He folded his arms over his chest, in all his stubborn glory. He needed this *now*, and there was no question in his mind that he was going to get it. It was just a matter of persuasion, or, if that didn’t work, force. He didn’t give a damn if he had to pin her to the wall and just take it, he was going to get what he needed.
“I said no. Not until you tell me why,” she said implacably, tucking a stray lock of snow-white hair behind her ear.
He knew he shouldn’t have asked; he should have just taken the damn thing and be done with it. By the time she would have figured out what was happening, it would have been too late. Scowling, he fought to stop the growl rumbling in his chest from leaving his throat. If he scared her now, any chance of success would die.
“I’ve got a lead on where she might be,” Logan grudgingly explained. Knowing what was coming next, his shoulders stiffened. “I won’t tell you who my source is, so don’t even ask, but I need the jet to get there. As soon as possible.”
Stiffly, she moved to stand behind the desk as he dropped a large file folder on it. She had been browsing through the books on the shelf that covered the wall behind her when he had entered the room with a demand for access to the jet on his lips. “And where do you expect her to be?”
He had been gone for so long without any word, too long. No one had been able to contact him, though there had thankfully been no need; the world seemed to be a quiet place at the moment. A wave of guilt unlike any Storm had ever felt before gnawed at her. Like the others, she had believed that Rogue had returned to Mississippi after taking the cure. When they had conducted a brief search of clinics within a few hours travel time from the mansion, they had come across a doctor at the one in Philadelphia who had assured them Rogue had received treatment there. Of course, he refused to disclose any other information and it took several threats before he would tell her even that much.
It seemed the doctor had lied. Storm knew that if they had taken a little time, given that little extra effort to look a little deeper, they might have found more, but she hadn’t felt it was necessary at the time. Not until three minutes ago, when Logan burst through her doors.
“Southern Nevada; Area 51, to be exact. It seems that the old military site was rebuilt as a mutant lab. I have faith in my intel and a rough map of the facility, but I need to leave now. Every moment she’s stuck in this place is a moment closer to losing her completely,” Logan retorted as he pointed to the file. Storm quickly took her seat to leaf through the information. As she began to read through the manila folder, her muscles tightened exponentially with anger, frustration, horror and that ever-increasing guilt that all twisted her stomach into a sickening knot.
She couldn’t look very far before she had to consciously remind herself to breath deeply as she continued to read, in an effort to release the tension that was literally making her ill. Judging by the documentation and pictures, mutants were taken off the streets and out of clinics to be tested and experimented on. Barely legal adults, most of them had families who were currently looking for them. According to whoever had gathered the information, the mutants were locked in cages for the most part, living on little more than bread and water. Worse, as long as the captives were still mostly alive afterwards, the guards were allowed to do whatever they wanted to them.
“Alright, Logan, you have your jet,” Storm said softly, not taking her eyes off the picture of a dead girl who had been no more than eighteen. There were scars lining her face and torso; Storm had to fight hard against the tears that threatened. She could be looking at a picture of Rogue. “But you must take the team with you.”
“No,” he denied, leaning over the desk for the argument ahead. “They’re not welcome on this trip. They’ve done enough.”
“We weren’t the only ones who forgot about her, Logan,” Storm snapped, a hissing note in her tone. Logan flinched at her words, the anger in her voice cutting him better than any knife. “You will be concentrating on getting Rogue out, but I want to make sure anyone else in there makes it, too. Bobby will be your co-pilot - ”
He growled at the name, stopping her abruptly. “Like hell, Storm. I get that you want more people on this; I respect that. But I’ll be damned if I am going to be stuck on that jet with Bobby or Kitty, not after what they did. Pick someone else.”
“Fine,” Storm replied, standing up again. “You will take Colossus. He has experience and the requisite strength. And when the time comes, Rogue works well with him since they were trained as a unit. He was also the only one to insist on doing a search in the first place, and wanted to continue after we were misinformed.”
Logan agreed; he knew the boy well, enough to know that he would be an asset on this. If for some unforeseen reason Logan was unable to get in and out, Piotr would be able to take over.
“Angel will go also. He doesn’t have a lot of training, but he has proven himself. He’ll be able to handle surveillance of the area from the air.” She paused, a small smile playing on her lips. “You will also need someone to stay with the jet, and, since the one thing the three of you have in common is your magnificent lack of people skills, you will take Jubilee as well. She’s been training and has become a magnificent pilot. If something happens to you, she’ll be able to get you out with no problem.”
“Fine. Have them at the jet and ready to go in five minutes, or I’m taking off without them,” he replied briskly. He turned to leave without another word.
“You ready for this, Frail?” Victor asked quietly as she paced the room. The lights had just gone off in the hall, signaling that the night shift would be making their first rounds within the next few minutes.
“Not really, but I’m going to do it anyway.” She didn’t look at him as she spoke, only going reviewing the plan in her mind again and again. She was putting her life in the hands of a confessed murderer. Not just any murderer, either. Nope, this one was proud. She was going to let him cut her open and pray that he didn’t kill her in the process, but she didn’t really see how she had any other option. “Hurry up and do it, Victor. I’m getting a little antsy.”
He smiled faintly at her wit as he stood from the cement bench, and stalked toward her. He didn’t want to do this anymore than she did. He would literally be cutting it close and if anything went wrong, she might not live. He let the claw of his index finger run lightly against the cloth lying against her abdomen. This would bleed a lot and he needed to make sure that it looked real. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”
“Yeah, I do,” she replied slowly, squeezing her eyes shut tightly as she waited for the pain. He had only applied a small amount of pressure before her eyes snapped open again. “Wait!” she yelped, remembering not to be too loud. She didn’t want the guards coming to investigate a commotion before they were ready for them.
“What the hell is it now, Frail?” Victor snapped in irritation as he pulled back and ran his hand through his mane. All he had to do was stab her and then he would be able to get them out of here.
She chewed on her bottom lip, looking anywhere but at him. She wanted to say something but didn’t know how. It wasn’t until blood began to creep into her face that he realized that she was embarrassed. “Will you kiss me?”
He didn’t have any words to say to that, merely raised a skeptical eyebrow at her. Kiss her? There was no attraction between them, at least none that he could feel, so what was the point? Why the hell would she want him to kiss her?
As her skin slowly returned to its naturally pale color, her voice came out in a low whisper, “It’s my last chance, Victor. Once this collar comes off… I won’t be able to touch anyone again.” She paused. “This is probably my last shot at a real kiss,” she said slowly, as if only now admitting the truth to herself.
He saw the sadness in her eyes, could practically feel the angst coming off her small form. He wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do, but his instincts screamed at him that he should. He was relying on her to risk her life to get them out of there; a kiss was the least he could do for her.
Gathering her in his arms, he lightly caressed her cheek, not wanting to scare her by moving too quickly. Her chin turned up towards his face, ready for whatever he was going to give her. He kissed her then; not a passionate kiss, but one nonetheless filled with warmth. It was little more than a brush of his lips against hers, nothing romantic about it. There was no need or desire; it was little more than a peck. But when he pulled away and saw the warmth and gratitude in her eyes, he knew he had given her something special.
He also heard laughter. Not coming from the cell, though: it was outside, in the corridor. People were coming, the guards. He watched as her eyes widened in fear at the sound. It was now or never, no more talking about it. He plunged his claws into her abdomen. Not far enough to give her a hard and painful death, but deep enough so that her blood seeped out into the palm of his hand as he applied pressure to the wound and eased her to the floor. This had to look like an accident, because if it didn’t and their plan didn’t work, she would be taken from him.
He howled as he heard the guards stop outside his door and could practically feel their eyes on him. Turning only a little to the right, he gave them enough of a view to know something was wrong, then backed away from her as he heard the lock on the door turn, not wanting them to feel at all threatened. Yet.
She could feel the pain grow as he lowered her to the ground. The warmth of the blood pooled within her abdominal cavity and the ache almost burned. But he hadn’t tried to kill her; she knew that with every ounce of strength she had. She pushed past the pain, waiting for the right moment to strike. She would be damned if she was going to let him do this on his own. She was part of the X-Men, damn it, trained by the great Wolverine himself. She had received worse while sparring and she wasn’t going to stand by and let him have all the fun. These were the men who had taken everything she had and had every intention of extracting her pound of flesh. Painfully.
“Goddamn it, Creed. What the hell did you do?” she heard the guard named Wayland yell as he hit Victor with a shock of electricity from his taser. There was a thud as Victor went down; it would only be seconds before their collars were turned off.
She felt hands grab for her, preparing to hoist her up. If they took her to see that doctor, she and Victor would be lost.
Wayland’s voice interrupted like a whip, “Leave her alone, damn it.” There was a distinct note of panic underlying the authority in his tone, though. Apparently he didn’t do too well under pressure. “That stupid doctor is passed out in his office and he won’t wake up until morning.”
“We can’t just let her die, Way. You know what will happen to us.” Another voice, somewhat younger, but just as familiar.
“Turn off her collar. Her mutation… We can make her touch Creed and turn it back on as soon as she’s healed.” She fought hard against the smile that tried to erupt on her face: they were falling for it. Now, if only they would hurry up and turn off Victor’s -
“What the hell are you doing?” Wayland was heard yelling. She wanted to open her eyes and see what was wrong, but knew she couldn’t risk it. She was supposed to be in pain, out cold. “Be careful where you point that thing! Don’t turn off Creed’s collar, just the girl’s. He doesn’t need to be active for this.”
Uh-oh. Shit! She stopped thinking then, relying completely on instinct. She heard a soft click coming from her collar and the familiar buzz of her mutation return.
“Be careful how you touch her, she’ll put you in a coma,” Wayland warned his colleagues. Rogue took this as a sign and her eyes shot open. Jumping up before any of them could put their filthy hands on her again, she tore the collar away from her throat.
“Fuck! Tase her, damn it! Tase her!” But none were fast enough.
She moved gracefully, the voices of those in her head ringing through her as Logan’s voice whispered what to do. There were five of them and as she had suspected, it was the same five who had violated her on the floor of a dirty cell, over and over again. The first man, no more than twenty-five years old, fell easily enough. She kicked him in the gut and rammed her thumbs into his eye sockets, blinding him as he doubled over.
She took down the next two just as easily. As they charged her together, she fell to the floor and punched the first hard enough that he could never hope to have another child, while neatly tripping the other so they fell into each other. She stepped on the second man’s face as she ran over his body and felt his nose crunch. It gushed so much blood that she nearly slipped on it as she attacked the last two guards.
She ran to the door before they could escape, slamming it closed in their faces. As she turned to them, a smile played over her face that terrified both men to their bones. When Wayland reached for his taser, she jumped for the other man, clawing her nails into the right side of his face, feeling skin tear and blood flow as she ripped away the flesh from his eye socket to his jaw. He screamed like a baby as she turned him so she could hide behind his withering body and throw him into Wayland just as he shot his taser. The thin wires shot into the bigger man’s chest, sending fifty thousand volts of electricity into his already-mangled body.
Rogue watched as the guard convulsed, white foam running from his open mouth and smiled even wider. That last shot would have killed her, but now it was just Rogue and her chief tormentor, one on one. She didn’t attack Wayland as she had the others. Instead, she calmly walked toward him, absently stepping over the bodies of his fallen comrades.
She was going to enjoy this. Her only wish was that she had more time, but the pain in her abdomen was getting worse and she knew she was losing a lot of blood. Even as she reached for Wayland, her vision was becoming hazy. He cried, loudly begging for his life as she came closer. Grabbing a large handful of dark hair, she forced him to look at her and stared back into those eyes that were the same color as those of a man she’d known in another life.
Quietly, she shushed him. “I’m not going to kill you, Wayland,” she whispered softly as she brought her face closer to his. “You hurt me badly, though. You took something away from me, something meant for another man. You stole it and I can never get it back.”
Using her other hand, she reached for something on his belt; something she had never seen before, but knew she would recognize. The voices in her head roared as she found what she was looking for and pulled hard to break it away from his belt. Even as she tightened her grasp on the device, her eyes never left his.
“I’m not going to kill you,” she repeated as he began to blubber. If she had been able to see more clearly in the dim light, she would have realized that the crotch of his pants grew dark with dampness as she spoke in her soothing voice. “I am going to return the favor. I’m going to touch you now, and when I do I’m going take you, but you’ll live. In my head, you’ll live. And the others who are living in here,” she used the device to tap against her temple, “the voices and thoughts of my friends and enemies alike, they’re going to rip you apart while I use your memories to get everyone else out of here.”
Slowly, she let go of his hair to gently run her hand down his head until her skin came into contact with his face, and then she felt the pull. For the first time in too long, she felt the familiar surge as she took his essence into herself. Before, when she had wanted to give up her mutation, she had occasionally felt pangs of regret for wanting to be something – someone – other than she was. She hadn’t realized how much she truly missed it before this moment. As she sucked the life out of his body, she saw him.
She saw the abuse he suffered as a child from his father, the abuse his mother had endured. The hardship of marriage to a woman didn’t trust him anymore, though with good reason. She almost felt sorry for his wife, but this wasn’t a moment for pity. Then the image of three happy girls flashed before her eyes: two almost white-blond, one with hair the color of a strong oak tree. They looked so much like their mother, except for their eyes; they shared their father’s hazel eyes.
And then the most important information floated through her consciousness and she realized with growing hope that she and Victor had finally caught a break. There were no other guards on duty tonight, just the five of them and a doctor too drunk to open his eyes. No one was going to come down and investigate anytime soon. In fact, no one would find this mess until morning.
Most importantly, she knew exactly how to use the remote in her hand. It was filled with dozens of buttons, almost all of them useless, just in case the device fell into the wrong hands. Turning towards Victor, she pushed the one located on the bottom, the only one that would do anything, and she heard that audible click again as his collar shut down. In moments, he would be on his feet again, and then, just maybe, she would be able to succumb to the pain riding up and down her spine even as she grabbed a set of keys from one of the guards’ belt.
“Can’t this damn thing go any faster?” Logan demanded as he paced between the passenger seats of the jet. He was thankful that Jubilee had come along now. He would have probably already crashed by this point.
“Chill out, Wolf Man,” Jubilee replied with a roll of her eyes and snap of her gum. She was dressed in leathers, just like the rest of them, with one slight alteration. She wore her yellow coat over it. Logan’s eyes hurt just looking at it. “We’ll be there in twenty minutes. I want to get there just as fast as you do.”
“Fuck!”
She could hear the growl vibrate loudly through the room as she opened the fifth cell. There were at least thirty cells altogether, but only fourteen were occupied, including the one she shared with Victor and now that he was awake, things should go a little faster. Of course, she hadn’t killed all the guards, so it was going to be another minute or so.
Pushing the iron door open wide, she stopped, shocked by the eyes that met hers. He was thinner than she remembered, probably from being locked in here for so long; they must have caught him straight out of Alcatraz. His hair was a bit longer than the last time she saw him, but his eyes were the same: pain and torment swimming in hate. The brown eyes that met hers were just as stunned.
“Pyro.”