DISCLAIMER: I do not own any characters, just the stuff I put them through now read or shove it, as you like.
Thanks go to: Everyone who hasn't thought 'Gods what a bitch that Valkyrien is for not updating this sooner, she really should be slapped for being so faithless and leaving us in the lurch', to everyone who thought 'I really hope Valkyrien updates soon and that everything is going okay with the fic because I really miss it and I really want to see everything end well', and to everyone who reviewed last time around and who has already been replied to personally but who I am perfectly willing to show my appreciation and endless gratitude for being kind enough to review for again and as many times as it takes. To those of you who have read this and been following this all this time without bothering to review even if you did enjoy it, you do know that if you want to pour shit on me you can just review anonymously and let me know, right? Because pouring shit on me indirectly by being lurkers and not bothering to take the five seconds it is to write a 'good', 'great' or 'utter bollocks' is just sad really. So all of you, delurk and show me that the traffic I'm getting is actually worth updating for and I'll write back and let you know how grateful I am that you did take that time, like all my other reviewers will tell you is my policy. All of you, lurkers and faithful readers alike, thank you and have a nice day, assuming reading what is to follow doesn't ruin it for you.
~ Scarlet Letter ~
~...Will Go Wrong~
~****************************************************************~
"Alright Rogue, if you'd remove your gloves please?" The Southern girl flinched at the suggestion, but the reassurance in Remy's eyes prompted her to bravery and she slipped the garment off her hand and laid it in her lap. The Professor smiled at her, and then turned his gaze to the Cajun.
"Now Remy, you realise the extent of Rogue's powers? You are completely ready for whatever may or may not happen here? Remember, noone will force you to go through with this if you do not feel able to do it – this is not a rite of passage in any way," he said seriously, and Remy nodded.
"Ma chere can' hurt me, professeur. An' if she does, well, I'm a big boy. I wan' t' be here," he said firmly, and Rogue's tiny expulsion of breath alerted him to the fact that she had been holding it, awaiting his reply with trepidation. He wondered if she had thought that he might back out, her demeanor towards him all morning had been tense and nervous and he wanted nothing more than to tell her that to him, all that mattered was that she was happy and that they were doing what she wanted to do. He felt they ought to be asking Rogue if she felt comfortable with this.
"Very well then. Let us begin. Rogue, I want you to start today by concentrating very hard on something that has happened to you recently - recently enough for the memories to be fresh – something positive. Find it in your mind. Something that made you happy, it can be anything at all. When you've found something, nod once for me and try to hold on to that thought. It can be a memory, a recent purchase, a situation where you felt at peace, just allow your mind to roam and settle on whatever you feel is right..." The Professor's voice was a comforting, hypnotic drone, and Remy watched his chere concentrating to find that special thing that would sustain her attempts at touch, trying so hard. The little frown between her brows was testament to how hard she was searching, how difficult it was for her to pin down a single, happy moment and hold on to it. At long last, she nodded, quickly, and the Professor looked encouragingly at Remy.
"Alright – now, Rogue, focus on that thought, pour all of your wishes for this to succeed into the thought, and focus on the happiness you felt. Focus on the happiness, focus on what you want to feel now, what you want to do with it. Channel it into your hands, a glowing light of joy under your skin, just under the surface, focus on the light, Rogue..." The Professor nodded to Remy, who turned his eyes to Rogue again. He and Xavier had discussed this – the Professor would assist Rogue in focusing her energy into her hands, and keep her mind on the task while Remy did the actual touching, allowing Rogue the full extent of her available concentration to go to keeping her powers in check.
"Now imagine that happiness expanding, growing beyond the confines of your skin to encase your hands, Rogue, the cocoon of your happiness protecting you... There is no danger to your hands, just the warmth of your joy, flowing around them, over them..." Remy reached out to Rogue and ever so gently took both her hands in his, fingers curling over hers, and she made a noise halfway to a whimper.
His empathy told him that while she was focused on her memory, she was still aware of his presence and the fear of harming him despite the Professor's aid in masking that particular emotion. He rubbed her fingers lovingly, wishing he could reach out with his gift instead of just receiving, and he delved into the emotions swirling off his Rogue as the Professor's voice became nothing more than a droning in the back of his mind. He felt shock in her, held her hands a little more firmly, the shock he felt dissipating and being replaced by what he could only describe as a tide of unadulterated joy sweeping through and over him. He blocked out everything except the feed of her emotional responses, overjoyed that she was maintaining this level of control, thrilled that she was thrilled even through her trance-like haze of focus.
And then, just when he was certain that she'd be able to hold it forever, when he felt her focus and her happiness peaking, he started to feel the soft pull of her powers and she jerked away her hands as if she'd been slapped. Her misery and disappointment crashed into him and he breathed in sharply. His empathy seemed to be much more in tune with Rogue than with any other person he'd ever met.
"Ah'm so sorry, Rem', Ah jus' – " He reached in and smoothed her bangs down, kissing her nose quickly.
"Y' did so good, chere – I'm so proud of y'," he murmured, and her frustration gave way to relief so profound that he could have poked it with a stick.
"Ya really mean that?" she asked softly, and he nodded.
"I really do – y' did so good I fel' like we were gon' be here f' days!" She smiled, a little flush of peach coming to her milky cheeks, and the Professor cut in with all the practiced ease of one used to dealing with volatile people and sensitive situations. Teenagers, for lack of a better term.
"He's quite right, Rogue. This is the longest you have ever managed to maintain control – I must say I am very impressed," he said gently, almost paternal pride in his tone, and she looked down.
"It felt good..." she said hesitantly, and Remy grinned.
"It's s'posed t' feel good, chere, an' I know y' can do it again," he encouraged, his Rogue looking up to catch the Professor's eye. Remy didn't turn to observe his reaction, but Rogue smiled and took a deep breath, proclaiming,
"So do Ah."
~****************************************************************~
"That was amazing!" she howled, throwing her head back as he wove through traffic like a demon on speed, and he grinned privately. Behind them, the threads of smoke were rising to kiss the clouds, and the acrid smell of gas was a faint afterthought in the air. She hugged him and laughed with more enthusiasm than he thought he'd ever heard from her.
He didn't quite know whose idea it had been, or how it had formed and become finalised, but somehow that morning they'd found themselves on the way out of the door after Kitty left with Lance and Rogue and Remy went back to the Institute for her therapy, and the subject of therapy had come up. Without a clear idea of how it had come about that they began discussing active therapy, John was aware that they had somehow moved onto the catharsis of revenge and Wanda's desire to 'get out of the house'. It had taken very little time for them to be on their way into town to find Wanda's childhood home – the asylum that was her address for more years than he cared to think of.
She had set off the fire alarm after he got her onto the roof, disabled the security cameras and the rest of the precautionary measures taken to ensure the continued incarceration of the patients, and as the doctors had carted distressed patients out and attempted to phone the fire brigade – currently unavailable since Wanda's hex made certain that no phone within a mile radius could reach that number – John led his Witch into the bowels of the building to the specialy built restrictional facility they had made just for her.
The place had made his skin crawl. Dingy, grey walls that had probably once been white, narrow hallways leading downward to the basement and her 'old room'. The door bore a sign reading 'Warning! Extreme Safety Hazard. Restricted Area. Specially Authorised Personnel Only.' He incinerated it without a second thought, pushed the door open for her, took her hand and led her in. She had been trembling, partly enraged, partly terrified, and he had held her and promised her that this was only the beginning of the end. She had manipulated probability and set alight the straighjacket hanging on the wall – it had her old patient identification number branded onto the breast, the one she had recited for him while telling him everything he'd never wanted to know about her life in the prison her father had placed her in, and John had kissed her, wishing he could undo what they had done, powers exacerbating the blaze around them until certainly he was well on the way to undoing the building that had been her entire world once.
Beams fell, Wanda deflecting them, and they had walked out of the inferno as if they were just taking a morning stroll, his arm around her waist as she smiled at him, laughed, pointed to rooms that he sent little flaming dancers into while she told him just what they had once been used for. He had waltzed down smouldering hallways with her as the walls melted and she pirouetted like the little ballerina she had once been before she'd ever come to that place, and when she stopped spinning he'd caught her and said the magic words.
"Run..."
And they had, right out through the gates, showers of electricity sparking around them from ruined wires, and flames licking at their heels, heavy boots and John's euphoria keeping them from harm, and he had swept her up and carried her right back to where he'd parked and they'd taken off in a shower of collapsing brickwork and an anthem of horrified cries for help from the people in the street. John didn't think he'd ever felt so pleased before in his life, and as for his Wanda...
"I love you, I love you, I love you!" she chanted to him between giggles as they overtook a semi and sped up on their way to Bayville, and he laughed, delighted.
"Damn it Wanda, I love you too," he crowed, and her arms were around his neck as she kissed him on the cheek and sent little shocks through him without the aid of any mutant powers at all.
"John, take me home, I want to see this on the news, it's got to be on the news!" she shrieked, and he nodded and took the turn onto the street for the Brotherhood. They pulled up in a screech of gravel and she jumped off and raced inside, him catching up to her after a second and pulling her with him into the living room to the tune of her brother's cry of,
"What the hell are you two doing?!"
Wanda turned shining eyes to him and clapped her hands, turning on the TV with a wave of her hand and laughing,
"Shut up and listen!"
Behind her, the screen filled with images of the burning ruins of the asylum, a pretty blonde reporter in front of the wreckage and looking like she was in the way of the firemen saying,
" – this tragic accident which has been speculated as being caused by a flaw in the security measures taken shortly after the Asylum's most high-risk patient managed to escape last year. The new system was only a week old, and discrepancies in the timing and layout had already been noted by the institution's head of security. Kelly Brown reporting, live downtown – " Pietro's face had become as white as a sheet, and he looked at his sister with abject horror in his eyes.
"Wanda... Please... Tell me this wasn't you..." he pleaded, his voice barely above a whisper, and her smile grew faint.
"Are you telling me that I wasn't supposed to do that?" she asked, voice very carefully controlled, and her brother's cheeks regained a little colour.
"Of course you shouldn't have done that – did he put you up to this? That's arson, Wanda! That's a goddamn felony! You could be locked up for that!" Her eyes narrowed.
"One less place to lock me up in then," she spat, and John put a hand on her shoulder.
"He doesn' understand, darlin'... Don' let this ruin it for you," he said quietly, and Pietro glared at him.
"What right do you have to touch my sister? What right do you have to tell her what to do?" John looked at him calmly.
"The same right you do," he replied, and Pietro threw his arms up angrily, gesturing wildly as he yelled.
"She's fucking mutant royalty! She's the most evolved person on the goddamn planet! I'm her brother and I'm the only family she's got left and if anyone's gonna be taking care of her or telling her what to do, it's gonna be me, so why don't you just fuck off and leave us alone?!"
"I'm not so sure about that," John said, putting his arm around Wanda, who turned her face towards him so as not to have to see her twin.
"What do you mean you're not sure about it? It's fact! I know you don't exactly live in the real world you freak, but don't you think it's pretty obvious there are some things you can't ignore?" Pietro's voice was pure venom, and Wanda was shaking, clawed hands digging into John's shirt as he held her.
"I think maybe you need to remember what we talked about last time you started using words like that," John said quietly, and Pietro laughed.
"What, calling you a freak? You are a fucking freak! And you're turning my sister into one too! Look at what you've made her do! Do you want her to be sent back to some fucking padded cell? Is that really what you want for her? Just because you're batshit doesn't give you the right to drag my sister down to your level and I will not let you do to her what our father did!"
Wanda turned around abruptly, hexing her brother against the wall and holding him there, tears streaming down her face.
"YOU are exactly like your father!" she screamed, voice cracking, and her brother stared at her in shock, eyes wide and frightened.
"You let him lock me up, you let him plant lies in my head, you let him use you and walk all over you and you were always too much of a coward to do anything about it!" She was sobbing and her eyeliner was running in black trails down her cheeks as the wall behind her brother began to creak at the pressure her hex was applying to it.
"You let me believe I'd really gone insane, that noone was ever coming for me, and then when I believed that everything was fine, that we were a family, you let me just so that you wouldn't have to deal with me – just – like – him!"
She screamed the word, and her brother flinched.
"I'm nothing but a liability to you two – you are scared of me, because I'm 'the most evolved person on this planet', but it's all bullshit! You know why your precious father locked me away when he couldn't control me? Because I was stronger than him – I will always be stronger than both of you and that terrified him!" Pietro was crying too, now, silver tears barely visible against his pale skin, but she carried on.
"This world and everything in it belong to me," she grated,
"Everything in it is mine and there is nothing any of you can do because you stole things from me that I will never get back and because of that I could destroy all of you in a second," the last word was a whisper, and she closed her eyes as the enormity of what she was telling him bit into her.
"You have no idea what it is like to be a bomb waiting to go off – the wrong word, the wrong smell, and you are all gone – just like that. All of you! And the one person who knows what that feels like - who knows what I feel like and who isn't holding me back or afraid of me, you treat like a bug you scraped off your shoe – like an inferior!"
Pietro's eyes flashed to John, who was looking at the scene impassively, and he tried to shake his head, but Wanda's hex intensified and he was forced to remain quiet.
"John took me to that – that prison – because I wanted to go – he helped me burn it down because I needed it gone, and you can never understand that until you have suffered the way I have, so you never will! You are just like your father, just as afraid as he was, just as arrogant and assuming and pretentious as him, and the fact that you are still here does not earn you my forgiveness when you continue to behave in that way and disregard my free will! Everything I do is my decision, my choice – you think a life of drugged submission and forced obedience to the will of others is likely to make me a slave to anyone now that I have a choice?"
"I – just – wanna – keep – you – safe – " Pietro choked out, and she screamed in fury.
"It is my life and I will do as I please!"
"What's going on..? Wanda..?" Freddy appeared in the doorway, a bag on chips in one hand, and he looked at Wanda with wide eyes, clearly not understanding.
"It's okay, Freddy, just go back upstairs," she said, sniffing to clear the sob from her voice, but the large mutant boy stepped into the living room and looked at Pietro.
"What did he do?" he asked sadly, and Pietro took advantage of Wanda's lack of attention and yelled,
"She burned down the asylum and it's all over the news! Please, tell her – " Wanda snarled and the hex on her brother hummed with energy as she slammed him against the wall again to shut him up.
"You burned down that nasty place?" Freddy asked, and Wanda nodded.
"I did. I had to. Freddy, go upstairs please, I'm talking to Pietro," she tried, but suddenly the huge boy's arms were around her, lifting her up, and she yelled in surprise until she realised he was giving her a hug.
"Now they can't ever take you back!" Freddy said happily, swinging her from side to side a little, and then looking up to shake his head at Pietro.
"You know how everybody thinks you're so smart? Well you're even dumber 'n me you stupid jerk," he said, sounding disappointed, and put Wanda down. He wiped her tears away with his huge thumbs and said,
"If I had a little sister, I'd 'a wanted her to be just like you, Wanda... Don't let him get to you – sometimes brothers aren't so great," he said, the difficulty he had in phrasing it making her well up again, and she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him back.
"Did Pyro help you?" he asked, and John smiled at the large boy.
"That I did mate. She says jump, I get the skippin' rope. Only way it works." Wanda laughed through the tears on her cheeks, and Freddy grinned.
"Don't cry anymore, Wanda... we don't like it when you're sad," he said, and she sniffled, wiping the last droplets away.
"You know if you'd had a little sister, she'd have been the luckiest little girl in the world, Fred," she said shyly, and Freddy blushed a deep crimson usually associated with his violent outbursts.
"Thank you," he said politely, and she released her brother from the hex and watched him fall to the floor with a loud bump.
Toad looked in from the hallway, face serious, and he turned to Wanda for an explanation. John stepped up behind her and put a hand on her arm.
"Who says you can't choose your family," she said coldly, looking down on her twin and taking John's hand as she swept out of the room, closely followed by Freddy.
Behind them, Pietro's tears joined the ashes left on the carpet from her boots.
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