Chapter Six
"Have you found out which side she is on?" Asked Magneto the next day. He knew that it didn't take Mystique long to get information out of someone and as that someone was living with them, it should take less than that.
"She's a tough cookie to crake. In a way of saying the cookie crumbles both ways."
Magneto raised his eyebrow at Mystique; irritation and confusion at Mystique's new riddles taking over his face. "Mystique I have no time for games. Is she with us or not?"
Mystique turned to look at Magneto. She was back in the same chair she had been in yesterday, and he stood near the window again. "I don't know."
Magneto looked disappointed. "You need more time?"
"No, what I mean is Rogue's tricky. She agrees with what we do, but at the same time she doesn't. She's not one sided. It's like she's a mix of the X-Men's believes and our Brotherhood's believes. Wouldn't be impossible if she's absorbed some of the X-Men and you."
Magneto rubbed the his eyes. "In this case Mystique you can't be two sided. You're either on our side, or Charles'. You either are willing to kill and do whatever it takes to survive, or you believe that everything can be solved with simply just words. From her killing the president I'm more incline to believing she's on our side. You've experianced it yourself Mystique. Once you have you're first kill it's never the same."
Mystique was still and quiet in her chair as her past played like a cinema in her mind.
"We need to hear her say it Mystique. Not just say she'll join us, but we need to believe she's on our side. Need to make her believe it. A power like that-"
"Then why don't you talk to her Erik?" Snapped Mystique. She had risen from her chair, anger flowing through her. She glared at him and he watched this new reaction unfold. There was something about the way Mystique was acting which was different. She seemed to be more...caring, towards the girl. Perhaps it was because she saw a lot of herself in Rogue and knows all the horrible things she will go through in her life. The pain of having to relive all those heart breaking and soul crushing moments might have gotten to Mystique. Magneto let Mystique leave and was left with these puzzling thought about Rogue and Mystique.
Magneto came to sit down behind his desk where he slouched and thought. Yesterday evening, when they had arrived back at the base, he had gone straight to tracking Rogue and where and what had happened to her during the past year or so since she said she had been kicked out of Xavier's school for gifted youngester. He'd found that there were no real leds he could follow and that, during the past year, she had dissapeared all together. Magneto was begining to become more and more curious and suspious of Charles' actions to remove Rogue from the school and why? Why had he done it and what was the purpose? Where had she been for the last year? These were questions he was going to find the answers out to if Mystique couldn't.
Magneto got up from his chair and left his office.
XXXXX
Rogue had tosed and turned again last night. Nightmares haughted her again. At three o'clock when she finally awoke, she decided to do the sensible thing and snooped around the base. It had taken her two or three hours, but she thought she finally had the basic idea of where everything was. By six o'clock, Rogue had found the kitchen, made herself a nice hot cup of coffee and sat in the large eating area on her own. For hours Rogue just thought over things in her head. She thought over good times with the X-Men, bad times with the X-Men. Mistakes she made that might have gotten her kicked out. Reasons the X-Men hadn't wanted her. The crap cheap hotel she stayed in while she was trying to convince the X-Men about who she was. The fights with the X-Men she got into. The final acceptence that the X-Men were just never going to accept her again and were in her past. The hitch hiking of cars. The horrible people she had meet. The hunger. The clubs. The hands. The beer breath. The cigarettes. The storkers. The kidnapping. The cell. The man handling. The cold cold surgical tables. The bright lights. The needles. The injections. The knifes. The electric shockers under her skin. The peeling of her skin. The shaving of her hair. The cutting open of her head. The doctors in white looking down at her. Her screaming. The fast beeping machine that monitored her heart.
The cup which she held in hand smashed in her hands. Rogue opened her eyes to see that she had squeezed the cup till it had shattered.
"That was Pyro's mug. I don't think he'll be happy." Rogue looked to besides her. There coming towards her was Magneto.
Rogue sighed as she looked down at the broken pieces, only just getting her breathing under control. Had she dozed off in some kind of deep daydream? "Sorry." She muttered, thinking of how pissed Pyro was going to be having someone first, touch his stuff then break it.
"There's no need to apologize."
"To you? No. I'll apologize to Pyro." Rogue started collecting the little pieces of clay into her hand, stood up and walked to the bin. Magneto followed. "Is there something you want or something I can do for you?" Rogue asked feeling Magneto's pale eyes follow her.
One of the thoughts Rogue had had was that this place was only temperary like most places. She'd be gone within a couple of days, on the run again with no money or place to stay again. She didn't like that idea of living, but if they were to kick her out then she'd just have to adapted. She'd thought that the only reasons they'd brought her back was to put her through some tests and see if she was actually Brotherhood material. She'd rather had got things over sooner rather than later, so she pushed for a fight with Mystique that first day when she arrived (that had been quite a few days ago now). Her reasons that she told Mystique were all true and did have an underlineing meaning underneath them, but it was also to show them that she could fight if she needed to. Then the talk with Mystique over dinner, that was another test, she noticed. She didn't know if she'd failed or passed or if there were any other tests, but she knew that one day, like now, Magneto would turn up or ask her to his office and kick her out if not keep her or kill her. She hoped he wasn't lieing on the helicoptor and that they really would kill her instead of keep her prisoner. Rogue took in a deep breath and put on a face as she turned around to face Magneto.
Magneto looked sombra. Nothing wrong with him. Nothing troubling him and nothing making him smile. Just plain old steel eyed Magneto.
"And what might you think I'd want or ask you to do if I did?" Said Magneto.
Rogue folded her arms. Criptic Magneto, really? "I don't know. You tell me."
A small smile of amusement set on Magneto's face. Then it dropped. "Why are you up and in here so early?"
Both looked around the empty cafeteria. Rogue shrugged. "Couldn't sleep I guess. Plus, I didn't really know where else to go in this place."
"You haven't looked around then?" Magneto asked, looking down at Rogue from the corner of his eye. The look was clear on his face that he didn't believe what she was saying, but there was still a bit of doubt and disbelieve (if Rogue was telling the truth and hadn't looked around then he'd think her a fool).
"'Course I looked around. Do ya really think I'm that stupid that I'm just gonna walk and stay in a place full of people who may just turn on me and not know where the exits are."
"Why would we turn on you?" Magneto asked.
"Why not? Besides, aren't you suppose to know the answer to that? You are the leader of the Brotherhood after all, and if you say kill me, then it's done. All you gotta do is have a reason ta kill me."
"Indeed. Perhaps you could enlighten me. Are there reasons why I should keep you here and alive?"
Rogue rolled her eye before she turned her body away from the cafeteria to look Magneto square in the face. He turned too to face her frontly. "Why don't we just cut to the chase and stop with all this bull. You wanna know if you can trust me to wonder around without need of a babysitter or something, right? Well, truth is I can't give you reason not to trust me or to trust me. I'm just like everyone else in this world. Selfish. If I need to betray you to safe my own skin or because I think what your doing is wrong, I will. But if I think what you're doing is right, then I'll stay loyal. The choice is yours wheather you trust me or not, but from what I've learnt, my advice would be don't trust anyone."
Magneto could understand now why Mystique had connected straight away with this one. The way she talked and acted, it was like he was facing a younger self. The fire, pain and torture in her eyes jumped out at him and her words hit him hard and started to make him question things, not only about others, but about himself. What's more, he believed he had been convinced in one simple speech. Not even Charles could do something like that. Perhaps his invasion in her mind had altered her more than he thought.
"I see." He said. "Well then, like everyone here I will ask you what you believe and which side are you on. The Brotherhoods, or the X-Men's."
Rogue was silent for a moment, then let out a sigh. "You know I can never be an X-Men again. You've set that question up for me so it appears there is only one other answer. Only one other alternitive." Rogue began shaking her head. "You're wrong. Just because I don't have a big old X over my chest doesn't mean I'm not an X-Men and I can't still stand for what they stand for. But, just because I could stand for what the X-Men preach even without the X on my chest doesn't mean I have to chose to follow them-"
"Stop muttering on and tell me wheather you are with us, or against us." Magneto said iritatedly.
Rogue smiled. "Annoying, isn't it? Confusing too. Criptic. Doesn't give you an answer, yet you've still answered the question, or I would have if you hadn't interupted me so rudely. Guess what?" Rogue reached up and tapped the side of her head. "I learnt that technique of rail roading people from you."
Magneto raised his eyebrow. "That is not my way. I perfer to tell the person I am talking to exactly what-"
"Unless your trying to confuse them and twist their minds to do what you want them to. Your pretty good at you're speeches and persuasion. If I were to guess, I'd say you had a secondery power there Magneto. Persuasion."
"Are you still following the morals of Charles Xavier or has killing the president changed your views? Why did you kill the president Rogue?"
"There you go again." Rogue said, pointing at him. She was getting rather annoied and irritated now. " Trying to make me doubt myself an X-Man so I think I'm more alike to the Brotherhood-"
"You are more alike to us. What you did, Charles would never allow-"
"No, he wouldn't, but just because I killed the president doesn't mean I think I'm apart of the Brotherhood or that I'm not an X-Man anymore-"
"Why are you making this so confusing?" Magneto finally asked out of rage.
"Because I know you Magneto." Again, she tapped the side of her head. "I know you and I know who you are and all the tricks. I'm not Mystique Magneto. I won't bend to your will listening to all these speeches you make. I refuse to. My mind is already damaged and filled with other people's thoughts, feelings, hopes, dreams and nightmares. I won't have you or anyone else use me or manipulate me in any way ever again! Do I make myself clear?"
Magneto remained tall and dominate, but he knew he had lost his attempt at discovering which side she was on. But something else he was interested in was seemed to show. "You're scared of being used again?"
"You've already used me once Magneto." There was red in Rogue's eyes. A sign of anger and passion as she locked eyes with Magneto. Magneto didn't turn away. Neither of them were willing to turn away. They were both rivaling over coming out dominate. They had moved closer and closer together and now their faces were inchies apart. "You won't use me like that again."
"If what's holding you back from being true to yourself and admitting you're apart of this Brotherhood, is our run in on Liberaty island, then don't fight you're true nature over what I did to you. You absorbed me. You knew my reasons. You understood why you were so important. Don't pretend that you don't understand!"
"I don't deny it. I understand perfectly why you were doing it, but you never asked me if I was OK with it."
Magneto raised his eyebrow. "Would you have been OK with it? Would you have been willing to sacrific yourself for your mutant brothers and sisters." Magneto stepped forwards more. "I don't believe you would have. You were a scared little girl. Frightened of your own shadow. Now though. You've changed. Transformed into this firest little spit fire willing to do anything that suits you. If it was this Rogue I had meet a year ago, then I would have asked you. But not when you were a weak, withering little creature. Somethings happened to you. Something has changed you. Made you one of us. You may still believe you're an X-Men, but you're not. Something in your past, something you've gone through in the past year has changed you Rogue. I'd like to know what has changed you Rogue." Magneto lift his hand and with the back of his two fingers, stroked the side of her face.
Rogue didn't flinch away from the touch. Instead she smiled at Magneto's now softened expression. "You've just proved me right. All that you've just said (and what you're doing with you're body language), it was the technique of persuasion. Answering the question, but not giving a straight answer and diverting it onto another topic. I was going to use the same technique when I was telling you I am still an X-Man at heart. But I was also going to tell you I'm also part Brotherhood too." Rogue took Magneto's gloved hand in her gloved hand and moved it away. "I am loyal to both, but neither with one. Not the Brotherhood or the X-Men. You're never going to be able to have me."
Magneto rolled his hand in Rogue's so that he was cupping her hand. "I can try."
There was a short moment. A short spark. Before Magneto saw their hands in the corner of his eye. "You're bleeding." The moment was broken and both looked to Rogue's ripped and bloody glove that Magneto held in his hand. He turned it so Rogue's hand was on top and the cut was more visable.
"Oh." Rogue said rather dumbfoundedly.
Magneto moved behind her to reach and take a napkin from the side. Slowly and carefully, he took off Rogue's glove and wiped the blood off her hand that surrounded the large gash. "You'll need to..." Magneto began to say when he saw that he was wiping the blood off of cuts that had already resealed up, yet were so deeply cut into her skin that they left a mark.
Rogue looked away from Magneto's growing crinkles of concern and down at her hand. She remembered the marks on her hand and pulled it away. "Wash my hand under warm water. Yeah, I know. I'll do that." Rogue took her glove from Magneto too. She dared a peek up at Magneto and saw the question in his eye. Not being able to handle it Rogue turned and began walking away.
She stopped though after ten steps and turned half way round to face Magneto. "Let's not do this again. We really didn't get anywhere and I can't be bothered going through years of tickle tackle like you and the Professor."
"My dear, this is nothing like mine and Charles' conflict. There is a part of you that believes in what the Brotherhood are doing. That's all I needed to know."
"But you're still not done. I know you remember." Again Rogue tapped the side of her head. "But you know nothing about me."
"Then perhaps I could learn. Starting with the scars on you're hands and the ability to heal yourself so fast."
"You'll never learn about who I really am. You're too bent on changing everyone to see your view to stop and actually see others for who they really are. I'm no different in you're eye. Besides, I've got enough mental problems as it is that complicates things and who I am. But, they're apart of me now; the voices in my head. It's why I'm so hard to get a straight answer from. The straight answer you want."
And with that, Rogue turned and left Magneto in the empty hall.