Author: Restive Nature (aka Bavite)
Rated: NC-17
Disclaimer: I in no way, shape or form own the characters of Dark Angel or X-Men or anything related to them. I simply like to play with them for a short while.
Timeline: This is a slightly AU story. It takes place more in Max’s timeline, with the pulse occurring. It begins after the episode ‘Blah Blah, Woof Woof" It doesn’t affect the X-men much, as Professor Xavier is affluent enough to afford the best in life. It also takes place after the first X-men movie, but as I haven’t seen the second one, I’ll leave that stuff alone.
Pairing M/L
Summary: Once again Max is on the run. But this time she is led to a safe haven.
Chapter Thirteen
"You’re free to go," the voice spoke carefully in her mind, but her thoughts were too chaotic, too panicked. Max could feel the sharp splinters of wood ingrained through her self inflicted wound. Blood dripped down her hand, pooling a moment in the crook of her wrist before splattering on the laminated floor. She tried to block out the pain, gather her mind back. She couldn’t lose it, not right now. Ten years of running and hiding from Lydecker and she’d never lost it. Sure she’d been hurt, excited, tense, but Manticore had designed her to get off on the thrill of the hunt. Whether she was the hunted or the hunter.
But never before had they been in her mind. The one place that was a sanctuary, hers alone and it had been violated. Lydecker had forced her to run from home to home, even if they were only hovels on the street. He’d kept her from finding her family. Zack had too, for varied reasons, but she understood that. Lydecker and others, they had taken everything from her but her freedom and it was a pitiful existence at best. But she had been happy in it. She hadn’t wanted to run this time, from Seattle and the friends she’d made and the job she had. But Zack had been right. She couldn’t really afford those things. So when Logan had given her the directions for a safe house, for the mutant school, she’d thought maybe she’d find a place where despite her strangeness, she’d have a place. But despite their welcome and their acceptance of her into their midst, they’d taken from her too.
Logan watched in morbid fascination as the thin rivulets of blood trickling down her arm. He glanced down at Charles, his whole manner radiating calm and peace, the things Max was too strung out to recognize in this state. He laid a hand on the professor’s shoulder, careful not to jolt him. "Let her go Chuck," he urged gently, though his hand squeezed unintentionally on the older man.
"It’s not me, Logan," he replied quietly. They both turned to look over their respective shoulders. Jean was standing about mid stairwell, with Scott slightly behind her. Her eyes were slightly glazed, as Charles’ had been. Logan straightened up; not needing to glance at her to know that Max’s rigid posture had not changed.
"Jean," was all he said, but everyone present heard the warning in his tone. She seemed to sag a little as the resounding ‘click’ of the door unlocking was heard. Logan ignored the telekine to move towards Max, his voice low as he warned her that he was approaching. "It’s just me Max." She trembled a little more, the closer he got and he fought his natural primitive instincts, trying not to appear as a threat. It was harder than he imagined. His nature had always been to be on the offensive. He would rise to meet a challenge head-on before common sense, if any applied, would kick in.
Finally he was able to stand at her side without her bolting again, or worse, attacking him. He stared down at her blank face, though her eyes were wide and luminous. He could smell the fear and frustration rolling off her. And again he was hit with the subtle undertone that screamed familiarity. But mixed with the fear, it was more overpowering than before. And if he didn’t know better, he would have sworn that he’d seen her scared before.
There was not time for analysis at that point. Logan pushed these thoughts to the back of his mind. He moved slowly, again, every movement thought out in advance, easy so that she could see them coming. He cradled her elbow with his left hand, while the right moved to pull her hand away from the door. She seized up, tensed, but Logan let her hand loose to open the door a bare inch. He eyes dropped down to his hand around the doorknob, a mild relief encasing her. He understood. She felt the tug at her arm and stepped back from the door. Logan pushed it wide open past her and then gave her a little nudge. Her eyes held his for a moment and then she was gone.
Logan turned back to the others. Charles had a resigned look upon his face, slightly disappointed as he took in Jean. Scott was still standing behind her, quietly supportive. She hadn’t explained at all what she had done or seen in Max’s mind. And while he was unnerved by her method, he had a hard time faulting his girlfriend. But then again, having lived with her for so long, he was more than used to her use of her gifts. Logan however, wasn’t so supportive.
"What the hell did you do?" he demanded swiftly, able to tell even before he had seen her, just by her scent that she was nervous confronting him. And if his suspicions were correct, justifiably so.
"Logan," Charles chided. He as well was aware of what Jean had tried, putting the pieces together quickly. And like before, when Jean had tried to piece together a person’s past, the only thing she received were half formed images, disjointed jumping from point to point of the funny thing that formed memory. It was something she was learning to do, but she had the bad habit of picking the hardest subjects to try it on.
On silent feet, Jean came down the rest of the steps to stand before them. "I know I messed up Professor," she began, but Charles held up his hand.
"I understand," he cut off her explanation. Using their mutations was second nature to them all. He would not condemn her for her, just chastise mildly for forgetting the formalities of their moral telepath's code. Ask first. "But I’m not the one you need to be apologizing to." Jean hung her head, chewing on her lower lip before nodding benignly.
"That’ll be kind of hard," Scott sighed as they heard the motorcycle roaring away, "since she’s gone now."
"She’ll be back," Logan assured them loudly. And once they had gone their separate ways, more softly to himself, "she will come back." But repeating it was no guarantee.
*****
With the physical release from the mental prison that Logan had provided her with, Max was able to gain back some semblance of self. But that by no means meant that she wanted to stick around. The urge to run that she had given in to was still strong in her. But she’d retained enough of her brain to collect her bike first. If there were any way to avoid leaving her baby behind, she’d find it. She found no one in the garage and was able to wheel her bike out into the driveway. She was relieved to see that the gates were open and she wasted no time in throwing her leg over the seat and hieing herself away from the scene of Jean’s crime.
The urge to flee began to change minutely once she was on the road. Away from the mansion, she worked at getting her emotions under control. What she really needed was some place to sit and think this bitch out. And when she finally rumbled into the business district, she had her answer.
Fifteen minutes later, sitting atop the roof of the highest building she could find, she found a measure of peace with the wind whipping her hair about her face. It wasn’t the Space Needle, but it would do, for now. She stared down at the city, bemused to find that her normal feelings of familial comfort that accompanied a high place were absent. Instead her mind was strife with thoughts of what the mutants were in relation to her.
By the very definition, she was a mutant, as it occurred to the ordinaries. She had little doubt that the so-called normal humans of this world couldn’t care less about what caused mutation, be it evolution or genetic tampering. A freak was a freak. In part of her mind, she admired these mutants for standing up for themselves. For proclaiming themselves to the world. But the rest of her, the suppressed supersoldier scoffed at their idiocy. All they had done was willingly opened themselves up for attack.
But had she been hiding for so long that it had become the only thing she knew to do? Max shook her head slowly. It was a lot to think on. Because she’d had enough of a taste of life on the outside, of acceptance in Seattle that she still craved it. It wasn’t easy to set aside freedom, in whatever form it came. And she would be damned if she let another freak make her feel less than she was. Make her fear this world. Max sighed as she realized that she had a decision to make.
*****
Class let out for the afternoon and Rogue gathered her books in her glove-clad arms. She let the others file out of the room first, as was her habit. It was easier not to accidentally bump flesh with someone if there was no one around. The others understood and gave her a wide berth. And so it was that she was on her way to meet Bobby when she came upon Logan in a contemplative mood. She knew he heard her approach, recalling enough from their personality link just how attuned his senses were. But he made no move to turn around.
"Lettin’ your temper get the best of you again?" she asked with a lilt to her Southern accent.
"Wasn’t me," he growled back. Most of the students would have been put off by the surly tone. But Rogue had the advantage over them all in this regard. She studied the scene before her. There was a hole in the front door, the wood splintered inwards. Logan was holding a bloody rag in his hand. Rogue couldn’t tell if he was lying to her about it being he. A minor wound like that would have healed instantly. Her eyes fell to the floor.
"Ya missed a spot," she felt obliged to tell him, pointing at a speck of blood gathered at the edge of the door.
"Thanks kid," he grunted, bending over to swipe at it.
"So if it’s not yours, whose blood is it?" she asked curious, but hesitant. The whole looked much too small for Logan to have rammed someone’s head through it.
"Doesn’t matter," he shrugged. "It’s over an’ done with." With that, he turned on his heel and headed in the direction of the kitchen, Marie presumed to get rid of the rag. She heard Logan muttering under his breath as he walked. But her hearing wasn’t as keen as his was. And as she watched him, she was hit by a sudden surge of insight. The tension in his body, more wary than usual bespoke of a need to indulge his inner and predominant loner side.
"You’re not runnin’ are ya?" she blurted out. Logan slowed his steps before finally swinging around to face her.
"Why would you ask that?" he demanded a little more harshly than he meant to. Perhaps because he’d been thinking exactly that. He may have been able to let Max go that afternoon, give her the space she needed. But everything in him was screaming to go after her and make sure that she was okay. At least that’s what he acknowledged to himself. Never mind the nagging worry that if she’d already run once, she was more likely to run again. It’s what he would have done and in a way had been doing for over the last decade.
"You just look kinda… jumpy," Rogue finally settled on. Logan smirked. The kid had always been insightful. Naïve certainly, but she had an uncanny knack for driving straight to the heart of the matter when she wanted to.
"Yeah, I guess," he finally answered before resuming his walk to the kitchens. He didn’t bother to clarify on what he was guessing, jumpy or running. And it was left to the physically isolated redhead to decide on her own. And neither proposition reassured her at all.
*****
Logan’s jumpiness was somewhat cured by the time dinner ended. After toying with the food before him nearly the entire meal, the diners heard the casual roar of a motorcycle engine pulling closer to the mansion. Holding their collective breath, they watched the professor as he cast his mind out to detect the guest. When Charles smiled tightly and nodded to Logan, conversation picked up again. Logan sagged a little in his chair. If he knew what he could say to the woman that wouldn’t just potentially scare her off again, he’d leave right then. But his eye was drawn to Jean.
She’d been just as miserable, well almost as miserable, as he had. She’d seemed unable to eat and hadn’t even bothered at the pretense of pushing her vegetables around the plate. Apparently she’d cast her mind in the same manner as the professor had, although with nowhere near his strength and caught the same wavelength of image he had. She pushed away from the table, half-risen before her head snapped around to face Charles. Logan caught the grim set of the professor’s lips, but whatever he was telling Jean, it was blithely ignored as she completed her departure. Logan sighed as the disliked feeling of helplessness suffused him again. Damn these stubborn redheads that surrounded him.
*****
There was no explosion. No yelling, nothing breaking. Not one of them heard the confrontation between the two women. Which meant one of two things. The first, that they were able to talk out the problem that had erupted between them like rational, mature adults. Or and the more likely, that Max had blown Jean off and disappeared from the vicinity, again. Logan would almost guarantee the second from the rigid state of the telekine’s body. A few hours later as she and Scott supervised some of the kids playing board games, Logan saw her eyes constantly straying to the stairs. People would talk to her and she’d let out short, non-committal answers. So Logan figured that Max must have been up in her room.
He thought a little while on it. Everyone else was fairly relaxed, even the professor. And Logan knew that Charles had already taken a liking to Max, despite the small amount of interaction they had had. It made him wonder if the Professor had more details about Max than the girl herself had parted with. Which was a distinct possibility. But Charles would never betray those trusts unless they were a direct threat. And never in an overly confrontational manner. Which seemed to have been Jean’s mistake. She’d clued Max in to what she was doing, or had done and freaked the young woman out. Finally, he could no longer take the questions and demands to see for himself that Max was back. He let intuition guide him and even made up a peace offering.
It was a little difficult to balance the tray laden down with popcorn and filled to the brim cups of hot chocolate while he knocked at her door. He braced himself for her vituperation, but none came. The door swung open, revealing a completely calm Max, her eyes widening just slightly as she focused on the tray between them.
"What’s this?" she asked, her voice laced with suspicion.
"You missed dinner," he shrugged one shoulder, aiming for friendly and falling slightly short. "So I made you a snack. If you don’t want it…" he trailed off, making to turn away.
"No, no," Max sighed, stepping back and waving him in. "It’s okay." Logan stepped forward, looking for a place to set the tray. Max shut the door behind him and scurried over to clear off the bedside nightstand. Logan settled the tray and picked up one of the mugs.
"I’ll just take this and get out of your hair then," he murmured, avoiding her eyes. He made it back to the door before she spoke.
"You can stay," she blurted out and Logan stopped. "If you want that is. I was just gonna watch a couple videos. And it’s kind of boring watching stuff by myself. But if you don’t want-!"
I’ll stay," he broke in. She nodded once, slightly embarrassed over her babbling. "What are ya watchin’?" he asked as he moved back to the bed. He knew he was being slightly presumptive, but there wasn’t anywhere else comfortable enough to enjoy the television screen.
Max smiled, slightly relieved that he was staying. She ignored how her heart jumped a few beats as he settled himself on the bed and picked up the two videos she’d chosen earlier. She turned and held them up for his inspection. Both were pre-pulse comedies. She’d been in the mood for a good laugh to dispel the resultant gloom of her crappy afternoon. "Pick one."
Logan couldn’t care less what they watched. Just so long as she was relaxed and happy. And at the moment, she seemed well on her way. "That one," he grunted, gesturing to the video on her left, his right. It didn’t matter. Just as long as it kept that smile on her face.
Chapter Fourteen
No comments:
Post a Comment