"Hey, Mr. Logan."
It used to be that all activity would stop whenever I entered a room in this place.
"Nice trip?"
Kids would freeze in their tracks -- literally, in more than one case -- and stare at me with these horrified looks on their faces. Like they truly believed I'd come home to eat their heads off or something.
"Where did you go this time? Costa Rica? Tahiti? Brazil?"
Can't say I didn't enjoy it.
"What did you bring me?" This, from timid Kitty Pryde, standing behind the kitchen counter, oven mitts covering both hands.
Bouncing on her heels in utter delight. At the very sight of me.
There's a reason I usually time it so I show up at the school in the dead of the night. Now I remember.
"Why would I bring you a damn thing?"
For God's sake. Now there's dimples. "Let me think . . . maybe because I type up all your reports and do all your non-classified paperwork 'cause you can't be bothered, thereby keeping the Professor and Scott off your back?"
I pull a small package from the inside pocket of my jacket, watching as her eyes fix on it, her smile growing even bigger.
"Where is she?"
Kitty doesn't hesitate. "TV room, watching something with Scott on the History Channel."
I toss the little box at her underhanded, but she must have forgotten about the oven mitts because it hits her squarely in the chest, bouncing off again. At least she didn't phase out. The kitchen all but explodes with laughter, and I almost catch myself smiling along with them. Even if her hands were free, she wouldn't have caught it. I'm out of the room and halfway down the hall when I hear Kitty squeal.
Some sort of music gadget for her computer. She shouldn't act so surprised. I mean, she left nothing to chance -- wrote down which kind she wanted, what color, where I could get one and how much it would cost me. Left the slip of paper in my jacket for me to find, attached to an envelope filled with pictures of Marie.
But that's another story.
Marie's right where Kitty said she'd be. On the couch in the living room/game room/whatever with Cyke, watching a show on tv about the making of different types of war planes used in World War II. Cyke's a geek who likes to watch or read anything having to do with airplanes, and Marie's got a guest in her head who lived through Nazi Germany.
The room's completely cleared out. No fucking wonder the kitchen was crowded.
The couch faces away from the door, and the volume's up pretty high, so neither one hears me walk up behind them.
"Kid."
Both their heads snap toward me. Marie's up and on her feet in an instant, tossing the bag of chips in her hand toward the cushion between them.
Cyke gives me the barest hid of a nod, mouth a flat line getting thinner by the moment. I really wish he'd learn to contain his enthusiasm.
Marie, on the other hand, looks like she's an inch away from launching herself in my direction, but then she doesn't. I used to brace for impact when she got that look on her face, but now, here she is, hesitating after a few steps. Stopped in front of me, a foot between us.
"Hey," she smiles, toying with her gloves. "You're back early."
"You complainin'?"
"Absolutely."
Except for her face, she's covered from head to toe. Scarf, long sleeves, gloves. Except for the scarf, I'm just as covered. And here she is, anxious about something as simple as a hug, when we haven't seen each other for nearly a month. Probably because Cyke's sittin' there, and he gets real worried when she tries touching anyone, even fully covered.
Fuck it. Reaching out, I get a gloved hand around the back of her neck and haul her to me, wrapping the other arm around her waist. She's rigid against me for the briefest of moments, stiff with surprise, and then she relaxes, arms winding around my back, pressing closer. A hitch in her breath, and even though she buries her face against my shoulder, my fingers slipping through her hair to rest on her back, I can tell she's afraid. Of me, of herself, of what Cyke says, I don't know.
It pisses me off. I let her go and she steps away, satin-covered fingers reaching up to toy with the ends of her scarf.
I glance toward the tv, the bags of chips and Cyke. "You busy here?" I ask her, though I can't imagine she is.
"No," she shakes her head, back to smiling. "Why? Where're we goin'?"
"Thought we'd go see a movie," I say, shrugging. "And if you're good, I might even feed you after."
Her eyes light up, almost obliterating all traces of fear. Almost.
"I have to change," she says, glancing down at her clothes. She looks fine to me in her jeans and sweater, but then again, what the hell do I know?
I glance at my watch. "Ten minutes." That only gives her time enough to change her entire outfit twice. I learned the hard way that Marie will take forever and a day getting ready, if you let her.
Her eyes go from me to Cyke and then back to me again, and it's obvious she doesn't know if she should leave the two of us alone together. Why wouldn't the two of us get along just fine without her? Just 'cause I stole his bike several years ago. And still flirt with Jeannie, though now it's more for fun than anything else. I guess I also just stole the one person in the entire school willing to watch the fucking' History Channel with him on a Saturday afternoon.
"Nine minutes."
She rushes by me without a backward glance, heading for the stairs.
Cyke gets to his feet, brushing crumbs off his pants and grabbing up bags of chips as she leaves the room. I have to hand it to him, though -- the fucker waits until she's completely out of earshot before her starts in.
"You know she's not allowed to leave campus until she's --"
"-- twenty-two," I finish right along with him. I can probably recite the entire fucking speech back at him, verbatim, I've heard the damned thing so often. "'Unless she learns to control her mutation, she's only allowed to leave the grounds while supervised by an adult member of the team. She cannot be left alone at any time while other people are around, she cannot remain off grounds for more than sixteen hours at a stretch unless it's required for training, she cannot remove her gloves for any reason other than personal care while out in the community.' She cannot enjoy her life, she cannot worry about anything other than the personal safety of everyone else around her, and by God, make sure she knows she cannot *ever* act like a normal fucking human being."
Red splotches grow beneath his visor, mouth twisting. "You think you're --"
"Did I get all the rules right? Cover every one of 'em?"
"Not everyone regenerates from near-death comatose states," he grits out between his teeth. "She has a devastatingly destructive mutation and to act like she doesn't is foolish and stupid. Why am I not surprised you don't get that?"
"I understand exactly what her mutation is and what it means for everyone around her. Better than you, better than anyone here. I know exactly what she's capable of, and no, I don't think she should act as if she's not dangerous. But her life don't need to revolve around it." My knuckles itch like fire, I want to pop the claws so badly. It's not like I don't see his side of it, either, which only pisses me off a little bit more.
"What do you suggest we do, then?"
"I suggest you people stop treating her like she's got the fucking plague. Like she's nothing more than a 'devastatingly destructive mutation' on legs, like she'd touch everyone she could reach and drain 'em dry if only she were left unsupervised."
Looks like a point or two hit home there, and he ain't too happy about that fact, either. "It's not that simple," he says, regaining composure with a visible effort. "And I wish it was. We all do."
"It could be. You're not gonna listen, though, you never do, and next time I come back she's going to be a little more covered up and a little more afraid of herself, of the world around her." I let that sink in for a moment, then add, "Think she'll turn out to be a decent X-Man when she can't even be trusted to make basic, everyday decisions that directly affect her own life? I don't."
Scott's silent for a few seconds, some of the wind taken out of his sails. "We do the best we can with Rogue. We all love her, we all want her to have the best life she can possibly have. But we have to be realistic and we *do* have to think about the immediate safety of everyone here."
"I get that." I really do. "But at some point, Marie has to either learn how to control her mutation or she has to figure out how to live around it. Right now she's got you and Xavier and Jeannie and all the rest of 'em dictating how to dress, where she can go, if she can go alone and if not, who can go with her. She needs to learn how to make decisions for herself, not despite her mutation but *because* of it. It's obvious that her 'gift' has to be controlled, for her own safety just as much as anyone else's, but she's old enough and careful enough, *smart* enough, to control it herself."
"Maybe she is," he admits, jaw clenched at the effort. "But it's a risk we aren't prepared to take. Not with so many students on campus, not when it's a fatal mutation we're talking about."
What a fucking asshole.
"Don't you fucking see that *she* needs to be the one to take that risk? She's stuck, covered from head to toe, incapable of growing like she needs to? She's never going to be Rogue, she'll never be an X-Man, if you don't let her have control of herself. If you let go of her just a little, she might just thrive and shock you all."
"She might kill someone, too," he answers. "Wind up with even more memories and an extra mutation she doesn't understand how to use."
And that's all he'll ever be able to see. The safety of the whole, and not what the individuals want or need.
"I'm takin' her out tonight. I don't know when we'll be back." Or if, the way I feeling right now.
"You can't just march in here and tell me that we're screwing up with her, that we've smothered her spirit and robbed her of the ability to think for herself, and then just take off with her for as long as you want."
"Last time I checked, I don't need your fucking permission to take her to a movie."
Behind me, I can hear Marie approach, and I wonder how much she's heard. She slows as she gets to the archway, stopping before she enters behind us. Listening, her heart pounding.
"We have rules --"
The fucker's lucky I don't take his rules and shove them straight up his ass. "She's twenty and it's a movie -- I'm not taking her to fucking Canada for a month. I'll bring her home before midnight, and, if you're lucky, I'll even bring her home in one piece."
He opens his mouth to say something, because I guess he's not nearly as bright as everyone around here seems to think he is, but I'm done with Cyke and his bullshit.
"Marie."
Cyke jerks a little in surprise, face flushing with what I hope like hell is guilt or at the very least, embarrassment.
"Yeah?" She's trying to sound as if she has no idea that Cyke and I are fighting. Were fighting. My knuckles are still itching like a motherfucker.
"You ready?"
"Sure."
Cyke gives me a look like he wants to say something else, maybe tell me that we can't go because he forbids it or some shit like that. But he won't lose it in front of a student, so he gives me a glare that fails to scare me, and then he leaves.
I feel like following him for a moment, but then I tell myself that he's not worth it. I literally have to shake the anger off before I walk toward the door, pulling the car keys out of my pocket.
She's changed but she don't look all that different. Covered in layers. Scarf, coat. Gloves.
I hate those fucking gloves.
"Take them off."
She stares up at me, confused, nose wrinkling.
"Huh?"
I wonder just what she thinks I'm referring to. The thought amuses me. And it's damn hard to hold on to anger when she's around, anyway.
I pull each of her hands up, watching as she looks at them for a moment, and her expression shifts from blank incomprehension to utter shock and disbelief. "I can't," she blurts out, trying to tug her wrists free.
Well, she can try.
She struggles for a minute but relaxes when she realizes that until I decide to let her go, she ain't budging. And I'm not about to let her go.
Her eyes plead with me. "It's dangerous," she warns me. As if I don't know.
"So's walking 'round with metal in your hands," I answer, trying not to snap at her while I work on pulling the glove off her curled-up fingers. "But you've noticed I manage anyway."
She tries pulling away again but I've got her close up against me. "That's different," she complains, twisting around. "Yours is based on muscle control. Mine isn't. Someone could accidentally touch me."
She's parroting shit she's probably heard a thousand times. But I can hear real fear there; smell it, too. God.
In a last desperate attempt, she tries curling her fingers up into a tight fist, even though by now I've got it mostly off her. The leather is thin, very flexible, and I peel it right off her stiff fingers. And I can't help but stare at it for a moment, wondering at how all-consumingly important these fucking scraps of material have become to her.
I tuck it in my pocket and go for the other.
"Logan --"
"No one will touch you by accident. I'll be there, " I tell her, tugging the material off her arm. "And if they touch you on purpose, they'll have a hell of a lot more to worry about than whether or not you suck them into your head, darlin'."
As soon as I get the glove off the tip of her fingers, she thrusts her bare hands into the pockets of her coat and gives me this look, like, ha, what are you gonna do about it now, huh?
I actually laugh, reaching into her pockets and pulling them right back out, and I turn her away from me long enough to unwrap the scarf from around her neck.
When I get her turned toward me again, I pull her coat open and hold it while I look.
"I'm not wearing it," she hurries to tell me, but shit, she's lied about it before. She was about to climb on the bike so we could go into town and shop for new clothes when I noticed the seam on the bare inch of arm visible between her glove and her shirt sleeve.
A fucking bodysuit made of sheer nylon, worn beneath at least one full layer of clothing. I damn near stripped it off her, right then and there.
I check her for it anyway, running my fingers along her shoulders where the bodysuit's seams are thicker. I don't feel anything beneath her shirt, but I'm wearing gloves so I push her coat off her shoulders to check where her short sleeves end.
"Why does it matter?" she asks, when I let go of her coat.
"Because it does."
The look in her narrowed eyes tells me she's not going to leave it alone. "Why?"
I want to shout at her, tell her it matters because she's letting the gloves and the scarves and the fucking bodysuits take over her life. But all I do is shake my head, giving her a little push that gets her walking.
She deserves some sort of answer, though.
"You should be able to dress like any normal girl."
"I'm not normal." And she says it like I've got to be the dumbest fucker on the planet not to notice.
"Then why leave at all?" I wave the goddamned scarf in front of her face before I toss it on the floor beside us. She looks like she wants to reach down and grab it back up but thankfully she doesn't. "Just lock yourself in your damned room and don't ever take a single risk."
She looks a little surprised, at my tone or at my words, I don't know. I don't care. "You might as well, if you're going to hobble yourself like this all your life."
Marie stops in her tracks, turning to glare up at me fully. "That's not fair," she says, sounding stung. "I could hurt someone." There's a slight hesitation before the 'someone' and I wonder if she has anyone in particular in mind.
"Everyone takes that risk the second they get up in the morning." I give her another little nudge to get her going again, saying, "Everyone has the possibility of hurting someone by accident. That's what bein' alive means, and you can't live your life worryin' about it."
"I could *kill* someone!" she sputters, like the possibility's never crossed my mind. I crowd her through the front door so she can't stop or dig her heels in, though I've told her before that I have no qualms about throwing her over my shoulder and going on about my business.
"So could I. One accidental twitch --" And the claws pop with a *snikt* and some searing pain, sliding over her shoulder. She doesn't jump, only startles at the sight of the blades several inches from the side of her face. She watches as I let the metal slide back inside my forearm, looking slightly horrified. God knows, Marie's probably the only other person who knows how much it hurts when the meat and muscles tear and slice open, only to reform and heal within seconds.
"-- and someone's dead," I finish, wiping the blood off my knuckles. "Like you could've been if I hadn't been careful. If I hadn't learned to control it."
"It's different."
Shit. "It's different because you want it to be."
"It's different because--"
"Because I couldn't cover these with something--I *had* to learn to control it or someone in the cage would die or I'd kill someone by accident. There wasn't the option of finding some adamantium gloves to keep it from happening. And you'll spend the rest of your life with your life preserver of gloves and scarf because you don't want the responsibility of learning to either control it or compensate for the fact you can't. You'll play it safe. Stop being so fucking afraid of yourself."
She turns on her heel to face me, and I don't remember ever seeing her so angry.
Good.
"You think I *like* looking like a modern-day mummy?"
I hadn't thought about it much before, always figured that she wore all that shit because she thought it was strictly necessary. But now that I think about it -- "Yeah, I think you do."
Clearly, not what she thought I was going to say. Her mouth opens and closes before she says anything. "You like to make the point that you're not normal -- you're not like some of the others, that carry visible signs of difference -- you pass easily enough for normal and you don't like that. If you could, you'd wear a sign around your neck to declare to the world you're a fucking leper or something."
Just so she's clear, I add, "You're not."
She stands there, pissed off, hurt, glaring up at me. "You're wrong," she says, voice quavering. And then she's biting her lip, blinking back tears, and I feel like a shit.
She needed a little push, but I went too far, took the wrong path. I meant to piss her off, but I never wanted her to cry. She stares at the ground so I don't see it.
"Marie." Quiet, because I'm done yelling at her. Reaching out, I push her hair back from one side of her face, fingers brushing gently over her cheek. "Look at me."
She sniffles, silently refusing, so I take her chin and lift her head until she has no choice about it. Her lashes are wet and when she lifts her eyes to mine, they're wet too, and something twists inside me.
She's beautiful. The moon is nearly full tonight, bright enough to cast everyone and everything in this silvery kind of glow, and God, she looks . . . I don't know what the word is. Ethereal, maybe? I don't know. Her skin looks smooth, so soft, the light picking up the platinum streaks framing her face, making her look strangely fragile. And lost.
"You're safe with me," I tell her, thumb sweeping slowly back and forth over the line of her jaw. "There won't be any catastrophes because you act normal for a night. The world won't end, no one starves to death in some third world country, and keeping up this weird penance because you were born a mutant ain't going to change a damned thing."
She grips the edges of my jacket, bare fingers curling into the leather.
"Take a risk," I tell her, smiling. "Trust me."
She nods finally, letting go of me. I slip an arm over her shoulders, pulling her close against me and getting us moving toward the garage again.
The movie's nearly over. Finally. For fuck's sake, chick flicks are a torture I'll only endure for Marie. Up on the screen, some dumbass is twirling around in the rain, shouting over and over that he loves whatsherface. Whatsherface looked irritated at first, but now there she is, twirling around and getting soaked, laughing her happy ass off. Nobody acts like this in real life.
All over the theater, women between the ages of two and ninety are sighing, some are wiping tears from the corner of their eyes. The few men not asleep look like they want to shoot themselves.
Marie's been pretty calm for the past hour or so. Nobody touched either of us. Nobody got anywhere close enough to touch us, really. Marie kept one hand in her pocket, the other around my arm, and the worst thing to happen was getting looks from strangers plainly letting us know that I'm robbing the cradle.
Yeah, thanks for that particular heads-up, fuckers. Not that Marie seemed to notice.
Anyway.
Getting her coat off was an issue, because of the short sleeves and lack of gloves. She only struggled briefly, glaring for all she's worth, but in the end she chose not to make a scene and let me take it off her shoulders and fold it into the chair beside me.
I kept my jacket on, tugging off one glove so I could eat popcorn, and stretched the other arm along the back of her chair. For the longest time I thought she'd sit ramrod straight through the whole damn thing, but eventually she relaxed, leaning her head back on my arm. Comfortable enough to reach across me for the rest of my soda after she'd finished hers.
But now the credits are rolling and she's tensing up again. Pulling away. Looking around at the groups of people getting up from their seats and shuffling toward the aisles as the house lights come up.
"Let's just sit here a minute."
"Why?"
She rolls her eyes, irritated. "I want to find out who played the guy's third best friend."
Right now I don't have the luxury of waiting with her, even if I wanted to.
I wipe my buttery fingers off on a few napkins and pull my glove back on, standing up. Tossing her coat into her lap, I say, "Suit yourself."
Startled, she grabs at my sleeve. "Where are you going?"
That's panic in her eyes. For fuck's sake.
"I have to take a leak, Marie."
"Oh! Sorry."
She lets go of my jacket but I catch her hand in time. "Did you think I'd just leave you here?"
"No!" Too fast. "I mean . . . no, of course you wouldn't."
I give her a squeeze and let her hand drop free. "Of course I wouldn't."
A few minutes later I find her in the lobby by the door. Except for the few people cleaning up, the place is deserted. She's got her coat wrapped tight around her, hands tucked into her pockets, looking at the Coming Attractions posters while she waits.
"Who played the guy's third best friend?"
She turns toward me, smiling. "Brian James."
Marie's a crappy liar. "Good to know."
"No problem."
I reach into her pocket and bring her hand back out, lacing my leather-coated fingers with her bare ones as we step out onto the sidewalk.
"Hungry?"
She thinks about it. She's probably too nervous to be all that hungry, but she missed dinner and popcorn is no kind of meal. Unless it walked around on four legs at some point in its life, it's not dinner.
"Yeah. Where'd you have in mind?"
"Come on." She's gonna love this. "We'll walk."
I took Marie on a walk with me one afternoon in the fall, back when she was seventeen, eighteen. The kid was huffing and puffing by the time we got back, covered in sweat and anxious to get the hell away from me.
Marie stares up at me, horrified, gripping my hand. "You're kidding."
"You need the exercise."
She growls, deep in the back of her throat, and I can't help laughing. I've heard rabbits sound more threatening. The first time she did it, Cyke was getting on her ass for not reporting to kp duty when she should have, and she actually bared her teeth at him. Nearly shocked the shit out of me. I think I scared more kids by laughing than I ever have glaring at them.
"Where're we going?"
"It's a place I found," I tell her, slowing enough so that I'm not actively hauling her along the sidewalk. "You'll like it."
"A bar?"
I bet she thinks when I leave the school, I travel from bar to bar, cage-fighting and drinking my weight in whiskey. Occasionally looking for my past if I remember.
"No."
"You're kidding."
She's sadly disappointed. It's not like I don't know she still sneaks drinks every now and then.
"When you're twenty-one, darlin'."
"Cute."
We walk for awhile in comfortable silence, down several streets into a part of town Marie's probably never been in before. A part of town I don't want Marie to be in, at least alone.
When we get to the diner, she looks completely unimpressed. All she sees so far is chrome, black and white linoleum, worn-out chairs and a clock on the wall that's only right twice a day.
She also sees Brenda, one of the better-looking waitresses, and she gets this 'it figures' look on her face. Brenda, on the other hand, stares at Marie so long she nearly misses me quickly shake my head at her.
One of the newer waitresses comes over instead, and one look at her face makes me wonder what Brenda might have told her. I forget what her name is -- not that it matters, because I don't ever plan on spending more time with her than it takes to order. The first time she waited on me, I wondered what she'd be like in bed, and but by the time the food arrived I'd decided I'd rather look than touch, thanks. That kind of sheer cheer might be catching.
Marie and I both ask for coffee and a few minutes to decide, and the waitress looks disappointed with us. Brenda's over by the soda machine, waiting for her to report back. This might not have been the best idea I've ever had.
I study the menu as if I've never seen it before.
I found the place by accident, out walking through town while hiding out from one of Xavier's benefit dinners. Brenda was my waitress. I ordered a steak and fries, liked both, and in the morning, Brenda made me an even better breakfast.
That was a little over a year ago. A wedding ago for Brenda, and the last time I was in here she was showing me black and white picture of a bean, asking me if I thought it looked like a boy or a girl.
Then she asked if I had any more pictures of my girl. Turns out that while she was going through my wallet the morning after, trying to figure out my name, she'd found a few pictures of Marie. Judging by her age, Brenda assumed she was my daughter.
Two hours, five cups of coffee and two pieces of pie later, Brenda knew all about 'my girl.'
"Interesting place," Marie comments, in pretty much the way she said my camper looked cozy.
I barely glance up at her. If only she'd open her eyes, she would see that this is one of the most interesting places in town.
"Yeah."
She waits a beat, then: "Why do you like it?"
There's more than a little jealousy in her tone and I realize she's too wrapped up in worrying about the waitresses to look around at anything else.
It's cute. But not the point.
"Take a good look around and tell me what you see." And then I go back to the menu, watching her out of corner of my eye. I'll give her a push, but she needs to figure some things out on her own.
It takes her about two minutes. She turns toward each of the waitresses, studying and mentally discarding all but Brenda and one other waitress I don't know yet. She tries the coffee, makes a disgusted noise and sets it back down.
And then finally, she begins looking around at the other patrons.
"Oh."
I smile, looking up at her. She got it a bit quicker than I thought she would.
"They're mutants, aren't they?"
"Yep."
She looks around the diner again. At Martha, a woman with inner eyelids that blink vertically, who runs a bookstore a couple of streets away. At Jason, in the corner with his brother and a friend, ears covered in blue tufts of fur.
She looks at the waitresses again, seeing past the big smiles and the big tits this time. She spots the odd-colored eyes, the third nostril, the extra ears. How she missed the long, curly tail the first time, I have no idea.
"When'd you find it?"
"A year or so ago. Got bored with the kids, started checking out the city."
She don't look particularly pleased with that answer. All of a sudden, she's interested in her menu, her mouth a little pinched.
I reach over and push her menu down to get her attention.
"And you notice they aren't trying to hide, dontcha?"
Her jaw clenches tightly at the words.
"He's wearing gloves," she grits out, nodding toward Jason in the corner.
"He can't touch anything above a certain temperature." Found that out one night while four of us played poker at one of the tables in the middle. If he does, he starts going into shock because he can't tolerate the relative heat.
She looks over the diner again, and everyone in it, and then she looks at me. "I get your point."
"And it took less time than usual." A muscle ticks in her cheek at that. "Good girl."
I move my legs before she even thinks to kick me. I saw those boots.
The blonde girl bops back over to take our order, and this time Marie's so busy searching for her mutation that I order hamburgers and fries for the both of us. I leave her alone for the most part, even after our food arrives with a wink for me and an extra large order of fries for Marie.
Brenda's back behind the counter watching us, hand pressed to her heart when she catches me stealing some of Marie's fries. She keeps telling me that Marie just needs some time, that I have to be patient with her. Nudge her when she needs it but otherwise let her find her own path.
Nudging, swift kicks in the ass, pretty much the same thing. Right?
I should have brought her here long ago. Let her see other mutants, young and old, living life around their mutations. Happy for the most part, with normal, everyday problems and a need for the kind of apple pie you can't find anywhere else in town.
"Logan?
I grunt a 'What?' around a mouthful of fries.
"Why tonight?"
There's something in her eyes, in her voice, that makes me think that maybe she's beginning to understand. I try several answers in my head -- ones I've thought of on the road, when I first planned to bring her here.
I always seem to forget that with Marie, it's best just to put it right out there, whatever she wants to know.
"You're not just Rogue." I check to see how she reacts to that before going on. She's listening, but she ain't thrilled. "You don't have to spend the rest of your life being a mutant and using it as an excuse to avoid bein' anything else."
I wait for her to say something. Do something. Anything.
Touch me, for God's sake. Take a risk.
She drops her eyes to stare at her own bare hands. Nodding. Looking at her plate. Looking anywhere but at me.
I've been wasting my breath here. Yelling at Cyke was pointless. He and Xavier make decisions for her everyday life, creating rules and guidelines for every eventuality, giving her little to no room to think for herself. And I thought that was the problem, that given the chance to live and choose and think for herself, she'd take it.
But now I know she lets them run her life. Because she's too fucking scared to run it for herself.
The waitress starts walking toward us with the check, and I drink the last of my lukewarm, bitter cup of coffee.
Swallowing my disappointment right along with it.
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
Barely Legal Since 2000
Story Notes:
This is a Remix (http://remix.illuminatedtext.com) of "For Now" by Jenn (http://seperis.illuminatedtext.com/xmenindex.html) and y'all should read it, the two of you who haven't already. Also, thank you to everyone who helped drag me through this. Em Meredith, cheerleader extraordinaire. Manada, the toughest beta reader I've had the pleasure of working with. Macha, for listening. Bree, for telling me wonderful things. And Jenn, for writing the most amazing story in the first place.