Chapter 14
Logan watched close by; his eyes narrowed as he followed Rogue's movements. Expecting her to repeat her performance from the hills of New York State, he gave her the space to protect herself. He deliberately hung back, but when he noted her awkward stance, all he saw was a kid in trouble. Confused by her refusal to fight, he listened to them talk and gave her one last chance before he did things his way. When he realised she had chosen words, instead of violence, he shook his head. What the hell was she playing at?
One, two, three. Okay, everything was fine. She would be fine. No, that wasn't true. Biting nervously on her bottom lip again, Rogue gave in. She couldn't do this. Counting the members of Friends of Humanity as they surrounded her, she stopped when she reached three. Her fingernails dug anxiously into the light woven material of her favourite pair of gloves, and she waited for the personalities in her mind to help her. Nothing happened. With her anxiety flooding every thought inside her mind, she released a calming breath. She needed to focus.
The youngest of the gang couldn't have been much older than Rogue. His baby face shocked her when he stepped forward and she watched his hands shake with nerves. "This isn't personal," he told her but acted unsure of himself.
"It is personal," the oldest of the group raged. His grizzled salt and pepper-coloured beard were at odds with his jet-black hair. Beads of sweat peppered his tired brow as he ordered his son to strike the girl. "If she's one of them, it's always personal. Show her what you've got, boy. Go on, don't hold back. You hit her and hit her good."
"You don't have to do this," Rogue whispered to the boy, noticing he seemed more afraid than her. "He's just a bully. I can see it in his eyes and hear it in his words."
Her little speech almost resonated with the boy. He stopped and gazed at her face with a flicker of mixed emotions, but when he looked at his father again, he felt petrified. As he worked up the courage to hit her, he heard his father curse at him. Gulping, he wanted desperately to run away. Instead, he raised his hand and slowly bunched it into a fist.
Time almost stood still for Rogue. She watched a handful of the group move away once they realised the threat of violence had closed in on her. While they returned to the store with their petition, she still had one bigoted, angry bully and a scared boy to deal with. All she could hear were the sounds of her own heartbeat racing ahead of her. As she faced the daunting prospect of protecting herself from two members of the Friends of Humanity, she spotted Logan and their gazes abruptly met. He raised an eyebrow with an impatient scowl, and she looked outraged. No! She refused to hurt that boy. When she stubbornly pulled her gloves back on, he growled and walked toward her to handle it himself.
"Stop being a damn coward, boy! You take care of her, or I'll take care of you! Do you understand me?! You beat her or I beat the both of you!" the boy's father yelled spitefully, closing in on the strange girl and his own son.
"Not gonna happen, bub," Logan growled as he reached them. Aware they were in a public space, he kept things simple and slammed his fist into his unsuspecting and lethargic opponent's gut.
The bigot wheezed and swayed painfully on his swollen feet, a wounded sound gurgling from his throat. He doubled over with agony and tears quickly escaped his bitter and bloodshot hazel eyes.
A shocked Rogue watched the bigoted man crash to his knees and land on his back. He coughed blood and pleaded pitifully for help. She gazed at the boy with empathy, but he turned to her and retaliated with violence. Before Logan could flatten him with his fist, she dodged the boy's open palm and dealt with it herself. She stripped a glove from her hand and reached for the boy's face. It took seconds for him to drop to the ground beside his father, awake but unaware of anything around him.
Logan's eyes snapped to Rogue and with his hands on her shoulders, he guided her roughly toward the treeline. As they hurried to the SUV, his gaze snapped around them to check for signs of danger from stragglers looking for trouble.
The drive back to the mansion without the groceries felt like a death sentence to Rogue. She replayed the boy's memories on repeat in her mind, growing more troubled the longer they travelled. The bigoted father beat and bullied his entire family. With a timid sigh, she closed her eyes and focused on her own thoughts.
Every few miles, Logan scowled at her. Shaking his head, he wondered what the hell she had been playing at in the parking lot. The Dicks of Humanity weren't here to make friends with people like them. Compassion might have been all well and good when it mattered, but they were mutants, not goddamn social workers.
They returned to the mansion, and he parked in the garage. He patted her on the arm to snap her free of her thoughts. "I need you in the real world, kid," he said gruffly, ready to read her the riot act.
Rogue's eyes fluttered open, and she gazed at him sadly. She knew he was disappointed in her. A single tear spilt down her pale face. "Don't," she whispered and fled from the car.
He grimaced as she slammed the car door shut and watched her run inside. In a growing pattern when faced with the challenge of fatherhood, he grumbled and scrubbed a weary hand across his face. "Shit," he muttered irritably and eventually lit a cigar.
The weeks dragged by, and Rogue continued to cross off the days of her grounding on her calendar. Following another troubled night's sleep, she settled at her desk and wondered how to help the boy whose memories she had stolen. She tugged at a loose thread on her glove and gloomily sighed to herself. Logan spent all his time with Jean now. The breakaway was gradual, but she felt it immediately when he missed their morning battle of words in his office. With his absence increasing, she only spent minutes with him in the kitchen each morning. He would say 'Hey'. She would respond with a gentle 'Hey.' And then she would watch him and Jean flirt, kiss, and whisper to each other. Jealousy spiked inside her because why didn't he want to spend time with her anymore? She avoided getting in trouble, left Bobby Drake alone, and even returned to her classes with all her homework completed. Still, Logan remained distant, and it really hurt her.
On the second to last day of her grounding, sitting in the back row of Scott's boring class, Rogue pulled at the stubborn loose thread on her glove. Feeling miles away from the lecture at the front of the class, she remained lost in her thoughts until she noticed everyone had turned in their seats to stare at her. Sitting up a little straighter, she gazed curiously at Scott.
"It's Rogue's turn to choose the next movie," Scott explained yet again when he noticed she finally paid attention to him. "The theme for next week is uplifting stories of overcoming hardship or adversity. Rogue's choice will determine the topic of your next papers which will be due at a later date."
"Choose well, chica," a smiling Jubilee called from the desk beside her.
At the end of class, Rogue collected her belongings from her desk. She avoided Scott's gaze and quickly left the room with her head down. The moody thoughts returned to her mind as she made her way to her bedroom. When she saw Logan with Jean in the hall, she watched them talking and frowned. How would she get to Busterblock and borrow a video using the school's account without him driving her there? Reminding herself he was meant to be her daddy, she marched over to them. The thoughts reshuffled in her mind again and she wanted to talk to him about the boy from the parking lot, too. They could help him and his family, couldn't they? She had to help them somehow.
Logan caught the kid's scent closing in on him and pulled his focus away from Jean for a second. "Hey," he greeted her before he returned his full attention to plotting a scouting mission with the redhead.
"I need your help," Rogue explained, trying to catch his attention with a smallish tug on his shirt sleeve.
"Not now, kid," he answered without bothering to look at her.
Huffing quietly, she refused to leave. "But Logan, you don't understand. I really need your help."
Logan ignored her and continued to talk to Jean. When he had the time, he would catch up with her later. "What if we camped out in a motel before the mission?" he asked with a smirk.
Rogue's frown wanted to camp permanently on her face as Jean whispered a reply in Logan's ear. She spotted Victor about to pass them by and remembered his words. Why did she always let people push her around? Huffing loudly, she ignored everyone around her and stared at Logan's back as she borrowed Gloria's colourful vocabulary. "You're a lousy, good-for-nothing convict with that seat in hell still waiting on your sorry ass. Do you hear me, Wolverine? All you do every day is fuck another guy's wife while I'm left alone to deal with everything. Turn around when I'm talking to you, you deadbeat! She doesn't care about you; everyone here secretly knows she's the mansion's resident redheaded saddled-up whore!"
Students started to slow their pace and gawked at the screaming Rogue. Even Victor's eyes casually looked their way as the line of kids came to a standstill in front of him.
Logan turned around but not because she demanded him to. When he caught the term she used to describe Jean, his eyes narrowed dangerously, and he scowled down at her. "What did you just say?"
"You heard every word," Rogue replied, Gloria's personality fading away as her own eyes narrowed stubbornly at him.
Closing the distance between them, a growling Logan grabbed her upper arm and dragged her even closer. He leaned over and snarled a warning in her ear. Despite lowering the volume of his words, the entire corridor of people overheard his threat. "I played my goddamn part in bringing you into this world and I will take you out of it, Marie. Understood?"
"Logan," Jean called cautiously concerned by his level of anger. "It's fine. I'm not offended."
Before Logan could get an answer out of her, Rogue pulled away and listened to the gossip rapidly spreading down the hall. She backed away from them, bumped into Victor, and then sprinted away. As she raced to the safety of her bedroom, tears fell from her eyes bitterly and she blamed herself for opening her runaway mouth. An hour or so later, as she lay on her bed half-praying for Gloria's death, the boy's memories continued to play in her mind. They shifted her focus away from her own pain and she realised she had to help him. When her door opened, she sighed and saw her best friend. "It's not a happy time, Jubes," she complained quietly.
"How could you keep it a secret for so long?! Why didn't you tell me you had the hottest pa on the fucking planet!" Jubilee asked with a squeal, shutting the door and jumping on her bed. She relaxed beside her and continued to grin wildly. "What's wrong with you, chica? This is good news, right? You have somebody in your corner that understands what it's like to be a mutant. You've no idea how lucky you are."
"Lucky?" Rogue muttered and tugged at the annoying loose thread on her glove. "I can't touch anyone without hurting them. Look at me, Jubilation Lee. I'm nothing but a freak in gloves. One set of parents hate everything I stand for, and the others didn't want me from the day I was born. Everything's a mess and it's all my fault. Why did I go off like that? I can't even mind my own tongue."
"They deserved every word of it and more," Jubilee promised her friend and hugged her tightly. "Everybody under this roof knows they're a pair of tramps." She sat back and grinned. "And guess what else they're saying?"
"I don't think I want to know," she worriedly answered with another concerned sigh.
Jubilee started to giggle at the absurdity of it all. "One day I'm going to be your stepmom."
With a faint smile, Rogue shook her head and began to cheer up. "I'm not wearing a yellow bridesmaid dress," she said, giggling too. "I'm serious, Jubes. Primary colours make me look even paler than I already am."
On the last day of her grounding, after the morning rush, a sheepish Rogue wandered into the kitchen. Curious looks were often cast her way and she felt certain the other students gossiped about her and Logan as she walked by. Thankful she didn't see him or Jean anywhere, she opened the fridge and freezer doors and stared inside. For the longest time, she stood there, without breaking eye contact with the empty carton of milk. Eventually, a gravelly throat cleared behind her. "There's no ice," she told him.
Victor grumbled to himself, about to leave but he heard her footstep following him. "What do you want?"
"A favour," Rogue responded and jogged to keep up with his long strides. "I need a ride into town to run some errands. Please, Victor? I have no one else to ask and I'm scared if I go out alone, I won't find my way back again." Struggling with the voices in her head, she quit chasing after him and closed her eyes for a few moments to refocus on her own thoughts.
Stopping in his tracks, Victor eyed her for a few seconds. He could see her struggle and hated himself for what he was about to agree to. "Meet me in the garage in ten minutes. Ten fucking minutes. You're late and our deal's dead."
"My mama always said cussing is a sign even the devil thinks you're a fool," she warned him, going to fetch her coat. Catching sight of his scowl, she cringed, a little embarrassed. "Sorry, I don't know why I said that. Sometimes these silly words pour out before I can stop them."
"I noticed," Victor grunted, thinking back to the fight she and Jimmy had the day before. With the scowl continuing to rest on his face, he stalked to the garage to wait impatiently for her.
As they parked outside Busterblock, Rogue gazed at the empty sidewalk and the overcast sky. The heavy chill in the air made her wish she had wrapped up warmer. She glanced at Victor as she unbuckled her seatbelt. "Thanks for the ride," she said and opened the door. "I promise I won't be more than a few minutes."
Victor wordlessly watched her leave the car and frowned as she hesitated and made a beeline for a phone booth. While he picked at a piece of meat wedged between his teeth, his hearing strained to listen to her words. What the hell did she want with a domestic violence helpline? He continued to listen in and caught her brief comments in the wind. After a while, she left the phone booth and headed into that shitty video store. He settled his hands on the steering wheel and his temper flared. He was Victor Fucking Creed. And look at him, sitting in a car, outside Busterblock, waiting for Jimmy's brat to run errands.
As Rogue wandered around the mostly empty store, she gazed up at a tall wall of videos. Searching for something upbeat, inspirational, and uplifting, she sighed and felt lost. She hoped to find a movie that explored overcoming hardship and adversity. The problem was, she didn't know her own name, let alone why she was here. No wait, that couldn't be true. "My name's… Marie?" she whispered to herself. Then smiled awkwardly and wrinkled her nose. She felt strange. Really strange.
A cheerful girl soon bounced over to her with a long blonde ponytail swinging like a pendulum. She looked cute. "Hi, can I help you?"
Rogue nodded, suddenly remembering why she came to the store "Can you please help me find an uplifting movie about hardship and adversity?" She followed the girl over to the counter and took the first video handed to her. "Thanks." Without asking any more questions, she left the store, carrying the video case in her gloved hand. A pendulum? Where had that come from? And wait, did she have a crush on Busterblock girl? With distorted thoughts clouding her mind, the boy's memories and emotions flooded her, and she walked to the nearby train station in an almost sullen trance. She needed to go home before her father found out she skipped school again.
Growing more impatient by the second, Victor spent his time fighting with one of the buttons on the car stereo. Snapping it off in a temper, he tossed it aside. He looked at the video store again. Surely, she hadn't gotten lost inside there. He spent several more minutes glaring at the country music bleeding from the radio, and finally, stepped out of the car to get some fresh air. He suddenly sniffed around him suspiciously. Her fresh scent made little sense to him, but he started to stalk after it.
Victor eventually reached the train station, sprang over the ticket barrier, and told the station workers to take a fucking hike when they attempted to stop him. By the time he found the correct carriage on the right platform, he climbed on board and growled to himself when the door shut behind him. He could feel the train moving down the track and scowled while he searched for the stupid brat.
Sitting in a crumb-covered seat by a dirty window, the puzzled Rogue snapped her eyes shut and focused on her breathing. More memories clouded her mind. The panic rose inside her and she didn't understand. Why would she be afraid of her daddy? He wouldn't beat her; he didn't even want to spend time with her. No, he wasn't a member of Friends of Humanity either. She pictured Logan sitting beside her on a train and clung to the memory desperately.
An impatient Victor settled in the empty seat beside her and grumbled because he needed more legroom. His knees roughly struck the chair in front and a middle-aged woman turned around to complain. "Take a fucking hike," he snarled back. The offended passenger received the message loud and clear and moved quickly to another seat in a different carriage.
Opening her eyes, Rogue gazed around them with a face full of confusion. "Why are we on a train?"
Victor pointed to her with a harsh growl. "I'm about to ask you the same question."
Blinking in bewilderment, she tried to piece together the last fifteen minutes. When she saw a ticket inspector making his way toward them, she quickly checked her coat pockets. She didn't have a ticket. As she shooed Victor out of his seat so she could reach the aisle, she sighed irritably. "You don't have to cuss all the time," she scolded him, clambering over his legs when he was too slow to move.
With a bad-tempered growl, Victor climbed to his feet and slowly stalked after the running girl. The ticket collector picked up his speed, waved his hand in the air, and shouted at them to stop. Snarling over his shoulder, Victor was ready to smash skulls and break bones. "You can take a fucking hike, too."