Desperation repels men.
He was gone again. She knew it before anyone told her, because he hadn't been at breakfast and he was always there waiting for her. They were friends, after all. Logan didn't have many friends at the school because he tended to push people away. He got along with Kitty and Storm. Bobby absolutely hated him (and she knew why, but she was ignoring it. Ignorance is bliss). Scott avoided him because of Jean. The Professor would have been friendly, but he was gone now too.
She sat blankly, not paying attention to anyone or anything around her. He was always disappearing. Sometimes he'd come back within a few days, and sometimes it took months. He'd been getting better at saying goodbye lately, though. So what had changed?
"You're sulking. He hasn't even been gone for two hours and you're already sulking," Bobby complained, frowning.
"He didn't tell me he was going. I don't know when he'll be back," she said quietly, still not looking up. She heard Bobby's snort of annoyance and chose to ignore it and him. She couldn't deal with his feelings for her right now, not when she was so focused on her own for Logan.
"Marie, I've got something for you," Storm called, standing in the doorway. "It was sitting on my desk this morning. I can only imagine why he left it there."
It was a letter from Logan, of course. She didn't open it in front of everyone, because she didn't know how she'd react to whatever he had to say. She took the letter up to her room, locking the door to make sure Bobby couldn't just walk in. (Kitty knew better after she'd just walked in last time; she still couldn't meet her eyes.)
Rogue,
I know, you're probably pissed that I didn't stop to say goodbye when I left this morning. Truth is, I had to leave before anyone got up or they'd stop me. What I'm doing is something they definitely don't approve of. So I'm sorry that I didn't get to tell you where I'm going or how long I'll be. I can't tell you the where, but I should be back in a week or so. Think you can handle Iceman that long? Kidding, I know you can do anything you put your mind to. See you soon, kiddo.
Logan
She wanted to laugh and cry, or maybe just punch a wall. He was so oblivious! He still thought of her as a child. Well, she'd change that. She had a plan now, one that she'd start carrying out as soon as he returned in a week. He wouldn't know what hit him.
Lingerie doesn't work. Real life isn't like the movies, and he has to actually LOOK at you to be attracted.
He got back in the middle of the night. She knew, because Kitty was on watch for her. They all had shifts for the night guard, and she was friends with most of the rotations. She'd gotten them all to agree to text her at the first sign of him, and she was lucky it was Kitty tonight. She'd been wearing her fanciest lingerie to bed for the past week, making sure her door was locked each night to ensure nobody actually saw her. There was only one person she was interested in showing off her body to, and it wasn't Bobby Drake.
Kitty: He's here. The wolverine has landed!
She would have laughed at the phrasing if she wasn't so nervous to see how he'd react to her. She slipped a flimsy robe on over her nightgown and crept into the hall, closing the door silently behind her. She'd given him plenty of time to get to his own room, so that's where she headed to. Knocking on the door, she held her breath while she waited.
He didn't even look at her when he opened the door. "Wondered when you'd show up. I'd apologize, but I'm really not sorry. I managed to do what I set out to do, so that's good. Did it go okay here?" he asked, his back to her.
She crossed the room, sitting on his bed and leaning back, letting her robe fall open to show off her curves. "There was no trouble. Bobby actually left me alone, thankfully." She didn't mention that it was because she'd completely ignored him every time he'd spoken. He might finally have taken the hint, too.
"Good, that's good. Listen, I'd love to catch up but I'm really tired. Can we do this in the morning?" he asked. He finally looked at her then, but only at her face. He met her eyes calmly, not straying to look at her body at all. She wanted to scream.
"Yeah, sure. Sorry," she muttered, standing and pulling her robe closed again. She left the room, feeling humiliated and extremely pissed off. Unfortunately, Kitty was waiting for her in her room to get the details.
"That was really fast. Tell me he didn't reject you!" she said immediately. Marie just shook her head, letting herself fall onto her bed.
"He'd have to actually look at me to reject me. He hasn't done either," she said quietly.
"Don't give up hope," Kitty said mysteriously. Then she was gone, running through the wall into her own room.
Battles are not appropriate places for ogling.
"Somebody shut off the damn alarm!" Logan shouted, slashing through one of the centennials easily. The fight had been going on for over five minutes, and nobody had bothered to shut off the panic alarm yet. Usually that was Scott's job, but he wasn't at the school. He was out on some mission of his own in the Alps.
"I've got it," Kitty shouted, running through a couple of centennials and through a wall. The alarm stopped blaring roughly thirty seconds later, and there was an almost deafening silence as everyone froze. The centennials were growing.
"What the hell?" Bobby muttered, breaking the silence.
"Wish I knew," Logan shot back. "They were hard enough to kill already. We need to lure them out of the school."
That wasn't so easy. Rogue was mostly watching for this fight, although she'd managed to save a few of the smaller children so far. She couldn't do much with robots, since they didn't have life forces to steal. Her job was to get the kids to safety, which she'd already done. She probably was supposed to stay with them, but it was too tempting to watch Logan fight. His muscles...
"Rogue, move!" Bobby shouted, eyes widening.
Time seemed to slow down for her. Was that a hand through her stomach? It was... a centennial had punched it's hand through her stomach. Huh. Was blood supposed to be that red? She dropped to her knees, her head spinning. She didn't feel any pain yet, which was a relief. It could be so much worse, she knew. And at least if she'd die, she'd be with her friends. That's all she could ask for.
"Marie!" someone was shouting her name. She knew that voice. She liked that voice, and she really wanted to see his face one last time. She forced her eyes open, realizing that she was now lying flat on the ground. A hand was on hers, pulling at her glove. No, that wasn't good. She didn't want to hurt him, just see him one last time! "Stop talking, you'll just make it worse. You're not going to hurt me." So she was talking out loud as well as in her head. Huh. She should probably stop that now. It didn't really matter, because everything went black and all thoughts stopped mere seconds later.
She woke up in the medical room alone, and she was feeling the pain now. She must have made some kind of distressed sound, because someone was checking her pulse. Maybe she wasn't as alone as she'd assumed. She forced her eyes open and stared at Orora as she checked for the source of the pain.
"I don't think her arm is hurting, Storm. I'm pretty sure the hand when through her middle, not her elbow," Logan said drily from across the room. He was sitting on a similar table, taking an IV out of his arm.
"You... why did you do that? You knew what would happen," she snapped hoarsely. It would be extremely counterproductive if he died before she could seduce him and get him to admit his feelings to her.
"I knew we'd both live, if that's what you mean," he said with a smirk. "We've done this before, remember?"
"And it went just as badly the last time!" she argued, glaring. "Don't do that anymore, even if it would save my life. It's not worth it."
"I think I'll be the judge of that," Logan said quietly, leaving the room before she could respond.
Being subtle will get you nowhere.
They were all tired from the latest fight. There was no question of whether or not they'd all be going to bed as soon as they got back to the school. The main question was who would end up in whose room. Marie was seriously hoping that maybe tonight she could make it back into Logan's room. Fighting always made her want him more.
"Rogue, you've been really quiet. You weren't hurt, were you?" Ororo asked gently. She shook her head.
"No, just thinking. I don't think any of us were hurt this time around, at least not seriously. Is Bobby still complaining about his bruised rib?" she replied, making those around her smile. Logan included, which she counted as a victory.
"I can hear you," Bobby snapped, glaring from across the jet. She rolled her eyes at his tone, choosing to ignore him yet again. In the few weeks it had been since she'd nearly died, he'd doubled his efforts at getting her to fall for him. Ignoring him did nothing anymore. It made her much more irritable, and she wasn't imagining that it made Logan angry, too. He'd taken to avoiding them both.
"I don't think she cares," Kitty informed him, still grinning.
"Children, that's enough," Scott reprimanded, but he was smiling, too. Bobby just huffed and turned his back on everyone, Rogue included. Another win.
"Logan, can we talk when we get back to the school?" she asked him quietly, lowering her eyelids in an attempt to be alluring. It either didn't work, or he was completely oblivious.
"Sure, after we both get changed. I can come by your room, if you want," he replied, not even looking over at her.
"That would be perfect. An hour or so after we get back?" she pushed. He nodded, remaining silent this time. She shared an exasperated look with Kitty, wishing he'd wake up and realize just what she wanted.
He did meet her at her room at the right time, but he was distracted by something. He kept shifting his weight and glancing at the door while she tried to talk to him. She gave up fairly quickly and claimed tiredness.
"It can wait until tomorrow. We're both tired from the fight, and I think sleep would do us both good," she informed him, her tone sharper than she meant it to be.
"Sorry. I'm not trying to ignore you or anything, I've just been waiting to hear something from Jean for the last few days, and I'm getting impatient," he admitted, already moving for the door.
She wanted to scream and throw things, and maybe hit him a few times. Of course it was Jean that had him distracted. It wasn't like any of them could miss the fact that he was totally in love with her, even though she was engaged to Scott and happy. How could she have thought he'd be interested in her, when he couldn't even get over the woman he actually wanted? She felt like such an idiot. It was with a heavy heart that she resolved to forget about him.
It isn't until you give up and stop looking that you get what you want.
It had been quiet at the school. No new threats that they had to face, no finals coming up (as it was summer, and there weren't any formal classes just yet), no impending doom of any kind. Of course, that meant that they were all bored out of their minds. Kitty and Bobby had been working on some project together, which meant that Kitty didn't have time for her anymore. Kitty and Logan had been her only real friends in the school, and she couldn't talk to either of them.
Sure, Logan was around. He wasn't even busy with anything, except maybe the new motorcycle he'd bought when Scott started locking his away. Rogue had just decided that it was in her best interest to avoid him. If she was going to get over him, she needed to be away from him. At least for now. When the feelings were gone, she'd hope they could go back to being friends the way they had been before. It would just take a while for those feelings to disappear.
Logan seemed to have a different idea. She was having a hard time staying away from him, because he kept seeking her out. The first time, it had been to see if she'd train with him. She'd been able to decline, stating that she'd promised Kitty she'd go pick up a new movie for her. Logan had offered to accompany her, but Jean had stepped in quickly and asked for his help with something else. (If she didn't know any better, she'd think that Jean knew exactly what was going through her head and was trying to help her. But that would be an invasion of privacy, and she'd told them all that she'd never attempt to read their thoughts the way the Professor had.)
The second time he'd sought her out, he hadn't even said anything. She'd been in the library, reading an old book. He sat down across from her and watched for a while, before grabbing a book of his own and pretending to read it. She knew he was pretending, because it was upside-down.
The third time, she managed to escape before he actually found her. Even though Kitty was distracted with Bobby, she was still a good friend. She'd texted Rogue five minutes before Logan would have found her to warn her that he was coming. She climbed up to the attic and watched as he walked across the grounds to exactly where she'd just been.
After that, the attic became her new favorite place. She started bringing books up with her, and she'd spend hours reading and sketching by herself. It was lonely, but it was something she could do without hurting. That was, until Logan found her again.
"Jean told me you'd be up here. She says you've been avoiding me?" he asked, sitting down beside her.
"I've been avoiding everyone," she replied, hoping he'd take the hint. He didn't.
"Why?" he asked, tilting his head. He took the book from her, marking the page before setting it aside. She frowned at him, but made no move to take it back.
"Because I'm tired, Logan. I'm tired of being ignored and treated like I'm less than anyone else. I exist, I'm right here, and I deserve to be treated like I'm good enough," she snapped, not thinking about her words.
"What are you talking about? Who's treating you bad?" he demanded, frowning.
"You!" she cried. "I've been trying to get your attention for months! Flirting doesn't work, showing off my body did nothing, and all you seem to care about is Jean! So I've been avoiding you, yes. I'm trying to move on."
She hadn't meant to admit any of that, but it did feel better to say it. Already she could feel the tension that had been building inside of her releasing. It was a weight off of her chest.
"I didn't realize... that's what she meant, then," he muttered to himself, frowning.
"That's what who meant? Jean?" she asked. He nodded. "I really don't care what she has to say. I don't dislike her, but I can't stand it when you talk about her. It's like I don't even exist!"
"Look, I'm sorry I made you feel that way. It's not true. I've always seen you. I'm just really bad at... emotions," he told her seriously.
"Emotions," she echoed, confused. "Like attraction? Because I'm pretty sure you're good at that."
"Well sure, but that's not what I meant. I mean, like, actual feelings. I don't know, I don't want to say love, but... affection?" he replied, sounding confused with himself.
"You... you're serious. You've actually liked me all this time? You're just that oblivious?" she demanded, hope rising in her chest.
"Yeah, I have. And apparently I'm oblivious, yes. I'm sorry, Marie. I didn't realize you've been wanting me as long as I've wanted you," he told her.
She laughed. There wasn't much else she could do at that moment; she was so overwhelmed with feelings that all she could do was laugh and pull him into a tight hug, careful not to make contact with his skin. (And she could only pull him into the hug because he was surprised. Not that he pulled away when the shock wore off.)
"I'm sorry, it's just funny. We've both been pretty stupid about this," she said after a bit.
"We have. I hope we can fix it," he agreed, rubbing her back.
"Oh, I think it's already fixed. We made it here in the end, after all," she told him. In her head, she sent a silent thank-you to Jean. She couldn't bring herself to be angry, because her meddling had gotten Rogue exactly what she'd wanted in the end. Oh, just wait until she told Kitty!