Of The Bonds That Bind
Abby Ebon
O.o.O.o.O.o.O
Disclaimer: I do not own DNAngel or X-Men. But, I must say I'm looking forward to 'The Wolverine' (out today!) and 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' (coming soon!)…so this story, which takes place within the first movie's frame, is a bit of a blast from the past.: Dark's Thoughts:
-Daisuke's Thoughts-
O.o.O.o.O.o.O
Miscellaneous Memories
O.o.O.o.O.o.O
Bobby looked at the empty chair and the empty bed as if, if he looked at them hard enough, they would be filled. St. John knew better and looked to Kitty, patting Bobby on the shoulder in as comforting manner as he could.
"Well, where'd they get to?" It wasn't exactly hard for Kitty to spy on people without their noticing it. She didn't advertise it, but St. John knew very well how much Kitty knew, and how much she might say – would never add up in the end.
"Well, only one of them has been found. Jean and Scott found the Wolverine there; apparently Magneto had magnetized his skeleton, ouch, yeah?" Kitty shivered a little, going through walls was no big deal to her – but being closed in against them? Kitty was a little claustrophobic, and not afraid to admit to it.
"Yeah, but did he say anything about Rogue…?" Bobby's eyes glanced toward where Dark lay; a cot he wished was empty. It wasn't right that he was so still and asleep. Bobby had never seen Dark asleep around anyone, it made him uneasy, and with the way that St. John kept glancing around – he wasn't the only one.
"Oh, plenty…. He thinks she's gone over to Magneto's side, out of some brain-washed attempt to help Dark." Kitty shook her head, not imagining how what Rogue was doing could help anyone but Magneto and his Brotherhood.
St. John ran his fingers through his hair, this was a mess already, and one he thought wasn't going to get any better. He wished that Dark would just wake up and make all this better, because St. John wasn't foolish enough to think that anyone could make it all just go away.
"Could it work?" St John asked softly, and when he felt Bobby and Kitty looking at him, hunched his shoulders defensively.
"You both saw her; she was remembering Dark's memories. Those are memories I don't think that Dark and Daisuke were aware of…" St. John went silent, with that quiet stubbornness demanding an answer from them in return for his words.
"Let's say your right, Rogue has a reason to go looking for…whoever, but why would Magneto take her?" Bobby asked in turn, a question that St. John couldn't answer. Just like no one could answer his own question. There was only so far that what ifs and whys would take them. St. John and Bobby both worried that they'd reached that limit. They just didn't know what to do about it next.
They both liked Rogue and wanted to believe the best about her, wanted to believe she could somehow make Dark and Daisuke better. Kitty looked to the hallway, the only one paying attention to their surroundings, and because she looked St. John and Bobby looked as well, seeing Jean and Scott and Storm wheeling a man on a stretcher in a rush of wheels and words, Professor Xavier wasn't far behind them.
"Who is that?" Kitty asked him, puzzled, as it seemed to her that she should – for some reason, recognize him.
"Our very own Senator Kelly, quite…changed." It was a change that Xavier was clearly confused about it's meaning, either being a good or bad thing.
"You three had best head upstairs." Charles Xavier instructed, St. John was ready to protest on the pretense of being at Dark's side, but Bobby elbowed him in his side so all he did was grunt. Bobby nodded toward Kitty, and Kitty winked at him from behind the Professor's back.
"Yes, sir…." Bobby agreed, as if St. John's grunt had been some kind of acknowledged agreement. They left, and Kitty went with them as far as the other side of the door, when she turned back and went thorough the walls, hiding behind bulky medical equipment beside the wall. It was there where she watched, waited, and listened until Kelly died the breath he expelled becoming a wave of fluid that Kitty fled from.
She was shivering as she made her way through walls and halls and phasing through people too as she rushed to get as far away from what had happened below as she could. Her feet took her up, and to Bobby and St. John's room. Not bothering to knock, she only shook off the sickening dread when she heard St. John yelp.
Already shaken, she froze, fearing to see something else today that was terrible.
"What is it, what's wrong?" Bobby demanded, coming out of the bathroom they shared. He saw Kitty from the corner of his eye and turned to look at her fully with a puzzled frown. Kitty sniffled, half feeling like she wanted to laugh and like she wanted to cry, at Bobby's worried look and St. John's wide eyes – she realized she was crying.
Hastily and angry at herself, she wiped them away, Kelly hadn't been a nice man, it was true that he would probably have wanted to see her identified in some way, away from normal people – see Bobby and St. John and everyone at the school caged away. He wasn't worth her tears.
"Sure, scare a guy and cry." St. John tried to tease, seeing that Kitty was struggling to contain her feelings and not wanting to tip her over the edge one way or the other. Though personally St. John would rather she gets angry. If it has to be at him, well, at least it wasn't crying.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to burst in here like this, it's rude, it's just…" Kitty shrugged away what she was going to say in rambling, clearing her thoughts with the action.
"Kelly just died, but before he did he says Magneto made him into a mutant…with some kind of metal-machine. Freaky enough, right? He just…didn't survive it. From what he says, it hurt Magneto too." Kitty finds her eyes flinching to the floor. Bobby and St. John don't need her to say it, that Rogue's power is to take another mutants ability – however temporarily – and Magneto seems bent on taking advantage of that.
"That's crazy; who would he use it on?" St. John muttered, Bobby caught sight of the television screen with its news station, the words along the bottom proclaiming a meeting between nations held near Lady Liberty, who stood proudly with torch aloft and tablet of law tucked protectively under her arm. Her foot unchained.
St. John nervously flicked his lighter on and off.
"They need to see this." Bobby announced, and he led the way as they headed to the loft to do just that. To show the X-Men where they needed to go, Magneto wasn't one to miss an opportunity like this.
Rogue's head feels heavy, weighted and awkward, as if she's swimming. Or drowning, she leans her head against the cool glass window of the helicopter, keeping her eyes closed. She tries to put aside the sounds of the blades circling the air, slicing into the ether to keep them aloft. It can't quite be ignored.
-Rogue, are you alright? - Daisuke's voice rings through her mind, like the chiming of a bell. Rogue thinks he's been with her all along; only he's been watching and absorbing it all.
'What do you make of all this?' Rogue asks, between them they've shared memories perhaps better left forgotten. Yet neither of them can put aside these memories, for what they might mean – the past for Dark and Daisuke, and now, in saving Dark. It's a chance Rogue has to take, as heavy and unyielding as it seems. Like King Sisyphus's boulder in the Underworld.
-They want freedom, is what I think.- It flashes through Rogue's mind, a woman with a sharp kitchen knife, intent on hacking off Daisuke's already red wings. Rogue shudders at the thought of such a personal and familiar attack. Her family had had better reason to fear her power, but they had not had to lift a hand against her to get her to go, she'd fled all on her own.
Yet there had to be people less like her, and more like Daisuke – and maybe, maybe she was looking at them right now.
Rogue closes her eyes, and Toad lands the helicopter with only a little bit of a jolt. Mystique, who still wares her face, pats her knee comfortingly.
"Fight time flying?" Rogue's sense of deja-vu, of being in two places at once has never been as strong as when her own voice kindly asks her words she's never spoken before. Her own face smiles in sympathy. Rogue nods, feeling as if it's better that she doesn't speak. She thinks, wildly and without proper reason, that if she speaks, Mystique might make her mute forever.
"Toad will take you about on tour, I'm sure he'll like a chance to apologize." Mystique's blue body had been fully mature, that of a woman grown, but with Rogue's body and voice she mimics a teenager perfectly, down to a wink.
"Oh yeah, I'm all about being gentlemanly and hen-pecked." Toad teases, as he stands outside the helicopter he had been flying. Apparently he'd been the first one out, and Rogue just hadn't noticed it. Sabertooth opens up the helicopter as if he's peeling an orange, Magneto steps out behind him and even here –where it's supposed to be safe on Krad's island - it's clear that Magneto is the one being protected.
Toad offers his arm, and if it's a choice between a blue skinned girl who is wearing her body like a puppet and a green skinned boy who doesn't, Rogue takes the lesser of two oddities. Rogue doesn't bother to wonder what would have happened if she'd refused either of them; neither does she look back to see where Mystique goes - or who she shapes herself into next.
"So, where would you like to go? There isn't much here, the warehouse has our mad plot, the barracks is where we sleep, and the mess is where we eat and for company we have Magneto, Sabertooth, Mystique – and, the manor that's off limits because of the Sleeping Beauty and well, him." Toad nods toward this him who has met Magneto on the path between the Brotherhood's base and the manor house that sits beside the sea, elegant and sophisticated.
Like a castle out of some fairy tale dream. He's blond but his hair is cut in a haphazard way that is messy and somehow personally tidy. It might bother others, but his hair won't get in his way. Eyes that are amber catch Rogue's own, and hold them.
She doesn't realize he's moved until she finds that he's standing in front of her. His head is tilted as he studies her, looking into her eyes as if can see into her, through her...
-He can.- Daisuke speaks softly, like a whisper upon the wind, the thought striking her into stillness.