Marie had come to Xavier's after being found living hand-to-mouth in Valdez, Alaska by Scott and Jean. They had walked into the small diner where she worked, serving strong coffee and mediocre food to fishermen, and said they wanted to take her away from all that.
She thought it was like something out of Dickens--suddenly the thing that had been a millstone around her neck, the thing that had weighed her down and caused her every waking moment to be filled with caution and worry, suddenly this very thing made her valuable to people like Scott and Jean. They told her it was a gift; they told her she could use it to help people, people like her.
The only things she wanted to take with her were a few paperback books.
The ride back was the most exciting thing Marie had ever done; she'd never even ridden on a passenger plane before, and now she was flying in the fanciest plane she'd ever imagined.
When they got to Westchester, Marie had to work hard to control her impulse to stare and touch everything. She didn't want anyone to think she was an ignorant hick, but it'd just been so long since she'd seen anything so clean and nice.
The Professor was pleased that she'd already gotten her GED the year before in Alaska; he said she could start the training to be on the team, and if she liked it they'd go from there.
They gave her a room of her own, on the far end of the teacher's floor, right next to the attic stairs. The three rooms nearest hers were currently unoccupied. They let her pick which one she wanted. It was the biggest room Marie had ever lived in. It had a window seat looking out on the gardens, and a full bathroom, all her own.
She met a few of the other trainees--all recent graduates of the school. She liked Jubilee and Bobby immediately, and started sitting with them during meals. Sometimes she felt like she wasn't as smart as everyone else, and she wished she'd finished school normally instead of getting her GED, but Scott helped with that. Scott saw what books Marie had brought with her, and he showed her the library. Sometimes they would meet up there and talk about what they'd been reading. She wondered what he saw when he looked at the pages, but she didn't feel right asking him.
Jean took her shopping and helped her pick out clothing that would keep her from worrying too much about hurting someone accidentally, but was also fitting and comfortable. Jean said she didn't have to worry about her skin all the time. Jean said she should try going without the gloves sometime; she said she could start small, just in her room, maybe. She said getting comfortable and accepting of her gift might help unlock the ability to control it. Jean told her she knew what it was like to have voices in her head that she couldn't control; she said she understood the impulse to isolate herself.
Marie nodded, but secretly she couldn't ever see herself getting comfortable with it. She still felt like drawing away from others, a little. When people asked, she said her name was 'Rogue.' No one blinked an eye.
One night she woke up in a nightmare; she had them with some frequency. Usually they were of the same thing; the thing that had turned her hair white and made her vomit when she smelled Obsession for Men cologne. The thing that made her suspicious, even now, of how nice everyone was.
She woke in a cold sweat, shaking. Stumbling to the bathroom, she thought for a minute before deciding to indulge in the luxury of a bath. She hadn't had a real bath since she left Meridian, and now she had her own huge tub. If she never saw another tiny stand-up shower stall, she'd die happy.
Doing it up right, she put something sweet smelling in the water and a CD in the player. When she sank into the hot water it was like she was sinking back into her old life, back when her mama loved her, and her daddy said she was a beautiful angel. Back when she dreamed of dressing up and going to the junior prom with David (or maybe Luke), and of grand, romantic adventures after high school, before college. She cried, a few tears, sitting in that hot, sweet water, thinking on Mississippi; she cried for something she never imagined she'd miss, back when she had it. Then she sank lower, submerging her head beneath the surface, letting her hair bloom around her face, letting the salt of her tears disappear in the sweetness of the bath water.
When she heard the noise, she sat up straight, splashing water on the floor. A tight panic clutched her bones, and her first thought was of how naked she was. She was exposed, feeling completely vulnerable, and yet, at the same time, she was at her most deadly. Her muscles were immediately coiled, all the work of the hot bath evaporating away. She listened, but didn't hear it again. Not feeling comfortable in the bath anymore, she stepped out and toweled off efficiently, pulling her robe on and flicking the CD player off.
The noise--a sharp thud--startled her again when she was combing out her hair. It was definitely not some tree branch against the window. In fact, it sounded like it was upstairs, above her room--in the attic. She threw her nightgown on and went to her door. Maybe she should wake up Scott and Jean, or Ororo. Straining her ears, she had to stifle a yelp when she heard a thump-thump-thump, like someone was walking around up there.
She opened her door and almost jumped out of her skin--the attic door was ajar and she heard soft whispering from up the stairs. Her heart beating a million miles a minute, she stepped towards the open door, trying to hear the voices.
"Rogue."
She couldn't stifle her yelp this time. Turning around wildly, she exhaled in relief to see Storm standing behind her. "I-- I heard a noise," she said lamely.
Storm's eyes flitted to the open attic door. "It's nothing you should worry about," she said. "You should get some sleep--rest for tomorrow's training."
Marie nodded, going back into her room. When she slowly closed her door, she saw Scott and Jean step out of the attic. "...never going to trust us if you're hanging over my shoulder all the time," Jean whispered as they passed Marie's room.
Scott answered her in a clear voice. "It's too dangerous for you alone, Jean. You could get hurt. I won't allow that."
Marie crawled back into bed and wrestled a fitful sleep out of the night.
The next day, after breakfast, Marie was walking in the gardens, looking for a good spot to read for an hour or so before training. Something moved in the corner of her eye, and she stared across the lawn, at the wooded area that marked one edge of the grounds. A man stood there, just inside the trees, almost out of her sight. He was leaning against one of the trees, smoking a cigar and looking at her. She thought for a minute about running back to the mansion, but he wasn't coming after her. He just stood there. She couldn't see him clearly enough to make out the details of his features, but she noticed he was tall, and had wild, thick hair. 'Ferocious,' was the word that came to her mind, and she smiled at the image. Ferocious hair.
She sat down on the grass and took out her book, glancing at the man as she did. He stood in the same spot, watching her. Her eyes slid over the same three paragraphs again and again, but she didn't absorb any of the words. She kept checking to see if the man was there, and he was, each time she checked. Not coming near her, but not dropping his gaze from her.
Finally, it was time to leave for training. When she stood up and brushed off the little grass blades and seedpods from her jeans, the man was gone.
He was there again the next day, and the day after. Just watching from the trees. She looked for him at dinner, thinking he was a teacher she hadn't met, but he wasn't there. Then she looked in the garage and the greenhouse, thinking he was on the staff. She didn't tell anyone she was looking, and she didn't really think of it as looking; she just kept her eye out. One day it rained, and she didn't go outside to read. She wondered if he was there, in the rain. The next day it was sunny, and when she made her way to her spot, he was waiting in the trees.
In the back of her mind, she thought she should be a little worried about a strange man watching her, but she wasn't. She'd never had problems with strangers; it was the people she'd trusted and loved that had hurt her, deep.
She still heard the noises in the attic, but did her best to quell her curiosity. Storm had made it clear whatever was going on didn't involve her, and she didn't want to get kicked out for snooping.
Everything changed two weeks later when the main team went out on a mission; rescuing some mutant teens from some mutant-catchers who made money selling kids with marketable mutations.
They came back after a bitter fight. They'd won, and rescued the kids, but at a price. Scott had a broken wrist and a few cracked ribs; Jean had a concussion and a swollen eye. Storm faired the best--she had a nasty cut on her cheek, but it would heal, and Hank said it probably wouldn't scar if she took care of it. What made it really strange, though, was Scott and Jean's attitude. Scott yelled at her, when they made their way up the stairs. He yelled at her right in the hall, where anyone could hear. "It's too damn dangerous, Jean!" he yelled. "He's too unpredictable!"
"Scott, he saved my life tonight," Jean said, a little loudly, but not yelling. "He didn't do anything to jeopardize the children, and. He. Saved. My. Life." She said the last four words slowly and clearly, punctuating each word by slamming a clenched fist into the open palm of her other hand.
"Jean is right," Storm said mildly. "He did not put any one of us in harm."
"You, too 'Ro?" Scott said with a grim smile. "This time, okay. But..."
"Can't you just take this time and be happy for now?" Jean said, touching his shoulder. "C'mon, let me show you my half-full glass of water, hm?"
Marie wondered whom they were talking about. Was it something to do with the attic? Or maybe it was her watchdog (as she'd taken to calling him) from the woods.
The next day, she decided to start asking some questions.
When she went out for her read in the morning, she made up her mind. She was going to talk to her watchdog--but when she started walking towards him, he took off. "Hey!" she yelled, but he wasn't there. Vanished, almost, he was gone so quickly.
"Jubes, Bobby," Marie started, sitting down on the freestanding patio swing. They had just finished dinner and the hours after were their own; they didn't have any training obligations. "Is there something strange going on around here?"
Jubilee and Bobby looked at each other and grinned. "What's your definition of strange?" Bobby asked.
"Yeah, things around here are pretty much strange all the time, by regular standards," Jubilee said.
Marie nodded, but pressed on. "I mean, I've been hearing these noises--in the attic, and Scott and Jean were up in the attic a few weeks ago, talking about something that could be dangerous... And--" She almost started to tell them about the man in the woods, but held off. "And they had that fight in the hall yesterday. Who were they fighting about?"
"Ohhh... it's probably that Wolverine guy," Jubilee said. "He shows up once in a while and hangs out with the Professor and Jean. Sometimes he goes on missions. Scott doesn't like him."
"He's here now?" Marie asked, furrowing her brow. If Scott didn't like this guy, there must be something to it. She liked Scott; he was nice and talked to her about smart stuff. On the other hand, Jean said this guy saved her life, and that was a good thing; how could Scott not like him?
"Could be," Bobby said. "Sometimes he's here for weeks before anyone but the Professor knows it. He doesn't really talk to any of us."
"Yeah," Jubilee added. "He's a total fr- uh, weirdo."
Marie thought about that for a second. Here was someone two teenage mutants were calling a weirdo. That meant he was probably really, really weird. A hundred questions whirled in her mind, but the one that popped out was, "Well, do any of you talk to him?"
"Uh... some people talk to him; the Professor talks to him. Jean talks to him..." Bobby said, trailing off. It was obvious he'd never thought about it before.
"But... No one else does."
"I don't know... he's just all hermit-like and weird. He doesn't talk to any of us, so I guess we don't talk to him."
"How is he weird? I mean, how is he weirder than anyone else here?"
"He's scary," Jubilee piped in. "His head's probably all messed up, and he has these claws in his hands that come out of his knuckles when he gets pissed, and he goes kind of crazy when he's fighting. It's just scary."
"Claws?" Marie asked. "Really?" She rubbed her hands involuntarily.
"Yeah. And he's not nice. He growled at Kitty in the kitchen once. Like a real growl, a 'get away from me' growl, not a 'hey, I'm a fun-growling-guy' growl. All he wants to do is drink beer and smoke gross cigars and kill stuff. I mean, really kill stuff. Scott had to almost blast him the first time they went on a mission together 'cause he went all insane and started clawing everything."
Cigars, huh? Could her cigar-smoking watchdog and the attic-dwelling-weird-crazy-claw-man be one and the same?
"But the Professor thinks he's okay enough to let him live here? I mean, he lives here; he's not, like, institutionalizable, right? And he's on the Professor's side--he's not a bad guy, right?" Marie asked, toying with the fringe on the swing.
"Well... he lets him live here, 'cause he and Jean are trying to help him out, and 'cause he's like the only mutant they know of that got out of one of those labs without being, like, completely evil. He's not really on the team; he just goes on some missions when he's here. Sometimes he's gone for months and months, and nobody gets too worried." Jubilee frowned.
"But still... It doesn't seem right that no one talks to him. I wouldn't like that, if I were him."
"You mean he wouldn't like that if he was a nineteen year old girl, huh? He might like it just fine as he is." Bobby grinned; sure he'd found a chink in her argument.
"Maybe..."
Jubilee snorted. "Don't get all 'lost misunderstood puppy' on him, chica. The Professor is doing what he can, but... There isn't anything people like us could do. It might even be dangerous. Why else do you think he's up in the attic, all by himself?"
"He didn't choose that?"
"I think he likes it better than he'd like being down in with everyone else..."
"But he didn't pick it for himself?"
"Um..."
"Right."
Marie yanked a little too hard on the fringe she'd been toying with and ripped out a piece of the awning. When she looked up, she caught a glimpse of the attic window, right above her bedroom window. It was open, and she thought she saw the glow of a cigar tip flare, then darken.
That night, Marie donned the nightgown Jean had talked her into getting, a long white column with long sleeves and a low scooped neck. It was part of 'easing' into being comfortable with showing skin. Jean had laughed in the store. "Anyone dumb enough to touch you there without your permission deserves a little shock, Rogue," she said. "And I don't want to see you covering it up with a robe in the halls!" In truth, the low neckline made Marie very self-conscious. She tugged it higher and grabbed her book. Setting her gloves on the nightstand, well within reach, she curled up, ready to read a little and fall asleep.
She woke with a start. Her face was pressed against her open book, and the pages were wet with sleep drool. "Damn," she said, sitting up and stretching the kinks from her back. She was putting the book on the nightstand when she heard the noise--probably the same noise that had jarred her out of slumber--a hard thud, right above her head, in the attic.
Stepping out of bed, Marie slid on her slippers and gloves. When she opened her door, she heard another thump, louder than before.
Opening the door to the attic, she reached in and felt around for a light switch. Blindly slipping over the wall, her fingers found the switch and flipped it. Nothing. Burned out bulb. Marie sighed and thought about going up in the inky black. No--that was how people got their heads cut off in scary movies. Instead she ran back to her room, hunting for the emergency kit Scott said was in every bedroom. Under the bed, she yanked out the box and grabbed the flashlight; it was a heavy, long maglite--useful as a light and as a weapon. She smiled. Spare no expense at the Xavier mansion, she thought.
She clicked the light on and adjusted the beam, walking back to the attic door again. Halfway up the stairs, she heard something like a grunt, and another thud. "H- hello?" she said, ashamed of how weak her voice sounded. "Who's there?"
Now her eyes were level with the attic floor, and she saw a little moonlight streaming in through the windows, illuminating the room. She stepped up, glancing through the railing guarding the stairway. Was that-- a shape, on the floor, was it moving, or was it just the shadows of the wind-blown trees outside? A few more steps, she was almost at the top--
Shit.
Something large and heavy grabbed her by the upper arms and twisted her around, pressing her back against the wall. She dropped the flashlight and it rolled so the light shone back down the steps. She was now weaponless and in the dark.
Damn, damn, damn it. He was waiting in the dark at the very top of the stairs, where there wasn't a window; she walked right into him. She couldn't see his face, but she felt his firm hands holding her arms, and she felt a solid thigh push against her abdomen, holding her in place.
He leaned close--she could smell smoke and beer, but no cologne. That would have triggered a scream for sure. "What are ya doin' here, girl?" he said, his mouth only centimeters from her ear, his voice low and rough.
Her heart was pounding and she tried to keep from hyperventilating. His hands were gripping her arms tight enough to bruise. She glanced down at them, her eyes adjusting to the dark, but didn't see any claws. "I-- I heard-- you were making noises," she said, glad her voice wasn't quivering in fright too much. Her fear hitched up a few notches when he started smelling her, all around her hair and face. He made this rumbling, growling noise as he did it, which didn't do much towards easing her fright. "Are- are you that Wolverine guy?" she asked, trying to distract him. "I've seen you, outside in the trees. You watch me sometimes..." Bad move. Now he was really growling, and he shifted his legs so one of his knees nudged her legs apart and he pressed her harder against the wall with his thigh. He was breathing loudly and still doing the smelling thing, and if he wasn't careful he was going to touch--
Wait a minute. Wait a cotton pickin' minute. She had a weapon; she had the best damn weapon to have in a situation like this. Wasn't she spending a good chunk of her day learning how to appreciate her weaponry? Who did this growly-smelling guy think he was, anyway? Her fear shifted to hot anger and she wiggled her hands, but she'd put her gloves on before going upstairs. That left-- she pulled on the skirt of her nightgown, tugging down the neckline a bit, dropping her shoulder and turning her head to expose as much of her deadly skin as she could. That's it, she thought. A touch and I can get away. Just a little closer...
Logan hung on to the girl's arms tightly. She was in his space, in his...
He didn't want her here, but he couldn't let her arms go. The cold, biting scent of her fear spurred a strong response. She should be afraid; she should acknowledge him as something to be feared. But-- when she turned her head, showing her bare neck, submissively, her scent changed to the hot sting of anger. Her jaw was set and her body tensed, but in a different way. She wasn't afraid, not now, but her posture said he was the stronger, that she was deferring to him. His senses--sight and smell--warred and his grip weakened in this new confusion.
Fuck. It was just one of Xavier's kids. He released her arms and blinked. The rumbling growls flattened out to deep breaths and he stepped away from her, leaving the path down the stairs open for her.
She raised her head and pulled her nightgown in place, staring at him but not bolting down the stairs like he thought she would. Like he knew she wanted to. "I- you were-- I'm downstairs, in the room under here. I heard- Are you okay?"
He knew who she was. He'd caught her scent the first night he got back; he smelled her bathing--wet and sweet smelling, but crying, too. Then he saw her reading in the sun. She looked so calm that it made him feel a little calm, just to look at her.
It wasn't a familiar feeling.
Day after day, he went to watch her, to feel the calmness. He kept his distance, though. Didn't want her doing anything to fuck up the calmness, like scream, or run away, or worse--start to reek of nervous disgust. Then, this morning, she'd started walking towards him instead of sitting down in her usual spot. He'd left before she could reach him, but it was already done. The calm was shattered, and he'd felt agitated all day. When he heard the talk her friends gave her, he figured he wouldn't be seeing her out in her spot anymore.
Now she was asking him if he was okay. When he'd grabbed her and frightened her--he knew he had--she wasn't taking the reprieve he'd given her. She was asking if he was okay. He was so startled that he grunted, scaring her a little again. She still didn't leave, though. "M'okay," he finally said, looking at her intensely.
They'd given him the attic, away from any other rooms, since his nightmares could often end violently. It was also bigger than any of the bedrooms. She must have heard him fall off the bed.
"Well-- well, good then," she said, stepping away from the wall. "I--" She cut off to look down the steps. The door was opening, letting in the warm glow from the hall. He twitched his nose. Jean. Jean was fine, but not if that-- not if Scott was with her. He was too anxious and jumpy.
"Rogue?" Jean called out, walking up the steps. That must be her name, the girl's name. "Is everything all right?" She addressed that to him--she knew him, knew he wouldn't like some new person entering his space. She knew him. "Rogue, maybe you should go on back now," she said, talking to the girl again. The girl wavered, looking at him, her expression strange. There was something there--compassion? Concern? --that brought back a little of the calm.
"Everything's all right," he said to Jean. "S'okay." Jean widened her eyes--as much as she could with one of them still swollen and bruised--and nodded. The girl bent down to pick up her flashlight and looked at him, one more time. "You--" he cut off, not wanting to say it. "You, uh--" He needed to say it. Something made him say it. "You could come back sometime." She smiled a little at that, and looked like she was going to say something. "Not tomorrow," he said angrily, turning his back and walking away from her.
He paced the entire length of the attic over and over after she left, unable to sleep.
Jean walked Rogue back to her room, still almost in shock from Logan's behavior--his reaction to Rogue. The last time someone new had invaded the attic, he had extended his claws and advanced menacingly, without saying a word. He hadn't spoken to Jean for a week after that. "Rogue," she started. "What happened tonight?"
"I heard a noise up there, and I guess I got curious," Rogue said, her voice rising with nerves. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to-- Am I in trouble?"
Only if you can say getting a non-violent reaction from Logan (with an actual verbal response, plus an invitation to invade his space again!) the first time you ever meet him is trouble, Jean thought, her mouth quirking. "No," she said. "You're not in trouble. He's... He just doesn't usually react that well to new people."
"Is... Is he okay?"
Jean thought about her answer. He wasn't exactly normal, but who was, here? And sometimes he was almost normal--normal acting, at least. The Professor had a lot of ideas about how to help him, but those things were private. She couldn't tell them to Rogue. She wanted to tell her something to reassure her, but not make her let down her guard too much. "Some days he's more okay than others," she finally said. "I think he's going to be okay."
"What happened to him?" Rogue asked in a whisper. "Jubes said something about a lab..."
"I-- I can't really tell you," Jean said. "I think he should decide who and what he wants to tell, you know?" She glanced a Rogue, who was thinking about what she'd said. "Are-- do you want to take him up on his offer, to visit him? You don't have to, but..." The fact that he had responded to her so well was very exciting. If Rogue could get him talking more...
Jean had frequently been frustrated with Logan before. He'd taken to showing up when he wanted, often not saying a word for days while Jean and the Professor worked with him. It often took weeks, or even months, before he'd come down stairs and interact with the school population. The Professor sent him on missions with the team, though; saying that fighting well was one of the things Logan felt he could contribute in exchange for living at the mansion. He did fight well. It was only the first time that he'd gone too far, and it had happened right in front of Scott. He'd come close to the edge a few more times, but not since that first time had he done anything to endanger the team or any bystanders.
The most frustrating thing, however, was his constant impulse to run; from the moment he arrived, he was always two steps away from leaving again. He always ended up leaving, usually just when it seemed like he was getting comfortable and (almost) friendly. Last time, Jean had heard him laugh, once. The sound was more startling than the loudest scream.
He always left, and when he came back, they started all over again. This time, he'd not only spoken to a new person right away, he had indicated that he was staying long enough for her to visit him again--at least longer than the next day. He'd never, ever spoken in terms of future plans at Xavier's. If Rogue was willing, she might be just the key they needed to break through the next level with Logan.
"Yeah," Rogue said. "I'll think about it. I-- I probably will. Not tomorrow, though," she added, smiling.
Marie did see him the next day, however. He was there, in his usual place, watching her read. She'd smiled at him and gestured for him to come closer, and he'd taken a tentative step out of the tree line, but then he'd backed up quickly and leaned against the tree. The day after, she sat a little closer to the trees, a few yards from her usual spot. She smiled and waved, but otherwise ignored him, immersed in her book. The next day came and she sat a little closer.
She kind of hoped he would talk to her outside, in the open air, in the daylight. She was a little nervous about visiting him in the attic again, but she'd gotten the feeling from Jean that it was sort of a big deal that he'd asked her.
The matter was settled on the fourth day, when it rained again. She'd thought about this, and had decided that she would go up to the attic if it rained, and if Wolverine hadn't spoken to her already. It would still be daylight, and there were windows up there. After breakfast, she went to her room and got her book. Standing in front of the attic door, she thought about knocking, but felt a little silly. She pulled the door open and stepped in. "Hello?" she called out, slowly climbing the steps. "It's me, uh, Rogue? From the other night?" She was encouraged when she heard an answering grunt.
When she reached the top of the stairs, her jaw dropped.
Two awe-inspiring sights met her eyes: the first was Wolverine, clad only in a pair of jeans, his hair wet. The words 'phenomenal' and 'perfect' rang in her ears, almost drowning out the phrases 'violently unstable' and 'much too old n' hairy.'
The second was the only thing she felt comfortable commenting on at this juncture in their relationship. "Oh, my God," she said, forgetting her apprehension and walking straight into the room. "It's huge in here! I didn't know the attic was one big room..." she trailed off, looking around. The attic stretched the entire length of the teacher's wing, dotted regularly with alternating oval and square windows. There was a chair and a mini-fridge by one window, the one just above Marie's room, and a bed opposite. A few more chairs, an armoire, a deep red Persian carpet, two lamps, and a rather bedraggled sofa completed the furnishings. Everything was concentrated in the same general area, near the stairs. This left a massive amount of space, empty and open.
Logan watched her carefully. "Don't like small rooms," he said, grabbing a towel off the back of a chair to dry his hair a bit.
She looked at him, surprised. "I don't blame you," she said. "It's much better to have some breathing room, huh? Room to stretch out in."
He didn't say anything in response, just watched her. She smiled at him, encouraged by both his speaking to her, and by his (thus far) restraint in grabbing her. "I-- I thought I could do my reading up here today," she said. "It's raining... Uh, maybe I could just sit on the sofa?" He nodded, and his eyes followed her as she sat down and took out her book.
Padding softly over to the mini-fridge, he took out a bottle. "Beer?" he asked, extending a second bottle in her direction.
"Um," Marie bit her lip. "It's nine thirty in the morning," she said, glancing around. He wrinkled his nose, still holding the beer out to her. "I-- it's a little early for me," she said. "Maybe another time?"
That was the right response. He grunted and put the bottle away. "Okay. Next time," he said. Finally he sat down in the chair next to the window, setting his feet on top of the mini-fridge. He didn't take his eyes off her as she read.
When it was time for her to leave, he stood as she did, and walked behind her to the steps. "Well, um..." Marie started. "I--"
"Sorry," he said, interrupting her.
"What?"
"Sorry. For-- the other night. Sorry if, uh, you-- if I hurt you. I get-- sometimes I get--" he cut off, frustrated.
"It's, ah, okay," she said, smiling ruefully. "No lasting damage, right? And, uh, just don't do it again, and um, we'll call this a free pass, okay?"
"Won't do it again," he said, and she widened her eyes at the intensity of his tone.
"Good," she said, her smile brightening. "Do you-- should I come visit you again?" He was nodding even before she finished her question. "I'll come by after dinner, some night, okay?"
After she left, he went over to the sofa where she'd been sitting. He leaned down and breathed the air where her scent still clung.
"Jean, I just can't say I agree with this idea."
"He responds to her; he talks to her and sits quietly with her. How can that be bad?"
Marie sat in a wingback chair in the Professor's office, watching Jean and Scott argue. Jean had grilled her about Wolverine's behavior during their visit; she told her the basics, that he had sat by the window while she read, that he had apologized if he'd scared her the first night they'd met, and that he wanted her to visit again. She left out his comment about not liking small rooms, his offer of a morning beer, and his shirtless state.
"He's unpredictable," Scott said. "Who knows what he'll be like tomorrow, or the next day? What if he loses control? What if he wakes up from one of those nightmares and claws her?"
"Uh, I'm not exactly planning on being up there while he's sleeping," Marie interjected. Don't think about shirtlessness. Don't think about muscular, well-defined, eighth-wonder-of-the-world, marred only by an excess of hair but boy, does it work, torsos. Naked chests mean naked skin, and naked skin means horrible life-sucking death. Okay. Mood successfully killed.
"And I don't exactly trust him to be satisfied with 'sitting quietly'," Scott continued, as if he hadn't heard Marie. "Not when he's alone with a pretty girl." Hm. Scott thought she was pretty? This was interesting news. Scott had a knee-melting smile, and this muscle in his neck that--
"Scott, you have to stop harping on things that happened five years ago," Jean said, exasperated. How would you like it if people still judged you by how you acted when you first got here?"
"Maybe if he didn't act the same way every time he decides to show up," Scott said, fighting back a smirk.
"Well, he's acting different this time," Jean said. "He's acting different because of Rogue; shouldn't we at least let this play out, as long as she's willing? We're always close by--if anything goes wrong, she can have someone there in less than a minute. And don't forget she has a formidable defense of her own." Yeah. Formidable--Jean said she had a formidable defense, which is much better than just being a poisonous freak.
"Which wouldn't do her much good against those claws," Scott said. Wait a minute. She still hadn't seen them, but why would they be-- "Nine inches of metal is certainly enough to keep her out of touching range." Oh. Okay. Did he say metal?
"Look, uh, Scott," Marie spoke up. "I want to keep, um, talking to him. I'm going to do that. You've outlined the risks, and I've made a decision based on that, okay?" This was something she learned in training. From Scott.
Jean fought back a smirk now.
"What happened when Wolverine first came here?" Marie waited until Scott left to ask Jean. "What happened to make Scott so..."
"Pissy?" Jean asked.
"Well..."
"A lot of it is what happened on the first mission he participated in. He'd been living here for a few months, and he was getting antsy--he didn't like the idea of living here on the Professor's charity. In hindsight, it was too soon. He didn't know us very well--he hadn't trained with us, and working on a team was new to him. We got caught in an ambush and L- Wolverine went into this, um, frenzied state. He killed all but one of our attackers, and when 'Ro called out that she was behind him, that she had the last man, he turned and grabbed her, holding his claws to her neck. He didn't cut her, it-- it was almost like he had to make himself recognize her. Scott yelled at him to stand down, and trained his visor on him. Scott had been yelling for at least a minute for him to stop, or slow down, but he hadn't. He... he was very worked up. The men he killed, they-- it was very violent."
Jean shivered at the memory. Dismembered limbs, eviscerated bodies, hacked and sliced faces. More blood than she'd ever seen in one place. All in the span of a few minutes. In truth, the ambushers had all but abandoned their attack after Logan killed the first two men; he hadn't seemed to notice. She shook herself and continued. "After, he-- it was like he reverted to the way he was when he first came here. It was like he had to make himself recognize us all again. He's never been quite like that in battle since then, but... It's hard to forget. Scott, he's doing what he's supposed to be doing--looking out for the team."
Marie had paled during Jean's narrative, her mind calling up images to match her words that were probably ten times more violent than the truth. She knew about 'very violent.' That didn't seem to match with the man who'd (yes, grabbed her and scared her, but she had surprised him; he hadn't really done anything more than hold her still and check her out with that strange smelling thing he did. He had released her before Jean got there.) offered her a stumbling apology and seemed content just to sit with her nearby.
She knew appearances could be deceiving, though. The kindest man could conceal the darkest heart, and the hardest man could be soft and good beneath the exterior. Which end of the spectrum Wolverine tended towards at she didn't know. She knew which one she hoped he was; she also knew that hope and a dollar would get you a cup of coffee--bad coffee, at that. "He seems-- he..." she trailed off, not really knowing what she wanted to say.
"I trust him," Jean said. "You have to make up your own mind about that." She remembered it wasn't only Logan's violent frenzy that had made Scott bristle. When the Professor found him, he was cage fighting in Canada. He'd been monosyllabic and had barely seemed to notice anything that wasn't in the cage. She and Scott had gone to meet him and he'd threatened Scott and leered at her. But... he'd agreed to meet the Professor. He'd said: 'yer there?' and smelled her hair. Scott hadn't liked that.
Ironically, it was his crude, lecherous behavior that had made her notice his potential for hidden depths. He came on to her every time she came within ten feet of him. She attempted to maintain a professional attitude, but had to own that a little part of her responded. He was rough and masculine and unlike anyone else she knew. It thrilled her, in a way she found difficult to admit, even to herself.
Scott hated it.
They hadn't been together then; she'd just returned from medical school and was trying to reconcile her memories of the eager, wiry kid he'd been with the confident, handsome man now before her. He liked her; she knew that, but thought it was the remnants of the crush he'd developed when he arrived at the school. He certainly never made a move on her.
One day, in the kitchen--she and Scott were having coffee, leaning against the counter and talking. Logan came in and got a beer. When he passed her, he grabbed her ass and leered. She was so startled she spilled her coffee and shot an angry glare at him. That's when she saw it--the corners of his mouth twitched, and he'd glanced at Scott briefly. Under all the lust, there was a flicker of mischief. She smiled in spite of herself and met Logan's eye, her expression telling him, 'I know what your game is.'
He'd toned it down after that, almost like it wasn't fun anymore.
That night, Scott had knocked on her door and confronted her with a list he'd prepared detailing the pros and cons of getting involved with someone like Logan. He only listed one pro: 'he's strong and could hold his own if he needed to protect you.' Jean could think of one or two more, but didn't think it wise to mention them. When he finished, she asked what sort of person should she get involved with? That's when he kissed her--passionately, wildly, and in a way that said what he felt for her was nothing like the remnants of a crush. She hadn't regretted a minute of it.
The truth of the matter was, thinking back on the past five years, Jean didn't even know if Logan had a sex life to speak of; he postured and leered, but he never brought anyone back to the mansion, he'd never said anything about a woman--at least, not a specific woman. He had made several generalizations about women as a gender. Jean was the only woman at the mansion he'd shown any interest in, and she now thought that might have more to do with establishing his presence than any real desire.
"I don't think you're in any danger around him," she told Marie. "He seems to like you, which is more than I can say for pretty much everyone else."
Marie nodded. "I'm not worried," she said. "I've seen scarier things than him."
"Okay, first there's 'frottage.' It's like, French for dry humping. That is sooo up your alley, chica. And then--"
"Jubes, I don't need this right now." Marie was beyond exasperated with her friend. She'd made it her project to figure out every possible way for Rogue to experience sex. In her words, 'if you don't get it, you'll totally dry up and start collecting like, a million cats.' She had bounded up to Marie after dinner and proceeded to tell her all about the research she'd been doing.
"Of course, there's condoms," Jubilee continued, ignoring Marie's red face and her desperate expression. "Very handy for both the deed, and for, you know, giving blo-- uh, oral stuff." She lowered her voice slightly as Scott walked by. As soon as he'd passed she picked up. "There's more than one kind, though. Do not mix up your minty flavored with your extra-spermicidal. But don't be buying too many minty ones, not unless he's making regular trips down south for you. Make sure you're getting a good oral sex exchange rate."
"Oh, God, Jubes. I'm-- I don't want to talk about this. I don't."
"But-- I think Remy and Bobby both like you. That's some serious hottie firepower aimed in your direction, Rogue... You'll thank me later. Now, there's also mutual ma-- uh, hand-jobs. You just need to find the right gloves. I'd say latex hospital gloves, but those make you look like a mime. Maybe silk? That could get expensive, though... Hmm. For the deed itself, I saw this movie once, it took place in olden times, and this lady had a fancy sheet with a hole in it for her wedding. Maybe you could--"
"Jubes--I'm going now. I'm not having this conversation with you. I'm not talking about it, I'm not thinking about it, and I'm not fucking doing it, okay?!" So what if only two of those statements were completely true? She'd been thinking about it more and more since she came to Xavier's. It unnerved her, because that meant she was starting to feel safe, and that was exactly what she shouldn't feel. Feeling safe meant lowering your guard, and doing that meant opening yourself to attack.
Maybe she needed to remind herself what happened when you did that.
Lying in bed, later, she let her hands wander over her body, arousing herself. She was almost clinical in her technique. When she pulled her nightgown up and touched herself, she gasped from the sensation, and from the effort to keep him at bay. He always tried to impose his thoughts on hers when she did this. It was weaker, now, but still there.
She caught her mind wandering to the last person who had touched her anywhere except on her gloved hands--the memory of the frightening yet compelling feeling of Logan's knee between her legs made her body tingle. She wondered what it would feel like if he did that again, when he wasn't trying to scare her. Biting her lip till it bled, she forced the image out of her mind; she didn't want to pollute her perception of Logan with *him*.
*He* reminded her of what could happen when you thought you felt safe; the pleasures she stoked reminded her of what she would never have. She found a bitter release, stifling a gasping moan in her pillow.
When it was over, she went to the bathroom and started the shower. She curled up in the bottom of the tub, under the spray. Sobs wracked her body and her tears mingled with the hot water, streaming down her face.
As she slept that night, her dreams were troubled and painful; she couldn't tell where dreams ended and memories began.
A five-year-old Marie: pink dress, Easter bonnet. "Mama--I wanna have rocky road, with extra whip cream. An' two cherries."
Her mother sighs. "Marie, sugar, you always want rocky road, but then you pick all the nuts out..."
"But I want it, Mama, I'll eat the nuts this time..."
"Hello, Marie-McGee."
Marie laughs hysterically. "My name isn't Marie-McGee. You know that, Mister Macready."
"Well, now... Maybe when you grow up, I'll marry you and you can be Marie Macready, hm?"
Her laughter increases. This is a familiar game. "Noooo," she says, as if it's obvious. "I'm going to marry a handsome prince from faraway. I'm going to have a crown and a stick with jewels on it."
"I see... I guess I'll just have to pine away, then? Maybe if I show you how to pull quarters from your ears?" He hands her a quarter he's produced from her tiny ear. She's obviously impressed, and wavers slightly. Then her ice cream arrives and she forgets about having ears full of quarters.
A ten-year-old Marie: pedal pushers, sparkly barrettes. "Ma-muhhhh, I don't want to play with Joey Macready. He's gross--he picks his nose and puts it under his desk. I don't wanna."
"Marie... We have dinner with Abel Macready every Sunday--I'm not going to un-invite him just because he's got his son this weekend."
"But--"
"You like Mr. Macready, don't you? You don't want to hurt his feelings, do you?"
"N- no... But he can't touch any of my toys."
A fifteen-year-old Marie: blue skirt, ponytail.
"Ohmigod, Marie! Joe Macready is like, so cuuute! Why on earth would you, like, not want to go out with him?"
"I dunno... I guess I've known him so long. And his dad's a friend of my parents. He comes over all the time, and he's nice and stuff. It's almost like he's related. Going out with his son would be way weird. You should go out with him."
A sixteen-year-old Marie: Jeans, green hood.
"Marie? Marie-McGee? What are you doing out here by yourself?"
"Oh. Uh, hi, Mr. Macready. You shouldn't get to close to me. It's dangerous."
"Hey, hey, pumpkin. No cryin' around here, okay? What happened?"
"I-- I'm a freak. A freak of nature. I-- Daddy kicked me out. An-- and Mama didn't do anything. I'm going, I don't know where I'm going. North, maybe."
"Look. Look, Marie... I-- I'm goin' up to Memphis. I can drive you that far, if you want? Maybe... Maybe I can talk to your parents..."
An eighteen-year-old Marie: waitress uniform, tight bun.
"No kidding? You had a run in with that Bluebeard Killer guy? The guy who kept women locked up in some basement dungeon? That is so cool!"
"It's not cool, Ann. It-- it's fucking not cool."
The dream shifts and suddenly she is there, again--in his truck, on Highway 20, traveling from Meridian to Jackson, before turning north to Memphis. She doesn't have gloves--she'd taken off with barely the clothes on her back. She keeps her hands in her pockets, no matter how hot it gets. When he reaches over, pulling her seatbelt down to buckle it, she sees it in slow motion. His hand brushes against her bare wrist for the briefest moment; it seems like an hour. He slumps forward and the truck swerves out of the lane. She grabs the wheel and straightens out; she leans over his limp, twitching body and maneuvers the truck off the first exit, thanking God for bench seats and automatic transmissions. She pulls over as soon as she can and jumps out of the truck, vomiting from the dominant image in Abel Macready's head.
He is moving now, raising his eyes to hers, seeing the recognition in them; she sees him, this man she had known and loved like family her entire life, now she sees him in his true skin--he is a monster. He wanted to take her and--oh, God, he has someone already. Another girl, he's getting tired of her, wants something new. She's locked away. She'll die for sure if no one comes for her.
"Marie-McGee, honey," he says, smiling. He doesn't know what her skin really does. He doesn't know what the recognition means. "That was close. You did some good thinking, grabbing the wheel like that. Come on, sweetheart, we should get on the road."
Marie clutches her stomach, suppresses the acid bite in her throat. She wants to run, to scream, to get the police. Who would the police believe, though? A runaway mutie, or a pillar of the community? What if he kills that other girl before the police did anything? Slowly, nervously, she gets in the truck.
She keeps her hands out, now. At the ready. They drive and when he says he has to pick a few things up before heading to Memphis, she nods, suppressing a shiver.
Now she sees the little white house, isolated.
Then she's grasping him, holding his face, almost tenderly, as his mind slips into hers. She lets go, and he falls to the dirt outside the truck cab, unconscious. She doesn't know if he's dead or not. She doesn't know if she cares.
Inside, she's using his thoughts to guide her. In the kitchen, there's a locked door, leading to the basement.
Downstairs, the light is bright, florescent. She doesn't look at all the things, the ordinary things he has on his worktable. She goes straight to the far door.
Now she's opening the door, opening it to the sickly sweet smell of rotting flesh and men's cologne. The girl is chained to the wall, naked, frantic. All around her--the bodies of past girls, women, he'd brought back. Everything doused with bottle upon bottle of cologne.
The girl screams when Marie unchains her. She is hysterical, wild. She flails and touches Marie's skin, only for a second.
Marie has both of them in her head, now. Predator and prey. She moves, only because if she doesn't she will scream.
She tossed and turned in her sleep, twisting the blankets and desperately gasping, yelping.
Logan paced the distance from his bed to the window. It was raining again today and he hoped Rogue would come up to do her reading with him like she had the day before. He was agitated, and wanted her calming presence near him.
He didn't know if she would calm him today, though. Last night, he had heard her and smelled her in her room. He figured they hadn't told her everything about his mutation--or else she didn't know about the old heating ducts that snaked through the building, many leading up to the attic. All the others on her floor kept their vents closed; hers was open.
When he caught the smell of her arousal, it had hit him like a knife, cutting deep. He thought for a minute that she had someone with her, but there weren't any new scents. For a second, the barest moment, he thought--hoped--that she knew about his senses, that she knew about the heating duct, and that she was doing it anyway. Letting him in on her secrets. Only for a second, though. Then he shook himself, noticing that he had crept along--like a fucking animal--to the vent connecting her room with the attic, breathing in the good scent of her.
He had to get out of there.
When he descended the stairs, he heard her muffled moan behind her door and wondered whose name she stifled on her lips.
He'd spent the night outside, in the woods; he came close to taking off completely, but remembered he'd said he would see Rogue again. Now he paced, waiting for her. She was late.
Finally she opened the door and called out 'hello?' in that voice that reminded him of something warm and soft. She walked up the stairs and into his space and, before he knew it, he was approaching her and kneeling before her, placing his hands lightly--so she could move away if she wanted--on her hips. He pressed his face in her soft stomach. She stiffened, but didn't pull away. He felt gloved hands touch his head--caressing it--and a growl built from deep within him. He had to let go. Had to stop, to get away from her, or something bad could happen. He didn't trust himself; she smelled so good...
"Uh, Wolverine?"
"Logan. My name's Logan," he said, his voice muffled against her.
"Oh. Um, I'm Marie." He couldn't suppress the growl at that. He had to let go. He let go and stood, turning away from her and walking to the window.
She didn't run downstairs. All she did was take out her book and curl up on the sofa, like she had the day before. He sat by the window and watched her, watched her eyes follow the words on the page, watched her absently twist a tendril of her hair around her finger.
"You should close your vent," he said.
"What?"
"Your vent. It goes up here. Can hear you and smell you sometimes."
"Smell me?"
"It-- I got strong senses. An' healin'. I heal from everything."
"Oh..." her face was flushed red and her body was tense. "I-- I'm sorry if it bothers you. I'll close it right away."
"Don't bother me. It-- it's nice. Just-- thought you'd wanna know."
"Did-- did you, um, last night... Sometimes I get a little weepy. I hope I didn't disturb you..."
Huh. She cried? Musta happened after he left. Why would she be cryin' after...? Thought it made you sleepy. "Nah. Went out last night."
"Okay. Good." Now she relaxed a little. Not so flushed.
"Why were you cryin'?" Whoa. Tensed right back up.
"Just... things. Things I-- things I usually keep locked away, y'know? Sometimes I have to take them out and look at them. Remind myself of them..."
He didn't have anything to say to that.
"Where did you go? Last night, I mean," she said, shifting on the sofa to look at him directly.
"Outside. In the open."
"Oh... like in the woods?"
"Uh-huh."
She looked a little exasperated with his response, but didn't remark on it. Instead, she straightened out and moved down the sofa, to the end closer to him. "Has anyone told you what my mutation is?" she asked, changing the subject. He shook his head and she nodded. "I didn't think so. It's... my skin. It's poisonous, could draw your life, mutation, feelings, and thoughts right out of you if you touched it. I thought you'd wanna know," she added, echoing his words. "In case you wanted to put, uh, more shirts and stuff on around me. I won't be offended."
So that's why she'd shown her neck to him that first night. It wasn't deference; it was showing her weapon. It was a good weapon, but she'd have to be pretty close to use it. "Is that why you wear gloves all the time?"
"Yeah."
"You should have other defenses," he said. "Other things you can do, so you don't have to get so close." Now she was looking at him intensely. "They got you trainin'?"
"Yeah. Every day--after, um, this-- reading. I'm sore all the time and I have muscles I never knew about."
"Good. It's-- you have to know how to fight."
Her mouth quirked. "I guess so."
When she left for training, she opened her door and tossed her book on the bed, forgetting about the vent.
"I cannot tell you how pleased I am with this development, Jean." Xavier's eyes positively sparkled. "Logan seems to find something in her that he has not found in any of us. She may be exactly what he needs to unlock that mystery in his mind." He didn't doubt that it--everything, Logan's past, the things that were done to him--was there in Logan's mind for the taking. He healed from everything else, and Xavier found it hard to believe that whoever had done what they did to him had permanently altered his mind. No, it was all there, locked away in a container of Logan's making. It was just a matter of finding the right key.
"Scott's worried that he might lose control."
"Hm. It is possible, I suppose. A risk we may have to run."
"You mean a risk Rogue may have to run?"
"She seems to respond to him as well, no? I believe she has told him her name, which is more than she's given anyone else. Maybe he will do her some good, in turn. She has been... very distant. I don't believe she fully trusts us--she may like us, but she does not trust us. To have both her and Logan as fully functioning members of the team would be a great asset. Imagine it, Jean--her mutation takes on the gifts of others, weakening them as she does. She would be very powerful."
Jean frowned and walked to the window, looking out at the students playing on the lawn. "You're not worried, yourself? If she doesn't trust us, and decides to leave us, there's a very high concentration of desirable mutations living under this roof. A visit to you or Storm in the middle of the night and she could leave with powers greater than any other."
"This is why we must find a way to make her trust us." He leaned towards her, his expression grave. "We must keep her out of Magneto's hands; if she were to join him, I fear he would have us at a serious disadvantage."
Jean's sleep was uneasy that night. Visions of Rogue, shooting ice from her hands, plagued her. She saw her send flames to the roof of the mansion; she saw her call down the rains from heaven. She commanded all the elements like an avenging angel: she was unstoppable. When she saw Rogue--eyes closed--don a pair of ruby glasses, she woke gasping for air.
Yes. The Professor was right; they must find a way to make her trust them, to bind her to them.
Marie was almost asleep before she remembered Logan's words about the vent. She looked for it and found the ornate, old-fashioned grating and the lever that would close the flue. She looked at it quizzically, wondering if what he'd said was true--could he really smell her all the way down here? Was that his mutation--smelling things?
He'd said he healed, too. And Jubes and Scott said he had claws. It wasn't totally off the wall that'd he'd-- Oh, God. Did that mean he smelled her when she-- He said it was 'nice.'
Suddenly extremely embarrassed, she snapped the flue shut and jumped into bed.
She dreams about Logan. 'You could touch me and heal,' she tells him. 'You're not afraid of me.' He looms before her, somehow larger than life, and growls, like a tiger. He grimaces. 'I have claws,' he says, and he does--long, scimitar blades that spring from his knuckles. 'But you can touch me,' she says.
Now he kneels before her, like he did in the morning, and touches her hips. She is naked, but he is not afraid. 'Touch me,' she says. 'Touch me and enter me.' He presses his face to her stomach and it melts into her skin.
The scene shifts and she is in the woods, running in the darkness. He is near, following her but never approaching her. This will not do. She turns and faces him, confronting him. 'You can touch me,' she says. When he grabs her, his face changes, twists into what she supposes is a wolverine's face--sharp and animalistic. 'Yes,' she says. 'You can touch me.'
She woke in a sweat, her body shaking, but not from a nightmare. It felt like waking from an intensely erotic dream, but she couldn't remember anything especially erotic. All Marie knew was she felt wholly alive for the first time since her mutation manifested. She felt sexual and powerful, and Abel Macready was nowhere to be found.
With her good arousal buzzing through her, she felt giddy and a little naughty. Getting up from her bed, she knelt by the vent once more and opened the flue. "Goodnight, Logan," she whispered. "Thank you."
Sliding the vent closed, she giggled and went back to sleep--the first decent sleep she'd had in months.
Logan woke at dawn, as he usually did. He'd slept through the night peacefully, which was unusual. Taking a deep breath and standing, he tried to capture a piece of his dreams--something about softness and sweet scents.
It was still raining, and when Marie came up after breakfast she smiled at him and went straight to her spot on the sofa. She kept glancing at him and blushing, like they shared a secret. He liked it; he wished he knew what the secret was.
When she left, she asked if he ate dinner in the attic. "Sometimes," he told her.
"M- maybe I could bring something up one of these days," she said, blushing again. "Or you could come down... I don't have as much room as you, and we'd have to sit on th-- uh, or you could sit with me in the dining hall..."
"You could come up tonight," he said.
Her blush deepened, and it made his gut twist. "Um, o- okay," she said. "I guess I'll see you later."
After training, Marie went to the kitchen and started putting together a selection of food. She scowled at the refrigerator. What the heck would he eat? Probably meat, and lots of it--but maybe not. The only things she knew he liked were cigars and beer. She didn't want to go up there with an armload of food he wouldn't want. Wishing she'd asked him, she decided to err on the side of caution and bring a little of everything.
Laden with food, she made her way back towards the residential wing.
"Rogue? Do you need a hand?" Scott startled her and she dropped an apple.
"Thanks, I got it," she said, flashing a smile and nodding at his wrist cast.
He stopped her with a hand on her arm. "Wait. I- I want to tell you something." He ran his fingers through his hair and coughed. "You, uh, you know you can talk to me about anything, right? I want you to know that."
She looked at him, curious. "Okay, Scott. Thanks."
"No. I mean, if anything happens, or if you just need to let off steam... It'd be just between us, okay?" He ran his fingers through his hair again. "If anyone's pressuring you to do things you don't want to do, you can tell me and I'll take care of it. I won't tell Jean or the Professor. And, uh, if they're the one's doing the pressuring, I'll still take care of it, okay?"
Her expression softened and her mouth turned up at the corners. "Thanks, Scott. I'll keep that in mind."
"Hello? I, uh, I have food..." Marie climbed the stairs gingerly with her arms full. Logan took some of her burden and set it on top of the mini-fridge. "Watch the skin," Marie told him. She was wearing long gloves, but her shirt had short sleeves and a thin band of flesh showed between the gloves and the sleeves. She finished setting down the food and looked at him.
He was dressed like he was when he watched her outside; he even had his jacket on. "You going somewhere, sugar?" She was more than a little nervous; the initial boldness of the morning was wearing off and she wasn't sure this was a good idea anymore. It looked like he wasn't so sure, either.
"Uh... no. Just gettin' back," he said, sheepishly. Sugar. That was nice. He liked it. In truth, he'd been on the verge of leaving since the morning. He thought it'd probably be better if he just took off. Something kept him from it, though.
"Okay, good," she said, inhaling in and speaking in a rush. "I-- I brought a lot of stuff. I didn't know what you liked to eat, or if you were some kind of vegetarian or something, so I brought, um, a ton of food. There's a couple plates with what they're serving downstairs tonight--that's meat and side stuff, and I got a bunch of fruit and some cheese, and, ah, salad stuff, and some leftovers from yesterday, which is chicken that was pretty good, and, um, if all else fails, I brought stuff to make sandwiches, if you like that. And I'd really like one of those beers, if you're still offering." She exhaled and smiled shyly at him.
Scott watched Rogue ascend the stairs, one step at a time. He wondered just what it was about her that sparked such a strong protective streak. He'd brought a lot of young mutants back to the mansion; he'd helped them learn how to defend themselves and how to survive in a world that would probably be happier without them. None of them had touched this side of him so strongly before.
It wasn't sexual; at least, he didn't think it was sexual. It was something... else. Maybe it was her mutation--just as uncontrollable and deadly as his. Only hers worked in a much more insidious manner: she had to welcome into her body and mind those she used it against. Worse still, she didn't have anything to help her with it, like he had. Sure, he saw the world as a myriad of red tones, but at least he saw; at least he could look at the face of his lover. She could not touch, and there was nothing to stunt or weaken her mutation, even for a few stolen moments.
That might end up being a good thing, if she persisted in spending time alone with Logan. It might be the thing that saved her. Scott knew Logan had done some very bad things, before. He'd seen the fragments of documents that had slowly accumulated in the five years the Professor had been helping him with his search. He'd done terrible, unspeakable things: to innocents; to women--in the lab, where he'd been held and experimented on; to himself.
Ostensibly, Scott knew that Logan had been under the control of the people who had held him, but he also knew a thing or two about mind control and brainwashing techniques--he knew they weren't foolproof, and he knew they didn't always work in the way they were planned. Logan's amnesia frightened him most of all; if he'd remembered, that would mean he was truly recovering. That his healing factor apparently hadn't worked on his brain terrified Scott. He viewed Logan as a ticking time bomb; something would eventually trigger the intended response, and then God help anyone who stood in his way.
"Anything's fine," Logan said. "I'm not picky."
"Well, I hope you're hungry then," Marie said, unpacking the food. Logan got a beer and handed her one. "You should know I'm not 21 yet," she said, taking the beer. "Just in case you have any last minute qualms..." She trailed off and opened the bottle with a grin.
He grunted and opened his own beer. She started laying out the spread on the floor, near the sofa. "I thought we'd just sit here, like a picnic, y'know?" she said.
Sitting down, her legs folded in a semi-lotus position, Marie pushed a plate towards Logan. She tugged on the fingers of her gloves and hesitantly asked, "Would you mind if I took these off? They get kind of gross if I eat with them... I'd be really careful."
It wasn't that Scott didn't think he could take Logan; he knew that he could, that he could blast the man if he had to. It was the uncertainty--the waiting. Not to mention what it would do to Jean and the Professor. They had invested so much in him. Scott was alone in his belief that Logan's memories were now better left undisturbed. He thought perhaps that Logan's amnesia was a shield--a shield protecting Logan and anyone he might care about now from the monster he had been.
He'd been watching Logan closely for years. He observed when Logan changed moods, when he was more social, when he was withdrawn. He'd seen what Jean and Xavier seemed to overlook (consciously or not, he didn't know). Logan took off, without warning, whenever he started getting comfortable. Why he did it was a mystery to Scott, but he had a theory. He thought Logan was a man at war with himself, and whenever he felt his control slipping--his restraint growing lax--he'd leave, in an effort to protect those around him.
One day, Scott thought, he wouldn't leave in time.
"I have dessert, too," Marie said, wiping her mouth with a napkin. "It's just a few cookies and some strawberries, but it's better than nothing." She was on her second beer; he was on his third. Of course, it didn't do much to his mental state, but it tasted good with the food.
Marie fetched the plate with the sweets and two more beers from the fridge. She set the plate between them, but neither made a move towards the food. Feeling a little lightheaded from the alcohol, she laughed. "Tell me your life story, huh? And don't hold back on my account, okay? I've got all night. Yak my ear off," she emphasized this by opening and closing her fingers against her thumbs (like naked sock puppets), mimicking mouths. "Yak yak yak..."
His solemn expression cut her short. "Ain't much to tell," he said.
"Oh. Okay." Way to go, Marie. "Well, um, do you like it here?" she asked.
"I guess," he said. "You?"
"It's just about the nicest place I've ever lived," she said. "But..."
"But?"
"I don't know. I guess I'm waiting for the 'To Serve Man' cookbook to show up," she said, quirking her mouth.
He took a pull off his beer. "What?"
"Oh, it-- it's, like this 'Twilight Zone' show where there's all these really friendly aliens who only want to serve man, they even have a book about it, but it turns out to be a cookbook in the end. I suppose I'm waiting for the punch line--you know, the catch. What they'll want in return."
"Mmph. Know what you mean," he said. "Can't be too careful."
"Yeah."
They sat in silence for a minute.
"You could-- tell me about you," he said, taking another swig from his beer.
"Oh, I guess there ain't much to tell on my side, either," she said. "Grew up in Mississippi, had loving parents, nice friends, a boy who liked me, all that stuff. Then I turned into a life-sucking freak and all that went away. Like, overnight. Struck out on my own when I was sixteen and been that way ever since." She rubbed her nose and took another drink, her eyes clouding over. "I guess it explains why I'm a little suspicious when people are nice to me. I figure it's only temporary."
He snorted, a short sound that almost approximated a laugh. Taking another drink, when he set the bottle down he grazed it against her bare arm gently. "You're nice," he said. "I ain't suspicious of you."
She met his eyes. "Maybe you should be," she said. "They all-- everyone but Scott... they've all been, um, very enthusiastic about me visiting you. That's not why I'm doing it," she said quickly, touching his covered arm. "But you should know that. I don't really know why, but that's what's going on down there..."
"Why are you doing it?" he asked, looking at her pale fingers on his dark shirtsleeve.
"I guess... I don't know, I-- I suppose I feel kind of safe when you're around," she said, unconsciously tightening her hold on his arm. "Like outside, when I'm reading, I never felt like I was in danger or anything, in fact, I felt sort of protected with you there. Like you weren't watching me, you were watching over me."
"They'll do that," he said. "Xavier can protect you. He'll keep you safe from Magneto. I wouldn't do much against him."
Now she stared at him, her grip on his arm tight. "Who's Magneto?" she said.
"Uh, a mutant. A powerful an' pretty evil one. He'd probably want a mutant like you on his side, with your powers."
"My powers? Why... 'Cause I can take on other mutants' powers." She laughed, bitterly. "One stop shopping." Lessening her grip on his arm, she took another drink. She was getting tipsy, for sure. "Why wouldn't you be good against him?"
"He, uh, controls magnetic fields. My-- the bones in my body have metal grafted all over them."
"Oh, God... Is that-- did that happen in- I heard you were in one of those--"
"Yeah."
"I wondered," she said. "I wondered when Scott said your claws were metal."
His eyes burned into her. "Yeah. Metal," he said. "And dangerous." To illustrate his point he extended the claws; her answering intake of breath and flash of acrid fear satisfied him.
Marie's initial fear quickly turned to curiosity. They weren't like in her dream; they seemed much more deadly and utilitarian. She wanted to touch them, but didn't know how to ask. "There's no blood," she said, "where they come out."
"I heal," he said, retracting them.
Marie pulled on her gloves and took his hand, touching the back and the soft flesh between his knuckles. "Do you feel them in there, now? Does it--" She stopped when he placed his hand on hers.
He tightened his grasp on her hand and their eyes met. She sucked in her bottom lip, nervously chewing it.
Haltingly, he leaned towards her, breathing in her clear scent. He paused, his lips a centimeter from hers. Eyes dilating and her heart pounding from his nearness, she gasped, a puff of air leaving her mouth and meeting his. His mouth opened slightly and their breath mingled. Shifting to the side, he rubbed his cheek--safeguarded by his sideburns--against hers, shuddering with the contact.
"Logan," she said, her voice breathy and weak.
He dropped her hand and touched her hair, the tendrils of white against the dark, his fingers twisting in the locks. His breath came in short bursts, almost pants, now. "Marie," he said, hoarsely, his muscles tensing. "I--" he cut off with a growl. "I can't be here." He pulled his fingers out of her hair and pushed away from her. Without another look at her, he walked swiftly down the stairs.
Marie stared after Logan for a second before jumping up to follow him.
Logan strode as if with purpose from the mansion, across the lawn, to the woods. His mind felt fuzzy and thick with the scent of her. She filled him. He reached the trees and released the claws, welcoming the hot pain as it cleared his mind of cruel distraction. This was what was real: pain, and the chill of the air, fresh from the rainfall.
He wanted her. He wanted to have her; even though he knew it--he--would destroy her.
Deep in the woods he finally came to a stop and dropped to his knees in the wet earth. He'd stayed to long; he should have left the first night he caught her scent.
Plunging his claws into the muddy ground, he let out a primal roar. Why had she come here? Was it to torment him and finally drive him permanently away from the one place that had welcomed him? He retracted the claws and collapsed on the earth.
He remembers.
Agony--suffocating wet fire. Nothing else is real. He is caged in a tiny metal-slick room.
She comes in regular interludes--he has no concept of day or night. She comes and notes his responses. 'Physical improvements integrated fully with subject's physiology. Subject indicates pain when extending hand enhancements. Subject demonstrates sexual response to presence of female pheromones. Subject performs well in mission situations but becomes violently ill after completion. Recommend introducing compensatory action.' She leans over him, showing her teeth. Maybe the promise of a reward will settle your tummy,' she says.
Behind her, a man laughs. 'What if he shreds 'em?'
She smiles. 'We can always find new ones. Never a shortage of girls.'
He sees his hands, covered in blood; it stains him. There is nothing but pain and blood. She comes and marks her notes. He knows when he escapes this place there will be death--his or theirs, he does not care which.
His deepest desire is to sink his claws in her soft abdomen. It is that thought that sustains him. His dreams have dreams of that; he dreams over and over that she comes to him unguarded and tries to touch him gently. Gentle does not exist for him: only pain. He lashes out, again and again, cutting, pulling, ripping, and the copper taste of blood fills him.
Yet she does not die. She comes in regular interludes.
'Is our pet enjoying himself?' she asks her companion.
'He don't fuck 'em,' he answers.
She lowers her eyelids and smiles, almost imperceptibly. 'No... I didn't think he would,' she says. 'Violence can be its own reward, can't it?' She leans close, hovering over him. 'Is it the animal or the man that keeps you from taking them?' Now she bends so her lips brush his ear. 'Do you imagine it's me? Does that do it for you?' Her voice lowers, secretively. 'When we're done with you, you'll do as I say, without question. They have made your body a weapon beyond measure; I will be the one to wield it.'
Now, she turns to the man behind her. 'Perhaps it's time for the next phase of the project; he won't get sick over what he can't remember, will he?' She laughs. 'You know, I think I might even miss him.'
Marie ran down the stairs and out the door after him. She saw him disappear into the wood and made chase. It was dark and the ground was still wet from the day's rains. Branches tore at her blouse and skin.
She halted when she realized she was lost. Alone in the wet dark--then she heard him roar. Following the sound, she ran half-blind in the pale, watery moonlight. Part of her--a large part of her--thought she must be insane for following him, for chasing the man who could make that sound.
Finally she entered the small clearing where he was lying on the ground, barely moving.
He sat up when she approached him. "L-- Logan?"
His eyes flashed and he stood, hunched slightly. "You shouldn't have come," he said. "You're safe, back there."
"I-- I'm not safe here?" Marie was breathless from running.
"No." He extended the claws again, his hands muddy and wet, and advanced on her, the moonlight casting dark shadows across his face.
She tugged her gloves off. "Neither are you, sugar, if you're going to be that way," she said.
They faced each other, deadly hands at the ready.
Suddenly he retracted the claws and strode to her swiftly, grasping at her body and pushing her back, against a tree. His hands roughly groped her breast, her waist, and her butt. He bit at her neck, where her hair and blouse covered her skin.
She gasped, partly in surprise, mostly in the shock of sensation. Her bare hands waved in the air around him, wanting to touch, not wanting to kill. "Logan..." she moaned when he bit her breast through her shirt.
He paused and met her eyes, his expression unreadable. "You could stop me," he said. "You could touch me and kill me." He snarled and his hand slipped down between her legs and squeezed her through her jeans.
"I could," she said. "I could touch you and kill you." Her hips rose to rub herself against his hand. Her heart was pounding with fear and the rush of power and the nearness of him--it all combined to create an intense arousal. It was intoxicating. "I won't stop you," she said.
He gripped her hips with both hands and nudged her legs apart, shoving his groin against hers. She groaned when she felt his erection against her. Hoisting her legs around his waist, he ground into her against the tree, eliciting another groan. "God," she said.
Her hips moved against his, creating friction. His nose twitched at the scent of her blood; she must have scraped her back against the tree. Grinding into her once more, slowly and purposefully, he let her slide down his body till her feet touched the ground.
"Ummm," she said, reaching for something just beyond her grasp, frustrated. Her frustration lasted only a moment, however, as he threw her to the wet, muddy grass and dropped to his knees, between her sprawled legs. In a second he was over her, his large body overwhelming her senses and blocking out the cold wetness of the ground. It flashed through her mind that he wouldn't be stopped, not until he touched her skin.
I'm going to have sex and kill my lover in the process, she thought. I'm a praying mantis, or a black widow. Some crawling creature that mates and kills in the same instant. Then he lowered his weight to her and higher thought became difficult.
Everything was focused on the point of almost-joining; her mind, her body, her soul, all kept from conjoining with his by a few millimeters of fabric. It was not enough, and yet too much.
She came apart when he thrust hard against her pelvis--she felt her orgasm build and break, and she yelled his name.
He leaned in while she was still shaking and kissed her bare lips.
Marie felt him rush into her and shoved him off, rolling to the side. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" she said, panic infusing her voice.
He blinked at her, woozy from her touch. "I wa-- wanted to be inside you then, when you-- it was the only way I could..." he trailed off. His head was actually clearing of the sickening confusion he'd felt since he nearly kissed her in the attic. Her mutation packed a serious punch.
"You could die," Marie said. "I might not have been able to-- what if I couldn't break the touch?"
"Maybe that wouldn't be so bad," he muttered under his breath.
"I heard that," she said. "Got a little hit of your mutation, remember?" She touched his hair. "I think it would be bad, even if you don't. I won't help you kill yourself, if that's what this was about."
He was silent.
"Please say it wasn't," Marie whispered, looking around for her gloves, balled up on the wet ground.
"Why would you care?" he said, finally.
She thought for a minute. There were many reasons she could say: she didn't want to be a murderer; she didn't want another person knocking around in her head; she didn't want to get kicked out of the mansion for killing him. Looking him in the eye, she dug deep for the answer closest to her heart. "I like you," she said. "You're not nice. Uh, I mean, you never act nice just to get something, or because it's what people expect. You're wary, and you don't get mad at me for being cautious, too. You don't look at me like I'm a freak, or something to be feared. And-- and I'd miss you. Who would watch over me when I read?" He narrowed his eyes. Marie pulled on one of her gloves, wet and dirty. "Come back with me?" she said, extending her hand.
"God, Jean..." Scott's voice was tight with emotion.
"Mmm... I love you," Jean said, kissing his closed eyes softly. Scott didn't let her do that very often--it was too dangerous. He loved it, though. Loved that she trusted him and was willing to take the risk to touch him in a way no one else ever did.
He'd gone to their rooms after dinner, upset over his chat with Rogue; he didn't like her spending time in close quarters with him, and it upset him even more that Jean and the Professor were encouraging it. Jean had smiled--it wasn't the first thing they'd disagreed on. They'd found, after a lot of trial and error, that it was healthier for all involved if they left their arguments out of the bedroom. She smiled, and drew him to her.
Not for the first time in the five years they'd been together, Scott reflected on how lucky he was. Not everyone got to fall in love for real with their adolescent fantasy, and have her fall in love right back. "Love you too," he said, gripping her hips where she straddled him in the desk chair.
Her tongue darted out and licked one eyelid, then the other. "Even when I'm old and gray?" she said, humor overlaying an edge of uncertainty.
He smiled at the idea of her being uncertain with him; it had been the exact opposite right up until he'd kissed her for the first time and felt her passion for him. "Of course then," he said. "Women live longer than men anyway. This way maybe we'll even out. Besides," he added, with a smile and moving one hand to the small of her back. "You'll always be red to me--isn't that what counts?"
She gasped and rolled her body into his. "It's the only thing that counts--"
((Scott. Jean. Come to my office now, please.))
Damn it.
"You think Magneto has something up his sleeve? "
"I'm positive he does," Xavier said, wearily rubbing his forehead. "I had hoped to keep Rogue's existence from him until she is more comfortable with us. Now... He knows she's here, and he knows what she can do."
Scott sighed, exasperated. "How?"
"When she first manifested, there was an incident in her home state, something to do with a family friend. He fell into a mysterious coma and died after five weeks. While he was unconscious it was discovered that he was involved with some rather sensational murders. A girl who escaped from his basement identified someone fitting Rogue's description as her rescuer. It made the national news back then, and now someone has helped Erik make the connection with our latest resident."
"That seems fairly tenuous," Jean interjected. "Plenty of people could fit her description..."
"Not ones with white streaks in their hair and skin that, and I quote the unfortunate girl, 'shocked me, like a static charge, only a hundred times more.'"
"So what should we do about it?" Scott asked.
Xavier was silent in thought for a moment. It was imperative that they keep Rogue from Erik's clutches. He knew, better than anyone, that the man could spin a charming web. He couldn't be allowed to seduce the girl away from them. Not only was she a potentially powerful mutant, a prize for whichever side could claim her, but she was also a damaged young woman. He liked her and wanted to help her. What little he had gleaned from their brief chats and her occasional unguarded projection (she was difficult to read: he suspected it had something to do with having to corral the personalities in her mind) had told him she was deeply hurt, and wouldn't trust new people easily. He had been as glad to see her acceptance of Logan, as he had been to see Logan's reaction to her.
When Logan had first came to them, Xavier had thought an attachment to Jean would be a way to help bind him to the mansion. He'd been a little disappointed when that didn't pan out, but now thought things had worked out for the best. If Rogue tied herself to Logan, that might not be the same as joining with the X-Men, but at least it wasn't joining Erik's faction. Logan would never join Magneto; he would never join someone who could remind him every day of the hated metal in his body.
"I don't believe Erik would be so foolish as to try something here at the mansion," he said. "We should proceed normally for now. But be on your guards."
"I think we should just tell her," Scott said. "Lay everything out and give her the options. She's not going to like it if she thinks we've been lying to her."
"We're not lying to her," Xavier said. "She's getting used to the fact that there are other mutants in the world, and that we're not freaks. Why should we bother her with worries over which she cannot exert control?"
"Scott might be right," Jean said. "It's not so much whether we're lying to her, but whether she thinks we're lying to her. It'll all be the same thing in the end, if we're not careful. I-- I don't want to face her as an enemy, Professor."
Xavier sighed. "Indeed," he said. "Perhaps you both are right. We'll have a talk with her in the morning."
"Um, come on in," Marie said, pushing the door to her room open. Logan followed her, as he had all the way from the woods, in silence, gripping the hand that she had proffered. Marie waved her free hand. "Have a seat," she said. "There's the window seat, or uh, the bed. Either's fine. I-- I'm just going to wash up a little, okay? You stay here, all right? Promise you won't take off?"
When she emerged from the bathroom, she had combed the twigs and grass blades from her hair and washed her face. She'd wanted to bathe fully, and change her sticky underwear, but didn't want to risk leaving him alone for that long. He stood, from his perch on her window seat. "You can um, wash up if you want," she said, indicating the mud drying on his hands.
She found clean gloves while he washed his hands. When he came out, still eerily quiet, she approached him and touched his face softly, stroking his cheek, down to his neck, and finally embracing him. With a shiver, he wrapped his arms around her frame, pulling her against him in a tight hug. "It-- it's been so long," he said, the words barely a whisper.
"It's been never," Marie said, muffling her words against his strong chest.
"Promise me somethin'. Promise you'll touch me."
Marie was confused. "What?"
"If anythin' happens. If I get-- if I scare you."
She nodded, slowly. "Okay. I promise. If you promise me you won't do anything on purpose, just to make me touch you."
His eyes bored into her. "Okay." He still held her in the tight circle of his arms, not wanting to let go. Reverently, he kissed her good smelling hair.
She took his hand again and led him to her bed.
They kissed using one of her thin scarves, tentatively. Soft lips touched, chaste at first, as though they were children, playing at being adults. Then her breathing deepened and she opened her mouth to his.
She smelled incredible. There was nothing metallic or antiseptic about her. She smelled completely organic and so good. He wanted to bury himself in her smell and never come out. The best thing, though, the thing that stirred his heart and made him feel he could do this with her, have this sweetness with her, that thing was her skin. He knew if anything happened, if he forgot himself, if he fell into the horrible cold nightmare again, he'd touch her skin and that would tell him he was with her, not some faceless shadow of a memory. It would bring him back to himself.
Her gloved hands slipped under his shirt, caressing his waist, at the top of his jeans, skirting down to scrape gently at his erection, halting at his sharp intake of breath. "Is it too much?" she said. "I-- I don't know..."
"No," he said. "Let me-- I want to..." he nudged her shoulder until she was lying on the bed. He grabbed another scarf and stroked her waist and hips, tugging on her jeans, inhaling the dizzying scent that wafted up as he lowered her pants.
When she was divested of her jeans, shoes, and pale blue panties, and she was before him, open, allowing the hypnotic smell of her to draw him, he flicked out the scarf, a large silk square, and let it float down to cover her.
"Mmm," she said, seeming to understand that words were not required. Then he buried his face in her hot center and she couldn't have vocalized words if she wanted. He kissed and licked her, rubbing his face against her silk-covered skin.
He wanted to give her pleasure, to make her come, but he was driven by the desire to coat himself in her scent; he wanted to wash away his own metal-tinged odor in her cleansing goodness.
Luckily, both goals could be achieved via the same route.
Her legs trembled and she stretched one arm to brace herself against the headboard; she tangled the fingers of her other hand in his hair. "Ahhh!" she arched her back as she cried out, wanting to wrap her legs tightly around his head and buck her hips. His hands on her silk-protected thighs kept her from doing that.
She knew what he was doing--she'd heard of it, and read about it, before, but the distance between knowing about something and actually doing it was infinite. Nothing written or spoken could have prepared her for how good his mouth felt on her. His tongue teased and drew wetness to soak the French silk scarf the Professor had given her. When he changed from slow licks to insistent sucks, she splintered, her orgasm hitting--a fastball, line drive, out-of-the-park home run. She gasped his name, stifling her cry in the pillows. Her body didn't stop shaking for a full five minutes.
Logan crawled up, nuzzling her stomach and breasts along the way to her face. "You taste as good as you smell," he said, growling the words.
Marie was breathless, but she got the words out. "I want-- I need to make you feel like that," she said. "Help me-- show me how..."
His expression darkened. "Remember your promise," he said, taking her gloved hand and guiding it to the buttons on his fly. He helped her undo the buttons, hissing when her soft gloves touched him.
She wasn't practiced, but she was curious and unabashed. He was already almost at the breaking point, and didn't think it would take much to bring him over. Covering her hand with his, he showed her what to do. Finally, it came over him in a rush of fire-laced pleasure; at the climactic moment--the moment just before pleasure ended and the incoherent pain began--he leaned close and licked her cheek--just a quick touch. Her skin drew on him instantly and he knew he was with her, no one else. She cried out and shook. "God..." she whispered. "That was-- I made you feel that?"
He remembered, belatedly, that she got feelings as well as everything else when she touched someone. "Yeah," he said, amazed that he still felt like himself.
"Thank you," she said. "I didn't know my skin could ever make me feel good." She raised herself on her elbow, serious now. "But you shouldn't-- you're not hurt?"
"No. I'm not," he said, a hint of wonder in his voice. Drained, yes--from her skin and from the orgasm. Hurt--no.
"Neither am I," she said, picking up on his meaning--it wasn't just not getting hurt from her skin that surprised him. "I never thought I could have even a little of that. I thought... I guess I thought I was too damaged for that."
Shit. She shouldn't have thoughts like that, not when she looked so young and smelled so clean. Those were his thoughts, not hers. He was the one who was damaged; he'd been broken since the day he'd realized just how much of an animal he was, deep down. Every time he got close to piecing himself back together, something would snap and he'd break, all over again.
He pulled her to him, stroking her side where her shirt covered her. "You mad I touched you?"
Marie considered it. She should be--she'd told him not to--but he'd only done it for a second, and his thoughts weren't of suicide when he did it. In fact, she'd gotten an underlying sense of respect and almost joy directed towards her skin. It was like whatever feelings he might have for her, her skin was the thing that allowed him to have those feelings, and that made him happy. Deep down.
It was a remarkable feeling. She never got good emotions or thoughts when she'd touched people before--only fear and hatred and disgust. "No," she said. "I'm not mad... just be careful next time, okay?"
His hand tightened on her waist. She wanted a 'next time.' "Yeah," he said, slowly moving his hand to her breast. Caressing it lazily, he nuzzled her hair and took the scarf, the one they'd kissed with, and lifted her blouse.
"Ha- hmm," Marie said. It tickled, at first, but then he lowered his mouth to her and lapped at her nipples. He alternated between them, sucking lightly till they were hard and felt tight and heavy. She didn't realize when she'd said 'next time' he'd want to take her up on it right away. It was more touching than she'd had in the entire three years since her mutation manifested; it was overwhelming, but she wanted more.
A dull ache of want grew between her legs and she knew she wanted everything. When he bit down on one of her nipples, she felt it shoot through her body like an arrow, down to her toes. "Condoms," she said, gasping.
He raised his head and looked at her quizzically.
"We need-- uh," she said, blushing bright red. "We-- if you want... there's condoms-- I have... If you want." Her blush deepened and she looked everywhere but at his face.
"Yeah," he said, taking her gloved hand and rubbing the inside of her wrist with his thumb. "If you want."
In answer, she twisted her body to lean over the edge of the bed, pulling out a large black toolbox. "Scott's emergency kit," she said. Inside were the flashlight, batteries, a portable radio, a jug of water, and a first aid kit with bandages, medicine, and, yes, condoms.
When she rolled back towards him he kissed her languidly through the thin scarf, the slightly rough cloth reminding him constantly that she was different; she was special. He could maybe have something with her that he couldn't with anyone else.
She ran her fingers under his shirt, savoring the feel of hard muscle and warm flesh. Whether it was because of their brief touches or just his nearness she didn't know, but she was intensely aware of his scent--warm and inviting, with a hint of something exotic. She felt like she could get drunk off his scent; she felt like she wanted to drink him in.
They kissed and licked and touched, building their desire till Marie broke the kiss, panting. "I want..." she said, unable to say it directly, but reaching down to clasp him and draw him closer.
He pulled the top sheet loose and glanced once at her. "I'm gonna do this," he said, using a claw to cut a small hole.
Marie nodded. She pulled his hand, the one he'd cut the sheet with, to her mouth. With the scarf, she kissed his knuckles. His reaction to her skin was so wonderful and unexpected; she wanted to give him something like it, even if it was just a little thing.
"Jesus," he said, touching her hair with his other hand. "I-- I want to, now. I gotta--"
She leaned back on the bed and arranged the sheet.
When he entered her, she bit her lip so hard it bled--she felt stretched and pinched at the same time. He winced at her expression, but didn't stop. He couldn't have if he wanted: she had her sheet-covered legs wrapped around his waist, urging him on. Finally there was a tearing sensation and he was inside her.
Marie looked into his eyes, so worried he was causing her pain. It did hurt, but it also felt right. "It's okay," she said. "Don't stop."
She was so tight and hot. Stopping was the last thing he was going to do. He was a little worried that the smell of her blood would stir him into a frenzy, but it didn't. He felt the sheet and her gloves on his face; he was so focused on her skin and the feel of her that everything else faded away.
He started to move and she moaned. Every sense was heightened. She felt pain from the abrasion on her torn tissue, and incredible pleasure from the feeling of accepting him into her body. After a minute she began to move her hips with his, and now she felt a new pleasure as her movements created friction on her most sensitive spot. She gasped and panted as the pain diminished to a dull ache and the pleasure grew.
"Marie," he said, moving faster now. He was close.
"Yes," she said, moving with him. "Yes." He was pounding in her now, his mind filled with her--her words, her acceptance of him, her welcome, and is there a single word in the English language more beautiful than 'yes'? "Logan!" Yes.
Her mouth was parted and her tongue brushed her lips. His mouth was so close; all he had to do was lean in and touch her tongue briefly with his. Her eyes flew open as he came, shuddering and gulping for air.
The bite on her lip healed and all traces of pain from his entry vanished; her body suddenly shook as his orgasm rushed through her. She felt all the pleasure she had given him and it ignited her own. Wave after wave swept over her, and she clutched at his solid form, keeping her from floating adrift.
"Never," she said finally, when words came back to her. "Never never, ever. I never imagined... never."
"Marie," he said, rolling her name off his tongue. "My Marie. Marie."
"My Logan," she said, sliding the sheet so she could press herself against his side.
"Yes," he said.
They fell into an easy sleep, unaware of what waited for them in the night.
They were sleeping, curled next to each other, when the crash woke them. Logan sprang out of bed instantly, claws out. Marie sat up more slowly, confused. "What is it?" she asked, squinting her eyes at the window--dawn was just breaking.
He retracted the claws and pulled his jeans on, motioning for her to be quiet. "Intruders," he whispered, walking to her door, turning the knob gingerly.
Marie sent a mental call to the Professor, just as he'd taught her to when she first came to the mansion. There was no answer, and she felt a twinge of panic--did she do it right, or was something seriously wrong? She jumped out of bed and pulled her pants on, walking up behind Logan at the door. "Lo--" she started, cutting off when he whipped around, extending the claws on one hand, to face her, his expression feral and utterly indecipherable. She glanced down to see his claws just centimeters from her abdomen.
Suddenly terrified for the first time with him, she acted purely on instinct; she held up her hands, pulling one glove off slowly. He furrowed his brow and twitched his nose. "Don't follow too close," he finally said, as his claws re-entered his body with a slick noise.
He opened the door and stepped out. She followed. Down the hall, Scott and Jean were emerging from their room, as was Storm from hers. "Did you--" Marie asked, snapping her mouth closed when Logan held up his hand.
"I can't reach the Professor," Jean whispered.
Logan started to walk towards the others when he stopped. He stood, stock still, in the hallway.
"What is it, Logan?" Marie asked. He didn't move a muscle--his eyes flicked back towards her room.
Then the car crashed through her bedroom to the hallway. When she thought about it later, she knew she'd been so surprised by the incongruity of a car crashing into her (far from ground level) bedroom, that she'd been as frozen in place as Logan. The strange man with the funny helmet who followed the car through the newly created hole in her wall surprised her almost as much as the car. Not quite, but almost.
He walked towards her and Logan and Scott yelled, cut off when the man waved his hand and sent the car hurtling down the hallway towards the others. It crashed again, spectacularly, and the gas tank exploded, sending flames shooting in every available direction. Scott, Jean, and 'Ro all dove out of the way. "Ah," the man said. "May I assume you are the lovely Rogue?" He smiled at Marie and nodded his head in her direction.
Logan grunted, his muscles straining against his bones.
"What are you doing?" Marie asked. "Please. Please stop--just let him go. I'll do whatever you want." Her voice was tremulous and she was on the verge of crying.
Logan growled through his clenched teeth. He was completely immobilized. The helmeted man looked down at her and smiled, almost kindly. "I do believe you would, my dear," he said. "All I ask is a few hours of your time."
Marie glanced at Logan once more and offered her trembling hand to the elderly man--she could only guess he must be Magneto--tears falling down her face now.
"Don't think me a fool," Magneto said, mildly. "Put your glove on. I don't enjoy the thought of a slap on the cheek from you."
She did as she was told and he grabbed her tightly against him. "We don't want your pet getting any ideas about following us, now do we?" he asked, holding his free hand towards Logan and clenching his fist. Logan's right leg buckled under him and he screamed in pain.
"No!" Marie yelled, struggling against her captor. His gloved hand quickly muffled her screams. Then she felt him rise off the ground, carrying her with him out the gaping hole in her bedroom wall.
"Charles thought me a fool," he said. "The idea of me coming straight to the mansion never occurred to him. I do hope he's enjoying his good night's rest." His lip curled into a smile. "It'll be the last one he gets for a long while." They rose higher and Marie stared at the ground, dropping away from her. "You know, there's so much metal in his little underground lair..." Magneto said, trailing off with a soft smile. "I used to enjoy a nice night on the lawn."
Scott stood, stumbling weakly. He saw Jean rise, and 'Ro. "Magneto," he said tersely. "I think he took Rogue. Logan's down."
Storm straightened her posture. "We can catch him," she said. "Quickly--this way."
Outside, they stared up at the retreating figure in the low sky. "I can't blast him," Scott said. "He'd drop Rogue and I don't know if she'd survive a fall like that."
"I might be able to slow her descent," Storm said, her eyes turning milky.
"Scott... we can't let him take her," Jean said. "If you have the shot, do it."
Scott's hand went to his visor and he hesitated for a second before opening it. The blast hit Magneto square in the back. The three watched helplessly from the ground as something on his belt first caught fire, then exploded. Falling pieces thudded to the ground.
Logan saw the light from the blast through the haze of pain from his twisted leg.
"You see, my dear, how much your friends seem to value your survival."
Marie stared at the smoking bits of flesh scattered around the mansion lawn. They were just inside the trees. Magneto gripped his hand over her mouth, forcing her to look at what appeared to be her own remains.
Magneto chuckled. "Now, shall we retire for our little chat?"
"Scott?"
Jean touched his shoulder gingerly. He hadn't spoken a word since the incident, eight hours before. "Scott-- it wasn't your fault. None of us knew he had something incendiary on his belt."
He gritted his teeth.
"The-- the Professor is all right," Jean said. "He started coming around about forty minutes ago. Logan... he's not doing so well. His leg is severely warped, and I'm not sure if we can reshape it..." It wasn't just the metal; Logan had growled and bared his teeth at anyone who tried to come near him. He'd tried to leave, but his leg was so badly misshapen that he couldn't stand for very long.
Jean wrapped her arms around him. "Please, Scott. Come back to me. It wasn't your fault."
"No," he said, extricating himself from her embrace. "You're the one who told me to do it."
"Scott--" Jean stared at him, choking back tears. "It wasn't-- none of us knew..." Hurt, she turned away.
He blinked behind his visor, weighing heavy on his face. "Jean... I'm sorry. I-- I'm just... I'm sorry." He reached for her hand.
Logan groaned, twisting on the small hospital cot in the medlab. Jean had told him what happened. He didn't believe it; he wouldn't believe it. He wasn't sure what there was between him and Marie, but he thought he would know if something happened to her. Maybe that was wishful thinking.
Looking down at his twisted leg, the bone and muscle already healing into the new, distorted shape, he contemplated drawing his claws across the main artery in his thigh and letting his blood drain from his body.
He knew it would be futile, though. The blood would clot, the wound would heal. His leg was crippled and yet he healed. He extended his claws anyway, and pulled them across his chest, reveling in the pain.
"Logan!" Jean crossed the room to his side. He was panting. The cuts on his chest closed as she watched. She wiped away the blood residue and he whipped his head to look at her. He growled and she heard a soft noise, then felt a dull pain in her stomach.
Stepping away, she looked down at the three cuts in her abdomen; blood was welling and staining her shirt. She gasped and pressed her hands to the bleeding wounds.
"Now, little one, I know you must be upset," Magneto said, waving a hand and closing the barred door on the small metal cell he'd put Marie in.
"Upset?" she asked. "Why would you think that? Kidnapping me and-- and hurting my friend..."
"Ah, yes. The Wolverine... An interesting choice for a confidante, don't you think?" He gestured to the side and a square-jawed soldier walked up next to him.
Marie's eyes widened as the soldier shifted and changed into a blue-skinned woman.
"Mystique," Magneto said. "I presume you were successful in obtaining the information?"
The blue woman smiled and handed a folder to Magneto. He beckoned a small table with a television on it in front of her cell. "Perhaps a peek at the wild man's true nature will change your mind about him." He opened the folder and took out a video disk and slid it into the player. "Just a little something we managed to find... strange, isn't it? That we should find so easily what seems to have eluded Charles for five years..." He pressed 'play' and left with Mystique.
Marie watched the screen, unable to take her eyes away. The image was grainy, but she could see it was Logan, in a small room, not unlike the one she was currently in. A door opened, and a girl was thrust in the room. She huddled in a corner, farthest from him. Someone said something to her from the other side of the door--there was no audio, but she looked in that direction and nodded her head. Then she walked towards Logan and touched him. In a flash, he was standing and had the girl pinned to the wall--literally. His claws extended through her body and blood dripped on the gray metal floor. He twisted his hand and thrust her away from him, falling to his knees, staring at the blood on his hands. The screen flickered.
'You touched me.'
Marie. Warm, sweet, softgoodlovesafe. Safe.
'Touch me...'
She caresses his face; her hands are bare. 'You know my touch.'
'Don't,' he tries to say. 'You don't know what I am.'
'I know,' she tells him. 'I know you.' Her hair is wild and her eyes spark. 'I know you and I want you.'
He takes her hand; it is tiny, yet she seems to tower over him.
'I'll break you,' he says.
'No,' she says. 'I'll fix you.' She kisses him; her skin is cool and inert.
'Marie... Marie.' His eyes close. 'I'm sorry.'
She gasps and falls away from him, her skin slashed and cut; long red ribbons spring from her. He reaches for her, grabbing strand after strand of red silk. She is lost; he frantically claws at the mountain of slippery red, but she is gone.
Scott watched Logan on the vidscreen, thrashing in his bed, his leg immobilized in the metal brace Hank had devised in an attempt to train his warped metal encased bones back into their normal shape. The bright lights of the medlab were a sharp contrast to the man's dark pain.
"Scott, come away from there. It's not doing anyone any good." Xavier rolled up to the younger man. "Jean needs you."
"Jean needs not to get knifed by someone she was trying to help." He stabbed his finger at the screen display. "Forty-two stitches, Professor."
Xavier pinched the bridge of his nose. "I don't suppose it helps to know that I believe he didn't know what he was doing..."
"That song's getting a little overplayed in my opinion."
"Go to Jean, Scott. Logan won't be going anywhere. I can promise you that."
Scott opened his mouth to answer when Hank came in, his expression grave. "What is it?" he asked.
Hank blinked. "I am afraid I have made a most distressing discovery. Well, distressing in one sense, and, of course, potentially delightful in another sense. One could say--"
"Hank?"
"Oh, um. Of course. I do not believe Rogue has indeed, er, shuffled off this mortal coil. The, um, remains... They were not mutants. Which may mean Magneto has succeeded in abducting her..."
"And gotten a healthy lead in getting away from us," Scott said.
"You like the movie, little girl?"
Marie jumped at the noise. She'd sat in the cell all night--she didn't know exactly how long, there were no windows or clocks--watching Logan silently murder that girl again and again. In truth, she didn't have to. Magneto had tossed her the remote control for the player as he left; she'd sat there, pressing 'play' over and over.
Her visitor was a humongous man with long hair and a mean expression. She blinked at him but didn't answer.
The man watched the screen. "Does it too fast," he said. "It's better if you draw it out a little."
Marie shivered and hit 'stop.' "It's not going to work," she told the man. "Whatever you people want me for-- want me to do. I won't."
"Ooh," the man said, grinning. "I was hopin' you'd put up a fight."
"Sabretooth, I do hope you're not annoying our guest." The large man suddenly looked sheepish, glancing over at the door where Magneto had just come in. "Rogue," Magneto said, turning to her. "I trust you've found something to hold your interest during your sojourn with us?"
"Why are you doing this?" Marie asked. "It's not making me want to join you or, uh, help you."
"Mmmm. I wonder, though... where would you go? Back to your friends, so quick to sacrifice you? Back to your hairy man? If you want feral and violent, Victor here is at least up front about his, ah, taste for the sanguine."
"I don't want to stay with you."
"Perhaps you'd go back to Alaska? Back to swathing yourself in thick clothes and flinching every time someone comes within a yard of you? Stay with us and you could realize the full potential of your 'gift.' I know you are an intelligent young woman..." He touched a finger to his lips. "You saw Mystique. Wouldn't you like to speak with her about controlling a skin-related mutation?"
"Why would I stay with someone who did what you did? Broke into the mansion and-- and what you did to Logan..." Marie rubbed her nose, staving off tears.
"Loyal even in the face of damning evidence," Magneto said, nodding. "How admirable. There's more, you know. Would you like some light reading?" He produced the file Mystique had given him and slid it through the bars.
Marie took it and glanced at the first paper. "This-- it's not him," she said, dropping the file on the floor, spilling papers everywhere. "They did this. They made him-- they made him do those things. It's them, not him."
Magneto's face lit up and he smiled widely. "Indeed. Those... humans... made him quite a monster. Wouldn't you like to help ensure they can never do such a thing again?"
"Jean? Please, Jean..." Scott held her hand, rubbing the palm. "I'm sorry, honey."
Jean dreamed.
Rogue's face, blank. 'Jean... don't worry, Jean.' She is wrapped in yards and yards of green silk. Her hands are bare.
'You killed me,' she says. 'Please don't do it again.'
Jean reaches out to her with her mind; Rogue's is a hard, metal wall.
'I'll take care of you, Jean,' Rogue says, sadly.
She walks to Jean's side and smiles, one last time.
'I'll keep you close to my heart,' she says, reaching out to touch Jean's forehead.
The pull is cold, icy.
"Scott!"
"I'm here, Jean. I'm here."
"Scott... was it my fault?"
He grimaced. "No. No. It-- it was a setup. Magneto set us up--he's got Rogue, somewhere."
"Oh, God. I-- I shouldn't have said anything to Logan until we were sure," she said. "He... He..."
"Don't make excuses for him." Scott's voice was hard. "If he was anyone else, if he hadn't been in one of those labs, you wouldn't think twice about what he deserves. He nearly killed you, Jean. I-- I almost lost you."
"If he was anyone else, he wouldn't have made it out of that lab with the shred of humanity he has," Jean said. "We can't abandon him." She tried to sit up, but her stomach hurt too much, and she flopped her head back on the pillow. Trying not to think about the scars she would have, scars that would remind Scott every day of what Logan had done--scars that would remind her of her own foolishness--she blinked and reached for his hand. "That's not what we do, Scott. We don't abandon people who need help." Her voice trembled, and she wondered if she truly believed that herself, anymore. Maybe things would've been better if they'd just left him there, in the cold reaches of Canada.
"Thank you, Professor," Scott muttered, under his breath. "Hank and the Professor are trying to get through to him now," he said, louder. "He's-- he's pretty out of it."
'Logan...'
Xavier walks. He steps over mounds of crimson silk. 'Logan. It's time to wake up, Logan.'
There, his claws tangled in ribbons of silk, his face twisted in grief. 'Get out of here. I-- we-- you're not wanted.'
'Rogue-- Marie is not dead, Logan.'
'Shut. Up.' He growls and pants, his nostrils flaring.
'Jean is going to be all right, too.'
'Stop it.'
'Logan...'
'Go away. You're not real; nothing's real except for this,' he says, lifting his hands, dripping with the watery red silk. 'I don't know you. I. Don't. Know. You.'
'But we know you, Logan. We know you. Let us help you, Logan.'
'Stop calling me that. That's-- it's a weak man's name.'
'No. It's your name; a strong man's name, Logan.'
'Fuck you.'
Xavier smiles. 'Wouldn't you like to wake up and tell me that to my face?'
Logan's expression wavers. He retracts the claws, and the knots of silk that had been tangled in them fall away.
"Professor? Is he--"
"Yes, Hank. I believe he will come back, eventually."
Marie is floating in water. She is naked and her hair surrounds her face like seaweed. Muffled sounds reach her ears. She tries to sit up, but can't find any purchase. Thrashing in the water, her hair tangles in front of her face and she can't see anything. She opens her mouth to scream and her lungs fill with water.
Now she is in a meadow. It's dark. The stars are bright--she is far away from any city. Logan is there. 'I love you,' he tells her, laughing and rolling her beneath him. 'I love you.' His expression is open and content.
She knows this must be a dream, but laughs in response. 'I love you,' she says, kissing him. His lips are warm and soft and she does not draw on them.
'Mmm, tell me again,' he says, playfully nipping at her face and neck.
'I love you,' she says, closing her eyes and losing herself in the feel of his hands, exploring her body with love. She breathes in the scent of night-blooming flowers.
"C'mon, frail. Time for eats."
Marie sprang awake, her muscles buzzing from her dream. Sabretooth was at the door with a tray of food. This was different; they'd shoved some pre-packaged food at her before, now she warranted a whole tray. She stood and saw he was looking at her oddly. More oddly.
His nose twitched and his hands were tight on the tray. She looked down at herself. She was flushed and still slightly aroused from the dream, and her blouse was unbuttoned almost halfway down. Maybe he has a smelling mutation too, she thought, with a blush. "I get a tray?" she said. "What's wrong with it?"
"If you don't want it..."
"No. No, leave it, okay?"
Sabretooth frowned. "Get over there, far away from the door," he said, fumbling with the key, trying to balance the tray with one hand.
Marie did as he said, sitting on the far edge of the cot, and watched as he came into her cell. "How'd you get stuck with waiter duty?" she asked, smiling at him. "Seems to me you're better suited for... other things." She ran her fingers absently along her neckline.
"Don't worry, I do those things too," he said, sneering. "Maybe I'll show ya, sometime."
Sliding towards him a little, half-crawling on the cot, she let him get an eyeful of her cleavage. "Maybe you will," she said. "Now's sometime... Victor."
He set the tray down with a clang. "I ain't stupid," he said.
Marie pouted. "No. I have my gloves on," she said, holding her hands up.
Taking a step towards her, he wrinkled his nose and glanced around, confused.
Marie held her breath. One more step, come on, just one more step. There--he was close enough to touch. She took his hand and held it to the skin exposed by her blouse. He struggled, but only for a second; he was too weakened by the pull to get away.
When he collapsed to the floor, she knelt and took the keys. "You may not be stupid," she said. "But you sure are dumb."
She locked him in the cell and went in search of her prey.
Marie stalked down the cold metal hall. She pulled her gloves off. Her senses were incredibly heightened and she felt invincible. Victor was wrong; he was indeed, despite his advanced age, quite stupid. That made him easier to corral in her mind. She hoped he wasn't dead. He'd make a poor companion for all the years she'd live with his healing mutation. His heart had stopped, though. Hopefully the healing factor would kick in a cardiac jump-start for him.
She used his memories and his sense of smell to make her way through the dark maze of hallways. Finally she came to the room she wanted. Magneto sat at a large table, apparently in the midst of finishing his dinner. He was wearing a black turtle neck with the sleeves rolled up, looking for all the world like an aging drama professor. "I've made a decision," she said, stepping into the room. "But I have questions."
He looked up at her, a flash of surprise crossing his face, soon replaced with mild amusement. He waved for her to take a seat. "I should have known Victor wasn't up to the task of minding a nineteen-year-old girl," he said. "Which was it--did he want to bed you or beat you?"
Marie sat down at the table, next to Magneto. "Don't you want to know what my decision is?"
Patting the corner of his mouth with a linen napkin, he paused in thought. "Knowing him, it was probably both. Not necessarily in that order."
"Magneto..."
"Oh, I think you should call me Erik, don't you? At least while we're at the table."
Marie sighed. "Okay, Erik, then. Do you--"
"The first thing young people should learn is patience," he said, drinking from his wine glass. "Patience and manners. They will serve you well, if you make a study of them." He set his glass down and stood. "Would you care for some wine?" he said, walking to a tall cabinet and taking out a clean glass.
Marie sipped from the glass he set in front of her.
"I think the first plan of action should be to acquire some clothing for you," Erik said, examining her.
Marie looked down at herself. Her feet were bare, and she wasn't wearing underwear. Just her blouse and the jeans she'd thrown on when Magneto had attacked. She didn't even have a bra. "I thought you liked your female minions to be naked," she said, taking another drink.
He laughed. "Mystique does tend to prefer it, as one might expect, given the nature of her mutation. But it is hardly a requirement."
"Where is she?" Marie asked casually.
He looked at her sharply. "Around."
Marie nodded. "I read the file you left," she said, drumming her fingers on the table. "They gave him a number. Just like yours." She indicated his forearm, where there was a faded number inscribed. "Only they couldn't tattoo it on him. Not that they didn't try."
"Yet he still wears it, doesn't he?" Erik said. "Under his clothes, like a dirty little secret. They've branded him deeply, and he doesn't even know it."
She flicked her eyes away.
Sitting back down at his place, he settled his eyes on her. "Are you familiar with the term 'succubus'?" he said, pursing his lips. "They were mythical feminine spirits who would visit men in their sleep, and suck the life force from them."
"Didn't they fuck them?" Marie said. Erik winced at her wording. "I remember something from when we studied folklore in high school."
"They would visit a man every night--he would remember nothing of it in the morning--until he was drained completely, and he died. Then they would move on to the next victim."
"And you're telling me this because?" Marie folded her arms in front of her chest.
"Merely something I've developed an interest in lately."
"Right."
"Now," he said, drinking the last of his wine. "You mentioned some questions?"
Marie stood and walked over to the cabinet with the glasses and pretended to look at the scrollwork. "Yes. Who-- what was it that Scott hit? Did you have people..."
"Really. I think you could answer that yourself, my dear." Erik rested his elbow on the table and tapped his chin. "One of them you already met--or at least, Mystique did a wonderful impression of him."
"So they were soldiers. From a lab like the one that had Logan?"
"Something like that," he said, waving his hand dismissively.
Marie slowly walked over to him, her bare feet making her progress quiet. "They weren't just a couple of Joes stuck in an archives office, were they?"
He looked at her. "Does it matter? Aren't they all a part of the system that turned a man into that monster you seem to inexplicably care for?"
"Maybe..." she said.
He turned his back and scoffed. "Young people could also stand to learn a bit about history and human nature," he said.
"One more question," Marie said, just two steps away from his back. "Are you familiar with the term 'arrogant bastard'?" With this, she grasped both sides of his head in her bare hands.
He groaned in pain and she felt her earrings rip from their holes in her earlobes. She held on; Sabretooth's strength and healing kept her whole. She saw bodies piled like cordwood; she saw jackbooted men bash a child's face in with rifles. She heard the whistle of trains and smelled the stench of burning flesh. Everything she saw was in vivid color, which made it seem all the more repellant. Still she held on.
Finally, she let go, his unconscious body slumping in his chair. She hadn't killed him; she just needed enough of his power to last. She stumbled and fell to the floor, choking. He, unlike Victor, was very intelligent and cunning. Immediately, he wanted to overwhelm her and make her body and mind bend to his will, as though they were iron.
She crawled out of the room, sweating and crying. 'Little bitch!' he yelled at her in her mind. 'What do you think this accomplishes? Nothing! Your friends want you dead, and your lover is an animal. Maybe that's all you could get, you pathetic, weak minded child!'
Her body shuddered and she started panting. From somewhere deep within her, a rumbling noise grew. "Shut. Up!" she half yelled, half growled.
It seemed to help. Erik stopped yelling, and she was able to stand up. She didn't know where it had come from. Victor wouldn't have stood up to Erik that way. Neither would Abel Macready or anyone else residing in her mind. She thought maybe it was Logan, but he hadn't touched her for a long enough period to still be a separate presence. At least, he hadn't touched her skin for long enough.
"Foul!"
"It was not!" Jubilee yelled.
"It so was," Kitty said. "No powers. You totally blinded Bobby."
"Well, he keeps making the court slippery. It's basketball, not hockey, Otter Pop."
"It was only the one time, and it wasn't on purpose," Bobby said, on the defensive.
"Guys," St. John said, bouncing the ball lazily.
"Maybe I didn't do it on purpose, either," Jubilee said.
"Uh, guys..."
"Puh-leeze," Kitty said, rolling her eyes.
"Someone at the gate, guys," St. John said, dropping the ball and letting it roll away.
The four team trainees watched the single figure trudge down the drive to the large gate. They'd been enjoying a rare respite from training, unfortunately brought about by Magneto's recent attack on the mansion.
The figure stopped at the gate and waved a hand. The gates flew open.
"Get Scott and the Professor," Jubilee told Kitty.
"Why do I always have to get--"
"Just do it, now. We can hold someone off better than you can."
Kitty huffed, but ran off as she was told.
Bobby squinted down the lane. "Rogue!" he yelled. "It's Rogue!" He ran towards her, followed shortly by Jubilee. St. John stayed on the basketball court, watching warily.
"Rogue, girl, you totally rock!" Jubilee was jumping up and down. "Everyone's all plotting your daring rescue, and you just walk up the driveway like nothing's wrong!"
Bobby was more concerned with immediate needs. "Rogue... are you okay? You don't look so good." Her hair was stringy and she had dark circles under her eyes. Her boots were a size or two too big for her. She held her arms folded in front of her and her shoulders were hunched.
"Where-- where's Logan?" she asked, her voice dry and weak. Bobby and Jubilee stared at her in confusion. "W-- Wolverine. Where is he?"
"I think he's in the medlab," Bobby said. "But you should see Scott or the Professor first..." he trailed off at her feral snarl.
Hank watched Logan staring at the ceiling. It was all the man could do: stare at the ceiling, stare at the wall, or stare at his leg. When he slept, his dreams were too disturbing, so he tried not to sleep. He'd asked for a cigar or a beer--the first coherent thing he'd said when he woken up, but those things weren't allowed in the lab.
Scott had insisted that someone watch him constantly--someone who would stand a fighting chance against him if he went berserk. That basically meant Hank, Scott, or Xavier. 'Ro started to feel uncomfortable if she spent too much time in the underground facility.
Personally, Hank felt it was excessive. Even if Logan were to rip off the brace and get out of bed, he could hardly walk--he would have a severe limp if he tried it.
So he watched the man watching nothing. He didn't want to talk or read.
When the lab door opened, Hank glanced up, hoping someone was coming to relieve him, or at least to converse for a time. Rogue, her brow furrowed in concentration, followed by Scott and Xavier and a few of the trainees was the last sight he expected.
Rogue walked over to Logan. His eyes lit on her and he whispered, "Marie?" He held out his hand towards Rogue's arm, brushing it lightly with one fingertip. They both jumped, as if shocked. "It's you," he said. "You're here."
"Shh," she said. "It's going to hurt." She held her open hands over his leg and the brace flew off, hitting the floor with a clang. "I'm sorry," she said, moving her hands in the air around his misshapen leg. The sounds of bone cracking and metal twisting hit Hank's ears, soon replaced by Logan's roar of pain. Tears ran down Rogue's face. Finally, she stopped and exhaled.
Logan's chest rose and fell with his deep, shaking breaths.
Hank watched Rogue as she rubbed violently at her face, scrubbing away her tears. She lifted her hand again and made a clutching gesture at Logan's chest. A metal tag on a chain appeared from under the man's shirt, and she grabbed it. "You don't need this," she said. "It's not you." With that, she turned abruptly and walked out of the lab, her pace faltering at the door.
Xavier turned to follow her, as did Scott. "Watch him," he said to Hank as he left.
Marie almost made it to the elevator before she stumbled. Scott hastened to help her. "Don't touch me," she said, warning infusing her tone.
"Rogue..."
"Just don't," she said. "I-- I need to clean up and maybe rest a little. Then-- then I think I should go."
"Go?"
"I think... I don't think I should be here," she said. "Maybe I just need some time. I need to bathe, though. Is there-- my room got sort of destroyed..."
Scott swallowed. "Yeah. We moved what things of yours we could into one of the vacant rooms."
When Marie shut the door on her new, temporary, room, she wilted against the wall. Shucking her boots--thankfully, she had big feet for a girl, and Erik had little feet for a man--and her filthy clothes, she went into the bathroom naked. She contemplated running a tub, but Erik filled her head with pictures of pulling on the metal piping below the tub and holding her body pinned under the water. The tiny amount of Logan she'd gotten from his delicate touch growled at Erik.
She turned the tap and pulled the lever to start the shower. Letting go of Erik would be difficult. She'd clung to his powers tightly, not wanting to lose a bit until she could help Logan, but now he had a hold on her. He wanted to stake a claim.
Under the hot water, she shook her limbs, trying to relax. Logan would hate her now, she thought. He wasn't going to be able to look at her without seeing what she did to him, and wondering if she would do it again. He hated the metal in his body, and anything that reminded him of it.
Tears stung her eyes and her body shuddered. He was going to look at her like everyone else did, now--with fear. Sure, some people hid it, but it was there.
Slowly, her finger twisted around, turning the 'cold' knob off with Erik's power. Hot, biting water pounded her flesh, turning it bright red.
Of course, when she stepped out of the shower, Victor healed her skin.
Walking towards her bed, she stumbled again and fell to the floor, choking. Blackness overtook her, and she welcomed it.
Marie dreams.
Rain falls hard.
Marie walks through the mud, oblivious to the spots and smears on her white silk gown. Her face is hidden with a gauzy veil, sticking to her face from the rain. The dress is long and straight, and wraps her like a shroud. She thinks briefly of another reason to wear white silk and a veil, but banishes it from her mind. Her hands are gloved. Every inch of her skin is well and truly covered.
She knows she is a ghost; she is a ghost, or maybe a spirit.
When she reaches her destination, she enters the room quietly. Sleeping on the sofa in front of the fire is her prey.
'Erik,' she whispers, brushing his thick hair off his face. He is young; his hair is dark and his face handsome.
She lifts the veil and bends for her deadly kiss.
"Logan? Did I wake you?"
His eyes flashed open, squinting in the bright light. "Yeah."
"I am terribly sorry. Do you, ah, recall this morning's events?"
He turned his head and focused on the large blue face a few feet from his. This morning. What-- Marie. Marie and... He sat up, looking down at his now straightened leg. "Rogue," he said.
"Precisely," Hank said. "Apparently she--"
"She touched him to fix me," Logan said, his tone flat. "She's got his powers."
"Yes."
Logan swung his legs off the bed and tested his weight. He stood and took a step, then fell to the floor. "Shit," he said. It fucking hurt.
"You are still healing," Hank said. "Although I believe the metal has been restored to it's original shape, your bones and muscles must still heal. They have been quite overworked in the past few days. I suggest you continue resting..."
"Where is she?"
"She is resting."
Logan stood and promptly sat back down on the bed with a thud. Marie had fixed his leg. She'd held her hand over his flesh and manipulated the metal within it, cracked and reset the bones. She had done that.
He remembered once, years ago, shortly after what scraps of memories he had began, he had clawed and scratched at his body, down to the metal. He remembered sitting in the woods, naked, staring at the cold silver under his skin and muscle. It was something he recognized even then as wrong. It was in his body, but it didn't smell like him. He'd tried to pull out the claws, too, but only shredded his hands. Marie had... He felt a rush of panic and reached under his shirt. The tag was gone.
He shut his eyes and slept; he didn't wake up for almost twenty-four hours.
Jean stood, gingerly. Her stomach ached. She slipped into her slippers and shuffled across the floor, in search of her robe. Rogue was back, and when the Professor tried to talk with her, she had called him 'Charles'--her Mississippi drawl replaced with a hint of the Old World--and used Magneto's powers to force his wheelchair from her room.
This meant Jean needed to help. Sometimes, Jean thought, it'd be nice to not be nice. To just say, 'Screw you; I have forty-two stitches in my abdomen. Now where's my ice cream?' It didn't help that she was increasingly nervous about Rogue, after several disturbing dreams featuring her.
"Jean, wait," Scott said, backing into their rooms, pulling a wheelchair with him. "Don't strain yourself."
"Mustn't have that," she muttered. "How is Logan?" she said, louder.
"His leg's healed," Scott said.
"That wasn't what I asked," Jean said. Demerol. Demerol flavored ice cream, that's what she wanted. In a nice pretty bowl.
Scott guided her into the chair. "You know the Professor wouldn't ask you to talk to her if he didn't think it would help. She likes you."
Scott's odd little platonic/protective crush thing he had for Rogue didn't help, either. She sighed. "You're worried about her," she said.
"Yes," Scott said after a minute. "She-- I don't know what taking Magneto's power did to her. She's withdrawn and barely speaks, and when she does you can't tell if it's her or Magneto. She hasn't been back down to visit Logan since... And she said she had to go away." He gritted his teeth. "I found her, after-- she fixed his leg. She was on the floor, in a faint. It seemed like she didn't want to wake up."
Jean closed her eyes and let the images from Scott's mind reach hers. Rogue, naked--her bath towel in disarray--in a dead faint on her bedroom floor. Scott rushing to her side, desperately pulling the coverlet from the bed to pick her up safely. Slapping her face where her hair covered it, splashing water on her. Her incoherent moans as Scott brought her back to consciousness. Then the black look of despair that came over her face. "I'm worried, too," Jean said. "Maybe-- maybe you were right about them..." she trailed off.
"What, it takes a few blades to the gut and an attack on the mansion to get you to admit you might be wrong?" Amusement tinged Scott's words, and he bent for a soft kiss to her head.
She cupped his cheek and smiled. "I didn't say I was wrong; I said you could be right."
They made their way down the hall to Rogue's new room. Inside, Rogue was sitting on the window seat--this time looking down at the driveway. Her expression was blank. She looked up when Scott announced them at the door and walked in, but didn't change her expression or her position on the seat. "I just need to rest some more," she said, her voice empty. "Then I'll be going. I need to go."
"Why do you have to go, Rogue?" Jean asked. "You're welcome here, you know, right?"
Rogue met her eyes and Jean felt a flash of irrational fear. "Why?" she said, whispering. "Why am I welcome?"
"Because... because," Jean said. "Because we're your friends; at least, we want to be your friends, if you'll let us. We want to help..."
Nodding her head slowly, Rogue turned on the seat till her feet touched the ground and she was facing them directly. "It could be that," she said, brushing back a sniffle. "But-- it could be-- couldn't it be because you want to keep an eye on me? Because you're afraid of what I'll do?" With this, she held out her right hand and made a beckoning gesture at Jean. The wheelchair she was sitting in crept across the floor towards Rogue. "I could be your worst enemy," she said, sniffling again. "You know that--you're afraid of me."
Jean couldn't deny her words. She did feel afraid, seeing Rogue demonstrate Magneto's powers. Yet... Rogue's eyes were starting to fill with unshed tears and she looked incredibly young--younger even than her nineteen years. Still, she couldn't lie to her. It didn't take a telepath to see the expectation of a lie written all over Rogue's face; it wasn't the way to reach her. "Yes," she said. "I admit your mutation scares me. I-- I've had nightmares about it."
"Jean!" Scott said from behind her.
"It's true, Scott," she said. "I won't lie to her." She could see Rogue's expression altering slightly. "Rogue... your mutation does scare me. It-- it scares a lot of people. But you don't."
Rogue looked at her, disbelief clear on her face. Disbelief underlined with the tiniest hint of hope. "H-- he'll hate me now," she whispered, turning her eyes to the floor.
Jean bit her lip. "Who?" Logan? The Professor? Magneto?
The answer was quiet and her voice cracked. "Logan."
"Why would he hate you? You-- you fixed his leg--I don't think he's ever been an invalid, and you saved him from that. He's getting better as we speak."
"He'll hate me because of what I did. What's a part of me now," Rogue said, furiously brushing away her tears. "Erik--I have him in my head. I know he tried to recruit Logan before. I know he'd never... He'd never want to be around something that could do what I did to him." She sniffled. "The power's fading a little, but he'd remember. I controlled his body and hurt him."
Obviously, Rogue had gotten much closer to Logan than Jean had initially anticipated. "And you know for certain what he'll do?" she asked. "Do you have him in your head, too?"
Rogue blushed. "A little," she said. "Only a little. I-- I think he helped me some when I touched Erik."
Behind Jean, Scott set his jaw and gripped the handles on her chair. Jean knew he was thinking about how Rogue might have come to touch Logan 'a little.' Better head this one off at the pass. "Scott," she said, patting his hand. "Could you leave us alone for a moment? Maybe you could bring something to eat. I don't think Rogue's had much in the past few days."
When Scott came back, Rogue was kneeling by Jean's chair, sobbing. Jean was stroking her hair, like you would for a small child in the night, frightened of the bogeyman. He set the tray with hot cocoa and leftovers on the floor and left. He walked alone for a long time, thinking on what Rogue had said.
Logan and Hank were in their usual positions--him on the cot, Hank at the desk. They'd done some exercising and his leg was almost completely healed. He could have moved out of the medlab, but he knew no one was too eager to have him running around the halls again. Probably the best thing to do was heal up fully, and then take off. Maybe... maybe someday, Jean would forgive him for almost gutting her. Maybe he could come back again, someday.
The door opened, and Scott came in, carrying a paper bag. Logan sat up and braced himself for whatever Summers wanted to say. He knew he'd deserve it, and more. Hell, if it had been Summers who attacked Ma-- his woman, he wouldn't have thought two seconds before taking his head off.
Scott set the bag down next to Logan on the cot. He stood looking at Logan in silence for several minutes. Neither man moved. Finally, Scott paced briskly in front of Logan, speaking in a slow, sure tone. "You don't come near Jean. Ever again. If she wants to talk to you, I'm there. Always. Try to touch her, and I'll kill you." He paused, making sure Logan was still looking at him. "And... and if you make Rogue feel like shit for what she did--what she did for you--I'll make sure you don't ever walk again. Understand?" His hand unconsciously went to the side of his visor.
Logan drew a deep breath. It rankled, listening to Summers lay things out, but he knew the man was in his rights. He was leaving soon, anyway, so what did it hurt? He looked at Scott's face and nodded.
Scott left without another word. After a minute, Logan opened the bag and snorted. A six pack of beer and two cigars. He took out two of the bottles and extended one to Hank. "Beer?" he said.
Logan paced the medlab impatiently. Marie hadn't been down to see him since she fixed his leg, and they told him she wasn't ready to see him--they said she was 'resting' and shouldn't be disturbed. He was fully healed and ready to split, knowing people would breathe a little easier with him gone. He didn't want to go without seeing her, though. Just to see her, once more. After all, he should do like Scott said--make things right with her.
They'd probably told her what he'd done to Jean by now. Maybe she wouldn't want to make things right. Maybe she'd use Magneto's power to twist his leg into an even more painful shape. Maybe he'd deserve that.
Fuck it. Time to split.
He walked towards the door, passing Hank on the way. "Headed up," he said.
"Of course," Hank said. "You are not a prisoner here; you are at liberty to wander the mansion unimpeded."
"Sure," Logan said. "You've just been enjoyin' my company for the past few days." He scowled. "I know you'll keep Xavier up to date on my unimpeded wanderin'." Walking past Hank he muttered, "I would, if I were in your place."
He stepped out of the elevator on the ground floor and stealthily made his way to the stairs that led to the residential floors. As he passed Xavier's office, he heard voices within. Xavier, Jean, and Scott--they were talking about Marie.
"I thought she had a breakthrough the other day," Jean was saying. "But every time she opens up just a little, she clamps down twice as hard. She calls them all by first name, you know. The people she's touched. Magneto is Erik, Sabretooth is Victor..."
"It's too much for her," Scott added. "Magneto keeps trying to take her over, and she doesn't think she's strong enough to hold him off."
"Indeed," Xavier said. "I would try to help her reconstruct some of her mental defenses, but I'm afraid my previous acquaintance with Er-- Magneto is not in my favor. She reacts violently to my presence, whether in her mind or her room."
"Everyone she has touched has been... unpleasant," Jean said. "She doesn't have anyone in her corner. She-- she told me Logan touched her, very briefly--not enough to leave any kind of lasting impression... except that it was nice," Jean added quickly. "She believes he 'helped' her after touching Magneto... I think she has had so many ugly experiences with her mutation that she clung tightly to that tiny scrap of a good one. I think I could work with her to try and bring that experience to the forefront. It's not much, but..."
"Anything would help, as things are now. If we can get Magneto to release his grip on her, I will be able to step in and assist."
"I'll start when she wakes up," Jean said.
Logan crept away from the door. He had an idea of how to make things right with Marie. It probably wasn't the dumbest idea he'd ever had, but it was certainly the dumbest he could remember having. At least she'd know for sure he didn't hate her for fixing him. He walked quickly, determined to find her before he changed his mind.
He found her room easily, and hesitated only a second before opening the door. She was sleeping, her bedding in a knot around her body. Standing over her, he brushed a white lock off her face.
"Mmm..." She shifted and grumbled in her sleep. He watched her until she opened her eyes. "Logan?"
"Marie, darlin'."
She smiled. "Darling... I like that." Her eyes focused and she sat up. "Are-- are you okay?"
"Yeah. You fixed me. Are you okay?"
"I guess," she said quickly. "I-- I'm sorry if I hurt you..."
"Shh. Nothing to it," he said.
"How... sweet," she said, her voice turning cold. "If I'd known 'young and innocent' was what you wanted... Of course, she's hardly innocent. There are all kinds of shining examples of humanity crowding up her pretty little head." She raised her hand and he felt the claws in his right hand extend without his will. "We'd really make the perfect match, don't you think?" she said, sounding almost like herself.
"Marie," Logan said, struggling against her--Magneto's--pull. His be clawed hand moved slowly, shaking, towards Marie's torso. "Don't do this. Fight him."
"Hmm--mm," she hummed. "Four five eight two five two four three... sound familiar? She thinks she can wash it away by taking your trinket. We know better, don't we?"
She continued pulling his claws towards her body. Her face twisted in the effort. He fought the pull, but the power was still strong in her.
The tips of the blades pressed lightly at her breast, indenting the skin but not breaking it. Marie's expression was cold and lifeless. Suddenly she blinked and faltered, just for a second, but it was enough. Logan retracted the claws and jumped back.
"Get away from me," Marie said with a growl. She skittered off the bed and to the corner of the room, near the window seat. Curled in a ball, her body shook with tears she couldn't shed.
Logan went to her. "I'm gonna help you," he said. "Try and fix you some, like you did for me." With that, he brushed her hair from her face and caressed her bare cheek with his hand.
"No--" Marie said, just before the pull started.
"Yes," he said, leaning into her.
"What's going on?" Scott asked. The Professor had gone quiet and had that faraway look he sometimes got while using his gift.
"I believe Logan has taken it upon himself to speed the process along," Xavier said, a trace of a frown touching his lips.
It wasn't like anyone else.
David had been all shock and confusion.
Abel Macready was nauseating disgust.
Victor was force.
Erik was cold pain.
All the others, the people who had touched her, trying to get something from her, they blended together--a whirl of fear and hate.
Logan was different; he was warm and there wasn't a hint of fear--only worry and something elusive. Something she wanted. It hurt, still, but it was a welcome pain. It was the kind of pain that lets you know you're alive. She felt her heart surge and all residue from touching Erik burn away.
Then Logan collapsed.
He watches her.
'Logan...'
She is swathed in veils, her features obscured, but he knows it is her.
He follows her as she dances ahead of him, strewing veils as she goes. She is always just out of reach.
'Logan...'
Veil after veil falls; yet she is never revealed.
Finally, there is nothing left. A single veil floats away in the wind.
'Logan.'
He drops to his knees, watching the wisp of fabric.
'I'm here, Logan.' He feels her arms on his back, the warmth of her embrace, smells the hot spice of her. 'Right here.'
"Logan? Please... please be okay." He heard her voice, but it was muffled and sounded far away. He couldn't smell her clearly, although he felt her hand on his arm. His head ached.
"Mmm... M--" he couldn't make his mouth move right. It felt like it did, all those years ago, when he'd woken up disoriented in the woods. He couldn't speak then, either. He'd wanted to; he'd known, somehow, that speech was important. He could speak; the creatures in the forest could not. "Marrrie?"
"Yes, Logan. I'm here. Are-- how are--"
"Mmmph. Tired," he said.
"Come on," she said, her voice shaky. She dragged him up and to the bed with a strength that shouldn't have been hers. "Rest."
Marie watched him sleep, his face relaxed, gentler and younger looking as he rested. He was strong in her, now, but it wasn't overwhelming. It was just strong, and protecting.
She curled next to him on the bed, his body emitting waves of heat as he healed from her touch. Resting her head on his chest, she drifted off on the rise and fall of his rhythmic breathing.
She watches him.
He is on a cold metal table, his arms and legs bound. 'Logan?' she says, but he doesn't see or hear her.
The door to the tiny room they are in opens and two people walk in--a man and a woman. The woman's face is twisted and warped, and Marie understands this is a dream-face; she is watching his dreams. The man behind the woman doesn't have a face.
'The brass is getting restless,' the man says. 'It's taking too long.'
'This is a delicate procedure,' the woman says. 'You don't want him to forget so much he has to be retrained after every mission, do you? He should remember his training and his mission yet forget everything he's done upon completion. This is precision work, made even more difficult by the healing factor.'
Marie watches as the woman pulls a tray with an assortment of vicious looking instruments over to Logan. 'Stop,' she tries to say, reaching out to the woman. Her hands pass helplessly through the woman's body. 'Don't hurt him,' she says, as the woman fills a syringe.
'Please don't.'
"Don't! God, stop, please..."
Logan woke to Marie's cries for mercy. She was stuck to his body and clutching his chest. Her eyes fluttered rapidly in sleep. "Marie," he said, shaking her.
"No!" she cried out, sitting up and thrashing her arms wildly. Her eyes opened and slowly came to focus. "Logan?" she said, looking down at him. "Oh, thank God. I thought-- I--"
"Right here," Logan said.
Marie rubbed her knuckles. "They did-- they hurt you," she said.
His heart dropped. Shit. He really didn't think this out. Didn't know she'd get that... "Fuck," he said. "I-- you shouldn't have to know that stuff. I didn't think--"
"Hush," she said. "What you did--it worked. Erik... he's still here, but he's, um, diminished. Powerless. You did that. You fixed me." She was looking at him and it felt like her eyes could see deep below the surface.
"You did it first," he said. She looked like she was going to laugh, but stopped short at his serious expression.
"You wouldn't have gotten hurt if you... if you hadn't been with me that night," she said softly.
"Worth it," he said. "Every minute." He rubbed her back in small, lazy circles. "Marie, darlin'..." he said, and he knew she had a lot of him in her from the purring sound she made as her arousal spiked sharply from the contact and his voice.
Her voice was thick and her eyelids drooped. "Logan, do you want--"
"Yes."
This time, when he entered her, her body rumbled and she bit his neck in just the right spot. He found himself wishing he could take her in him, have her thoughts and feelings the way she had his. The look in her eye was all her, though. It drilled straight through his brain and saw everything--and said she wanted him anyway. She was whispering sweet words to him. "Want you... need you... yes, don't stop. Stay-- stay with me."
He answered by deepening his movements, thrusting into her with all his strength. "Come on, Marie," he choked out. "Come with me."
She obeyed and her muscles tightened around him, causing sparks to burst in front of his eyes and his body to shudder into hers. He emptied himself into the condom and, for the first time he could remember, he thought about driving deep into someone and planting a seed, something for the future.
He rolled off of her and pulled her close, not willing to stop touching her.
"I think you should stop fighting," she said, snuggling against his chest.
"What?" Fighting was all he had to offer. What was she thinking?
"I saw-- things from your touch," she said, wrapping her arms around him, holding him in place. "I think--I don't know, but it seemed like--I think they did something that makes you forget things right after you've been fighting."
Fuckers. Goddamn, motherfucking fuckers.
"What else could I do?" he said, gritting his teeth at how hopeless and needy it sounded.
"You could... you could do a lot of things," she said. "You could hang out with me a lot, for one..."
He didn't say anything, just held her.
After a minute, she sniffled. "I think it's gone," she said. "I don't think I can use his power anymore, if you're worr--"
He cut her off with a quick kiss. "Ain't worried about that," he said, running his hand along her side, caressing her hip. "Was thinkin' about taking off for a while." His grasp turned hard. "You could come, if you want."
Her face lit up. "I want," she said.
"Good," he said. "Got a camper we can use. Don't keep it here," he said to her questioning look. "It won't be much... I can't give you much, especially if I'm gonna take a break from fighting."
"I don't need much," she said. "It sounds perfect. Where will we go?"
"Wherever you want, baby," he said.
"And... We can come back, later, maybe?" She glanced around, and he knew that she didn't want to give up this place permanently, either. She'd found something welcoming here, too.
"Yeah," he said. "We'll come back."
End
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