Title: Parallel

Author: rtwofan

Genre: Humor/Romance

Pairings: Paire Paire Paire!! with mentions of Wolverine/Rouge

Rating: PG or PG-13. Nothing too bad in here.

Summary: Peter and Claire watch X-Men! Then, after Claire points out all their similarities to Rouge and Wolverine, they begin to realize their mutual attraction to each other… PostSeasonOne

Chapters: This is probably too long to be a one-shot, but it might be two or three chapters at most.

Disclaimer: I don’t own XMEN, Heroes, or anything! I’m just a poor girl with a poor family! Lol.

Also, I remember Xmen the Movie pretty well, but my DVD mysteriously dissapeered the moment I need it! Fortunatly, the moments I put in are the important ones that I remember, but other things (like how the darn movie even began), I’m kinda sketchy on, so please bear with me.

****

“Of all the movies that I own, you pick this?”

“It’ll be fun! Besides, why’d you buy it if you didn’t like it?”

“I did like it, before it became REAL!”

Claire waved the X-Men DVD in front of his face tauntingly. “Don’t get your hopes up; it’s still not real, Peter. I’m sorry, but Jean Grey will never come out of your fanboy fantasies.”

Peter snorted. “You don’t know that. My dreams have been coming true lately.”

Avoiding his gaze, Claire walked over to the DVD player and tried make the process of opening it as long as possible. She’d known that Peter had meant nothing of the statement, but it did open old wounds a bit. Strangely, though, they were his demons, not hers. They’d stopped the bomb, the one that Peter dreamt about, but he hadn’t forseen the cresent shaped scar that ran from the inner corner of his eye to his jawline. He had grown out of being self-concious, especially around Claire, but his roomate still felt a pang of pity and guilt whenever she looked at him.

She looked back at him. “Can you promise me something?”

He looked up at her seriously. “Anything.”

Claire smirked. “Promise me that you won’t contemplate becoming a demi-god and wonder whose powers you’d like to absorb? Just…enjoy the movie, okay?”

Laughing, Peter sat down on the couch. “I can promise not to contemplate aloud. Is that good enough?”

After she slid X-Men into the DVD player, Claire plopped down next to her friend, her hero, on the couch.

“However, any other commentaries from the peanut gallery are, of course, allowed,” Claire announced matter-of-factly.

“I’m guessing that you’re the only member of said peanut gallery?”

“Yup, but if you’re a good boy, I’ll promote you to popcorn duty.”

“Gee, thanks.”

Peter fast forwarded through the commercials and promptly tapped “Play Movie.” There was a CGI credits sequence, like in all those superhero movies, and then a young Magneto was being led into a concentration camp.

“I wonder of we’ll get a shiny flashy credits thingee when they make a movie about us,” mused Claire.

“Nah. It’ll probably be some indie filmmaker with no budget that wants to make you into an angsty alchohalic stripper and me into some scizophrenic psych patient.”

“So they’d make us into Niki, huh?”

Peter had to laugh, even at poor Niki. She’d cured herself of Jessica, and didn’t have to be a porn star anymore, so he didn’t feel so bad about having a chuckle at her expense. Still, he hoped that she’d never hear it. Even with Jessica gone, Niki could still knock him out.

Following Magneto’s metal-bending mayhem, which the Nazis in real life would have shot him for, the movie gave them exposition scenes with Jean Grey, and conversation with Professor X and Magneto.

“How old is that guy?” asked Claire incredulously. “I mean, he was a teenager in 1941, and this is in the “not too distant” future. He’s gotta be, like, 80!”

Peter shrugged and continued staring intently at the screen. The whole “Rouge kissing that dude that she put in the hospital” scene came and went, and in a few minutes, they were watching the scene where Wolverine reluctantly let Rouge ride in his truck.

“Aww, that’s sweet of him,” cooed Claire. Peter arched an eyebrow.

“If he didn’t take her in, then there’d be no story, because Rouge would never go anywhere, and the whole ending of the movie-.”

“Will you shut upand let me have a moment here!” exclaimed Claire. “First meetings are always the cutest, especially when you know their futures.”

Peter looked confused. “Wait a minute…Rouge and Wolverine never ended up together.”

Claire stuck out her tounge. “That doesn’t make it any less adorable.”

Wolverine was letting Rouge use his heater, and giving her some crackers to eat (awww) when Peter cocked his head to the side in thought.

“Do you…do you remember how we first met?”

Claire chuckled. “How could I forget? You kind of saved my life and came back from the dead.”

“No, I mean really first met. In that hallway.”

A knowing smile tugged at the corner of Claire’s lips. “When I crashed into you accidentally on purpose?”

“Accidentally on purpose?” Peter’s eyes widened. “Why?”

“No reason,” replied Claire hastily, turning crimson. “I just thought that…you were…” Shut up, Claire, shut up, shut up!

“Oddly staring at a trophy case?” he guessed, bewildered.

“No,” sighed Claire, avoiding his eyes in embarrassment. “Cute.”

“Oh really!” Peter tittered. “I thought it was strange that you couldn’t find your way in a seven foot wide hall…”

He then noticed her mortification and nudged her elbow considerately.

“It’s okay,” he continued. “I’m sure you don’t think about me like that anymore, what with this and everything.” His eyes shifted downward, looking at his left cheek, where the scar ran. When Claire finally looked up at him, he didn’t look sad or insecure, but accepting of his fate.

Claire had no idea what thought was going through her head when she lightly stroked his cheek, trailing the scar with her index finger. He looked over to her with a miz of surprise and affection.

“I like it,” she told him defiantly, realizing for the first time how grand the scar really was. “It makes you look rugged.”

Peter smiled out of the corner of his mouth; identical to the one he had flashed her when she told him that Jackie Wilcox was a cheerleader. Claire’s gentle fingertip still rested on his cheek, and Peter glanced down at it quickly. Claire noticed and hurriedly pulled her hand away. For a split second, Peter considered reaching out and grabbing it again, but a crash on the television brought them both back to realitly.

Wolverine just went through the windshield of his car, and was getting back up, gorey wounds all over his forehead. He nonchalantly cracked his neck as the wounds sealed themselves shut, and he began trudging over to the truck.

“Yeah right, it’s not that painless,” retorted Claire and Peter grinned.

“I’ll second that.”

About ten minutes more into the movie they got to the first Jean Grey/Wolverine scene, with him waking up in the basement medical center. Peter crossed his arms over his chest.

“Now see Claire? This is the realcouple. Watch the movies.”

Claire scoffed. “Just because it’s canon doesn’t make it awesome. Besides, Jean Grey always stayed with Cyclops in the comics.” She’d picked up this little tidbit from Zach, in the short time they had known each other. She’d been going through his comics one day and they had a big discussion over her powers and superheroes.

“But Wolverine and Rouge? How could that ever happen? He loves Jean from the moment he meets her, basically. Rouge’s just a kid, why would he be interested in her?”

Claire listened to this, heart tightening as he went on. Though he was only elaborating on a movie, she could feel the parallels to their own lives in his debate. She was a little older than Rouge, at eighteen, but still borderlineing kid too…why would he ever…

And then there was Simone, though she had been out of the picture for months, Claire could still sense a bit of attatchment in Peter. Issac is Cyclops Claire thought wrly to herself. Okay. No more paralleling. It’s too weird.

“Well…I have my reasons for liking that pairing,” stammered Claire, and Peter just sighed.

The rest of the movie went by pretty quickly, with Peter making the occasional jest (“Hey Claire, I wonder if we could replace your bones with adamantium, too.”) Claire, however, stayed silent for most of the film. Peter pretended not to recognize this, but he felt an awkward tension getting thicker and thicker the more Claire kept muted.  

Near the end, when a crying Wolverine was holding Rouge’s limp body on the Statue of Liberty, Claire couldn’t hold it back anymore.

“Awwww…” she breathed.

“So this is what finally draws speech out of you,” concluded Peter. “If I’d known that I would have skipped to this scene and hour ago.”

Claire made a sniffing noise, which was almost a laugh. “Why’d you want to hear my remarks?”

“Because I feel like I’ve been talking to a wall.” This time, Claire’s laugh was more auidible.

On screen, Wolverine was letting Rouge take his power, as he weakened and the veins popped out in his temples.

“He’s dying for her,” Peter pondered. Claire looked at him, astonished.

“Do you finally get it, now?”

Peter shrugged. “Well, hold on a second.”

The scene unfolding before them was of Rouge being revived, but Logan collapsing. Peter sucked in air through his teeth.

“Okay, that was kind of romantic, even if I never noticed it before,” he admitted. Claire’s eyes sparkled, and it wasn’t just because he was accepting her ship. The parallels were running a bit stronger, and had more of a positive outlook.

In one of the final scenes of the movie, when Wolverine was about to leave the mansion, Rouge rushed up to him. He commented on her new hairstyle of the white streaks. Claire winked at Peter.

“You should do your hair like that. Imitate another mimic.”

To her worry, Peter looked like he was actually considering it. But he shook the expression off of his face and watched Wolverine ride off.

Peter stopped the DVD and turned a lamp back on. “That was interesting, to say the least.”

“Have you joined the Wolverine/Rouge fanclub, yet?” Claire inquired brightly.

“I’m not sure about that,” Peter replied thoughtfully. “There is that age difference and all.”

Another negative parallel? Claire’s exasperated thoughts cried. Of course, Wolverine was at least 40, probably more like 80, and Rouge was around 16, so the age difference was much more prominet with them then with….us. The look on Peter’s face when he said this was almost unreadible though. There was something false about it…like the age difference was just an excuse rather then something he supported.

“Do you have any other reason to like them other than being a hopelessly romantic female?”

Claire giggled at his question, but her laughter faded away when she thought of her answer.

“No,” she lied. “I just think it’s dashing.”

Peter went into the kitchen, and Claire looked to the painted ceiling. So untrue, when I really like them’cause they’re just like us.

The End (maybe)

Comments=Love, as always.