The Brotherhood and Remy entered the kitchen to see Rogue seated once again on one of the counters swinging crossed legs and munching on one of the cookies. Hank turned at the sound of the door opening and blinked. The Brotherhood was also a bit startled, not having seen their teacher since his transformation. There was silence for a moment.
"Well, this is unexpected," Hank said with a raised eyebrow.
"Hi, Mr. McCoy," they said in unison. This earned them another raised eyebrow and somewhat suspicious look. There was another moment of silence while they appraised each other.
"Would any of you care for some cookies?" There was a mad rush toward the sheets of cooling goodies.
Pietro, of course, reached the tray first and ducked out of the way from his teammates, especially Fred. He sat up on the counter by Rogue and took a bite one of the five he'd grabbed. "Hmm..." he said close to her ear. "These are pretty good."
Rogue glared straight ahead. "Ya know," she started, "It's too bad you're all talk."
"Are you baiting me?"
She turned quickly, her mouth inches from his own. "What if Ah was?" She licked her lips and kept her eyes on his lips, which thinned out in uncertainty.
"Um..."
"Oh, please." She pushed him off the counter roughly, and looked at Remy. She patted the counter, which he proceeded to walk over the fallen Pietro on the tiled floor. He took a seat next to her, wrapping an arm around her possessively.
"Do y' really have t' do dat?" he asked, anger slightly leaking into his voice.
"Aww, Remy. Ah only have eyes foh you, ya know that." She kissed her fingertip and pushed it to his lips. He kissed it, a grin chasing away any previous jealousy.
Todd made gagging motions in between scarfing down cookies. Pietro looked miffed before an evil glint came into his eye and he burst into song. "I ooooonly haaaaave eeeeeeys fooooor yoooooou...." Everyone winced as he hit a high note.
Tabitha glared and threw an energy bomb at him, which he managed to dodge, barely. It left a black scorch mark on the tiles. "No singing!"
"Hey! Just cause you have no taste..." Tabitha made another energy ball.
"Children! Will you PLEASE refrain from further damaging the kitchen?"
Embarrassed, Tabitha looked at the energy ball in her hand. "Umm..."
Rogue put up her hand. "Ah'll keep it from blowin'."
Tabitha tossed it as instructed and Rogue held in it her two hands, her invulnerability keeping her from harm when it exploded lightly in her hand. She dusted it off like nothing, except that her gloves now had nicely sized holes in each of the palms. "Dammit," she muttered, getting up from the counter. "Ah'll be back. Keep an' eye on 'em, Hank." She smiled and left the room.
Tabitha followed her out. "Hey, Rogue!" she called, catching up to her on the steps. Rogue stopped and waited for her. "I just wanted to talk... ya know, seeing as how we're the only Bayville babes left for the holiday."
"Sure..." Rogue looked at her uneasily. "Are ya plannin' somethin'?"
"Not at all, Roguey Roo." She placed a friendly arm around her shoulder as Rogue led them up the steps. "Soooo... tell me about this Remy guy."
"Whaddya wanna know about him?"
"You think I'm gonna try something with him?"
"Ah wouldn't be surprised."
"Rogue, I'm hurt! Really, I just want some gossip. I live in a house with guys. I'm deprived!" she pleaded.
"Agh, Ah cain't bare ta listen ta whinin'... Fine, c'mon," she relented.
The males of the house blinked, watching as the females disappeared, chatting like old friends.
"Um... It is a good idea for them to be alone together?" Fred ventured cautiously.
"Non."
"Should we be worried?" Lance asked him.
"Oui."
"Well, they do say the females are the deadliest of any species," Hank commented.
They younger males turned to look at him. He shrugged innocently before looking down and concentrating on mixing the next batch of cookie dough, chocolate-chocolate chip. His own recipe.
Fred snatched another sugar cookie and munched happily, trying his best not to scatter crumbs on the floor. "So..." he mumbled with his mouth still full. "What do we do now?"
"Yeah, Cajun," Pietro asked, dusting himself off from the floor, slighting embarrassed. "What is there to do around here?"
"Not a damn t'ing. Me an' Roguey always slip out," Remy said, shrugging nonchalantly.
Lance chuckled. "Sounds like the same old Rogue to me. Hasn't changed a bit."
"Not in the least..." Pietro chortled.
Remy quirked an eyebrow. "What y' mean?"
Todd snickered. "We're not implyin' anythin'."
Remy was beginning to get irritated. "Like hell y' are'nt. What're y' gettin' at?"
"Rogue was a Brotherhood chick," Lance told him. Red on black eyes stared at him, unchanged.
"Ev'ryone knows dat. Even de new kids."
"But did you know what she did as a Brotherhood chick?" Lance asked.
Remy's lips tightened as he thought it over. Rogue never really told him much of anything of them. "Not really..."
"Oh, then do we have stories to tell you!" Fred laughed. Remy wasn't sure if he was suddenly frightened that he was going to find out some strange things out about Rogue, or that he was going to have a civil conversation with eighty percent of the Brotherhood.
"So, it's really not mah place ta tell...." she told Tabitha.
"No Remy dirt?"
"No Remy dirt," Rogue affirmed.
"Aw..." Tabitha pouted.
"Ah've absorbed most of the people livin' here and most o' the Brotherhood at one time o' another. Ya want dirt? Ah have the inside scoop." Rogue smirked as the other girl's eyes lit up.
"Jean?"
"Oh, yeah."
"What kind o'... stories?" Remy asked hesitantly. He was curious yes, but also wary.
"Weeell, there was the time she absorbed Pietro and found Toad's pixie sticks," Fred elaborated thoughtfully.
Lance shuddered. "Man, that was baaaad..." Images of Rogue running around the entire Brotherhood manor, shrieking that she was the Pixie Princess and that all sugary substances should bow to her was not a memory that he looked upon fondly. The girl was normally scary, but nothing was more terrifying than the Rogue on a sugar high.
Remy shrugged it off, not catching exactly how traumatizing it was. "Y' haven' seen her drunk, have y'? I'm sure she's just as crazy."
"Not impressed, tough guy?" Pietro scowled. "How's this: do you know what she left at our house?" Remy shook his head. "She left a nice trunk of things... full of stuff that she'd brought up from Caldecott. Lance peeked in once after she left..."
"God, this was scary," Lance shuddered again.
"Pictures. Interesting pictures."
Remy looked at him quizzically. "O' what?"
"Your Rogue was put through dance school, buddy. Pink tutus and all."
Remy's eyebrows shot up under his hair. "..."
"What? You don't believe us?!" Lance growled, seeing the look of disbelief.
"Non. I don' believe dat y' have possession o' dose pictures an' haven' blackmailed her yet."
"This is ROGUE we're talking about. Firstly, no one would believe us. Secondly, if she found out we would be worse than dead. She's absorbed all of us. Talk about dirt... and she has ways of proving it." Pietro looked vaguely apprehensive.
"Well, it DOES explain how flexible she is..."
"Oh, man! Too much information!" Todd made a face. The others laughed.
"So why y' tellin' me all dis if y're so afraid o' what she knows about y'?"
"Because right now she's upstairs with Tabitha and most likely spilling her guts about us. If we have to suffer so does she," Pietro pointed out logically. "Hmm... What else? I don't think you've grasped the tortures we've gone through because of her..."
Upstairs, Rogue had exposed Jean's most embarrassing moment, gushed completely about Pietro's wildest dreams and was moving onto Lance. Tabitha sat, wide-eyed, her face seemingly frozen in a state of shock. "Wait, I need a breather," she gasped.
Rogue tilted her head to one side, disgust twitching her black lips. "Yeah, Ah feel like Ah need somethin' ta drink after Ah think of Pietro's fantasy of mad jungle sex wearin' just a loincloth..." She jumped off her bed and walked over to the door. "Ya wanna just wait here while Ah grab ya somethin'?"
"Sure. Whatever you've got is fine."
"Kay. Be back in a second." She left the room by air, leaving Tabitha to glance around the area. She really didn't want to lose Rogue's trust that she had just gained, so the next best thing was snooping through Kitty's side of the room...
Descending the steps, Rogue was completely silent, surprised that the Institute wasn't in ruins yet. She'd thought leaving Remy alone with the boys would cause nothing but trouble. The thought that they actually got along made her smile as she floated over to the kitchen. It wasn't long before she was in ear shot and discovered why.
"So Fred was hiding up in his room and me and Toad were duct-taped to the chair in the living room. She still hadn't gotten Pietro yet." Lance was telling Remy of the time they'd gone into her room without permission and accidentally broken her new Garbage cd. "He actually thought he was safe."
"I couldn't have been more wrong," Pietro moaned into his hands.
"Rogue had managed to find a couple of Backstreet Boys cds somewhere and two discmans-"
Remy shook his head. "I t'ink I know where dis is going...."
"You have no IDEA where this is going. Anyway, so Pietro came back to find out why we were screaming and begging-"
"Big mistake." Pietro added from behind his hands.
"-and she appears out of the darkness like some..." Lance paused, looking for the right word.
"Evil, demonic creature of the night?" Todd supplied.
"Close enough. So she zapped Pietro and who comes in but Mystique. She takes one at us, and walks right back out again, leaving us at the tender mercies of-"
"Me." The boys all stared and turned toward the doorway. Beast was long gone, having taken some twinkies and coffee for nourishment and vanished into his lab where it was safe. "Now, you boys wouldn't be sharin' secrets with mah boyfriend, would ya?"
Remy pointed at them. "Dis was deir idea." He shrank down in his seat as much as possible.
She tossed a glare in his direction before returning her eyes to the Brotherhood boys. Todd laughed nervously. "Sorry?"
She huffed so hard through her nose that Remy was sure smoke was going to leak out of it. She turned back to Remy. "Tell me everythin'. Anythin' ya tell will get ya off lighter an' make their lives more horrible." She growled each word from the back of her throat. Remy suddenly realized the boys weren't kidding when she was ultimately pissed. He'd heard about the most extreme time it happened when she woke up in a pile of what Todd affectionately called 'snome,' his special mixture he brought out when it snowed.
Without thinking, he started rambling off the things they'd told him, leaving out some of the things. These guys weren't that bad, and he could handle her a little mad at him, right? The Brotherhood boys were making frantic motions for him to shut up. That lasted until Rogue glanced over at them. They froze.
Remy finished telling her all he'd learned. There was a pause as she thought and then took a step toward him. He and the Brotherhood both flinched back. She smiled and patted him gently on the cheek. "Good boy. Your punishment won't be too severe." Then she looked at the Brotherhood. "And as for you... Well, Ah'll just hafta think somethin' up fittin', won't Ah?" She flashed them another smile before grabbing two Cokes and leaving.
Todd had sunk even lower than his usual crouch. "I'm scared..."
"We're all scared, Toad," Lance told him with a pat on his shoulder.
"I've heard Brazil is nice this time of year..." Pietro thought out loud.
Remy gulped. "Sorry, mes amis..."
"Hey," Lance put up a hand. "I'm sure all of us would have done the same thing in your position. It's not good to have her mad at you when she has access to certain... things."
Remy's face blanched and he actually felt relief for squealing. "So, what're y' gon' do?"
"We discovered something a while ago that we decided mutually was gonna be our 'get out of jail card' if something like this were to ever happen," Todd answered almost eloquently.
"And it's definitely called for now," Fred agreed, his eyes searching for food. He always ate when he was nervous. Hell, he always ate. But he was still lovable.
"And dat would be...?"
Rogue stormed back into her room only to find Tabitha looking under Kitty's bed. "Ahem." Tabitha shot up, putting her hands behind her back and smiling innocently. Then she noticed the looked on Rogue's face.
"What's wrong?"
"They were spillin' stuff to Remy about me."
"Uh-oh. Want me to to bomb 'em for you?" The blond looked sympathetic.
"Nope. I have a better idea. So here's what we do..."
TBC...
"Well, this is unexpected," Hank said with a raised eyebrow.
"Hi, Mr. McCoy," they said in unison. This earned them another raised eyebrow and somewhat suspicious look. There was another moment of silence while they appraised each other.
"Would any of you care for some cookies?" There was a mad rush toward the sheets of cooling goodies.
Pietro, of course, reached the tray first and ducked out of the way from his teammates, especially Fred. He sat up on the counter by Rogue and took a bite one of the five he'd grabbed. "Hmm..." he said close to her ear. "These are pretty good."
Rogue glared straight ahead. "Ya know," she started, "It's too bad you're all talk."
"Are you baiting me?"
She turned quickly, her mouth inches from his own. "What if Ah was?" She licked her lips and kept her eyes on his lips, which thinned out in uncertainty.
"Um..."
"Oh, please." She pushed him off the counter roughly, and looked at Remy. She patted the counter, which he proceeded to walk over the fallen Pietro on the tiled floor. He took a seat next to her, wrapping an arm around her possessively.
"Do y' really have t' do dat?" he asked, anger slightly leaking into his voice.
"Aww, Remy. Ah only have eyes foh you, ya know that." She kissed her fingertip and pushed it to his lips. He kissed it, a grin chasing away any previous jealousy.
Todd made gagging motions in between scarfing down cookies. Pietro looked miffed before an evil glint came into his eye and he burst into song. "I ooooonly haaaaave eeeeeeys fooooor yoooooou...." Everyone winced as he hit a high note.
Tabitha glared and threw an energy bomb at him, which he managed to dodge, barely. It left a black scorch mark on the tiles. "No singing!"
"Hey! Just cause you have no taste..." Tabitha made another energy ball.
"Children! Will you PLEASE refrain from further damaging the kitchen?"
Embarrassed, Tabitha looked at the energy ball in her hand. "Umm..."
Rogue put up her hand. "Ah'll keep it from blowin'."
Tabitha tossed it as instructed and Rogue held in it her two hands, her invulnerability keeping her from harm when it exploded lightly in her hand. She dusted it off like nothing, except that her gloves now had nicely sized holes in each of the palms. "Dammit," she muttered, getting up from the counter. "Ah'll be back. Keep an' eye on 'em, Hank." She smiled and left the room.
Tabitha followed her out. "Hey, Rogue!" she called, catching up to her on the steps. Rogue stopped and waited for her. "I just wanted to talk... ya know, seeing as how we're the only Bayville babes left for the holiday."
"Sure..." Rogue looked at her uneasily. "Are ya plannin' somethin'?"
"Not at all, Roguey Roo." She placed a friendly arm around her shoulder as Rogue led them up the steps. "Soooo... tell me about this Remy guy."
"Whaddya wanna know about him?"
"You think I'm gonna try something with him?"
"Ah wouldn't be surprised."
"Rogue, I'm hurt! Really, I just want some gossip. I live in a house with guys. I'm deprived!" she pleaded.
"Agh, Ah cain't bare ta listen ta whinin'... Fine, c'mon," she relented.
The males of the house blinked, watching as the females disappeared, chatting like old friends.
"Um... It is a good idea for them to be alone together?" Fred ventured cautiously.
"Non."
"Should we be worried?" Lance asked him.
"Oui."
"Well, they do say the females are the deadliest of any species," Hank commented.
They younger males turned to look at him. He shrugged innocently before looking down and concentrating on mixing the next batch of cookie dough, chocolate-chocolate chip. His own recipe.
Fred snatched another sugar cookie and munched happily, trying his best not to scatter crumbs on the floor. "So..." he mumbled with his mouth still full. "What do we do now?"
"Yeah, Cajun," Pietro asked, dusting himself off from the floor, slighting embarrassed. "What is there to do around here?"
"Not a damn t'ing. Me an' Roguey always slip out," Remy said, shrugging nonchalantly.
Lance chuckled. "Sounds like the same old Rogue to me. Hasn't changed a bit."
"Not in the least..." Pietro chortled.
Remy quirked an eyebrow. "What y' mean?"
Todd snickered. "We're not implyin' anythin'."
Remy was beginning to get irritated. "Like hell y' are'nt. What're y' gettin' at?"
"Rogue was a Brotherhood chick," Lance told him. Red on black eyes stared at him, unchanged.
"Ev'ryone knows dat. Even de new kids."
"But did you know what she did as a Brotherhood chick?" Lance asked.
Remy's lips tightened as he thought it over. Rogue never really told him much of anything of them. "Not really..."
"Oh, then do we have stories to tell you!" Fred laughed. Remy wasn't sure if he was suddenly frightened that he was going to find out some strange things out about Rogue, or that he was going to have a civil conversation with eighty percent of the Brotherhood.
"So, it's really not mah place ta tell...." she told Tabitha.
"No Remy dirt?"
"No Remy dirt," Rogue affirmed.
"Aw..." Tabitha pouted.
"Ah've absorbed most of the people livin' here and most o' the Brotherhood at one time o' another. Ya want dirt? Ah have the inside scoop." Rogue smirked as the other girl's eyes lit up.
"Jean?"
"Oh, yeah."
"What kind o'... stories?" Remy asked hesitantly. He was curious yes, but also wary.
"Weeell, there was the time she absorbed Pietro and found Toad's pixie sticks," Fred elaborated thoughtfully.
Lance shuddered. "Man, that was baaaad..." Images of Rogue running around the entire Brotherhood manor, shrieking that she was the Pixie Princess and that all sugary substances should bow to her was not a memory that he looked upon fondly. The girl was normally scary, but nothing was more terrifying than the Rogue on a sugar high.
Remy shrugged it off, not catching exactly how traumatizing it was. "Y' haven' seen her drunk, have y'? I'm sure she's just as crazy."
"Not impressed, tough guy?" Pietro scowled. "How's this: do you know what she left at our house?" Remy shook his head. "She left a nice trunk of things... full of stuff that she'd brought up from Caldecott. Lance peeked in once after she left..."
"God, this was scary," Lance shuddered again.
"Pictures. Interesting pictures."
Remy looked at him quizzically. "O' what?"
"Your Rogue was put through dance school, buddy. Pink tutus and all."
Remy's eyebrows shot up under his hair. "..."
"What? You don't believe us?!" Lance growled, seeing the look of disbelief.
"Non. I don' believe dat y' have possession o' dose pictures an' haven' blackmailed her yet."
"This is ROGUE we're talking about. Firstly, no one would believe us. Secondly, if she found out we would be worse than dead. She's absorbed all of us. Talk about dirt... and she has ways of proving it." Pietro looked vaguely apprehensive.
"Well, it DOES explain how flexible she is..."
"Oh, man! Too much information!" Todd made a face. The others laughed.
"So why y' tellin' me all dis if y're so afraid o' what she knows about y'?"
"Because right now she's upstairs with Tabitha and most likely spilling her guts about us. If we have to suffer so does she," Pietro pointed out logically. "Hmm... What else? I don't think you've grasped the tortures we've gone through because of her..."
Upstairs, Rogue had exposed Jean's most embarrassing moment, gushed completely about Pietro's wildest dreams and was moving onto Lance. Tabitha sat, wide-eyed, her face seemingly frozen in a state of shock. "Wait, I need a breather," she gasped.
Rogue tilted her head to one side, disgust twitching her black lips. "Yeah, Ah feel like Ah need somethin' ta drink after Ah think of Pietro's fantasy of mad jungle sex wearin' just a loincloth..." She jumped off her bed and walked over to the door. "Ya wanna just wait here while Ah grab ya somethin'?"
"Sure. Whatever you've got is fine."
"Kay. Be back in a second." She left the room by air, leaving Tabitha to glance around the area. She really didn't want to lose Rogue's trust that she had just gained, so the next best thing was snooping through Kitty's side of the room...
Descending the steps, Rogue was completely silent, surprised that the Institute wasn't in ruins yet. She'd thought leaving Remy alone with the boys would cause nothing but trouble. The thought that they actually got along made her smile as she floated over to the kitchen. It wasn't long before she was in ear shot and discovered why.
"So Fred was hiding up in his room and me and Toad were duct-taped to the chair in the living room. She still hadn't gotten Pietro yet." Lance was telling Remy of the time they'd gone into her room without permission and accidentally broken her new Garbage cd. "He actually thought he was safe."
"I couldn't have been more wrong," Pietro moaned into his hands.
"Rogue had managed to find a couple of Backstreet Boys cds somewhere and two discmans-"
Remy shook his head. "I t'ink I know where dis is going...."
"You have no IDEA where this is going. Anyway, so Pietro came back to find out why we were screaming and begging-"
"Big mistake." Pietro added from behind his hands.
"-and she appears out of the darkness like some..." Lance paused, looking for the right word.
"Evil, demonic creature of the night?" Todd supplied.
"Close enough. So she zapped Pietro and who comes in but Mystique. She takes one at us, and walks right back out again, leaving us at the tender mercies of-"
"Me." The boys all stared and turned toward the doorway. Beast was long gone, having taken some twinkies and coffee for nourishment and vanished into his lab where it was safe. "Now, you boys wouldn't be sharin' secrets with mah boyfriend, would ya?"
Remy pointed at them. "Dis was deir idea." He shrank down in his seat as much as possible.
She tossed a glare in his direction before returning her eyes to the Brotherhood boys. Todd laughed nervously. "Sorry?"
She huffed so hard through her nose that Remy was sure smoke was going to leak out of it. She turned back to Remy. "Tell me everythin'. Anythin' ya tell will get ya off lighter an' make their lives more horrible." She growled each word from the back of her throat. Remy suddenly realized the boys weren't kidding when she was ultimately pissed. He'd heard about the most extreme time it happened when she woke up in a pile of what Todd affectionately called 'snome,' his special mixture he brought out when it snowed.
Without thinking, he started rambling off the things they'd told him, leaving out some of the things. These guys weren't that bad, and he could handle her a little mad at him, right? The Brotherhood boys were making frantic motions for him to shut up. That lasted until Rogue glanced over at them. They froze.
Remy finished telling her all he'd learned. There was a pause as she thought and then took a step toward him. He and the Brotherhood both flinched back. She smiled and patted him gently on the cheek. "Good boy. Your punishment won't be too severe." Then she looked at the Brotherhood. "And as for you... Well, Ah'll just hafta think somethin' up fittin', won't Ah?" She flashed them another smile before grabbing two Cokes and leaving.
Todd had sunk even lower than his usual crouch. "I'm scared..."
"We're all scared, Toad," Lance told him with a pat on his shoulder.
"I've heard Brazil is nice this time of year..." Pietro thought out loud.
Remy gulped. "Sorry, mes amis..."
"Hey," Lance put up a hand. "I'm sure all of us would have done the same thing in your position. It's not good to have her mad at you when she has access to certain... things."
Remy's face blanched and he actually felt relief for squealing. "So, what're y' gon' do?"
"We discovered something a while ago that we decided mutually was gonna be our 'get out of jail card' if something like this were to ever happen," Todd answered almost eloquently.
"And it's definitely called for now," Fred agreed, his eyes searching for food. He always ate when he was nervous. Hell, he always ate. But he was still lovable.
"And dat would be...?"
Rogue stormed back into her room only to find Tabitha looking under Kitty's bed. "Ahem." Tabitha shot up, putting her hands behind her back and smiling innocently. Then she noticed the looked on Rogue's face.
"What's wrong?"
"They were spillin' stuff to Remy about me."
"Uh-oh. Want me to to bomb 'em for you?" The blond looked sympathetic.
"Nope. I have a better idea. So here's what we do..."
TBC...
