Queen's High
Chapter Six: Social Rules of Engagement
by PrettyGothGirl

All Standard Disclaimers Apply
Spoilers: Post X-3: The Last Stand, non cure ending, not Origins compatible.
Summary: Rogue gives Remy some peace, but not for long, and they finally set up a meeting where much to Remy's displeasure, things are revealed to be not as they appear.
Author's Note: A big Thank You to my beta reader, Lost and Never Found! For a full cast list with pictures, check out my fiction livejournal prettygoth_ink. I said Tuesday, I know I said Tuesday, but I changed my mind as is my right and privilege! Apologies in advance to anyone who lives in New Orleans. I probably made a bad comparison here. I couldn't think of another one though.

To KO11: Thank you so very much. You're making me blush here. Reviews like yours make the effort put into writing worthwhile! Thank you so much for reading and reviewing. Really, it's ice cream on the cake, because I write for the fun of it. ~ PGG

Rogue gave Remy three days to call her as she saw all the different sights there were to see around New Orleans. She avoided all his favorite spots and hangouts. She gave him three days of peace.

He didn't call. Rogue fielded increasingly irate calls from Logan and almost got trapped into talking to both the Professor and Bobby. She'd refused to answer the phone to any number she recognized after that, she wasn't taking the chance that any of them would be Bobby in disguise. The Japanese couple that ran the Dojo under the apartment she was borrowing were really kind about letting her use it if there were no classes going on. So she worked out her anger at shadow enemies and the sensei even helped her with her forms. The night after she'd seen Tante Mattie in the market, she'd finally broken down and bawled herself to sleep over losing Bobby.

She'd woken the next morning just as determined to enjoy her time in New Orleans and her new life without Bobby. She wasn't going to give him any satisfaction that she missed him.

She didn't miss him anyways. It was more what he'd represented, the chance for love despite her mutation.

It'd been a lie anyways.

She didn't miss his company. Bobby's company was overrated.

She'd finally stripped her illusions away. She was growing up, she thought, accepting life as it was instead of how she wanted it to be. She'd looked in the mirror and decided that somehow this new grown up her needed to be marked somehow. She just wasn't sure how yet.

She did more clothes shopping and made eyes at all the men who were remotely attractive, stopping by the bars Logan recommended, dancing and playing pool against clueless morons who had no idea of how dangerous she really was.

But three days later and Remy still hadn't called her. She'd stored the one phone just in case he called her on that number again. She didn't want to miss his call. Every time her phone rang, her heart jumped a little. It was silly. She wasn't the least bit romantically attracted to him. It was the anticipation for the next stage of the game.

Or so she told herself.

She almost believed it.

But three days without a call, it was time to remind him of her existence before he lost interest entirely. Rogue parked her bike several blocks away and walked to the alley where the men had their daily game. The lookout's eyebrows rose as he saw her. She winked at him and entered the alley. He turned his head to watch her.

Remy leaned against the fence, eyes closed and he took a breather. The other guys played on without him a few feet away. Rogue ran her eyes down his back and smirked. The muscles on his back were as defined as the muscles on his front. Her eyes traveled downwards, glad that he wasn't one of those guys that wore their pants so loose that their boxers hung out for the world to see. His pants fit fine over his ass and she lowered her lashes, it was a fine ass. She sighed. Oh well, back to work.

She glanced around the alley, checking for exits, found one that would work and nodded. Rogue sidled up behind him and wanted to sigh again. She couldn't touch all that exposed flesh through the fence, no matter how tempting it was. He hadn't noticed her yet. She saw a few of the guys do a double take and stopped to stare. She smiled and went up on tiptoes so she could reach his ear. He was too damn tall. She groused internally but didn't let it show on her face. "What are yah waitin' for Sugah?" She murmured into his ear, and she knew she sounded a little exasperated. What did she have to do to get a man's attention?

Remy's eyes snapped open and widened. He reached up and grabbed for his necklace. Merde. He had not spent the last three days fending off the younger Guild pickpockets to have to worry about her!

She silently took a step to the side, grabbed the fire escape and went upwards. The guys who had noticed her watched. She waved at them from the top.

Remy spun to look down the alley.

Rogue disappeared over the rooftops.

He glanced up a minute too late. "Merde." He swore and let the hand that held his necklace rub his face. He'd thought he'd gotten rid of her! He heard the engine of her motorcycle rumble to life and he stared at his shoes. He closed his eyes again and thought about banging his head on the fence. "Merde. Merde. Merde." He muttered over and over.

Henri came over and draped an arm over his shoulders. "Dat is one determined femme."

"Henri, Ah am t'is close." Remy held up his fingers less than an inch apart, "From killin' somet'in'. Let Remy go or it will be yah."

Henri jumped away from him with a grin. "Desole, mon frere."

Remy spun on his heel and grabbed his shirt. "Remy needs to go blow t'in's up." He muttered. "Lots of t'in's." He pulled his shirt on and left the alley, stalking towards his own motorcycle. The guys dodged out of his way, grinning and he heard a few catcalls at his back. He flipped them the bird and mounted the Harley. Given the option he'd chase after Marie and throttle answers out of her or scream at her to leave him alone. But then Papa would beat on him for treatin' a lady poorly. He kicked the engine to life and peeled out of the alley going at a far too high rate of speed. Blowing things up sounded like a much better option. Because, he would never ever actually physically harm a woman no matter how pissed off he was at her. He was better than that.

Plus, restraining himself from throttling her might lead to sex and he didn't want to think about that too hard.

An hour later, the tingling of his power drained from his fingertips, Remy surveyed the craters in the area that Jean-Luc had let him stake out as his own personal mine field. He felt a lot calmer. He pulled out his cigarettes and hit one out of the package, slipping the Queen of Hearts with her number on it out of the package at the same time. He reached next for his lighter and stuck the cigarette between his lips and lit it. He took a deep drag and considered the card.

Maybe she'd leave him alone if he called her.

Maybe.

He looked over the blackened spots and pulled out his cell phone. He dialed her number and set it between his ear and shoulder so he could put the card away.

"Allo Remy Sugar." She drawled.

"Okay, Marie cherie, what do yah want?" He asked and took a deep drag off his cigarette.

"Is this a direct line?" She asked.

He sucked in his cheeks. "Oui." He grated out.

She hummed on the other end. "Now we have each other's numbers. How special."

Remy swore in his head. Mercy had been right. All she had wanted was his number. "What do yah want?" He bit out.

"What Ah want? That's a million dollar question ain't it?" She sounded like she was musing. She half laughed. "What Ah want right now is coffee. Café Beignet at nine AM tomorrow sound good, Sugar?"

"Bien." He said. It didn't. He wanted this over and done.

Rogue laughed at him. "Ah'll give yah a hint. It involves a lot of black leather. Au revoir." She said and hung up.

He clicked his phone shut. Black leather? He was about to kill the femme and she was taunting him with black leather? He glared at the lawn some more. Maybe he needed to blow more things up.

Rogue leaned against the balcony of her borrowed apartment and grinned at the street below. She hit her speed dial and waited until the phone stopped ringing.

"Stripes if you ever-"

"Guess what Logan, Ah've got Remy's number!" She crowed and hung up on him.

She giggled. Yeah, Logan was going to kick her ass when she got back, but it was so worth it.

Nine AM the Next Day

Remy approached the café the next day and tried to still the inexplicable attack of nerves. He could see Marie already seated at his favorite table. A full coffee service sat on its surface and she had her head back enjoying the sunshine a small smile on her face. Her eyes opened and she saw him. She brought her head down and turned that smile on him. His heart did a little flip. Her eyes flicked to his throat and he saw the small frown she tried to hide. He tried not to smirk at her. He'd left her charm at home on his bedside table.

He pulled out the chair across from her and sat. "Bon matin, cherie." He said.

"Bon matin, sugar." She smiled back. "Nice day we're havin', oui?" She asked as she leaned forward and poured him a cup of coffee. Her silky shirt sliding against her skin as she moved and his eyes flicked downwards until he caught what he was doing and he forced his gaze back up. Her smile turned slightly knowing. She'd dressed to entice that morning. It felt nice to see that he noticed.

"Oui." He said and he leaned back in his chair.

"It's been awfully warm this past week. Is it always this warm in New Orleans? Or am Ah just not used to Southern summers no more?" She asked.

He clenched his hand under the table. She was starting with social niceties. "It's always sticky in August." He said and tried not to growl.

She leaned back in her own chair and picked up her coffee with a gloved hand. She took a sip. "Ah was just thinkin' yesterday that Ah'd kill for a breeze. Ain't been in a place this hot since Ah left Mississippi." She glanced at him under her lashes. "Had to check out the Aquarium to get away from it. Can't believe Ah forgot there can be such a thin' as too much of a good thin'." She sighed and took a sip of her coffee.

He picked up his cup. "De Aquarium is nice."

"Ah liked the Botanical Gardens better." She shrugged. "It's a pretty bit of city yah got here, sort of like Brooklyn but nicer." She glanced around.

"Yah from de North, Cherie?"

"Not intentionally, went for an adventure and somehow never made it back home." She glanced down into her cup. "Not that home was a good place to be at the time, mind yah." She shrugged. "Met this man on my trip and he took me under his wing." She tilted her head and shifted, her shirt moving with her. "Yah know him Ah think."

"Doubt it. Don' know dat many Northerners cherie. Try to avoid dem if at all possible." He said and tried not to glance at her shirt and thus her chest. It annoyed him that he was falling for her ploys so easily.

"Well, he didn't mention if yah were close. He's kind of close mouthed like that, cranky, always up for a fight, likes pool and poker, smokes big cigars, drives motorcycles when he can." She trailed off. Her lips twitched. "Reads Walden in his spare time."

He stared at her. It couldn't be. She couldn't know… it was just not possible.

She held up a hand and he noticed the gloves went up and under the short sleeves of her blouse. She fisted it and held it out straight and turned it several ways. His stomach curdled. Yeah, he knew someone that held his hands like that when he fought. "Yah sure yah don' know him. He was pretty specific, Le Diable Blanc, wanted me to give yah a message." She reached behind her and pulled a glossy folded paper out of the pocket of her jacket. She set it on the table between them.

He glanced down at it. It read 'Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters.'

When he glanced up, Marie had been replaced with Rogue. He didn't know why but he could feel there was a difference. She eyed him as one soldier eyed another. Yeah, she knew Logan. "He's found a place here." She rested a finger on the brochure. "We're in need of good folk and he wants yah on the team." She raised her eyebrow. "The X-Men."

He'd heard of the X-Men. He didn't want to believe half of what he'd heard about them. They were good all right, if even half of what he heard was true. He wasn't sure he wanted to accept it completely as the rumor mill could be unreliable. She continued speaking.

"The catch is yah will have to teach at the school. There's no getting' around it. We're low on teachers and there are kids that show up every day. They need educations so everyone pitches in. School first, save the world second. Don't worry about bein' certified or anythin'. Don' matter at Xavier's. No one is willin' to look o'er our shoulders." Her lips twisted. "For the best really."

Remy's brain finally caught up with the conversation. "Yah mean, none of t'is was personal cherie?" He wasn't sure if he was relieved or insulted.

Rogue disappeared as fast as she showed up and Marie sat across from him again. Her face twisted into a mask of grief and his empathy was slammed with an overwhelming stab of deep emotional pain and despair that left him reeling. A stray breeze blew strands from one her white stripes across her face. "Oh sugar, Ah only wish." She whispered, eyes closing and he saw a tear form at the base of one eye. He reached out but she reached up and caught it before he could touch her.

Her eyes opened, old and filled with pain and she stood. He could still feel the despair that she had masked so carefully behind amusement. "Coffee's all paid for." She nodded at the brochure. "Yah think about it." She gathered her coat, putting it on as she walked away.

He stared after her, not understanding. He pulled the brochure over to him and opened it. A card fell out of it, the circled X on one side and a note in French on the other, but it was the sigil at the end that made him pause, a lightning bolt.

Stormy.

Ororo was at Xavier's.

He glanced back up. Marie had disappeared into the crowd. She knew both Logan and Stormy. He picked up Storm's note and read it through. He looked over the brochure afterwards.

He needed to talk to Papa. This put a whole new complexion on things. No wonder she'd known so much about him and his ways.

He scowled and glared after her. Merde. His heart hurt a little bit. She hadn't been after him. And that stung. He grumbled. She needed to work on her signals. She'd sent him roses and the entire suit of Hearts, the love suit.

He gathered up the brochure and the note and got up, then thought about running. Henri was going to laugh hysterically over this. Remy refrained from a whimper. It would be so much easier if Marie were interested in him and not leading him on to offer him a place on the X-Men.

Mercy's reaction didn't bear thinking about.

Mercy shifted in her seat and crossed her legs. She smiled at Remy back in the wingback chair near the fireplace. "See Remy, it ain't always about yah."

Henri had managed to keep a straight face until that point. He looked at Mercy and then fell out of his chair laughing. It became a chain reaction among the cousins and Remy felt his face heat.

Emil managed to speak between gasps for air. "She manipulated yah perfectly."

"Set yah all up and then bam." Theoren added, hitting the edge of his seat.

Remy scowled. "Shut up."

Etienne howled in laughed. "Remy got played."

Henri struggled upwards. "So how does it feel mon frere to feel what de femmes feel about yah?"

Remy's face burned and he looked into the fireplace. It would help if Marie weren't so beautiful sitting there in the sunlight bringing out the strands of red in her hair. He cleared his throat. "Papa, advice?"

"Yah reap what yah sow, mon fils."

The others laughed harder, Mercy finally joining in.

Remy didn't know he could flush that hot. "Not about Marie. About de X-Men."

Jean-Luc sighed. "Ah can't tell yah one way or de ot'er. Yah were de one invited to join, not me. Yah are de mutant Remy. Yah are gonna have to make yer own decision about t'is one."

Tante Mattie spoke up from her chair. "Follow yer heart, honey child."

Remy surged to his feet and left the room, eyes on his feet. That was the problem. Henri and the others sometimes mocked him, saying he didn't have a heart. Remy couldn't help but think it was true. He went through so many women without being touched emotionally by them and Mercy had a point, his relationship with Bella had been a disaster. And if he did have a heart, it was so rusty from disuse he didn't know if he could get it working again.

The worst part he was sure that in some part of her being, Marie wanted him on that personal level and he couldn't figure out just what was holding her back. And he didn't know what he would do if whatever it was, wasn't.

The confusion and humiliation swirled together into annoyance and the X-Men became the furthest thing from his mind in favor for a belle femme with deep red lips that begged to be kissed to push that pain away.

Even if it was only for a moment.

Rogue folded clothes and arranged them in the duffle that would fit into the seat of her bike. Tears pooled at the bottom of her eyes and she reached up to wipe them away, her gloves long thrown to the side.

She hadn't expected him to be so shocked about it not being about him. He hadn't been wearing the charm she gave him and well, she just hadn't expected him to be attracted to her. He'd barely seen her after all.

Her breath hitched. It wasn't fair. She'd just broken up with an asshole and she really hadn't been looking for another relationship. She'd resigned herself to being single and alone due to her mutation.

But he'd seemed so stunned and maybe, maybe a little disappointed.

Maybe things had gotten a little out of hand, she hadn't meant to lead him on but she'd been having so much fun forgetting about her pain. He was just some random stranger, a handsome random stranger. For God's sake, she hadn't even been having any fantasies about him and no clothes and long touches.

Well, not too many fantasies, she'd been busy.

Okay, so there had been one or two. He'd been the one showing off his ripped muscles and smooth skin. And she still liked to consider herself a normal young woman with hormones, wants, needs and desires.

But-

Her skin felt dead anymore, she'd almost forgotten what a real touch felt like. She swallowed hard. All she'd wanted was his undivided attention, so maybe she'd gone a little overboard and-

Too many damn maybes.

She sat down on the bed and slumped down putting her face in her hands. She didn't know Remy. She didn't know anything about what he was like. For all she knew he deserved what she'd just done to him. So why did she care so much about his feelings?

He wouldn't touch her if he knew. He wouldn't want to be close or kiss her. He'd give her that foot of space that everyone else did. Even Logan braced himself before hugging her as if despite the fact she was covered from neck to toes and so was he but some skin might just touch and she'd absorb him again for the twentieth (she thought she was at twenty) time.

It still wasn't fair. It still wasn't right. Remy wasn't supposed to fall for her, damn it.

And Rogue knew that she'd do it all over again in a heartbeat, just to see him smile.

She wasn't supposed to fall for him and his beautiful eyes and charming smile and silky voice. She groaned. She was a grown up now. She'd go back to New York and he'd be here in New Orleans and he'd forget all about her and go after some woman (or series of women) he could touch. Not that he knew he couldn't touch her. Rogue half laughed, not that it should make any difference. And she'd be an old maid and maybe she'd get cats and despite her mutation and sometimes because of it, she could still kick ass and take names.

And if she wasn't happy, well she hadn't been happy since Cody David Robbins had fallen over onto her bed and his mind had ended up inside of hers, she could at least try for content.

But just for the moment, just for the moment, she'd forget that she was supposed to be a grown up now and cry for what couldn't be. She could be an adult again in an hour.

Damn him and his pretty eyes anyhow.

reviews are love, love me? (And I understand it's pure cupboard love!)

Next time on Queen's High... Rogue has one last message for Remy, Julien tries his hand at flirting and Remy makes his decision.