All characters owned by Marvel Comics
Author's notes: I think my influences are showing...the 90's cartoon was my gateway to the X-Men (Uncanny #303 and X-Men #24 were the first X-Men comics I officially read, no wonder I ship who I ship, right?) so this time period definitely has a special place in my heart!
Even though Mystique didn't give Rogue exactly what she was looking for, she was inadvertently helpful. Don't worry, Rogue'll get answers soon enough.
This interlude stands in place of Uncanny X-Men #251
Interlude: Never Again
Three years, two months before…
The aging jeep rolled to a stop in a cloud of dust so thick she couldn't see her hand in front of her face. She sputtered and stepped out of the passenger side, vainly patting the reddish grime from her jeans and leather jacket.
Logan stepped out of the driver's side, stretching thick arms over burly shoulders, and reached into the back seat for his cowboy hat. "Don't know about you, Ace," he grinned and donned the hat, smoothing the brim with his fingers, "but I'm ready for a brew."
Carol came around to his side of the jeep. "What I'm ready for is a shower. It's been a long, dirty few days." Shielding her eyes with a hand, she took a slow look around the isolated Outback town, the battered wooden buildings obscured in long, low shadows. "Why do you suppose Gateway didn't bring us home this time? Am I mistaken, or isn't that what usually happens?"
Logan grunted and started meandering for the town saloon. "Usually. This time he didn't. We made do."
Carol raised her hands in exasperation and followed him. "That's not the point. Why didn't he bring us home?" Her seventh sense was screaming inside her, and she hugged herself in the dying heat. "Something is wrong here, Logan." With her superstrength she seized him by the shoulder. "Really wrong. Where are the X-Men?" The town was absolutely silent except for their words and the scrape of their boots.
He shrugged off her hand and tipped his hat back. "Relax, willya? Team's probably on a mission." He turned back around and climbed the steps to the bar. "Flamin' broad…team can take care of themselves…"
She felt it before she saw it. Danger! She barreled into Logan full tilt, shoving him hard to the side of the saloon's swinging doors. He snarled from underneath her as a glinting harpoon whizzed past their heads and buried itself into the ground in front of the bar.
"Fuck!" Logan was on his feet, claws extended, before their would-be assailants exited the bar. The Reavers. Psycho cyborg killers, hell bent on revenge against the X-Men. They had used this town as their base until the X-Men had dismantled their criminal operations, and had been itching for a chance to even the score. If they were here, Carol sincerely hoped the X-Men weren't.
She chose her first targets and sprung from the ground, arms outstretched, and caught two of them in the flesh of their guts, doubling them over. She drug them airborne at supersonic speeds, and, holding them tight, spun furiously like a top and let go, sending two murderous half-man, half-machines rocketing off into the unforgiving desolation of the Outback. Back to the ground in the blink of an eye, she found Logan again, his claws tangled in the technical components of the Reaver named Pretty Boy. Carol dodged cannon shots from more of them, her zig-zags confusing the villains' aim, twisting them enough that they fired on one another in an effort to bring her down, nailing Pretty Boy in the process. They destroyed each other in a tremendous blast, their components sizzling and short circuiting.
"Logan!" she screamed. Donald Pierce, the Reavers' leader and a man that hated Wolverine to the depths of his black soul, held Wolverine by the throat high over his head. Letting her instincts take control, Carol laid into Pierce's backside with all her might, fifty tons of furious force that cracked the cyborg in half. The fragments of Pierce dropped into a heap on the gravel, and Logan landed on his feet, snarling, his healing throat a bloody, shredded mess.
"Where are they? Where are the X-Men!?" Rasping, he shook Pierce like a rag doll, but the villain's laugh was an uncontrolled wheeze.
"Where…you'll never find them…" The villain gasped and smiled before Logan sliced his claws through the man's neck. Pierce's unattached head rolled unevenly and stopped against Carol's foot, the unseeing eyes staring blankly up at her.
She covered her mouth with her hand and glared at Logan. "Thanks a lot, chum." She kicked the head away and surveyed the carnage they had wrought. The body-count was high, but knowing what she did of the Reavers, she doubted even this was the end of the band of murderous criminals. "You okay partner?" Logan was a gory mess, but his wounds were already sealing themselves. He nodded. She ran a troubled hand through her wind matted hair. "Do you think they got the X-Men?"
Logan inhaled deeply. "I don't smell any blood but theirs, but we better start a search." He gestured towards the first wooden building that served as Alison Blaire's quarters. "We better not split up. I don't want any more damn surprises." Carol spared an uneasy glance at the bodies of their attackers. "Don't give them a second thought, Ace. They had worse in store for us. We'll bury them in a bit, just want to figure out what the hell's goin' on first."
For hours, there was nothing. No sign anyone but the Reavers had been there for days, weeks maybe. Carol was ready to suggest they call it a night before the dingoes go to the remains of the villains when Logan growled and dropped into a crouch. She knelt beside him and met his eyes, the old habits of teamwork a worn pair of shoes they both stepped into. In a storage area off the main computer room, he pulled on a section of wall, but jumped back when the hole erupted in a shower of pastel fireworks that streaked the length of the room, exploding in a spray of sparks.
A squeaky voice echoed from the opening. "Back off, Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots!" The voice was female, and sounded young, scared.
Carol and Logan exchanged bewildered glances, and Logan leaned towards the hole again. "We ain't robots, kid!" More fireworks pushed him back in a flash of heat that scorched his eyebrows. He snarled and popped his claws, but Carol grabbed his forearm and cowed him with a glare.
"Why don't you come out of there?" she called. "We're the good guys, the X-Men!"
"The X-Men?" A small head with short, spiky, black hair peeped out of the hole and eyed Carol and Logan suspiciously before she climbed free and stood before them. Carol estimated her age to be about twelve, and she was petite, of Chinese descent, and looked like it had been a while since she had a hot meal. "You guys were all gone…" The girl screwed up her face in an angry scowl, but she was quaking with fear. "You were gone, and then those terminator rip-offs came in like they owned the place…"
Running a hand across his jaw, Logan snorted. "That's cause they did," he muttered.
Carol gave him a look, but smiled warmly at the girl. "I'm Carol, this is Logan. What's your name?"
"Jubilee."
Carol's tone turned serious. "Jubilee, we need to find out what happened to the rest of the X-Men. Can you help us do that?"
Jubilee shrugged and shoved her hands deep into the pockets of her tattered jean shorts. "I can try, but, like, I haven't seen 'em for days. Nobody but that old dude on the hill."
Logan scrubbed his hands down his face. "Oh, cripes…"
Carol felt her heart sink. Gateway, the silent Aborigine, was probably their only eye witness to the possible fate of their teammates. The trio made their way to Gateway's precipice courtesy of Carol's power of flight, much to Jubilee's delight. The ancient, weather-beaten man was where they had expected him, keeping his silent Outback vigil. Upon landing, Logan sniffed a frantic circle around the top of the craggy platform. Carol knelt next to Gateway, and Jubilee followed close behind Wolverine's heels.
Logan seized to a halt and the girl bumped into his back, nearly toppling to the ground, but Logan caught her. "I got this, kid," he grumbled. "X-Men were here, scents are a few days old, though. Reavers' stink is crawling all over the slope, but not up here."
"What does that mean?" Carol scowled at Gateway. "Where did they go, old man? Did you send them somewhere?"
Logan and Jubilee moved closer to them. "I know how you can find out what he knows, Ace."
She jumped up and backed away from them and from Gateway. "No." The one word was a harsh dagger.
"You know there's no other way."
Fighting the unwelcome sting of sudden tears, she stepped to Gateway and laid a hand softly on his bare shoulder. "Forgive me," she whispered, and dug deep, accessing a part of another she thought was locked away, buried beneath the weight of her subconscious, and pulled, felt the sickening flow of another's soul, another's world slide inside her. She gasped and dropped to her knees, and Gateway slumped to the ground. Logan reached to pick her up, but she pushed him away.
"Don't touch me!" The sensation of someone else overwhelmed her, and she pitched forward and vomited onto the rocky ground. Logan crouched next to her, but she waved his arms away. "No…" She let it roll through her, saw the world through the Aborigine's eyes, the visions of the last few days a nightmare for the X-Men. "They needed us…" she hissed. "…they needed us…and we weren't here…" she turned her head, peering through sweaty strands of hair, tears running down her face in rivulets. "Don't you ever make me do this again!" she screamed. "Do you hear me?! Never again!"
"Carol, darlin'…"
"Ororo's dead!" she spat, and Logan blanched, opening his mouth to speak, but she let it all spill out of her, the X-Men's last stand. "Alex killed her! The Reavers attacked and Betsy…she tricked them…Betsy opened the Siege Perilous and…they're gone, Logan. They're all gone…"
Logan's face was ashen, his eyes wide in disbelief. "'Roro. Can't be…"
The distant growl of thunder echoed as if on cue, and Carol and Logan looked at each other in bewildered anguish, unsure of their next move.
Chapter Fourteen
Gambit didn't say much on the mad rush back to Westchester, but each sideways glance seemed to be checking to make sure I hadn't shattered into a thousand pieces on the passenger's seat. I was sad for Illyana, for the girl I had known, heartbroken for Peter and Kitty, but my grief wasn't what was givin' me heart palpitations. Absorbing Raven's powers had shifted something inside me, no pun intended, and my skin still tingled beneath my layers of clothing, my palms sweaty beneath my gloves. The sensations were uncomfortable, but the pain that had plagued me for months was completely, inexplicably, gone.
The others had tried for weeks to convince me to absorb Logan's powers again, but I hadn't been able to bring myself to take anything more from him, not when Carol's original absorption had nearly cost him his life. He was my friend and I wouldn't put him in danger no matter how much hurt I had been in. Besides, he hadn't really been in good enough shape yet for me to borrow much of anything from him, his recovery still progressing at a snail's pace thanks to the damage my foster mother had inflicted upon him.
More troubling was what had happened when I had tried to absorb Raven in Cody's room. There had been a few heartbeats of skin to skin contact between us. My powers had always been instantaneously uncontrollable, the merest brush of bare flesh delivering a whole mouthful of someone else to my system. There had been nothing, no pulling of Raven's powers until I had dug deep and forced it to happen. I had been reluctant to even test my abilities since waking up. Was there something wrong with them? The last thing I wanted to do was find a guinea pig, but the time may have come. I needed Hank to look me over, but he was surely emotionally exhausted after losing Illyana. I didn't want to bother him just yet. Maybe after the funeral, when things had calmed down…
We made it home in record time, Gambit only stopping for gas and bathroom breaks. The man was relentless, focused. We had originally taken a cab to the airport, but Remy took the rental car straight to the mansion and parked it in front of the stone steps to unload. I hated to think how expensive renting a car in Mississippi and returning it in New York was gonna be, but I kept my mouth shut, grateful to be home. He grabbed both our bags and I climbed the front steps in a daze, his wary and weary eyes following me inside to the eerily quiet front hall. I took my bag and walked a few feet before his voice halted me in my tracks at the bottom of the main staircase.
"Rogue. Stop." I turned towards him. His eyebrows were drawn together over tired eyes, but he crooked a finger towards me. "Come back here. Please." I was ready to argue, but didn't feel like picking a fight, he had said please after all, and I had forgotten my manners, hadn't thanked him properly, so I stepped back towards him, his eyes following me the whole way.
"Yes?"
He flattened his full lips into a thin, white line. "Infirmary. Now."
"Why? I feel fine, and Hank's got other things on his mind…"
He grabbed my arm and hauled me towards the elevator leading to the lower levels, hustling me gently inside. "You're fine." He sighed and rubbed his eyes before he punched the down button, the doors sliding shut. "And when did that happen, Anna?"
I scowled at him. "Don't call me that. I'd still like to keep it private, please."
He rolled his eyes. "Don't change the subject. Here, and at every rest stop we hit in the Eastern Time Zone, I watched you walk tall, pain free. I haven't seen you move one muscle without grittin' your teeth to hide the agony you been in, not since I've known you. Yet, today, bam, you walkin' like you were never hurt in the first place. I want to know how that happened."
Leaning against the glossy elevator wall as it slid to a stop, I sighed loudly. "I don't know how it happened." The doors whooshed open before us and he gestured for me to leave first.
"How can you not know?" he whispered on our way through the still silent corridor. I merely shrugged. Where was everyone? I couldn't stop myself from glancing at what was Illyana's room on the way by. The bed was empty, the sheets, flowers, and stuffed animals all taken away. I bit back the heavy wash of grief that flared in my chest. What good was it to dream of the future when we couldn't save one little girl?
The lights to the infirmary flickered on at our entrance, and Remy deposited his bag on the floor and leaned over the computer console. "Don't need Henri…" he muttered. "I'm not an idiot…"
I hugged myself in the chill, the tingling and shivers intensifying one another. "Never said you were, Remy."
He grunted and stood, pointing to the paper sheet wrapped table. "Lie down, Anna." It was on the tip of my tongue to chew him out about my name again, but the memory of my earlier conversation with Ororo about her nickname surfaced. I was flapping my lips to a lost cause, my real name would be common knowledge by lunchtime. I dropped my bag on the floor beside me and hopped onto the bed, easing myself back, no sharp stab to the chest while my ab muscles rolled me flat. He approached with a handheld scanner. Hovering the device just above me, he traced the length of my body, the frown lines on his handsome face becoming more and more pronounced. He pulled one glove off with his teeth to operate the touchscreen. "Merde," he breathed through the material.
I tried to keep my tone light and tugged the glove from his mouth, throwing it onto a nearby table. "Is it that bad?" I joked, but his red eyes flashed to mine.
"This is insane. I'm running a comparison to the last scans McCoy took before he cleared you for Mississippi and…" His mouth hung open and he shook his head in disbelief. "It's like you were never hurt at all. There's barely even traces of scar tissue…" He stopped the scanner, staring at it like a goldfish out of water and I sat up and swung my legs easily over the edge. He leaned back against the bed right next to me, his hip against my outer thigh, elbow on top of my leg. "How is this possible?"
I shrugged. "I don't know, sugar, but I think it was absorbing Mystique."
"What, you think she has a healing factor or something?"
"Makes sense. She puts her body through a tremendous amount of strain every time she changes shape. I can tell you from experience that the pain is pretty intense when she shifts, and she's survived time and again when she shouldn't have…"
"You're goddamn right about that." Logan's growl startled us both and the Wolverine eyeballed our cozy stance suspiciously from where he leaned his burly body in the doorway. "I gutted that bitch, no offense darlin', and she still threw a grenade at our feet and walked away to tell the tale." Remy handed Logan the scanner when he came closer to us. "What the fuck is this, Cajun?" he snarled, and an exasperated Remy pointed to the small screen.
"Look at these scans. There's almost no comparison!"
Logan arched an eyebrow at me, but I just shrugged. He grinned. "Told ya' to absorb my powers again, darlin'. Would have saved you a lot of grief."
Huffing, I crossed my arms and stuck my tongue out at him. "You needed it, not me." I narrowed my eyes at his throaty chuckle. "Ass."
Remy frowned and crossed his own arms over his chest. "Maybe we do need Henri," he mumbled.
My temper crawled up my throat. "We don't need Hank. Not today." Remy and Logan's mouths popped open in unison but I held up a finger to shush them. "This is not an emergency. This will still be here in a few days, and Hank needs a break after everything that just happened. I'm perfectly fine." Hopping down, I completely forgot about the overnight bag I had dropped on the floor underneath me. My feet tangled in the straps and I skidded and landed with a hard thud on my ass, biting my lip and dragging down the crinkling paper sheet down from the exam table. We all three started laughing at once, great guffaws at my gracefulness. "Ow." I hurt, but I couldn't stop laughing, tasting the rust of blood in my mouth.
Remy knelt next to me, his face flip-flopping between concern and outright peals of laughter. "Perfectly fine she says…where's a camera when you need one?" Logan was practically crying as he stood over us and I scowled up at him. Remy smiled and wiped the blood from my mouth with his thumb.
"I'm fine," I said, "Really. Embarrassed…" I turned my eyes back to Remy, but his stared at mine, wide as saucers. "What…?"
"Holy shit, darlin'…" Logan's face matched Remy's.
"What, did I rip my pants, too…?" I put a hand up to where Remy's still rested on my face and froze. In a careless move, Remy had used his ungloved hand to wipe the smear of blood from my lips. He had touched me, and like in Mississippi, nothing had happened. I backed away as far as I could from the still conscious Cajun.
"You better call McCoy," Logan growled.