“Well, little bitch, you think you're getting away so easily?” The woman holding Rogue by the throat was strangely emotionless as she watched the young woman struggle against her grip. She was a tall blond, her fingers like a vise as she cut off Rogue's air supply. Her green eyes were cold and, like her voice, devoid of emotion.
Rogue turned on her mutation quickly and would have sighed in relief if there was enough oxygen in her lungs or any way of pushing it out. As the veins of the blond's face turned black, Rogue felt the older woman's energy—and her mutation—pouring into her. However, at the same time oxygen deprivation was causing her vision to go dark, and nothing her scrambling hands could do was removing the fingers cutting off her windpipe. The last thing she heard was Scott shouting “Rogue!” before being swallowed by black.
Logan was taking out the last of the mutant guards, a tricky bastard with a mutation similar to Mystique's but with a focus on animals, when he heard Scott yell.
“Rogue!”
There was enough anguish in the man's tone to cause Logan to quickly slice up his opponent and turn.
Rogue was on the ground, a blond woman collapsed beside her, hand around the smaller woman's throat. The blond was convulsing, and her visible skin—there was a lot of it—was wrapped in thick black veins as Rogue's mutation worked its poison on her. Scott ran over to them and tried to pull Rogue away, but the other woman's hand stayed wrapped around her throat.
“Her mutation is still on! Bobby!” It said something that Scott wasn't using Popsicle's codename, but Logan didn't want to dwell on that. Instead, he joined the others in rushing over and huddling around the fallen women. His eyes followed Bobby's iced hand as he worked to pry the fingers away from Rogue's throat. After almost an entire minute, or an eternity if you wanted to look at it that way, he managed to loosen the suddenly limp fingers.
Bobby's hands and face were iced over as he took Rogue away from Scott and laid her on her back. He pumped her chest several times then tilted her chin, pinched her nose, clamped his frozen lips over hers and forced air into her lungs once, twice, three times before he returned to the chest pumping. Just as he was about to start breathing for her again, Rogue choked and gasped.
Scott pulled Rogue back into his arms. Logan watched him press a gloved hand to her cheek, saw him frown when she didn't open her eyes. Logan knew his own frown was closer to a snarl when he heard Scott say, “Marie? C'mon, Marie, wake up, dammit!”
That name hit Logan in the gut like a sledgehammer. As far as he knew, she hadn't told anyone her real name in all the years she'd been at the school—no one except him. Unless that had changed, which he doubted because she was a very private person, that would mean...what? Logan growled but forced his attention back to the scene in front of him as Rogue's eyes shot open. In the glow of the moon's light her eyes were different, the dark brown shot through with green.
“Scott?” The way she said his name made Logan want to howl. It just got worse, too.
“Is your mutation still on, sweetheart?” Sweetheart? “Because I'm going to carry you back to the jet, and that'd be awfully difficult if you drain me before I go one step,” Scott told her gently, open concern in his face as he gathered her closer.
“It's off now,” Rogue muttered hoarsely. “Scott, Ah think...Ah think Ah killed her!” Tears began to stream down her cheeks, and Logan's hand clenched into fists when Scott wiped them away.
“Hush,” Scott told her as he began walking. Logan straggled behind, not wanting to hear yet unable to help it. Stupid enhanced hearing.
“But...but...”
“Really, Marie, you need to quit talking so that you can heal.” There was anxiety as well as amusement in Scott's voice.
Every time he said her name, Logan wanted to rip out his intestines and gag him with them.
“She was...controlled, Scott. Wasn't her fault,” Rogue mumbled. Logan watched her hand creep up over Scott's shoulder to latch around his neck.
Logan tried to focus on the mutants they had rescued. The kid from the ranch was helping an adult almost twice his size, and it looked like a struggle. So Logan moved to help him, effectively using the small crowd to block out the sight, if not the sound, of the man holding the woman he loved but no longer deserved—if he ever had.
Rogue leaned her head against Scott's chest and closed her eyes. It felt like her throat was on fire, and her ribs hurt for some reason she was too distracted to think about due to the little problem with her head. In her head. Her name was Carol, and man was she pissed. First those bastards at the lab drugged her to the point where she was just a spectator in her own body, and now this—this girl, this little fucking girl so green she was still wet behind her ears sucked her out of that body altogether! It wasn't fair! It wasn't right! The blood in Rogue's temples pulsed to the beat of that as Carol screamed in her mind.
No matter how hard Rogue tried to push Carol's mind away, lock it up tight like the others, she found herself making very little progress. The older woman's mind was so strong; that was how she knew Carol was dead. None of her little echoes had ever had quite this flavor, this richness, not even Logan whom she had touched twice with her mutation. It was increasingly difficult to tell where Marie/Rogue ended and Carol began. So intense was her concentration that Rogue barely felt it when Scott deposited her in one of the fold-down hammock beds along the back wall of the Blackbird's interior. She did not see the worried eyes of her friends on her as she laid there, strapped in and fighting a battle for her own mind.
An unknown amount of time later, Rogue opened her eyes. Carol was safely caged—for the moment. Rogue could feel her fighting, but it was slightly weaker than before.
The first person Rogue saw was Hank. He was standing over her with a syringe in one hand, frowning as he looked at her arm. When he noticed that she was awake, he smiled at her reassuringly. “How are you feeling, Rogue?” he asked her quietly.
“Like Ah was just strangled by a mutant with super-strength,” she told him honestly. Then she nodded at the syringe. “And invulnerability.”
Hank's eyes lit up. “Ah! I was curious about that. The needle would not pierce your skin,” he told her.
Rogue nodded carefully. “Yeah. Nothing ever will again, I think,” she said. Just as she was about to ask for aspirin, she remembered that she didn't need to. Eyes closed again, she concentrated on tapping into Logan's mutation even as she tried to keep the part of his mind inside of her own from reaching hers. Erik's mind she could handle because he didn't have any emotional pull on her, especially after a few years. Logan, on the other hand...So she slowly felt herself heal, much more slowly than she knew he would have, until she heard Hank's indrawn breath. Rogue opened her eyes again and looked at him with a curious lift of her eyebrows.
“Watching you use that part of your mutation fascinates me, my dear. Did you know the bruising around your neck has disappeared?” Hank asked, smiling at her.
“Yeah, that and the ache in my head and, Ah think, a cracked rib. How the hell did Ah get a cracked rib?” Rogue asked him.
“Young Robert had to perform CPR on you,” Hank told her hesitantly. “You had stopped breathing by the time we were able to pry that woman off of you.”
“Carol,” Rogue whispered. At Hank's look of confusion, Rogue clarified, “Her name was—is--was Carol Danvers. She was in the Air Force until they kicked her out for being a mutant and then kidnapped her before she was able to board a plane home.” She felt sad at that. Carol's family had known about her mutation and loved her anyway...
“Did she have any other powers?” Hank asked as he unbuckled her restraints and helped her to sit up before handing her a bottle of water.
Rogue took a sip, then a gulp, and grinned wearily. “Besides the super-strength and the invulnerability? Well, there's the flying. That will be kind of fun,” she said softly.
“Not to mention useful, at least while you have it in full force,” Hank said.
Rogue fell silent for a moment, her smile disappearing. She played with the seam of her uniform, running a fingertip up and down her thigh. “Ah...Ah don't think it's exactly temporary this time, Hank,” she told him. At his raised eyebrows she continued, “It feels different. Ah can't really explain it except...there's something Ah have to reach for with the mutations that aren't my own. With Carol's...they're just...there. Sorry, but that's the best way Ah can think of to describe it.”
Hank nodded slowly. “Perhaps you are correct, Rogue. I know that we have talked about that as a theory when discussing your mutation,” he said thoughtfully.
Rogue finished off her water bottle and sighed. “Can Ah go find a real seat now, Hank? Ah'm fine, Ah promise.”
Hank chuckled. “If you would like to wade through the sea of mutants, you may find a spot up front, although it is doubtful,” he said, gesturing. Rogue followed his gaze to the mass of bodies draped over every available surface.
Wrinkling her nose a little, she replied, “Never mind. Just help me push this bed back into the wall, please, and Ah'll take the floor. It'll help with meditating to settle things up a little more, anyway.” Rogue tapped the side of her head.
Hank helped her off the bed, and together they strapped it back into place. Then he moved to the front of the jet himself, most likely to report on her status to Scott. Rogue settled cross-legged onto the floor, willing herself not to look up. My, what interesting metal tiles on the floor. Oh, look at the bolts.
He was staring at her. Rogue had been aware of it from the moment she opened her eyes after taking care of Carol, but ignoring the blaze of those hazel eyes had worked pretty well so far, so she'd just stick with that.
Apparently he wouldn't though.
“You okay, kid?”
Rogue wanted to shriek, to scream. Breathe. Take deep breaths, she instructed herself.
“Marie--”
“No!” She spoke to him for the first time in three months, her head snapping up and fire in her eyes. “Rogue. Ah am, and always will be now, Rogue. Don't ever forget that, Wolverine!”
Logan glared back at her. “Oh, so it's fine for One-Eye up there to use it?”
Rogue lifted her chin. “Yes.” She refused to say any more. After glaring at him for a moment, she continued her fascinating visual exploration of the floor in front of her. She could feel his furious stare on the top of her head, however, and the way his eyes raked up and down her body damn near left a physical imprint. Bastard.
“We're going back with you guys, you know,” he commented oh so casually. “The Professor decided he really does need Jean's help with the former prisoners, so since she's going back, he's not going to deny me.”
Rogue felt her hands clench involuntarily. “Good for you,” she ground out, refusing to look at him again. “Just stay out of my way.”
“Should be pretty easy. They're putting us on a team with Storm. You won't have to see us if you don't want to,” Logan told her smugly.
He made it sound as if Rogue would seek him out. As if she was that stupid little teenage girl who followed him around with her heart on her sleeve. Oh, no. She'd grown up. She didn't need him any more. “Sounds like a plan,” was her only reply before she closed her eyes and concentrated on meditation. Or tried to, anyway. The rest of the way home she seethed on the inside as she pretended to meditate, wishing away the man and woman seated on the bench across from her. Too bad Carol's mutation hadn't included something nice and convenient like telekinesis. At least the strength would probably come in handy.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
This is mostly because, every once in a while, I have Movie!Rogue issues. In case you couldn't tell from some of my other stories. Well, that and it's a great way to torture Logan!
Chapter End Notes:
Okay, so maybe there will be Rogue torture now, too. I have plans for what will happen next, although nothing written. We'll see how "productive" work is today...