First Contact (X-Men One Shot)

It was a cool fall morning.  The team was out in yard, training with a little ‘Mutant Flag Football’.  The underclassman students were pitted against the three older students:  Scott, Jean and Ryan.  The yard was quickly becoming a quarry with the destruction caused by some of the students more reckless behavior, and some of the team had already tapped out, but everyone was having a good time.

Kurt and Bobby had teamed up against Scott.  Bobby trying his best to keep Scott off balance while Kurt tried to teleport in close enough to grab a flag.  Unfortunately, Bobby missed Scott by a few feet and froze Kurt, upside-down, to a tree.  At the same time, Berserker and Jubilee were trying to get a flag from Jean, but were fairing worse than Kurt and Bobby.  Every attempt the made, backfired in their face with a flick of Jean’s wrist.

The last pair was Kitty and Rogue against Ryan.  Theirs was by far the least destructive.  So far their main strategy involved Rouge taking Ryan on, hand to hand, while Kitty tried to slip in and phase Ryan into the ground long enough to grab a flag.  But not matter how often she tried, whatever angle, no matter how off balance he seemed to be at the time, he always managed to counter and slip away at the right moment.

Rouge came at him with a high kick.  He dodged.  Kitty made a grab for one of his ankles, he shifted his wait and flipped backwards.

“Again.  You two need to learn to mix it up sometime.” He teased.

He could tell that Rogue was getting more tired, and Kitty was growing more frustrated.  She glared at him, with just her torso sticking out of the ground.

“Fine,” she said, angrily, “you want us to mix it up, we’ll mix it up.”  Kitty took over her glove and gave her hand to Rogue, who looked surprised by the offer.  “You coming or what?”

“Alright, alright.”  Rogue begrudgingly removed her own glove and took Kitty’s hand.  They both winced for a moment before both letting go and descending into the ground.

Ryan looked around the pit, analyzing the possible angles of an oncoming attack.  He took one step back.  Then another. H was now at the center of the pit.  Away from any high standing rubble that would be easy for them to leap out from.  Time passed, but they had to come up for air sometime, so he waited.

Then he felt a slight tingling in his toes.  He looked down to see orange fingertips of Rogue’s glove phasing trough.  He took a step back as he watched the hand follow him, but it wasn’t Rogue that followed the hand, but Kitty who lunged at him from under the ground.  Surprised, he jumped back to avoid her, but soon felt a bare hand touch his face.

Cold, damp tiles.

Smells of bleach, formaldehyde, steel and blood.

Shadows of masked faces, white coats, rubber gloves against a hot spotlight.

Red, wet hands.

Pain.

White.

Ryan felt someone pulling him by his coat collar and Rogue’s hand slipping away.  His legs fell from under him, but he didn’t fall.  Someone was holding him up, but he couldn’t focus long enough to tell who.  His mind was blaring with a million colors and sounds.  He had to regain control.  He had to focus.  He felt his heart beating in his head.  Count the beats.  Count the beats.  One. Two. Three. Tree.  Apple.  Apple Farm. Two. Four.  Favor.  One. Orange. Orange.  Orange.  Someone screamed.

All at once the numbness subsided and the world came back in to focus.  He looked up and saw Logan holding him up.  He looked around and saw that Rogue and Kitty were gone.  At the edge of the ditch, the other students were in a huddle.

“What’s going on?”  It was hard to think straight.  His mind was still too numb.  He tried standing on his own, but stumbled back.  Logan grabbed him by the arm and swung it behind his neck to help support him.  With Logan’s help, they made it out of the ditch and up to the crowd of students.

Ryan let go of Logan to make his way through the other students.  At the center he saw Dr. Macoy propping up Rogue to the Professor’s level.  She had passed out.  The Professor’s eyes were closed with his hands hovered just over her temples.  His eyebrow twitched with concentration.  How long had he been at it?  How long had they been in contact?  His memories were one thing, but if she had absorbed enough of his powers, her entire brain chemistry could be rewritten.  She may never be the same and it would be his fault.

The Professor took away his hands and let out a sigh of relief.  He looked up at Dr. Macoy.

“Take her to the infirmary.  She’ll need to rest.”  Dr. Macoy nodded in understanding and left.  Everyone else lingered, not sure if they should leave or not.  The Professor went over to where Ryan stood, hunched over, hands on his knees that were still shaking.

“Come on everyone,” Scott called out to the students, “Let’s take this somewhere else.”  With that the others dispersed leaving Ryan alone with the Professor.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” Ryan replied while straightening himself up.  He arched back and cracked his back and neck.  “Just still trying to get everything back into place.”  He looked down at his hand, which was still twitching involuntary.  “Is Rogue going to be alright?”

“I believe so.  We’ll know more when she wakes up.”  Now it was Ryan’s turn to sigh in relief.  “Fortunately she didn’t access enough of your powers for anything to be rewritten.  It was mostly the sensory overload that overwhelmed her.”

“I have to admit, I have wondered on how my powers would affect her, but I-“, he stopped an placed a hand where Rogue had touched him., “I could feel it.  Every cell, every nerve ending, every electrode that she touched.  The path she took to get inside my head.  What - what if I could-” He rubbed his eyes with his hand.

“I understand.  But it would be best if you didn’t dwell on it.  Now I would still suggest you head down to the infirmary yourself.  Have Hank take a look at you.”

“Yeah, yeah.”  Ryan walked past the professor, but stopped short.  “One last thing.  Will she remember anything she saw?”

There was a moment of silence, but then the professor answered.

“It’s difficult to say.  I was able to isolate the memories, but every time I attempted to remove them your power rewrote them on her mind.  It was as if it wanted to be remembered.  Fortunately, once your power began to leave Rogue’s body I was able to wipe it.”

Ryan was silent.  He couldn’t look the professor in the eye.

“Why do you insist on holding on to those memories so fiercely?  We’ve been over this.  You’ll never fully recover if you don’t let it be.”

Another pause.  Ryan still hadn’t looked up from the patch of grass at his feet.  He knew the professor was waiting for an answer, but none of his answers would be one the professor would want to hear.

“I’m going to lie down for a while.”  And at that, he left for the mansion, leaving the professor in silence.