Summary: For livejournal's andthexmen's Off-Season Fic Off #2 (Prompt: Why?). Set during a BOM debriefing after episode 13, Domino P.O.V. "Most of the questions being thrown around center on 'how.' How could Rogue do this do us? How didn't we catch her double cross? How could we have judged her so wrongly? No one bothers to ask why."
Rating: T – language and suggested sexual themes.
Pairing: Domino/Rogue, Rogue/Logan, (though Domino POV so not exactly looked at in the most flattering light. Oh God, please don't hate me... :: puts on asbestos suit::) Pietro/Dominic
Warnings: Mild slash and femme-slash. Uh, nothing citrus-y. It's not a big deal really, unless the very idea of slash makes you squick. ::shrugs::
Disclaimer: Marvel's toys, I'm just borrowing them.
Upon the End of Your Feral Days
Most of the questions being thrown around center on 'how.' How could Rogue do this do us? How didn't we catch her double cross? How could we have judged her so wrongly? No one bothers to ask why.
I know why. The why stands 5'5" and has ridiculous sideburns and mangy stubble. The why possesses the kind of gynocentric sensitivity to refer to me as "darlin'." The why handles every situation with the finesse one often sees from nap-deprived toddlers in Toys-R-Us. Goddamnit, I know all too well why: Logan. But what I can't figure out is why the why. What's there? What can she possibly see in him? ...And why can't she see that in me?
Pietro directs most of these questions during the debriefing in my general direction. I am supposed to know her best, to have gained her trust and confidence with my "Super Vagina Bonding Powers," as he had so delicately phrased it months ago. I honestly thought I had.
In the beginning, I was just following the directive. Or, at least, I was still labouring under that illusion then. Friendship, affection, attraction; how many other talented mercs had I seen die because of those things? None. Talented mercenaries knew that feelings had no place in this business. I'd seen a lot of idiots bleed out for them though.
Just like I almost had. I might as well hang up my guns. Since she drawled and swayed and smarmed her way into my life, I've been a disgrace to my profession. I wish it had been anyone else but the X-Men. At least other vigilante groups had the sense to kill their enemies, and I wouldn't be sitting here having to relive this day, moment by agonizing moment.
I'm sure, somewhere, she is thinking about me tonight too. It won't be in the way I ever wanted, though. This was their plan from the start. Rogue and Logan were probably laughing it up right now over gullible, idiotic me. In bed. Naked. Rogue naked. Dammit.
I'm churning inside, rage and betrayal and hurt and shame swelling and rolling through my blood in hot tides as Pietro starts into me again. I can't decide yet which to feel, which to focus on, and so I stay blank. I will cry about this later tonight, quietly into my pillow, and only once I am sure my teammates are asleep. I don't cry very often, not like other women, but I just can't think about seeing her in that mansion with them...with him, can't think about pressing the barrel of my gun into the milky soft skin of her neck when all I ever wanted was to press my lips there, without a lump rising in my throat. I had the shot. I didn't take it. I've let everyone down. At least I have learned the second rule of my trade well: if you can't keep from having an emotion, don't put it on display. I have practiced this neutral face. I'm one hell of a poker player.
The hows keep coming, a barrage of rapid angry bullets. Pietro paces in a blur. The answer of 'incompetent leadership' sticks heavily behind my epiglottis and I choke it back. Goading him will only draw this meeting out for everyone, and we're all tired and shamed at our failure. We want to get this over with as soon as possible, even him...especially him. I can't really blame Pietro. His heart's never been in this. To be honest, that knowledge utterly terrifies me as a member of his team. I've worked for a lot of people. You can trust the fanatics, the power hungry, the vengeful; they're easy enough to read. Pietro though... he does this through some perverse system of vying for paternal love. I'm not saying it doesn't work--Erik is smart enough to know that pitting his two eldest offspring against each other gets more results for him then unconditional acceptance ever could--I just can't gauge when Pietro is finally going to snap and give up. It will happen, it's only a matter of time, and it makes me nervous that he just might up and run off in the middle of a mission some day.
Today isn't the day though; Pietro was on the phone with his father for hours before he called us in here for our meeting. Today has been the same as always: Magneto's belittled Pietro and now Pietro is transferring his personal inadequacy and self-loathing onto us. We pretend that we're sorry for our short-comings and that we don't notice the wetness on his cheeks. We will go to bed and nothing will have changed tomorrow morning. Lather, rinse, repeat.
As he yells, I allow my mind to drift to more pleasant things: immersing my hand in a sack of grain, cracking the crust of a crème brulée with the back of a teaspoon, or...shooting a perfectly balanced .40 calibre Glock 22. She loved that movie. I do too. We filched Mortimer's DVD player, made a blender full of margaritas, and had a girls' night last weekend. I don't know if I ever laughed, ever longed, so hard, sitting next to her. I will not think of her. She was probably lying about that too. I bet she brushed up against me when I wasn't paying attention and stole it from my mind. All of our fun, the Rogue I knew, was carefully contrived. She secretly hates subtitles. And tequila. And me. Maybe I am being overly dramatic.
Pietro moves his tirade to Dominic. He's the hardest on the two of us; I think it's because he expects more. Dom stoically takes pulls on his cigarette as Pietro furiously vents inches from his face. In three quarters of an hour, they will be brushing their teeth together, fucking like rabbits, and spooning until one of them falls asleep. If Pietro sleeps first, Dominic will get up to use the bathroom and notice my light still on. He'll walk right in and plop down on my bed with that lop-sided grin of his, two lit cigarettes in his mouth. He'll hand one to me and apologize for what an asshole Pietro can sometimes be and more often than not we'll talk as we smoke. I like talking to Dom, nothing bothers that guy. If Dominic falls asleep first, Pietro will be knocking softly at my door seconds later with two bottles of beer, standing there awkwardly until I invite him in. He'll hand one to me and apologize for what an asshole he can sometimes be and more often than not we'll talk as we drink. I like talking to Pietro too, everything bothers him.
He's got a streak of heroism that scares me more than his reasons for leading the Brotherhood do. Heroism gets you killed. I'm not scared for his life. Don't get me wrong, he's a nice guy and I'd rather not see him dead, but in this business you learn to accept it quicker than most and move on. I'm scared because it makes me recognize it in myself too, and I'm scared because after today it doesn't feel like my self-preservation wants to kick in anymore.
Dominic flinches a little when Pietro calls him a fuckup in Greek. With minimal prodding, we got him to teach us all the swears around the dinner table one night, and the dissonance between that happy memory and the current context makes me shudder. I don't know how they do it. I asked Dom one night, when I was still naively entertaining ideas of making it work with her. He told me that Pietro had devised a system, after something he had said during a training exercise earned him a punch in the stomach and an empty bed for a week from Dominic when they first started sleeping together. Right now, they were Avalanche and Quicksilver. Later, they'd just be Dominic and Pietro. Pietro is eerily good at switching the two personalities off and on. I suspect this is because Quicksilver is largely an act for him, but an act he's had to play in front of his father his whole life. Dominic is Avalanche, but he goes along with it now and shrugs off what Quicksilver says to him, because he genuinely cares for Pietro, as messed up as that pretty little head of his is. He knows Pietro does the best he can to work things out. The two of them make me burn with jealousy.
I wanted that with her.
I was happy. I was fine before. I could look at their relationship affectionately, objectively, if not a bit bewilderedly, when I joined the B.O.M. It was odd and kind of sweet the way love found them, in a place neither of them really suspected. But it wasn't for me. I knew it was weakness, was futile; the kind of sappy bullshit I've been immune to my whole life.
Rogue changed all that and I hate her for it. It's not fair that I can't look at their casual intimacy without it clefting me down to my center now. It's not fair that, for the first time in my life, someone made me crave love and closeness--honest to God connection with another human being--and then walked out the door without looking back. She always said that that was what he did to her, her 'why:' made her feel too deeply, cut through to the careful guards she had placed around her heart. And then, when he had decimated every last barrier, he left her again and she had to rebuild. She said she was so tired of rebuilding. I would never do that to her. Now that my own fortress has been annihilated, I don't know how to go about even putting the first brick back into place. Or why I should bother. They're more right for each other than she thought; they carve the same kind of destruction.
I startle when I realize Dominic is staring at me. Pietro has moved on to Fred. The look in Dominic's eyes confirms what I fear. I have let my face slip, let it betray what I have been thinking. He politely directs his gaze elsewhere for a moment, lacing his fingers through mine behind our chairs, and giving my hand a reassuring squeeze. It's been far too long since I have been shown this kind of simple physical affection. I ache with yearning at the uncomplicated warm pressure. I imagine it's her before I can stop myself. I rearrange my mask. He looks back up, drops my grasp, and flashes me a small smile before embarking on a suicide mission. "I think we should stop for tonight."
Pietro pauses, frowns slightly. "Oh, well, if Avalanche says we should stop, then by all means..."
Mortimer shifts. Honestly, I don't think that kid will ever learn. "Sit, Toad. Avalanche is not the leader of this team. I am the leader of this team. Maybe Avalanche forgot that? Did you forget that?" He is broken glass, the piercing malice directed at Dominic now. "Or maybe you're just confused. Maybe you dreamed it up when Storm knocked you out within two seconds of us getting into the mansion, and just thought it was reality and that you lead this ridiculous band of failures now, hrm?"
Dominic practices incredible restraint, though I can see him clenching his fists. He is probably thinking what we all are: without him we wouldn't have had a path into the mansion, and at least he didn't knock himself unconscious by running face first into a wall. I wish he wasn't doing this. I don't need this. I have things under control again. He closes his eyes and takes a breath. When he opens them again, he is unnervingly serene. "No, I just think some of us need to be done for now. We've had a long day, Pietro."
Pietro's features flicker into concerned softness with the mention of his name. Dominic has broken their system, and he flounders for half a second, an eternity to him. Then Quicksilver is back, his jaw set, his tone livid and steady. "Everyone. Out. Immediately. Avalanche and I need to have a discussion about his rank on this team. Don't look so relieved, Toad; we will continue this in the morning."
I shuffle my feet behind Mortimer and Fred. Once we leave, Quicksilver will tear into Avalanche and neither of them really wants that. As hard as they try to segregate their two lives, I know that it has to take a toll on their relationship. It will be my fault, the second time I've failed my team today because I can't keep my emotions in check, because I can't stop thinking about impassive green eyes and the inflection in the words "Dom, don't." I shut the door behind me, catching a glimpse of the two of them, Pietro tenderly cupping Dominic's face. Just Dominic and Pietro. This somehow makes me feel worse.
Why can't I have that? And the answer is the same as before. Logan.