stormkeeper_lovedoris (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
stormkeeper_lovedoris) wrote2011-03-23 06:42 pm
stormkeeper_lovedoris) wrote2011-03-23 06:42 pm
Entry tags:
X-men Fic "Election Day" (4/8)
Chapter Four of my latest X-men fic is behind the cut. Links to previous chapters are there too.
Previous chapters:
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
***
Cyclops had texted us the location of the meeting room that the X-men were meeting in. I sprang up from the bed and left my room, heading that way. I didn’t see the need to fly, but I walked pretty fast.
But not fast enough that something didn’t catch my eye. I saw it out of the corner of one eye and I almost kept on moving, but something made me back up and take a gander.
It was a poster. There was a poster hanging on the corridor and it wasn’t one of our election posters. It was from Cortez. From my first split-second look at it, I knew it was one I hadn’t seen before.
Now keep in mind that Cortez and his cronies had been smearing us for days so I was used to being ready for anything. I expected the poster to say the same old arguments against us X-men – we’re rich, we’re out of touch with the average mutant, we love normal humans, we don’t care about the problems most mutants face, we didn’t ever get the UN or the US President to do anything to help mutants – you know the drill by now.
But this poster was unlike anything I’d seen from Cortez’s folks. The top part of the poster had a reproduction of a photograph. Not a drawing or illustration of any kind, just a photograph from one of the security cameras. What I believe that I noticed first was how odd this was because it didn’t look like anything remarkable at first, and certainly not like anything you’d put on a campaign poster. It was a photo of a man wearing an X-men uniform. The man was leaving a room.
An inset showed a close-up of the shot. It was Bobby, clearly it was our Bobby. The inset also showed the room number of the room he was exiting. There was a date and time stamp too, and it showed that this photo was taken early this morning.
My eyes went down to the bottom of the poster to read the text, and about then is when my blood froze. The heading said this:
“X-man caught leaving the room of homosexual Alpha Flight member Northstar. Get the details on Cortez’s website”.
As I was staring at the poster and feeling my blood drain, two people walked by. They also stopped and looked at the poster. I guess they could see me standing right there and wearing an X-men uniform – plus most folks on the space station had met me at least once by now – but that didn’t stop them.
“Ewww, look at this,” one of them said. “Looks like Alpha Flight wasn’t the only group that harbors queers.”
I flew the rest of the way to the conference room.
***
Bobby wasn’t in the meeting room. I learned later on that as soon as they had seen the first poster, Cyclops had wanted to call the whole team together but the Professor had thought it might be easier on Bobby if he wasn’t in this first discussion.
So I can tell you that Bobby wasn’t there, and that first meeting passed in a blur. I ain’t gonna write it all out right now, but here is what we talked about. First it was decided that someone had to talk to Bobby and find out what happened. The Professor reminded the team that we had to give people the benefit of the doubt. Lucky Hank was nominated for that job, since everyone knew that they were friends. It was hard to read the look on Hank’s face.
Secondly, the Professor said he wanted to try to figure out how damaging this was going to be, before we decided upon our next course of action. But not everyone was sold on this idea, since our guts already told us that this was going to be about as bad as it gets. Apparently everyone had seen the posters on their way to the meeting room since it appeared that Cortez’s group had littered the whole blasted space station with them. During the meeting Angel was in a corner with a computer, bringing up Cortez’s webpage. It showed security camera footage of Bobby leaving Northstar’s room in the early hours of the morning. If it was faked then they sure did a great job, but the problem was that none of us thought it was faked. So that tells you that most everyone else on Asteroid M was bound to believe it too.
So then they talked about how to handle damage control, since we could bet that this would be a big deal. The Professor wanted to first see what Bobby had to say and get an idea of how bad the problem would be, but most people wanted to figure out how to fix it right then and there.
And yeah, there were a lot of ugly words tossed out, a lot of insulting names used, and the Professor had to step in and tell folks to cool it and keep their heads and try to respect their fellow X-men. And honestly, I’d never before seen someone roll their eyes when Xavier spoke but one or two people did this time. But the Professor was able to convince the team to wait a little first until we had that other information, and then reconvene.
At least I had something to take my mind off of how terrible things were with Remy, I’d figured.
I wondered what Hank thought about all this. I couldn’t read the look on his face, and he left as soon as he had his marching orders to get the scoop from Bobby.
Me, I felt sick in my gut. I felt shame because folks knew Bobby was kinda a friend of mine, and I also felt really afraid for what would happen to him – and what would happen to us in the election.
***
We were back in that meeting room not too much later to sit down and figure out what to do next. The Professor had come around and spoken to each one of us in between the meetings. He said that Bobby was going to be at this meeting since we all had to be there when we figured out our next steps. The Professor then said to me, “I know this won’t be a problem for you, Rogue, but I am reminding everyone to be respectful during the meeting today.”
I nodded. “You got it!” I said, and I was surprised that my voice sounded its usual spunky way, when I felt nothing but dread sitting in the pit of my stomach.
And before I turned away from the Professor, I took another gander at him. He was tired. He had Magneto’s death weighing him down on top of the very real possibility that we were gonna walk away from this elections as the losers. Cortez in charge of a few thousand mutants eager for war means we’re fighting both those mutants – our people, in a manner of speaking -- and the combined forces of every major government on earth. Toss FOH into the mix since you can bet we’d be fighting them too. Xavier’s worst nightmare was knocking on our doorstep.
Before the second meeting, I darted around the space station and talked to lots of folks. What Cortez had on his website was pretty damning. It made it right clear that Bobby left Northstar’s room early this morning. As one mutant said to me, “What do you think they were doing in there – playing Checkers??”
This was pretty much all people were talking about. Seriously. No one had known that there was an X-man who was queer. Now it was clear that everyone on the station knew it.
I did see Hank just before the meeting. His eyes looked weary. “What does Bobby say?” I asked.
“He admits that he paid a visit to Northstar,” Hank said. “He did not elaborate much more.”
Cannonball was standing right by us and he piped up,” What does it really matter if he tells us more or not? The whole station knows he was there!”
“That’s true, son,” Banshee said. “At this point everyone seems to have already made up their mind as to what the situation is.”
Bobby shuffled into the meeting room just as we were all sitting down. I didn’t want to look at him. From the glance I took I could tell that he looked like a man on his way to the firing squad.
***
The Professor called the meeting to order right away. The room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. He started out by saying, “We have a difficult situation on our hands and we must discuss it as a team. The facts are as follows. Cortez has found a new way to campaign against us with his latest series of posters. Bobby has told us that it is true that he paid a visit to Northstar this morning. We also know that this tactic of Cortez’s appears to be working exactly as Cortez wants it to, with this being discussed widely on Asteroid M. Based on these facts, we need to decide how to proceed.” The Professor’s voice was calm and even, but also bone-weary.
Cyclops spoke first. “Unfortunately it’s very true that Cortez’s tactic looks like it’s working. Since the posters and the stuff on Cortez’s website went up, it’s all people are talking about. And none of it looks good for us.”
“Yeah,” Wolverine added. “We were already lagging behind Cortez. The Inner Circle dropped out of the race earlier today. If the election was held now, he’d have this one in the bag. And we only got four more days”
“I agree,” Angel said. “People have been saying the most vile and disturbing things about us because of this. It’s utterly terrible.”
Angel then shot Bobby a look, and before I go on I should say something else. I didn’t know this at the time, but much later I found out that there was a reason that Angel hated Bobby so much. Seems that years ago, way back in the X-men’s early days, there was an incident between the two of them taking place in the locker room. Apparently Bobby had snuck a glance where he shouldn’t have, and Angel had noticed. Angel had hated Bobby ever since, but again I didn’t know any of this at the time.
“It does appear that our situation is quite dire,” Storm added. “Forge even asked if we want to consider dropping out of the race and having X-Factor run instead.”
“No way!” Cyclops said, and he slapped a fist against his other hand. “We’re the best team here to lead the mutants on this station! We’re the only ones who’ve been working with the UN and with world governments. I’m not pulling out of the race! And I’m not letting this scandal stop us.”
“Me neither,” said Wolverine.
I felt the same way, and said so – and there were lots of nods and seconding of what Cyke and Wolverine said. X-Factor may be good, the team agreed, but we X-men are not pulling out of this election.
“Given that we agree that we need to stay in the running,” the Professor said, “then we must discuss how to deal with this – situation.”
The room was silent again. A few people shot looks over at Bobby.
Then Angel stood up. “May I address the group?” he asked. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot.”
The Professor gave a nod, and again I noticed how tired Xavier looked.
Angel cleared his throat and started talking. “I want to first say that I’m not trying to insult anyone or attack anyone personally. But we have to face the facts here, and we also have to admit that sometimes we X-men are ‘too nice,’ so to speak.”
Angel paused and then continued – he’d do a lot of pausing for emphasis. “What we’re hearing out there about the visit that Bobby paid to Northstar – it isn’t pretty and it reflects badly on all of us. We can’t risk letting Cortez win. Forget about our own pride and our own belief that we are the best team to lead mutantkind. If Cortez wins, we’ll have a disaster on our hands. We could be spending the next few years fighting an on-going war with Cortez and with non-mutants like FOH. And who wants that?
“We also have a few more facts to face. Although I have nothing against Bobby personally, we have to admit that his fighting skills have never been the strongest. Right now, having him as an X-man does reflect badly on all of us and it may very well keep us from winning this election.”
Angel paused again and said, “I know that we all agree that prejudice of any kind is wrong - even though I think most of us are fairly...well, uncomfortable with Bobby’s type of…difference. I know we’re all tired of FOH propaganda that suggests that a lot of mutants are like that, and thus it doesn’t make it any easier having an actual homosexual on our team.
“But at this point we have to think of the election, and the broader good of all mutantkind. It may be painful, but I think we need to ask Bobby to resign as an X-man.”
I spent the duration of Angel’s speech just looking at my gloves. It was hard to face what he said head-on like this but I guessed we had no choice. When he finished I looked up and saw plenty of folks nodding and showing their agreement.
There was silence for a little bit, other than the murmurings of agreement with Angel.
Cannonball spoke up next. He said, “I totally agree. In fact, Angel you’re too nice. I honestly think we should’ve asked him to leave a long time ago.”
Bold words, I thought, coming from one of our newest members.
Cannonball went on. “You gotta think of what’s right and what’s wrong. What on earth was Bobby thinking, going to visit Northstar and putting us all at risk with his actions?? Those people,” he looked at Bobby, “are known to get all sorts of diseases and I think it’s God’s punishment. It’s just wrong, and we’ve been too nice all these years to ask him to leave.”
The Professor spoke up, using just a few words, again sounding tired but also stern. “Cannonball. That’s enough.”
It surprised me, but Cannonball wasn’t done yet. He said, looking at Xavier, “I’m sorry, Sir. But I’m just saying what most folks here are thinking.”
Cannonball had always been such a sweet, gentle guy but I guess when it came to this he was different.
So at this point I snuck a glance at Bobby, as I think most folks were doing. Of course some weren’t as subtle in their watching him. What can I say? He looked miserable and afraid, and I thought he might’ve even been trembling with fear but I wasn’t sure if maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me instead.
Cyclops then looked around the room and asked, “Does anyone else have anything to say? Making sure to be respectful, of course.”
The room was quiet for a spell. Then Storm spoke up. “What would we propose Bobby do? If he’s being asked to leave, where would he go, especially given that there may very well be a war coming on?”
Cyclops said, “He can take a shuttle back down to earth. I’m sure we can arrange a small stipend or some other way to make sure he can get by---“
“I don’t need money,” Bobby said. I was shocked that he interrupted Cyclops. I wondered if he had a burst of adrenaline or something because he also stood up and continued, “I have some saved and I can find a job. I….I also just wanted to say that I’m sorry for causing you any trouble. I didn’t choose to be this way. But I guess it doesn’t matter now. I’m going to find when the next transport is back to earth. Goodbye.”
With that, he got up and left. I knew that soon there was assorted chatter and discussion going on around me but I didn’t listen. I just sat there realizing that this evening we had done something we’d never done before. We kicked an X-man off the team. Sure, he “chose” to resign but in effect we’d kicked one of our own out. If you’d told me a few months ago, I wouldn’t have believed it.
I didn’t think of it at that time, but looking back now I can say that I should’ve felt some sort of kinship with Bobby. Neither of us could have what we wanted, even if it was right there in front of us. But I am sorry to say that on that day, all I felt about the situation was relief that it was over.
***
The next day arrived too fast, and we were now down to three days before the election. We hit the ground running.
Even Gambit was up that morning, working on the campaign, though I avoided him of course. After the meetings of the day before, I had kept my distance, made sure we were nowhere near each other during dinner.
I didn’t eat much – not at dinner the night before or breakfast this morning. My stomach and my heart were mushed together in some weird combination of intense pain over what had happened with Remy, anxiety over the election, and then you can stir in a bad feeling or two - maybe shame and regret - about everything with Bobby. Since I joined the X-men I always tried to stay positive, you know, but that morning for the first time in a long time I almost didn’t want to get up. I had to drag myself out of bed.
That whole day, we were off doing the usual campaigning. Talking to people, making new posters, writing stuff for our website. Much of it, of course, was centered around damage control over what’d happened with Bobby. We made sure that people knew that Bobby – who had left on the last shuttle the evening before, it turns out – was no longer an X-man. But the damage really had been done, and people were saying the worst sort of stuff about us. A lot of folks wouldn’t talk to us at all, and at the Professor’s first speech of the day, the room was mostly empty. Maybe people figured they’d heard it all before and had already made up their minds on how they were gonna vote, but we knew – from what people told us –that a lot of this was due to people’s reactions to what’d happened with Bobby.
When I was getting ready to leave the half-empty dining room after lunch, I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder. For a split second, I thought it might be Storm but it was Jean.
“Can we talk, Rogue?” she asked. She sat down in the empty chair next to me.
I shrugged. I love Jean, of course, she’s like a sister to me. But I sure wasn’t in the mood for talking much. I knew perfectly all of what was bothering me and didn’t feel like re-hashing it.
“I ain’t really in the mood to talk much,” I admitted honestly.
Jean nodded. “It’s just that I noticed you picking at your food, and that worries me a bit.”
“I appreciate your concern, sugar. But I ain’t sure that talking’s gonna help me much. Guess I’m just not in the mood for it.”
“Do you want to go to the rec room?” she asked. “I bet we could both use a break.”
I looked around the dining room, I guess looking for Cyke or Xavier. “But there’s so much to do”
“And we can’t do it when we’re exhausted,” Jean said. Her voice really could be like honey sometimes. It was nice to listen to. I could always see why so many folks took to her. “I bet a break would do us both some good.”
“Okay,” I finally agreed. She did have a point. And besides, if I was gonna take a break and hang out with someone, the person I’d usually do it with was Remy - but he was off-limits for now. May as well take the offer of some company when it came my way.
So we made our way to the rec room. Walking through the corridors I noticed that most of the posters that we’d put up that very morning had been torn down. I made a motion, but Jean just said, “Later. It can wait.”
“Yeah. And it’ll just get torn down again,” I added. Gotta admit I was pretty blue, guess it was no surprise that Jean sought me out.
“We might still win. You never know,” Jean said.
I turned to face her and smiled. “You know, sugar, I appreciate your offer of taking a break more than you realize. How ‘bout let’s not talk about the election on our break?”
“That is a wonderful idea,” Jean said, and smiled back.
She had such a beautiful smile, and I had to smile myself for a spell. I reminded myself that I wasn’t the only one who had things hard. She and Scott wanted a baby real badly and weren’t having any luck there.
So Jean and I got to the rec room. We played darts. Then we played a game of Scrabble, which took a good 45 minutes. We giggled a bit and said we felt like schoolgirls ditching school. I then glanced over at the large-screen TV, and it looked like a movie was starting up on it. There were a few seats left in front of the TV. I raised my eyebrows at Jean and we decided to head over there watch the movie too.
Not long into the movie, something interesting happened. I took a glance at Jean because there was a newborn baby in the movie and I hoped she was okay looking at it. But Jean wasn’t watching the screen anymore.
Apparently Storm had entered the rec room. She was sitting on one of the sofas, and had a mug in her hand. What made this pretty interesting was that she wasn’t alone. She had a guy with her and it wasn’t Forge.
Wolverine. Storm and Wolverine were sitting together on the sofa together. And I mean together. He had his arm around her and she was cuddled up against him. They were talking or whispering. I’ve seen couples do that before, and all I can say is that they were curled together in the way of lovebirds. I had to blink a few times because I didn’t believe my own eyes.
“Um…okaaaay,” I whispered to Jean.
One of the other folks watching the movie shot me a dirty look – you were supposed to be quiet in the immediate area around the TV, and man the last thing we needed was to get charges of ‘talking during the movie’ thrown at the X-men too. So Jean and I exchanged a quick look and got up.
We didn’t head near Storm and Wolverine, but honestly I don’t think they would’ve noticed us if we’d walked right in front of them.
“Okay, now I really feel like a schoolgirl,” Jean said, as we found a spot in the back of the rec room, away from the action. “What is going on there? I thought she and Forge were looking like they were going to start something up.”
“I knew that both fellows were interested in her,” I said. “But from the looks of things over there she’s chosen Wolverine.” I shook my head. “It’s wrong to admit it, but I’m dyin’ to know more!”
“Me too,” Jean said. “But you’re right – we shouldn’t be gossiping about others.”
“’Course not. We’ll just have to grab Storm soon as we can and demand the whole story!”
Jean smiled again, and then she said, “Well, speaking of people’s love lives….I just wanted to ask how you’re doing. Are you okay?”
“I take it you know ‘bout me and Remy?” I asked, and she nodded. Word traveled fast among us X-men. Didn’t matter that we were busy with the election; we still knew what was going on with each other. That’s pretty much always been the case.
I also have to admit that I still didn’t want to discuss it. Appreciated Jean’s concern but didn’t see the point in talking about it since there was nothing Jean could do. So I wasn’t the least bit upset when Jean’s handheld buzzed and Cyclops asked if our break was over because they could use our help. So off we went. Whew!
***
The time in the rec room with Jean was the best part of that day, ‘cause things kept sliding downhill. X-Factor didn’t show up at our evening speech and we noticed that none of the members of their team were working on campaign stuff with us at all that day either. By dinner time we were all talking and comparing notes – seemed X-Factor folks had been snubbing us when passing us in the corridors, that sort of thing too.
“They probably don’t want anything more to do with us because of what happened with Bobby,” Banshee said, quietly. He was sitting near me.
“I’m not sure that’s the only reason for their behavior,” Moira said. She took a quick glance at the rest of the table. Maybe she was checking to see if Storm was there, because that was the next logical conclusion in my book.
“We won’t know what’s going on unless we talk with them,” the Professor said. “I think I will seek Forge out after dinner.”
“Care for some company?” I asked on the spur of the moment. I was looking for something else to keep my mind occupied that evening. Avoiding Gambit – who was sitting at the other end of the dinner table – and trying not to think about him weren’t easy. So I sure welcomed any sort of distraction at this point.
“Of course.”
The Professor must’ve been eager to get this settled, because he sent Forge a message during dinner and finished the rest of his meal quickly. Small things like that seemed odd to me – having been raised a gentleman and all, the Professor wasn’t one to scarf down his food like it was a race – but I reminded myself again that the Professor wasn’t exactly himself lately with everything that had been going on. Magneto’s death was bad enough, but you add in that we’re at the brink of a war and also that I don’t think he was happy about what happened with Bobby.
Forge agreed to meet us in the observation lounge. The room was beautiful but it wasn’t our first choice seeing as there is no privacy in there. It’s a nice, wide-open space with these stunning views of the stars. You could lose yourself, sitting on one of the many sofas and chairs, and just staring up at the blackness of the space, the bright stars, and feeling small among all of it.
Out of the corner of my eye, I glanced a couple off in a corner, cuddled up together and just looking at the view. I guessed that pangs of jealousy and sadness would be with my all my life. In my head, I hoped Remy would be up here any day now with a girl, even though the thought made my heart drop to the floor.
We found an empty couch, and I sat next to Forge with the Professor facing us in his wheelchair. Forge was back to being like the Forge I’d known – down to business and straightforward. Unsmiling too.
“I believe that both of our groups share the same goal,” the Professor began. “We both want mutants and regular humans to work together peacefully.”
His voice was slightly hoarse as he spoke. The man had been campaigning for days and I had to say it almost sounded to me like he was starting one of his speeches. But then again, speeches from him, Cyclops, and Storm were at least of half of what I’d heard and read the past four days.
He went on, “Am I correct in this assumption?”
Forge looked directly at the Professor. Like I said, he was down to business and he didn’t have an expression that you could easily read. The man had never exactly conveyed warmth in my book, and right now I felt ice coming from him.
“You are,” Forge said. “And I imagine you’re wanting to know why we haven’t campaigned with you today.”
“And why some of your people have been snubbing ours in the halls, acting like we got the plague,” I added in. The Professor subtly looked at me, and I kinda regretted saying it a second later since it sounded childish. But then I also felt it needed to be pointed out.
“I think the truth is that we’re tired and we’re not very motivated,” Forge said. “It looks like Cortez is going to win this election. I’m not saying that we’re giving up but my people do need a break.”
“The election is in three days. We’re all tired, but we have to keep the broader goal in mind. You and your team had been so good at campaigning. Can you encourage them to hold out for just a few more days and get back on the campaign trail?”
“I could,” Forge admitted. “Though I have to admit that I’m not very motivated either.”
“Can you share with us why? Do you truly believe it’s hopeless?”
“At this point, I think it might be. Like I said, it looks like Cortez is going to win.”
Forge’s eyes were drifting towards the door. He shifted in his seat and looked very impatient to get our meeting over with. Maybe I got hit with a burst of impatience too. Maybe everything had pushed me too much the past few days.
“He will if we don’t even try to prevent it,” I said, and my voice was back to what my Daddy used to call ‘sharp-tongued.’ “Is X-Factor really feeling hopeless or are you mad at us for some other reason?”
Forge crossed his arms over his chest. “Well, Rogue, truth be told, there are other reasons as well. The debacle with Bobby certainly hasn’t helped things. We’re not prejudiced, but this doesn’t speak well about the X-men’s moral character. Though we give you credit for removing him as fast as you did.” He took a breath and added, “Lorna used to go out with Bobby, years ago. She’s pretty upset about being made to look like someone’s ‘cover’ all those years ago. In fact, I think she’s been saying some bad things about you guys today.”
And then, I swear I couldn’t have planned this myself but I saw Forge take yet another glance at the door. I turned my head. Storm and Wolverine were there, holding hands. I guess they finally realized Forge was there (maybe Wolverine should’ve caught it earlier given his way of sniffing people out, but the fool was probably love-numbed), because they turned and left.
“Is that what this is really about?” I asked. “Are you mad that Storm picked Wolverine instead of you?”
The Professor touched his hand to my arm, and I knew I really had crossed the line. I felt bad. I mean, we weren’t getting anywhere with Forge and I was pretty frustrated, but I still had put my foot in my dang mouth.
“We don’t mean to accuse you or your team of being petty,” the Professor said. “We just ask that you keep our larger goals in mind, our vision for the future of humanity.”
But Forge had had enough and I can’t say I blame him. He abruptly stood up. “I’ll keep that in mind. Professor. Rogue.”
He nodded curtly at us and left.
“I’m sorry, Professor,” I said, once I was sure Forge was out of earshot. My voice was glum as I felt. “I shouldn’t have said that. I came on too strong and said too much.”
The Professor didn’t rebuke me. Honest, in all the years I’ve worked with him, he never was harsh with me – even in the early years when I really deserved it.
“Perhaps when Forge calms down, he will realize that there was some truth in what you said, and he needs to put that aside. It’s all we can hope for.”
I nodded. “But Storm sure picked a bad time to go for Wolverine over Forge.”
The Professor gave a slight smile, for a second. “That may be so, but we certainly can’t dictate our members’ love lives.” He took a breath and then asked, “I’ve been meaning to ask you, Rogue – how are you?”
I smiled sweetly. “Well, Professor, I was just about to ask you the same thing. I guess things aren’t easy for anyone right about now.”
We exchanged a look, and that’s one thing I loved about the Professor. We communicated somehow that neither of us wanted to talk about it, but that we both appreciated the other’s concern. That was satisfying to me.
***
I worked on the campaign well into that night, and got up fairly early the next day to continue. I talked to anyone who would listen. I responded to comments on Cortez’s campaign page. Dazzler was gonna give a concert again, so I helped get the word out. As for the concert itself, sure we were grasping for straws at this point; people did love music and we weren’t gonna be all in your face that this came from the X-men. But we’d have a few posters up so maybe we could subtly reel ‘em in during the show.
Although I didn’t usually deliver speeches – after all, the Professor, Cyke, and Storm were our leaders – I was asked to do one later that day. Maybe they thought my down-home Southern charm would appeal. Honestly, I do think I came across as warmer than the others and I had to smile inside at the compliment.
I pushed the Remy situation to the back of my head. When thoughts about him started to bubble up, I told myself that I didn’t have time to think about this and it would all pass. Maybe I’d half-convinced myself that was true. Until what happened in the gym.
I’d gone to the gym to work on one of the cardio machines. It was always good for blowing off some steam, and I needed it. So I worked away on it.
I was determine to stay positive that day, but as I exercised the thoughts kept bubbling up and not all of them were as positive as I’d wanted. I had to notice how great this gym was. Clean and classy, and it had great music pumping in. Cortez made all this sort of stuff on the station available to any mutant who wanted it, and all they had to do if they couldn’t pay was sign up for some reasonable work shifts. Some folks I talked to said they were worried that if the X-men were elected, we’d dismantle the space station seeing as how the UN and the super powers of the world didn’t like it. They told us they were worried we’d send them all packing, back to the lonely lives they had before, where most of them were struggling to get by. “After all,” one of them told me, “it’s not like you ever let us in that mansion of yours and opened the doors there, the way Cortez did here.”
I’d had my retort ready to go and I delivered it (I hadn’t had a dollar to my name when Xavier found me), but I could also tell it would fall in deaf ears. The guy wasn’t gonna listen to me.
All that made my mood low again, and when I looked up once more I saw Remy here in the gym. With a woman I didn’t recognize.
She was beautiful. She reminded me of that Belladonna character, the girl he almost married so long ago. I hadn’t laid eyes on her in years but I remembered her well. This girl today had the same beautiful blond hair and sparkling eyes. Couldn’t tell what her mutation was by looking at her but she was stunning on the outside.
The two of them headed towards a weight bench and looked like they were going to lift weights together. All these thoughts and ideas buzzed around in my head and I couldn’t stop them. The gym wasn’t a logical place for a date, but then again you never knew. Who was she? Was he interested in her? Of course he was interested in her; I doubt he was campaigning. And heavens above, of course she had to be interested in him! Who wouldn’t be? Then I reminded myself that this was exactly what I’d told Remy to go and do. I also reminded myself that I’d known full well I wouldn’t like it. Then I guessed that no matter how much I knew it in my head, nothing was gonna stop my heart from dropping down even lower.
If Remy knew I was in the gym, he gave no sign of it. That alone told me he had to be interested in her. He used to have like a sixth sense of knowing where I was.
The green-eyed monster was even more painful than I could ever have dreamed. No matter how many times I reminded myself that this was – like I said – exactly what I told Remy to go and do, I was jealous. Gut-ripping, painful jealous. I didn’t want to be in this much pain, but I didn’t exactly have an alternative either and that just made me want to jump out of my skin. I guess I could see why some folks drowned themselves in booze. I’d never do that, but I knew that it could take away the pain for a while.
I slipped out of the gym. Again I don’t think Remy noticed me at all.
Just as I made up mind to go to my room so I could go over the speech I was gonna give later that day, Storm beeped me. She asked if I wanted to rehearse my speech.
“Girl, what happened here – did you get Jean’s powers for a minute? I was just headin’ to my room to practice it!”
I said it with a laugh, but I think Storm heard something in my voice because she met me inside my room in a flash. I was about to ask her if she’d developed Nightcrawler’s powers too but I had to stop. My voice was getting wobbly like it had during that awful discussion with Gambit, and I had to zip it if I didn’t want to start bawling again. Didn’t fancy the idea of breaking down in tears again.
I guess Storm just took one look at my face. She hugged me. I managed to mutter at her to be careful not to let my face touch any parts of her skin. She hugged me tighter after I said that.
But I did myself proud. I got a hold of myself. I got a hold of my emotions. When my voice was steady, I broke away from the hug. “I’m okay,” I said. “Really.”
“Do you wish to talk about it?”
A wicked thought popped into my head. I most assuredly did not want to talk about it….but I could kill two birds with one stone by milking Storm’s sympathy: I could take my mind off of Remy and get Storm to spill the beans!
“No,” I said, sounding like my old self even if I sure didn’t feel like her. “But you gotta tell me, sugar. What’s the story with you and Wolverine? Are you a couple now? Did you kiss?”
Storm looked both bemused and sympathetic. I’m sure that she was fully aware of my game, but she kindly let me play.
“Well,” she began as she sat down in the chair. I sat across from her on the bed. “I suppose you could say we’re going to see where this goes. I’m optimistic about it.”
She’s always so blasted reserved. But I was gonna play the sympathy card for all it was worth. “Spill the beans, sugar! How did it happen? And I ask again - have you kissed yet??”
Storm gave me the look that she has given me many times before to show that she is going to indulge me. “Yes, we have kissed. Wolverine did approach me first, though it’s hard to say exactly when. Time on Asteroid M seems to be its own animal. Sometimes I feel like we’ve been here for months, other times I feel like we just arrived. Do you know what I mean?”
“Yeah, but don’t change the subject. So Wolverine approached you? And you lost interest in Forge?”
Storm looked down at her hands. “I understand that this has caused strife between us and X-Factor. I’ve spoken about it with the Professor. I really and truly never intended to cause Forge any anguish. I did have a sincere interest in him. It was just that when Wolverine expressed his interest in me, I realized that Wolverine was the man I had truly always wanted. Not Forge.”
I was smiling now. “I thought this day might never come. You and the Canadian are so stubborn. But I really think you could make something work.”
“I do too. We – we went to see Jubilee to let her know. Because of the roles we’ve played in Jubilee’s life, we wanted to do her the honor of telling her. I believe she’s happy for us.”
Storm didn’t sound as solid in that last statement as I would’ve thought. “You sure? Sometimes I kinda wondered if she had a crush on him. And she’s older now, so you never know where that crush – if it was there – could’ve gone.”
“I remember asking Jubilee about it years ago, but she’d told me she didn’t have a crush on him. I believed her then and I think it is still true. We reassured her that she wouldn’t be losing her Uncle-like figure.”
“Well, that’s good.”
Storm smiled and spread her hands. “Well, now that I have opened up to you – as the Professor might say – I do want to again ask if you’d like to talk. I would be glad to listen. I would also encourage you to speak with Gambit and to perhaps reconsider your decision.”
I didn’t allow her to say anything else. “Oh dear, look at the time! Storm, we gotta get goin’ on my rehearsing if there’s any chance I’ll be ready in time.”
“Are you certain we don’t have time to discuss Remy and your–“
“Sugar, I’m positive.”
I knew Storm wouldn’t press it beyond that, and she didn’t. She nodded, and we set to our work.
TO BE CONTINUED
Click here for Chapter Five
Previous chapters:
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
***
Cyclops had texted us the location of the meeting room that the X-men were meeting in. I sprang up from the bed and left my room, heading that way. I didn’t see the need to fly, but I walked pretty fast.
But not fast enough that something didn’t catch my eye. I saw it out of the corner of one eye and I almost kept on moving, but something made me back up and take a gander.
It was a poster. There was a poster hanging on the corridor and it wasn’t one of our election posters. It was from Cortez. From my first split-second look at it, I knew it was one I hadn’t seen before.
Now keep in mind that Cortez and his cronies had been smearing us for days so I was used to being ready for anything. I expected the poster to say the same old arguments against us X-men – we’re rich, we’re out of touch with the average mutant, we love normal humans, we don’t care about the problems most mutants face, we didn’t ever get the UN or the US President to do anything to help mutants – you know the drill by now.
But this poster was unlike anything I’d seen from Cortez’s folks. The top part of the poster had a reproduction of a photograph. Not a drawing or illustration of any kind, just a photograph from one of the security cameras. What I believe that I noticed first was how odd this was because it didn’t look like anything remarkable at first, and certainly not like anything you’d put on a campaign poster. It was a photo of a man wearing an X-men uniform. The man was leaving a room.
An inset showed a close-up of the shot. It was Bobby, clearly it was our Bobby. The inset also showed the room number of the room he was exiting. There was a date and time stamp too, and it showed that this photo was taken early this morning.
My eyes went down to the bottom of the poster to read the text, and about then is when my blood froze. The heading said this:
“X-man caught leaving the room of homosexual Alpha Flight member Northstar. Get the details on Cortez’s website”.
As I was staring at the poster and feeling my blood drain, two people walked by. They also stopped and looked at the poster. I guess they could see me standing right there and wearing an X-men uniform – plus most folks on the space station had met me at least once by now – but that didn’t stop them.
“Ewww, look at this,” one of them said. “Looks like Alpha Flight wasn’t the only group that harbors queers.”
I flew the rest of the way to the conference room.
***
Bobby wasn’t in the meeting room. I learned later on that as soon as they had seen the first poster, Cyclops had wanted to call the whole team together but the Professor had thought it might be easier on Bobby if he wasn’t in this first discussion.
So I can tell you that Bobby wasn’t there, and that first meeting passed in a blur. I ain’t gonna write it all out right now, but here is what we talked about. First it was decided that someone had to talk to Bobby and find out what happened. The Professor reminded the team that we had to give people the benefit of the doubt. Lucky Hank was nominated for that job, since everyone knew that they were friends. It was hard to read the look on Hank’s face.
Secondly, the Professor said he wanted to try to figure out how damaging this was going to be, before we decided upon our next course of action. But not everyone was sold on this idea, since our guts already told us that this was going to be about as bad as it gets. Apparently everyone had seen the posters on their way to the meeting room since it appeared that Cortez’s group had littered the whole blasted space station with them. During the meeting Angel was in a corner with a computer, bringing up Cortez’s webpage. It showed security camera footage of Bobby leaving Northstar’s room in the early hours of the morning. If it was faked then they sure did a great job, but the problem was that none of us thought it was faked. So that tells you that most everyone else on Asteroid M was bound to believe it too.
So then they talked about how to handle damage control, since we could bet that this would be a big deal. The Professor wanted to first see what Bobby had to say and get an idea of how bad the problem would be, but most people wanted to figure out how to fix it right then and there.
And yeah, there were a lot of ugly words tossed out, a lot of insulting names used, and the Professor had to step in and tell folks to cool it and keep their heads and try to respect their fellow X-men. And honestly, I’d never before seen someone roll their eyes when Xavier spoke but one or two people did this time. But the Professor was able to convince the team to wait a little first until we had that other information, and then reconvene.
At least I had something to take my mind off of how terrible things were with Remy, I’d figured.
I wondered what Hank thought about all this. I couldn’t read the look on his face, and he left as soon as he had his marching orders to get the scoop from Bobby.
Me, I felt sick in my gut. I felt shame because folks knew Bobby was kinda a friend of mine, and I also felt really afraid for what would happen to him – and what would happen to us in the election.
***
We were back in that meeting room not too much later to sit down and figure out what to do next. The Professor had come around and spoken to each one of us in between the meetings. He said that Bobby was going to be at this meeting since we all had to be there when we figured out our next steps. The Professor then said to me, “I know this won’t be a problem for you, Rogue, but I am reminding everyone to be respectful during the meeting today.”
I nodded. “You got it!” I said, and I was surprised that my voice sounded its usual spunky way, when I felt nothing but dread sitting in the pit of my stomach.
And before I turned away from the Professor, I took another gander at him. He was tired. He had Magneto’s death weighing him down on top of the very real possibility that we were gonna walk away from this elections as the losers. Cortez in charge of a few thousand mutants eager for war means we’re fighting both those mutants – our people, in a manner of speaking -- and the combined forces of every major government on earth. Toss FOH into the mix since you can bet we’d be fighting them too. Xavier’s worst nightmare was knocking on our doorstep.
Before the second meeting, I darted around the space station and talked to lots of folks. What Cortez had on his website was pretty damning. It made it right clear that Bobby left Northstar’s room early this morning. As one mutant said to me, “What do you think they were doing in there – playing Checkers??”
This was pretty much all people were talking about. Seriously. No one had known that there was an X-man who was queer. Now it was clear that everyone on the station knew it.
I did see Hank just before the meeting. His eyes looked weary. “What does Bobby say?” I asked.
“He admits that he paid a visit to Northstar,” Hank said. “He did not elaborate much more.”
Cannonball was standing right by us and he piped up,” What does it really matter if he tells us more or not? The whole station knows he was there!”
“That’s true, son,” Banshee said. “At this point everyone seems to have already made up their mind as to what the situation is.”
Bobby shuffled into the meeting room just as we were all sitting down. I didn’t want to look at him. From the glance I took I could tell that he looked like a man on his way to the firing squad.
***
The Professor called the meeting to order right away. The room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. He started out by saying, “We have a difficult situation on our hands and we must discuss it as a team. The facts are as follows. Cortez has found a new way to campaign against us with his latest series of posters. Bobby has told us that it is true that he paid a visit to Northstar this morning. We also know that this tactic of Cortez’s appears to be working exactly as Cortez wants it to, with this being discussed widely on Asteroid M. Based on these facts, we need to decide how to proceed.” The Professor’s voice was calm and even, but also bone-weary.
Cyclops spoke first. “Unfortunately it’s very true that Cortez’s tactic looks like it’s working. Since the posters and the stuff on Cortez’s website went up, it’s all people are talking about. And none of it looks good for us.”
“Yeah,” Wolverine added. “We were already lagging behind Cortez. The Inner Circle dropped out of the race earlier today. If the election was held now, he’d have this one in the bag. And we only got four more days”
“I agree,” Angel said. “People have been saying the most vile and disturbing things about us because of this. It’s utterly terrible.”
Angel then shot Bobby a look, and before I go on I should say something else. I didn’t know this at the time, but much later I found out that there was a reason that Angel hated Bobby so much. Seems that years ago, way back in the X-men’s early days, there was an incident between the two of them taking place in the locker room. Apparently Bobby had snuck a glance where he shouldn’t have, and Angel had noticed. Angel had hated Bobby ever since, but again I didn’t know any of this at the time.
“It does appear that our situation is quite dire,” Storm added. “Forge even asked if we want to consider dropping out of the race and having X-Factor run instead.”
“No way!” Cyclops said, and he slapped a fist against his other hand. “We’re the best team here to lead the mutants on this station! We’re the only ones who’ve been working with the UN and with world governments. I’m not pulling out of the race! And I’m not letting this scandal stop us.”
“Me neither,” said Wolverine.
I felt the same way, and said so – and there were lots of nods and seconding of what Cyke and Wolverine said. X-Factor may be good, the team agreed, but we X-men are not pulling out of this election.
“Given that we agree that we need to stay in the running,” the Professor said, “then we must discuss how to deal with this – situation.”
The room was silent again. A few people shot looks over at Bobby.
Then Angel stood up. “May I address the group?” he asked. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot.”
The Professor gave a nod, and again I noticed how tired Xavier looked.
Angel cleared his throat and started talking. “I want to first say that I’m not trying to insult anyone or attack anyone personally. But we have to face the facts here, and we also have to admit that sometimes we X-men are ‘too nice,’ so to speak.”
Angel paused and then continued – he’d do a lot of pausing for emphasis. “What we’re hearing out there about the visit that Bobby paid to Northstar – it isn’t pretty and it reflects badly on all of us. We can’t risk letting Cortez win. Forget about our own pride and our own belief that we are the best team to lead mutantkind. If Cortez wins, we’ll have a disaster on our hands. We could be spending the next few years fighting an on-going war with Cortez and with non-mutants like FOH. And who wants that?
“We also have a few more facts to face. Although I have nothing against Bobby personally, we have to admit that his fighting skills have never been the strongest. Right now, having him as an X-man does reflect badly on all of us and it may very well keep us from winning this election.”
Angel paused again and said, “I know that we all agree that prejudice of any kind is wrong - even though I think most of us are fairly...well, uncomfortable with Bobby’s type of…difference. I know we’re all tired of FOH propaganda that suggests that a lot of mutants are like that, and thus it doesn’t make it any easier having an actual homosexual on our team.
“But at this point we have to think of the election, and the broader good of all mutantkind. It may be painful, but I think we need to ask Bobby to resign as an X-man.”
I spent the duration of Angel’s speech just looking at my gloves. It was hard to face what he said head-on like this but I guessed we had no choice. When he finished I looked up and saw plenty of folks nodding and showing their agreement.
There was silence for a little bit, other than the murmurings of agreement with Angel.
Cannonball spoke up next. He said, “I totally agree. In fact, Angel you’re too nice. I honestly think we should’ve asked him to leave a long time ago.”
Bold words, I thought, coming from one of our newest members.
Cannonball went on. “You gotta think of what’s right and what’s wrong. What on earth was Bobby thinking, going to visit Northstar and putting us all at risk with his actions?? Those people,” he looked at Bobby, “are known to get all sorts of diseases and I think it’s God’s punishment. It’s just wrong, and we’ve been too nice all these years to ask him to leave.”
The Professor spoke up, using just a few words, again sounding tired but also stern. “Cannonball. That’s enough.”
It surprised me, but Cannonball wasn’t done yet. He said, looking at Xavier, “I’m sorry, Sir. But I’m just saying what most folks here are thinking.”
Cannonball had always been such a sweet, gentle guy but I guess when it came to this he was different.
So at this point I snuck a glance at Bobby, as I think most folks were doing. Of course some weren’t as subtle in their watching him. What can I say? He looked miserable and afraid, and I thought he might’ve even been trembling with fear but I wasn’t sure if maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me instead.
Cyclops then looked around the room and asked, “Does anyone else have anything to say? Making sure to be respectful, of course.”
The room was quiet for a spell. Then Storm spoke up. “What would we propose Bobby do? If he’s being asked to leave, where would he go, especially given that there may very well be a war coming on?”
Cyclops said, “He can take a shuttle back down to earth. I’m sure we can arrange a small stipend or some other way to make sure he can get by---“
“I don’t need money,” Bobby said. I was shocked that he interrupted Cyclops. I wondered if he had a burst of adrenaline or something because he also stood up and continued, “I have some saved and I can find a job. I….I also just wanted to say that I’m sorry for causing you any trouble. I didn’t choose to be this way. But I guess it doesn’t matter now. I’m going to find when the next transport is back to earth. Goodbye.”
With that, he got up and left. I knew that soon there was assorted chatter and discussion going on around me but I didn’t listen. I just sat there realizing that this evening we had done something we’d never done before. We kicked an X-man off the team. Sure, he “chose” to resign but in effect we’d kicked one of our own out. If you’d told me a few months ago, I wouldn’t have believed it.
I didn’t think of it at that time, but looking back now I can say that I should’ve felt some sort of kinship with Bobby. Neither of us could have what we wanted, even if it was right there in front of us. But I am sorry to say that on that day, all I felt about the situation was relief that it was over.
***
The next day arrived too fast, and we were now down to three days before the election. We hit the ground running.
Even Gambit was up that morning, working on the campaign, though I avoided him of course. After the meetings of the day before, I had kept my distance, made sure we were nowhere near each other during dinner.
I didn’t eat much – not at dinner the night before or breakfast this morning. My stomach and my heart were mushed together in some weird combination of intense pain over what had happened with Remy, anxiety over the election, and then you can stir in a bad feeling or two - maybe shame and regret - about everything with Bobby. Since I joined the X-men I always tried to stay positive, you know, but that morning for the first time in a long time I almost didn’t want to get up. I had to drag myself out of bed.
That whole day, we were off doing the usual campaigning. Talking to people, making new posters, writing stuff for our website. Much of it, of course, was centered around damage control over what’d happened with Bobby. We made sure that people knew that Bobby – who had left on the last shuttle the evening before, it turns out – was no longer an X-man. But the damage really had been done, and people were saying the worst sort of stuff about us. A lot of folks wouldn’t talk to us at all, and at the Professor’s first speech of the day, the room was mostly empty. Maybe people figured they’d heard it all before and had already made up their minds on how they were gonna vote, but we knew – from what people told us –that a lot of this was due to people’s reactions to what’d happened with Bobby.
When I was getting ready to leave the half-empty dining room after lunch, I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder. For a split second, I thought it might be Storm but it was Jean.
“Can we talk, Rogue?” she asked. She sat down in the empty chair next to me.
I shrugged. I love Jean, of course, she’s like a sister to me. But I sure wasn’t in the mood for talking much. I knew perfectly all of what was bothering me and didn’t feel like re-hashing it.
“I ain’t really in the mood to talk much,” I admitted honestly.
Jean nodded. “It’s just that I noticed you picking at your food, and that worries me a bit.”
“I appreciate your concern, sugar. But I ain’t sure that talking’s gonna help me much. Guess I’m just not in the mood for it.”
“Do you want to go to the rec room?” she asked. “I bet we could both use a break.”
I looked around the dining room, I guess looking for Cyke or Xavier. “But there’s so much to do”
“And we can’t do it when we’re exhausted,” Jean said. Her voice really could be like honey sometimes. It was nice to listen to. I could always see why so many folks took to her. “I bet a break would do us both some good.”
“Okay,” I finally agreed. She did have a point. And besides, if I was gonna take a break and hang out with someone, the person I’d usually do it with was Remy - but he was off-limits for now. May as well take the offer of some company when it came my way.
So we made our way to the rec room. Walking through the corridors I noticed that most of the posters that we’d put up that very morning had been torn down. I made a motion, but Jean just said, “Later. It can wait.”
“Yeah. And it’ll just get torn down again,” I added. Gotta admit I was pretty blue, guess it was no surprise that Jean sought me out.
“We might still win. You never know,” Jean said.
I turned to face her and smiled. “You know, sugar, I appreciate your offer of taking a break more than you realize. How ‘bout let’s not talk about the election on our break?”
“That is a wonderful idea,” Jean said, and smiled back.
She had such a beautiful smile, and I had to smile myself for a spell. I reminded myself that I wasn’t the only one who had things hard. She and Scott wanted a baby real badly and weren’t having any luck there.
So Jean and I got to the rec room. We played darts. Then we played a game of Scrabble, which took a good 45 minutes. We giggled a bit and said we felt like schoolgirls ditching school. I then glanced over at the large-screen TV, and it looked like a movie was starting up on it. There were a few seats left in front of the TV. I raised my eyebrows at Jean and we decided to head over there watch the movie too.
Not long into the movie, something interesting happened. I took a glance at Jean because there was a newborn baby in the movie and I hoped she was okay looking at it. But Jean wasn’t watching the screen anymore.
Apparently Storm had entered the rec room. She was sitting on one of the sofas, and had a mug in her hand. What made this pretty interesting was that she wasn’t alone. She had a guy with her and it wasn’t Forge.
Wolverine. Storm and Wolverine were sitting together on the sofa together. And I mean together. He had his arm around her and she was cuddled up against him. They were talking or whispering. I’ve seen couples do that before, and all I can say is that they were curled together in the way of lovebirds. I had to blink a few times because I didn’t believe my own eyes.
“Um…okaaaay,” I whispered to Jean.
One of the other folks watching the movie shot me a dirty look – you were supposed to be quiet in the immediate area around the TV, and man the last thing we needed was to get charges of ‘talking during the movie’ thrown at the X-men too. So Jean and I exchanged a quick look and got up.
We didn’t head near Storm and Wolverine, but honestly I don’t think they would’ve noticed us if we’d walked right in front of them.
“Okay, now I really feel like a schoolgirl,” Jean said, as we found a spot in the back of the rec room, away from the action. “What is going on there? I thought she and Forge were looking like they were going to start something up.”
“I knew that both fellows were interested in her,” I said. “But from the looks of things over there she’s chosen Wolverine.” I shook my head. “It’s wrong to admit it, but I’m dyin’ to know more!”
“Me too,” Jean said. “But you’re right – we shouldn’t be gossiping about others.”
“’Course not. We’ll just have to grab Storm soon as we can and demand the whole story!”
Jean smiled again, and then she said, “Well, speaking of people’s love lives….I just wanted to ask how you’re doing. Are you okay?”
“I take it you know ‘bout me and Remy?” I asked, and she nodded. Word traveled fast among us X-men. Didn’t matter that we were busy with the election; we still knew what was going on with each other. That’s pretty much always been the case.
I also have to admit that I still didn’t want to discuss it. Appreciated Jean’s concern but didn’t see the point in talking about it since there was nothing Jean could do. So I wasn’t the least bit upset when Jean’s handheld buzzed and Cyclops asked if our break was over because they could use our help. So off we went. Whew!
***
The time in the rec room with Jean was the best part of that day, ‘cause things kept sliding downhill. X-Factor didn’t show up at our evening speech and we noticed that none of the members of their team were working on campaign stuff with us at all that day either. By dinner time we were all talking and comparing notes – seemed X-Factor folks had been snubbing us when passing us in the corridors, that sort of thing too.
“They probably don’t want anything more to do with us because of what happened with Bobby,” Banshee said, quietly. He was sitting near me.
“I’m not sure that’s the only reason for their behavior,” Moira said. She took a quick glance at the rest of the table. Maybe she was checking to see if Storm was there, because that was the next logical conclusion in my book.
“We won’t know what’s going on unless we talk with them,” the Professor said. “I think I will seek Forge out after dinner.”
“Care for some company?” I asked on the spur of the moment. I was looking for something else to keep my mind occupied that evening. Avoiding Gambit – who was sitting at the other end of the dinner table – and trying not to think about him weren’t easy. So I sure welcomed any sort of distraction at this point.
“Of course.”
The Professor must’ve been eager to get this settled, because he sent Forge a message during dinner and finished the rest of his meal quickly. Small things like that seemed odd to me – having been raised a gentleman and all, the Professor wasn’t one to scarf down his food like it was a race – but I reminded myself again that the Professor wasn’t exactly himself lately with everything that had been going on. Magneto’s death was bad enough, but you add in that we’re at the brink of a war and also that I don’t think he was happy about what happened with Bobby.
Forge agreed to meet us in the observation lounge. The room was beautiful but it wasn’t our first choice seeing as there is no privacy in there. It’s a nice, wide-open space with these stunning views of the stars. You could lose yourself, sitting on one of the many sofas and chairs, and just staring up at the blackness of the space, the bright stars, and feeling small among all of it.
Out of the corner of my eye, I glanced a couple off in a corner, cuddled up together and just looking at the view. I guessed that pangs of jealousy and sadness would be with my all my life. In my head, I hoped Remy would be up here any day now with a girl, even though the thought made my heart drop to the floor.
We found an empty couch, and I sat next to Forge with the Professor facing us in his wheelchair. Forge was back to being like the Forge I’d known – down to business and straightforward. Unsmiling too.
“I believe that both of our groups share the same goal,” the Professor began. “We both want mutants and regular humans to work together peacefully.”
His voice was slightly hoarse as he spoke. The man had been campaigning for days and I had to say it almost sounded to me like he was starting one of his speeches. But then again, speeches from him, Cyclops, and Storm were at least of half of what I’d heard and read the past four days.
He went on, “Am I correct in this assumption?”
Forge looked directly at the Professor. Like I said, he was down to business and he didn’t have an expression that you could easily read. The man had never exactly conveyed warmth in my book, and right now I felt ice coming from him.
“You are,” Forge said. “And I imagine you’re wanting to know why we haven’t campaigned with you today.”
“And why some of your people have been snubbing ours in the halls, acting like we got the plague,” I added in. The Professor subtly looked at me, and I kinda regretted saying it a second later since it sounded childish. But then I also felt it needed to be pointed out.
“I think the truth is that we’re tired and we’re not very motivated,” Forge said. “It looks like Cortez is going to win this election. I’m not saying that we’re giving up but my people do need a break.”
“The election is in three days. We’re all tired, but we have to keep the broader goal in mind. You and your team had been so good at campaigning. Can you encourage them to hold out for just a few more days and get back on the campaign trail?”
“I could,” Forge admitted. “Though I have to admit that I’m not very motivated either.”
“Can you share with us why? Do you truly believe it’s hopeless?”
“At this point, I think it might be. Like I said, it looks like Cortez is going to win.”
Forge’s eyes were drifting towards the door. He shifted in his seat and looked very impatient to get our meeting over with. Maybe I got hit with a burst of impatience too. Maybe everything had pushed me too much the past few days.
“He will if we don’t even try to prevent it,” I said, and my voice was back to what my Daddy used to call ‘sharp-tongued.’ “Is X-Factor really feeling hopeless or are you mad at us for some other reason?”
Forge crossed his arms over his chest. “Well, Rogue, truth be told, there are other reasons as well. The debacle with Bobby certainly hasn’t helped things. We’re not prejudiced, but this doesn’t speak well about the X-men’s moral character. Though we give you credit for removing him as fast as you did.” He took a breath and added, “Lorna used to go out with Bobby, years ago. She’s pretty upset about being made to look like someone’s ‘cover’ all those years ago. In fact, I think she’s been saying some bad things about you guys today.”
And then, I swear I couldn’t have planned this myself but I saw Forge take yet another glance at the door. I turned my head. Storm and Wolverine were there, holding hands. I guess they finally realized Forge was there (maybe Wolverine should’ve caught it earlier given his way of sniffing people out, but the fool was probably love-numbed), because they turned and left.
“Is that what this is really about?” I asked. “Are you mad that Storm picked Wolverine instead of you?”
The Professor touched his hand to my arm, and I knew I really had crossed the line. I felt bad. I mean, we weren’t getting anywhere with Forge and I was pretty frustrated, but I still had put my foot in my dang mouth.
“We don’t mean to accuse you or your team of being petty,” the Professor said. “We just ask that you keep our larger goals in mind, our vision for the future of humanity.”
But Forge had had enough and I can’t say I blame him. He abruptly stood up. “I’ll keep that in mind. Professor. Rogue.”
He nodded curtly at us and left.
“I’m sorry, Professor,” I said, once I was sure Forge was out of earshot. My voice was glum as I felt. “I shouldn’t have said that. I came on too strong and said too much.”
The Professor didn’t rebuke me. Honest, in all the years I’ve worked with him, he never was harsh with me – even in the early years when I really deserved it.
“Perhaps when Forge calms down, he will realize that there was some truth in what you said, and he needs to put that aside. It’s all we can hope for.”
I nodded. “But Storm sure picked a bad time to go for Wolverine over Forge.”
The Professor gave a slight smile, for a second. “That may be so, but we certainly can’t dictate our members’ love lives.” He took a breath and then asked, “I’ve been meaning to ask you, Rogue – how are you?”
I smiled sweetly. “Well, Professor, I was just about to ask you the same thing. I guess things aren’t easy for anyone right about now.”
We exchanged a look, and that’s one thing I loved about the Professor. We communicated somehow that neither of us wanted to talk about it, but that we both appreciated the other’s concern. That was satisfying to me.
***
I worked on the campaign well into that night, and got up fairly early the next day to continue. I talked to anyone who would listen. I responded to comments on Cortez’s campaign page. Dazzler was gonna give a concert again, so I helped get the word out. As for the concert itself, sure we were grasping for straws at this point; people did love music and we weren’t gonna be all in your face that this came from the X-men. But we’d have a few posters up so maybe we could subtly reel ‘em in during the show.
Although I didn’t usually deliver speeches – after all, the Professor, Cyke, and Storm were our leaders – I was asked to do one later that day. Maybe they thought my down-home Southern charm would appeal. Honestly, I do think I came across as warmer than the others and I had to smile inside at the compliment.
I pushed the Remy situation to the back of my head. When thoughts about him started to bubble up, I told myself that I didn’t have time to think about this and it would all pass. Maybe I’d half-convinced myself that was true. Until what happened in the gym.
I’d gone to the gym to work on one of the cardio machines. It was always good for blowing off some steam, and I needed it. So I worked away on it.
I was determine to stay positive that day, but as I exercised the thoughts kept bubbling up and not all of them were as positive as I’d wanted. I had to notice how great this gym was. Clean and classy, and it had great music pumping in. Cortez made all this sort of stuff on the station available to any mutant who wanted it, and all they had to do if they couldn’t pay was sign up for some reasonable work shifts. Some folks I talked to said they were worried that if the X-men were elected, we’d dismantle the space station seeing as how the UN and the super powers of the world didn’t like it. They told us they were worried we’d send them all packing, back to the lonely lives they had before, where most of them were struggling to get by. “After all,” one of them told me, “it’s not like you ever let us in that mansion of yours and opened the doors there, the way Cortez did here.”
I’d had my retort ready to go and I delivered it (I hadn’t had a dollar to my name when Xavier found me), but I could also tell it would fall in deaf ears. The guy wasn’t gonna listen to me.
All that made my mood low again, and when I looked up once more I saw Remy here in the gym. With a woman I didn’t recognize.
She was beautiful. She reminded me of that Belladonna character, the girl he almost married so long ago. I hadn’t laid eyes on her in years but I remembered her well. This girl today had the same beautiful blond hair and sparkling eyes. Couldn’t tell what her mutation was by looking at her but she was stunning on the outside.
The two of them headed towards a weight bench and looked like they were going to lift weights together. All these thoughts and ideas buzzed around in my head and I couldn’t stop them. The gym wasn’t a logical place for a date, but then again you never knew. Who was she? Was he interested in her? Of course he was interested in her; I doubt he was campaigning. And heavens above, of course she had to be interested in him! Who wouldn’t be? Then I reminded myself that this was exactly what I’d told Remy to go and do. I also reminded myself that I’d known full well I wouldn’t like it. Then I guessed that no matter how much I knew it in my head, nothing was gonna stop my heart from dropping down even lower.
If Remy knew I was in the gym, he gave no sign of it. That alone told me he had to be interested in her. He used to have like a sixth sense of knowing where I was.
The green-eyed monster was even more painful than I could ever have dreamed. No matter how many times I reminded myself that this was – like I said – exactly what I told Remy to go and do, I was jealous. Gut-ripping, painful jealous. I didn’t want to be in this much pain, but I didn’t exactly have an alternative either and that just made me want to jump out of my skin. I guess I could see why some folks drowned themselves in booze. I’d never do that, but I knew that it could take away the pain for a while.
I slipped out of the gym. Again I don’t think Remy noticed me at all.
Just as I made up mind to go to my room so I could go over the speech I was gonna give later that day, Storm beeped me. She asked if I wanted to rehearse my speech.
“Girl, what happened here – did you get Jean’s powers for a minute? I was just headin’ to my room to practice it!”
I said it with a laugh, but I think Storm heard something in my voice because she met me inside my room in a flash. I was about to ask her if she’d developed Nightcrawler’s powers too but I had to stop. My voice was getting wobbly like it had during that awful discussion with Gambit, and I had to zip it if I didn’t want to start bawling again. Didn’t fancy the idea of breaking down in tears again.
I guess Storm just took one look at my face. She hugged me. I managed to mutter at her to be careful not to let my face touch any parts of her skin. She hugged me tighter after I said that.
But I did myself proud. I got a hold of myself. I got a hold of my emotions. When my voice was steady, I broke away from the hug. “I’m okay,” I said. “Really.”
“Do you wish to talk about it?”
A wicked thought popped into my head. I most assuredly did not want to talk about it….but I could kill two birds with one stone by milking Storm’s sympathy: I could take my mind off of Remy and get Storm to spill the beans!
“No,” I said, sounding like my old self even if I sure didn’t feel like her. “But you gotta tell me, sugar. What’s the story with you and Wolverine? Are you a couple now? Did you kiss?”
Storm looked both bemused and sympathetic. I’m sure that she was fully aware of my game, but she kindly let me play.
“Well,” she began as she sat down in the chair. I sat across from her on the bed. “I suppose you could say we’re going to see where this goes. I’m optimistic about it.”
She’s always so blasted reserved. But I was gonna play the sympathy card for all it was worth. “Spill the beans, sugar! How did it happen? And I ask again - have you kissed yet??”
Storm gave me the look that she has given me many times before to show that she is going to indulge me. “Yes, we have kissed. Wolverine did approach me first, though it’s hard to say exactly when. Time on Asteroid M seems to be its own animal. Sometimes I feel like we’ve been here for months, other times I feel like we just arrived. Do you know what I mean?”
“Yeah, but don’t change the subject. So Wolverine approached you? And you lost interest in Forge?”
Storm looked down at her hands. “I understand that this has caused strife between us and X-Factor. I’ve spoken about it with the Professor. I really and truly never intended to cause Forge any anguish. I did have a sincere interest in him. It was just that when Wolverine expressed his interest in me, I realized that Wolverine was the man I had truly always wanted. Not Forge.”
I was smiling now. “I thought this day might never come. You and the Canadian are so stubborn. But I really think you could make something work.”
“I do too. We – we went to see Jubilee to let her know. Because of the roles we’ve played in Jubilee’s life, we wanted to do her the honor of telling her. I believe she’s happy for us.”
Storm didn’t sound as solid in that last statement as I would’ve thought. “You sure? Sometimes I kinda wondered if she had a crush on him. And she’s older now, so you never know where that crush – if it was there – could’ve gone.”
“I remember asking Jubilee about it years ago, but she’d told me she didn’t have a crush on him. I believed her then and I think it is still true. We reassured her that she wouldn’t be losing her Uncle-like figure.”
“Well, that’s good.”
Storm smiled and spread her hands. “Well, now that I have opened up to you – as the Professor might say – I do want to again ask if you’d like to talk. I would be glad to listen. I would also encourage you to speak with Gambit and to perhaps reconsider your decision.”
I didn’t allow her to say anything else. “Oh dear, look at the time! Storm, we gotta get goin’ on my rehearsing if there’s any chance I’ll be ready in time.”
“Are you certain we don’t have time to discuss Remy and your–“
“Sugar, I’m positive.”
I knew Storm wouldn’t press it beyond that, and she didn’t. She nodded, and we set to our work.
TO BE CONTINUED
Click here for Chapter Five
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poor bobby tho :(
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Thanks for reading.
Volume 060, Issue 022
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I love that you include the entire team, it very much feels like I'm watching an episode of X:TAS. =D
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Whatever you like, it is good to have friends too.
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