The front foyer of the Institute had an appearance very much akin to a war zone, complete with opposing sides taking cover behind various pieces of busted up furniture. On one side were several of the X-men; Scott, Jean, and Nightcrawler caught, this time, in the role of defending themselves. On the other side were the Brotherhood; Lance, Todd, and Fred, in their well-accustomed role as the aggressors. For an audience, they had Magneto's newest recruits, the steel plated Colossus and the slightly insane but always fiery Pyro. Neither one had placed any bets as to who the victor would be in this fight because both were waiting for some excuse, any excuse, to enter the fray themselves.
Nor did they notice that their third companion, the slick fingered Cajun they knew as Gambit, had since removed himself from battlefield. Surprising, considering the fact that he had been the one to instigate the entire ruckus, not that he would ever admit to it. But what other outcome could he possibly have been expecting when he handed the ever anal attentive Scott Summers a charged card by way of handshake? To Scott's credit, he hadn't actually retaliated. The blast from the card had unfortunately knocked his shades off and that's when all hell broke loose.
The ensuing commotion allowed Gambit to slip away unnoticed, as had been his plan, and left him free to explore the rest of the mansion. As the finest thief on both sides of the Mississippi, he'd been in places twice as grand as this one and oh the goodies he'd manage to lay hands on. His fingers itched as he walked down the long hallways but astonishingly enough he didn't as much as crack open one door to take a peek at what lay inside.
Me'be Remy be losin' interest in his craft, he thought to himself. He paused briefly for a shudder. What a horrible thought, for a thief to lose his passion. Might as well turn in his lockpicks and become a lawyer. Another shudder. Who in their right mind would want to stoop to such a dishonest practice? Not Remy LeBeau, that's for certain. He'd much rather keep his thieving ways, thank you.
Still, he found he was content to wander around without relieving the others of their materialistic burdens. (Funny how people never thanked him for that service.) It didn't take him very long to come to the conclusion that while the mansion was expansive, there wasn't much there to hold his attention. That is, until he turned a corner and found himself in what appeared to be a hospital wing.
There were a number of fancy looking machines that beeped and whistled and there was that general feeling of a hospital. Too bright and overly sterilized. Gambit disliked hospitals; they were white sheets covering up death and decay. There were ten or so beds lined up against one wall. All were empty and neatly made save for one. Its occupant had the Cajun moving in for a closer look.
It was a young girl and a strikingly familiar one, too. The pale face, the white streaks that stood out against a waterfall of auburn; he'd seen it before. The owner at the time had been just a tad bit livelier he recalled as he struggled slightly to bring to mind the sound of her voice. One that had been none-too-friendly, but at the same time had reminded him of the bayous back home in Louisiana.
Curious (there wasn't anything more likely to capture his attention than a beautiful girl) he moved to the head of the bed for an even closer inspection. She lay on her side, facing away from him, one hand curled tightly around the blanket that was pinned beneath her arm. Her eyes were closed but he thought he could remember them being green. Hot with temper.
"Me'be cherie be waitin' for a handsome prince to wake her with a kiss, non?" he murmured aloud with a grin, enjoying the idea as it came into his head. He didn't get the chance to act on it though. No sooner had the words left his lips did she begin to stir and awaken.
******************
When Rogue opened her eyes the first thing she thought was, Thank god, the headache's gone. Then she shifted her head slightly and it came rushing back with a pounding and furious vengeance. That pissed her off. Of course, there were a lot of things in life that pissed her off. The color pink, boy bands, Jean, parking meters, people in stores that ask you four hundred times if you need help after you've told 'em no already, Jean, people who drive really slow, people who try and pass her, Jean, pretty much the rest of the population of the earth. Little things, really.
"Aww, dammit," she muttered as she rolled onto her back and felt the sharp, nagging pain that had been there ever since the Professor had exorcised her demons, so to speak. Ah'm startin' to wish he'd left the damn things in there. Thankfully Mr. McCoy had remembered to dim the lights in the room so she wasn't forced to squint. She'd found out early on that that only made the pain worse. It wasn't so dark though that when she turned her head slightly to the left that she couldn't see she had a visitor. A familiar one. She narrowed her eyes at him, and then winced when the action caused the throbbing in her brain to kick up.
"What the hell are you doin' here?" she demanded, after a moment. "Ah ain't in the mood to kick yer ass right now."
At that the dark haired mutant raised his eyebrows in a way that managed to be both charming and annoyingly cocky. "An' Gambit ain't in de mood to get his ass kicked, neither cherie," he responded in that thick drawl she remembered.
Shifting so that she was sitting up (there was no way she was talking to him lying on her back), Rogue rolled her eyes and thanked god when the motion when unnoticed by her head. "Gambit? Is that what ya call yerself? Or did yer mama jus' not like you?"
His eyes flashed briefly and she noticed for the first time that his irises were deep red on pools of pitch black. Ah bet the guys who develop his pictures have a hell of a time figurin' out what they did wrong.
"My mama, she like Gambit jus' fine. You got a name, cherie? Gambit'd sure hate fer dis to be a one-sided exchange."
Rogue frowned and studied him while she tried to think of all the possible reasons he could be there. The Institute had exploded again. All the other X-men were drugged. The government had come and dragged them all away. Professor X had finally had enough of everyone's bickering and crushed everyone's minds into jelly.
"They call me Rogue," she answered when none of her explanations came close to making sense. His eyes wandered over her in a manner that was studious, but in no way polite.
"You shore don't look like no vagabond," he stated when he was finished. She started to narrow her eyes again but caught herself.
"You wanna know what Ah think you look like, swamp rat?" she nearly growled, pegging his accent unconsciously. The term seemed to amuse him greatly because he grinned another one of his dashingly arrogant grins.
"Gambit not be called dat in a long time, cherie. But he be thinkin' it a bit early fer pet names, non? He shore appreciate you showin' him some southern hospitality though."
"Ah'll give ya hospitality alright. Ah certainly owe you."
"Rogue, it's nice to see you up." Mr. McCoy entered just in time to snag Rogue's bare head before she could wrap it around the Cajun's throat. Lucky for me I put my gloves on ahead of time, he thought to himself. Gambit looked a bit puzzled and Beast got the feeling that he had no idea the amount of danger he had just been in. Not only from Rogue's touch, but her temper, which he could see glowing brightly in her eyes. With anyone else, Hank would have said that the irritability was a side product of the headache. With Rogue, it was a personality quirk.
"I see you and Gambit have met," he added as he went about checking her pulse, made difficult by the gloves. Gambit grinned broadly, unaware that he was stepping into quicksand.
"De cherie and Gambit were jus' gettin' to know each other, better. Gambit think dey gonna be good friends," he declared.
"Well, that's. . .nice," Hank offered, noticing a deepening gleam in his patient's eyes. She didn't look very friendly at the moment and he wondered whether or not he should warn the boy. It was possible, after all, that given a few days Rogue would cool off.
"Ah got a feelin' you and me are gonna be real close, sugah," she replied in a falsely sugary voice. Her fingers flexed. "Real close."
Hank sighed. Or maybe not.