The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
Barely Legal Since 2000
Author's Chapter Notes:
ok, this was going to be a smutty chapter, but it skewed in an entirely new direction i hadn't expected. i definitely plan more smut, just had to go where the plot bunny took me.
Logan, surprisingly, has the patience of a saint in this chapter. not sure if it really works with this story overall, but the characters drove me in this direction.
Logan, surprisingly, has the patience of a saint in this chapter. not sure if it really works with this story overall, but the characters drove me in this direction.
The Rogue was up on the roof, wrapped in ebony night and the blackness of her own soul, if she had one. Of that she wasn’t sure at all.
Her mind turned over the heated argument in the Professor’s study after she’d come around from Cyke knocking her silly. Iceman, Jean, and Beast were still in the med lab and Kitty had flinched as the Rogue passed her in the doorway of Xavier’s study.
She’d endured an endless lecture from Xavier and Storm. The Professor tried to probe her mind and was rewarded with an angry snarl from her and a painful mental image of a steel door, larger than any in Ft. Knox, slamming in his face, shutting him out of her thoughts. Xaiver repeatedly chastised her for hurting the beta team and trying to drain Kitty.
Sick of it all, the Rogue finally snapped. “What do you want from me? To never use my powers except in a real battle?” She’d cut to the quick of the argument in her usual no bullshit fashion. “All the others use them every day, train with them, live with them, and none of them are in here getting their ear bent with this sanctimonious shit!” Her voice lowered, no longer shouting but even angrier in its calculating coldness. “Just cut the crap and admit it…I scare you. You and I both know it.”
“But Kitty-“ Storm said.
“Got a little greedy, that’s all.” Storm flinched at the sting of those toxic words. The Rogue shrugged in a casual way that chilled Xavier to the bone.
Nodding in satisfaction at the unsettled look on Xavier’s face she pressed on, “You’re not really worried about or Jean or Beast or anyone else’s safety, so quit lying to me. You’re afraid of what I could really do if you don’t keep me on a tight leash.”
The Rogue stood up and walked to the door, ending this discussion on her own terms, “If you want me to fight with you then I’ll use my powers when and how I choose to finish a mission. If I don’t then I’m just bringing a knife to a gunfight, and that’s a liability. I’ll train with my mutation too, if you got anyone left ballsy enough to let me near them.”
She opened the door and stood in the doorway with her back to them for a moment, choosing her next words carefully. Her frame shifted as she sighed deeply then looked over her shoulder at the Professor and Storm with a hard look. “I can’t promise I won’t hurt people. It’s what I do. But I’ll try to keep the damage to a minimum.”
She strode from the room, went to her own and threw her training uniform in the garbage can. The Rogue looked at it for a good 5 minutes before she took it out again and put it in the laundry chute before pulling on a pair of baggy jeans and an old flannel shirt 3 sizes too large and her combat boots. The Rogue grabbed her smokes and a fifth of whiskey she’d bought with her fake ID then headed for the roof to clear her head.
Looking at the empty doorway Storm shivered then looked at Xavier, who sat with his fingers steepled under his chin, elbows resting on the desk. “What do we do, Charles?” she whispered.
“I don’t know that there’s anything we can do, Ororo.” The weather witch sank heavily into a chair. He continued, “The Rogue is right. If she’s to fully realize her power and her place here we have allow this, as much as it disturbs me. If not, she will leave and we cannot risk her falling into the hands of someone with less benevolent intentions.”
Storm sighed, as she knew Magneto or Mystique where just two of many who would do anything to have the Rogue in their possession. It was better if she remained here, and in order to accomplish that they’d have to let her do this her way or she’d leave them. The world was safer with her under Xavier’s roof, even if her presence screamed danger to all those within reach.
The Rogue took another long draw on her cigarette and slit her eyes against the smoke as she stared unseeing over the vast Institute grounds. For all her bravado and seeming indifference in Xavier’s office, what had happened in the DR disturbed her to the core.
She hadn’t just taken down the beta team, she’d wanted to hurt them and had without remorse. Consumed in the fight she’d lost sight of the true goal of training, to learn to control one’s mutation and use it to the benefit of others. All she’d wanted was to fight and dominate all others, see them sprawled at her feet, and benefit only herself. Seeing them fall under her hands filled her with a sense of uncontrollable power.
She not just taken down her enemies but tried to drain a helpless victim, Kitty. She was made to suck the life from all around her, everything about her make up made her a leech. And it made her sick to think that was all she was.
It wasn’t just the powers she gained, but the actual act of taking possession of someone was irresistible, addictive. Whenever she took a mind the void inside her abated temporarily losing some of its gravity. When another’s consciousness washed over her she felt like she was breathing for the first time, honestly feeling again at the remembrances of previous hugs, caresses, handshakes flashing through their joined minds.
Where ethics, morals, compassion should have bloomed in her under Xavier’s ministrations all she saw was the barren and blistered landscape of her soul, devoid of anything beautiful. Where should have sat a teenaged girl sat on the slanted roof was an woman jaded beyond her years and if she thought about it hard enough she might have realized it made her sad. But such emotion often flowed too deeply under the turbulence of her mind for her to notice, only anger floated up from the depths.
She heard the Blackbird land but ignored it. He could come or not, it didn’t matter; what she wanted held no significance. There was no room for hope or want in her life as that way laid only disappointment and regret. Her mind was too crowded to allow space for any of that.
Wolverine sat down heavily next to her on the roof. Soon as he’d was off the plane Xavier informed him what had happened and insisted Logan speak to her immediately, as he seemed the only person she even pretended to listen to. Wolverine knew that was just a façade she kept up for convenience’s sake most of the time. She was too hard-headed to hear anything the teachers said to her, too pissed, too convinced she was beyond help.
Maybe she is, maybe she isn’t he thought to himself as he examined the far-away look on her face as she gazed blankly at the glowing end of her cigarette. Either way she’s too young to give up trying. He didn’t have to be telepathic to know the Rogue was walking away from any possibility of peace in her soul.
She’d had an inviolate spark of defiance that burned like a sun, all the brighter when it shone in stark relief to the midnight of her pain at her mutation. Her flame was slowly dying each time she denied her true nature: that her mutation was a true part of her, could even be the best part if she stopped tilting her axis towards the void and found balance. She mourned her gift and allowed herself to be consumed in bleak contemplation of the life of solitude to which she felt she was condemned. Right now her mutation controlled her and she was only the vessel for it, a parasite manifestation good only for taking.
He grit his teeth, internally raging at the dying of her light. He could see the shutters lowering over her gaze a bit more every day, a familiar look he’d seen in the mirror many years ago, before he’d learned that he controlled the beast even if sometimes it was a ferocious and painful fight.
“Wanna talk about it?” he rumbled after a few minutes of silence.
The bitter laugh that escaped her scraped his nerves like flint. “Since when do we talk?” No sneer in her voice, just resignation.
He held his hand out for the whiskey, which she shared with him without a sound. She laid her forearms over her raised knees then pointed one gloved finger upwards. Around them snowflakes fell, drawn from the ambient humidity around them, too early in the fall to be anything but the mutation she’d stolen. He contemplated the flakes as they fell over them, dusting his shoulders and settling in her hair.
“Was it worth it?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know.” A ring of truth in that statement. “Xavier doesn’t think so, but he doesn’t know everything.”
He nodded and passed her back the bottle as he lit a cigar, cupping the tip to keep it from dying in the little snowfall she generated while Iceman’s power was still with her. She chain smoked cigarettes as they finished the fifth in silence, in the snow.
She finally stood up and slapped flakes from her shirt. “I’m going for a ride.” He growled low in his throat. “I’m not taking the bike, don’t feel like fighting with you right now.”
“Then I’m driving, you’ve had too much to drink.”
She laughed, a sound that fluttered away on dark wings in the cold air. “There ain’t enough booze in the world to get me drunk enough.”
“Know the feeling. C’mon.” He nodded to the roof hatch.
“Meet ya down there,” and she flashed him one quick smile, something so brief it might not have existed, and dropped off the side of the roof. He jumped too late to catch her and almost went over himself, then laughed hard at the sight of her slipping down an ice slide. Her feet crunched on the gravel as she stood up. “You coming old man?” her voice wafted up to him. He shook his head and headed for the hatch’ no way in hell he was going down that Slip ‘n’ Slide willingly.
He met her in the garage and to his surprise she was in the passenger seat of the jeep. He’d half expected to have to fight her for the wheel, but guess she telling the truth when she said she didn’t want a fight. “Where to?”
She shrugged and rested her elbow on the window sill, her chin in her hand. “No where with people. I don’t care, just drive.” So he did. Neither of them said anything, she only moved to play with the radio until she found something depressing enough to suit her. He drove them out of Westchester and into the county, just taking any road that looked deserted, twisting through the woods and heading generally west.
she spread herself wide open
to let the insects in
He chewed on his cigar at the blade sharp voice and moved his hand to change the station. She batted it away and went back to looking out the window, studying the darkness outside through the smoke of her cigarette. He drove onto a dirt track that seemed more broad horse trail than road and followed it down to the end, where it terminated a lake. He shut off the engine, but she didn’t move so he opened his own door and walked along the shoreline, the song winding through the still air as she cranked the volume.
she leaves a trail of honey
to show me where she's been
He remembered the first time he’d seen the Rogue, really seen her. She’d seemed so lost, keeping her company to herself, dancing alone in the forest to songs that seemed to have been ripped from nightmares. Her pain made music that surrounded her and shouted she was defective.
He knew now she wasn’t lost; she’d never found herself after she manifested.
she has the blood of reptile
just underneath her skin
She wasn’t inhuman, she just felt she was something less than everyone and everything around her.
She’s more he thought to himself. If she just knew it, felt something real for once instead of always making it so pain is all she gets.
She’d that from him and everyone else in the mansion in spades. Xavier wanted her potential and compliance. Wolverine had just wanted her body and defiance to match him in ferocity. They’d both used her to their own purposes.
And she used in return, taking from them anything she could to put herself back on even footing again, wresting control from the two most powerful men she knew.
“Y’know I can hear you.” He started, so deep in his thoughts he hadn’t heard her come up behind him. He looked over his shoulder at her. “In here.” She tapped one finger to her temple. “You make it better, make the others shut up.” She gestured again to her head then stepped to stand next to him a few feet away.
seeds from a thousand others
drip down from within
“I do?” Wolverine was surprised. “If anything I figured I’d make it worse, be all cussing and violent and shit.” He wanted to regret it, but he’d happily given her his mutation after the first few times she stole it from him. She wouldn’t have listened anyways if he’d told her about the beast within; she had one of her own. Maybe they kept each other company in her head.
Her lip quirked up in a mirthless smile. “Oh, you do that too, but it helps in a fight. When the others get loud you kick their asses to the back of my brain.”
“Yeh?” He’d never given much thought to the aspect of the Rogue’s mutation in which she kept the memories and sometimes the personalities and feelings of the people she’d touched, it seemed secondary to her powerful draining. “What happens to you when that goes down?”
“I’m there…I sit in a corner of my head and let you handle it. When you’re done you kinda fade away and it’s just me again.” She picked up a rock and skipped it across the water’s surface. “Most people up there are mad at me, so it’s nice to have someone on my side.”
“I’m on your side?” he said, turning over this new information in his head.
“Yeh.”
oh my beautiful liar
oh my precious whore
“C’mere,” he reached an arm out, but she shifted away.
“I ain’t in the mood,” she sighed.
“It ain’t about that for fuck’s sake.” Before she could protest further, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her back and holding her to his chest. She didn’t fight, she didn’t pull away, just stood there woodenly with her hands at her sides.
my disease my infection
I am so impure
After what felt like hours she softened somewhat, at least brought her arms up to rest at his waist, her neck bending to fit into the hollow of his shoulder. “I am y’know, diseased, just a fucked up gene.”
“I’d argue with you, but I doubt you’d listen,” he said, with his chin resting on the top of her head.
devils speak of the ways
in which she'll manifest
“It’s possible there’s no limit to how many powers I could take at once. Xavier thinks I’m dangerous.”
“Are you?”
angels bleed from the
tainted touch of my caress
“I could kill you right now, if I held on long enough.”
“Yeh, you could. Would ya?”
“Do you want to die Wolverine?” Her breath stilled against his chest.
“Not today. Rain check?”
He felt her cheek shift against his shirt, knew she smiled.
need to contaminate to alleviate
this loneliness
“When I touch them they’re with me in a way they could never be outside my head. Never would want to be.”
“You lonely darlin’?”
She stiffened against him and pulled her head back to look up at him. “And if I was?” she said defensively.
“It’d just mean you’re human…well, human as folks like us get.” He rested his chin on her head again and she tucked herself back under his arm.
I now know
the depths I reach are limitless
He lowered his head and spoke into her ear, “I’m with you here and there,” as he tapped his finger on her head.
She grumbled, “You’d think with two dozen people partying it up in my mind I’d have more than just a one-man bench.”
He laughed, “Darlin’ ain’t I enough?” and she laughed too. “Seriously, how many of those people let you touch them? How many of them you just took it from?”
“All of them.”
“Nah, everyone but me. I let ya.” She shifted against him, pulling away again, but he just muffled her effort with his greater strength. “Ok, not at first.” He grinned down at her, “But after, you were welcome to it.”
This time she did managed to push herself away and stepped back from him, her face turned from his as she looked over the lake again.
He let her go; this was the crux of the thing.
She bent down and picked up another rock and tried to skip it, but it sank with a splash instead.
She wouldn’t look at him, “Only because I let you have sex with me. It was just a deal.” It wasn’t an accusation, just a flatly stated fact.
“Yeh, you let me….when you could’ve just taken my mutation whenever you wanted, snuck up on me, you’re pretty good at that.” She didn’t smile. “But you wanted something more than just my healing and the ability to growl good.”
She didn’t say anything for a minute and it started to snow again, an unconscious manifestation of the struggle within her. Suddenly she darted forward and shot her hands out at the lake. Wolverine started towards her, then stopped when the frozen power she’d stolen from Iceman spread across the water with a groan of splintering ice and small waves frozen at their peaks. Even after the surface solidified, she continued to pump her power into it, pushing into the depths until she’d frozen it all the way to the bottom.
Spent, she fell to her knees gasping. “I wanted control,” she spat, like it was poison on her tongue.
He stayed where he was and watched the sable and white flow around her face, which was a tight mask.
oh my beautiful liar
oh my precious whore
He walked over to stand next to her kneeling form. “Yeh, that too. But you really just want someone to give a shit about you, not your mutation or what you could do for them.”
She didn’t look at him as her shoulders slumped. “Liar. You don’t care, you want to use me just like everyone else,” she muttered.
“I admit it,” he couldn’t dispute the truth, “I did at first, I wanted what you offered and nothing more. I told you it was a game you couldn’t win.”
He put a hand on her shoulder and when she didn’t move he pulled her up to face him and took her shoulders in his hands. She kept her eyes hidden under waves of chocolate and platinum.
“I ain’t playing no more. If you want my help, if you want me, just ask and I’ll give it to ya. It’s not always about taking.”
She still wouldn’t look at him. “Is it always about control for you? Is it that hard to just ask, Rogue?”
At her name she finally looked at him and her eyes weren’t angry or dark but conflicted. “I don’t know how. It’s weak to need something from anyone.” Her voice was strained with suppressed emotion
“Just say it darlin’.” He held his breath, waiting to see if she would finally let down one of her walls just a few inches, reach out to someone for once.
“I just want to feel anything, something real, something true. Can you show me that?” she breathed.
Without hesitation, regardless of what would happen next, he pressed his lips to hers almost chastely, without any thought to conquering her, taking her body. He thought only of how she looked on the roof with snow in her hair. How she ran with him in the woods matching his steps, the sound of her voice when she said his name, the grin of triumph on her face when she made him tap out in the gym, her dancing in the woods.
He held on as long as he could through the agony that ripped through his body, not once regretting the pain because he freely gave it, so for once she didn’t have to take.
Chapter End Notes:
next chappie smut returns, no idea how though b/c this chapter took me off guard myself. but it won't be honey and roses, i know that.