Chapter Ten – I Will Choose Him
Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here
Jemma found Fitz in the garage, Mack pushing him into physical work as the pair of them worked on May's motorbike. Mack cast her one of his silently thoughtful looks and stayed where he was, close enough to Fitz to grab his arm if necessary.
"Where's loverboy, run off and abandoned you already?" Fitz sneered. Jemma took a deep breath, walked over and slapped him as hard as she could across the face.
"How dare you!" she yelled. "How fucking dare you, Fitz! You asshole!"
Fitz stared at her in amazement, hand to his stinging cheek. Jemma never shouted, never lost her temper. And certainly not with him.
"Remy is my soulmate," Jemma snarled through gritted teeth. "You insult him, you insult me. Don't you dare ever do that again, or I swear to God I will leave with him and you'll never see me again, because let me make this absolutely clear, I will choose him if you force me to choose."
Fitz wilted, his bravado destroyed by her righteous rage. "Jemma, I'm sorry," he said quietly, watched her settle down slowly at his sincere apology. "I was – I am – concerned about you. LeBeau is probably the most dangerous person we've ever encountered, and considering what the last year has been like, that's really saying something."
"Did it not occur to you that makes him a really good person to have on our side?" Jemma sighed at his kicked-puppy expression. "Fitz, you were rude. I expect you to apologise to Remy, when he gets back. And yes, he had to leave – a friend needed his help."
Slowly, they settled into a slightly uneasy truce. Fitz didn't mention Remy again – and neither did anyone else, although Phil drew each of them quietly aside during the day and warned them about Remy's powers of coercion, reassuring them that they should be immune to it now they knew.
"Don't be ridiculous," Jemma said rather scornfully when Phil sat her down and asked her a bit awkwardly if Remy had tried to coerce her. Although she remembered with a faint hint of unease the way he'd looked a bit shame-faced when he'd told her 'I can't make you want me'.
"He used it on Hunter and Bobbi. You didn't think Hunter would have put his gun away like that otherwise, did you?"
"He did that because Hunter was pointing a gun in a direction which generally included me," Jemma pointed out, "and he told you he'd stop coercing them when they stopped engaging in threatening behaviour with me in the room. He didn't try and coerce Fitz, did he? Because Fitz wasn't endangering me."
"No," Phil conceded, thinking that was probably the one time Remy should have used that particular power. From what he'd found in the Level 10 files – LeBeau was generally pretty unconcerned with inconvenient things like morals.
That said, his file hadn't been updated in ten years and Fury, who clearly didn't get on well with LeBeau, had made the last entries, probably annoyed when LeBeau declined to join the Avengers Initiative…
Phil sighed, passed a weary hand over his face, and stood. "Jemma, I didn't tell you before but there's another file on LeBeau. I think perhaps you'd better read it. Forewarned is forearmed and all that." He handed her a tablet, watched her face as she bit her lip uncertainly. "You can ask me questions if you like, but honestly I know no more than what's down there. I've opened up the link to the report on the mission where I encountered him, and Hunter's agreed to brief me to create a report about the time he met LeBeau in Iraq – and to talk to you about it if you want."
"Thank you," Jemma murmured, unable to feel anything but touched by his gentle concern. Although deep inside her a hot core of irritation burned that everyone seemed to feel the need to protect her from Remy. They didn't understand. She lifted the tablet and began reading.
Name: Remy Etienne LeBeau aka Gambit
Known Aliases: Remy Picard, Philippe Samhain, Robert Lord, Captain René Letour of the French Foreign Legion (others known to exist but unconfirmed)
Place of Birth: New Orleans, Louisiana (unconfirmed)
Date of Birth: Unknown. LeBeau has not appeared to age physically since first contact in 1971 to present date. His claim to Director Carter to have been 7 years old when made a test subject in the Weapon IV program (1959) is unverified. No birth certificate has been found.
Last Known Residence: Professor Xavier's School For Gifted Youngsters (teacher, martial arts and languages)
Languages spoken: Fluent (native) in French, observed fluency in Japanese, Spanish, Russian and Arabic. LeBeau speaks with a Cajun accent and often litters his speech with French words, particularly when agitated. He has been observed, however, to alter or lose the accent entirely at need.
Physical Description: Approx 6'2" tall, strongly built, hair brown, seems to prefer to wear it long although has been observed numerous times with short hair, with and without a beard. Eyes appear dark at first glance but can be observed to 'burn' red on closer examination. Contacts reportedly do not hide the colour. LeBeau frequently conceals his eyes with sunglasses or a hat tilted low. He is often observed wearing a long leather coat, apparently customised to conceal a number of weapons.
Known habits: LeBeau is a skilled gambler and card player. He prefers private, high stakes poker games. DO NOT attempt to gamble with him under ANY circumstances.
Conventional abilities: LeBeau has shown himself to be skilled with many conventional weapons, including knives, swords, throwing spikes, guns and martial arts weapons. He has been most frequently observed in hand to hand combat with a specially made, telescoping bō staff he conceals inside a long leather coat which he prefers to wear. LeBeau has been observed piloting various aircraft including military craft. He is a skilled pickpocket and incredibly gifted at sleight of hand, particularly with his playing cards.
Jemma looked up at Phil. "There's nothing here that wasn't in the Level 8 file."
Phil leaned over and pressed his thumb to an icon in the corner of the screen. It blinked and a new screen flashed up.
Confirmed non-conventional abilities; LeBeau is able to manipulate energy he draws from objects. The smaller the object, the quicker he is able to 'charge' it. He has been observed numerous times throwing playing cards, gravel, sand and other small articles with lethal accuracy; the items then explode on contact with their target. A violet light is observed when LeBeau works with energy in this manner. He also uses his staff to transmit energy to larger objects. He appears to require skin contact with an item in order to 'charge' it.
While a skilled hand-to-hand fighter, it is clear that LeBeau has some super-human abilities. His speed, strength and dexterity cannot be matched by human opponents. His endurance is apparently limitless, possibly due to his manipulation of the energy field.
LeBeau is known to be able to coerce with his voice. This ability is generally (but not always) nullified if the subject of his coercion is advised of the ability.
LeBeau appears to have some predictive abilities. He uses his playing cards in a similar way to a Tarot reader. While apparently accurate, his predictions are cryptic, and even he does not always seem able to interpret them until after the event predicted has occurred.
LeBeau has been observed to heal wounds on his own body. He claims not to be able to heal others, though he informed Director Carter that his associate [LINK DELETED] has this ability.
Known Associates: LeBeau has had confirmed face-to-face encounters with the following S.H.I.E.L.D. agents: Director(Retired) Margaret Carter; Director Nicholas Fury; Deputy Director Maria Hill; Agents P. Coulson, V. Hand, C. Barton, N. Romanoff, S.E.B.A.S.T.I.A.N. Koenig, J. Garrett, I. Blake, J. Sitwell, G. Ward.
Jemma froze on the last name, her head snapping up. "Remy met Ward?"
Phil smiled tightly. "I thought you might find that interesting. There's a mission report. Apparently Ward was in Paris on a mission – sent to steal some item S.H.I.E.L.D. wanted, this was before the Chitauri invasion, even. LeBeau had got there ahead and stolen it already, passed it off to some unknown contact. He hung around and got the jump on Ward. I found the debriefing interview Ward gave afterwards." He pointed a remote control at the TV screen. "You might find this interesting."
"I have no freaking idea who he was," Ward said sullenly to the person interviewing him – who Jemma realised belatedly was Maria Hill. "I just know he wasn't human. No-one's that quick." He looked as though his pride had been wounded, Jemma thought with a certain smug satisfaction.
"And this is definitely the man you saw?" Hill slid a photo across the table to Ward, who glanced at it and nodded before pushing it back.
"He had longer hair, and he was clean-shaven, but that's definitely him. What did you say his name was?"
"I didn't, Agent Ward, and as his identity is classified I'm not going to. Please tell me what exactly happened, and word for word what he said to you, if you can remember."
"Of course I can remember!" Ward bristled. "He… surprised me. I had no idea anyone was even there and the next second I was face down on the rug with him sitting on my back. I could only just see his face, but I'll never forget him. He spoke in French, but I'll translate," he gave Hill a condescending look. The former Deputy Director just nodded calmly.
"He said 'Grant Ward. You will have a choice to make, not so far in the future. Be very careful in your choices. You never know what enemies you might be making'." Ward scowled. "And then he knocked me out. When I woke up he was gone. What I want to know is how the fuck he knew my name!"
Jemma chewed on her lip thoughtfully, staring at the screen as Phil tapped the remote again and it went blank. "Do you think Remy knew about HYDRA?"
"I sincerely hope not. I doubt it. He seemed genuinely distressed to know about the Koenig brothers – clones – who died. From what I know of his predictive abilities, they seem more focussed small-scale, on individuals, as it were, rather than major events. He knew something was going on with Ward. Maybe he had a cryptic sort of warning that Ward might pose a danger to his soulmate." Phil shrugged. "Perhaps you should ask him, when he returns."
"Perhaps he could even help us find Ward," Jemma mused. Of all of them, she thought, she was the one who most keenly felt the desire to see Ward dead. She still remembered the look on his face when he'd pushed the button to send the medical pod falling into the ocean with her and Fitz trapped inside. And she was still furious with Skye for not putting those four bullets into his traitorous head when she had the chance in San Juan.
Phil said nothing, guiltily aware that he fully intended to use Jemma as a bargaining chip to get LeBeau to aid S.H.I.E.L.D. in any way he could. But then Jemma was quite likely to ask LeBeau herself.
"Thanks," Jemma handed the tablet back to Phil. He nodded, feeling suddenly relieved that he'd carefully hidden part of the file – the part that detailed LeBeau's easy charm and ability to seduce even the best of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s female agents over to his way of thinking, even once they knew about his ability to coerce. Phil still shuddered at the memory of watching the Victoria Hand debriefing after her encounter with him. The hard-as-nails former Level 8 agent had giggled like a schoolgirl – and Maria Hill had been no better!
No, Jemma didn't need to know about that. Nor did she need to see the footage of the Barton and Romanoff debriefing, after the clusterfuck in Budapest when Remy had pulled both their asses out of the fire, almost literally charmed the pants off Romanoff and left Barton shaking his head and calling him an 'overly smooth Cajun bastard'.
It would hurt Jemma to know what a ladies' man, or to put it more bluntly a womaniser, her soulmate was. Or had been. Phil genuinely wanted to believe Remy had put those habits behind him well before Jemma came into his life. He truly did. It would crucify Jemma if Remy cheated on her, especially since she seemed to be fast falling head over heels for him.
We've learned some pretty scary shit about Remy here. Is Jemma right to trust him as readily as she does? Only time will tell…