Chapter Text
Rogue hates Sentinels. Most mutants do, anyway. The X-Men have fought them more times than Rogue can be bothered to remember, and yet they're still more irritating than just about anything else she can think of right about now.
Rogue shouts as she rips a Sentinel's head off, then moves onto the next one. Master Mold was back, again, and creating another stronger-than-ever batch of Sentinals. Hank and a few of the others are working on taking down the big one while her and Gambit work on the little ones.
Hah, little ones. And they're still big enough to dwarf a house.
Gambit throws a glowing card at the Sentinel Rogue has flown towards, exploding the chest armor. Rogue reaches inside the new rubble for a particularly big piece of machinery to throw at another Sentinel flying towards them as she dodges a beam from another.
Just as she's starting to look for a new target, a new Sentinel slaps her out of the air, barreling straight into Gambit. He groans underneath her weight and she quickly floats off of him so he can get up. Rogue asks, "You alright?"
"Gambit's as excellent as always." He grabs another card and starts charging it as Rogue sets her sights on the Sentinel that slapped her out of the air.
Some kind of blast hits Rogue from behind and she tumbles forward. She turns around to target whatever hit her — is there another souped-up Sentinel being added into the mix? — but her vision is so blurry that she can barely make out the shape of it. They must be trying to figure out how to weaken mutants before killing them. Unluckily for them, she won't go down so easily.
Her hands ball into fists despite herself. That beam must've affected her somehow, but she can still punch the living daylights out of a Sentinel, no matter how blurry they are. Rogue launches herself at the Sentinel without a second thought.
She unleashes a fury of punches, then rips one of its arm off and throws it aside. Rogue's skin starts to crawl. Her eyes start to hurt, more pain than she's felt focused like that before.
This has to be a part of that beam's attack, Rogue thinks, but before she can continue that thought a wave of nausea hits her and she gets the uncanny feeling that she's going to pass out.
The Sentinel flies away like the coward it was coded to be as she falls to the ground, desperately trying to follow it. She tries to call out, but she only groans as her eyes slip shut without her input.
Instantly, Rogue's eyes snap open. She's laying on the ground among wrackage and Sentinal parts. Rogue can't remember a time she's ever passed out on a battlefield. Even when she wasn't invulnerable, she was always careful. Something about that thing getting the jump on her rubs her pride the wrong way. Even if it was the beam she got hit with, she still shouldn't have been hit by it in the first place.
She tries to float so she can scan the battlefield from above, but nothing happens. Okay, her powers aren't working — it's happened before, when some opponent drains her energy. Most of the time, it's just the powers that aren't quite hers. She still can't touch people, because there can never be a benefit to these things. She groans, and figures it's best to find out what's going on.
As Rogue sits up, she scans the area. Is the battle ongoing? Just because her powers aren't fully working right doesn't mean she can't try to help. The area seems to be firmly in the aftermath of the fight, though, so she starts to make her way through the rubble to where she sees some of the X-Men. It feels so odd to navigate a battlefield without her flashier powers; anything could attack, and she could be helpless. Maybe she should take off her gloves.
Gambit apparently also got knocked on his ass during the fight. She didn't notice anything, but she was pretty focused on what happened with the new type of Sentinel. Maybe it happened after she passed out? Hopefully he managed to take down the Sentinel that downed Rogue for her.
Just as she's about to call out to Gambit, Rogue trips on stray rubble. She puts out her hands on instinct as she wills herself to fly only to feel them radiate pain as she lands.
Blood. Her own blood. Her palms are scraped and red is trickling out of her skin, leaking onto her gloves. Over such a small fall? Even with her powers drained, she still doesn't bleed this easily. This attack must've drained more power from her than other attacks have. That's one hell of a new Sentinel they're making.
Rogue takes off her torn gloves, then cautiously taps her comm on her belt. She swears her fingertips tingle as the touch it, but that's probably just because she rarely takes off her gloves. "Beast, something's really wrong with my powers."
Across the battlefield, Jean lets out a piercing scream. Everyone turns towards the sound, terrified — is the threat still here active? — but the only thing they find is Gambit's hand touching hers, like she was helping him from his feet. Gambit looks panicked, but his attention isn't on Jean's scream. He's looking at their joined hands in horror.
Wolverine gets to them first, and pulls Jean away from Gambit. Jean's breathing is still heavy and she looks about two seconds away from passing out, but whatever was causing her pain has stopped. Is there another psychic around trying to disable her?
"What happened, Cajun?" Wolverine grunts, supporting all of Jean's weight as she leans on him. Jean's hands start to reach for her head, just like the professor does when he activates his telepathy. Her hands are trembling.
Gambit's eyes widen, and that's when Rogue notices that they're green instead of red. "I—"
Rogue's comm explodes, launching her even further away from the other X-Men. She yelps and wills herself even harder to fly so she doesn't have to deal with this landing, but her powers are still failing her.
She braces for impact, but Storm commands the winds to give her a gentle landing. By the time Rogue's sitting up, Storm's landing beside her. Storm start offers Rogue a hand up, even though she can clearly see Rogue's exposed hands. "Are you alright? Do you know what happened?"
"I thought maybe you would." Rogue groans and pushes herself off the ground. She brushes her hands together a few times to dust them off. It's eerie not having her gloves on, and now it's starting to get annoying. The second she gets back to the mansion, she's grabbing a backup pair. She takes off her belt to examine the busted comm. "I got blasted by a new type of Sentinal, and now my powers are out of whack. Doesn't explain what happened with my comm, though."
"Your eyes are… black and red," Storm notices, her own eyes widening. "When you touched your comm earlier, were your gloves off?"
Rogue gasps. It can't be. "You don't think…?"
Storm nods. Rogue can't tell if the expression on her face is sympathy or pity. "I think that Sentinel's blast changed your powers to Remy's, and his powers to yours."
Time seems to freeze as Rogue processes. She can't think of anything to reply with, even though thoughts like how and why and how do we change it back are swirling through her head. Neither of them know the answers, anyway. It doesn't make any kind of sense.
Rogue leans against a pile of Sentinel scrap metal, being careful to make sure none of her bare skin touches it. She really wishes she had her gloves again, just for the security of them, but she's not sure how much good they would do if touching them could blow them up. Her powers aren't the ones she's hated for so long, instead they're Remy's.
Even in this deeply fucked up scenario, and she's still afraid of what touching something can do.
"Well, damn," Rogue breathes, somehow feeling a little out of breath. "I didn't know Sentinels had it in them."
"We should get you to Hank. He can run some tests and figure something out." Storm suggests, guiding Rogue back to where the rest of the group is. Rogue lets her, still feeling numb. This isn't her her power. This can't be her life — it's like she's stealing Remy's.
Rogue stops when they get to Gambit. He's holding his head like he has a particularly gruesome headache. When Rogue steps towards him, he groans as his free hand reaches to try and massage his temples. It must be telepathy from touching Jean, meaning Gambit really does have Rogue's powers. Rogue grimaces in sympathy; she wouldn't wish her powers on anyone, let alone Gambit.
Rogue frowns. If there's one thing Gambit can do, it's stay calm under pressure. The fact that he's showing any distress at all is a bit unsettling, even if it's to be expected.
The fact that he's taken Jean's life force first is even worse. Her energy isn't easy to take on, and her powers are hard to control — Gambit undoubtedly feels all of the X-Men in his head now, not just Jean. And, Rogue knows from experience, the telepathy-induced headache piercing through the high of life force absorption is killer. The guilt is even worse.
Rogue awkwardly motions to where her gloves are on the ground. "Here, try to take my gloves. They probably won't fit, but your fingers are just about the only part of you that needs to be covered."
"It's okay, chère," Gambit says. He's still reeling from all of it, Rogue can tell, but he's doing an remarkable job of keeping his voice steady. The time her powers manifested isn't a time she likes to think about, but she was much more of a mess than he is now. "Gambit don't touch nobody anyway. Especially not after that."
"I don't blame you, sugar." Story of her life. Rogue laughs, but she doesn't feel any humor. Gambit returns the favor by giving her a small smile through the pain. He knows, now — and if they don't fix this, he'll be stuck with it. "Storm suggested we should get to Hank, so we should get on the plane."
Gambit nods, clearly in a daze, starting to stumble towards the Blackbird. Rogue reaches for his shoulder to steady him, but before she can even get close to touching his jacket he flinches away. Rogue drops her hand instantly — she could've killed him with her lack of control on Gambit's powers. She has to be a different kind of careful. He probably saved them both by hearing her intentions, at least.
"Jean's full of shit," Gambit mumbles. "Her telepathy isn't weak at all. I think I can hear… everything like this."
Rogue swallows. "It should wear off soon. It looked like she's just burnt out, that's all." She knows it won't be comforting to hear, but it's better than if Wolverine didn't intervene.
Gambit looks away and slowly continues forward. Rogue trails behind him, ready to steady him if he needs it, until he's safely on a pull-out medical cot and Hank can fuss over them.
"Careful, Hank," Rogue says, her eyes not leaving Gambit. "You can't touch him like this."
Hank nods solemnly as he pulls some gloves on, then goes back to readying his tools. He looks her directly in the eye with such determination it startles her. "I'm going to figure out what has happened here. We will fix it."
Rogue takes a deep breath and tries her best to believe him. They haven't failed yet. "If you say so, sugar."