Healing

Healing

Title: Healing

Verse: X-Men movieverse

Timeline: post X-Men: The Last Stand

Author: AngelofSnow

Pairing: Eventual Rogue/Magneto

Rating: Eventual M.

Disclaimer: I don’t own any of these characters. If you
thought for a second I did, you’re incredibly stupid. I’m not making any money
off this, but I wish I was.

Summary: The Cure is only temporary. While healing Rogue and
Magneto find each other and realize they have more in common than they
originally thought. 

Soundtrack: I
recommend the song “Touch Me” by The Doors. Rogue just wants to be touched.

Chapter Two: Sunburn

Rogue:

           She had
never expected Bobby’s hands to be so clammy. Rogue had been so excited to
finally be able to hold hands with Bobby only to find it wasn’t the wonderful
experience she had believed it would. For one thing Iceman had cold hands and
when he was nervous his hands got really clammy.

When Rogue had returned to the
mansion after taking the Cure, she hadn’t known exactly what to expect. On the
train ride back she began introducing herself to all the occupants in her train
car just so she could shake hands without her gloves on for the first time. A
week later she later got a nasty cold that was probably from one of the other
passengers, but it was worth it all the same.

She had been extremely nervous
returning to Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters without her deadly skin. The
mansion was a school for mutants and although they were family, Rogue had
finished studying at the school and was no longer a mutant. How much longer
could she realistically live there? She estimated a year or two at best while
she finished up her college degree through the Harvard extension program.

Rogue remembered how she felt when
she was hitchhiking to Canada.
It was a jarring feeling of not belonging anywhere. She didn’t belong with the
mutants any longer. But would humanity ever except her with open arms now that
she could hug them back? She knew she could never return to her family in w:st="on">Meridian, Mississippi.
Her parents didn’t seem too eager to forgive her for kissing a boy to death
when they had sent her packing with only $300 dollars in cash and a bus pass.

Rogue had worried herself half sick
on that train ride for no reason. She eased into life without deadly skin
easier than she thought she would have. But the ramifications of her actions
were subtle and slow coming. For the first month everything was great, she
saved each touch like a new experience. Bobby and her held hands wherever they
went. Logan had
given her a back massage that made her blush. Jubilee had taken to tickling her
whenever she could get away with it. And Rogue found that of all her new touch
experiences, she didn’t really like tickling, after living life without
physical interaction tickling was a sensory overload that left her a little
nauseas.

One of the quickest things to
change was her clothes. The first day back Kitty had dragged her to the mall to
update Rogue’s wardrobe. Gone were her favorite black hoodies, opera gloves,
and myriad assortment of scarves. She picked out the most revealing clothes she
could find despite it being a cold, late September. She found
spaghetti-strapped tops at Rampage, shorts at Abercrombie, and t-shirts from
the Gap. Rogue had to stop herself from buying a shirt that only covered her
breasts, had a sheer layer of fabric over her stomach and tied with strings in
the back. The urge to show off her skin was overwhelming.

Of course, showing some skin had
its draw backs. While, playing a soccer match with Kitty and Jubilee on the grounds
of the mansion, Rogue had gotten both sunburn and a poison ivy rash that had
taken a month to heal. Rogue hadn't enjoyed the painful sunburn, but she'd
loved the color it gave her. She hadn't been tan in so many years she watched
in amazement as her skin changed color from beige to red to a light golden
shade.

She also noticed that some of the
younger mutants gave her accusatory glances. She wasn’t sure what to make of
them, till Logan
had explained they felt insulted that she had taken the Cure. He said they saw
it as turning her back on them. “Kid,” he had said, “You can’t let them rain on
your parade.” Still, Rogue had spent the afternoon crying in her room after she
heard that.

           But the
biggest effect the Cure had was on her relationship with Bobby. The craving to
touch him had been irresistible. She had held his hand as often as she could,
stealing kisses every time they were alone. They had made out the second night
she was back; her tongue exploring Bobby’s perfect teeth. The sensations had made
her weak in the knees. It was all too much: his warm wet mouth, his tongue
gliding over hers, his plump soft lips sucking her own. Then Bobby’s hand had
itched up her red t-shirt, moving slowing up her stomach to cup her breast and
she had pulled away sharply.

           They had set
limits then, having a two hour long talk about what she was ready for and what
she would be ready for soon. After spending four years being unable to touch
another person, she wasn’t as ready to be felt up as she had thought she would
be. They would take it slow, sticking to first base for a month and then moving
gracefully to second. Rogue looked forward to finally having a normal
relationship and a part of her was silently thankful she wouldn’t have to worry
about Bobby and Kitty anymore. It was that jealous part of her that made her
wonder how much her motivation for taking the Cure was for a boy.

000000000000

Bobby had been kissing her, sucking
at the delicate flesh where neck joined her shoulder when she had felt the
first telltale tingle. None of his thoughts had been transferred, but he had
felt it too. He stopped touching her and sat up on the bed saying, “My lips
hurt.”

           Her mutation
had returned in earnest. In a week, her skin was as deadly as it had ever been
and she was digging through her clothing drawer to find her opera gloves,
neglected at the bottom of a pile of camisoles. Rogue spent hours talking to
Dr. McCoy about what could be done. She had made over $200 in cell phone calls
to facilities around the country that had distributed the Cure. Every one had
run out of the supply after the lab that had produced it had been destroyed in
the X-Men’s last battle with the Brotherhood of Mutants.

           After being
able to touch again, life without it was bleaker then ever. Kitty tried her
best to cheer Rogue up, suggesting more shopping trips to the mall. Wolverine
took her on a motorcycle ride, driving at 30 mph over the speed limit,
something he knew she enjoyed. But Bobby didn’t take it very well. He avoided
her more and more, his eyes never meeting hers. It was an accident as she was eating
popcorn bare-handed on the couch while watching a movie in the common room that
finally made her snap. One of the younger mutants, Danielle had reached into
the popcorn bag at the same time as her and their hands touched briefly, her
thoughts pouring into Rogue as the young girl fainted from the pain.

           Rogue bought
a round-trip ticket to San Francisco
that very night using the last of her dwindling savings. She figured her best
bet for finding more of the Cure was at the facility that had produced it on w:st="on">Alcatraz. She knew it was reduced to rubble, but maybe,
just maybe there might be a little of the wonder drug left behind. Maybe it
would be there sitting in the wreckage. No,
not maybe, it had to be there.

000000000000

Preview: Next
chapter Rogue arrives in San Fran and meets our favorite handsome, magnetic
man.