Rogue: Annihilation (An Avengers Sequel)

30. We're Not Giving Up

"Did you have to hit me so hard?" 2012 Rogue groaned as we left the hotel, pressing a few pieces of thin bathroom tissue paper to her bleeding nose.

I rolled my eyes. "I've already explained – I had to hit you hard to free you of Kilgrave's compulsion," I repeated for the thousandth time, glancing at her nose when she removed the tissue. "You'll live."

"It was so weird," she said, her mind in a completely different place to mine. "He told me to do something, and then that was all I wanted to do. Like I knew I had no choice, but I wanted to do it anyway. Does that make sense?"

I sighed. "Unfortunately, it does."

"Who was that guy, anyway?" she continued. "What happened to give him those powers?"

"Experiments," I answered shortly. Just like us, Kilgrave had been the victim of experiments. But unlike us, he'd immediately decided to use his powers for evil.

She frowned. "Is it bad that I feel kind of sorry for him?"

I walked ahead of her so that she couldn't see me roll my eyes. "He killed Nat... and our mom. He deserves everything he gets. And what he gets, is to rot in hell. The last thing Kilgrave needs is sympathy."

She shrugged, making me want to punch her in the face again. However, soon she saw something that completely distracted her from Kilgrave.

"That's Captain America," she said in a low voice, surprise slowing her pace. "He's staring right at us."

I frowned, following her eye-line. "I knew what Steve looked like back then?"

"Of course you did," she scolded me, never taking her eyes off him. "Fury always talks about them. Captain America is the noble leader, Bruce Banner is the super-smart scientist with a deadly temper, Thor is the God, and Tony Stark is the 'genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist'... but from what Nat says, it sounds like he's just an asshole."

I smiled, not saying anything. It wasn't hard to remember the disdain that Nat and Tony had for each other. I could just imagine her eye-roll if she ever found out that, despite her warnings, I had married and had a baby with the man she hated. Luckily, the Tony Stark I married to was a more mature, less douchey version of the Tony Stark that she knew – not that it mattered. I'm pretty sure I would have married him anyway.

As we got closer, her surprise turned to shock.

"Oh my... that's Tony Stark too, right?" she asked warily, her head definitely full of Nat's words. "Wait a second," she commanded, grabbing my arm and pulling me back. I stopped, allowing her to figure out what she should have worked out as soon as she said his name.

"You said our –your– husband is called Tony," she remembered, looking back and forth between Tony and I. "Please tell me you don't mean Tony Stark."

I smirked, just as we reached the guys.

Tony looked back and forth between us, glaring at the woman that he first fell in love with standing next to the woman that he had now built a life with.

"This is... 'insane' isn't a strong enough word," he commented, not able to take his eyes off of her.

"Tell me about it," I scoffed, because nothing would ever be stranger than standing next to the past version of myself.

2012 Rogue squinted at him, frowning. "We marry Tony Stark?" she asked, trying to put together the image of the asshole that we always heard about with the man who I was obviously in love with. "Is there a serious shortage of men in the future?"

I rolled my eyes, almost smiling. "You sound like Nat. Wow, I can't believe I used to sound like Nat."

"How did it go?" Steve interrupted our conversation, all business. "Is Kilgrave-?"