The next morning Wolverine woke up close to noon still tired. He’d slipped around her in the forest and beat her back to the cabin with a few minutes to spare to resume his prone position on the couch so she’d think he’d been here the whole time. It had taken him a long time to finally block out images of naked Rogue swimming before he finally fell asleep.
He found a pleasant surprise in the form of an egg and bacon sandwich waiting for him on the table and figured he must’ve been really wiped out not to hear her or smell the cooking earlier. He wolfed it down, polished it off with some OJ and a beer chaser, and then called Rogue's name. No answer. He sniffed and knew she’d left the house at least an hour ago. Probably back at the lake, hopefully wearing more than her birthday suit
Ok, maybe not hoping that exactly.
He shook his head vigorously to dash away the image and went to take a shower, hurrying through it even though he was tempted to relive the glorious sight he’d seen last night and relieve a bit of the pressure.
Dressed in his requisite jeans and t-shirt he strolled on the deck and called her again. No answer. He sniffed again. She was around, in the woods behind the cabin it seemed. He’d let her go for the time being, no sense in following her around. The whole point of coming up here had been to let her relax and do her own thing, not chaperone her and plan daily activities to keep her busy like a fucking kid at summer camp. If she wanted to wander the woods, that was fine. If she got lost he could track her no problem, her scent was unique and lingering, stronger than it usually was and laced with something new.
He inhaled again, closing his eyes, trying to determine the new tone to her natural scent.
She normally smelled of something like sandalwood and citrus, a bit smoky and with a sweet tang on the tail end. But now there was a new note underlying it all. He furrowed his brows as he sniffed the air again, stepping off the porch and doing a slow circuit of the cabin, tasting her scent on various breezes, the railing of the porch she’d touched, the grass she’d crushed under her feet. The wind shifted and Wolverine caught a whiff that struck him with the force of a punch… an earthy musk.
Shit.
She must've picked that up from him too during all those touches. If her body was putting off scent this strongly he had a feeling she wasn’t feeling quite herself and a bit wolfish. Letting her roam the woods alone now seemed like a decidedly bad idea, so he tracked her about half a mile in before the redolence vanished in a small area cleared of brush between the trees, about 15 yards across. She’d stood here for a good few minutes and not that long ago, then she disappeared.
He didn’t like this at all, it wasn’t right. He should be able to track her, but she hadn’t left the clearing in any direction he could detect as he stalked around the perimeter, not finding any trace of her on the leaves or trees that encircled him.
A giggle. Above him. Looking up her saw her 30 feet off the ground, crouched down on her haunches on a tree limb, perfectly balanced.
She waggled her fingers at him, “I didn’t know you were part bloodhound Wolverine,“ she jeered, bouncing a bit on the limb.
“Damn it Rogue, you barely survive a fall off a cliff and now you’re climbing trees? Get the fuck down here. Now!” Shit, I sound like Cyclops, stick up the ass and all.
She stuck her tongue out at him, stood up effortlessly on the branch, did a frigging pirouette on one booted foot, then flipped backwards in an elegant pike position, to land with a confident thud right in front of him, her knees sinking almost to the ground to take her weight smoothly. His eyes almost bulged out of his head. Not only had she just performed an acrobatic maneuver he’d never thought her capable of, even in the Danger Room, she’d done it with a kind of animal grace, making it look absurdly easy. And she was wearing her X-men uniform, all skintight black and hunter green leather, right down to the gloves.
If the Professor had read his mind right then Wolverine would’ve been booted from the Institute for life, run out by a lynch mob of indignant mutants with flaming torches and pitchforks, for the indecent thoughts that popped into his head.
She remained in the hunched position and grinned up at him, “Your powers, they’re really something.”
“Something alright,” he agreed. Shit, you're something, abso-fucking-lutely “Wait, you have them? Still?” She nodded. He growled, not liking this bit of info. He’d expected them to fade in a few hours like they always did. He tried to remember the last time he’d healed her. Three days? Definitely not normal. Well, nothing had ever really been normal about her mutation, but this was another new twist to accompany the unusual change in how she’d absorbed his powers more slowly the more he fed them to her.
She shrugged and rose to face him on an even level. “I don’t know why they’re sticking around, but they are. Actually I think they’ve increased a bit in intensity; yesterday I realized I had your improved sense of smell and touch. Today, I’m feeling…” She looked down, frowning a bit in her search for the right word, “like something powerful inside me, coiled, needing release.” He tensed at that last word. It was the wrong one for her to be using right now when she was looking like sin incarnate in a uniform that hugged every inch of her body. He felt a fleeting thanks towards Xavier for insisting on leather.
God Wolverine loved leather, especially the kind that looked spray painted on.
She looked up at the limb she’d balanced on a moment earlier. “I came out here for just a walk then started just running and it felt great. I was going faster, jumping farther, and when I got here it came to me just how easy it would be to climb that tree. So I did, in like 3 seconds.” She grinned back at him, then sprang backwards and took a playful fighting stance. “I think the Wolverine in me is itching for some exercise.”
He shook his head, his mouth in a tight line. “Kid, I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have to feel that side, it's the animal. I didn’t want that.”
“I’m not sorry! I’m enjoying the feeling of all this.” She flexed teasingly, making made a muscle pose at him before sliding back to combat position, this time a bit more menacing in her stance. She grinned, and he could have sworn he saw a glimpse of sharpened canines.
Fuck.
“Wolverine, how do you take it all the time?” she whispered. “All this…raw…pure energy, tensed inside….straining…it’s practically vibrating in me and it makes me wanna just…just…” Rogue was practically panting now, her eyes cutting at him dangerously. He tensed unconsciously and fell into a fighting posture himself. “RUN!” she screamed with laughter, whipped past him, and took off through the woods at top speed.
“Alright kid, you wanna race the Wolverine? You got it!” he growled at her quickly retreating back. Good, he’d run it out of her and then maybe she’d be back to normal.
He chased the little witch over 2 miles before he caught up to her. She was almost fast as he was and made just as creative use of the environment, leaping over rocks, flinging herself powerfully to grab branches and swinging around them to propel herself onward and upward, then dropping back to the ground to once again run with heedless abandon. She laughed the whole time. She fell to all fours occasionally and glanced back over her shoulder with a wicked grin, flashing pointy teeth, before once again she swerved suddenly and disappeared from sight, only to reappear above him scrabbling through the treetops. Even as he pursued her at pace he couldn’t help but admire the bestial grace arcing through every muscle and fiber of her body, the animal in her taking over, as she strained, grasped, and flung herself without caution through the forest.
He growled and decided the direct approach wasn’t going to cut it any longer, and he’d have to use some tricks up his sleeve he hoped she didn’t have creeping around in her head. He stopped his pursuit and listened for a few minutes to the sound of her ripping through the trees and brush, heading northwest. He struck out due north, determined to flank her and put an end to the chase. He figured she was too caught up in the adrenalin rush he was sure coursed through her newly evolved senses to think tactically, so he would out-think the Wolverine instincts driving her at the moment.
After a mile of stealthy stalking, quick but silent, always keeping her on the periphery of his senses, he paused to take a sniff of the air and fine tune himself to the surroundings and her trajectory based on her wafting on the breeze. She was coming his way, slower now, no longer thrashing her way through the forest.
Good. She should be wondering where I've gone. Her nerves were jangling with uncertainty as to where the predator has vanished. He took a page from her book, walked into the stream before him and moved downriver 200 yards, then leapt to grasp the braches above him and swung himself into the canopy, hunkering down in the cradle of the truck, his eyes focused with fierce intensity on the spot where he knew she would emerge.
Sure enough, her she came, creeping on her hands and feet towards the stream, her head up, nostrils dilated as she tried to trace his scent. She might have his animal instincts for the time, but she hadn’t learned the finesse that went with them: the ability to track. Something like a growl rumbled from her as she stood up, cricking her neck from side to side, trying to suss him out.
He grinned, his tongue snaking out over canines.
Rogue walked cautiously down the riverbed, not splashing, as she continued to sniff the air, ever turning as she surveyed the land around her. He could see the tension creeping across her face, the twitch in her cheek as she raised her eyes to the treetops. He silently slid behind the tree trunk to evade detection. She knew he was there, but couldn’t pinpoint where, and her hackles were up, literally; he swore he saw them rise between her shoulders as she stalked closer to the ground, eyes scanning back and forth, trying to discover his whereabouts.
She walked right past his hiding place. Good.
He slithered from the tree to the ground behind her, onto a flat boulder by the stream’s edge, silent as night and only 6 feet away. Just to be fair, he gave a snarl before launched himself at her back, intending to throw her into the water and teach her that she couldn’t outrun the Wolverine. To his surprise, she whirled with blinding speed and launched a ferocious roundhouse kick at him in mid-air. Refusing to be caught off, he grabbed her leg as he sailed past her and dragged her down with him into the mud at the water’s edge.
Then they were grappling, all humanity stripped away momentarily in the excitement of the chase, teeth snapping at each other, and his hazel eyes bored into her brown ones, and he realized they were newly flecked with gold. He was momentarily distracted by the change, and she twisted and pinned him with a forearm to the back of his neck, grinding his face into the muck. He flipped from beneath her and slammed her into the ground onto her stomach, heedless of any injuries he could have caused, the creature within him roaring in delight that the chase had turned into close combat. He twisted her arm roughly behind her, forcing her hand up between her shoulder blades and she snarled viciously as she drove her other arm back and slammed her elbow into his nose.
Stunned, Wolverine stumbled back, resetting his nose into place even as she spun and hovered close to the ground, knees bent and legs spread wide. She grinned a toothy smile at him, licking her lips, intent on her former predator now prey. Instinctually, Wolverine popped his claws to assert his alpha status against this saucy whelp that dared to challenge him. He snarled and flashed adamantium in a display of dominance, expecting her to back down.
There was a sick ripping sound as Rogue suddenly bared bone claws from her hands and roared back, the sound that tore from her throat wild and untamed.
For a full minute they stood locked into a battle of heated glares, neither willing to given an inch, the primal beasts inside both of them blinding anything resembling a rational or human thought, the animals within willing the other to submit.
Rogue finally blinked, her eyes clearing, the gold in them dimming suddenly. Looking down at her hands, the gory claws covered in her own blood.
She blinked again, and gave a wry twist of her lips. “Huh…that’s new.” Then she fainted.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Sorry, i left out this crucial chapter between Delicious and Understanding when i uploaded the first 10 chapters on 3/22. Sorry if anyone got totally confused b/c this is a crucial section.
Chapter End Notes:
Things change.