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Glaring Decipher
Chapter Seven:
The girl had understandably avoided him for the rest of the day. Given their argument, he didn't seek her out. He had thought he might have the chance to apologize at dinner, but Rogue did not attend. When a comment was made by her brother, questioning her absence, Kitty Pride had just commented with a shrug, "She said she wasn't hungry."
'I'll give this another day,' Magneto thought to himself: he was anxious to set things right between them. 'And why is that, exactly?' he asked himself, yet again. He was obsessed with the girl, he knew. It was a fact he had come to terms with some time ago: when he continued to stalk Rogue on and off again despite no longer having a solid reason to do so. The few times he had checked up on her within the last year alone, it alarmed him, but he could never bring himself to stop. He had a desire to get to know the girl. She showed so little to the outside world, yet the comments she made, the look in her eye, the knowledge she possessed, he knew there was more there.
'She won't tolerate my usual tactics,' he thought. The fact that girl knew and was calling him out on those tactics was beyond interesting to him. Who was this girl? What are the capabilities she keeps hiding to herself? What conversations had they had in the past? 'How would that even be possible?' he asked himself. 'Alright, start at the beginning. What do you know about the girl's powers?' he asked himself.
He knew that when she touched a mutant she uncontrollably took a piece of their life force and a dose of their memories. To his knowledge, a culmination of research, observation, conversations with Mystique and the telepath he had hired after the incident with the rebirth machine, he knew that the dose Rogue received was a jumbled mess of random memories. It had been an utter coincidence that the girl had been able to find his base in the Sahara Desert.
But this directly contradicted what she had told him, twice now. 'She knows everything about everyone,' he repeated himself. 'Hiding her capabilities from me meant hiding them from everyone else,' he reminded himself. A statement he had made, but she had not disagreed with. 'But I hired a telepath,' he thought annoyed. It was the reason he stopped viewing Rogue as a threat. He and Miss. Harkness had gone to the institute, late one night, and Magneto had watched the woman enter Rogue's mind and report back on what she found inside.
"The child is no threat to you, Magneto. It was mere chance she found your base. The night Rogue used her abilities on you, thoughts of the machine were in your mind, and those plans transferred to Rogue's mind upon her touch. If the girl ever absorbs you again, try to clear your mind, it could help wonders," Miss Harkness had told him. He had thanked her shortly after, given her payment and both of them had been on their way. None the wiser what had occurred that night.
'Unless the woman had lied to me?' he asked himself. But what reason would the telepath have had to do so? He had paid her good money. Where had he gotten her contact information again? He thought about it for a good while, but nothing came to him. He didn't recall: which was odd for him. Usually, he could remember such facts.
'Damn it,' he thought frustrated. He needed to speak with Rogue again. He could contemplate all he liked, but he knew only Rogue had the answers he sort. Unless he started asking questions of some of the others? 'But if the girl finds out I'm asking, she'll see though the questions and it will just anger her,' he thought with a sigh. 'No, if I want answers, I'm going to have to wait for her to be willing to give them to me,' he lamented. 'Tomorrow,' he concluded, 'I've apologize to her tomorrow, and we'll go from there,' he hoped.
The next morning Magneto sat at the kitchen table far longer than he had any business to. He finished his cup of tea long ago: yet he had let it sit on the table in front of him for all this time. He had a book in his hands that he had read before. He absent mindedly turned the pages every few minutes or so. None of the students paid him much mind as they entered and exited the room. As a whole they were still slightly nervous around him, but for the most part they had slowly become accustomed to his presence in the manor. He and Charles had had a pleasant enough conversation, but he too had left after eating.
Magneto's eyes met Rogue's as she entered the kitchen. She let out a sigh upon seeing him.
"How long have you been sitting here?"she asked as she crossed her arms over her chest.
"Nearly three hours," he answered as he closed the book and placed it on the table.
"Well, you're gonna have ta wait a little longer. I'm hungry and I missed dinner last night," Rogue said dryly as she walked over to the cabinets.
"You didn't need to do that," he said as she pulled out a box of cereal.
"If I had, would we have had this conversation last night?" Rogue asked as she walked to another cabinet and pulled out a bowl.
"I would have tried," he said as she put the two items on the table.
"Then I had to do that," Rogue commented as she walked over and got a spoon. He let out a sigh.
"Please take your time," he said. She let out a sigh as she collected the milk. She walked back over to the table and placed the items with the others. She then took a seat across of him. He watched her pour herself a bowl of Coco Puffs, add the milk and take her first spoon fill.
"You must really wanna talk to me," she said annoyed before she took another bite. "So talk," she said dryly.
"I did not realize that my use of tactics would anger you so much. I am sorry for that. In all honestly, I'm very much used to handling all of conversations using such tactics. The question you asked me: 'How do I talk to people, knowing how they're going to react, and not feel like some evil manipulative mastermind? My answer, is that is how I always feel. But I've grown accustomed to it over the years and I've allowed that feeling, those tactics, to become second nature. I've never regretted it until you started calling it out," he said. Rogue laughed at that.
"You mean until it stopped working," Rogue said with a smile. "You'd be fine using them if it worked. But they ain't anymore and you don't know how to react," Rogue said.
"How do you know that?" he asked.
"My powers," she answered as she finished chewing.
"Yes, that I know, but how?" he asked again. She didn't answer him: she just kept his gaze. "Rogue-" he started to say.
"I'm not comfortable with you knowing that," she said. "Not yet," she added before she took another spoon full of food.
"But you could be?" he asked.
"Maybe," she said again. "It depends," she said.
"On?" he asked.
"You," she said. "Why do you wanna know so badly?" she asked.
"I-... I'm fascinated by you," he answered.
"Why?" she asked. He didn't know how she would react to this. And he wasn't ready for her to storm out of the room just yet, but he didn't have much choice but to tell her the truth.
"When I was stalking you I saw something I shouldn't have," he answered as he broke eye contact.
"What did you see?" she asked. He hesitated. "If you want me to trust you, then you need to be honest with me," Rogue said. He took a deep breath as he met her gaze.
"I saw you pleasuring yourself," he admitted.
"So, this is about sex?" she asked: not missing a beat. She barely reacted to his confession.
"Of course, I would very much like to," he said.
"It could kill you," Rogue said warningly.
"Because you're the only capable of putting on a pair of gloves?" he asked incredulously. Her face blushed at that but she quickly tried to laugh it off. She wasn't running out of the room as he feared, so he decided not to question her on her reaction. "It would a bit tricky and kissing would have to be that the minimum but it's hardly impossible. And I promise you, my girl, if we did decide to venture down that road both of us would be highly satisfied," he said.
"So, this is about sex?" Rogue asked pointedly.
"Not entirely," he answered. "Do I find you attractive? Yes, of course I do. You are incredibly beautiful and I have prefect vision," he said. She laughed at that, but her face was blushing brightly. He wondered briefly how often it was anyone commented on her beauty. He pushed the thought from his mind.
"But," he said strongly, "I also find you very interesting as a person. I've never met anyone who continually surprised me with everything you say, everything you do. My dear, when you said that you knew everything about me, you did mean everything, didn't you?" he asked.
"Yes," she answered.
"My childhood?" he asked. The look on her face turned to pity.
"Yeah," she answered sadly.
"Where I was when I was your age?" he asked. She let out a sigh at that as she glanced down at his left forearm. Both of them knew what numbers were hidden beneath his fabric of his shirt.
"Yes," she answered sadly: her eyes flashed with emotion. "All those people," she whispered, her eyes filing with silent tears. He watched her in trepidation.
"Do you have more than knowledge? Do you remember the camps?" he asked concerned.
"Yeah," she whispered, looking away from him. He must have seen at least a half million dead bodies during his times in the camps. There were nights when visions on his captivity from the concentrations camps still woke him: needing to remind himself he had long been freed from such a place. "Yeah, I do," she said before she took a deep breath. He reached out and took hold of her hand.
"I am so sorry," he said earnestly. "I would never wish those memories on anyone," he told her as she wiped away the tears from her eyes.
"Can we not talk about that?" Rogue asked quietly.
"Of course," he said immediately. "But just one other question?" he asked carefully.
"You're the only one who knows," she answered before he had a chance to ask. "I've never told anyone about your past," she said. "At first it was because you were watching me. But after you stopped for the most part, I still didn't tell anyone," she said.
"Thank you," he said sincerely as he squeezed her hand in his. She smiled at that.
"It's not my past to tell," she commented.
"Never-the-less, thank you," he said. She just nodded. "Do you recall what I did during the nineteen sixty?" he asked next. She took her hand out of his.
"You mean the Nazi murder spree you went on?" Rogue asked matter-of-factly.
"Yes, that," he said. Over the course of about four years he had searched for his wife Madga, after she had run away from him out of fear. He had come across a few Nazi's during his search and one thing led to another. They had called him out as a Jew, a fight broke out and with his newfound powers he had punished them for their crimes against his people. When he found his wife's headstone, he spend an additional five years taking out his anger on any Nazi he came across and by that point he had been activity searching for them. He honestly lost count of how many he killed. "And you're willing to be friends?" he asked confused.
"They were scum of the earth Nazi's," Rogue said dryly. "Good riddance," she added.
"Never let Charles hear you say that. His bleeding heart for all living things might implode upon itself," he said dryly. Rogue laughed at that.
"Are you gonna bring it up in conversation?" Rogue asked.
"Not likely," he answered.
"Well, I ain't either. So, I think we'll be okay," Rogue said with a slight smirk. He chuckled at that.
'We'll be,' he repeated to himself. He felt like he just gained an accomplice. "Thank you again for being willing to keep my secrets," he said.
"No problem," she said with a smile.
"Do you remember what I was like in the nineteen eighties?" he asked: hoping to lighten the mood. Rogue's face instantly lite up.
"God, you were such a slut," Rogue laughed. He had had a series of one-night stands.
"It was a mid-life crisis," he said defensively.
"That lasted seven years," Rogue exclaimed before laughing.
"It was a long mid-life crisis," he argued. Rogue chuckled at that. He wasn't going to win this one. "Well, some good came out it," he commented.
"Yeah, Pietro and Wanda are alright," Rogue agreed. He smiled at that. "You realize it only a matter of time before another kid popped out of the woodwork, right?" she asked.
"It is not," he said dismissively.
"Please, one day Prof's gonna have an appointment with some woman and her child, you're gonna come into the room to be introduced and then she's gonna slap you across the face and demand to know why the hell you gave her a fake name and number. She is gonna rant in front of your fourteen or fifthteen year old kid- come on, you know that's the timeline we're working with here," she added in response to a look that must have been on his face. "And the kid's gonna be all like, 'Mom's who this guy?'" Rogue said in a higher pitched voice. "And that's the first impression your kid gonna have of you," Rogue said.
"That is not going to happen," Magneto said firmly.
"You wanna bet?" Rogue asked with a smirk.
"Name your terms, girl," he said.
"Has to happen within the next four years-" she started to say.
"Within the next year-" he interjected.
"Three," she countered.
"Two," he said.
"Fine," she agreed. "Winner gets bragging rights for life," she added.
"That's it?" he asked.
"Yeah, that's it," Rogue said mockingly. "Either you get bragging rights for life, or you have another kid," she said. "You do realize you win either way, right?" Rogue asked him. Magneto raised an eyebrow at that. "So, deal?" Rogue asked as she extended her hand towards him.
"Deal," he said as he shook her hand. He watched a smirk come to her face as took her hand out of his.
"So, I heard Prof's might be interviewing some kid from the mid-west in a couple of weeks to see if they could be a good candidate for the institute," she said as she stood up. "Keep your fingers crossed," she said with a smirk before Rogue picked up her bowl and spoon and walked them over to the sink. He felt his chest tighten. He hadn't realistically considered the possibility that he might have another child until this moment.
"Damn it, Rogue, I'm going to have a heart attack every time Charles brings somebody new to the institute," he said annoyed.
"Yeah," he heard her happily sigh, as he watched her stripped off her gloves, "that alone is kinda worth making the bet," she said with a smirk as he heard the water turn on.
"You are an evil evil woman," he said halfheartedly as he stood up, picked up the milk and returned it to the refrigerator. She laughed at that.
"Either you do or your don't," she said with a smile as she placed the now clean bowl in the dish-drain. "Our bet's ain't gonna change the past, just you're perception of it," Rogue pointed out. That was true enough.
"As I said," he added as he returned the cereal to its' cabinet. He heard the water turn off. "Rogue," he said.
"Yeah?" she asked as she turned to face him: she leaned against the sink, her gloves in her hands as she put them on.
"I can't recall the last time I've ever had this honest of conversation about myself with another," he said.
"Feels good, doesn't it? Knowing you don't have ta hide anything?" she asked as she finished putting on her gloves. Before he could tell himself not to, he marched up the sink and corned her there, pressing his body against hers. She glanced up at him. "It's the middle of the day, anyone could walk in," she warned him: her face flushing again.
"Then let's go elsewhere," he said as he ran his hands up and down her clothed arms. He could feel her trembling in his arms.
"I have homework to do," she said breathlessly.
"You always have homework to do," he countered before he leaned in for a kiss. She pressed her hand on his chest and pushed him back.
"Don't," she said. "I don't want your memories in my head. You're not, right now and I don't want the nightmares to come back," she said.
"Nightmares?" he asked as he backed his face away from hers.
"I've had nightmares before, I don't have them now, I don't want them again," she said. "So, I can't absorb you, okay?" she said. He nodded.
"There are other things we can-" he started to say before he heard footsteps. Both he and Rogue made eyes contact before they instantly broke apart. He turned to see Hank McCoy enter the room.
"Good afternoon," he said pleasantly as he walked to the table and picked up his cup.
"Good afternoon," Hank McCoy said with a smile. Magneto turned back towards the sink.
'Damn it,' he thought as he walked over to the sink and turned on the water. The girl had fled the room as he had his back turned. He picked up the sponge and started to wash the cup. He was making progress with her: that was clear. He was making strides he never thought he would ever make with another living person. 'Feels good, doesn't it? Knowing you don't have ta hide anything?' replaying the girl's statement in his mind. It really had felt good. He could hardly wait to have the chance to speak to her again.
Hope you all enjoyed it! Please let me know? :)
As for Magneto's past, given that both he and Rogue already know what happened. It only makes sense for them to go into so much details. Magneto's past and it effecting the present will be a thing in this fic, but it you have any questions, or want me to expand on anything, please just ask? :) Thank you for reading!
