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Steam curled off the water in soft coils, carrying cedar and something mineral that tingled at the back of the throat. Lanterns set in bamboo sconces painted the fog with honeyed light, and beyond the cypress fence the mountain wore a crown of cloud. The onsen complex breathed like a living thing, doors sliding open on tracks, attendants moving barefoot, the hush enforced not by rules but by heat and ritual.
“Comms check,” Scott murmured, tapping two fingers to the tiny subdermal behind his ear. No visor here, thin red lenses nested in what passed for leisurely eyewear, a strip so minimal he felt naked even with it on. He was otherwise naked, of course. That was the point.
“Loud and clear,” came Ororo’s voice, a soft noise through his skull. “The main hall lies east. Watch the manager—he bows a heartbeat longer for those who say ‘good waters tonight.’ That will be our signal.”
“Da. And our battle wardrobe is… nothing,” Piotr replied cheerfully. Somewhere to Scott’s left, the Russian turned his shoulders, the size of a door politely squeezed into a towel the size of a placemat. “I miss my suit.”
Rogue’s laugh drifted in, low and warm. “Baby, that towel’s ‘bout the same size as your suit anyhow. Ain’t hidin’ near enough.”
Scott kept his face forward. “We blend, we map the place, we find the treatment room labeled Tama-No-Ishi and confirm the stolen Shi’ar tech is here. We don’t escalate unless we have to.”
“Meaning,” Ororo added, “no sudden moves, no wandering hands. We are guests until we are not.”
“Copy,” Rogue said, and Scott heard the smile. “Scout’s honor.”
They crossed through a curtain printed with brushstroke cranes into the inner baths. The air thickened, sweet and iron-rich. Pools terraced down along natural rock, each a different opacity: milk-glass, tea-brown, clear as quartz. Patrons moved with the unhurried grace of people who’d paid to slow down. Scott adjusted the towel at his hips and kept his steps measured.
Rogue walked at his elbow, a waterfall of auburn hair swept past her shoulders; freckles salted the line of her collarbone. Without the usual gloves and suit, she looked… less clothed than he’d ever seen her, but not vulnerable. The opposite. Bare didn’t diminish her; it made her mythic. He forced his eyes to the path.
“Left,” Ororo breathed, drifting ahead in a white towel that might as well have been spun cloud. “Service corridor there, behind the bamboo screen.”
Piotr peeled away first, looming in a way that made attendants instinctively choose a different direction. Scott took the next gap with Rogue, shoulder to shoulder through steam.
“You gotta ease up, sugah,” Rogue murmured, hip brushing his for half a step. “Supposed to look like we’re here to relax, not file a mission report.”
He kept his eyes forward. “Relaxing isn’t really my specialty.”
She smirked sideways at him. “Lucky for you, it’s mine.”
He didn’t answer. The corridor narrowed, shading cool where cedar gave way to quarried stone. Voices thinned to the burble of water and a single wind chime somewhere above. They passed a small shrine; a stone fox peered over a bowl of coins.
“Two attendants, boots under their robes,” Ororo said. “Past the reed screen near the lower spring.’”
“Copy,” Scott said. He and Rogue stepped onto the lower terrace, steam hanging thick as soup. His eyes spotted the two men in tan yukata waiting near a door, combat boots peaking beneath hems, their gazes trained on nothing a little too deliberately.
Rogue angled closer, letting the towel ride a daring fraction lower under her arms. Her voice came lazy. “You ever bathe in an onsen before?”
“First time. Feels like a trap that’s pretending to be a spa.”
“Mmm. Let it be both. Spa first, trap later.”
He was going to quip about priorities, about staying focused, about how the mission came first. Instead she slid past him, hand drifting much too close. His reflex fired before he thought: a sharp jerk back, wrist snapping out of reach.
“Easy there,” she drawled, masking the sting with a smile. “Wasn't gonna touch you.”
“Sorry,” he said quickly, voice low. “Force of habit.”
Her smirk wavered, just for a heartbeat, and he caught it: that flicker of tired under the teasing. The weight of living a life with poison skin. He’d seen her weaponize that, laugh with it, break down because of it. Only this time, the hurt traced back to him.
“Dividing,” Ororo said. “Piotr, with me. We’ll circle to the southern springs and see if there’s another entrance. Scott, Rogue—see if they’ll let you through. If not, don’t press. We need eyes inside, not a confrontation.”
“Understood,” Scott said. Strange, how it eased him to fall in behind Ororo’s lead instead of carrying it himself. With the wreckage of his own life still smoldering, second chair felt like a reprieve, a quiet place to steady his aim. He squared his shoulders and walked straight toward the guards.
They didn’t meet his gaze. “Private,” the older one said, bowing a fraction.
“Good waters tonight,” Scott replied in practiced Japanese. “My companion and I would like to enter.”
The guard’s bow deepened, automatic. “For VIPs only.”
Scott’s mouth tightened; he murmured the translation under his breath. Rogue leaned forward, elbows on the bamboo rail, and smiled a southern sin. “Two pretty folks like us? You sure we don’t qualify?”
The English landed heavy, forcing the younger guard’s eyes to flick up. He understood her well enough, too well, judging by the swallow. “Reservations are required.”
“Shame,” she murmured, and let the disappointment heat her vowels. She turned her head to Scott, eyes dancing. “Guess we soak like normal folk.”
They drifted back to the public pools, the way you drift when you’re not retreating, just changing your mind. Scott felt the prickle of gazes slide off them and dissolve into steam.
Rogue peeled her towel off in one fluid motion, not a hint of self-consciousness. Pale skin, freckled shoulders, the long sweep of her back were all bared in the lanternlight. She let the towel fall onto a rock, and slid into the water without hesitation.
Scott froze. His own towel clung damp to his hips, suddenly too tight, his throat too dry. He hadn’t meant to look, hadn’t meant to catalog the slope of her waist, the spill of auburn hair along her back, the soft swell of her breasts as she eased down into the pool. But his eyes betrayed him.
“You comin’, Boy Scout?” she called over her shoulder, settling deeper until the water lapped just above her chest. Her head tipped back, lashes fluttering shut, and a low sound escaped her, a raw, unguarded moan of pleasure. “Lord, that’s somethin’.”
Scott eased in less dramatically, the towel abandoned on a polished stone. The water closed hot around his thighs, his stomach. He forced his eyes to the surface, to the ripple of steam, but they slid back to her anyway. The wet shine across the swell of her breasts, half-submerged. The way her lips parted when she exhaled, sinking deeper. He let out a breath.
Rogue opened one eye.“See? Not every plan has to hurt.”
“Speak for yourself,” he said, and she laughed.
They remained shoulder to shoulder, just far enough to be respectable. The pool was ringed with volcanic rock, halfway sheltered by a willow whose long fingers brushed the surface. Lanternlight slid in pieces across Rogue’s cheekbone.
She flicked a lock of white-streaked hair out of her eyes and gave him a wink. “Feels like a date more’n a mission.” A pause, sly but softened. “How’re things with Jean?”
He inhaled wrong and coughed. “They’re… complicated.” A beat, then the obligatory lie: “We’re fine.”
“Mm.” She tipped her chin at the water. “You two’ll find your way back, like you always do.”
He turned his head, met her eyes. “Same could be said about you and Gambit.”
That earned him a crooked smile. “Ain’t that the truth. We break, we mend, we break again. Circle never ends.”
Scott hesitated, then added, softer: “Though… Magneto’s changed the circle, hasn’t he?”
Her brows flicked, a quick flare before she smirked. “Careful, sugah. Sounds like you been payin’ more attention than you admit.”
“Leader’s job,” he deflected, tone clipped.
She laughed, low and warm, the kind of sound that pressed heat into his gut whether he wanted it or not. “Leader’s job, huh? Didn’t know that came with noticin’ what makes a girl blush.
Scott’s mouth twitched before he shut it down, gaze fixed on the steam ahead. “Then I’ll add it to the handbook.” His tone was dry, but the edge of color at his ears betrayed him.
Steam drifted; distant, a bell chimed the hour, soft and patient. Somewhere, Ororo murmured about vents and false walls. Piotr muttered an apology to an attendant he’d bumped into. The world felt narrowed to the pool of water, the willow, Rogue’s breath.
Scott told himself they should move, keep pressure on, stay sharp. But maybe the smarter play was to wait, to let the night breathe, let the guards grow bored. For once, stillness felt like strategy.
Then Rogue shifted, meaning only to stretch, and her palm slid across his shoulder. Bare skin on bare skin.
Scott jolted, instinct jerking him half back, then froze. No drain. No dizzy hollow where her power should’ve been. Just the lingering heat of her hand.
Rogue stilled, eyes widening. For a heartbeat she didn’t breathe. Then, trembling, she pressed her palm flat against him, testing, waiting for the pull that never came. “Scott…” her voice cracked, soft and unbelieving. “I ain’t hurtin’ you.”
His breath came sharp. “That’s… impossible.” He caught her wrist, not to push her away, but because he needed proof. He stared at the point of contact like it might vanish. “You should’ve dropped me by now.”
“The water,” she breathed. “It’s the damn water, ain’t it? Whatever mineral cocktail they got in here. Or the tech hidden deep in here. I don’t care which.”
She slipped free and set her palm to him again, surer this time, a low sound breaking out of her. “You're warm.” Her fingers traced the hard lines of his arm, spread wide across his chest, and skimmed over his collarbone, studying him like he was some sculpted marvel. “Lord, I ain’t touched anyone in years—not for real.” A laugh tore out of her, fractured, half sob, half joy. “It feels like—like I forgot what this was.”
Scott clenched his jaw, but his body betrayed him. Every stroke of her fingers made him twitch, breath coming harsher, the heat of the water nothing compared to the fire rolling through his veins. He felt himself stiffen under the surface, unwittingly.
She didn’t notice. Or maybe she did and chose mercy. Her eyes were wide, shining, fixed on where her hand spread over his chest.
“Rogue,” he rasped, catching her wrist again, but his grip had no force. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
She looked up at him, eyes wide and shining, her other palm still pressed to his chest. The wonder in her face shifted, softening into awareness, guilt threading through the rush. “I do,” she whispered. “I just… didn’t think I’d ever feel this again.”
Her fingers traced lower, almost on their own, and his body shuddered under her touch. The tremor stilled her, hand poised at the edge of more.
He squeezed his eyes shut, fighting the throb heading south. “We need to—Storm.” He tapped the comm, his voice taut. “There’s… something here. Field effect. Rogue’s touch isn’t triggering. Looks like the water’s dampening her absorption… Or something.”
Silence stretched before Storm’s voice entered, cool and measured. “That has… implications. We must all proceed with caution.”
Her comm went silent again.
Rogue drew a shaky breath, hand still flat to his chest, desire warring with restraint. “Caution,” she echoed, half laugh, half disbelief. “Scott, I can’t remember the last time I had this.” She swallowed hard, fingers lifting as if to pull away, then hovering. “I know it ain’t right. I know we shouldn’t. But I don’t know when—or if—I’ll ever get this again.”
His pulse hammered beneath her palm. “Rogue—”
“I’m not askin’ for somethin’ I can’t have. I just—” her voice broke, raw and quiet, “—just let me feel it. Just for a minute. Just let me pretend.”
Her plea slammed into him harder than any punch. He reached for the rock ledge, holding himself steady, every muscle in his body wound tight as wire. She stayed close but held, waiting, trembling with the effort not to close the last inch between them. The restraint, the temptation, the impossibility of all tore a fire through him.
His hand hovered in the water, frozen. The leader in him screamed to shut this down, to not complicate things. He darted a look around the pool, at the old men soaking near the far rocks, at the pair of travelers half-hidden in the steam, at the attendants gliding by with folded towels. None of them seemed to be watching. But this wasn’t about strangers. It was about Jean. About Rogue. About the team, and what it would do to all of them if he let himself give in.
And yet, God, the heat of her so close, the way her eyes pleaded, the thought of bare skin against his when he’d spent too long pretending he'd never thought about it, all of it pulled at him harder than reason. His pulse hammered, every muscle tight with restraint while another kind of ache pressed lower, insistent, impossible to ignore.
Rogue blinked, the hunger fading from her eyes as she looked away. Shoulders curled inward, she folded like someone bracing against the same old answer, the same old no.
That undid him. Before thought could intervene, his hand caught her elbow, pulling her back. His touch slid higher, tentative at first, then surer, cupping her bare shoulder, thumb tracing the wet line of her collarbone.
The effect on her was immediate. She sucked in a sharp breath, eyes going wide, her whole body shivering as though the touch reached deeper than skin. Her fingers clutched at his arm, grounding herself. “Oh, God…” she whispered, the words breaking out of her unsteady. “That feels—.”
Heat surged through him in response. He’d already been stirring with want from the moment she touched him, but now he was fully hard beneath the water, straining against his stomach, pulsing with the beat of his heart.
She felt it, she had to. Her body pressed closer, chest brushing his, the soft weight of her breasts slipping against him in the water. Warmth spiked through his gut at the contact, at the way every subtle shift of her skin sent sparks across his nerves. Her thigh slid along his under the surface, slick and insistent, and her breath feathered against his neck, close enough to make him shiver.
Her hands clutched at him greedily now, one raking up his arm to grip his neck, the other skimming down his stomach until her fingertips hovered just above the place he ached for her.
“Scott…” she shivered, voice wrecked. “You feel like heaven.”
He groaned low, caught between guilt and need, his thumb brushing the underside of her breast before he could stop himself. She shuddered, moaning loud enough that a pair of bathers glanced their way through the haze.
“Not here,” he muttered, jaw clenched. He cast another look around, pulse hammering. The steam covered them for now, but not enough. Not for what this was becoming.
She clutched his wrist, nails biting. “Then take me somewhere we can.”
The way she said it, voice thick and begging, turned the ache in his body into fire.
“This way,” he said, and tugged her hand. Water cascaded off them both as they rose, Scott grabbing for his towel with clipped efficiency, knotting it tight around his hips. The cool air slapped his skin, a moment of clarity that reminded him where he was, what he was doing, what it could cost. He adjusted the fold lower, conscious of the hardness he couldn’t will away, hoping the steam veiled enough.
Rogue, for her part, swept her towel back around her like it was nothing at all, eyes never leaving him.
They slipped along a narrow path into deeper steam.
The private pool hid behind a sliding panel edged in cedar. Inside, the world constricted to rock, water, and the low thrum of a pump behind the wall, a heartbeat in the timber. She shut the panel with a soft click. The lantern here burned lower, gold licking stone, making everything look like skin.
Scott drew a breath, meaning to speak, then Rogue was on him. She rose onto her toes and kissed him, all unpracticed hunger, lips pressing hard, a little clumsy, like someone who’d rehearsed a thousand times in dreams but never dared in life. For a beat he just felt it, the softness of her mouth, the trembling press of her body against his, the shock of a barrier gone. Tender. Fragile.
Then something in him snapped. His hand cupped the back of her head, holding her there, and he kissed her back with a force that stole her breath. The kiss deepened fast, messy, their mouths colliding harder, tongues sliding, need rising with every gasp.
Rogue’s hands were already tugging at his towel, knot coming loose under her needy fingers. The fabric fell to the wet stone with a slap, leaving him bare and straining. She broke the kiss just long enough to take stock of him, before pulling him into her again, hungrier than before.
He dragged at her towel in turn, fumbling it open, and the heavy cloth slid from her torso. For the first time, nothing lay between them, skin to skin, slick from steam, breasts pressing into his chest. The shock of her nipples brushing him made him groan low, a sound torn from the gut.
She shivered at it, clutching his back, legs parting instinctively as he pressed her against the cedar wall. The lanternlight painted every line of her body gold, and his hands couldn’t stop roaming over her waist, her hip, the swell of her ass, eager to map a woman he never knew was interested.
Her kiss stayed messy, desperate, but it undid him. His own hunger rose to match until he was grinding against her thigh, still slick from the onsen waters.
Her thumb brushed the thin arm of his red-tinted glasses. “Gonna keep these on too?” She panted. “Seems unfair I’m all bare and you’re still hidin’.”
Instinct stiffened his jaw, the reflex built up since childhood. “I have to. You know why.”
“Do you?” Her voice dipped, daring. “Ain’t your power flickerin’ out same as mine?”
He froze. He hadn’t even considered it, hadn’t dared. But the thought alone made his stomach knot. “Rogue…” His voice came low, warning, edged with fear.
She held his gaze. Then, slow and deliberate, she slid her hand up and gently pulled the frames from his face.
Scott’s breath caught hard. He braced for the burn, for destruction. Instead, the world rushed in unfiltered. Not bathed in ruby, not cut by glass—just color. Pure, sharp, overwhelming. Rogue’s hair caught the lantern glow like flame. Her eyes weren’t just green, they were a thousand shades of it: spring grass, warm ocean, flecked jade rimmed dark as kohl.
“How’s that, sugah? Bein’ able to really see?”
His throat closed. “You’re—” He broke off, swallowed, tried again. “I’ve never… I’ve never really seen you.”
He laughed—short, helpless—then lost the shape of breath when she slid down his chest, her mouth tracking a wet path to his sternum, to his stomach, to the curve of his hip and then below. He caught the panel to keep from falling through it when her lips wrapped him in heat.
“Rogue,” he warned, or begged, or confessed; he wasn’t sure. The ceiling moved. The world tilted. She hummed around him and and the sound shot lightning straight through his spine.
He clenched his jaw, every muscle buzzing as she worked him deeper, unpracticed but hungry, lips and tongue moving in ways that only made him harder. Heat coiled low, pulling tight, closer with every bob of her head. He kept one hand against the cedar, the other buried in her damp hair, torn between urging her on and yanking her back before he broke.
“God—Rogue—” His voice fractured, ragged. “You’ve gotta stop or—”
She pulled back with a wet gasp, licking her lips, eyes shining with mischief and something deeper. He sagged forward, chest heaving, every nerve screaming at the loss, so close he ached.
“Tell me,” her fingers circled his cock. “Tell me what you want.”
“Want you,” he said, useless.
“Mm, I know that part,” she teased, then softened. “Say it.”
He swallowed. Truth tasting sinful. “I want you to ride me until you—” He stopped, laughed at himself, wrecked. “It’s not polite.”
“We still pretendin’ to be polite?” She licked the underside of his length and squeezed just as she did, and he nearly came against her fist like a teenager. She felt it, the twitch in his cock, the shudder in his frame. With a wicked little smile, she pulled away. “Not yet, sugah.” Her hand found his wrist, tugging. “C’mere.”
He staggered with her pull, still dazed from the edge she’d dragged him to, and she pushed him down onto the stones warmed by steam and hot water. His back met the heat, rough and solid beneath him, while the humid air wrapped around his skin. Water lapped at his ankle that had fallen into the water. He braced himself, chest rising and falling fast.
Rogue straddled him, knees spreading on either side of his thighs. She hovered for a moment, shaking, auburn hair clinging damp to her shoulders. In her eyes there was fear, of failing, of the enormity of it—but the hunger won.
Scott opened his mouth, meaning to warn, to slow her, but she gripped him, guided him to her slick entrance, and sank down.
The world narrowed to the heat of her. She gasped, body seizing at the stretch, both hands clutching his shoulders as she took him inch by inch. Her eyes squeezed shut, lips parted on a broken moan that carried years of starvation in it. “Lord—Scott—”
He groaned low, fingers digging into her hips, every muscle straining not to come at the sheer shock of her. “You’re—Christ, Rogue—”
After bottoming out, she shifted experimentally, hips rolling, and the wet slap of her against him echoed off stone. Her movements weren’t polished but still utterly devastating.
Scott’s head tipped back against the warm stone, a groan tearing loose. She was so tight around him he could barely breathe, every movement pulling him deeper into a heat that threatened to break him apart. And above him, God, her breasts lifted and fell with each roll of her hips, slick with steam, the low light catching every curve, every bounce. The sight and the feel of her combined left him dizzy, undone.
Her nails scored his chest as she found a rhythm, slow at first, then bolder, greedier, each dip drawing ragged sounds from her throat.
Her forehead fell to his, hair plastered between them, her breath hot and fast. “Feels so good… so full,” she whispered, half wonder, half desperation.
Scott groaned, half a laugh catching in his throat. “Good doesn’t begin to cover it.” His thumb brushed her lower lip and her lips closed around it, tongue curling instinctively, and he shuddered so hard he thought that was it.
She released him with a wet gasp, eyes dark, voice trembling. “Touch me.”
He did. His hand slipped between them, fingers sliding through the heat where they were joined, slicking themselves in her. Then his thumb found her center, slow at first, then circling with purpose. She jolted like he’d lit a fuse, hips stuttering against him, a cry tearing from her throat and bouncing off the water’s surface.
“Cyclops, report,” Storm’s voice cut through the comm, cool and level.
Scott bit back a groan, breath hitching as Rogue clenched around him. He forced words out, each one jagged. “We’ve… found something interesting. Need to investigate further.”
Rogue smothered a laugh against his throat, then a moan when he shifted deeper.
A pause, faint static on the line. “Understood,” Storm replied at last, her tone unreadable. “If we find the lab, I’ll update you.” The comm clicked off.
Scott sagged, dragging in air like he’d just survived a firefight. Rogue’s lips brushed his ear, teasing. “That’s what you call multitaskin’, sugah?”
Her taunt riled him. He caught her by the hips, twisted them both, and they spilled into the pool. Her back hit the first submerged step, water rushing around her ears as he pinned her there. With leverage now, he thrust into her hard, full, the splash loud enough to echo.
The force of it jolted her, water slapping up the sides of her breasts. She tried to giggle, to tease again, but the sound broke apart into shaky gasps as his hips changed angle.
“Mm—Do that again.” Her nails scraped along his shoulders, to tangle in his hair.
“You always this bossy?” he managed.
“Only when I’m gettin’ what I want.”
He laughed, astonished, and then she clenched around him and his laugh turned to a curse.
Her thighs locked around him, pulling him deeper, and she buried her face against his neck. He thrust into her until whatever banter she had ready dissolved into breathy fragments and the hand in his hair turned from playful to pleading. He found her again with his thumb, slow circles, generous and unrelenting. She startled, then melted, then grabbed his wrist and held him there as if she’d drown without it.
“Rogue—” He panted, watching the way each thrust bounced her against the step, water breaking over her skin in bright arcs. When he matched his strokes to the roll of his hips she arched out of the pool, back bowing, breasts heaving, cheeks flushed high. Her eyes glazed, her mouth falling open on a sound too broken to be a word.
Scott’s breath hitched, awe cutting through the haze of want. “God… look at you,” he rasped, voice torn and reverent, as she clenched around him, trembling on the edge. He knew, absolutely knew, she was about to unravel in his arms.
The sight broke something ceremonial in him. He bucked, harder now, almost rough, and she came with a strangled, gorgeous sound that bounced off the walls and crawled into his bones. She spasmed around him, clutching, helpless, her nails scoring his shoulders in crescent moons. He rode her through it, murmuring nonsense and her name and God, and the way she pulsed on him dragged his own climax up by the root.
He broke with it, gut-punched, white-burning, breath knocked from his lungs. He thrust once, twice, held, and spilled hard, forehead pressed to hers, the world narrowed to the grip of her and the tremor in his thighs. It took a long time to remember how to breathe without shaking.
They stayed joined until water cooled on their skin and normal returned in cautious increments. He eased out, and gathered her closer on the step. She curled in, cheek to his neck, breath damp and warm. For a while there was only the pump’s heartbeat in the wall.
“Storm’s gonna kill us,” he said eventually, voice roughened.
Rogue smirked against his throat. “Storm’s gonna have to catch us first.”
He huffed. “We still have a job.”
“We did our job,” she drawled, lazy with satisfaction. “Got intel on a brand-new field effect, tested it thoroughly.”
“That what we’re calling it?”
“Scientific method, sugah.”
He felt the laugh before it came.
Her voice gentled. “You good?”
He considered the question. Considered the ring on his finger. Considered the way choices stack and turn into stories. “I’m here.”
“That ain’t an answer.”
“It’s the truth.”
She nodded against his throat. “It don’t have to mean anythin’... I just wanted this. Wanted you to want it too.”
Relief threaded through him at that, because God, he didn’t have the space for anything more, not with Jean, not with the team, not with the weight already grinding him down. He tightened his arms around her. “I did.” The words felt like heresy and relief in equal measure, and a lie besides, because he knew if she asked again, if she pressed him, he’d break all over.
“Good.”
A soft click outside the panel. Both their heads came up. His comm buzzed twice—Piotr’s code for company incoming. Rogue slipped off the stone and into the pool with the grace of a seal. Scott followed, heartbeat slamming back into mission speed.
The panel eased open a hair. A shadow paused. Then Ororo’s voice, dry as a high plain: “Patrons mentioned a red-glassed man slipping back here with a woman with striped hair. Tell me you two are decent.”
“Define ‘decent,’” Rogue whispered, grin wicked.
“We found the lab,” Ororo continued without missing a beat. “Tucked behind the lower springs. The Shi’ar tech has been engineered to filter the water itself and suppress mutation. That would explain your discovery.”
Scott felt the pivot happen in him, desire folding and stowing itself, leaving purpose primed. “I doubt this is just for patrons. They must be testing something.” He reached for his lens but remembered they were lying somewhere near Ororo’s feet. “Is it stable enough to extract?”
“Piotr’s on site now,” Ororo replied. “The structure’s delicate, but intact. If it holds while we disengage the core, we can move it. If not…” A pause. “We destroy it.”
“Let's go then,” Scott said, then flicked his eyes to Rogue. She floated there, hair slicked back, mouth kiss-bitten, looking like sin and victory. For a second it felt obscene to leave this room. Then she winked, pushed through the water, and took his hand.
“C’mon, Boy Scout. Back to work.”
They slipped into towels and shadows, bodies still humming, hearts already hardening in the way that kept a team alive. He led, she covered, and the steam of the onsen swallowed their footprints.