in.
"I take it you were unsuccessful?" Xavier asked the two of them.
Jean looked a little disappointed as she stepped forward. "I'm sorry but Mystique beat us to it." Wanda noticed Kurt tensed up and gently placed a hand on his arm, he looked over at her and with one of his own covered hers and smiled in thanks.
"I'm sure you did your best," Xavier said to them. "We can't expect to win every time."
Logan just grunted something and walked on but Jean however still looked a bit down at failing to get Fred to join up with them. She walked off and it wasn't until she was near the elevator that she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned to see Scott there and she had to smile a little at seeing him, lately she had been thinking a lot about Scott and how close they seem to be getting.
"Hey Jean, you alright?"
She sighed. "Just disappointed…I mean so far I'm zero for two. First I failed with Kitty and now this…I guess I'm just feeling a bit disappointed in myself."
He placed a hand on her shoulder. "Jean don't be silly. You did pretty well with Kitty, she was terrified about what was happening to her, and if Mystique didn't get to the new guy first I'm sure you would have done great."
Jean had to smile and felt better from his words. "Thanks Scott…that means a lot to me." Scott smiled and let her go watching her leave hoping that she felt better. He was broken out of his thoughts from an elbow to his ribs and he looked and glared a little at Wanda.
"You should have asked her out in order to make her feel better." Scott rolled his eyes and was feeling a bit frustrated with everyone bugging him about Jean, she was his problem on what to do and he wanted to do it his way. "Oh come on, you can't keep putting it off forever you know."
"I know, I know." He signed and pinched the bride of his nose. He just walked off leaving her behind then having her talk his ear off about this. He had to tell Jean how he felt…if the pressure of keeping it in didn't kill him then everyone asking him this would drive him insane.
Kurt walked over to girlfriend. "So…how is it going?"
Wanda placed a finger under her chin and tilted her head. "I think he's about to crack, looks like The Plan is working, but we might want to back off."
Kurt nodded his head. "Ja, anymore and his head might explode from all ze pressure everyvone is giving him."
-The Next Day-
Fred Dukes was looking for his class; it was hard especially since the other guys were around helping him out. It was nice to be with other people that were like him. Todd was smelly but all right, Pietro was just annoying but Lance seemed kind of cool. He did get a ride with them in his truck was nice and they didn't really give him grief about his size. Well Pietro had made a few comments and that angered him, he hated it when people made sun of him, they always made fun and laughed at him.
But Lance had told Pietro to shut up and when he towered over Pietro he actually did.
But now they weren't around and he was lost. He tried asking this blond guy in a red and white jacket but he only just insulted him. Fred tried to keep calm but this blond jock type only kept making fun of him, he wouldn't stop and he had had enough! He easily pushed him down and the next thing he knew he had ripped off the several of the lockers and was about to crush this annoying jerk.
"Hold it!"
Jean had been walking the halls when she saw Fred the boy they failed to get being hassled by Duncan of all people, she still was thankful that Wanda had smartened her up in time and Jean didn't make the huge mistake of dating him. But then Fred had thrown Duncan to the ground and had just ripped the lockers off the wall and looked like he was about to use them on Duncan.
Okay she didn't like him, but he could get seriously hurt or worse so she yelled out to him.
Fred turned his head at the voice and all anger left him as the most beautiful girl he had ever seen walking over to him. "Hey, you're Fred right?" He was silent at a moment, no girl had ever talked to him before let alone the pretty ones like her, so he just nodded. She smiled at him then. "I'm Jean, why don't you put those down for now huh?"
Fred forgot about the lockers and placed them back, he didn't notice Jean waving her hand behind her telling Duncan to bolt which he did, but Fred had forgotten all about him. "You need help?"
"Uh, yeah." Fred pulled out his timetable and showed it to her. She had helped him out and pointed to where he needed to go. "Uh…thanks." He said shyly to her.
"You're welcome Fred, you know though you should really be more careful with your…'gifts'." Fred wasn't sure what she meant until she saw her look at a few of the broken lockers and suddenly a few of the open doors closed by themselves.
"Whoa…you mean you got powers too?" He had been told that there were others like them in this town but he was told to stay away from them but she didn't seem so bad.
"Yeah and so do my friends." Jean was hoping that maybe she could help Fred out. She told him how the Institute taught them how to use their powers for the right reasons and that if he wanted the Professor could help him out even how to control his anger too. Fred didn't know about that but he did wanted to see her again. She had to go and smiled and waved to him and he waved back with a huge smile on his face. For the rest of the day he thought about her and he wondered if he asked her out that she would go out with him? She was nice to him and no girl had been nice like that to him before so she must like him.
At lunch things just seemed to get worse for him. He got a lot of the great looking food n the cafeteria but then as he sat down a bench broke and his food went flying everywhere. He was about to go and get more but then someone yelled out and he was hit with some food in the face. Fred turned angrily over to Duncan who was wearing some of Fred's food and who also didn't learn his lesson the first time.
Pretty soon a food fight was started with and Fred was in the middle of it. He got angry again and as usually he lashed out. He grabbed a table at one point and at this the entire cafeteria ran out as he roared out and held the table above his head. He didn't know that Jean was in front of him or that the table was coming down on her until it was suddenly blasted out of his hands. He saw a table leg in his hands and wondered what had happened.
"Hey pal no one tries to hurt my friends." Scott said angrily to him.
"It's alright Scott, I can handle this," She told him and looked to Fred. "Why don't we go somewhere and talk okay?"
'Are you sure about this Jean?' Scott asked her with his mind.
'Yes I am.'
'Alright but I'm going to stay close if you need me.'
She smiled at little. 'I'll 'shout' if I do.' Little did they know that she wouldn't get the chance to.
It was later in the day and the X-Men were nearly all together. It was Rogue, Kurt, Kitty and Wanda. Evan was skateboarding with some friends and they were looking for Jean and Scott. "I can't believe this!" Wanda shouted taking a pea out her hair, she had been picking food out of it all day since the food fight incident. "I'm going to need to shower so much the dye in my hair will run out."
"What is your natural color anyway?" Kitty asked, she hadn't known Wanda had been dying her hair for only a few years now until a week ago when she found that bottle and thought it was Jean's. Although it turns out she didn't dye it when she asked Jean about it and told her it was Wanda's.
"Bitch black, I just wanted a change but it's kind of getting to be a hassle to keep it…I'm thinking of just going back to black honestly."
"I vould like to see you vith dark hair liebe." Kurt said to her. "I vould be interesting to see."
"Alright maybe I will-hey there's Scott…But I don't see Jean." Wanda had a worried look on her face especially seeing the way Scott was acting. They came closer and they could see the concern on his face. "What's wrong, where's Jean?" Wanda asked him.
"I don't know, she went to talk to Fred and I haven't seen or heard from her since." Now everyone was getting worried.
"Maybe tha Professor can find her with Cerebro?" Rogue offered, sure Jean and her may not be close but having her just suddenly disappear wasn't a good thing and she didn't wish the girl harm or anything either. It was decided that they would go to the mansion and ask Xavier if he knew what was going on, with any luck Jean was staying after school or something and he knew about it.
Across town Jean was waking up with a splitting headache. Her vision was clearing up and the musky old smell of where ever she was hit her senses first. It was dark and dank and felt a bit cold. She suddenly found out she couldn't move and looked to see she was tied to a chair. She tried to remember what had happened. She had tried to calmly talk to Fred and she seemed to get through to him but then he had nervously asked her out but she had to refuse.
She had told him she was kind of seeing someone but that only angered him again. He said that she was her friend and that she was just making an excuse to ditch him. He had grabber her hard and she had to use her powers to break free the next thing that she knew they were fighting and she had dropped a pile of brink on him but he burst through them and came after her. She thought something had hit her head and then she blacked out. She knew she was in trouble now and didn't know what was going through Fred's head wherever he was, and to be honest she didn't want to find out. She sent out a message to Xavier hoping that the others would find her in time.
When the others got back and went to find Xavier they found him on his way to Cerebro in his office. "I'm afraid Jean contacted me, it seems Fred had kidnapped her."
"WHAT?" Scott was angrier then he had ever been in his life at that moment. He knew that he should have been there for her and that letting her go off alone with Fred was a bad idea. If anything had happened to her…he wouldn't forgive himself.
"I already sent Logan to track her down and I was just going to use Cerebro to pinpoint her position as best I can." He tried to assure them all that they would find Jean before anything serious happened. Scott however wasn't so sure.
He sent off to change into uniform knowing that things would only get ugly. As he changed his thoughts were only on Jean. Things of finding her hurt or worse kept running through his mind and his guts felt like they were tied into a not. He tried to think of what would he do if she wasn't in his life and for the first time in a long time Scott was truly scared of that thought. After he finished pulling on his uniform in his room he just sat there thinking of what his life would be like without Jean. The only thing that stood out was how empty it would be.
It was at that moment he realized just how much Jean truly meant to him and vowed that when they got her back he would tell her how he felt, this was proof that he couldn't put off telling her anymore.
Logan meanwhile had been tracking Jean for nearly an hour. Her sent was still fresh enough for him and while on his motorcycle he found himself on the edge of town at an old rundown factory. He stopped the bike and turned off the engine not too close to the place. He didn't want to give away that someone was there. He climbed off and made his way inside.
He smelled lots of stale air, rust, dirt but through all of that he smelled someone else there and more importantly Jean. He heard voices with his hearing from at the other end of the place and pulled out a communicator he had with him. "Chuck I've found her, in some kind of old factory on route nine going out of town, I'm going in."
"Logan wait for the others to get there you might nee-" But Logan turned it off before Xavier could finish. He didn't need help to take care of some overgrown kid and no one took one of the kids and harmed them under his watch.
Jean had been trying to get through to Fred. He thought this was some kind of date, tying her up and making a candle lit dinner for them. He claimed because he was so big he should do whatever he wanted and it was the old might makes right argument he used. Jean tried to reason with him but he just wouldn't listen to her.
"Fred you can't keep me here like this."
"I can do whatever I want." He shot back at her.
"You should have listened to the lady bub." Logan said from the rafters as he jumped down on top of Blob. The large boy picked Logan off of him and threw him across the room. "Damn…kid really is strong." He looked up to see Fred picking up the table. He also noticed Jean was next to him and quickly cut her bonds before the table slammed into Logan's side
Jean had trouble getting the bonds off because they had been so tight around her skin but now that she was free she could concentrate on Fred. She sent an old filing cabinet at him but he just swatted it aside. She then had to dodge a counter he ripped off the wall and threw it at her. She also had to deflect its path at the same time, sending it crashing through an old wall that easily crumbled from it. She felt someone grab her wrist, and saw it was Logan. "Time to go red."
She didn't argue and they both ran for it, luckily he wasn't fast. They both made it outside hoping to get to Logan's bike but on the way there a large rusted out piece of machinery landed in their path just short of them. They both turned back to see a very angry Fred. "Uh…Jean can you lift him?"
"I…I can try." She concentrated as best she could but it was like trying to lift the X-Jet plus he kept squirming, which only added to the problem of lifting him. She only got a few feet before it became to much for her and she dropped him. She fell to her knees too tired from what she had tried to do. "It's too much…I couldn't…hold him."
Fred got up slowly and snarled as he ripped off part of the wall only to have it shot out of his hands by the same beam of red light as earlier. The three of them all turned to see the others there in uniform.
"I thought I warned you already about trying to hurt my friends." Cyclops said to Blob a hand on his visor ready for another shot.
"You think a little runt like you can stop me?" Fred asked him angrily walking towards him. "I'm the Blob and nothing moved me!"
"Let's test that out." Scott then fired at him full force. It wasn't working as he had hoped it only slowed him down.
"Need a power boost?" The Scarlet Witch offered and hexed his optic blast. It grew in force sending Fred back with so much force he crashed into the old factory with such intensity the building came tumbling down on top of him. Scott was surprised by the move and the increased power sent him onto his butt. "Too much?" Wanda asked him helping him up.
"I didn't know you could do that."
She just shrugged. "Me either but the Professor has been telling him to try new things out." Scott just stared at her for trying something so dangerous the it might have backfired but put it aside. He looked over to Jean and Logan and ran over to them.
After Fred got up out of the ruined factory he saw how he was outnumbered and deciding that all this wasn't forth it. Beside he was hungry and figured there would be something to eat at the boarding house and if they wanted her back to bad then they would have her.
They watched him leave and Scott turned to Jean. "Are you alright?" He brushed her hair aside seeing the bruise on her forehead.
She smiled and took his hand gently in hers. "Yeah…I am now."
They stared at each other for a moment then Scott dug up the nerve. "Jean…I…well…you want to go out with me sometime? I mean…more then just friends." He wasn't sure what she would say, he hoped yes but at the moment he was terrified that she would say no or something worse.
Jean was taken by surprise but was pleased by this. "I'd love to." Both gazed into each other. Logan just grumbled not liking the whole touchy-feely moment and went back to his bike. Kitty was giggling at this and thought it was so cute, Rogue just rolled her eyes and turned away from the sickening sweet scene.
Kurt was grinning and so was Wanda. "Well…it's about time." She said to herself.
"So ze Plan is over?"
Wanda sighed. "Yeah I guess so." Even though it was great seeing her two best friends finally on their way to being a couple and she knew would be happy with each other. But now what was she going to do? She didn't think of what would happen after.
Kurt wrapped his arms around her then. "Come on liebe, look on ze bright side. Now ve can vocus more on us and zhere is zat carnival coming soon ve can all go together."
She smiled at the idea. "Your right Fuzzy. Besides," She turned around and wrapped her arms around the back of his neck. "Besides maybe we could find other ways of having fun then trying to set those two up." Kurt grinned back at her and for the thousandth time was glad that he had her in his life.
NEXT UP CHAPTER 12: GOOD TIMES
