"—but you know what Marie's powers do, how do you know—"
"I DON'T know! But he's hurt, and I want to help him!"
Only the thief's instincts kept his eyes closed as he woke up to the sound of an argument. His mind felt murky as he silently took stock of himself: his injuries were not tended; blood still trickled slowly down his side, and his back felt like he'd fallen asleep outside on a hot July noon. His face felt grimy and dusty, a contrast to the cool metal he felt under his cheek, and he could feel the smashed lens of his sunglasses digging into his brow bone. Probably broke them when he fell. He could sense four people, two men, two women, one injured—he could probably take them all down if he had surprise on his side . . .
"He's awake," a gruff voice announced. Well, shit.
"Are you sure? I still can't feel a thing . . . " a woman asks.
"I'm sure," the gravelly voice cut in. He continued, "Why don'tcha just open your eyes, bub? You ain't foolin' anyone playin' possum."
"Au contraire, mon ami," Remy felt himself croak out. Someday, his mouth would get him into trouble. "I been assured I play a beautiful possum." He snapped his eyes open to make an intimidating glare at his captors.
The effect was instantaneous. How could it not be? Those two devil eyes, like two red embers glowing from dark sockets over the cracked silver remnants of his sunglasses, were enough to unnerve anyone. Everyone in the hastily repaired blackbird went very, very quiet as they momentarily wrestled with the idea of such an obvious mutation. Remy, however, had a different reaction. It was much brighter than he had thought, with the light reflecting against the shining surfaces of the plane's interior. He fought the urge to blink his painfully photo-sensitive eyes as he sat up, fumbling in his pocket for the spare pair he usually kept, not really surprised to find nothing there. He was going to have a blinding headache if he didn't get some sunglasses soon. Well, if he couldn't play it cool, he'd just have to max out the intimidation factor. That meant being Mr. Tough Guy, no pain. He stood up and glared coolly at each person until they glanced away uncomfortably, then started surveying the climate (emotional and physical).
He was in a tiny 4' x 6' cell: no bench, no bed, and hardly enough room to stand up. This was a holding cell, nothing fancy. Everything was smooth metal, very shipshape, and the bars were set so close he could hardly fit his hand through them. And the red-haired woman, the short, clawed man, and the injured African woman (from her makeshift gurney) were all looking at him. They were all suspicious. (Thank you for the obvious, Mr. Empathy sense)
"Wolverine, come take the wheel," Mr. Hero's commanding voice from the cockpit cut through his inspection, and the short hairy guy—Wolverine—walked to the front of the plane.
"Yeah, yeah, One-eye," Remy heard him mutter not-so-quietly on his way up. Remy smirked. He could probably get along with that guy, given the chance. Not so with Mr. Hero. His arms were folded over his chest as he swaggered back, like a disapproving father about to scold an errant son, and that's about the attitude he radiated, too.
"Do you realize what you've done?" One-eye spat suddenly.
Remy leaned against the cell's wall as took a fresh pack of cards from his belt and started shuffling them nonchalantly. "Pr'aps you'd better explain it t'me," he replied with a cheeky grin. Oooh, you could almost see steam pressure building up between those lil' ears . . .
"You mean you don't even realize that you were working with the world's leading mutant terrorist group? That you've endangered all of humanity in one fell swoop? That YOU, whoever you are, have helped release a MADMAN bent on WORLD DOMINATION and MASS GENOCIDE?" His little tirade went on for a while. Remy did his best to keep from laughing (which would ruin his poker face), concentrating instead on doing increasingly complicated card shuffling tricks.
"You done, One-eye?" he asked boredly when the ranter stopped for a breath. There was a faint snigger from up in the cockpit.
"Haven't you heard a WORD I've SAID?" Cyclops shouted. Gambit glided over menacingly until his face was mere inches from Mr. Hero's visor.
"If you don't have a goddamned good excuse for being where you were and doing what you did, then you'll find yourself in prison so quick . . ." He trailed off when the red-haired woman touched his arm, still glaring balefully at Gambit through the slits in the cell bars. Gambit was pleased to note that One-eye had to glare up. He considered One-eye, then casually replied,
"De money was good."
If you've ever seen a freshly caught fish flopping around on the deck, gasping for air, you might have an idea of what Cyclops, the X-men's fearless leader looked like. Remy smirked at Cyke's disbelieving stare and sat down against the wall. "Is dat all you wanted t'talk about?" he taunted. He once more started shuffling the cards.
"What . . . How . . .How could you do such a thing? How can you call yourself a human being?" Scott thundered, regaining his powers of speech. He radiated disbelief, anger, and frustration. Idiot.
"News flash, mon ami," Remy laughed. He flourished his cards, flipped out the joker, and charged it slowly, so Cyclops could see the magenta aura of energy grow. "I ain't a human being."
Remy flicked the card with unerring accuracy at Cyclop's face as Cyclops and Jean yelled each other's name. The card never made it through the bars, though; it simply stopped, floating in midair, as the afterimage of its glowing energy trail faded behind it. Remy, too, was immobilized mid-flick by unseen bonds of air.
"Holy . . ."
The kinetic energy in the card detonated with a muffled explosion, but the light and heat were contained in a spherical telekinetic force field Jean threw up at the last second. Scott and Gambit glared at each other as smoke roiled against what seemed the inside a clear globe. "Jean, put him out," Scott commanded coldly.
Jean looked ready to protest, but one look at her fiancé's face, and she concentrated grimly. It wasn't simple to knock someone out telepathically in the best of times, but she wasn't sure she could even get a psychic fix on the man. She hadn't been able to feel him before, when he rescued Storm; the cell still felt empty to her. Luckily, she realized she could target him by aiming inside her already-constructed telekinetic field. She delicately probed for the part of the mind that controlled consciousness. It was most unnerving; sort of like probing a table or chair—he didn't seem to be a living person at all.
Suddenly, she brushed contact with his mind, quite a bit harder than she meant to, since she didn't realize how close she was. His eyes widened, and he slumped, looking shocked in the bonds that held him. She, however, went rigid as a backwash of memories rushed through her. This was a rare occurrence, much like the backfire of a gun that happens whenever a strong telepathic shield is breached—and a very private mind lain open and vulnerable. Harried impressions flitted past her mind's eye: faces (mostly women) of people he'd known, a sense of risk, loneliness and loyalty, a love of life, and a pair of coldly glowing red eyes; but most vivid were the latent memories of today. In a micro-second, she saw Sabretooth strangling Remy, felt his surprise and pain and need for revenge at the Brotherhood's betrayal. Jean soon collapsed under the assault of another person's psyche defensively pummeling her mind; Cyclops caught her tensely, swearing under his breath that if anything happened to her, the man would pay . . .
"I'm all right, Scott. Really." She glanced over Scott's protective shoulder cautiously, disbelievingly, at the prone form of the enigmatic young man whose tumultuous mind had mingled with her own. "And believe it or not, he's not the enemy."