“You sure about this, Frail?” Victor asked slowly, not bothering to hide the concern in his voice and eyes. “Shouldn’t you be resting? I mean, you just…”
“I just came out of a coma,” Rogue finished for him, rolling her eyes. He was turning out to be just as bad as Logan. “I think I’ve rested enough. Besides, now that I have my own healing factor, I can bounce back from just about anything he tries to throw at me.”
She was dressed in the slick leathers of the X-Men, and her curves filled the uniform out quite nicely. Logan couldn’t help but notice how beautiful she looked in the uniform, and judging by the looks of the other men in the room, they noticed too.
“But wouldn’t that mean using your powers?” Bobby asked smugly, trying to get a point across while attempting to keep his eyes on her face.
“This isn’t one that can be turned off or on,” Logan replied for her. “It’s a physical mutation that you can’t change. Like having wings.”
“So then she’ll have an advantage,” Bobby protested mildly. “Is this going to be a real fight? Maybe I should be able to use my powers, too.”
Logan looked from Rogue to Bobby.
“I say it sounds like a great idea,” Victor said from where he stood with his team. “That way she can suck the life out of him, too.”
“I think I’ll go ahead and leave that one off,” Rogue replied with a grin. “I’ve got enough of his slime in my head. I’ll just keep my gloves on, thank you.”
“Then it’s settled. We get to use our powers,” Bobby stated, crossing his arms over his chest. All he would have to do is freeze her and the fight would be over.
“Yup,” Rogue replied with a grin before cocking back her arm and hitting him with only a portion of her super strength. She could feel his left cheekbone crunch under her fist as the force impacted hard enough to throw him a foot across the room.
Logan and Victor both chuckled as the fight progressed from there.
She became an onslaught of kicks and punches, taking it easy on him while he worked desperately to block and dodge anything that could cause real damage, like a crushed cheekbone. He had been surprised that Logan hadn’t stopped the fight after the first hit, even knowing that it hurt like hell. Bobby should have won this fight because of that punch.
And now he was doing everything he could to keep from being punched through a wall. Dodging kick after punch, he found himself growing weary. He tried to use his powers to make her slip, giving him a moment to breathe, but his aim was a little off and he encased her foot instead. He smiled quickly, realizing what he had done. Turning to complete ice, Bobby used his mutation to the best of his abilities, pushing himself harder then ever before. He coated her body in a case of ice five inches thick, entrapping her up to her neck.
“You give?” Bobby asked, noting the worry in her eyes. He changed back into his normal form, smiling smugly. “I think this means I won.”
Rogue gave him another second to live in his delusions, smiling prettily at him. “I think this means that you’ve just pissed me off even more.”
There was an audible crack that vibrated throughout the room as Rogue used her increased strength and ability to fly to escape.
“I wasn’t trying to use all my abilities against you, Bobby,” Rogue stated sweetly as she flew in close enough to land another punch across his left cheek. “Hell, I was basically taking it easy on you. Giving you a good fight and all, but if you want to fight dirty,” she paused as she planted a foot in his gut, “we can fight dirty.”
She threw another punch, one strong enough to close his right eye as he slid across the floor to the other side of the room. He remained conscious, but it was obvious to everyone that he was struggling as he raised himself from the floor to his knees. He couldn’t get much further than that as blood began to drip down his face from a gash on his forehead. His right eye was completely closed, the swelling rising remarkably fast, while his left cheek bleed freely from the damage his face had taken.
Spitting up blood, he threw his opponent a look full of venom and hate. “I’ve really only got one regret about dating you, Rogue.”
“And what is that?” she asked slowly as she rolled her eyes in his general direction.
He flashed her a nasty smile through the blood dripping from his face. “That you didn’t become a whore until after you left. Who’s next on your list to fuck? You already got Havok and Sabertooth. Not to mention who ever else in your lab. Did you fuck John, too?”
“That’s enough, Bobby,” Logan growled slowly as Sabertooth made a dive for Rogue in case his words made an impact. Both men wanted to strangle the boy for his words, but Logan had at least learned restraint. He wasn’t too sure about Sabertooth, though. “I’d shut it if I were you.”
“Fuck you, Logan,” Bobby shouted, bloody spit flying from his mouth. “We all know how fucking pissed off you are that you didn’t get a chance at her ass first. Or did you? What really happened when you picked her up?”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Rogue growled angrily, not struggling against Victor’s hold. “You weren’t always this stupid. I could have sworn you cared about me.”
“A pity fuck is still a pity fuck,” Bobby laughed, spittle tinged red flying everywhere. “Did you discover you liked sex before or after you got out of that lab? I bet it was while you were there. I bet you loved to be held down and taken roughly.”
Rogue screamed like a banshee as she tore herself from Sabertooth’s arms, flying full force towards the man who was now barely pulling himself up from the ground. Logan dove for her, knowing full well that she was more than capable of killing him.
It was a blast from behind that stopped everyone. Bobby stood frozen for a moment, his face twisting into a mixture of pain. He then slumped to the floor as Rogue landed quickly beside him. She made no attempt to catch him, only watching as he finally lost consciousness.
“This wasn’t your fight,” Rogue said sternly, her eyes not moving from the slumped body before her.
“Nope. But it should have been. He’s been dying to fight me since we got here,” Havok answered back, walking to where Rogue stood. “He wasn’t too happy when Logan put me against Angel.”
“Still. It wasn’t your fight,” she repeated herself as she turned away from the scene and made her way out of the room. She would let someone else deal with this mess. She was tired of doing the clean up.
She was sitting alone on a bench under a tree at the far end of the property with her back to the mansion when he found her. He had followed her scent slowly, giving her the time he knew she would need to calm herself down enough to allow anyone to approach her.
“Rogue?” he whispered, coming up behind her. He reached out a tentative hand, unsure if she would want him so close.
“What do you want?” she asked, not turning around. Anger was strongest in her scent, but there was more, most notably sadness and the wetness of her tears. “Just go away, Logan. I don’t want to talk to anyone right now.”
“Alright,” he replied slowly, turning to walk away.
“Do you think I’m a whore?” she asked abruptly, bringing him up short. His shoulders slumped slowly as he turned back towards her.
Taking a seat next to her on the bench, facing the opposite direction to give her the sense of security he knew she needed right now, he sighed deeply.
“You’re not a whore, Rogue,” he replied feelingly. “No one actually believes that about you.”
She laughed then, although it was obviously more painful than funny. “Bullshit, Logan. They all think I’m a whore; they have for years. There was once, just before you came back that first time… Bobby and I had been dating for about three months, I think and I was head over heels in love with him. I though he felt the same way. Well, there was one night when the psychics were out of town. We - me, Bobby, Kitty, Jubes, Pete, John - smuggled in some alcohol without Scott finding out. We stayed up until four in the morning, drinking and playing stupid games. We were playing Spin the Bottle at one point, and I had to make out with Pete.”
“How did that go?” Logan asked, raising an eyebrow. He had never heard about any of this before.
Rogue giggled softly. “Kind of like kissing my cousin or something, really strange. But he really was the only one who could take the risk, as long as he was in his metal form. But, anyway the kiss wasn’t anything special. A little tongue, but nothing bad, we were barely touching. But, Bobby, he got really strange. First he got angry at us…”
(~*~)
“So what’s going on, Rogue? Am I missing something here?” Bobby asked furiously as he stood from his place in the circle. “’Cause that wasn’t just a kiss.”
“It’s not supposed to be just a peck,” Marie replied slowly, not understanding why he was so upset all of a sudden. “That was your idea, remember? And it lasted half as long as when you kissed Kitty a minute ago.”
She didn’t mention that there wasn’t nearly as much tongue either; she knew that would be going overboard. She knew he was frustrated right now. They had been dating for a few months and hadn’t been able to do anything beyond holding hands and tentative attempts at usually interrupted kisses. She wasn’t angry at him for relishing that kiss with a girl who could touch; she was more so at herself.
“Are you fucking around?” Bobby asked blatantly in a half-drunk haze. The room around them grew quiet and somber, everyone knowing that the fight was going to escalate. “Are you fucking Pete?”
“No,” Marie replied vehemently, stepping away from him as if he had hit her. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Well, you’re not fucking me, so I have to assume that you’re fucking someone,” Bobby replied, crossing his arms over his chest. “Who is it? Someone in this room?”
She didn’t know how to answer his accusations. The pain on her face was obvious, and as much as she tried to fight them, the tears falling from her eyes were uncontrollable. “I’m not sleeping with anyone, Bobby. I wouldn’t do that to you.”
“I don’t think I really believe that,” Bobby replied scornfully. “Who haven’t you fucked? I mean, I hear things, Rogue. I know what everyone’s saying about you.”
“What, exactly, are they saying?” Marie asked sourly, her expression becoming angrier.
Bobby smiled, trying to catch the eyes of anyone else in the room, hoping for some back-up. John shrugged his shoulders, but Bobby somehow believed that it was his friend’s way of telling him to go on. “They’re saying that you were on the road with that guy for a lot longer than you say you were. That you two did stuff together. That there is no way an animal like him would pick up a young hitchhiker, and not expect anything in return.”
Marie held her breath for a moment, trying to control the anger building up inside her. “I didn’t lie about anything, Bobby. You know that.”
“You’re just a fucking whore, Rogue,” Bobby said quickly, his breath reeking of alcohol.
“Come on, Rogue. You don’t need this shit,” Jubilee jumped in quickly, standing up to physically defend her friend if needed. “Let’s go to bed. You coming, Kitty?”
Kitty looked from Marie to Bobby, then back to Marie. “Yeah. I’ll be there in a minute. I want to help clean up in here first.”
“You’re just a fucking whore, Rogue. Nothing more than a white trash slut. Even your accent screams trailer trash,” he kept saying as Jubilee escorted Marie from the boys’ room.
It wasn’t until they reached the door that they heard someone else speak up.
“Comrade, I think you should apologize, yah? That wasn’t very respectful.” Peter’s voice was calm when it reached her ears, although there was no disguising the pent-up anger beneath his words.
(~*~)
“Was it always like that?” Logan asked slowly.
“No. Not always, but mostly. Especially when we were alone and I wouldn’t do anything with him,” Rogue replied, still keeping her gaze firmly on the foliage before her. “I shouldn’t have stayed with him as long as I did.”
“Then why did you?” He felt his anger rising again, wanting to gut the boy even more. He did his best to keep his temper reigned in, but knew that he would have to go find a fight somewhere before he lost it. “Why didn’t you leave him after that first time?”
“He apologized the next morning, just before breakfast. He promised that it would never happen again, and that he loved me and understood that I just wasn’t ready. He said it was the alcohol talking,” she sighed, looking down at her hands. “He always apologized like that. It was always because of something else. But, after that first time, I knew better. He was saying it to hurt me, because I wouldn’t give him what he wanted.”
“And why didn’t you leave him?” Logan asked again.
Rogue looked up again, this time turning her gaze so that her eyes held his. “At first, it was because I thought I loved him.”
“And later?” Logan tried not to show any emotion as she spoke, not wanting to give her anything else to contemplate.
“Later gets more complicated,” Rogue replied with a bitter smile. “I guess because by the time I realized I was better than that, I also realized that it was probably my last chance at any kind of relationship. I wasn’t making any progress with the Professor, and there wasn’t anyone else who showed that kind of interest in me.”
“That’s no reason,” Logan said stubbornly, pulling a cigar from his shirt pocket. “You shouldn’t have had to put up with shit like that.”
“I was just happy to be putting up with anyone’s shit, Logan,” Rogue replied angrily. “He was one person who didn’t ignore me or run away.”
“I didn’t run from you, Rogue,” Logan shot back, failing to hide the anger in his voice.
“That’s bullshit. I have your memories, Logan. I knew your feelings. You were scared shitless of me and what I could do to you. I had already drained you twice. You finally found the one person who could kill you, and you ran like a bitch.” She stood quickly, walking towards the woods.
He sat in silence for a moment, unsure what to say. He had been scared, yes, but not because of what she thought. It had nothing to do with her skin. He was afraid of what she was capable of making him be. It scared him to know that, even back then he had become so attached to the young girl, that if he hadn’t left when he had, he wouldn’t have been able to. Ever. After only a handful of days together, she had come to mean more to him than anyone else he could remember. He hadn’t realized it then, but he had already been half in love with her. But she had been just a child. A little girl who was still on the brink of becoming a woman, even though everyone was beginning to believe that she was never going to leap off that cliff.
He stood slowly, giving her a little more time to walk away. He was going to have to deal with this, and he was tired of running from her and himself.