Logan let go of the phone and distantly heard it clatter onto the floor. All at once it felt like he had too much blood in his body. The throbbing rush of it through his veins pressed against his skin and his face felt hot, his head too full, until he saw a tinge of red at the edges of his vision.
A low growl rumbled deep in his chest before erupting into a guttural snarl.
“What the hell do you mean ‘Did ya miss me,’ you little snot!”
Rogue’s face hardened. “Excuse me?” she asked icily.
Logan crossed the room in three short strides. When Rogue merely lifted her eyebrow higher in lazy inquiry, he grabbed her upper arms and shook her until her teeth rattled.
“Logan,” she said in a quiet voice, “get your hands off me.”
“I let go of you, you’re just gonna wink out of here again.”
“No,” Rogue promised, “but I will do this.” As she spoke the last word, Rogue’s hands came up to grasp Logan’s wrists and with a quick twist and a turn, she was free of his hold and standing behind him. Thrusting one foot between his ankles and bracing it against his left foot, she pressed her knee into the back of his and Logan went down hard. Using the momentum of his fall, Rogue followed him down with her other knee in the small of his back until Logan’s chest and face hit the floor.
He let out a startled grunt followed by another snarl.
“Now,” Rogue said calmly from her perch on his back, “I know you can break this hold without even trying and toss me through the damn wall while you’re at it. But you’re not going to. Know how I know that?”
Another growl sent vibrations rumbling up Rogue’s leg. She took that as a sign that Logan was listening.
“I know you won’t do that because you would never do anything that might hurt me, right?”
The growling paused long enough for Logan to rasp out, “Right,” before resuming at almost full volume.
Rogue dug her knee viciously into his back for emphasis as she spoke. “Then why the hell did you grab me like that, you jerk? It hurt like hell.” She released her hold on Logan as soon as she finished speaking and moved quickly away from him.
Logan sprang up and immediately crouched into a position that would allow him to attack or defend at a moment’s notice. Although his fists were clenched, his claws had not yet made an appearance. The look on his face was ugly as he glared at Rogue. From the corner of his eye, he saw that Kurt had pulled Todd to the far side of the kitchen and had a restraining hand on the younger man’s shoulder.
“It is all right,” he murmured almost too low for Logan to hear. ‘Zhey von’t hurt each other.”
“Are you sure?” Todd asked, his voice rife with disbelief.
Kurt considered the question a moment too long before saying, “Ja, relatively sure.”
“I’m not gonna hurt her,” Logan said in irritation.
“You won’t get the chance,” Rogue promised.
“Logan? Hello?” The tinny voice drifted up from Logan’s feet.
Logan blinked slowly and looked down at the phone on the floor. He looked up at Rogue and then back down at the phone without straightening his stance.
Rogue burst out laughing.
“Answer it,” she laughed, waving her hand toward the phone. “I promise I won’t attack you, Logan.”
Logan loosed one last warning growl before quickly scooping up the phone.
“Yeah, Chuck.”
“What’s going on?”
“Rogue’s back,” Logan replied, keeping his eyes on the woman in question as she pulled out a chair and took a seat at the table.
“Logan, there’s something you should know. Rogue is - “
“I know,” Logan interrupted. “She’s not just Marie anymore, is she?”
Rogue calmly raised an eyebrow.
“No. I don’t understand what’s happening with her, Logan. Certainly personalities have fractured due to mutations, but I’ve never before encountered one that has been added to.”
“I don’t think it’s that her personality has been added to, Chuck. More like what’s always been there has just been enhanced.”
“Hmm,” Xavier hummed thoughtfully. “Rogue did refer to herself as ‘upgraded’ earlier.”
“Well, there you go,” Logan said in dismissal.
“I’m curious, Logan. Why aren’t you bothered by this? You expressed concern over it not so long ago.”
Logan shrugged while Rogue inspected her nail beds.
“She’s still Rogue,” he finally replied. “I still recognize her, can still predict how she’ll react and understand why. I don’t feel afraid for her.”
Rogue looked up and held Logan’s gaze.
“Like you did for Jean?” Xavier asked.
“Yeah.”
“I see. As long as you say Rogue is all right, Logan, I’ll try not to worry. Please have Todd and Kurt return with the samples as soon as they’re able.” Without saying goodbye, the professor ended the call.
“You finally realized there’s nothing wrong with me then?” Rogue asked quietly, kicking a chair toward Logan in invitation.
He dropped into the chair wearily. “I never really thought there was anything wrong with you,” he tried to explain, “I just didn’t know what was going on or whether it would hurt you.”
“Ah,” Rogue said, nodding, “you weren’t sure how to keep your promise to take care of me.”
“Yeah,” Logan admitted.
Shrugging, Rogue said, “There are going to be things you can’t protect me from, Logan. I know that. I knew it when I was sixteen. You always try, though. You always want to protect me. That’s what makes me feel safe. So even when Magneto had me strapped into that machine, I knew you were doing everything you could and I felt safe.”
Logan snorted in sudden amusement. “I ever tell you you’re weird, kid?”
“Maybe not in so many words.” Rogue smirked.
Todd cleared his throat, drawing their attention. “I hate to interrupt,” he said dryly, “but how do you two go from nearly ripping each other’s throats outs to being all chummy in the space of five minutes?”
Logan and Rogue shrugged in unison.
“Do not seek to understand it, my friend,” Kurt advised. “Zhat is just zhe vay it is vit zhe Wolverine and his Rogue. Now,” he continued, clapping his hands together, “ve must get zhe samples back to zhe mansion.”
Todd groaned and clapped a hand over his stomach. “All right,” he said, “let me just check the sample sites again before we go.”
Rogue obligingly stuck out her right arm so Todd could lift one of the bandages to inspect the wound.
“What the hell?” Todd said in alarm as he backed hastily away from Rogue.
“What?” Rogue asked as Logan jumped from his chair to check her arm himself. She could feel Logan running his rough fingertips over her skin, but she kept her eyes on Todd, worried about how pale he was becoming.
“It’s gone,” Logan said in surprise. He grabbed Rogue’s other arm and peeled another bandage away. Looking down at her arms, all Rogue saw was clear, unmarked skin.
“They healed?” she asked. She pulled up the hem of her shirt and yanked the bandage off her stomach. She winced when the adhesive pulled at her skin, but even as they watched, the redness faded away.
“Huh.”
“‘Huh’?” Logan echoed. “You spontaneously start healin’ and all you have to say is ‘huh’?” He dropped back into his chair and shot her a dark look.
“Well, it’s not like I don’t know where it came from.”
“Me?” Logan asked.
Rolling her eyes, Rogue said, “Well duh. What other mutants with a healing factor have I run into?”
“Sabretooth.”
Blinking in thought, Rogue said again, “Huh.”
“That doesn’t bother you? That you might have copied that sociopath’s abilities?”
“No,” Rogue answered with a shrug. “It’s your ability, not his.”
Frustrated, Logan growled, “How the hell can you know that?”
“Because I met you first and your healing factor’s more efficient than Sabretooth’s. I’m not gonna waste my energy copying the watered down version of your mutation.”
Logan grinned in feral satisfaction. “My healin’s better than his?”
“Mmhmm,” Rogue said, looking at Kurt and frowning.
“Vhat?” he asked, alarmed.
“How much do you know about how your mutation works?”
“I…I don’t know. I don’t know how I do vhat I do. I just know zhat I can.”
“I’m gonna let you in on a little secret then, Kurt. You can do more than you think you can.”
Yellow eyes widening, Kurt whispered, “Vhat do you mean?”
Ignoring Logan’s and Todd’s interest in the conversation, Rogue picked absently at a hangnail on her thumb.
“Rogue?” Kurt prompted.
“I’m just thinkin’ how best to phrase it.” After almost a full minute of picking at her hangnail and frowning in thought, Rogue finally said, “I don’t think it’ll help you to know how your mutation works. But you don’t need to be able to see where you’re going, which I think you’ve already figured out. And you won’t get stuck in a wall or anything.”
“How do you know zhat?” The surprise in Kurt’s voice was mixed with the beginnings of fear.
Giving him a measuring look, Rogue said, “Let’s just say that in copying an ability, I get to see all its parts and how they work.”
“But how do you know, specifically, zhat I von’t get stuck in somezhing?”
“Your mutation works according to the basic principles of physics. Matter can’t occupy a space already being occupied, so you’re good with walls. Trust me.”
“Ja, but vhy vouldn’t I get stuck? Nozhing’s really solid - ve know zhat because of Kitty’s ability.”
Rogue laughed. “Kitty’s body changes - atoms, molecules, whatever - shift around objects. She walks the empty spaces of her body through the occupied spaces of whatever it is she’s trying to phase through. Your body doesn’t change. It just moves.”
“But I disappear, don’t I? Vhere is my body vhen it’s not here. Or zhere?” Kurt asked, nodding to the other side of the room.
“I…Kurt, I don’t really know how to answer that.” Rogue gave an apologetic shrug.
“But you can tell how Kitty’s mutation vorks!” Kurt cried in protest.
“Well, yeah…that one’s a simple matter of just seeing what’s happening in the here and now. You don’t stay in there here and now when you teleport. And I don’t really have the scientific background to explain what it is you do.”
“But I vant to know,” Kurt whispered, his voice pleading.
Rogue sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose with her fingers. “And I would explain it to you if I could. Just…keep your eyes open the next time you teleport. Umm…better yet, keep your eyes open the next time you teleport alone. I don’t think you’ll want to check things out when you have a passenger to worry about.”
“Keep my eyes open?” Kurt echoed, blinking in confusion.
Laughing ruefully, Rogue asked, “Haven’t you ever noticed you screw your eyes shut when you teleport?”
“I do?”
Logan grunted. “Yeah, Elf, you do.”
Kurt shot a lightning quick glance between Rogue and Logan. His eyes widened to comical proportions just before he bamfed out of sight. Almost immediately, he reappeared on the other side of the kitchen, his eyes still open wide. He looked around hurriedly and began muttering frantically in German, his fingers working the rosary beads he carried at his belt.
“You see what I mean?” Rogue asked gently.
“Vhat…vhat vas zhat?”
Rogue shrugged. “I dunno. Like I said, I don’t have the scientific background to be able to tell for sure.”
“Zhat - vhat I saw - vas not science!”
Rogue shrugged again.
“I zhink I vill continue to teleport vit my eyes closed, ja?”
“Sure.”
“What?” Todd asked. “What did you see?”
Kurt just shook his head and returned to counting the rosary.
Logan shifted in his chair, a contemplative look on his face. He cleared his throat loudly. “Kurt, you and Todd need to get those samples back to Hank.”
“Oh. Ja,” Kurt murmured. He watched Todd as he fastened the straps on the bag containing the samples. When the younger man had the bag settled securely on his back, Kurt stepped forward and wrapped his arms around him. “You keep your eyes closed too,” he said, and they disappeared.