Hank turned away, and with a sigh of relief Rogue pulled her shirt back on. Mike goggled slightly, then opened the paper bag and handed out Chinese take-out cartons. Distributing the chopsticks, he started scarfing down Mongolian Chicken. The twins turned their noses up at the Shrimp in Lobster Sauce, and Mike grimaced, then traded boxes with them. Rogue found fried dumplings and a tub of Egg Fu Yung in the bag.
“Wait,” Rogue murmured, then added, “You were only gone a few minutes, and there are no Chinese places near here. How’d you get this so fast?”
“Found it in the kitchen,” Mike mumbled around a shrimp.
“Found it?” Niji asked, but bit into her next chunk of chicken anyway.
“Yep. Found it. It was sitting on the counter, no one had a hand on it, or was paying any attention, no names written on it, so as far as I’m concerned, and under these circumstances, it’s martial law. Finders, keepers. We’re in a siege here, and I needed the chopsticks to chew on; rodent teeth and all. I gotta keep ‘em worn down or I’ll look like that toothy creep in the horror movies.”
“‘Predator?’” Ciji asked, and Niji shook her head, “I think it’s ‘Alien’ with all the needle-teeth.” “That’s Hell-Raiser.” “No, it’s Pinhead.” “It is not!” “Perhaps not, since I don’t waste my time watching horror movies.” “That’s not horror, that’s science fiction!” “Do not provoke me, barnacle butt!” “Watch it, you...!”
“Uh, can we just eat now, and argue later?” Rogue requested, and the food started disappearing quickly. As soon as the last bite was down, Mike snatched their chopsticks and started gnawing them to splinters, while the twins looked on in discreet fascination.
*
Storm raced upstairs and followed the upper hallway to Mystique’s door. The sun was beginning to rise, but there was silence within. Hurriedly knocking on the door, she heard bedsprings creak, then the dark-haired woman opened the door, yawning, and asked, “What’s up, Storm?” Mystique smiled like a sleepy, lazy cat.
“I need to ask you some vitally important questions, and I need the truth. It’s life or death.”
“Come in, then. Life or death isn’t done in a hallway.”
Entering the bedroom, Storm turned to their new substitute teacher cum spy, and asked, “You were the first of the Brotherhood to be given the cure, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Has your cure worn off? Do you have your mutation back?”
“Why do you ask that?” Mystique grew wary, but kept her calm facade in place.
“We have a situation below, and possibly with Magneto as well. One of our team who was given the cure has just experienced it wearing off. We need to know the time frame; how long it lasts. It might save a life if we can figure out the duration of the cure.” Storm drew a deep breath, and added, “If we can pinpoint the length of time that the cure lasts, we can estimate when Magneto’s cure wears off. That will give us an advantage over him if he reappears soon.”
“Well, in that case,” Mystique purred, then seemingly shook herself all over as little scales rippled over her skin, replacing the ivory tones with rich blue. Her dark locks snapped into red ones, and the soft robe she had worn seemed to absorb directly into her skin, as she stood naked and proud, and very blue, before Storm. “It came back a few days ago. I was the first, and the cure is completely worn off. For me, it was about... thirty-seven days.”
“Thank you!” Storm breathed the words at her, and turned for the door. Mystique’s voice stopped her momentarily.
“Does that change anything between us? Am I still welcome here?”
“You are welcome here. We’ll talk more later,” Storm ran for the Med Lab.
Mystique strode to the window and basked herself in the colors of the rising sun. “Perhaps this place isn’t as bad as I thought,”she yawned, pulled the blinds, and slithered back into bed.
*
The smell of smoking hot metal and the whine of a power tool jarred Rogue awake from where she’d lain sleeping lightly beside Logan. Drowsily she checked over the monitors, then cast a glance at the three students fast asleep on the floor across the room. Smiling at their dedication to her ‘cause’, she silently gave thanks for the friendship.
In the main room of Med Lab, Piotr, Kurt, and a bleary-eyed Hank all hunkered around the gleaming skeleton on the gurney. Crawling from the hospital bed, Rogue shook herself awake, shoved back her hair, and walked silently to the door to more closely observe the men talking quietly among themselves. Tuning in her focus, she heard Kurt’s gutteral voice, “They’re still human remains. When all is done, she deserves burial.”
Hank nodded agreement and returned the grinder to a table to allow it to cool. Not a scratch showed on the adamantium-plated rib cage he’d been powering the grinder on.
Rogue closed her eyes, focused herself and imagined standing beside the table with them. The strange feeling of disorientation and movement while standing still flowed through her, and as she opened her eyes, she saw her own feet manifest out of curling ribbons of black smoke. She was standing directly behind Hank. Kurt eyes met hers and he gave her a sheepish grin.
“Did I just teleport again? Or, am I asleep and dreamed that I did?”
“Ja. You teleported.”
“Wow... Kurt, I’m sorry for the way this happened. I didn’t know.”
“I understand, liebling; but perhaps there is someone else who needs to hear those words.”
Hank turned and stared down into Rogue’s eyes while she organized her thoughts.
“Hank, I’m sorry I had to hurt you, but you were making me choose between your decisions and what I know Logan wants. I can’t make you understand ‘how’ I know, but I know. I love ya dearly, but if you make me choose between you and Logan, well, you know what the outcome will be.”
He stood in silence, so she continued, “My head is telling me that you need to run more tests on Logan. Is that right?”
“Yes. He’s overdue for a panel to see just how fast the heavy metals are saturating his tissue, and to check kidney function. Kidney failure is a classic trait of heavy metal poisoning. Are you going to perform that procedure yourself, or allow me to draw the blood?”
“Can I trust you not to pull the plug on him?”
Hank sighed deeply and ran his hands over his face before regarding her again, “Since we are now certain that the cure vaccine is temporary, and with enough time Logan’s body ‘should’ right itself, I can legally and ethically treat him as a non-terminal patient. While you were sleeping, Storm brought news that Mystique’s cure has also worn off. We have a time frame. It is neither a promising nor an exact time frame, but Logan is possessed of a potent and unique healing factor, thus I cannot predict when his cure will wear off and his mutation will reactivate, repairing his body. It’s a crap shoot, but a reasonable one.”
“So, long story short: no plug-pulling, and the siege is over?”
“No plug-pulling, no siege, but you must hand over my box of Twinkies as a gesture of good faith. I’m rather hungry,” he gave her a smile and a wink.
“Deal,” Rogue held her hand out to him to shake on it, then remembered she was bare-handed and jerked her hand back, “Sorry. I’d gotten out of the habit.” The emotion in her eyes told Hank everything he needed to know.
“And I am sorry for what you’ve lost.”
“Will we get past this some day? I want us to be friends again.”
“Indeed.”
“Can you tell me why I can touch Logan, even as weak as he is, and nothing happens, but I can put you and Kurt on the floor?”
“I’ve been pondering that through the night. You’ve donated blood twice in recent weeks, once just yesterday, or the day before.... I may have lost track of the days. And I assume you were in direct contact with Logan, skin to skin, when your mutation returned. My guess, and it’s an educated one, is that you and Logan have swapped enough DNA that your mutation no longer perceives him as a separate entity, an intruder.” He rubbed his glasses on his coat tail, “I assume there has been other DNA-swapping, as well.”
“Uhhh.... yeah?” She grinned and blushed furiously.
“I suspected as much, thus the rose tattoo.”
The sudden beeping of monitors brought them all sharply alert. Rogue gasped and ran to the door, remembered the blockade, and teleported into Logan’s room, throwing aside the barriers as Hank and Piotr pushed the door wide. Mike and the twins started awake, scrambling for the corners of the room, their eyes searching out Rogue. She nodded her approval toward them and focused on the activity around Logan’s bed.
Stress-filled minutes passed as Hank hovered over Logan’s bed, adjusting medications, listening to his heart, frowning, even tugging back Logan’s lips to see thin black lines edging his gums: more symptoms of advancing heavy metal poisoning. Rogue wondered how she knew that, then remembered the mutations she’d borrowed from Hank were still with her, too. Checking through her head, she realized she knew how to initiate and maintain life support, but didn’t know how to do a simple blood draw. She hadn’t gone after that information when she tapped into Hank’s superior intellect and medical training.
Mike was on his feet, the twins flanking him, and they all approached Rogue. Mike asked, “Is Logan safe now? Or do you need us to stay here?”
“‘Cause we’ll stay,” Ciji chimed in. “We’re in for the long haul,” Niji added, sliding an arm around Rogue’s shoulder where she was protected by her shirt. Rogue self-consciously pulled her sleeves down over her hands as a safety precaution.
“I can bring in more food any time, ‘cause I like the chopsticks,” Mike finished the chorus.
“No, there’s no need. Everything’s okay now, so you can all get some real sleep. Thank you so much for everything you’ve done. I owe you all, big time.”
As the twins slipped out, Mike came closer and held out one hand to drop something into Rogue’s. She cautiously cupped her palm, reminding him that her mutation had returned and she was once again untouchable.
“I think you’re supposed to have this. I pulled it out of the lake while they were fishin’ out Miss Bones over there,” he nodded his gray head toward Deathstryke’s skeleton.
Rogue felt the cool weight of metal in her palm, and Mike scurried out the door. There in her open palm lay Logan’s dog tags, the word ‘Wolverine’ and a few digits of the serial number visible through the crust of mud and debris. She swallowed hard, then raced to the bathroom before the others could see.
Scrubbing the tags clean in the sink, she allowed her tears to flow down the drain with the cold, muddy water. It seemed like William Stryker still held both their lives in his grasp, even from beyond a watery grave. Rogue understood that Logan had thrown the tags away to break free from his past and Stryker’s hold over him. And yet, Rogue treasured the tags as her visible link to Logan when he’d been away, on the road. The tags meant something completely different to her.
Drying the tags and her face quickly on toweling, she pulled the tags over her head and buried them beneath her shirt, where they lay alongside the magnolia blossom. She laid her hand over the metal talismans, one feminine flower charm still warm from her body, one masculine metal tag still cold from the water, and prepared herself to hear Hank’s report.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Mystique gets the blues, Mike gets chopsticks, Hank and Kurt get apologies, and Rogue gets a blast from the past.