Thanx to:
PomegranateQueen – yeah, I've seen the boy…that's why she jumped into bed with him! lol
Lady Farevay – lovely long review! So glad you like it and I promise no Romy autodrive. He doesn't even have an appearance. Sorry Romy fans. I try really hard to keep the characters true to the prog and I'm glad you agree!
DemonRogue13 – I'm pleased you feel the same as me, that cause she can't touch, she'd be more likely to sleep with Pietro. I look forward to your reviews!
Dru – I'm happy you liked it! There's a few more chapters to read, so keep looking…
I wasn't gonna post so soon, but I was so happy with all the nice reviews I had to. Hope you like it!
Disclaimer: I don't own X-Men: Evolution. I don't own the song "Gone Away" either; it's by the Offspring. It's about dead people, but it kinda fit, plus it's an excellent song so listen to it!
Rogue spun maniacally around the bedroom, unable to keep still for two seconds. Once she'd recovered from her shock at flashing the Brotherhood, Pietro had carried her to school and she'd walked back to the Institute as though she was returning from another boring day of classes. Kurt and Amanda had accompanied her and Kurt hadn't seemed to notice her absence. On her return, she'd spoken with the Professor whilst trying not to think about how she'd spent the day and he didn't appear to realise where she'd been. It looked like she'd gotten away with it.
A knock at the bedroom door forced her to stop bouncing around the room and calm down. She flung the door open to find Logan standing there.
"Uh, hi Logan." Oh shit! "What's up?"
"Can I come in?"
Rogue stood aside and let him enter the room. He closed the door behind him and leant against it, looking like he felt awkward. "Look Rogue, I know you've been through a lot lately, but you don't have to shut out the people who care about you. Everyone's worried."
"They don't have to be." Rogue felt incredibly guilty for hiding the truth from Logan, whom she'd begun to think of almost as a father figure since he'd saved from being overwhelmed by all the personalities she'd absorbed. Not guilty enough to come clean however. "Ah'm fine. Ah just need to spend some time on mah own at the moment, get mah head together. It's takin longer than ah thought it would."
"There's nothing else goin on with you?"
Unable to lie to Logan out loud after everything he'd done for her, Rogue just shook her head.
Logan sighed. "OK kid, I'll drop it for now. But remember, sometimes you need to let your friends be there for you."
She almost told him everything right then – she came exceedingly close. She respected and trusted Logan more than anyone, including the Professor, and only the thought of what would happen if he knew about Pietro and the serum stopped her from spilling her guts. The trouble she'd get in for dating Magneto's son was nothing compared to the trouble she'd be in for relying on a self-made, untested cure for her mutant powers. So she kept her quiet, sighing in relief as Logan left the room. As far as she was concerned, losing her powers was nothing but a good thing and keeping the news a secret was hard.
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"You and Rogue managed to create a cure for her powers?" Lance looked disbelieving. "Why didn't the Beast make it for her before, if she lifted the info outta his head?"
"I told you, we don't think it's gonna work for long!" Pietro rolled his eyes at the other boy's incomprehension. "He probably thought it wouldn't be fair to her to let her be able to touch and then lose it again."
"And she decided to use this cure, that she didn't know for sure would work, on your behalf?"
"Of course she did! I'm freakin adorable!"
Wanda stood by the door, glaring at her brother. "I would never have helped you if I knew you were doing this! It's wrong to control a mutants powers through feeding them drugs!"
"Hey, it wasn't even my idea!"
"What happens when the serum stops working? Hypnosis? Medical procedures?"
Looking panic-stricken at how close his sister was to the subject of her own past, he looked at the rest of the Brotherhood, hoping for rescue. Fortunately for him, Toad changed the subject. "When the X-Men find out, you're history yo!"
"Yeah," said Fred. "Wolverine'll rip out your liver and hand it you!"
"Like I need reminding," said Pietro crossly. "It's none of your business!"
There was peace for a few minutes as the Brotherhood largely lost interest in Pietro's love life. Todd flipped channels for a while before thinking of something else. "We all noticed you had a thing for her when she lived here."
"You didn't!"
"Sure we did yo. You never dumped her in a pond for raiding your sugar stash."
"You even SHARED your sugar stash with her!" Fred added.
Lance smirked at the outraged look on Pietro's face. "And when she ditched us to join the X-Men, you locked yourself in your room for three days and played nothing but angsty love songs for the whole time!"
"I was trying to piss Mystique off! And they weren't love songs!"
"'Course not." Lance grabbed his guitar from the side of his chair and began to play power chords, while singing along in his best Pietro voice. "And it FEELS like. The world is so cold. Now that you've gone away!"
Todd and Fred collapsed in hysterics and Pietro jumped to his feet. "You're dead Avalanche, I'm gonna - "
Wanda sighed and threw a large hex into the centre of the room, causing everyone to run for cover. When the explosion had died down, she said, "The subject is closed. I can't deal with this all night!"
Toad hopped over to her. "Just give the word snookums, and I'll take you out on the town instead!" Another hex sent him flying into a wall and Wanda stormed upstairs, the signal to the others that it was safe to emerge from their hiding places and pretend they'd never been cowering behind the chairs at all.
Fred pulled Toad from the hole that had been created in the wall and dropped him on the floor. "When are you gonna give up?"
"Never," replied Toad, still looking dazed. "If Pietro can get a chance from Rogue, then there's hope for me yet!"
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Rogue dreamed she was running.
Running faster and faster through the early morning streets, all deserted. Eyes streaming, heart pounding. Still she kept running. Trying to outrun the emotional upheaval, the pain. Something had happened –
- locked her away, took her away 'cause she couldn't control her powers -
It was better to forget. Better to outrun. But the thoughts remained, wouldn't be left behind -
- took my sister away, what if I'm next -
So speed up, keep running, into a park and past the play area -
- couldn't control it, what if I -
And trying to outrun the bad thoughts, the park becomes a blur and isn't there anymore, suddenly going too fast to see, too fast to stop -
- can't stop can't control it lock me away too -
Rogue awoke with a gasp, bathed in sweat. Glancing over to the other bed, she was relieved to see that she hadn't woken Kitty. But by now, she knew enough about her powers to tell what was a dream and what was a memory, and that had been no dream.
Pietro, she thought. Must have picked it up when he kissed me the first time.
That wasn't true though. She'd gone through the memories he'd given her straight after the kiss and she didn't recall anything like the dream she'd just had.
Then from that time on Asteroid M.
But that wasn't possible. The Professor had suppressed those memories weeks ago.
Rogue got out of bed, went into the bathroom and washed her face. Looking at her reflection in the mirror above the sink, she had to face the truth.
The serum didn't work.
Oh sure, it had repressed her powers – Pietro hadn't been knocked out and she sure as hell didn't have super speed. But she was picking up his memories. And everyone was telling her how strangely she was behaving. Hyperactive, quick-tempered, egotistical –
Shit. She'd picked up his personality too!
Meeting her eyes in the mirror, she shook her head. No. Couldn't be. She was just happy for a change, nothing more sinister than that. Just because she hadn't picked up the memory consciously the first time they'd kissed didn't mean it hadn't been there. After all, the first time she'd touched Mystique she hadn't remembered the castle and Kurt, but she'd dreamed about them. And maybe she was being paranoid; after all it might just be a dream, not a memory. Nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.
She felt much better as she exited the bathroom and went back to bed. It was easy to ignore the part of her that was insisting that she did have a cause for concern, that her dream was not a dream. She went straight to sleep and did not dream again.
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