Chapter 14
-,.,-
"You turned down the teaching job?" Warren asked as Remy wandered into the office, looking exhausted before the day had even begun.
Remy took the chair at the table across from the computer in the cramped space and ran his hands across the laid out papers. There was a new sheaf he hadn't put there with a title that read 'class assignments' . He read the first line – Art: Unassigned – and then pushed the pile to the back of the desk.
"De professeur.. ." Remy started.
"He offered you the art position." Warren interrupted him. "I thought he was joking."
"He jes' lookin' f' a way t' keep Remy busy." he sneered derisively. "T'inks t'ievin' all dis Cajun good for."
"I wouldn't say that." Warren replied, pulling his own copy of the assignments across the desk to read from it. "He put you on war games with Scott, and recreational martial arts with Betsy. Who the hell calls it 'recreational martial arts' anyway?"
"He... what?" Remy asked, pulling the braille-embossed paper back towards him.
"Betsy's glad." Warren carried on as if he hadn't heard him. "It means you can do all the form and she can just shout at the kids when they get it wrong."
Remy read down the whole list carefully, hesitating on the surprises and reading them again to make sure he wasn't missing something. "Dis is... de man's insane."
"Maybe, but his timetable almost works now – and that thing is a maze. God knows how he did it. There's a couple of teachers we will need to pick up from the outside, but that shouldn't be hard. The art is probably going to be the hardest. I guess it'll depend on what group of kids we end up with." There was a rattle of typing from the computer as Warren went back to whatever he'd been doing before Remy came in.
"Y' t'ink de professeur was serious, 'bout de art course?" he asked.
The typing stopped. "He told me his reasoning." Warren answered eventually. "I guess I'd never thought about... well... you know..."
"Y' t'ink any ol' fool be a t'ief and get away wit' it?" Remy shot back, tone sharp.
"Something like that." Warren nodded.
Remy scowled at him, feeling more defensive about his adopted family than he ever had in front of the X-men before. "Dere differen' types 'f guild t'ief, but 'most every t'ief of age in N'Awlins has a qualification in deir field. External, not guild."
"That's the most I've ever heard you say about your guild." Warren commented, turning back to the computer screen.
Remy frowned and bowed his head.
"So... Remy LeBeau: B.A., who would have thought?" Warren continued when it became obvious Remy wasn't going to deny it.
Remy thought about how that title had sounded to him when he'd first thought it possible, and the pit in his stomach when he'd realised it would never be. "Was nineteen when I lef' N'Awlins. Never finished."
Warren turned, frowning at Remy's back. "But you started? Didn't you ever think about finishing it outside the guild?" he asked, something akin to disbelief in his tone.
Remy made a noise and a dismissive gesture, but Warren could see the tension in his shoulders. He brought the subject back to work, giving Remy a reprieve. "Can we walk through the building work now? We have builders in this afternoon, and I need to know you can do it if I need you to."
Remy smiled to himself, and then stood, offering Warren a hand. The winged man tucked the proffered hand into the crook of his elbow and moved to the door.
"How much have you done so far? Where do I start?"
-,.,-
"As far as we can tell," Jean stood up in front of the file image of Mitchell Canford. "Mr. Canford and anyone who might have known him or known how to contact him have disappeared, except for those of us in this room. There's no one at the prison who ever met him, no one at his old office block and no one in his apartment block. There's no record of him on file with the company he claimed to be representing, or record of him getting his qualifications. He's either a very impressive illusionist, or he has friends in high places to pull of this kind of disappearing act."
"Indeed. Quite startling." the Professor agreed.
"What is the course of action?" Kurt asked, leaning forwards over the files on the table.
"We have to find Victor." the Professor answered. "It's likely he is aware of what is going
on, if we make the assumption that it was the same influence that let him walk out of that prison with no alarms triggered or harm done."
"Have you studied the sites of Sabretooth's attacks yet?" Jean-Paul asked. "They could potentially hold information. "
"That's the next thing to do." Scott spoke up. "We were acting on limited intel. when we first looked them over. Maybe with a fresh look and a fresh pair of eyes we can work this out."
"It's been weeks now, even with the most recent scene. Are you really expecting to find anything, Scott?" Bobby asked.
"We will not know if we do not look." Ororo pointed out.
"All right then." Scott continued, satisfied that the other X-men were in agreement. "These
were the locations of the attacks;" Scott spread out their marked up map. "That's seven sites to look at. Let's spread it over the week, get two teams to every site. Talk to the police and any other official body that might have had any interest in the case. Gather as much information as you can."
"I have offered my assistance to Warren and Remy this afternoon." Jean-Paul pointed out. "They have a lot to organise and, with workmen in the mansion, perhaps too much to be able to pay due attention."
"Of course." The Professor acknowledged. "I understand that this preparation work is splitting all of your time, but it is better that we settle into this routine now, rather than be unable to work with it later on."
Logan opened his mouth to comment, but Scott jumped in, delaying any hostilities. "Let's organise the teams for the next couple of days now, and then you're all free to settle things before we move out."
The Professor left the meeting before Scott had finished organising the workload, and the leader of the X-men couldn't help but think that behaviour like that wasn't helping matters at all.
-,.,-
Warren walked Remy through the unfinished parts of the building, letting him pace out distances and mark doors, talking him through the work that was planned until it became obvious that his attentions had slipped. Warren stopped at the end of the corridor, not needing to try hard to feign tiredness, and turned to Remy.
"You know..." Warren started, swallowing back his gasping breath. "Ororo was thinking about taking on the practical side of things – the art classes."
"She'd be good wit' dat." Remy replied absently.
"She seemed pretty set on it." Warren pushed a little harder, rolling his eyes as he watched the cogs turn in Remy's mind. There was a long pause.
"What time d' workmen gettin' in?" Remy asked.
"Not until noon." Warren tried to restrain his grin.
Remy turned to lean against the wall behind them, facing back the way they'd come. There was a moment longer, and Warren watched the decision settle across Remy's features. "'s time?"
"Just gone ten." Warren answered, not needing to check his watch.
Remy stepped back towards the main part of the house, already reaching for the first of his markers. "Watch me back t' de hall?" he asked as Warren stepped up alongside him. "I wan' talk t' de professeur."
-,.,-
After three weeks of strangers in the mansion; moving things, screwing up his carefully memorised floorplan and being where they weren't supposed to be, and with most of the mansion's inhabitants on assignment elsewhere - researching the ghost Canford had become, investigating the attack sites or keeping up the X-men presence against any other villain-of-the- week hopeful that sprang up - it was fair to say that Remy had jumped at the chance to
take a trip into the city to see Matt.
He took a taxi into the city alone for the first time, convincing himself that the buzz of adrenaline he was feeling was excitement, getting out of the house for something other than school; convincing himself it wasn't the thought of getting out of a taxi onto a crowded New York sidewalk and finding Matt's apartment building with nothing but the tip of his cane. It wasn't as if his kinetic sense would help - everyone would be moving around him and the door he was looking for would be as still as the buildings around it.
He was just about ready to ask the driver to turn around - his heart hammering in his chest, his palms sweaty, and if this was a poker game he'd already have lost ten times over - but the taxi drew to a stop. He could feel the packed swarm of people on the pavement just outside the door, moving faster than he could follow any one individual. He jumped as a door slammed and he realised the driver had gotten out and was coming around to open his door. It would save him slamming the door into anyone on the pavement as he opened it, so he waited as the door was opened and slid out into the space, clutching the handle of his cane as he found the ground and stood up, unbalanced by the movement around him. He handed over his fare and waited for change before leaning over the open door.
"Can y' point me t'wards de door?" he shouted over the sound of the weekend crowd.
"Remy." A hand landed on his arm, gentle, and all the tension drained out of him.
"Matt." he greeted, smiling.
"Come with me." the other man said, half-dragging him through the crowd.
-,., -
Logan snubbed out his cigar against the Blackbird's hull as the car rumbled into the sparse concrete parking lot, nodding his greeting as he hit the exterior button and dropped the ramp for Jean to drive straight into the hold. Jean-Paul stood up from the console as Jean and Hank got out of the parked car, Logan following them up the ramp into the hold as they secured the vehicle, closing the doors behind it.
"Checks are all complete." Jean-Paul confirmed. "Are we good to go?"
Logan's attention was drawn to the evidence bag in Hank's hands. "Find something?"
"Perhaps." Hank replied absently, wandering back towards the tiny analytical bench as Jean took over from Jean-Paul at the flight console.
"Warren called in while you were outside, Logan." Jean-Paul said as he headed back to his seat. "Said he couldn't find Gambit in the house, thought you might know where he was."
Logan wandered towards comms and took a seat.
"Did he…" Jean started.
"Hey Matt." Logan interrupted, a landline number flashing up on the console. "Remy with you?" There was a hesitation as Logan listened to the answer on the earpiece. "He need a lift home?" Logan glanced up at Jean as she powered up the engines, grinning slowly. "Hey Rems." he greeted affectionately. "We're leaving the site now, probably an hours turnaround. I can be with you in an hour twenty." Logan didn't make eye contact with anyone as he listened to the reply. "Sure." he grinned and disconnected the call. Turning in his seat, he caught Jean-Paul's incredulous stare.
"Problem?" he growled, forcing the grin off his face.
Jean-Paul brought out a rare smile - broad and enthusiastic. "How did that happen?" he asked. "I mean… I know LeBeau would sleep with anything that moved. But to turn you…"
"I'm not *turned*, asshole. It's just him." Logan willed himself not to feel like he was blushing.
"Wow." Jean-Paul looked faintly awed.
"Yeah." Was Logan's only reply.
"You can see it, you know." Jean-Paul mused, finger to his lips and thumb framing his jawline, as if reassessing Logan. "You look comfortable, happy."
"Stop talking." he growled in reply.
"We've seen it too, Logan." Jean commented from the front console. "In you and Remy, both. You just look so *good* together. And I know Remy has this ability to look comfortable in any situation, but it's not often *real*."
Logan growled low in his chest. He was not going to discuss his supposed love life with Jean and Jean-Paul of all people. And he wasn't going to admit, even to himself, that it might be tempting to ask someone else if he was doing the right thing in pushing against Remy's comfort levels.
Sure, in public they were as comfortable as any other couple - touch-innocent and physically affectionate. So much that it bordered on Logan's comfort levels a lot of the time. The flirting was second nature to Remy, and the public setting meant that it would never go any further. As soon as they were alone, it was a completely different matter. But he wasn't in any way, tempted to tell that to the people in the jet right now.
"We don't mean to make you uncomfortable, Logan." Jean filled the long silence. "But we wanted you to know that we're glad you're both happy." And with that truly sickening vote of confidence, Jean fell quiet and left him to his peace.
-,., -
Logan stepped into Matt Murdock's apartment, finding the door unlocked and wandered through the hall to the lounge where Remy and Matt were stood chatting. Remy had his coat on already, a pack of cards riffling through his hands as he turned to face Logan.
"Hey." he greeted, the cards disappearing in a sleight of hand that Logan missed.
Matt stepped forwards, hand on Remy's shoulder. "Remy, can I talk to Logan for a minute?" he asked as he ushered the other man towards the hall.
"Cloak an' dagger much, Matt?" Remy grinned, stepping away from Matt's hand and into the hall. "I'll jus' be out here." he called back, closing the door behind him.
Matt turned to Logan, face severe. "Are you two... together? Because I always thought Remy had some kind of history."
"Yeah?" Logan asked, feigning disinterest.
"I could tell he was... attracted, the first time we met, years ago now. But I could always feel this..." Matt's words faltered. "You know, I think Remy has a habit of 'emoting' when he's around people he trusts. Like it's his way of making up for the emotionally stunted man everyone else meets. They see a slut and you feel that he's lonely and follow him home. Does that make sense?" he didn't wait for Logan's acknowledgement before continuing. "Anyway, whenever I got too close... he was scared, I could *tell* he was scared. And that's not right. Not for a man like him. By the time I'd thought about calling him on it, the job was finished and he'd left. Logan... I just don't want to find out that the person who made him scared was you."
"Matt." Logan rolled his shoulders, aware of the weight of a story that wasn't his to tell. "Remy's... got history. We're working through it." he finished flatly.
"He won't tell you if you're going too far, you understand that, don't you?" Matt leant back against the wall, expression dubious.
Logan's lips fought a smile. "Yeah." he conceded. "I know that."
"He's doing well, considering the circumstances. But it's like he's happy to accept help up to a point, and then he hits this self-imposed limit and he can't take anything beyond that." Matt shrugged expressively. "He's damn stubborn." he said as he straightened.
"No argument there." Logan nodded. "You gonna let me take him home now?"
Matt laughed sharply, slapping him on the shoulder in a friendly gesture. "He's all yours, Logan."
Logan considered himself fortunate that he was in the presence of two men who couldn't *see* the ridiculously sappy grin he was sure was on his face. He was going to have to work on that.
-,., -
Remy looked up from the six-key Braille computer as Bobby slumped into the seat opposite him. In revenge for his taking a day off to see Matt, Warren had left him a pile of paperwork to get through, and only now was he starting to see the light… so to speak.
"Bobby." he greeted.
"Remy." Bobby replied, tone already amused.
"Early back?" he asked.
"Yeah, nothing much to see." Bobby replied blandly. "Ororo and Logan are starting dinner. I dread to think what that's going to result in." There was a beat of silence where Remy half thought Bobby would go and leave him to work, but when he stood it was to move closer. "It's getting bigger." he half-whispered.
Remy wished he believed he was referring to anything other than the ice patch spreading across his chest. He pushed the book-sized computer away from him and scrubbed a hand across his face. "Shit, Bobby." he said with feeling. "Dis ain' no joke. Y' gotta go see Hank."
"And what if he says it's a secondary mutation? That it's going to make a human popsicle of me, a tiny bit at a time."
"Y' deal, an' y' be t'ankful y' alive." Remy retorted. "Dat's de bes' t'ing y' gon' find out, Bobby. Dere's worse t'ings dan de ice spreadin'."
"Easy for you to say. There's already someone in your bed." Bobby made a face. That hadn't sounded quite so petulant in his head.
"Bobby, dis could be killin' you." Remy said, exasperated, but trying to keep his voice down. He was aware of every other person in the mansion. "Worry 'bout y' sex life af'er Hank's checked you over. Jus'… make sure y' alright firs'."
Bobby went quiet. "I can't decide if not-alright would be better than if this was supposed to be happening, if this was in my genes. What does that say about me?"
"Bobby…" Remy began.
"Not yet, alright? Just… not yet." Bobby interrupted, begging.
Bobby fought back the panic that was gathering at the back of his throat, trying to choke him. Remy wasn't going to make him go, he knew that. He watched Remy scrub viciously at his eyes and thought about what a hypocrite Gambit was being.
"I could turn this around on you, you know. Say 'I'll go when you do'."
That made Remy blink. "Bobby... what?"
"I mean, we should go to Hank, at the same time." Bobby replied blandly.
It was Remy's turn to fight the sudden surge of panic that suggestion wrought. He swallowed before asking, "Why do I need t' go see Henri?"
Bobby frowned. "Your headaches. I mean... I know you don't want to talk about it, but..."
"Dey jus' headaches, Bobby. Dey ain' 'sactly..." Remy gestured at Bobby's chest, searching for words to describe what was happening to the other mutant.
"You're worried, though." Bobby interrupted.
"Non, Bobby. Remy ain' worried t'all. 'S called proje'tin'." he grumbled in reply.
"Liar. I've been honest with you, LeBeau. Why are you still lying?" Bobby asked sharply.
There was a long pause. Long enough for Remy to realise he was trapped. "What if he say de change in m' powers causin' dis? What if he say Remy has t' stop using dem de way he is."
"Could you? I mean… aren't they hardwired now?" Bobby asked curiously.
"I can' shut it down all t'get'er, mais..." Remy physically flinched. "I could stop usin' it."
"And then?" Bobby asked softly.
Lips thinned, Remy replied. "An' den I'd be blind, Bobby. I bin usin' dis t' get around, to work 'round de mansion, t' live. I can' jus' give it up."
Bobby's brows furrowed. "You'd get by though. I mean... You're getting around, you've got your cane and the braille and the programs on the computer. People do without mutant powers. You'd do without."
"I'm... it would be too difficult. Wit' it right dere... it ain' like I could..." the Cajun stammered, looking for the words to explain.
"Yeah, I guess so." And Bobby did understand what the Cajun was trying to say. But, he pressed forward. "But aren't you worried about these headaches? I mean... Hank still can't really explain your eyes." Bobby hesitated for a beat, brain suddenly racing off at a tangent. "God, what if it's a brain tumour or something – those can affect your sight can't they? And the headaches... "
Frustrated, Remy decided to end the conversation. "Are stress, Bobby. Leave it alone."
"You should still see Hank." Came the petulant reply from the ice mutant.
But Remy had the last word. "An' so should you."
-,., -
"But it's my bike, Logan." Remy whined piteously, shifting to the edge of the sofa to grab Logan's arm as he shifted away. He'd tried being angry, it hadn't gotten him far, and now Logan was trying to ignore him.
"You sound like a girl." Logan answered, not looking up from whatever he was doing. It sounded like pages of a newspaper turning, but Remy couldn't think of any time he'd seen Logan with a newspaper in his hands. "If you leave the engine cold too long it's going to get damaged. It needs to be ridden."
"So ride her." he retorted. "Take her out, stretch her. See what a real bike can do."
"The Harley's a helluva lot more 'real' than that Japanese carbon-fibre piece of nothing you call a bike." Logan snorted his distaste, throwing whatever he'd been reading down on the table. "'Sides. I think I'd go straight through the suspension."
"God, Logan. It's jus'… Warren? Really?" Remy flopped back into the chair.
"He's as stir crazy as you are, Rems. And you're getting out of here twice a week to go to school."
Remy had to concede that one. "He's only jus' got his licence back. 'F somet'in' happens, he'll wreck her." he objected spitefully.
"That's horrible, Remy." Ororo commented, coming in from the hall. "You know Warren is not going to harm your motorcycle. Don't be childish."
"But it's *Warren*." he said, as if they'd missed that the first time.
"I thought you two were finally beginning to get along." Ororo sighed, taking a seat beside Logan and picking up the paper from where he'd thrown it.
"He's not keeping the damn thing, he's just going to run it out to the city a couple of times. Keep the engine..." Logan stopped short as a call to the war room went off. "Sweet." he finished, shrugging his shoulders as he and Ororo stood. "I'll talk to you later, alright?"
Work trumping arguments about steel-and-carbon- fibre babies, Logan left Remy by himself to steam.
- ,.,-
Scott was stood at the head of the conference table, seven objects - each one rectangular and dark - were set out in the centre of the table, each one labelled and wired to the console. Hank was working around everyone as they started to take seats. Jean-Paul and Kurt, who had been out with Scott's team, were already at their seats. As the Professor, last to arrive, took his place at the other end of the table, Scott started.
"One of these objects was retrieved by the police from the site which was the victim of arson. At first they thought it belonged to one of the families, but no one claimed it. It was notable because it escaped the fire and the ice-dousing without any damage. When we looked, we found one at every other site. We didn't look twice at them before," he gestured expressively at the boxes. "They look like rat traps."
"You brought them all back here?" Xavier asked, looking over the nearest block curiously.
"We thought it was best." Scott replied. "Hank has tools here that he can't use on location. He had a look at all the boxes in situ and there didn't seem to be anything special about the way they were placed."
"We wondered if they were power packs for the equipment he was using to travel." Kurt suggested. "They looked discarded."
The Professor nodded and looked across the table at Hank, who had finally taken a seat. "Hank – any evidence for this?"
Hank pushed his glasses up his nose and frowned expressively. "The boxes are giving off a signal in the electromagnetic region, but no information I can pin down with the analysis I've done so far. It seems reasonable to infer that they might have been power sources."
"Do you have anything on the locations from the excursion Logan took with Victor?" The Professor asked.
"In this instance, it was a case of needle in a haystack. With the details provided by Logan and the small amount of physical evidence we have - video and suchlike - there are several different possible answered based on the vectors involved. Most of the variables are calculable, but in the case of..."
Scott was the one who interrupted. "Hank, please."
"Ahem." Hank expressed his distaste at being interrupted. "Computationally, I can give you six potential sites, all with a minimum of a ten mile arc. Two cover parts of large urbanised areas, it's a lot to search through."
"Perhaps something to come back to if it becomes necessary." The Professor nodded. "At this point, do we have any evidence that Mitchell Canford was doing anything other than littering the area and keeping Victor under a modicum of control?" He looked around every face at the table. "Well then, I think if we can leave this with Hank, this project can be back shelved until we have any more information. Agreed?"
There was a slow wave of nods and the meeting started to disband. Warren was stood outside the meeting room as Logan left, and pulled him to one side.
"I thought you said you were going to talk to Gambit? I was going to borrow the bike tonight, Logan." he said, his shoulders moving in a way that they had all come to associate with his feathers fluffing, even when his wings were harnessed like they were now. Logan scowled at him.
"I'm dealing with Remy. Just take the bike out, Warren. He's not going to stop you. He'll be pissed off, but what's new?"
Warren's scowl mirrored Logan's. "I would have done, but it's not in the garage. So who's taken it out?" There was a moment when Warren met Logan's gaze and froze. "He wouldn't. He *wouldn't*."
-,.,-
It was like flying, this feeling. The world was nothing around him as it passed him by. And it felt right - so right - to be sat here with this familiar hum, the feeling of power and the wind rushing through his hair. He hadn't felt this edge, loss of control a hairs breadth away, in months. It was exhilarating. The cars were bright things, full of energy and heat, moving apace as they whizzed passed him on the other side of the road. He used every one to define the lanes of the road, stopping him from drifting out into the oncoming traffic. Cars and trucks came into his path every so often and he swung wide around them, holding his breath as he passed each one safely. He pulled into a tight corner breathlessly, the oncoming traffic suddenly *right there* in front of him, knowing that even the slightest knock would have him flying out of control with unthinkable consequences.
With a deep breath and a manic grin he stepped up the speed.
Like flying.
-,.,-
Logan swore as he stepped into the danger room. The holographics were inactive, which he took as a small blessing. The lurid green bike was on its side against one wall, pieces of green plastic scattered across the breadth of the danger room from the cracked casing, front wheel spinning in space. Remy was laying in the corner of the room, splayed out across the floor in a puddle of blood. A sluggish trail was still leaking from his nose as he lay there and only the position of his head had stopped him choking on it. Logan slammed his hand on the emergency button and sat down at Remy's head to brace his neck until Hank arrived.
It was too quiet, as he waited. Logan knew this was the calm before the storm – the quiet stillness that filled the space after aborted movement and before help arrives. They'd had too many injuries inside the danger room and out not to recognise the stilted calm that was empty of true emotion and filled with muted worry.
Remy's eyelids fluttered and Logan put his weight across Remy's shoulders to stop him from moving as he returned to consciousness.
"Rems, hold still, ya hear me?" Remy made some indecipherable noise and tensed under his grip. "Hey, it's OK, just me. But ya need to hold still. Can ya hear me?"
"Yeah, yeah. Keep it down." came the slurred reply.
"Ya gonna hold still?" Logan asked, exasperated.
"Why?" Remy groaned.
"'Cause ya hit yer head hard enough ta knock yerself out, and I want the doc ta check ya out before ya start runnin' around."
"'m fine. 's jus' m' head."
Logan caught Remy's hand as he went to rub his head. "Still means still, Gambit." he growled.
"'K, 'k. Sure." Remy winced.
There was a moment of quiet as Logan debated whether he should be letting Remy pass out again. "Hank's gonna be pissed at ya." he said, to say something.
"Yeah." Remy sighed. "'S de bike alright?" he asked after a beat. Logan glanced over at the wide trail of plastic.
"Ask me later."