AN- Okay, here we go. Chapter 17. This chapter contains the usual adult language, a smidgen of violence or references to past violence, and some other adult content. That's right! What could it be? If it's not language, and it's not violence, oh my god, it must be sex. Anyway. Moving on, here ya go. I love you all.
"Well, maybe there's a God above,
But all I've ever learned from love,
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya.
But it's not a cry that you hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah."
-Jeff Buckley, performing Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen
"Excuse me," a voice said in Rogue's head. It didn't sound like Wanda, the only female she'd touched today.
"Um… yeah?" she said out loud.
"Are you in charge here?" the voice asked.
"Not exactly. But the official leader is unconscious, and I'm getting us home-"
"Magnificent. You don't need to talk out loud. You're liable to get a bug in your mouth."
"Not this high up," Rogue thought back, but complied. "Who are you?"
"I'm the person you took out of Wraith's bloody monstrosity, the Sibyl. My name is Emma Frost, of the Boston Frosts. And you are?"
"Rogue," Rogue said.
"Rogue…?"
"Just Rogue."
"How quaint. In any case, thank you for the rescue, but I would dearly like to get out of this contraption and away from this…person who seems to think I should be pleased to be in such close quarters with him."
Gambit, Rogue realized. Better her than me, she thought.
"I heard that, and I can't say I agree with you."
"We're almost home. If he gets fresh, you have my permission to break his jaw."
"I don't need anyone's permission for anything," Emma replied haughtily, and severed the connection.
Rogue brought the spheres down in the warehouse and opened them, then landed herself. Pietro was at her side in a second, seeming oddly clingier than usual, but Rogue hardly minded. Wanda and Magneto were out cold, Colossus, Toad, Pyro and Sabertooth were fine, out of their transports and checking on Magneto and Wanda. The girl called Emma had emerged from the transport looking furious, Gambit had emerged moments later with an imprint of her hand on his face. Todd sat on the ground next to Wanda and held her hand, stroking her hair and murmuring calming things that she couldn't hear.
"Colossus, are you okay to drive?" Rogue asked. The taller man nodded, and carefully picked up Magneto, who didn't look so large now that he was limp as a rag doll. He put him in the back seat and buckled his seatbelt, and, as an afterthought, gently placed his helm back on his head, drew the cape around him.
"Is he alive?" Sabertooth growled.
"Yes," Colossus replied, backing his way out of the car. "He's alive."
"We're all alive," Pietro said distantly. "Good for us."
The others looked at him strangely as Rogue quickly changed the subject.
"Can we go home?" she asked. Emma studied her fingernails and answered.
"They think you're in charge now," she said. "You got them- and me- away from that horrible place. Welcome to the wonderful world of leadership. Some of them want to listen to him," she said, glancing at Pietro, "but he's not saying anything. So if you want to go home, then by all means, drop me off at the nearest five star hotel and go home."
"Do your parents know you're a mutant?" Todd asked her.
"No, as a matter of fact they don't. I didn't know until my whirlwind jaunt away from my school. My parents are probably still waiting for a ransom note."
"You think they're gonna be all lovey dovey once they know what their kid is?" Todd said, looking at Wanda's fingers. "Your dad's a big deal right? Your mom too, probably? How much of your trust fund you wanna bet that your dad's gonna be more concerned about how he can get you to play the stock market for him? Or that your mom's gonna pump you for gossip on the rest of the Stepford bitches around town, huh? Or maybe they'll just wanna forget about you altogether."
"Do not make the mistake of comparing my parents to yours," was all the cool mannered girl replied. Todd looked up with a harsh expression and stared her down.
"Let's get something straight, cupcake, nobody busted into Fort Bragg to save your ass, they came to get us. The only reason you're not pork chops in that place is that Rogue here is a big softy. Although I think that has a lot to do the fact that when she met you, your bitch ass was unconscious."
"Enough," Pietro said. "We'll drop you wherever you want to go. Rogue, kill those pods, we're gonna have to find a new base of ops. Everybody else get in that fucking car."
Pietro's usual impatient authority wasn't in his voice. He looked more tired than Rogue had seen him since before he became immune to her touch, and a different tired as well. Rogue raised a hand and each of the spheres crumpled into a small, dense pile of scrap.
Emma got into the back seat next to Magneto, rolling her eyes as Gambit sat next to her, face still pink from her slap. Todd sat down and pulled Wanda next to him, his eyes pale with concern as he buckled her seatbelt and gently rested her head on his shoulder, Colossus got into the driver's seat, and Sabertooth took shotgun. Pyro sat next to Wanda and Todd in the middle row, leaving the car quite full.
"Can you run?" Rogue whispered quietly to Pietro.
"Yeah. It's been way too long since we went for a run," Pietro replied. "Colossus, take the blonde chick to whatever hotel she wants to go to, I'm sure if she drops her name they'll bend over backwards for her."
"You'd best believe it," she said. "This is my town."
"That's swell, we don't care," Pietro replied. "Take her to the Four Seasons or wherever the hell rich people go these days and meet us back at the house."
Colossus nodded and pulled the SUV out of the warehouse, as Rogue and Pietro watched them drive away into the night.
"You okay sugar?" Rogue asked him, stroking his hair.
"Pretty far from it, actually," he said. "But can we talk about it at home? I just want to get away from here."
Rogue responded by taking his hand, and faster than sound they ran off across Massachusetts, back to Bayville.
Rogue and Pietro beat the others home by over an hour. They greeted Lance and Fred, who actually hugged them both, much to Rogue's surprise and Pietro's profound discomfort. Then Rogue and Pietro slunk back up to their room and locked the door behind them.
Rogue stripped off gear dusty from the desert, the destruction, and stained with blood, Pietro the white scrub-like prison uniform provided by Wraith's organization. It was then that she saw the full extent of the track marks on his arms, the bruises from where the table restraints had dug into his skin, an angry puncture mark where they'd tapped his spinal fluid, and several fine, thin lines of stitches where they'd taken bone, marrow, and muscle samples. One up the back of his left calf, one across his collarbone, and one along his left forearm. He turned and caught her staring at him in the moonlight coming in through the window, her eyes full of tears.
"Oh no. No no no no no no no," he started, rolling his eyes. "That's the pity face, you know how much I hate the pity face."
"I'm so sorry," she said. His expression shifted from exasperation to anger.
"What for? You're not the moron who got captured. I told you not to fucking pity me, it's not like it's a big deal."
"How can you say that?"
"What, so another psycho wanted to turn me into a killing machine for some stupid cause, it's not like it's the first time. Fuck, Magneto's been trying for years, Mystique gave it a shot too, Wraith just made the most progress. He just didn't think I'd start with him."
"Pietro," Rogue said, her tears ebbing away.
"What!" he shouted, throwing his arms apart. "Why are you looking at me like that? It happened, didn't it? You saw me do it."
"Stop it."
"He was lying there helpless and I shot him six times in the head, Rogue! Did you blink or something? Do you think Magneto popped out of unconsciousness just long enough to make the gun go off by itself?"
Rogue stood up and grabbed Pietro's shoulders, entering a staring contest with eyes burning propane blue with rage.
"Wraith hurt you," she said.
"He did hurt me," Pietro replied with a dark sneer.
"He hurt Wanda."
"He hurt Wanda," Pietro repeated, the words bitter in his mouth.
"You killed him," Rogue said, steady and intense.
"Yes. I killed him."
"And you liked it," Rogue said.
"No," Pietro said, the burn inside him reaching a climax, breaking. "I hated it. But I did it anyway because of him."
"I know."
"He was right about me," Pietro said. "He said that I'd take to hurting people-"
"Like a duck to water," Rogue finished for him, moving her hands from his shoulders down to his upper arms, gripping him more gently.
"He was right. It was so easy," he said, grabbing Rogue's shoulders.
"Is it still easy?" Rogue asked, reaching up and holding his chin, forcing him to meet her stare as he tried to look away. "It was easy when you did it, but is it still easy now?"
"No," Pietro said quietly. "But-"
"But nothing. He wasn't right about you. You're nothing like him, and you're nothing like Magneto. You're my angel and my hero and I love you. You just stay you, and I'll always be here when it's over. No matter what happens."
The way he kissed her could be called cliché in a lot of ways. She was air and he was drowning, he was water and she'd been in the desert far too long. It bruised and hurt and ended too soon, but while it was going on, no one and nothing else existed for either of them. Some clichés exist because they're just that good.
Lance was nearly knocked down the stairs by a gust of wind which he knew had to be either Rogue or Pietro. He'd come upstairs because he'd heard shouting, and he knew how both of them could get. He braced himself as he saw the blur returning from the bathroom, but it stopped in front of him this time, and Lance saw it was Rogue.
"Hey, are you guys all right?" he asked. Then he saw the small cardboard box Rogue had in her hand and his jaw dropped as he caught a glimpse of the printing on it. Twenty-four lubricated latex… "Are those my-?"
Rogue put her finger to her lips and he shut up.
"What am I supposed to tell everyone when the others get back?" Lance exclaimed in a stage whisper. Rogue shrugged as she shut the door.
"Tell 'em the truth. We got sleepy."
The door clicked shut, locked, and unless Lance's ears deceived him, the dresser was being pushed in front of the door.
Lance rubbed his forehead and walked back downstairs. At least those idiots were practicing safe something for once. On an older brother level, he was intensely weirded out.
Rogue. And Pietro. Ew, he thought. Not okay on a variety of levels. And they both have speed powers. Oh god, bad, bad image.
"Lance!" Fred shouted for the third time as his friend stood looking shell shocked at the bottom of the stairs.
"Whuh?" Lance replied, snapping out of it, looking none the less traumatized.
"What's your deal, man, you've been standing there for like a whole minute. Where's Rogue and Quicky?"
"Uh… they got sleepy," was all Lance could reply.
Meanwhile, upstairs, Rogue and Pietro did their best to replace all their memories of pain with something sweeter.
AN2: Okay, in case I didn't spell it out enough for you, the word that follows lubricated and latex is CONDOMS. That's right. And while the gods know I can't stop you, I do recommend that you avoid sex during high school, which is stressful and traumatic enough without adding any extra drama to the bag. But if you must, dammit, PRACTICE SAFE SEX. Which does not mean withdrawal or some half-assed rhythm method (there is a real rhythm method, but it has to be taught, it's not just guessing) or luck. That means condoms to protect you from (most) STDs and if you're smart something extra to protect you from pregnancy. That way you won't be biting your nails worrying all the time. Anyway, end of political rant. Take care of yourselves, all.
Anyway, chapter 18 will be coming as soon as it's written. Thanks for reading and reviewing.