The XXX-Gene (Marvel)(Mutant OC)

Chapter 32: Ground Rules

A/N: Here's the new Chapter! Which also means the next four chapters are up on my Patreon for early access as well as the chance to vote on the direction of the story!

It worked, but there are still some things to be discussed...

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There’s a brief pause from both of them and then Thaddeus lets his smile grow when he feels absolutely nothing at all. On Rogue’s end, she stares down at their clasped hands in wonder, also likely not feeling anything on her end either.

“It… it worked? It worked!”

The goth young woman lets out what might have seemed like an uncharacteristic happy little squeal if Thaddeus hadn’t just taken a walk through her mind and seen what she was like before life experiences successfully beat her down and closed her off. Lunging forward, the naked mutant wraps her arms around Thaddeus’ equally naked body, pulling him into a hug and kissing him soundly on the lips before nuzzling into his neck and whispering her thanks over and over again.

“Thank you. Thankyouthankyouthankyou…”

Hugging her in turn, Thaddeus rubs soothing circles into Rogue’s back, having a rather intimate understanding of just how meaningful this moment is to her now. Sure, he might have lived the tragic awakening of her mutation backwards, but that didn’t change the fact that he’d felt the emotions Rogue felt during all of that and knew just how horrible it had been for her.

Rogue, or rather Anna Marie, wasn’t a bad girl. She wasn’t a demon, or a sinful whore, or any of the numerous awful descriptors that her boyfriend’s family and even her own family had pinned to her. She was just a young woman who’d been dealt a bad hand, and Thaddeus was happy he had been able to find a way to help her out of her hole.

Of course, in their moment of happiness, they’ve forgotten the elephant in the room. Mystique clears her throat, the shapeshifter calling out to her adoptive daughter.

“… Rogue?”

Pulling free of his arms, Rogue turns to her adoptive mother, who has transformed back into her base, blue-skinned form… and lunges at her as well. Mystique manages to hide the way she stiffens in fear momentarily and Thaddeus is pretty sure he’s the only one that sees it. He doesn’t blame her either, if he was in her shoes, he probably would have preferred to start with just a simple hand touch, just to be safe.

But Rogue isn’t having that. She hugs Mystique hard and while Mystique does hesitate for a single moment, she quickly hugs the younger woman back. Thaddeus smiles as they embrace. And not just because they’re naked and that makes the hug rather sexy from his point of view. Really, it’s just great that Mystique and Rogue can finally touch.

For all that he has his concerns regarding Mystique’s motives, she and her partner DID take Rogue in when no one else could. And rather than just trying to turn Rogue into a weapon to be used for their cause, Mystique had gone out of her way to bring Rogue here, in the hopes that he could help them ‘cure’ Rogue’s condition.

At the end of the day, the shapeshifter wasn’t a bad person, Thaddeus decides. And when she looks at him over Rogue’s shoulder and mouths ‘thank you’ to him, he gives her a simple smile and a nod before rising to get his clothes and head out.

Of course, upon doing so, he draws the attention of the two women quite rapidly, with Rogue pulling back the moment she detects movement out of the corner of her eye. Looking at him with a puffy nose and watery eyes, the tearfully happy mutant blinks.

“Wha- where are you going, Thaddeus?”

Tilting his head to the side as he finishes zipping up and buttoning his pants, Thaddeus shrugs.

“Just thought I’d stop intruding on your guys’ moment. We’re only halfway through the day after all… and you both… well, you’ll probably be leaving now, won’t you?”

Rogue’s face scrunches up in confusion and consternation at that, but Mystique has a knowing look in her eyes even as her adoptive daughter shakes her head.

“L-Leaving?”

Smiling softly at the coed goth, Thaddeus shrugs again, only to start feeling a little dumb for all his shrugging.

“You guys got what you came for, Rogue.”

Understanding finally dawns on Rogue as well, as she realizes he’s right. After all, Thaddeus had overheard them his very first day in this dorm. This was why they were here, to see if he could help Rogue with her mutation. Perhaps neither of them expected it to get fixed so fast, of course. Perhaps neither of them thought he would be able to help them so easily during the first ‘session’. In truth, Thaddeus recognized that his ability to help was based around a whole lot of luck and some quick thinking on his part.

If he hadn’t just spent the weekend fucking his benefactor Emma Frost all over an incredibly expensive hotel room, Thaddeus wouldn’t have had the psychic abilities necessary to help solve Rogue’s problem. Instead, they would have just kept fucking and she would have gotten stronger, but with no actual ability to control it. Things could have gotten bad.

So yeah, lucky. But at the same time, Thaddeus was under no disillusions here… they were here for that one thing, and now that they’d gotten it…

“But… I don’t want to go.”

Rogue’s simple, plaintively spoken words drop like a depth charge into the room. Thaddeus manages to hold back a wince, even as he glances over at Mystique to see the shapeshifter has gone still. Rogue, meanwhile, is looking between the two of them, her eyes big and round and her lower lip starting to jut out in a pout.

Finally finding her voice, Mystique begins to speak up.

“Rogue, I…”

“Mama! I can finally control my mutation! I can finally be around people! So… c-can’t I stay? And just… continue to go to college? I know you’re busy, I know you have more important things to do then pretend to be Risty Wilde forever… but would it be so bad if I kept attending classes here?”

Thaddeus tries not to be too noticeably tense, but damn if it’s not hard. Because the fact is, he is tense. He’s not sure Rogue knows just who she’s dealing with. Truthfully, Thaddeus still isn’t entirely sure HE knows who they’re dealing with. Mystique isn’t just a shapeshifter, she’s a shapeshifting terrorist. And sure, the Brotherhood of Mutant’s goals might be lofty and well-intentioned, but their actions have often times been anything but.

Part of the reason Thaddeus chose to go with Emma and the Hellfire Club over Mystique and her Brotherhood was so that he could live a normal life and not be put on a number of government watchlists just for associating with terrorists… to say nothing of what Mystique or other Brotherhood leadership might have eventually asked him to do with his powers.

And that was the real kicker. The other Brotherhood leadership. Was it just Mystique and her partner, the mysterious Destiny? Or was it more than them? And most important of all, would the others in the Brotherhood really be okay with Mystique leaving a resource like Rogue to her own devices, to ‘waste time’ going to college of all things?

Thaddeus isn’t sure how Mystique is going to react here. That’s why he’s so tense. Will she try to pull the adoptive mother card on Rogue and attempt to bully and guilt trip her into leaving ESU with her? And if she does so, what the hell is Thaddeus supposed to do in response? He’s barely known Rogue for more than a week, is it really his place to step in? But at the same time, he can’t help feeling responsible for the young woman now…

Everything seems to balance on a knife’s edge for a long moment as Rogue awaits her adoptive mother’s response. Finally, Mystique plasters a smile on her face and dips her head.

“Of course you can stay, Rogue. I want you to be happy, and if attending college classes makes you happy…”

Here, Mystique trails off and from the way Rogue fidgets, Thaddeus can tell the shapeshifter is going for a more subtle type of guilt tripping. But Rogue nevertheless stands her ground, not immediately folding under the pressure. Admittedly, it’s a very mild pressure Thaddeus finds himself noting. Almost like Mystique really doesn’t want to force Rogue to do anything she doesn’t want to do.

“I-It does. It… I just want to feel n-normal for once. And now… now I don’t even have to wear gloves everywhere or worry about what parts of my skin are showing when I walk down a crowded hallway. I can finally… I can f-finally just be me.”

Rogue looks down at her currently bared hands while saying that, and misses the moment of anger that appears on her adoptive mother’s face at the words ‘feel normal’. Thaddeus doesn’t miss it though, even as Mystique reaches out, placing her own blue hands in Rogue’s. Despite whatever she might be internally feeling, the shapeshifter still keeps her tone even and her voice gentle and calming as she speaks.

“Normal is overrated, darling. But being yourself… that’s never a bad thing. I just want you to be happy, my dear. That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you.”

She sounds sincere, even to Thaddeus’ ears. And Rogue certainly seems to believe her, because the younger mutant lets out a squeal of excitement and flings her arms around Mystique again, hugging her close. Thaddeus takes the chance to get his shirt back on, though once he has it over his head, he finds the two naked women have pulled apart again and are looking his direction once more. Mystique in particular is gazing at him rather intensely.

“I will be counting on you to keep a close eye on my daughter and watch over her, Thaddeus.”

Rogue immediately squawks at that.

“Maaa…”

But Mystique isn’t having any of it. She brushes a lock out of Rogue’s face, tucking it behind the young goth’s ear and smiles, clearly immensely pleased at finally being able to do so.

“I will of course still be around from time to time as Risty Wilde. Luckily, my persona is one that absences and poor academics are expected from. However, I will not be able to stay with you while you continue to attend classes, my dear. As such, you must promise me you will look to Thaddeus for support when necessary… and report to me if he is neglecting you in any way, alright?”

Rogue whines in the back of her throat.

“Mama, that’s not… he doesn’t need to… you’re being silly!”

Mystique just raises an eyebrow at that.

“He doesn’t need to take responsibility for his actions? Well, I say he does. And I’d hope he agrees with me.”

Her yellow eyes are fixed directly on him for that part, even though she’s ostensibly still talking to Rogue. Still, Thaddeus straightens up and squares his shoulders. Because frankly she’s right. He does need to take at least some responsibility for his actions. Before Rogue can protest her adoptive mother’s words any further, Thaddeus nods, speaking up.

“She’s right, I do agree with her.”

Rogue looks at him askance and more than a little fluttered, no doubt appalled by the thought that she needs to be ‘taken care of’ or babied. But Thaddeus just shakes his head.

“Rogue, what I did for you… it’s completely untested.”

His blunt honesty brings the goth coed up short just a little bit.

“I was able to help you right now, but will it last? Is it permanent? Can that false memory degrade because it never really happened? Will the ability to turn your mutation on and off degrade with it?”

The more he talks, the more ill Rogue looks. Mystique, at least, looks unsurprised though she does glower at him a bit. The shapeshifter had clearly already thought of these things but hadn’t wanted to rain on Rogue’s parade… like Thaddeus was doing right now. Even still, he respected Rogue too much to sugarcoat things.

Stepping forward, he takes the naked young woman’s hands in his own.

“I promise you, Rogue… whatever happens next, I’ll have your back.”

He means that too. Beyond just making sure she got to keep her on-off switch, Thaddeus also intends to have her back in every other way he possibly can as well… including against Mystique and the Brotherhood of Mutants if that proves necessary. Something that Mystique herself doesn’t miss, judging by the slight narrowing of her eyes.

Except, rather than looking angry at him for the assertion that her adoptive daughter might need his protection… the shapeshifter nods ever so slightly, too slight for Rogue to see but definitely not too slight for Thaddeus to pick up on.

Rogue, meanwhile, looks like she doesn’t even know what to say. So Thaddeus leaves it at that and lets go of her hand, giving them both a smile.

“Ladies. I’m sure you still have plenty to talk about. Rogue, I’ll talk to you later.”

“Ah… alright…”

With that, and with his clothing in place, Thaddeus leaves their dorm room behind, stepping out into the hall. As he does so, he’s admittedly a little distracted and not paying as much attention to his surroundings as his enhanced senses would allow him to. But he does get one single tingle from his ‘sexy sense’ before he finds himself pushed up against the wall by a certain blonde, who narrows her eyes as she looks at him playfully.

“Have a good weekend, boytoy?”

Thaddeus looks down into Gwen Stacy’s eyes and can’t help but be a little amused, even as he tilts his head to the side. He answers honestly in the end, even if it’s maybe not what she wants to hear.

“It was a great weekend, Gwen.”

That brings a scowl to the pretty young woman’s face, but Thaddeus is quick to follow up his words.

“I AM sorry I had to bail on you and Kitty, however. That part sucked and I owe you both an apology. Also, if you’d be willing to let me, I’d like an opportunity to make it up to you, either together or individually.”

That brings Gwen up short. Before she can really get mad at him, Thaddeus cuts her anger off at the knees by apologizing and meaning every word of it. For a moment, Gwen pauses and considers him, her eyes still narrowed.

“Oh? You’d be willing to do ANYTHING to make it up to me, is that what you’re saying?”

Thaddeus lets out a small laugh, eyebrows raised as he gives her a grin.

“Within reason… yes.”

Gwen huffs when he doesn’t give her total cart blanche to demand anything too ridiculous… but from the contemplative way she’s eyeing him, she’s definitely interested all the same. Now it’s just a matter of her deciding what she wants.

[ ] Gwen asks him to come with her as backup on her next patrol - 8%

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Also shameless plug time: Just started a new Free Write and it would mean the world to me if you guys checked it out!

Summary: Tony Stark travels back in time after the Snap determined to get things right this time. Even if he has to take over the world to make sure everyone actually works together against the threat that Thanos poses. He's not going to let everyone down. Not ever again.

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