Epilogue, part 1
Outside, their world is ending. Inside, hers already has, and what is left of it she will lay down here tonight.
The room darkens when she enters, the long shadow of her betrayal cast forward, far ahead. All around, candlelight plays on colored glass and kisses familiar faces. The stone arches rest untroubled, accustomed to framing strange rituals, desperate prayers. Xavier looks on, stoic; Kitty is kneeling, and that seems fitting. How strange, to walk into this temple and see the love of her life on an altar, but then so much of her life has been strange.
They came to give her the freedom that for so long she had been denied. Bobby, Kitty, many others have long known where to find her. It was their choice not to.
But it was her choice first; she remembers that.
They came because they need her now. The plan is clear; it was explained to her on the plane as they circled the earth to this remote corner of China. Kitty's light is flickering and will soon grow dim; it is only her skin — her curse, her mark, her miracle — that can keep Logan where he's gone to find them all a better future. She reaches for Kitty's powers and does what she came to do.
The tips of her fingers brush lightly against the man's skin, and she catalogs the differences. Time has signed its name on his features, as she imagines it has done to hers. The thought brings to mind her younger self, and she remembers words that long ago she turned over and over with her tongue without knowing what they meant, until they lost all taste, all meaning. A chant in a language she had yet to learn. The spell that set her life in motion.
I'm not afraid of pain.
Now it amuses her — shy and mournful, but amusement nonetheless — that when she first said the words she thought they referred to skin, bones, flesh. She wonders what she might have done differently if she had understood back then what pain was. The course of her life might have been different. Perhaps even the fate of their world.
Alight in his presence, the metal tag engraved with his name suddenly burns on her chest. Marie breathes out all doubt, all thought; then she looks at him and says hello.
Chapter 1
He wasn't even supposed to be down here, but her goddamn scent was everywhere. Strongest down the hall where he figured Ro had put her — Jean and Scott's old room, what a sick fucking joke — but also lingering in the faculty wing's east hallway, the staircase, the foyer where he stood now. It clung even to the front door he had his hand on. The smell of cigarette smoke was strong right there, rising like a wave every minute or so while he kept standing by the door like an idiot, trying to decide what to do.
It had to be her out there. Ro never smoked, the kids hid it better than this, and while Hank might appreciate a cigar, he would never stoop to smoking bullshit cigarettes. Logan knew she'd be coming, Ro had told him that much. "She's been struggling, and she'll find a home here, like she always has." He nodded seriously at that and decided to pass on asking what "struggling" meant, or pointing out the fact that she hadn't looked for a home here since she'd left. Hadn't seen him, hadn't called him. He hadn't called her either. It wasn't exactly clear what special brand of small talk was supposed to be used in a situation like that, but he figured it'd involve treating her like a stranger. He didn't much like strangers, was the thing.
So no wonder he'd disappeared before dinner, skipped the mansion's homemade fare in favor of shot after shot of whiskey until it was late enough to go into the cage and let the things he might have wanted to say to her get pummeled out of his thick dumb skull. Even an easy fight with a human didn't leave a lot of room for thinking. He pretended to almost lose one, then made a show of struggling through the second and won the last two quickly after his patience ran out. The crowd roared when he stepped out — they actually liked him at this place, most of the time — and collected two beers and a wad of cash. There was good money in fighting, it turned out, if you only lost when you meant to. After that it was fifty windy, winding miles back here on a motorcycle; it could have been forty-eight, but he liked to stay west of the river to take Palisades Parkway and watch it uncoil under his headlight like a dark snake among the trees.
He'd been intent on going up to his room to shower. Watch the watered down blood circle the drain, have a nightcap in bed and maybe pop something to sleep. He'd even taken the elevator up from the garage, knowing the scent would be waiting like a trap.
It was, and he fell right in.
Logan's hand turned the handle. The oversized front door of Xavier's Home for Gifted Youngsters creaked softly behind him, corralling the light back inside. Moonlight flooded the night, everywhere except the stone-arch portico. Beyond its edge, maybe twenty feet away, she stood with her back towards him, even though by now she would have seen and heard someone coming out the door. Her hair was longer, almost to her waist. Hips fuller, too. More like a woman's, even if it was dark and she was far and he was trying not to notice.
The small ember of a cigarette arced as she moved her hand. The ribbon of smoke she blew out drifted to heaven, like a soul.
Logan ran a hand through his hair before he stepped out of the darkness. His face and jeans were very likely smeared with more than one idiot's blood, himself included. He had to remind himself she'd seen that before. Had to remind himself she'd seen worse.
She shifted, turning towards him. Ladies and gentlemen, the king of the cage.
"Is that you?"
At least her voice was the same. No need for the name, like there was nobody else on her mind. Her face was all neutral curiosity and a distant sense of amusement that he would have believed if he couldn't see the pulse thrumming at her throat.
"What gave it away, kid?"
"Height. Facial hair. Plaid ."
Back in the day, she used to tease him about wearing plaid all the time. Are you sure you weren't a lumberjack before? It would explain your wardrobe. He used to let her. But she was younger then, with shorter hair and slimmer hips.
" Plaid , huh?"
She didn't take the bait. "Also the fact that no one else comes out here to smoke."
"Long time no see."
He settled his shoulders square to hers, two or three feet away. If she was going to hug him, this would be the right time, but she just looked at his face, eyes narrowed as she took a drag of her cigarette and blew out a smoky reply.
"Three years."
Three years since she'd left. Three years since he'd left. In three years he'd taught himself US history and then passed it onto a bunch of kids who knew even less than him. He'd redone the back deck without a nail gun. He'd looked at his phone about a million times, punching her number digit by digit, staring at it, putting it away when he realized he still didn't know what to say.
She took another drag. Ro didn't let him smoke inside anymore; it was a lot of "statewide ban," "we're a school," "but the children," "but the parents," like those parents gave a fuck about secondhand smoke when their kids came out with tails and blue tongues. But he'd gotten used to it. This time of year, with summer still waning, coming out to that green-laced chill in the air was a relief. From the way she stood, curled into herself, it didn't seem like she agreed.
She'd been like that since the first time he'd met her, always freezing. Freezing when they used to stand out here together, her talking about her day, him nodding and chuckling and trying not to blow smoke in her face. Despite his best efforts, in those days her hair smelled like his cigars constantly, and he was enough of an asshole to kind of like that. Any night but the hottest of the year she'd end up shivering before his cigar was out, and then he'd shrug his shirt off and they'd play the opposite of tug of war with it until she relented and slipped into it. He never got them back until the next day. If a button was loose, it would show up tightened. If there was a rip, it'd come back mended. He'd never said anything about it. She hadn't either.
"Spare one?"
"You smoke cigarettes?"
"No."
"Me neither." She slipped the cigarette between her lips and fished another out of the front pocket of her jeans. Her hands were bare, pale and small. Logan wondered about that.
He took it between his fingers. "Got a light?"
She just leaned in. He lowered his head towards her, close enough now that the smell that radiated from the curve of her nose was not completely overpowered by the smoke. When he pulled back her breasts moved apart slightly as she inhaled to make herself lighter, perhaps float away in the moonlight. He reminded himself no to look, and to pull the smoke into his lungs.
"When the hell did you start smoking?"
"When my grandmother stopped."
He grunted, not sure what to say. There was humor in her voice, but that wasn't the same as cheer. They used to talk, he remembered that. They used to stand out here and talk, and he used to know how to make her laugh.
"This tastes like shit."
"Yeah, well. Beggars and whatnot."
"Didn't you bum food as soon as I let you into that truck?"
She let out a breath that was not quite a laugh. "I was a hungry homeless teen."
"Now you're what?"
"Now I'm a hungry homeless adult, and you're the one bumming my cigarettes somehow."
"You ain't homeless. Not here."
"Nope. Just ate, too."
"That was some fucking old beef jerky."
"Yup, I could tell."
The memories scattered like bats out of a cave. If there was one thing about her that he could never get over, it was the simple fact that she'd been there. There'd been no reason for a teenage runaway from Bumfuck, Mississippi to end up in an underground fighting bar in Alberta on a cold early spring night looking for a ride. He'd known her now for six years and this entire time they'd both brought up that night every chance they'd had, trying to convince each other that it had actually happened. It wasn't a history lesson, taught in a classroom. It was a legend, retold around the fire. That against all odds, she'd ended up in that shithole and walked into that bar. Of all the fucking gin joints.
Maybe that's why he was out here, home from a fight with all kinds of wicked things sailing in his blood. The logical thing to do would have been to go to bed. Say hello to her tomorrow like he'd planned, do it over breakfast, in the open. Little kids within earshot. Older ones wanting to say hi. Ro and Hank around to ask all the questions. Not this. Not the darkness and the silence waiting to be filled, like he fucking knew how.
"You were living in..."
"The city."
"You like it?"
"No." Another drag. Her shoulders softened. "I always thought I would, you know."
"Ain't a lot of cities like New York in Mississippi."
"Not a lot of cities like that anywhere."
"I spent time in Vancouver for a while," he volunteered, trying to steer the conversation somewhere. Anywhere.
"You did? How was it?"
"Miserable." His nose twitched. "The smells in that place. Non-stop noise."
"Too many people," she added knowingly. "You bump into them."
"Made you nervous?"
"Not at first," she admitted, looking down at the cigarette in her hand. "I used to get a little thrill out of it, I guess. Walking around in a tank top and people brushing against me and..." She shrugged her shoulders. "Nothing. Not a big deal. Not a problem."
Her bare hand seemed to glow in the dark like a firefly. The cure hadn't worked, not for anybody. He'd been next to her when she first heard the news, and that sure was a day he wouldn't ever forget.
"It wore off for me too." A look down at her fingers. "Just like everybody else. But that was just the first formula. They kept trying." The white streaks of her hair fell in front of her face. She took a drag, staring down at the black hole where his soul should have been. "They always do, right?"
The gravel crunched between his feet as he shifted his weight. "So now it works?"
"Yup. Well, it's a clinical trial. Hank got me into it. But, you know. It's working."
She reached for him and laid her hand on his forearm. They both looked down, fixated on the contrast of his long fingers, tanned from riding and working outside, on her milky skin that rarely saw the sun. The softness of her hands always struck him. The only way something could stay so soft was if it was always protected, kept out of harm's way.
It was colder than it should have been, too. "You're cold," he muttered.
She laughed and took the hand away. "So what? You gonna offer me your shirt?"
He moved to take it off, but she shook her head.
"I'm joking, Logan. I'm fine." And then, a little softer, "Let's not do that anymore."
This wasn't how strangers talked. It wasn't how strangers looked at each other. That had always been the problem with them: that they were never strangers, even when they were. The woman had snuck into his truck, yelled at him, bummed his food, given him lip about his trailer, and asked about his claws like claws were something you asked about. And he'd answered, like an idiot. That had started this whole thing, if he thought about it. They'd made a myth of it, they'd told themselves it meant something, and it meant nothing. It wasn't a legend, it was a joke. Little Red and The Wolf walk into a bar.
Without warning, she tipped the cigarette to the ground and crushed it under her boot. "I'm going to bed. Good night."
Logan felt like he'd failed. He spoke before thinking, fast and a little too desperate. "Hey, kid?"
She looked at him over her shoulder, like she had some place to be. Fuck, she was gorgeous. Back when she was living here and training, she'd come to be the best fucking fighter in her cohort because every move she demonstrated had to be repeated over and over until all unnecessary effort got whittled down to perfect efficiency, and not because he cared that much about her fighting. Fighting was his job, not hers.
No, he cared about keeping her near him. He cared about watching her move in that tight leather uniform and memorizing every detail for when he closed his eyes at night, hard as a rock in his bed. He cared about tracing every damn curve of her body with his starving hands an inch from her clothes, because he knew the minute he touched her there wasn't a chance in hell he'd let go. Until she touched him, the witch.
She raised an eyebrow at him, waiting.
"What made you come back?"
The corner of her mouth twitched. "It's stupid, isn't it? I finally get what I want," she said, waving ungloved hands, "and I come back to my old high school to work an assistant job for room and board."
Logan shifted. He hated how bright the moon was, how it touched every line of their features and spelled out things they weren't saying. Worse than the sun, somehow. More intimate. He shouldn't have come out here. He wouldn't have, if there had been any chance in hell he could keep himself from tracking her scent.
"Last time I was lost, I ended up here." It was strange to hear her tell it like that, with no mention of him. Rogue shrugged. "Maybe there was a reason for that. Maybe it's time I figured out what it was."
She walked back to the door, and all the things they hadn't said crowded around him like ghosts.
Marie looked in the bathroom mirror, finishing with the slightest touch of mascara. The faculty quarters were full of relative luxuries, and a private bathroom was her favorite one. She had never lived on the second floor before, even though she'd been on the staff for two years after graduating, working as Xavier's assistant while she attended Westchester Community College. The faculty rooms had been full at that point. Then Kurt left unexpectedly, and the professor began to renovate his room so she could have it.
Then everybody died, and moving suddenly seemed in bad taste.
The new room was adjacent to Hank's, which in turn was adjacent to Logan's; she had heard them through the thin veil of morning sleep, opening their doors and cacophonously making coffee in the faculty kitchen across the hallway, not gone until she was fully awake. Their windows faced east, and the sun had long been draped over the room — an armchair littered with folded clothes from her partially unpacked suitcase, a dresser where a blue bowl held her keys, the surprisingly comfortable bed flanked by small nightstands. The perennial twilight she'd gotten used to in the city felt like a distant memory.
She smacked her lips in front of the mirror and headed downstairs to start the day. There were still fifteen minutes before morning classes began, and near the foyer she saw students bustled in and out of the cafeteria, never giving the door a chance to shut. Enrollment was at a record high, and Storm had already explained that a large part of her new assistant role would be to help recruit new faculty. The current group of Storm, Hank, Logan — as well as Warren, in a nonresidential capacity — could no longer keep up with the surge of demand that had followed the latest threat to mutants.
The smell of coffee summoned her down. Faces she remembered as children now looked like high school students, even if now those two categories seemed much closer together than they'd been before. Plenty of new characters milled about, including a redhead whose striking smile earned her Marie's unwarranted but immediate antipathy; a green-skinned young man gazing shyly at the floor under think black hair; and a gaggle of young girls who looked like triplets at first, until suddenly they all snapped into one.
Inside, the woman waiting by the Nespresso machine was unfamiliar too. Her posture suggested impatience with the trickle of coffee streaming out of the device: her right foot tapped a steady beat, and her fingers toyed with the lapel of her blazer. When the coffee was done, she popped another pod in and started the machine again. Marie sighed without thinking.
The blonde turned. "Oh, gosh, I'm sorry." An apologetic smile crinkled around green eyes. "I'm so sorry. I didn't even see you there."
"It's fine." Marie smiled too. "It only takes a minute."
"It's just a double-shot kinda day, you know?" Her voice was husky and friendly.
"Totally get that." She extended her hand. "Hi, I'm Rogue. I used to be a student here, but I don't remember you being around at the time."
"I'm Karen Cook," she said, smiling wider now. Her handshake felt like it had been taught in a business class. "I wasn't. heck, I wasn't even around half an hour ago, which was when my meeting with Ms. Munroe was supposed to be," she explained, picking up her coffee and moving to make way for Marie. She looked around herself, taking in the emptying cafeteria. "My sitter flaked, and let me tell you, it was downhill from there."
"Ugh, I'm so sorry. Did you reschedule?"
Karen was still looking away, visibly distracted. "Um, she said her assistant would." She turned slowly. "Sorry, have you seen—"
"Oh, well, I'm actually—"
"Shit !"
Marie turned to find what she was looking at. Nearby, a minuscule cat was perched on the table that held utensils and accessories for the coffee, happily lapping at the contents of the creamer. It froze when Karen's voice reached it, droplets of fresh dairy clinging to the fur around its tiny mouth. Its head and paws were white, but the body was the color of a Mississippi summer storm. Marie chuckled, but Karen marched up to it, less than purely amused.
"Harry ! "
In response, the cat blinked huge green eyes. Clandestine pets had been found in the mansion sometimes, including — notably — a ferret that a young freshman had successfully kept for three weeks in his room until Scott had found out. (She learned later that Logan had known all along, of course.) A parent bringing a cat to a meeting, however, was new.
"What did we talk about in the car, Harry? What were you supposed to be? I don't think it was a cat."
Unless, Marie suddenly understood, the cat was not a cat.
Before she had time to properly process that realization, it materialized in front of her eyes. The small animal ballooned in size as if inflated, and as it did its shape twisted and buckled, the texture of fur flattening to something smoother as its four small legs lengthened to limbs and its torso slimmed down. At the end of this, a little boy with dark brown hair and blue-framed glasses was standing five feet from Marie, bright green eyes as wide open as the cat's had been. In his human form, their kinship was obvious: he and Karen had the exact same eyes.
"That's better," she said, squatting down to look her son in the eye. "I need you to be a boy, pumpkin. It's important, do you understand? We've talked about this."
He nodded, very serious. The blue glasses slipped down his nose a little, and a vertiginous depth of affection opened up suddenly under Marie's feet. Falling through it, she recognized, would be inevitable.
Karen seemed as if she might have some immunity to his charms. "Can you stay a boy for me? Was there a reason why you shifted?"
He nodded again.
"And what was that?"
Harry frowned. "My shoe was untied."
Marie had to hold back her laughter, and Karen's shoulders shook as if she was doing the same.
"Pumpkin, you know how to tie your shoes. I taught you, remember?"
"But that was my other shoes." He looked down at his blue sneakers, each with a colorful dinosaur on the outer side. The left one's neon-green laces were loose. "These are different."
This time, Marie laughed out loud.
Karen turned back at her, a wide grin on her face, and asked in a stage whisper, "Men , am I right? Helpless!" She stood up, the little boy clinging to her dark jeans. "This is my little pumpkin, Harry."
"Hey, sugar. I'm Rogue."
He looked at her briefly and smiled before looking back down, half-hidden behind his mother's legs. "Your name is Rogue?"
"Kinda. It's what everybody calls me."
He seemed skeptical. "My mom calls me Pumpkin. But my name is Harry."
Marie kneeled to look him in the eye. "Well, my name's a secret ," she whispered. "Do you want to hear it?"
Those big green eyes sparkled, looking at her cautiously. He bobbed his head slowly, instinctively aware that he was binding himself into a contract.
"But you have to tell me a secret too, yeah? Otherwise it's not fair."
"But you can't tell anybody my secret," he said quickly, shuffling away from his mother's hip as she looked over them, amused. "Do you promise?"
"I would never tell a secret," Marie said, raising her eyebrows. "I promise."
That seemed to convince him. Harry came to stand in front of Marie, the little brown ringlets of his hair clouding around a smile as he leaned in to put his ear next to her lips. She almost flinched out of habit, unaccustomed to skin-to-skin contact even after three months of the newest clinical trial. Like so many things she'd hoped for and lost, the possibility of touch never seemed quite close enough to grasp.
"My name is Marie ." It had been many years since that had truly been a secret, but the word still fluttered timidly, a skittish bird that might fly away. Harry received it solemnly, with a curt nod of his head and a look of understanding that seemed incongruous with the childish lines of face. "Now you," she said, turning her head.
The skin of his cheeks brushed against her, peach soft as he found his position with two hands cupped around her ear. "I'm a ship-shiffer ."
She fought back a rush of laughter and turned to him. "Thank you, sugar. Thank you for telling me your secret."
To her surprise, he threw himself at her and wrapped small arms around her neck.
"Whoa," she huffed out, giggling a little as she hugged him back. Her chest expanded to make room for more love. "I got ya."
Karen was looking at her, a look of amazement on her face. "He doesn't usually take to new people that fast."
Marie laughed. "To be honest, I don't either."
The hug ended as abruptly as it had begun, and he smiled shyly before burying his face in his mother's leg. Standing up, Marie explained that she was Storm's assistant, and obtained a number she could call back with the schedule.
"And, look, if you wanted to bring him…" she added, trailing off as she looked down at Harry. "It's no big deal to watch him for a half hour, honestly."
Karen gasped. "Rogue, I—"
But Marie shrugged. "I'm just saying. I mean, it's a school, right? That's kind of our thing."
Goodbyes were swift as she rushed out to her own meeting, with Karen's business card in her pocket and the image of the little boy's smile already tucked into her heart. He waved to her as they walked out the door, and she went to find Storm in the wood-paneled main office.
The school's headmistress was nestled in a large leather chair directly in front of the door, talking on the phone. Behind her, a large paned window made the trees outside look like a grid drawing, a student project out of art class. Storm didn't get up, but she gestured for Marie to come inside.
"Right, I get it. Well, why don't you try that— Yeah." She cocked her head, listening, and gestured to a chair, whispering, "Sit down, honey, this will just take a second."
Marie preferred to stand. Around the fringes of her vision, few modifications stood out. The professor's desk was still the same, as was the leather couch where she had often sat while he looked over documents to sign, sipping his tea and making sparse conversation. His old-fashioned accents were likewise preserved: a vintage globe and a beautifully sculpted chess set. The strangest thing about being back at the school was noticing how little had changed, when it seemed like everything should have.
Storm put her phone down and let out a deep sigh, closing her eyes for a second as if she was alone. There were dark circles under her eyes.
"Alright. I'm sorry. I'm here." She smiled, standing up to come around the massive desk. "Sorry, I was just catching up with Warren. You heard about the break-in, I assume?"
Marie nodded. It had been in the news. A small clinic in Connecticut had been broken into, apparently by vandals. Computers had been stolen; documents, too. "I assumed we'd be investigating."
Storm stared at her for a moment, a pained look in her eyes, before taking a deep breath and going back to her chair.
"Not exactly , to be honest," she said, pushing back from the desk and leaning back. "Warren's team does that kind of work now."
"Warren has a team ?"
"Yeah, he runs an intel team from an office in the city. We're too small and overworked up here to do it on our own anymore."
"What did he find out?"
"A license plate," Storm said, gesturing at the papers she'd been leafing through. "But it doesn't really help, to be honest. The car is registered to a shell company. No one's been able to anchor it in anything real yet."
Moving closer, Marie peeked at the documents: there were police reports, photographs of a vandalized office, and grainy stills of CCTV footage. One of them showed a dark SUV.
"In any case, Rogue, we're not as proactive as we used to be," Storm added. "Not with the way things are these days. It's too risky out there for people relying on their powers." She looked at Marie darkly. "Which reminds me, have you kept up with your training at all? I don't want to give you more than you bargained for, but I do feel that living here as staff entails a certain…" She paused there, flipping through her mental catalog to find the most diplomatic term.
"...risk?" Marie offered.
"Responsibility. " She raised an eyebrow. "We protect the children in every way we can. That hasn't changed. It's why we protect ourselves from getting cured on the field, so we can be here to defend these kids if needed. It's why Hank's in D.C. right now, working on the votes for the discriminatory weapons ban. You've heard of it, I assume?"
Everyone had heard of it. It had been all over the news for weeks now, and not only on the mutant-friendly papers. It had already passed in the House; the Senate vote was next, and believed to be a much bigger challenge.
"The one that prohibits the cure gas, right?" she asked.
That was the risk Storm had referred to, she knew. Trask, Inc. had hired a number of scientists from Worthington Labs and developed a way to deploy the cure in gas form. When its release sparked widespread protests, Trask took the opportunity to market it to police departments as a "crowd management" tool, and the balance of power in the country changed dramatically. Even mutants who had always been able to defend themselves against hateful humans were easy targets now to anyone who could get their hands on a canister.
"It does a lot more than that," Storm said. "The cure gas was just the trigger. Any kind of weapon that affects targets differently based on their genotype is going to be banned. He's been going down there every week. And actually ," she said, pulling a copy of the school schedule from a pile of papers, "how we cover his classes is the first puzzle I'm gonna need you to solve for me. Have you thought about when you want to start?"
Marie was happy to start that same day. There was a new computer system that Storm had installed a year earlier, but other than that the job was largely the same one she'd held before. They agreed on a first set of tasks, and were in the process of scheduling their next check-in when someone knocked on the door.
"My next meeting," Storm said. "How about I find you after my morning classes? And talk to Logan about training, will you?"
She almost nodded by instinct. Training with Logan had always been something to look forward to. The gym's tall windows and long swaths of sunlight had beckoned to even her sleepiest teenage self. She had headed there at ungodly hours, motivated by knowing that she would run into him, even if on most days that only meant that they smiled at each other across the room while he punished a weight bag endlessly and she ran on a treadmill. Later, when she started training to join the team, Scott had been the one to demonstrate the proper forms, but it was Logan she had always turned to when it was time to practice them. She'd spent hour upon hour with him on that mat, trying again only to be corrected by him, large hands hovering over her waist or her thighs while she desperately hoped that once, just once, that miserable gap of decency would close. That just once he'd touch her the way she touched herself at night, trying to mistake her hands for his.
Until the day when the news of the cure came — the day she learned that she had a lifelong sentence to serve, and precious little time before her body once again became her prison — and she'd finally closed that gap herself.
Finding the ground again, Marie shook her head. "Actually, Storm, that might not be a good idea."
"And then he yelped, 'Don't touch my hair!'"
They all laughed at that, harmonizing together. With Hank back from his work in DC, this was the faculty's official celebration of Rogue's return: a few glasses of whiskey, a fire burning, and companionship.
"Was his hair nice ?"
"Ororo, my dear, not if you ask me, but what do I know of such things as men's hair," Hank replied. Out of the corner of her eye she caught him stealing a furtive glance at Logan, who in an unusual flash of self-awareness raised a hand to his head.
The girl sighed. "I would have loved to have known the professor at that age."
"Sounds like an interesting guy," Logan agreed, eyes seeking Hank's.
"Quite the character, my friends. And the people he surrounded himself with, as well."
A bottle of Lagavulin sat between them on the coffee table, as well as a nice merlot that Logan had silently retrieved and poured for Rogue when he noticed the scotch. Drinks after dinner were commonplace enough that the supposed breakfast island in the faculty kitchen saw more alcohol than coffee, but tonight they were sitting in the adjoining living room. She and Hank occupied one, naturally leaning towards each other as they comfortably splayed out in a large brown leather couch. Rogue and Logan faced them, cornered into opposite ends of theirs as if something between them smelled foul.
The tension there was palpable, and had been since Rogue's return. He always seemed to come out of his bedroom just moments after she went into hers. They both stepped out to smoke after dinner, but Logan didn't leave the cafeteria until he'd heard her go up the stairs. It was such a contrast to how they used to materialize in every room within minutes of each other.
"You haven't told us anything about D.C., Hank," Rogue said. "How did that go?"
The situation was favorable, Hank explained. They needed two votes from across the aisle in order for the bill to pass into law.
"The most promising bet at the moment is Senator Harris from Montana. He generally skews conservative, but on mutant issues he's often an ally."
"I assume that's because of what happened— at that high school, I mean…" Rogue began, but she didn't find the words to continue. "That was horrifying."
Ororo shifted uncomfortably and looked at Logan, who in turn looked away. The story had been all over the press, and any mutant knew it by heart. A handful of high schools students had accused a young mutant man of raping a human classmate, despite his claim that the relationship was strictly consensual. The girl had been silent at first, terrified of her conservative parents. By the time she stepped into the eye of the hurricane and confirmed his story, human-mutant hostilities had simmered for days, with hate crimes perpetrated by humans all over the nation. Aggrieved mutants fought back with unrestrained displays of power, including a vicious attack on the high school where it all began.
The X-Men traveled there and found violence that observed no boundaries. Ororo didn't like to think about what had happened at that school, but it had ended in a fire that she could still sometimes smell in nightmares. They always left her drenched in sweat and brought down torrential rain, no matter the season.
"Sentiment changes after a tragedy of that magnitude," Hank said. The charred bodies had all been mutants. "Montana has backed other pro-mutant efforts since then. I expect that Harris will back this one, as well."
"That's great." Rogue sipped her wine. "Would this really be as transformative as everyone's saying?"
"Perhaps more . This is by far the most important anti-discrimination that has ever come anywhere near the Senate. The press focuses on the weapons ban, but its scope is far wider than most people realize. It would make the Mutant Registration Act impossible. The last time there was even discussion of something so consequential was in the early 1960s, with the civil rights movement."
"I never knew that." Ororo tucked her feet under her hip and turned towards Hank. "What happened then?"
He sighed. "To be perfectly frank, I think we might have gotten a lot farther if Magneto's influence had not distracted Charles."
"Great, so the guy was always an asshole," Logan offered.
Rogue frowned. "How could the professor honestly think Magneto was his friend ?"
"I believe he was given good reason to think it." Hank interjected. "We were all shocked at how Magneto turned against him. I will never forget the look of horror on his face on that beach, when he saw that the bullet he'd deflected hit Charles. They seemed as brothers." He paused meaningfully. "More than brothers, in fact."
From his corner, Logan frowned. "Really? The two old men?"
"I can't say for certain. None of us could. I never asked him." The finality in his voice made Ororo wonder if Hank regretted that. The professor had been gone for three years, and now he never would. "But even late in life, it always seemed..." He trailed off.
Rogue looked at him, incredulous. "What do you mean, late in life ?"
"There was something between them. Some tie to the past. Whether to call it love or simply friendship, I wouldn't know."
"After everything Magneto did ?"
"Love knows no bounds, my dear."
"I don't know if I agree with that," she said, with a snort. "Maybe it should know some ."
Logan, who had been looking off into the kitchen, turned towards her, but said nothing.
"I'm not saying I don't believe in love and forgiveness, I mean—" she mumbled, modulating her certainty. "But— Didn't Magneto show who he was?" She set down the glass she'd been holding and looked directly at Hank. "I mean, there has to be some kind of limit, right?"
She seemed oblivious to Logan's gaze still fixed on her, until he spoke next. "Cause of the shit he did?"
"Because of who he was . I mean— You all know what he did to me." She looked around the room for confirmation, but they all lowered their eyes. "Or tried to do."
They all looked at Logan, who was the reason that attempt had been foiled. He mumbled, "Maybe the professor saw his mind. Maybe he saw something there."
"You really think a good person does what Magneto did?" Rogue shook her head. "I just can't imagine the professor— not seeing that."
"Perhaps the fact that the professor met him so young —"
"I'm young too, Hank, but I think I know the difference between a good person and a bad one."
Logan reached for the bottle and found it empty. He stood up with a grunt and went into the kitchen to get a new one. Ororo had purchased an old-fashioned bar cart for the faculty quarters and supplied it with a wide array of liquor. On good days it was a symbol of their camaraderie. On others, she asked herself how it was that the professor had run the school for so long without providing the faculty with alcohol, and found herself with no good answer.
Hank clicked his tongue, deep in thought, choosing his words before speaking.
"It's an origin story, you see," he said. "A founding myth, so to speak."
"What do you mean?" Rogue asked.
He raised his eyebrows, taking the time to consider the question and how to answer it. "I mean that Charles and Erik met each other in certain roles. Charles' understanding of Erik, of the kind of person he was, was formed while they performed those roles. Building the school together. Changing the fate of mutantkind." He tilted his head. "Everything that came later was…" He paused, waiting for the right word to materialize. "... woven into the same tale."
"But at some point wouldn't it become clear who he really was?"
"First impressions are powerful. First stories, even more so."
Rogue cocked her head, clearly skeptical. "After fifty years ?"
"Fifty years ain't as long as you think it is, kid," Logan said, returning with a new bottle of Lagavulin and setting it down.
"I think it feels a lot longer for people who stay in one place, Logan."
Rogue was frowning at him. He leaned forward, a nonchalant smirk at the corner of his mouth, and they all watched as he opened it and topped up their drinks before pouring himself a new one. Then he leaned back in his seat and took a sip. His arms were spread wide, chest open.
Logan smiled and raised his glass. "Like yourself, ain't that right?"
Like every other feral Ororo knew, Logan had perfect control of his body language when he wanted to. It had taken her years to discover the twitch of his nostril as the sign that sometimes gave him away.
It was twitching now, frantically.
"I came back," Rogue spat, jaw clenched.
"And I didn't ?"
They stared at each other for a moment, playing some invisible game while Ororo tried to ignore the sounds of Rogue's hissing breath and Hank searched the room for safe places to direct his gaze. He settled on leaning forward to pick up the drink Logan had topped.
Then Rogue turned to him. "Hank, sugar, I was wondering if you'd train me."
This time it was Hank's nostrils that went wide. All that hostility must have had a scent, Ororo realized. The room felt like a storm, and she deliberately pushed the image out of her mind.
"I hadn't realized you were looking for training," Hank said cautiously, quickly assessing Logan's reaction. He was on the edge of his seat now.
Rogue's refusal to look at him was as noticeable as if she had glared. "Storm told me it was a good idea to get training. I thought it might be fun if it came from you. Something different, right?"
" Fun ," Logan scoffed.
Hank looked back and forth between them, trying to decide who was the bigger danger. "It would be my honor to be of service, Rogue. I realize, of course, that I may not be the most qualified for this task."
"Come on, Hank, you're plenty qualified. And I don't want to hold up Logan." She looked at him. "You know, in case he needs to go somewhere."
Logan's response was to stand up and leave the room.
Ororo sighed, pricked by annoyance at the girl for what she'd clearly done intentionally. But Rogue's face changed the minute Logan walked out the door, smug defiance giving way to something much like regret. Distantly, the sound of the front door opening and closing came from the first floor. A minute later, they all heard a bike engine roar.
Rogue didn't say much after that. She sat with them, sipping her wine absently and laughing at jokes a beat too late. Their drinks vanished quickly, and no one thought to refill them. Rogue excused herself to go to bed, clearing the glasses on her way out.
Hank let himself slump so low on the couch that he was practically lying down. "I don't suppose you understand what just happened?" he muttered, looking at the fire.
Ororo sighed. "Probably a little better than you do."
"Are they always like this? I've always heard they were friends."
"They were friends. And not a soul in this school would have said they seemed like siblings," she lilted, making him chuckle. "Logan kept some distance when she was younger, but It was pretty clear things were headed somewhere, after she got the cure."
The couch groaned when Hank shifted, his voice sounding distant as he faced away. "So what changed?"
Hank had a right to some answer, even if perhaps not to the truth. She shrugged. "He left. Right after Montana."
She said it as if it was a coincidence, and hoped he wouldn't ask anything else.
Author's Note: Thank you for reading! This story has been in the works for a really long time, and I'm so glad to be sharing it. I plan to update about every 3 weeks. This story's primary home is actually AO3, but I will try to keep it up-to-date here, too. Expect it to be angsty, kinda dark, and about 150k words total.
