Entry tags:

rated: everyone, rogue/magneto, xmen movieverse

XMen Movieverse Fic: Blue Sky Fallen Black - Rated: Everyone
Title: Blue Sky Fallen Black
Fandom: XMen Movieverse
Pairing: sort of pre-Rogue/Magneto
Rating: E for Everyone
Prompt: demented_allure challenge #2 - interpretation of the lyrics "For you I'd burn the length and breadth of sky."
Words: ~1250
Author’s Notes: For sionnain, because really, who else would I write R/M for? :)

Rogue sat on the floor of the little metallic cell, arms circling her legs with her knees drawn up to her chest, her cheek resting against the thick leather of her pants. She had a narrow bed off to one side of the small boxed room, but she preferred to sit in the middle of the floor, hunched up as tight as she could.

Her body faced the wall, but when she laid her cheek against her knees, she had a comfortable view to look up and out the small square window. The square window with the bars drawn across, distorting her view of the beautiful clear blue sky. But if she focused just right, past the two middle bars, and pinpointed her gaze on an invisible dot beyond them, it was like they weren’t even there at all.

She used the same technique on her mind, on her memories, and it was like she wasn’t even there. She was back at the Institute, sitting out on the large lawn, staring up at the sky. Rogue loved the clear blue sky on a cloudless day; it was so simple, so elegant, so perfect.

But she wasn’t there anymore. She was here, and had been for at least a fortnight, perhaps more – she didn’t really have a way to measure the time. It wasn’t as if she was in a castle with stone walls that could be marked up with each passing day. She was in a completely metal fortress, a perfect representation of the powerful mutant that lead his troops into what he believed was war.

The war she was now considered a prisoner of.

* * *

She was finally retrieved from her cell one afternoon, only to have metal clamps placed around her wrists. She didn’t bother asking Pyro what this was all about – she knew he wouldn’t say. In all the days he had brought her meals to her cell, he had only spoken once. It was to correct her – no, not John. Pryo - but she could not get more out of him than that.

She didn’t even bother to try anymore, for in that one exchange, she had seen how he had changed. Pyro still seemed as angry as John had been, but it was a restrained anger, a controlled one, and it was lined with deep Belief in what he was doing. It had given her a respect – and, admittedly, a bit more fear – for the Pyro she had once known as John.

She followed wordlessly as he led her through the fortress. She had half-hazard plans of escape on her mind, as she had in all the time she had been there, but she knew she wouldn’t try to put any of them to use. Rogue understood it would be futile to try to escape a metal prison from a mutant who had complete control of everything that surrounded her. She was not happy with her situation, but she wasn’t ready to give her life to escape it, either.

She was led to a big, open room, one that reminded her of a ballroom in a castle. But she knew that no such activities would happen here. There were at least two dozen men and women – mutants, she knew – who sat in metal chairs that faced a stage. Pyro took her to a row of chairs the lined the wall of the room – so obviously set aside from the rest of the mutants.

Sitting in those chairs Rogue saw near a dozen mutants in the same metal cuffs as hers; other Prisoners of War, she concluded. Some looked defiant, some looked fearful, but most looked as she felt – drained but not defeated, on guard but curious.

She had just taken her seat when the entire room fell silent, and she saw that Magneto had stepped onto the platform. He took a moment of silence to look the room over, looking into the face of every single mutant there, even those lined up against the wall, and then in his booming and commanding voice, began to address the whole crowd.

Word, words, strong words that covered and filled the room, making everyone – even herself – pay attention. Strong. Powerful. Unrestrained. Murmurs of agreement, nods of heads, and eventual yelling and clapping of enthusiasm filled the room as much as the words did, a strong electric current of a united front flowing between the mass of the crowd.

Rogue took them in, those words and actions, as she had not else to do. She reminded herself they were not for her, even though when her eyes meet with his, the message was clear that she’d be welcome to accept them if she choose.

* * *

She was returned to her cell without another thing said to her, and the days continued, but they were different than before. She tried to stare out her window again, to find that patch of clear blue sky that had comforted her so. But she couldn’t faze out the bars across the window anymore, couldn’t look past them. It came to be that they kept out that sky and kept her in, a clear divide from the world she once knew.

She forgot about finding that patch of escaping comfort, and returned to focus on the words. New words that twirled and swirled around in her mind. She focused on them, trying to make sense of them, to incorporate – or hopefully alienate – them from what she already knew and felt.

Finally, they fell into place. And the sky made sense again.

* * *

She was surprised when Magneto himself arrived to her little cell. She was sitting in her spot, and turned her gaze away from the metal wall in front of her to tilt her head to the side and look up at him.

Once upon a time, she might have backed away, scared or intimidated, but she stayed right where she was. She looked him up and down, saw that he looked the same in his cape and helmet; he certainly was still intimidating, but she didn’t find herself as afraid as she might have been once.

She didn’t even wait for him to address her. “I follow you,” she said quietly but firmly. He only raised an eyebrow, not saying anything in return.

A woman, blond and beautiful, whom Rogue had not seen follow Magneto in, stepped in front of him. She looked down at Rogue with eyes that glinted like diamonds, and just stared at her for a brief moment. Finally, a small smirk graced her lips. “She’s not lying,” the woman told Magneto.

Magneto only gave a knowing smile, and stepped out of the room, followed by the woman. The door was left open.

* * *

One night, fortnights upon fortnights after the opening of the door, Rogue stood on the balcony of the fortress, looking out at the black waters of the bay. She sighed deeply when Magneto stepped up behind her, putting a possessive grip encased in thick leather gloves around each of her shoulders. She took in a deep breath through her nose, taking in his familiar scent – cold, sterile, metallic power – and leaned back against him.

She felt them both look up at the same time to the black cover that blanketed the world, stars like little beacons of hope shining down at them through the oppressive darkness.

She had decided some time ago that she liked the sky much better that way.

~End