Mutant Sue Virus: Split - Chapter 1
Jan. 1st, 2024 09:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dazzledfirestar posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
marysuevirusI'm aliiiiiiive! lol Hi everyone! I don't know if anyone's still hanging around here but I had an idea for a split in the Mutant Sue timeline... this takes place before Invasion, and splits the timeline into two. Everything that happened after Invasion is still happening in the original timeline but this one is running alongside it. Yay for the multiverse! Speaking of the multiverse, one of the universes this touches on is inspired by ginevrasm 's Dark Mirror fic. I know she never finished it but it gave me ideas to play with so I hope this is okay. So... here we go! Back into the breach, dear friends! ;)
Also if there's anything you want to change, shift, play with in the B timeline (this one), let me know! Thank you toladydeathfaerie for plotting with me again! And if anyone else wants to chat, I'm around again! I miss you guys!
Title: Split
Fandom: Marvel Universe
Rating: 18+
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the recognizable characters here. They and the world this is set in are the property of Marvel Entertainment. The Purple Team is the property of ginevrasm (Morgan/Faye), ladydeathfaerie (Dare), sessys_fangirl (Jehnna), nanaeanaven (Roxxy) and dazzledfirestar (Haley). They are not to be used without permission. I make no money from this, and it is simply a form of entertainment.
Warnings: Multiverse fuckery, mentions of death, pregnancy and apocalypses.
New student tours were always a little hit and miss. Haley knew that of course. Many of the kids had very little control, if any, and it was a high stress kind of situation. She’d never really been in that position, as Harper had been the guinea pig in her family when it came to Xavier’s. She could imagine though that this kid might be a little on the nervous side.
There wasn’t a lot of clear information on Benjamin Hall. He was eleven, from Buffalo and had some kind of psionic projection, temporal awareness, it wasn’t super clear what that meant, even to Hank when he broke it down to the staff who he would be meeting.
The knock at her classroom door surprised her. Unless the tour was going far quicker than expected. “Something I can do for you?”
Cyclops worked his way into the room, handing her a revised Danger Room schedule. “We had to shift a few of your students around.”
“And you didn’t ask first, of course.” She scowled down at the changes. “No, Garcia needs that time. She’s so close to a breakthrough—”
“Then she can have that breakthrough at 4 instead of 3.” He sighed heavily, ready to explain why it had been pushed back.
“You’re an asshole.” She shook her head going back to her desk.
“Sure, but Hank’s the one pulling maintenance on—”
She didn’t see why he stopped talking until she turned back toward him and saw him hit his knees. She didn’t get a word out before whatever floored him hit her. Her breath caught and she gripped the edge of her desk for a moment before she hit the floor too.
***
The danger room was warm, but that was mostly her own fault. Melting fake sentinels would do that.
She looked up to see Angel and Gambit taking on the other fake robot. As the one with melted feet fell over and stopped whirring and twitching, she headed toward the two men. “Can’t you do anything without me?” She smiled as she moved faster toward them.
“Where would be de fun in dat, petite?” Remy chuckled, throwing a few more cards at the monster.
“Where’s your sense of teamwork, Dare?” Warren grinned as he swooped down next to her. “Want to take a shot from a better angle?”
“You taking me for a ride, fly boy?” She laughed as she took his hand, and her feet left the ground. “Over there!”
A moment later, her boots hit a roof top. It was a good thing too as something intangible hit her back. She blinked a few times from her knees as she watched Warren hit the building on the other side of the sentinels. A moment later she couldn’t name the thing in front of her, and she had no idea why her brain hurt so much.
***
“I’m really more of a writer…” Jehnna looked around at the studio as Piotr shuffled some papers on his desk.
He chuckled softly. “I understand that, but a few of the younger students want to start a club for that kind of thing,” he shrugged. “It is not my talent, or something I can help them with, but I thought you might be interested.”
“I mean, I guess I could help out,” she shook her head. “I always get the idea that they’re ignoring me.”
“Did you ignore your instructors while you were s student?” He smiled.
“I plead the fifth.” She laughed and shook her head. “I’m still getting used to not being a student, honestly. The idea of leading something like this is… intimidating.”
“I know, I felt the same, but this is something you are passionate about, yes?”
“Yeah, it is,” Jehnna pulled at her sleeves a little. It was a nervous habit. “Does that make it easier?”
“When the students are passionate about it too, it does,” he nodded. “I think this is a good place to start.”
She thought about it for a moment. She wasn’t sure the students would accept her as an authority figure. Not yet anyway. It seemed so easy for Haley and Roxxy to make that transition. She wasn’t sure she had it in her. But she also knew Piotr wouldn’t ask if he didn’t think she could do this. Haley might have put a good word in for her on that. “I guess I can give it a try…”
He opened his mouth to say something else before his eyes went wide. “Jehnna!”
She turned just as a shimmery something collided with her. She was conscious just long enough to hear him hit the floor.
***
She woke slowly, wondering vaguely about the cold, hard surface she was on. She could hear voices talking about safety measures and emergency shutdowns. None of it made sense. She blinked again and saw Warren beside her. “What’s going on?”
Her vision was still a little blurry but seeing him was comforting. At least she wasn’t in this strange place alone. She should have been at home, with her son, making dinner. Maybe having coffee with Morgan, or Haley, or her new neighbors. But she was in this strange place.
But it wasn’t strange, was it? She shook her head, trying to piece things together.
“It’s okay, you’re okay,” His hand closed around hers. “You’re safe, sweetheart, I promise.”
Her mind didn’t stop spinning through and when two more bodies moved toward them, she nearly screamed. Her eyes went wide as a large, blue man came closer. Her brain told her a name but how would she know?
She should know. Her mind kept pushing that she knew these people. That something was going on. Something was different here.
“Dare?” one of the men was staring at her. He looked familiar though. She had to sift through her mind, trying to figure out why. “You okay, darlin’?”
“I…” she looked back at Warren and her eyes went wider. “Oh my God, Warren… your back!”
Her eyes fixed on the giant white feather wings behind her… what was he? Part of her mind was screaming he was her husband. The other said a friend, kind of. In a friend of a friend way. It was like two minds warring over everything.
He reached back, the same confusion and war on his face as he touched the wings. “What the hell…”
“We’re trying to determine what is going on. It seems some kind of energy wave cut through the school.” The big. Blue guy—Hank. His name was Hank. He was a doctor—tried to explain what was going on. “Did you see anything?”
“Dere was… something. Looked like a shimmer.” Remy came closer. “Den everyt’ing went dark. Some… other t’ings filled my head.”
“Was it like a dream?” Logan—Dare could remember him in ways that made her blush—asked as he moved closer to her.
“No, it’s like memories, and…”
“Like another life in the background,” Warren finished her sentence. She nodded in agreement, even as the place they were started to look a little more familiar.
“The kid,” Logan shook his head. “Okay, how about we let you all figure out what’s going on, get cleaned up. We have a couple more places to check.”
“Figure what out, exactly?” Dare climbed to her feet, her mind still sorting through all of it. She could see a nice house, picket fence and Warren, but she could see the danger room, her team and… well, there was going to be a lot to figure out. “If the three of us have all this extra shit in our heads, how are we supposed to figure it out?”
“Starting to sound like yourself, darlin’.” He stopped for a second, like someone was saying something to him that nobody else could hear. Telepaths. The word came to her easier than she thought it should. Or part of her thought it should. “Get cleaned up and come upstairs. We’ll figure this all out when everybody’s accounted for.”
***
The room seemed to spin and shift as the world burned away. Her mind went blank, every memory, every conversation, every moment in her life erasing itself as the pain cut through her. She couldn’t think as her mind seemed to overwrite what had always been there. Images of mountains, cabins, the school burning, long roads patrolled by mutant hunters. Prisons, collars, death…
“Haley?”
Her head spun a moment later, his voice triggering something. He sounded far away, or like she had a concussion. The concussion was usually more likely. But she’d thought she’d never hear his voice again. A whole life’s worth of memories poured into her head.
"Would you believe I have a thing for beautiful redheads?"
"I'm never going to be Jean."
"I don't want you to be."
It couldn’t be. He was dead. She glanced around the room for a second, her vision still a little blurry. But this place… she couldn’t place why it was familiar or how they got here. “Scott?”
"Think you can take me?"
"Maybe."
He moved closer, cupping her cheek for a moment before he spoke again. “Are you okay?” She nodded her head, leaning into his touch.
“Haley, he had to die!”
“Don’t do this! No! Roxxy, no!”
She rested her head against his chest and a soft sob left her lips. “I’m sorry.” She said it over and over, but it was too soft for anyone but him to hear. It took longer than she wanted to admit to pull herself together again. She’d assumed she’d spend the rest of her days alone after… but there were more important things to deal with.
Haley moved further into his arms, trying to work what exactly was going on. She glanced at the room they were in. Big windows showed a sunny, blue sky outside and the tops of large trees. The room itself had bookshelves full of copies of plays, books of poetry and a few related items.
It looked like the school before everything had gone to hell. Before the Collapse. Before everyone else died. “Talk to me.” He spoke softly, his hands resting on her hips. “You’re spinning. I can see it.”
“Of course you can.” She sighed heavily, leaning into him again as his lips touched her temple. “I... this is wrong…” she shook her head. That wasn’t really telling anything. They weren’t at the compound. There was no way they could be alone. “Where is everyone? Where are we? It looks like…” she swallowed hard, pressing close to him again.
A small wry smile crossed his face. “We both know that’s not possible.”
“But here we are.” She sighed again, lifting her head enough to look up at him.
He considered that for a moment before he kissed her again, deepening it slowly until she couldn’t stop herself from moaning. This was where she was meant to be. Faye had told her, though vaguely in that annoying way she had, that this was where she was supposed to be. Her hands pulled at the shirt he was wearing, when her fingers brushed his stomach, it pulled her up short. “Scott… the scar…” her fingers traced a well-known spot next to his navel. There should have been a burn there. “What the hell is going on?”
His hand went to her hair, as if he’d just noticed a different. “It’s shorter…”
“Something’s wrong… someone’s messing with us…”
“I wouldn’t let that happen.” He leaned in, kissing her again as his hand tangled in her hair. The thought lingered even as he pulled her closer. He wasn’t her Scott. She wasn’t his Haley. Something was wrong.
She was on the verge of breaking through the cloud around how they got there and what had happened when someone cleared their throat in the doorway. The move was quick, Scott pushed her behind him as she looked to see Logan and Hank in the doorway.
“There’s gotta be a hell of a story behind this.”
She backed up, not really processing what she was seeing. She could hear they both talking. Hank said something about patience but neither of them had been patient for years. She closed her eyes, trying to reclaim the thing she’d almost figured out before she felt a hand on her that shouldn’t have been there.
She didn’t want to open her eyes. Opening her eyes never felt like the safest choice to make when there were strange hands on her arms. She acted on instinct as her eyes finally opened and she swung, accessing her powers in the process. Why did they work? They weren’t supposed to work but Logan was across the room and looking very annoyed with her.
She quickly moved, putting the desk between her and Logan, her eyes moving between him and Hank at an alarming rate.
With her powers back she stood a chance at least. She glanced around the room before Scott was in front of her again. She hated that he put his back to both men as he focused on her but now wasn’t the time for that conversation.
“Did he touch you?” She shook her head. There hadn’t been time for anything too egregious, at least she didn’t think so. “You’re okay?”
She nodded again and ignored the pull to let down her armor, even as his hand cupped her cheek. With both the other men so close, it was too dangerous.
“Somebody want to explain what the hell is going on here?” Logan’s voice sounded from the pile of books in the corner, but Hank was the one that seemed to address the confusion.
“I don’t think we’re the people you think we are,” Haley turned toward Hank’s voice. And it was Hank. The one she’d known before the world had burned. This wasn’t the same man she’d feared. “We’re not sure exactly what is happening but I’m starting to form a theory.”
It seemed to take longer than it should have for Scott to turn toward Hank. Haley saw his jaw tense and not for the first time--or maybe it was—she wished she could see his eyes. “Okay, let’s hear the theory.” He didn’t move from her side which helped but something told her it shouldn’t have.
At least that was the vibe from the other two men in the room.
“This might be tied to our visiting potential student,” Hank sighed and rubbed at the back of his neck. “But I don’t think there’s any record of his ability hitting this hard or this widespread.”
That tickled her brain. A student… she’d been getting ready for a tour and arguing with Scott about something and then—she shook her head. Something hit them and… “There was a… wave? It looked like a bubble…” she closed her eyes again and unconsciously stepped closer to Scott. “He didn’t see it, but it knocked him to his knees and when it hit me… I don’t know I don’t remember.”
“Several others have described something similar and then memories or dreams of unfamiliar places and lives. The worst so far has been the team that was in the danger room,” Hank sighed. “Until we came to you, that is.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The people in the danger room took some time to remember where they were and what they could do, but they did remember once confronted with what was happening,” another voice came from the doorway. Haley visibly deflated. If she’d needed more proof that something was wrong, the woman in the doorway would have been enough.
“Jean?” The two of them seemed to be having a conversation without the rest of the group and Haley turned away from all of it, looking out the window, trying to pull together pieces of whatever this life was for her.
I can’t imagine how this feels for you.
I’m sure you can get a sense of it. Haley didn’t turn back to face the room. If anyone had wanted to attack her again, they would have already.
“Maybe we should get everyone together in the Professor’s office to sort some of this out,” Hank seemed to want to get everyone out of the room and to cut some of the tension. “At least we can assess where everyone is at this point.”
Some of herself started to crawl to the surface as the group moved to the office. She moved quickly, taking her place with her team and keeping herself between them and everyone else in the room. Dare looked like she’d been drained of the little bit of color she usually had. Jehnna looked a little guilty and a little shaky. Morgan was obviously confused by the strange behavior of her teammates and Roxxy was keeping track of something on a tablet.
“Haley?”
She looked over at Morgan and shook her head. “Later.” She focused up for the rest of the meeting, keeping her attention where it needed to be, and trying not to think about the life she remembered far more clearly than the one she was in.
****
Whatever it was, they both saw it coming. Jehnna didn’t even get a chance to try to push it back before her mind went blank and the only thing she was aware of was Colossus protecting her from whatever that shiny bubble stuff was.
It felt like her mind was being scratched out, everything spun and reformed into something different. Something darker. Something she needed protection from. Something she felt she should be able to fight but she was so tired of fighting.
The arms around her were the first thing she could really latch onto as the nauseous, spinning feeling faded.
“Jehnna? Любимая?”
“I’m okay, I think…” her head spun again, words tumbling through her memories.
“How can you just sit up here and let it happen?"
"I am only one man. I cannot stop them.”
She shook her head, trying to make her memories match their surroundings. She blinked up at Piotr, and her hand cupped his cheek. “Are you alright?”
“I don’t seem to be hurt,” he smiled down at her. Somehow that smile still made her heart flutter a little. It had been years since she’d first seen it.
“Stay with me and I will make you as happy as I am able.”
"That's better. Much better."
His lips pressed softly to hers and any thought of where they were floated from her head. He would keep her safe, no matter where they were. Once he pulled back, she had a moment to look at the room. There were pottery wheels, clay, desks… it looked like a workspace for students, but no such place existed anymore. “Piotr…”
He lifted his head, looking around the space. “This is… this isn’t home…”
“It was,” Jehnna said it softly. “What’s going on?” she pressed closer to him, hoping for a little comfort in the confusion. This place didn’t exist anymore. They shouldn’t be here. There should be mountains and gardens and children… their children.
“I… might be able to answer some of that.” Roxxy was standing in the doorway with… no that couldn’t be.
They’d arrested Ororo early on. She had been captured protecting the school from the attack. They got word before they settled out west that she’d been killed by guards at one of the mutant prisons.
But there she was. Standing in the doorway, looking beautiful, peaceful and whole.
“Storm?” Piotr lifted his head, confusing clear on his face. “How?”
“Roxxy what is going on?” Jehnna looked up at her former teammate. “Where are the girls? Where…”
“Jehnna, everyone’s safe, we’re trying to figure out what’s going on,” Roxxy glanced between the two of them. “Are you okay?”
“No, I want to know what’s going on,” she nearly growled. “Where’s Haley? She has to know—”
“Last I saw her she was in her classroom,” Roxxy stepped forward again, giving Jehnna and Piotr a look.
“Classroom?”
“Maybe…” Piotr sighed. “Maybe there is more to this than we though, Любимая.”
“We don’t really have a theory yet, but I’m sure everyone is looking for the same answers, and we’ll have a better chance of finding those if we get everyone together,” Storm offered both of them a hand. “Let’s go to the professor’s office, alright?”
***
The level of confusion in the room was almost mind-bending and she was already exhausted. The reason for that, for all of it, was currently downstairs in a shielded room. The kid was and wasn’t surprised by what had happened when Xavier had touched his mind, but he was surprised by the reached and reaction.
Honestly everyone was shocked by that. The professor hadn’t been prepared for the extreme amount of mental and emotional energy the child had access too. That had been the trigger for the whole mess they were now in.
“We’re still working out exactly what happened, but the professor and young Mr. Hall are both down in the med bay,” Hank started slowly. “It seems their abilities… reacted to each other and that’s the wave you all experienced.”
“Okay, but what does that mean exactly?” Ororo sat forward, clearly curious about what had happened. Jean knew she’d been out of the direct path, but many people hadn’t been.
“It means that those closest to the professor and Benji when the power surge occurred were bombarded with memories, emotions and experiences from other timelines or universes,” Hank glanced at several of the people in the room. “Those closest are likely still a little confused.”
Jean thought Hank might be underselling the level of overwriting those few people had experienced but she wasn’t going to push it. “The level of severity dissipates from there. Some still have the memories, but their life here is still solid. Others likely feel like they had a particularly vivid dream.”
“Where’s the professor?” The question came from Haley.
“The amount of information put forward by Benji’s powers was too much for him. I blocked as much as I could and he’s resting comfortably, but there’s not much we can do to help him find his way back,” Jean said softly.
“We are reaching out to some other sources for help,” Hank added. “Right now, we’re trying to find a way to help Mr. Hall control his abilities. Without the connection to the professor’s power, we shouldn’t have another incident like this again.
“Is there anything we can do about these… other lives?” Roxxy was clearly taking notes. It wasn’t surprising. Given the number of her teammates that had been close to the epicentre, Jean was sure she’d want to help in any way she could.
“At this point, no. But if any physical symptoms show up, any headaches or the like, please let me know,” Hank nodded. “It’s also probably best to keep those who have been extremely effected away from Benjamin until we know for sure things won’t get any worse.”
“So, we just have to live with this.” It wasn’t a question and Jean hated hearing that kind of resignation in Scott’s voice.
“It looks that way,” Hank sighed. “It’s not ideal, but we will offer whatever support is needed in this.”
“Any suggestion?” Haley spoke again, rubbing at her temple.
“If we come up with anything, we’ll let you know.”
***
When the door to Haley’s room closed and the girls were inside, the silence felt nearly oppressive. “Okay, who wants to start?” Haley’s voice seemed a little harsher than Morgan expected but it had been a weird day.
“What the fuck is going on?” Dare was rubbing her temple as if her head was trying to explode. “I have a whole other… I don’t know, life? World? Whatever? My head is full of it.”
“Me too.” Jehnna was pacing back and forth near the door and didn’t say anything else.
“Yeah.” Haley sighed and rolled her shoulders. “I… I’m still not entirely sure what’s…” she tried to find the right words for the feeling. “It’s a lot.”
“That’s understandable,” Roxxy spoke slowly, watching the three of them struggle to figure out what exactly was going on. She tried to ignore it when Haley pulled away, just a little, from her.
“No, it’s not.” Haley ran her hands through her hair again. “This is… this is wrong.” She sighed and leaned forward. “I need you to get it, okay? The… this world? This isn’t what I remember. It’s coming back but I have a whole other life in my head that feels just as real if not more so than this.”
“What… what did you…?”
“The end of the world.” Jehnna’s voice nearly cracked. “It was… it was awful.”
Haley stared at her, as if they could compare notes without actually saying what they’d seen. “The compound?”
“Logan and Hank.” Jehnna looked pale.
Haley nodded. “The collars.” Jehnna’s hand went to her neck. “So, we saw the same things.”
“You came in with—”
“That’s not important.”
“Haley…”
“Jehnna, drop it. That’s not the big issue here, okay?” Haley’s words got hard again, and Jehnna seemed to take that as a sign not the push her luck.
“None of that sounds like what I… I don’t know, saw?” Dare ran a hand over her face and stared at Jehnna for a minute. “It was… normal. Suburbs, jobs, sitcom bullshit. It took way too long to remember I had powers at all when we woke up.”
“So, we’re not all getting the same information?” Morgan spoke up again. “How does that work?”
“Jean said the kid has access to everything, maybe it’s tied to who we were with?” Haley ran a hand over her face like she hated that idea.
“Or how close we were.” Roxxy continued the thought. “But that does mean that somewhere in the multiverse these things exist.”
“That’s not helping.” Jehnna finally sat down at Haley’s desk and sighed. Dare stared at her like there was something she wanted to say but wasn’t sure where to stary. Morgan saw the same look pass from Jehnna to Haley.
“It couldn’t be--”
“If you say it couldn’t be that bad, I will murder you and bury you under the gazebo by the lake.” Haley spoke into her knees as she rested her head on them.
Roxxy watched her carefully for a moment. “Haley?”
“I don’t want to talk about it, okay? Can we just… not?”
“Leave her alone, guys.” Jehnna’s voice sounded a little louder than most of them expected. “It’s… that world or time or… whatever. It was a nightmare. Everyone we love was dead, we were hunted. They rounded us up. Tortured us.”
“We searched the entire country, looking for other survivors,” Haley was still speaking into her knees. “We never found anyone.”
“No, they found you,” Everyone in the room turned to see Faye in the corner. “You had a life. A family. Mutants survived because you found a way to—”
“Shut up.” Haley’s voice came out low and dangerous.
“He loved you.” Faye’s eyes darted between Haley, Jehnna and Dare. “They all loved you.”
“Faye, shut. Up.” Haley’s voice didn’t rise but the tension in it did.
Faye ignored her, moving toward Jehnna first. “Your team risked everything for your daughter to have a better life. Will you just forget that?”
“It… It’s not real.” Jehnna braced herself against the desk.
“Everything is real. Somewhere.” Faye shrugged. “You were the lucky one. Piotr lived.”
Before anyone could really reaction, or see Haley’s lack of reaction, Faye turned to Dare next. “Seeing what you could be without your power shouldn’t be a curse. Your family wouldn’t want you to push them away. Your son wouldn’t want you to forget.”
“Don’t.” Dare grit her teeth. “Don’t do this here.”
“Where else would I do it. Your family here needs to know what you could be,” Faye rested a hand on her cheek. “He’s thinking of you right now, circling the grounds.”
When Faye turned to Haley, the redhead got up and shook her head. “No. I don’t want to hear whatever the hell you think I need to hear.”
“You were where you were meant to be in that world, Haley.”
“Shut up.” She squeezed her eyes shut.
“You couldn’t have stopped it. Your children deserved to know their father was a hero once.”
“Fucking stop.” Haley scrubbed a hand over her face. “Who is this supposed to help?”
Faye tilted her head and looked confused before motioning to all of this. “You. You’ll need each other. They can’t help if they don’t know what you need help with.”
She disappeared a few seconds later and the girls were left staring at each other.
“Wait… kids? All of you?” Roxxy looked a little taken aback by the idea. She shouldn’t have. Dare had Dierdre after all.
Haley ignored the question for a minute, going to her closet to dig out half a pack of cigarettes she kept for emergencies in one of her shoes she never wore. She opened the window and climbed out onto the roof. “Yes.” The tone of her voice made it clear she wasn’t going to elaborate.
Dare ran a hand over her face and sighed, staring at Jehnna for a minute. “Yeah… just one but yeah. I mean it was…” She looked at the other girls again and growled. “Look, I wasn’t at the end of the world or whatever. It was… normal and I was married, and we had a kid and it’s… complicated.” She stared at Jehnna again.
“It was Warren, wasn’t it?” Jehnna didn’t look particularly upset by the revelation but the tension in the room spiked again.
“Seriously?” Morgan snapped out of whatever shock she was in. “You and Warren?”
“I wasn’t me…. Or I wasn’t… this version of me.” Dare growled again, the frustration showing. “I don’t fucking know how this works.”
“Dare… you can stop looking at me like I’m going to blow you out a window.” Jehnna shook her head, as if she thought that might settle tings in the right place. “I don’t hold any of this against you.”
“Good because it’s weird enough as it is.”
They heard a vaguely dismissive from outside, but Haley didn’t add anything else to the exchange.
“You got something to say about all this, fearless leader?”
“Stop fucking calling me that.” She climbed back through the window, tossing the butt of her cigarette out right before she got through. “And no, I don’t have anything to say about it. There’s nothing to say.”
“Haley,” Jehnna frowned a little. “It might help to—”
“No, no. I woke up with my world turned on its head and I don’t want—” she sighed heavily, trying to find the right words. “I’m not going to dwell on this.”
“It’s been like an hour, that’s not dwelling.” Haley looked over at Dare, surprised by her reaction. “Maybe just start with who the father was...”
Haley shook her head. “It’s not that simple.”
“Haley, just tell them.” Jehnna’s voice was surprisingly soft.
“They’re not going to understand.” Her voice stayed low, as if the room was big enough to hide anything. “It’s… complicated.”
“Two of you have memories of a life with the boyfriend of someone else in this room, Haley, how much more complicated can it get?” Morgan guided her back to her bed to sit down. “Was it Hank?” Haley shook her head. “Logan?” she shook it again. “Remy?” She heard the hesitation in Morgan’s voice but shook her head again.
“Well,” Dare sat back, a small grin crossing her face. Clearly her sense of humor had survived the incident. “As long as it wasn’t—”
“Shut up, Dare.” Jehnna shook her head at the pyrokinetic. It took a second for Dare to clue in.
“You have got to be shitting me.”
“What?” Morgan stared at Dare for a moment before a long-suffering sigh left Haley.
“Yeah,” she watched the look of horror on Dare’s face. “It was Scott.”
The silence hung in the room for longer than anyone was comfortable. Morgan broke the silence. “Scott… Summers?” the disbelief was palpable.
“Yes.”
“You had kids with—”
“Jesus Christ, Morgan, yes.” She nearly growled. “Right up until Roxxy ripped his throat out.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Roxxy’s eyes went wide.
“Never mind.”
“It was necessary.” Everyone turned toward Jehnna before Haley stood up and walked out of the room without another word. As the door slammed behind her, Jehnna sighed heavily. “Nothing about what happened was easy. Logan, Beast, Pyro, Toad… that part was a relief.”
“Please tell me I didn’t—”
“No.” Jehnna looked over at Roxxy. “No, Haley did. Dare did. Just after Kara was born.”
“Kara?”
“My daughter.” Jehnna rubbed her arms. “She said she wasn’t going to let her grow up with the shit we were putting up with. She took control by force but when it came to Scott…”
“She couldn’t do it.” It was Roxxy who spoke. “Yeah… that makes sense.”
“I don’t think she ever really… I don’t know. She stopped talking about it when—” Jehnna frowned. “She led. Nobody questioned it. But once Ella was born, she stopped really being social unless she needed to.”
“Ella was—”
“Her daughter. She was born about seven months after everything.”
“Jesus. No wonder she didn’t want to talk about it.” Morgan sat down without thinking about it. “What about you?”
“What about me?” Jehnna rubbed her arms again. “Piotr wasn’t a threat… my life didn’t change that much except not having to watch my back anymore. We all did what we had to to survive. It was… all of that was necessary.”
Dare shook her head. “You’re making me happy I wasn’t closer to the professor’s office, you know that?” All eyes in the room landed on her. “What?”
“So, if it wasn’t all that, what is it?” Roxxy watched her carefully, waiting for a reaction or some other horror story.
“I don’t know it was… normal.” She glanced at Jehnna. “Like actually normal. No powers. No mutants. No superheroes. Nothing. It was like… a sitcom.” She shivered in spite of herself. “Like Dick Van Dyke or something.”
“Seriously?” Morgan looked like she was hitting her limit on weird shit.
“Yeah. Full traditional housewife shit.” Dare shifted again, clearly uncomfortable.
“So then who—”
Dare looked at Jehnna again. “I was married to Warren.”
Jehnna nodded. “I can’t really feel bad about that, considering.” She gave Dare a weak smile.
“Still, it’s weird… I remember a lot of it. Not like… I mean it’s not front and centre but it’s all there,” she sighed and shook her head as if trying to reorder things. “I just woke up confused.”
“I didn’t… not at first…”
Roxxy sighed heavily. “I don’t think Haley did either.”
ginevrasm 's Dark Mirror fic. I know she never finished it but it gave me ideas to play with so I hope this is okay. So... here we go! Back into the breach, dear friends! ;)Also if there's anything you want to change, shift, play with in the B timeline (this one), let me know! Thank you to
ladydeathfaerie for plotting with me again! And if anyone else wants to chat, I'm around again! I miss you guys! Title: Split
Fandom: Marvel Universe
Rating: 18+
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the recognizable characters here. They and the world this is set in are the property of Marvel Entertainment. The Purple Team is the property of ginevrasm (Morgan/Faye), ladydeathfaerie (Dare), sessys_fangirl (Jehnna), nanaeanaven (Roxxy) and dazzledfirestar (Haley). They are not to be used without permission. I make no money from this, and it is simply a form of entertainment.
Warnings: Multiverse fuckery, mentions of death, pregnancy and apocalypses.
New student tours were always a little hit and miss. Haley knew that of course. Many of the kids had very little control, if any, and it was a high stress kind of situation. She’d never really been in that position, as Harper had been the guinea pig in her family when it came to Xavier’s. She could imagine though that this kid might be a little on the nervous side.
There wasn’t a lot of clear information on Benjamin Hall. He was eleven, from Buffalo and had some kind of psionic projection, temporal awareness, it wasn’t super clear what that meant, even to Hank when he broke it down to the staff who he would be meeting.
The knock at her classroom door surprised her. Unless the tour was going far quicker than expected. “Something I can do for you?”
Cyclops worked his way into the room, handing her a revised Danger Room schedule. “We had to shift a few of your students around.”
“And you didn’t ask first, of course.” She scowled down at the changes. “No, Garcia needs that time. She’s so close to a breakthrough—”
“Then she can have that breakthrough at 4 instead of 3.” He sighed heavily, ready to explain why it had been pushed back.
“You’re an asshole.” She shook her head going back to her desk.
“Sure, but Hank’s the one pulling maintenance on—”
She didn’t see why he stopped talking until she turned back toward him and saw him hit his knees. She didn’t get a word out before whatever floored him hit her. Her breath caught and she gripped the edge of her desk for a moment before she hit the floor too.
***
The danger room was warm, but that was mostly her own fault. Melting fake sentinels would do that.
She looked up to see Angel and Gambit taking on the other fake robot. As the one with melted feet fell over and stopped whirring and twitching, she headed toward the two men. “Can’t you do anything without me?” She smiled as she moved faster toward them.
“Where would be de fun in dat, petite?” Remy chuckled, throwing a few more cards at the monster.
“Where’s your sense of teamwork, Dare?” Warren grinned as he swooped down next to her. “Want to take a shot from a better angle?”
“You taking me for a ride, fly boy?” She laughed as she took his hand, and her feet left the ground. “Over there!”
A moment later, her boots hit a roof top. It was a good thing too as something intangible hit her back. She blinked a few times from her knees as she watched Warren hit the building on the other side of the sentinels. A moment later she couldn’t name the thing in front of her, and she had no idea why her brain hurt so much.
***
“I’m really more of a writer…” Jehnna looked around at the studio as Piotr shuffled some papers on his desk.
He chuckled softly. “I understand that, but a few of the younger students want to start a club for that kind of thing,” he shrugged. “It is not my talent, or something I can help them with, but I thought you might be interested.”
“I mean, I guess I could help out,” she shook her head. “I always get the idea that they’re ignoring me.”
“Did you ignore your instructors while you were s student?” He smiled.
“I plead the fifth.” She laughed and shook her head. “I’m still getting used to not being a student, honestly. The idea of leading something like this is… intimidating.”
“I know, I felt the same, but this is something you are passionate about, yes?”
“Yeah, it is,” Jehnna pulled at her sleeves a little. It was a nervous habit. “Does that make it easier?”
“When the students are passionate about it too, it does,” he nodded. “I think this is a good place to start.”
She thought about it for a moment. She wasn’t sure the students would accept her as an authority figure. Not yet anyway. It seemed so easy for Haley and Roxxy to make that transition. She wasn’t sure she had it in her. But she also knew Piotr wouldn’t ask if he didn’t think she could do this. Haley might have put a good word in for her on that. “I guess I can give it a try…”
He opened his mouth to say something else before his eyes went wide. “Jehnna!”
She turned just as a shimmery something collided with her. She was conscious just long enough to hear him hit the floor.
***
She woke slowly, wondering vaguely about the cold, hard surface she was on. She could hear voices talking about safety measures and emergency shutdowns. None of it made sense. She blinked again and saw Warren beside her. “What’s going on?”
Her vision was still a little blurry but seeing him was comforting. At least she wasn’t in this strange place alone. She should have been at home, with her son, making dinner. Maybe having coffee with Morgan, or Haley, or her new neighbors. But she was in this strange place.
But it wasn’t strange, was it? She shook her head, trying to piece things together.
“It’s okay, you’re okay,” His hand closed around hers. “You’re safe, sweetheart, I promise.”
Her mind didn’t stop spinning through and when two more bodies moved toward them, she nearly screamed. Her eyes went wide as a large, blue man came closer. Her brain told her a name but how would she know?
She should know. Her mind kept pushing that she knew these people. That something was going on. Something was different here.
“Dare?” one of the men was staring at her. He looked familiar though. She had to sift through her mind, trying to figure out why. “You okay, darlin’?”
“I…” she looked back at Warren and her eyes went wider. “Oh my God, Warren… your back!”
Her eyes fixed on the giant white feather wings behind her… what was he? Part of her mind was screaming he was her husband. The other said a friend, kind of. In a friend of a friend way. It was like two minds warring over everything.
He reached back, the same confusion and war on his face as he touched the wings. “What the hell…”
“We’re trying to determine what is going on. It seems some kind of energy wave cut through the school.” The big. Blue guy—Hank. His name was Hank. He was a doctor—tried to explain what was going on. “Did you see anything?”
“Dere was… something. Looked like a shimmer.” Remy came closer. “Den everyt’ing went dark. Some… other t’ings filled my head.”
“Was it like a dream?” Logan—Dare could remember him in ways that made her blush—asked as he moved closer to her.
“No, it’s like memories, and…”
“Like another life in the background,” Warren finished her sentence. She nodded in agreement, even as the place they were started to look a little more familiar.
“The kid,” Logan shook his head. “Okay, how about we let you all figure out what’s going on, get cleaned up. We have a couple more places to check.”
“Figure what out, exactly?” Dare climbed to her feet, her mind still sorting through all of it. She could see a nice house, picket fence and Warren, but she could see the danger room, her team and… well, there was going to be a lot to figure out. “If the three of us have all this extra shit in our heads, how are we supposed to figure it out?”
“Starting to sound like yourself, darlin’.” He stopped for a second, like someone was saying something to him that nobody else could hear. Telepaths. The word came to her easier than she thought it should. Or part of her thought it should. “Get cleaned up and come upstairs. We’ll figure this all out when everybody’s accounted for.”
***
The room seemed to spin and shift as the world burned away. Her mind went blank, every memory, every conversation, every moment in her life erasing itself as the pain cut through her. She couldn’t think as her mind seemed to overwrite what had always been there. Images of mountains, cabins, the school burning, long roads patrolled by mutant hunters. Prisons, collars, death…
“Haley?”
Her head spun a moment later, his voice triggering something. He sounded far away, or like she had a concussion. The concussion was usually more likely. But she’d thought she’d never hear his voice again. A whole life’s worth of memories poured into her head.
"Would you believe I have a thing for beautiful redheads?"
"I'm never going to be Jean."
"I don't want you to be."
It couldn’t be. He was dead. She glanced around the room for a second, her vision still a little blurry. But this place… she couldn’t place why it was familiar or how they got here. “Scott?”
"Think you can take me?"
"Maybe."
He moved closer, cupping her cheek for a moment before he spoke again. “Are you okay?” She nodded her head, leaning into his touch.
“Haley, he had to die!”
“Don’t do this! No! Roxxy, no!”
She rested her head against his chest and a soft sob left her lips. “I’m sorry.” She said it over and over, but it was too soft for anyone but him to hear. It took longer than she wanted to admit to pull herself together again. She’d assumed she’d spend the rest of her days alone after… but there were more important things to deal with.
Haley moved further into his arms, trying to work what exactly was going on. She glanced at the room they were in. Big windows showed a sunny, blue sky outside and the tops of large trees. The room itself had bookshelves full of copies of plays, books of poetry and a few related items.
It looked like the school before everything had gone to hell. Before the Collapse. Before everyone else died. “Talk to me.” He spoke softly, his hands resting on her hips. “You’re spinning. I can see it.”
“Of course you can.” She sighed heavily, leaning into him again as his lips touched her temple. “I... this is wrong…” she shook her head. That wasn’t really telling anything. They weren’t at the compound. There was no way they could be alone. “Where is everyone? Where are we? It looks like…” she swallowed hard, pressing close to him again.
A small wry smile crossed his face. “We both know that’s not possible.”
“But here we are.” She sighed again, lifting her head enough to look up at him.
He considered that for a moment before he kissed her again, deepening it slowly until she couldn’t stop herself from moaning. This was where she was meant to be. Faye had told her, though vaguely in that annoying way she had, that this was where she was supposed to be. Her hands pulled at the shirt he was wearing, when her fingers brushed his stomach, it pulled her up short. “Scott… the scar…” her fingers traced a well-known spot next to his navel. There should have been a burn there. “What the hell is going on?”
His hand went to her hair, as if he’d just noticed a different. “It’s shorter…”
“Something’s wrong… someone’s messing with us…”
“I wouldn’t let that happen.” He leaned in, kissing her again as his hand tangled in her hair. The thought lingered even as he pulled her closer. He wasn’t her Scott. She wasn’t his Haley. Something was wrong.
She was on the verge of breaking through the cloud around how they got there and what had happened when someone cleared their throat in the doorway. The move was quick, Scott pushed her behind him as she looked to see Logan and Hank in the doorway.
“There’s gotta be a hell of a story behind this.”
She backed up, not really processing what she was seeing. She could hear they both talking. Hank said something about patience but neither of them had been patient for years. She closed her eyes, trying to reclaim the thing she’d almost figured out before she felt a hand on her that shouldn’t have been there.
She didn’t want to open her eyes. Opening her eyes never felt like the safest choice to make when there were strange hands on her arms. She acted on instinct as her eyes finally opened and she swung, accessing her powers in the process. Why did they work? They weren’t supposed to work but Logan was across the room and looking very annoyed with her.
She quickly moved, putting the desk between her and Logan, her eyes moving between him and Hank at an alarming rate.
With her powers back she stood a chance at least. She glanced around the room before Scott was in front of her again. She hated that he put his back to both men as he focused on her but now wasn’t the time for that conversation.
“Did he touch you?” She shook her head. There hadn’t been time for anything too egregious, at least she didn’t think so. “You’re okay?”
She nodded again and ignored the pull to let down her armor, even as his hand cupped her cheek. With both the other men so close, it was too dangerous.
“Somebody want to explain what the hell is going on here?” Logan’s voice sounded from the pile of books in the corner, but Hank was the one that seemed to address the confusion.
“I don’t think we’re the people you think we are,” Haley turned toward Hank’s voice. And it was Hank. The one she’d known before the world had burned. This wasn’t the same man she’d feared. “We’re not sure exactly what is happening but I’m starting to form a theory.”
It seemed to take longer than it should have for Scott to turn toward Hank. Haley saw his jaw tense and not for the first time--or maybe it was—she wished she could see his eyes. “Okay, let’s hear the theory.” He didn’t move from her side which helped but something told her it shouldn’t have.
At least that was the vibe from the other two men in the room.
“This might be tied to our visiting potential student,” Hank sighed and rubbed at the back of his neck. “But I don’t think there’s any record of his ability hitting this hard or this widespread.”
That tickled her brain. A student… she’d been getting ready for a tour and arguing with Scott about something and then—she shook her head. Something hit them and… “There was a… wave? It looked like a bubble…” she closed her eyes again and unconsciously stepped closer to Scott. “He didn’t see it, but it knocked him to his knees and when it hit me… I don’t know I don’t remember.”
“Several others have described something similar and then memories or dreams of unfamiliar places and lives. The worst so far has been the team that was in the danger room,” Hank sighed. “Until we came to you, that is.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The people in the danger room took some time to remember where they were and what they could do, but they did remember once confronted with what was happening,” another voice came from the doorway. Haley visibly deflated. If she’d needed more proof that something was wrong, the woman in the doorway would have been enough.
“Jean?” The two of them seemed to be having a conversation without the rest of the group and Haley turned away from all of it, looking out the window, trying to pull together pieces of whatever this life was for her.
I can’t imagine how this feels for you.
I’m sure you can get a sense of it. Haley didn’t turn back to face the room. If anyone had wanted to attack her again, they would have already.
“Maybe we should get everyone together in the Professor’s office to sort some of this out,” Hank seemed to want to get everyone out of the room and to cut some of the tension. “At least we can assess where everyone is at this point.”
Some of herself started to crawl to the surface as the group moved to the office. She moved quickly, taking her place with her team and keeping herself between them and everyone else in the room. Dare looked like she’d been drained of the little bit of color she usually had. Jehnna looked a little guilty and a little shaky. Morgan was obviously confused by the strange behavior of her teammates and Roxxy was keeping track of something on a tablet.
“Haley?”
She looked over at Morgan and shook her head. “Later.” She focused up for the rest of the meeting, keeping her attention where it needed to be, and trying not to think about the life she remembered far more clearly than the one she was in.
****
Whatever it was, they both saw it coming. Jehnna didn’t even get a chance to try to push it back before her mind went blank and the only thing she was aware of was Colossus protecting her from whatever that shiny bubble stuff was.
It felt like her mind was being scratched out, everything spun and reformed into something different. Something darker. Something she needed protection from. Something she felt she should be able to fight but she was so tired of fighting.
The arms around her were the first thing she could really latch onto as the nauseous, spinning feeling faded.
“Jehnna? Любимая?”
“I’m okay, I think…” her head spun again, words tumbling through her memories.
“How can you just sit up here and let it happen?"
"I am only one man. I cannot stop them.”
She shook her head, trying to make her memories match their surroundings. She blinked up at Piotr, and her hand cupped his cheek. “Are you alright?”
“I don’t seem to be hurt,” he smiled down at her. Somehow that smile still made her heart flutter a little. It had been years since she’d first seen it.
“Stay with me and I will make you as happy as I am able.”
"That's better. Much better."
His lips pressed softly to hers and any thought of where they were floated from her head. He would keep her safe, no matter where they were. Once he pulled back, she had a moment to look at the room. There were pottery wheels, clay, desks… it looked like a workspace for students, but no such place existed anymore. “Piotr…”
He lifted his head, looking around the space. “This is… this isn’t home…”
“It was,” Jehnna said it softly. “What’s going on?” she pressed closer to him, hoping for a little comfort in the confusion. This place didn’t exist anymore. They shouldn’t be here. There should be mountains and gardens and children… their children.
“I… might be able to answer some of that.” Roxxy was standing in the doorway with… no that couldn’t be.
They’d arrested Ororo early on. She had been captured protecting the school from the attack. They got word before they settled out west that she’d been killed by guards at one of the mutant prisons.
But there she was. Standing in the doorway, looking beautiful, peaceful and whole.
“Storm?” Piotr lifted his head, confusing clear on his face. “How?”
“Roxxy what is going on?” Jehnna looked up at her former teammate. “Where are the girls? Where…”
“Jehnna, everyone’s safe, we’re trying to figure out what’s going on,” Roxxy glanced between the two of them. “Are you okay?”
“No, I want to know what’s going on,” she nearly growled. “Where’s Haley? She has to know—”
“Last I saw her she was in her classroom,” Roxxy stepped forward again, giving Jehnna and Piotr a look.
“Classroom?”
“Maybe…” Piotr sighed. “Maybe there is more to this than we though, Любимая.”
“We don’t really have a theory yet, but I’m sure everyone is looking for the same answers, and we’ll have a better chance of finding those if we get everyone together,” Storm offered both of them a hand. “Let’s go to the professor’s office, alright?”
***
The level of confusion in the room was almost mind-bending and she was already exhausted. The reason for that, for all of it, was currently downstairs in a shielded room. The kid was and wasn’t surprised by what had happened when Xavier had touched his mind, but he was surprised by the reached and reaction.
Honestly everyone was shocked by that. The professor hadn’t been prepared for the extreme amount of mental and emotional energy the child had access too. That had been the trigger for the whole mess they were now in.
“We’re still working out exactly what happened, but the professor and young Mr. Hall are both down in the med bay,” Hank started slowly. “It seems their abilities… reacted to each other and that’s the wave you all experienced.”
“Okay, but what does that mean exactly?” Ororo sat forward, clearly curious about what had happened. Jean knew she’d been out of the direct path, but many people hadn’t been.
“It means that those closest to the professor and Benji when the power surge occurred were bombarded with memories, emotions and experiences from other timelines or universes,” Hank glanced at several of the people in the room. “Those closest are likely still a little confused.”
Jean thought Hank might be underselling the level of overwriting those few people had experienced but she wasn’t going to push it. “The level of severity dissipates from there. Some still have the memories, but their life here is still solid. Others likely feel like they had a particularly vivid dream.”
“Where’s the professor?” The question came from Haley.
“The amount of information put forward by Benji’s powers was too much for him. I blocked as much as I could and he’s resting comfortably, but there’s not much we can do to help him find his way back,” Jean said softly.
“We are reaching out to some other sources for help,” Hank added. “Right now, we’re trying to find a way to help Mr. Hall control his abilities. Without the connection to the professor’s power, we shouldn’t have another incident like this again.
“Is there anything we can do about these… other lives?” Roxxy was clearly taking notes. It wasn’t surprising. Given the number of her teammates that had been close to the epicentre, Jean was sure she’d want to help in any way she could.
“At this point, no. But if any physical symptoms show up, any headaches or the like, please let me know,” Hank nodded. “It’s also probably best to keep those who have been extremely effected away from Benjamin until we know for sure things won’t get any worse.”
“So, we just have to live with this.” It wasn’t a question and Jean hated hearing that kind of resignation in Scott’s voice.
“It looks that way,” Hank sighed. “It’s not ideal, but we will offer whatever support is needed in this.”
“Any suggestion?” Haley spoke again, rubbing at her temple.
“If we come up with anything, we’ll let you know.”
***
When the door to Haley’s room closed and the girls were inside, the silence felt nearly oppressive. “Okay, who wants to start?” Haley’s voice seemed a little harsher than Morgan expected but it had been a weird day.
“What the fuck is going on?” Dare was rubbing her temple as if her head was trying to explode. “I have a whole other… I don’t know, life? World? Whatever? My head is full of it.”
“Me too.” Jehnna was pacing back and forth near the door and didn’t say anything else.
“Yeah.” Haley sighed and rolled her shoulders. “I… I’m still not entirely sure what’s…” she tried to find the right words for the feeling. “It’s a lot.”
“That’s understandable,” Roxxy spoke slowly, watching the three of them struggle to figure out what exactly was going on. She tried to ignore it when Haley pulled away, just a little, from her.
“No, it’s not.” Haley ran her hands through her hair again. “This is… this is wrong.” She sighed and leaned forward. “I need you to get it, okay? The… this world? This isn’t what I remember. It’s coming back but I have a whole other life in my head that feels just as real if not more so than this.”
“What… what did you…?”
“The end of the world.” Jehnna’s voice nearly cracked. “It was… it was awful.”
Haley stared at her, as if they could compare notes without actually saying what they’d seen. “The compound?”
“Logan and Hank.” Jehnna looked pale.
Haley nodded. “The collars.” Jehnna’s hand went to her neck. “So, we saw the same things.”
“You came in with—”
“That’s not important.”
“Haley…”
“Jehnna, drop it. That’s not the big issue here, okay?” Haley’s words got hard again, and Jehnna seemed to take that as a sign not the push her luck.
“None of that sounds like what I… I don’t know, saw?” Dare ran a hand over her face and stared at Jehnna for a minute. “It was… normal. Suburbs, jobs, sitcom bullshit. It took way too long to remember I had powers at all when we woke up.”
“So, we’re not all getting the same information?” Morgan spoke up again. “How does that work?”
“Jean said the kid has access to everything, maybe it’s tied to who we were with?” Haley ran a hand over her face like she hated that idea.
“Or how close we were.” Roxxy continued the thought. “But that does mean that somewhere in the multiverse these things exist.”
“That’s not helping.” Jehnna finally sat down at Haley’s desk and sighed. Dare stared at her like there was something she wanted to say but wasn’t sure where to stary. Morgan saw the same look pass from Jehnna to Haley.
“It couldn’t be--”
“If you say it couldn’t be that bad, I will murder you and bury you under the gazebo by the lake.” Haley spoke into her knees as she rested her head on them.
Roxxy watched her carefully for a moment. “Haley?”
“I don’t want to talk about it, okay? Can we just… not?”
“Leave her alone, guys.” Jehnna’s voice sounded a little louder than most of them expected. “It’s… that world or time or… whatever. It was a nightmare. Everyone we love was dead, we were hunted. They rounded us up. Tortured us.”
“We searched the entire country, looking for other survivors,” Haley was still speaking into her knees. “We never found anyone.”
“No, they found you,” Everyone in the room turned to see Faye in the corner. “You had a life. A family. Mutants survived because you found a way to—”
“Shut up.” Haley’s voice came out low and dangerous.
“He loved you.” Faye’s eyes darted between Haley, Jehnna and Dare. “They all loved you.”
“Faye, shut. Up.” Haley’s voice didn’t rise but the tension in it did.
Faye ignored her, moving toward Jehnna first. “Your team risked everything for your daughter to have a better life. Will you just forget that?”
“It… It’s not real.” Jehnna braced herself against the desk.
“Everything is real. Somewhere.” Faye shrugged. “You were the lucky one. Piotr lived.”
Before anyone could really reaction, or see Haley’s lack of reaction, Faye turned to Dare next. “Seeing what you could be without your power shouldn’t be a curse. Your family wouldn’t want you to push them away. Your son wouldn’t want you to forget.”
“Don’t.” Dare grit her teeth. “Don’t do this here.”
“Where else would I do it. Your family here needs to know what you could be,” Faye rested a hand on her cheek. “He’s thinking of you right now, circling the grounds.”
When Faye turned to Haley, the redhead got up and shook her head. “No. I don’t want to hear whatever the hell you think I need to hear.”
“You were where you were meant to be in that world, Haley.”
“Shut up.” She squeezed her eyes shut.
“You couldn’t have stopped it. Your children deserved to know their father was a hero once.”
“Fucking stop.” Haley scrubbed a hand over her face. “Who is this supposed to help?”
Faye tilted her head and looked confused before motioning to all of this. “You. You’ll need each other. They can’t help if they don’t know what you need help with.”
She disappeared a few seconds later and the girls were left staring at each other.
“Wait… kids? All of you?” Roxxy looked a little taken aback by the idea. She shouldn’t have. Dare had Dierdre after all.
Haley ignored the question for a minute, going to her closet to dig out half a pack of cigarettes she kept for emergencies in one of her shoes she never wore. She opened the window and climbed out onto the roof. “Yes.” The tone of her voice made it clear she wasn’t going to elaborate.
Dare ran a hand over her face and sighed, staring at Jehnna for a minute. “Yeah… just one but yeah. I mean it was…” She looked at the other girls again and growled. “Look, I wasn’t at the end of the world or whatever. It was… normal and I was married, and we had a kid and it’s… complicated.” She stared at Jehnna again.
“It was Warren, wasn’t it?” Jehnna didn’t look particularly upset by the revelation but the tension in the room spiked again.
“Seriously?” Morgan snapped out of whatever shock she was in. “You and Warren?”
“I wasn’t me…. Or I wasn’t… this version of me.” Dare growled again, the frustration showing. “I don’t fucking know how this works.”
“Dare… you can stop looking at me like I’m going to blow you out a window.” Jehnna shook her head, as if she thought that might settle tings in the right place. “I don’t hold any of this against you.”
“Good because it’s weird enough as it is.”
They heard a vaguely dismissive from outside, but Haley didn’t add anything else to the exchange.
“You got something to say about all this, fearless leader?”
“Stop fucking calling me that.” She climbed back through the window, tossing the butt of her cigarette out right before she got through. “And no, I don’t have anything to say about it. There’s nothing to say.”
“Haley,” Jehnna frowned a little. “It might help to—”
“No, no. I woke up with my world turned on its head and I don’t want—” she sighed heavily, trying to find the right words. “I’m not going to dwell on this.”
“It’s been like an hour, that’s not dwelling.” Haley looked over at Dare, surprised by her reaction. “Maybe just start with who the father was...”
Haley shook her head. “It’s not that simple.”
“Haley, just tell them.” Jehnna’s voice was surprisingly soft.
“They’re not going to understand.” Her voice stayed low, as if the room was big enough to hide anything. “It’s… complicated.”
“Two of you have memories of a life with the boyfriend of someone else in this room, Haley, how much more complicated can it get?” Morgan guided her back to her bed to sit down. “Was it Hank?” Haley shook her head. “Logan?” she shook it again. “Remy?” She heard the hesitation in Morgan’s voice but shook her head again.
“Well,” Dare sat back, a small grin crossing her face. Clearly her sense of humor had survived the incident. “As long as it wasn’t—”
“Shut up, Dare.” Jehnna shook her head at the pyrokinetic. It took a second for Dare to clue in.
“You have got to be shitting me.”
“What?” Morgan stared at Dare for a moment before a long-suffering sigh left Haley.
“Yeah,” she watched the look of horror on Dare’s face. “It was Scott.”
The silence hung in the room for longer than anyone was comfortable. Morgan broke the silence. “Scott… Summers?” the disbelief was palpable.
“Yes.”
“You had kids with—”
“Jesus Christ, Morgan, yes.” She nearly growled. “Right up until Roxxy ripped his throat out.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Roxxy’s eyes went wide.
“Never mind.”
“It was necessary.” Everyone turned toward Jehnna before Haley stood up and walked out of the room without another word. As the door slammed behind her, Jehnna sighed heavily. “Nothing about what happened was easy. Logan, Beast, Pyro, Toad… that part was a relief.”
“Please tell me I didn’t—”
“No.” Jehnna looked over at Roxxy. “No, Haley did. Dare did. Just after Kara was born.”
“Kara?”
“My daughter.” Jehnna rubbed her arms. “She said she wasn’t going to let her grow up with the shit we were putting up with. She took control by force but when it came to Scott…”
“She couldn’t do it.” It was Roxxy who spoke. “Yeah… that makes sense.”
“I don’t think she ever really… I don’t know. She stopped talking about it when—” Jehnna frowned. “She led. Nobody questioned it. But once Ella was born, she stopped really being social unless she needed to.”
“Ella was—”
“Her daughter. She was born about seven months after everything.”
“Jesus. No wonder she didn’t want to talk about it.” Morgan sat down without thinking about it. “What about you?”
“What about me?” Jehnna rubbed her arms again. “Piotr wasn’t a threat… my life didn’t change that much except not having to watch my back anymore. We all did what we had to to survive. It was… all of that was necessary.”
Dare shook her head. “You’re making me happy I wasn’t closer to the professor’s office, you know that?” All eyes in the room landed on her. “What?”
“So, if it wasn’t all that, what is it?” Roxxy watched her carefully, waiting for a reaction or some other horror story.
“I don’t know it was… normal.” She glanced at Jehnna. “Like actually normal. No powers. No mutants. No superheroes. Nothing. It was like… a sitcom.” She shivered in spite of herself. “Like Dick Van Dyke or something.”
“Seriously?” Morgan looked like she was hitting her limit on weird shit.
“Yeah. Full traditional housewife shit.” Dare shifted again, clearly uncomfortable.
“So then who—”
Dare looked at Jehnna again. “I was married to Warren.”
Jehnna nodded. “I can’t really feel bad about that, considering.” She gave Dare a weak smile.
“Still, it’s weird… I remember a lot of it. Not like… I mean it’s not front and centre but it’s all there,” she sighed and shook her head as if trying to reorder things. “I just woke up confused.”
“I didn’t… not at first…”
Roxxy sighed heavily. “I don’t think Haley did either.”
Tags:
- author: dazzledfirestar,
- character: dare scott,
- character: faye lefavre,
- character: haley stone,
- character: hank mccoy,
- character: jean grey,
- character: jehnna d'abo,
- character: logan/james howlett,
- character: morgan lafavre,
- character: piotr rasputin,
- character: remy lebeau,
- character: roxxy stewart,
- character: scott summers,
- character: warren worthington iii,
- universe: marvel
