Part 2- ‘The things you find at the bottom of a glass…’
She was older now; they all were, older but none the wiser. The greater understanding between humans and mutants had not come to pass, contrary to what Professor Xavier had promised; the two sides were further apart than ever. And Rogue’s resentment for them had grown into an unmistakable dislike for the race she was beginning to consider as being inferior.
The dislike was mutual; humans had gone back to chasing mutants out of their towns, back to bearing their pitchforks and blazing torches. The dark ages had returned, mutant children were taught separately, banned from mixing with ‘normal’ children; jobs for mutants once their abilities were discovered were virtually non-existent. They were forced once again to hide what they were, to suffer a cloak of anonymity, always on the run, always at risk, always afraid.
There was no sense of coherence, no unity, not even among the mutants. Factions had risen up, each with their own sense of rules, their own codes of conduct. Loyalties were as fragile as the bitter winds, as easily blown and as equally destructive.
The whole had left a young Rogue disillusioned and disparate; this was not the world she had once envisioned. This was not the bright new day promised; in fact it was very much like the old days. The days when she had been chased out of town as her powers had manifested themselves and she had become a danger. Poor Cody, she shrugged and shook her head, it seemed strange to be thinking about that now, putting Cody in a coma with a single touch had been an event that seemed like a lifetime ago.
The bar at which she now sat was suitably crowded, dirty and noisy. It had been exactly what she had needed after seeing Bobby kissing the new girl. She smiled slightly and wondered how long it would be before the cynicism set in for the fresh recruit. They were all eager at first, the new ones who ended up at the academy, all arriving with the same sad stories of abandonment and self-loathing. And all finding a home, Professor Xavier never turned anyone away. Consequently the place was filled to the brim; Rogue was already sharing a dorm room with over six other girls. Not that it mattered; she spent as little a time there as possible.
‘I still say we should have torched him…!’ Rogue set the drink down hard, so it spilled a little. Her hand flew up to her head, and she began her usual application of pulling and massaging her hair in turns to still the voices. She gritted her teeth and grunted in effort. The barman eyed her curiously before moving on to pour another customer a drink.
‘GET OUT OF MY HEAD!’ Rogue swore between gritted teeth. Far from obeying, the others joined in.
‘It would have been great…barbecued shrimp anyone…?!’ Sabretooth’s voice chipped in. Rogue’s skin bristled at the voice and the thought of that beast and his hair issues. And then they were laughing, all of them a thousand or more voices, and endless howls of laughter.
Rogue took up her drink, and clutching the glass tightly, threw it down her neck in one fell swoop. The liquor found its way down easily, burning slowly and pleasantly, with a familiar tingling left in its wake. It seemed to work, if she dulled her brain enough, perhaps she could get through the next few hours without hearing them.
She gestured for the barkeep to refill her glass, he hesitated a while before shrugging nonchalantly and complying. She sipped it slowly this time, she had not eaten for hours and even with her mutant powers drinking on an empty stomach was not a good idea.
She sat quietly nursing her drink having deliberately chosen the corner of the bar closest to the door to prop up. These days a mutant had always to make sure of the nearest escape route. She supposed with some degree of bitterness that she was one of the lucky ones. At least her appearance was relatively normal, apart from the white streaks in her dark hair, there really was nothing to distinguish her from any other ‘normal’ being. The same could not be said for the likes of Beast, who was even now in the lowest vaults of the academy, doomed to a lifetime of darkness.
She raised one of her gloved hands and stared at it absent-mindedly. ‘Yeah right…’ she thought, ‘one of the lucky ones...’ She sighed resignedly, and picked up her glass up again, as she raised it to her lips, she caught the reflection of a man approaching her at no great distance.
‘Hey baby…’ the man drawled he was clearly drunk. He was slightly overweight, with a paunch stomach and stale breath. Rogue made no attempt to hide her disgust; she glanced at him briefly before turning back to her drink. Her quiet, but clear dismissal did nothing to dissuade him. He only leaned in closer and leered, pushing up the red baseball cap that he wore, he smiled a toothless grin at her.
‘Yeah… Jeb, get yourself some of that sweet ass!’ Jeb bolstered by the fresh encouragement from his friends began to whisper close to Rogue’s ear. Lewd, half incoherent comments on what he would like to do to her, the things he would enjoy doing, Rogue barely allowed his words to register. He carried on regardless, wholly failing to notice that the woman he was molesting was slowly, carefully but very deliberately removing the black, leather gloves that covered her hands.
It was not until Jeb had reached over and placed a hand on her thigh that Rogue seemed to acknowledge his presence at all. She turned to him then, swivelling on the stool to face him fully, she stood up in front of him abruptly. She stood still smiling sweetly and even allowed Jeb to pass an approving eye over her curves and the length of her body. And then as far as everything had been still, suddenly all hell broke loose.
Rogue reaching out with her bare hands grabbed Jeb on either side of his face. All at once she could feel the life pulsate beneath her fingers, could feel his life force passing out of his body and into hers. He convulsed underneath her grasp, his body becoming limp, but she held on all the same. His images, his life and his mind were hers, she saw what kind of man he was, and she wasn’t impressed, Jeb was a violent drunk who would roll out of this place and take it out on his dutiful wife at home. She’d be doing the wife a favour by sucking the life out of the bastard right here, so she held on.
But someone had other ideas, and even as she grasped the sides of Jeb’s face, she caught the blurry sight of a staff passing in front of her eyes before it came crashing down on her wrists. The blow struck was only meant to dislodge her hold and not to cause serious injury, but the contact surprised her and she jumped back letting Jeb go. His eyes had rolled into the back of his head, and his lips had turned a disturbing shade of blue. Once more the staff came down, this time to gently push Jeb into the waiting arms of his friends. They dragged him away to the back of the room.
‘What do you think you’re doing…?’ The voice with the staff demanded. Rogue turned to look at him at last and recognised him immediately, there was no mistaking that long coat, that dark spiky hair, or those eyes, that distinctive red on black, Remy LeBeau.
There was no time to answer, the very public display of Rogue’s power and the distinct appearance of Remy made the almost simultaneous cry that went up about the bar inevitable….‘MUTANTS!’
Jeb’s friends pushed to the front of the crowd, no doubt baying for blood, and not surprisingly considering Jeb was lying on the floor, with his legs still twitching. Remy took up a defensive position, and as the crowd move in on them menacingly, he stole a glance back to where Rogue stood. Or had stood, for when he turned around to look, she was gone. He cursed under his breath and turned back to the crowd, ‘he was going to have to have words with his little cher`ie once he got out of this…’
Holding the staff by his side, he reached into his coat pocket and brought out a couple of playing cards. He held them aloft to the bemusement of the crowd, the angry mob no doubt thinking that this was a real bad time to be doing a card trick. But this card trick was different. Remy Lebeau was away and out of the door before the crowd even knew what had hit them with the explosion of the cards.
The explosions were minor but they had bought him the time he needed to seemingly disappear, the smoke from the blasts offering a smokescreen. Remy hurried in the one direction he knew Rogue would be heading, the only place she had, back to the Academy. He stalked her footsteps with pace and determination, she had only just arrived at the gate when he caught up with her.
Rogue was stood leaning against the railings, her distinctive hair lightly swayed by the wind. She was smiling as he approached, by all appearances waiting for him.
‘I’m hurt cher`ie, you didn’t even say goodbye.’ She stood and looked up at him angrily.
‘Ah didn’t ask you to save me…’ She replied angrily. She stood up straight now, barely a few inches away from him.
Remy was unfazed, though this was a side of Rogue he was seeing anew. The confrontational, always angry Rogue was nothing original, that side of her endeared her all the more to him, but now she seemed as if she was in physical pain as well.
‘It’s just as well then, I wasn’t aiming to save you. That poor sap back there, you could have killed him…’ Remy accosted her.
Her expression as she thought back on the events of the evening unnerved him, she seemed unremorseful, triumphant almost. There was no mistaking the cold smile she wore.
‘Ah should have killed him, it was no less than he deserved.’
Remy looked at her closely once more, he could almost swear that the brilliant green eyes had flashed a distinctive yellow. Who was this girl?
He stepped back and regarded her carefully, then chuckled lightly. Rogue drew herself up angrily, was he laughing at her?
‘Tsk…’ he shook his head, the corners of his mouth upturned into a slow grin, ‘Lord…when you X-men go bad, you really go all out huh?’
Rogue returned his smile, a slow seductive measure of the lips; she stepped closer to him, leaving barely a hair’s breadth between them. ‘Maybe ah was never that good in the first place…’
Remy’s breath caught in his throat, she was so damn close. ‘Maybe you’re on the wrong team then…’ he whispered. She smiled widely at him and brought her face closer, was she going to kiss him? Remy pondered the sweetness of the approaching sensation until he remembered just what such a kiss would entail. Those poisonous lips of hers would suck the life right out of him.
He recoiled suddenly and she laughed outright at his expression, ‘Don’t worry sugah…I’ve had my fill for today.’ She reached out all the same, her hands were bare.
Grabbing the startled Remy by the collars of his lengthy coat she pulled him close once more. So close he could smell the drink on her breath. She snaked her hands across the length of his chest over his black shirt, before reaching one hand inside his coat.
Rogue soon found what she was looking for, tucked inside his coat pocket were her black gloves. She had left them on the bar; he had been considerate enough to pick them up as he had left.
He was still looking at her slightly dazed by her proximity and her intoxicating smell as she slowly pulled her gloves back on. She gazed up at him and reaching out with one gloved hand, ran a finger slowly, teasingly across his lower lip. He barely had time to react to her parting words, ‘Ah’ll see you around swamp rat…’
And then she was away, climbing over the wall and running into the grounds of the Academy.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
A/N: This take on Rogue is slightly darker than normal I suppose; she’s older, early 20’s, a hard drinker and a young woman bordering on the edge of sanity. Throw in an Indiana Jones type quest for an ancient relic, old grudges, mutant-hunters, betrayal, crossing and double-crossing, and last but not least a quest to take over the world!