Chapter Two: Tornado Shelter
Disclaimer: all characters are property of their respective owners.
Spoilers: big spoilers for X-Men: Evolution season 1 episode "Rogue Recruit". Big spoilers for CW's The Flash season 1.
Author Note: this version of Rogue and other X-Men related characters are from the X-Men Evolution cartoon, although with elements taken from the comics. Flash-related characters comes from CW's The Flash. Other Marvel, DC and Wildstorm character that may appear are drawn from several sources.
A/N 2: I would appreciate feedback on the story, on how could be improved, or things that I have gotten wrong.
Central City Post Office. The next day.
Rogue was nervous. The night had been quite restless, having finally fallen asleep after boarding the second bus... and awakening like twenty minutes later. The sequence of events had repeated several times for the whole voyage, fortunately without more cryptic visions of the future, until the bus finally arrived to Central City mid-morning, after a couple other bus changes.
With the money that Irene had left her, there was more than enough for a taxi to carry her to the Post Office to see if Irene's letter had arrived to the box she had mentioned. And when she opened the box, there was no one but two letters, a big, thick manila envelope, and an smaller white envelope with a note to open first.
Inside the smaller envelope there was another key, as well as a unused envelope, stamps and instructions to send the key she just had used to open the box to another P.O. Box in Midway City.
'Does she keep P.O. Boxes in every major city?' she wondered as she did what she had asked. The memories that she had gained from Irene, while almost completely faded by now, seemed to indicate that yes, she did.
Shaking her head, she went and opened the Manila envelope. Inside it there was a list of addresses, fake IDs for her (according to them she was now Anne Raven, 18 years old, from Brandon, Mississippi), and another list of instructions. Basically, she had to stay in the city until tomorrow night, and then pick a train to Topeka, Kansas, where the P. O. Box that corresponded to the new key was located, and she would give her the final instructions, emphasizing that she didn't have to follow them if she didn't want, but that it would be better in the long run.
'Well, at least I have almost two days to decide if I want to go.' Rogue thought while checking the list of addresses. There was a number of lodging places, a few shops, including an indie music shop she intended to check out later, and a mall for more general purchases.
She called a taxi and went to the first place in the list. It was an old motel that looked quite nice, if a bit worn, but the guy in charge gave her the creeps. Then, the second one was more of a bed and breakfast place, and it looked cozier than the motel, and somewhat newer than the others than she went later, even if the owner, a stern-looking woman in her early 60s that insisted that everybody called her Ma Hunkel, had looked at her a bit askance.
After visiting the others and not being convinced by them, she had ended choosing Ma's place, and after leaving her things in her room, she went to the music place that Irene had told her. It was a small shop located between two ugly apartment buildings, packed to the gills. Behind the desk there was a guy who looked straight out of a punk band.
She waved at him and started to browse the shelves. She picked a couple CDs and an imported DVD of a Japanese band she followed. When she came back to the desk she found that there was already a tall white guy with glasses and a look that screamed 'professor' to her.
"I'll see what I can find, but at best it would be a low quality analog recording, Professor Wells." The shop guy said.
"Even if that's the case, I would buy it. I have spent centuries looking for that recording." Professor Wells said, who then looked at her, and gestured her to come to the desk. "Come here, I can wait."
"Thank you." Rogue said, putting her prospective purchases to be scanned.
After paying the price, she didn't notice that Wells followed her with his eyes as she left the shop, frowning, as if trying to remember where he had seen her.
Rogue didn't noticed Wells interest on her, continuing her way. Irene's list had a few shops that she intended to visit, mostly to look clothes and restock her supplies of make-up that were running a bit low... had it been yesterday? It seemed like a long time ago...
She stopped for a moment and thought of Cody. Irene's had assured her that he would be fine, eventually. But, even with all that had happened yesterday, she hadn't even stopped to think of him on any moment. This killed her desire to go shopping further, so she called a taxi to go back to Ma Hunkel's place.
S.T.A.R. Labs
Harrison Wells had returned to the labs and after exchanging a few words with Cisco and Ronnie, he made himself scarce in order to check something in his secret room, where he had hidden the things he brought with himself from the future, as well as the A.I. Gideon.
"Welcome, professor Wells." the pleasant voice of the AI said as it booted.
"Gideon, I need to identify a girl I met in the music store." Wells paused, trying to remember something.
Gideon didn't answer, instead showing a video of Wells entering the music store.
"Yes, that is the store. Fast forward a bit." Wells ordered.
The image advanced quickly until the girl entered the screen. She was quite distinctive with that white streak on her hair.
"Try to get a good image of her face, and run it through your database of this era personalities." Wells said, frowning, "I have the feeling I have seen her before."
Gideon did not answer, as the AI tried to match the face to her records of many women of this era. After a couple seconds, while Wells tried to remember, it stopped, showing an image of the face of a woman, who clearly was a grown-up version of the girl, dressed up in some kind of green and yellow uniform, from which only the shoulders were visible.
"Her civilian identity is Marie Ba..." Gideon started to say, only to be interrupted by Wells.
"Yes, yes, Rogue. She is a mutant, one of the X-Men. I fought them, once or twice. " Wells said, deep in thought. "What is she doing here, on Central City?"
"Unknown, professor. Our records of the activities of the X-Men on this time period, before their public reveal, are very incomplete." Gideon said.
"Find where she is lodged, and then..." Wells started to say before stopping himself. "Just find her. I have to check something in person."
"Yes, professor." Gideon said.
Ma Hunkel's Bed and Breakfast place
Rogue was lying down on the bed of her room, brooding. She hadn't realized the implications of her powers until now. She had become some sort of living vampire, doomed to never know the touch of another human being.
She looked at Irene's first letter. Her reassurances that everything would work out at the end sounded hollow now, after she realized what her powers really entailed. Yes, she had always been a loner and a bit of an outcast, but it had been by choice. Now, her powers had robbed her of that choice.
Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a knock in the door.
"Honey, are you all right?" she heard the voice of Ma Hunkel through the door, "I saw you when you came, you looked like death warmed over and not in the usual Goth way."
"Ah'm fine, really." She said, trying to go for a perky voice to reassure her.
"That settles it. Honey, I'm coming in." Ma answered, opening the door with her own keys. Obviously her attempt to dissemble hadn't worked. Then Ma stood in the door and looked at her. "Come on, Rogue, you have been raised by Irene Adler, you should have learned to lie more convincingly."
"What?" Rogue said, as this had come completely out of the left field.
"She didn't tell you?" Ma said, looking at her. "I met her thirty years ago, when she tried to con me."
"That's why yah said Ah should have learned to lie better." Rogue said.
"'xactly. I didn't hold it against her, though." Ma said, lost in memories "We ended as friends, but that's too long a story to tell now."
She sat on the only chair on the room, in front of Rogue.
"What is important is that she called me this morning and told me that a Goth teen could be passing through here in short order." She continued "And here you are."
"And what else she said?" Rogue asked "Ah mean..."
"If you mean that if I know about her powers, yes, I do. They helped us when we got into a mess that time." Ma said. "And, by what you are saying, you probably had powers of some type too, do you?"
Rogue didn't answered immediately, trying to gauge what to say or not to say. It was moot, anyway, because Ma looked at her and said with a kind smile.
"Yes, you have them. It's written all over your face that you don't know what to tell me." Ma said, with a kind smile, "I guess that your powers are of a bad sort, right, honey?"
Rogue sighed and started to speak, her gaze firmly on the floor.
"Yeah, Ah can suck memories, skills and powers, if they have them, through skin contact. And Ah can't control it."
"My god." Ma said.
"The worst thing about it?" Rogue said "Ah discovered that Ah had them when Ah was kissing the first boy that had asked me on a date."
"Fuck." Ma said, which prompted a look from Rogue, who had heard her reprimand another guest for his liberal use of profanity earlier. "I'll clean my own mouth with soap later, honey."
The sheer incongruence of the phrase made Rogue snort. Ma Hunkel was old-fashioned, but not in a bad way. Not like that old lady, back ho... back at Irene's home, who pursed her lips each time they meet on the streets, because she didn't dare to try her fire and brimstone bullshit again after the verbal smack-down Irene gave her the only time she tried with them.
"What's so funny?" Ma Hunkel said, the twinkle in her eyes the only thing betraying she had done it on purpose to dispel the heavy atmosphere. "Okay, now that you aren't as depressed, can you come with me? I have something to show you."
Rogue followed Ma Hunkel, curious despite herself, to the attic, where Ma took the key ring she always carried on her and opened an old cupboard. Inside there was an old scrapbook, leather bound, with some kind of faded shield engraved on it. Ma opened it and leafed through it quickly, as if searching for something.
"Aha, here it is!" said Ma, taking a picture from the scrap book and showing it to Rogue. It was a black and white picture of a blonde woman in a tight black costume with a spider motif.
"Who is she?" asked Rogue.
"I met her in New York, she was a vigilante that fought specially the people who preyed on young women." Ma explained "A gang attacked me one night. I was still struggling when she appeared and started to throw them away. One of them managed to recover and jumped her with a knife, she tried to catch him, and I'll never forget what happened afterwards."
"What?"
"As soon as she had touched him, skin against skin, he started to scream as he started to rot from inside out." Ma said "She explained to me that one of her powers, besides super-strength and flight, was a 'touch of death' that wasn't entirely under her control. That's why she usually wore long gloves like the ones you are using, but in the fight they had been torn."
"And what happened to her?" Rogue asked.
"We kept in contact, but one day she disappeared. I heard that she was seen in Europe, but it has been many years." Ma said, with a shake of her head, "But the important thing, was that her powers didn't stop her from having a life, despite everything."
"Really?" Rogue said, clearly skeptic "Because that power sounds even worse than mine. Not to mention she killed that guy."
"She learned to control it, eventually. By the time she went to Europe, she was capable to do it at will." Ma said "And well, it was another time. The cops only did a cursory investigation, and not even his fellows saw what happened to him. Soon it was only just another one of the 'cold cases' in the Big Apple."
"When did that happen?" Rogue asked, curious despite herself, "And why nobody has talked about superpowered people before Iron Man?"
"That's a long story, honey, and besides, I only know part of it." Ma said with a sigh, and then she looked at the time "Tonight, I may tell you what I know, but it's getting late for supper."
STAR Labs
"Greetings, Professor Wells." Gideon said as the man got near its interface.
"Gideon, Hartley Rathaway. Is he still planning to sneak inside the lab tomorrow?" Wells said, without preamble.
"Yes, Professor Wells, he isn't showing any sign of deviating from his plan." Gideon informed.
"Good, I'm probably going to need the Piper to motivate Barry, eventually." Wells said, smiling as another part of the plan went ahead, "What about our erstwhile mutant?"
"She is lodged into Ma Hunkel's Bed and Breakfast Inn." Gideon answered.
"Dammit." he cursed softly, and the mused aloud "I can't do anything direct, it would attract the attention of the Society."
"Can you repeat the question?" Gideon said.
"It wasn't a question, I was just thinking aloud." Wells said absently, as he decided in a course of action, "Do the Friends of Humanity exist already on this time period?"
"No, according to records." Gideon said.
"But we have screwed the timeline enough that it may have some unexpected repercussions, the butterfly effect can be funny like that. Not to speak of the effects, intended or unintended, of other time travellers." Wells mused, "Check what some of its historical leaders are doing just now and compare with the historical database."
"Processing... Anomalies found." Gideon said, "Bolivar Trask and Graydon Creed have left SHIELD nearly a year before they did in the records. "
"So a version of the Friends of Humanity could be already in existence." Wells said, nodding to himself, a plan already starting to take place in his mind, "Try to locate either of them, or any of their more notable lieutenants, like Stephen Lang."
TO BE CONTINUED...