Molly & Angelo: Monday Afternoon

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Molly meets Angelo and discovers a few things she didn't know about her parents.


Molly was outside. There was no more snow but it was still kinda cold a little so she wore her coat. It was pink and had bunny ears sewn on the hood so when she wore it it made her look like she had bunny ears which was totally cool.

She was currently investigating a hollowed out tree trunk to see what was inside. Sometimes there were bugs. She hoped there were bugs! Then she could put them in a jar and show them to Doctor Beast. He was a science guy. Maybe he could tell her what their names were. Like their science names not their other names. They probably had their own names but since they were bugs and couldn't talk they couldn't tell them.

She could probably give them nicknames, though. Like Skitter and Jumpy.

As usual, the first sign that Angelo was in the woods was a burst of excited barking as Joyita realized that there was another person around to pet and fuss over her. This time, however, Angelo did manage to catch up and restrain her just in time to stop Molly going face first into her tree trunk.

"Hey there. Molly, right?"

Molly's first thought when she heard the barking was that maybe the bugs were mutants and really could make noise. But the barking was far away and so she realized it was a dog that was coming at her very fast. She reached out quickly to grab the sides of the tree trunk (it smelled like plants and dirt) and then turned around at the voice.

He was grey. Everybody had lots of pretty colors here! Blue and blue and pink and grey and pink hair and green hair!

"I...yep!" Molly said, blinking past her excited smile as she nodded quickly.

"You're grey!" she said, as if he didn't know. "That's so cool!!!"

It was her default reaction to seeing most mutant abilities, except that one time with Dori but Dori was cool she'd come to find out.

"Yep", he said with a grin. "Glad you think so - it's not the brightest colour, but it's the one I got."

"It's kinda like the old timey shows like Bewitched and stuff! If you dressed like you were from the 50s people would be reaaaally confused," Molly said, giggling.

"But that is so cool though! I kinda wish I had got cool skin when I got powers...like pink! Or I could glow! I mean, my eyes glow when I lift heavy things but that's about it. What are your powers? Can you make other people grey too?" she said. Cause then it'd be like reverse Pleasantville.

"'Fraid not", was the amused response. "Except maybe Marius, but that's more about his powers than mine. Shame you never met Karolina, she had this whole rainbow glow thing goin' on."

"Marius..." Molly echoed, then nodded. "Ohh, the cake guy." She still didn't know why he was sleeping out on the lawn. But she figured out later cake probably meant something else.

Her eyes got all big all of a sudden. "So like...she glowed like a rainbow? Dude....I want that power."

"Cake guy?" Angelo asked, bemused, before deciding he probably didn't want to know and changing the subject back to Karolina. "She did. And she could fly. It's really kind of a shame we don't get to pick our powers."

"Yeah, him and Kyle talked about cake on the lawn. I think they speaking in code about something," Molly shrugged, then nodded.

"I kinda like being able to be really strong and unsquishable but the falling asleep part is bad," she said, making a face. They were still working on it, but it was getting better! She didn't stay asleep as long.

"Well, you're still little", he pointed out. "Most people don't get any powers at all as young as you. Maybe it'll get better as you get bigger."

"I hope so!" Molly said, nodding. "If I'm gonna be a superhero and I hit the bad guys then I can't fight them back when they hit ME back if I fall asleep." That made sense to her.

"Are you a super hero too? With the X-People?"

She used to call them bikers and someone said they were X-Men but there were girls too and that seemed weird so she called them X-People.

"I used to be", Angelo told her easily. "Now I'm a different kind of superhero. I help people in other countries where the government maybe doesn't have as much money, or where they don't like mutants."

Molly blinked at him with confusion. "So you're like the brothers?" she said, tilting her head.

"The brothers?" he asked, a little confused himself.

Molly nodded. "My mom and daddy help the brothers. Like...people would come to our house to stay cause Daddy said some people don't like mutants and they wanted to make sure they were safe. And they helped to do doctor stuff. And they give them money too," she said.

"So you do that? Are you with the brothers?"

"...oh, the Brotherhood", he realized after a few moments' thought, then looked at her seriously. "You're going to want to be careful who you talk to about your parents helping them, Molly. I'm sure your parents didn't do anything bad, they just helped in good ways, but some of the Brotherhood have. There are people living here they've hurt, they might take it badly if they find out your parents did anything to help them. I'm with a group called Elpis, it's not the X-Men or the Brotherhood."

Molly still looked confused, sitting down on the tree. She was small enough that it did not buckle under her weight. A soft, uncertain look rested across her eyes.

"Why would they hurt people? They're...like the X-People right? They help mutants, right? Why would they hurt people here?"

"They want to help mutants in one way", Angelo said carefully. "But what they want to happen in the end isn't what the X-People want at all. I'm sure you heard your parents talk about Magneto, and what he wants is for mutants to run the world, not baseline people any more."

Molly just stared at him, looking like it was the first time she'd heard it....because she hadn't.

She looked down, making her bunny hood slip off and her hair fall around her face into her eyes, trying to understand. Her parents didn't talk much about the brothers. Just occasionally talking about how they had to help them. They usually sent her upstairs. She didn't get to talk to the people that came, and sometimes she'd come down and they would've left already even if they'd just got there a little while ago. They wanted to protect her, they said. It was something for grownups, they said.

"Why would he want that? We all live here too. What...what do the X-People want?"

Did her mom and daddy want the mutants to run the world too? Why?

"Oh, sweetheart." He sat down on the log beside her, close enough to be hugged if it would make her feel better. "The X-People want everybody to live together in as much peace as we can get. Magneto, he thinks mutants are better than people who aren't, he thinks we're the next piece of evolution and we've got the right to the world. And to some people that sounds real good, people who've maybe been on the wrong end of humans being mean to them. Some of them are just ordinary folks like your parents, they support him how they can but they don't do anything really wrong. But he's got bad people with him too, violent people, and they're the ones people might think of when you say 'Brotherhood'."

Molly went quiet for a few moments. She didn't know what to say, or what to think. Her mom and daddy helped the Brotherhood. The Brotherhood hurt people. But they didn't hurt people. They were good guys. They were still the good guys. But why would they help people who hurt people? They were doctors. They healed people. They were still the good guys, right?

"Nanny said mom and daddy were bad. That's why she wanted to take me away from them," she said softly. She looked over at Angelo.

"Is that why?"

"No", Angelo said firmly. "I bet Nanny didn't know anything about the Brotherhood. I know about her, I read about her from when I was with the X-People. She took kids from anyone she thought wasn't lookin' after them well enough, but only by her standards. You never felt like your parents neglected you, right?"

Molly shook her head. "They were busy but I saw them a lot. Daddy worked from home sometimes when he could," she said. She frowned.

"But what if she did know?"

They were good guys but what if people thought they were bad guys like Angelo said, thinking that cause they worked for the Brotherhood they were bad guys? Her eyes widened.

"Do you think they're hiding cause they're afraid people would go after them causea that?"

"Maybe", Angelo said sadly. "If anybody knows, that is. Maybe they were afraid Nanny might have been after them for that, or she might have told someone. I don't know for sure she couldn't have."

Molly looked down, frowning.

"I won't get to see 'em for awhile, huh?"

"Probably not", he had to admit. "But they did the right thing letting us take care of you for awhile, if they're having to hide. And I bet they'll call and write whenever they can." He reached over and tilted her chin up gently. "Just remember you haven't lost them. They're still around and they still love you."

"I wish we could move back to California like it was sometimes. I like the school a lot but I miss my old friends too sometimes," Molly said. She still didn't know why they had to burn down the house. She knew now they probably had to get away from the bad guys but it she still missed home. She knew they loved her and they did talk to her on the phone sometimes but it wasn't the same as seeing them.

Fidgeting with her coat for a few moments she looked back up at him.

"What's Elpis mean?"

"I missed California too when I first came here", Angelo confided. "I had to run away from the bad guys too, only different bad guys, and I missed it a lot. And Elpis means hope. You know the story of Pandora's Box?"

Molly thought about it for a couple of moments. "It's either a planet with blue people....or a lady who had a box and there was words in it," she said, more of a question than a statement of fact. They had to do a report on Greek gods in school and she wasn't paying attention much that day because Tommy Rasmussen caught a frog and was trying to hide it in his desk.

"More like the second", he told her. "Pandora was in the Greek myths, she was given a box or a jar with all the world's evils in it, and she wasn't supposed to open it. But she was curious what was in it, so she did, and all the evils got out. The only thing that was left was hope - Elpis is the Greek word, so we borrowed it. Seemed to fit."

Molly's eyes widened. "That sounds like a bad idea," she said. Why would she want to open a box of evils?

"Didn't she know there was evil in there? Dude, it's like a horror movie!" she said.

"The version I heard, no one told her what was in it, just that she wasn't allowed to open it." He shrugged slightly. "Never seemed like the greatest idea to me either."

Molly frowned. "That was mean to not tell her. If she knew I bet she wouldn't have opened it," she said, pulling her hoodie back over her head because it felt weird without it.

"You were from California? Where from?"

"Los Angeles", he told her. "But not where Dori and Julian came from, the part of the city Hollywood likes to pretend doesn't exist."

Molly tilted her head. "Wow, everybody's from LA! I'm from Beverly Hills like Dori and Julian but I never met them. What part doesn't exist? Is it like....a ghost town?" she asked genuinely.

"Might as well be", he said with a slight smile. "It exists, all right, but most of the people that get to live in Beverly Hills where the glitz and glamour is either never see it or don't like to think about it. It's a city of two halves, LA - rich and poor."

"Oh," Molly said with a frown. "I'm sorry. So your bad guys live there too?"

"Most of them. I shouldn't really've said bad guys, they were just angry kids an' I used to be just like them." He offered her another smile. "I even managed to save one of them an' his sister, years later."

Molly brightened. "Really? That's good!" she said, latching on to whatever good she could get. Cause everything else made her kinda sad.

"Well...I'm glad you're a good guy now. Do you have a codename? Mine's Princess Powerful....shhhh, it's a secret. I'm going to fight crime with it later," she said, pressing her finger to her lips.

"Not a word", he promised seriously, and managed to keep the amusement out of everything but his eyes. "Some people call me Skin, specially when I work with the X-People sometimes, because of my power."

"Skin? Like...." Molly said, pointing at her arm. "Why's that? Oh! Cause your skin's grey?"

"Partly", he agreed. "My skin's grey 'cause of what I can do. Wanna see?"

Molly squinted, insanely curious now. She nodded excitedly.

"Okay." He reached down and wrapped his fingers through the dog's collar where she lay at his feet - as far as Molly could see, still just normal fingers. Then he commanded, "Joyita! Run!"

That curious look still remained on Molly's face. It suddenly intensified, her mouth falling agape as one eye closed and her eyebrow rose. She looked between Angelo and the dog, then back again.

"Yep", he said with a grin. "I stretch. It's not unlimited, but it goes a good six to ten feet."

As he spoke, the magic happened, and Molly's eyes got huge.

"OH AWESOME LIKE STRETCH ARMSTRONG!" she said, hopping up from the tree.

"Can I touch it? Wait...what about your bones?"

He whistled for the dog to come back before he answered. "Yeah, you can touch it. It doesn't go as deep as that, only to the skin level, so it doesn't really mess with my bones and muscles."

"But...fingers...arm going....that way..." she pointed. "So your fingers don't have bones in them when you stretch?"

She knew enough about science from science class and her mom and daddy to make her confused.

"Look closer", he suggested. "My arm's still right here, so are my finger bones. But I can use the skin just like it had muscles in it."

Molly crept closer, like it was a museum exhibit. She reached out to gently poke his arm.

"Dude. You really are like Stretch Armstrong," she said in a hushed whisper, her eyes wide with a grin.

Angelo couldn't help grinning back, because her enthusiasm was adorable. "Maybe I should've used that for a codename instead."

"Dude, that would've been awesome. But then you'd have to dress like him but that might not work if you got your own costume already. People would confuse you. I wonder if there's a real Stretch Armstrong....I mean....you can stretch yourself. Rubber Band would've been neat too!" she said, seeming a bit distant as her imagination went wild with everything under the sun.

"It would", he agreed seriously. "But maybe not so easy to shout out in the field. Skin's better for that."

Molly nodded. "Yeah, I guess," she admitted.

"Do you think... Princess Powerful is a good name?" she said, glancing around carefully as she said it.

"I think it's an awesome name", he assured her. "Sums everythin' up real good."

"Really?" Molly said, perking up with a broad, beaming grin. "Thanks! I wanna have a cape but I think Kyle said that was a bad idea cause capes get caught in jet engines."

"It's true." He considered her. "I mean, maybe not so much for you, 'cause you don't fly, but you never know when someone might take you up."

"But you gotta have a cape! It's a superhero tradition! Well...cept you guys but...." She grumbled. "Stupid jet engines."

"We can make a new tradition", Angelo proposed. "That involves black leather."

"Black leather capes? But that'd be like Evil Supergirl! Or evil Mary Marvel. Their skirts are waaaay too short," Molly said. She read a lot of comic books.

"Maybe red leather? Or yellow?"

"No capes", Angelo reminded her, laughing. "The X-People wear black leather uniforms, remember? You saw them when they came to save you from Nanny. Red leather might work, though."

"Oh yeah...the bikers," Molly said, nodding. She forgot no more capes. Stupid jet engines. She jumped up.

"They said New Mutants get to wear red AND yellow uniforms! Isn't that cool! I'm a New Mutant! And I'm new AND a mutant," she said, proudly putting her hands on her hips.

"I'm gonna wear a mask, though. Cause masks are cool."

"If they said that, then that's what New Mutants wear", he agreed. "An' you can have a mask if you want one, just make sure you can see properly."

"Meggan gave me a mask. It's black, like Zorro! She's the best roommate ever. I've never had one except for summer camp but she was best out of those too. We had pancakes!" Molly said. He had unleashed the chatterbox.

"Meggan's always pretty cool", he said with a smile. "I knew her when she wasn't much older than you, when she first came here. She made you the pancakes?"

Molly nodded. "Chocolate with chocolate chips and chocolate syrup and whipped cream and chocolate milk and hot chocolate," Molly said, completely serious.

"She tried to show me how to flip 'em but it didn't work. I couldn't sleep..." Her eyes lowered and she fidgeted with the zipper on her coat.

"How old was she when she came? Was she running from a bad guy too?"

"No one's sure", Angelo had to admit, "but we think she was 12 or 13, an' she took 1992 for her birth year. She wasn't runnin', but some people took her away from the bad guys that had her and made her part of their family."

"Oh," Molly said, blinking rapidly with a frown. "She already got grabbed by the bad guys? That's bad."

Sometimes she wondered what could've happened if Nanny and the robot had grabbed her too and the bikers weren't there. Would she be trying to take kids too like those other kids?

"I'm glad she got away," she said, glancing up with a smile.

Pausing a moment, she tilted her head.

"So um...I know your name but what's your real name?" she said. She didn't remember him saying it. Though it would be neat if they went by their codenames all the time. But it would be kinda hard to stay undercover. And he had to go and save people and stuff all sneaky-like.

"Angelo", he told her, quite willingly. "Angelo Espinosa. Did I not introduce myself when you first got here?" He'd meant to, but it was possible he'd never got round to it.

Molly shook her head. "I don't...think so. Maybe? There were a lot of people on the journals so if you did I forgot but you're grey so I thought I would remember. If you did, sorry!" she said. She extended her hand.

"Nice you meet you Angelo Espinosa!"

You always had to be polite. Her parents taught her that.

"And you, Molly Hayes", he said with a grin, shaking her hand.

Molly beamed.

"This is the start of a beauuuutiful friendship," she said, giggling. She heard that in a movie once.