Wir Sind Keine Dämonen

Sometimes she was tempted to touch him–Bobby–just to let him feel the pain and know what there was to fear, to make him fear it. He was so unafraid, so sure. Rogue knew better. She had only been dating him for a month, but she found herself letting him close, letting him wrap an arm around her or sit close enough that she could feel the faint warmth of his skin through his clothes. Sometimes he was so cold his breath came out as fog, but his skin always seemed warm on those rare occasions she would allow herself to relax and lean against him. She was human; she needed the occasional touch.



One month of letting him use the word “boyfriend” and he leans in to kiss her.



“Ah don’t want to hurt you,” she whispered. He was undeterred and she almost hated him for it. I’m so afraid, Bobby, why aren’t you? Why won’t you be afraid like you’re supposed to? He said something about not being afraid or something. Rogue was a little too focused on her skin, on how she could feel faint humming in it when his skin got close enough as if her mutation were growling silently in anticipation. His breath was cool and she couldn’t help but wonder, out of pure human curiosity, what he would taste like and if he would feel cold or warm.



He paused, and Rogue wondered why. Then she heard it, even over her nervous heartbeat.



Motorcycle…



She found herself smiling excitedly. It should be wrong. She had almost been kissing her boyfriend and then suddenly she’s more excited about the return of a man who could be older than her grandfather. Yet, Bobby was a normal boy, ice powers excluded, and Rogue was something else. Logan was, too. Somehow, she knew that, and forced herself to step on her own hope and believed firmly that it wasn’t romantic. Despite that, she got up pretty damn fast to greet Logan. John would bitch at her if he heard about it.



Rogue didn’t care.



“Logan!” she greeted.



~



Logan smiled brightly at the sound of her voice, but in the few seconds between her appearance and her embrace, he got a good look at her. Damn, when did this happen? He decided that seven months of growth, three square meals a day and generally life off of the road had done wonderful things for her. Developmental things. Distracting things. Logan hoped his appraising glance over her figure was subtler than it felt.



“Miss me?” he asked lightly. Rogue was sparkling happy, but managed to tone it down a little.



“Oh, not really,” she sassed. Logan grinned a little more. That appraising glance probably wasn’t real subtle at all. Rogue blushed a little. He’s just taking note that you look different. It’s not ‘interest’ so stop blushing, Marie. Stop it now, she told herself. Logan noticed the boy walk in before she did. He was irritated. Logan wondered why even as he asked who the guy was.



“Oh, this is Bobby, he’s-“



“Her boyfriend.” Oh, Logan thought, that’s why. Interesting...“They call me Iceman,” Bobby said, shaking Logan’s hand with a slightly sharp smile. Logan had heard of the cold shoulder, but this kid’s handshake could cause frostbite. Rogue shot Bobby a glance, maybe a little annoyed.



“I see,” Logan muttered, flexing his fingers in effort to help them thaw. He looked at Rogue. “Boyfriend, huh?” Both of them seemed to relax a little.



“So how do you two…”



“Oh…We’re working on that.”



~



“Ah’ll kill ‘em both,” Rogue growled. Jubilee was still laughing, sprawled across her bed. Rogue was off to the side of the bed, gripping a pillow, chin resting on it and arms wrapped around it with her elbows on her bent knees. She squeezed it as if squeezing the life out of a victim. “Ah can’t believe he asked that.”



“Bobby’s answer was pretty good, too,” Jubilee sniggered. Rogue peeled off a glove, smacked the top of Jubilee’s head with it, and put it back on. “Ow! Hey, did you just challenge me to a duel?”



“Technically that would be if Ah slapped your face, but if ya want to get your ass kicked…”



“No way, Rogue! I heard that ya nearly beat Pete last week, I know you can whip my skinny Asian ass, Chica,” Jubilee sighed.



“Damn straight,” Rogue agreed with a sharp nod.



“You hit Bobby over the head, right?” Jubillee asked. Rogue sighed.



“Ah didn’t, Ah mean, he’s right. How else could he have reacted that would’ve been better?”



“So you just need to hurt Logan?”



“Possibly,” Rogue muttered. “Wouldn’t do much for me. He heals fast, so Ah can’t bruise him like Ah can Bobby.”



“Hmm, maybe you can fall in love with Icicle after all,” Jubilee teased. Rogue pulled at the hem of her glove threateningly. Jubliee curled into a protective ball. “Uncle! I surrender! Don’t hurt me!” she squealed melodramatically. Rogue smirked and set the pillow up against the wall behind her, leaning back against it. Jubilee peeked from between her fingers.



“Was Wolvie jealous?” she inquired. Rogue rolled her eyes.



“First of all, he’ll kill you if you call ‘im that. Second: Jubes, please. He doesn’t think of me like that. In any case, he was outright placid. He even took Bobby almost givin’ him ‘handshake frostbite’ in stride.”



“Wow. I woulda thought we’d have an iceman popsicle with three adamantium sticks to pull apart so we could share.”



“Jubes!”



“Hey, I could have made much worse popsicle jokes,” she offered. Rogue shook her head.



“Yeh’re a terrible child,” she determined. Jubes grinned.



“I know. It’s so fun.”



~



Logan found her in the library. He raised a brow. She was draped across the same couch they had conversed upon seven months ago like a cat across a patch of sunbeam. She was reading a large book with the name Terry Pratchett on it, which Logan had heard of, and the name Neil Gaiman as well, which Logan had not heard of.



“Hey, kid,” he greeted, plucking his stub of cigar from his mouth as he sat down and rubbing it out on a handy ashtray. Rogue moved her feet without looking up as he moved to sit, finished the line she was on and looked up at him with a broad grin.



“Hey,” she finally returned, closing her book and sitting up to set it aside. Logan arched a brow.



“Good book?”



“Fantastic.”



“What’s it about?”



“The apocalypse,” she shrugged. She still sat about a foot away, but she wasn’t so skittish of movement, allowing her to be a little more expressive. Logan liked it. She was lively, animated, but real.



“The apocalypse?”



“It’s a comedy,” she informed him. Logan smirked a little and reached over to poke her head, her hair protecting him.



“Where did that dark humor come from?” he teased. Rogue rolled her eyes.



“Well Ah always had a sick sense of humor, but in this case not all the humor is really twisted so much as a little absurd. Part of the main plot is that somebody misplaces the antichrist,” she explained. Logan shook his head, amused. Rogue leaned back a little into the couch. “How ya been, Logan?” she inquired.



“Hmm, first few months were cold. Then they were cold and edged with irritation, and eventually I ended up here,” he offered. Rogue smiled a little, but it was softer this time as she took it in.



“No luck with where Charles sent ya, then?” she asked. Logan looked at her with slightly raised brows, but guessed he shouldn’t be shocked.



“It was ruins and a decent view of a lake,” he muttered, tempted to light another cigar. Rogue nodded thoughtfully.



“Sucks ass,” she offered.



“Damn straight,” he concurred. It occurred to him that they got along very well. It reminded him of something. “How about you, kid? Aside from frosty, that is,” he asked. Rogue shrugged a little.



“Ah’m alright. My entrance tests got real good scores and they said Ah could probably graduate, but a lot of what Ah knew was borrowed from people up here,” she said, tapping the side of her head. “Ah don’t know how much of it Ah’ll retain when they fade, so Ah figured it’d be best to do at least one more year of school.”



“I doubt I was of much help, though,” Logan joked lightly, tapping the side of his head. Rogue shrugged.



“Yeh’re better at math then Ah am,” she offered. Logan arched a brow. “Ah’m not real good at doin’ anything with numbers in my head.”



“If I’m of help, I think that’s obvious,” he scoffed teasingly. Rogue shot him a playfully offended glare. “I’m not a problem in your head?” he inquired more seriously. Rogue shook her head.



“Nah. Mostly you’re like a slightly confused conscience,” she told him.



“I’m your conscience?” he was stunned. She didn’t look like a construct of ultimate evil…



“Well, ya give advice occasionally, and most of the time Ah consider it good,” she mused. “But suggesting things to do to annoy Scott on the other hand…”



“Heh, good thing for Scooter you didn’t take ‘em, right?”



“Well, not all of ‘em,” Rogue sniggered. Logan gave a surprised bark of a laugh. “But a couple were really priceless, so Ah got John to pull one and I couldn’t resist the other.”



“Do tell,” Logan purred. Rogue pouted a little.



“But, Logan, you’d tease him about it and to give you such weapons against him would be mean,” she said incredulously. Logan grinned.



“You’re not exactly a Southern Belle, are ya?” he teased.



“Damn straight,” she replied with a grin that should have required an age limit, the age being one where Logan didn’t feel guilt about receiving such a grin from her and feeling a slight thrill from it. She wasn’t a charming Southern Belle; she was a spitfire. “But then again, god knows what Scott would do if he found out Ah told you about those events,” Rogue looked genuinely nervous.



“What? Assign you more homework?”



“More like a couple hours of extra work on my Krav maga and maybe runnin’ laps till Ah can’t move,” she countered. Logan blinked once, very slowly.



“What class is that?”



“Not a class. Ah’m training for the team,” she shrugged. Logan blinked a few more times, quickly.



“Wait…the ‘X-men’ team?” he asked. Rogue nodded.



“Yeah. Me, Bobby, John, Pete and Kitty are in training.”



“And Scooter teaches you Krav Maga?” he was in utter disbelief. Rogue snorted a laugh.



“Oh, no. Ah’m the only one who really practices it, though Ah taught Scott some of the moves when he asked,” she clarified.



“You know Krav Maga?” Logan’s voice was flat and confused.



“Ah blame you,” she shrugged. Logan’s brow furrowed, and then suddenly cleared. He ruffled her hair.



“Evil girl! You deliberately confused me!” he growled. Rogue laughed. “Let me see you fight sometime, eh?”



“Sure. You can tell me if Ah’ve really got some of it down right,” she agreed. Logan nodded.



“Maybe I’ll see to it you can kick Scooter’s ass,” he mused.



“Well, the last time Ah sparred with him we didn’t finish the fight because Ah cracked one of the frames on his shades,” she murmured. Logan looked at her with wide eyes. Rogue smiled very wickedly.



“When you hit twenty-one, I owe you a beer for that.”



~



The day had been going so well, of course the night would suck utterly. Rogue sat in the passenger seat of the car, her mind whirling. She had seen Stryker, and felt Logan’s hazy recognition in the back of her mind. She knew how important this was, and that she might just have saved him from returning to the people who had poured liquid metal onto his bones by persuading Bobby to put up that wall of ice. She knew he was boiling with rage at having been so close…



She felt oddly exposed without the adamantium Logan had given her, but she knew he was so close and that he might need the tag. She knew how important his past was, because part of her wanted to chase it down as much as he did. Biting her lip, she thought about the nightmares she had kept having, the doctors she saw. She wanted to hurt them, kill them and make sure they never hurt Logan again. Swallowing tensely, she rested her head back in the seat. John and Bobby snored in the back seat as dawn approached, pale and grey on the horizon.



“You okay, Marie?” Logan asked quietly.



“Ah’m pissed,” she murmured. He glanced at her. She wondered if she could explain it, then shook her head. “They attacked us and we weren’t ready; Ah wasn’t ready.”



“You couldn’t have been,” he said. Rogue shook her head.



“Ah’m still pissed,” she said. “They took one girl down as she was runnin’ down the hall. Ah must’ve looked just like that tryin’ to run from Magneto on that train.” She bit her lip, staring straight ahead. Logan felt a flicker of connection, empathy. “Ah broke his jaw with the butt of his rifle,” she whispered. Logan looked at her again, longer this time. Her eyes were hard and angry, and she reminded him of a cat. She ran a hand through her hair with a frustrated growl, quiet but still giving Logan a bit of a surprise. He looked at the road again.



“Is that why you trailed behind?” he asked. Rogue nodded a little.



“Ah got some of the others to take the girl since Ah couldn’t touch her. Ah took out two more and went runnin’ to find more or find you when Bobby and John finally found me,” she explained. “Ah…Ah hadn’t thought they would look for me,” she added abstractly. A silence fell between them for a long moment.



“Thanks,” Logan breathed. Rogue looked up. “Thanks for getting’ Ice-boy to put up that wall. I was so close to getting answers that I…”



“Ah know, Logan,” she said. He relaxed, knowing her sincerity. “Ah couldn’t let him hurt you again, or chance that he might.”



“You knew it was him?



“No, not anymore than you did. Faint not-quite-recognition, but Ah sensed something and remembered-” she hesitated.



“What?” Logan demanded softly.



“Champagne glasses,” she said softly. Logan’s whole body tensed.



“You saw…”



“Ah have nightmares a lot, Logan. Sometimes they’re actually mine,” she said.



“Marie, I never-“



“Ya saved my life, Logan, ya don’t have to apologize,” she said, almost wearily. “You apologize enough up here.” She tapped the side of her head. Logan’s unease faded a little.



“Thanks,” he said. Rogue nodded.



“Thanks for lettin’ me, and thanks for helpin’ us,” she murmured. Logan looked at her, and she looked back. Understanding touched them both. When they faced forward again, they were calm.



~



Rogue knew Logan and Scott were in Charles’ office. It had been twenty-four hours since the return to the mansion and she had not slept. She and Kurt sat on the roof and watched the younger kids playing soccer on the field. It had been a while since they had heard so much laughter. They spoke to each other in German.



“So, do you think you will stay?” Rogue asked, with her German more accented than it had been before without Erik shaping her mouth for her, and she was rusty.



“Yes,” the blue mutant replied. “I have met so few others like us before…I at least want to try and belong here.”



“I’m glad,” Rogue said sincerely, offering him a smile. Kurt returned it, his tail swishing a little.



“You people here are so unusual,” he told her. Rogue shrugged. “Most of you look at me, and instead of being shocked or even really curious you just seem to say ‘I’ve seen weirder,’ and act normal.”



“Refreshing, isn’t it?” Rogue sighed. Kurt blinked.



“Yes. Yes it is,” he murmured. “Do you get the same?”



“Not from most people,” she admitted. “Deadly skin is harder to take in stride than blue skin. I get it from the people that matter.” Kurt nodded thoughtfully.



“Like Logan?”



“Yeah.”



“You two…I feel like you are close, like you are the same kind,” Kurt said. Rogue mulled it over.



“Yeah. I guess we are ‘the same kind,’ that’s a good way to put it,” she concurred, then sighed. “And now we have even more in common.”



“You sound discouraged.”



“We have grief in common.”



“Ah, Dr. Grey. You were close to her?”



“She was one of my very close friends,” Rogue murmured. “She knew me, she was good to me, and I knew her. I wish I knew why she did what she did…”



A long pause passed between them.



“It grows late,” Kurt mused.



“Kurt?”



“Hmm?”



“Can you do me a huge favor?”



“You are pouting at me and looking cute. This is womanly manipulation!” he cried, making the sign of the cross. Rogue giggled.



“Damn amusing person, you ruined my pout.”



“Victory! But, really, what did you want me to do?”



“Can you please buy me beer?”



“Uhm…”



~



Logan stood in the doorway for a long moment and stared. He stared at Rogue. He wondered where she had gotten the beer. There were a few empty bottles off to one side, and a half-drained one that she rolled between gloved hands. Of all the people Jean’s death might drive to drink, Rogue had not been particularly high on Logan’s list of guesses. She was humming softly, a sultry tune he recognized only as being written by Janis Joplin. It was good to listen to. It relaxed some tension in him he had not previously been aware of. He approached, and could smell dry tears.



“Hey,” he rumbled, moving up beside her and reaching for one of the unopened bottles of beer. Her eyes opened slowly and the humming stopped.



“Hey yourself,” she murmured. Her voice was low, and her lips moved slowly. She’s taken with you, Jean had said. Logan admitted he might have expected jealousy from Rogue. He could smell grief. He felt somewhat relieved, and yet…



“You okay, kid?” he asked, eying the beer critically. It was a brand he had never tried, and she couldn’t have gotten it from his memories. The thought was off-putting. Rogue ran a gloved hand through her hair, suddenly looking like an ancient woman behind her youthful flesh. She looked so old and it was concentrated wholly in those dark eyes of hers. Logan was forced to remember how long she had been on the road before they met, how she had him, Magneto, Bobby, John and perhaps others in her head to cope with. Altogether, it was an unnatural amount of years to say the least.



“Ah don’t know, Logan,” she said quietly, but did not cry again. “Jean…when Ah first met her we had a talk about our mutations. We really understood each other in a way that…” she trailed off, biting a gloved finger in a sad and beautiful image of tragedy and her own elegance that would haunt Logan later. As it was he ran a hand gently up and down her back over her shirt. She shivered a little, so unaccustomed to touch, but she never tensed up with him and she never felt afraid unless she thought she might hurt him. In that way, it comforted them both.



“I hadn’t realized you were so close,” Logan said. Rogue shrugged, leaning a little closer to him, enjoying the touch as much as taking comfort from it. His large hand was warm.



“Ah’m friends with the boys ‘cuz they like me and because Ah do like the sense of…of being normal with the other kids, but Ah’m not a kid. Ah’m…I’m still older. Jean was my connection to that, and my ‘adult’ friend while you were away,” she confessed. Logan’s stroking slowed a little.



“I’m sorry, Marie-”



“Don’t, Logan,” she said quietly, and peered up at him through thick lashes. She smiled a little wearily. “Ah knew ya needed to go. Ah knew ya would. Ah just wanted you to know ya had somebody who would miss ya. And Ah did.” She leaned against him now, a curtain of bicolor hair between them and her face turned from his skin. Logan squeezed her shoulders gently. He was familiar with many other mutants now, and there was some connection with them, but still…only Marie missed him. The animal in the back of his mind mumbled something about a pack and being the same. Logan breathed in Marie’s scent and the animal fell silent.



“Thank you,” he whispered.



“Not a problem, Sugah,” she murmured in return, and her voice was heavy and sad. “Now we both have somebody to miss.” She reached absently for her half-empty bottle and tapped the neck against Logan’s beer. Clink. “To Jean.” Logan stared at the bottles in the moment they connected, and waited half a breath.



“To Jean,” he agreed, and they both finished their beers.



~



Bobby watched Rogue where she swung at a punching bag. She was unusually active today. Peter had left their usual sparring session exhausted. Rogue had guzzled some water, tossed back a quick lunch and started lifting weights. It was almost time for dinner and she looked like she was going to break her promise to Scott about greivous damages to punching bags. Her dark hair, marbled messily with white, had been slowly escaping her ponytail for the last hour and a half. It was damp with sweat. Bobby watched her bare arms, bare knuckles, and mostly-bare abdomen as she attacked. She must be in a repellent mood today to wear only black running shoes, tight black exercise pants that ended just after her knees and a black exercise top that scarcely covered more than the sports bra under it. With so much exposed deadly skin, she had the same aura as a finely crafted sword taken from its sheath: of danger, of threat, and of warning. Her pale skin gleamed with sweat, every once in a while a single droplet would trickle through the otherwise uniform sheen, tracing a trail many a male at Xavier’s would die for the opportunity to follow with his tongue–literally.



When had the skinny runaway, the innocent-looking teenager, become this woman? Where other girls her age had baby fat, Rogue had lithe muscle: her arms deceivingly slender showing lines of definition when she moved, her long legs sculpted and powerful, the hint of a six-pack on her flat stomach, and the curve of her ass firm and perfect. There was some rumor around the school today that Wolverine had come through the gym to hit the showers in the locker room after helping with the school’s reconstruction outside, stopped dead in his tracks and watched her intently for five minutes before finally asking where the locker room was. Rogue had answered without stopping and life had gone on as normal. Bobby wouldn’t blame the man. The Iceman had come in to talk with his girlfriend, and had been equally halted in his thought processes. He’d forgotten the approach and speech he had planned. His throat was dry. He had been there for ten minutes when Rogue turned to face him, the turn following the momentum of a high kick that left a dent of stretched fabric near the top of the punching bag. Her expression was unreadable and for a moment her dark brown were like live coals, catching the light just right. The brightness faded when she straightened from her stance to stand normally, but the illusion of dark heat remained.



“What did you wanna talk about, Bobby?” she asked, wiping sweat off her brow, then pausing to look at her knuckles, which were red and raw in the best places but in the worst had actually split and beaded blood a little. She wiped the blood off her forehead with her fingertips, ignoring the crescent-shaped bruises where her fingernails had hurt her palms.



“Are you okay?” he asked first. Rogue looked at him, brows raised and eyes wide as if she were shocked by the concept.



“Bobby, a couple days ago this whole place was full of government-employed troops sent to capture us for god-knows what end. Are you okay?” she countered. Bobby winced.



“Of course not,” he hissed. Rogue nodded and sucked the blood off the knuckles of one hand. “But the way you’ve been acting today…”



“Ah’ve been getting’ myself through it. Some people can have a long talk with Charles about healing, some can comfort each other, a few of us get drunk, some of them aren’t healin’ at all. This is what Ah need to do t’ heal,” she said easily, and licked the blood off the single bleeding knuckle of her other hand. She stepped over to the bench and dug in her duffle bag, pulling out a little gauze and tape. She placed the gauze on her more damaged hand and started wrapping the tape around it at the base of her fingers, securing the gauze there. “That ain’t what ya came to talk t’ me about, though,” she said. Bobby blinked a few times and sighed.



“No, no it’s not,” he consented, not looking at her. Rogue gave a nod and cut the tape with her teeth. She started wrapping the top of the bandage with idle dexterity, securing it around the bases of her fingers and making sure it was not so loose as to fall apart or so tight as to hinder movement and healing.



“Well, Bobby, talk to me,” she said quietly, and looked up at him through strings of messy brown and white hair that now fell around her face. Bobby looked into her eyes for a moment, then back down to her hand as she continued to tape.



“I…don’t know how to start,” he whispered. Rogue sighed, cut the tape again with her teeth, glanced critically at her other hand, which had already stopped bleeding from the small break in the raw skin there, and put away her makeshift bandage supplies. “I just…after everything that’s happened–where are we, do you think? As…as a couple?” He looked at her with wide blue eyes. Rogue tilted her head and held his gaze for a moment. She gestured to the bench. He sat down, his arms folded. He wore pants and long sleeves, and his hands were hidden behind his folded arms. Rogue sat beside him, toweling away the gleaming layer of sweat from her skin.



“Ah think you have some things you need to sort out, Bobby,” she said honestly. “Ya need to think about ya whole life now. What ya wanna do, how you’re gonna deal with your family now, how you feel about John,” she listed. At the last item, Bobby stiffened a little, his face coloring.



“You…saw…” he looked nervous. Rogue smiled gently.



“Bobby, Ah saw that before ya ever touched me,” she said. He blushed even more.



“I…I…”



“You don’t need to worry about it. Ah’m just overly observant, close to both of ya, and open-minded. Ah doubt anyone else has even considered the faintest possibility of the thought,” she offered.



“Oh…well…not like it matters with him gone with…”



“Ah understand why he went, Bobby,” Rogue murmured. Bobby looked at her. She seemed sad. “Ah don’t think he even knew about what Eri-Magneto did to me. He just has some things to figure out too.”



“Did he have to become a terrorist to do it?” Bobby grumbled. Rogue smiled a little bitterly.



“He thought so,” she said. Bobby shook his head. As a pause fell between them, Rogue set her towel aside and took a long drink from a sports bottle. She stood up and put it back in her bag, pulling out a pair of black cotton gloves. She put one on, not trusting the other to fit over the gauze, and sat down closer to Bobby, the side with her gloved hand closest to him, and rested her head carefully on his shoulder.



“Do you still…are you still interested in me?” he asked. Rogue considered.



“Bobby…”



“I just feel like you’re so far away, even when we’re like this. You seem so distant, so…so…”



“Old?” she offered, her small smile ambiguous.



“Kind of. You make me feel naïve and all, but I care about you. I really do.”



“Do you care about me the same way you do John?” she murmured. Bobby hesitated.



“I…I don’t know.” He swallowed thickly. Rogue lifted her head to look him in the eye, her face serious.



“Ah do care about you, Bobby. Ah don’t want to hurt you, and Ah’m afraid Ah will. Not just my skin. Ah’ve seen a hell of a lot more than even a lot of people as old as the professor, Ah’m dangerous, Ah’m actually pretty ruthless, and Ah’m cold.”



“Do…do you want me anyway?” he asked, and to her he looked so innocent just then. She touched the side of his face with her gloved hand, and he watched her. She had never really touched him, always so afraid…



“Ah like bein’ your teammate. Ah want to be your friend,” she murmured. “Ah don’t want to be your lover,” she said, her voice sad and her eyes apologetic. Bobby’s jaw tightened and he shut his eyes, but he nodded.



“I could love you,” he whispered. Rogue cupped his face, lifting his chin so he looked into her face as she stood and his eyes opened again.



“Ah know,” she murmured, “but Ah can’t let ya.”



“I guess you have things to sort out, too,” he said. Rogue leaned toward him with one last small smile.



“Yeah. Ah do,” she said, and kissed him just above his forehead where his hair protected him. “See ya later, Bobby,” she said, lifting her bag and walking toward the locker room. Bobby nodded.



“Bye,” he said softly, and got up to leave as well.



Pulling off her glove and tossing it in her half-open bag, Rogue let out a heavy, relieved sigh as she reached the locker-room door and heard the gym’s main door shut as Bobby left. The door next to hers, leading to the boys’ locker room, opened to reveal a shirtless, wet-haired Logan wearing a fresh pair of jeans and little else. Rogue swallowed involuntarily after a quick look-over she hoped he didn’t notice.



“Hey,” he greeted with a grin, letting the door fall shut behind him. He did not let his eyes wander. He had done enough of that earlier. She still smelled of sweat that he wanted to taste, though her skin was dry. Rogue smiled a little, not letting herself blush. “Finally finished for the day?”



“Yeah, Ah’ll be out workin’ with you and the rest on repairs and stuff tomorrow,” she promised. Logan raised a brow.



“With a shirt on, I hope,” he teased. Rogue arched a brow and smirked.



“You should talk,” she countered, and pushed open the door before her. Logan’s smile faded when he saw her hand.



“Your hand okay, kid?” he could see a couple droplets of blood through the gauze. Rogue looked at her hand, surprised, seemingly having forgotten her injury.



“Hmm? Oh, yeah. Ah just overdid it a little on the punching bag. It’s nothin’.”



“Oh yeah, you weren’t gloved were ya?” he remembered. Rogue waved her bare fingers at him. Logan arched a brow at her calloused fingertips. “You do that often? Your hands are a little rough, considering.”



“Their rough from playing guitar,” she explained, and saw his eyebrows raise in surprise. She’d forgotten that she hadn’t told him about her playing. “Ah sacrifice the soft ladylike nature of my delicate hands that Ah may kick ass and play the Blues,” she sighed dramatically, leaning against the open locker-room door beside her.



“Yeah well, we’ll see. I’ve still gotta spar with you and now you’ve gotta let me hear ya play sometime, too,” he teased. Rogue sighed again, this time with a mock-pout that did things to her lips Logan told himself he shouldn’t notice.



“All the more reason Ah should shower. Ah’m covered in more sweat than Ah want to think about. Ah’ll see ya at dinner when Ah’m clean, Logan,” she dismissed, slipping into the locker room at last. Logan’s eyes involuntarily scanned her back, marveling at the rarely seen skin visible there.



“Yeah, see ya, kid.”



Rogue tossed down her bag in front of her locker and reached her hands up, arching her back and leaning forward a little. Her worn-out and tired muscles burned and relaxed a little with the stretch. She stripped down for her shower, picking up a towel on her way and pausing before one of the mirrors. She looked into the eyes of her reflection, her expression thoughtful.



“Ready to move on?” she asked. The mirror didn’t reply. Rogue shrugged to herself after a moment and stepped into one of the shower stalls, tossing her towel over the curtain-rail and out of the way of the showerhead. The water was immediately hot and soothing, and Rogue smiled in thanks toward Xavier’s wealth and care in the thoughtful details of the school’s hot-water system. As she pulled the band from her tied-back hair and felt the heat wash away all the sweat and grime about her scalp, Rogue let her thoughts feel it too, and her tension trickle down the drain.



Time to move on…



Time to begin…