Unfortunately she understood his issue. She supposed she probably did develop a trace of Sabretooth’s scent along with her own. And she didn’t smell that good any way to begin with. But he was absolutely ignoring her, which frustrated her because she was feeling like herself again. His three metal claws embedding themselves in her abdomen effectively drove Creed’s relentless insanity out of her mind.
“Wolverine,” She repeated his name again, must have been the tenth time. She wanted to move to the bars, talk, and sit back to back again. But she evidently still wasn’t his favorite person considering he hadn’t so much as growled at her, so she was careful to stay away.
Her voice softened after she sighed. “Come on, sugah, how long ya gonna ignore me? Ah promise to behave mahself.”
She waited. She even sat down in the middle of her cell on the cold concrete floor facing him, letting him know she had no intention of going anywhere. The last thing she wanted to do was rush him, force any kind of relationship on him that he just wasn’t ready for.
But she had to get out of there. She had to try or die, because she sure as hell wasn’t going to kill anyone else. Though her own stupidity and arrogance her rights, freedom, and whole world was taken away. But there was no way in hell she was going to let them make her less than human. Besides, she had already killed Sabretooth, at least she figured she had, and now he was no more prominent in her mind than anyone else. That meant if they wanted to force her hand again they’d most likely go to Wolverine.
A smirk cracked her face. Here she was thinking that she’d rather die than have to kill him. It was sickeningly funny somehow because it was an extremely one-sided comradeship. Hell, he had just stabbed her. She laughed under her breath. What was it about him that she was so drawn to? In theory she could probably get out without him, she had gotten close several times at the labs. Not to mention the addition of her new healing abilities, which, really meant she had to hurry because she didn’t keep other’s powers long usually, so the sooner she attempted the better. And leaving him would most definitely be quicker.
She squinted her eyes to peer better into the darkness. Shoulders, that was all she could make out. Big, huge, bulging shoulders that she’d probably just have to drag the entire way out. If he didn’t stab her again if she came near.
But damn it she would. She sighed again, this time loudly as she forced air out of her lungs. “Wolverine,” She said. Again. “Wolverine, ah know ya ain’t real happy with me right now. But first off it ain’t mah fault. Ah neva---ah didn’t want to absorb Sabretooth, ya understand that don’t ya?”
She paused to give him a chance to respond although she wasn’t very shocked when no sound came from his cell. “Right. More importantly we have to try and get out. Now, it’s the only chance, while I still have the exits of the base fresh in my mind and Sabretooth’s healin’ factor workin’ for me.”
“Not leavin’.”
Her jaw dropped at his faint voice. Then red flashed in front of her eyes that had nothing to do with Sabretooth. “We’ve been over this before. Ya ARE leavin’. With me. Out of this god damned hell hole. Now we can work together and probably make it or you could get me killed. Ah can’t leave ya, big guy. Jus’ not my nature.” She waited again, for any kind of reaction, any kind of signal that he understood the important of their impacts on each other. Again there was none and she whimpered in frustration.
“Seriously, Wolverine, don’t get me killed. Just help me out here,” she stood to here feet and stepped closer to the bars separating them, despite the voices in the back of her head saying how stupid it was.
“As ah see it,” she started to explain as she grabbed the bars with her hands. “Its me or them. Eitha ya side with me an’ we both get the fuck out of here. Be free. Or ya pick ‘em and stay in that nasty ole cell bein’ nothin’ but a pawn ta ‘em.”
With her closer position she could just make out the side of his face, staring off into the nothing in front of him. She couldn’t help but wonder if his eyes were even open, which only pissed her off even more. “Damn it! Ah don’t undastand what ya problem is here! Ya’d think me or them would be pretty easy!”
She smacked the bars and stomped her foot swearing at ‘the big moron’ in her head the whole time. Never. Never had anyone given her this much trouble before! She had convinced scared shitless mutants of all ages that they could take on fully armed employees but she couldn’t get a man the size of a boulder to get off his pathetic, complacent ass.
“Me,” he muttered.
She narrowed her eyes at him in confusion. “What?”
He turned his head towards her, blue spheres gleaming in the dark shadows under his brow. “I pick me.”
She snorted and laughed under her breath. As annoyed as she was with the lazy bum she loved a person that picked the third out of two options. “Yeah, sugah. Ah pick ya too.”
He growled then. Finally, and she was elastic to hear it, that meant he was finally in the conversation.
“Wolverine, ah---” She was interrupted by the sound of the elevator coming down, a noise she never picked up on before Sabretooth. Her heart started pounding in her chest with excitement. “Now, Wolverine. Ya gotta pick now. They’re comin’. If they open mah door ah’ll keep ‘em busy an’ ya try ta bust out. Try the claws. If they want ya, well ah think ya can probably handle ‘em and get the keys.”
The clunk of the doors opening was almost deafening loud in her ears. She looked briefly behind her to it then back to him, looking for some kind of sign, anything.
“We--” she started but didn’t get any farther.
“Hey!” She turned her head to find Theo and five or so other guards she couldn’t recognize.
“Get the fuck away from the god damn bars,” he snapped, then looked back to the men standing behind him. “Am I the only one that hears myself saying that?! Shit!”
She glared at him but took a three steps away from Wolverine’s cell, keeping her hand, then fingers, on the bar till the last possible second.
“Col. Sie would like a word with you,” Theo said and motioned to someone behind him. She swallowed. Six guys were a lot. And she wasn’t any kind of trained fighter, nothing close to what she assumed military personal were capable of. But Wolverine was pretty fast, she’d seen it before. Surely he could bust out before she or the guards really got into anything. And she healed now. She kept reminding herself of that last little, very important fact as one of the guards stepped forward with keys.
The door opened with a squeak of the hinges and she charged before any of them could take a step forward. The advantage of her bare skin on her hands and forearm was nil, they were completely covered except for their faces. So she settled for the grass roots tactic of getting low and ramming her shoulder into the gut of the guard who unlocked the door.
He fell to the ground on his back but her victory was short lived. Someone immediately grabbed a hold of her arm but she swung around and managed to punched them before they could secure the second. She gasped at the brief influx of her mutation from the skin on her fist connecting with his nose. He fell limp to the ground, even though it had nothing to do with the strength of her punch.
She wheeled around, surprise that the remaining four guys weren’t even trying to subdue her. For a second she thought maybe Wolverine had gotten free but when she got her bearings they were just standing there. One helping the first guard off the ground. Another holding a small gun, faint white smoke coming out of the end of it.
Then suddenly they rocked, all of them, from side to side like they were on a boat.
“Nighty, nighty, Rogue.” Theo taunted, a buck-tooth grin spread across his face.
She looked down and finally saw the little yellow dart sticking out of her thigh. Somehow she hadn’t felt that at all. She blinked a few times as she pulled it out and threw it to the ground. When she looked up again her head was clear and they were all still.
‘Sabretooth’ she said to herself. Then she smiled and charged them again, elbowing a stunned Theo right in the face. The noise suddenly escalated in the room. Mens’ voices were yelling all around her and she was invigorated. With a sweeping kick she knocked Theo’s legs out from under him and almost laughed when he landed face first onto the concrete floor.
Perhaps she got just a bit too much enjoyment out of it because she hadn’t seen the uppercut to her stomach coming. She doubled over at the impact, coughing up spit until her body again automatically corrected itself and the pain instantly faded as she punched the guard in the side of his face. ‘Just a little longer’ she told herself. She just had to keep them distracted for Wolverine a little longer.
But then the guard didn’t go down like the other. In fact he straighten himself back up nearly as quickly as she had.
“You little bitch,” he hissed, wiping his bloody nose. She was going to go for him again, show him how much a bitch she really was until the painful force of a heavy military boot pounded into her lower back.
She screamed out, pain shooting right up her spinal column and fell forward. The guard with the bloody nose caught her with his hand around her neck. He squeezed as he lifted her up and despite how she hard she tried no scream would come out. She was sure she should have blacked out, but evidently Sabretooth’s mutant was preventing it, leaving her to deal with the pain. Finally he released her then backhanded her across the face, her legs immediately gave out on her as she fell, but still she couldn’t manage a scream.
Gently she held her neck as she swallowed, wincing at the feeling of sandpaper going down.
“Get up, mutant.” She barely recognized Theo’s voice as he pulled her up to her feet. He didn’t even wait to see if she would fight back before her cocked his arm back then punched her in the face, grunting with the force he put into it.
She never even felt the ground. But evidently she had landed several feet away. If her eye wasn’t bleeding then it was completely due to her new healing since it felt like her skull had been crushed in. She forced herself to push up to her knees, wanting to wipe the tears away from her face for pride’s sake but couldn’t find the bravery to touch it.
Then she lifted her head to find dull metal bars right in front of her.
“----” She tried to say his name, but nothing would come out. She could see him, sitting against the far back wall. His head leaned back against it, his eyes closed. He hadn't even tried. He hadn’t move an inch.
She tried to call him again. “Wo” Neither her raw throat or the sudden mirage of pin pricks raining down on her back let her get out any more than that. Her sweat slicked hand began slipping on the smooth floor first, then his image began to blur until he was nothing but darkness.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
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