Title: Envelopment
Summary: What if Rogue was captured when Stryker's men invaded the mansion?
Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with the X-Men franchise
Challenge: AU challenge on dementedallure
Mystique had had to wait until after Jean Grey abandoned them to face her brainwashed lover to tell Erik about the other image she had seen in the armored room, the image she had turned off before the X-Men had arrived. She had already seen on the plane that he was as interested in the girl as he had been before his incarceration, much to her dismay. Mystique knew that he had invested a great deal into the girl -- time, research, money, even some of himself -- so it was no surprise that he would want to know what had happened to her; but the fact that he had at one point showed regret at the thought of sacrificing her, that he had looked so angry when the X-Men had told them that the girl had either been captured or killed while fighting in defense of the school, bothered her immensely.
He didn't care about her the way she would have liked him to, Erik didn't, but what little caring Erik had shown in the past had always been hers to claim. He had never asked her to be anything other than who she was, had never asked her even for an evening to pretend to be someone else, and that was a gift no one else had ever given her.
That gift was why Mystique was so angry that this upstart girl -- this wannabe X-Man -- had so easily ensnared Erik's attention. That gift was why Mystique couldn't hide what she'd learned from Erik, even though she knew that she would be hurting herself by revealing it to him.
Once Grey was out of sight and hearing, Mystique put her blue hand on her leader's arm. "Erik," she said, "there's something else you need to know..."
Magneto was relieved when he and Mystique exited the twisted, perverted Cerebro that Stryker had had built, even though he knew that he was leaving the man who had once been his best friend to probable death. It had been so easy to turn Stryker's own plan back on him, so easy to set in motion the events that would cause the destruction of humanity on Earth, leaving the planet to its rightful owners, the mutants. Homo Superior. Even so, he had found himself distracted, unhappy, anxious to leave the faux-Cerebro behind and seek another room in this forsaken building.
"Show me," he commanded Mystique, following her as she quickly led the way to their second destination. He could tell by the jerkiness of her usually-graceful stride that she was furious, with him no doubt, but he couldn't summon the strength to care.
Stryker had taken many things from him in the past few months: his dignity, his memories, his self-respect, his freedom. Some of what had been stolen from him might take years to take back; others were lost forever. Here and now, though, in one fell swoop, he would claim back as much as he could. His memories. His freedom, nay, his superiority. And the girl, something he had not even known he had lost until the X-Men had let it slip on the plane. She was not like the other things, not something that he owned, but she possessed a part of him, and he a part of her, and the bond that they shared meant that her capture by Stryker had been another devestating blow against him.
They stopped outside a sturdy metal door. He tore it off its hinges with barely a thought, angrily sending it flying down the hall. He stepped into the room, walking hurriedly to the side of the solitary medical table upon which lay the bloodied, beaten form of a slight young woman with that oh-so-recognizable shock of white hair.
"Rogue," he breathed out, letting his hand rest gently on that shock of white, his mark on her, but quickly removing it when she jerked away with a little moan. Her eyes were partially open, but heavily glazed, and without pausing he gently removed from her arm the IV that had been carefully taped into place. A flick of his wrist unlocked the cuffs that restrained her wrists and ankles to the table, leaving her free to move, free to attack him with her deadly skin if she chose to.
Magneto almost wished she had attacked when all she did was take the opportunity to curl in on herself, unheeding of her injuries. Rogue had always appeared fragile in the past, but underlying that façade, he knew, was a girl with a spirit as strong as Wolverine's adamantium.
No time to ponder that now.
He removed his cape swiftly, using it to carefully wrap and lift her form, holding her tightly in his arms as he imperiously led Mystique from the room. The girl struggled weakly against his grip for a moment, still with that unseeing look on her face, before her eyes briefly focused on his visage. "Erik?" she mouthed, barely a sound escaping her. He stared at her in surprise when she then allowed herself to relax in his arms, almost snuggling against his chest. He wondered how long it had been since she was last held this closely by anyone, and had to fight down his fury that this powerful, fiery young mutant could find comfort only in the arms of a man who had once tried to kill her.
They encountered only two obstacles in their exit. The first was a fascinating creature, one Magneto had faced and admired before, in a mocking way of course. It seemed that the delay in their escape caused by their retrieval of Rogue had necessitated that they deal with this mutant; fortunately, he was little threat.
"Magneto," Wolverine growled. He was obviously returning to help the X-Men after a venture out into the cold, and his claws were still fully extended, making him look every inch the dangerous weapon that he was. "What have you done to the others?"
Magneto realized that Wolverine must not be able to clearly see the thin form held in his arms, since his cape and the way her face was pressed against his chest effectively hid her from the world. He eyed his adversary thoughtfully. If he wanted to leave, there was little Wolverine could do to stop him. If he could convince him to come with, however...
Wordlessly, he let his cape slip down a bit, revealing the curve of her pretty, bruised face and several strands of white and brown hair. Wolverine stiffened and flared his nostrils, eyes fixed intently on the young woman as he picked up her scent.
"Rogue!" he exclaimed, trying to step towards them but impeded by Magneto's control of the metal in his skeleton. "Where are you taking her?" he demanded, straining fruitlessly against Magneto's power.
"Away from here," Magneto replied severely. "I'm afraid that Charles had his chance to protect her and failed rather spectacularly. She will be safer in my Brotherhood than she was at that mansion, if her current state is any way to judge."
"You're not taking her anywhere without me," Wolverine stated, his lips curled in a snarl. Magneto's blue eyes shone with triumph. It seemed the mutant's loyalty was towards the girl, not the X-Men. "Maybe Chuck didn't take care of her like he promised, but I made a promise, too, and you'll take her away from me over my dead body."
"By all means," the older mutant returned. "Who am I to deprive her of so fierce a protector?" He loosened his control over Wolverine's body, allowing him to come several steps closer, arms outstretched to claim the precious burden, before Magneto stopped him again. "I think not," he said. "You may accompany us, but for now she is mine to carry."
He pushed past him, leaving the other mutant silently fuming for a moment, indecisive, before at lasta he hurried to catch up. Mystique smirked at him and blew him a kiss; he glared in return.
The second obstacle they encountered was dealt with even more satisfactorily. Wolverine had restrained Stryker against the helicopter before heading back inside, apparently planning on dealing with him later. Magneto decided that now was a good time.
"I believe that our dear friend Colonel Stryker deserves some repayment for what he has done to Rogue, don't you agree Wolverine?" he said calmly, a fierce gleam in his eyes.
"Oh, definitely." Wolverine stepped forward, the animalistic side of his nature surging forward.
For the first time, Stryker looked afraid. "If you kill me, you'll never know how to help her," he warned desperately.
At that, Magneto actually paused. Wolverine did not. "We'll take our chances," he decided.
They left him strung against a wall, twisting in agony where he had been gutted, entrails steaming in the chill air. Gut wounds take a long time to kill; it would be many long minutes later that the dam broke and the man was given the sweet relief of death.
Once aboard the helicopter, it was a simple matter of allowing Pyro to climb in, and then they were off, leaving Alkali Lake and the crumbling dam and the X-Men far behind them.
Logan stood uneasily in the helicopter as he watched Magneto lower Marie's fragile body onto the floor. Mystique was piloting while Pyro hovered in the background, looking awkward and out of place and concerned for Marie.
Logan couldn't quite believe he was here, working with Magneto, having completely abandoned the X-Men to their fate. It wasn't as if he was an X-Man, or as if he'd taken some sort of secret oath with them or something, but they had always been good to him; they'd even had a uniform made for him with slits where his claws sprang out. That he'd abandoned them so easily to join -- no, not join, to accompany -- Magneto, who was one of the few mutants in the world that he was powerless against...the thought was staggering and not a little shameful.
And then Magneto gently removed his cape from the young mutant's body, and all of his self-doubt melted away.
The X-Men were good people, perhaps even people he'd choose to call his friends -- except for Cyke of course, he couldn't stand the guy -- but they weren't his the way Marie was his, the way she had been his ever since they'd sat together in his run-down truck and exchanged their true names. He couldn't love her like a girlfriend or mate, and didn't think she would have wanted him to anyways, whatever Jean might have said about her having a crush on him, but he loved her as a dear friend. More than that, he loved her as a member of his pack. It was a small pack, with only two people, but it was quality, not quantity, that counted, and with Marie in it it had all the quality it could ever need.
Seeing her lying there, wounded and broken, broke his heart. It reminded him of his failure to take care of her, for the second time now: the first of course was when Magneto kidnapped her shortly after her arrival at the X-Men's, the second when he didn't find her quickly enough when the mansion was attacked, and found her scent only to discover a liberal splashing of her blood and the bodies of three special forces men whose masks had been pulled away, who she must have killed with her touch.
Almost without knowing what he was doing, Logan sat down next to her and prepared to touch her face, to facilitate her healing. At least he could be of some help that way. However, the mere brush of his fingers on her face was enough to send her flinching away, and for the first time her eyes seemed to focus as she cried out, "No!"
Logan jerked back as if struck, staring at her helplessly.
"Rogue..." he said, reaching out to her before letting his hand drop.
Then she did something that made his heart stop. "Erik," she moaned, closing her eyes and lapsing into unconsciousness.
Logan lifted an accusing glare to Magneto, who looked as surprised as he felt.
"She said my name before, but I thought perhaps I'd misheard," Magneto said, gazing at the young woman pensively. Catching Logan's hostile glare, he frowned in return, an ominous lowering of his silver brows. "Don't blame me because she rejected your touch, Wolverine. We don't know what was done to her in Stryker's lab, or how it has changed her. I'll admit that I, too, am concerned that of all people I am the one she turns to for comfort." He raked his gaze over her trembling body, pulling his cape back over her as a blanket, then returned his gaze to Logan. "Until we know, though, I would suggest you keep your distance."
Fuming, furious, anxious, concerned, Logan did as he was told.
It seemed like some awful trick of fate, Pyro thought, that he had to be the one with Rogue when she woke up. Here they were, stuck in this ominous metal fortress in the middle of nowhere, with a dozen or so members of Magneto's Brotherhood constantly about and Wolverine and Magneto at each other's throats in some kind of clashing of alphas over Rogue, and both of them had the indecency to be asleep when the object of their attentions at last decided to grace them with her presence.
"Rogue?" he asked hesitantly when she stirred, her eyes slowly opening. They had been friends back at Xavier's, a lifetime ago it seemed, and, though he hadn't shown it, her supposed death had hit him as hard as it had Bobby. Rogue had always had time for him, no matter how much of a jerk he was being, and there was something about her uncertainty, her waiflike appearance, that seemed to draw even the least honorable of men to her.
When he had seen what had been done to her during and after her capture -- the broken fingers, the bruised flesh, the places where slivers of skin had been removed -- he had had to go out onto the roof and blow flame after flame over the turbulent water of the ocean until he was calm enough to go back inside and face everyone else. Fortunately, Magneto and Wolverine had actually been worse, and his little indiscretion had gone unnoticed by anyone except Mystique, who seemed to notice everything.
It took only until her brown eyes were fully open for Pyro to realize that they held nothing of Rogue in them. They were savage, mindless, a maelstrom of passions, and in an instant she threw herself off of her bed and retreated into a corner, pulling her knees to her chest and clawing at her arms and face maniacally, making little whimpering sounds.
Pyro hesitated for a moment, torn between the desire to go to her and the need to let someone more responsible know what was going on. Finally, he hurried to the door, pulling it open and shouting, "Someone! Come quickly! She's awake!" He rushed back into the room, half-fearing to find that she had managed to severely damage herself in the seconds he had been gone. He knelt next to her, trying to think of what to do to sooth her as she flinched violently away from him.
Moments later, Magneto burst into the room in his robe, with Logan wearing only a pair of boxers hot on his heels. Mystique appeared in the doorway seconds later, but didn't enter the room, watching from the doorway. Magneto pushed Pyro out of the way, taking his position kneeling next to the young mutant and hesitatingly reaching out with a gloved hand -- even in his rush, he had remembered his gloves -- to gently touch her arm. It was barely a touch at all, but it was enough to halt her frantic self-destruction as she slowly lifted her head to look at him.
"Rogue?" he asked softly, and Pyro thought that the look in his eyes was one he'd never expect to see there, a kind of pleading, desperate look. He thought that Magneto was hoping for the same thing he was, for some glimmer of the old Rogue to appear.
And, for an instant, it did. Her eyes focused slowly on Magneto's face, slowly traveling across every feature as if to assure herself that he was really there. "Erik?" she asked hesitantly.
"Yes," he affirmed, a slight smile playing around his lips.
"Erik," she sighed in relief. And then she grabbed his face.
They let her come and go as she wanted. She was a little surprised about that, even though she had Erik in her head, even though she knew about his standing orders that she was not to be a prisoner, but a guest. She would have thought that Mystique, at least, would have wanted to restrict her movements, to exact revenge on her, but the blue mutant only watched her with eyes that spoke of a sadness and pain that Rogue could easily understand.
They had not told her about his condition, and she had never quite dared to ask.
She and Logan were on better terms now, now that she'd allowed him to heal her and put some more of himself into her head, but there was still a certain reserve on his part, a reluctance to allow himself to get hurt again by her rejection. She understood.
She had been surprised that Pyro had joined Erik's Brotherhood, but not terribly so. She had always sensed that his wild spirit couldn't be contained in the neat boxes Professor Xavier liked. She spent some of her free time with the other young mutant, finding that he was good company when she wanted to try to relax and watch a movie, or when she needed to laugh.
Mostly, though, she spent her time by herself, wrestling with the demons in her mind or forcing her body into better shape than it had ever been through long hours in the fortress' gymnasium. Sometimes, she took the little boat that docked in the fortress' only port, and rowed to shore, walking into the small town nearby and drinking a cup of tea among humans just to prove to herself that she could.
It was on her fourth such trip that he found her.
She heard his mellifluous voice call her name, and looked up from her tea into a kind old face she knew well, although it looked older and more care-laden than she remembered. She felt her lips curve into one of her first real smiles since her rescue some weeks previously.
"Professor," she said quietly, inclining her head to him as he wheeled himself up to her table. She was a little surprised that neither Jean nor Scott accompanied him, but didn't ask.
He smiled at her kindly. "I'm glad to see that you are well, Rogue," he told her.
At that, she gave a little half-shrug. He frowned a little. Or perhaps not so well as you seem, he spoke into her mind.
"Please don't do that," she said unhappily. "I have enough voices in my head already."
"My apologies," he replied. They sat in silence for several long, uncomfortable moments as he examined his former student. "I am sorry," he said at last, "that you came to harm when you were under my care, Rogue. You, and the other students, should have been safe at the school. It is my fault that you were not."
She laughed harshly, shaking her head. "Please...don't. Don't apologize. Everyone's so sorry for what happened...you...Logan...even Erik feels guilty, I don't know why." She leaned forward, locking eyes with him intently, willing him to see her soul. "I don't blame any of you, and, frankly, I don't appreciate the way you belittle what I was doing when I was captured. I managed to take down three of them, three of the men who attacked our home, and gave dozens of the younger students time to escape. If I had been trained, I would have taken out more. What I did...yes, it led to my capture, it meant that terrible things happened to me, but it was also the best thing I've ever done. I'm not glad that the mansion was attacked, because we were in danger, but I am glad that I had the chance to prove myself to myself."
"Rogue..." he trailed off, staring at her through new eyes. Comprehension dawned. "You're not coming back with me," he said, and it was not a question.
She leaned back in her chair, then shook her head slowly. "I'm sorry, Professor," she told him. "You've been good to me, and I'm forever grateful, but your school's not the place for me. I don't know if it ever was."
He sighed sadly. "There's too much of Erik in your mind."
"Too much of Rogue, too, then," she retorted. "Whoever it is in my mind who refuses to be helpless, who wants to be able to actively help, that's the person to blame." Seeing his defeated posture, she sighed again. "It's not like I'm going to go out and try killing innocent people like Erik always wants to do," she said. "I understand why he wants to, but I don't feel the same way myself. I just want to be somewhere where I can use the gifts I've been given, and I think that's here."
Xavier nodded slowly. "I wish you good luck, then," he informed her, wheeling himself back from the table. He paused, then, and looked her in the eye. "Just remember, Rogue: you and Logan will always have a home at our school, if you want it."
She smiled slightly. "Thank you, Professor. But I think that it's time for me to find a new home."
She placed a few bills on the table and left before Xavier was out of eye sight, never looking back.
She made her way back to the fortress, pulling herself and the boat along with sure, easy strokes. The sky was darkening with evening and with ominous weather by the time she was back inside, and she hurried to the roof of the fortress, rushing through corridors she knew well from Erik's memories, eager to feel the cool slide of rain on her skin. She pulled off her jacket and gloves, leaning against the railing near the helipad, enjoying the sensation of the water rolling onto and off of her body.
It was nearly an hour later, when she had begun to shiver with the cold, that she felt him watching her. She raised her gaze from the churning sea and turned to face the stairs, and there he was, looking as strong and mesmerizing as ever. Since he didn't seem inclined to speak right away, she allowed herself to examine him closely, his soft white hair, the age lines in his face, his chiseled cheekbones, his shining, vibrant eyes. His face was calm, but there was something about those eyes that was not calm at all.
It was strange. She had only ever met this man once, when he had tried to kill her for the betterment of all mutantkind, and yet he was a part of her, as intrinsically a part of her as he could be, and there was something that she loved about him.
She tried to speak, cleared her throat, tried again. "You're awake," she observed.
He smiled a little, taking several steps towards her, slowly at first, but with increasing speed, so that it seemed as if suddenly he was right in front of her.
"Yes," he agreed. "For some time now. It took a while for me to build my strength back up, but I did not want to have to have this conversation when I was in the infirmary, so I did not allow the others to inform you of my awakening."
"This conversation," she said in a monotone, worried about what that entailed.
"I'm not upset, Rogue," he told her. "Touching me...for whatever reason, it seems to have helped to heal you, and that is what matters."
"Magneto," she began, but he placed a gloved finger to her lips to silence her.
"You called me Erik before," he said, pulling his hand back slowly.
She watched him hesitantly. "Erik, then," she said. Watching him was too painful, so she turned her gaze back out over the sea. "I am sorry for touching you, but I couldn't think to do anything else. Stryker..." her voice faltered, but she took a deep breath and forced herself to continue. She felt that he deserved an explanation; they could never be easy with each other while this issue was hanging over their heads. "Stryker, he knew about my mutation, somehow. He wanted to see how it worked, how it affected me. He cut off bits of my skin, I think so that he could test whether it would have the same properties even if it wasn't...attached. And he enjoyed the idea that touching certain people was painful to me. So he somehow managed to get hold of some criminals, really awful men, men on death row. And he made me touch them, or he let them try and touch me. I wanted to let go, I wanted to let go so bad, but he wouldn't let me, and I absorbed every bit of them, four of the worst sort of men injected straight into my brain."
She felt warmth seeping down her face, and touched her cheeks, her bare fingers coming away wet with salty tears. She risked a glance at Erik and saw that he looked murderously angry, not at her but at the memory of the man who did this to her. He was also furious with himself.
"Stryker knew because I told him," he snarled passionately. "He had some kind of mind control drug that forced me to give up every secret I had. I never dreamt that he would use my knowledge of you in such a way, though."
She watched him calmly, thinking for a moment. "It's all right, Erik," she decided. "I don't blame you; it's not your fault." He looked unconvinced, but she knew his temperament well enough not to try to convince him right now. Now was the time to tell her own story. She continued. "After he made me absorb them, the voices in my head, they were all clamoring for attention. I have trouble remembering what happened between then and when you rescued me; all I remember is the agony of those thoughts filling me, violating me. Even the Logan in my head didn't help, since he was so violent, so savage in his anger, he only made things worse. You -- the you in my head -- you were the only one who could make things better, if only for a little while. You were so cool in your anger, so strategic in your fury, that sometimes if I focused on you you could make the others go away a little. So when I saw your face, after I woke up here, and I could think as myself for just a moment, I thought that maybe if I had a little more of you in my head, you might help, and then...I just couldn't stop myself."
"And did I help?" he asked, watching her closely.
"Oh, yes," she said. "I can keep the other voices almost entirely suppressed now. I don't know how to say this properly, but touching you -- it was like a balm on my soul. Thank you." She looked down at her hands.
He reached out his gloved hand and brushed an errant strand of white hair out of her face. "I confess that you have interested me since I first learned of your existence," he told her. "Coming to know you a little merely showed me how strong a person you are inside. I couldn't let you destroy yourself if I could help it, Rogue."
"Marie," she corrected him, surprising herself. She looked up at him through a curtain of hair.
He smiled, then reached forward to cup her chin, gently but firmly tilting her head up to look her in the eye. "Marie, then."
She smiled hesitantly back, then pushed her hair behind her ear. "Can I stay?" she asked quietly. She knew that he knew what she meant: can I stay here? Can I stay with you? She thought she knew the answer, but waited nervously for his reply nonetheless.
In reply, he swiftly bent his head to hers, brushing his lips across hers in a fleeting, tantalizing kiss. She didn't have time to adjust to the feeling before it was gone. He swept off his jacket and placed it around her slight shoulders. In tandem, they turned to face the ocean again. She shivered from something other than the cold as she felt him put one arm around her waist, pulling her snugly against his side.
"Don't think this means that I'm going to start killing people for you or anything," she warned him, then allowed her head to relax to one side so that it rested comfortably on his shoulder. Looking at the waves, a sudden thought struck her. "Logan's not going to be happy about this."
As he chuckled silently next to her, holding her close, enveloping her in his warmth, and the elements played around them, and the voices in her head were silent for once, Rogue sighed in contentment. For this moment, at least, all was right with the world.