Chapter Text
She’d never imagined a lab being so dark. Even with all the expected sharp edges, shining silver tools, eerie silence and bright procedure lights, the room itself was low lit with dark metal walls that gave no reflection and no impression the room was any bigger than it appeared as it felt like it was closing in on her.
She could see the gray metal ceiling tiles pass her by as the slab she found herself strapped to, was rolled down a never ending hallway. The only sounds were the steps of the man in the white coat, the heavier footfalls of a soldier behind, and the metallic wobbling of one the cart’s wheels. She focused in on the sounds as she closed her eyes to ward off the panic rising in her chest.
But when the cart stopped, Rogue knew somehow that she’d been there before. Her head was strapped down to the cart, and there was a pressure at the back of her neck, a hand clicking a cord into the machine at the base of her neck.
The fear escalated but she couldn’t move, strapped to the cart. Just as her breathing and heart rate felt like they would choke the life out of her, her eyes shot open and saw the man in the white jacket and white surgical face mask press a remote button. The pain at the back of her neck scalded her inside and out but she could not scream. She could never scream.
Rogue shot up in bed, sweat slicking her body and sticking her sheets to her skin. Her heart pounded and she knew if she couldn’t catch her breath, she’d pass out.
Looking around her room, she noted five things that she could see: her Bachelors in Psychology diploma she had completed three years prior, a photo of her and her mentor Emma Frost, another photo of her and her university friends and current roommates Kitty and Jubilee, her one pair of gloves she had kept even after she no longer needed them, and the suitcase already packed as one of the last scant objects left in the room.
As Rogue felt herself come back to reality, she brushed her hand over the back of her neck, under her long brown and white streaked hair. It had all felt so real in her dream, but it had been years since someone else’s nightmares had infiltrated her own sleep. And this nightmare felt embedded in her, like a memory and not a fading dream.
The dreams had started four months ago, and Rogue was chalking it up to the stresses of her and her roommates’ coordinated decisions to take jobs at Xavier’s School and move together to Westchester, New York. So much change surely must be the catalyst for such vivid images.
Rogue sighed and flopped against her bed, closing her eyes and reflecting back on the last four months. She counted back, that was February when the dreams had started.
Before that, she had gone to The Xavier Institute with her roommates over the winter break. For them it had been going home, and for her it had been only the second time visiting but the first time she was approaching it as somewhere she might live.
She remembered snowball fights, her and Jubilee ganging up on Kitty and her long distance boyfriend Bobby Drake. She’d gotten to train in the famed Xavier Danger Room a couple of times, her friends already familiar with it from living there before.
She’d connected with Dr. Grey and Dr. McCoy on their work on mutations and controlling powers and came away excited about the work they were doing and how her own talents could help them and the students at the school. She’d enjoyed a few quiet evenings with Ororo drinking tea in the enclosed porch, talking and watching the snow fall.
The Institute was well run and she could see pieces of the Academy integrated in as well as where the inspirations for some Academy changes had come from there. She’d been taken in by the Academy’s founder and telepath, Emma Frost.
After her mutation’s development resulted in running away from the parents who still couldn’t get with the times and accept their daughter was a mutant, she’d spent the next three years on her own.
On reflection, Rogue was always grateful that mutants were pretty open about their mutant statuses when she was drifting. If it hadn’t have been for the mutants she met and some she had made friends with those uncertain years of her youth, she didn’t know where she would have ended up.
She’d been working in housekeeping under the table at a quirky bed and breakfast when they had needed the room they’d been kind enough to let her stay in when she started with them. One of the front desk women was a mutant and offered her a couch at her apartment until she could find something else. She’d been there and still working at the Bed and Breakfast when the woman mentioned a mutant friend that had gotten to continue her education at and with the help of the Academy.
Rogue had been skeptical at first but after meeting Emma, she knew she had found her home, and she completed the requirements for her senior year of high school at 21 years old. The Academy was a stiffer school with more of a modern vibe, glass window walls, wide open floor plans and hallways, all with Emma’s trademark white in all the shades you’d never realized existed, accented only by simple, classy statement plants and trees throughout.
Rogue had gotten on with Emma right away, engaging with the woman’s quick wit and sarcasm and appreciating her direct approach. In Rogue, Emma had found a kindred spirit in understanding the internal struggle to manage others’ psyches and to barely tolerate the deceptions and half truths many others engaged in.
Acknowledging that they both had experienced knowing others better than they knew themselves at times through the use of their gifts, they bonded over direct and honest communication and the relief of connecting with someone who gets you.
At Emma’s encouragement, Rogue had attended college near the Academy and had befriended mutant sisters also living at the Academy, Carol and Laurie Danvers, through some social events at the Academy. This was when anti-mutant sentiments were finally starting to be spoken out loud, and one night when the three women were out at a brewery, Carol was poisoned and Laurie and Rogue attacked.
Carol had grabbed Rogue’s gloved hand with her bare one, and already Rogue could feel Carol’s usually formidable strength rapidly weakening. Carol had looked her in the eye as the attackers were trying to pull Rogue away and punching Laurie in the face. Rogue tried to shake her head and pull her arm away, but she couldn’t do that and fight off her own attackers.
“Save her” Carol had croaked as she pulled back the edge of Rogue’s glove and roughly grabbed her bare skin underneath. When the pull of her powers started, Rogue couldn’t pull out of Carol’s iron grip until the woman dropped to the floor unmoving. Rogue cried out and swung around on the attackers, getting them off of Laurie then picking up her and Carol, and using borrowed powers, flew into the sky and back to the Academy.
Even though she had avoided wasting time on vengeance, it still had not been quick enough to save Carol from the poison in her system. How the attackers had known poison would be needed, they never did figure out. Laurie had stayed on at the Academy even after their loving parents had come for Carol’s body and the Academy’s services for her.
For some time, Rogue had struggled with the guilt of not saving her friend, and of taking her powers. The flight, strength and indestructibility never faded like borrowed powers usually did. Rogue was drowning under the weight of Carol’s psyche and those of all the others she had absorbed before, as her previous walls couldn’t sustain the full addition of Carol in her mind.
A year of working with Emma on separating it all out in her mind and recovering her own psyche, was a year filled with meditation, psychic links, soul searching, journals upon journals of memories and working through everyone’s experiences. With rest and patience, and a much deeper understanding of both hers and Carol’s powers, Rogue had surfaced with Carol’s powers permanently hers, her mind her own, and control of her own powers as well.
It was then that she had returned to college and met the two mutants from one of the Academy’s sister schools, Xavier’s Institute in New York, who would become her best friends and after they had all graduated three years later, roommates for the next three years of their lives.
The girls had started talking about going back to the Institute more and more over the last year. Kitty and Bobby were tired of long distance but more than that, both Kitty and Jubilee expressed a shared desire to take what they had learned from the Academy back to the Institute to keep helping mutants there. Hence the winter trip to entice Rogue into going with them.
Then just two months after her visit to the while she was still considering her decision, these dreams had started. In some, she was cold in the snow, or in a dark night with blurring lights and metal and pain surrounding her. There were doctors and experiments, apocalyptic burnt out cities filled with death and a world crumbling around itself. A handful had been of laughter and teasing, even flirting and long kisses, always with a heavy heart in the middle of a desolate world, and never seeing the faces of anyone in these dreams.
She had spoken to Emma about it but doing so only confirmed what Rogue already suspected. Emma couldn’t see the images in her mind, couldn’t access the dreams at all. She could tell something was there, but she described it like they just kept slipping out of reach. Emma was curious about them, but seemed assured that there was nothing harmful about them and she was not particularly worried about them, Rogue had stopped bringing them up to her mentor and dear friend. They must just be a psyche’s echoes, the stress of change and decisions looming or even just an overactive imagination.
So Rogue accepted these dreams as part of her reality for the moment, even as they integrated into her mind feeling like flashbacks of hidden memories. She’d continued conversations with the professor and his leadership staff at the Institute and when they had come up with a position and plan for her that fit both what she wanted to bring to the school and what was needed, she’d accepted the offer and had a fantastic celebratory night of sushi, drinks and karaoke with Kitty and Jubilee.
With her thoughts drifting away from reflection and back to the present, Rogue sighed, finally moving her hand away from the phantom pain at the base of her neck. Today was moving day, all their furniture being left in the apartment for the next tenants courtesy of Emma’s Academy, boxes picked up by movers the day before and the three girls planning to hit the road to their next home early this morning.
As if on queue, loud music blasted from the living room and Rogue groaned at the Jubilee incited wake up call. How was she so awake?
Rogue showered and packed up the last of her final items in the room, smoothing her hands over the black leather gloves tenderly before placing them and the other items that had helped ground her earlier, into her backpack. She slung the bag over her shoulder and pulled on the handle of her rolling suitcase, walking out into the living room.
There she dropped her bags and smiled at the women who had started as casual friends from one of the Academy’s many mutant social events, and had become as good as sisters over the last 6 years. She knew that they were excited to be officially moving back to what they considered their home.
She herself was a little nervous as she hadn’t left the safety of being near the Academy since arriving there, and moving to a new state, with a new home and a new job was a lot of change. Rogue had visited the Institute only a couple of times over the years of her friendship with Kitty and Jubes, once in passing when the three had road tripped it to Niagara Falls, and again over their holiday break this last winter, with the idea of moving in mind.
She had only met a few of the other staff very briefly then and later in phone and video interviews, but it seemed like a great place to continue the work she had started with Emma, helping developing mutants understand and control their powers. She would be teaching basic high school level psychology and working with students on their mutation control.
Jubilee was saying something, rather yelling something, now, but Rogue couldn’t hear a word above the girl’s music. She shook her head and laughed at her friend. Kitty rolled her eyes from her seat at their kitchen counter, right next to the offending bluetooth speaker. She reached over and dialed down the volume, leaving Jubilee’s yelling as the dominant sound in the room.
“Girrrrllll, finally you are up, I’m so ready to hit the road!” Jubilee screamed the first half and lowered her volume at the end, hearing herself now over the lowered music.
“Yup, all set. Just gotta load up and please, please I need coffee on our way.” Rogue drawled in her southern accent as she moved closer to her friends and leaned easily against Kitty’s arm at the counter.
Jubilee fist pumped and gave a twirl, while Kitty and Rogue smirked and stood up, gathering their final bags.
As the three moved through the front door, all their bags on the porch, they turned back and looked at the home they had known for the last three years and leaned into one another smiling. They were ready for this.
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Rogue started them off driving on that first day of travel, with Kitty finishing it off pulling up to the hotel they had booked at their halfway point. Rogue had dozed in the back seat on that second half, and woke up with the smell of cold and snow and burning gasoline permeating her senses even as she recognized the heat of summer all around them. She stretched out and sighed, apparently loud enough for Kitty to notice, as the girl turned to look back from her passenger seat.
“Another dream Rogue?” Kitty asked, a bag of trail mix held out in offering.
Rogue put out a bare hand and Kitty poured some of the snack for her. “It’s so strange, every time I fall asleep it’s like I’m living some other life. It’s like how memories get super foggy over time, I know it’s real but it ain’t clear at all. Not like an absorption at all.”
“Emma still didn’t have any answers when you guys said goodbye yesterday?”
Rogue shook her head at Jubilee. “Nope, and she still don’t seem worried about it.”
“What was it this time?” Kitty asked as she turned back around in her seat.
“Snow, cold on the side of a road, an’ I think something was burning but I couldn’t tell what. Then I woke up.”
“I’m guessing it doesn’t match anywhere you’ve ever been, maybe that time when you were on the road before Emma’s?” Kitty asked.
“Nah, I never made it anywhere quite that cold.”
Jubilee lifted her sunglasses and briefly met Rogue’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Maybe Xavier will be able to help.”
Rogue shrugged. The memories were strangely not bothering her that much. Outside of the absolutely terrifying ones, they kind of just slid into herself without much effect or struggle. “Sugah, I have definitely had weirder things happen so if he can figure it out kudos to him. If not, well I guess it just goes in the category of we’re mutants and weird shit randomly happens.”
Kitty and Jubilee both nodded their heads knowingly. “Ain’t that the truth” laughed Jubilee.
Kitty turned the music up a little as one of her favorite songs came on and Jubilee rolled her eyes at the girl. The comfortable silence in conversation settled in the car with the music and road sounds taking over as each lost themselves in their own thoughts.
Rogue smiled appreciating the family these women had become and in anticipation of the journey ahead of them at the Institute. She reached for a necklace chain hanging at the front of her shirt and looked down puzzled when her hand came out empty handed and no chain was there. Another phantom like the pain at the back of her neck that seemed to come and go as it pleased.
Rogue looked up and gazed out at the passing highway. In truth, she was excited to start something new at Xavier’s. She had been part of Emma’s team so long that a new home and new place to stretch her skills felt right.
The conversations she had had so far with Xavier, Dr. Grey, Scott Summers, Ororo Munro and Dr. McCoy had left her impressed with their passion and dedication to the growth and safety of young mutants. She knew from them and from her two friends who had attended the school years prior, that they also trained and deployed the X-Men from the facility and she was intrigued.
Xavier had mentioned that despite the large presence of mutants out in society, in recent years the anti-mutant sentiments of old had started to resurface. In response, the school had increased defensive training, missions to investigate groups suspected of holding mutants against their wills, and improved overall security at the mansion.
Emma had begun implementing similar changes at the Academy and Rogue knew that the three of them going to the Institute was also part of an informal information and skills sharing initiative between mutant boarding schools. Her own knowledge and skills in controlling mutations was of particular interest it seemed to the staff at Xavier’s, as they had mentioned a few newer students who seemed to be struggling.
Having visited the grounds the couple of times with her friends before, she knew it was a haven away from the city and she was looking forward to getting settled. Jubilee had already mapped out a plan to hit some vintage and boutique stores further in town for fun decor for their individual suites and for some of her favorite coping skill, retail therapy.
Rogue went through in her head what else she knew about the Institute. Dr. McCoy managed the medical facilities and an advanced biology course. Dr. Grey taught a few other advanced courses in humanities and sciences. Ororo taught a few various science courses including some STEM, environment and plants focused ones.
There was a staff member she had briefly met on her first visit years ago, named Logan who had been teaching some history courses and running the physical trainings. If she remembered correctly, the second blue mutant to be employed at the school had been Kurt Vogner, who taught a philosophy course, a writing course and apparently some gymnastics and parkour.
It all seemed pretty familiar to how Emma ran her Academy, though perhaps a little more homey sounding than the well oiled machine campus feel of the Academy.
The trio stopped overnight at their halfway mark, and were up early to knock out the rest of their journey. Kitty and Jubilee became more visibly excited as they neared the gate to the mansion. Rogue was in the passenger seat and yawned, stretching out as Kitty pulled up to the gate’s code box and entered her personal code. The large metal gates swung open and Kitty proceeded driving through, following the long driveway to the side garage and parking spaces.
It was about 10 pm when they arrived and while the mansion was quietly peaceful, lights were still on in many common and private rooms, with a light buzz of movement within. Rogue opened her door and stepped out, grabbing her backpack and swinging it over her shoulder before closing the door and turning to properly face the mansion.
Suddenly, her heart beat sped up. In her mind, the scene was overlaid with one of flattened devastation, the mansion’s walls destroyed and crumbling and a terrible ache forming in her heart. The scene oscillated between the intact mansion before her and devastation in her mind, confusing her.
The present moment won out and the mansion solidified in her vision. She found herself searching the mansion’s open windows and doors for something she couldn’t identify from her dreams. A feeling that she knew this place, had loved and grieved this place already, struck her. She closed her eyes and shook her head to try to wipe out the fog in her brain. She had not felt this the other times she had visited the Institute over the years.
Hearing her name called out by Jubilee at the trunk of their car, she shook her head and walked back to grab her suitcase.
“I do not know how you have tha energy right now Jubes.” Rogue laughed.
Kitty grabbed her own bag from the trunk and rolled her eyes. “Well, she was the one napping all afternoon in the back seat fucking snoring so loud I couldn’t hear the music.”
“I so do not snore.” Jubilee humphed as she closed the trunk.
“Oh my god, Jubilee, we, and every single person you have ever dated, have literally confirmed to you that yes, yes you do snore.” Kitty retorted back.
“Whatever, I’m just happy to be home. And with my besties no less. C’mon Kitty, you can’t tell me you’re not antsy to get inside and back to your bed with Bobby after all this long distance relationship jazz you guys have been pulling!”
Kitty blushed and pushed past Jubilee with a smirk. Rogue and Jubilee exchanged a devious glance and followed their friend towards the side entrance.
As if on cue, Ororo opened the side entrance door and held it for them as they passed through, a gentle smile on her face. Locking it behind them all, she welcomed them and told Kitty and Jubilee their rooms were ready.
Kitty and Jubilee smiled, then each stepped back one to either side of Rogue and each gave her a side hug, so she was enveloped in friends and freely given physical and skin to skin contact. The two confirmed with her when they would meet her for breakfast the next morning, then took off down the halls to get to their rooms.
Rogue and Ororo smiled after them and Ororo turned to Rogue. “Well, I’m sure you are road weary and ready to rest. Do you need any help with your bags?”
Rogue hesitated, then laughed out loud before responding. “Sugah, I appreciate tha offer but I’m stronger than I look.”
Ororo laughed as well as realization dawned on her. “Ah, yes, clearly I too am in need of some rest. I think I will enjoy your first danger room session with the team once you have acclimated. Come child, follow me.”
Rogue followed the dark, graceful woman down a corridor and up to the third floor with staff suites. Ororo pointed to a door as they passed and indicated that it was hers if Rogue should need anything before getting sorted in the morning. Rogue nodded and continued following her to a door two down.
Ororo opened the door and let Rogue step in first before sharing the details of the space like linens and thermostat.
As Ororo left and Rogue softly closed the door behind her, she leaned back on the door and closed her eyes. Even with all the changes and upheaval, even with the strangeness of the last four months of dreams and lasting impressions, she felt to her core that something had clicked into place when she walked into the Institute.
Somehow, she knew she was exactly where she was supposed to be.