AN: Behold, chapter nine. Rionithis has guessed my evil plan, Jean will be key in this tale of two Pietros. In this chapter, the dream sequence from "Normality heaven, normality hell" winds up, and if you're not sure what's going on, there'll be a clarification at the end. I'll start working on chapter ten as soon as I post this cause hey! Pietro's secret really works, pixie stix are better than sleep! Anyway, general angstiness warning, and a little tiny bit of Lance/Kitty mush. Thanks millions to everyone who's been reading and/or reviewing! For today's disclaimer: I don't own Kodak. Gods, I wish I owned Kodak. I'd be so rich.
"Come on in, Mrs. Darkholme. My goodness, Rogue, you've gotten so big! It seems like just yesterday that I was trying to do horrible experiments on your brother," Magneto smiled, ushering them in. Pietro shot Rogue a look that said, "My dad tried to do horrible experiments on your brother?" Rogue shot one back that said, "Magneto's your dad?"
"Oh, you!" Mystique giggled. "And please, call me Raven."
"Then you simply must call me Erik. Golly, I'm glad our kids have become such good friends, don't you?"
"I sure am, Erik. Oh, you've got the slide projector set up, what fun!"
Pietro leaned over to Rogue as their parents herded them onto the couch, whispering to her, "Look, there's a back door in the kitchen, there's always a back door in the kitchen…"
"Now now, lovebirds, no secrets from Mom and Dad, okay?" Mystique said, sitting in the overstuffed armchair to Rogue's left.
"Oh, Raven, you and I are modern folks, I think it'd be fine if the kids held hands," Magneto replied, sitting in an identical chair to Pietro's right. Pietro looked at his father like he was insane, but as Magneto switched off the lamp closest to him and picked up the control to the slide projector, the two younger mutants grabbed each other's hand and held on for dear life.
The first slide showed Mystique, her hair tied back, her face flushed, in a hospital bed, holding two infants wrapped in blankets. One appeared to be a normal child, the other was blue and had a tail.
"Oh, this one is Kurt and Rogue when they were just new!" Mystique said.
"Giving birth to twins isn't easy," Magneto said.
"It is when you're a shape shifter!" Mystique replied. Laughter emerged from nowhere, like a studio audience.
"Oh my god," Rogue whispered. The projector clicked to the next slide. There was Magneto, his arm over the shoulders of a very pregnant, very terrified woman.
"And this is me and Pietro and Wanda's mom, Magda, just before she ran off because she thought I was out of my mind."
Click.
"Here's Kurt a few minutes later, being dropped to almost certain death by Mystique so he wouldn't be involved in any of my wacky plans! No hard feelings though, right Mystique?"
"Forgive and forget, that's what I always say!"
Click.
"And here's me passing Rogue off to Destiny, never to see her again until her powers manifested," Mystique said.
"Formative years are overrated anyway," Magneto replied. "Oh look!" Click. "This one's of Wundagore, that's where Magda dropped off the kids, and if you look over in the corner, you can see Magda, running off to die so that I won't track them down! It's not a good picture of her, she's a little out of focus." Click. "Oh, and here's one of Pietro and Wanda with their new foster parents, the Maximoffs!"
Click.
"And here's the house Wanda set on fire!"
Click.
"And here's the boy who's still in a coma because of Rogue!"
Click.
"And here's Wanda and Pietro getting separated because Wanda wasn't allowed to leave the country!"
Pietro and Rogue sat side by side, watching in misery as every past trauma was projected onto the wall in true to life Kodak color.
The slide show ended, and Magneto turned the light back on. Both Rogue and Pietro were looking at their parents with overwhelming hatred.
"You know what the best part is, kids?" Magneto asked.
"No," Pietro said coldly.
"What?" Rogue asked.
"You're going to grow up to be just like us some day!" Mystique smiled.
Both of them started laughing cheerfully as Rogue and Pietro looked at each other, each of them wondering if either would be able to escape the shadow of their parents.
Kitty sat bolt upright in bed as the door burst open, the lock breaking with the force. She was about to scream for Logan or the Professor when Jean ran in, tears streaming down her face. She ignored Kitty completely, instead heading straight for Rogue's bed.
"Jean, oh my God, you scared me, what's-" Kitty stopped talking as Jean grabbed Rogue by the shoulders, careful not to touch her skin, and shook her.
"Rogue, wake up, it's a dream. You have to wake up!"
Rogue's eyes opened and she saw Jean's face, wet with tears.
I could hear you in my head, Jean said to Rogue mentally. Both of you. It'll be okay, I promise, it'll be okay.
Kitty looked on, confused and frightened, as Jean held Rogue, and let the younger girl cry.
Rogue didn't go back to sleep that night. She wandered the halls of the institute, put her headphones on with the harshest, most jarring music she could find, and made herself a pot of coffee, far too afraid to go back to sleep. Pietro's voice and her own were just repeating the same thing over and over:
I'm not like them. I'm not like them. I'm not like them, until Pietro's voice gradually faded away, and the only voice left was her own. The sun rose and the others woke up, getting ready for the school day ahead. Rogue's face was ashen, and the dark circles around her eyes had nothing to do with make up, and all conversation stopped as she sat down at the table in front of a plate of waffles.
"I like don't think you should go to school today, Rogue," Kitty said. "You look totally beat."
"I just had a bad night," she said in a monotone, cutting her waffles up and then pushing them around on her plate. "I'll be fine."
"I agree with Kitty," the Professor said. "It would be best if you stayed home and tried to get some rest."
Rogue looked up, stricken.
"I'd rather go to school, Professor, it's really nothing."
"You heard him stripes, there's no discussion," Logan growled. "Now eat your waffles or you're going to spend the day in the infirmary."
Rogue sat there, slowly nibbling at her waffles, long after the others had left for school.
"What happened last night, Rogue?" the Professor asked quietly.
"I just remembered something. Several somethings."
"Do you mind if I take a look?" Rogue just shrugged.
"Your house."
Xavier shut his eyes as he perused Rogue's dreams from the previous night and sighed.
"Rogue, I can promise you that just because a family member tends towards the immoral, it doesn't mean anything about you. Just look at Juggernaut and myself."
"I just never know where she's going to be. She could be anybody. At least when she was principal of the damn school I could keep track of her. Now she could be anywhere. She could be dead."
"Which concerns you more? Your mother, or young Maximoff's father?"
Rogue gave a short laugh, without any mirth whatsoever.
"A woman who can be anyone anyplace, or a man powerful enough to kill any of us just by thinking about it. Any plans I make, she can screw up. Anything I build, he can rip apart. I just wish I was nobody. I wish I wasn't special or-"
"I know what you wish, Rogue. But we must cope instead with what is. You and young Maximoff have a choice: you can live in fear of Mystique and Magneto for the rest of your lives, never trust anyone, never endeavor to build lives of your own, or you can simply try, and hope that when they do arrive, if that day ever comes, that you can persuade them to see things your way or stop them outright."
Rogue winced at the twisting pain in her chest.
"They're just so strong."
"Then you must be strong yourself, and that will have to be enough. Now go get some sleep. I don't want you to miss more school than necessary." Rogue recalled her dream again, that awful laughter, the images flashing one by one.
"I don't think I should…"
"Try. I'll keep an eye on your dreams and make sure you're not disturbed. We aren't lying to you when we say you have great potential Rogue, but before you can ever truly trust us, you must learn to trust yourself."
Pietro zipped to Rogue's locker. She wasn't there. He zipped around the entire school, but she was nowhere to be found. Finally, he found Lance, talking to Kitty Pryde.
"Hey hey hey Kitty, where's your charming roommate?" Lance glared at him.
"Do you mind, Pietro, I'm talking to my girlfriend!"
"And I'm inquiring after mine, Rocky, is that too much to ask?" Pietro beamed at Kitty. "So, where is my little southern sugar?"
Kitty's expression shifted around, from skepticism to amusement to that emotion of teenage girls which can only be expressed as "aww!" It settled on something between sympathetic and fearful.
"Um, she woke up, like, kinda sick, Pietro."
"Did she say anything about me?" he asked, not at all casually.
"Good god, I'm back in middle school," Lance muttered, only to be elbowed sharply by Kitty.
"She didn't say much, y'know? But it's Rogue, and she like kinda keeps to herself."
"The word shallow didn't come up, did it?"
Kitty couldn't help but laugh.
"Pietro, if Rogue ever says the word shallow again, I'll be totally surprised."
"Well, if my girl is under the weather, then I guess it's up to me to bring a little sunshine into her life!" Pietro beamed. He took off before Kitty could stop him.
"I hope this like, works out, y'know?" Kitty sighed.
"It seems like it was easier when we were all fighting," Lance said grimly. Kitty gave him a pouty look and threw her arms around his neck.
"Aww, you sure about that?" Lance grinned and gave her a kiss on the nose.
"I said 'seemed' Kit-cat."
AN the Second: Okay, so there's that. For anyone perplexed by the dream sequence, those were all scenes from Rogue and Pietro's respective pasts, as presented by their biological parents, Magneto and Mystique in a creepily (in my opinion) wholesome 1950's kinda way, which I figured would be one of Rogue's many ideas of hell. I tweaked some things from the normal Marvelverse bios so they'd fit in better with the X-Men: Evoverse. If you wanna read the original character bios, swing by Marvel.com. In my version, the Maximoffs are Americans who went to Europe to adopt Pietro and Wanda, but after Wanda accidently set a house on fire with her powers, she wasn't allowed to leave. Yeah, I know, it's a stretch, but it moves the plot along. I'll do better next time.