He said he could find him. Having had his abilities for a short period of time she believed him. What she doubted was even if they could locate the ranting terror there was no guarantee they were going to be able to get to him. Or even that he’d be any help what so ever. She tried to recall Sabretooth’s thoughts and feelings, get a feel of how he’d behave if they found him. Nothing. Nothing coherent anyway. All she could pick up from his lingering presence was this sickening constant scream that she quickly forced back into the recesses.
Thank God for Wolverine’s apparent reputation. They might have been right about him being too tough, direct, or proud to hide in a janitor’s closet. But she sure as hell wasn’t. When they emerged from their little hidey-hole there were no uniformed men in sight. Heavy boot steps weren’t sounding in her ears.
“Well?” She looked to her partner, oddly enjoying just standing out in the open in the hall. “Can ya pick him up?”
Cold eyes glared down at her. He wasn’t happy, she surmised.
Her hands went to her hips and she hoped to match his intensity as she glared back. “Ya really gonna tell me that a little bad blood between ya two is more important than gettin’ tha hell out of here?”
He didn’t respond to her, just turned and started walking away. She took after him, hoping he was headed in the general direction of Sabretooth. Or at least an uncrowded exit. They were back to moving at more of a walk than run. But she followed obediently behind, not wanting to push his button any more than necessary.
As they made their way through the maze of the halls they didn’t have a single run in with army base personal. Sure, they heard them running around and yelling at each other but it all seemed to be off in an unintimidating distance. It made her wonder if they didn’t need Sabretooth after all.
Wolverine’s next turn revealed a wide set of stairs, nearly ten feet across. It was well lit, unlike everything else around them. Her stomach didn’t tell her good things. There was bound to be more people up there. He stopped and she figured his stomach must have picked up the bad vibes as well. Then he sniffed the air, which was odd. She knew what he was doing, of course, but he’d never made such an obvious gesture of it before. He must have lost Sabretooth’s trail, she guessed, and was trying to pick it up again. Or, she noted with a sinking gut, a lot of other scents were standing in the way.
His hand reached out and grabbed her wrist. She thought it was a motion to hold hands again, which she wasn’t sure her and her shoulder were all for that. Instead he dragged her to the wall, shoved her against it, and put a silencing finger to his lips. She was going to make a comment on how it wasn’t really necessary to always move her so bodily. A gentle push would do. But a single echoing set of footsteps began moving down the stairway and her reprimand was forgotten.
“Things are different now.” She knew that voice. The charming Sergeant Alvin. “If Wolverine is out too we need a game plan. We can’t just keep *looking* for them.”
Wolverine’s claws on one hand barely started sliding out before she found her hand resting on top of his. He shot her a glare and she just shook her head.
“You stay,” she whispered and playfully jabbed a finger into his rock hard chest. His top lip curled up menacingly but she only shushed him.
“Stay,” she repeated again as she moved away from him. She kept her eyes on him as she moved to gauge his intentions to stay. His eyes followed her as well, the intensity much greater; however, she was more than use to that. And he seemed like his was going to stay. With one last deep breath, having no clue what the hell she was doing, she jogged back to the staircase. She managed to make it up four steps before Alvin’s shocked face greeted hers.
“Rogue?” He asked in disbelief, nearly dropping his walkie-talkie.
“Ah---uh,” she went up another step; he raised his hand in front of him.
“Just stay right there, Rogue.” He snapped, stashing the communicator somewhere behind him. “You’re in a lot of trouble.”
“Ah know,” she answered but didn’t move.
He sighed, “Alright. Just---shit. Where is Wolverine now?”
‘Right behind me, sugah’. “Ah don’t know.”
Brown eyes searched her face and she fought not to smile at him. It would have given them away for sure. Somehow she always seemed guilty when she tried to appear innocent. He took a couple of steps down, closer to her. “What in the hell did you think you were doing?” He asked. “Did you really think you were going to make it out of here?”
“Ah hoped.” She answered honestly, taking a step up towards him. “Ah don’t wanna be here.”
His eyes soften as he made is the rest of the way to her, stopping at the step above her. “I know. Shit, they’ve never brought a woman in, I--” he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. It’s what you mutants are born for. Stop fighting it, Rogue, and it doesn’t have to be all bad.”
Again his eyes moved up and down her body. She wondered if he could tell her skin was turned on. “Your scars,” he said softly. “All your scars are gone.”
“Sabretooth,” she supplied with a shrug. “And Wolverine."
“Yeah, we guessed.” His face fell slightly. “How else could you’ve been up to running around after the blotched enhancement? Doesn’t sound much like the Wolverine, though.” His hand came forward and she stopped breathing as it settled against the side of her head, his thumb caressing one thick white strip. “He didn’t get them all.”
Her mouth dropped open and he smiled sadly at her. His hand moved to follow the pale path down until he cupped her cheek. The few wispy strands of white were not enough to separate his bare skin from hers. And her skin attacked instantly. She didn’t have to look at wide, painful eyes for long. Human never did hold up against her powers like mutants did. Pulling her face away from the cold, grey skin against her cheek, she gasped as he fell into her. The dead weight knocked her a few inches back, making one of her feet slip off the edge of the step.
She yelped as she fell. Thankfully the fall was short and her hip took most of the blow of the concrete floor at the base of the stairs. Alvin landed awkwardly across her. She turned her head and spotted Wolverine still leaning against the wall, his bulging arms crossed over his chest.
“A little help?” She asked him, wincing at Alvin’s gun jammed into her side.
“No,” he grunted as he pushed away from the wall.
“Hey!” She yelled as he stepped over them. He ignored her as he made his way up the steps.
“Wol—Argh!” She wiggled against Alvin’s weight. By pushing and squirming at the same time she managed to get out from under the fallen solider. “Asshole,” she muttered to the stairs as she got up and off the floor.
Looking down at the body at her feet she signed as she reached down and pressed her fingers to his neck. He was alive, barely, but enough so that her conscience allowed her to run after Wolverine without any extra weight. She caught up with him at the top step. “Ah didn’t kill him,” she said as she fell into step beside him.
He snorted.
There was only one way to go. Just like the stairs it was a wide hall going straight back. Light was all around them making her feel twitchy. It had been a long time since she bathed in that much light and it was like every ounce of grim and oil began sliding on her skin. In the distance ahead of them were two metal double doors. The only way to go besides through them was back down the steps. She was not going back down those steps.
Her bare, cracked feet moved her foreword. Boot steps didn’t follow behind her. She turned around. Wolverine stood stock still aside from his chest moving his deep breaths, blue eyes locked on the doors ahead of them.
“Come on, big guy,” she gently wrapped his hand in hers. His threatening eyes slide away from the distant doors down to her, but he didn’t move his hand away. When she took the first step forward, his feet echoed until they were officially moving down the hall. He lingered a bit behind her, again working the knots tighter in her shoulder but it was her own fault for extending the hand. And at least they were moving.
They both stopped at the doors. Cold, steel, beat all too hell, they were not doors that enticed entrance. Her free hand lifted and laid flat against the metal. It was so cold. Despite its size it relented to her hand and silently moved open.
Her eyes hectically danced around the room. It wasn’t like where they took her. It was…she choked. Images of the same room flashed behind her eyes flooding her with pain. So much pain. The same white walls. The same tank filled with green liquid she could feel going down her throat. She shook her head, trying to force the images away. It was the only time the Wolverine in her head demanded to come forward. Demanded she see. The equipment hanging down from the ceiling, the machines beside the large metal tables, all of it. Which one was for cutting, which for pouring burning liquid-no metal, burning metal into her body. How all of it felt. The pain.
“Stop,” she pleaded, pressing the heels of her hands into her temples. The pain. The pain. The pain. The pain. The pain. “Stop!”
The images relented and she dropped to her knees, exhausted. She took short, quick breaths to try and ease the tension in her chest. Opening her eyes she looked in front of her. The same room, so quiet. She looked up to Wolverine, his eyes were nearly black, staring ahead at the tank or the tables or any of it, she couldn’t tell. Or perhaps the other wide set of double doors on the other side of the room waiting behind all of it.
She looked down to the ground under her hands. It was so clean she spit on it. Just as she was going to push back up to her feet the doors across the room opened. Her eyes went wide. It wasn’t soldiers. It was lab coats.
Before her brain could move her body Wolverine sprang into action beside her. He roared, loud and vibrating, catching all the scientists’ attention. They moved to run back the way they came but Wolverine was already launching himself off one of the tables, raining down on them with claws out.
She turned her head away. The screams got louder. A lot of crashing. Her eyes popped open and her head jerked back around when she heard glass exploding.
Wolverine stood up out of the scattered tank, violently shaking his head, sending droplets flying everywhere. His body was shredded in long jagged cut, diluted blood smeared all over him. She jumped to her feet, not wanting anymore of the green liquid to touch her as it flowed across the floor covering the room. There were soldiers now, firing straight into him, bullets tearing sunto him and out again. It did nothing to slow him down.
She tried to make her way over to him. The green liquid was burning her bare feet and splashed up against her shins. Guards went flying, more came in. She ducked behind one of the heavy machinery, the cutting one, afraid to move any closer and catch the soldiers’ attention. It didn’t look like they were using tranqs and she wasn’t going to heal. More than that she didn’t want to catch Wolverine’s eye either. The way his claws were moving through flesh he wouldn’t know hers over Colonel Sie’s.
Suddenly it seemed no more guards were coming in. There were six of them that she could tell. She grunted at the burning sensation on her feet, it was getting bad enough she considered for a moment crawling on top of the table. Wolverine in her head kept her firmly planted in the green liquid.
She gasped as a body was suddenly deposited beside her. She barely managed to turn her face away before the splash it caused sent the green bile flying all over her. In horror she jumped to her feet. The burn settled into her skin but it was quickly forgotten when she caught sight of Wolverine’s back. Then a head flying.
Two soldier’s decent upon Wolverine at once. A snarling, frightening force she wasn’t worried about him. Until she saw another solider slowly creep up behind him. A large needle like instrument in his hands.
Instinct took a hold of her as she quickly rounded around the table. She grabbed the closest thing to her-- a gun lying submerged in the green liquid. Wolverine threw one of the soldiers off of him. The man collided into a far wall and immediately dropped down. Another swipe, the second solider fell in front of him.
She had to run to catch up as the last soldier raised his sharp weapon up, aiming it in the square of Wolverine’s back. Wolverine quickly turned around just as her arms swung the gun, bringing the butt of it hard onto the back of the soldier’s head. He went flying limply into Wolverine’s chest and the needle dropped with a small splash. Wolverine sneered and growled and pushed the body off of him.
“Oh Gawd,” she stared wide-eyed down at the man. And the huge bloody dent in his head. “Did ya hear tha noise it made when…when…oh Gawd. It was like a pecan crackin’---ah—ah--”
She began hyperventilating, clinching the gun tighter and tighter in her hand. Wolverine’s warm hand settled on her shoulder, he squeezed and turned her around. The doors were right there, all the lab warzone behind her. She nodded, trying to get herself under control. With her remaining strength she willed her stiff fingers to release the gun.
His other big hand, claws still out, closed over hers, forcing her hand to hold the gun. Her deep green eyes looked up at him in terror that had nothing to do with the sharp, gleaming metal.
“Let...let go,” she managed to stutter out, trying to work some command into her voice.
He shook his head and pushed her towards the door with the hand on her shoulder. “You need it,” his gravelly voice ground out. “For Creed.”
She was too tired to argue with him. She never argued with anyone so much in her life and he rarely even spoke in whole sentences. “Fine. Just…just not this one, okay? Please?”
He studied her for a minute. Then nodded and instead of letting her drop it he ripped it out of her hand and threw it down. She whimpered. The burning sensation on her skin began creeping up again. Her feet were bright red underneath the green liquid. Wolverine stomped off away from her, his boots moving effortlessly through the liquid. He ripped another gun away from a body laying face down and marched back over to her. She kept her eyes focused on his wide chest and his red-stained shirt as he slipped the gun strap over her head and across her chest.
“Let’s go,” he barked and pulled her forward by the strap.
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