Chapter 2: "Danger Annoys and Inconveniences Me"
A/N: Not a hot take, but the X-Men have got to meet the Avengers at some phase in the MCU. Can you imagine?
Songs:
"You're Not Special, Babe" by Orla Gartland
"Growing Up" The Linda Lindas
-O-
As it turned out, Maren found she only lived for the night after working three consecutive double shifts. After that, the night could perish along with all other forms of human life on Earth.
She stared through the observation deck's glass windows to the thrumming force of light below. A golden stream interspersed with deep violets, blues, and greens filled the length of the long room on either side of the metal containment unit. She imagined that's what time itself looked like. The colors possessed a siren-like quality, tempting and luring closer with beauty and peril, looking into the universe while afraid that the universe might look back. It might have held more power over Maren if she had not seen a well-intentioned colleague lose two fingers in the early days of the project. The memory stemmed her from any type of adventurous radicalization. It also made the mental barriers she maintained just thin enough to be dangerous. She knew others didn't mean it, but other people felt their emotions so strongly that they practically leaked from their pores – regret, exhaustion, worry. She never pried, never read thoughts, at least not anymore. The therapy sessions cost too much after her insurance changed two months ago.
Maren had managed to persuade Lindh to push off the radical testing for at least three to four weeks. Exhaustion made her braver, when saying no at least.
Doctor Li's voice jolted her from thought. "I'm going for some fries. You want some?"
She spun in her chair with a tired, wry smile at the ready, "You gotta ask?"
He gave a thumbs-up as he left the room.
She realized she left her coffee cup across the room. She sank back in her chair with a defeated groan. It was 23 steps at least. Far too many to get up and walk herself, but not far enough to ask Felicity across the room to get it for her. Her temper flared as easily as her Pyro-kinesis after her last boyfriend dumped her anyways. But she could—
Sitting up, she peered over her monitor screens and saw her three other colleagues engrossed in their own work. Two of her fingers twitched against her armrest, and warm opalescent energy surrounded the mug that said "I like cats and science." The mug rose as Maren directed it, far above her colleagues' heads, careful not to spill its nearly full contents. It definitely wasn't one of Magda's lattes, but –
The floor shook beneath their feet, and Maren's concentration broke. The cup fell and shattered against the concrete floor. No one noticed as everyone jumped to their feet, running to the observation window. Maren scrambled to stand on top of her desk as alarms blared.
'Warning: Possible Threat Entering Bridge Area'
The automated voice was drowned out over the cacophony of voices in the observation deck.
"Shut it down! Now!"
" I can't. I'm trying. It's like trying to relock an underwater door that's been pried open with a crowbar,"
"Get Maria Hill on the phone now,"
With her hands pressed against the hot glass–
"Evacuate now!"
"Close off the entrances."
Maren saw her.
Her eyes widened as her heart plummeted to her stomach.
"Magda's still down there,"
Maren leaped from the desk, dodging a rolling chair knocked by a fleeing scientist. She ripped her long white coat from her shoulders, throwing it to the floor.
"Bennett!" Lindh's voice rang out. "Where the hell are you going! Evacuate the building now,"
Maren looked over her shoulder. To be honest, she hadn't even known Lindh was here. "Magda is still down there!"
In the back of her brain, she knew Lindh was yelling, ordering her to leave her behind and to follow the rest into the emergency elevators. "Shut everything down!" Maren heard from behind her. She had seven seconds to get from the observation deck to the lab below.
She spotted the glass door, leading to the staircase. She thrust her hands forward, a deep opalescent purple emanating from her hands across the room. The reinforced glass intended to withstand missile strikes splintered, shattering when she threw her body against it. She shook the glass from her ponytail, making brief eye contact with Lindh as she closed off the elevator with her other colleagues. Harshness eased off into surprise before the door closed. She rose from her crouched position, squinting as the light intensified. Portals formed on either side of the rainbow tunnel.
"Magda!" Maren yelled before she jumped over the railing of the stairs. A thousand voices echoed in the lab area, fragments of lost time streams overwhelming her senses. Maren cupped her hands over her ears, forcing away the voices that surrounded her.
Magda looked up in a stupor, glasses still perched on the edge of her nose, frozen with a digital holo-board in hand. The glass screen had broken, glitching on a notes file with a partially finished drawing of a potential wormhole temporality. Matter around Magda had slowed to a snail's speed, appearing more like a surrealist painting than true reality. Magda opened her mouth to speak before turning back to stare at the Einstein-Rosen bridge, spiraling tendrils wrapping around the feral.
Maren formed an energy field around her as she felt herself begin to slow. Her eyes darted between Magda and the slow-closing metal shields on the doors. A stark heaviness weighed against her chest when she allowed the field to drop. Raising her hands, purple bands wound around Magda's waist, burning away the bridge's hold on her.
"Sorry, Magda," I have a feeling this is going to bruise…
With all the force she could muster, she pulled back sharply, yanking Magda away from the open bridge. Time accelerated around them again as Magda screamed. Maren propelled her through the doors just as the shields closed, effectively trapping Maren inside.
Maren refused to look back to Magda through the small round window on the door. Hopefully, she had enough mind left to run away. As she looked back to the growing light emanating from the bridge, she said,
"Damn, I really wanted to watch Stranger Things when I got home tonight,"
A whip of light slashed around the room, and a piercing pain stabbed through her eye. Her shield reappeared around her on instinct. She wanted to say something else, to vocalize a memory returning. She never knew that time could take a physical form, that a human brain could internalize the concept. A thousand forms of consciousness wrapped around her mind, wanting to infiltrate the fields she held up. Whispers filled her ears, some desperate for safety, others repeating a grocery list. Maybe, this was the first sign that her brain was melting.
Approaching the bridge, her field wanted to collapse in on itself. She raised her arms, opalescent purple wrapping around her hands and fingers. An iron taste filled her mouth, and a drop of blood fell from her nose onto her t-shirt. Her shoulders shook as her knees threatened to buckle.
The whir of several arc reactors slowly decreased, alerting her that the bridge would be forced to power down. Just as she thought she might actually survive the encounter in the time stream, a red-gloved hand broke through the colorful tunnel. She stumbled back.
She whispered, "Oh, god,"
'Powering down in 7…6…5-,'
Someone was in there.
Maren reached through her own shield, grabbed the hand. Resistance tore at her for a brief moment before another hand appeared, wrapping around Maren's forearm. Another drop of blood fell from her nose as a piercing pain burned behind her eye; not even Charles Xavier could have explained this as it felt like her brain was being torn to shreds. Her shield fell completely when she pushed her other hand through, gripped the lined gloves, and pulled as hard as she could. She closed her eyes, planting her feet when she felt herself being dragged into the tunnel stream. Yanking hard enough to rip an arm from its socket, she leaned back with her full weight. The traction of the tunnel gave way, and she pulled the person free. She would have fallen if not for the hands which grabbed the tops of her arms. She looked up,
"Spider-Man?"
A tall, lanky figure stood before her in a fitted, reinforced blue and red costume with a bold spider symbol in the middle of his chest. It should have been Spider-Man.
But no. This wasn't right. She had seen Spider-Man before. On the news being trashed by JJ Jameson, swinging from buildings once or twice in Manhattan. The height, the body type. All wrong. Something banged against a metal vault door in the back of her mind. A psychic memory lock, she realized. Energy built within her, accumulating like rubbing two defibrillator pads together, gaining a dangerous charge.
He released her, grabbing the back of his head, pulling off his mask. He gave a boyish yet tired smile. Freckles dotted along the top of his nose while the scruff was evidence he hadn't shaved in a few days. His hair stood on end, but again, wrong. No poorly concealed curls to be seen. He wasn't the kid she knew?
Psychic memory locks couldn't be performed on her; Xavier had tried, in the past, to give her some space from bad memories. She couldn't erase the blip no matter how hard she tried. Her heart thundered in her chest.
Recognition shone warmly in his brown eyes. His voice was jovial, if slightly shaky, "Wow! It took a lot more than I thought it would to get back here. But then again, family visits weren't guaranteed in the new custody agreement,"
The reactors shut down, and the red emergency lights switched on. The tunnel vanished with a high-pitched ringing that echoed down the lab. Faint voices echoed outside the shield doors. One of them sounded like Magda; she wasn't sure. The color drained from Maren's face as a fine sheen of sweat covered her, beading slightly at her forehead.
"Doctor Bennett? Are you alright?"
In the reflection of the glass, she saw purple reflect in her own eyes. He tried to reach for her as a band of opalescent purple energy whirled into a torrent around her. He touched the band instead of her shoulder by mistake as the field completely encased her. Both repelled back, a polarizing force shocking them apart. Maren caught his eye as they flew away from each other- two separate faces blended into one, a flash of memory scorched to immediate understanding. She remembered.
Her back hit the opposite wall, knocking the breath from her. Her eyes burned as she collapsed to the floor, and she saw that he wasn't as fast to get up as she thought he would be. Then again, she couldn't move at all. He held his ribs as he hobbled back to her. Black spots dotted her vision. Her head lolled to the side.
She remembered.
"Peter…?"
