snikting | Appointments Post

"It ain't even close to being enough. You wanted to warn the others about Loki, but yer the one still seein' him. I know what he smells like, right down to his blood."

"It's not like I've sought him out!" Rogue was stung. First Tony, now Logan? This was exactly what she'd been trying to avoid. "Come on, Logan, we live in the same wacky town. Weird stuff's gonna happen!"

I didn't do this on purpose. I didn't mean to. I wouldn't betray you like that, I'd never do that please believe me please.

"Yeah? There some kinda experiment goin' on that no one told me about?" The Luceti excuse only went so far.

"Some kinda experiment did go on."

Sick and twisted and all her worst fears confirmed, she couldn't take his accusations anymore. Pale and almost trembling, gloved fingers clutched the couch.

"You got somethin' ta say to me, just say it."

Liar. Traitor. Just like your mother. Knew he couldn't trust you. No one can ever trust you. The only person who can even touch you - the only one - is a mass-murdering psychopath. Murderer. Monster.

"Fine. Yer messin' with someone who nearly got New York turned into a crater. This ain't like makin' friends with Avalanche or Gambit." The two examples being immediate, in respects to Kitty and Rogue.

"So if something's going on? I want to know about it."

"I'm not messin' with him, I--" Rogue cut herself off. She looked down. "I told you. This should be the end of it. If ya wanna know what went on before that, I'll tell you, but..."

She bit her lip, her shoulders slumping inward protectively, "...you're not gonna like it."

"I don't like a lot of things. Start talkin'."

"I told you what happened on the mission, remember?"

That Loki could touch her.

"Came on him by accident after the thing with Clint, but you knew that too."

That was one of the reasons she'd called the meeting, after all.

"What ya don't know is what happened durin' the week we all forgot who we were."

He nodded. It was why this all concerned him so much. She was vulnerable in a way she normally wasn't.

"Go on."

She shrugged one shoulder uncomfortably. "We met while I was lookin' for the best place ta get coffee. He was... nice. And we hit it off like two teenagers."

Best to just get it out there, "An' we acted like it, once he figured out how ta make a shield that he could put on me so I could touch."

Frowning, and feeling oddly as if she could cry, Rogue looked away from him. "It felt good. Just like touchin'."

So that's how it was. He took a deep breath. Right now his only thought was how much he'd enjoy ripping out Loki's throat and wearing it as a hat. It wasn't because he gave Rogue something good.

But because he was the only one who could give it to her. And of all the people to do it, why did it have to be him?

"... leadin' to today, I take it."

Rogue shrugged again, feeling abjectly miserable. She planted an elbow on her knee, leaned on it, and looked at the floor. "He thought he could change my mind 'bout the whole thing. Said he'd leave me alone if I gave him a chance. So I gave him a chance. It didn't work."

She sighed and shut her eyes, "End of story."

"Is it?" He didn't begin to doubt her intentions. Oh, he didn't like it. But there were things people did that were out of their control. He may not have been thrilled with how she handled it, but what's done was done. For her anyway.

"Men like that don't just give up. If they want something, there ain't much that'll stop 'em."

Hell, he knew that. He'd been that kind of man in the past. In some ways, he still was.

"I'll stop him," she said quietly, looking at Logan. "If he comes at me again, he's breakin' his word ta me. I won't abide by that. An' he doesn't want me as an enemy."

So his own desire, she hoped, would stop him.

"He doesn't want us as an enemy." That was the sticking point. "This ain't your solo career, kid. If yer messing with the likes of him, then we all are."

"I'm not messin' with him!" Gawd, how can she make that more clear? "An' this ain't about us. If he comes at me, sure, if he crosses a line, then yeah, but it's not an X-Man vs. Villain thing. Not yet, anyway."

"Yet, Rogue." That was the single most important thing here. Logan had a team to protect. A family. And for as much as he trusted Rogue, he didn't trust that Loki was simply something she could handle on her own. Regardless of the situation.

"What do ya want from me, Logan? Huh? I didn't ask for this! I didn't ask for any of this! I told you as far as I know, it's done. I told him it was done!"

Please, let it be over.

She hated feeling like this. So guilty and ashamed. She wanted to just curl up in a ball and die.

Even when I do something that feels good, it's bad. Even when I try to do right, I'm dragging them all into danger. I really am a monster.

"What I want is not havin' to ask these things. You can do what you want with your own personal life, kid. But whether you believe it or not, this is somethin' that concerns all of us. My job ain't just bein' your drill sergeant, Rogue. Seeing to it that you stay alive, that all of you stay alive, has always been my number one priority. It's why the Prof needed someone like me."

Logan was never around for his sunny disposition. Or because he was nice or good with the kids. He was the leashed bulldog. He kept out the intruders and taught the kids how hard things really were.

Being nice. Being friends didn't come with the job.

There was about a minute where Rogue just sat there, looking down.

"Say I came an' told you this right off. Told ya I'd made time with Loki durin' an experiment, that he--" offered me hope for a normal life "--was good ta me. An' then say I told ya he expressed an interest in me afterwards. What happens next?"

"I'd have suggested you never see 'em again." But not stopped her. Maybe. He was being generous there. He suspected he'd have gone and settled it himself.

"An' that's exactly what I tried ta do," she looked up at him then, eyes hard and wounded. "So what's the problem?"

"You did it on yer own."

"Yeah." Okay. It was a good point. That snuck around and struck home, because... she knew that wasn't how X-Men did things. Although a rebellious part of her suggested how rich that was, coming from Wolverine, she knew he was right. "But... a lot of the stuff that went on between us..." Rogue looked down. "It doesn't get more personal."

And she was ashamed of that, wounded by that, didn't want to fall so far in Logan's eyes as she had fallen in her own.

He was well aware of just how rich it was. As rich as Xavier sending him to try and talk sense into Spyke. Or Logan teaching meditation to rambunctious teenagers.

"I get that, kid. Those are the worst kinds of people to get tangled up with. I ain't even sayin' you did anything wrong. I wasn't half as smart as you are when I was your age. But the Professor ain't here. It's my job to keep this team together, even if I ain't the guy I'd put in charge of it."

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