Title: Instruction
Summary: M/R AU after the first movie. Magneto is paroled from prison, with the stipulation that he go to live at the X-Men mansion. Extra points to anyone who recognizes where I borrowed the last sentence of the first paragraph from.
Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with X-Men.
Magneto had been living at Xavier's mansion for fourteen days now, which was, quite frankly, thirteen days and twenty hours more than he had expected. His parole after nearly a year in his plastic prison had come as a great surprise, and he still hadn't been able to get Charles to admit how he'd managed it. If he hadn't known that his old friend was disgustingly honest and moral, he would have suspected him of having used his powers. As it was, a great deal of negotiating must have occurred. His freedom came with a number of stipulations, of course—they had demanded a series of promises, most of which he intended to break very soon. After all, he believed, a promise to a human is meaningless.
He had decided that there was just one promise he would attempt to keep, at least until he became too irritated and just had to leave. It had been some years since he had lived at the mansion, and he was eager to see how things had changed in his absence. The X-Men had grown up, of course, little Jean Grey becoming an attractive if annoyingly pacifistic mutant. He was more interested, though, in seeing how the landscape had changed over the years, and whether anyone had managed to discover the hidden passages in the building that he had loved to explore. He also looked forward to the opportunity to irritate the X-Men simply by being present; they had been a thorn in his side often enough, and being able to bother them in return was an attractive thought.
However, there was one person there he had no interest in seeing again, and it was for her sake that he expected to leave the mansion shortly after arriving. She probably wouldn't have believed it, but he had spent many long hours agonizing over his latest failed attempt to assert mutant supremacy. The anguished expression in her eyes as she begged him not to kill her seemed painted on his eyelids, and whenever he tried to sleep he was haunted by what he had tried to do—had almost done—to her.
He was not unused to sacrifice. It had been a constant in his life since he was a small boy, and he had learned to accept it and move on. He had been unbothered by his plan to sacrifice the girl, Rogue, when he had been formulating it; had, in fact, remained mostly unmoved until they were actually standing, alone, on top of the Statute of Liberty, and she had been pleading for her life.
He had thought that she was very pretty, and that beneath her vocal desperation there was a quiet strength to her, and a sort of sad acceptance of her fate. If she had died, he might have looked back on her sacrifice with a sense of pride, pleased with the knowledge that a mutant had died for so great a cause. She hadn't, though; instead, she would be forced to live with the knowledge that she had nearly been used to murder the world's leaders, the tool of a plan that wouldn't have even worked.
Magneto hadn't wanted to see her again. He was no coward, typically, but in this particular case—he had no desire to see the fruits of his labor. The sight of his failure could only be painful for him, and being forced to live in the same building as the man who had tried to kill her could only be a torment for her.
She had dealt with his presence surprisingly well. She was always tense when they ended up in a room together, usually during meals, and her eyes flashed with fire whenever she saw him. He thought the white stripe of hair that now framed her face was made her strikingly attractive, and apparently she agreed, because she never bothered to dye it. Whenever she caught him looking at her, her lip curled in a silent snarl and her fists tightened as though she wished they were closing around his neck. He never caught her throwing a tantrum, but fragile items had a tendency of being broken after he had left the room. He suspected the bill he was accruing from Charles' continuing hospitality was quite high.
Take the latest instance, for example. It had been Rogue's evening to cook. Magneto had forgotten, or at least, that was what he told himself, and had wandered into the kitchen in search of something to drink. Her hands had been bare for once, and he had caught her in the middle of cracking an egg into a saucepan. She was a good cook, and had a tendency for whipping up gourmet meals that had everyone wishing she was responsible for cooking more often. She protested that she hated it, though, finding the activity an unwelcome reminder of her life from before. No one pressed her on the issue after that.
"Rogue," he said, her name rolling smoothly off of his tongue as he watched her, his blue-grey eyes intent.
She huffed, slamming the egg against the pan too hard and breaking it in her hand. She grimaced as she dropped the gooey mix of shell and egg into the garbage, running her hand under the faucet to rinse it as she grabbed another egg. That was another thing—she scrupulously avoided speaking to him, even when he tried to initiate conversation. He found her self-restraint admirable.
She broke the second egg more carefully and began mixing the mixture with a wooden spoon, her movements carefully controlled but still vigorous. He took two steps toward her, reaching past her head to grab a glass from the cupboard, and her hand jerked and sent a good handful of the mixture slopping over the edge, making a mess on the counter.
She cursed under her breath, not looking at him as she reached for a wash cloth and began mopping at the liquid. Magneto grabbed another cloth himself, stepping forward to help, and she stiffened, spun away as if forcing herself not to touch him, and managed to knock the pan onto the floor with a resounding crash.
Magneto stepped away quickly, not allowing any of the mixture to soil his shoes, but she just stood there as hers were coated with a layer of egg and flour and other ingredients. Her fists were clenched, and when he looked closely at her he realized that she was shaking.
"I'm sorry," he said stiffly. "I'll get a mop and clean it up."
"Just go," she muttered harshly, her back turned to him. "I'll take care of it. Just leave. Please."
He hesitated, torn. The part of him that was a gentleman told him it would be inexcusable to leave her to clean up the mess herself. The part of him that was a mutant thought that a telekinetic would be very useful for cleaning up spills like this one. The part of him that was a failed murderer convinced him to hurry from the kitchen, like a whipped dog with its tail between its legs.
Enough had been enough, and he was now on his way to Charles' office. It had been nice living at the mansion for a while. The trees had grown beautifully, as had the students—even if they were being polluted by Charles' pesky morality—and his secret passageways were mostly untouched, although here and there the dust had been disturbed as if someone had wandered inside but hadn't wanted to explore very far. His presence was a disruption to the one person he didn't want to injure further, though, which meant that he had now outstayed his welcome.
He nodded perfunctorily at the door to Charles' office, then opened it without waiting for a response. Charles looked at him expectantly, and he knew that the other man already knew what he was going to say. Considering how rarely the other mutant used his gift to probe unwanted into other peoples' minds, he had an alarming ability to know just what Magneto was thinking at a given time.
"I don't want you to go yet, Erik," he said gently.
"It's time, Charles," he replied gravely, feeling the weight of his friend's stare.
"Rogue has not complained about your presence," Charles said. "She has not asked that you go."
"Of course not," Magneto snorted. "She's too strong for that. I suspect she's secretly waiting for the moment when she can kill me in my sleep, anyway."
Charles' expression was not amused. "Rogue is a young woman who has had a very traumatic experience because of something you did, Erik. Don't you think you owe her more than to pop back into her life and then disappear from it again?'
"She doesn't want me here," he said. "I think she deserves to not have me in her life more than I have to be as your sometime enemy."
Charles let out a heavy sigh, wheeling himself out from behind his desk and rolling to a halt directly in front of the older mutant. "Erik, I didn't want to have to tell you this, but I will if I must. Rogue was the one who convinced me to arrange for your parole."
There was a beat of silence. Then, "What?"
"Much as it may surprise you to hear this, Erik, I am not a saint, and I am not capable of instantly forgiving any wrong. I had not intention of obtaining your release from that prison in the near future. I thought it was better for everyone that way. Imagine my surprise when Rogue came to my office several months ago and demanded to know when I was going to do something about your imprisonment."
Magneto tried to keep his face blank, but he was sure his shock shone through. "Perhaps she's the saint," he offered.
"Rogue is a wonderful young woman," Charles replied, leaning back in his wheelchair. "She is intelligent, caring, dedicated, remarkably determined, and as stubborn as another mutant I know. But she is not a saint, either. She wanted you released because she knew what torture it was for you to be trapped somewhere where there was no metal, and she couldn't stand the thought of anyone having to endure such treatment."
"How could she know?"
Stupid question. She had him in her head, after all—although Magneto was still unclear on just how much of his memories she had absorbed, and how much she had retained in the year since he had touched her.
Charles' expression suggested that Magneto had asked a particularly stupid question. "Rogue goes without touch every minute of every day, Erik," he said, his voice unusually impatient. "She comes from a family that was loving, that regarded physical contact as a natural way of expressing affection, and suddenly she learned that her touch can kill. As if that wasn't bad enough, you taught her that not only would her gift hurt others, but it could be used by others to hurt her. She knows what it is like to be deprived of something she can barely live without."
"Why are you telling me this now?" Magneto asked neutrally. Her fears were ridiculous, of course; there must be some way of controlling her powers, if only they could find it.
"I'm telling you this because you owe her," Charles said, leaning forward, his eyebrows drown together in one ominous line. "You owed her for trying to kill her, and now you owe her for getting you released. How are you going to repay her?"
Magneto sighed heavily. "I suspect the correct answer is not 'by removing myself from her life forever'."
"Rogue needs to learn to use her gift," the other man replied. "In order to do so, she needs someone she can practice on. Someone who will allow her to touch him repeatedly in an attempt to gain some control over her powers."
"You are speaking, of course, of yourself, or someone equally self-sacrificing and irritating," Magneto said, eyes narrowed.
"Don't be deliberately obtuse," Charles snapped. "Rogue doesn't need any more voices in her head than she already has. She's tormented enough by your memories, I don't know why we would force mine upon her as well."
Magneto paused. "The memories don't fade?"
"She remembers everything," he said heavily. "I think she's been wandering around those tunnels of yours because she often can't sleep. The number of times I have been awoken by her nightmares…"
"And you think I can somehow help her?"
"I think you are in a position to do so, and that failing to help her would be crueler than even you can manage."
"I don't want to do it, Charles," Magneto said. "Touching Rogue—it is not a pleasant experience."
Charles' voice was hard, and his expression was unyielding. "The last time you touched her, it was against her will and you were eager to do it. This time you will do it because it is the right thing to do. Rogue would never ask it of you, Erik. She would never force you, no matter how much it meant to her. That is what sets her apart from you."
Magneto groaned internally. "Fine," he said shortly. "But you'll be the one to tell her."
Charles smiled, Magneto spun around on his heel and left, and that was that.
He had thought that she might be late for their first lesson, but, as in all of her dealings with him, she was scrupulously correct. She arrived exactly at two o'clock, slipping silently through the door and glaring at him. Her hands were gloved, and she seemed to be fighting to keep them rigidly at her sides.
He raised an eyebrow, gesturing to the chair he had placed opposite his own. He didn't fancy the fall he would undoubtedly take if he allowed her to touch him while he was standing. She stalked across the room, her jerky, quick strides the kind of walk he would expect from an angry tiger, and she didn't so much fall into her chair as slide into it as though it were made for her.
They stared at each other for a long moment, each waiting for the other to make the first move.
"Ain't you supposed to tell me to take off my gloves?" she said at last, reluctantly, as though talking to him was the last thing she wanted to do.
"I have no particular desire for you to remove them," he said mildly, his skin tingling in something like fear as he remembered what it had felt like the last time he had touched her. "Although if you leave them on the chances of this lesson being at all successful are significantly smaller."
She seemed to consider that for a moment, then compromised by drawing off the glove on her right hand. It was a white opera glove, and the act of removing it seemed to take forever. Magneto felt a bead of sweat form on his temple as each pale inch of flesh was revealed.
She dropped the glove. They sat in silence again. "Now what?"
His voice was unwilling. "I suppose now you touch me and try not to suck out my life force."
Her glare intensified. "How exactly do you suggest that I do that?" she snarled.
His mouth tightened into a frown. "I am not exactly an expert on this myself, my dear," he stated. "I am not a teacher, and have very little experience working with mutants on controlling their gifts."
She grimaced, growled, then reached forward to grab his wrist, her grip strong as iron as he felt the pull begin. His vision began to fade quickly, and he thought that if she wanted to kill him right now she could do so and no one would blame her. His heart pounded wildly in his chest and his skin felt stretched, tight, across his face. He couldn't feel her grip any more, just the relentless seepage of his energy from that spot on his wrist. The moment came when unconsciousness beckoned, and he almost welcomed it. Just before his breath gave out, the pull ended, and he slumped back into his chair, dizzy, weary, woozy, sick, wretched. It took a long time for him to regain any sort of equilibrium, and by the time he had she was long gone.
Later, he would learn that she had used his powers to steal one of Cyclops' bikes and drive out into the countryside to relieve her frustration on an abandoned junk yard. For now, though, he decided it would be safest to retreat to his room and try not to think about doing this again tomorrow.
There were many people who could have brought the bowl of soup and casserole to his room, he told himself. Charles might have levitated them there. Storm, Cyclops, or Jean Gray might have taken pity on him and carried them up. Even Wolverine or one of the younger students might have heard what had happened and decided that even an evil mastermind deserved a little mothering after the ordeal he had had that afternoon.
He sighed.
There were many people who could have brought the bowl of soup and casserole to his room, but there was only one person in the mansion who could have made the bowl of soup and casserole. By all rights it should have been poisoned or at least laced with some sort of drug, but he had consumed the food several hours ago and all he was feeling now was a pleasant lassitude and a sort of miserable twisting in his gut that had nothing to do with the food and everything to do with the guilt that had been gnawing at him ever since that night on the Statue of Liberty.
It would be a long night.
The next day, she sidled through the door, once again exactly on time. She sat in the chair without his prompting, but made no move to remove her glove.
"Did you learn anything last time?" Magneto asked carefully. His skin tingled unpleasantly as he thought back to the day before.
"Yes," she said. Was that the barest glint of amusement in her eye? "A year in a plastic prison with no one but Charles Xavier to talk to is incredibly boring."
He blinked, surprised. His lips twitched as she summarized his life for the past year with careless contempt. "I gather your year has been more entertaining?"
"It would have to be," she agreed, but with her response their banter fell flat, and she grew stiff and uncomfortable again.
"Shall we get this over with?" he asked, dread in his voice.
"I think—different hands this time?" she suggested, taking her own advice and pulling the opera glove off of her left hand. He held out his own left hand, ready for the inevitable.
If she had gotten better since their last lesson, he couldn't tell. Once again she was gone before he was conscious enough to witness her reaction to the touch.
That night, apparently both Magneto and Rogue thought that it would be safe to join the Wolverine in the kitchen as he cooked, Rogue because he was the best friend she had at the mansion, Magneto because of all the mutants in the mansion he was the least able to injure him.
Wolverine and Rogue were talking quietly, their heads bowed together as Wolverine used his claws to slice some chicken, when Magneto entered. They stopped at the sight of him, their expressions eerily intimidating as they glared at him, and he was reminded that she had absorbed Wolverine before, too.
Ignoring their expressions, he calmly opened the refrigerator and snagged an apple, taking a slow, deliberate bite from the fruit. He nodded perfunctorily to both of them, then left the kitchen, pausing outside to listen as Wolverine growled, "I'm gonna kill that bastard."
"He ain't worth it, sugar," she replied. "And he ain't tryin' to hurt me while he's here. Believe it or not, he's actually trying to help."
Wolverine snorted. "I'll believe that when I see it."
The next day, before she could touch him but after she had removed her glove Magneto blurted out, "I'm sorry for what I did to you, on the Statute of Liberty."
She paused, her eyes guarded as she watched him, as a prey animal watches a lion. "I know," she said.
"Of course, that's no excuse," he went on, picking up steam. He was finding that once he began apologizing it became hard to stop. "I should have found another way."
"I know," she said flatly, impatiently. "I got you in my head, Magneto, so there ain't anything you can tell me that I don't already know. Why bother trying?"
He shrugged, a little helpless. "People tend to appreciate such gestures."
"I don't," she said firmly. "I'm not fooled by pretty words or useless platitudes, Magneto. I know that if the situation were the same you'd do the same thing again, and you'd feel just as bad for doin' it. That doesn't help me much, does it?"
"If things were the same, I would try to end them in a way that wouldn't result in you hating me so much," he said quietly. Sine she already knew what was in his head, it didn't require him to swallow much pride to admit his feelings out loud. "I have found the experience to be more unpleasant than I might have expected."
She laughed a little, her expression disbelieving as she fell back in her chair. "Hate you?" she said. "How can I hate you, when I know you so well?" She pushed a strand of white hair behind her ear, drawing his gaze to the mark he had left upon her.
"Every time you see me..." he trailed off, confused.
"I'm terrified of you," she confessed. "Every time I see you, I can't help but remember what happened..."
"I'm sorry," he said again, his respect for her increasing as he thought how well she'd disguised her fear.
"I know," she said again, but this time her expression was almost soft as she looked at him.
The next day, the flu started going around the mansion and Rogue didn't come. Magneto didn't know quite what he was doing or why when he found himself outside her room, and he was sure his hand was moving of its own accord as it reached forward to knock. Her voice was muffled by the thick wooden door as she called for him to enter, and he opened the door slowly, poking his head tentatively inside.
She looked surprised when she saw him, then frowned in suspicion. "What're you doin' here?" she demanded. Her voice was distorted by her stuffed nose and the way she had to pause halfway through her sentence to cough.
He spread his palms helplessly. "You weren't at the lesson. I wanted to make sure you were alright."
He glanced around her room, surprised by its quiet elegance. One of the walls was lined with bookshelves, and the bookshelves were heavily lined with books—textbooks, treatises, fiction novels, and various works by philosophers and historians. The bookshelves were metal. The mirror on the wall had a metal frame. The pictures on the wall had metal frames. The bed had a metal frame. The doorknobs were metal. Even the chair and desk were metal. For some reason, she had decorated her room in such a way as to make it a haven for him. He wondered whether she was more comfortable with it that way because of her memories of his life.
"I'm sick," she said bluntly. "I'm sure I'll be up and around tomorrow. See you then." She glanced pointedly at the door.
"Tomorrow, then," he said, nodding politely and backing out, closing the door behind him softly.
Three days later, she mastered the use of her powers. It was quite anticlimactic for control to come in a single day rather than through a long period of slow development, but Magneto and Rogue were both ecstatic at the success. She had taken off her glove, grabbed his hand, and the pull had begun as usual. He had felt himself, as usual, on the verge of losing consciousness, and then the pull had stopped. Disoriented as he was, he had expected to find that she had once again fled the room when he could see again, but instead, to his surprise—there she was, still sitting in front of him, still holding his hand, and her face was absolutely shocked.
"You did it," he said, and he knew that his own surprise was obvious. He felt a smile crack across his face. "You did it."
Her shock was slowly being replaced by euphoria, and for the first time he saw how beautiful she was when she smiled. "I did it," she repeated. She let go of his hand, then grabbed it again, eyes wide with delight when nothing happened. She ripped the glove off of her other hand, used that hand to touch him, and nothing happened. "I did it!"
"How?" he asked, leaning forward, keenly aware of the warmth of both of her hands as they clasped his own, very conscious of the fact that they were so close that their knees were nearly touching.
She hesitated, not out of lack of desire to tell him, but out of confusion. "It's like...there's this switch in my head that I didn't even realize was there. I felt it a little last time, but today, something just clicked. I did it."
He smiled, genuinely happy for her even as he felt the dread of knowing that his time at the mansion was up. "Congratulations."
She nodded, eyes still lit with inner joy. "Thank you for helpin' me," she said formally.
"You are welcome," he replied.
"Why did you help me?" she asked curiously. She suddenly seemed to realize that they were still holding hands and released him almost immediately, a faint blush staining her cheeks.
"You are a mutant," he said, not looking at her.
"That's not why," she said.
"I owed you, for what I did to you, and for what you did for me," he tried, his own cheeks feeling rather warm.
"That's not why, either," she insisted.
He growled in frustration. "Because I like you!" he burst out. "You are an admirable young woman who has suffered a great deal and overcome everything life has dealt you. You've suffered because of me and yet rather than take revenge as you have every right to you've helped me instead. I wanted to help you in return. I wanted you to be happy." He peered closely at the satisfied expression on her face as she nodded. "You already knew, didn't you?" he accused.
"Of course," she said. "I've told you before, Magneto, I know you. I just wanted to see if you knew why."
He nodded. "I've done my best to help you. Now that you've succeeded, I will leave the mansion tomorrow."
"You don't have to," she said quietly. "Not on my account, at least." At his inquiring glance, she shrugged. "You still scare me, and you're still misguided and too ruthless for my taste, but I like you to. I don't know if anyone could really dislike you, knowing you as well as I do. Take Charles—" she blushed "—the Professor, I mean, for example. Even after being your enemy he still loves you, you know. You're his best friend."
"I thought you'd never touched Charles," Magneto interjected, confused.
She frowned, cocking her head to one side. "Why would you think that? He's been trying to teach me to control my powers for some time now. We only stopped when you came so he could commit more energy to making sure that you settled in alright."
"He lied to me," Magneto said, his voice faintly shocked.
"To get you to work with me?" Rogue asked.
"Yes."
"I'm glad he did," she said. "At least I don't find you as scary as I used to, now."
"I'm glad also," Magneto said, uncomfortable with the admission. "Nevertheless, I must go. This mansion has not been my home for many years now. I doubt it will ever be again."
She laid her hand on his, and both took a moment to appreciate the novelty of such contact. "You could try," she said quietly. "You've spent so many years working for mutant supremacy. Why not take a break, try living for yourself for a while?"
"No one wants me to stay," he asserted.
"I do."
Their eyes locked, and Magneto realized with a surprised jolt what she had been trying to say—that for some reason he couldn't comprehend, she actually cared for him.
They didn't kiss that day, despite the highly charged energy between them. They didn't kiss the next day, when they met for another lesson, which involved spending an hour holding hands and making sure that her control didn't disappear as suddenly as it had come. They did kiss the day after that, a hesitant kiss full of fumbling and awkwardness and ending with intense satisfaction for both.
Even Charles Xavier had been surprised when they had admitted that they had begun a relationship. Fortunately, the X-Men's horror at their relationship was largely balanced out by their pleasure at Rogue's new control over her powers.
Ultimately, he moved into her room rather than she into his, preferring her decorating scheme to his own. For several long, wonderful months their relationship blossomed, and despite everyone's expectations though they often fought they never fought enough to end their relationship.
And when Magneto left the mansion, as he had always known he eventually must, she came with him. But they came back to visit most weekends.