AN:  Well, as spiffy as Self Possessed was, I can't fit it into the story without, well, breaking the story, at least not yet.  So I guess from here this fic's on its own.  I've gone back through the whole thing and tried to iron out Pietro's OOCness, and I've changed all the chapter titles to the titles of the song that heads it.  Wow, I haven't updated in a while, I suck.  Anyway.  Pleh.  Moving on. 

"I keep her photograph against my heart
for in my life she plays a starring part
all alcohol and cigarettes
there is no room for cheap regrets

But my baby's so vain
she is almost a mirror
and the sound of her name
sends a permanent shiver down my spine…"

-Nick Cave cover of "Shivers"

            "Does Lance know?"  Rogue whispered as she and Pietro lay on the bed, face to face in the dark. 

            "No.  No one was supposed to know, and no one else can."

            "Shhh, I know.  But I still don't get it, I mean-"

            "Do you know how old my father is, Rogue?"

            "I dunno.  Mid-fifties?"

            "Have you looked at him lately?"

            "Not up close, he's always got his helmet on."

            Pietro sighed and brushed her face with his fingertips blindly.

            "Bastard might as well be twenty five.  He doesn't even think about it, but he's been using his mutation to keep himself young."

            "That's impossible!"

            "It's not.  Everyone ages a second at a time, it's cells deteriorating, toxins building up, DNA degrading.  What if every time something like that happened, you just undid it?  Or stopped it from happening at all?  His little stint in his cauldron on Asteroid M made him strong enough to turn back the clock to when his body was at its peak.  Now it's far too simple for him to hold off time.  I told you yesterday that it couldn't last forever, but he can.  So what else can I do?"

            "There's gotta be another way."

            Pietro snorted.

            "Are you kidding?  What am I gonna do, negotiate with him?  Even if I run away, he'll find me.  Jesus, I can see it now, I'll be wearing depends, eating applesauce in a nursing home sixty years from now, and he'll show up and tell me he has a job for me."

            "Why don't you just tell him no?"  Rogue asked, wriggling one arm underneath him and pulling closer.

            "It's him or me.  He thinks I'm his because he donated some fucking sperm.  He won't let me go.  God, you saw what he did to Wanda.  If I don't pretend to go along with him, he'll make that creepy bastard Mastermind screw with me until I don't know what I know.  No matter how many memories he changes, he can't change who he is, and he won't let me go until he's fucking dead."

            Pietro squeezed Rogue tightly, breathing in the smell of her hair.

            "It's like you told Xavier.  Anything I plan, he can screw up, anything I build, he can rip apart.  And anything I care about he can take away.  I can't live like that anymore."

            Rogue swallowed hard as he felt his voice vibrate through her head against his throat. 

            "How are you going to do it?"  Pietro sighed and turned onto his back, staring at the ceiling. 

            "That's kind of where my brilliant, no good, worst plan ever starts to deteriorate," he sighed, putting his hands behind his head.  "I've already missed my best shot.  I could have just let the sentinel crush him.  Wanda had him powerless, all I had to do was nothing at all."

            "Why did you save him?"

            She bit her lip gently as Pietro turned and looked at her, winter blue eyes all lit up with love as he reached out again to touch her face.

            "You were captured, so was Freddy.  I wasn't sure if there were more Sentinels, hell, Magneto didn't even know.  I couldn't risk letting him die yet.  Even I have to admit he comes in handy from time to time.  Especially against giant robots," he turned his head back towards the ceiling and smiled.  "But now we're safe as houses, at least on the giant robot front, and Wanda's back on our side, and she's a hell of a powerhouse."

            "But Wanda isn't after Magneto anymore."

            Pietro's face darkened as he remembered Wanda coming home, blithely ignorant of her misspent childhood trapped in a mental hospital. 

            "For now," he said.  "Magneto's not a better man.  I don't think he'll be able to hide what he is for long.  She's a smart girl, she'll figure it out.  The old man will screw up again, and I'll be ready when he does."

            Rogue lay beside him and turned to stare at the ceiling herself.  How many times had she seen Mystique and wanted to tear her head from her body?  How many times had the woman fucked something up for her?  And how could she be sure that Mystique wouldn't do it again?  She wasn't sure who said them, it couldn't have been her, but the next words which came out of her mouth were:

            "What can I do to help?"

            The room was dim and full of sullen silence as five men sat around a heavy oak table.  Gambit's bruises had faded to a greenish yellow, but the damage to his pride was still a fresh, open wound.  He had thought that Magneto's son was just a pawn, just evidence of some vestigial interest in blood ties on the part of his father.  Gambit realized that he had underestimated the boy's fighting abilities, but what shocked him most was the ruthless cruelty which had surfaced when Quicksilver had attacked him. The boy hadn't even flinched at the one sidedness of the fight.  No hesitation, even when he was dragging Gambit to Canada at the speed of sound.  Clearly Magneto's son had inherited more from his father than the white of his hair or the blue of his eyes.

            Gambit had tried to relate Quicksilver's threats and demands to Magneto, but had been told to keep his mouth shut: bigger problems had arisen. 

            There was no love lost between Colossus and Magneto, but even less was misplaced between the Russian and the Cajun.  Piotr couldn't keep the tiny smirk off his normally stoic face at the sight of Gambit sputtering as Magneto informed him that he was physically, psychologically and spiritually incapable of caring less if Gambit and Quicksilver killed one another in their spare time, so long as it didn't adversely affect the missions.  Piotr's had been the most demure reaction; Pyro shrieked with laughter, and Sabertooth let out a throaty growl which passed for a snicker.  But there were indeed much bigger problems on the horizon. 

            It was difficult to see Magneto's face when he wore his helm, which was any time he was on the same continent as Xavier.  The shadows obscured his face, his voice appeared to emerge from them, rumbling like thunder from dark and distant clouds.

            "It has come to my attention that a well funded, U.N. affiliated anti-mutant group has developed a device modeled after Xavier's Cerebro system.  If it is perfected, they will be able to track, locate, and kill specific mutants.  And I think we all know who'll make the top of the list."

            "Does the Cerebro not require a mind reader to work?" Piotr asked. 

            "They call it the Sibyl system, and it differs," Magneto replied.  "Cerebro is a tool, strengthening the abilities of its willing telepathic user.  To the Sybil, the mutant is just a battery, and cannot control or resist the process.  Too much strain and the mind shatters.  I have no doubt that we will find many catatonic mutants whose minds have been raped for their abilities. 

            "There are few telepaths who approach Xavier's capacity, but if this group were to capture one, there would be no place left for any mutant to hide.  Unfortunately for them, I've managed to uncover the location of this marvelous new toy of theirs.  You will go in two teams: Colossus, you will lead the first, taking Blob, Gambit, Toad and Sabertooth.  Your task will be to crush the human guard.  Quicksilver will lead Avalanche, Pyro, and Scarlet Witch.  Their task will be to destroy the Sibyl and turn the facilities to dust, and rescue any cognizant mutant survivors."

            Magneto smiled within the helm's depths.

            "Perhaps then they will learn that they are not the hunters, but the prey."

            "Hey!  Avengers assemble, Mousketeer roll call, time to form Voltron, let's go!"  Pietro hollered, zipping from room to room and rousing the troops.

            "Pietro, if this is another fucking drill, so help me christ-" Lance grumbled, stumbling downstairs.

            "Au contraire, mon frere," Pietro replied.  "This is the real McCoy, criminal mischief and mayhem.  Apparently some pack of humans has gone and cooked themselves up a Cerebro of their very own."

            Pietro relayed the details of the mission and ordered everyone to go suit up for the rendezvous with Magneto, shooed them all out, and then turned to Rogue, kneeling in front of where she sat and resting his chin on her knees.

            "You okay with house sitting?" he asked her, who remained on the couch looking fretful even as he playfully walked his fingers up her thigh.

            "I'll  be fine," she said.  "It's y'all I'm worried about."

            "You kiddin'?" Pietro replied.  "It's a routine destruction of property gig.  Wanda destroys the info, me and Pyro destroy the machine, Lance puts the building in the ground.  We did the same thing after Star Wars: Episode Two."

            "I'm serious, Pietro," Rogue said, catching his hands and kissing his fingertips.  "Watch your back."

            "Sweetness," he said, bounding up onto the couch and sprawling in her lap, draping his arms around her neck.  "They won't even know what hit him."

            The rendezvous point was an abandoned warehouse by Boston harbor.  Magneto chose it because it had once had skylights, a few of which were missing.  This made it the easiest place to store and from which to deploy the metal spheres in which his followers traveled. 

            All were suiting up.  Night vision goggles, paler thermal versions of the usual uniforms for a stealthier operation in the Antarctic, as well as the usual materials. 

            "Hey Quicksilver!" Gambit called with a nasty smile.

            "Yessss?"  Quicksilver replied, looking at Gambit through the red-lensed night vision goggles.

            "How's your pretty girlfriend?"

            "She's just swell, Gambit.  Speaking of swelling, how's your pretty jaw?  Might wanna keep icing it?"

            Gambit scowled and Quicksilver turned as he heard a small noise behind him, and saw Colossus laughing quietly. 

            "It's time.  Move out," Magneto growled.

            As the metal pod closed around him, Quicksilver pulled a hastily taken photo of Rogue from inside his shirt, right over his heart.  She'd been caught like a deer in headlights, her eyes wide, hair messed up, her cereal spoon in her mouth and the cereal box in her hand, as she tried to sort out how many kinds of sugar could be in one simple foodstuff.  He raised the polaroid to his lips and kissed the image of her startled face.

            "See you soon, gorgeous."