RETURN of the DEFUNCT Series: X-Men Fic 2/2 [Scott (Cyclops) / Rogue]
Okay, so these are the Scott/Rogue fics I mentioned. As I said in the previous post, these aren't really based off of X-Men:Evolution, they're more based from the movie.
Scott(Cyclops)/Rogue
1.
Endearments [One-Shot]
There were things she didn’t say. Like when she was scared, or that she was sorry. (He hadn’t heard her outright apologize for anything since she was a kid and came back from taking the cure.) But she didn’t have to say those things, because the people around her knew without her having to put it in words. They knew that when she brought them something special after an argument, she was apologizing. They all knew that when she bit her lip she was apprehensive, and when she went quiet and still, she was afraid.
No one really thought about how she showed her affection, though. Her sassiness and budding flirtatious nature, coupled with her tendency to use endearments as easily as she’d use names made people think she was always showing her affection. And although it was partly true, it was perhaps only a handful of people (if that) that could see the truth of the matter. That her flirtation and use of endearments was just a way of being, that it didn’t particularly mean anything more than that she simply didn’t hate them.
It didn’t occur to him either, until he heard her addressing one of the children. She called him pumpkin. The little 7 year old lit up like a street lamp, and only part of it was his mutation. He’d tried to tease her about calling impressionable little boys endearments which might make them fall in love with her.
She had only laughed and said, “I call them *all* pumpkin, sugah.”
He’d smiled, as he usually did in the face of her laughter, and pointed out, “You don’t call us that.”
She had looked at him, then laughed again as she walked away. “No,” she conceded. “I sure don’t.”
It had taken him a few days of paying attention, but he did figure it out eventually. Even her use of endearments, which seemed so casual and such a part of *her* wasn’t casual at all. It was yet another way of her showing them how she felt about them.
When he first noticed it, not long after she was comfortable enough with them to start being herself and using the endearments at all, her endearments were in two categories. She called the children ‘pumpkin’ and everyone else she didn’t hate, she called ‘sugar’. It was months after she’d taken the cure and the effects had worn off that any real distinctions started showing up. At first, it was the way she called Storm, ‘hon’ when she was happy and laughing. Then, one day, she called Piotr ‘sweetie’ when he offered to bring her back a drink during lunch. Then, he started to see patterns.
It didn’t take long, he was rather observant after all, before he caught on. She called her girlfriends, ‘hon’ or versions thereof such as ‘honey-bun’ or ‘honey-bunch’ (and yet, never honey itself). She called boys that were friends ‘sweetie’ or any of its varied derivations such as ‘sweetie-pie’ or ‘sweetheart’ reserving ‘sugar’ for strangers or casual acquaintances. Teachers, he also noticed, were usually categorized as casual acquaintances and got the ‘sugar’ endearment, except for Storm, of course, Hank who got ‘big daddy’ (even though he suspected it was only because it amused the doctor so) and the Professor, who was always “Professor” no matter what.
He thought it was quite a fascinating anomaly, until he found himself talking to her more often in casual moments when it was just the two of them and some bad movie on tv, or they’re watching over the children or during dinner, and he forgets in the day to day interactions with her -- accepts it as another one of her ways and doesn’t really realize when she starts calling him something other than ‘sugar’.
Until the day he returns and the contrast is naked and blatant in front of him in their interaction.
***
2.
Almost [Random Conversation]
“You know,” she started and her voice was low, her tone lazy and sleepy, her accent thickening as if it were too much effort to speak without it. “There’s just something to be said for summer in the south.”
He looked at her, curious not only by her statement, but where this statement might have stemmed from, since they hadn’t really been talking at all, and it was only just the middle of March and the snow on the ground a few feet from them was still weeks away from melting yet. “Summer in the south?” he echoed.
She smiled and even the twist in her lips seemed languid. “Yeah,” she answered. “Growin’ up, I couldn’t wait to get somewhere cold,” she admitted. “Mississippi will get cold for a few days outta the year, you know, but only down in the high 40s if we’re lucky,” she explained. “’cept up in Northern Mississippi, places like Corinth and Batesville - mamma used to say the old timers swore it snowed up there once,” she seemed perfectly content to tell her tale without any input from him, so he let her continue and only listened. “Not like here, ‘course,” she amended. “I used to see the Christmas cards,” she glanced at him, her head rolling on the back of the seat to do it, “you know the ones - where there’s miles and miles of perfect, soft powdery snow on rollin’ hillsides and a pine tree all lit up with multi-colored lights?” He smiled and nodded. She smiled back and rolled her head back to her inspection of the snow-covered gardens, lifting her leg up under her. “I used to see those cards and wish with all my heart to go somewhere like that.”
“Is that why you ran to Canada?” he asked.
She laughed a little and nodded, her head still leaning heavily on the back of her chair so it came out slightly wobbly. “Yeah,” she admitted. “Imagine my surprise when all I saw the whole way there was dirty roads with dirty snow shoved up along the sides?”
He shifted to take a drink from his glass, his gaze going back to the garden. “Well, you’ve got plenty of that post-card view snow here, huh?” he asked.
She laughed again. “Tell me about it.”
“And now you’re tired of it?” he guessed.
“Not really,” she admitted. “It’s not that.” Her head rolled to look at him again. “Where did you grow up?” she asked suddenly, but he knew why she was asking so he laughed.
“Anchorage,” he answered.
“Shoot,” she said, amusement in her expression. “So you really don’t know what I’m talking about summers in the south, huh?”
He shook his head. “Afraid not.”
She shook her head and took a drink from her own bottle. “It’s stifflin’,” she said. “It’s not just the heat, not just the fact that the sun really can fry an egg on a sidewalk or that the temperature is 100 degrees even in the shade of a magnolia tree,” she explained. “It’s muggy,” she continued. “Steppin’ outside is like wading in thick air,” she sat up a little. “Does that make sense?” she asked. “Can you picture what that’s like? Like you hafta fight the atmosphere around ya just to step from your front porch?”
He shook his head. “No, not really,” he answered. “It never gets like that in any of the places I’ve lived.”
“Ever walk into a sauna?” she asked. “Like straight from a cool, air-conditioned room, right into a sauna in full steam?”
“Not in those circumstances,” he admitted. “I’ve been prepared when I’ve gone into a sauna.”
She nodded. “Right, well, imagine you’re fully clothed, and not prepared.” She exhaled. “It’s like the atmosphere takes your very breath away, and it’s hard to breathe.” She looked at him and smirked at his expression. “You think I’m exaggeratin’,” she pointed out.
He smirked and didn’t answer.
“Walking from your front door to your car, or to your neighbor’s house in the south during summer is like taking another bath, I swear,” she insisted. “You sweat just from standin’ still,” she continued. “It’s why everythin’s so slow down south, ya know?” she said. “Slow as molasses in July,” she glanced at him, smirking. “Ever heard that sayin’?” she asked. He nodded and she took another drink from her bottle. “It’s not so much we’re easygoin’ as we can’t bear to hurry anythin’ up when you’re that hot.” He chuckled and she looked back out at the garden. “New York gets hotter’n hell in July, I’ll give you that, but it’s dry up here -and boy, you don’t know summer ‘till you’ve been in the south from ‘bout mid May till October.” She shook her head again, taking another gulp from her bottle. “Ain’t no place gets hot like the south.”
“Okay, so it gets hot,” he said, and he wasn’t sure he believed everything she said. Everyone knew Rogue tended to exaggerate sometimes. “You almost sounded like you missed it when you first mentioned it, though,” he pointed out.
She smiled and her right leg flexed against the ground, pushing the chair to rock back a little, balancing her precariously on the two back legs. “Yeah, I kinda do,” she admitted. “It feels…real somehow, you know?” she asked. She was looking at him again, but he didn’t know, so he shook his head. “It’s like, growing up, I used to go onto the back yard with a towel and my bikini, and just lay in the sun and boy was it hot, but for a little while, it felt good. It felt real. Like I could feel everything about my body, you know?” she asked. She shook her head again. “Even if I could lay out now in a bikini and not worry about killing anyone by accident, I doubt I’d get the same feeling as I would if I were back home -“
“What feeling?” he prompted.
She smiled, her head resting back against the chair again, her hand toying with the shape of the bottle she’d rested on the chair’s arm. “The slight breeze that feels nice and tastes like magnolia and coconut tan oil and doesn’t really cool you,” she said pensively. “The hot sun peltin’ down on my skin, makin’ me feel every inch of it, like I could feel it tannin’ me, the beads of sweat forming on my back, behind my knees and between my breasts,” her voice went soft and lazy again, almost a drawl. “And I would smell like sun and the grass and the coconut oil, and maybe the sweet tea I’d have sitting next to me in a pitcher o’ ice,” she closed her eyes and it was as if she were imagining the sensations again. “Some blues playing from the radio, the sounds of the neighbors’ kids playing in the wading pool next door…” she trailed off and exhaled, smiling still, “and the anticipation of a dunk in the cool lake loomin’ in the future.” Her eyes still closed, she raised the bottle to her lips, taking a sip. “Mmm…” she sighed. “I can almost feel it.”
He had to take another drink from his glass before he could speak. “Yeah,” he said. “Me too.”
***
3.
Crush [Multi-chapter?]
[NOTE: This was one I thought of while watching the movie, so it would take place in the movie-verse, but obviously, he's not dead. And Rogue is older here, too.]
--
“You’re right,” he admitted, deadpan. “I don’t believe you.”
She laughed. “I knew you wouldn’t,” she replied, obviously unconcerned. She popped a date into her mouth.
He took one of the dates out of the plastic fruit stand bag between them. “I think I’m insulted.”
She smirked at him. “No one has ever believed me before, so why should you be the first?” she asked.
“Well, before you were a kid, Rogue,” he explained. “Kids don’t know where they’re standing half the time, let alone how to determine what they actually feel.”
She looked sideways at him, some of the mirth leaving her expression. “I think you’ve been acting like an adult for so long you’ve forgotten what it’s like to be a kid,” she determined. And before he could comment on that, she went on. “Kids, in my experience, are the most sincere, the most honest with their feelings.” She shrugged and chewed another date. “It isn’t until we get to be adults that we start trying to hide our feelings, or that we tend to think we’re ‘rationalizing’ them when we’re really just denyin’ ‘em.”
He watched her in slight awe. “When did you get so wise?” he asked.
She laughed heartily this time, a full throated belly-laugh. She wiped at her eyes where tears had formed from laughing and shook her head at him. When she looked at him to find him amused, but curious, she smiled brilliantly at him. “Well, I declare,” she said, her accent deliberately thick. “Scott Summers, are you complimentin’ me?”
He smiled, despite himself. “Well, what’s so funny about that?” he answered.
She shook her head again and leaned back the way she had been. “Nuthin’,” she answered.
“That is a decidedly suspicious ‘nuthin’’ Rogue,” he pointed out.
She shrugged nonchalantly, taking a moment to pick and choose her next date.
He knew her enough to recognize when she would say nothing more on a matter, so he thought to bring it back to their original discussion. “So,” he said into the silence.
“So?” she questioned.
“Are you really okay?” he asked.
She sobered and looked straight at the center of the red of his glasses. “I’m really okay,” she confirmed. She shrugged. “I mean, I’ll miss him an’ all, don’t get me wrong, I actually like having the big lug around, yanno?” she asked.
He smiled at her and then it turned just slightly teasing. “Because you still nurture a little of that crush you had on him?”
She shook her head again and extended a plump purplish date at him. “Here, have a date.”
He chuckled as he took it, popping it in his mouth.
“I know what y’all thought, you know,” she said after a few moments of silence. “About how I was following him around like a little love-sick schoolgirl with her first crush.”
He looked at her. “We didn’t mean it in a bad way, Rogue,” he assured her. “We were worried for you.”
She nodded. “I know,” she confirmed. “But the truth is, I really never crushed on him, not like that,” she admitted. “Oh, there was plenty of hero worship, don’t get me wrong,” she added quickly. She looked down at her lap. “He didn’t have to let me in his truck, you know?” she added. “Y’all were right to a certain extent that I felt close to him because he’d been kind to me when no one had, but it wasn’t a romantic thing. I thought he was nice.”
Scott chuckled and it brought her eyes back to him. “You saw his ugly mug, saw him cage fight, then you saw his claws, and you say you thought he was nice?”
She chuckled. “Shut up,” she told him only half defensively. “I was 16, okay?” she reminded him. “And okay, at first, I was kind of scared of him, but he didn’t kill that guy -- he didn’t even hurt any of ‘em, even though he obviously could, even if he didn’t want to use his claws. And until I saw the way they treated him when they found out he was obviously a mutant, I thought I might ask the bartender whether I could get a job there sweeping up or something in exchange for food and board, but after that, I realized I couldn’t stay there -- so, I had to go, but where? There was no one in the bar except the idiots who’d tried to knife Logan in the back, and I kind of burned that bridge when I warned Logan, and the bartender wasn’t likely to be going anywhere, plus, he was one of them, so...” she shrugged.
“You hid in the back of his truck,” Scott added. He knew parts of this story.
“Yeah,” she confirmed.
“Why didn’t you just ask him?” he wondered.
“He seemed pissed,” she admitted. “I thought if I hid in the back, he wouldn’t even know I was there and I’d get to go somewhere else.” She shook her head at the memory. “‘course I didn’t count on his sense of smell.”
“And you weren’t afraid of him?” Scott wondered.
She smiled and shook her head. “Nah, not really,” she admitted.
“Why not?”
She shrugged. “I couldn’t rightly tell you,” she said wryly. “But you know, this girl I met on the road one time, she’d been on the road for years and she said that some people, the ones who survive out there, they develop a sense about people -- you know, who to trust, who to get in the car with, that sort of thing.” She shrugged. “I think I must’ve developed that sense, cause I did pretty well on the road...” she trailed off and her lips curved into a twist between a grimace and a wince. “for the most part,” she added. She looked at him and smiled before he could ask her anything else about that. “In any case, I was pretty sure he wouldn’t try to kill me or anything like that,” she explained.
“That was a pretty big risk you took,” Scott said softly.
She scoffed a little. “They were all big risks, sugah,” she said and her tone was flippant, even though her eyes weren’t. “So yeah,” she said, brightening and looking at him again. “I had a sort of hero worship for him, because not only did he not have to give me a lift, but he was nice to me in the truck, and he was actually worried about me afterward.” She smirked. “Jean told me once, you know,” she said.
Scott raised his brows, only a small part of him reacting to the sound of her name. He liked talking about her, he’d found, and it had been long enough that it only felt nice when someone else remembered her. It didn’t hurt anymore, except rarely. “Told you what?” he asked.
“That she and the professor could both feel that I had a crush,” she said. “I just wanted you to know that’s why they were so sure that I had a crush on Logan, even though I swore up and down I didn’t.” She smirked a little. “They could tell I had a crush from the moment I got to the Mansion, just not on who.”
He raised his eyebrows high over the rims of his glasses. “Oh?” he asked. “So you did have a crush on someone?”
She laughed at his nonchalant tone. “Oh yeah.” She laughed again. “I had it pretty bad, actually.”
He didn’t want to ask who, but she was almost setting him up to ask. He couldn’t understand why he wanted to know, though.
“So why didn’t you tell Jean and the Professor that, then?” he asked instead. At her raised eyebrow, he explained. “That you had a crush on someone else.”
“So they could try to figure out who?” she asked, half-horrified. “Are you joking?”
He laughed. “Right.”
“I let them think I had a crush on Logan, it didn’t matter,” she admitted. “Logan knew I didn’t, and he, unlike some” and here she looked meaningfully at him, “believed me, so,” she trailed off and shrugged again. “The only annoying bit came every few months when they would think to remind me of why it wasn’t appropriate, etc etc etc.”
“And then you were going out with Bobby and it didn’t matter at all, right?” he said good-naturedly.
She smiled. “You think I had a crush on Bobby?” she asked. He raised his eyebrows and she laughed and shook her head. “God, that sounds horrible, doesn’t it? Like I didn’t care about Bobby at all when I started seeing him,” she shook her head again. “I did care about Bobby, but the guy I was crushin’ on when I came to the Mansion wasn’t Bobby...” she trailed off. “Even Bobby thought it was Logan, actually.”
“It wasn’t Bobby?” he asked.
She shook her head. “‘Fraid not,” she admitted. “I hadn’t met Bobby when I first felt that god-awful pang of unrequited love,” she admitted with a self-mocking laugh. “Actually, Bobby liked me too, at first, so it wouldn’t have been unrequited if it HAD been him.”
“So it was an unrequited crush,” he said as if the picture were finally becoming clear. “The evidence is stacking up…”
She laughed a little. “Every girl’s gotta have at least ONE in their history, don’t they?” she asked glibly.
“Every guy, too, I assure you,” he said with a laugh.
“You did not have any unrequited love, Scott Summers!” she said assuredly.
Scott grinned. He couldn’t help but love the way she said his first and last name like it was all one name sometimes. “Why do you say it like that?” he asked. “Do you think I couldn’t have crushed on some girl, just as easily as the next guy?”
She shook her head, smiling. “I guess not, but I just don’t think it would’ve been unrequited.”
He laughed, uncomfortable suddenly with the attention on him, and reached for another date, half forgotten between them. “I guess I don’t know if it really was unrequited or not, but when you’re a gangly 14 year old and are madly in love with the slightly older, so much more sophisticated 16 year old next door, you don’t have the guts to find out if it is requited.”
“That’s no fair, then,” she said playfully. “You can’t claim it to meet your unrequited love quota,” she said with the assurance of a judge. “If you didn’t have the guts to tell her how you feel and find out for sure how she felt about you, then it doesn’t count.”
He quirked a brow at her. “So, I suppose you let your unrequited love quota know how you felt about him to ascertain the true nature of the unrequited love-ness?”
She chuckled, but shook her head. “I didn’t have to let him know to figure that out,” she admitted. He started to protest but she cut him off. “He was with someone else.”
“Oh,” Scott said, stopping himself from teasing her further. “I’m sorry, Rogue,” he said.
She laughed. “Hey, what’s to be sorry for?” she asked. “Don’t you know anything about unrequited love?” she asked playfully. “No one ever thinks they’ll really end up with their first major crush, you know,” she informed him. “A crush is really just to have someone to enjoy watching from afar, and to thrill with the little moments shared when even he doesn’t realize you’re sharing them.” At his raised brow, she laughed again. “It wouldn’t be any fun as a crush if it wasn’t!” She pointed out. “Tell me I’m wrong,” she challenged. “Tell me if you and Ms. Sophisticated 16 year old would’ve gotten together, it wouldn’t have the same place in your heart that it does right now.” He smiled, because he couldn’t exactly counter that. She smirked knowingly. “Besides, I was one of the lucky ones,” she admitted. “My crush was always nice to me.”
Scott furrowed his brows, because now it was really too curious to let pass. “Where’d you meet him?” he asked. “On the road?”
“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” she hedged. “But after I’d already met Logan.”
“I thought you came to the Mansion within hours of meeting Logan?” he questioned.
“I did,” she confirmed with a sly smile.
“And you saw him afterwards?”
She could see the gears working in his mind and grinned. “I did.”
“So, he’s someone that’s been to Mutant High?” he questioned.
She thought about it for a moment and nodded. “Yeah, actually, he has.”
Scott’s frown deepened.
Rogue laughed. “Now, don’t hurt yerself, sugah,” she teased.
Scott realized she’d caught him trying to figure it out and smiled. “Sorry.”
She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”
“So, let me ask you something,” he questioned. At her raised eyebrow, he smiled. “Why him and not Logan?” he wondered.
“He saved me,” she answered simply.
“And Logan didn’t?”
“Well, Logan did, but afterward, I guess,” she admitted. “And then there was the way he saved me, which influenced my sudden sense of awe and crushingness, probably,” she admitted. “By the time Logan saved me, I already had a good, healthy crush going for this other guy, so...” she shrugged. “Who knows? If he hadn’t come around and saved me, I might’ve ended up really crushing on Logan, but I don’t think so.” She smiled. “It’s hard to think of Logan as anything but a big brother type now.”
“How did he save you?” Scott asked. At her raised brow, he hastened to explain. “You said that maybe it was because of the way he saved you,” he pointed out. “Was it something special?”
Rogue laughed. “Yeah, well...” she trailed off and looked off into the distance, a small smile still on her lips. “I guess it was special -- it seemed like he came out of a fairytale or something you know? Practically galloping in on a white horse wearing silver armor.”
Scott’s brow furrowed and she caught it, laughing again.
“I said practically now,” she reminded him. “Don’t go around looking for some mutant who wears chainmail and rides a white horse.”
***
4.
Mistakes [One-Shot]
“The what now?”
“Angle driver,” he repeated, pausing for a moment before explaining, “It looks like a screwdriver, but the shaft is-“ he cut off as the tool in question was thrust in his line of sight. He took it and looked over the handlebars of the motorcycle at her. He showed her the tool she just handed him and raised a brow.
“Well, I just assumed you wanted the right angle driver since you’re adjusting the fuel screws on the carbs,” she explained. “But if you want the left one…” she motioned to the tool box behind her and he shook his head, resting his arms on the seat of the motorcycle, smiling at her.
“What?” she asked, and her voice wasn’t nearly as defensive as it should have been if she’d just been caught in a lie.
“Rogue,” he said patiently. “This,” and she showed her the tool, “was one of the questions on the test.”
She opened her eyes in innocence. “Was it?” she asked.
He wasn’t fooled, and he wasn’t about to let her out of it so easily. “Yes,” he confirmed.
“I must’ve forgotten,” she mumbled, turning back to the work bench to continue to wipe down the tools he’d used and told her to put away.
He narrowed his eyes, but he knew she couldn’t see it behind the glasses, even if she had been looking at him. “Alright,” he said, standing up from the floor, putting the tool aside and wiping his hands on a nearby rag. And he used that voice, the one that meant he was about to get serious, so Rogue turned and grinned at him.
“Wow,” she interrupted brightly. “Fifteen seconds, that’s not bad.”
He raised a brow, and that she did see above the rims of the dark red glasses. “Fifteen seconds?”
“To figure it out,” she explained. “You really are good.”
“I wouldn’t heap on the praise just yet,” he told her, smiling despite himself. “I might’ve figured out that you bombed your mechanics midterm on purpose, but I can’t figure out why.”
She shrugged, looked uncomfortable suddenly, and he thought once again how - despite how much more he knew about her now than he did six, seven months ago - he really didn’t know very much about her at all. Not about the way she thought or how she made decisions, and knowing these kinds of things about people relatively quickly was one of the things that made Scott a great leader.
Yes, she’d grown much since she’d been here, and yes she only had one semester to go before she graduated, but that didn’t mean she was immune to his silent-teacher-this-means-you-better-fill-in-the-silence trick. So he waited.
Eventually, she sighed and put the socket wrench she was wiping down aside, leaning back on the bench. “Okay,” she admitted, meeting his eyes. “So I might know a bit more about motorcycle mechanics than I let on in my midterm.”
“So, why’d you bomb it?” he persisted.
She sighed again and flicked a strand of hair away from her eyes, mindful of using her slightly grimy hands on her face. “Do you know how I know it?” she asked.
Once she asked the question, it dawned on him and he nodded. “Logan.”
“He knows an awful lot about motorcycles, cars, trucks…” she trailed off and motioned to her head. “Most of it’s still up here.”
She rarely spoke about what she retained from the people she had touched, so naturally he was curious. “Do you retain that much usually?”
She shook her head. “Nah,” she answered. “usually, it’s just vague kind of stuff, and the memories will fade unless they’re like, traumatic or something,” she explained. “But Logan…” she trailed off and sighed again. “I’ve touched him twice,” she said, as if that should explain it. “Half the time, I don’t know what-all’s still there of his.”
“So, if that’s the case, why’d you purposefully fail the test?”
She shrugged and looked away. “It’s not fair, is it?” she finally said, after a few moments.
“Fair?” he echoed.
“They’ve worked at getting this information, y’know,” she said and her voice carried none of its usual sass. “and it’s not really fair that I can just touch ‘em and steal it like that, not even in the first place,” she continued. She looked at him, as if to measure his understanding of what she was trying to say. “Just ‘cause of a mistake.”
“So you purposefully failed the test because you thought that would even things out somehow?” he tried.
“Sorta,” she answered. “It’s like, the other kids, they had to study real hard to sit for that exam, y’know?” she asked. “I saw ‘em, and I knew I didn’t hafta. I knew it from the days I sat in class, so I didn’t study and when I sat for the test, it just didn’t seem fair that I would be able to just sit for the test and be able to pass it when they were struggling so hard, just ‘cause I stole-“
“-you didn’t steal anything, Rogue,” Scott interrupted, his voice plain and honest.
She shrugged, her right shoulder going up and down quickly, as if she didn’t agree with him, but wasn’t about to argue. “So, I couldn’t do it, is what I’m trying to say.”
“And then I went and gave you a way to make it up, huh?” Scott asked, smiling a bit at the irony.
She looked at him and smirked in response. “Yeah, you and your Boy Scout ways had to go and muck up a good failure.”
His smile widened. “Sorry about that.”
She chuckled. “’saright.” She crossed her arms at her chest and realized that her hands were still dirty only afterwards. She cursed under her breath and looked down at her shirt, exhaling in futility when she saw the grease smudges on the dark red jersey. She looked up at him, giving up and crossing her arms again.
“So why’d you tell me?” he asked. Her mind must not have been on their conversation anymore, because she looked at him in confusion. “You kind of let it slip, but that wasn’t an accident was it?”
She smiled like she knew she’d been caught. “I couldn’t take it,” she answered bluntly.
“Extra tutoring with me is really that bad?” he asked in mock offense.
She laughed. “Not even a little bit,” she answered. “Truth is, it’s kind of fun working here with you,” she admitted. “But, then I started feeling bad about how nice you were being and how patient you were an’ all about teaching me the tools and how you were taking time out of your schedule to do it, so, I thought I’d let you know I don’t need it.” She shrugged again. “Y’know, in case you’ve got better things to do.”
He smiled and shook his head. “I had to fix the bikes anyway,” he said. Then, after a few moments, “You’ll have to finish the class somehow, you know.”
She nodded, looking down at her feet. “I know.” She shrugged. “I don’t know how I’m gonna manage that without giving away my secret,” she laughed.
He looked back at the motorcycle in front of him and thought about the problem while his eyes visually scanned the gear box for problems. “Hand me the-“ he started, extending his hand, but stopped when the tool he was looking for was already in his hand. He looked up at her and she smiled sweetly. He shook his head and bent to the task, but stopped. “I think I’ve got an idea,” he said.
“I’m all ears, sugah,” she assured him, thinking absently that he looked kind of cute when he had a mischievous grin on his lips.
“How about you take the exams, getting slightly better with each one, which will help you keep face in front of the others, and I’ll keep telling you to come to tutoring with me to help you make up the grades.”
“So, in other words,” she thought about what she was just about to say, slightly surprised at the fact she was about to say it about Scott Summers, Boy Scout. “You’ll help me lie?”
He shrugged. “Well, lie is such a drastic term -“
She raised an eyebrow and he smirked. “What else would you call it if you say you’re going to be tutoring me, but you won’t be?”
“Creative labeling?” he asked.
She laughed and shook her head. “Well, I do declare,” she said, sounding incredibly southern of a sudden.
“What?” he asked.
“You don’t think it’ll be strange that you’re supposed to be tutoring me and I never seem to be coming in to tutoring?” she asked.
He raised an eyebrow again. “I never said you wouldn’t be joining me right here once a week.”
And it was her turn to raise her eyebrows. “Why, Scott Summers, are you propositionin’ me?”
He laughed, and hoped the blush wouldn’t show. He knew Rogue had developed a bit of a flirtatious attitude with most men in the school - and he also knew it was playful and didn’t mean a thing, but he wasn’t used to it at all. Especially not used to the mischievous urge he got to flirt right back.
“I need help to fix these bikes,” he told her, motioning the motorcycles around them. “And to tune up those, while we’re at it,” he motioned a group of functioning bikes near the exit. “So, you’ll be working the extra hours to pass the class,” he assured her.
She was thoughtful for a moment, long enough that he looked up at her. “I think I’d like that,” she answered once he had.
“Good,” he said. “So, you wanna finish working on the gear box while I get back to the fuel screws?”
She nodded. “Sure thing, sugah,” she answered, taking the tool from him. Her hands on the tool, however, she paused before taking it from him. “Thanks,” she said, and Scott couldn’t help but notice that despite the fact she couldn’t possibly find his eyes with any accuracy, she tried, and got pretty damn close to meeting them - even despite the glasses.
He smiled at her. “Nothing to thank me for,” he said, ducking out of sight behind the bike.
***
5.
Pumpkin [One-Shot]
He was dressed like a pumpkin. Round, yellow, complete with matching felt shoes and a jutting green stem popping jauntily out of the hat tied to his head by a black elastic hooked under his chin.
‘Well, it’s really a jack-o-lantern if he was to be accurate,’ Scott thought, and looked down at the smallish boy gazing up at him in a mixture of awe and wonder. That couldn’t be comfortable, but the little six year old looked perfectly content and serene in the ridiculous getup, truth be told, and Scott wasn’t quite sure what to do with him.
“Josh!”
The sound of the name made the little boy in front of him start, and the voice speaking it made Scott glance up in surprise.
Rogue rounded the corner on the other end of the hall and headed right toward them, obviously catching sight of the pumpkin. Scott waited for her to notice he was there, but her attention went straight to the six year old and she crouched down in front of him. “Well, look who I found,” she said, smiling at the little boy, but Scott could see the relief.
“Mawie!” Josh exclaimed, jubilant.
“Hey there, pumkin’” she said.
Josh giggled and pointed back to where Scott was still standing. “I found Scott,” the little boy told her proudly.
Rogue looked up at him, as if noticing him for the first time. “So you did,” she told him.
“I didn’t know I was lost,” Scott said, amused.
Rogue smirked at him. “Josh goes around ‘finding’ everything he comes into contact with,” she explained, turning back to the little boy. “Good work,” she told him, much to his delight. “But what did I tell you about wanderin’ off like that, pumpkin’?”
The boy thought about it and frowned. “Sowy, Mawie.”
“It’s very important that you don’t do that again, Josh,” she said, her tone stern, but kind.
He lowered his head. “I won’t.”
“Good,” she said, standing. “So, shall we go join the other kids and go trick or treating?”
“Twick o tweeting!” he enthused, jumping up and down. The little boy held out his hand to her and she smiled at him, taking his little hand in her gloved one.
Scott, for his part, was positively enthralled. He’d never seen Rogue with the children before, although he knew she had taken to watching them every so often since the Mansion had been attacked. She pulled a stray strand of silver hair behind her ear and he noticed her outfit for the first time, smirking despite himself.
“Nice costume,” he interjected as she straightened the pinafore with one hand.
She looked at him as if she’d forgotten he was there, or forgotten that he was seeing her in her costume at any rate, and she blushed for a minute, raising her hand to the ribbon in her hair, and down the front of her skirt as if to take some of the poof out of whatever it was she had on under it to make it bell just slightly. “Ah’m takin’ the kids trick o’ treatin’” she said, as if that should explain it.
“As Alice?” he said, taking a moment to look from her shiny white flat mary-janes, up her legs encased in thick white stockings, the powder blue dress complete with bell skirt and cap sleeves, white lace pinafore, all the way to the matching powder blue ribbon in her hair.
“Well, ah had thought ‘bout dressin’ as a pumpkin’, but little Josh got tha costume afore ah could,” she answered.
He grinned at her. “No, I like it.”
She looked at him and suddenly it was like she was seeing him differently. “Do ya now, sugah?” she asked, her tone lowering a little, her eyes assessing his own outfit. “What’re y’all gonna be?”
“Can’t you tell?” he asked, opening his arms wide. “I’m already in my costume.”
She looked at his pressed khaki slacks, and white polo shirt and smirked at him, “Ah, yea, I see it now,” she said. “Uptight Pretty Boy -“ she nodded and exhaled. “And ya have such potential.”
He took a step toward her and his lips curved into a smile. “Are you sure that’s my costume, Rogue?”
Her eyes opened a little in surprise at the inflection in his voice, but she smiled regardless.
“Besides,” he added. “I’m not the only one dressing safe tonight.”
She laughed. “Oh, if you mean me, I wouldn’t count on that just yet.” At his raised brow, she smirked. “This is just for the benefit of the kids, sugah - I have another one for when they’re in bed.”
Later, Scott would blame his weakness in giving in and flirting back with her on months of confronting her flirtatious nature coupled with the spirit of the holiday and the full moon outside. In the moment, however, he didn’t even think about hiding the curiosity in his expression. “Well, now my curiosity’s piqued,” he admitted. “Any chance I’ll get to see it?”
She smiled. “Depends on how late y’all be up, sugah,” she said.
“Mawie!” Josh called her attention. “I wanna go twick o tweet!” he reminded her.
“And so we shall, pumpkin,” she told him, eyes lingering on Scott for a minute before turning and walking with the little boy down the hall.
***
6.
Pink [One-Shot] [Maybe One-Sided Scott/Rogue?]
“Shut. Up.”
“I didn’t say a word.”
“But ya were thinking it.”
He cleared his throat of the laugh that was bubbling up and spoke again. “You’re not psychic.”
“Tch,” she said, disgust lacing her tone. “I don’t have ta be.”
“It’s…” he started, and faltered when she turned to glare at him, coughing this time to prevent the laugh he knew would mean his death - or severe incapacity. “…pretty,” he finished bravely.
“It’s pink,” she spat.
“That doesn’t mean it can’t be pretty,” he said, taking on the tone he had been known to take whenever he had to convince one of the young ones that math wasn’t really that bad.
She looked unconvinced. As a matter of fact, she looked disgusted. She grabbed a fistful of silk skirt in her hand and moved it about her legs. “It’s foofy,” she said as if he were blind.
He shrugged, trying very hard not to even smile. “It’s still pretty,” he insisted.
“I don’t do pretty,” she argued.
“I think you do,” he countered. “I think it suits you very well.”
“Yeah,” she sighed, looking back over the staircase down to the first floor where people were still arriving and being shown into the ballroom. “You would.”
His jaw dropped in surprise at her statement. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
It was her turn to shrug. “You’re Scott,” she said, unconcerned. “You always try to put people at ease.” She looked at him. “It’s what you do.”
She looked less disgusted and more resigned, so he thought he’d let that one pass. “Doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”
She shook her head and leaned on the railing, and he caught the shift of the practically see through body suit she had on underneath the strapless gown. It was a very well made suit, he thought, since he hadn’t noticed it until just that point. “Why does the Professor have to have a fundraiser anyway?” she groused. “Doesn’t he have enough money?”
Scott laughed. “He’s not raising funds for himself, Rogue,” he explained. At her raised brow, he explained. “It’s a fundraiser for Senator Garcia.”
She nodded. “And I s’pose he’s being wooed to our cause?”
Scott sighed. “That’s the plan, anyway.” He glanced at the first floor and then back to Rogue, still surprised at the way she looked in that dress, pink or no. Her hair had been picked up in an artfully done knot at the back of her head and only the white strands of her hair were left to frame her face.
“You’re doin’ it again,” she said, her gaze still focused on the floor below.
“Sorry,” he smiled. “It’s just so strange seeing you-“
She looked at him and frowned, “Finish that sentence and forfeit your thumbs,” she said warningly, her tone reminding him eerily of Logan’s.
“Whoa,” he said, laughing. “That’s rather violent.”
She shrugged, unconcerned. “Seein’ as how this really is your fault anyway, I’m already half inclined to hurt ya.”
He was caught, once again, by surprise. “My fault?” he asked. “How can this,” and here he motioned her body from head to toe, “be my fault?”
She braced her hip against the banister and crossed her arms under her chest. “You don’t know about the bet?” she asked skeptically.
He nodded slowly. “I know you wearing a pink gown to the Professor’s fundraiser was the result of a lost bet, yeah, but not how you lost.”
She smiled wryly. “You remember that sparring match on Monday?” She waited. “You and Logan in the Danger Room?”
“Yeah?” he asked.
“Well, I bet on you, Kitty won.” She extended her arms. “This is payment.”
He was so surprised, he was unable to withhold his laughter. “You bet on me?” he asked. “Against Logan?”
“Don’t sound so surprised!” she exclaimed.
“Why would you do that?” he pressed.
“Mabe I thought you were due,” she said. She tried to look away, but despite the glasses hiding his eyes, she could see the disbelief in his expression. “Okay, fine,” she sighed. “Because the cocky bastard overheard me and Kitty talking about whether you might win or he would and he come up, all swagger, and assumed I’d bet on him.”
“So you bet on me to spite him,” Scott asked, trying for matter of fact but getting something between astonishment and amusement instead.
“Damn straight I did,” she exclaimed. “Wasn’t about ta give him the satisfaction of thinking I’d never bet on anyone ‘cept him, was I?”
He chuckled, realization dawning. “Well, no wonder he was so vicious that day,” he mused. “You know,” he told her. “I might’ve beat him if it weren’t because he was so set on proving you wrong.”
“Yeah, well…” she trailed off, not finishing the thought, turning back to the staircase.
“Hiding up here isn’t going to do any good, you know,” he said after a few minutes.
She frowned. “I have ta wait until everyone gets here,” she said and her voice said exactly what she thought of that. “It’s part of the bet.”
He chuckled and she glared at him again. “Sorry,” he said, although it was obvious he wasn’t.
“Whatever.” They both watched as Kitty came into the foyer and looked up, grinning from ear to ear as she motioned for Rogue to make her entrance.
“Show time, I ‘spose,” she said, leaning back from the banister and heading for the top stair, taking a moment to square her shoulders. She fixed her matching kid gloves and flicked her hair behind her ear.
Scott watched her prepare to face the crowd and had a thought. He didn’t know if it would help, but he would offer anyway, and appearing in the ballroom on the arm of one of the teachers of the academy might just keep the teasing at bay…for a little while, anyway. “Hey, Rogue,” he called.
She turned to watch him over her shoulder. “Yeah?”
“Maybe I can-?“ he started toward her.
“Hey kid.”
Both eyes turned to watch Logan climb the steps to the top landing, stopping two steps below the top, just enough so that he and Rogue were eye to eye.
“Whatcha want?” Rogue glared at him, too.
Logan’s eyes trailed over her get up and smirked. “Nice dress.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I don’t wanna talk to you.”
“Hey, don’t be pissed at me because you made the stupid mistake to bet on pansy-ass over there,” he motioned vaguely to where Scott was standing in his suit just slightly behind her.
“He coulda beat ya if you’d have played fair,” she exclaimed.
“Ha!” Logan exclaimed, his gaze flicking to him. “Maybe when he gets outta kindergarten he can try.”
And it occurred to Scott as Logan looked away from him before he could say a word in his own defense, how summarily he was ignored by both of them once Logan appeared.
“What do ya want, Logan?” she asked. “Didya just come to rub it in?”
His expression softened as he turned to look at her, even though the amusement was still in his eyes. “I came to get you,” he said.
She visibly bristled. “I’m not gonna welch on my bet!” she said, her spine straightening even more.
“Didn’t think you would!” he exclaimed.
“Then-“ she started.
“You think any bastard’s gonna make fun of ya if I’m next to you?” he interrupted her.
“I can fight mah own battles, thanks,” she insisted, turning her head away from him. Scott watched as her eyes fell on him, and he raised a brow in question. She rolled her eyes at him and he couldn’t help but smirk.
“Yeah, so?” Logan asked. “Doesn’t mean you have to.”
Logan’s words, softly spoken, surprised her. Her eyes opened wide and she turned to look at him, searching his face for a minute or two before smiling. A very bright, tender smile. “You’re still a cocky bastard,” she told him. “But sometimes, you’re a really sweet, cocky bastard,” she told him.
Logan looked as if he wanted to argue that point, but stopped when Kitty called out from below.
“Hey, Rogue! Get your butt down here already!”
Rogue sighed and Logan raised his brows in challenge. She reached for his arm and he let her run her arm through the crook of his and stepped down until she was on his stair.
“Better get this over with, then,” she said.
“I’m warning ya now, kid,” Logan said as they descended the stairs. “I ain’t gonna dance no waltz or nothing.”
Rogue’s laughter carried to where Scott stood on the landing, watching as they entered the ballroom.
So, okay, that's all you're getting.
Whaddya think? Any of them sound interesting?
Anyone out there care to rec some good Scott/Rogue fic?
Scott(Cyclops)/Rogue
1.
Endearments [One-Shot]
There were things she didn’t say. Like when she was scared, or that she was sorry. (He hadn’t heard her outright apologize for anything since she was a kid and came back from taking the cure.) But she didn’t have to say those things, because the people around her knew without her having to put it in words. They knew that when she brought them something special after an argument, she was apologizing. They all knew that when she bit her lip she was apprehensive, and when she went quiet and still, she was afraid.
No one really thought about how she showed her affection, though. Her sassiness and budding flirtatious nature, coupled with her tendency to use endearments as easily as she’d use names made people think she was always showing her affection. And although it was partly true, it was perhaps only a handful of people (if that) that could see the truth of the matter. That her flirtation and use of endearments was just a way of being, that it didn’t particularly mean anything more than that she simply didn’t hate them.
It didn’t occur to him either, until he heard her addressing one of the children. She called him pumpkin. The little 7 year old lit up like a street lamp, and only part of it was his mutation. He’d tried to tease her about calling impressionable little boys endearments which might make them fall in love with her.
She had only laughed and said, “I call them *all* pumpkin, sugah.”
He’d smiled, as he usually did in the face of her laughter, and pointed out, “You don’t call us that.”
She had looked at him, then laughed again as she walked away. “No,” she conceded. “I sure don’t.”
It had taken him a few days of paying attention, but he did figure it out eventually. Even her use of endearments, which seemed so casual and such a part of *her* wasn’t casual at all. It was yet another way of her showing them how she felt about them.
When he first noticed it, not long after she was comfortable enough with them to start being herself and using the endearments at all, her endearments were in two categories. She called the children ‘pumpkin’ and everyone else she didn’t hate, she called ‘sugar’. It was months after she’d taken the cure and the effects had worn off that any real distinctions started showing up. At first, it was the way she called Storm, ‘hon’ when she was happy and laughing. Then, one day, she called Piotr ‘sweetie’ when he offered to bring her back a drink during lunch. Then, he started to see patterns.
It didn’t take long, he was rather observant after all, before he caught on. She called her girlfriends, ‘hon’ or versions thereof such as ‘honey-bun’ or ‘honey-bunch’ (and yet, never honey itself). She called boys that were friends ‘sweetie’ or any of its varied derivations such as ‘sweetie-pie’ or ‘sweetheart’ reserving ‘sugar’ for strangers or casual acquaintances. Teachers, he also noticed, were usually categorized as casual acquaintances and got the ‘sugar’ endearment, except for Storm, of course, Hank who got ‘big daddy’ (even though he suspected it was only because it amused the doctor so) and the Professor, who was always “Professor” no matter what.
He thought it was quite a fascinating anomaly, until he found himself talking to her more often in casual moments when it was just the two of them and some bad movie on tv, or they’re watching over the children or during dinner, and he forgets in the day to day interactions with her -- accepts it as another one of her ways and doesn’t really realize when she starts calling him something other than ‘sugar’.
Until the day he returns and the contrast is naked and blatant in front of him in their interaction.
***
2.
Almost [Random Conversation]
“You know,” she started and her voice was low, her tone lazy and sleepy, her accent thickening as if it were too much effort to speak without it. “There’s just something to be said for summer in the south.”
He looked at her, curious not only by her statement, but where this statement might have stemmed from, since they hadn’t really been talking at all, and it was only just the middle of March and the snow on the ground a few feet from them was still weeks away from melting yet. “Summer in the south?” he echoed.
She smiled and even the twist in her lips seemed languid. “Yeah,” she answered. “Growin’ up, I couldn’t wait to get somewhere cold,” she admitted. “Mississippi will get cold for a few days outta the year, you know, but only down in the high 40s if we’re lucky,” she explained. “’cept up in Northern Mississippi, places like Corinth and Batesville - mamma used to say the old timers swore it snowed up there once,” she seemed perfectly content to tell her tale without any input from him, so he let her continue and only listened. “Not like here, ‘course,” she amended. “I used to see the Christmas cards,” she glanced at him, her head rolling on the back of the seat to do it, “you know the ones - where there’s miles and miles of perfect, soft powdery snow on rollin’ hillsides and a pine tree all lit up with multi-colored lights?” He smiled and nodded. She smiled back and rolled her head back to her inspection of the snow-covered gardens, lifting her leg up under her. “I used to see those cards and wish with all my heart to go somewhere like that.”
“Is that why you ran to Canada?” he asked.
She laughed a little and nodded, her head still leaning heavily on the back of her chair so it came out slightly wobbly. “Yeah,” she admitted. “Imagine my surprise when all I saw the whole way there was dirty roads with dirty snow shoved up along the sides?”
He shifted to take a drink from his glass, his gaze going back to the garden. “Well, you’ve got plenty of that post-card view snow here, huh?” he asked.
She laughed again. “Tell me about it.”
“And now you’re tired of it?” he guessed.
“Not really,” she admitted. “It’s not that.” Her head rolled to look at him again. “Where did you grow up?” she asked suddenly, but he knew why she was asking so he laughed.
“Anchorage,” he answered.
“Shoot,” she said, amusement in her expression. “So you really don’t know what I’m talking about summers in the south, huh?”
He shook his head. “Afraid not.”
She shook her head and took a drink from her own bottle. “It’s stifflin’,” she said. “It’s not just the heat, not just the fact that the sun really can fry an egg on a sidewalk or that the temperature is 100 degrees even in the shade of a magnolia tree,” she explained. “It’s muggy,” she continued. “Steppin’ outside is like wading in thick air,” she sat up a little. “Does that make sense?” she asked. “Can you picture what that’s like? Like you hafta fight the atmosphere around ya just to step from your front porch?”
He shook his head. “No, not really,” he answered. “It never gets like that in any of the places I’ve lived.”
“Ever walk into a sauna?” she asked. “Like straight from a cool, air-conditioned room, right into a sauna in full steam?”
“Not in those circumstances,” he admitted. “I’ve been prepared when I’ve gone into a sauna.”
She nodded. “Right, well, imagine you’re fully clothed, and not prepared.” She exhaled. “It’s like the atmosphere takes your very breath away, and it’s hard to breathe.” She looked at him and smirked at his expression. “You think I’m exaggeratin’,” she pointed out.
He smirked and didn’t answer.
“Walking from your front door to your car, or to your neighbor’s house in the south during summer is like taking another bath, I swear,” she insisted. “You sweat just from standin’ still,” she continued. “It’s why everythin’s so slow down south, ya know?” she said. “Slow as molasses in July,” she glanced at him, smirking. “Ever heard that sayin’?” she asked. He nodded and she took another drink from her bottle. “It’s not so much we’re easygoin’ as we can’t bear to hurry anythin’ up when you’re that hot.” He chuckled and she looked back out at the garden. “New York gets hotter’n hell in July, I’ll give you that, but it’s dry up here -and boy, you don’t know summer ‘till you’ve been in the south from ‘bout mid May till October.” She shook her head again, taking another gulp from her bottle. “Ain’t no place gets hot like the south.”
“Okay, so it gets hot,” he said, and he wasn’t sure he believed everything she said. Everyone knew Rogue tended to exaggerate sometimes. “You almost sounded like you missed it when you first mentioned it, though,” he pointed out.
She smiled and her right leg flexed against the ground, pushing the chair to rock back a little, balancing her precariously on the two back legs. “Yeah, I kinda do,” she admitted. “It feels…real somehow, you know?” she asked. She was looking at him again, but he didn’t know, so he shook his head. “It’s like, growing up, I used to go onto the back yard with a towel and my bikini, and just lay in the sun and boy was it hot, but for a little while, it felt good. It felt real. Like I could feel everything about my body, you know?” she asked. She shook her head again. “Even if I could lay out now in a bikini and not worry about killing anyone by accident, I doubt I’d get the same feeling as I would if I were back home -“
“What feeling?” he prompted.
She smiled, her head resting back against the chair again, her hand toying with the shape of the bottle she’d rested on the chair’s arm. “The slight breeze that feels nice and tastes like magnolia and coconut tan oil and doesn’t really cool you,” she said pensively. “The hot sun peltin’ down on my skin, makin’ me feel every inch of it, like I could feel it tannin’ me, the beads of sweat forming on my back, behind my knees and between my breasts,” her voice went soft and lazy again, almost a drawl. “And I would smell like sun and the grass and the coconut oil, and maybe the sweet tea I’d have sitting next to me in a pitcher o’ ice,” she closed her eyes and it was as if she were imagining the sensations again. “Some blues playing from the radio, the sounds of the neighbors’ kids playing in the wading pool next door…” she trailed off and exhaled, smiling still, “and the anticipation of a dunk in the cool lake loomin’ in the future.” Her eyes still closed, she raised the bottle to her lips, taking a sip. “Mmm…” she sighed. “I can almost feel it.”
He had to take another drink from his glass before he could speak. “Yeah,” he said. “Me too.”
***
3.
Crush [Multi-chapter?]
[NOTE: This was one I thought of while watching the movie, so it would take place in the movie-verse, but obviously, he's not dead. And Rogue is older here, too.]
--
“You’re right,” he admitted, deadpan. “I don’t believe you.”
She laughed. “I knew you wouldn’t,” she replied, obviously unconcerned. She popped a date into her mouth.
He took one of the dates out of the plastic fruit stand bag between them. “I think I’m insulted.”
She smirked at him. “No one has ever believed me before, so why should you be the first?” she asked.
“Well, before you were a kid, Rogue,” he explained. “Kids don’t know where they’re standing half the time, let alone how to determine what they actually feel.”
She looked sideways at him, some of the mirth leaving her expression. “I think you’ve been acting like an adult for so long you’ve forgotten what it’s like to be a kid,” she determined. And before he could comment on that, she went on. “Kids, in my experience, are the most sincere, the most honest with their feelings.” She shrugged and chewed another date. “It isn’t until we get to be adults that we start trying to hide our feelings, or that we tend to think we’re ‘rationalizing’ them when we’re really just denyin’ ‘em.”
He watched her in slight awe. “When did you get so wise?” he asked.
She laughed heartily this time, a full throated belly-laugh. She wiped at her eyes where tears had formed from laughing and shook her head at him. When she looked at him to find him amused, but curious, she smiled brilliantly at him. “Well, I declare,” she said, her accent deliberately thick. “Scott Summers, are you complimentin’ me?”
He smiled, despite himself. “Well, what’s so funny about that?” he answered.
She shook her head again and leaned back the way she had been. “Nuthin’,” she answered.
“That is a decidedly suspicious ‘nuthin’’ Rogue,” he pointed out.
She shrugged nonchalantly, taking a moment to pick and choose her next date.
He knew her enough to recognize when she would say nothing more on a matter, so he thought to bring it back to their original discussion. “So,” he said into the silence.
“So?” she questioned.
“Are you really okay?” he asked.
She sobered and looked straight at the center of the red of his glasses. “I’m really okay,” she confirmed. She shrugged. “I mean, I’ll miss him an’ all, don’t get me wrong, I actually like having the big lug around, yanno?” she asked.
He smiled at her and then it turned just slightly teasing. “Because you still nurture a little of that crush you had on him?”
She shook her head again and extended a plump purplish date at him. “Here, have a date.”
He chuckled as he took it, popping it in his mouth.
“I know what y’all thought, you know,” she said after a few moments of silence. “About how I was following him around like a little love-sick schoolgirl with her first crush.”
He looked at her. “We didn’t mean it in a bad way, Rogue,” he assured her. “We were worried for you.”
She nodded. “I know,” she confirmed. “But the truth is, I really never crushed on him, not like that,” she admitted. “Oh, there was plenty of hero worship, don’t get me wrong,” she added quickly. She looked down at her lap. “He didn’t have to let me in his truck, you know?” she added. “Y’all were right to a certain extent that I felt close to him because he’d been kind to me when no one had, but it wasn’t a romantic thing. I thought he was nice.”
Scott chuckled and it brought her eyes back to him. “You saw his ugly mug, saw him cage fight, then you saw his claws, and you say you thought he was nice?”
She chuckled. “Shut up,” she told him only half defensively. “I was 16, okay?” she reminded him. “And okay, at first, I was kind of scared of him, but he didn’t kill that guy -- he didn’t even hurt any of ‘em, even though he obviously could, even if he didn’t want to use his claws. And until I saw the way they treated him when they found out he was obviously a mutant, I thought I might ask the bartender whether I could get a job there sweeping up or something in exchange for food and board, but after that, I realized I couldn’t stay there -- so, I had to go, but where? There was no one in the bar except the idiots who’d tried to knife Logan in the back, and I kind of burned that bridge when I warned Logan, and the bartender wasn’t likely to be going anywhere, plus, he was one of them, so...” she shrugged.
“You hid in the back of his truck,” Scott added. He knew parts of this story.
“Yeah,” she confirmed.
“Why didn’t you just ask him?” he wondered.
“He seemed pissed,” she admitted. “I thought if I hid in the back, he wouldn’t even know I was there and I’d get to go somewhere else.” She shook her head at the memory. “‘course I didn’t count on his sense of smell.”
“And you weren’t afraid of him?” Scott wondered.
She smiled and shook her head. “Nah, not really,” she admitted.
“Why not?”
She shrugged. “I couldn’t rightly tell you,” she said wryly. “But you know, this girl I met on the road one time, she’d been on the road for years and she said that some people, the ones who survive out there, they develop a sense about people -- you know, who to trust, who to get in the car with, that sort of thing.” She shrugged. “I think I must’ve developed that sense, cause I did pretty well on the road...” she trailed off and her lips curved into a twist between a grimace and a wince. “for the most part,” she added. She looked at him and smiled before he could ask her anything else about that. “In any case, I was pretty sure he wouldn’t try to kill me or anything like that,” she explained.
“That was a pretty big risk you took,” Scott said softly.
She scoffed a little. “They were all big risks, sugah,” she said and her tone was flippant, even though her eyes weren’t. “So yeah,” she said, brightening and looking at him again. “I had a sort of hero worship for him, because not only did he not have to give me a lift, but he was nice to me in the truck, and he was actually worried about me afterward.” She smirked. “Jean told me once, you know,” she said.
Scott raised his brows, only a small part of him reacting to the sound of her name. He liked talking about her, he’d found, and it had been long enough that it only felt nice when someone else remembered her. It didn’t hurt anymore, except rarely. “Told you what?” he asked.
“That she and the professor could both feel that I had a crush,” she said. “I just wanted you to know that’s why they were so sure that I had a crush on Logan, even though I swore up and down I didn’t.” She smirked a little. “They could tell I had a crush from the moment I got to the Mansion, just not on who.”
He raised his eyebrows high over the rims of his glasses. “Oh?” he asked. “So you did have a crush on someone?”
She laughed at his nonchalant tone. “Oh yeah.” She laughed again. “I had it pretty bad, actually.”
He didn’t want to ask who, but she was almost setting him up to ask. He couldn’t understand why he wanted to know, though.
“So why didn’t you tell Jean and the Professor that, then?” he asked instead. At her raised eyebrow, he explained. “That you had a crush on someone else.”
“So they could try to figure out who?” she asked, half-horrified. “Are you joking?”
He laughed. “Right.”
“I let them think I had a crush on Logan, it didn’t matter,” she admitted. “Logan knew I didn’t, and he, unlike some” and here she looked meaningfully at him, “believed me, so,” she trailed off and shrugged again. “The only annoying bit came every few months when they would think to remind me of why it wasn’t appropriate, etc etc etc.”
“And then you were going out with Bobby and it didn’t matter at all, right?” he said good-naturedly.
She smiled. “You think I had a crush on Bobby?” she asked. He raised his eyebrows and she laughed and shook her head. “God, that sounds horrible, doesn’t it? Like I didn’t care about Bobby at all when I started seeing him,” she shook her head again. “I did care about Bobby, but the guy I was crushin’ on when I came to the Mansion wasn’t Bobby...” she trailed off. “Even Bobby thought it was Logan, actually.”
“It wasn’t Bobby?” he asked.
She shook her head. “‘Fraid not,” she admitted. “I hadn’t met Bobby when I first felt that god-awful pang of unrequited love,” she admitted with a self-mocking laugh. “Actually, Bobby liked me too, at first, so it wouldn’t have been unrequited if it HAD been him.”
“So it was an unrequited crush,” he said as if the picture were finally becoming clear. “The evidence is stacking up…”
She laughed a little. “Every girl’s gotta have at least ONE in their history, don’t they?” she asked glibly.
“Every guy, too, I assure you,” he said with a laugh.
“You did not have any unrequited love, Scott Summers!” she said assuredly.
Scott grinned. He couldn’t help but love the way she said his first and last name like it was all one name sometimes. “Why do you say it like that?” he asked. “Do you think I couldn’t have crushed on some girl, just as easily as the next guy?”
She shook her head, smiling. “I guess not, but I just don’t think it would’ve been unrequited.”
He laughed, uncomfortable suddenly with the attention on him, and reached for another date, half forgotten between them. “I guess I don’t know if it really was unrequited or not, but when you’re a gangly 14 year old and are madly in love with the slightly older, so much more sophisticated 16 year old next door, you don’t have the guts to find out if it is requited.”
“That’s no fair, then,” she said playfully. “You can’t claim it to meet your unrequited love quota,” she said with the assurance of a judge. “If you didn’t have the guts to tell her how you feel and find out for sure how she felt about you, then it doesn’t count.”
He quirked a brow at her. “So, I suppose you let your unrequited love quota know how you felt about him to ascertain the true nature of the unrequited love-ness?”
She chuckled, but shook her head. “I didn’t have to let him know to figure that out,” she admitted. He started to protest but she cut him off. “He was with someone else.”
“Oh,” Scott said, stopping himself from teasing her further. “I’m sorry, Rogue,” he said.
She laughed. “Hey, what’s to be sorry for?” she asked. “Don’t you know anything about unrequited love?” she asked playfully. “No one ever thinks they’ll really end up with their first major crush, you know,” she informed him. “A crush is really just to have someone to enjoy watching from afar, and to thrill with the little moments shared when even he doesn’t realize you’re sharing them.” At his raised brow, she laughed again. “It wouldn’t be any fun as a crush if it wasn’t!” She pointed out. “Tell me I’m wrong,” she challenged. “Tell me if you and Ms. Sophisticated 16 year old would’ve gotten together, it wouldn’t have the same place in your heart that it does right now.” He smiled, because he couldn’t exactly counter that. She smirked knowingly. “Besides, I was one of the lucky ones,” she admitted. “My crush was always nice to me.”
Scott furrowed his brows, because now it was really too curious to let pass. “Where’d you meet him?” he asked. “On the road?”
“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” she hedged. “But after I’d already met Logan.”
“I thought you came to the Mansion within hours of meeting Logan?” he questioned.
“I did,” she confirmed with a sly smile.
“And you saw him afterwards?”
She could see the gears working in his mind and grinned. “I did.”
“So, he’s someone that’s been to Mutant High?” he questioned.
She thought about it for a moment and nodded. “Yeah, actually, he has.”
Scott’s frown deepened.
Rogue laughed. “Now, don’t hurt yerself, sugah,” she teased.
Scott realized she’d caught him trying to figure it out and smiled. “Sorry.”
She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”
“So, let me ask you something,” he questioned. At her raised eyebrow, he smiled. “Why him and not Logan?” he wondered.
“He saved me,” she answered simply.
“And Logan didn’t?”
“Well, Logan did, but afterward, I guess,” she admitted. “And then there was the way he saved me, which influenced my sudden sense of awe and crushingness, probably,” she admitted. “By the time Logan saved me, I already had a good, healthy crush going for this other guy, so...” she shrugged. “Who knows? If he hadn’t come around and saved me, I might’ve ended up really crushing on Logan, but I don’t think so.” She smiled. “It’s hard to think of Logan as anything but a big brother type now.”
“How did he save you?” Scott asked. At her raised brow, he hastened to explain. “You said that maybe it was because of the way he saved you,” he pointed out. “Was it something special?”
Rogue laughed. “Yeah, well...” she trailed off and looked off into the distance, a small smile still on her lips. “I guess it was special -- it seemed like he came out of a fairytale or something you know? Practically galloping in on a white horse wearing silver armor.”
Scott’s brow furrowed and she caught it, laughing again.
“I said practically now,” she reminded him. “Don’t go around looking for some mutant who wears chainmail and rides a white horse.”
***
4.
Mistakes [One-Shot]
“The what now?”
“Angle driver,” he repeated, pausing for a moment before explaining, “It looks like a screwdriver, but the shaft is-“ he cut off as the tool in question was thrust in his line of sight. He took it and looked over the handlebars of the motorcycle at her. He showed her the tool she just handed him and raised a brow.
“Well, I just assumed you wanted the right angle driver since you’re adjusting the fuel screws on the carbs,” she explained. “But if you want the left one…” she motioned to the tool box behind her and he shook his head, resting his arms on the seat of the motorcycle, smiling at her.
“What?” she asked, and her voice wasn’t nearly as defensive as it should have been if she’d just been caught in a lie.
“Rogue,” he said patiently. “This,” and she showed her the tool, “was one of the questions on the test.”
She opened her eyes in innocence. “Was it?” she asked.
He wasn’t fooled, and he wasn’t about to let her out of it so easily. “Yes,” he confirmed.
“I must’ve forgotten,” she mumbled, turning back to the work bench to continue to wipe down the tools he’d used and told her to put away.
He narrowed his eyes, but he knew she couldn’t see it behind the glasses, even if she had been looking at him. “Alright,” he said, standing up from the floor, putting the tool aside and wiping his hands on a nearby rag. And he used that voice, the one that meant he was about to get serious, so Rogue turned and grinned at him.
“Wow,” she interrupted brightly. “Fifteen seconds, that’s not bad.”
He raised a brow, and that she did see above the rims of the dark red glasses. “Fifteen seconds?”
“To figure it out,” she explained. “You really are good.”
“I wouldn’t heap on the praise just yet,” he told her, smiling despite himself. “I might’ve figured out that you bombed your mechanics midterm on purpose, but I can’t figure out why.”
She shrugged, looked uncomfortable suddenly, and he thought once again how - despite how much more he knew about her now than he did six, seven months ago - he really didn’t know very much about her at all. Not about the way she thought or how she made decisions, and knowing these kinds of things about people relatively quickly was one of the things that made Scott a great leader.
Yes, she’d grown much since she’d been here, and yes she only had one semester to go before she graduated, but that didn’t mean she was immune to his silent-teacher-this-means-you-better-fill-in-the-silence trick. So he waited.
Eventually, she sighed and put the socket wrench she was wiping down aside, leaning back on the bench. “Okay,” she admitted, meeting his eyes. “So I might know a bit more about motorcycle mechanics than I let on in my midterm.”
“So, why’d you bomb it?” he persisted.
She sighed again and flicked a strand of hair away from her eyes, mindful of using her slightly grimy hands on her face. “Do you know how I know it?” she asked.
Once she asked the question, it dawned on him and he nodded. “Logan.”
“He knows an awful lot about motorcycles, cars, trucks…” she trailed off and motioned to her head. “Most of it’s still up here.”
She rarely spoke about what she retained from the people she had touched, so naturally he was curious. “Do you retain that much usually?”
She shook her head. “Nah,” she answered. “usually, it’s just vague kind of stuff, and the memories will fade unless they’re like, traumatic or something,” she explained. “But Logan…” she trailed off and sighed again. “I’ve touched him twice,” she said, as if that should explain it. “Half the time, I don’t know what-all’s still there of his.”
“So, if that’s the case, why’d you purposefully fail the test?”
She shrugged and looked away. “It’s not fair, is it?” she finally said, after a few moments.
“Fair?” he echoed.
“They’ve worked at getting this information, y’know,” she said and her voice carried none of its usual sass. “and it’s not really fair that I can just touch ‘em and steal it like that, not even in the first place,” she continued. She looked at him, as if to measure his understanding of what she was trying to say. “Just ‘cause of a mistake.”
“So you purposefully failed the test because you thought that would even things out somehow?” he tried.
“Sorta,” she answered. “It’s like, the other kids, they had to study real hard to sit for that exam, y’know?” she asked. “I saw ‘em, and I knew I didn’t hafta. I knew it from the days I sat in class, so I didn’t study and when I sat for the test, it just didn’t seem fair that I would be able to just sit for the test and be able to pass it when they were struggling so hard, just ‘cause I stole-“
“-you didn’t steal anything, Rogue,” Scott interrupted, his voice plain and honest.
She shrugged, her right shoulder going up and down quickly, as if she didn’t agree with him, but wasn’t about to argue. “So, I couldn’t do it, is what I’m trying to say.”
“And then I went and gave you a way to make it up, huh?” Scott asked, smiling a bit at the irony.
She looked at him and smirked in response. “Yeah, you and your Boy Scout ways had to go and muck up a good failure.”
His smile widened. “Sorry about that.”
She chuckled. “’saright.” She crossed her arms at her chest and realized that her hands were still dirty only afterwards. She cursed under her breath and looked down at her shirt, exhaling in futility when she saw the grease smudges on the dark red jersey. She looked up at him, giving up and crossing her arms again.
“So why’d you tell me?” he asked. Her mind must not have been on their conversation anymore, because she looked at him in confusion. “You kind of let it slip, but that wasn’t an accident was it?”
She smiled like she knew she’d been caught. “I couldn’t take it,” she answered bluntly.
“Extra tutoring with me is really that bad?” he asked in mock offense.
She laughed. “Not even a little bit,” she answered. “Truth is, it’s kind of fun working here with you,” she admitted. “But, then I started feeling bad about how nice you were being and how patient you were an’ all about teaching me the tools and how you were taking time out of your schedule to do it, so, I thought I’d let you know I don’t need it.” She shrugged again. “Y’know, in case you’ve got better things to do.”
He smiled and shook his head. “I had to fix the bikes anyway,” he said. Then, after a few moments, “You’ll have to finish the class somehow, you know.”
She nodded, looking down at her feet. “I know.” She shrugged. “I don’t know how I’m gonna manage that without giving away my secret,” she laughed.
He looked back at the motorcycle in front of him and thought about the problem while his eyes visually scanned the gear box for problems. “Hand me the-“ he started, extending his hand, but stopped when the tool he was looking for was already in his hand. He looked up at her and she smiled sweetly. He shook his head and bent to the task, but stopped. “I think I’ve got an idea,” he said.
“I’m all ears, sugah,” she assured him, thinking absently that he looked kind of cute when he had a mischievous grin on his lips.
“How about you take the exams, getting slightly better with each one, which will help you keep face in front of the others, and I’ll keep telling you to come to tutoring with me to help you make up the grades.”
“So, in other words,” she thought about what she was just about to say, slightly surprised at the fact she was about to say it about Scott Summers, Boy Scout. “You’ll help me lie?”
He shrugged. “Well, lie is such a drastic term -“
She raised an eyebrow and he smirked. “What else would you call it if you say you’re going to be tutoring me, but you won’t be?”
“Creative labeling?” he asked.
She laughed and shook her head. “Well, I do declare,” she said, sounding incredibly southern of a sudden.
“What?” he asked.
“You don’t think it’ll be strange that you’re supposed to be tutoring me and I never seem to be coming in to tutoring?” she asked.
He raised an eyebrow again. “I never said you wouldn’t be joining me right here once a week.”
And it was her turn to raise her eyebrows. “Why, Scott Summers, are you propositionin’ me?”
He laughed, and hoped the blush wouldn’t show. He knew Rogue had developed a bit of a flirtatious attitude with most men in the school - and he also knew it was playful and didn’t mean a thing, but he wasn’t used to it at all. Especially not used to the mischievous urge he got to flirt right back.
“I need help to fix these bikes,” he told her, motioning the motorcycles around them. “And to tune up those, while we’re at it,” he motioned a group of functioning bikes near the exit. “So, you’ll be working the extra hours to pass the class,” he assured her.
She was thoughtful for a moment, long enough that he looked up at her. “I think I’d like that,” she answered once he had.
“Good,” he said. “So, you wanna finish working on the gear box while I get back to the fuel screws?”
She nodded. “Sure thing, sugah,” she answered, taking the tool from him. Her hands on the tool, however, she paused before taking it from him. “Thanks,” she said, and Scott couldn’t help but notice that despite the fact she couldn’t possibly find his eyes with any accuracy, she tried, and got pretty damn close to meeting them - even despite the glasses.
He smiled at her. “Nothing to thank me for,” he said, ducking out of sight behind the bike.
***
5.
Pumpkin [One-Shot]
He was dressed like a pumpkin. Round, yellow, complete with matching felt shoes and a jutting green stem popping jauntily out of the hat tied to his head by a black elastic hooked under his chin.
‘Well, it’s really a jack-o-lantern if he was to be accurate,’ Scott thought, and looked down at the smallish boy gazing up at him in a mixture of awe and wonder. That couldn’t be comfortable, but the little six year old looked perfectly content and serene in the ridiculous getup, truth be told, and Scott wasn’t quite sure what to do with him.
“Josh!”
The sound of the name made the little boy in front of him start, and the voice speaking it made Scott glance up in surprise.
Rogue rounded the corner on the other end of the hall and headed right toward them, obviously catching sight of the pumpkin. Scott waited for her to notice he was there, but her attention went straight to the six year old and she crouched down in front of him. “Well, look who I found,” she said, smiling at the little boy, but Scott could see the relief.
“Mawie!” Josh exclaimed, jubilant.
“Hey there, pumkin’” she said.
Josh giggled and pointed back to where Scott was still standing. “I found Scott,” the little boy told her proudly.
Rogue looked up at him, as if noticing him for the first time. “So you did,” she told him.
“I didn’t know I was lost,” Scott said, amused.
Rogue smirked at him. “Josh goes around ‘finding’ everything he comes into contact with,” she explained, turning back to the little boy. “Good work,” she told him, much to his delight. “But what did I tell you about wanderin’ off like that, pumpkin’?”
The boy thought about it and frowned. “Sowy, Mawie.”
“It’s very important that you don’t do that again, Josh,” she said, her tone stern, but kind.
He lowered his head. “I won’t.”
“Good,” she said, standing. “So, shall we go join the other kids and go trick or treating?”
“Twick o tweeting!” he enthused, jumping up and down. The little boy held out his hand to her and she smiled at him, taking his little hand in her gloved one.
Scott, for his part, was positively enthralled. He’d never seen Rogue with the children before, although he knew she had taken to watching them every so often since the Mansion had been attacked. She pulled a stray strand of silver hair behind her ear and he noticed her outfit for the first time, smirking despite himself.
“Nice costume,” he interjected as she straightened the pinafore with one hand.
She looked at him as if she’d forgotten he was there, or forgotten that he was seeing her in her costume at any rate, and she blushed for a minute, raising her hand to the ribbon in her hair, and down the front of her skirt as if to take some of the poof out of whatever it was she had on under it to make it bell just slightly. “Ah’m takin’ the kids trick o’ treatin’” she said, as if that should explain it.
“As Alice?” he said, taking a moment to look from her shiny white flat mary-janes, up her legs encased in thick white stockings, the powder blue dress complete with bell skirt and cap sleeves, white lace pinafore, all the way to the matching powder blue ribbon in her hair.
“Well, ah had thought ‘bout dressin’ as a pumpkin’, but little Josh got tha costume afore ah could,” she answered.
He grinned at her. “No, I like it.”
She looked at him and suddenly it was like she was seeing him differently. “Do ya now, sugah?” she asked, her tone lowering a little, her eyes assessing his own outfit. “What’re y’all gonna be?”
“Can’t you tell?” he asked, opening his arms wide. “I’m already in my costume.”
She looked at his pressed khaki slacks, and white polo shirt and smirked at him, “Ah, yea, I see it now,” she said. “Uptight Pretty Boy -“ she nodded and exhaled. “And ya have such potential.”
He took a step toward her and his lips curved into a smile. “Are you sure that’s my costume, Rogue?”
Her eyes opened a little in surprise at the inflection in his voice, but she smiled regardless.
“Besides,” he added. “I’m not the only one dressing safe tonight.”
She laughed. “Oh, if you mean me, I wouldn’t count on that just yet.” At his raised brow, she smirked. “This is just for the benefit of the kids, sugah - I have another one for when they’re in bed.”
Later, Scott would blame his weakness in giving in and flirting back with her on months of confronting her flirtatious nature coupled with the spirit of the holiday and the full moon outside. In the moment, however, he didn’t even think about hiding the curiosity in his expression. “Well, now my curiosity’s piqued,” he admitted. “Any chance I’ll get to see it?”
She smiled. “Depends on how late y’all be up, sugah,” she said.
“Mawie!” Josh called her attention. “I wanna go twick o tweet!” he reminded her.
“And so we shall, pumpkin,” she told him, eyes lingering on Scott for a minute before turning and walking with the little boy down the hall.
***
6.
Pink [One-Shot] [Maybe One-Sided Scott/Rogue?]
“Shut. Up.”
“I didn’t say a word.”
“But ya were thinking it.”
He cleared his throat of the laugh that was bubbling up and spoke again. “You’re not psychic.”
“Tch,” she said, disgust lacing her tone. “I don’t have ta be.”
“It’s…” he started, and faltered when she turned to glare at him, coughing this time to prevent the laugh he knew would mean his death - or severe incapacity. “…pretty,” he finished bravely.
“It’s pink,” she spat.
“That doesn’t mean it can’t be pretty,” he said, taking on the tone he had been known to take whenever he had to convince one of the young ones that math wasn’t really that bad.
She looked unconvinced. As a matter of fact, she looked disgusted. She grabbed a fistful of silk skirt in her hand and moved it about her legs. “It’s foofy,” she said as if he were blind.
He shrugged, trying very hard not to even smile. “It’s still pretty,” he insisted.
“I don’t do pretty,” she argued.
“I think you do,” he countered. “I think it suits you very well.”
“Yeah,” she sighed, looking back over the staircase down to the first floor where people were still arriving and being shown into the ballroom. “You would.”
His jaw dropped in surprise at her statement. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
It was her turn to shrug. “You’re Scott,” she said, unconcerned. “You always try to put people at ease.” She looked at him. “It’s what you do.”
She looked less disgusted and more resigned, so he thought he’d let that one pass. “Doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”
She shook her head and leaned on the railing, and he caught the shift of the practically see through body suit she had on underneath the strapless gown. It was a very well made suit, he thought, since he hadn’t noticed it until just that point. “Why does the Professor have to have a fundraiser anyway?” she groused. “Doesn’t he have enough money?”
Scott laughed. “He’s not raising funds for himself, Rogue,” he explained. At her raised brow, he explained. “It’s a fundraiser for Senator Garcia.”
She nodded. “And I s’pose he’s being wooed to our cause?”
Scott sighed. “That’s the plan, anyway.” He glanced at the first floor and then back to Rogue, still surprised at the way she looked in that dress, pink or no. Her hair had been picked up in an artfully done knot at the back of her head and only the white strands of her hair were left to frame her face.
“You’re doin’ it again,” she said, her gaze still focused on the floor below.
“Sorry,” he smiled. “It’s just so strange seeing you-“
She looked at him and frowned, “Finish that sentence and forfeit your thumbs,” she said warningly, her tone reminding him eerily of Logan’s.
“Whoa,” he said, laughing. “That’s rather violent.”
She shrugged, unconcerned. “Seein’ as how this really is your fault anyway, I’m already half inclined to hurt ya.”
He was caught, once again, by surprise. “My fault?” he asked. “How can this,” and here he motioned her body from head to toe, “be my fault?”
She braced her hip against the banister and crossed her arms under her chest. “You don’t know about the bet?” she asked skeptically.
He nodded slowly. “I know you wearing a pink gown to the Professor’s fundraiser was the result of a lost bet, yeah, but not how you lost.”
She smiled wryly. “You remember that sparring match on Monday?” She waited. “You and Logan in the Danger Room?”
“Yeah?” he asked.
“Well, I bet on you, Kitty won.” She extended her arms. “This is payment.”
He was so surprised, he was unable to withhold his laughter. “You bet on me?” he asked. “Against Logan?”
“Don’t sound so surprised!” she exclaimed.
“Why would you do that?” he pressed.
“Mabe I thought you were due,” she said. She tried to look away, but despite the glasses hiding his eyes, she could see the disbelief in his expression. “Okay, fine,” she sighed. “Because the cocky bastard overheard me and Kitty talking about whether you might win or he would and he come up, all swagger, and assumed I’d bet on him.”
“So you bet on me to spite him,” Scott asked, trying for matter of fact but getting something between astonishment and amusement instead.
“Damn straight I did,” she exclaimed. “Wasn’t about ta give him the satisfaction of thinking I’d never bet on anyone ‘cept him, was I?”
He chuckled, realization dawning. “Well, no wonder he was so vicious that day,” he mused. “You know,” he told her. “I might’ve beat him if it weren’t because he was so set on proving you wrong.”
“Yeah, well…” she trailed off, not finishing the thought, turning back to the staircase.
“Hiding up here isn’t going to do any good, you know,” he said after a few minutes.
She frowned. “I have ta wait until everyone gets here,” she said and her voice said exactly what she thought of that. “It’s part of the bet.”
He chuckled and she glared at him again. “Sorry,” he said, although it was obvious he wasn’t.
“Whatever.” They both watched as Kitty came into the foyer and looked up, grinning from ear to ear as she motioned for Rogue to make her entrance.
“Show time, I ‘spose,” she said, leaning back from the banister and heading for the top stair, taking a moment to square her shoulders. She fixed her matching kid gloves and flicked her hair behind her ear.
Scott watched her prepare to face the crowd and had a thought. He didn’t know if it would help, but he would offer anyway, and appearing in the ballroom on the arm of one of the teachers of the academy might just keep the teasing at bay…for a little while, anyway. “Hey, Rogue,” he called.
She turned to watch him over her shoulder. “Yeah?”
“Maybe I can-?“ he started toward her.
“Hey kid.”
Both eyes turned to watch Logan climb the steps to the top landing, stopping two steps below the top, just enough so that he and Rogue were eye to eye.
“Whatcha want?” Rogue glared at him, too.
Logan’s eyes trailed over her get up and smirked. “Nice dress.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I don’t wanna talk to you.”
“Hey, don’t be pissed at me because you made the stupid mistake to bet on pansy-ass over there,” he motioned vaguely to where Scott was standing in his suit just slightly behind her.
“He coulda beat ya if you’d have played fair,” she exclaimed.
“Ha!” Logan exclaimed, his gaze flicking to him. “Maybe when he gets outta kindergarten he can try.”
And it occurred to Scott as Logan looked away from him before he could say a word in his own defense, how summarily he was ignored by both of them once Logan appeared.
“What do ya want, Logan?” she asked. “Didya just come to rub it in?”
His expression softened as he turned to look at her, even though the amusement was still in his eyes. “I came to get you,” he said.
She visibly bristled. “I’m not gonna welch on my bet!” she said, her spine straightening even more.
“Didn’t think you would!” he exclaimed.
“Then-“ she started.
“You think any bastard’s gonna make fun of ya if I’m next to you?” he interrupted her.
“I can fight mah own battles, thanks,” she insisted, turning her head away from him. Scott watched as her eyes fell on him, and he raised a brow in question. She rolled her eyes at him and he couldn’t help but smirk.
“Yeah, so?” Logan asked. “Doesn’t mean you have to.”
Logan’s words, softly spoken, surprised her. Her eyes opened wide and she turned to look at him, searching his face for a minute or two before smiling. A very bright, tender smile. “You’re still a cocky bastard,” she told him. “But sometimes, you’re a really sweet, cocky bastard,” she told him.
Logan looked as if he wanted to argue that point, but stopped when Kitty called out from below.
“Hey, Rogue! Get your butt down here already!”
Rogue sighed and Logan raised his brows in challenge. She reached for his arm and he let her run her arm through the crook of his and stepped down until she was on his stair.
“Better get this over with, then,” she said.
“I’m warning ya now, kid,” Logan said as they descended the stairs. “I ain’t gonna dance no waltz or nothing.”
Rogue’s laughter carried to where Scott stood on the landing, watching as they entered the ballroom.
So, okay, that's all you're getting.
Whaddya think? Any of them sound interesting?
Anyone out there care to rec some good Scott/Rogue fic?