The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
Barely Legal Since 2000
I wake up where I passed out. In an alley. A good fifteen miles away from the bar.
Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. Really... don’t bother. It’s not worth the effort it takes. Look at me; I’m useless, I screw up everything. Plans to apologise. Plans to make things the way they used to be. To pretend like I was sixteen again, that I was the same Marie that got into his truck and gave him those covert sassy glances. The Marie that worked hard to fit in. The Marie he liked.
Or rather, the Marie he hated himself for liking.
Yeah. That’s a nice notch to add on to my belt of lack-of-self-belief.
I want to shove the thoughts away, but they hurts so much. Like a fist has scrunched up what was left inside my chest and ripped it out for all to see, leaving me nothing but a hollow empty shell. That he knew. That all that time, he stayed away because of me. What was it? Fear he might do something he shouldn’t? Was it repulsion? Concern for his slowly improving reputation?
Whatever it was, it was my fault. I should never have gotten into his truck.
Yeah, I screw up everything.
Sniffing, I scrape the lank hair back out of my face. I wish I hadn’t drunk anything last night. Maybe if I hadn’t drank, then we wouldn’t have argued. Maybe I wouldn’t have been so horribly spoiled and bratty. Maybe I wouldn’t have made him fling out his confession that he ever thought of me as more than a kid as if it was a dirty filthy thing he shouldn’t admit to.
Maybe I wouldn’t have run away again.
Maybe.
Did he send Kurt after me like he promised? Who knows. Did he turn around and come back for me? Wait for me like he did that morning in the snow when I first hitched a ride? I don’t know. I couldn’t stick around long enough to find out.
In case he didn’t.
In case he really left me there. For good.
Better to always wonder, than to know for sure he’d gone forever... right? Safer. Much safer.
Stupid, drunken logic.
I didn’t even wait to see his tail-lights disappear. I just picked myself up and ran like the pathetic kid he keeps calling me. God knows how I got out the stupid parking lot, but I did. I wandered, found a subway station, wandered some more, and somehow ended up here.
Wherever the fuck here is.
Think I must have passed out at some point as well. My legs have gone to sleep and my eyelids feel gritty and raw. They sting as I blink into the guttering streetlamp light, waiting as the blackness around me struggles to fade into miserable dawn. It doesn’t manage much more than a watery grey. Even the sun won’t rise this morning. And the rain, when it begins, is a metallic splatter that rings wetly off the trashcans, pooling into puddles around where I’m sat, and soaking slowly into the seat of my jeans.
I fumble my way to my feet, wincing as I notice my palms are scraped and caught with tiny bits of gravel that look like nothing and sting like hell. Why is it always the little cuts that hurt the worst? Ugh. I don’t even remember how it happened, and I can’t decide whether it’s a good sign, or a bad. Maybe it’s not a sign at all. Maybe it’s irrelevant. Like me. Broken and healed and so fucked up in the head that sometimes I don’t know where I begin and everything else ends.
For the first time in my life, I really don’t know what to do.
I could go back to the Mansion. They’d help me, wouldn’t they? I could take back every rotten thing I said. I could catch a cab and tell Logan I’m sorry until he listens. Tell him I’m not a kid anymore. I could.
But I know I won’t. I can’t. Because I can’t bear the thought that he hates himself over me.
Better that I’d never gone back. Better that I stay away. For good.
I pull my jacket even tighter around my shoulders, and my dark mood carries me through the drizzle. It keeps others out of my way as the first early risers begin to splash by in their long coats and their sleek cars. Fucking stuck-up part of the city. All those people lining up under the neon lights to get their coffee; the biggest decision they're having to make is whether to go for a skinny latte or a cappuccino. Whereas me? Right now, I wouldn’t even begin to know where to start. A choice like that could take me hours.
Which, I guess, makes no freaking difference, because the one thing I have at my disposal at the moment is time. Yay me.
I hesitate as I walk past an ancient phone-booth. Stop. Stare at it stupidly for an age until people are frowning, muttering to themselves as they are forced to change their course of direction to navigate round me, trying to ignore me as I stand like a lump, like a rock stubbornly resisting their tide.
In that moment I wish so much that I could call him. It would be so easy. I wouldn’t have to see him, I’d be miles away. Just to say I’m sorry. Just to hear his voice. To hear him tell me he’d look out for me again. I’d just have to pick up the receiver and dial the buttons. Simple.
...Right?
And yet, I can’t. Instead, I just stare at it until the scrawled graffiti merges into indistinct lines and I feel so hollowed out that I think it might be suffocating me.
"Y’know," a female voice comes from over my shoulder and I instinctively stiffen, "I’m not an expert on phone-booths, but don’t think that one’s going anywhere honey. You’ve successfully stared it into submission."
I close my eyes. Something else withers inside of me. In my surreal state of hung-over brokenness, the familiar tone echoes uselessly between my ears and I can hardly be bothered to even acknowledge it. What difference would it make anyway? Not like I could screw things up any worse than I already have.
I simply turn away, begin walking.
She's not one to give up easily. "You found your way out eventually then?" she says.
I keep moving. Do my best to ignore her as she follows like a shadow behind.
"You’ve got nothing to say to me?"
Ugh.
Yeah, I had stuff to say. So what? I had many things prepared for this moment... not that I expected it ever to arrive. Carefully constructed arguments. Exclamations of disgust. Betrayal.
Whatever.
Now they just seem obsolete. No longer worth the effort.
"Hmmm?" she presses.
"Just leave me alone."
The shadow snorts softly, lips curling into the edge of a smile. "Wallowing in self pity, aren’t you?"
So what? Right now I can’t even begin to care.
"Y’know," she continues smoothly, "I’ve been waiting for you."
At that I do stop. My feet pause, the rain soaking up through my soggy shoes and I look up, not bothering to hide the deadness that lies behind my eyes. "For what. What could you possibly want with me now? You left me to die."
"But you didn’t."
"Yeah... well... It’s not like it’s made much difference." I start to walk again.
"Now, now..." a blue hand snakes out to take my wrist, yanks me round to face her in the darkness of side street. She tilts her head to the side as the other hand goes to my hair, brushing the tangled mess soothingly out of my face. "That’s no way to think."
"Don’t touch me!" It comes out harder than I expected, almost like a hiss. "What do you want anyway? You got the money. You got away. You got your thrills. What more can I possibly give you?"
"Maybe I’m here because I was worried about you, hmm? Did you ever think of that?"
I don’t even bother to answer. I just glare at her.
She rolls her eyes. "Cheerful, aren’t you." The comment is followed by an impatient sigh. "Look, you and I, we made a good team."
"No we didn’t. I made a good clone."
"Well it worked didn’t it? We had fun!"
Yeah... right up until the shooting and the dying part. "What do you want?" I repeat testily.
"I came to see how you were."
I don’t even bother to acknowledge that.
"Thought you might need a friend," she purrs.
Do I really look that stupid? Maybe I do. Who knows. But I don’t have the stomach for this. "Either tell me the truth, or leave me alone."
Her only response to my outburst is to raise her eyebrows.
"Fine." I snap. "I’ll be going then."
"Wait." She grabs my shoulder before I can move away. Then she pulls an impatient face, like she’s having to placate a small child. "Look. I need a second, okay?"
Right. Of course. Now we come down to it. "You want my help on a job?" I don’t know why I’m even surprised. Should have seen it coming a mile off.
"Would you be interested if I did?" A slow spreading smile begins to grow across her lips as she thinks she’s winning me over. "It’s well paid."
"No."
I’m not frickin’ suicidal. Yet.
I turn my face away from the rain. I don’t want to talk to her. I don’t want to be here. In fact, I’d just like to hide until the entire world crumbles and falls away and my jumbled up thoughts un-knot themselves into something I can start to comprehend.
Although actually I’m not so sure I want to comprehend them right now.
You want me to be glad she’s dead?
My memory plays tricks on me, re-running the whole horrible argument in stops and starts like a broken record. No. God, no, I never wanted that... I saw the way he used to look at her, the hope in his eyes. My heart breaks for him again and again as the memory of what he had to do haunts me. The way his claws felt sliding into her soft skin. The dead prickling of realisation that sunk through him as she grew heavy and limp. The smell of death and blood. It made him sick. It makes me sick.
I choke on the tears that are rising, the lump in my throat so sharp it hurts. No, I never wanted that.
"Don't be so weak." Her voice is hard. "Snap out of it."
I don’t want to snap out of it. I don’t deserve to. How could he think that? How could he think that about me? No wonder he hates himself over me.
You want me to say I didn’t sleep with ‘Ro? Because it’ll make you feel goddamned better?
Oh, God, that one hurts even more. All I wanted was for him to tell me it was a lie. That it was nothing, just my imagination playing tricks on me. But they did. They really did, didn’t they? They kissed and touched and... and it hurts, worse than Jean ever did, because at least Jean was a familiar pain. Jean was always there.
This is different. Every time I think of it, I feel raw. It slices through me; stinging like a betrayal, when I have no right to feel betrayed. It makes me want to hate her; cool, calm ‘Ro. It makes me want to lash out and hurt them both until they can feel what I’m feeling. How come she gets him? After everything. Why her? Why was it fucking HER?! And I don’t quite know how to control all the emotions that are rolling though me, I’m so miserable that I want to curl up and never move again, I’m so angry that I want to hurt things. I want to shout and sob and yell until my throat’s hoarse and as broken as the rest of me. But I can’t even seem to do that right. All I do is cry. Big fat useless tears that soak my face and dribble into my rain drenched top.
Because no matter what I do, or what I say, there’s no one to notice it but... her.
After a while, I manage some semblance of pulling myself together. I sniff and wipe my nose on my shirt sleeve, not pretty, I know, but it’s not as if there’s anyone round to impress. When I finally look up, Mystique’s leaning against the wall where we stopped, arms folded across her chest, her shock of red hair glinting with the wet as the streetlamps flicker out one by one into the grey.
Mystique's eyes flash with impatience. "You done now?"
I don’t think I even know what ‘done’ is anymore.
"You know, snivelling about it all isn’t going to help."
I give her a look.
"What?" she defends. "You think you’re the only person in the world to be screwed over? It happens all the time sweetheart. Especially where men are concerned."
I flinch.
She notices. "Get a grip, and get on with it."
"Get on with what?" I don’t bother to hide the misery in my voice. "What am I supposed to do now? Where am I supposed to go?"
She gives me a look. "You always have somewhere to go. You in or not?"
I feel sick.
I want to say no. I want to run away and be someone else. To have never existed in the first place. To hear the sound of his bike and the gruffness of his voice asking me to come home. Like he did before. Like he did all those times I didn’t want him to.
But no sound comes, and it’s just me... and her. Measuring each other in the drear blandness of the early morning light.
Is this who I’m supposed to be? Is this it?
A numb dullness sinks through me.
"Well?" She tilts her head. Waits.
...What else can I do?
I manage a nod. Hating myself even more.