I do not own X-Men: Evolution

A/N: I know, I failed at updating sooner. I've kind of shot myself in the foot between school, work, and having two stories that I have to update. Sorry it didn't come sooner.

Chapter 4: Inevitability

A couple days passed and Remy began to get into the full swing of things at the institute. He learned quickly that there rarely was a dull moment around the institute. With twelve other mutant teens around, chaos was an everyday occurrence. Aside from all the rules that had to be followed, it was a lot like Remy's old home back in New Orleans especially when it came down to the insanity of it all.

With the initial shock of Remy's arrival out of the way, most of the students began to treat him like an equal peer. The few exceptions were Scott, Kurt, and Rogue. Although Scott respected Remy's privacy, he still kept an eye on him because of all the unknowns that danced around Remy. It was going to take some getting used to having him around. Even so, Scott tried to keep some measure of faith in Xavier. Kurt was watching Remy for different reasons. He was watching Remy in regard to Rogue. He was not inclined in the slightest to trust him around her.

During Remy's first days at the mansion were relatively lax. But Logan kept his promise on making him "cozy" with the Danger Room. Two days after his arrival, training began.

"Get your ass in gear, Gumbo!" Logan barked at Remy as the DR turrets fired up for his first training session. His objective was simple: get across the room, fifty feet across, in five minutes. With Logan controlling the session the word simple was laughable.

When all the turrets aimed straight for Remy, he vocalized the only thought going through his head, "Ay merde."

The turrets began to fire, interrupting his thoughts and barely missing him. He dove behind a chest high wall. That was a closer call than he was comfortable with. He peeked over the chest high wall and counted the targets while calculating the best possible way to get past them. He only had a couple of seconds before the turrets registered he had exposed his head and fired profusely at him.

Remy ducked his head behind the protection of the wall. He felt the energy bolts whiz over his head for a couple of seconds before they ceased their barrage. The time was not on Remy's side. He estimated he had about three and a half minutes left and he had barely gained five feet. He needed to gain ground, fast.

Up in the control room, Logan had the same thought, "Ya gotta pick up the pace, Gumbo!"

Remy sent a tentative glare up at the control room. Logan saw that, slightly amused, "You gotta be kiddin' me, homme."

Logan raised an eyebrow at the Cajun's comment, "Perhaps a little motivation is what you need."

He pressed a button on the control interface and the wall that Remy felt behind him shot down into the ground. Remy turned to see his cover was gone, "Dat's jus' cruel."

A couple of shots from the laser turrets definitely were the motivation he needed. Remy was up on his feet, sprinting in a zigzag pattern across the DR floor. He drew a card from his deck, charged it, and threw it into one of the turrets. It blew the turret away on contact. Remy was mildly satisfied with his choice of weapon; it was too small for the turrets to shoot down. He couldn't revel in his satisfaction long since his position was about to take up the same space as a dozen other energy bolts.

Remy continued to dodge the shots. At this point he had about a minute to gain twenty feet. It was time to improvise. Remy quickly assessed his options and made a split-second decision. He ran in an arc around the DR room and then began to cut across it toward the end point. The way Remy ran Logan had seen with highly-trained individuals. Watching Remy was like watching a Parkour runner; constant motion, vaulting and climbing over obstacles seamlessly. The added flare to it all was Remy's card throwing. He made card-throwing an art. Anywhere he wanted a card to go, it went. Cards glided through the air smoothly like a frisbee.

One thing that was surprising to Logan about Remy was how he could smoke and still move like that. For Logan, his healing factor took care of all the cancer and disease so he had not problem. Remy though? That was a mystery.

There were a couple more floor-mounted turrets between Remy and the end. He sprinted toward the finish and as the turrets fired off a couple more rounds he dove forward. He became a smaller target for the turrets. He landed on his side and began to slide between two turrets, brushing his fingertips against the side of one as he passed. The turret flared up and exploded after a couple seconds. It was a completely unnecessary act, but the theatrics might have gotten a point across to Logan that he wasn't an amateur.

Remy rolled onto his feet and sprinted the remaining ten feet he had left and finished the exercise with time to spare. Sweat dripped from his brow. This place was a hell of a workout.

"You cut that one pretty close," Logan chimed in through the PA system, "Let's run it again."

Remy cursed to himself. Logan wanted him to run the simulation a couple times before calling it a day. Each time was tweaked a bit to keep Remy on his toes. All in all this simulation was pretty basic, but Remy aptitude for this work was apparent. His finish time got faster with each trial despite the changes and shifts that Logan applied.

After the last trial ended Logan didn't offer much in the way of compliments. He looked over Remy's completion times in concurrence with the difficulty level of the session and said, "Well that was okay, but it ain't gonna set the world on fire. But you survived so I guess that counts for something. Hit the showers, Gumbo."

Remy shrugged off the comment and responded patronizingly, "You're de boss."

Logan caught the tone of indignation in Remy's voice and simply grunted to himself.

Remy made his way up to the mansion levels dripping sweat. When he was in the elevator that took him up he slumped against its side. While he kept himself composed while in the view of others, he really felt that workout. The session taught him that Logan wasn't one to pull punches, even in training. It made sense right then to Remy why the X-Men were proficient in combat, despite their age.

As the elevator neared its destination, Remy pulled himself away from the wall and stood tall despite the aches he felt in his legs and back. As he made his way to the bathroom to freshen up he passed the lounge. A couple of the new mutants were playing cards while others watched CNN. Yet again the media was going over the mutant question causing Remy to stop and watch for a moment. The current anchor was mediating a heated talk between two pundits on the issue. Thankfully their debate wasn't the typical right wing nutter versus left wing hippie spit that clogged the sink of piss poor news coverage of America.

"Look at the facts! They are living weapons, they are prone to violence as the footage shows. These things have already tried to dominate the rest of us!" the inflammatory hate-speech of Senator Philip Voigt. He was one of the many senators who were on the side of registration, "The Apocalypse nutjob, that Magneto psychopath… oh and the quote-unquote school in Bayville, New York… they're coming out of the woodwork!"

Rogue was in the room too, and her attention was torn from her book to the LCD screen mounted on the far wall of the lounge. The other pundit on the show was given his chance to respond now that the racist senator was hushed by the anchor.

For some inexplicable reason, the other pundit wasn't a senator; rather he was the owner of a major newspaper.

"Senator Voigt, if you please we need to allow everyone to get a word in," the anchor said, somewhat frustratingly, "The floor is yours Mr. Jameson."

"Senator Voigt, do you have any idea how dumb and amoral your argument is," Jameson began, immediately striking up a fire between himself and the senator.

"Now let's keep this civil, Mr. Jameson," the anchor urged, Jameson cut him off before he could say more.

"No, there are no better words for his argument!" Jameson's voice belted out over the anchor, "Yes or no: you want to register mutants?"

Senator Voigt unwaveringly answered, "Yes."

"So you want to register them because they are different?" Jameson asked bluntly.

"I want them registered with the government because they are dangerous. Look at the facts," Senator Voigt answered.

"Is that a yes?"

"Yes."

"For the record, Senator Voigt, not all of them are as dangerous as you would have the world believe," Jameson began. Everyone in the room was watching the show now. It was rare to have someone as outspoken about mutant rights as Jameson, "From what I gather you would have these people register because they are born differently. This kind of discrimination is something I thought America would have grown out of after World War Two and the civil rights movement! After registering these mutants, where does it stop?"

The anchor and Senator Voigt tried to get a word in but Jameson was unrelenting, "I'm looking at your political record, Voigt, and it's interesting because it says that you were in favor of acquitting Bolivar Trask after the sentinel incident. Even further, you are pushing the senate to pass a bill that will not only force mutants to register, but also force I quote 'special education and conditioning'. This is something I would expect in Nazi Germany."

There was a pause in Jameson's heated speech, he took a breath before continuing, "America, this is where we're headed. It's not enough that the world is circling the drain, but now the government is seeking to control people's lives on the basis that they are born different. We have to face facts, there are going to be mutants among us, but if you're going to judge them by a couple of extremists, then just look at our own race!"

The debate continued after that, and it fell into another back and forth debate where neither party looked like it had the upper hand. Everyone in the room though felt some sense of gratitude to Jonah Jameson. After reading some of his papers on a certain super-powered vigilante in New York, they all would have assumed he would have pushed for registration, not the opposite. On the other hand, he had a strong record of pushing equal rights.

Remy began to lose interest in the show. He caught Rogue's eyes before she lost herself in her book again. They stood there and stared at each other for a couple of seconds. It was becoming slightly uncomfortable for the both of them, though Remy was able to hide it better. Wanting to save Rogue some grief, he simply nodded and said, "Evenin', Chéri."

He left to go take a shower like he was supposed to before it got anymore awkward. Kitty was in the room and saw the brief exchange. She felt a little giddy inside after seeing something that cute. The urge to inundate her former room mate with questions was nearly overwhelming. Kitty in particular needed something to get her mind off of some troubles of her own anyway. Rogue on the other hand wasn't sure what she was supposed to do with… whatever just happened. It seemed pretty insignificant but Remy did leave rather abruptly. That wasn't in his nature. Rogue would have pegged him to publically try to come on to her. After all, he was in her head once.

Then again, perhaps his actions were his response to the way she had been treating him.

Rogue was distant with Remy, as she was with any new arrivals. The difference was that she and Remy had a history, so her reasons for staying away were only more complicated. Figure in the little exchange that went on between Remy and Tabitha, and Rogue had plenty of reasons for keeping away. "Why the hell did she care?" was a question that nagged at her whenever she thought about that. It's not like Remy's interest in her would last, thanks to her powers.

However, the two southerners did have to interact a bit, but it was casual at most. A hello, a please, a thank you, good morning, good night, and plenty of other insignificant phrases were the only exchanges between them for the first couple days. Rogue's aloofness put Remy off, which was unprecedented with him. He always knew how to act around women in just about every situation imaginable. But Rogue, a girl he may never even be able to touch, was throwing him for a loop. It wasn't just that either. The decrease of Remy's playful behavior, unknown to Rogue, was largely due to Fury. She noticed he did seem rather obsessed with that phone of his.

Rogue's current conundrum, was how to go about Remy. She herself was puzzled with why when Remy arrived it seemed to shake her world up. Whether said shaking was a good thing or not, she didn't know. The scary part was she let him have that effect on her. However, the days that followed his arrival, Remy acting distant made Rogue feel like her life was a little off kilter. Perhaps the little excitement she got when he arrived was like a drug she wanted more of.

Rogue puckered her brows when she thought of it that way. It was completely absurd.

If it's that absurd, then whah are ya havin' so much trouble gettin' back into your book? She asked herself. The answer eluded Rogue. She needed to get her mind focused on something else aside from Remy. He was just so damn frustrating. She knew Kitty was having some relationship woes lately. The whole institute knew about it on some level or another, but only Rogue knew the details, as she was Kitty's best friend in and out of the institute. Kitty and Lance had a fight earlier that day, one of many that had happened earlier. She hid it well, but it was wearing her down.

Rogue got up from her seat and asked Kitty if she wanted to just talk about whatever. Her friend took the offer without a second thought and the two of them scatted away. Win-win; Rogue gets her mind off of Remy and Kitty would be able to vent.

--

"And… we're clear," a technical specialist cued to Senator Philip Voigt that the live feed to CNN was off. The news crew in his office began to scramble to clean up their equipment and split as soon as they could.

The senator grunted gladly now that the debate was over. He hated being grilled on national television like that, by a journalist no less. His secretary, Trent Hammond, brought him a glass of water immediately along with his schedule for the rest of the day.

"Damn that Jameson," he muttered to himself, his secretary heard and nodded in agreement with his boss, "It's people like that that keep people like me from making progress in this country."

"Indeed, sir," Voigt's secretary agreed most compliantly.

"We're going to need to call in some favors so we can negate whatever damage Jameson's little speech may do," Voigt informed his secretary, "Hammond? When was my teleconference with Purifier Initiatives scheduled?"

Hammond skimmed the schedule for Stryker's name and reported, "In fifteen minutes, sir."

"Excellent," Voigt said checking his watch. He would have time to collect himself before making his call.

"And what of the Kelly situation?" Trent asked. Making notes as they talked.

Senator Voigt turned to Trent bewildered, "Kelly? Oh, right, the city of Bayville… Contact him and schedule a meeting. Make it as soon as possible. I want to see what this guy is made of. See if he's worth our support."

"Of course, sir," Trent answered, finishing with his notes.

As soon as the news crew cleared out, followed by his secretary, Senator Voigt made his call to the CEO of the private military company known as Purifier Initiatives. The call tone rang twice before darkened voice answered on the other side, "This is Stryker."

"Good evening, Stryker," Senator Voigt answered plainly.

"Is this line secure?" Stryker asked nervously. His relation to Voigt needed to be as private as possible.

"Of course," Voigt assured, "Let's make this quick. I trust that Creed has accommodated our agenda."

Stryker chuckled to himself, "Yes, his contribution to the cause is most appreciated."

"Good. And how about our contribution to the medical field?" Senator Voigt asked cryptically.

"We're running trials right now. It looks very promising," Stryker answered. That was good news, but there was a tone in Stryker's voice that indicated a catch, "But if we are to make any more progress, I'm going to need you to secure that contract for my company. Understood?"

Damn Mercs, Voigt thought to himself. They always had to squeeze, "Consider it done. Just make sure our contribution is ready to be deployed if the doomsday scenario comes into play. Creed will continue to lobby for your company's aims so you should have no reason to slow down progress."

"Of course, Senator," Stryker took the hint under advisement. This was the way the game was played; give some get some, "Have a goodnight."

--

Later in the middle of the night, Remy he couldn't sleep. The nagging feeling of expecting Fury to call at any moment made his sleep irregular. That on top of thinking about Rogue, made sleep impossible. He sat up in his bed, feeling the residual aches and pains from his training session earlier. Was his body tired? Yes. Was his mind the same? No. If he was going to get any sleep that night he needed to tire his mind out.

Remy swung his legs over the edge of his bed, cracking his neck to alleviate some of the aches. He followed up with arching and curving his back, feeling numerous satisfying cracks. He looked at the clock and saw that it was a quarter to one in the morning.

"Y' need to relax, homme," Remy muttered to himself as he rubbed his temples. He grabbed a cigarette from his nightstand and went to his balcony to smoke. He stood only in his briefs as he took the smoke in, feeling his hairs stand on end in response to the nightly breeze. After a couple of drags, Remy's mind calmed down a bit, but not enough. He finished off his cigarette, dissatisfied with the results. This was insane; he couldn't calm his mind down and Fury hadn't even given him a job yet.

There were other ways to deal with that though. At that, Remy was curious as to where Logan would hide his booze, if he had any. Passing out wasn't what he had in mind, but a couple of drinks would probably help get him closer to sleep. It wasn't an ideal choice, but it was better than valium or pills of any kind.

Remy threw on a pair of basketball shorts and snuck out of his room to the kitchen. As he got closer he heard someone already rummaging around in the fridge. Remy walked with the silence of a serpent, his curiosity immediately taking hold. He pressed his back against the wall next to the doorway and peered inside. The kitchen was bathed in a cerulean hue, save a jagged manila splash of light emanating from the inside of the refrigerator. A feminine figure was bent over, her body obstructed by the fridge door. All Remy could see was a pair of milky, slender legs. He knew that skin well. He had a good feeling of who it was as he admired the sight. There was a nagging in the back of his head he hadn't felt since he decided to ignore his Catholic upbringing. It was telling him to look away out of respect. He tore his eyes away from the kitchen, in spite of himself, but it would have been bad if Rogue had found him peeping.

Now that he wasn't distracted, Remy quickly remembered his original curiosity. Rogue couldn't sleep… she was alone… perhaps now would be a good time to do… something. Part of the reason Remy had refrained from coming onto her earlier was to spare her the embarrassment in front of the other students. Anything that happened between them in private would stay between them. He knew Rogue; she was the type of gal to keep guy's hitting on her to herself, unlike the rest of the femmes at the institute. Gossip vampires were how Remy would describe them in some cases.

What was his game plan though? Just waltz on in there and strike up a conversation way out of the blue in regard to the fact that they had been avoiding each other? Remy kept his breathing steady to avoid alerting Rogue to his presence. All he could do is just stand outside the kitchen with his back against the wall asking the perpetual question all guys face: should I or should I not?

What de hell is your problem? Remy asked himself. He never had this problem with other women. But Rogue, wasn't like any woman he knew, she was an enigma. Even so, they were friends. Yes, that was all they were. So what's your problem, homme? Your jus' gonna be talkin' with a friend.

A sigh escaped Remy's throat. He put on his best face and emerged from the hallway, lightly knocking on the kitchen doorframe. His eyes nearly popped out of their sockets at the sight that greeted him. He corrected his face after a couple seconds, not really caring if she caught his expression. Rogue was wearing a white tank and black pajama shorts cut off at the mid-thigh. This was a rare sight for Remy, seeing her with so much skin revealed. The raw emotion of her face was one of subtle discomfort; she was well-aware that her body was only covered by a pair of shorts and a tank. Her bed hair was cute too. She must not have expected anyone else to be up.

Amis, Remy… Amis! Remy's conscience scolded.

Rogue's head immediately shot up and turned to the doorway Remy stood in. Her emerald gem eyes focused on the burning red irises that drifted in the dark. Remy. Her eyes adjusted to the light and her mind immediately signaled multiple alarms upon the realization of what she saw. Once she got past the fact it was Remy, she realized that he was shirtless. His upper body had the occasional scar around the abdomen; souvenirs of his old life, that accented the well-toned features of chest and abdominal area. The spectacle of it all stirred some strange feelings inside, admiration being near the top of the list.

Was she checking him out? Rogue immediately refocused on Remy's eyes.

"Trouble sleepin', Chéri?" Remy's words rolled off his tongue flirtatiously. He caught Rogue's eyes wandering a second ago. He knew she looked good already, but his blood continued to heat up.

"You tryin' to sneak up on meh again?" she asked defensively, trying to keep herself in check. Remy still stood in the doorway, not the least put off by her tone. In fact it seemed to only encourage him. A broad smile spread across his face.

"Non, we don' have a bed for ya to toss me on," Remy joked. Rogue rolled her eyes; she had a feeling he wasn't going to let her live that one down. Just great, "Besides, if I wanted to sneak up on ya, you wouldn' have seen moi before it was too late."

His grin was a mischievous one. If it wasn't a mischievous grin it was a flirtatious one, always one or the other. At least, that's what it always was with Rogue. He laughed slightly, thinking about their reunion a couple days ago. The way Rogue threw him was a constant reminder of how independent she was. He liked a girl who took charge of her own life. For Remy, that was a trait to die for in a woman. He figured he should have remembered that sooner, considering Rogue almost tossed him out of a boxcar once and she made it crystal clear she "doesn't like being pushed in any direction."

"So, you gonna answer my question?" Remy asked. He slid over the table sitting across from Rogue. As he slouched against the chair, his legs spread out under the table, coming dangerously close to Rogue's. By instinct she recoiled, visibly pushing herself a little further away from the table. She was dismayed by Remy's kinesics. She knew that he knew he was invading her personal space even when there was a table between them.

"Whah do you want to know?" Rogue asked, trying to put him off. In the back of her mind, Rogue was trying figure out why she was being so defensive with Remy. She knew she didn't like the awkwardness that had spawned between her and Remy, which resulted in them avoiding each other. Why she was upset with him was a little mystery. Was she upset about them avoiding each other the last couple days? No, that was too simple of an answer.

"Can't a friend be concerned?"

In all honesty, she was upset with her expectations of Remy not being met. After Remy snuck up on her the day he arrived, she had expected him to be dogging her steps whenever Logan was not menacingly watching him. At the least she expected him to be more social with her, like than they had been during their time in New Orleans. That was a frightening realization; what she wanted was Remy's attention. That wasn't too unreasonable between friends, was it? Well she had his attention now and she was pushing it away. No, she wasn't about to pass up the opportunity to just talk with her friend. Besides, she was still very much curious as to the real reasons why he was here now, as opposed to sooner.

"Ah… Ah suppose," Rogue stammered. Her eyes softened. Remy really liked it when they did that. It was cute.

"So tell me, Chéri," Remy cleared his throat and his smile faded. He wanted to show his concern was genuine, "What's keepin' a femme like you up?"

She shot him a frown, "Didn't Ah tell ya to stop callin' meh that?"

Remy sighed, and his voice became assertive, "Come on, Rogue. Stop dodgin' de question."

Frustration was beginning to take hold of Remy, Why can't filles ever jus' be straightforward?

"Fahne," Rogue conceded, "The psahches in mah head are just actin' up again. It just gets a little loud sometahmes."

It was a vague answer, but Remy could fill in the blanks. She had a lot of baggage in her head, a lot of it that didn't even belong to her. His mind fired off countless names of all the people that she probably had floating around in there: bits and pieces of the X-men, Magneto, Mystique, the Acolytes… him. No wonder she was not sleeping well tonight.

"Je suis désole, Chéri," he apologized. Remy felt that he had to because he might have been in her head. He didn't mean for that to be. In this he saw his chance to dig a little deeper, and to steer the conversation back toward a more friendly feeling, "Ya wanna talk about it? You know dat mon ears are yours when you want dem. Maybe it'd help you sleep, Chéri."

Rogue looked down at her glass of water, and ran her finger around the rim of the glass. She considered objecting his continuous use of that name for her, but it hadn't worked so far. She appreciated his offer to listen. Sometimes that's just what a person needs, "Ah'm not sure there's much more to say than that. It's not lahke it's so bad that Ah can't handle it."

"Never said you couldn't," Remy agreed to an extent, "I jus' think you could stand to get it out of your system. Some things shouldn' be bottled up, ya know?"

She knew indeed; Rogue knew she wouldn't forget either what bottling things up does to a person. In all honesty, she never actually tried just talking about the psyches in her head. She and Xavier had usually just stuck with telepathic therapy and that was it. Xavier tried psychiatric approaches with her, but that didn't work well.

"Ah'm fahne, Remy," Rogue said, trying to get away from the subject. The visible tenseness of her body told a different story.

Remy closed some of the gap between him and Rogue, "I'm not convinced."

"Listen Remy, the voices are just actin' up a bit tonight. That's just the way some nights go," Rogue insisted. Remy instinctively backed off figuratively and literally, despite still being unsatisfied with the answer.

"Bien, if you say so, Chéri. De offer is dere whenevah you want it," Remy promised.

A tense feeling of his own began to nag at Remy's joints as a sign that the silence was about get awkward, "I think I'm gonna try to get some sleep."

All in all, that whole encounter seemed unsuccessful to Remy; he failed to get Rogue to open up in a great capacity making it feel like he was practically back at square one with her. He didn't want to believe it, but it was a lot easier talking with her when she was his captive. What had changed? Remy wished they could pick up where they left off. It was refreshing when talking with her before he came here.

He had a new personal goal now: get back to how they used to stand with each other. He craved that feeling of release that they used to have.

Remy was about to get up to leave when Rogue stopped him. She still had questions of her own, "Hey, Remy? Whah did you finally come here?"

Remy, while he had the answers, did not know what to say. He couldn't lie to Rogue though, he learned that lesson. He wasn't sure if he should tell her, let alone if he was even allowed to, "It's… complicated."

"Please, Remy, between everyone else's excuses for bein' here, I'm sure yours isn't that complicated," Rogue argued.

"You'd be su'prised," Remy replied, "If it's de same to you, I'd rather leave it at dat."

Rogue's curiosity was powerful. Remy stood and began to make his way out of the kitchen. She decided to take a leap of faith, "It's more than just the voices."

Remy turned on the spot and fixed his glowing eyes on Rogue. She hesitantly continued, "Ah see their memories too. The strong ones are lahke nightmares some nights and Ah can't stop mahself from dreamin' them."

Rogue could purge the psyches. Purging them got rid of the voices, the powers, the personalities, and even the wealth of memories and information. But some people's memories, particularly strong ones, are permanently burned into Rogue's mind no different from all of her memories. While they may fade with time, they still remain and reach the surface occasionally.

Remy sat back down, this time next to her. He didn't know if she was just trying to bait him, but he knew that she wasn't lying. It was an offering of sorts. The look in her eyes confirmed it; they looked as if they said, your turn.

With a sigh, Remy returned the gesture, "I'm here now because it was either come here, or go to prison. I got caught stealin' and now I get to make up fo' it."

That wasn't what Rogue expected. But she knew Remy was a thief by trade. It seemed suiting that was his reason for being there. For all Rogue knew, he may not have ever come if he didn't get forced to come to the institute. From what she remembered from his psyche it is a great form of humiliation for a thief to get caught. Rogue now found it was no wonder why he didn't disclose his reasons for being at the institute to the entire school.

"So you bein' here is kahnd of lahke community service?" she asked, totally engaged.

Remy's eyes wandered from hers, "Sort of. Dere's more to it, but I'd rather not go into it. Not now anyway."

Rogue craved more, but like Remy, she knew she shouldn't push it. Push to far and he'd just clam up. He pretty much said he'd tell her more, so what she got out of him would suffice for now. The feeling was mutual for Remy. There was not much more to say now. Thank you's were unnecessary so they both got up this time and left the kitchen together, without another word about what they talked about.

Remy refused to let the night end on a somber note and quickly changed gears, "Might I walk ya back to your room, Chéri?"

Rogue raised an eyebrow and cracked a petite smile, "You're room is on the other sahde of the mansion."

"And?"

Rogue shrugged and began to head toward her room, "Fahne."

The twilit walk back to Rogue's room was silent, but nice. Rogue was very much satisfied that she took that chance in the kitchen. It paid off well. It may have only yielded a vague answer and spurred more questions, but it did break some of the awkward tension that had built up between her and Remy during his first few days at the institute. For Remy, it was a reminder that he needed to trust Rogue more. If he was going to mentally survive his current situation, he would need someone he could trust and talk to, and that night reminded that Rogue was just the person for that.

When the reached Rogue's room the flirtatious and hormonal synapses in Remy's brain seemingly turned back on. He took a couple seconds to admire her in the bluish hue of the night; the bed hair, the unprotected skin, the way it glowed in the moonlit hallways of the mansion. Rogue briefly did the same thing, scolding herself for the same reasons as before. Maybe it was because they both were tired now, but the discomfort of having that amount of skin exposed to each other was distant from their minds. It's one of those things that took getting used to, for both parties.

Remy wished he could hug her right then. For the first time since he had arrived at the institute Remy felt a little more at ease with the way his life was going. Rogue was the catalyst for that, there was no denying it. Even if he could hug her, it might have been too much.

With that, Remy settled for this, "Bonne nuit (good night), Chéri. Remember, your ami is right here."

"Ah know," she replied, giving him a soft smile that he very much enjoyed, "Sleep well, Remy."

The gentleman in Remy moved in to open the door for her. He stayed until it closed behind Rogue then made his way back to his own room. He collapsed on his bed as soon as he could, and both he and Rogue began to slip into a deep, pleasant sleep in no small part due to the other.

Remy didn't need the booze after all.

--

Six hours later, a ring began to emulate inside of Remy's ears. His phone continued to ring as Remy rolled around in his bed trying to ignore it. As his mind woke up, his mind organized itself. When he realized what it was he was hearing he shot up from his bed and fumbled around with his phone. He flipped it open and answered quickly, still disoriented.

The disorientation faded upon hearing the voice on the other side, "Mr. Lebeau?"

"Fury?"

"Time to go to work."

A/N: I attempted a couple new writing techniques for this chapter. That's part of the reason why it took awhile (again) for me to update. I know telling you this sort of defeats the purpose of the technique, but I attempted symbolism.

Let me know if you could tell what the symbol was and what it was representative of.

Next Chapter: First Fury Favor.

I'll be working on updating my other X-Men story so it could be awhile. I'll do what I can, I promise that.