Resistant Pieces
By: theunknownvoice
Disclaimer: I don't own X-men Evolution or Wolverine and the X-men.
A/N: It was the trailer for Wolverine and the X-men that got me thinking about what it would be like if this was a continuation of X-men Evolution. I could see some of the same dynamics between my favorite characters and I realized that there was the potential for a good story. So this is my attempt.
Chapter 1: The Chameleon's Daughter and The Snake's Son
For who would better understand
than the one who walks the same road as me?
We both know those old familiar ruts,
have both the same scar and jagged cuts
We have walked on broken glass
tearing our skin.
And have the same start, the same finish, the same end
we live the same life, different reflections of the same image
We walk the same road
but it is in each other that we begin.
Mississippi is warm at night. Rogue remembers that even when she pretends that her childhood was a blank. She remembers the warm arms of her Momma and the words of comfort whispered in the southern air. Back then she believed those words.
Mystique is a chameleon though. She has lived her life flitting from one extreme to another trying to find a balance. She has camouflaged herself into fit into the human world without leaving a mark. To know her is impossible. Mystique doesn't even allow those few who she loves to have access to her soul.
Rogue knows that and she forces herself to understand that Momma is never going to make sense. Mystique has too many dark rooms inside herself where the secrets fester and the light never enters. She's never going to trust anyone with those pieces and Rogue will never trust her in return.
She's never going to be able to feel safe with Momma again. There is too much betrayal and no memories of the warm Mississippi nights sitting on the back porch while Destiny rocked and Momma held her are going to make Rogue forget. They had brainwashed her, turned her into a mutant weapon and Momma let them. Momma herself pushed the needle into Rogue's skin and sedated her. Momma had fed her the well planned lies and made see only enemies. In isolation Rogue had become a monster and for that she would never trust Mystique again.
Then there's Kurt. Kurt is warmth and kindness personified. Rogue loves him dearly and the fact that Kurt can still laugh after knowing that Mystique is his mother makes Rogue admire him. He knows Rogue's true and he knows the pieces she lets him know because Mystique has taught Rogue to let anyone know all the pieces.
But Kurt's still innocent to the world and Rogue doesn't want to taint that innocence. He can not see Mystique's faults. He forgives her and asks Rogue to forgive her too. Rogue never learned forgiveness.
Rogue doesn't know Kurt any better than he knows her. They are siblings but between them there is still a distance. It is the intangible wall and no matter how close they get they will never breach it.
She stares out at her team her eyes changing with the emotions. She could still remember those vague moments of her teenaged life when she had been part of Mystique's Brotherhood. She had been the only girl crowded by the boys. They were loyal to a cause she didn't understand. She couldn't…no she wouldn't see mutants as greater or less to other human beings. Somewhere inside of her was that little girl in Mississippi who had wanted to be loved and understood.
She couldn't be one of them. She couldn't cut out those parts of herself.
Now she walked into this new Brotherhood, a Brotherhood far more dangerous than she had ever experienced. She could still remember the child-gang of her youth but this gang was different. She could see the grown up former members but she couldn't talk to them. She was a part of the past they all hid. She can't ignore him. His voice echoes in her head. She can still see the world through the same filter he does. His thoughts haven't faded from the pavement of her mind even though it has been at least five years since she last touched him.
She doesn't know why but she knows his pieces and that scares her.
Each minute with the Brotherhood she knew that she was going to have to touch someone. Touch—to everyone else it was just another of the senses but to Rogue it was a moment of violation. The Brotherhood made her use her power more than she had ever done as an X-man. With each touch there was a new voice, a new personality already added into the fragile mix. Her psyche was pulling itself apart at the seams. She could hear the voices and she was still trying to learn how to relinquish them.
His voice was the loudest.
It had been bad before and since seeing him again it had become worse. When she was sixteen she had deliberately touched him. She had needed his powers then and had been amazed at how faster his thoughts were. To anyone else they were a jumble but with his powers she could decipher those instant connections and make sense of the random noise.
That was why even though he was wearing an icy cold expression sitting in the dark she knew he was upset.
Who better than the child of a chameleon to understand the child of a snake?
***
It had been different when they were small. The mountains had been huge back then. He had thought that if he climbed high enough he could reach the heavens. The family of gypsies that raised them for those five years had taught Pietro and Wanda their traditions. From them he had heard his first story. He had learned that it was better to smart than strong.
The twins had been close as close as twins could be but there had always been that fundamental difference. Pietro hadn't known what it was then. He could feel the pulling towards places away from the mountains. He longed for the outside world but he hadn't understood what made him so different from Wanda until he met his father.
Magneto took them away from that family and raised them. It was so cold compared to the love the Maxioffs had shown. Magneto did not understand nightmares. He could not comprehend the traumatizing affects on two five year olds who had never seen a big city. They had never left the mountains and to leave Romania was unthinkable but Magneto had brought them to America
It was then that the difference revealed itself.
Ambition. Pietro was infected by it like his father was. Wanda wasn't. She didn't want to be anything else but Pietro was proud of being a mutant. He was proud that he could move faster, think faster and talk faster than anyone else. He was better than normal humans and he knew it.
He brooded in the dark of the Brotherhood headquarters. The first team he had ever been on was that junior Brotherhood back in high school. Lance had challenged him for leadership and he frequently lost. He didn't like thinking of those days when he was on the outskirts because Mystique hated him.
He understood her hatred. Kurt had been taken from her an unwilling sacrifice. Rogue was used as a tool by the very man she hated. Mystique didn't trust Magneto and therefore Pietro was on her shit list.
Magneto….Pietro didn't want to acknowledge what was going on right now. The message from Magneto had spoken well of both Lorna and Wanda but there had been no mention of Pietro coming home.
Not a word.
Even now when he led the new Brotherhood he had no worth. His father could see nothing good coming from his only son.
"Your sisters are my legacy. You are my mistake."
He sat in the dark at the desk not staring at the monitor.
Why did it matter?
He could challenge his father. He could rule the world his father was building and know that he had usurped the position. He could build a better world. Did he want that?
No. He may be ambitions but he was better than his father. He wasn't that thirteen year old boy who had tried so hard to prove that he was good enough. He had saved his father from Wanda when she had attempted murder. He had watched his own twin locked into an insane asylum for the simple reason that their father couldn't control her. He was doing this all for his father, for Magneto's glory. For some form of acceptance he was never going to get.
He must be an idiot to keep going back.
He knew she was there without even looking. It was as if he had a sensor that alerted him of her presence. She couldn't sneak up on him not like she could with anybody else. He always knew.
She was so quiet fading into the background. She could wear many faces just like her mother but that didn't bother him. He understood the need to wear the masks that life offered. No one ever knew you if you didn't take off the mask.
He turned to face her and felt the careful image he had constructed stripped from him. In her brown eyes he saw his true reflection and he knew as he had always known that they understood each other.
To be continued…