Chapter 12

-,., -

Remy sat back against the cold concrete wall, feeling the chill wind that scrounged the open ground of the rooftop and whipped around the corners. If he concentrated he could feel the buzz of movement from within the building, the far distant cars on the road below. The occasional siren added shape to the landscape he was painting, along with the smell of the city as it continued to move and swell and live even now, long after the light had gone from the sky.

He looked up, trying to decide if he could see anything up there or if it was the movement from around him that seemed to make the sky swirl with movement. Smoke maybe, from the buildings. Clouds would be too high up for him to sense, and the air was cold and frosty - a clear night anyway.

He sighed. Useless information, all of it. Things that someone else could tell just by opening their eyes. He wished he could tell them just how much they were taking for granted. How little respect they gave such a gift.

He wanted his eyesight back, so that he could take it for granted again.

He was drawn out of his maudlin thoughts by movements across the rooftops. They were in business; he was beginning to think he'd chosen the wrong rooftop.

The figure in the dark dropped onto the rooftop beside him, and he pulled himself upright and stepped forwards in greeting. Remy felt the other person's position change, as they pulled a weapon and he pulled backwards sharply, feeling the breeze of the staff as it passed his throat. The sound of Logan drawing his claws sounded far too far away.

"Hold!" Remy called out, swearing as he stumbled backwards to land hard on the ground.

"Gambit!?" came the quick reply. "I didn't mean to catch you off-guard… are you alright?"

"Daredevil." A quiet acknowledgement, tinged with a smile.

"It's been a while since I last put you on your ass; you're off your game." Matt Murdock tucked the collapsed staff back into his belt.

"Yeah." Remy sighed as he thought of all the things that had happened since he had seen the man last. "How do y' live wit' it, Matt?"

"Live with what?" he asked.

A clatter, loud in the night, as Remy's cane unfolded in the air to fall fully extended at Daredevil's feet.

"Wit' dis."

A heavy, startled silence split the air between them for a moment, and Remy watched Daredevil go very still. Shared grief flowed out of him as he took a seat beside Remy with his back against the wall.

"Who's your bodyguard?" Matt asked after a pause.

"De Wolverine. He's playin' seein'-eye dog fo' th' night." Daredevil smirked, turning for a moment to look in the Wolverine's direction. It didn't change his perception of the other man, based all on sound and scent, but the mask allowed him the illusion of sight, and that was vital for him to exist as Daredevil.

"Why am I not surprised that you could talk the Wolverine into doing that for you."

"What are y' implyin', Matt?" Remy asked, mock-hurt.

"You could sell sand to the Sahara, with powers or without, and you know it."

"Per'aps." Remy grinned.

"What did you come and see me for, Remy? I don't have any answers for you, and it should be pretty obvious that I don't have some kind of cure." There was no sarcasm in the tone, just mere curiosity and a bit of self-deprecating humour.

One corner of Remy's mouth twitched in amusement for a moment, before he turned serious once more. "I need advice. A second'ry power has taken over, an' I'm tryin' t' work out how t' use it. Dere have been one or two hitches."

Underneath his mask, Matt's brows drew together in confusion. "Why did you come to me? I thought you knew Xavier - wouldn't he be the more obvious choice?"

"Xavier can' teach me what I need t' know." Remy bit off, his lips thinned in frustration.

There was a few moments of silence between them, both staring sightlessly at the city spread before them. Finally, Daredevil spoke. "Tell me."

"It's a kinetic sense, connected t' m' chargin' powers." Remy began. "Picks up t'ings dat are in motion an' t' a lesser extent; t'ings dat are higher dan room temp'rature."

"So no walls, doors, windows…"

"Exactly. Avoidin' a punch ain' quite so amazin' if y' walk int' a wall after." Remy sighed heavily.

Matt frowned in thought. "And you're trying to learn to fight again? Remy… I can't see you convincing anyone. Not like this."

"T'anks fo' y' confidence." Remy snarked in reply.

It was Matt's turn to sigh. "Look, I had years to get used to this. To make sure I was ready before I took anyone on. And still I get beaten into a bloody pulp regularly. People accept this as my fighting style, they don't notice anything wrong because they've never seen any different. People have seen you fight, Remy. You're going to stick out like a sore thumb to anyone who knows you, knows your style. And you know as well as I do that most of the people who have seen you fight before wouldn't mind you dead."

"I jus'…" All three inhabitants of the roof turned to face the shed that held the top of the lift shaft. Daredevil and Remy stood and Wolverine loped to their side.

"It's comin' all the way up." Logan confirmed as he approached.

"An' dey ain' t'inkin' happy t'oughts." Remy scowled.

"I've been using this route for too long." Matt mused, half to himself. He turned to Logan and Remy. "These guys are here for me." he said with confidence. "You two get out of here."

Wolverine snorted disdainfully. "I haven't seen any action in weeks. I ain't gonna let ya have all the fun on yer own, bub." Without waiting for any argument, Logan grabbed hold of Remy's arm. "Come on, let's get you out of sight."

Desperately wanting to argue that he could hold his own, Remy followed Logan silently. Pressed against a wall, Logan held his shoulders for a second. "The wall at your back is the top of the lift shaft, you're dead centre, the edge of the roof is about twenty paces in all directions, there's nothing else on the ground. Just in case, alright?"

"T'anks." With a squeeze of his shoulders, Logan drew away.

-,., -

Daredevil took half a dozen steps across the roof, taking himself out of the firing line from the plant room that enclosed the lift shaft. He was cursing as he went, too lazy to change his route, he should have known this would happen eventually. But it had to happen when he was feeling shaken, with someone he couldn't help but now label 'vulnerable' not a hundred yards away, and the man who was there to keep him safe itching for a fight.

He listened as the Wolverine pulled away from Remy, trying to identify what it was he was missing in the interaction between the two. He'd never seen them together before, as far as he could remember, but he felt sure that wasn't how a man named after a vicious animal was supposed to speak, and the nervous double-time of his heartbeat belied the ease with which he'd declared he was going to fight. He couldn't believe it was fear for himself, had to assume it was fear for the man he'd so carefully pulled out of sight.

He couldn't help but feel a little at a loss. He didn't know Wolverine's identity in the real world, the day-time world where everything was a little more sane, and Remy had exposed him and left him hanging. He'd even given away his secret, though that had been known to happen before. Most of the kitchen's worst, the ones he faced on a regular basis, knew he wasn't operating off the standard senses, even if they generally assumed it was more rather than less that he was taking advantage of.

He kept up appearances, glancing over at the heavy set man (solid footsteps that even light-footed balance couldn't compensate for in vibration) took a stance directly opposite the doors.

"You can't guard Gambit and fight, you know. It's not safe for either of you."

"He's out of sight." he replied gruffly.

"Six men, Wolverine. Are you saying there's no way this could get out of control?"

There was a pause, before Wolverine continued, "Maybe Remy needs a bit of danger to prove to himself he's still in control." he said it under his breath, making sure his voice wouldn't carry.

"You're willing for him to get hurt to prove his independence to him?" Daredevil asked incredulously.

"Better than than him hurting himself." came the reply, a rustle of material suggesting a shrug.

Matt wanted to ask him what he meant by that, but heard the lift doors slide open and the interior plant door slam on its hinges. He pulled himself into the lea of the structure on the roof as he heard Wolverine's blades extend and the heavy footfalls from inside reach the external door. They weren't shouting or exchanging commands, but the door blew outwards and the guns were already in place and showering bullets across the rooftop in perfect synchrony. There was no cross-fire, every inch of the arc outside the door was covered. He lost track of Wolverine in the racket of the guns, holding himself outside the range of fire until an unheard command called a cease fire.

He heard two bodies hit the floor even as he was fighting to recover his radar from the ringing of automatic weapons, and he stepped out of cover and brought down the figure that turned his way with a solid blow to the temple. He caught hold of a reloaded gun as it swung towards him, and used its leverage to tip the armed man out of the protection of the plant room doors and onto the roof proper. There was a crunch as the man went down and he debated how long it would take for things to settle enough to call an ambulance. The last thing he needed was a goon with a caved-in skull dead on one of his rooftops. He could hear the clang of metal-on-metal inside the plant room, and slipped behind the door when the trigger click warned him of the escaping spray of bullets.

An arm locked around his chest and threw him out onto the roof as he made to pull back, and he only just got an arm out in time to catch himself before he careened off the side of the building. He landed hard and twisted to throw a kick out at the man highlighted by the sound of another spray of bullets. The bullets hit flesh – a wet, hideous noise and a sickly iron smell, and Daredevil heard Wolverine slam into the plant room's metal wall as the shooter scrambled out onto the rooftop. Matt didn't have time to worry about that fight though, the other man already on top of him. There was a metallic jangle and a box of ammunition, useless without the gun, was thrown at him. He knew a distraction when he saw one, but still the noise was enough to mask the other man's movements completely. With the shooter and the second man on the roof, Daredevil knew he had to be hyper-aware, and he dropped into a crouch as he waited in tense anticipation for the shells to settle. He picked up the scent of the man's sweat as the ammunition rattle-rolled away, the sharp gunpowder and steel smell of the gun and the polish on military-shined boots.

A footstep to his right - he threw himself sideways, reaching for his staff and flicking the end out as it extended. The extra momentum was vicious as it drove into the man's stomach and a second blow across the back of the neck knocked him to the ground. He was seeking the next combatant with all his senses when there was a short, sharp explosion.

For a moment, his mind dismissed it with the obvious – they were fighting with Gambit, and so Gambit was fighting. An explosion wasn't unexpected, and he knew for a fact that Gambit had tailored his explosions to be more light and less noise as soon as he had found out about Matt's specific skills. He'd been witness to a couple of Gambit's more effusive explosions and had been all but useless to the fight until the ringing in his ears had died back to an acceptable level.

Something niggled, until he was distracted by movement on his right and with a combined staff to the ribs and Wolverine's substantial paw bringing his neck down to meet the ground, the last fighter was put out of the fight.

He was shocked to hear the downright fear in Wolverine's voice as he scrambled away as soon as he was sure the man was staying down, with a sharp, "Remy, y'right?"

Putting two and two together with that soft tone of voice and nervous heartbeat took a little longer than he'd thought, but then it was late, and that was always a good excuse for this kind of slowness. And... well... it was the *Wolverine*. This wasn't exactly on his list of expected behaviour. He followed Wolverine around the corner, hearing Gambit's harsh breathing and hearing the smile in it just as clearly, and wondered when this had happened.

-,., -

Logan's heart had dropped to his stomach when he had seen the brilliant pink flash of Remy's explosion reflect off the building in front of him. He'd taken long enough to slam the last fighter into the ground by his throat before turning and running across the rooftop, calling for Remy. They'd missed one. How had they missed one?

Remy was down on one knee, a spread of cards in his hand and staff extended in the other, and his attacker was out cold a few yards away with a singed flack jacket. Logan took in the wide grin and wandered over as Remy stood back up in a fluid movement. He glanced over his shoulder as Daredevil appeared and let the adrenaline buzz from the last few minutes soak through him.

"Remy," Matt continued, as if nothing had interrupted their conversation. "come around tomorrow – I've got a clear morning and no case work I can't put aside for an hour. We'll talk, but I don't know what I can tell you."

"Merci, Matt." Remy replied, and Logan didn't miss the tension that leaked out of him at that. He couldn't help but think all Remy really needed was to talk to someone who understood his situation.

"I can get someone to pick you up if you need." Matt offered.

"I'll bring him." Logan replied sharply. Matt's grin threw him slightly, as if that had been what he was expecting to hear.

"Great. Now get off my rooftop."

-,., -

He was existing as waves of self (in) ripples stretching outwards from his centre (out) and touching everything as they (in) moved softly through his world (out).

The stillness in his centre was translated outwards as his consciousness spread in concentric circles through the space, absorbing the energy of every tiny quiver and breath, electrical buzz and tick.

Breathe in, out.

The waves of his self slowed, the surface settling after the sudden spread, like a drop of water falling into a pool. Only existing until the surface is still again.

Breathe in, out.

Still a waver here and there. He was not quite the pool yet. Something was still… (Breathe in) something… (breathe in).

Remy shot upright as his dream threw him roughly from sleep, gasping for breath. Logan sat up more slowly beside him, one hand on his shoulder. Remy sought out the thrashing movement that had pulled him awake – not sure if he had been dreaming. The positions and directions seemed wrong to him, no longer lying down, everything turned by ninety degrees.

He found the point he had been focused on before, finding a slow rhythmic rocking on his radar. Something rocking back and forth, something cold, and highlighted however briefly by its movement alone. Something or someone.

"Bobby?"

Logan snorted at his side. "Wassat?"

"He was dreamin', nightmare woke him." Remy replied quietly.

"Not likely." Logan replied.

"Non, 's Bobby. Wha's Bobby dreamin' 'bout?"

-,., -

"Sand sales man." Remy's voice, accent flat, travelled into the corridor through the open door. Warren stepped into the office, curious, as Remy continued. "That's right, sand salesman, now if you could just put me through to Mr. Murdock, we can complete our sale." This wasn't the first time Warren had heard Remy soften his accent for a phone call, but he was baffled by it as always. If the man *could* drop such a... well it was almost a speech impediment at times – but an accent all the same, why didn't he just stop using it? It would make everyone's life easier if they didn't have to spend half the time translating. The accent picked back up again when someone new came on the line. "Yeah, yeah, dis make y' laugh more, Murdock. Remy don' know where y' live."

Realising he was all but eavesdropping, Warren stepped fully into the room and leant over Remy to flick the computer on, heading out to the kitchen for the morning's first coffee as it booted up.

"Oui, mais... las' time Remy came in t'rough y' window..." was all Warren heard as he wandered down the hall.

-,., -

In New York, the second beer had Remy relaxed enough to explain most of what had happened, and the third took him just over the line of being able to talk about Rogue's part in it all. Matt had been quietly sympathetic through-out and waited for Remy to finish before asking him to explain the kinetic power he had mentioned.

"It's somet'in's been dere all 'long. Jus' never had control b'fore. If I concentrate, I could always see de heat or energy – kinetic energy – in everyt'in'. But concentratin' on anyt'in' too hard... 'd jus' push it wit'out meanin' an' den it explodes. After Antarctica, it don' anymore. 'S jus' like it ain' connected."

"Are you saying you could charge from a distance before? Using this... sense?" Daredevil asked. He had been witness to Gambit's powers before, but he'd always assumed he had to be touching something to charge it.

"When firs' started t' really use de chargin' powers, Remy could charge jus' lookin' at somet'in'. Got harder de furt'er away from N'Awlins he got. Los' it jus' after joinin' de X-men. De... de sense... it was random, too dangerous f' fightin' wit'. Too dangerous f' t' be any use."

Matt frowned. He didn't remember Remy's tendency for third-person slips being quite so random. He used it as a defensive mechanism when he was stressed, he didn't when he wasn't. While he could understand Remy being stressed, could hear it in his voice and heartbeat, that didn't explain the fluctuations in his language he was hearing now. And three beers was definitely not enough to get the man drunk. "Can you still charge objects without touching?" he asked, trying to keep focused on the point at hand. "Have you tried?"

Remy fell quiet, a little stunned. "Guess I was jus' so happy it din' work... hadn' t'ought 'bout tryin' t' make it work dat way."

"Well... don't try it in my place, all right?" Matt laughed.

Remy snorted. "Sure."

"Alright." Matt sat forwards in his chair. "So explain it to me. Tell me what you see."

"Heat, energy." Remy replied.

"I need more than that. All forms of energy, or just kinetic? Is it gradiated by quantity or distance or heat? Is it focused, can you see detail?" Matt waited a minute, still trying to put his finger on something in Remy's voice that he couldn't quite identify.

"I can'..." Remy shook his head.

Matt's eyes narrowed. "Okay, a simpler one." He interrupted before Remy could continue. "Are you getting headaches? You seem off, not quite with it." Remy was quiet for a long moment, but Matt had heard the hesitation in his breathing. If he was right, he could wait for Remy's reply.

"I ain' tol' no-one." he said at last. "T'ink maybe M. Bete wan' t' keep me in his lab a while, non?"

"And no one else has noticed?"

"Guess not." An elegant shrug, shirt moving across the seat back.

"Not even Wolverine?" Matt held back a smirk.

Remy snorted in laughter. "What y' implyin', cher."

-,., -

"Is he here yet?" Kurt arrived with that non-sequitur late noon the next day, while most of the X-men were gathered in the kitchen after a long morning training session.

While nothing as off-the-cuff as the first training session Remy had managed to get himself involved in since his off duty status, both Remy and Warren had taken to sneaking into the danger room for the off chance of something more interesting than the paperwork Xavier had them doing for the NYS Association of Independent Schools and every other accrediting group that felt they had some right to know about new private schools in the state.

Full greetings for the German proceeded before his question could be answered with one of their own.

"I was lucky to meet Herr Beaubier in the airport this morning and challenged him to a small race." Kurt explained.

"So you BAMF-ed here and Jean-Paul ran? Surely that's not fair." Bobby laughed.

"Herr Beaubier seemed to think ze favour would fall to him." Kurt grinned.

"Obviously…" The doorbell rang. "Not." Bobby finished to laughter, as Jean moved to let the Canadian mutant in.

Further greetings followed as an out of breath Jean-Paul congratulated Kurt on his clear victory. He explained that after the cramped quarters of the aeroplane he probably would have run the distance anyway, and their bags would follow.

It was only when the mayhem of greetings had settled into general chatter about the school and the work still in progress that Jean-Paul took a seat beside Remy and leant over to ask the question that had been weighing on his mind since the first greetings.

"LeBeau, Kurt and I were comparing notes in the airport, and you were the most recent casualty we knew of. It's good to see you alive and well."

Remy snorted. "Isn't someone always dead around here? Wouldn' wan' t' break wit' tradition."

"I have to admit, it's a novelty when it isn't Jean." Jean-Paul teased.

That brought a smirk to the Cajun's face. "Jus' tryin' t' mix t'ings up a bit."

The Canadian sobered as he asked, "You escaped the event unscathed?"

Remy hesitated in replying, desperately wanting to keep up this comfortable ruse. The answer was always 'of course'. The X-men were never scathed, never scarred, never broken.

"Not dis time." he replied quietly, seeking Warren in the room, feeling this was news to be broken all at once. Jean-Paul seemed to understand his hesitation and fell quiet.

Remy's attention was drawn by Scott's sharp - "Seriously?" - and he felt the tension in the room ratchet to match his own. "Well, you better sit down then, and we'll update you." Scott took a seat on the other side of Remy and waited as the others settled. "Do you want to stick around for this?" he asked under his breath as the others either settled or excused themselves.

Searching around the table Remy found Warren, Bobby, Logan and one of the girls - he was pressed to tell which as they'd all had their hair down that morning. Kurt sat down last, obviously hesitant, and Remy was amused to associate him with the quick, ceaseless movement that was his tail at his back. He perched on the chair edge to allow that extra limb free range of movement.

"Remy?"

He realised Scott was still waiting for an answer. "Know all de sordid details a'ready, neh?"

Scott nodded once, a brusque movement and clear in Remy's sight, and then turned to the table.