The Birth of Rage and Wrath Chapter 1, a x-men: the movie fanfic

Rating: M for violence, language and thematic elements

Summary: Rogue and Logan are captured by scientists conducting genetic experiments. Things only get worse when they're rescued.

Disclaimer: Don't own characters from the Marvel Universe; I do however own the scientists, Wrath/Lucas, Sandy and Tissue (and the codename Rage).

Archive: WRFA (under FlameDancer77), FFN, ask me

Spoilers/Continuity: X1

Author's Note: In answer to Michael's Male Pregnancy Challenge on WRFA, in which Logan had to become a pregnant male. Underlined signifies telepathic conversation. Italics is emphasis.

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The X-Men, as well as the young adults training to join the team who fondly referred to themselves as Junior X-Men, were in Professor Xavier's office. It had been three years since the events at the Statue of Liberty, and anti-mutant sentiment hadn't decreased much. So Xavier had taken to actively recruiting mutants to come to the school, knowing most of them would be safer at the school than wherever else they happened to be.

Pick up missions weren't considered that dangerous, so he always paired an X-Man with one or two of the trainees. Jean, Jubilee and Bobby, as well as Ororo, St. John and Kitty had been given assignments already.

"Scott, I'd like you and Rogue to pick up the young woman who emits ultra-high frequencies every time she tries to talk," Xavier said. "I think she will connect best with two people who have handicaps due to their powers as well, so to speak."

"Location?" Scott asked, nodding his agreement with Xavier's assessment.

"It's a small town in California…"

Scott's head shot up from taking notes on the notebook in his lap. "I can't go on a two day trip, Professor."

Xavier's eyebrows rose, but Jean explained for Scott.

"We're having our anniversary dinner tomorrow night, Professor."

"Very well. Logan, would you go with Rogue please?"

Logan sighed but answered, "Sure, Chuck."

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"We met with the girl and her parents," Logan reported into the communicator. "They said to send their thanks, but they're moving to Australia next month so they can stay together. The kid and I are checked into the hotel rooms you provided us, and we'll be heading home in the morning."

"Very well, Logan, we'll expect the two of you back tomorrow evening," Professor Xavier said by way of farewell.

Logan turned off the communicator and turned to look at the woman lying on the king sized bed in his hotel room. She stretched luxuriously and smiled at him. He couldn't help but smile back. She was so beautiful, and she was all his.

"Didn't feel the need to tell Xavier we'd only be using the one room, huh, sugar?" Rogue asked him.

Logan sat down on the edge of the bed and grinned when Rogue got up and moved to straddle his lap. His hands automatically traveled to her hips and began massaging the soft flesh that was accessible between her jeans and the bottom of her shirt. His lover's slender but strong fingers wove themselves into the hair at the nape of his neck, tugging him closer so Rogue could kiss him.

She had been dropping hints like that for a few weeks now, about two thirds into their four-month relationship. Logan was never happier than when he was with Rogue, whether it was training together or even just sitting and doing nothing; it had always been that way between them. When they had actually moved to this new level, he had been ecstatic. But he was still nervous about how the others would react when they found out he and Rogue were a couple.

He'd personally get over it quickly if any of them disapproved, but he wasn't sure how well Rogue would take it. She had been particularly eager to please ever since her disastrous encounter with Carol Danvers six months ago. The events that had led to Carol being in a coma and Rogue permanently gaining Carol's powers and control over her own mutation had been a horrible accident, but because Rogue had benefited from it she still felt guilty sometimes. It was a habit Logan was trying to break her of, and he was sure it would be better for her if she was secure in her own self-worth before the others passed judgment on their relationship.

Logan was surprised Xavier and Jean didn't at least know, being telepaths, but they did both tout not going into anyone's mind without permission. Maybe they truly didn't snoop as he had always secretly thought they did. Either that or they did know and just didn't care.

As for the other residents of the school, everyone knew Rogue and the Wolverine had been inseparable since they had first been brought to the school together. The pair had never been intimate on school grounds, more out of a desire for privacy than anything else… neither one of them was very quiet during their lovemaking… so there was really no reason for anyone to suspect anything had changed. Not yet anyway… but it would have to come out in the not-too-distant future.

Rogue noticed his distraction and lightly bit down on his lip. He growled softly and nipped her lips in return, earning a throaty chuckle from his mate. And that's what she was to him. His mate, his life, his everything.

"Back with me?" she asked in a slightly huskier voice than normal.

Logan growled again, knowing it gave Rogue a thrill to hear the sound and feel the vibration through his chest, her own pressed tightly enough to him to feel it through her entire body.

Rogue made a soft sound of need and undulated her hips, moving against him in a way that made his breath catch in his throat and his fingers dig into her hips. But because he could see a wall coming up in her expressive dark eyes that hadn't been there other times he had brushed aside her hints, he had to make sure she at least partially understood his reasons for keeping their love private before he was completely distracted.

"I don't want them to make you feel like our love is wrong, Marie. There's a very good chance that at least some of them won't approve."

She stilled and met his gaze, a softness in her eyes he never got tired of seeing. "I love you, Logan. The biggest miracle of my life is you loving me back. No one could ever make me see what we have together as wrong. Not even if the whole world was against us."

A possessive growl rumbled from his throat and he buried his face in her neck, making sure she heard him when he said, "I love you so much, darlin'."

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It was a shock to Rogue to wake so drowsy. No matter what she and Logan had done the night before, as long as she had a couple hours of sleep, she always woke refreshed, part of Carol's invulnerability, she supposed. But now, not only was she groggy, but she was alone and not in the bed she had fallen asleep in. And there were way too many lights on.

Rogue tried to sit up and discovered that she was restrained against the narrow, thin mattress she was laying on. In a panic, she tried to break free. None of her struggles worked. Carol's abilities had chosen a really bad time to disappear. Deciding to save what little strength she did have left until a more opportune time, Rogue relaxed her body. She glanced around the room as much as she could, trying to figure out if Logan was here somewhere as well.

But thinking of her love raised even more questions. How had whoever had taken her managed to capture even just her without waking she or Logan? They should have died slowly and painfully on the end of Logan's claws for even trying.

A door opened somewhere behind her and Rogue froze. She wasn't sure if it was better to pretend to be asleep or go ahead and let her captors know she was awake. As the men… there were at least two of them… drew closer, she could hear them congratulating themselves.

"Yes, even though it did take a lot of man hours, it's a good thing we had someone watching them all the time. Much easier to pick them up this way then from the mansion. And bringing Sandy in to keep them unconscious during the capture was perfect. There's no way we would have gotten both of them otherwise," the first said.

The second agreed, "I don't think we would have even been able to take one of them without using Sandy. Rogue is physically stronger than even the Wolverine since her run in with the former Miss Marvel. And we didn't want them damaged. And with their current… relationship, they both would have fought to the death to stay out of our clutches."

"That was an interesting turn of events," the first man mused. "The tests will show if we are already a step ahead of where we thought we'd be."

Though she was confused by what the two men could possibly mean, Rogue took stock of herself, just then noticing that there was a slight pain on the inner side of her arm just inches below the bend of her elbow. There was also a faint pressure on the area, and when Rogue glanced down her body, she saw that a piece of medical tape with a wad of cotton under it had been attached to her skin. They had taken her blood.

A steady beeping she hadn't really noticed until then increased it's speed and she realized she was also hooked up to monitors. Rogue tried to calm her heartbeat, but she was scared and confused and her body was already dealing with the stress the best it could.

"Ah, you're awake," the first of the two men noted, jotting something down on a clipboard after glancing at the monitors. "I'm Dr. Samuels, this is Dr. Jackson."

"What do you want with me?" Rogue asked, narrowing her eyes at Samuels.

He ignored her question. "As long as you don't fight us we won't hurt you. Should you choose to be uncooperative, we will take it out on first you and then on the Wolverine. We need to keep you relatively unharmed, so we have to rely on your feelings for the Wolverine to keep you in line. You don't want us to give him daily torture sessions, now do you?"

Rogue swallowed a lump of fear at the coldness in his eyes. She shook her head in answer to his questions.

"That's a good girl," Samuels said condescendingly.

Just then a phone on the wall near the door rang. Jackson picked it up and listened without greeting the person on the other end. With an excited 'thank you' into the receiver, he hung the phone up and moved quickly to Samuels' side.

"It's as we hoped; we're ahead of schedule," Jackson told his cohort. "Three months from the tests."

A pleased smile briefly crossed Samuels' face before he glanced at her, lifting his clipboard and pen again. "Have you been to a doctor yet?"

"For what?" Rogue asked.

A sick feeling crept up her spine that maybe she already knew what he meant. It would explain why he was less inclined to hurt her than the average scientist-with-a-mutant-in-his-lab.

He struck her across the face with the back of his clipboard and snarled, "What did I tell you about being uncooperative…"

"I don't think she knew," Jackson cut in, a calming hand landing on his colleague's arm. To Rogue he said, "For the baby."

Rogue closed her eyes, a tear sliding down her aching cheek. Taking the two scientist's conversation and adding it to what she now knew, she was forced to acknowledge that the two scientists were what rumors had labeled 'breeders.' It had been floating around the mutant underground for about a year that some of the labs weren't death camps or mind control experiments. Men trying to breed so-called super mutants, mostly from two Alpha class mutant parents, ran some of them.

And apparently they thought her child, her son or daughter with Logan, was going to be one of these super mutants. A time that should have been filled with shared joy and happiness and plans for the future had become a nightmare. She would almost rather be in a death camp than know that her child was going to be raised to do the bidding of these kidnappers. How was she going to tell Logan?

"No crying," Jackson told her in a not unkind way. It was almost creepier than the malice Samuels had shown her. "It's bad for the baby."

With effort Rogue stifled her sobs and lay still as the two scientists poked and prodded her, running tests she didn't understand and drawing more blood. It wasn't time yet to fight with everything she could. She had to find out more about them and the place they were holding her. She could only wait and hope that the control collar around her neck, placed there to protect the scientists from the threat of her turning on her skin, she was sure, would not be a matching set with a second one around Logan's neck. Rogue distracted herself with thoughts of Logan waiting to find out where in the building she was before breaking them both out. Then she remembered what the scientists had said about her strength. They knew everything about she and Logan, evidently. And that meant the chances that they had allowed Logan to go without one of the collars was nonexistent.

Would the X-Men find them? Rogue thought the chances of that were pretty slim. Logan was hard for the Professor to get a fix on with Cerebro because of the adamantium coating his skull, and Rogue was just as difficult to psychically track because of all the personalities in her head.

What felt like hours later, she was finally un-strapped from the examination table and led by two armed guards down a hallway, her arms painfully restrained behind her so that she couldn't even try good old-fashioned fisticuffs. The guards jerked her to a stop in front of a nondescript, unmarked door. One of them undid the cuffs while the other unlocked the door. The one that had unlocked her restraints pointed his rifle at her head.

"Approach the inner door. It will be automatically opened and then closed behind you. Follow all instructions and things will go easier for you."

Rogue walked slowly to the second door, shaking slightly as she did so. This door was heavy, thick and evidently remotely controlled. Even if she did have her super strength, it would take quite an effort to get through this door. The room past the door was dimly lit and it took Rogue a few minutes to adjust after the brightness of the lab and the hallway. An automated voice announced that the door would be electrified in ten seconds, and a hand grabbed her wrist and tugged her away from the offending barrier.

Rogue almost screamed in fear before she realized Logan was the one who had pulled her against him. Collapsing against his chest, Rogue allowed herself a good cry. Logan didn't say anything, simply holding her and letting her get it all out. When her sobs died down, he apologized quietly and repeatedly for getting them into this.

"You weren't the only one they wanted this time, Logan," she corrected him.

"I know," he conceded before she could tell him about the child growing within her. "Damn breeders."

One of the things the two doctors had examined had been her child's heartbeat, which had been so fast and loud through their instrument that Rogue had at first thought something was wrong. Only Samuels' cold smile and written check mark after listening to the sound had informed her that it was supposed to be that way.

It had, however, made her wonder how Logan could have possibly not heard it at some point. He had a habit of laying his head in her lap when they were alone and relaxing. A sudden thought struck her.

"You already knew about the baby," she gasped. "How long?"

"Little over a month," he answered gruffly, one big hand traveling down to rest over her abdomen. "At first I thought it was just wishful thinking, but after a couple weeks it was obvious that I was right."

Rogue blinked up at him. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Instead of answering right away, Logan scooped her up in his arms. He carried her a few paces away from where they had been standing to a cot with a thin mattress and a single blanket. Logan laid her down on it before joining her, wrapping his arms around hers and draping one leg over both of hers, shielding her body with his.

"As I understand it women like to find this out for themselves and then surprise their husbands with the news," he murmured, letting go with one arm for a moment to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear reverently. "I didn't want to take that away from you."

Rogue didn't point out that they weren't married. She was the Wolverine's mate and she knew it. That meant more to Logan than any legal ceremony ever could. And the fact that she didn't go by her true identity and he didn't even know what his was would more than likely make it difficult to even have one. For a minute Rogue was able to push aside where they were and what they were going through.

"Guess what?" she whispered softly.

Logan's mouth twitched, but he played along with her, "What, darlin'?"

Rogue captured his hand and held it against her belly. "We're going to have a baby."

The fingers of Logan's free hand dove into her hair and tugged her mouth to his.

"I love you so much, Marie," he whispered when he pulled back from the kiss.

She burrowed her face into his neck, barely whispering her response, knowing he would hear her, "Love you, too."

They simply held each other for long minutes until Rogue realized that they had to face their situation if they were going to find a way out of it.

"What are we going to do?" she asked in a small voice. "We can't let them have our baby."

"Either Scooter and the others will find us and get us out, or we'll find a way out ourselves," Logan answered, keeping his voice low. "We have to keep our eyes and ears open at all times. Any little thing could be the key to gettin' outta here. And darlin', if you can get out on your own…"

"No, Logan," Rogue interrupted firmly. "Forget for a second that I love you and wouldn't be able to carry on without you in my life. This baby is going to need both of us. We won't leave without you."

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During their first full week of captivity, Rogue learned that Samuels and Jackson were perfectly serious about punishing her if she disobeyed them. When she put up resistance against a more thorough gynecological exam, they returned her to her room. Logan was not in it. She didn't see him for four days, and when Samuels told her to strip before climbing onto the stirrup-ed exam table on the fourth day, she did as she was told.

That night, Logan was returned to her, bruised and bloodied. Neither control collar had ever been turned off, and it broke Rogue's heart to see how much Logan resented having to let her help him with the wounds that wouldn't be healing automatically.

She was told the next day by Jackson that they only allowed her to stay in the same cell with Logan because it put less stress on her and therefore on the baby. But if they were displeased with her, they would separate them again, for longer, and take the risk. Livid at the way they had been treated, Logan struck out at the guards the next time they came for her, before Rogue had a chance to warn him about the consequences.

With his almost-instantaneous healing kept suppressed by the control collar, the tendons, muscles and nerves in his hands and arms were severed when he popped his claws, making Logan relatively useless from elbows to fingertips. He only managed to separate one guard from his left arm before the others were able to get Logan under control, pinning him to the floor and restraining his arms and legs with plastic ties used by riot police in place of handcuffs.

The mutilated guard screamed in agony for several minutes until Jackson showed up with another mutant. Logan and Rogue watched in shock as the mutant, not restrained or provoked in anyway, reattached the man's arm with a few passes of his hands.

"This is Tissue," Jackson told them when the now unconscious but once more whole guard had been taken away. "If you retract your claws, he will heal the damage you did to yourself with that foolish display."

Tears sprang to Rogue's eyes as the other mutant worked on a silent Logan.

"Please," she quietly begged Jackson. "He didn't know what would happen if he tried anything. It's in his nature to try to escape."

Jackson looked down at her over the rims of his reading glasses. "Just one day apart then, to remind you both that we are serious. If you're obedient for forty-eight hours after that, we'll let you have some light exercise in the yard. It'll be good for the child, but we have other ways if you fight us."

Rogue nodded and forced herself to remain quiet as they dragged Logan out of the cell. When Logan was once more returned to her the next day, he was quieter, more subdued. He didn't try anything after that. Two days after they had been reunited, they were allowed out into a sun-filled patch of grass enclosed in two rows of fence, razor wire at the bottom and top of each fence and guards with wicked looking guns stationed every five feet along the perimeter. Rogue was surprised to find two other people moving slowly around the interior of the yard.

Tissue approached them, a woman with purple hair keeping to her own corner of the yard. Logan tensed as the other mutant drew close to them, but Rogue laid a calming hand on his arm. Maybe this was one of those 'little things' he had told her to look out for that first day. Or would the woman be more likely to help them? If she was part of the breeding program as well, there was a chance that she too would do anything to get herself and her unborn baby out of here.

Tissue noticed Rogue's gaze in the other woman's direction.

"That's Sandy," he said. "She was supposed to be bred with my… DNA, but I can make it so that it's impossible for Samuels and Jackson to retrieve my genetic material. She and I are just used as tools against others now."

Rogue nodded slowly, remembering Samuels and Jackson's conversation from the first day, "They used her to capture us while we were sleeping."

"Yes," Tissue confirmed. "Sandy can cause unconsciousness in other people and mutants, or keep them that way. She doesn't want to help them, but they're holding her sister in another facility, and if Sandy doesn't cooperate…"

Logan grunted when Tissue trailed off, signaling that he and Rogue understood.

From that day on, their visits to the yard occurred daily. A week and a half later, Rogue started cramping in the early hours of morning. Logan refused to accept the truth at first, even though he had not heard their child's heart beating within Rogue for two days whenever he lay his ear on her gently rounded belly. When she began bleeding, Logan roared with grief and pain, the sound echoing through the heavy door to their cell and down the halls. It took six guards and two tazers to pry Logan away from Rogue. She was returned to their cell four hours later in fresh sweatpants and a t-shirt.

Rogue's eyes were haunted, and she wouldn't respond to any of Logan's questions accept to mumble something about a miscarriage. He had to force-feed her in the days that followed. He carried her to and from the toilet in their cell when she needed it, washing her and himself once a day in the curtain-less shower stall in the corner. The one time they were led outside, he had to carry her the entire time, and she kept her face buried in his chest.

He growled when Sandy approached them, but she ignored him, laying a slender hand on Rogue's head.

"She needs to sleep," the woman said gently.

Logan nodded reluctantly. He often woke in the middle of night to find Rogue lying on her back beside him, staring at the ceiling. The depression that had hit her with the loss of their child had caused her to shut down, and he had been forced to bury his own grief in order to keep her going.

Sandy's hand glowed above Rogue's face, and Logan watched as the slip of a girl who owned his heart fell asleep.

"Thank you," he gruffly told Sandy.

The purple-haired woman smiled sadly, "It cannot even begin to make up for my part in getting you both here."

"We do what we have to… to protect the ones we love," Logan told her, letting her know in his way that he didn't blame her.

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A week after the loss of her child, Samuels and Jackson started running tests on Rogue again each day. Five days later, they came into the cell with her on the return trip. Logan noted that Rogue looked slightly more alive and alert than she had since it had happened.

"Rogue is ovulating," Samuels told Logan. "We're going for artificial insemination this time to increase the chances of conception."

Logan growled a low warning, but the doctors ignored him, Jackson handing a sample cup to a guard who held it out to Logan. He, in turn, ignored it.

Samuels sighed. "If that's the way you want to be, we will use another male to impregnate her."

A glance at Rogue's pale, shocked face was enough to convince him. Logan snatched the cup from the guard, standing in silent defiance until all but Rogue had filed from the room.

He framed her face with his hands, forcing her to look at him. "I'm doing this for you. You have to promise me that if something goes wrong, you won't break on me again. I can't survive this without you."

"Love you," she responded, leaning forward to kiss him softly. "I'm sorry I got so wrapped up in the loss. It wasn't anything they did to me that made me lose the baby. I failed you, after everything you had to go through for me."

"You didn't fail me, Marie, it was just a tragedy we had to endure. And you know I would go through hell for you, darlin'. Just so long as I know you'll be waitin' for me on the other side."

"I promise," Rogue responded.

Logan filled the cup under the limited privacy of the blanket on their bed. Rogue stayed curled beside him, encouraging him with soft words and touches. She was taken away with the sample, returning two hours later with it inside her. That night, Logan made love to her for the first time since they had been captured, keeping it slow and gentle and under the blanket as far from prying eyes as possible. They both wanted to feel that the growing potential for life inside Rogue had come from their love instead of a lab.

Although the pregnancy took, and both Rogue and Logan were completely obedient to avoid any punishment that would harm or stress either of them or the baby, Rogue only made it to the five-week mark before once again miscarrying.

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Logan and Rogue were both strapped to examination tables, silently waiting with Samuels and Jackson for the return of their latest barrage of tests. Tissue stood in the corner in case Logan decided to act out.

"Well, it looks like we're going to have to start harvesting Rogue's eggs," Samuels announced when he had read through the report his lab assistant had brought in. "I'm afraid, girl, that you would never be able to carry a child to term. I guess Sandy can still be useful to the breeding program after all."

That last was said with a glaring look tossed at Tissue, but all Logan heard was that his and Rogue's child was going to be given to someone else. And if the scientists no longer needed he and Rogue for their genetic material, the chance was high that they wouldn't be needed at all. He had to do something.

Popping one set of claws and ignoring the burning, tearing pain that resulted, Logan freed himself from his examination table. The two scientists had become used to their two subjects always obeying and hadn't tightened the restraints as much as they could. Rogue was freed as well by the time the guards started filling the room. Logan pulled her in front of him and held his claws so that if he stabbed her, the adamantium blades would slice through her heart and into his. Rogue held his hand steady against the pained shaking the damage to his arm caused. He had no idea how long it would take the guards to get the control collars off and his mutation activated, but he hoped it would be long enough that it would be too late to revive him or Rogue.

"If he can reattach limbs," Logan growled with a jerk of his chin toward Tissue, "he can certainly fix Rogue."

Samuels looked pissed at Logan's daring, but Jackson took the relevant file and handed it to Tissue, who scanned it quickly, his face falling as he read.

"I'm sorry, Logan, but this is a genetic anomaly," Tissue said gently. "I can't fix those."

"If we can't have our child, no one else will either," Logan growled quietly, getting a confirming nod from a quiet Rogue.

Tissue looked thoughtful for a minute, "There may be another way. I can create tissue and organs, not just heal them."

"So?" Logan grunted, keeping a wary eye on the guards, who so far had held off at Jackson's commands.

Tissue's mouth twisted in a pale reflection of a smile, "Logan, have you ever seen the movie Junior?"