Rogue had a lot on her mind by the time she met Angel for lunch. He saw her enter the restaurant and stood up from his chair, waving her over. Rogue was grateful he had already arrived; she hated waiting by herself in places. When she reached the table, Warren held her chair out for her.
"I got you a little something," he said when they were both seated. He pulled a small jewellery box from his pocket and handed it Rogue.
"Thanks, Warren," Rogue answered, a little unsure and a dash skeptical. She opened up the box and gasped. It was the prettiest white gold ring she'd ever seen, inlaid with vibrant, tiny emeralds. "It's beautiful!"
"I thought you'd like it." He smiled and reached for her hand. "Here, let me put it on."
Rogue was fully capable of putting the ring on herself, but Warren seemed insistent, so she allowed it. She admired it as it shone prettily on her hand.
"There," Warren said, leaning back in his chair. "Now we can talk freely."
Rogue laughed, now she understood. "Something from Forge?"
Angel grinned. "Made especially for you. That little circlet will cancel out any radios, microphones and whatnot that might be trying to listen in on this conversation. Or any conversation you might want under wraps. Just slide your thumb across all five emeralds to activate and deactivate it."
"It's brilliant!" Rogue exclaimed. "Thank you."
"Thank Forge. He designed it, right down to the rocks to match your eyes. I just found him the necessary pieces."
Rogue would have to thank Forge. This was probably the smallest high-tech gadget he'd ever invented. And the prettiest.
"That's not all, it doesn't even give off any sort of electronic waves or anything. Completely undetectable anywhere." Angel laughed. "We made Kitty wear it through airline security as one of the tests. She was horrified it was going to go off!"
Rogue laughed. Poor Kitty, the girl was always so jumpy. Nothing bad would have happened in airline security, she just would have had to take off the ring.
"So how are things going?" Angel asked. He glanced down at his plate. "I know it hasn't been that long since we last spoke, but, well..."
Rogue rolled her eyes in disgust. "But Logan's asking."
Angel sighed. "Yeah."
"Of course."
"I told him you were trying, even mentioned that you got the opportunity to investigate your base alone when you took advantage of that drunken scene. He jumped right on top of that."
"I'll bet," Rogue answered dryly.
"So..." Angel hesitated. "What happened? Did you find anything?"
"I got a chance to search Gambit's room. Nothing but some copied emails from his laptop, and I haven't had a chance to look at them."
Angel nodded. "I'm sure that will be good enough for Logan."
Rogue gave a bitter smirk. "I doubt it."
"Come on, Rogue. He really isn't that bad."
"Not to you. With me, he's different. You guys all know it, so don't act like you don't."
"He just seems to have higher expectations for you. It's not a bad thing necessarily."
"It is when you're hiding in a viper's nest, trying to rush through things to make him happy."
"We appreciate what you're doing," Angel replied honestly. "And if no one has told you that until now...well, now you know. You've put yourself at great risk and it's certainly not unnoticed, even to Logan."
It was the first time anyone on the team had spoken any words of gratitude to her. Funny that she'd had to wait months to finally hear it from the X-men, when Gambit had praised her within hours of her first successful mission. He'd told her she'd done a good job; a direct compliment from the boss. As nice as Angel's words were, they still weren't from Logan. She doubted that he even knew Angel was complimenting her on behalf of the team. That was why Angel was the PR guy. He could spin anything into a good light. Even Logan.
"There is something important I just discovered that you need to know, Warren," Rogue said, remembering the feather. She hadn't given it back to Gambit on purpose and had brought it with her. If Gambit asked for it later on, she had accidentally lost it.
She discreetly pulled the feather from her pocket and slid it across the table. Warren's eyes widened and he snatched the feather quickly, shoving it into his inside coat pocket.
"Gambit found it last night, said it fell off of you. He suspects you are a mutant."
Angel blanched. "Oh God..."
"He's even gone so far as to suspect you are one of the X-men."
Angel swallowed hard. "I can't be found out...not now, not yet."
"I know," Rogue whispered sympathetically. "I'm doing everything I can to take the heat off of you. I swear, they won't find out. Not if I have anything to say about it."
"Thank you," he sighed weakly.
"I gave you the feather. That's the only evidence the MRD had. Now you have it. They can't run DNA on it or nothing now. I'm gonna do my best to persuade Gambit that his suspicions are wrong."
"You think you can really convince him? He's a mastermind, the guy thinks of everything—"
"Trust me," Rogue interrupted sternly. "I will convince him otherwise."
Angel merely nodded. He looked scared and Rogue didn't blame him. If the MRD were the ones to reveal Warren's mutant status first it would be disastrous. As far as Rogue was concerned, it wasn't up to anyone but Warren to decide to reveal he was a mutant. Nobody else should have any say in it. Rogue was going to do everything in her power to protect Angel's secret.
"Logan wants us to continue meeting for 'dates' to keep him informed.
"It puts both of us in the MRD spotlight."
"I know," Angel replied back firmly. "But after what you've been risking, I'm willing to put myself out there. We are in this together."
"Thanks, Warren. I really do appreciate that."
Angel gave her his usual sparkling smile. "That's what friends are for. I'll send messages every so often to meet with you. I can't contact you directly yet. The MRD is just chomping at the bit with me showing some sort of interest in their organization—even if it is through a girl. They don't want to relinquish their involvement just yet."
That didn't surprise Rogue at all. "I understand."
When Rogue finished her lunch date with Angel, she didn't head back to the mercenary base. Instead she headed straight for the local library. She thumbed the flashdrive in her coat pocket. She'd been wanting to look at its contents since last night, but things had come up that prevented her from attending to it right away.
She could easily have looked at it on her own laptop, but the way Gambit had been hanging around and acting, she didn't really want to risk it. No doubt he was waiting for her to return. His interest in her had unfortunately not waned. Not now that Warren had also shown 'interest' in her. She already knew Gambit possessed a jealous streak when it came to her. She had seen it in his mind yesterday.
She found it a bit adorable, which was so not the right way to feel about it. Wolves could be adorable too...it didn't make them any less vicious though. Gambit was a dangerous man, even deadly. She couldn't deny or ignore that fact. Not after this morning's meeting. She shuddered. He had been above and beyond scary. Crossing Gambit would be a bad idea—a really, really horrifically bad idea.
To say she was confused about him was a huge understatement. There were parts of Gambit that were so fragile and so torn that Rogue wanted nothing more than to pick up the pieces and carefully put him back together. It was stupid and needlessly reckless, but she even found herself attracted to parts of him. The passionate, considerate, even gentle man she had been with last night had impacted her more than it should have.
Even still, he had saved Jean-Paul's life three times. Jean-Paul had said that it was Gambit's job, that he'd been ordered to do it, but Rogue wasn't so sure. Gambit didn't seem like the type of man who would waste his time monitoring someone all the time for fear they'd try and off themselves just for work. That took a different degree of determination and commitment. No, Rogue suspected there was much more to Gambit than he let on.
She had seen tenderness in him, she had seen good in him. As horrible as Gambit outwardly behaved, she couldn't discount that she had seen aspects of him that he'd kept hidden from everyone. He'd even taken her aside and expressed his genuine worry for her before she left to meet Warren. What was to stop him from worrying about Jean-Paul too?
Rogue sighed. She was thinking too much about all of this. Gambit had already made it clear that he liked her, was attracted to her and wanted her in the worst way possible. She'd seen no indication that he felt compelled to care about anyone other than her. Even if she wanted to believe he cared about Jean-Paul's well being, she had no proof to back it up. She was making up excuses for him so that she could justify her own feelings towards him. Rogue could not possibly be attracted to a monster, could she?
She hoped she wasn't that far gone.
She entered the library and headed towards the cubicles that housed the computers. Finding one empty in the corner, Rogue sat down. She was glad her back was to the wall. It was risky checking the flashdrive on a public computer, but at this point, it was the least of her worries. Hell, it might be good to have incriminating evidence on the MRD show up on a public computer's memory.
Rogue opened the file list and started opening files from the top. She groaned in disgust when the first email was junk mail. The credit card phishing kind. The next five were also junk mail. Why the hell wouldn't Gambit filter his emails? Maybe he wasn't a computer savvy person. It would explain why his computer was unsecure in the first place.
She opened the next file and frowned in confusion.
"Avidgardners dot com weekly gardening newsletter," she read out loud, absolutely dumbfounded. At first she thought this too was junk mail, until she read further. "Dear Mr. Etienne Gambit, Hey, Fellow plant enthusiast and hobbyist, spring is the season for gardening and we've got just the tips and secrets you need to showcase the most stunning plants on your block."
Rogue stared at the screen in disbelief. She scrolled down to the bottom of the page and read the fine print stating that it was a subscribed email. That meant Gambit had signed up for the emails.
"You have got to be kidding me," she murmured. Gambit was a hobby gardener? He hardly appeared the type, not to mention she hadn't seen any plants anywhere at all at the base. She took out a pen and notepad from her purse and scribbled down the website name. Something so out of place had to be checked out. It was downright weird.
The rest of the emails proved to be of no help. She found emails pertaining to online poker playing accounts, many of which sent their 'congratulations to Mr. E. Gambit'. So he liked to play cards, Rogue rolled her eyes. Like she hadn't figured that out from the vast amount of playing cards he'd kept in his desk.
She even found emails from the MRD head office, but none had anything incriminating or suspicious. It was so like the MRD to appear squeaky clean on the surface, even in emails to their own. She let out an exasperated sigh. She had absolutely nothing to report back to Logan.
She pulled the flashdrive from the computer and put in back in her coat pocket. Having nothing better to do, and so that she could honestly tell Logan that she had checked everything out, Rogue typed in the website address for the avid gardeners. Much like she suspected, it was a gardening website devoted to gardening. Big surprise. The only thing odd about it was that Gambit was a member.
She clicked on the different sidebars, exploring the site. She looked at the spring gardening tips, read the current site news and popped into the gardening forum.
"Useless," Rogue uttered to herself. She could care less that 'SkullcapServant' had just planted their new magnolia and that the maple it was planted by was now thriving. Or that 'MarshMarigold' was pleased to hear that the maple they'd sent had transferred well after such a rocky start.
As a last resort, she flipped through the photo gallery. It was mostly little old ladies showcasing their prized plants. Boring. She clicked on the next photo and gaped. It was a photo of Gambit, only he didn't look like Gambit. He was dressed like a gardener, even wearing the goofy wide brimmed hat and posing proudly beside some flowers. She couldn't for the life of her remember the plant name, but then she had never been all that interested in plants to care. Irises, maybe? Yeah, she was sure the purple flowers were irises. She couldn't name the tiny white clustered flowers surrounding the purple ones though.
Rogue was floored. He really was a hobby gardener. God, she didn't even know he could smile like that. It was a cute, wholesome grin, boyish even. There wasn't anything about the photo of him that looked like Gambit. Another one of his alter egos? Rogue wasn't sure. What would Gambit gain from posing as a gardener? Besides looking absolutely adorable in muddy jeans and a white t-shirt, Rogue couldn't think of a thing. Any man who enjoyed cultivating plants couldn't be entirely evil, right?
She logged off of the internet and went about erasing the computer's history. She had wasted enough time here. Gambit's computer had been a complete bust. Her mood was becoming increasingly soured, despite the eye candy she'd just found. It only heaped more unanswered questions onto her. More questions, even less answers.
On top of everything else she had encountered in the past two days, she did not need the disappointment and frustration of coming up empty handed for Logan.
She had enough problems and concerns already. There was Gambit. There was Northstar. There was Angel. Now Logan was clawing his way to the top of the pile. As if the world was agreeing with her, it had started to rain when she stepped outside of the library.
"Of course," Rogue muttered, as she dashed across the street to her car.
By the time she got back to the base, it was pouring rain. A figure sat on the front steps, and as Rogue approached the figure, she groaned. Gambit.
He sat on the concrete steps, looking oblivious to the rain, like he couldn't care less that he was soaked to the bone. Rogue's body cared. And she hated herself for it.
Water droplets dripped down his skin, matting his hair to his forehead. She couldn't help but be reminded of her encounter with him in the bathroom when he'd first kissed her. Her body tingled just at the sight of him. At least this time he was clothed. Not that it did any good. His shirt clung to his body, showcasing every single one of those delectable muscles hiding underneath the fabric. He hadn't buttoned the shirt up entirely, and Rogue appreciated the tan v-shaped flash of exposed skin, stark against his usual dark clothes.
She wasn't even going to look down and see how the wet pants looked on him.
He raised his eyebrows, and tipped a can of beer in an odd sort of salute to her before he took a gulp. She hadn't even noticed he'd been drinking until now. Wasn't she just the shining example of the observant spy? She had certainly observed his body well enough.
"It's against the law to have open liquor in public," she commented when she finally reached the steps. Hell, it had to be around four in the afternoon. The darkness from the clouds made it seem much later than it really was.
He smirked. "You gonna tattle on me, chere?"
She shook her head, before tilting her head wryly. "No, but I don't tolerate drunken behaviour while on the job."
He shifted his eyes away from her and looked down. His body shook with silent laughter. "You know, you're the only one here that could say that and get away with it." He stopped laughing and looked up at her seriously. "How come you ain't afraid of me?"
"You haven't given me a reason to be."
He stood up and advanced towards her. "Haven't I?"
His lips were suddenly against hers and Rogue knew he hadn't put them there.
This time, she had kissed him first.
