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Title: The New Mutants II, Volume II
Author: kanedax
Fandom: X-Men Movieverse
Spoilers: X3, New Mutants I (see above)
Pairings: one minor, non-X-Men pairing
Summary: As the students go off on their adventure, Ororo meets the parents of a potential new student.
Notes: Last month I posted a story called the New Mutants Holiday Special. As of now that's officially being retitled "New Mutants II, volume I", as this is starting off a whole new storyline. I hope readers enjoy this new series of stories, as it will involve the X-Men movieverse colliding with other aspects of the Marvel Universe in what I'm hoping will be a great story. As usual, I don't own the X-Men, Marvel Comics, or 20th Century Fox. But I do own a Wii, and I'm fighting very hard to keep away from it and do some writing.
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“You should have seen it!”
As Ororo Munroe walked into the large room, she barely heard the voice on the far side. Her eyes were instantly drawn to the numerous pieces of exotic equipment scattered along the walls. Huge glowing cylinders stretched to the ceiling, while hundreds upon thousands of wires humming with electrical energy were strewn upon the floor like a scene out of Indiana Jones. She looked down at herself and saw her body covered in dozens of colors from the multitude of monitors placed throughout the lab.
“John…” a voice said calmly. Ororo pulled her attention away from the machinery and turned to the source of the voices.
A man in a white lab coat sat behind a large desk. He looked to be in his mid-forties, skinny, with gray hair appearing on his temples. Much like the lab itself, the desk was cluttered with all sorts of scientific gizmos and stacks upon stacks of notes and papers.
Next to the scientist, sitting in another chair, was a blond woman, mid- to late thirties, with a matching lab coat. She was looking wearily at the third member of the group, a young man (in his twenties, Ororo guessed). Unlike the older man and woman, the young man was dressed in blue jeans and a red t-shirt. His hair was blond, a darker shade than the woman’s, and spiked with hair gel, but Ororo could instantly recognize a family resemblance.
“Seriously!” the young man continued, leaning on the desk. “You thought what happened was cool before, but this was fuckin’ awesome!”
“John!” the older man repeated, looking directly at Ororo. “We have company.”
John, the younger man, straightened up and turned to look at Ororo. A small, cocky smile crossed his face.
“Hey, there,” he said, his voice full of ideas. She could literally feel his eyes sizing her up.
“Your secretary let me in,” Ororo said uncomfortably. “I hope I’m not interrupting?”
“We’ll talk about this later, John,” the woman said firmly.
“Alright,” John replied, never averting his gaze. He walked towards Ororo. “You’re the school teacher, right? For Franklin?”
“Headmistress, yes,” she said tightly.
John’s smile curled even tighter. “Lucky kids,” he said, flicking his eyebrows and clicking his tongue as he exited the room.
“You’ll have to forgive my little brother,” the woman said, standing. “Sometimes he can be… well…”
“A little brother,” the older man continued, standing along with the woman. “You must be Professor Munroe?”
“That’s right,” she said, extending her hand. “Ororo Munroe. Headmistress of Xavier Academy.”
“Reed Richards,” the man said, shaking Ororo’s hand, and then motioning to the woman. “This is my wife, Susan.”
“Pleasure to meet you,” Susan said, shaking Ororo’s hand after Reed.
“It’s quite the facility you have here,” Ororo said, sitting in the chair across the desk from the couple.
“Yes, well,” Reed said loftily, waving his hand around the room, “I always say that big experiments call for big equipment. We’re currently only allowed use of a small portion of the entire Baxter Building, so we have to make due with the space available to us.”
“Your phone call had mentioned a Dr. Banner…?” Ororo asked.
“Ah, yes,” Reed replied. “Dr. Banner is currently feeling a little under the weather, so won’t be able to attend. But that’s perfectly fine, any information that he could add can just as easily be added by myself or Susan.”
“And Franklin?”
“Franklin will be meeting you eventually,” Susan said. “But first we wanted to discuss a few matters with you before we decide if your school is the right choice for our son.”
“Of course,” Ororo said, her eyes moving between the two scientists. She paused, not sure which “subject” would be the one the Richards’ would broach first.
“Allow me to get right to the point,” Reed said, leaning over the desk. “About twenty years ago, Susan and I were a part of a minor research project in molecular physics. I won’t get into the boring details of the project except to say that it failed to reach the goals that it strove to attain. One unexpected side effect, however, was a slight change to our genetic code.”
“That’s…” Ororo said quietly, “That’s quite a minor experiment.”
“The effects were negligent,” Susan said quickly. “We noticed that we had different eye color than before, but beyond that we’re perfectly normal.”
“At the time, Susan and I were dating,” Reed continued, “and within a year or two we were married. Soon after that, Franklin came along. He seemed like a perfectly healthy child. Smarter than many, to be sure, but we made the assumption that having two scientist parents helped in his superior upbringing.”
“Then his mutation began to manifest,” Ororo pieced the rest together, “and you’re not sure whether it has any relation to the experiment?”
Reed sighed, and leaned back again. “I’ve done much research in the past few months regarding mutation,” he said. “But I figured I’d ask you, since you’ve probably had more experience with mutants than anyone else we could find.”
“What kind of mutant develops when two mutants have offspring?” Susan asked. She took a notepad from the piles of papers, and pulled a pen from her pocket.
Ororo was left momentarily speechless. After seeing dozens of faces of parents since she began her time at the school, this was a new look. Many had a look of horror at thinking their children were “freaks” or “muties.” Others had a look of resignation or defeat, as though they had done something wrong to bring this upon their sons and daughters.
Reed and Susan Richards, however, looked at her less like parents and more like the scientists that they were, emotionlessly requesting information as though Ororo were speaking of a new species of bug, or a mold spore.
“Well,” Ororo stumbled, regaining her composure, “There really is no official data about children in mutant families. Before fifteen or twenty years ago mutants were so few and far between that they very rarely had the chance to connect and start families. And those who have have most likely done so recently, so their children probably have not reached the age of manifestation.”
“Mutants are relatively recent phenomena, then?” Reed asked, scribbling notes on a pad of his own. “What about that masked man in the city back in the early part of the century? Spider-Man, they called him? Or that sand creature that he fought?”
“We assume they were mutants,” Ororo said. “But Spider-Man disappeared from the public eye years ago, and if our founder knew his whereabouts he never approached the man, as far as I know.”
“But if he was a mutant,” Reed asked, “he was the first one, correct?”
“If we would assume he was in his late twenties to early thirties back then,” Ororo said, “then there were still other mutants born before him. Charles Xavier, for one. Erik Lehnsherr, who you would know as Magneto, was another.”
“So they were the first?”
“Well, there’s some evidence that mutants were around as far back as the 19th century.”
“What evidence is that?” Reed asked as the two scribbled notes.
“One of them left his empty beer bottles on our coffee table no matter how many times I scolded him for it,” Ororo said, smirking as both of their pens stopped in mid-stroke.
“So in answer to your question,” she quickly continued, “There is no evidence of two mutants bearing mutant offspring. I’ve known brothers who were both mutants, but I can’t vouch for their parents’ genetic makeup. One of my current students is the daughter of a mutant, but her mother is human. Erik Lehnsherr also had two children, both mutants, but I don’t know if their mother was human or mutant.”
“And their powers?” Reed asked. “Were there similarities?”
Why would he want to know that if they know their son already has powers and they don’t? Ororo thought briefly, and then waved it off. “In the case of the two brothers, their powers were energy based, but completely differed beyond that. The girl who I am teaching shares a power with her father, and Lehnsherr’s children shared powers with him, both primary and secondary.”
“So right now you can say that our son’s mutation might have something to do with ours, but might just be a coincidence?” Susan asked.
Ororo smiled. “Well, now that I think about it, I probably should have said that right off the bat and saved you both a few sheets of paper.”
Reed chuckled, the clinical tone of his presence shedding off with the laughter. “It’s a completely fascinating topic, Professor Munroe,” he said, setting down the notebook.
“Completely fascinating,” Susan repeated, putting the cap back on her pen. “I think it’s safe to say that our son will be in good hands with your school. You seem very well versed on the subject.”
“I probably should be up front with you both,” Ororo said. “Your son, if his powers are what you say they are, is the first psychic we at our school have encountered since The Pulse a few months back.”
She paused briefly. I really am sounding like a professor, she thought. I was able to talk about two friends, both of whom are dead, with a textbook-like tone. And now I’m talking about an international incident as if it had absolutely nothing to do with the Academy.
“Because of that,” she pushed on, “Our faculty may not be fully prepared to deal with your son in the capacity that we would have been able to even six months ago.”
“Are you saying you’re unfit for the job?” Reed asked.
“What I’m saying,” Ororo said, “Is that we’ll do everything we can for Franklin. However, if his abilities become more than a school of non-psychics can handle, I would like your permission to transfer him to another facility in the future. London and Muir Island are both also not staffed with psychics, but they have more equipment that can be used in his training.”
Susan looked uncomfortably at Reed, and then turned back to Ororo. “Then why should we even send him to your school at all?”
“Because we have some equipment to deal with psychics,” Ororo explained. “But we can also give him a proper schooling. We can offer him a well-rounded education as well as training. Most importantly, we can offer him a chance to be with others of his kind. Right now our school isn’t as full as it once was, but there are still a dozen other mutants living at the Academy. It probably won’t make him feel as alone as he would in a research environment.”
Reed nodded, then turned to Susan. “Well, I think that gives us plenty to talk over,” he said, standing and extending his hand. “I’d like to thank you for your time, Professor.”
Ororo stood and shook his hand, and then Susan’s. “Right now our students and faculty are on a small hiatus for the next month or so. We’ll be starting classes back up in the spring, but if you feel as though he needs immediate assistance, please let us know.”
“Of course,” Reed said, as the three walked to the door. “Miss Walters will show you out.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Ororo said. As she turned to make her final farewells, she was met with the door closing in her face.
“Don’t take it too badly,” Miss Walters (Jennifer, her placard read) said as the two walked through the winding halls to the elevator. “The Doctors both have a tendency to cut off their meetings with a minimum of small talk.”
“They did both seem to be your stereotypical scientist,” Ororo said as they reached the elevator.
“You’re in the third basement now,” Jennifer said. “You’ll want to hit ‘Lobby’ if you’re going back outside, but if you’re going to the parking ramp it’ll be the third floor.”
“Thank you, Miss Walters,” Ororo said. As she did, she heard a distant howling at the far end of the hall.
“What was that?” she asked, turning to the sound of the noise.
“Oh, that?” Jennifer said, “It’s just some machinery. The Baxter Building’s still kinda new, working out all the kinks, you know?”
The howling noise subsided, but was replaced by two loud thuds, like a wrecking ball striking a cement wall.
Jennifer tittered nervously and pushed Ororo a little too forcefully into the elevator. “Thank you for coming, Professor,” she said as the lift closed and raised Ororo Munroe, her mind still trying to fully grasp the last ten minutes, back to the surface.
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