Rogue found herself aimlessly wandering the streets of New York City, trying to come to grips with her new situation. After fifteen long years, she’d found Logan, but he didn’t remember her or anything about himself. Now he saw her as a friend, someone to protect, and perhaps be pitied for her crippling mutation. His affections lay elsewhere and he had taken off to find traces of his past.
“Shit-head only had ta ask me,” she muttered, walking down a crumbling sidewalk. Suddenly, she sensed something in the wind, and turned down darkened alleyway toward the familiar presence. In the darkness waited two slightly inebriated and profoundly disturbed young men. As she approached, they started their catcalls, but she ignored them, pressing on. One grabbed her arm and forced her into the wall, pressing his body against hers. “Hey baby, wanna have a good time?”
Rogue’s face was emotionless as her reply, “Get your hands off me or die.”
Both of the men chuckled at that, one gritting his teeth as he hissed, “Watch what you say, bitch. You ain’t in no situation to be such a cunt.”
The man who was holding her against the wall harshly grabbed her breast and started to grind himself against her. Her eyes glazed over with a feral fury as her arm shot out and landed a heavy blow on the man’s chest. She smirked in satisfaction as she heard a rib crack and watched as he staggered back against the opposite wall.
The second man pulled out a knife and shouted, “You fucking bitch” as he tried to slash her face. She easily dogged the swipe, then struck her knee into his sternum. She then round-house kicked him in the head, sending him to the pavement. She saw his eyes roll back and smelled the blood coming from where his head hit the ground. The first man regained his footing and looked between his friend and the girl, face filled with white-hot rage.
“I did warn you, didn’t I?” She asked sardonically as he charged her. As his fist was about to connect with her face, she quickly crouched and jabbed him in the gut with her elbow. He doubled over in pain, howling, bringing his head to chest height. She grabbed his head on either side and with a quick jolt, snapped his neck. She watched him fall to the ground, feeling annoyed. The adrenaline was still surging through her veins and she had no way to relieve it. She sighed in frustration and kept walking towards the familiar presence.
Two blocks latter, she came across a sleazy, broken-down venue. “Figures he’d be here,” she said, half hoping he’d hear her. Pulling out a fake ID that she knew the bouncer couldn’t care less about, she wandered into the strip club. The smell of cheap beer, sweat, and arousal hung heavy in the air. She strutted to a small table with a large man sitting at it and pulled up a chair.
“You cut your hair,” she said to him.
He growled at her. “First you hassle me about growing it out, now for cutting it short. You’re such a fucking bitch.”
“So I’ve been told.” The waitress wandered over and she ordered a bottle of Wild Turkey. He smiled at that.
Victor sniffed at her and inquired softly enough that no one else could hear him, “Hey, you just come from a kill?”
She gave him a cruel smile, “Yeah . . . they didn’t put up much of a fight, though.”
Victor chuckled deeply and returned the feral smile. The waitress brought over her bottle of bourbon and a glass, and Rogue quickly poured herself a drink, while Victor gulped down his whiskey and ogled the blond woman jiggling her implants onstage. After a few minutes of silence and a few drinks consumed by either party, Rogue inquired, “So, you okay Vic?”
“Do I look like I’m fucking okay?”
“As good as you ever do. That ain’t saying much.”
“Says the sour bitch that can’t even get her man to touch her.”
A low growl emerged from her and she shot him a warning glance. “Low blow, Victor.”
He could smell the anger waft off of her. Clearly wanting a fuck that night, not a fight, he lowered his eyes. “I half-way thought that if he just saw you, it would bring ‘em around.”
“Well, it didn’t, did it? I’m just poor, helpless Marie to him now. He can barely see me past the boner he has for that fucking red-headed bitch.”
“He’ll come around,” Victor said, feeling uncomfortable with words of solace coming from his mouth.
“No.” Rogue stated bitterly. “He won’t. And I can’t force him too.”
Victor was back to watching the naked women again, but could smell the tears coming from the girl next to him. He was simultaneously annoyed at her for interrupting his debauchery and feeling a strange urge to comfort her. He grumbled a little and coldly asked her, “So what the hell you gonna do? The Rogue I know don’t just sit by and watch shit happen to people she cares about.”
“Ever think that he’s better off not knowing?” She asked in a barely audible whisper.
“Fuck no.”
She sniffed and took another sip of her drink. “He’s off trying to piece together his past. He thinks it will make everything okay. But I’ve seen him, how he’s trying to be now. He likes playing hero, likes to think he’s helping people. I felt it, when I absorbed him on the Statue of Liberty. He thought he was sacrificing himself for someone innocent and pure, and he thought it was worth it, he thought I was worth it. What happens if he finds out who he really is, who I really am? He can’t play hero anymore, he can’t be the good guy.” She looked bitterly at her drink as Victor stared at her, completely forgetting that he was surrounded by naked women. “That’s why he likes her, you know . . . Jean. She’s what he wants now. He wants to be the hero who gets the beautiful, smart heroine.”
“Rogue . . .”
She turned to look at him, and he was surprised to see more determination than bitterness in her eyes. “I can’t take that from him, Victor. I can’t give him his past because it will destroy any hope he has for the future.”
“I ain’t giving up on him.”
“Let it go, Victor. Let him go.”
“No!” He shouted, slamming his fist on the table. Rogue grabbed her bottle of Wild Turkey before it could fall to the floor and ignored all the stares from fellow patrons. Sabertooth’s bared teeth brushed against Rogue’s ear as he growled at her, almost inaudibly, “Where’s your fucking loyalty, girl? He belongs with us, my brother belongs here, with us. And I will find a way to get him back.” Victor abruptly got up, and before Rogue could turn to look for him, he had left the strip club.
She stared at the bourbon in her hand, suddenly glad of her previous insight. Tonight, she would need the whole bottle.
Despite finishing the bottle of Wild Turkey in record time, Rogue still found herself sober by the time she returned home to the Mansion at daybreak. Without Wolverine there, no one was able to detect her overdue return to the school. She briefly pondered the lax security at the mutant school, but determined it was none of her damn business. She took a quick shower and settled into bed shortly before her roommates started to stir.
She managed to get a couple of minutes sleep before she was awakened by an annoying, hyperactive, yellow-clad blur. “Rogue! Ohmygodgirl, you’ve got to get up! Field trip today, remember?!”
“Fuck. My. Life.” She grumbled, silently praying that Wolverine would come back soon, and that she could stop living life like a mopey, hormonal teenager. Although what exactly she would do, or who she would be upon his return she didn’t know.
There was some entertainment value, if nothing else, in acting like a semi-normal teenager. She had agreed to be Bobby’s girlfriend a few weeks previous, but she wasn’t sure why. Perhaps she just wanted the experience. He genuinely seemed to like her, and while he seemed like a nice boy, he was just that – a boy. His antics, along with his best friend’s, at the field trip proved that to her. Sure, he may have good intentions, but he scored zero out of ten in the common sense department.
‘Using your powers in a museum full of people with security cameras all around ain’t exactly inconspicuous, Bobby-boy.’ She rolled her eyes at Iceman as he was being reprimanded by Professor Xavier. ‘If I were his teacher, he would be in much bigger trouble. Ug, all these responsible, ethical types are making me think like them. Ick. Or whatever teenagers say these days to express disgust. I’m pretty sure they don’t say grody to the max anymore. Well, expect for Jubes.’
Back at the school, Rogue tried, for what felt like her to be the millionth time, to try and be a teenager. Which involved being silly, frivolous, and flirty. ‘It’s a nice change of pace,’ she thought, while trying to thumb wrestle Bobby with her gloves on. He moved in for a kiss.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” Was all she could think to say.
“I’m not afraid,” he responded. She was taken aback by the sweet, handsome boy. Feeling a slight stirring in her heart, she didn’t stop him again as he leaned in to kiss her. Until, that is, she heard the unmistakable sound of a motorcycle pull up. She gave Bobby a big grin and sprinted to the door.
Logan came sauntering back into Xavier’s School like he owned the place. Rogue couldn’t help but smile at the fact that he was still a cocky bastard, and she greeted him with a tentative hug, which he returned.
“Miss me kid?” He asked with a smirk.
“Not really.” Two could play at this game. They had done it for years, even if he didn’t know it. Besides, at this point, she felt that the amnesiac version of him in her life was almost as painful as not having him around at all. Almost.
Bobby came up and introduced himself to Logan as her boyfriend. She had to stop herself from laughing. She just grinned as Iceman tried to assert himself to the Wolverine. ‘What an adorable little fool, my so-called boyfriend is.’
The reunion was short-lived, as Jean breezed into the room and stole the spotlight. The longing, worshipful look in Logan’s eyes when he looked at her was like a dagger in Rogue’s heart. And so she was grateful when Bobby dragged her away from the scene.
With a distinctly unfeminine grunt, Rogue lifted the large pot of boiling water off the burner and carefully toted it to the bathroom. Balancing the pot of the edge of the cracked enamel tub, she tilted the bubbling water into the basin, mixing it with the cool water already waiting therein. Testing the temperature a few times, she managed to find the perfect balance, and quickly stepped out of her worn, yet comfortable, woolen dress.
Sighing contentedly, she submerged her tired and dirty body in the water. Closing her eyes, her mind drifted away from her yet-unfinished chores and to the surrounding mountains, where the snow was falling upon the mighty pines and rugged peaks. Amongst those tree, the man she loved would be wandering, coming home to her.
A slight creek of the floorboards put her on alert, but she settled back into the warm water once she had discerned the scent of the intruder. She heard the slow, deliberate steps of a predator coming up to her.
He pressed a loving kiss on her forehead, “Hey, Darlin, looking comfy there.”
She hummed in agreement. “You managed to find anything, sugar?”
“Yeah, got us dinner.”
She opened her eyes and looked him over. Logan was dressed in layers of flannel, denim, and leather. His hair was more of a mess than usual, and flecks of blood and flakes of snow covered him.
She gave him a wicked smile. “You look cold and tired. Care to warm up with me?”
He returned her wicked smile and raised her an arched eyebrow. “I’m cold, but I ain’t tired,” he said roughly, stripping off his many layers.
“Sure ya ain’t,” she replied mockingly.
“Guess I’ll just have to prove it to ya.” He stepped into the tub and claimed her lips with his own.
Rogue gazed at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Her hair, still wet from her shower, clung to her skin. She tried to visualize what her young, soft body would look like if all the scars she had earned in her life had remained with her. She smirked ‘Now that would give me a real reason to cover myself from head to toe.’ The smirk disappeared as she glanced at the three physical manifestations of her troubled life: the white stripe in her hair, the slightly raised, off-color scar on her lower abdomen, and the tags that Logan had given her, that had perpetually been hanging from her neck ever since the day he had departed the school.
Two of these wounds had been forced upon her, but she felt the weight of the last one most acutely. The remembrance of her loss, the man Logan once was, was a scar that was embodied in that hunk of metal. Yet she willingly bore it, accompanying her bodily wounds. She took a deep breath in, ‘Now it’s time. Time to let it go, let them go, let him go. If I told Vic to do it, I better take my own advice.’ she told herself, and she walked back to her bed, and wrapped the dogtag around her wrist and managed to fall into a dreamless sleep.
Then all Hell broke loose. In the chaos of the attack on the school, she managed find John and Bobby. As the heavily armed soldiers closed in, Wolverine came in with his usual bravado and led them to safety. Logan hurried them into one of the escape tunnels before shutting it with him still in the hallway. “If you want to shoot me, shoot me!” She could hear him roar.
‘Shit. The Wolverine has taken over. We’re in full-on feral berserker mode.’ Rogue had seen it before, but this was the worst timing she’d ever seen.
She kept running down the escape tunnel, but the wrongness of the situation hit her full force. ‘Those fuckers knew too much, they knew who we were, where we were, when to strike. They might even know how to take out the Wolverine.’
Coming to a sudden halt, she yelled to the two boys “Wait, wait, you guys, we got to do something. They’re going to kill him.” Bobby relented, and the returned to the hallway, where a strangely non-violent confrontation was taking place. Bobby quickly put an ice wall between Wolverine and the soldiers.
“Logan, come on, let’s go.”
He didn’t pay any attention to her. His entire focus was on the man to whom he had been speaking. She only had been able to get a glimpse of him, but she didn’t think she recognized him.
“Logan!” Bobby yelled, finally forcing the feral to look at the two students.
“Go, I’ll be fine.”
“But we won’t.” ‘They probably have this place completely surrounded by now.’
Logan looked torn, but followed them back down the passageway, where they met up with John and hotwired one of Cyclops’s cars.
For once, the fire-starter asked the right question. “What the Hell was that back there?”
“Stryker. His name is Stryker.” Wolverine said enigmatically.
“Who is he?” Rogue inquired gently.
“I can’t remember,” he said bitterly.
‘But you still remember his name. Whoever he is, whoever he was, he stuck in your mind more than I ever did.’ She could feel her lower lip quiver, but refused to show her dejection. She unwrapped the dogtag from around her wrist, and held it out to him. “Here, this is yours,” she said, dropping it into his hand.
‘Now if only I could get my heart back from you in return.’
“I really do hate gutting bunnies.”
“They’re rabbits, darlin’, not bunnies,” said Wolverine disdainfully.
“Either way, I still hate gutting them. So much work for so little meat,” she commented, skillfully taking out the still warm intestinal track of the dead rabbit. “Plus, they are kind of cute.”
He rolled his eyes, “I’m not going back out in that weather to get you a damn deer.”
“Fine,” she said haughtily, putting down her knife, “I’ll go and get one myself.”
He watched her wipe off her bloodied hands, put on her coat and grab a shotgun from the wall. As she opened the door he yelled back at her, “Go if you want to, just don’t expect me to come bail you out when you can’t feel your toes anymore.”
“Just finish gutting the bunny,” she said slamming the door behind her.
“It’s a rabbit!”
Bobby’s parent’s house was the quintessential suburban American home, white picket fences and everything. It intrigued Rogue and turned her stomach all at the same time. No one was home, so Bobby led Rogue into his bedroom and managed to get her some real clothes. He even turned around when she was dressing.
‘Aw, what a gentleman.’
But the look in his eyes when she turned around was not gentlemanly. A combination of affection and desire played in his eyes, and Rogue’s heart wrenched. ‘It’s been so long since anyone looked at me like that.’
“You won’t hurt me,” he promised, as he came in to kiss her.
His lips were cold, but she surrendered to the kiss all the same.
When she backed away, she realized what he had done, covered his lips with a thin coating of ice so that her powers wouldn’t take effect. ‘Damn, that’s one smart boy.’ She smiled and let him kiss her again, this time longer and deeper.
‘This feels good, so good. But wrong.’ She felt herself starting to panic, despite enjoying the kiss. ‘It shouldn’t be with him.’ A nagging voice echoed through her head. She felt her mutation kick in, despite her best efforts in trying to keep the irrational dread at bay. ‘It should be Logan’ She kept kissing him, until a flood of thoughts hit her, and Bobby pushed her away.
“Ah-ah’m sorry.”
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck. My subconscious won’t even let me enjoy a kiss? God damn it, Wolvie, you certainly have ruined me for any other man.’ She glanced over at the recovering Bobby, ‘Or boy.’
She was alone in a snowstorm, bundled up tightly, but still starting to freeze. Despite her honed hunting skills, she’d seen neither hide nor hair of any large game. She had hoped to have come across a deer, not only to show up Wolverine, but keep her well fed for the next few weeks. She was getting tired of her paltry meals; rabbits were all fur and no meat. She knew when she was beat, and the weather had beaten her. She was taking one last survey of the surrounding forest and then she would head back to the cabin. She tensed as she sensed something on the wind. Inhaling deeply, her stomach dropped as she realized she was not longer the hunter but the hunted.
Something big was out there. Something not quiet human, but not entirely animal. Deciding on the direct approach, she yelled out into the fading winter light, “I know you’re out there. Ya wanna come out? ‘Cause it’s too damn cold ta play hind and seek.”
A throaty laugh echoed across the mountain valley, but it gave her no indication of where it originated. She spun around, hoping to find some sign of where her stalker lay.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw him, emerging from behind an immense Subalpine Fir, making no attempt to further conceal himself. ‘Not that anything less than a tank could conceal someone that big.’
He truly was the largest man that Rogue had ever set eyes on. She reckoned he must be well over seven feet tall, and composed of more muscles than humans should feasibly have. Covered in furs from a dozen or so animals, and sporting long, wild dirty-blond hair, he strutted forward, with bared razor-sharp canines.
“Shit.”
For a minute there, Rogue was actually happy about the ordeal that had taken Logan from her and imbued him with an adamantium skeleton. Without that impenetrable metal encasing his brain, she didn’t know how much damage the Boston cop’s bullet would have done. And she couldn’t exactly perform first aid while Pyro was attacking the police with fireballs.
‘Damn kid really lives up to his name, doesn’t he?’ She thought while taking off her glove and using her mutation on him to quell the fires. The appearance of the X-Men’s jet was a welcome sight, even if it did contain a very strange looking blue man with a strong German accent.
Her relief was short lived, as two military planes began to at attack the jet, and Rogue fumbled with her seatbelt. ‘Stupid gloves.’ A missile hit, and she could feel herself being sucked out due to the explosive decompression.
She was free-falling. The land beneath her spread out like an eternal plain. She tried to scream, but the onrush of wind stole her voice. Her panic suddenly ceased, and she looked at the beautiful blue sky above her. ‘Not a bad way to go, if you have to.’
There was a flash of black smoke, smell of sulfur, and then the wind stopped. The horrible sensation of falling continued, but she realized she was somehow back in the jet, with someone holding her.
The descent slowed, and they came to a gentle stop. Rogue saw that it was the strange blue man who was holding her, who must have saved her. She looked up through the windshield of the jet, to see an elderly man in impressive cape and ridiculous helmet holding out his hand. She groaned, ‘Oy, this guy.’
The X-Men, Magneto, and Mystique had a conference, away from herself, Bobby, Pyro, and the blue gentleman that they called Nightcrawler. She didn’t know what they were planning, and for the moment, she didn’t want to know. She’d had all the adventure and near-death experiences that she could stand in the last twenty-four hours. But she did want to know who that Stryker guy was, and what he had to do with Wolverine. She wandered over to Nightcrawler, and gave him her thanks.
He bashfully accepted. She instantly liked him.
“Can you hear what they’re saying?” She indicated at the X-Men and Brotherhood, who were standing around a campfire.
“I could take a look,” he said mischievously. She smiled and nodded enthusiastically.
She watched from afar as he deftly teleported and hung by has back feet and tail to eavesdrop on them. ‘I think I found me a new friend. Possibly one who can help me unravel this mystery.’ Then she cursed aloud when she realized he’d been spotted. ‘Possibly not.’
She wandered off and started to set up camp, since they seemed to be set on spending the night there. While putting up the first tent, she spied Wolverine and Jean share a passionate kiss, and she had to turn away.
‘That’s what my life has become, watching from afar as things happen around me. Watching others be adventurous, seeing others fall in love. I swear I didn’t used to be this way. Was I?’
She retired to her tent. Rogue rarely pulled up any of the memories she had acquired through absorptions. The decades had taught her to file them away, uninvestigated. After Logan’s disappearance, she had looked into his memories for any indication of who had taken him, to no avail. She had kept looking into his memories, holding tight to the only vestige of him that she still had.
It had been a crutch, and she had realized it years ago. Eventually, she cut herself off, thinking it better to be deprived of him than falling into his memory, his mind, and abandon reality completely. But tonight she opened his mind, latching onto the first thought of his that bubbled forth from the remnants of her many absorptions of him.
Half-asleep, he nuzzled a soft, warm belly. The air around him was crisp, the sheet around him flimsy, but the body he was wrapped around was the closest thing he knew to home. He listened to her deep breathing and slow heart beat, recognizing that she was truly asleep. He took a deep breath in, relishing the calm she exuded, the way her scent embraced him, soothing the beast and enrapturing the man.
“Anna,” he breathed out as he drifted into slumber.
She snapped out the memory upon hearing movement outside. She peeked through the small opening she had left in her tent to see Jean sneaking into Logan’s still lighted tent. Hold back a sob, she crawled into her sleeping bag, and held her pillow tight around her ears in order to block out any sounds that Logan and Jean might make. Rocking herself back and forth, she hummed aloud, and didn’t even try to stop the tears from flowing.
‘He’s mine. He was mine. He should be mine.’
“What you doin’ out here all alone, little girl?” The giant man said menacingly.
“I ain’t no little girl,” Rogue replied strongly. She refused to show any fear to this man, no matter how scary he was.
He let out a low laugh as he stalked closer to her. She lowered her gun and aimed it at his head. “Not another step, mister!”
The man stopped and smiled at her. It was the kind of smile that could curdle milk. “Go ahead frail, try it.”
Neither of them moved, they just stood several dozen feet apart, waiting for the other to make the first move. Rogue gulped. He charged.
With incredible speed, he set upon her and she fired the shotgun. It flew out of her hands a second later, and she could only pray that she had hit him. She found herself with her back on the snowy ground, the large man bending over her, giant teeth bared.
She tore off her glove and managed to touch his face, just as he grasped her neck. Willing her powers on, she began to suck out his strength, and a spider-web of veins appeared upon his face.
“This is me, trying it,” she spat out at him, as his pupils dilated and he stumbled back. And then the full force of his mind hit her.
They set out for Alkali Lake the next morning. The X-Men donned their leather suits, which looked incredibly hot, in more ways than one. Logan dismissed her complaint that she didn’t have one. Magneto then tried to goad her, but seemed genuinely surprised when she silently threatened him with her powers. ‘I guess age doesn’t bring wisdom, otherwise you’d know not to provoke someone who has nothing to lose.’
Once they arrived at the lake, Rogue was left with Bobby and John to ‘guard’ the jet.
They sat in silence for several minutes.
Eventually, she turned to John. “Why did you do that? Back in Boston? You didn’t have to go ballistic on them like that.”
John huffed, “They had just shot your precious Wolverine, I’d have thought you’d want some retribution.”
“This ain’t about me. Why did you do it?”
He looked her in the eyes. “You absorbed me, right? Shouldn’t you know?”
“Her powers don’t work like that,” retorted Bobby.
‘Oh yes they do. But no one at the mansion knows about it.’ She eyed John suspiciously. They sat in uncomfortable silence, watching the clock and wondering about the fate of their friends.
John got up and grabbed his coat. “I’m sick of this kid’s table shit, I’m going in there.”
‘You’re telling me. No, no, be responsible.’ She reminded him, “John, they told us to stay here.”
“You always do as you’re told?” He spat back at her before descending the ramp down to the snowy land below.
‘I wouldn’t be called Rogue if I did.’ She turned to the cockpit behind her.
The ferocity of even Wolverine’s feral nature was feeble in comparison to this man’s. Sabertooth. The rage, the lust for blood, the feeling of abandonment. He fumed, wanted to destroy her, from without or from within. He didn’t really care. She smelled all wrong. A combination of things that couldn’t be. They mocked him.
Sabertooth did not like things he could not understand. He destroyed anything that dared to mock him.
Through her absorption-inspired rage, she could see him stagger towards her.
With all her mental strength, she tried to push the psyche of Sabertooth aside. Only to find yet another voice—quieter, but just as deadly. Victor. Victor Creed.
“Logan’s brother,” Rogue whispered. Sabertooth froze.
“How do you know Jimmy?” He asked coldly.
She looked at the large man. She really couldn’t see any physical resemblance between him and Logan, but one of the voices, she couldn’t tell if it was Victor or Logan, whispered to her that they were half brothers. He looked at her intently, more interested now that murderous.
“He’s my, um, mate, I guess you could say.”
He scoffed, “You look pretty scrawny, even to be the runt’s mate.”
“Almost took you down, didn’t I?”
He let out a low, warning growl. His hand shot out to her, but she was shocked to find it was not an attack, he was giving her a hand up. She took it, and he yanked her up, almost pulling her arm out of her socket while he was at it.
“Come on, frail, we gotta go have a talk with my brother.”
Her skull felt like it was collapsing, pushing against her brain. She crumbled to the floor of the jet, only to see Bobby do the same. The pain was unbearable; she thought her mind might literally explode. She reached for Bobby’s hand and held tight, thankful for the presence of someone who cared about her in what might be her final moments.
And then the pain stopped as quickly as it started. She felt Bobby grab hold of her and give her a big, loving hug.
“Something’s wrong, they need us,” she whispered to him.
He hesitantly nodded, and she sat herself in the pilot’s seat and started to identify the controls. It took her several minutes and several false starts before she got the jet running, but she managed to gain lift and fly it over to where she saw the X-Men running through the snow. Her hands were so tight on the stirring column, she didn’t know if an adamantium crowbar could pry them off. Which was probably part of the reason her landing was less than graceful.
‘Shit!’ She screamed internally, once she realized that she damaged the plane. The X-Men and mutant children were already hurrying on board and she turned over her seat to Storm. She sat in shocked silence as the jet refused to fly and the dam began to break. And then Jean sacrificed herself to save them.
She sat dumbfounded as Cyclops and Wolverine together mourned the loss of the woman they both loved. Rogue felt for both of them, for she had been in their place before. There was nothing she could say, nothing she could do, to erase that pain. She knew it stayed with you forever. She knew it could even destroy you.
Rogue found herself in Washington, wearing the very X-Men uniform that Logan had mockingly said she wasn’t ready for. She stood beside Cyclops and listened as Xavier talked about the casualties of war. Scott’s lip quivered, and she held out her hand, to give his a quick squeeze. He didn’t flinch from her touch.
“What the fuck did you do to her?”
“I’m fine, Logan.”
“Calm down, runt” Victor snarled, “I didn’t touch your little pet.”
The Wolverine’s bone claws were out in a blink of an eye, and he waved them menacingly toward his brother. “Rogue is my woman. You got me, bub? If anything happens to her, I’ll have your head on a pike.”
Sabertooth’s claws were bared, as he stared down his little brother, “You think you can threaten me, Jimmy-boy?”
“Well if this ain’t one dandy family reunion.” Rogue said, irritated at the brothers’ hostility.
Logan glanced over at her. “He’s always been like this, a psychotic bastard.”
“Technically, you’re the bastard,” Victor remarked.
“Enough!” Rogue yelled. “Logan, Victor didn’t hurt me. He just couldn’t figure out how I smelled like you, and a feral at the same time.” He gave her a confused look, and she tapped her head as a response to his unasked question. “Victor, Logan would never say this, but he’s been looking you for as long as you’ve been looking for him. So, both of you, just relax. We’re a fam . . . er, pack. Now let’s have something to eat and talk.”
“Fine.”
“Fine. What are we having for dinner, frail?”
Rogue grimaced at Sabertooth’s tone, as well as Logan’s attitude. “Bunny stew.”
Rogue sucked in a breath and dialed the only number she knew by heart.
After two rings, the sound of a crowded bar assaulted her, and over that she heard a deep “What is it?”
“I found out who did it, who took Logan from us.”
“Who is the fucker? I’ll turn him inside out.”
She chuckled, “A little late for that Victor. He’s at the bottom of a lake now.”
Sabertooth growled, “Jimmy damn well have better made him suffer.”
“Sounds like he did. Drowning ain’t a good way to go.”
“Well, who was he? What the fuck did they do to him? Are there any more of them out there that I should hunt down.”
“The guy’s name was Stryker, he wanted Logan for a weapon, just as we has figured. As for the last bit, I really don’t know. You know how Wolverine is, gut first and ask questions later. But he seemed to get enough answers to be satisfied.”
“You satisfied, girl?”
“Hell no. But what can I do about it?”
“Where did they take him, maybe I can get someone to get some info from the place.”
“Won’t work, it’s all underwater now. We barely escaped with our lives as the place flooded.” Rogue grimaced,
“Some of us didn’t survive.”
“Aww,” Victor said patronizingly, “did one of the little X-Men die?”
Rogue stiffened. “Yes. Jean.”
Victor was silent; never a good sign. “That’s good for you, ain’t it?” He finally asked.
“No, no it’s not. I hated her for being the object of Logan’s affection, but I didn’t want her to die. Despite everything, she was a good person. And it’s not like her being gone will make him love her any less.” She added bitterly, “I should know.”
“Fuck, you’re still not on this ‘We should let him go’ thing, are you?”
She let out a mirthless laugh, “Maybe I am. Let’s see how well it works out.”
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Assault trigger warning
A/N: I borrowed one thing from Origins, but otherwise I’m only taking into account the original trilogy. Thank you to everyone who reviewed, even thought that first chapter is a little confusing. Hopefully, this one is a little less so. Once again, ‘Internal dialogue’ and flashbacks denoted thusly.
A/N: I borrowed one thing from Origins, but otherwise I’m only taking into account the original trilogy. Thank you to everyone who reviewed, even thought that first chapter is a little confusing. Hopefully, this one is a little less so. Once again, ‘Internal dialogue’ and flashbacks denoted thusly.
Chapter End Notes:
There’s a whole lot of Sabertooth in this one, I know. Get used to it, I like him, and he’s a big part of this story. Be forewarned, next chapter has my first ever attempt at writing smut.
Random fact: I wrote some of this while my students were taking a practice AP test – I fed off their anguish.
Random fact: I wrote some of this while my students were taking a practice AP test – I fed off their anguish.