Chapter 68
When Jonathan and Martha Kent found that little boy next to his space ship they pretty much knew right away that raising that boy would probably involve a few unforeseen and unpredictable events and sure enough it has.
However, right now, the current episode they are experiencing may have just taken the cake. The X-Men returned to inform Martha and Jonathan that their son was now inhabiting Magneto's body and Magneto was now parading around in their son's body.
Now a logical person would dismiss this as impossible and nonsense. Except you can't do that when the person telling you this happens to be, arguably, the most powerful telepath on the planet.
As they stand in Charles' office they turn their gaze to the silver haired man sitting in the corner.
"Clark?" Martha queries with trepidation, not sure what to say.
"Hi mom," Clark replies with a strained smile and a look of deep worry in his eyes.
It is strange to hear that come from Magneto's lips.
"Are you alright, son?" Jonathan asks.
"Depends by what you mean by alright. If you mean am I all here then yes I'm alright but if you mean am I alright by being stuck in Magneto's body while he is gallivanting around in mine then no, I am definitely not alright."
"How did this happen?" Martha asks.
Clark sighs. "It was the Crystal of Water. The power of transference."
"That's what it meant?" Jonathan asks to confirm.
Clark nods. "Apparently so."
"It transferred you and Magneto into each other's body."
"Yep."
"How?"
"I don't know how it did it. It was during the battle we told you about. Magneto and myself got separated from the main fight when Isobel showed up. Her magic somehow activated the stone, Magneto and I grabbed it at the same time and poof! I'm in here and he's in my body."
"Can the stone reverse it?" Martha wonders and hopes that is the case.
"Probably...except Magneto still has it," Clark gives the bad news. "And Isobel joined him, apparently, since she teleported them away."
"So what do we do?" Jonathan asks.
"Get it back as quickly as possible," Clark responds. "We only have a small window."
"What do you mean, Clark?" the Professor asks.
"Until Magneto figures out how my powers work. Until he does he's vulnerable."
"Except how do we find him?" Martha asks.
"Oh, that part's easy," Clark says with a strange lightness.
"In what way?" Jonathan asks.
"I can still hear it."
"Hear what?"
"The stone," Clark explains. "Remember I said they emitted a tone, like a burglar alarm. For whatever reason I can still hear it." He raises a hand and points roughly west. "It's in that direction for the moment."
"Why didn't you mention this earlier, Clark?" Charles asks, miffed by this.
"Two reasons. One; because you would have insisted in going after him even when everyone was exhausted and two; this is me we're talking about Professor. I'm virtually invulnerable. You can't just go charging in. After all that is why we sat down and made that plan."
"What plan?" Jonathan demands to know what Clark is talking about.
"After the summer, after I came back from being Jor-El's little puppet, the Professor, Scott and I sat down and discussed what to do if it ever happened again. It's happened far too frequently that I've been manipulated in some way so we sat down and came up with a plan on how to stop me."
Jonathan and Martha look at the Professor with hurt and betrayed expressions.
"Don't blame the Professor," Clark says. He can see his parents are wanting to. "I insisted on keeping it a secret."
"Why Clark?" Martha asks, unable to understand her son's thinking.
"Because you've done so much for me, suffered so much because of me. I wasn't going to put you through the pain and dilemma of thinking up ways to disable me," Clark explains how he was trying to spare them.
Jonathan moves over to his son and places a hand on his shoulder. It's weird since it's Magneto's shoulder but the aims the same. "Clark, we're a family. We go through these things together just like every other time," he points out.
"Dad...your health has already been damaged because of me, because of my foolish choices. I was not going to put you or mom at any more risk," Clark argues, the guilt of that still seeping through his voice.
"Clark, honey," his mother says in her most caring tone. "You could still have talked to us."
"And you would never have agreed but it still needed to be done," Clark states firmly,
Jonathan and Martha share a look. They thought it was only recently Clark had been acting out of character but from the sound of it he was making un-Clark-like decisions months ago. These days it feels like they are losing touch and understanding with their own son. That's not a nice feeling. Once this, yet another, crisis is over a serious discussion about the state of their family is going to have to be had.
The door flies open at this point and Claire comes in looking quite agitated. "Is it true?" she asks.
"What is?" Charles asks. "And we knock before entering," he tells Claire off.
"Sorry but is it?"
"Claire, honey," Martha says to her daughter. "What do you mean?"
Claire looks at 'Magneto'. "That...that is Clark," she explains what she has heard through the mansion gossip grapevine.
"Fraid so," Clark confirms for her.
"Fuck me!" Claire swears.
"Claire," Martha chastises strongly her daughter's poor language.
Clark chuckles. "Isn't that sort of thing you should be saying to your girlfriend and not your brother," he jokes.
A sour expression comes to Claire's face. "Oh yeah. It's you. No-one else's humour is that shitty."
Martha sighs loudly and drops her head into her hand at her seeming impossible task of curbing her daughter's language.
"It's so nice to have family," Clark mutters.
Claire grins broadly, totally ignoring her brother's mutterings. "It is, isn't it."
"Don't you have Bobby to kill or something?"
"Oh I'll get him later," Claire says with that disturbing gleam in her eye. "So what's it like? You know, being in that body?"
"I've had better days," Clark massively understates how awkward it is. "It's weird mostly."
"Weird how?"
"Apart from the obvious, I normally have super-senses. It's strange for it to be so quiet to start with and then there are Magneto's powers. I can sense all the electromagnetic fields around me," he gestures with his hands at his surroundings and a metal trophy shoots off a shelf on the wall into his hand. "Sorry," Clark apologises as he places the trophy down.
"It's alright, Clark," Charles assures him. "Remember what we discussed on the flight back. Remain calm. Centre the power at the core of you."
Clark nods, shuts his eyes and tries to do what the Professor taught him. It was how he knows that it is electromagnetic fields he senses because the Professor explained it. It was really strange to feel these things. On the flight home the Professor had had to give Clark a crash course in the very basics of controlling Magneto's powers or who knows what damage he could cause.
"Can we return to what precisely it is you planned in how to deal with Clark?" Jonathan asks, still deeply unhappy about this.
"That's better saved for when we can show everyone," Clark determines.
"It can wait until the morning," Charles determines. "It's late and as you said Clark, we're all exhausted," he has to agree with the alien teen in the end. They are in no shape to go chasing after Magneto. "We'll have that meeting 1st thing," he decides. "However, first Clark have Beast examine you in the infirmary before turning in."
"Right Professor," Clark concedes to the Professor's authority.
"I'll make sure he goes!" Claire volunteers herself.
"Oy!"
"Oh shut up, bro!" Claire tells him as she grabs his arm and drags him out. After all he's her brother and she has to look after him. Their parents leave with them.
A few moments later Logan walks in. "How's the kid doing?" he asks, having passed Clark.
"Remarkably well, considering," is Charles' response.
"So what are we doing about Mags? He can't be left in control of the kid's body," Logan determines. The idea of Magneto with that much power...doesn't bear thinking about.
"Apparently Clark can hear the tone the stone emits still, so we'll grab a little rest and 1st thing tomorrow plan our response. We can't go charging in this time."
Logan supposed that was right but he didn't like it. "By the way, we figured out what the hell happened with the Princess?" Logan asks because that was way beyond anything he has ever seen her pull off before. In fact he was pretty certain it made no sense that she could do that since he thought her powers were fire related.
Charles lets out a long breath. "No. We haven't. Her powers obviously went through some sort of evolution during the battle."
"Chuck, she ripped the earth apart like paper," Logan lays down the bare facts of it.
"Amara may not be as straight forward as we once believed. She is the granddaughter of an immortal sorceress. It adds complications...or we simply misclassified her power set," Charles proposes as one answer that he may have misjudged Amara's powers. "Truth is Logan I don't have the answers yet. Once we get Clark's body back I assure you, though, I shall make Amara a priority."
Early the next morning everyone gathers in the Danger Room...and that is everyone X-Man, New Mutant and adult alike.
Inevitably everyone can only stare at Clark in Magneto's body, especially since he is out of the armour and in his more traditional wear of jeans and plaid shirt.
Domino pats him on the arm. "Don't you fret none. We're going to...Ah...ah...ACHOO!" she sneezes all over him. She still has the cold.
Clark wipes the gunk off his face. "Thanks Dom," he says grimly.
"Sorry," Dom sniffles as she digs this huge bundle of snot covered tissues out of her pockets which causes several people to make a face of disgust.
"No. It's fine. As long as we get Magneto back in here soon he can suffer for the next few days with it," Clark says with dry humour about the fact Domino has probably just given this body the cold.
"Good point," Dom concedes as she blows her nose. "We'll just call it all part of my cunning plan to get payback on him."
"Right. Whatever ya say, Dom," Rogue says with a roll of her eyes. Honestly Domino has been insufferable with her whining. It's only a dang cold.
The Professor brings the meeting to order. "You all know what has transpired but I will summarise it again. The situation is that Magneto and Superman have swapped bodies." He looks at Tarot. "Marie," he address the dark-haired French girl. "What we will discuss will make the least sense to you but I hope you understand that secrets were required to be kept until you had earned our complete trust."
Marie looks and is puzzled. She looks to her girlfriend who has an unusual guilty expression on her face. "You know what he's talking about don't you?"
This pained Claire, keeping it secret. Trust her it did. "I never wanted to...but it involves my family. I've never had a family before. If I can't protect them then what's the point."
Rogue scoffs lightly. "Definitely related," she mutters under her breath because that sounds almost identical to Clark's line lately about his justifications for his actions.
"Family?" Marie queries, baffled how Superman is anything to do with Claire's family.
Claire looks to Clark.
Clark nods. "Go ahead. Tell her," he permits, gesturing for his sister to do so.
Claire turns her focus back to her girlfriend. "Clark is Superman," she simply says it.
Tarot blinks, befuddled by that. "I...what?"
"Clark is Superman," the Professor confirms what Claire is saying. "And we are about to discuss how to disable him. Information the organisation you use to work for would do anything to obtain. That's why it was kept secret from you, Marie. In fairness we haven't discussed in front of you how to disable any of us but Clark, in particular, for reasons you'll learn shortly, must have his secrets protected. Trust is earned Marie and when you had earned ours you would been allowed into the fold."
Marie isn't sure whether to be upset or be understanding. She guesses if the positions were reversed she wouldn't just instantly trust her either. It goes to show there are still things about her girlfriend to learn. "Why are you telling me this now?"
"Scott," the Professor says, inviting the leader of the X-Men to take charge of this meeting.
Cyclops moves to the front and addresses Marie's question. "Because we don't have the luxury of not telling you, Tarot. Magneto has been recruiting mutants for months. We don't know how many he has on his side now but suspect it runs into at least several dozen. If we are going to retrieve Clark's body and the stone we will require everyone to try and equalise the numbers as much as possible. Are you willing to aid us?" he asks because he can't afford people on this mission who aren't up for it.
"Look, I chose to come here more for Claire than your ideals. I admit it," Marie says. "But this is her brother and is important to her so it is important to me."
Claire's face softens in a way no-one has ever seen it before. Her orange eyes even mist up a little at Marie's words. For so long she had to keep her heart hard but she can feel her defences cracking the more time she spends around her family and her girlfriend.
'Good enough,' Scott thinks to himself. "Ok," he accepts Marie's response. "Lets get you up to speed. Clark, summarise, please," he requests.
Clark steps forward. "Okily dokily," he says in a pitch-perfect Ned Flanders impression.
"Ok that was just freaky," Bobby remarks at hearing that come out of Magneto's mouth.
"Uh huh," Ray agrees.
"Summarise it," Clark murmurs to himself. "Ok. I'm not a mutant, Marie. I'm an alien. I come from a planet called Krypton. For the last few months we've been hunting for 3 stones my people left here, on Earth. One was in China, which was what you were truly after in that temple. When the stones are combined they form what is essentially a giant refuge of all Kryptonian knowledge, of a race millions of years older and far, far advanced beyond mankind. That's enough power to enslave this world which is why everyone and their uncle is after them...although we suspect only Magneto knows what they and I truly are. Everyone else thinks they're magical and that I'm just an unusual mutant with some strange link to them. We have 2 of the stones and were just retrieving the 3rd from Amara's home of Nova Roma when we were ambushed by Magneto and Isobel. During the fight the stone was activated and it swapped me and Magneto around into each other's body and now we are about to plan an assault to take down my virtually invulnerable ass, get the stone back and swap me and Magneto back." He looks to Scott. "How was that?"
"I think that was the gist of it," Scott thinks it was good enough. "Marie?" he queries about how she is coping.
Various expressions pass over Marie's face as she tries to take that in. "Uh...extra-terrestre? Vraiment?" she asks, her mind having a few difficulties processing this. Translates to Alien? Really?
"Oui," Rogue confirms. "C'est un peu un choc, je sais," she sympathises. Translates to Yes. It's a bit of a shock I know.
"Vous avez un don pour euphémisme," Marie says, her mind still reeling so much she can only speak in her native French. Translates to You have a gift for understatement.
Rogue shrugs. She only spoke because of how fluid she is in French.
Claire rubs her girlfriend's back. "Are you ok?"
Marie looks at her girlfriend with confusion deep in her eyes. This is...she never expected this. "Can I get back to you on that?" she requests.
"Sure." After all who is Claire to judge. When Clark told her she might have gotten a little pissed at him, partially blaming him for the death of who she thought were her parents in the meteor shower. She took her anger out on the Danger Room. She told him at the time that she didn't hate him but that she needed time to deal with it and since she loves having him as her new brother she can say she has dealt with it.
Scott decides to move the meeting on. "Thank you, Clark," he says as a sign for Clark to step back. Clark does so and Scott gets to the point of this meeting. "Now. As you all know Clark was abducted by his father over the summer and reprogrammed. After he came back, he, the Professor and I sat down, at Clark's suggestion, to plan what to do if Clark should ever become controlled by anyone like that again. The question was a brutally simple one. How do we disable Clark should the need arise?"
"Ya what?!" Rogue exclaims. "Ya...ya thought out ways to hurt him?!"
"Rogue," Clark says gently. "It was my idea."
"Are ya nuts?!" Rogue asks him, because he must have been.
"No. My thoughts at the time had never been clearer," Clark says very calmly. "When I was Kal-El, Jor-El amplified my powers to my physical peak. I got a glimpse of just how powerful I could become one day. You think I'm powerful now, Rogue? It's nothing compared to what power I will wield in the future," his tone trying to emphasise the scale in difference to what he will be like one day. "That day I came to understand just how dangerous I am and the necessity in needing to concoct ways to stop me."
"How did you do this without anyone knowing?" Jonathan wants to know. He had been pondering that question along with many others all night.
"This is where my part in this deception comes in I'm afraid," Beast admits, feeling guilt for it. "When Clark came to see me for what you thought were his routine tests, they were in fact an exploration of how we could disable him."
"Ok I'm not saying I approve," Logan says. "But what did ya come up with?"
"Well first off your claws are capable of cutting Clark," Beast reminds everyone.
"But we weren't going to rely on one method," Clark explains. "We thought it best to come up with as many different options as possible."
Beast moves over to a table that has been generated in the Danger Room, upon which sit two large and sophisticated looking...well weapons to be blunt along with a smaller 3rd one. He picks one of the larger weapons up, which even for his size is awkward due to the bulkiness of it. "We call this one a kryptonite canon." Beast powers it up, aims it away from the group at the wall and discharges the weapon. An intense green energy beam shoots out the end. "I believe it is self-explanatory," he says after the demonstration.
"It fires an intense beam of kryptonite radiation, making my weakness to the rock a long range effect," Clark adds an explanation.
Beast lays the device back on the table and opens up the main chamber of it. Inside is a piece of kryptonite. "It does have a limited number of shots before the piece is drained," he gives the limitations of the weapon. "To extend it's effectiveness as much as possible this is in fact a piece of kryptonite we refined to be as pure as possible."
"It's a weapon to kill you," Kurt says, horrified by that idea they have created a weapon to kill his friend.
"Only through prolonged exposure. A few concentrated blasts will only weaken me," Clark states, his tone rather detached from it all. "Besides Kurt if we wanted to make something to kill me it isn't all that hard. A few bullets, forged out of kryptonite, shot into my vital organs could do it."
"We went to great pains to design weapons to disable Clark only," the Professor insists about the very difficult decision that they made.
"ACHOO!" Domino sneezes again. "Excuse me," she says. "That's neat and all but don't you recharge instantly in the sun," she recalls.
"That brings us to what is behind curtain number 2," Clark jokes dryly. "Mr McCoy. If you will," he asks Beast to demonstrate the second weapon. Beast picks it as Clark narrates. "As some of you will recall, shortly after I came here my powers went kooky."
"Oh yeah," Kitty says as she remembers that. "That weird comet that hit the sun and changed the wavelength of its light."
"And remember you asked me about what would happen if the sun was to turn into a Red Giant, would I lose my powers?"
"I remember you, like, made a lame joke."
"And yet look at who you're dating," Clark hits back.
"That's true," Sam says, agreeing with Clark.
"You've got to give him that one," Tabby agrees with her boyfriend.
Kitty makes a sour expression. "Peter's not that bad!" she insists. "I like his humour! It lightens up the situation," she defends him.
"Wow. You've got it bad don't you?" Tabby says with an amused grin.
The Professor coughs. "Can we return to topic?" he requests.
"Sure Professor," Kitty agrees.
"Clark. Please, continue," the Professor tells him.
"The answer to your question is yes, Kitty," Clark informs her. "Mr McCoy, a demonstration."
Beast fires the weapon at the wall and it emits an intense red light. "We call this a red solar projector," he gives the name they have so far.
Clark explains what it is they are witnessing. "Through extensive testing we discovered that if you saturate my body with a specific set of wavelengths of light at the red end of the spectrum it can cancel out the effect of the yellow sun. Now when I say saturate I do mean saturate and remember my body is like a solar battery. Even once exposed it takes a short period to run me down. The best effect is to hit me with both weapons simultaneously. Once weakened I should be susceptible to the tranquilliser we've been working on."
Beast returns to the table and picks up a small dart inside which is a pale green liquid. "To make it effective on Clark we had to lace it with minute traces of kryptonite." Hence the green colour. "Not lethal but enough to put him to sleep for a few minutes."
It was a little disconcerting for the people present to see it laid out in front of them exactly how to take down their friend.
Domino steps up the table and examines the larger weapons. "No offence here Doc but these ain't exactly light and portable," she critiques and she knows more about guns of all sorts than anyone here.
"It is a brand new technology we were inventing, Domino," Beast defends his work. "And these are, in fact, only the prototypes. We only began this a little over 2 months ago. I have not had nearly enough time to consider how to miniaturise them."
"No-one is questioning your work, Hank," Charles says. "You have done a remarkable job," he praises him.
"I am not certain I approve of this," Ororo says with an unhappy frown.
"Weren't you the one that said to me that this place was about stopping dangerous mutants, even if it was one of us," Logan reminds her of something she said to him after the 1st time they encountered Clark on red kryptonite.
Ororo is caught short. She did say that. "Perhaps I did say that, Logan, but that doesn't mean I have to think it appropriate that we create weapons of this nature."
"I share your feelings, Storm," Charles expresses his true feeling on the matter.
"Except I am not a normal person in any regard," Clark defends the decision. "I possess few weaknesses. To stop me you must exploit the ones I have. It is no different to how we target the Juggernaut's helmet because he's vulnerable to telepathy," Clark makes an analogous example.
Domino has picked up the smaller weapon. "What's this?" she asks.
Beast grabs that before she activates it. "Please, be careful with that," he says in anxious tones.
"Why? Is it dangerous?"
"To your eardrums, yes. It's a sonic gun."
"Because my hearing is so sensitive," Clark explains why they created that one. "Trust me it hurts and is quite disorientating," he describes his experience of having it tested upon him. "The idea was to try and exploit all my weaknesses. Speaking of which did you phone him, Professor?" Clark asks.
"Phone who?" Jean asks.
"Dr Strange," Clark answers.
"Oh, right, to fight Isobel," Evan assumes.
"And because I'm vulnerable to magic," Clark reminds everyone of his other weakness. "That and to bring the one of the few people who has ever truly hurt me."
"Wanda," Martha makes the deduction. The first time Clark ever fought Wanda he came home sporting this massive bruise. She had worried for him then and she worries for him right now. She is not happy about this...yet she can see if they are to get Clark his body back then what they have created is what they have to do...yet he is her son and she can't bear the thought of harm coming to him. It is a conflict within that is unlikely to be resolved.
"That's would be correct," Clark confirms.
"I did phone Stephen," the Professor confirms. "He'll be here a little later this morning."
"Whoa. You actually managed to get a hold of him this time," Ray says in surprise because they could never get him before.
"Yes I did...and please refrain from the smart talk, Ray," the Professor lightly chastises Ray.
Scott takes charge again. "There are two possible scenarios we can think of that we might face. One; Magneto has the stone on him in which case he is the only target of our assault. Two; he doesn't have it on his person. In which case we have to split into two teams. Team 1 will be assigned the task of disabling Magneto while Team 2 will search for and recover the stone. It is very likely he will keep it near him so is in the same base he is."
Bobby raises his hand.
"Yes Bobby?" Scott asks with slight dread what is about to come out the compulsive joker's mouth.
"Can we rename the teams because, seriously, that's lame. I was thinking Team Strike Force Cobra for whatever team I'm on."
Scott rubs his brow and looks to Jean who just shrugs as if to say 'Well it's Bobby, what do you expect'.
Scott continues laying out the basics of the plan. "For some reason we can't explain Clark can hear a tone that the stone is emitting so he obviously must be on Team 2 in the 2nd scenario. From what Clark can deduce it is somewhere west of us which is an advantage."
"In what way?" Amara asks.
"My body is charged by the sun so therefore any assault is best waited until tonight," Clark explains therefore denying his body any chance to recharge itself.
"Which gives us a few hours to run through some simulations here in the Danger Room," Scott points out how it is advantageous. Sure they can only very roughly guess what the layout of the base might be from what was seen during the Rebirth incident but at least they can run it through a couple of times and not go in completely blind.
Logan checks his watch. "Alright you have 10 minutes to get changed and be back here and then we'll decide on team line-ups. Be snappy about it!" he barks.
The large group moves out.
Claire walks with her girlfriend, wondering if she is ok. She's been awfully quiet which is strange because Marie was talkative and peppy usually. Almost the opposite of Claire but she has come to find she misses it when Marie isn't talking to her. "Are you going to be ok?" she asks in a caring whisper.
Marie had had a while to let it sink in now. They were right before about keeping it secret. Ms Frost and the Hellfire Club would do anything to know this but as she looks into her girlfriend's face Marie realises she couldn't do that to Claire. She literally cannot choose an act she knows would hurt the fiery redhead. Marie swallows hard. She knows how crazy this might sound because they haven't been dating long but she thinks she might be in love. "I'm ok...as long as you're with me. You're with me, right?"
Claire smiles a gentle caressing smile and puts her arm around Marie's waist and locks her fingers with Marie's. "Of course I am," she assures her girlfriend.
Marie smiles back brilliantly. "Then yes, I'm alright."
Amara watches this and a pang of jealousy hits her. Ok she may not be completely over her Claire crush she might have to confess. She sighs. She'll cope. What choice does she have?
At this point Jean jogs to catch up with Amara. "Can I have a word Amara?" she requests of the Nova Roman princess.
"Uh, sure," Amara says with the normal uncertainty of wondering what Jean would want to say to her.
Jean guides Amara off to the side. "How are you doing after yesterday?" she asks with concern as to how Amara is coping with her power surge or whatever it was that happened during the fight.
"I haven't been able to repeat it," Amara responds which avoids any sort of explanation of her feelings.
"Amara, the year before you came my powers went through a surge. So much of one I couldn't control them any longer and I know how scared I was. It's okay if you are," Jean tries to assure Amara that any feelings she has in that direction are normal. In fact her own experience with her power surge is why she chose to speak to Amara thinking that she could relate better to what Amara is going through.
"Can you be afraid of what you don't understand?" Amara asks. "I thought my powers were fire based. Now I don't know what they are."
"We'll figure it out. I promise you, that together we'll discover the truth," Jean swears. "But for now just let me say that I know Scott has no worry about bringing you on this mission. We both know that you won't let anyone down," she says to try and bolster Amara's confidence.
"Thank you, Jean," Amara says, touched by the attempt to reach out to her.
"So you're alright?" Jean asks, just to make sure Amara can cope with the mission today.
"I'm...confused mostly. I just don't know how I did what I did."
"Discovering the truth of our powers can be as much of a journey as discovering about ourselves. It is something that we all go through as we travel through life to try to understand who we are."
"That's...very like something the Professor would say," Amara has to say.
Jean smiles a little, pleased that her mentor has rubbed off on her a little.
Amara is not the only one of them that gets pulled away for a talk. Rogue yanks Clark into a room and shuts the door so they can talk in private.
Rogue opens her mouth but Clark cuts her off with a raise of his hand. "I know what you're going to say...or more correctly yell to me about. It's about keeping from you that I helped design weapons, right?"
Yes it was but Rogue remembers Storm's words when they were on Nova Roma about letting Clark tell his side of the story and not to lose her temper. She counts back from 5. "Clark...ah don't want ta yell at ya. Ah'm tired of us fighting," she confesses a truth. She is tired of fighting him. "Ah want ta understand your thinking."
Clark sighs and looks softly at her. Even with him in Magneto's body it has an effect. "That's...a conversation I really wish we had time for," he says genuinely. "But we don't," he has to be blunt about it. He takes her hands into what are currently(and hopefully only temporarily) his own hands. "But we will talk. I did say I was willing to answer any question you had," he reminds her.
Rogue looks a little guilty because he did say that but she keeps losing her temper before he fully explains. "Ah'm sorry. Ah know ah keep kinda losing it."
Clark smiles gently. "I told you that your temper isn't so bad. In fact you're kind of cute when you're steamed."
Rogue smiles a little. "How are ya doing, really?"
"It's all just strange. There's so many things you do without thinking because you know what size you are. I keep having to readjust because I keep misjudging how long my arms are or how wide my stride is. It's all also so quiet. I never thought I would miss all the noise...well there is only one noise I miss."
"What noise?"
Clark places his hand over Rogue's chest and his fingers tap out a rhythm. "This one."
Rogue looks down at his hand, really confused until she releases he is tapping out her heartbeat. "Ya listen ta mah heart?"
"You're the girl I love. Of course I do. It helps me sleep. It's soothing."
For anyone else Rogue would roll her eyes, scoff and make a cutting remark but for Clark she knows he means it.
"When I first developed my super hearing and I thought I would go mad with the noise it was your voice that saved me. Somehow I just focussed in on it."
"We weren't dating yet," Rogue points out about that time.
"No...but I was crushing on you rotten."
"Want a confession. So was ah."
"You were crushing on yourself? Wow, that's a little narcissistic and vain isn't it?" he teases as he twists her words.
Rogue does roll her eyes but can't help but smile a little.
"I do love you, Rogue. Whatever we're going through or whatever happens to me never doubt that."
"Ah love ya too, sugah."
Clark lips curve into an amused grin. "I bet you never thought you would have this conversation with Magneto, huh?" he jokes.
"No...and if Gawd is listening ah nevah will. That's creepy in ways ah don't even want ta begin ta imagine."
Author's Note: It seemed obvious to me that after all the times Clark has been out of control that ways to disable him would have to be created and here they are. Thanks to everyone who wrote reviews. Next up; We catch up with Magneto to see how he and Lorna are coping with the body switch and Dr Strange and Wanda arrive at the Institute.