A cold October day dawns and I wake with the feeling of lead lining my stomach. My first mission.
Yesterday the Professor called us all in for a meeting. I had proven myself well in training, he had said. It was time I participated in field work, although he made it clear I would always have the choice to opt out. I think he wanted to break me in gently.
It’s a routine pick-up, nothing massive. The information reached us yesterday; a time, a place, a drop-off. They’re selling us as test subjects now, can you believe? They don’t trust us, they fear us, then they alienate themselves by driving this wedge between us.
Humans and mutants. Two sides of the same coin.
We're stuck in the middle of some sort of domesticated paperwork based war. A frustrating war for some; points are argued over sharp cornered tables in stark business rooms, and lives are decided by computers and slips of paper. There is no fighting. Not on the surface anyway.
Today is not on the surface.
Bleary eyed, I wash, dress, systematically go through my morning routine. I don’t want to admit how scared I am because if I do, I know they won’t let me go. And that would be worse.
I skip breakfast, make my way through the mansion corridors, staring blankly at the walls until I find myself in the hanger. Scott’s already there when I arrive, checking the controls on the blackbird. He gives me a reassuring smile and a firm, “You’ll do fine.” His confidence is reassuring and I start to feel a little better.
Until Logan joins us.
“Kid, maybe you should sit this one out.”
No hello, no it’ll be fine, just a blunt statement. It kicks me in the stomach.
I frown, but before I can answer Scott jumps in. ‘It’s a routine pick-up Logan, she’ll ace it.”
“She’s too young. It ain't pretty out there.”
“Well, she can’t stay inside the walls of the mansion forever.”
“There are other things she can do to help. Safer things.”
“She’s a good member of the team!”
She’s a kid!”
They keep at it. Ground out words, hissed insults and hard stares until I’m not even relevant any more. I could disappear, neither would notice. The argument’s not really about me anyway. I’m just a convenient excuse.
“Stop it.”
“…Rogue…”
“Stop it!”
“But I-”
“She said stop.”
I look up, almost in surprise. That was Jean. Her calm voice filtering over each of us. She comes directly over to me. “Are you okay?” she asks.
I give her a somewhat shaky nod.
“Do you think you are ready for this.”
Another nod, because what else can I do? If I turn back now, I’ll prove Logan right, and I’ll forever be a kid that needs protecting. Besides, if Scott thinks I’m ready...
“Are you sure?” She studies me carefully.
My skin prickles as I feel everyone’s gaze upon me. “Yes.”
“Good. I am too,” she says, with a warm smile. Then she squeezes my gloved hand briefly before taking the co-pilot seat and no more is said about the matter.
The others arrive shortly after. Storm, Kurt, Pete. Each new presence fills me with a little more confidence. There are enough of us. On our own we are still vulnerable, but together we are strong. That’s what makes us X-men. I know they’ll look out for me.
A flick of a few switches and the basketball court overhead lurches open like some bad Thunderbirds movie. I would laugh at the ridiculousness of it all, except it’s a sight I’ve seen many times before, from the outside mind you. It’s never really been a laughing matter. Each time I wonder if they’re all going to come home.
This time I wonder about me.
What if I'm the first to fall? What if I let them down? What if I'm remembered as the kid who didn't survive her first mission? Even though I put on a brave Southern front, manage a smile at Pete, a drawl to Kurt, inside I’m trembling. I hate this.
By the time we get there I’m feeling like hell. The jet is all well and fine, so long as you don’t get air sick. And the speed Scott banks at, well, let’s just say that my head is spinning and every breath I manage to draw in is a breath in which I’m grateful I didn't eat breakfast. I don’t want to mess up my new suit. Which is already chafing. These things weren’t built for comfort.
We land on the outskirts and it’s a hike to the warehouse. That’s another thing they don’t tell you in the debriefing or the post mission stories of triumphs. The waiting. The travelling. The boredom that comes with the inevitable sick anticipation of knowing what you are heading towards.
But time passes, and we do get there. Eventually.
That’s the last point that things go to plan, however.
They have a parameter guard. We weren’t expecting that. Storm gives us a little cover. Kurt and Logan sneak off, knife gripped in the hand of the former, claws exposed in the latter.
Then it begins.
It’s not how I imagined. There’s no glory in this. No honour. I take my first life that day, and far from leaving me victorious, it leaves me feeling hollow. I didn’t want to touch him. Couldn’t bear the thought of having his dying memories sucked into my mind to haunt there forever, so I used whatever I had closest to hand. A blunt stone to the temple. Yes I know the places to hit. I know the techniques. I was taught well.
No one tells you how many times you have to hit though. How a skull can crumple and shatter like the shell of an egg. These details are conveniently glossed over. They don't tell you of the blood that pools out like a spreading stain on the dusty concrete, either. Or how he would twitch. How his fingers would grasp reflexively at nothing before his panic-shot eyes glassed over.
No. You are just informed that it will work. Just a regular sentence told with a capital letter and a period. Tidied into a neat little package in Scott’s defence class. ‘Look for resources around you; a blunt object to the temple can save your life.’
And save my life it did.
It doesn’t make me feel any better.
I’m a killer now.
Once we make our way towards their inner defences, I try hard not to think about the lump of body I left lying outside. After him, the next one’s not so hard. Hiding in the shadow of a door, a swift kick, a dodge, then a hard fist cracking into the back of his neck. Down.
That makes two.
Then we’re inside, taking cover behind giant steal beams that hold up the corrugated roof, looking into a room stacked with large wooden packing boxes. At the far end six men guard a door.
They have guns, and they don’t waste any time in opening fire.
It’s not like the stories when the hero seems to dodge every bullet. No. Scott takes one to the leg in a splatter of blood straight away. Logan takes two to the chest. I hear the impact with a sickening thunk, and Jean’s scream echoes around my head.
For a moment, I stop and think. And my only thought is, was that for Scott or for Logan? Then it’s a case of carefully controlling my thoughts so that I don't think.
Easier that way.
I get through the fight by detaching myself. Scott’s on the floor, but his hand is at his visor and suddenly the surge of red cuts three of the men at the legs. The stink of charred flesh fills the air.
Logan’s already back on his feet; Pete’s advancing, unhindered by the bullets that bounce of his hardened mutation. Storm’s eyes are glowing a rolling white as lighting lashes across the ceiling. And I fight on. Hand and fist, feet and elbows, anything I can lay my hands on. Pete lends me some of his strength. It’s not pretty. It’s not like training. I find a crow-bar and use that. Feel the crunch as it shatters a spine. Three. I push the body away. Move on to the next.
For a moment my gaze catches on Logan.
His chest is heaving, claws slicing. His black leather is slickened in a dribbling waste of sweat and blood, and he’s exhausted. But it’s not me his gaze falls to time and time again. It’s her. She’s not holding up well, bending under the strain.
“Jean?”
Scott’s voice makes her look up, and she misses her shot. She gains a knock to the head instead and both Scott and Logan rush to her side.
The next time I hit with my crow bar, it’s a little harder. And then I do it again. And Again. Even though he’s already fallen.
By the time I look up through the sweaty tangled mess of my hair, it’s all over.
No one cleans up the mess afterwards. No one can be bothered. Kurt helps Jean and Scott back to the blackbird. Logan watches from beneath Wolverine’s hard gaze, while the rest of us try to open the door they were guarding.
After a few futile tries, Pete shoulders us out of the way and rips it off its hinges as if it were no more than cardboard. Behind, huddled in a corner in pink and blue kitten pyjama’s stained with blood and grime, is the reason we are here.
Storm’s the one she goes to. Unlike her name, at this moment she embodies calm. Quietness shimmers around her, and reaching out a hand, she persuades the girl to get to her feet.
She has one slipper on. Just the one. And as she edges towards us she refuses to leave it behind.
The journey back is exhausting. Jean refuses to be treated like an invalid, instead she immediately sees to the girl and Scott’s leg. Storm and Kurt fly us home. Pete stares blankly out the window. Logan pretends to be asleep.
Me, I just try not to think about what has just happened.
The mansion, when we finally get there, is relief. It is a haven, more so than I’ve ever thought it before.
Calls were made ahead. I heard the echo of the radio; beds to be readied, the med lab prepared. When I descend those steps into the hanger, my knees tired and weak, I force myself to remain stubborn and expressionless. I don’t give in to the exhaustion. And I tell myself that I won’t cry. I won’t. I will control it through gritted teeth and will power alone.
Because if I start, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop.
I swallow down the fist of emotion in my throat and force myself to keep walking, just following a straight line to the med lab, where Jean insists on checking us all out. Standard routine she calls it. She won’t let us disappear to our respective rooms without it.
My leathers creak as I sit on the cold metal of the medbay bed. Waiting. She asks me a list of questions. Any scrapes? Wounds? A chance of infection and a blood test will have to be done. Any strains? Any localised trauma?
I shake my head to the blur of words that seem to flow over me. I ache. I’m sore. But I’m healthy.
She frowns as she writes everything down on her clipboard. The Logan in me is watching the small strand of hair that falls over her face. She keeps trying to brush it away, tuck it behind her ear, but it always falls back.
“Why do you do it?” The words are out of me before I think them through.
She frowns. “What?”
I look away, wishing I hadn’t said anything.
“Rogue?”
“Never mind.”
I hear her sigh. It sounds almost sad. “You mean Scott and Logan don’t you.”
I wonder if she read my mind. Or whether it's just that obvious.
She puts the clipboard down, and one hand goes to her temple, as if the thought aches her. “I don’t know,” she says eventually.
She doesn't know?
I hate her for that. Inside I am screaming. At least make it real, make it worth it! All this misery and mess the two of you have tangled us all up in.
She sits down next to me, and I stiffen. I can’t help it.
“I never meant for any of it to happen,” she says eventually. “I love Scott. I know… I know you don’t want to believe that right now.”
She’s wrong. I want to believe that more than anything.
“And Logan?”
“I should have never…” she trails off. “You know, when I was growing up, I used to read those trashy romance novels. Hundreds of them. I used to hide them in my science books so that no one would know. It took me a long time to realise that they’re nothing like real life. Love is... awkward. Sometimes… sometimes I wish more than anything that Logan had never come here. That things were simple again.”
“But he did,” I say, as I hop off the med lab bed and walk to the door. “And they’re not.”
I don’t go back to my room. For some reason I can’t face it. My room is my haven, it’s untainted, and right now I feel like I’d dirty it. I use the showers in the changing rooms instead, peel off the tightness of my uniform and step into the sudsy warmth where I can let the water pummel and clean me until I feel ready to face the world again.
I pick up one of the spare pairs of sweats and dress myself without thought. Right now I really don’t care what I look like.
That done, I wonder the corridors in a bid to simply keep going. I'm scared of the thoughts that stillness might bring. I head for the rec room, but happy chatter spills out through the door into the corridor and I change my mind. It feels wrong, I don’t belong there tonight. The echoing laughter excludes me.
Instead, without really thinking about what I’m doing, I go to Logan's room. Jean’s tending Scott, and the part of me that isn’t struck numb wants to steal what I can from the time with him while I have it. Like a thief.
Maybe that's what I am.
“It’s open,” he calls when I knock on the door. There’s a cold breeze in his room and it takes me a moment to realise that he’s out on the balcony. I can see his silhouette against the night. The red glow of his cigar flares as he takes in a mouthful of smoke before looking over his shoulder at me.
“Borrow my jacket kid,” he says. “It’s cold out here.”
It’s reassuringly heavy as I slip my arms into the sleeves. It’s far too big, but it’s warm and thick and smells deliciously like him.
He’s leaning on the railings, but he shuffles over to make room for me.
“You okay?” His cigar smoke curls around me, gives me the cravings I thought I’d lost when his healing faded. But I don’t answer. I’m not sure I can even bring myself to speak.
“It wasn’t a nice one, for your first.”
They’re never nice. But he knows that. He’s just trying to make me feel better.
“You need a drink?”
Drink. Ha. Logan’s answer to everything. I shake my head. I don’t know what I need, but I’m pretty sure that won’t help. Not tonight.
He looks away for a moment. “Y’know, no one would blame you if you didn’t want go on the next one.”
That rubs my stubborn streak. “I’m not quitting, Logan.” It’s quiet, but I say it. And when he turns to look at me, I expect a lecture. But instead I think he’s secretly proud.
“Fair enough.” Then he’s silent for a while. “It gettin’ to you?”
“No.” It’s an obvious lie, but he doesn't question it. Maybe I shouldn’t have come here. He probably needs his solitude as much as I need his company.
I turn to go, but a warm hand finds its way on to my shoulder and stops me.
“Come with me,” he says. “Let me show you something.”
He leads me towards the quiet side of the mansion where the lights are already switched off for the night. Strips of moonlight spill in through corridor windows, but no one disturbs the peace around here. No one but us.
In one of the smaller rooms, she sleeps, the little girl. She’s been bathed and wrapped in fresh layers of warm clothes, and someone’s teddy is clutched in her hand.
Logan opens the door soundlessly. I can see the gentle rise and fall of her chest. The quite rhythm of her breathing. And it fills me with peace.
“We did good kid,” he says softly in my ear. “You did good.”
And I know what he’s been trying to tell me. It’s never nice. But it’s always worth it.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
No beta on this chapter, so apologies for any mistakes and British-isms. They're hard to stamp out. I mostly blame the second glass of wine this evening *g*. I'm off on holiday now (whoop!) so the next chapter won't be up for a week or so.