Remy woke up to someone poking him. What had happened? He remembered kissing Rogue and then nothing, had that been a dream. It was one hell of a dream then, he could still taste her on his lips. He opened his eyes to see a pissed off Scott, and an amused Logan and Xavier. "Wha' happened?" He asked groggily. He couldn't get the stupid little smile off his face.
It was then that Remy felt something on his forehead, he reached up and pulled a sticky note off.
Sorry.
Short and sweet. Remy got it now she had distracted him to get away. Oh and what a distraction it was, they would have to continue that one day. He looked back up to see Scott frowning so hard Remy could practically see the lines in his forehead engraving themselves there.
"I told you she couldn't be trusted and now look." He said furiously. "Now we have to make sure she didn't steal any information or tamper with anything."
"Calm down Scooter, she could have killed me but didn't." Remy said using the hated nickname.
"He is right Scott, I monitored her myself when she left the med lab." Xavier said calmly. "Oh Logan, if you have a moment Hank and I need to have a word with you." He said before rolling out of the room with Scott and Logan walking out after him. Remy was left in the room to deal with the problem Rogue had created.
XxX
Logan looked down at the paper in his hands, there was some sort of graph on it confirming results. He had never been a man of science or many words and was growing tired of waiting for someone to explain it to him.
"What does this mean?" He asked Hank who had handed him the paper in the first place.
"It's a DNA chart." He explained and then turned it to where the paper was long ways. "The top is your DNA, as you can see there are enough matches on the one below yours to indicate that you are a biological relative." Hank said vaguely and nervously.
Logan had another living relative? He knew Victor had a base line son out there somewhere. "So what like a niece or nephew?" He asked.
Hank coughed. "More like a daughter." He said not meeting Logan's eye.
Logan started to get an odd feeling in the pit of his stomach, that feeling you get when you know something, you just know it before your told. "And this long lost daughter would be?" He asked, his heart hammering in his chest.
"Rogue." The Professor provided after a moment.
"You know now that it's been said I see many similarities between you two." Hank added.
Logan nodded as he left the office, leaving the two egg heads behind. The question now was, what was he going to do about it. His first stop would be to visit Kurt, see if the furry elf knew anything about this.
It only took Logan a few minutes to track Nightcrawler down, he was hanging in his room upside down from a rafter. "Hallo." Kurt said without his normal chipperness.
"What's wrong with you?" He asked him gruffly. No one would ever accuse him as a sensitive sort of guy and he needed to go ahead and get this out of the way.
"Rogue's gone." He said glumly before teleporting to his bed.
Logan hated it when he teleported, the smell of sulfur always assaulted his senses and left him momentarily disoriented. "Yeah I had a few questions for you about Rogue." He started off leaning against the wall by the door with his arms crossed over his chest.
"And vhat is that?" He asked, his curiosity peaking.
"You and her share a mother." He stated.
"Ya, but I don't think you could really call her that." Kurt confirmed.
"What about her dad, you know anything about him?" he asked.
Kurt scrunched his eyebrows in thought. "Nein. I don't think I ever thought about her having a father." He said thoughtfully. "Rogue once told me that Mystique had sought out a mate to conceive her with." He admitted.
Logan had never had the pleasure of meeting the real Mystique, but from the stories he heard that sounded like something she would do. Mystique had purposely tried to get knocked up by him so that Rogue would be born. How had she known that together they would create a mutant with those powers? Should he go find Rogue? Did she even know he was her biological father? If she did, why hadn't she said anything? Maybe she didn't want anything to do with him, maybe she thought he would just use her like Mystique had. Should he tell her he would never do that to her?
There were so many questions he didn't know how to answer. Where would he even start?
XxX
Rogue knocked on the door of apartment 4A. She pressed her thumb to the peephole so 'Mr. Jenkins' couldn't peek out at her. She heard the footsteps come to the door and stop. There was a sigh when he couldn't see who was on the other side of his door. Then came the sound of the dead bolt unlatching. The door was then opened to reveal a tall Indian man.
"Oh God, not you." He said rolling his eyes. "How did you find me?"
Rogue put a hand on her hip. "Ya only have one alias, it wasn't that hard." She said and not waiting for an invitation she just walked in past him.
He shut the door behind her. "And what can I do for you?" He asked with overly false sincerity.
Rogue pointed out the collar around her neck. "Ah need this removed." She told him.
She knew for a fact Forge could never resist new technology and the urge to tinker with it. He walked closer to examine it the collar and Rogue lifted her chin to give him better access. "Who put this on you?" He asked as he rushed to his work table in the corner of the small living room.
"Ever hear of Stryker?" She asked as she walked around his tiny apartment. It was filled almost to overflowing with random gadgets and seemingly alien technologies.
"You mean the guy who just got arrested for trying to create a mutant killer?" He asked still bent over his work bench.
"Yeah, he put it on me, Ah was supposed ta be the mutant killer." She said.
"Well hey, at least you escaped." He said dismissively.
"Yeah, hey, about how much longer till you're done?" She asked while examining the windows that had been painted black. The man liked his privacy.
"Now!" He said triumphantly and turned around with what looked like a detonator in his hands.
"That's gonna get this offa me?" She asked skeptically.
"Yeah, see that collar operates off of a special kind of frequency and sound waves. This little beauty will basically be able to pick the lock so to speak." He said. "Or it might shatter your teeth." He said quickly and before Rogue could object he pointed it at her and pushed the button down.
Rogue squeezed her eyes closed just in case it did shatter her teeth. There was a soft click and the collar popped off. She opened her eyes and ran her tongue along her teeth just to be sure. They were all still there which meant Forge got to keep all his teeth too. There was a sudden wave of power that overcame her and the once dim psyches returned to their previous strength. And her new psyche, the most powerful one she could feel roaming quietly through her mind, not disturbing anything. More like a ghost in her mind than the other psyches.
"Thanks." She said taking the collar off. Something inside her mind told her to destroy it as a final act of defiance against Stryker. Rogue suspected that it was Carol. Using the mutants super strength she crushed the collar until it was nothing but a ball of twisted and torn metal.
"Wow, I didn't know you could do that." Forge said.
"Stryker gave me an upgrade." She told him still looking at the former collar in her hand. "Now Ah need ya to do one more thing for me an' then Ah promise Ah'll never bother ya again." She said looking up at the now frowning Native American mutant.
"And what's that." He asked his lips pursed together in a thin line.
"Take ya little lock picker there ta this address." She said writing the address down on a spar piece of paper. "No questions, jus' do it. An' Ah'll know if ya didn'." She said before turning and leaving Forge and his apartment.
XxX
Forge didn't know what he was doing there. Would she really know if he didn't give the collar to these people? Of course not! She wasn't psychic! And yet here he was waiting for someone to answer the door of the great big mansion. He let out a huff and impatiently tapped his foot. He was about to ring the doorbell again when it suddenly opened to reveal the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
She was definitely of African descent and had the most beautiful white hair he had ever seen. She was absolutely breath taking. His mouth must have been hanging open because one perfectly arched brow rose.
"May I help you." She asked in the voice of a queen.
"Umm, yeah, I, Uhh," he stuttered.
"Yes." She prodded.
"Umm, here." He said thrusting the gadget at her.
She hesitantly took it. "And what exactly is this?" She asked him examining it.
"Rogue told me to bring it here, I guess you guys needed a key to unlock the collars too." He said finally managing to find his voice.
"Why don't you come in," She trailed off waiting for a name.
"Forge." He supplied and followed her in.
She smiled and he felt his heart melt. "Welcome to Xavier's institute for the gifted, my name is Storm, but you may call me Ororo." She said kindly.
Forge just nodded like a love sick puppy and followed her into the mansion.