The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
Barely Legal Since 2000
Author's Chapter Notes:
As promised, here's the next part. See you in a couple of weeks *g*
Some sort of sludgy clarity begins to trickle slowly through my mind. Awareness of my surroundings creeps back. Choking darkness. Cells. Lab.
Scott.
Oh, God. Scott?
I have to do something.
He flinches as I step forward and it cuts through me. Like all the others, he backs away, but...shit... there’s movement in the corner of my eye and I don’t have time for that. Or time for explanations. Just action. Only this time there’s less control. This time there’s an edge of panic seeping in; finger’s fumbling as I break his chains, bend back the shackles around his ankles with a screech of rusted metal. Strong but scared. I help him to his feet. His head lolls like a broken toy, so I sling his arm around my shoulder as I try and get him to walk, but his feet drag. He’s so weak. Shit.
For a moment I’m at a total loss of what to do. I’ve got Scott. How have I got Scott? I’m completely thrown. Like waking up from a nightmare only to find you’ve sleepwalked into the middle of it. That you are it. That the stench of burning flesh that dries out the back of your throat and the urge to gag that gets stronger with each passing breath, is down to you.
What am I doing here?
I need to get out. Have to get him out.
Noise clatters around me and I flinch. People. There are other people here, I remember now. Need to get past them. And it’s okay, I keep telling myself that. It’s okay. I’m strong, I can do this.
But while my powers can protect me, they can’t protect him.
His fingers try and grip the material of my jacket, I can hear the struggle it takes for him just to keep breathing. Shit. He’s going to get hurt.
I’m gonna need backup.
I think. Concentrate. Search through the stolen abilities until I find a ‘path. Then I use the skill to holler out a call to the Professor as loud as I can manage. Focusing until it feels like the thoughts I’m projecting are drilling back through the base of my eyes. Fuck, it hurts. But I don’t stop. I give him everything. Places. Names. Data. Maps. Every emotion that filters through my mind. Anything that might help. And I hope like hell he’s listening.
Then I concentrate on getting us both the hell out.
Metal surfaces are covered with soot and debris. One step, two steps, and I drag him. The sound of the way his feet catch on the floor ringing out, attracting attention, but I don’t care. I’m not letting him go. One step, two, drag. Glimpses of the red haired feral melting into the shadows. Stalking me? Helping me? I don’t know. S’pose I’ll only know when he tries to rip me apart. Or not. One step, two. Keeping Scott with me. Holding on.
It takes an age to get back to the labs, for all that the lower halls are deserted. The redhead? Signs of a struggle are everywhere. Broken doors. Scratches down walls. Blood. Bodies. Maybe it was me.
I try not to look at them. Try not to think about it. God, but my head is starting hurt.
I waver for a moment, struggle under our combined wait as my concentration saps my extra strength. The urge to slip into a dead sleep is so strong, but I fight it. I grit my teeth and I give it everything I’ve got; drag him forwards. All I have to do now is get us out. Small targets. Just reach that doorway, just get as far as the broken light, just get past that lab, pushing myself, always pushing, not letting myself stop, because if I do... I’m not gonna... I’m not... just as far as the stairwell. I can see it. That’s where I need to be. Just that far. One step, two...drag.
My fingers find the cold smooth handle of the emergency exit door, but it’s locked. The throbbing in my head intensifies as I lean Scott up against a wall, the muscles in my shoulder screaming as I use it to support him there while I attempt to open it. Lights flicker in my eyes; so hard to concentrate. It’s not working. Stuck. Shit. "Can you stand?"
He gives a rough nod. It’s hardly convincing, but it’s good enough and although he staggers, he stays where he is, lips pressed thin with the effort.
I take a deep breath, give the door an almighty kick and it buckles inwards. "You gonna cope with the stairs?"
Another nod. Barely perceptible. Then, almost so faint I can’t hear it, "Rogue?"
I freeze, a painful thud in my chest.
It’s a question.
One that I don’t know how to answer.
He tries again. "You sound so much like..."
"Yeah... well...I think I was, once."
I move to hoist his arm over my shoulder again to begin the half-walk, half-carry up the stairs, but he stops me.
"Thank you." His jaw works as he struggles with the words. It comes out as more of a croak than anything else, but it’s said with such honesty that I think that if his eyes weren’t scarred shut, there would be tears running down his hollowed out cheeks.
I turn away from it, even though he can’t see me. It’s too much to deal with. Too much emotion. Not now. I can’t cope with that now.
I just need to get out.
The stairwell takes an age. One painful step at a time, but I’m not letting him go. Not if my life depended on it. Concentrating on the task in hand even as the thoughts of others, those that I stole, whisper at the edges of my mind.
It works at first, but as we climb higher, the whispering soon becomes a sickening hum, the hum a rabble. Thick smoke clogs the upper levels and makes my eyes water as I drag us both onwards, exhaustion beginning to drain me and I’m not sure how much longer I can take. Each conscious action becomes an effort. I try and struggle against the press of voices that fight over the scraps of my mind, but it grows harder and harder to push them back. The memories. All of their memories, they grow in strength, in power. I take a step and my name’s Lucy. No it’s not, it’s Sam. I’m a shapeshifter, I read minds. I have a son. I miss my sister. No, that’s not right, I don’t have a sister. Oh God, it hurts, my head is killing me. It feels like it’s about to explode.
Pristine walls are charred with black. Fire eats through everything, the jutting arc of the reception desk, melted and puckered beyond recognition. As we near the exit more people arrive, but I fight them too. Fury that’s no longer mine roaring through me. Screaming, shrieking, attacking them with anything I can lay my hands on. Stolen sparks burn from me, each thrust of my hand shooting slithers of ice like tiny needles into the faces of those who attack. They have cure guns, but I plate up my skin. Invulnerable. Trying to protect the man who I’m half holding up, half dragging.
Then I’m outside, breathing in great gulps of cold air, screaming myself hoarse as people try to attack us. Throwing them away. Brushing them aside as if they were insects. I use everything I’ve got and I no longer care if it uses me up because I will. Not. Fucking. Give. IN.
A guard goes for my right shoulder. FUCK HIM. He’s dust before he gets within two steps. His companion slowly blinking in glassy-eyed shock at the hulking splinter of ice that cuts into his fleshy stomach. I hit the third with my open palm, feeling the bones in his face shatter, but he comes back for more, the stupid bastard.
"Bitch," he snarls, going for the man I’m protecting. But fuck that. He’s not getting anywhere near.
I hiss at him through my sweaty hair. Vision narrowing. Powers humming, roaring through me. Until he’s nothing. Until the darkness of the night itself bleeds with the fire spilling out of the blackened windows and everything around me is nothing.
Until it’s just me, and the man leaning against my back. Scott.
Fuck.
I swallow. Choke on it. "Scott?" Gasp for air. Hold on to him tight. Keep him safe.
Somewhere behind me, the roar of jet burns my ears, but I don’t let it distract me. Not until hands find me. Kind hands. Familiar hands. Familiar voices. "Rogue? We’re here now. Let him go, Rogue. He’s safe."
Storm’s voice. Calm. Strong. "Let him go."
I don’t think I can.
"Do you remember who you are?"
I’m no one. I’m everyone I’ve ever touched.
"Can you hear me? Rogue?"
Rogue... Rogue... always a Rogue. The word swims around my head. It collides with other names, names which are also mine... other people I am. A shifter’s mutation spasms through me, and I change into the image of someone else, before I flicker back to...
"Rogue. You need to stay with me. Remember who you are."
Who?
What. The fuck. Is who?
I struggle to stay upright. Fight the dizzy pull of the landscape swaying around me.
Who am I?
There was something... something I –
"Scott." I clench out the word as pain lances through my head again. "They’ve got Scott."
"No, they haven’t. You got him out, remember?
I did? Fuck, but my head hurts. Red hot daggers of pain stab through my eyes, and I feel like I’m stretched everywhere at once. The night slides out of focus. I need to hold...
"Rogue?"
I blink. Sounds and sights and memories not my own sliding round my head in the bloody mess I created. I did this. I did all of this.
"Rogue, what happened."
My fault. My fault.
"Rogue?"
They took him.
The pain hits me anew, surging like an open wound.
"Logan," I croak.
Storm looks puzzled. "You want him to stay here with you?"
She doesn’t understand. She doesn’t know yet, oh God, how can she not know? "They-"
"It’s okay," she interrupts. "Logan!" she calls.
Don’t make me explain it. Please. I can’t. Not now.
"Logan!"
A figure steps out of shadows, sweaty, bloody with the fighting, and I-
Oh, God, this is too horrible.
I feel sick. My stomach clenches and I’m crying. I know I’m crying. My ears ringing as my mind struggles to comprehend what it’s seeing. This isn’t fair. I blink. Fingers shaking as they fumble for support around me. This isn’t fair. Make it stop! Make it STOP!
But the hallucination’s still there. White faced and livid, dark brows drawn tight with deep cut lines of concern.
"You’re not real," I croak. Then that’s the last I remember before the ground slaps up to meet me.