AN: Short chapter. Still debating the question I posed in the reviews: to stick with the show, or let the story run its own course. If you wanna weigh in, drop me an e-mail at MBLite@hotmail.com, please mention FF.net in the subject line, since I get a lot of spam at that address and I don't want to accidentally delete anyone's mail. I'm trying to get Pietro less OOC, we'll see how that goes.
On a side note: It's 7:16 a.m. I haven't been up this early since high school. Why the hell am I awake?
"I woke up alarmed, I didn't know where I was at first,
Just then I woke up in your arms,
And almost immediately I felt sorry 'cause
I didn't think this would happen again,
No matter what I could do or say,
Just that I didn't think this would happen again,
With or without my best intentions."
-Liz Phair, 'Fuck and Run'
Rogue woke up, her mouth and brain feeling fuzzy. It took her a minute to remember where she was. Pietro had offered to take her home, back to the Institute, or if she didn't want to be seen with him, he'd get Todd or Freddy to walk her, but she asked him if she could stay there that night.
He must've said yes, because as the fog in her head cleared a bit, she felt the rare sensation of skin against her bare skin; an arm was draped over her, far too lean to be anyone's but Pietro's. She was wearing a long t-shirt, and was somewhat relieved to find she was still wearing other key garments. She turned around in Pietro's arms to face him, and a sulky expression marred his features at the disruption, then smoothed out as she snuggled against his chest.
"What time is it?" she muttered, closing her eyes. He craned his neck to see over her to his alarm clock, and swallowed hard.
"About quarter of one."
Rogue's eyes snapped open with sudden clarity.
"What?" she shouted. She scrambled off the bed, paused for a moment, then scrambled around at top speed, collecting her clothes.
"What are you doing?" he asked, smiling a little. She looked up, gaping at him.
"Do you have any idea how much trouble I'm in? I missed curfew, danger room exercises-"
"You're only in trouble if you go back," he pointed out. She stopped, standing on one foot, her jeans halfway on.
"What do you mean?"
"We could keep you here."
"I'm not working for Magneto," Rogue said, and returned to dressing.
"You wouldn't have to," Pietro said. "You could just live here."
"Somehow I don't think Magneto would agree to that."
"So? He never comes here. The prick with the cards watches us for the old man, and I don't think he's coming back."
"Why not?"
Pietro smirked and looked at his fingernails.
"I was all manly and roughed him up a little bit."
Rogue gave him a disapproving look.
"What!" Pietro cried. "He bothers my friends who are really mad at me and don't need any more trouble from him, and constantly makes passes at my girlfriend. So I hit him a few times and hauled him to Canada."
"They're gonna come lookin' for me," she said.
"Yeah, but Xavier's all about the free will. 'We can't force you to join us Rogue,'" he said, doing a poor impression of the professor. Rogue smiled and bit her lower lip.
"Gimme a minute, okay?"
She walked down the stairs, picked up the phone and dialed.
"Hello?"
"Scott?"
"Rogue?" he exclaimed. "Where are you? Are you okay?"
"Yeah. I'm not coming back for a while. I need some time."
"What? How long is a while?"
"Evan was right, it's all just too much right now. If I don't get things back in perspective, I'm gonna go outta my mind."
"Will you at least tell me where you're gonna be?"
Rogue glanced up to the top of the stairs where Pietro stood.
"You don't wanna know," she replied, and hung up.
"Another one bites the dust," Scott sighed as he hung up the phone.
"Scott? What is it?" Jean asked, walking in from the kitchen.
"We just lost Rogue," Scott replied, shoving his hands in his pockets and glaring at the phone.
"Lost? Lost how?"
"She said she's not coming back, and that I didn't want to know where she was."
"Which can only mean-"
"Bingo."
Jean sat down heavily on the couch; Scott plopped down beside her.
"How could she do this after everything we-"
"After everything we what, Scott?" Jean sighed, leaning her head back and staring at the ceiling. "You got ruby glasses that let you see again, I get daily psychic coaching, and I get a little better every day, what did she get? Mandatory aerobics classes and a lifetime supply of gloves. We never really helped her."
Scott sighed and leaned forward and rested his chin in his hands, staring at the floor.
"It's not like we didn't want to. It's just… what more could we do?"
"I have no idea," Jean sighed. "But how long was she supposed to hang around waiting for us to figure it out? At least over there she fits in, you know?"
"I better go tell the professor he needs to pick a second person for the main team," Scott said.
"How's Bobby taking his promotion?"
"Not bad," Scot shrugged, standing up. "Hates the way it happened, but he's more than ready for it. Who do you think he'll have step up for Rogue?"
"Maybe Magma, maybe Berserker. Who knows," Jean shrugged.
"You gonna miss her?" Scott asked. Jean stood up and hugged him, sighing.
"I don't know," Jean said honestly. "It's almost like she was never here."
Rogue had gone back to bed after calling Scott to sleep off the rest of her hangover and think, in whichever order she could manage. Wanda had moved into her old room, and Mystique's was still full of all her stuff, which just made Rogue nervous, but Pietro didn't seem to have a problem with sharing a bed with her, although Todd, Lance and Freddy all arched eyebrows at the idea.
Lance was grouchy in spite of Todd's forced hydration, though Pietro and not a hangover was really to blame. Lance was set to fixing the Jeep- Pietro informed him that he was taking Rogue on several dates that night to celebrate her liberation from the X-Geeks. Lance had questioned the wisdom of hauling a girl who'd been through a great deal around on the town all night, and Pietro had blithely told him to go to hell, then insulted his clothes. Freddy was doing the cooking, and was fairly good at it, while Todd was on the roof adjusting the antenna. Pietro couldn't help himself, he'd been bossed around by Lance for so long, and he promised himself he'd quit abusing them in a couple days, or maybe when the sheer niftiness of being leader wore off.
They were on the verge of mutiny when Wanda showed up, Todd leading her right to him, but fortunately, she didn't stick around long, didn't break much, and didn't injure anyone before she left again. She came back the next day with a disturbingly cheerful outlook on life and no memory of why she was mad at her father.
"What the hell happened to her?" Rogue whispered in Pietro's ear as they stood in the kitchen cleaning up dishes, after the mutiny from earlier was re-staged, this time with Wanda's help.
"Magneto did something to her head."
"You don't think she just… got over it?" Rogue asked. Pietro gave her a look. "Guess not," Rogue sighed.
"Nope."
"But he can't just do that, screw with people's heads that way!" Rogue whispered insistently. Pietro gave her another look.
"Sweetheart, darling, how quickly you forget. Xavier? Soccer game?" he reminded.
"Oh. Yeah. Jeez, they really are a lot alike," she sighed.
"They used to be friends," Pietro said. "Me and Wanda used to play with Xavier's kid while he and Magneto were inside, discussing the fate of the world and all that crap."
"Xavier's got a son of his own?"
"Son, ex-wife, the whole bag. Magneto filled me in on all of it, I remember some of it myself. Not a pretty picture, I can tell you that much. Very Stepford mutants in its own trippy way."
"Christ, is that like part of being a mutant or something? You're automatically a lousy parent?"
"Sure looks that way. But don't worry gorgeous," Pietro said. "It can't last forever. We'll grow up, and it'll be our turn to fuck up someone else's life."
"That's not very comforting," Rogue sighed, drying a dish. Pietro smiled warmly.
"Don't be so sure, Stripes. One of these days, I'll give you the whole wide world, rebuilt from the ground up, just for you, and me, and Wanda, and those idiots in the living room. And we'll force it to be fair to us," he said, dabbing soap bubbles onto her nose.
"Now that's comforting," Rogue laughed, smiling at her boyfriend's far-fetched promises of a future she doubted they'd ever see, and leaning in to kiss him.
"Hey! Ozzy an' Harriet!" Todd shouted, bouncing into the room. "Sex in the City's on."
"When the hell did we get cable?" Pietro said, turning out of his kiss.
"Enh, no big thing. Lance bet Forge that he couldn't whip up an antenna that could pick up satellite feeds from Japan. Now come on, I don' wanna miss any of the strip club scenes!"
Rogue rolled her eyes, and Pietro turned back to her, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.
"Brave new world, hot stuff."