Chapter 1 – When the Walls Come Tumbling Down
Summary:
Life is good for Rogue and Gambit. They've been married for a decade, have two wonderful daughters, and are doing what they love. The life they've built together is closer to the one of their dreams than either of them had ever thought possible. All of this is threatened when Remy goes missing. When they find him, it quickly becomes obvious he's lost more than just a few days.
Part of Rogue/Gambit Week 2022
Day 2 – Amnesia
He was conscious the moment he opened his eyes, though he sincerely wished that wasn't the case. Pain ricocheted through his skull with the intensity of a chorus of jackhammers repeatedly piercing his brain with a white hot fire. The metaphors might be mixed, but the sensation was spot on. Bile burned its way up his esophagus and coated his tongue, banishing the taste of dust and antiseptic. What he could see of the world was little more than a hazy post-apocalyptic wasteland. Ash and grime covered his face and hair and every surface in the vicinity. His fevered, clammy skin itched with the pervasive contaminate. Excess sleep gathered in the corner of his eyes and gummed his lashes.
Tentatively, he reached out and ran a half-gloved hand along the slanting surface above him. Cold and hard, the unrelenting metallic surface refused to give as he pushed against it. Moving slowly and carefully, so not to disturb his throbbing head more than necessary, he manage to rotate his upper body about ninety degrees. Methodically he tried inching himself forward, only to find his foot trapped at the acute angle created by the broken table and floor.
His heart raced as he fought to remain calm. Panic wouldn't help. Collapsing onto his back he tamped down the instinctual fear of being trapped and forced himself to focus. Small spaces didn't bother him. In fact, he liked small spaces. They were warm and safe. No one could get to him when he was curled up in one of his hidey-holes. When he was on a job, the mark rarely thought to check the tight, dark spaces, which allowed him to move through the shadows like a wraith. No, what he didn't like was the feeling of being trapped. Of being closed in without an escape route.
Blinking until his vision cleared enough that he only occasionally saw double, he assessed his surroundings like he did when attempting to turn the tables on a job gone wrong. He didn't particularly like what he saw, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been. The table which trapped him, had also probably saved his life. When the building had collapsed, he apparently had managed to roll under the table. He rubbed at his raw wrists, distracting one pain with another. The splintered legs of the table groaned as he shifted his position again, testing the limits of his captivity. While he could technically release a charge into the table and free himself from one prison, it was likely the resulting explosion would trigger a domino effect and send the remainder of the collapsed building down on him and this time without the benefit of shelter.
Energy, raw and potent, buzzed through every nerve ending and vein like white hot fire. It wanted to escape the confines of his skin and explode into the world around him. Despite the burning rush of energy, sparking sharp and bright under his skin, the power was comforting in its familiarity. It was something he knew to be an intrinsic part of what made him up as a person. As a Mutant. It was as much part of him as his arms or his heart or red on black eyes. To lose the charge would be like losing a limb. Still, there was something off about the energy. The amount of energy rushing through his body was greater than any charge he could remember handling. He didn't know how it was possible for him to contain so much energy without a slip of power and an accidental charge. When had he learned this kind of nuanced control? Even with the greater amount of energy available at his fingertips, he could only touch a small fraction of the power he possessed. It was as if someone had placed a stopgap in his brain to prevent him from accessing the full extent of his mutant abilities.
The more that he thought on it, the greater the contained charge grew. It slipped through his fingers and illuminated the his confines with a faint, pink glow. Pink. That's new. With his eyes focused on his hand, he rotated his wrist. The intense fuchsia glow was strangely mesmerizing. Interesting.
Clenching his hands into fists and relaxing them in a steady pattern of open and shut, he redirected the flow of energy back into and through his body. He needed to evenly redistribute the energy before it built up again and exploded. While he might not know much about why he was here or what had happened, he knew without a doubt, that he was the cause of the explosion.
With the charge gone from his hands, he brushed is fingertips over the source of the throbbing pain in his head. His fingers came away sticky with blood. There was too much he didn't know. His ignorance wasn't limited to the how or why of what had happened. Or, why he could instinctually control such large quantities of energy without an accident. It was like he had Swiss cheese for memories, the holes blanking out vital information. Trapped and alone, he found the cloudy memories to be more of a curiosity than anything to panic over. After he escaped, the panic and confusion was certain to settle in. Until then, he needed to work out what exactly he could do to escape.
Okay, Remy, think. What do you know?
Remy. That was his name. At least that was something. Remy Etienne LeBeau. Sometimes known as Gambit. At other times he was called Le Diable Blanc. Sour bile tainted the faint memories associated with that name. Weighing the impact of the various names, he found a comforting acceptance associated with LeBeau, while Le Diable Blanc left him cold and abandoned.
Good. That was a start.
Pale sunshine slipped through gaping holes in the roof. Dust motes danced in the faint light. As he continued to untangle the jumble of memories, others became cleared. He was a Thief. A mutant. He had a family. He'd been adopted off the street after he picked his père's pocket. That memory brought a brief smile to his lips despite the dire circumstances he found himself in the present. He was from New Orleans. Proud of his heritage, though he knew little of his past. This lack of knowledge had nothing to do with his recent spotty memory, rather it had everything to do with the fact he was abandoned at birth.
Excited by the possibility of answers, he pushed harder. His head screamed in pain as he tried to grasp for more answers. With a sharp intake of breath, he released the handful of memories he had heedlessly attempted to grasp. The threads slipped through his fingers and collapsed into a jangled mess rivaling the Gordian knot. Gently probing the edges of his memories, he tested what else he could tease from the frayed edges. Apparently he couldn't rush this process. He would need to be as delicate solving this puzzle as he was when picking a lock.
Slowly, memories unravel….
A blonde haired girl who needed no rescue….
A French beauty and a priceless gem….
His father, King of Thieves….
His brother. Cousins full of mischief. Boys testing theirs skills and pushing their limits. All fun and games until they lost the first of their number….
Life bright and hopeful. A future unfolding before him. A home grand and majestic, the kind, that as a child, he felt he would always be on the wrong side of the gates. But, now, it was all his….
In an unfamiliar gesture, though one well ingrained into muscle memory, he brushed his thumb over the fourth finger of his left hand. A wedding band? Of course. His memory might be spotty with more gaps than Swiss cheese, but there were some things which would never change.
Voices—familiar by the way of distant echoes—called his name. But, he couldn't associate faces or names with the voices. Were they friends? Enemies? (He had more than a few of each. And sometimes the line between the two were more murky than he cared to admit.) Or, they could be a rescue crew who somehow knew he'd been buried alive? Weighing the risks, it seemed a better idea to remain silent rather than reveal himself to an unknown foe. It would be best to keep his cards hidden until he was ready to play them. (Cards, his fingers itched for a deck.)
The rubble piled overhead shifted and groaned as layer after layer was expertly peeled back. Still hidden from his would-be rescuers, Gambit winced and shrank back into the shadows as great patches of sunlight filtered into the previous darkened space. His sensitive eyes burned with the ever brightening light. The pain in the rest of his skull intensified with the sudden onslaught and it was more than he could manage to stay conscious.
"Remy, Remy, sugah," a voice with a dulcet southern drawl broke through the darkness and drew him back to consciousness. A cool hand wrapped around his and he inhaled the sweet scent of magnolias. For some reason he hadn't thought they were so far south. The air lacked the heavy humidity of home. It took his eyes a long moment to adjust to the light as the visage of a belle femme separated from the group. She knelt beside him in a proprietary manner.
He moaned.
"C'mon on swamp rat."
Swamp rat?
She was gorgeous. He couldn't deny that. Her wild red hair tumbled over her shoulders in loose curls. White locks framed her face. Green eyes which almost sparked his memory studied him with concern. He nearly moved to to comfort her unknown sadness, but something in him warned him that her touch was dangerous. Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes, though they refused to fall. "Sugah, how are ya? Ya were missing for the last two weeks. Ah was so worried. We thought the explosion got ya..."
He pulled away from her. His throat was dry and scratchy. He felt as though he hadn't spoken for the entirety of the time he'd apparently been missing. The ring sat heavy on his finger. He needed to know. After several failed attempts, he finally managed to utter his question in hoarse whisper. "Where's my wife? Is she okay?"
The strange woman's green eyes sparked with a flash of hurt only to be replaced by fear. When she reached for him, he didn't respond in kind. Her voice trembled. The tears finally spilled from their confines and left watery trails down her dust covered cheeks. "Sugah, Ah'm right here."
At last the panic arrived. His chest collapsed, squeezing the air from his lungs. His heart raced to find a way from the constricting cage. When he had passed out, someone had lifted the table from over his body, freeing him from the confines. Despite the apparent freedom, he was anything but free. The group of strangers clustered around him, pressing into his personal space. Their faces looked like they were attending a funeral rather than completing a safe rescue. He felt more trapped, more confined than he did when buried under the building.
Scrambling to a sitting position, he nearly passed out again as his head protested the too quick movements. As soon as he got his feet under him, he attempted to stand. Attempt was the keyword. His injured ankle gave way, sending him cascading back to the rubble strewn ground. This time on hands and knees, he attempted to flee from the madwoman claiming to be his wife. The crowd of concerned faces pressed closer. His would-be rescuers were unable or unwilling to step in and clarify things. Why did no one tell her that she was wrong? Didn't they know she was delusional? What kind of woman joined a rescue party, then claimed to be the victim's wife? Instead, they stared in shock at the tableau playing out before them.
Remy searched the rubble for any sign of life. Had they been together? Had he been on a job on his own? Where was she? The Southern belle no longer looked at him with that agonized expression which said he was betraying her with every action, every word. Her face was buried in her hands, her hair formed a curtain around her face. If she cried, her tears were silent, though shoulders shook as though wracked with grief. A small bit of him felt as tough he was betraying her, but how could that be? She was a stranger to him.
A tall, statuesque woman with rich brown skin and snowy white hair knelt beside the distraught woman and wrapped her arms around the other woman's shoulders. A big, blue furred man with glasses perched on the bridge of his nose knelt down beside Remy. He laid fingers against Remy's throat, feeling the pulse and counting heartbeats. His movements were quick, efficient, and professional—a doctor running through a check list of cause and effect. Before the doctor could complete his checks, Gambit pushed his hands away. The medical checks could wait, he needed answers whether they wanted to provide them or not. The doctor backed away giving Gambit space. No one stepped in to comfort him or answer his questions. Clearly they were the friends of the woman claiming to be his wife, and not his.
Finally, when he could no longer take the silence, he found his voice. He would spell it out for them if need be. Clearing his throat, he clarified for the speechless crowd. "Where's my wife? Where's Belle?"
.
I promise-this is a Romy story. It's just a bit of a slow burn (A slow re-kindle?) and it will take me a while to get to that happily ever after. (I'm sorry I'm a slow writer and have a few pots on the boil.)
Please, have patience. It will all make sense in the end. I promise.
Thanks for reading. ~rose
