Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel, X-Men, Elizabeth Peters, Vicky Bliss, John Smythe (et al), Anton Z. Schmit, Heinrich Schliemann, or anybody else.
Note: If you're in the middle of the Vicky Bliss books, go finish them first to avoid spoilers. If you haven't started them yet, go read them and then come back.
She knew better. She really did. If she'd been thinking at all she would have stuck the book in her purse before sitting down at the breakfast table. But she'd been up far too late reading for her brain to function with any real speed. And she'd been lulled into complacency by the complete lack of reaction to the other books in the series.
No one had paid her slightest bit of attention while she read Borrower of the Night. Neither had anyone blinked when she'd turned up yesterday with The Street of the Five Moons. ( Although now that she thought of it, that had been a near miss in itself. Had he noticed, Rogue figured Bobby would have gladly found four friends willing to give The Street of the Five Moons an entirely new meaning. ) Of course she hadn't given anyone a chance to see her with Silhouette in Scarlet since she'd been up all night reading it. And she'd so distraught over Sir John Smythe's possible demise that she'd immediately rushed into the next book despite the clock reading 4:45 am. Which is exactly how she'd ended up tired enough to walk into the kitchen at the Xavier Institute carrying a book titled Trojan Gold, complete with that old style Ninteen Eighties cover that made any book look like a romance novel.
Rogue had just started to sit down when Bobby had noticed this and at maximum teenage boy volume, his voice full of alarmed glee shouted, "Rogue's reading a book about condoms!"
Now, half sitting, half standing in front of all the adults and most of the students with her cheeks flame red, Rogue glared viciously at Bobby. "As in the gold of Troy, Bobby. You know, Menelaus, Helen and Paris? Sparta versus Troy? The face that launched a thousand ships?" Despite her burning face, Rogue directed her most imperious glare at him, "Didn't you learn anything in school?"
Her antagonistic defense didn't appear to have convinced anyone as all eyes in the room stared back skeptically. The one exception was Mr. McCoy. He looked positively thrilled.
"Ahh, you're referring to the mistaken assumption by Heinrich Schliemann that the gold he found in what is now Turkey was the treasure of Priam, Paris's father, and thus the jewels of Helen. A fascinating tale of drama and intrigue surrounds those diadems, both ancient and modern. Tell me Rogue, how did you become interested in Schliemann and his archeological excavation of ancient Troy?" he asked, sipping coffee.
Rogue wasn't sure how the situation could get any worse. In fact the only good thing she could see in the whole situation was that Kitty hadn't yet made it to breakfast. Hastily seeking to pull herself out of the limelight before any more questions could be asked about the book, Rogue tried to bury the lead. "It's a mystery series, Mr. McCoy, about a European medieval art history professor."
"Why would a European medieval art history professor be interested in pre-Hellenic archeological finds?" Professor Xavier asked, confusion in his voice and on his face. "Art historians are notorious for deferring on any subject that isn't their specialty."
Rogue resisted the urge to bang her head on the table. They really needed to drop the subject. "She's living in Munich and a friend who fought in World War II sent her a photo of the gold before he was murdered. Dr. Bliss is trying to find it." Along with someone else, a little voice in the back of her mind added slyly. She mentally slapped her inner voice away.
Jean looked confused. "Why is it missing?"
Rogue glared. Would no one let the subject drop? "The gold was in Germany during World War II. It went missing when the Russians overran Berlin at the end of the war." Seeing both Mr. McCoy and the Professor start to object Rogue continued, her temper more than obvious in her voice. "It was written in the late Eighties. Before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Before the Soviets admitted to taking it from the bunker in Tiergarten!"
"Before the Russians took what from where?" Kitty asked, phasing through the door, curiosity on her face.
Rogue gripped the book tighter, trying to surreptitiously push the bookmark farther between the pages to hide it. "Y'all seriously have nothing better to do than interrogate me about what book I'm reading?" she snapped.
Big mistake.
Kitty looked at her in annoyance laced heavily with curiosity. "Why are you so defensive about a book?" she asked, reaching for it.
Rogue tried to quickly back away but stumbled against her chair, holding the book as far out of Kitty's reach as possible when Bobby answered for her. "Cause it's a book about condoms."
Rogue turned her glare on him and barked "It's not about condoms!" Shouting at Bobby, her arm wavering just enough for Kitty to grab the book out of her hand. "No!"
Rogue knew the moment when Kitty recognized the bookmark. She was going to kill Kurt for telling Kitty about the card. "Awww. Rogue that's so sweet. You're using Gambit's Queen of Hearts as a bookmark," she sheer saccharine pleasure in Kitty's voice was eardrum splitting.
Battling yet another overly intense blush Rogue barked out a denial, trying to get the book and the card from Kitty. "By accident! I lost my other one during the night. It was the first one I grabbed."
Kitty grinned. "That's cause you keep it on the table beside your bed." To avoid Rogue's desperate grabs, Kitty phased herself right through the table and into the lap of Piotr Rasputin. Surrounded by her giant-sized boyfriend, Kitty started to peruse the book's back cover. "Ooh. Who's the mysterious John Smythe, Rogue? He sounds rather dashing."
Feeling her breath catch, Rogue flat out refused to admit just who, or rather what, Sir John Smythe, or Johann Schmidt, or any of his other aliases, was. She made a valiant attempt at brute forcing her way toward Kitty and Piotr, but her fellow mutants were intrigued by her uncharacteristic show of desperation and now aiding Kitty in her quest for information.
"No one. He's just someone trying to get to the gold before she does," Rogue answered, further ignoring her mental monologue which was still laughing at her as she continued to fight her way in Kitty's direction, sending Logan diving to save his coffee and Amara's bowl of cereal careening into Kurt's lap. It was hard to tell if his horrified expression was to due to soggy shorts or a reaction to Rogue's reading preferences.
Kitty shrieked, her gaze totally focused on the page and started to read out loud "'John was one of the gang - art swindlers, forgers of historic gems. He boasted that half the great art collections contained copies he'd substituted for the priceless originals...' Rogue, you're reading about a professional thief! No wonder you have Gambit's card as a bookmark." There was a look of pure, girly romantic joy on her face as she hugged the book to her chest before continuing to read. Thankfully silently.
Rogue stood stalk still, all eyes on her. Her face having simultaneously gone dead white, only to be immediately followed by blushing fiercely at her cheeks. The girls all had expressions of starry-eyed romance on their faces; the guys appeared surprised. Logan just plain looked irritated as he glared at his coffee mug.
Frantic and unable to come up with a reasonable lie, Rogue went with the truth. "I.." her voice cracked. Forcing a deep breath she tried again. "I didn't know. He's not in the first book. That's not why I'm reading them." It was true. John wasn't in Borrower of the Night. She'd started the series because she like Elizabeth Peters' books in general. The fact that Vicky Bliss found herself involved with a rather attractive thief wasn't the point. Maybe not to start with, her inner voice teased.
And naturally not one person at the table appeared to believe her.
"It's true! Vicky doesn't meet John until the second book. I didn't know!" Rogue slammed her hands down on the table in frustration, her blush refusing to fade as everyone stared and Kitty giggled girlishly at Vicky's descriptions of John nearly dying in order to save her life.
Jean looked like she was barely keeping her laughter in check. "And yet you were up all night reading about them. Something about Vicky and John must have caught your interest..." She trailed off, a question clearly embedded in the words.
Rogue opened her mouth to spit a denial when Kitty went into rapturous squeals before reading aloud, her voice pitched to give the most effect. "'I turned off the light before I opened the window. The garden was white and dead and the high distant moon cast long gray shadows across the snow. He looked no more solid than any other shadow as he slid over the balcony rail, but the arms that drew me to him were hard and real, and the lips that closed over mine were not cold for long.'"
With a grin that lit up her whole face, Kitty fanned herself with the book. "No wonder you were up all night, Rogue. I couldn't sleep after reading that."
The faint laughter in her mind echoed again, driving Rogue to drop her face into her arms on the table. How could she deny comparing Remy LeBeau and John Smythe when, after reading that chapter, she'd fallen asleep only to dream of Remy sneaking into her room exactly like that?
And awakened with an undeniable smile on her face... Which she would entirely pretend had never happened.
Determined not to show any further evidence of her very small, very minor crush, Rogue sat up, fully intending to deny the whole thing. After all it was perfectly normal and ordinary to dream of Cajun Greek statues...
Despite being so far into the land of denial that she could set up shop, call herself Cleopatra and start singing Walk Like an Egyptian, even Rogue couldn't swing that one. Cajun Greek statues indeed.
There was nothing left to do but admit defeat.
Solemnly, with as much of her mangled dignity as she could muster, Rogue snapped the book out of Kitty's grasp. "I didn't start reading the series because of Gambit," she finally ground out, the small admission as much as she could bring herself to confess out loud.
Jean and Kitty both looked beyond thrilled; Kurt, Scott, and Logan not so much.
Deciding that breakfast wasn't worth the inquisition that would follow such a statement, Rogue spun on her heel and stormed out of the kitchen and back to her bedroom, convinced that Gambit had ruined yet another perfectly good book. Bitterly cursing him under her breath, Rogue started to throw the unfinished novel across the room. But her eye caught on the corner of the card.
Marking her place with her thumb, Rogue held up the card, her eyes tracing the familiar edges and colors decorating the Queen. She really did want to know what happened. Did Vicky and John find the gold? How did Tony mix into things? And just how much trouble did Schmidt get into while trying to help them?
With a sneaky glance back at her door, Rogue quietly tip-toed over and flipped the lock. Settling on her bed with a small smile, Rogue opened to the chapter she'd finished the previous night. After all she already had Night Train to Memphis and The Laughter of Dead Kings sitting on her nightstand. It seemed a waste to let Remy ruin not just one but three books by embarrassing her at her breakfast.
With a quiet sigh, she stretched out on her bed to read, snickering at the antics of John and Vicky as they tried to work out a strategy for finding the gold. And if her John Smythe had red hair instead of blonde, red eyes in place of blue, and a smooth Cajun lilt traded for the original British accent no one had to know that but her.
Well, no one but her and the red-eyed Cajun thief watching with a smirk from outside her window. After all he had come to Bayville to see if Xavier was still taking recruits. And if a certain Southern Goth was willing to give him another chance. From the show he'd observed during their breakfast, it appeared she might just be. Grinning at the unintended smile tugging at Rogue's lips, he turned. No time like the present...
snicker I hope you all enjoyed it (Let me know if you did!). I had fun writing it. And nearly laughing out loud at work when the idea came to me. The quoted passages really are from Elizabeth Peter's Trojan Gold novel, the 4th in the Vicky Bliss series. It's awesome. If you haven't read it you should.
No, I haven't given up on The Enemy of My Enemy. It's just slow going. If anyone out there is willing to play beta for me send me a pm. I'm looking for someone to review what I have and bounce ideas off of. I'd really appreciate it. Thanks for reading!