Where ever she was it was too damn bright. She wanted to lift her hand to cover her lids and block the light but it didn’t move. She tested various other parts of her body and all were too heavy and lethargic to obey her commands. Her only choice was to tell whoever was making all that noise to turn the lights off, but the only sound that her mouth could make was a less than angelic sounding, “Ugh…”
“Well, good morning, Rogue.”
She recognized Beast’s comforting voice and instantly relaxed. She tried her mouth again, since at the moment it seemed to be the most talented.
She managed a “fucking lights...”, although it sounded a lot more like her previous ‘ugh’.
Beast chuckled at her and turned off half the overhead lights in the med lab. That was one thing she loved about Beast. She never had to explain herself or her actions to him, he always understood. He was like the teddy bear version of Logan.
“I’m glad you’re awake, you had us all extremely worried,” He was standing beside the bed now, patting her arm through the sheet covering her. With the lights off she found opening her eyes tolerable and looked up at the good doctor. The image of the big, furry blue man in a pristine white lab coat and glasses always cracked her up. “Do you want me to go get the others? I know they desperately want to come see you.”
“Did we get ‘em?”
He shook his head and frowned, “No, I’m sorry. When we got to you, you were already on the ground and there was no sign of him in site. Gambit, Storm, and Marrow looked all over.”
For as weak as her body felt she had no problem creating enough anger to tightly clench her fist under the sheet.
“I’ll go get Scott,” Beast nodded and made his way out of the electronic med lab door. She groaned and braced herself for the ‘what the hell happened, why’d you let him get away’ speech from the fearless leader. Not to mention the embarrassment of have that annoying little slip of a mutant beat her.
She was slowly convincing her body to sit up when the team filed into the room. All of them. Scott led the way, of course, followed by Logan, Hank, Jubilee, Pete, Kitty, Gambit, Bobby, Storm, and the new member of the team, Marrow. She gave Hank a polite smile when he stood beside her and again patted her arm. She figured he was apologizing for bring in the army. Scott made his way to the other side of her bed and she couldn’t help the smile on her face when Logan growled then pushed him out of the way. Scott relinquished the prime bed position and stood at the foot instead.
“How are you feeling, Rogue?” Scott asked her, although he was glaring at Logan.
“Oh ahm just peachy. Someone wanna tell me what exactly that lil’ twerp did to me?”
The group looked around to each other and she followed their glaze, wondering why no one was saying anything. Beast was the one to finally speak up, “Well, Rogue, basically he electrocuted you. You’ve been out for a little over a day.”
Confusion spread across her face as she turned her attention to her best friend. “You didn’t heal me?” She was completely and utterly shocked. It wasn’t that she wanted him to heal her, in fact she hated that he did it so often, it was just usually he never gave anybody a say in it.
“Not for trying, darlin’. They fuckin’ had you locked away before I could get to you.”
Her head wiped around to Hank again, her eyebrows narrowed at the doctor. “Locked away?”
“There was no possible way he could touch you. You had to be quarantined up to just a few hours ago because of the nuclear radiation pouring off of you. You were highly radioactive,” he explained.
Rogue growled. She couldn’t help it; the sound escaped her throat before she even knew it was there. The little fucker had tried to kill her. She didn’t know a lot about science but she just figure that being radioactive probably wasn’t good for most people’s health. And there was nothing she hated more than people trying to kill her. Taking over and enslaving the world was one thing but when someone made a blatant attempt at her life it became personal.
“Oh he is deader then a snowman in July. An’ ah mean TV movie of the week, CNN all-day coverage kinda dead!!”
Jubilee and Kitty giggled at her outburst, all too aware of their friend’s hot streak. Marrow, however, rolled her eyes, both at the girl in the bed and the other two laughing like they were still pre-teens.
“You mean after we find him again,” Bobby reminded everyone.
“Gambit, Storm, did you hook up the surveillance equipment in all the technological research facilities? Scott turned his back to Rogue to address the rest of the group. She was slightly annoyed that they were going to have a missions meeting here in the med lab, but figured she could just lay back down on go to sleep. It was unlikely that she would be included in any immediate plans.
“Sho ‘enuf. All be takin’ care of. Dey never even knew we been der.” Remy was shuffling his cards again, unable to keep his hands still for any longer than a few seconds.
"If he goes shopping again, we'll know about it," Storm added.
"Good. Bobby, let's get a complete list of everything he has so far. Hank, Marrow, let's take a look at it and figure out what the hell this guy is up to." Scott began assigning missions to everyone and they answered him with a quick nod and left the room once they were given a job.
"What about us, Scott?" Kitty linked her arm with Jubilee’s.
"You two are on background duty. I want to know who this guy is, where he's from, and he's blood type. Anything you can dig up about him."
"Aye aye, Captain, my Captain," Jubilee saluted him before dragging Kitty out of the room behind her. Kitty managed a salute too just before she jerked out of sight.
Scott turned his attention back to the only two people he left in the room. "Rogue, you're sitting this mission out so you can rest."
She blinked at him then looked from Logan to Scott again, "You're kidding me, right?"
"No," Scott's voice became very deep and stern, "There is no telling what affect the radiation had on you or your mutation. It's not safe."
"Oh, please, that's totally bogus! Logan, tell him where he can stick it!" She turned to him for backup.
"I don't know, kid. Maybe you should just take a coupla days---"
"What?! You're wimping out on me too?"
"Fuck no. I just--"
"Save it, Logan," Scott interrupted him. "You're out this mission, Rogue. There's no discussion. I'm not going to let you just run face first into a brick wall. We are going to take the proper safety precautions. And when we're sure you are full strength and there are no side effects you can suit up again." To solidify the fact that the discussion was over he turned and left the med lab.
Silence settled between the two of them after he left. Rogue shook her head, then grumbled something incoherent, and repeated the process. Logan picked at the corner of the sheet, refusing to look at her.
"I'm sorry I couldn't heal you," he stated quietly, his voice completely flat. He could have been described as meek in that moment except for the fact that it was physical impossible for the Wolverine to appear meek.
"Yeah, well, ahm sorry ya lost your balls."
Whatever traces of meekness that had been in his body instantly disappeared and the Wolverine roared into life, "Damnit, kid, you were fuckin' glowin'! So why don't you just thank Scooter for not riding your ass for being too damn cocky and fucking up majorly and stop giving me shit!"
Rogue bite her lip, then sighed. There was nothing like getting yelled at to make you feel about six. That didn't mean she was any less pissed about being benched, though. "Ah'm not sitting out, sugah. And ya can't make me. That little shit's mine."
"Nah, darlin', he's mine." He placed a quick kiss on the top of her head and left he lab.
She laid back down and stretched. The chances of her missing out of the mission were about as good as Scott taking all the kids out drinking. But there was no point in pissing both him and Logan off. It was just scary when the two of them worked together on something. Jubilee would fill her in on everything going on and she could just tag along last minute. They'd all yell, tell her how reckless she was, be in a hurry, and then have no choice but to let her tag along. It was a system Kitty had perfected, but most of them had used it at one time or another. Her thoughts then turned to what Logan had said. She was glowing? Was she like a fucking night light now or something? Oh, well. Lack of sleep would only make her grumpier when it was Brain draining time.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
This chapter doesn't really serve any purpose and for that I'm sorry. It just had to be written. Don't ask me why.