log: erik+rogue WHO: Erik Lehnsherr and Rogue (616) WHEN: Backdated to a few days ago WHERE: The forge WHAT: Rogue is getting the silent treatment from Erik after returning from Storybrooke and she's had enough of that bullshit. WARNINGS: N/A
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Enough was enough.
Rogue had tried to let the whole cold shoulder routine that Erik had been giving her since she’d returned from Storybrooke just slide off her back and not bother her. She’d had enough other things to deal with at first — from Marie to Hope to dealing with her own fallout from leftover memories. But it was irritating; the longer she allowed it to go on without saying something to him the more annoyed she was going to get with herself and with him. She also knew that if she kept trying to push that annoyance down that eventually she’d simply verbally explode at him one day and that was something she really didn’t want to happen.
So she headed down to the forge, confident that he’d be there, and mentally pat herself on the back when she found him at his work table.
“I’ve been back for a week and I get one measly little ‘hi’ from you as ya pass me by in the hallway,” Rogue drawled out as she picked up one of the tools from the table. “That ain’t no way for friends to act.”
If he said they weren’t friends she might seriously punch him.
Erik had been steely with her since the battle against the witch. Even after she was missing for nearly three weeks, Erik was cold. He said hello to her days ago, with a brief nod, and they'd spent time in the same spaces, but Erik had done little more than glance her way and acknowledge her. Had he been someone else, a reunion deserved a hug. Since he wasn't someone else, a hug was way out of the question, but that didn't mean he had to ignore her.
His worktable took up a large portion of the forge, with a clean, simple table and several cubes of various metals stacked at one edge. The two tools that were there looked like they were barely touched. A shimmering, impossibly smooth sphere the size of his fist was at the other edge of the table, sitting atop a winding iron stand and showing a reflection of the entire room. Behind him was a massive sculpture that stretched up to the ceiling — a gnarled copper tree with delicate leaves that were so thin they nearly transparent in the light.
Erik had been using his powers for nothing but destruction for a very long time. Here, he was learning to hone them for precision and beauty.
He glanced up from his work: manufacturing forks for the cafeteria. "Hello," he said again, and he gave her nothing else.
At some other time, Rogue might have taken a moment to study the beauty that was before her, to take in the intricate work that was on display. Instead she looked up at the ceiling as she inhaled deeply. “Lord give me the strength,” she muttered to herself, even though she hadn’t had much to do with any sort of religion since she was a child. But his stubbornness was worse than her own and her fuse was already frayed at the edges.
“Are you seriously still gonna give me this damn silent treatment? A hello here and there don’t count as talkin’.” Rogue leaned against the table and reached over to flick the fork that he was working on. “What the hell is your problem?” She might have an idea but it was better to know for certain before delving any further.
Erik's hand snapped out, grabbing the fork, and for a moment it seemed like he was going to stab it right into her hand. He stopped himself before making a move, and then set the fork aside.
"My problem is that you used my own powers to undermine me," he said, his voice low. He'd also taken a significant hit because of it — Erik didn't have any kind of supernatural strength. "My abilities are mine. They are not my gift to you to do with as you please."
Rogue sighed at having her suspicions confirmed. “I told you that I would, Erik. In that hallway when we were talkin’ about it all, I warned you that if you went too far I’d knock sense back into you.” Maybe throwing part of a Sentinel at him hadn’t been the best way to go about it but it had worked. “You weren’t carin’ at all who might get hit by the pieces you were rippin’ off. Would it have been better if I’d used someone else’s? Used Rachel’s TK or Kara’s freeze breath on you? The outcome woulda still been the same because that’s what my abilities do. They let me use everyone else’s.”
She wasn’t sorry, refused to feel guilty about using her ability. “What do you want? Me to feel bad for usin’ my gift? And here I thought we were supposed to be proud of them.”
Erik leaned back in his chair and lightly drummed his fingertips against the table. Was he threatened? Perhaps. Rogue's use of his powers were fine in theory, and when they were dealing with them in a calm setting they were magnificient. He could appreciate and marvel at the fact that Rogue could do things that he couldn't, but when she was turning his own powers against him in combat, besting him … it not only rattled his nerves, but it hurt his pride.
"I hardly went too far," he said, his voice level. There was genuine anger brewing underneath. This counted as a betrayal, as far as he was concerned.
Rogue was all too aware that a seemingly level Erik was far more angry than one who was shouting. “Y’alls level of too far is like Logan’s. You get there and you’re too far gone to do anythin’ about it. I prefer makin’ the line closer so it don’t get to the point of no return.”
She took a deep breath, wanting to explain why she’d stopped him. “I ain’t even sure how many times I made it so what you were rippin’ apart didn’t hurt one of the Podkru or Skaikru. I know I kept thinkin’ that I’m gonna miss the next one and you’re gonna end up severely hurtin’ or killin’ them,” Rogue said, closing her eyes for a moment as she remembered that fear and worry she’d nearly drowned in during the battle. “ And the last guy that they put on trial here kinda ended up dead in his cell and all I could think is you were gonna end up killin’ a whole bunch of them on accident and maybe the trial thing would be all nice and fair but the end result still don’t seem to be all that great around here.”
She kicked at the table, pleased that the forks rattled a bit before she looked back at him. “So I’m sorry, but I’d really rather you not end up dead in some plastic prison they already got made for you around here so if I gotta knock some sense into you every now and then I’m gonna do it..”
Erik listened, folding his arms across his chest and keeping his expression passive. It wasn't the explanation he was expecting. He certainly hadn't thought that she'd claim that she was looking out for his own wellbeing, rather than simply trying to keep him from crossing some arbitrary line.
"You're trying to tell me that you knocked me out of battle for my sake."
“Well, yeah.” She leaned against the table before shrugging. “I might have been a lil overzealous while doin’ it but I was usin’ like forty different powers all at once. Not exactly an easy thing to do, especially when it was my first time with over half of them. And some of them weren’t like anythin’ I’ve ever felt before.”
"A little overzealous?" Erik raised an eyebrow, his mouth twitching into a faint, amused smile. "It seems that the only one who managed to get hurt with all of these Sentinel pieces flying around was me."
He plucked up a small cube of metal and let it hover between his hands, slowly stretching and molding to take the shape of a fork. "But yes, of course, let's protect everyone else." The implication was clear: he wanted to know whose side she was on. Was she actually his friend, or was she simply holding him on a leash, ready to yank it when he started to misbehave?
Rogue watched him work for a moment before pushing back slightly from the table. “I’m never gonna live this one down, am I? It’s gonna be three years from now and you’re gonna be all ‘and then you hit me with a Sentinel’. And then all of the other mutants are gonna be all with a Sentinel?!” she mock gasped before shaking her head at the ridiculousness of it. She knew that probably wasn’t the answer he was looking for though.
“I can’t promise that I won’t do it again, ‘cause I will, though not with as much gusto as I did this time. Learned that lesson. But I can try to call out to you first or somethin’ when I think you’re...not thinkin’ through potential consequences.” Rogue paused, looking at him carefully. “And if I thought anyone here was gonna hurt you while tossing stuff around while we were all in a battle I’d have thrown a Sentinel at them too.”
Erik stopped working, his gaze leveling on her. He was being moody, and he knew that, but he was in a delicate position: all of his friends, including Raven, were poised to take him down in the event that he "went too far". Friendship came with caveats, he supposed that was to be expected. He wasn't unaware that he was dangerous.
After a long silence, he cleared his throat and went back to working, smoothing the metal of the fork and straightening the tines. "I've lost two friends," he said, seemingly a non sequitur. "I thought they'd been taken to that town, like you and the others, but they haven't come back."
“Hank and Alex?” she asked, before pushing at the memories she’d had locked away so she could leaf through them for a moment. She couldn’t remember them having been there but considering she’d locked everything away when they had stepped back into Mount Weather Rogue wanted to be sure.
She gripped the table tightly as they washed over her, quickly poking through them. It took her a few moments, lips twisting as she glimpsed pieces of that place she hadn’t wanted to see again before getting to the end again. “They weren’t there. Place was small enough that I’d have at least run into them at the farmer’s market or somethin’ like that goin’ on.” Taking a breath she pushed them all back into the compartment she’d made for them, locking them away tightly again. “It’s probably better they didn’t end up there. Memories of that place have been messin’ with a lot of people. Them goin’ back home ain’t exactly great either but at least they weren’t traumatized.”
Rogue reached over to pick up one of the forks he’d finished. “I’m sorry you lost the two of them, but you gotta know that you’ve got other friends here, Erik. Plus Marie ain’t a stone statue anymore, which I’m still marvelin’ at.”
It was a stretch to call Hank and Alex friends. They certainly had bad blood between them, almost entirely Erik's fault, but they were people from his world and that had mattered to him. The other mutants didn't seem to disappear with such alarming regularity. Hank had disappeared twice now, and Charles had come and gone twice as well. It bothered him more than he cared to admit.
Erik smiled vaguely. "I have watchdogs, Rogue, not friends." He ran his fingers over his newly-completed fork and set it down. "I'm glad Marie's fine. I'm … pleased that you're all back." There, see? He could bury the hatchet.
“It’s nice to be back.” It was on the tip of her tongue to refute the watchdog piece but she held back, fully aware that she wouldn’t be able to change his opinion on that. Especially not with how true it was. “Do you mind if I stay and watch you work? We ain’t even gotta talk. And are you still gonna want to work on your powers together? I liked doing that with you.”
It reminded her of pieces of home that she couldn’t help but miss a little.
Erik gestured with one hand, and a metal chair drifted across the floor to come to a stop beside her. He wanted to ask her what she got out of training him, if she did it because she enjoyed the rush for herself, or because she wanted to lord it over him that she knew more than he did. Erik wasn't above being trained — Charles had trained him, after all — but after she'd turned his own powers against him, he was beginning to wonder how much he wanted her to have access to them.
Then again, she held the key to him gaining an advantage over her if she ever tried it again.
So he smiled, even if it didn't quite reach his eyes. "Yes," he said. "To both questions."
“Thanks,” she told him as she sat down on the chair. “I actually feel useful when I’m workin’ with you on them.” Back home she had been the one helping the kids with their powers and issues on Utopia. She’d liked doing that, saw it as something worthwhile to do. It was why she had chosen to go with Logan to rebuild the school instead of staying with Scott’s team. Hopefully with spring having finally come to the area she’d be able to do more with her map making position for the mountain.
“Even if I ain’t all that sure everyone will be all that happy that I am.” But she would rather help him learn to do the things she knew Magneto should be able to do than regret not helping later when a specific use of his power could’ve helped everyone out. She’d deal with the fallout that could happen if he decided to use his powers against them.
Erik's smile turned bitterly amused. "That's solved by just not giving a damn about what they think."