All characters owned by Marvel Comics

Author's notes: For my own sanity, we'll say this story takes places just before the reboot. That way, when things change that contradict my story, it won't matter, we'll say its an alternate timeline. Thanks for reading so far!


Chapter Three

"This is the last spot we got a clear read on her."

Remy crouched next to the park bench to examine the crush of footprints trampled in the snow surrounding it, and lifted his gaze to meet the grim face of the former and original Captain America, Steve Rogers, though the man had aged significantly since the last time Gambit had laid eyes on him.

"Her cell phone pinged off a nearby tower, but all the security cameras in the vicinity are too far out of range to give us any clear visuals. We've had our best people looking everything over, and they're still canvasing the streets and airways for her, but it's like I told you on the phone, the girl just up and vanished."

The ground was a mess. Too many New Yorkers had beaten their path through Central Park, even in mid-winter, and there was no way to spot out of place footprints or random cigarette butts, but Remy had wanted to get all the information the Avengers had to help him in his own search for Anna.

He exhaled loudly and stood, trying to keep his temper in check. "She couldn't just vanish. City this big, with powers like hers? Even if somebody got the drop on her, there'd be witnesses somewhere! Somebody saw somethin'." The WWII veteran before him that now looked every day of his ninety years flinched and Remy raised an eyebrow. "What is it you ain't tellin' me?"

The weary hero sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. "I put her in charge of the Avengers' Unity Squad. I believed she could handle herself and I still do, but tensions on the team have been running high. One thing we were able to find in looking at scans of this area, around the time of her last cell phone signal, there were two distinct uses of mutant powers in her vicinity from unidentified sources."

Remy's red on black eyes practically bulged from his head. "Two other mutants!? Why didn't you tell me that right away? Don't you think that might be important?"

Rogers squared his jaw through the wrinkles. "As I was saying, tensions have been running high on the team, especially between Anna Marie and her Inhuman teammate, Synapse. There were some in our organization that assumed Rogue had finally gotten fed up…"

An exasperated Remy threw up his hands. "You gotta be fucking kidding me! Do you know how proud this girl has been to call herself an Avenger? She wouldn't throw that away just because she got a little pissed off!"

Cap caught Remy's shoulder in a surprisingly iron grip. "I know that, son, and I don't think she ran away, either. She's too stubborn to quit, no matter how angry she might have been. What I was actually hoping was that the mutant signatures were some of your people and that she got pulled into a mission that she couldn't let us know about."

There it was again. Your people. Since the resurgence of the Inhumans, mutants had been pushed even further into the mud under humanity's shoes. Seeing the expression on Remy's face, Rogers squeezed his shoulder even harder.

"I know a bit of your history with her, Gambit. I know you care about her deeply. I do, too. The first time I met her, she was just a kid, but she gave me a beating I've never forgotten. It makes my heart proud to see how she turned her life around. I wanted you to know what's been going on, but I also hoped you'd have resources that aren't available to the Avengers. Use 'em, son. Help me find her."

Other resources was a very diplomatic way of calling out Remy's connections to the criminal underworld, which opened up avenues that were completely closed off to someone as squeaky clean and public as Captain America.

"I'm gonna need a copy of those scans if you can get them to me, see if my people can figure out who she was dealing with." Remy had contacted Ororo Munroe, Storm, and her team of X-Men first thing this morning. After all, suddenly disappearing had all the hallmarks of travelling with Illyana Rasputin, demon sorceress and reluctant mutant taxi service. But, no one at Stormy's X-Haven had heard from Rogue since right after their world started going to hell, though Storm herself had been unavailable for his call. There weren't many mutants left on the planet, but if Remy had to start hitting them one by one to find Rogue, he would.

Cap nodded. "I'll get Tony to send them to you right now." Rogers pulled out a slightly oversized cell phone, and if worry hadn't been clawing apart Remy's stomach, he would have had a Jitterbug joke in him.

The message from Stark was buzzing almost the instant Rogers ended his call, and Remy decided to forward it to his friend, the tech wizard Fence, with a quick text explanation. He was still sore at Fence for his forcing Remy's participation in the bid for leadership of the Thieves' Guild, but despite Remy getting shot in the head during the hubbub, it had all eventually worked out. Gambit had ended up in charge of the Guild, and his network of thieves were already hard at work discretely checking for any mention of the Avenger and X-Man Rogue across the globe. So far, nothing, but the thieves under his direction were more like independent contractors than minions. He could ask for their help, but, unlike previous Guild regimes, he wouldn't force it. If Rogue was out and about, she would stick out like a sore thumb, subtlety had never been her strong suit. Her white stripe and big personality drew a lot of attention, not to mention her gorgeous face and body.

Dammit, let that girl be okay, he silently prayed. The last time they had talked, it hadn't gone well, and he still wanted the chance to settle things between them, to maybe try things again? If anything happened to her…

"Thanks, Captain. If I hear anything, you'll be the first to know."

"Likewise." Rogers patted Remy's back kindly. "Don't worry. We'll find her."

Remy's phone buzzed again in his pocket as he walked away from the senior Avenger. He huddled into his coat and checked the message, but jerked to a stop in the middle of the now crowded sidewalk, nearly colliding with an irate jogger.

"Hey! I'm runnin' here!" The man gestured rudely on his way by, but Remy just scowled at the screen. The message wasn't from Fence, but from Shiro Yashida, the mutant Sunfire. Ice water slid down Remy's back.

'Call me immediately', the message read. Remy frowned. Shiro and he weren't what you'd call friends. Actually, Remy wasn't sure Shiro was capable of making friends, the man was such an arrogant prick, but the two had one truly horrible thing in common. Both had been changed and corrupted by the mutant Apocalypse. Why would Shiro suddenly want to talk?

Lorna Dane's call in the dead of night flashed to the surface of Remy's mind, and his knees shook so hard he had to find a park bench before he threw up. He hadn't called Lorna back, and had actually completely forgotten about their late night conversation. Remy had been in such a rush to get to New York from New Orleans as soon as humanly possible that it had slipped his mind. Lorna, Shiro, and Remy had become three of Apocalypse's Four Horsemen, servants of the mutant villain, and the alterations that had been made to Remy's mind and body had never completely gone away, despite his new lease on life at the hands of Faiza. Remy tried to steady his breathing. His horrific nightmares starring himself as the Horseman Death, Rogue missing, Lorna having trouble sleeping, Shiro texting out of the blue…what the hell was happening?

The return phone calls to Lorna and Shiro couldn't take place in the middle of Central Park, so Remy hoofed it back to the apartment he kept for a small monthly fortune on the Upper West Side.

"Mr. Wright!"

Pete, the daytime doorman, a sloppy ex-wannabe-hippie who had followed Phish on tour in the late nineties and never really came all the way back down, only knew Remy by one of his aliases. 'Mark Wright' was from Kentucky and traveled a lot on business. Pete knew 'Mark' was a mutant, Remy had yet to find a great way to disguise his unique red on black eyes, but Pete had a serious bro-crush on Remy's alter-ego.

"Long time, no see, buddy!" Pete stood and brushed the crumbs of a sub sandwich from his dark button down, then reached across the security counter to shake hands.

"How y'all doin', Pete?" Remy always saved his best Sam Guthrie impersonation for this particular pseudonym. "Did ya get to any o' the Dead's farewell shows?"

The affable everyman's face lit up like a Christmas tree. "Hell, yeah! I'll send you the download!" The man hardly instilled a lot of faith in terms of security, but the building itself was conveniently located, and Remy had installed his own safety measures and alarms to cover his upstairs apartment.

"Sweet!" Remy saluted as he backed away. "I gotta make some calls, but I'll catch ya later, man!" He waved through the closing elevator doors. When they shut, the mask of neighborly warmth fell to the floor. Anna. Where the hell was she?

He opened the door to his empty apartment. The trio of kittens that had entered his life courtesy of Rogue's adopted mother, the terrorist Mystique, Raven Darkholme, were being fostered by his neighbor across the hall. At first, the woman had just been popping in to Remy's place to feed the fuzzballs and change their litterbox when he couldn't, but he had been spending more and more time on the road without landing at a permanent address, so his neighbor had taken them on full time. He hoped he could visit them while he was here, but they were at the bottom of a very long laundry list, Rogue at the top.

He shot another text message to Fence, hoping the man would get the urgency of the situation and call him back, then braced himself and dialed Shiro's number. The hot-headed Sunfire picked up before the first ring was through.

"You call this immediately?"

Remy took a deep breath and shook his head. Shiro was a whiny bitch on his good days. When he was angry and upset, Lord help those who had to deal with him. "Sorry, Shiro, but I've got a bit of a situation myself…"

Shiro cut him off. "I do not care what garbage you have managed to get yourself into. What concerns me…"

Remy wasn't in the mood for his shit. "Rogue is missing," he growled.

There was a drawn out pause, long enough Remy wondered if Sunfire had hung up on him.

"Missing? What do you mean, missing?" The tone of the man's voice almost sounded concerned. Rogue was one of the few people Shiro could actually stand to be around, the two had a strange bond forged by Anna's forced absorption of his powers and personality a few years ago in Japan. She seemed to understand better than most what made the Japanese mutant tick.

Remy ran a hand through his chin-length hair. "Like I said, missing. Got a call from Steve Rogers, said the Avengers ain't seen her for days, no word from her. She hasn't called me, or Ororo…I'm goin' crazy here. I was with Rogers when you messaged me. We were searchin' her last known location, in Central Park, but there's nothing. It's like she vanished without a trace!"

Silence again, and Remy looked at his phone to make sure it was still connected.

"You are in New York City?" Shiro finally asked.

"Oui, just got in this morning. I have a place on West 75th. You in Japan?"

"Hai. I will join you in a few hours."

"A few hours? I appreciate the thought, but do you really think flyin' yourself halfway round the world is a good idea? Especially with all that mist floating around?"

A scoff came through the speaker. "The distance is of little concern, and it seems the mist does not affect me. I am quite immune. It is decided, I will be there shortly. There is much to discuss."

Remy was quickly losing his patience. "If it's so damn important you talk to me, why don't you just spit it out?"

There was a mirthless laugh. "If only it were so easy. Tell me, LeBeau, how have you been sleeping?" Before Gambit could respond, Shiro disconnected the call.

"FUCK!" Remy threw his phone onto a nearby sofa and scrubbed his hands angrily down his face.

Shiro was immune to the Terrigen Mists, too. That couldn't be a coincidence, and neither could the man's obviously troubled nights. The connection none of them had ever wanted still seemed to bind them tightly together. Lorna. He needed to call Lorna. He stooped to retrieve his phone and it rang again in his hand.

Fence. All thoughts of Polaris and Sunfire took an immediate backseat.

"Hey, Remy, how's it going?" The man's voice was as big as he was, and Remy felt a twinge of relief. Fence was the best. If Anna had even wandered near anything electronic, the man could find her.

"Merde!" Remy sank onto the couch and leaned his elbows on his knees. "You got now idea how good it is to hear your voice, mon ami."

"I'll bet. So, your girl's in some trouble?"

"Oui. Worse than usual, if you can believe it."

"Got your download. Thanks, by the way. Stark's private number is attached to it. Should give me a nice little backdoor into Avengers' tower…"

"Ha! Thought you already had one after they fixed you up?"

"Doesn't hurt to have a spare."

"What you think? Is there somethin' we're missin'?"

That big laugh boomed into Remy's ear. "There's a lot you're missing, my friend, not the least of which is your pretty girlfriend. Come on over now and I'll show you what I've found so far."


Hours later, Remy's eyeballs were ready to burst from staring at the computer monitors wallpapering the converted warehouse that served as Fence's office.

Fence sighed and leaned back, the rolling chair beneath him threatening to crack under his tremendous girth. "There's a reason Stark is who he is, Remy. They tapped every outdoor camera for forty square blocks, every registered drone, every police or news chopper that was in the area. One sweep of the cell phone tower she was there, the next she wasn't."

Remy stared bleakly at the image frozen onscreen. Anna, huddled in an oversized leather jacket with her white stripe buried in a knit stocking hat Remy had given her two Christmases ago, was strolling into Central Park's entrance off of Columbus Circle. She was scowling, a look Remy recognized as more irritated than angry or scared, trying to blend into the crowd. What had she been doing there? Just taking a moment to herself, or had she been going to the park to meet someone? His throat seized up.

"You gotta give me something more, Fence." He jumped up and angrily gestured to the screen. "This can't be the last time I ever see this woman!"

"Calm down, Remy. I get that you're scared. I know how much you care about her."

Shaking his head, Remy flopped back down in the chair next to Fence and caught the man's eyes, or eye as one of the orbs looking at Remy was cybernetic, along with a huge chunk of the rest of him, though the electronic parts were a tad more sophisticated since his upgrade.

"No, you don't. I love that woman, more than I've ever loved anyone else. And I let her walk away from me, didn't even put up a fight. I'm such a fucking idiot…and now…"

"I'm not giving up yet. I've got a few ideas. Stark's good, but he's still mostly on the up and up. There's a lot goin' on in this city that's on the down low if you catch my drift. Your girl's smart and tough. If she's in trouble and can get word to somebody, she will."

Remy didn't want to say it out loud, but Fence's words of encouragement dropped the bottom out of his stomach. Rogue was tough, not just tough but super-powered, and word was she had a whole new slew of powers at her disposal thanks to Wonderman. She had been trained by the best. For her to get hit and not kick up a fight? He hoped he was overreacting, that Captain freakin' America was overreacting, and that she had truly gone off on her own to get her head straightened out, but he knew in the depths of his soul that wasn't the case. Steve Rogers had fought Nazis for fuck's sake. The man didn't seem prone to hysterics. If his instincts were lining up with Remy's?

The light of Remy's cell phone resting on the desk in front of him announced a text from Shiro.

'In NYC. Address?'

Smiling ruefully, Remy wondered if Shiro was texting and flying. He didn't want Sunfire to come here, Fence valued his privacy too much, so he sent Shiro his address with promises he'd be there within the half hour. He stood. "Fence, I hate to leave right now, but I got somebody in town that needs my help. Are you…?"

Fence rose and sandwiched Remy's hand between his paws. "Hey, you know I like a challenge. I'll keep hacking, see what I come up with. I'll call you in a couple of hours." He pulled Remy in for a bear hug. "It'll be all right, man."

"Thanks, mon ami. You got now idea how much this means to me."

Shiro was waiting on the sidewalk and the sun was setting by the time Remy hopped out of the cab.

"You are late," the Japanese mutant said disdainfully.

Remy shouldered past him and held open the door to his apartment building. "Good to see you, too."

Even though Remy had ran a few jobs with Shiro months ago, he hadn't actually seen Sunfire de-powered, in person and out of costume, since the man's accident, but Anna had filled him in on what had happened. On a mission with a previous incarnation of the Unity Squad, Shiro's sub-atomic powers had been pushed to the limit and he had suffered serious self-inflicted burns over much of his body. Remy was thankful that doorman Pete had gone home for the day. The night guy was far less talkative and merely nodded in their direction before they got on the elevator.

Pride was always one of Shiro's weaknesses, and since the accident he had rarely been seen in public, but whatever was happening to him now was serious enough to bring him out of his exile. The winter weather gave him an excuse to be mostly covered up, but what was exposed of Shiro's once handsome face was a mishmash of scars and shiny pink skin. His eyebrows and hair were gone, but there looked to be evidence of recent skin grafts.

"It is rude to stare, gaijin," Shiro hissed.

Inclining his head, Remy met his eyes. "You look good, Shiro. And that's not just me blowin' smoke up your ass. You been through a war, mon ami, we all have. The fact that you still breathin', still walkin' tall after everything you been through, just shows how strong you are."

Shiro sighed loudly and edged out of the elevator first when they hit Remy's floor. Remy deactivated the alarms and stepped aside for his reluctant companion, who entered the apartment and eyed the surroundings contemptuously.

"Something wrong, Shiro?"

"I expected worse," Shiro replied. The Yashida clan had been one of the richest in Japan, but their criminal connection had hardly benefited the noble Sunfire. Still, at times Shiro had been his country's greatest hero and was used to the finer things in life. Normally, Remy would have given him a hard time for being such a snob, but the fight was out of him today.

"You hungry?" he asked instead and jumped back in surprise when an angry Shiro threw his jacket across the room.

"No, LeBeau. What I am is tired! I…I cannot sleep, and when I do, I am plagued by nightmares as if I am a frightened child!" There was the flicker of flames at Shiro's fingertips.

"Don't s'pose these nightmares have anythin' t'do wit' Apocalypse?"

The tongues of fire spread up Sunfire's arms and circled his head. "How did you know that LeBeau!? Answer me!"

Remy held up his hands. "Calm down, Shiro, no need to be settin' off the smoke detectors." He stepped towards the agitated mutant slowly. "I've been having them, too, but I think you already suspected that. It's why you came looking for me."

Shiro doused his own spark. "Hai. I did not know where else to turn. For good or ill, you know better than anyone what we went through thanks to that monster."

"Me and Lorna…" Remy stopped mid-sentence. "Oh, shit!" He fumbled for his cellphone.

"What is wrong, LeBeau?"

Flipping to Lorna's contact, he hit the button. "She called me yesterday. Sounds like she's havin' the same problem. Was supposed to call her back, but then Rogue…" C'mon, cherie, he thought as the phone rang and rang, pick up the phone, I'm sorry…The call went to Lorna's sing-song voicemail. He left a brief message and texted the same with Shiro breathing down his neck.

"She did not answer?"

Remy gave me a withering stare. "Non." He didn't do a good job keeping the snark out of his voice.

"I do not like this. Is she in the city?"

"Not New York. She went to D.C. after Snow deep-sixed X-Factor."

Shiro retrieved his jacket and stuffed his arms into the sleeves. "Then, what are we waiting for, LeBeau?" His hand was turning the doorknob before Remy even registered what he was suggesting.

"You want to drop in on her doorstep because she didn't answer her phone? Isn't that overreacting just a little bit?"

"Is it?" Shiro levelled eyes the color of hot coals at Remy. "You feel it as well, don't you? In the back of your mind, something clawing, scraping, trying to gain purchase. Something is wrong. Somehow, something has…awoken."

He had to look away because he knew Shiro was right. In their world, he had learned the hard way that there were no such things as coincidences. "How quick can you get us to D.C.?"

The question elicited a hearty laugh from Sunfire. "I cannot carry you, not unless you have suddenly become flame retardant. We will have to take more pedestrian routes to reach Lorna Dane."


"Fuck you, Remy LeBeau."

Lorna Dane, the mistress of magnetism known as Polaris, muttered under her breath and pushed her cellphone across her kitchen's marble counter in disgust. She grabbed the half empty, or half full depending on your frame of mind, bottle of Moscato and poured herself another generous glass.

She wasn't going to call him again. She wasn't. He said he'd call her tomorrow, which was today, but the hell if she was going to look like some needy whack job, blowing up his phone over a couple little nightmares. She shuddered and wrapped her flowy cardigan around her body and headed for her living room. Little nightmares was a massive understatement. For the past several days she had woken from gut wrenching night terrors that left her petrified and drenched in sweat. Nothing seemed to give her a good night's sleep and she was exhausted. Pills hadn't worked, bubble baths hadn't worked, exercising until she practically threw up hadn't worked, wine didn't work either, but what the hell, she was always willing to give getting blasted a second chance.

She had been through enough these last few years to certainly warrant a few nightmares, but these were different. They felt so real, and the sights, smells, even the sounds were pulled directly from her horrifying memories of the time she spent as a Horseman of the villain Apocalypse. She had made some dumbass moves over the years, had been pulled into some shitty situations beyond her control, but Apocalypse took the cake. Who knew she'd lead the kind of life where having her body controlled and used for years by the psychic Marauder Malice would be only the second worst thing that had ever happened to her?

Flopping into an overstuffed cream leather armchair, she grabbed the remote and pulled up Netflix. Depression was nothing that a good Scandal binge couldn't cure. The still silent cellphone sat on the kitchen counter, visible out of the corner of her eye, and as far as she was concerned, it could stay there.

Olivia Pope in her winter white knee length coat commanded attention, but Lorna found hers waning, her eyes drifting towards the kitchen and that damn phone. Halfway through the first episode, her glass of wine was empty and her nerves frayed. She pressed pause and took a handful of steps when she heard a funny pop, like a balloon bursting or a car backfiring. She spun around to find a trio of people standing in her living room. None were exactly strangers to her, but it took her a split second to recognize who they were, and that split second hesitation nearly cost her everything.

"Rogue!" Lorna set the wine glass on the counter as Anna Raven, her sometimes fellow X-Man, had drawn her attention first. "What are you…?" The beautiful, normally sassy woman stared vacantly at Lorna with dead green eyes. Lorna took a step back when she realized who had accompanied the Southern powerhouse. "NO!" she screamed and twisted her body away, and in the same motion threw up a magnetic shield that shoved the trio away.

The man called Vanisher was how they had ended up uninvited in the middle of her living room, but the mutant Mesmero was someone Lorna Dane had hoped never to see again. A long time ago, a lifetime it seemed, Mesmero had manipulated and abused Lorna, the first in a long line to do so, and she had sworn never to let the man get his hypnotic clutches into her again.

She heard the sound of breaking glass that was a body slamming through her patio door just off the living room, and hoped Rogue was okay, but bolted for the back door. A strong hand caught her arm and wrenched it back, forcing her to the floor.

"Aw, is that any way to greet an old friend?"

Mesmero's voice made her skin crawl. She couldn't let him get her, she couldn't! She squeezed her eyes shut and fought off Mesmero's hypnotic influence the best she could, but apparently Rogue hadn't been so lucky, it was her hand that held Lorna in an iron grip. The girl must have gotten ahold of some superstrength again because her hold threatened to snap Lorna's wrist.

Through the pain, Lorna tried to catch Rogue's attention. "Rogue! Anna! You have to fight him! Don't let him do this!" She pleaded, but it was clear the usually stubborn Rogue had lost control to the son of a bitch.

A bleeding Vanisher stepped up behind Rogue, brushing tiny shards of broken glass from his clothing. "Would you finish this already?" he barked at Mesmero, and Lorna felt a cold numbness spreading from the back of her skull. The faint buzz of her cellphone rattled the counter, too late.

"Back off!" Mesmero hissed, and the cold touch of his powers dribbled down her back like ice water.

"What's the matter, Vince?" Vanisher laughed. "Little rusty?"

Rusty. Iron. Metal. Magnetic. From somewhere deep down, Lorna Dane grabbed ahold of the magnetic field of every appliance in her house and overloaded their circuits, flaring as bright as she could in a terrific flash of energy. The house around her exploded in an enormous electrical fireball, and she flew across the yard to land in a smoking heap. The newborn red and orange flames stretched their tongues high into the night sky. Flopping her spinning head against the cold crunch of snow covering her lawn, she muttered a silent prayer that superstrong meant invulnerable and that Rogue had survived. Those other two bastards, she could give two shits whether they lived or died.

Lorna couldn't fight the dizziness anymore and the blackness swallowed her, but not before two lifeless green eyes appeared before her and the touch of soft skin brushed her numb cheek.