AN: Hi All! This is the sequel to The Great Hobby Search. I would recommend reading both that and The Irony before reading this one, but it should be possible to enjoy this if you haven't.

One of these days I'm going to come up with a good title for this series.

Updates will be weekly.

Enjoy!

Chapter 1: vs Reavers round 1

It was October, and Rogue, Gambit, Jubilee, and Kitty were out shopping for Halloween. Jubilee was determined to throw an awesome Halloween party, and was busy going through the abundance of decorations available to figure out what she wanted.

Kitty needed a brain break and decided to tag along just to get out of the house. She had caught Jubilee's enthusiasm, and the two bounced ideas off each other every time they found an inspiring item in the party store.

Gambit was always willing to encourage Jubilee in all her endeavours, especially the ones that involved giving him an excuse to cook, flirt, or annoy Logan. He was currently in the cooking section, checking out Halloween themed cake pans, cooking molds, and cookie cutters with fiendish delight.

That left Rogue to feel like she was the only adult in the group. It would have been a lot more fun, if she wasn't spending the whole time checking out the price tags and reminding the others that they had to stay in budget.

"Just how many of these are you going to need?" Rogue asked Gambit dubiously with one of the six-piece silicone trays in her hand.

Gambit glanced over at her and grinned. "Oh, don't worry, chere. I'm probably not going to get anything here. I'm just seeing what kind of things are available. Most of these are too small or too few to be worth getting. I'll go online later and see what's available for our kind of mass production."

"Oh good," Rogue said. Perhaps she wasn't the only adult there after all.

Since realising that he'd never lost control of his powers while in the kitchen, Gambit had gone looking for any excuse to cook things. He was currently doing kitchen duty 3 dinners in the week, insisted on doing 'special occasion' meals, and occasionally the night owl would bake bread overnight. He rarely got to eat any of the bread he'd cooked, since he always went to bed straight after and the breakfast crowd would make short work of it.

"Jubes and Kitty going a little nuts, are they?" Gambit asked with a knowing grin.

"Jubes I expected," Rogue lamented. "But when Kitty said she was gonna come too I thought I was getting an ally."

Gambit chuckled. Rogue sighed and laid her head on his shoulder. He automatically put his arm around her. She smiled faintly, though he couldn't see it.

It had been a year since Rogue and Gambit had met in the queue for the Cure. Sometime in that year, despite dating Bobby for most of it, she had fallen for Gambit. He was just so damned charming, sweet, and thoughtful. He did come across as a bad boy at times, but many of her friends were convinced it was just an act. Rogue might have agreed with them initially, but three months ago he admitted to being a professional thief and she found that she actually believed his claim.

"Ugh," she said as she lifted her head back from his shoulder. "I suppose I should go back to reigning them in."

He kissed the top of her head with another chuckle, and released his arm. "Don't let their madness infect you."

She sighed. "I don't suppose you want to go make out in a corner somewhere instead?"

"Oh, I definitely want to do that," Gambit replied as he pulled away. "But I'm not going to."

"Yeah," Rogue said as Gambit pointedly went back to looking at the cookware. "I knew you were going to say that."

"Then why'd you ask?"

"The same reason why you flirt with me."

"Touche."

Rogue smiled a little, and then left to go find Jubilee and Kitty.

The first nine months of Gambit's stay at Xavier's had been spent looking for a suitable hobby to help teach him how to control his emotions. It had to be a solo activity, preferably one that he could engage in at a moment's notice, not too active or too passive. Rogue was pleased that she'd been able to help him figure out that his hobby was cooking.

She just wished she had seen more progress in his power control in the last three months. But as far as she could tell, the only change had been was that he would start reciting recipes when he was having trouble with a large contact-based charge.

When Rogue found Jubilee and Kitty, they had filled up two trolleys with stuff, almost to the brim. Rogue's eyes widened and her face went pale.

"And just one more of those, I think—" Kitty cut herself off at the sight of Rogue and grinned, seeing her staring in shock at the trolleys. "It's okay, Rogue. You don't have to count it. I've been doing that, and we're in budget."

Rogue slowly lifted her head to look at Kitty. "I was gone five minutes!"

Jubilee chuckled wickedly as she grabbed another packet of bats from the shelf. "That's all it takes."

"On the bright side, we should be able to use most of this stuff again next year," Kitty said. "I honestly can't believe the school didn't have more Halloween stuff."

"Well, they did," Jubilee said as she began pushing one of the trolleys towards the exit. "But most of it was broken and worn out. I'll be using the stuff that's still good, though."

"That's something at least. You're ready to go then?" Rogue asked, and when they confirmed, added: "Alright, I'll go get Remy then."

"Don't take too long flirting," Kitty called after her teasingly. "Even with all this, we're not going to be at the check out forever!"

"Hardy har har!"

"This is an awesome shop," Jubilee said gleefully, shortly thereafter as they left laden with their purchases. "I wish I knew it existed earlier. I know where I'm going next time."

"And there'll definitely be a next time," Kitty replied with a knowing grin.

The store was part of a line of stores that curled around a mutual parking lot like a horseshoe. They were parked further away from the party shop than they would've liked (everyone was after Halloween stuff), but had still managed to get a spot next to the main foot path. Rogue unlocked the car, and Jubilee and Gambit began loading up the boot.

They were situated about halfway between the party shop, and a portable hydraulic lift. Its platform was in line with a broken floor-to-ceiling window belonging to a gym above a furniture shop. Kitty was about to comment on this oddity, when a couple of police cars turned into the parking lot.

"I think something's going on," Kitty said cautiously, looking from the police back to the broken window.

As the others looked up, the police cars parked, not directly in front of the gym, but close enough that the intent was clear. Gambit, after a short pause, quickening his loading pace. After parking, the police officers inside exited the cars.

"You need to clear the area," one of the officers said to them.

"Already working on it," Rogue assured them.

The officer didn't reply, simply moved onto the nearest store. More police cars entered the parking lot.

At the same time, there was movement at the broken gym window. A man with a lower half that looked like a tank rolled out onto the lift platform. He was holding a gun in one hand, while the other grabbed the lift controls.

"Freeze!" commanded one of the police officers from behind his car. "Put the gun down, and your hands up!"

Kitty caught her breath. "Reavers. But why in the world would they rob a gym?"

The Reaver set his gun down on the top of his tankish lower half, what qualified as his lap. He held his hands up in the air as the platform lowered.

"More importantly," Gambit said, "why did we buy so much stuff? It really shouldn't take this long to load up the car."

The lift reached the ground and stopped. The Reaver immediately zoomed forward. At the same moment, guns were fired from the broken window at the police. The police fired back, but by that time the tankish Reaver had a whole truck between him and the police.

The four X-Men had dropped and ducked behind the car at the sound of gunfire. There was an additional crack as Gambit's sunglasses broke. Jubilee cried out, for a moment thinking he had been hit.

"I'm okay, I'm okay," Gambit was quick to assure them. "That was me who broke my glasses."

"I probably would've broken more than just my glasses," Rogue said wryly.

He flashed her a small smile.

"Okay, I'd say it's past time we got out of here," Kitty said, and held her hand out to Rogue. "I'll drive. I'll do some phasing on the way to make sure we don't get hit."

Rogue nodded and handed her the car keys.

There was no question of getting involved. Just because they'd trained against Reavers in the Danger Room didn't mean that they were ready to go up against the real thing. Likewise, the current situation wasn't a mutant issue. The police were already there, they should let them do their jobs. Right now, the best thing they could contribute was getting Gambit out of it before the inevitable stress of being in a life-threatening situation got everyone blown up.

Gambit opened up the back door of the car, and he and Jubilee got inside, keeping down low. Kitty got into the driver's seat. While her friends were on the move, Rogue took the more dangerous route to the front passenger side via the back of the car, where she stopped to shut the hatch.

It was only a short stop, but it was still far too long.

The Reaver came zooming along the footpath, right towards Rogue, and unnoticed by the police who had their eyes and guns trained on the Reavers in the gym. She had no time to dodge before the Reaver hit her. He stopped as she stumbled, and he grabbed hold of her and yanked her up onto his lap.

His left arm held Rogue pressed against his chest, with her head against his shoulder. Her upper torso was uncomfortably slouched on his lap, with her bum right on the edge where the tank front sloped down. Her knees were bent so that her feet were pressed against the slope in an effort to keep them from falling down and getting hurt by the Reaver's forward movement.

With his right arm, the Reaver picked his gun back up and shot twice into the air, then aimed the gun at Rogue's head.

"Put down your guns, or I blow her brains out," the Reaver demanded, his voice carrying across the parking lot.

After a moment of tense hesitation (and a couple more shots from the Reavers in the gym), the police put down their guns (or at least the ones the Reavers could see). The Reaver who had Rogue drove around back in front of the furniture store while his friends started leaving the gym. Some came from the stairs, but the rest loaded up the lift with bags of their spoils and headed down that way.

Rogue was not interested in just lying there quietly.

Her first thought was to make herself a deadweight against his left arm. But, if her plan worked and his arm dropped her, she would fall over the side and likely right on top of the tank treads. If he was moving at the time that could prove nasty, especially if her loose clothing got caught.

So Rogue went with her second thought. Since the Reaver wanted her pressed against his chest, she gave herself as much leverage as she could to press herself even further into him. Not all at once: she gradually increased the pressure and watched the unmoving aim of the gun. The Reaver was too busy watching the police to realise that his hostage's head was moving out of his gun's line of fire.

The moment Rogue knew the gun was no longer pointed directly at her, she lifted her right hand and rammed it into the Reaver's, forcing his gun upwards and away. The gun fired, but the bullet went right by Rogue and hit the side of the truck instead.

Rogue wrapped her arm further around his gun arm, seeking to disarm him. At the same time, she swung her left hand around and took advantage of his surprise to jam her fingers into his eyes.

With a cry, his left arm released her body and sought to free his eyes His right arm waved wildly, but Rogue's grip on him prevented him from aiming his gun at her.

He grabbed her left hand with his. His eyes were free, if bloody, and didn't see it coming when the back of Rogue's head beat him squarely in the nose.

"Happy Halloween!"

Rogue shut her eyes automatically at the sound of Jubilee's call for celebration. A moment later she heard Jubilee's fireworks going off, and yells from the other Reavers.

Rogue wrenched her left hand free from the Reaver's grip and rolled off the right side, pleased that the Reaver hadn't thought to move anywhere. She opened her eyes as she twisted the Reaver's right arm around, finally forcing him to let go of the gun. She grabbed the gun before it could fall and dashed backwards.

As she looked up (the Reaver swearing at her all the while and trying to see with bloodshot eyes), she saw Kitty running in phase through all the cybernetic prosthetic limbs and removing guns from the other Reavers. In a moment, Kitty was by her side, and she handed her a couple of the guns.

"I officially don't believe any of those movies where an individual is loaded up with a ridiculous amount of guns," Kitty said.

Rogue gave a chuckle and then Kitty took her into phase with her. They stopped by the police barricade and dropped off the guns.

"Here you go officers," Kitty said.

She was barely acknowledged as the police immediately took advantage of the situation to pick up their own guns and move in on the Reavers. Their lack of weapons and disabled prosthetics made them easy to arrest, though not so easy to load up when the police vans showed up. (The tank Reaver proved to be particularly difficult, and they were still working on that when the X-Men left).

Rogue, Kitty, and Jubilee (who quickly joined them when the police moved in) stayed to make statements. Kitty very reluctantly gave her name, knowing that they'd all seen her walk through solid objects. She didn't regret getting involved. She could never regret using her powers to save a friend, or anyone for that matter. But she didn't want to start having to account for her every move in case the police ever decided to check her alibi every time there was a burglary.

"Alright. What about your friend in the car?" asked the policewoman who was interviewing them.

The girls looked at each other.

"I'll go get him…" Rogue said slowly. "Um, but he may not have…" she trailed off, not really sure how to say he probably hadn't been watching the fight. It seemed like such an absurd statement.

She hurried over to the car, and his door opened as she closed in. She opened her mouth to greet him, only to see the backseat lit up with magenta light.

"Is this a popcorn situation?" she asked in alarm, referring to the safeword he used during group Danger Room sessions.

Gambit shook his head. "Nah, I deliberately created this one. I thought if I had a physical charge on the go I'd be less likely to make any line-of-sight charges. And I also figured that watching would be less stressful than not."

Rogue nodded. "Okay, yeah, that sounds logical. Look, um, the police want your statement. That's not going to be a problem, is it?"

"There aren't any warrants out for my arrest, if that's what you're asking," he replied with a wry grin. "Yeah, just a second…"

He took a deep breath, and a moment later the charge dissolved and he got out of the car. He followed Rogue back to the others. The policewoman caught her breath at the sight of his obviously mutant eyes, but went about her task with professionalism and never made a single comment about them.

A mere two hours later, Rogue filled up her tray at the buffet in the dining hall. All the food at dinner was, as always, labelled with the ingredients used. The loud, pulsing buzzing in her ear that was bad enough to make that side of her face hurt persuaded her to avoid salt.

Then, instead of taking her usual table, she took her tray into the breakfast nook with the hope that there wouldn't be anyone else with the same idea. The only noise she wanted to deal with right now was something quietly happening in the background, and there was nothing quiet about a school full of teenagers having a meal together.

The breakfast nook was empty but for Gambit who was seated at the bench with his own dinner. He looked up as Rogue walked in.

"Mind if I turn the radio on?" she asked as she set the tray down on the bench next to him.

He shook his head. "Go ahead." He watched as she did so. "Tinnitus acting up?"

Rogue nodded as she adjusted the volume so it was just loud enough to be heard. "Yeah. But I guess having a gun go off that close to your head will give anyone ringing in their ears."

"True! Jubilee's pafs probably didn't help either."

Rogue shook her head as she sat down. "Actually the decibel rating on those got tested ages ago, before you came here. Her low-to-medium powered pafs are all below 80 decibels. It's 80 or 85 decibels that you risk getting hearing loss. Actual fireworks are louder."

"Hmm, well, I guess it would make sense that you would test that," Gambit said thoughtfully as he lifted a bite of food to his mouth. "The team's more likely to be exposed to that kind of danger than people we're fighting, given that we train more than we have real fights."

"Exactly."

They fell silent as they ate, only the radio playing keeping the room from falling completely quiet. Rogue didn't bother questioning why Gambit was eating in the breakfast nook: he always did when he was having a bad day and didn't want to risk blowing up stuff in the dining hall. Rogue supposed that "having to sit by and watch while your friends were in mortal danger and not be able to act without possibly making things worse" qualified as a bad day.

She shuddered. She didn't particularly want to dwell on the fact she she could've quite easily have died today.

"You okay?" Gambit asked. "Other than the ear, I mean?"

Rogue shook her head. "Just not wanting to think about what happened today. The ear is making it difficult." She sighed and pushed her food around her plate. "If you ignore it, it'll go away. Easier said than done."

She sighed again. At least her tinnitus hadn't been the result of hearing damage. Her hearing had checked out fine, so it wasn't spending too much time in noisy environments that had caused it. Dr Ashley Ashton, a friend of Hank McCoy's who had taken on the position of being the resident doctor, insisted that it was likely caused by stress. Given that it showed up not long after Professor Xavier and Scott Summers had died, and Jean Grey had died again, and the future of the school had been in question, Rogue figured "stress" was a fair assessment.

Though, the buzzing hadn't started until after she took the Cure. She was both bitter and suspicious about that timing: she just got rid of the voices in her head, only for them to be replaced by this wretched buzzing. The noises were distinctly different (her voices were like listening to people in a crowded room; the tinnitus sounded more like a buzzing insect stuck in hear ear), and the centre of it had shifted (her voices had been more central; the tinnitus was married to her left ear, though it occasionally spread to her right ear when it was really bad, like now). If it weren't for those differences, Rogue might have suspected the Cure as not being as effective as advertised.

Still, at least her condition could be managed, and unlike many other people with tinnitus, she actually got to enjoy silence occasionally.

"Yeah," Gambit replied softly. "It's not easy to ignore things that ruin your ability to live life."

"No, it's not," she said, and knowing he was thinking about himself more than her at the moment, added: "But at least I don't have to put up with this level of noise 24/7. Some people do. And some people are driven to suicide because of it. Ugh." She shook her head. "It got so bad in the beginning before I got diagnosed that I—"

"Would've cut off your own ear if you thought it would've helped." Gambit smirked at her.

"I see I've told you this story before."

"I was there."

"Oh yeah," Rogue grinned winningly at him. "You were too. Wow, that would've been a year ago. You've been with us a whole year."

"I know. I was there too."

Rogue laughed, then leaned over and kissed his cheek. "Happy anniversary."

He snickered. "Happy anniversary, chere."

Rogue woke up the following morning to the sound of her alarm clock. Music played quietly in the background: it had been the only way she'd been able to get any sleep the night before. She dressed and turned her music off as she left.

She arrived shortly before 7am at Tom's Auto Repairs. She wasted no time parking her motorcycle and getting inside, ready to start the day. Which was good, because the work day was more than eager to get started, with all the cars that were getting dropped off for the day before work started for their owners.

"Hey Marie," one of the other mechanics said to her later in the morning once things had calmed down, "saw you on TV last night."

Rogue blinked at Juan in surprise. "You did?"

"Yeah." He frowned. "Well, I saw a woman with a white streak in her hair fighting Reavers anyway. Sure looked like you."

"Oh. Oh!" she exclaimed. "That made the news, did it? Oh, what am I saying, of course it made the news. I should've seen that coming." She shook her head as she wiped her greasy hands on a nearby rag.

Juan grinned at her. "So that was you, huh? You're the one who got taken hostage by that Reaver tank, and then gouged his eyes out."

"Well," Rogue said hesitantly, becoming aware of some of the other mechanics looking in on their conversation. "I wouldn't say I gouged his eyes out since they were still in his head when I left—"

An accusing voice, almost hostile, came from behind. "You're a mutant?"

Rogue turned to see one of the younger mechanics, Will, looking sharply at her. She looked back at him with narrowed eyes, wondering how best to respond.

"Of course she is," Juan said cheerfully. "How else would she be able to take out a Reaver?"

Rogue cracked a grin, still looking at Will. "Actually, I took the Cure."

There was silence for a moment, then:

"Wait, so you beat that guy up without any powers?" Juan asked, and Rogue looked back at him to see his eyes had gone wide. "Not even super strength?"

"Yeah, no powers."

Juan opened his mouth to reply, then shut it and shook his head.

"No powers?" Will asked disbelievingly.

"No powers," Rogue replied as she sauntered over to the workbench, looking out for the tool she needed for her next task. "But if it makes you feel any better, my self-defence instructor is former military. Now, if you don't mind, gentlemen, I believe we have work to do."

First chance she got, which wasn't until her break, Rogue went online to check the news on the matter. What she found was a video taken of the incident trending on YouTube. Judging from the perspective of the camera, it was taken by someone in the furniture shop. Rogue was clearly identifiable, but Jubilee had been off screen (aside from her fireworks), and there was no clear view of Kitty, who had been on the move and ended up with guns in front of her face.

Rogue read a couple of the articles on the incident; both were favourable, although she caught the headline of at least one article that implied otherwise. The articles assumed that Rogue was a mutant too.

She looked up from her phone at the sound of a ruckus out the front. She shoved it back into her bag just as her boss, Tom, came into view.

"Ah, Marie," he said. "We've got a news crew out the front wanting to talk to you."

Rogue blinked in surprise. "We do?"

"Apparently they got a hot tip you were here," Tom said. "And they aren't going to leave until you talk to them. Which is a problem, because they're clogging up the areas I need for moving cars around."

"Ahh," Rogue said as she shoved her nah back into her locker. "And you want me to get rid of them."

"At least get them back onto the sidewalk where they're not in the way. And keep your back to the shop, because if they're going to be here, I may as well get something from it."

Rogue laughed. For a moment she entertained the idea that Tom had been the one to call in the press, but she dismissed the idea. Tom could be opportunistic, but he took his work and the safety and welfare of his employees very seriously. More likely it was one of the others she worked with. There was a slim chance it could be a customer, but she hadn't had much contact with them today.

As soon as Rogue stepped out, cameras pointed in her direction and went off in her face. She swallowed hard, feeling a little overwhelmed and concerned that this was all going to go badly. Mutants didn't normally get good press.

"Um, hi—" Rogue began to say and was promptly cut off by a barrage of questions. She raised her voice and gesture to the wide footpath outside of the autoshop. "If we could just move things over here."

She didn't bother to wait for a response, just moved herself and the reporters followed, along with their cameras and microphones.