AH GAD! MAH HAND! MY HAAAAAND!

10. Baby, now look what you made me do-

Rogue sat by herself in the mostly dark kitchen as she nibbled on a broken up cookie that she wasn't actually hungry for. Her eyes roamed over to the clock above the oven and she sighed to herself for the fifth time in under twenty minutes.

"Hey, chica!" Jubilee panted as she practically sprinted into the room. "What are you doing here?" She demanded.

"Waiting for Bobby." Rogue sighed. "We had a date tonight, only I haven't seen him in almost an hour."

"Forget that!" Jubilee man-handled the bar stool Rogue was perched on, careful not to touch her as she dumped her on the floor.

"Ow!" Rogue shouted in shock as her ass hit the ground. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Gte up, get up, get up!" Jubilee jumped up and down, beckoning wildly at her. Rogue noticed how she had yet to actually touch her, and even though that stung a little on a subconscious level that she didn't want to admit to, Rogue was really more distracted by the pain in her ass.

"Would you calm down!" Rogue snapped, slowly dragging herself to her feet.

"If you don't hurry up we're going to miss it!" Jubilee screamed Rogue could have sworn there might have been tears in her eyes.

"I'm not going anywhere until—" Rogue began to declare until, as an absolute last resort, Jubilee grabbed on her jacket sleeve (not even her arm inside the sleeve, but the sleeve itself) and sprinted away with it, dragging Rogue along after her.

"Jubes!" Rogue stumbled after her, nearly twisting her ankle more than once. The black boots she was wearing weren't made for running. "Jubilee!"

"Y'know that new kid, Gambit?" Jubilee asked over her shoulder as they barreled down hallways.

It took Rogue a moment to connect Gambit and Remy and she nodded, her silver necklaces jangling and her hoop earrings swinging with the action.

"Guess who's totally shirtless in the Danger Room right now!" Jubilee sang, bouncing as she sprinted.

"The hell is that boy doing in the Danger Room?!" Rogue screeched, pulling down her short black dress as it rode up her thighs with all the sprinting.

"Who know? Who cares! He's not wearing a shirt, Rogue!" Jubilee dragged her into the elevator. "He's running stats right now I think," She bubbled. "He's going to be training with the rest of us! God, I hope he's slow and awkward so I can be his hand-to-hand partner. I would trip into that boy's arms all the time."

Rogue couldn't help but chuckle at the image of Jubilee yelling 'Oh dear!' and collapsing dramatically into a confused Remy's arms.

"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon!" Jubilee fidgeted like a puppy scratching at the front door as she glared at the elevator doors. "Open. Open. Open. Open. Op-" The doors opened and Jubilee squealed with delight before she dragged Rogue out into the hallways and then straight into the observation booth.

"Jubes," Rogue sighed as Jubilee pushed her forward. "I should be looking for Bobby. We had a—" She lost her train of thought as she realized that she's somehow ended up in a magical world of abs and arms and everything is this world is good and right. You couldn't even see his scars from this height.

Then it clicked. He wasn't wearing a shirt because the one he had been wearing was blood soaked and ripped up.

"Did he come right from the med bay to here?" Rogue whipped around and demanded.

"I guess." Marty shrugged from where she was working the control panel.

"Professor X just asked us to come down and run his stats." Regan chimed in.

"And I am sure glad he did. Mmhm." Marty ran her tongue across her teeth as she looked out the window to Gambit.

"And I would thank you not to make me regret that decision, Martinique." Xavier chuckled good naturedly as he rolled his wheel chair in, giving Jubilee and Rogue an amused look. "Am I going to have to instate rules against ogling new students?"

"Then what on earth would I do with all of my time?" Jubilee asked indignantly as she pressed her face to the glass.

"I had rather hoped you would do school work."

Rogue snorted with laughter as Jubilee was too busy fogging up the window to retort.

"Aw," Jubilee whined into the glass. "Don't put on the sweatshirt!"

Rogue redirected her attention just in time to see as Logan walked into the room and tossed Remy one of the school's hoodies and she could admit to herself that she was maybe a little disappointed when he put those abs away. He zipped it up to his sternum before rolling his shoulders and bouncing on the balls of his feet a few times.

"You ready?" Logan demanded and Remy fell into a crouch. Rogue couldn't imagine what all of this was doing to his hands, but he didn't seem too bothered and he was wearing gloves, not bandages.

"Oui." He snorted, eyes shooting around the obstacle course set out in front of him, which was far more than the average obstacle course simply because other obstacle courses weren't invented for the express purpose of creating physical statistics. Strength. Agility. Strategy. Speed. Endurance. The list went on.

He worked his shoulders like a predator on the hunt and Jubilee squealed in anticipation.

"Go!" Logan barked and Remy was off like a goddamned shot, vaulting, dipping, and just all around dominating the hell out of the obstacle course.

Logan, despite every iota of his being rebelling against the very concept, was impressed. Gumbo had some legitimate talent when it came to kicking ass and taking names. But as Logan watched him bend backwards at the hips to avoid a blow from a down-sized sentinel he had the fleeting thought that maybe somehow he was cheating. He had never seen someone work a simulation this well on their first try. In fact, he'd never seen a simulation like this before. It was almost like it was specifically designed for his strengths.

And with one final, calamitous boom Gambit landed nimbly on his feet and swept his arms out in a showy bow, a dull sheen of sweat covering the entirety of his body as he completed his stat simulation the third fastest in mansion history.

"How-" Remy panted slightly, grinning. "was that?"

There was the sound of applause from up in the tech booth.

"Say it." Jubilee prompted as they exited the observation booth.

"No." Rogue huffed.

"Say it." Jubilee elbowed her jacket (not her ribs. She wouldn't let it bother her, though)

Rogue sighed heavily. "Thank you, Jubilee, for draggin' me downstairs so we could gape at Remy's naked- Remy!" She blushed absolutely crimson as he walked out of the Danger Room, nearly bumping into her.

Remy went quickly to apologize, but then he got a good look at her and he couldn't remember what words meant. She was wearing a black dress that's so short it should be a sin, a pair of heeled boots with zippers that ran up to her knees, black tights, a leather jacket, and about a dozen silver necklaces of varying length and thickness. Her makeup was smoky and her hair was down and everything about the ensemble screamed 'Date Night'.

And there he was, sweaty and wearing a school sweatshirt.

Dammit.

"How are your hands?" She asked before he got the chance to compliment her.

He shrugged. "Fine." Actually they were bleeding a little bit again, but he sure as hell wasn't going to tell her that.

She nodded and they both stood there awkwardly for a moment. She wanted to ask him who Bella was and he wanted to ask her where Bobby was and Jubilee wanted to ask how the hell they knew each other long enough to have an awkward moment at all.

"Alright, Gumbo." Logan grunted as he shouldered his way out of the Danger Room behind Remy, snapping a small communicator shut. He opened his mouth to tell Gambit exactly who had been on the other line, and then follow up with a pointed threat to stay away from the brunette with the white streaks because that was off limits but he was interrupted by the metallic compression on the elevator door hissing open and said other line exited.

Remy turned to see a slender woman with pale skin and a curtain of dark hair step stiffly out of the elevator. "You contacted me." She looked to Logan; her shoulders held squarely in a fashion that reminded Remy of a military stance.

"Found you a sparring partner." Logan jabbed his thumb in Remy's direction and the girl finally turned her sharp blue eyes to him.

"X23," She held out her hand stiffly. "You may address me as Laura if the informality appeals to you."

"Gambit." Remy took her hand and bit back a hiss of pain as she jarred his burns with her formal handshake.

"Your abdominal muscles are very nicely developed." Laura informed him with a sharp nod.

Remy cleared his throat awkwardly. Usually there was a little more conversation before a girl told him he had a nice body.

"I apologize if I've done something out of conduct." Laura saw his discomfort and started to panic at the social interaction. "I was under the impression that it was customary to exchange compliments upon first introduction—"

"Non, non," Remy chuckled and cut her off, determined not to have the relationship with his new sparring partner start awkwardly. "'S my bad," He assured her and she relaxed visibly. "And," He added with a smile. "Your hair is tres belle, Laura."

He missed Rogue grinning softly at him, the encounter reminding her of his interactions with Cassie for some reason.

Laura might have blushed down to her ears, but she ducked her head beneath her black hair before Remy could see, nodding once before turning away and stalking back into the elevator.

"That was…" Remy started.

"Awkward?" Jubilee supplied.

"Painful?" Logan snorted.

"Weird as hell?" Rogue grinned.

"Brief." Remy finished.

"Yeah, well," Logan shrugged as he turned to the stairs. "Just be thankful she didn't do to you what she did to the last guy we introduced her to."

Remy looked around questioningly and Jubilee pantomimed somebody getting kneed in the groin. Remy winced in sympathy.

"Hey, Logan," Rogue called, following quickly after Logan. "Can you come help me for a minute?"

"Sure, kid." Logan grinned over his shoulder. "Whadduya need?"

"Well, Bobby and I had a date tonight but he never showed and I was hopin'—"

"He never showed?" Logan repeated, eye brows rising high on his forehead.

"No, he didn'." Rogue affirmed. "But I was hopin'—"

"That I could beat the shit outta him? Alright." He growled roughly.

"What?" Rogue shrieked, her voice carrying back down the stairs to where Jubilee was filling in Remy on the many ex-sparring partners of Laura Kinney. "No! I just need your help findin' him!"

"Oh, I'll find 'em, alright!" Logan shouted, taking the stairs three at a time.

"Logan!" Rogue shouted, stumbling after him in her heels, silently swearing that she would never wear them again. "Don't you dare!" She gasped sharply as her ankle twisted and she tripped in what would have been a spectacularly bone-shattering fall if Remy hadn't grabbed her elbow and wrenched her upright.

Logan kicked open the door at the top of the stairs and inhaled deeply, locking in on Bobby's scent. And the metallic smell of electricity, the subtle smoky smell of brunt flesh and the thick scent of chocolate.

"Logan!" Rogue scrambled out the door five steps behind him, basically supported by Remy. "If you touch one hair on that boy's head, I swear I'm gonna—"

Logan threw open the front door.

It was a delicious scene. She couldn't have planned it to be any more perfect.

The Wolverine throws open the front door and Rogue, playing the part of the thunderstruck girlfriend, gasps and throws herself to the ground next to her unconscious boyfriend. She tries to take a pulse but –hilariously enough- her own gloves prevented it. And then she's screaming at them to get McCoy and she's sobbing these rough, gasping sobs as her hands flutter uselessly and it's killing her that even now she can't physically comfort the boy she professes to love. Emotionally she just can't handle the fact that when it actually came down to it – a Life and Death situation- she just can't do it. She just can't touch him. Gambit tries to put a hand down on her shoulder to comfort her and then she's screaming at him. She screams at him not to touch her. She screams at him to leave her alone. She screams at him to never even consider touching her again.

She's pulling at her hair and maybe it hurts even worse that in the hour that Drake was 'missing' Rogue was eating cookies and checking out Gambit's bare chest.

And it's just beautiful. Absolutely divine.

If she thought she could laugh, she would.

It helped that she had already been in a good mood- frying Drake and then tweaking the programming on Gambit's simulation to better suit his strengths (which was for his own good. He was going to reach his full potential, and she was going to be there every step of the way) but this, this was the crowning glory of her day. Driving Rogue over the edge, forcing her to go a little bit insane- it almost put a smile on her face.

That Laura girl, though. She was something to watch out for.

:O!