Chapter Eighty-One:
It was, Rogue decided, nothing like the Institute after all.
The purpose of the school was the same, and even the layout of the mansion was somewhat similar, but everything else was completely different. The technology was new and improved, the students got all of their education on the estate, like a boarding school, and the classes were nothing like what she had received back in Bayville.
"Who can tell me one of the four major points that Senator Reese focused on in her speech to the Senate on mutant rights?" Scott asked his class, and several hands shot up immediately. "Toby?"
"The Constitution guarantees freedom to everyone, declaring that we're all equal," the boy with pointed ears and a black mark across his forehead, half-hidden by his white hair, responded.
"Very good," Scott said with a nod. "Anyone else? Illyana?"
Rogue glanced over at Piotr's younger sister and found the blond girl busy taking notes, but she looked up from her work upon being addressed and bit her lip in thought for a moment, racking her brain for the answer.
"It's human nature to fear things that are new and different," she replied thoughtfully. "Which is why there's such conflict over religion and cultures in human history. But our own society encompasses aspects of life that were once considered dangerous."
"An excellent point," Scott conceded. "Let's stray off topic for a moment, I want to talk about something Illyana just mentioned. Mankind fears us because they don't understand us, but what are some other reasons that they're afraid of mutants?"
"Because our powers can be hard to control," called a boy in the back row, whose eyes were a floaty sort of black hollowness.
"What else?"
"Because they can't control us," Paige Guthrie answered. "An' man has a base instinct t' control an' dominate other livin' things."
"Not to mention each other," Theresa O'Rourke snorted. "Just look what happened to the Native Americans."
"And wars have been waged between religions for centuries," added a pink-haired girl along the right side of the classroom. "Protestants and Catholics in North Ireland were feuding for decades."
"Yes, religion has often been a cause of war and discrimination throughout history," Scott agreed. "So has culture and heritage, social status and even things as petty as what color eyes you have. During World War Two, the Nazis wanted to eradicate the Jews, because they were different. They put them in concentration camps, did testing on them, treated them in the most horrific and horrifying manner, that most of us can't even begin to imagine."
Rogue closed her eyes for a moment, a shudder traveling through her slender body, remembering the nightmares of torture and gas chambers that had once plagued her sleep, borrowed memories that still haunted her to this day.
"That's what they want to do to us now, though," Toby cried angrily. "They want to lock us all up and gas us!"
A good portion of the class murmured their agreement, and a few obscenities reached Rogue's ears in the front corner of the room, but she pretended not to hear them. This was Scott's class, she was just sitting in on it to observe how the school worked and to get a better idea of what classes at the Westchester Academy were like.
"I won't deny that there are some people who think such extreme measures should be taken," Scott replied grimly. "People who think that the only way to handle the 'mutant problem' is to get rid of our kind, by any means necessary, but not all humans feel that way."
"Most of them do," someone muttered bitterly.
"Most of them are scared," Scott corrected. "They don't know what to make of us yet, they have their guard up. A lot of mutants feel the same way about them, they fear humans and what they're capable of, so they turn to anger and hatred."
"We have a right to be afraid of them, Mr. Summers," the pink-haired girl insisted. "They want to hurt us."
"It's true, Kim, some of them do," Scott said evenly. "Just like some mutants want to hurt them." Properly chastised, the girl nodded, looking back down at her notes, so Scott continued with his lecture. "There are some mutants who think that we are superior to humans, that they're beneath us. Why is that attitude wrong?"
"Because we're human, too," Illyana replied immediately, narrowing her eyes sharply. "We just have a few special quirks in our genetic makeup."
"Illyana's right," Scott told the class. "Just because you have the mutant gene, does not mean you aren't human, no matter how much Magneto and his supporters claim otherwise."
"But isn't Magneto just trying to keep mutants from being persecuted?" Toby demanded.
Scott glanced over at Rogue with a wry smirk. "Care to field this question?"
"Sure," Rogue replied, giving him an annoyed look. "Why not?"
She had suspected, upon being asked if she'd like to sit it on his Mutant-Human Relations course, that Scott would eventually get around to debating Magneto's cause with his students, especially when he had her at his disposal, a former X-man who had not only once worked for Magneto years ago, but who had also spent a good deal of time in the Master of Magnetism's presence and knew how he operated.
The good and the bad.
"Magneto is a complicated man," she told the class, and it amused her how they instantly went still and quiet, hanging on to her every word. Maybe that was why Scott enjoyed teaching so much, he'd always loved having people listening to what he said, and despite all the teasing that Rogue and the others had given him about it in their youth, the thing about Scott Summers was that he almost always had something important to say. "With a complicated past."
Though she couldn't see his face, Rogue had a feeling that Scott was trying hard not to scowl at that. He'd never been very fond of hearing the excuses and justifications of Magneto's way of thinking, and she really couldn't blame him. If she hadn't had such a personal connection with the Master of Magnetism, she wouldn't have cared about his reasoning either.
"What Mr. Summers said about the Nazis and the Jews is applicable today, in more ways than most people realize," Rogue continued, resisting the urge to snicker at the title 'Mr. Summers'. She wondered how angry Scott would get if she just referred to him as 'Cyke' in front of his students. "When he was just a boy, Erik Lensherr was sent to Auschwitz. He suffered at the hands of the Nazis, and that suffering shaped who he is today, the man you all know as Magneto."
"Magneto's Jewish?" Kim asked, brushing her pink hair out of her eyes.
"Yes," Rogue answered, unable to keep from smirking. "And he's also very old, whether he admits it to himself or not. He still thinks in the old way, where you have to destroy your potential enemies before they destroy you. But what he doesn't realize, what his own pain has made him blind to, is that we don't have to be enemies. Most of the world has learned from the Holocaust, people have seen the horrors that fear can give birth to, and most of them won't stand for it again."
"If that's true, then why aren't people doing anything about it?" Paige wondered, genuinely curious to hear what Rogue had to say about that.
"What makes you think that people aren't doing anything?" Rogue retorted evenly. "I've spent the past four years living out in the 'real world', and I see it every day, people taking a stand against prejudice and intolerance, in the simplest of actions. Just because you don't hear about it or see it on the news, doesn't mean it's not happening."
"Rogue's right," Scott agreed. "And the President has been taking steps towards restraining Trask and Stryker's operations, we have to have faith that he'll make the right decision in the end."
"And if he doesn't?" Illyana asked quietly. "What then?"
"Then we all end up dead, that's what," one of the boys grunted.
"Or stuck in one of those mutant prisons," someone muttered from the back row.
An uncomfortable hush fell over the classroom, and Rogue was acutely aware of the fact that the students had turned their attention back to her again, this time staring at her with a mix of wonder and fright. After an uneasy pause, Toby's hand shot up eagerly.
Clearly someone has a big mouth, Rogue grumbled to herself, shooting a small glare at Scott, who gave a sheepish shrug of his shoulders.
Knowing what it was that Toby and the rest of the class wanted to know, Rogue sighed. "Ya can put yo' hand down, Toby," she told him. "The answer is yes, Ah really was in Trask's captivity fo' nearly four months."
"Yes," Rogue replied, swallowing hard. "They do. Ah wouldn' wish that experience on anyone, not even Trask himself."
Speak for yourself, she heard Carol mutter, and snorted softly. It had been a while since she kept her link to the comatose mutant open like this, but since the Professor had agreed to do what he could to help her save Carol, she had been too excited not to speak with her friend.
And Carol's hope mingled with her own every time she thought about the chance that the Professor offered to give the other woman her freedom, her life, back again.
"But if people like that bastard Trask are locking us up in mutant concentration camps and trying to wipe us out, maybe Magneto's not so crazy after all," a kid with fiery orange hair argued from the seat next to Toby.
"What's your name?" Rogue asked him.
"Patrick," he answered, shifting nervously in his seat under her gaze.
"Well, Patrick," Rogue remarked pointedly. "Do you think that what Magneto is doing to humans is any better than what the Nazis did to him?" When neither Patrick or anyone else had anything to say to that, she continued quietly. "In his attempt to prevent such atrocities from happening to his people again, this time mutants instead of the Jews, he's inadvertently become that which he hates."
Wow, Carol said, deadpan. Deep.
Mentally rolling her eyes, Rogue decided to ignore her.
"So..." Patrick said slowly. "What you're saying is that you can't fight fire with fire?"
"What she's sayin' is that hatred doesn't lead t' anythin' but more hatred," Paige retorted, giving him an annoyed glance. "Duh."
Despite herself, Rogue smiled, pleased that Sam's little sister seemed to grasp that so easily. "Paige is right," she agreed with a nod. "The only way t' make peace work between mutants an' humans is t' go about it peacefully."
"Then why do we have to spend so much time in the Danger Room?" Toby groaned, and snickers went through the classroom.
"Because," Scott answered grimly. "Sometimes peaceful solutions don't work out the way we want them to, and it becomes necessary to fight for our survival. But what's the first rule you learn during your first Danger Room session?"
"That we only fight when we don't have any other choice," Theresa spoke up. "And even then we only defend ourselves, we don't attack."
"Exactly," Scott responded, then gave a rueful chuckle. "We've gotten pretty far off of our original topic, it seems, so let's-"
A faint tingle touched the back of Rogue's mind, and she didn't hear the rest of whatever Scott was saying to his class as the Professor's gentle voice spoke to her. You have a visitor, my dear, he informed her, unable to keep from giving her a knowing little smile. I believe he is waiting for you in the West gardens.
He? Rogue echoed, a surge of hope rising in her chest.
The Professor didn't elaborate any further, but that was okay, she didn't need him to. She already had a pretty good idea who it was that he was talking about, and if she was right...
Snapping out of her reverie, she whirled towards Scott. "Where are the West gardens?" she demanded without preamble, cutting him off mid-sentence.
Scott blinked, somehow she knew that even with the glasses in place over his eyes, startled by her sudden inquisition, but he gestured towards the windows along the right wall of the classroom. "Just outside," he answered. "Why...?"
But Rogue was already out the door and racing down the corridors of the mansion. It distantly occurred to her that she could probably have gotten there much quicker if she flew, but by the time she realized that she was already down the grand staircase and cutting across the foyer.
Besides, the thirty or so extra seconds that traveling on foot gave her allowed her to try and gather her thoughts together, to try and grasp some faint hint of what to say to him when she got outside. There was so much she wanted to say, so much she needed to say.
Naturally, when she stepped out into the gardens and saw him, zipping from one spot to the other impatiently, his own hyperactive version of pacing, her mind became a complete blank as her breath caught in her throat, and all she could manage to get out was his name.
"Pietro..."
His head turned in her direction and his entire body went still, something that she would have found amusing had her heart not been in her throat, because Pietro Maximoff didn't do still, under any circumstances.
"Roguey," he breathed.
His sapphire eyes were as deep and soulful as ever, drawing her in, causing long-forgotten emotions to stir within her. It had been over three years since she'd last looked into those eyes, a quick meeting of gazes across the battle taking place on Magneto's island as they fought for their lives against a swarm of Sentinels.
There had been no way of knowing how many made it off of the island in transport orbs that day, and in the years since, Rogue had often wondered if she would ever see him again.
And now here they were.
After a moment or two, Pietro took a step forward, his eyes never leaving hers. "Xavier told me you were alive," he said quietly. "But I didn't really let myself believe it until now."
Rogue smiled as a faint breeze tussled his silver hair, her eyes tracing over his strong jaw and the handsome features he'd inherited from his father, and then stepped into his arms, hugging him fiercely. "Ah've missed ya, Speedy," she whispered into his neck, feeling tears start to well in her eyes, despite her efforts to blink them away.
"I missed you, too," Pietro replied, starting to pull away, no doubt so he could get a better look at her, but Rogue tightened her hold on him, pressing her cheek against his chest.
"Can we jus' stay like this fo' a bit?" she asked, savoring the warmth of his embrace.
Pietro gave a small start of surprise, then smirked down at her. "Sure," he murmured, resting his chin on the top of her head. "Anything you want."
When they finally broke apart, disentangling from the embrace, Pietro reached out to tuck a loose strand of white hair behind her ear, smiling down at her gently.
"So," Rogue said, swallowing past the lump in her throat. "What's this Ah hear 'bout the Avengers, sugah?"
With a self-depricating chuckle, Pietro offered her his arm. "Walk with me, and I'll tell you all about it."
"That sounds perfect," she replied, flashing him a dazzling smile as she looped her arm with his. "Ah'm dyin' t' hear all 'bout it."
"It's kind of a long, strange story," Pietro warned wryly.
"Pietro, our whole lives have been nothin' but strange, sugah," Rogue pointed out.
"Touche."
A/N: Wow, it has been a while, huh? Thank you guys so much for your patience, first of all, and your concerns- makes a girl feel loved, he he. My computer crashed about a six weeks ago, so I have been unable to get anything posted, but I did take advantage of the downtime and wrote a few chapters on paper, so I'll work on getting them typed up over the next week and try to post them as soon as possible. I've also been busy celebrating, since my best friend just got engaged, and my maid-of-honor duties are already taking their toll, so bear w/ me. I will try to make sure a new chapter goes up every week from here on out, most likely on either Friday or Saturday, and I'll let you guys know if there will be a delay. Thank you all so much for continuing to hang in there w/ me, you're the best!