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Glaring Decipher
Chapter Thirteen:
Later the next day Magneto was in the kitchen starting to gather the ingredients he would need for dinner.
"Hey," he heard Rogue say. He glanced up at her. "Mr. McCoy's okay with it?" she asked.
"He and I spoke early. I told you it wouldn't be an issue," he said with a smile. "I can handle dinner by myself, if you need to go mediate?" he asked.
"Thanks, but I already did," she said with a smile.
"Really?" he asked.
"Yup," she nodded.
"Good. Gloves off, then," he ordered, "and then chop up all of these," he said pointing to a few carrots.
"Yeah, alright," she said as she took her gloves off. He had thought she might argue with him about removing her gloves, but it seemed the girl trusted her ability to control her powers as much as he did. She walked over to the sink.
"How was your day so far?" he asked as she washed her hands.
"Not bad," she replied a smile in her voice. "How was yours? Get anywhere with the tests?" she asked him as he heard the water turn off.
"Also, not unpleasant. I've made some progress, but I have a quite a few more to go," he told her as she made her way to the chopping block.
"Offer stands, if you want my help grading them," she said.
"I think, I'll be alright," he said with a smile as he came to stand next to her. He needed to prepare the baked potatoes "But the offer is appreciated, thank you. Perhaps the next test, if there is more of a time constraint," he said as he started to pull potatoes out of the bag and wrap them in tin foil.
"You're planning on another paper exam?" she asked him.
"Well, yes," he answered: surprised by the question. "Why do you ask?" he asked.
"By the time you're ready to give another test, they should know enough that you can grade them on practical application of the skills you're teaching them," she said.
"Do you have something in mind?" he asked.
"Danger room session," she suggested as she chopped up the vegetables. He raised an eyebrow at her statement. "Give everyone the same goal, roster of students to work with and a day to plan the best strategy to meet the goal. Then we take all of the strategies and run them in the danger room. Grade is how well they did. Follow up class could be to discuss the pros and cons of their choices," she said. He couldn't help but let out a chuckle. "What?" she asked.
"Your actions. It's as though, you've done this all already," he pointed out as both of them continued to chop and wrap.
"Maybe I have," she added with a smirk.
"How would that even be possible?" he asked.
"If you really wanna get creative," she started to say: explicitly ignoring his question, "then we could submit our own strategies and the class can compare theirs to two seasoned strategists," she added. "Plus, whoever does better out of the two of us gets bragging rights," she added with a smirk. An idea came to mind. Not a manipulation, per say. She would know exactly what he was doing and it would be her choice whether to go along with it or not.
"If we're making another wager I want actual conditions," he demanded.
"Name your terms, Max," she ordered with a laugh as she glanced up at him.
"You're willing to make this interesting?" he asked as he met her gaze.
"Always," she said. He smirked at that.
"Alright, then neither of us can come up with the obstacle. Perhaps, we can get assistance from some of the other instructors," he said.
"What about your hypothetical? Anti- mutant militia takes ten hostages. The more we rescue the better the score on the test. We can have Mr. McCoy plan out the particulars of the situation, so neither of us will know them before the rest of the class and ask him to run the simulations. We can ask Logan to give out the orders to keep things fair and consistent," she suggested. It was prefect.
"Alright," he smirked. "If I win this gamble, then I want to know exactly how your powers work. Physical and mental. No more withholding information," he said.
"Course, that's what you want," she said with a laugh. "Yeah, alright, fine. I can agree to that. What do I get if I win?" she asked.
"What do you want?" he asked.
"The title of co-professor for starters. Plus, I'll teach the follow up on the danger room sessions and the class on ethics myself," she said. That was reasonable enough.
"Deal," he said as he held out his hand to her. She took it and they shook.
"I can't wait to see the look on your face when I beat you," she said as she turned back to the vegetables.
"You're going to wait quite some time that for, my girl," he retorted smugly. She let out a laugh at that.
"Less than twenty-four hours later and already you're continuing to underestimate me. Well, don't try to claim I didn't warn you," she said. He glanced down at her: noting the smirk on her face.
"I won't," he said thoughtfully. She met his gaze again.
"Good," she said seriously. They held the gaze for a moment: he was studying her eyes. That look was there as it always was. Her smirk turned into a smile. "I can't wait to see the look on your face when you figure out what it means," she said softly. His eyes widened for a moment. She knew! She absorbed him Sunday: he reminded himself. Of course, she knew.
"You could just tell me," he said: his tone holding a hint of a question.
"Yeah, I could, but where's the fun in that," she said. She had said that exact phrase to him before, hadn't she? "Where I am I putting these carrots?" she asked: quickly changing the subject. Her question snapped him out of his thoughts. He could ask her later. They had a dinner to prepare.
"I'll take them," he said holding out his hand for the chopping block. "Can you ventilate the potatoes?" he asked.
"Yup," she smiled as she went over to the drawer to grab a fork. They would talk later.
Dinner was pleasant enough, as it usually was. He and Hank McCoy had stuck up a conversation.
"How's the class going?" Hank asked.
"Actually, rather well," Magneto had answered. "Rogue had been extremely helpful. She has very good ideas about the direction I should take the course. Actually, I was wondering if I could talk to you about one of her suggestions?" he asked.
"What suggestion?" Hank asked as he cut into his baked potatoes. Charles was clearly paying attention to the conversation: curious, no doubt, about Rogue's influence on the course. He spent a few minutes explaining the idea, including how he and Rogue also wanted to submit their own strategies. "I can help with that," Hank said with a smile. "When would this test be?" he asked as Rogue walked over too all of them: she stood beside his chair: leading her arm against the back of it. He could feel her arm beside the top of his head.
"What are we talking about?" Rogue asked.
"The second test," Magneto informed her. "About three weeks from now. But I'm not certain just yet. I still need to finish planning out the curriculum," he answered.
"Oh yeah, we still have to do that. Wanna argue about it on the run tonight?" Rogue asked him: she could hear the smirk in her voice.
"It doesn't necessary need to turn into an argument," he said as he turned to look up at her.
"You and I have very different views on the importance of deductive and inductive reasoning," Rogue said.
"Because it's common sense and it doesn't need to be broken down," he said dismissively.
"Unless you're attempting to have your students completely revaluate their own thought processes, in which case making them hyper-aware of how the process simple word logic problems might be exactly the kind of thing you would want to invest an hour in to help them build a foundation for strategic and critical thinking," she argued.
'Damn it, the girl's right,' he thought annoyed.
"You just thought, 'Damn it, the girl's right, right?" Rogue asked with a smirk.
"Are you telepathic, right now?" Magneto asked with a raised eyebrow.
"I'm always telepathic, it's just ain't the brand than everyone used to," Rogue said: he noted Charles raised eyebrow at her response. "So, that's a yes on teaching deductive and inductive reasoning, right?" she asked. He let a sigh, at that.
"Yes, that's a yes," Magneto answered.
"Good," Rogue said: he noted the satisfied look in her eyes. He turned back to the table.
"Magnus, why did you need Rogue to explain that to you?" Charles asked with a raised eyebrow. Magneto felt his hand ball: in anger.
"It's not his fault," Rogue answered. "Eric is a master strategist but he's been one for what? Fifty years, now?" she asked.
"About that, yes," Magneto agreed.
"I picked up all of this knowledge less than a year ago. I'm still really conscious of how differently I process information now than two year ago when I was fifteen. For Magneto, adapting to processing information in such a different way was two mid-life crisis' ago," she said.
"Excuse me, but I what I did in the nineteen-sixties was not a mid-life crisis," Magneto counted.
"I know," Rogue said. "I was talking about Asteroid M," Rogue pointed out.
"That was also not a mid-life crisis," Magneto argued.
"Please, you got yourself a shiny new mutant-overlord equivalent to an Italian sports car and then you were extremely selective of who you allowed to take a ride in it," Rogue pointed out.
"That is a gross over-simplification of the situation," Magneto exclaimed.
"Oh yeah, you had the ideological point you trying to make," she said dismissively. "By drawing a line in the sand between our two sides, that was already there," she said strongly. "What else were you trying to do?" she asked.
There had been the enhancer he had built and used on himself. Which stripped him of all of his emotions. After he had recovered from that, he had admitted to himself; that had been an extremely bad idea. Without emotion, without empathy, he had had a cold distain for the world and the people he had sworn to protect. He knew of the side effect before he had used the machine. What had prompted him to build to use the machine, once he learned of the cost? It couldn't have been power- he already had that in spades.
Yes, that's right. It had been close to the date of Anya's, his daughter's death. He had been having the nightmares again and then he had…
He felt his eyes widened.
'It was a midlife crisis,' he thought: dumb-stuck. The second brought on by memories of the family he had lost.
"Magnus, are you alright?" he heard Charles ask: pulling him out of his thought. "You look as though you're seen a ghost," he added. Magneto shook his head: trying to push the thought from his mind.
"Sorry," Rogue said.
"You've nothing to apologize for. It was true before you pointed it out. The only thing that changed is my perception of the manner," he said.
"That's not what I'm apologizing for," Rogue said before he turned to look up at her. Her eyes shot around the table. "Are you okay?" she asked as he stood up.
"I'll be fine," he said.
"We can always go running tomorrow," she said.
"No, we're going tonight," he said before he turned to look at the table. The looks they were giving him: especially, Charles. "Rogue and I still need to finalize the details of the curriculum. Can we talk tomorrow about the timeframe?" he asked them.
"Of course, but I'll still get started on the designing the danger room session," Hank said.
"Just let me know when, at least a week in advance. I'll make sure I'm here," Logan said.
"Thank you, both of you, it's appreciated," Magneto said before he turned back to Rogue. "Let's go," he said. She nodded before he followed her out of the room. "Rogue, next time, can you please save the earth-shattering revelations for when we're not around so many people?" he asked.
"That's what I was apologizing for," she said. "And yeah, absolutely," she said: there was concern in her voice.
"Good," he said firmly as they made their way out of the right doors. "I think I actually want to talk about this," he said: surprising himself.
"Holy shit. Seriously?" she exclaimed as she took off her gloves. "You never talk to anyone about Anya," she reminded him. He gave her a look. "Sorry," she said again as she put her gloves in her back pocket. "My powers are creepy," she said. "Sometimes, I know things about people that they don't even know about themselves," she said.
"You don't have to apologize for that," he said again as he took her hand on his. "Just again," he started to say as they began to run.
"Yeah, I know, timing," she finished as they adjusted their running paces to match each others. They fell into a comfortable silence as they put some distance between them and the mansion.
And he fell into his thoughts. It had been years ago. His wife Magda and he had been staying in an inn as he started his new job. The foreman had decided, on his first payday, to not give him the amount they had agreed to. The difference in pay had been sufficient and he had argued with the foreman about it. And of course, that flux of anger had brought out the first manifestation of his mutation. The foreman had seen it and given him very ruble he had been promised.
Later he had returned to the inn to find it on fire. He had been able to get Magda out safely but as he had been rushing to return to the inn to rescue his daughter, the foreman and office two local police officer held him down and beat him. He had tried to reason with them, pled with them, but his daughter had fallen to her death in flames, in front of his. After that, the rage he had felt- He had killed them all and Madga had run from him: calling him a monster.
"I miss my daughter a great deal," he said after some time.
"Of course, you do. Anya meant the world to you," she said as squeezed his hand. "Those men were assholes," she said dryly.
"Yes, they were," he agreed bluntly. He was still marveling that anyone could know him as well as she did and still be willing to spend time with him. "Thank you," he said.
"For what?" she asked.
"For not judging me for my past," he said.
"You're a good man, Max, whose been forced to survive a lot of terrible things and make a lot of hard choices. You did the best you could with what you had at the time. No one should fault you for that. And anyone who would? Fuck 'em. They don't need to know," she said as he glanced down at him. He slowed his pace and she followed suit. Soon they were stopped and he turned to stand in front of her. He leaned down, cupping her cheek, and kissed her. Her free hand went to his side as they deepened the kiss.
Yes, he could very easily allow the girl to become a very prominent part of his life. The question was, should he?
Thank you for reading Hope you all liked it! Please review!
So, I need to go eat something today and I've been writing since 7am this morning! I'll write more soon. Next chapter will be up by next Tuesday at the latest
GaredBalttlespike: Thank you! I am very happy with my Olympic score! Hope you continue to rate the story so highly
Jahunta4974: Thank you! Here's another chapter! You do realize, you one of the reasons I make sure I post at least once a week, right? Love your reviews! So glad you're enjoying it!
Sissiewest: Thank you! I'm glad you're intrigued! I have a personal view of Rogue's powers and what I think she should be capable of! Pretty much a combination of anything she has ever done in any comic: but mostly taking from her X-Men Legacy run about a year or so ago. That was great! Again, thank you! Hope you enjoyed this chapter too!
NCISprobie/Guest: (You two had almost the exact same response ^.^) Sorry, maybe next time! Maybe sex in the woods? It might depend on my mood when I start the next chapter ;p Hope you both liked this chapter too! And again thank you for the continued support! You guys rock!
BcMartini77: Yay, I got someone else to read Rogue/Magneto! There isn't really a name, maybe Roguneto? I don't know, I just say my OPT and people know I'm talking about I'm glad you're enjoying it! And yes, more good smut scenes are in store
And yeah, Lorna is going to make an appearance and it is going to be great! Poor, Magneto, he's going to have to come to terms with having another daughter AND Rogue rubbing it in his face! I can't wait to write it! Makes me smile every time I think about it. Hope you enjoyed this chapter too! Let me know?
