Title: Unexpected Loyalties

Author: LJ=Vonnix / =Gremblin

Universe: X-Men The Movie

Notes: This is something I started writing months ago to stave off death by boredom while waiting for my mom to get off work and drive me home. I really like the idea behind it and wanted to get some opinions other than my younger sisters.

Beta: Thanks goes out to the awesome Larissafae. Before she got hold of this fic I hadn't realized how horrible I am with some forms of punctuation. If you're into Joker fanfiction you should definitely check her out.

Summery: "Mister Toynbee has been giving the x-men information on Magneto for ten years now."

"A lot of the more useless information we know is because of him."

...:::xmen:::...

It was a pleasantly warm day outside the Xavier Institute, one of those days that you could get away with wearing a short sleeved shirt and thin pants. Many students had decided to take advantage of the change in weather from the cold rain of the week past and had started up a game of flag football, power use being optional.

Rogue had split off from Bobby an hour or so earlier, her boyfriend wishing to join the game while she herself wanted no part of it. Unlike many of the others she had no wish to spend such a nice day getting sweaty. She had instead decided to do a little bit of studying outside for the pop quiz she thought that Ororo was planning on giving them sometime in the next couple of days. It wasn't a for-sure fact, but just a feeling she had. If she had guessed correctly no one could even accuse her of cheating; it would be their own fault for wasting their time running around instead of studying.

For once it was quiet on the benches of the front lawn and she had decided to set up there. It was far enough away from the boisterous boys and girls using the back of the building for their fun that she wouldn't be distracted. A small smile lit her face as she wondered what it would be like if she was right about the quiz. It would be nice to have a higher mark than Kitty Pryde for once. Perfect Pryde with her perfect grades was playing football in the back, taking it as an extra little bit of training that was fun instead of hard. The younger girl had been quick to get onto Rogue's bad side.

Rogue's attention was pulled away from her studying as a dark blue jeep screeched to a halt in front of the mansions front door. She hadn't ever seen it before and after a brief inspection of the license plates she realized why. Whoever owned it lived in New Jersey. But what was so wrong that the owner needed to be moving so fast?

The front driver side door swung open and Scott jumped out. Instantly worried, she dropped her textbook down onto the bench beside her and stood up to help. As far as she knew he didn't own a Jeep, so that could only mean that the owner was hurt.

"Rogue!" Scott shouted over to her. The worry and urgency in the man's voice instantly had Rogue ready to do what she was told, no ifs, ands, or buts. "Go clear out the front hall!" was what the X-mens team leader ordered. Even as he spoke, he was tearing the door directly behind his own open and hauling a limp body out of the backseat.

"Okay! Rogue replied with a shout, ignoring her books to run inside. She would go back for them later. Despite her curiosity of who it was that Scott needed to help but couldn't have everyone else see, she didn't look back as she ran.

There were only three people in the front hall and (in what Rogue hoped would be a stroke of luck) they were all significantly younger than herself. They were sitting at a table off to the side of the room playing a card game that Rogue had no interest in identifying. All she knew was that Scott was no doubt catching up fast and he would want all three of those boys gone.

"Go play in the lounge, guys." Rogue told them, carefully gathering up the cards so that their game would be easily continued. She had to bat away protesting hands to do so, but the cards were cleaned up. "This place needs to be cleared out." They looked like they were going to question why they should listen to her, what was going on, who put her in charge, why they needed to leave, but Scott kicking the doors open had all three boys up and into the closest room with a door – which was the library – without even a thought towards grabbing their cards.

Rogue started to move toward Scott with a mind to help him carry whatever it was that he had bundled up into his arms. However all forward movement towards Scott froze when she realized that it was a person that he was holding. A person that was dressed in as many layers as possible. An unconscious person.

An unconscious person that was bleeding.

As soon as the bloody hand, wrapped in fingerless gloves and hastily- (re: badly) wrapped bandages, fell away from the barely moving chest, Rogue's path veered into a one hundred and eighty degree turn toward the elevator doors that led only to the subbasement. She jumped inside to hold the door before Scott could protest and punched the button for the doors to shut after he entered (and before he could tell her to leave) to send them down towards their destination.

"What happened?" Rogue asked. It wasn't giving in to her curiosity, she told herself, it was getting information on a possible patient. Even professionally trained surgeons needed to know something about the accident that had caused the damage they were fixing. Scott had knelt down to place the person on the elevator floor and re-wrap the hand. No answer was given other than Scott's head shaking the question away.

"C'mon you stubborn ass," Scott's whisper was so quiet that Rogue almost missed it. She was quite sure that she hadn't been meant to hear it and acted accordingly. "Don't give up now." Give up on what, though, Rogue could only guess. If she had to she would have bet on giving up on life.

Immediately after Scott finished re-wrapping the bandages around the bloody fingers (the pencils keeping them still were held securely in place with even more bandages) in a rough approximation of a splint, the elevator doors opened. Scott was up and out faster than Rogue could even realize that he had lifted the person up into his arms again.

She gave chase, knowing that Scott might need help and remembering him joking about being a hopeless medic while talking on his phone with Jean once. It might have been just that: a joke. Rogue, however, didn't want to risk that when she had been taking first aid courses for years – before she had even come to the institute.

As soon as she entered the infirmary she realized just how hopeless Scott wasn't at medicine. He had the person he had been carrying on one of the many empty gurneys and was already in the process of getting rid of the clothes being worn by whoever it was.

When Rogue started forward to help, Scott stopped her by holding one hand up. "Thank you, Rogue. You can go back to studying," was his dismissal. He didn't even look up from the sweater he was starting to cut away, as if he had no doubt that she would listen and obey what he said.

"I can help! I've been taking first aid courses since I was old enough to babysit," Rogue protested. The hood of the sweater had fallen down to the floor with the rest of the destroyed garment to reveal long, dark hair. She couldn't completely tell, but it looked like there was a green tint to it. Dye? Gel?

Natural colour?

"Thanks anyway, but I'm fine on my own right now and the Professor is on the way," Scott declined. His patient grunted in pain and started to struggle away from wherever Scott tried to put his hands.

It was the whispered, "Stay still you idiot" that made up Rogue's mind for her. Without even thinking of any of the possible consequences of administering unwanted help, she walked forward, grabbing some plastic gloves from a counter and pulling them on top of the elbow-length net ones she had already been wearing. She took the casting supplies that Scott had laid out on a rolling table and, still ignoring the orders of the man that was one of her teachers, went to work properly splinting the fingers of the hand that had first caught her attention in the front foyer.

Rogue didn't once look away from her self appointed task. She couldn't help feel a little bit proud of herself for not letting her curiosity (that Kitty Pryde probably would have given in to by that point, Rogue thought with more than a little bit of hate) as to the identity of the man with jaundiced skin run away with her concentration. She wouldn't let anyone know that, though. She instead went about her work of putting together the cast to hold the three broken fingers still. She did briefly look away when Professor Xavier entered the room, and again for long enough to watch how Scott set the apparently broken ribs. That, Rogue told herself, was fine. Acknowledging someone when they entered a room was a common courtesy, and setting ribs wasn't something she knew how to do, but was interested in learning.

It was only after the better part of an hour that Rogue stepped away, finished. The fingers were set and the cast was safely and comfortably fastened in place. In the time that it had taken her to put it together, Scott had gotten the unknown mans ribs wrapped, taken care of a gunshot wound, and started on bandaging the many bleeding cuts. The worst were already done, but a scattering of others still remained. They weren't deep enough to need stitches, but were still in need of looking at, which was what Rogue guessed was Scott's reason for their being tended to last.

While turning to pick up some gauze from a nearby tray, Rogue let her curiosity win for just a few seconds. She lifted her eyes just enough to see the face of the person that she and Scott were working so hard to help. Whoever it was had to be an important member or friend to the X-Men to pull the grieving team leader from his funk so fully.. Not even the Professor had been able to do that.

Instead she was met with a man that would forever be burned into her memories. Rogue had only seen him twice, once for only a short second in passing, but the events of her kidnapping by Magneto's Brotherhood were permanently burned into her mind, never to be forgotten.

"Toad?! What the hell?!" she exclaimed, disgusted with herself for touching the slimy little creep. She had been worried over him?! She felt a revolted shiver run up the length of her spine as she took an extremely voluntary step away from the gurney. Her mind flashed back to when she had first awoken in Magneto's clutches.

It had been dark in the boat and she hadn't been able to see anyone. Her first instinct had been to escape, but the shackles were ones that she had no hope of even dreaming of picking, even if she had had any idea of how to do so.

She had screamed for help, only to have Toad appear from behind the machine she would later be strapped into.

"What's wrong, pet? Don't like the accommodations?" Toad had drawled. The tone of his voice sounded sure of what was going to happen, cocky even. His skin had glistened in the little light managing to escape from the front cabin, with water or sweat, she didn't know, but she did know that despite the rumours and stories told at school, the man didn't smell funny at all. At least in her opinion --- Rogue found that he smelled like her father had after a long day of working at the catfish farms back in Mississippi.

The pleasant association the smell had previously held was ruined as Toad laughingly tossed her a squished sandwich in a Ziploc bag. It had tasted disgusting, but she had been starving and willing to eat her own socks to relieve some of the growling in her stomach.

Sabertooth had stepped in, seen her eating, and chuckled. "Eat around the mold and spit." He had grinned meanly while moving towards a small boat that looked like it would capsize by simply sneezing in the wrong direction. Toad had disappeared with a smirk into the bay as soon as Sabertooth's little boat had started out.

Scott grabbing the bandages out of her hand pulled Rogue out of her memories. He was looking at her with a carefully controlled frown, and displeasure with her most recent actions, or possibly lack thereof, of the last minute towards Toad obvious in his eyes.

"If you aren't going to keep helping, then you can leave," Scott told her. His hands were full and his attention had been firmly placed back on Toad's still-numerous uncared for cuts, yet Rogue knew that if he had been able to, Scott would have had an accompanying finger pointing at the door.

"What happened to Mister Toynbee?" Professor Xavier asked, cutting off the argument that Rogue could feel brewing between Scott and herself. She had almost forgotten the man was there.

At first Rogue wasn't sure if Scott was going to answer. Then she thought maybe he was answering the Professor's question silently, but mentally shook her head at that suggestion. The question wouldn't have been asked out loud if the Professor didn't want her to hear the answer. Maybe Scott was asking Professor Xavier for her to leave the room before he explained anything?

Then Scott sighed and started talking.

"We were attacked by the Brotherhood. I had met up with him at a mutant-friendly restaurant to talk. He was just telling me that Pyro was horrible at hand-to-hand combat when Sabertooth grabbed him and slammed him into a wall," Scott said. "Pyro was there, too, but I took him out before he could hurt anyone. I just barely got Mortimer away from Sabertooth." As an afterthought he added, "Mortimer's Jeep was closer, so I left my car there. It's probably trashed by now."

"I wouldn't doubt it." Professor Xavier smiled wryly. "I think it's time Mister Toynbee came back home."

"What d'you mean 'came back home'?" Rogue asked. She wasn't sure if she was curious or angry. This was the man that had, apparently, thrown Ororo down an elevator shaft and attempted to suffocate Jean. They couldn't possibly be saying that...

The Professor looked at her knowingly. "We do, indeed. Mister Toynbee has been giving the X-Men information on Magneto for ten years, ever since he first joined the Brotherhood's ranks."

"A lot of the more useless information we know is because of him," Scott said with a wry grin. "He seemed to think it was funny to hide the important things in amongst what size shoes everyone wore and what their favourite foods were. It was annoying, but everything's helpful at some point."

Anger and confusion reigned King and Queen in Rogues body. This man had helped Magneto in the plan that had almost killed her and all of New York City. He was a mutant terrorist. He killed people, good, innocent people, and X-Men didn't do that.

With a huff, she glared at everyone in the room, whether they were conscious enough to receive it or not, before storming away.

"Rogue?" Professor Xavier's voice was the only reason she paused in the doorway to the infirmary. "We would appreciate your not telling anyone about Mister Toynbee's arrival."

"Don't worry. I won't," Rogue spat, momentarily forgetting just to whom she was speaking. "Nobody would believe me, anyway."

...:::xmen:::...

AN: More will come later. I have this whole fic planned out in my head. Some things will be explained later as well, in chapter three I believe. Three or four. I already have two written out, I just need to type it up.