So let’s get something straight.
I’m a sick, twisted bastard. I get that, all by myself. Don’t need any shrinks or telepaths or ol’ One-eye to explain it to me. But that ain’t even really the problem.
The problem is I’m a sick bastard with no goddamn self-control. Look, when I first found Marie, and I brought her here, I was actually pretty fucking impressed with my self-control. Not because of her, but because I didn’t drag Scott Summers out of the house and put the claws through something that wouldn’t grow back for thinking what he so obviously thought. I had a couple of advantages there, though. First and foremost: Scooter was dead wrong. He was convinced that a low-life like me wasn’t capable of being around a pretty young girl for ten minutes, let alone three weeks or so on the road, without doin’ her. I have to admit, it gave me a sense of superiority to be able to glare at him, and push his buttons by flirting with Jeannie, all the while knowing how completely wrong he was.
Shows what I know.
But I would’ve done something about it, no question, when I heard him ‘talking’ to Marie. It was maybe a month after we got here and I was in the habit of picking her up after class once or twice a week. Usually she went off with her roommates after school, which I thought was a good thing, but two afternoons a week she had an art class that kept her there a little later than them, so I’d go wait for her and hang around, spend a little time with her before she went off to do teenager stuff. So I got to the classroom and heard them talking. My hearing’s pretty good, as you know. The first thing I heard was, “It doesn’t seem like a healthy relationship to me, Rogue.” ‘Rogue’—I’m still gettin’ used to that one. She picked the name when we got here. Don’t know why, but everyone here has some dumb nickname. Hell, who am I to talk?
“Mr. Summers, all due respect, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” That was Marie’s voice, and she sounded mad.
“Look, Rogue, it’s simply inappropriate behavior—“
I was about to go in there and set things straight, but before I got to the door Marie interrupted him.
“Okay, I know what ‘inappropriate behavior’ means. You’ve got a sick mind, you know that?” And I stopped, because if Marie was up for fighting this battle on her own, I wasn’t going to get in her way. “You want to give me advice, open up that eye of yours and make sure you know what you’re talkin’ about.” Well, good for her. Even if she was ruining my excuse to make Scooter bleed.
“Rogue—“ Yeah, he was sinking fast.
“Don’t ‘Rogue’ me, mister. You need it spelled out for you? There was no ‘inappropriate behavior’. Not here, not on the road, not ever. You got that? Logan never laid a finger on me. Not like that, not ever, not once. He would never—“ She made a noise that was half a laugh, half a snort. “You know what? Till now, I really didn’t understand why he doesn’t like you. Thanks for clearing that up.” I heard her grabbing her bag and I stepped back, out of the way.
“I’m sorry,” Summers told her, and he did sound subdued. “If I was wrong. I was only trying to help.”
She sounded calmer. “You owe Logan the apology, not me. As for helping—it’s just none of your business.” And she walked out. I was so goddamn proud of her—she’s one tough kid when she needs to be—and as long as she and I both knew the truth, I could give a shit about what the rest of them thought. Seeing Scooter’s reaction every time we were in the same room together was another little thrill. He always looked like someone had just slipped him a lemon, and no, I never did get that apology.
Not that it matters now.
We fell into a pattern of sorts, me and Marie. I came and went now and then—I stuck around for a solid month or so when we first got there, makin’ sure she was all right. That scrawny yellow roommate of hers was worrying me, until the little wasp showed up in the garage one afternoon and talked to me like a human being. More than Scooter ever bothered to do, let me tell you. She made it clear that the ditzy teenager thing was an act, and that I could back off and let Marie have some fun. We came to an understanding, and even when she graduated and was sometimes my teammate, there was still a special kind of communication between us.
I don’t even want to think about what Jubilation Lee would say about me right now.
Because I fucked up. I fucked up royally and I’ve probably lost the only decent thing I ever had in my life. Turns out Summers was right after all.
I don’t know what happened. There wasn’t anything really different about that day. I’d been coming and going for well over a year, Marie had had her eighteenth birthday party and then I had to go do some undercover work for Chuck. I was gone longer than usual—almost two months. Maybe that was it. Not seein’ her every day, not bein’ around her all the time—that’s all I can figure. I guess that was it. Because when I came back, and she ran up to me like she always did and threw her arms around my waist—that’s when I realized what a sick fuckin’ bastard I was. Because all of a sudden she wasn’t just my Marie any more. She was a woman in my arms, and I wanted to—
I wanted her, all right? Every animal instinct I’ve got was screaming at me to take her, right then and there. She’s so young still, a baby really—no decent man would have a reaction like that to holding a child, especially one who’s been through what she has. That piece of shit that kidnapped her—he was out-and-out crazy, at least he had that excuse. I’m worse than he was in some ways, because I knew how wrong this was, and it didn’t matter. It just clicked over, and that was it.
I was going to hell for this, no question.
So much for feelin’ superior.
I didn’t do anything. I’m not that fucked up. Marie trusted me, and even though I always knew I wasn’t the hero she made up in her head, I wasn’t about to drag her into my little personal hell. I managed to get up to my room alone—it wasn’t easy, she was used to unpacking for me whenever I got back—and I made damn sure that we were never alone anyplace during the week I stuck around. That wasn’t easy either. It wasn’t our usual pattern. All my energy was going into at least not letting her know what was going on in my mind. I dropped a firm hint to Jubilee and she kinda made sure there were lots of group activities planned, but just bein’ in the same room with her, watching a movie or eating lunch—it was pure fuckin’ torture.
Like I said, I lasted a week. Then I went to Chuck and told him I was gonna take off for a while. I told him I wanted to go up to Canada, spend some time checking out a couple of leads he had about where I might have come from. Truthfully, I didn’t give a shit any more, but I had to say something. Goddamn telepaths, give ‘em any reason to pry…
There was one thing I couldn’t get out of, not without Marie knowing something was wrong. We’d developed this little ritual when I leave, ever since the first time. I come see her, tell her where I’m going and for how long, and I give her my dogtag to hold on to until I get back. I don’t know, it’s stupid, but it seemed to make her happy. This time I waited until I was about to walk out the door, and I found her playing video games in the rec room. She was surprised—usually I gave her more warning when I was gonna take off—but she took the tag and looked sad and said to be careful, like she always does. Then she hugged me, to say goodbye, and I put my arms around her and held her and just for a second, I pretended. I pretended that she was mine, and that it was okay that I felt these waves of possession and lust for her, and that she knew how I felt and wanted it too.
Yeah, I’m fucked up. No goddamn control at all. I let myself pretend that for a full thirty seconds and then I pressed my lips against the top of her head and I got the hell out of there.
I went back to Canada, but I didn’t follow up any fuckin’ dead-end leads. I went back on the fight circuit, because all I really wanted to do was to beat the shit out of people. Correction: what I really wanted was to have the shit beat out of me, but unfortunately there really aren’t too many people capable of doing it. Scooter’s probably one of them, but the only possible thing that could make me feel any worse would be that little prick finding out he was right about me after all.
I did my best, though. I could end any fight within two or three punches, but that doesn’t mean I have to. I spent three months on the road, letting various scumbags get in their licks. Didn’t help much. Goddamn healing factor kicks in too fast for it to last. Must’ve drunk half the whiskey in the provinces, but that never lasted either. Really, I quit trying to get drunk after the first week—the fantasies were just way too much. And the calls home—don’t get me started. I had to do it or she’d have known something was wrong, but I kept ‘em short and after the first couple I just told her I wasn’t going to be where they had cell phone coverage.
I was in Alberta in December, sitting in the latest bar and waiting for the fights to start, when Jubilee strolled in. She’d been on a mission, picking up a kid in a nearby town, and she’d heard about this fighter who was making the rounds and dropped in on the off chance that it might be me. So I bought her a drink, she hung around and watched the fights, and somehow by the end of the night I’d accepted a ride back to the Mansion with her. Basically she just assumed I’d been about to head home for Christmas anyway, and there wasn’t any good way I could think of to get out of it without explaining more than I wanted to.
Who the fuck am I kidding? Like I needed an excuse. The whole way home Jubilee kept yammering on about the latest gossip from the Mansion and I tried to sit through it without looking overly interested in anything in particular. When she talked about Marie, I ate it up. The rest of it, I could give a shit about. I kept thinking she was gonna catch on, but I don’t think she did. It was really early in the morning when we got in and I managed to escape to my room without seeing anyone—just told Jubilee to say I was tired and I’d see everyone that night at the Christmas party.
I spent the day trying to get some sleep, but there was no way. Her scent was all over my room. It always was—she’d always spent time in there with me, at least before I went nuts this last time, and I knew she used the desk sometimes when I was away and she wanted to do her writing or drawing away from her friends. Whatever, she’d been in there and there wasn’t any way to get away from it.
Then I went to that fuckin’ party, and that was where it all went to hell. She came in wearing this dress—jesus christ. She came right over to me and asked me for a drink and I was just drowning. Then we went into another room—stupidest thing I’ve ever done in my life—and she was acting kind of strange. She must’ve known what was going on, because she got up from the sofa where she was sitting, came over and took a drink of my beer, and then she leaned over and—
I was outta that chair and across the room before she knew what hit her. She was afraid her mutation had kicked in, which it hadn’t, and I asked her what she was doing. She said something like, What did it look like I was doing? I looked at her in that dress, all that see-through stuff over her arms and shoulders, and I knew exactly what she was doing. She’d caught on to my sick feelings and she was going to give me what I wanted. Because I’m in her head, because she feels like she owes me, who knows? And I almost took it, too. She had her hand up to her mouth like she’d been burned and all I wanted to do was to go back over there and pull her hand away so I could kiss the living daylights outta her, mutation be damned. She’d have let me. I know her.
Instead, I turned around and walked out. I went upstairs, grabbed my knapsack which I hadn’t even opened, stole Summers’ bike again and left.
It’s been six months. Fighting ain’t doin’ shit for me. Remember what I said about self-control? Mine’s gone. I’m on my way back to the Mansion, and I’m telling myself that it’s because I owe it to her to make sure she knows that this isn’t her fault. It’s all me. I heard her crying as I walked out the door at Christmas, and I can’t stand the idea that she might think she did something wrong. I’ve got to make her understand that the only thing she was wrong about was me—I’m not the good guy she thought I was, because no good guy would take advantage of the trust she had in me, let her think she should play a part in my sick fantasies. She needs to know that—she’s been hurt enough.
Yeah, I’m telling myself that. The truth is, I have to see her again. She’s gonna hate me now—there’s no way she’s not, not after the way I left. That’s the only thing that can give me the strength to do what I’ve got to do. She’ll look at me and her eyes’ll be different, she won’t smile at me like I’m some kind of fuckin’ white knight, and she’ll tell me to leave. And I will. Once I see that—I just have to see for myself what I’ve done, and then I won’t be back. Hell, even that’s a lie. I could call her, do this over the phone, make it easier on her. But I’m a selfish bastard, and I’m goin’ back.
I just want to see her. One more time.
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
Barely Legal Since 2000
Author's Chapter Notes:
Logan's take on the situation.