Gambit jogged purposefully towards the intersection while Rogue stumbled along behind him, steadying herself by trailing one dainty hand along the aluminum siding of the tiny diner at the end of the street. Oblivious to the late night chowhounds, she didn't even try to duck down or look away as she crossed in front of the large windows, earning her a dirty look from the impatient Cajun. Peeking casually around the corner, he took note of two police cars and the small crowd of people milling about in front of the restaurant. He wondered what kind of lie the bartender and bouncer had coughed up, and fervently hoped that they wouldn't get in too much trouble for being good Samaritans. Luckily, it appeared that that the cops had yet to begin a search pattern. Diagonally across the street from his hiding spot was a church alleyway, which led to the parking lot where the motorcycle was hidden. As he waited for his date to catch up he considered the odds of making it across without being seen.

Glancing back over his shoulder when she was finally close enough to hear him, he said in an unusually cruel tone, "We're gon' have to make a run for it. You're not gonna do anythin' stupid, like fall over or run back to the police, are you?"

Rogue hunched over at the waist with her hands on her kneecaps, her face obscured by her long, wavy hair. She made a limp wristed gesture of dismissal at his skeptical expression.

"Jus' shay when."

"Bien. Ready? Set..." He waited for the traffic light to turn green, figuring that crossing on a red might give the odd passing car too much opportunity to study two fugitives sneaking across the street, "GO!"

Surprisingly, she stayed mostly upright as they froggered their way to the safety of the alley. Their fleeing forms disappeared quickly into the darkness. Rogue squinted, trying to get her eyes to adjust to the lack of light—and promptly plowed into Gambit as he skidded to an unannounced stop. He was more tipsy than he'd let on, and his knees buckled from unexpected extra weight. Regardless of his bitter state of mind, he still twisted in midair so that she wouldn't hit the ground first, grunting in pain as his back slammed into the gravel.

Embarrassed, Rogue was about to snap out a mean comment when she realized why he'd stopped so suddenly: Slowly crawling down the street beyond the parking lot was a third police cruiser. Gambit curled protectively around her, clutching her head to his chest and rolling towards the wall just as a spotlight illuminated the space they had occupied a split second earlier.

For what seemed like an eternity, they lay tangled in each other's arms, afraid to breathe and afraid to move, until the glaringly bright light finally moved on. Rogue cautiously lifted her head to confirm the officer was truly gone, and drew back to look down at her disheveled rescuer. She inhaled sharply, confused by the way his furious expression conflicted with his gentle, tender embrace. Ringed by red fire, his pupils glowed golden as they reflected the distant lamplight like cat's eyes in the dark, making him appear as though he were a vengeful demon straight from Dante's Inferno. Sometimes it was easy to see why so many people in his hometown referred to him as Le Diable Blanc. (1)

"Remy... Ah'm sor—," she tried to say, but he cut off the apology with a shake of his head and roughly shoved her away.

"Save it, Rogue. You do this same shit every time. Get drunk, start a fight and kiss ass after. Only this time calling names wasn' enough, y' had to start wit' the personal stuff. I don't know what your problem is, but I ain't your whipping boy."

She knelt next to him, brushed off the pebbles clinging to her skin, and grumbled, "Fine, don't accept mah 'pology, ya melodramatic jackass. Nobody asked ya ta get involved."

Fighting the urge to yell, he wisely kept his voice down low as he rolled into a crouch and stuck an accusing finger in her face. "YES YOU DID! The minute you sent dat text message you knew I wouldn' say no!"

Standing up shakily, she put her hands on her hips and glowered defiantly at him. "Bullshit! Ya haven't talked ta me for weeks! Even so, it ain't like Ah twishted ya arm and made you say yes!"

Fuming, Gambit turned his back to her and inspected the parking lot. "What the hell kinda friend would I be if I didn't?! You were finally, finally making progress wit' figuring out who you wanted to be, what you want from life—then suddenly y' went right back to being a hateful bitch who alienates anyone dat tries to help. I don't know what happened, but you need to let dat negative crap go before you turn into Logan!"

Rogue abruptly stomped past him into the deserted parking lot, ignoring his startled hiss as she cut a beeline towards the silhouette of the motorcycle. Her attitude clearly stated she was done with the conversation and was leaving with or without him. In the span of a few heartbeats, he jogged past her and leapt onto his seat, knocking the kickstand back and popping the transmission into neutral with a barely audible click. She calmly dug her hoodie out of the saddlebag and pulled it on as she slipped behind him, yanking the hood down over her forehead and tugging her gloves over her fingers.

Gambit hunched low over the handlebars and pushed the heavy machine forward with a few powerful thrusts of his legs, waiting to start the engine until they'd rolled far enough away to avoid any undue attention. He idled along the darkened residential streets, past row after row of quaint Cape Cod homes, only goosing the throttle enough to maintain forward momentum until the main highway came into view. Once he felt they were clear of danger, the Harley's engine roared and the speedometer quickly climbed into no-man's land.

He sped along recklessly at twice the speed limit, ripping around startled motorists on the four lane highway, until common sense overrode his anger and reminded him of the numerous speed traps lurking just out of sight. Rogue sat as far back on the seat as she could, holding on to the hem of his jacket with only the most perfunctory grip necessary to keep her balance. It had been far more pleasant to feel her arms around him on the ride out to the lighthouse, and he sighed inwardly at how quickly their evening had delved into disaster. He hadn't meant to hold her so closely in the alleyway, but the feeling had been so right that it nearly negated the hurtful things she'd said. The way her grateful little smile had turned into a crestfallen frown when he'd pushed her away kept prickling relentlessly at his thoughts. Her disturbing behavior was bothering him to no end, and drunk or not, they were going to have it out once and for all.

As they neared the exit for Wantaugh State parkway, he impulsively took the turn south towards the beach. Not surprisingly, Rogue stiffened and knuckled him in the side when they slowed down for the curve of the exit ramp. (2)

"Where are ya goin'?!" she hollered over the wind.

"We need t' talk!" he shouted back, then gunned the engine to drown out her heated response.

Great. This is gonna be World War III, Rogue sulked as she went back to staring at headlights in the rearview mirror. It was better to concentrate on them than the back of his head, which had become an awfully tempting target. Curiously, she realized the headlights were the same ones no matter which lane they occupied on the Long Island Expressway.

After watching for a bit longer, she tugged urgently on Gambit's leather sleeve and reached over his right arm to point at the mirror in alarm. Concentrating intently on the road, he had become so engrossed in the things he wanted to say he hadn't noticed they were being followed.

You're slipping, LeBeau! See what happens when you let her get to you?! He mentally kicked himself.

Without warning, he switched to the empty fast lane to see if the SUV would follow. Grumbling when it did, he eased off the throttle.

"Anyone you recognize?" He yelled.

In the mirror, her reflection shook its head: No.

The mystery pursuers must have realized they'd finally been spotted now that the late night traffic had thinned out, because something suspiciously resembling a neon green tranquilizer dart suddenly whizzed past Rogue's left knee.

Immediately the Cajun swerved hard right and twisted the throttle all the way open. Rogue latched on to his jeans and clamped her knees around his waist as the Harley shot forward, putting several car lengths between them and their attackers in a matter of seconds. The SUV struggled to close the gap, its engine whining from the effort. Dimly lit shrubs and grass quickly blurred into black, swampy marshes as they crossed onto the first island leading towards Jones Beach, the headlights of their attackers falling behind. On the second island, however, Gambit had to slow down to avoid crashing through the empty toll booth gates. Before he could speed up again, a high pitched whistling sound made both X-Men jerk their heads around in alarm.

A smoking projectile arced over them, exploding in front the bike with the force of a small bomb and blasting chunks of old pavement twenty feet into the air.

The motorcycle's tires squealed in protest as it slid around the flaming crater, narrowly avoiding the fallout of debris. Once they were clear, Gambit dug into his pocket and held a pack of playing cards over his shoulder, lightly whacking Rogue's cheek with the cardboard box as he steered with his other hand.

"I can't get a clear shot wit' you in the way, you gotta take them out!"

She immediately recoiled at the unspoken demand to absorb his powers. Alcohol had already skewed the results once this evening, and she doubted he could block his memories sufficiently enough to let her absorb only his mutant ability. Just the notion of his angry thoughts running rampant around her head in the midst of a fight was enough to make her scoot back even further on the seat.

"NO! Just gun it, ya almost lost them before an' ya can do it again!"

"We're about to run outta road here, and in case y' hadn't noticed: They shootin' RPG's at us!"

As if on cue, a second grenade landed just off the shoulder to the left, showering them with pebbles and bits of broken shrubbery as Gambit instinctively swerved away from the blast.

"Goddamnit woman, do it!" he cried, offering the pack again after stabilizing the wobbly bike. They were rapidly approaching a drawbridge; there would be no escape if their pursuers blew it out from under them.

Swearing under her breath, she ripped the glove off of her right hand with her teeth and firmly clasped his outstretched fingers, sandwiching the cards between their palms. Gambit gasped as Rogue's leeching ability pulled far harder than necessary and his mind scrambled, trying to remember random thoughts as fast as possible. The last thing he needed was for her to take anything important— or worse, any memories she could use against him.

Rogue held on until she saw the back of his neck begin to pale. Gambit's grip on the throttle loosened, causing the Harley to slow dangerously.

As she released him she couldn't help smiling wickedly at the kinetic charging ability surging through her veins in a delightful current. Her fingertips tingled, more so once she ripped open the package and coaxed the molecules of the cards into a vibrating frenzy. Closing her eyes against the wave of memories flashing across the backs of her eyelids, when she opened them again the velvety black landscape around them didn't seem as dark anymore; it was almost as if she were wearing night vision goggles.

Half-turning in place, Rogue quickly scanned the distance between their tail light and the front of the SUV. A grossly misshapen figure was crammed awkwardly through the sunroof, leveling his weapon for another shot: She spat out an expletive in French as she recognized M'Zee, the Red Skull's turtle-shaped heavy hitter.

A glowing trio of Aces flew from her fingers while the bike roared across the bridge, exploding in rapid succession against the grille of the Suburban, shattering the windshield and blowing out the left front tire. Clouds of white steam billowed up from the mangled hood. The driver struggled to stay on the road as the bare rim sent up a rooster tail of sparks. (3)

Something about her tone when she'd cursed made Gambit think their adversaries were tougher than the usual hired thugs and probably shouldn't be allowed to roam free.

"I take it y' know who they are?" Gambit asked, slowing to twenty miles an hour.

"Skull's goons," she answered simply, leaning back and watching the disabled SUV steadily draw closer, its engine knocking and sputtering.

The outline of the reptilian hitman had disappeared from the roof but she doubted M'Zee would able to aim through the hazy fog of coolant.

"Gonna call your 'buddies' to round 'em up?" Gambit glanced at her, the hint of sarcasm in his tone making her turn back around to face him.

Although Rogue had absorbed his powers repeatedly over the years, he still flinched uncontrollably at the sight of his own lava colored eyes staring back from that pretty face.

"No, actually. Stop up dere by dem buildings inna middle a' the road," she sneered in a mix of Yat and Mississippi accents, patting his shoulder condescendingly. "Somebody implied dat Ah cain't handle mahself and dat Ah treat his dumb ass like a whippin' boy. So Ah'm gon' find mahself a punchin' bag an' show him what a whuppin' act'ly looks like."

"Oh for the love of…!" he said with a snort. "I didn' say it like dat!"

"Whatevah, crétin. Ah owe dese idjits a beatin' for kidnaping me anyway," she bared her teeth ferally, a frightful mockery of a smile that reminded him very much of Mystique. "Y'all ain't de only one who been shot dis past month." (4)

Twisting around once more, she flung a pair of charged cards at the truck's under body. The concussive detonations lifted the tires from the ground as if the Skull's crew had driven over a land mine. Three tons of Detroit steel cartwheeled spectacularly into the median, sliding to a stop on its roof just past the turnaround lane. A hundred feet away, Gambit cut across the center of the road, the motorcycle bobbing across the sandy grass until he stopped by the empty maintenance building.

Normally he would have argued more, but deep down he knew the most effective way for his best friend to burn out her fiery temper would always involve some form of gratuitous violence. Besides, whatever problem was eating away at her could probably benefit from administering some long overdue ass kicking. Rogue slipped off the seat and marched right at the wrecked SUV, focusing intently on the stumbling bodies as they poured out of it in clown-car fashion. Two soldiers got their bearings straightened out before their comrades, and immediately opened fire with their strange guns.

"Go get 'em, chere!" Gambit called out with an entertained chuckle.

He shrugged out of his jacket and leaned back on his bike to enjoy the show, admiring the graceful way she used his Savate moves to evade the tranquilizer darts, spinning and sliding around them until she'd breeched the henchmen's defenses. No longer the stumbling drunk who'd knocked him down in the alley, he suspected she was letting his psyche take over muscle function while vicariously enjoying the damage it caused.

"Don' you 'chere' me, asshole!" she shouted as she punched a maroon-clad assailant in the face and used the man's own arm to gun down a bizarre looking creature crawling out of the driver's window. The goat-faced thing slumped unceremoniously to the ground, sprouting plastic feathered darts like a nightmarish porcupine. "You seriously snuck inta the mansion jus' ta watch me sleep again?! Ya do realize dat's a creepy factuh of 12 onna scale a' one ta ten, right?"

Heh, this gon' be a hoot, he smiled to himself as he contemplated a handful of ways to mess with her before his thoughts faded from the forefront of her mind. "What can I say, I like you best when you ain't telling me off or trying to knock me into next week!"

"Ah got half a mind ta shoot you wit' dis thing!" Rogue spun her dazed prey around and squeezed his trigger finger again, shooting another goon square in the buttcheek. As the surprised fellow fell, she noticed the giant tortoise struggling to free himself from the wreckage of the upside-down SUV. "Was it really dat hard ta pick up the damned phone and just call if'n ya missed me so much?!"

Clearing his throat, the thief's voice rang out in a melodious tenor.

"Sometimes these cuts are so much deeper than they seem, you'd rather cover up but I'd rather let them bleed. So let me be, and I'll set you free!"

Rogue froze, her victim's head firmly locked in a choke hold, and blinked rapidly at a memory as it caught her by surprise.

"I am in misery, there ain't nobody who can comfort me…" Gambit continued singing loudly, but she heard it as the actual song, being played from a tinny set of computer speakers.

X-23 was looking up from the computer screen, a rare expression of amusement on her young face as she pointed at the blonde model in the music video. Smugly, she said, "This reminds me of your ex-girlfriend."

"Rogue is a brunette, petit," he laughed.

Laura looked at him like he was a half-wit. "I meant the violence."

Rogue could feel Gambit's consternation as he'd replied, "C'mon now, we don' act dat bad..."

"You hit each other with your words."

"What the hell?!" Rogue's brow furrowed and she shook her head violently to dispel the image.

The struggling henchman punched her in the ribs and slipped through the crook of her arm, leaving his cloth face mask behind in the process. Winded, she grabbed for him but a flash of fuchsia light went off at the man's feet, sending him skyward and bombarding her with sand and stones.

"Girl, ya really got me bad, you really got me baaad," Gambit grinned as he looked down at his spare deck, shuffling the cards from hand to hand as though bored.

"This ain't a musical, couyon! (idiot)" She shouted grouchily.

He used to sing to her all the time, whether making breakfast or harassing her into a late night romp between the sheets. The reminder of the closeness they'd lost rekindled her ire into a burning resentment. Unleashing a ferocity which would've made even Wolverine applaud, she nailed an attacker with a vicious uppercut and shattered the man's jaw in multiple places. Clutching his face, he screamed in pain. She took advantage of his distraction by using him as a human springboard to jump onto his team mate's shoulders, perversely enjoying the feel of his collarbone cracking under the pressure of her foot. In the blink of an eye she had locked her thighs around the second thug's neck, utilizing her momentum and weight to swing downwards and away; the much larger man was flipped head over heels and the back of his skull smashed into the sun baked ground.

"Damnnn, fille!" Gambit exclaimed, reaching down to pull his collapsed bo-staff out of his right boot before she could hog all the fun. His hand came up empty. He yanked off his steel-toed footwear and flipped it upside down while giving it a hearty shake. "What the..?!"

Looking up, he spotted a flash of silver as one of the muggers clutched his stomach and fell over. Rogue pirouetted on the tips of her toes; a beautiful dancer who swung like a golf pro as she brought the full force of the stolen staff up to the second soldier's jaw. The man's head snapped backwards from the impact as she gleefully yelled "FOOOOOURR!"

"Missin' somethin' dere, sugah?" she taunted, nimbly sidestepping the soldier she'd gut-punched as he lurched up from the ground and tried to charge at her from behind. Without even looking, she cracked the man across the back of his neck with the staff, dropping him face first back into the weeds. "Ya best hurry up or dere ain't gon' be any leftovers f'ya!"

"Oh non, mam'selle. I'd hate t' make another mess for you ta clean up," Gambit sniped as he hopped in place and pulled on his boot.

Stalking towards her like a tiger eyeing up its dinner, he held his hand over his heart in mock insult.

Rogue twirled the bo-staff warningly as he drew near and straightened up to his full 6'2". Unfazed by the threat, the lean Cajun glowered down at her, an unspoken challenge to take back the hurtful words she'd said after their escape from the restaurant. Her eyelashes fluttered guiltily under his accusing glare and she breathed a small sigh before looking away. Mollified by her apparent remorse, he was reaching up to touch her face when she suddenly turned back to him and flipped the bo-staff up with a flourish.

The wily Avenger slid her arms around his neck and let the cold metal rod fall horizontally across his broad shoulders, using it to pull him tantalizingly close. Gambit's malcontent went right out the window as she pressed against him, melding her warm body suggestively to his own. For a moment he forgot why he'd been pissed at this addictive rebel who stole his breath away.

As much as she savored their intimate proximity, Rogue was barely tolerating his psyche's insolent attitude regarding her hurtful comment earlier; she certainly wasn't going to roll over and beg forgiveness from the real thing.

Her husky voice was hot against his lips as she sang mockingly, "If happy ever after did exist, Ah would still be holding you like this. All those fairy tales are full of shit— one more $#%ing love song, Ah'll be sick."

Gambit frowned and made a mental note to destroy every Maroon Five album on the planet.

Grinning evilly, she whacked him upside the head with his own weapon. As she pushed him backwards, laughing, a deafening roar erupted from the driver side of the Suburban. The giant, enraged tortoise stood up from where it had been hunched over its fallen team mate and launched at Rogue with extraordinary speed for such a cumbersome looking beast.

Unfortunately, as fast as her stolen reflexes were, they were still stolen and she was still drunk. She went down hard when M'Zee clipped her in passing, his scaly hide ripping skin and muscle from her left arm as he swung wildly at Gambit.

"HOLY SHIT!" he shrieked, diving out of the hard-shelled tank's way. "You pissed off the teenage mutant ninja turtles?!"

Gambit's amusement died the instant that M'Zee overshot his mark and brutally knocked the Harley over in his attempt to stop and turn. The Cajun X-Man uttered a hateful cry. (5)

"I am the unstoppable force and the lord of physical will!" The huge reptile bellowed in response, spittle flying from his curved beak as he turned his beady eyes on the dark haired opponent. "We are to bring you to our master, one way or another! You will serve the Red Skull!"

"Really? Dat's the best y' got?" Gambit seethed, sparkling cards flaring to life in both of his hands as if by magic. "You villains are all the same; always wit' the boring speeches, goin' around breakin' up perfectly good dates. Time for you t' go back to the sewers, Donatello!"

Rogue had just regained her feet when she had to turn away from the blinding flashes of Gambit's power as work. The cards burst against M'Zee's chest with enough force to knock the Juggernaut-wannabe onto his back. He flailed helplessly and roared in fury when the thief landed a powerful kick to his thick skull, yelling about revenge for his poor bike.

"At what point was dis evah a date, Gumbo?" She shouted to him, flicking away blood as it trickled into her remaining glove.

"Are y' kiddin' me, chere?! We had a good time, we said some nasty things to each other, and twice now people have tried ta kill us. This is officially a date!"

He laughed riotously, jumping in place to avoid M'zee's swiping claws.


This took way longer than I was expecting because I discovered a massive 'oops' in my story's timeline :x I'm not going to say what it is in the hopes that I can correct it in a later chapter without anyone catching on, but suffice to say, it was a pretty big fail and I've had to rethink the entirety of all the crap I had already written. *sigh* I'm really not happy with this chapter- it feels like I'm missing out on a lot of description in the fight scenes. Random side note for fellow Rogue fans: If you haven't read Marvel Knights yet, you should! The art isn't all that great, but the plot is wonderful compared to UA.

1) I have no idea if his eyes actually reflect light like a cat's, but I would imagine his mutation gives him an edge over the normal spectrum of human vision. It would certainly help explain how he became a master thief with amazing reflexes.

2) Most of my family is from Seaford and Queens, but it's been a loooong time since I got to wander around Jones Beach. Hopefully any Long Islanders reading this will forgive my discrepancies. Thank goodness for Google Earth!

3) I REALLY don't like Chevies.

4) Uncanny Avengers #3. Took a nasty shot to her right shoulder from the Red Skull's pistol. And then Alex beat the snot out of her.

5) Seriously, how has no one made a TMNT reference in UA yet?

Oh, and I have nothing against Maroon 5. I never really paid attention to their songs until I stumbled across the "Misery" video last week. My first though was, "That is SO Rogue". Now I'm addicted to their music.