Entries tagged with character: rogue (theycalledmeacurse)

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Just a kid from Brooklyn. [For Steve Rogers]

Three months. That's all the longer Rogue had been in this world that wasn't hers, trying to scrape together a life out of nothing. She'd barely made a decent start of it when the world had tried to end on her with the Battle of New York. The city had been in chaos, was still trying to pick up the pieces two months later, and Rogue did all she could to help in her own way. In a small way.

Sure, there had been a few times she'd been tempted during the battle to run out into the thick of things and become her old self. Join the superheroes who had taken charge of the situation. But in the end she'd stayed back, because the reality was that without someone to borrow an active power from, she was just another normal person, and normal people just got others killed in fights like that.

In the weeks that followed the Battle, she'd taken to volunteering whenever she wasn't working. She'd joined an organization that worked with the elderly in various capacities, and they sent her where she was needed. Sometimes it was a nursing home to visit with the ones who didn't have families or who had simply been forgotten, sometimes to the retirement communities that put on events and could always use a few extra hands. Those were her big plans that Sunday - a party at a residential community, complete with cake, punch, music, and streamers. Lots of streamers. They'd really done the place up for the 4th of July holiday, which wasn't technically until Wednesday, with red, white, and blue all over the common room. It had taken hours for Rogue and a few others to get the decorations up and everything ready, but the smiles on the residents' faces as they were shepherded in by a fresh set of volunteers made every second worth it.

Laughing as goofy Mr. Samuels swept Mrs. Hawkins into something almost resembling a waltz, Rogue continued spooning out strawberries onto the whipped cream on top of the line of shortcakes. It felt strange to not be wearing gloves, even after months of having decent control over her mutation, but she'd still chosen a blue dress with long sleeves for the occasion. A simple dress, with sensible heels, so the sticker nametag reading "Marie" didn't look too terribly out of place.

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Transporter Beam Accidents Do Happen

An anomaly.

Space was full of them, but all of the points of instability no matter how small in the Sol system had been exhaustively catalogued. Grade school children took field trips to collect redundant data on them to analyse over apple juice and animal crackers. Or kelp wafers, or whatever they fed people now. Khan had encountered a few undocumented anomalies in his longer-range scans and tended to avoid them whenever possible in his transporter experiments, but he hadn't even bothered scanning first this time. Why would he? The coordinates he was using were in the path of Earth's orbit, no region of space had been better studied than that one.

There were several distant anomalies in the known galaxy which could warp local space-time into crumpled aluminum foil, but this one didn't have the right energy signature. It wasn't a false reading, even though by all rational standards it should have been. These subspace energy patterns never occurred naturally, not in the vacuum of space. It looked almost like a life-form signature that had been abandoned mid-transport, no stabilizing beam either from point of origin or destination, and somehow hadn't disintegrated in the process.

Well, no sense in ignoring the interesting finding. Ultimately, Khan intended to use transwarp teleportation with living subjects anyway. While he wasn't prepared to start sacrificing lives at this stage, this wasn't his doing. Whatever this creature was, or had been, it essentially didn't exist right now. Its matter was no longer part of any known or theorized parallel universe. It wasn't alive, so rematerializing it in his test chamber wasn't going to kill it no matter what went wrong. He might as well bring the thing in and have a look at it before blasting it back out into the vacuum of space.

After recalibrating his instruments to lock onto life signs, Khan locked onto the signal with far more precision than the instruments currently in wide use could have done. Khan was alone in his workshop with no weapons and he really should have considered calling in a xenobiologist first, but he had no interest whatsoever in expanding the frontiers of shared knowledge for the rabid warhounds of Starfleet. A few more buttons punched and the golden swirls began forming on the platform inside the spherical force field. Khan would have to shut the field off in order for sound waves to cross the distance between them, but right now he should be able to see what was inside well enough to determine if it should be jettisoned immediately. That would definitely be necessary if it turned out to be too large for the containment field, no sense in triggering an explosion of guts all over the sensitive instruments.

Of course, if the life form reassembled correctly and actually possessed senses corresponding the the human visible light range, it would also be able to see him. It would appear at roughly his chest-height on a warm white disc three metres in diameter, the force field bubble completely transparent but hard as glass to the touch. The room was a small deserted hangar built of dark metal, well-lit but almost empty, with nothing else in it but a large desk sized console, a chair, and a dark-haired man with a quiet curiosity. Khan stood up from his console and took a step closer, watching the form take shape out of the whirling photon-emitting spirals.

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Defying Convention [For Peggy]

Being back in the 1940’s was… difficult, to say the least. Rogue tried her best to fit in and not draw too much attention to herself, but sometimes she opened her mouth and the exact wrong thing came out and got her into trouble – that wrong thing usually being one insult or another to a chauvinistic pig who thought he was the universe’s gift to womankind. She just couldn’t stand that, and it clearly didn’t matter who the guy was, she’d just lay into him, consequences be damned.

Which was why she was on her third job in as many months since getting her new identity set up. She just kept ending up working for assholes who treated their female employees like second-class citizens. It was appalling, and every time it happened she found herself missing the future fiercely. Sure, things may not have been perfect then, but it had certainly been better than this.

And most of the women just accepted it, not realizing that they could stand up for themselves, or just being too scared to try. There were a few exceptions to the rule, though, little sparks of hope that Rogue found herself drawn to. One of those exceptions was sitting at a table along the back wall of the restaurant, or whatever they called this type of place in this era, right where she’d said she’d be. Peggy Carter had been an intriguing mystery since she’d first laid eyes on her, when the other woman had stepped in to help deal with a mugger who had picked the wrong southern belle to rob. Rogue hadn't exactly needed the help, but the gesture had been very much appreciated and so she'd insisted upon repaying the good deed with dinner, or at the very least a cup of coffee. It had taken a lot of persuading, but now here they were.

Smoothing out the skirt of her green dress with hands that were blissfully bare thanks to her newfound (if tentative) control in this era, she stepped through the door and headed toward her dining companion.

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Waking Up to a New World [For Logan]

[Loosely inspired by this meme. Set post-DoFP.]

It had been years since she'd seen him look at her the way he was supposed to. Before, there had always been a sort of amused softness to his eyes when they'd been together, an expression that said she could get away with just about anything with him. Hell, half the time he'd been right there beside her as she got into one scrape or another, especially when it came to mischief-making in bars. He'd protested her being in that sort of place back in the beginning, but it was his influence that had gotten her there in the first place, his psyche in her mind that cautioned her even as she let go of certain inhibitions and learned how to really live.

This Logan didn't look at her like she was something exquisitely unique, had never wanted to kiss her and hid it even after she had another dose of him in her head. This Logan was her friend and nothing more - a man she respected and fought beside, a teacher who cared about his students just as much as she did, a companion for the long nights when neither of them could sleep. The two versions did have one thing in common, though: they'd both nearly died to save her life a time or two.

So she got up every morning and met him for breakfast with the others, nursing a large cup of coffee and complaining about whatever the students had blown up this time. And she waited, each day feeling like a lifetime. Because they had no idea when her Logan would wake up and remember the same awful war that haunted her dreams, but she was determined to be there for him every step of the way. The world he knew was gone, and she would help him find his way in this new one. She and Charles, and he would survive the adjustment. He had to - she couldn't lose him again.

But back to that particular morning. They'd had another late night, wandering the mansion together to make sure the students were safe (and in bed) before camping out in the teachers' lounge where they'd stashed a variety of alcohol for just such occasions - under lock and key, of course, just in case the students decided to go snooping. When Rogue had clearly had too much and this Logan that wasn't her Logan had tired of trying and failing to even get a decent buzz, he'd helped her stumble upstairs and into bed. Not her bed, of course, her stubborn drunk self hadn't been about to stand for that for some reason that she'd never actually remember.

So there she was, sprawled out beside him on his bed, a blanket tossed over her clothed form so she didn't get cold. He'd even taken off her shoes, because he took care of her just like her Logan had. Sometimes it was hard to remember they weren't the same person, like when she was breathing in the scent of clean sheets and lingering traces of his cigars, all of it mixing with the scotch on their breath. That mistaken identity was enough to lull her into sleep, trusting that his alarm would wake them up in time to get to their respective classes.

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Calling an SOS of the Heart [For Remy LeBeau]

[Continuing from the TFLN that started with SOS. It's like a mistletoe minefield here.]

She should never have listened to Jubilee. 'Come on, Rogue, it'll be fun,' she'd said. 'We'll get dressed up and party the night away.' Much as she loved her eccentric friend, she felt like wringing her adorably eccentric neck for the way she'd been abandoned for the first hunky guy who crossed their path.

Looking back at the string of texts to Remy, she couldn't believe she'd actually sent them. It had been a desperate cry for help, that was for certain - he was one of the few at the mansion who would care and manage to stage a rescue without bloodshed, unlike Logan or Piotr. The whole thing was so silly though; she was an X-Man and a strong, independent woman who shouldn't need a guy to save her, but that was exactly what she needed. Backed into a corner behind a table covered in holiday treats and a bowl filled with more rum than punch, it was the only place devoid of mistletoe and city officials with wandering hands that could get them both into trouble.

Because she'd also listened to Jubilee's wardrobe advice for this disastrous holiday party. The sleeveless evergreen dress had a much lower cut than she usually preferred, and the long white gloves still left a stretch of skin bared along her upper arm. Normally it wouldn't be a problem, but people were beginning to stumble all over each other, and the last thing she wanted was to have another drunken idiot stuck in her head.

So she waited. And hoped that she wasn't making a huge mistake.

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Dinner and Dancing. [For Gambit]

[Takes place after this text exchange.]

Rogue was shaking like a leaf and it was stupid.

No, scratch that. This whole thing was stupid.

Why had she ever agreed to going out like this? And with Remy of all people! Yes, she was attracted to him, but she had also heard about his extensive list of conquests and perpetual Ladies' Man status. And while she might have encouraged him with some flirting, it was just supposed to be a bit of fun. She flirted with everyone, it was how she communicated - he wasn't supposed to flirt back and actually mean it. None of them were, but especially not him.

She took a deep breath and checked her makeup in the mirror again, making sure for the eighth time that she hadn't smudged her mascara and that her lipstick wasn't too dark. An hour had been spent on her hair and makeup, and she hadn't dared enlist the help of one of her friends in case they decided to make a joke out of it and tease her. They probably wouldn't even realize they were doing it or that it would bother her, and that was why she avoided the situation all together. She might put on the tough girl act, but underneath it all she was as fragile as the rest of them, maybe even more so because of her lack of experience.

And why had she told him that?!

Adjusting her dress again, she took one last look in the mirror. The black wrap dress had short sleeves, but the accompanying long black gloves left only about two inches of skin bare on her upper arm, and it was the best she could manage with her limited wardrobe. Again, she wasn't about to go borrowing something when that would just lead to a chorus of needling questions. The hem reached just above her knee, meaning she had to wear hose (which she hated), and the shoes were going to be death of her before the night was over, she just knew it. The kitten heels were new and the only things she owned that would remotely go with the dress, and she was already dreading the way her feet would be aching after a night of dancing. Her jewelry was gold, simple, and she'd changed the whole outfit at least a dozen times that evening.

Dates were stressful. Especially dates with Remy LeBeau.

Because at the root of it all, she knew her anxiety and resistance were because she was terrified. She was terrified of falling in love with him, of hurting him, of having him hurt her. Despite years of working toward controlling her powers, being repeatedly assured that it was physically possible, she was still no closer to actually achieving anything beyond having a slightly firmer hold on the menagerie of psyches crammed into her head. How could he be possibly be okay with that?

6:55. She was supposed to meet Remy outside at 7:00. Grabbing her handbag, she threw up a silent prayer to the universe that they would both make it through the night in one piece before hurrying through the mansion.

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Just two vampires, traveling the galaxy... [For Todd the Wraith]

[continued from here]

It was a pleasant surprise to glance over and see Todd asleep on the bed, relaxed and peaceful. He can't have gotten much quality rest the night before propped up in the chair as he had been, certainly not when he'd been woken by her nightmare. She hoped that didn't happen again tonight, he had important things to take care of tomorrow; she didn't know all of the details, but with a civil war going on between his people, he needed his wits about him.

To that end, Rogue forced herself to stay awake for hours into the night, eating the dinner he'd brought for her and looking through one of the books from the collection he'd shown her before their sparring session. She didn't recognize anything on the pages, but it gave her a topic for conversation with the voices in her head, providing ample entertainment to pass the time. Eventually she fell asleep herself, the book held carefully to her chest as she curled up in the armchair, her boots set on the floor beside it. It was a fairly deep sleep, and she didn't dream for one of the first times in many weeks, something she was eternally grateful for when she awoke.