Fic (X-Men: Evo Rogue/Kurt AU): Hallowed Eve, Nightmare Night

[lordyellowtail]

None of you sent help. It's too late for me. And also for you. Plot arcs are totally a thing now.

 

This one fought with me for about ... nine days, I guess? Nonetheless, here's fic number 3 in this series.

 

Well, chronologically, it's number 2 as of this moment. Please check the AO3 series page for the current AU timeline order. I'm jumping around a bit, so this is going to be a thing.

 

I like my AUs to have a political infrastructure. In any version of the Marvel Universe, especially where mutants are featured, I feel like it's especially important. Even if I think some of the policy positions and moralizing could be hamfisted and even elitist, The West Wing is still the best version of an (idealized) functional White House filled with genuine real people we've been given in television. So I'm incorporating that universe, using the post-series Santos Administration.

 

This story is designed to give one possible answer to the question of who Rogue's real parents are, and how Mystique and Destiny got a hold of her. It also sets up a situation where the political dynamics of the existence of mutants have the potential to be much different than in Evolution canon.

 

Enjoy. As usual, thanks to senmut for giving me the pebble-sized bit of encouragement that got the, ahem, avalanche rolling. After this, it's back to more Rogue and Kurt centered stories for a bit.

 

AU Summary: When Not Distracted by Kittens and Rubies

An AU wherein Kurt gives up his crush on Kitty much sooner, and is drawn to Rogue instead. She appreciates that he's not completely oblivious to her own feelings, and the two recluses stumble around each other with all the shared flustered, fumbling lack of social experience they can muster.

Somehow they meet in the middle, and by the time they find out they were supposed to be related, it’s far too late…for Mystique’s plans, at least.

 

Title: Hallowed Eve, Nightmare Night (3568 words)

Fandoms: X-Men: Evolution (Season 1 AU Divergence); Iron Man (Movies); The West Wing (Post Season 7, Pre-Series and Season 6 AU)

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Raven Darkholme (Mystique)/Irene Adler (Destiny); Josh Lyman/Donna Moss

Characters: Donna Moss, Helen Santos, Irene Adler (Destiny); Raven Darkholme (Mystique); Rogue

Additional Tags: Rogue's Real Parents; Teen Pregnancy; Crack; Crack Treated Seriously; Crack Crossover; Adult Fear; Villains are the Heroes of Their Own Stories; Draco Wears No Leather Pants Here

 

Summary:

Everyone knows Chief of Staff to the First Lady of the United States, Donna Moss, hates Halloween.

Or at least, Donna lets them think so. It’s better than everyone knowing the truth.

Still, Donna wishes the First Lady weren't so oblivious.

Set in the third year of Matt Santos' first term as President. Knowledge of *The West Wing* not required, but will fill in some unnecessary background information.

 

I agonized for a long time over who I wanted to make Rogue’s real mother. I finally settled on this not only because I am familiar with the West Wing characters and love them, but because Matt Santos is just beginning his first term when the series ends, so I don’t have to adhere to any pre-existing events in West Wing canon by setting it up this way. Donna is quirky and adorable and brilliant, and absolutely made out of adamantium when someone she loves needs her to be. And as much as Josh can be crazy, there’s a brilliant strategic mind in his head that cares about doing good and loves Donna very much, and I think it’ll be interesting to do a bit of role reversal and create a scenario where he’s the one that has to deal with something in her personal life going whack-a-doodle.

Also, all too often most incarnations of the X-Men give us Presidents who are either amoral/evil (especially in terms of their stance on mutants), or weak-willed, ineffectual nebbishes who get manipulated by those around them, who are anti-mutant bigots. Whatever else you can say about them, the cast of The West Wing and the members of the Bartlet and Santos Administrations in particular are none of those things. Both are marked by staffers and candidates/Presidents who care deeply about civil rights and equality. They may not always get it right, but these are not the bad guys, and I do love watching them try. I’d like to see more of that in X-Men, so I decided to go with this.

I’m not looking to twist this AU into a hugely political direction, but I’m not AUing X-Men Evolution canon to such a degree that I can avoid all the political entanglements that it introduces, and I even have a couple of my own I may want to play with (say, Miranda Santos eventually turning out to be a mutant; the POV of the President having to respond to Apocalypse and or the revelation of the existence of mutants; Amara Aquilla’s influence as as sovereign princess of a foreign country; the government’s response to the Legacy Virus, etc.). So I did actually need a political backdrop of some kind, and this lets me avoid spinning one from whole cloth myself while giving me some interesting avenues to explore.