Chapter Twelve
The final couple of months before the end of the school year passed with comparatively little drama. No one's long lost friends got kidnapped, Rogue didn't accidentally zap one of her classmates, and the awkward truce between Rogue and Yoshida held out until after her exams. Rogue never did end up sharing what had happened between her and Carol with Eliza, and similarly Eliza didn't tell Rogue about whether she kept Professor Xavier's number or not. The don't-ask-don't-tell policy they'd accidentally come up with probably wasn't particularly healthy for their relationship, but it worked for them so they didn't question it.
Of course, Logan and Rogue's sparring sessions had become a little more interesting. Rogue's strange, preternatural strength that she'd gained from Carol had not disappeared, hadn't even faded a little. It was just as strong several months down the line as it had been when she'd first touched the other woman. Rogue couldn't say whether this was because Carol's mind was still inside hers, or whether it would remain even after Carol returned to her body (and Rogue was determined that Carol would return, eventually).
Logan had always been a little careful around Rogue, at first because she didn't have a clue what she was doing, and later because he was several times stronger than her. He had been teaching her how to work around that lack of strength, to use her other assets such as speed and agility against a stronger opponent, but it was something that he personally had never had to learn, so it was a work in progress.
With Carol's strength added to the skills Rogue had already been working on, it meant that their fights were now much more of a challenge for Logan and their main concern nowadays was less that he tried to avoid breaking one of her bones, and more that they didn't wreck their clothing enough for Rogue to accidentally touch Logan. Mostly she had taken to wearing skin tight pants and top that were less likely to get caught on anything, or snagged by one of Logan's claws.
They did, however, spend a bit of extra money on a pair of specialty gloves that were advertised as acting as a 'second skin'. Rogue wasn't sure how true that was, but she didn't question it too closely. The gloves were lightweight, fit her nicely and offered a good range of movement. They also weren't quite so sticky when they returned home and she had to peel them off to go in the wash, which was always a plus.
It was during one of their sparring sessions that Rogue and Logan learnt that super strength was not the only thing of Carol's that Rogue had gained.
Rogue had always been relatively fast, but as she grew more used to using Carol's powers as her own, her speed increased massively. She would never be entirely comfortable with these powers, but one of the many things Logan had taught was to use any and all of the weapons she had at hand. It was unlikely that if Rogue ever ended up in a fight, her opponent would have the same moral compunctions as herself. If she must feel guilt about doing what she had to stay alive, that could wait until after the battle was won.
This lesson was something Rogue had always taken with a slight pinch of salt because, mutant ability aside, she was a pretty normal person. She didn't see herself getting into any fights, particularly not with the type of people Logan was suggesting. Either way, she was adapting to her new speed and strength, even if she was still snapping more pens and pencils in half than any person should.
It was early July, following the last of Rogue's exams, when something totally inexplicable happened. She and Logan had taken to using the trees in their sparring sessions, not just as things to dodge around or hide behind, but also to climb up and drop out of. Logan had an unfair advantage at this, partly due to experience, but mostly because of his excellent sense of smell and hearing. So Rogue 'hiding in a tree' was less 'hiding' and more 'prolonging the inevitable'.
She didn't mind too much, the break before Logan tore up the bark either to join her or bring her down to him was time enough to catch her breath and enjoy the pissed off look Logan sent her. This time was a little different. It was the third time Rogue had escaped up a tree, and Logan was getting more and more irritable because of it.
"We're supposed to be training, not playing hide and seek!" he roared irritably up at her before, without stopping to consider the consequence of his actions, Logan slashed straight through the trunk of the tree, and gave it a hefty push to send it toppling over. It was only when it started to fall, and Rogue let out an undignified squeak of surprise, that Logan realised that she could be seriously injured she landed badly.
He needn't have worried, however, because although the tree fell, Rogue didn't. Instead, she floated in the air, like a puppet dangling from its strings and looking totally nonplussed at the whole experience.
"Um," Rogue said unhelpfully.
Logan just scowled up at her. "That has to be cheating," he remarked dryly.
"It's not cheating if I have no idea what I'm doing," Rogue replied. "Besides, I thought you were a fan of the whole 'no rules' thing."
"I'd prefer it if you came a little bit closer to the ground," Logan told her.
"So would I!" Rogue agreed a little shrilly. "I have no idea what I'm doing!" she repeated.
Logan scanned the forest around them, taking a few deep breaths and sniffing noisily. "Well it ain't anyone hiding in the bushes," he informed her after a moment.
Rogue bit back a sarcastic retort and closed her eyes, wondering if she concentrated hard enough she could lower herself back to the ground. The problem was, she wasn't certain what it was that had led to her, well,flying in the first place. She thought about what Kayla had said, about expectation, and whether that worked in situations where she was currently defying the expected.
"Rogue!" Logan cried out in warning, which was all Rogue knew before she opened her eyes and crashed back to earth.
"You alright, kid?" Logan asked, peering down at her and looking caught between insufferably smug and a little bit concerned.
"Ow?" Rogue claimed uncertainly. She felt as though she should hurt, but other than a flash of pain when she first landed, she felt fine. Another thing that Carol had given her, apparently. "I'm a little concerned about the floating in midair that just happened, but otherwise I think I'm fine," she went on to say when Logan continued scowling expectantly at her. He nodded in satisfaction at that answer, then tilted his head in the direction of home.
"You want to carry on practicing your flying, or go home to tell Kayla?" he asked.
"I'm not practicing flying," Rogue moaned, hauling herself to standing and brushing off the twigs and leaves that had attached themselves to her hair and clothing. "I can't fly."
Logan glanced sideways at her. "So you weren't pulling a Superman impression just now?"
"A Superman -" Rogue cut herself off and shook her head. "Come on, if you are going to compare me to some corny comic book super hero, the least you could do is pick someone the same sex as me."
"I don't read comic books," Logan grunted.
"I bet you do," Rogue argued. "I bet you've got a massive pile of old Captain America magazines stuffed away somewhere."
"Why the hell would I be a Captain America fan? Running around in bright blue and red, it's like he painted a massive target on his chest! Not to mention his main weapon is a shield. Which, traditionally, are meant fordefence."
"You're always saying to think outside the box," Rogue reminded him.
"I have never said that," Logan shot back, looking almost offended. It was true, he'd never technically said those words so far as Rogue knew, but he'd certainly expressed the intention of them more than a few times.
Rogue shrugged and, eyeing the small brook Logan had just waded through, considered jumping over it. Deciding not to take the risk in case she didn't come back down again, Rogue carefully stepped over it, ignoring the amusement Logan didn't even try to hide.
"I'm sure once you get used to it, the flying won't be such a big deal," Logan said, possibly to try and reassure her, more likely to make her feel more awkward.
"Flying will always be a big deal," Rogue told him. "And don't think that if this is a permanent thing I won't totally grab you and take you for a spin."
"I will mince you," Logan warned, without turning around to look at her.
Rogue stuck her tongue out at his back, and laughed when he stuck his finger up at her. "No you won't," she replied cheerfully.
Logan did glance over his shoulder at her then. "Maybe only a little bit," he allowed.
"Aw, the Grinch has a heart after all," Rogue teased.
Logan froze and turned very slowly to scowl darkly at her. "Rogue?" he growled quietly.
"Mmhmm?" Rogue acknowledged, edging sideways and trying not to smile, knowing it would only make matters worse. Logan was a softy at heart, but he didn't like being reminded of that. Comparing him to the Grinch probably hadn't been the best idea, but Logan wasn't really offended, Rogue knew that much, and it amused her to see him pretend to be so angry and annoyed. Well, some of the annoyance was real.
"Run," he warned, then sprang at her.
Rogue ducked and rolled, struggling to control her breathing as she attempted to fend off Logan and laugh at the same time. With a speed that she still wasn't quite used to, Rogue dodged out of Logan's grasp and raced off through the forest towards the house, still laughing breathlessly as she did.
Kayla was waiting for them when they came tumbling out of the tree line, standing in the back doorway, hip perched against the doorjamb, arms folded across her chest and a fondly exasperated expression on her face.
"Just what have you two been up to?" she asked them once they drew near enough to hear her without her having to shout.
"I accused Logan of having a heart," Rogue said, beaming at Kayla and not missing the look of amusement that flickered across her face. "He took offence," Rogue added solemnly, and deftly ducked the swipe to the head Logan made, grinning fearlessly at him.
Logan took a couple more steps forward, kissing Kayla briefly, before she pushed him away. "You both stink," she told them. "Dinner's almost ready, but you need showers and a change of clothes."
"Did we mention Rogue could fly?" Logan said, as he passed by Kayla and claimed the bathroom first, leaving Kayla gaping at his back and Rogue twitching awkwardly.
"It was less 'flying' and more… not falling?" Rogue suggested, trying to make the situation sound a little more plausible and failing miserably.
Kayla turned her disbelieving gaze away from where Logan had disappeared to stare a little blankly at Rogue. Then she shook her head and asked, "What happened?"
"I was up a tree -" Rogue started and broke off with a grin at the flat look that Kayla sent her at that remark. "And Logan was irritated that I kept hiding up trees, so he chopped it down."
"While you were still in it?" Kayla asked as clarification. When Rogue nodded, her expression turned stormy. "You could have been really badly injured -"
"If it weren't for the super strength I now have?" Rogue interrupted. "Or maybe the fact that, when the tree fell, I didn't?"
"You didn't?"
"Nope. Just hung there for while. Next thing I know, I've fallen back to earth and Logan's having a go at Captain America for being too patriotic or something," Rogue finished succinctly.
Kayla stared at her for another long minute, then shook her head again. "How is it that I'm starting to get usedto things like this happening around you?"
Rogue looked uncertain for a moment, before shaking it off, but it was long enough for Kayla to see, and she stepped forward to give Rogue a tight - albeit brief - hug. "So do you think it was a one off? Or that it's part of Carol's skills that are only now coming into play?" Kayla asked.
"No idea," Rogue replied. "I'm sort of hoping it was just a one off. As cool as flying would be, I'm absolutely fine with that skill belonging to someone else and not me. I'm finding it weird enough coping with just being stronger and faster, never mind something so ridiculous as flying."
"That and you're not too fond of heights," Kayla added wryly.
Rogue huffed and didn't try to explain again that it wasn't heights she had a problem with, it was airplanes. "I just hope I can't fly," Rogue muttered, and moved past Kayla to wait her turn in the bathroom.
-xXx-
As it turned out, Rogue could fly. She just couldn't fly very well. Yet. After the first accidental 'flight' Logan had insisted that Rogue spend a little bit of each of their training sessions trying to fly. It took jumping out of quite a few trees or off low over hangs before Rogue got the gist of not falling, and that was just the start.
The main problem Rogue had, once she'd managed to suspend herself in midair, was landing. Or, actually, moving at all in any way that wasn't a natural response of the force of gravity applied to a mass. It didn't help that Logan found the entire thing hysterical, and could offer no guidance of his own, being the very much land-bound creature that he was.
In the end Rogue had lost her temper with Logan and his so-called attempts to train her, and stormed off in the opposite direction of their house from the clearing they were using. She knew that it would take very little effort on Logan's part to follow her, or track her down on the rare circumstance that he lost her in the first place, but he seemed to sense that she needed some space and didn't come after her.
The banter she and Logan shared was good hearted on the whole, not pushing too far, but familiar enough to push boundaries that others wouldn't dare. In this case Logan had pushed too far, but it wasn't entirely his fault. Rogue was getting more and more frustrated with this new power she suddenly had that, surprise surprise! She had no control over. Rogue was fed up with fate giving her screwy powers that she couldn't control.
But she also knew that thinking like that wouldn't help her. She had to stay positive, had to think that she could do this, and not give up. It was just difficult with Logan constantly laughing at her. Although school had finished, between finishing the final bits of renovation on the house, helping out Kayla as she battled her way through seemingly endless homework piles and school reports, and working with Logan on various vehicles that were suffering from various problems, Rogue hadn't had much time to herself. What time she did have, she often used either meeting up with Eliza, or throwing thoughts and emotions to the part of her mind where she thought Carol's presence still lingered.
Rogue hadn't had a chance to stop and think about her new speed, strength and flight since a few days after returning from Emma's, and she took the opportunity now to meditate over it. Meditation was something that, as a child, she'd mocked. As a mutant who stored the shades of others in her mind, however, Rogue was finding it very useful, although perhaps not in the way most people might.
In this case it didn't seem to do Rogue much good. Her ability to fly had apparently become as much a part of her as her new speed and strength had, and there was no way of really grasping at it to direct it how she wished. It was like she had suddenly been given a new limb. It was entirely hers, but it was strange and new, and she had no idea what muscles she needed to flex to get it to move.
Giving up in trying to find the answers in her mind, Rogue returned to herself, and glanced about the clearing she'd chosen. It wasn't far from where she and Logan usually trained, as was obvious from the slash marks in some of the tree trunks, and trodden down undergrowth. She stood up and pulled off one of her gloves, holding her hand in front of her face, bending and straightening her fingers, twisting her wrist and thinking about what it was that made her hand work like that.
She didn't have to think about moving her fingers. Not really. She just had to want them to. She wanted them to, she expected them to, and somehow her body translated that into the correct set of messages to her muscles to achieve the desired affect. Rogue straightened her fingers, spreading them wide, and stared contemplatively at the back of her hand. With a bit of prodding, she sent the only power she really thought of as her own skittering across the skin of the back of her hand, leaving a trail of pins and needles in its wake.
Nothing changed about her skin. It stayed the same, almost translucent paleness without any sign that if anyone touched it, she would hurt them, would suck out their powers and their minds, and could leave their body an empty shell. Rogue clenched her fist, and let her power return to the bundle of energy in her chest. She pulled her glove back on and returned her hand to her side.
Maybe flying was like controlling her hand. She needed to want it to happen, she needed to expect it to happen, and then, with a bit of luck, it would happen. Rogue wasn't sure she was convinced by that but maybe without Logan hovering at her side ready to laugh at her misfortune, she would do better than before.
Rogue spent a lot of time that afternoon scowling at nothing, and not moving.
Eventually, however, she did start to take off from the ground, and even move around a little. Just baby steps, at first, never much further off the ground than a couple of feet, but at the same time it brought with it a sense of exhilaration that Rogue hadn't expected. She hated airplanes because they didn't make sense to her: giant chunks of metal, floating in space, it seemed ridiculous. Of course, Rogue couldn't explain how she could fly either, but she could, and she was the one powering it, and it was amazing.
The moment she stopped thinking about it, however, Rogue shot up a little further into the air than she'd intended. Floating, once more, a little higher off the ground than she was entirely comfortable with, Rogue scowled. She could do this. She could.
So she tried to float lower, circling the clearing a little, hoping that horizontal movement that she'd been practicing would help with the control of the vertical movement she clearly totally lacked at the moment. It did help, a little, but it also sent her careening into a tree. Thankfully Rogue didn't hit it very hard, and it was easy enough to climb down it, so she didn't have to worry about the rest of her awkward downward spiral. Still, it wasn't quite the graceful descent she'd been hoping for.
Laughing self deprecatingly at her own high emotions, Rogue began to make her way back to the house. There was a thundercloud looming on the horizon and she knew that, if she ran, she could get back before the rain started. She considered this for a moment, staring up at the sky, and wondered if, maybe, she might be able tofly home one day. Laughing again, she took off, racing herself and her new speed and arriving on the front porch just as the first, heavy rain drops started to fall.
Kayla opened the door before Rogue could do so herself, and immediately passed her the phone.
"Hello?" Rogue curiously, without a clue as to who it might be.
"Chére!" an excited, familiar voice greeted her. "It's good to hear your voice again."
Rogue laughed, kicked her shoes off in the direction of her room and sank onto the sofa, cradling the phone to her ear. "Remy," she replied, sure that the smile she was wearing could be heard in her voice as clearly as it could be seen. "I thought you were still in Eastern Europe?" Remy had been off-grid for the last month or so on a very important, very hush-hush job that half of the Guild of Thieves didn't even know the details about.
"I got back last night. Remy would have phoned earlier, but Tante Mattie ordered him straight to bed." Remy pretended to be put-out by this, but Rogue knew him too well by now to think that he was anything other than pleased to be home, where Tante Mattie could order him about.
"I'm glad you're home alright," Rogue confessed quietly. She and Remy had remained close in the year they hadn't met face-to-face, but it was a long-distance sort of closeness.
"Me too, Chére, me too. But you must tell me - Kayla said something about flying?"
Rogue groaned and buried her face briefly in a cushion. "You know what I told you about what happened in Boston? About how I'm stronger and faster now?"
"Oui, Remy remembers."
"Yeah, well, apparently Carol could fly, too."
There was a long pause over the other end of the line, and Rogue wondered whether Remy just didn't believe her, or if he was trying not to laugh. She wasn't entirely sure that she wouldn't hang up on him if he laughed, month without talking or not.
"You can fly?" he asked after a while. There wasn't any kind of inflection in his voice at all, he kept if very carefully blank.
"Not very well," Rogue told him. "I haven't really got the hang of landing yet and, well, I keep bumping into things."
"You aren't joking?" Remy double checked. "You can fly? Without wings, or electronic suits, or anything?"
Rogue thought maybe she'd broken Remy a little bit. "Um, yeah. I can actually fly. Just me. Logan keeps comparing me to Superman. It sort of pisses me off."
"Mon dieu. I thought Kayla was joking," he whispered. "You can fly?"
Rogue laughed. "Yes, I can fly. Are you alright? You sound a little strangled."
Remy coughed a little awkwardly at that. "Just when I thought you couldn't be anymore attractive to me," he told her ruefully, and she could almost see the shake of his head.
Rogue blushed and curled her knees up to her chest, biting her lower lip tentatively. "Really?" she murmured into the phone. "You find the thought of me flying attractive?"
"Well," Remy allowed, "Not if you keep crashing into things."
Rogue laughed at the sudden change in tone, and relaxed back into her previous seated position, even if she did feel a little disappointed. "I'm afraid so. Mostly the ground, but I got tangled in a tree earlier, too."
"You're not very good at this flying thing yet, Chére?"
"Not exactly," Rogue agreed with another light chuckle. "I'm getting better, but it's - weird. Really, really strange."
There was another pause, then Remy said, "Remy could possibly help you."
"Really? Don't tell me you can fly too?" Rogue teased.
"Non, but Remy had difficulty with his powers for a long time. Maybe I can help you learn yours by telling you how I learnt mine."
Rogue's hesitation was not because she didn't, whole heartedly, want to see Remy again, or want his help in trying to fly (as embarrassing as that might be). "That sound great," she replied honestly.
"'But'?" Remy prompted.
"You live in New Orleans. I live in Canada. It's a bit of a drive for a lesson or two," Rogue explained.
Remy laughed then, rich and cheerful and successfully making Rogue's toes curl. He had a fantastic voice, but his laugh was something else entirely. "Has Remy not told you? When he was talking to Kayla, I invited all three of you to stay with me again!"
"No, you didn't tell me," Rogue scolded, trying to sound upset at being the last to know, but mostly feeling very happy that she would get to see him again soon.
"Well, it is done and you will be coming to my wonderful city for another month. Kayla thinks you all need a holiday. She also thinks this is something you have been hoping for particularly, eh?" he finished suggestively.
"There was that lovely patisserie you took me to with the amazing crepes," Rogue agreed blithely. "I've just been dying to go back there again."
Remy snorted a laugh. "You wound me, Petite. Here I thought it was for my company alone."
"I suppose I wouldn't be too adverse to seeing you again at some point," Rogue said teasingly, grinning like a loon. "I've missed you," she added quietly, sincerely.
"I've missed you too, Chére," Remy repeated, just as earnestly.
"What about the other Guild?" Rogue asked after a moment spent revelling at his confession. "Will we be in danger from the Assassins?"
Remy chuckled. "Probably not. Next year is the tithe year, and the Assassins are trying to ignore the Thieves as much as the Thieves are trying to ignore the Assassins."
"I don't want to know, do I?" Rogue asked with a sigh.
"Probably not," Remy agreed, amusement clear in his voice.
"I only hope what you say 'try' you're doing better at it than you're implying."
Remy laughed again. "You can not have two such groups of people in one city, without them clashing from time to time. But you need not fear, Chére, I will protect you from any monsters that might lurk in the shadows."
"Who said I need protecting?" Rogue asked. "Haven't you heard I can fly now?" she added with her own light laugh.
"Oui, Remy has. He has also heard that your flying, it's not very good yet?"
"Oh shush you," Rogue said, rolling her eyes. "I'd like to see you suddenly develop the skill of unassisted flight, and not crash into a tree or two."
Their easy banter continued for some time after that, an easy rhythm that they slipped effortlessly into in spite of their months with little or no communication. It scared Rogue, a little, how effortless it was to keep their relationship strong, but it pleased her immensely too. She had missed him over the year, and she would have thought that strange, if he hadn't missed her too. They'd only known each other for a month, and yet somehow he was one of the most important people in her life.
Rogue chose not to look too closely at it. She suspected, if she did, the edge of friendship she teetered on, would be lost to her and she would fall swiftly and totally in love with him. It was not that Rogue would have minded that, but she had another year of school to go. She had at least one more year to live in Canada, whilst he was in New Orleans, or travelling sporadically all over the world and, as easy as their touch-and-go relationship had been this time round, Rogue imagined it would be much harder if she were in love with him.
They only, finally, said their goodbyes when Kayla insisted Rogue get off the phone and Logan's glares at the headset became too much for Rogue to ignore.
"I'll see you soon," she promised.
"Oui, Chére. I look forward to it."
"Me too," she said, then hung up. Neither of them were the type for long goodbyes, especially when all that could have been said had already been included earlier in the conversation.
"I don't like how much attention Gumbo pays you," Logan growled, as Rogue put the phone back in its stand. He scowled at it, as though if he tried hard enough Remy might feel his disapproval.
"Why?" Rogue asked as she moved to set the dining table. "He was your friend first. And it's not as if he's done anything inappropriate."
"She has a point," Kayla told Logan gently, although her eyes glinted with amusement at the whole predicament.
"I don't like it," Logan repeated sullenly. "He's too old for you."
Rogue snorted and pointedly didn't say anything about the age difference between Kayla and Logan. That would probably only have ended up in a fight, something which Rogue was eager to avoid given how she'd blown up in Logan's face earlier. "He hasn't done anything with me that he wouldn't do with a sister," Rogue said. While technically that was true, she was aware enough that the affection Remy had for her was hardly sisterly.
Logan was probably having the same train of thought, giving the incredulous look he sent her, but when he opened his mouth, Kayla kissed him before he could say anything.
"I don't want to hear again how you 'don't like it'," she explained. "Can we just be happy that we've got a holiday sorted?" she suggested.
Rogue nodded and helped herself to the food, and Logan, while he still looked grumpy, didn't protest.
-xXx-
The trip to New Orleans took a little longer this time, mostly because of the bad weather that forced them to make two overnight stops rather than one. Logan had been irritated by this, insisting that he could carry on driving, but Kayla wasn't having it. And when Kayla made a point to disagree with Logan there was usually a very good reason for it, one that all of Logan's growling and threats didn't make a dent in.
So, with rain coming down in bucketfuls, the roads slick and dangerous, Kayla refused to allow Logan to drive late into the night like he had before, and threatened him into driving much more slowly and carefully than he was used to. Rogue didn't know what threats she used, and she suspected she didn't want to know. She had her cell phone with her and spent the majority of the time texting Eliza or Remy, or playing one of the many games that Emma had loaded onto it for her, so the prolonged journey was not quite as torturous as it might have been.
When they finally arrived on the edge of the city the rain was starting to clear a little, to the point that, when they pulled up outside the LeBeau mansion, they could make a quick dash inside with their bags, without getting too wet in the process. Like before, they were spotted before they rang the bell, and the door was opened to expedite their arrival. Although no one came out to greet them this time, thanks to the rain.
As soon as Rogue was inside, before she knew what was happening, she was engulfed by someone's arms and spun around excitedly, a kiss dropped to her hair. She laughed, wrapping her arms around Remy in return, and placing gloved fingers over his mouth to kiss him in greeting.
"It's good to see you again, mes amis," Remy greeted all three of them, apparently impervious to the dark glare Logan was sending him.
"You too, Remy," Kayla greeted, stretching a hand out to shake and getting swept into a hug as well.
When Remy had pulled back from both of the hugs he eyed Logan for a minute, and the glare that had turned black now. "Remy, he would hug you too, if he didn't think he would get skewered."
As if to prove the point, Logan pointed his fist at Remy, fingers curled up, and his blades shot out, gleaming in the dull light of the rain outside. "Try it," he dared.
"Logan," Kayla said with an exasperated smile. "Do try not to get us kicked out before we've even put our bags down." she put a hand on his forearm, and pushed gently until he retracted his claws and lowered his arm to hang at his side.
Rogue shared a knowing grin with Kayla. There was no way Kayla exerted enough pressure to force Logan to lower his arm - and no way anyone knew of to make his claws forcibly retract - but sometimes it just took a little gentle persuasion in the right direction. More bees with honey, and all that.
"Do you think I can't see you when you share your secret smirks?" Logan grumbled loudly.
Kayla laughed and leant towards him to kiss his cheek. "No, baby, but the point is you don't know what it is you're seeing. Are we in the same room as before?" she added, asking Remy.
"Oui," he agreed, watching their interaction with some amusement.
Kayla and Logan headed away from the entrance, up the stairs, and towards where their room was, Logan grumbling pleasantly about not being bribed with kisses, and Kayla obviously not believing a word of it.
"I don't remember them being that…" Remy trailed off in search of the right word.
"Schmoopy?" Rogue suggested.
"It's like they're in their honeymoon phase," he added.
Rogue nodded. "I know. It's sort of gross, but they're happy, so whatever."
Remy glanced sideways at her and chuckled. "Remy thinks you must be the most understanding teenage daughter ever."
Rogue shook her head in denial, then twitched the strap of the bag that was over her shoulder. It wasn't particularly difficult to carry. In fact, thanks to her new found strength, it felt like she had little more than a purse hanging off her shoulder, but she'd still have appreciated being able to put it down. "Same room?" she asked, as Kayla had done.
Remy nodded, then offered to take her bag.
"Super strength, sugar, I'm fine," Rogue declined.
"I was just being a gentleman," Remy said with a shrug that had no right to be as graceful as it was. Rogue followed the movement with hungry eyes, and grinned at the way Remy's eyes narrowed at her.
"Are you up to something?" he asked, following her a step or two behind up the stairs.
"Always," she promised. "Although nothing particular at the moment." When she got to her room, however, Remy hovering in the doorway as she started to unpack, Rogue took every opportunity to stretch up and show off her midriff. It was the only part of her she really could show off, between all the clothing she was wearing and how her hair fell forward when she leant forward.
Remy only watched long enough to catch on to her plan, before he turned his back on her. He still waited in her doorway, but he wasn't about to watch her showing off and risk himself with the temptation. When he turned again, Rogue was finished, had pushed her suitcase out of the way and was sat on the edge of her bed grinning mischievously up at him.
"You asked for that one," Rogue told him.
He shook his head in denial, but didn't say anything, instead moving over to sit next to her.
"Did you have a good birthday?" he asked her, reminding her of the age difference between them.
Rogue huffed and didn't tell Remy that she wasn't the one who minded the difference in ages. "My birthday itself was alright, but Kayla and my holiday with Auntie Emma could have gone better."
Rogue had given Remy the outline of events for what happened during their stay in Boston, but she hadn't gone into too much detail. Partly because at the time the whole experience was still too raw, but mostly because there was no way of knowing if someone was listening in over the phone line, and Logan was teaching her how to be paranoid about such things. So, now that the two of them had a little more privacy, Rogue told Remy everything she could remember.
Retelling the story now, months after the fact, was harder than she'd anticipated, and Rogue's hurt about the events combined with the way she'd pushed her feelings into a corner and done her best to ignore them meant that, by the time she'd finished talking, there were tears dribbling down her cheeks.
Remy, thankfully, didn't say anything about her upset, just sat with one arm half around her and half propping himself up, not moving until the last of the tears had stopped. Then he pulled a handkerchief apparently from thin air and offered it to her, to wipe the remains of her tears away.
"But you have strength, and speed, and flight from this?" he prodded gently after a while.
"Yeah," Rogue confirmed. "It's been really fun, actually. Well, the flying bit not so much, but the strength and speed have. It's given me an extra edge when I'm training with Logan."
"Remy still can't believe you train with Logan."
"I can't believe we've had training sessions for this long and he hasn't accidentally touched me." Rogue frowned at her own words. "That sounded wrong. I meant that I haven't zapped him."
"I knew what you meant," Remy reassured her with a crooked grin. "Maybe you have touched him, but your 'zapping powers' weren't working?"
Rogue snorted in disbelief at that suggestion and shook her head. "Oh no," she disagreed, "I'm absolutely sure they're working."
As if that were an invitation for Remy to take he drew a long, curving line down the side of her face, from brow to chin. His finger crackled with his own power and, just as before, it left a line of fire in its wake. Rogue turned her face towards him when the touch stopped, leant forward as though she were about to kiss him - this time without fingers in the way - before she caught herself, sighed, and dropped her head to rest her forehead against his shoulder.
"I sort of hate you right now," Rogue told him, her voice muffled by his coat.
"No you don't," Remy argued, although he sounded more half hearted then he probably intended.
After a moment, Rogue straightened then stood from the bed to walk over to the window, gazing out at where the rain had apparently stopped briefly and the sun was peeking through. "Hey," she said. "You want to laugh at me for a little bit?"
Remy scowled at her, clearly not understanding what she meant and disapproving of anything that might bring Rogue's mood down further, before his expression brightened as he understood. "You want to go flying?" he asked, sounding a little bit like a child at Christmas.
"Sure," Rogue said, then reached out for his hand, which he gladly gave, and pulled him back down the stairs and out through the back door to where there was a small expanse of wooded patio that opened on to the swamp beyond. When they got there, Rogue hesitated, wincing a little of the thought of what would happen to her clothing if she landed in the swamp rather than back on the patio.
Remy squeezed her hand, then let go, stepping back and watching her excitedly. Rogue bit her lip then, like she had in the forest at home, thought about wanting to fly, expecting to fly, and expecting her body to know what to do without her sending direct signals to the mysterious part of her that allowed her to do this. She rose a little faster than she had before, and came to float in front of Remy, her toes about two feet off the ground.
"Mon dieu," Remy whispered. "Kayla told me, you've told me, and still I did not believe until now. How are you doing this?"
"Not a clue," Rogue confessed with a half smile. "I sort of, try and expect my body to do what I tell it to, then hope for the best. Do you think you'll be able to help me?"
Remy tilted his head, for once looking up at her, rather than down, and considered her request seriously. He had offered, but like with Logan, he couldn't personally fly, so the most he could probably give was general guidance. Which might help, but at the same time, might not. Every mutant approached their power in a different way, depending on the power and depending on the mindset of the mutant. It was like learning to drive; different techniques worked for different people. Unlike learning to drive, however, mutations were unique to each person and while some may be very similar, learning to control a mutation was something everyone had to learn individually.
"I will try and help," Remy told her. "There was a long time when I couldn't control my powers. I have always had my eyes, and my powers manifested when I was very young, too young to understand what I was doing. It took a lot longer than I'd like to admit to not accidentally making things explode."
"At least you've got some control, sugar. I still fry anyone who touches me," Rogue tried to cheer him up.
"Apart from me," Remy argued.
"Yeah," Rogue agreed, frowning at the ground as she floated another foot up. "Hang on," she warned him, then set about trying to get a controlled descent. The problem with coming down is that she couldn't just expect to go down. If she did, her flying power stopped completely and let gravity take control. She had to work at flying down, inch by inch, until her toes rested on the wood floorboards again and she could let the sensation of flying go completely.
"That was my smoothest landing yet," she told Remy proudly when she only stumbled a little.
He raised his eyebrows at her in a dubious expression.
"No, honestly," she replied, with the hint a self-deprecating smile. "I normally just drop like a rock, or crash into a tree or something. I'm just glad that I managed to land back on the porch and didn't go scooting off into the swamp."
"I believe that," he corrected her. "I don't think you need Remy's help. You are making slow progress, but it is still progress. I don't think there's much I can do to help you."
"Oh," Rogue replied, feeling a little disappointed, and grinning when Remy stepped towards her so she could feel the warmth of his body heat, although they weren't yet touching. She tilted her head back to look up at him and smile. "You can still carry on teaching me to dance," she suggested.
Remy smiled in response, making the corners of his dark eyes crinkle. "Yes," he agreed, his fingers playing with the feather-soft ends of her hair. "Maybe this year, I can teach you to play poker too?"
Rogue couldn't help but throw her head back and laugh at that, one of her hands creeping up Remy's chest to rest loosely on the join between his neck and shoulder. She ran her fingers through the short hairs there, and wished again that she could touch him properly.
"I already know how to play poker," Rogue told him with a wicked smile, to explain her laugh. Then she leant up on her tiptoes and whispered in his ear, careful not to touch, "I know how to cheat at poker."
Remy's hands, that had apparently moved of their own volition to rest on Rogue's hips, tightened briefly, and the red of his irises darkened to the point that his eyes seemed almost entirely black. Then he stepped back, away from her, cursing quietly. "You are a beautiful, terrible temptation, Chére," he told her, his voice a little ragged.
Rogue tilted her head to the side, looking up at him and wondering if she should apologise. She did feel a little bad, she supposed, but not that much. After all, with her mutant power it was unlikely that she'd ever personally be able to do much more than share a few, careful kisses with someone else. But she didn't want to dwell on that, so she took his hand and led him over to the bench seat by the door, tugging him to sit next to her.
"Did you want to go dancing tonight?" Remy asked her, carefully, as though she might reject him out of hand. Or worse, turn that into yet another excuse for flirtation.
It didn't take much consideration for Rogue to turn the offer down. It seemed stupid, given how little energy she'd used during their journey, but whenever she travelled long distances by any form of transport, Rogue always felt exhausted by the end of them. She regretted turning Remy's offer down, but she knew that before long she would have been dead on her feet.
Instead, they stayed on the porch, on that bench, curled up against each other as the night drew in and the cold settled in around them. Remy traced lines of warmth up and down Rogue's arms, across her shoulders, along the backs of her hands, and she only had to tell him off once for accidentally scorching her blouse a bit.
They talked about the year they'd had; all the things they hadn't wanted or been able to say over the phone. Rogue talked about Yoshida, and the dark, angry presence that was now a part of the back of her mind. Remy talked about a heist he'd gone on in Scandinavia, and the rumors he'd encountered there of a deadly Winter Soldier, who was a mindless assassin who had been owned by the KGB, and was now sold on to the highest bidder.
That led to conversation of horror stories of the terrible things humans did to one another, and to themselves. Rogue told Remy what she knew of a scientist in Virginia who had been working on a secret project for the government, when one of his experiments had gone wrong and he'd disappeared off the face of the Earth. Not dead, just - gone.
Remy told Rogue about the whispered stories surrounding the Black Widow serum - a version of the super soldier serum, but aimed at women instead of men and introduced over a number of years. Stories of little girls going missing, their minds being wiped, and then being trained as assassins. Only one had survived the training process so far, and she had disappeared off the radar a number of years ago, without a hint of whether the serum had killed her, she'd been taken out, or whether she was making her own plans to take over the world.
Rogue shivered, partly out of fear, and partly because the evening was growing ever colder, the damp of the rain creeping in under layers of clothing. There was an itch at the back of her mind, the mental equivalent of an insect bite, that stung all the more when she wondered about why humanity searched so hard for bigger and better weapons. She felt sore, angry about something that she didn't know of, and it confused her. Rogue blamed it on too long in the back of a car without a decent nights sleep for too long.
Sensing her tiredness and confusion, Remy stood and showed her back into the house.
"Sleep well, Chére," he told her quietly as they parted at the bottom of the stairs. "Don't dream of too many mindless assassins," he added, half joking, half serious.
"I won't," she promised. "Maybe tomorrow we'll go dancing, or you'll show me to the dives you go to to play poker."
"Maybe," he replied. "If we can sneak past Logan."
She smiled, pushing all of the grim thoughts their stories had raised deep to the back of her mind and letting herself light up with the hope of a fun evening. "Challenge accepted," she told him with a wink, then bid him good night.