Chapter 1: Disagreement
Remy LeBeau hated picking up garbage. Sure he could think of a hundred other things he hated even more than this one task – but hell, he could think of a hundred things he'd rather do also – most of those hundred things he'd rather do involved Rogue.
He gave a sigh, picking up a piece of newspaper from the driveway that, in this harsh February wind, had been travelling along the driveway at top speed, he'd only just caught up with it.
Remy LeBeau felt slightly disenchanted by his every day chores. Being deemed as the mansions 'odd job man' was nothing he could be particularly proud of, picking up garbage, pulling weeds out of the gardens, sweeping the driveway, not to mention all the other chores inside the mansion itself.
Once, Remy LeBeau had been a Thief – the son of a grand master thief in an elite underground society of thieves – the Thieves Guild. Remy had always been one of the best, his father had always told him, especially considering his tender age. By the time of age sixteen, Remy had stolen so many expensive and extravagant things, that he was sure the grand total of all his thievery must have summed up to at least five-hundred thousand dollars worth of goods.
Of course, he'd never seen any of that money. Thieves were paid to steal but never kept anything they stole for their own profit – it was one of the bylaws of the guild, which was why Remy had never been deemed – at least by his standards – wealthy. In fact, at most times there was barely twenty dollars in his pocket, only enough to sustain his cigarette habit, and that was all.
But the need for money wasn't Remy's reason for doing odd jobs around the Xavier mansion. Fact was, he was an X-Man, and X-Men all played their little parts in the running of the mansion – which doubled as an institute for mutants so they could learn to harness their powers fully.
Remy hadn't joined for the same reasons as the others. Remy knew all the information and control he could possibly know regarding his own powers, the ability turn almost anything he touched into a weapon by charging it with explosive kinetic energy. There was nothing more he felt he could learn about this, nor his natural agility or even his obscure power to charm people with his eyes.
Remy had spent several months wondering why exactly he had joined the X-Men in the first place. He'd spent most of his life preparing to be a professional thief, which paid a substantial amount more than what he was being paid by Professor Charles Xavier for his little odd jobs. Remy's morals and logic hadn't always applied to the rest of the world, Thieves had their own rules and regulations, had their own reasons and ethics.
It was the reason why he secretly had never completely settled with the X-Men, and sometimes why he felt the need to run. He felt almost as if he were the outsider – but he had to remind himself even back home in his beloved New Orleans, amongst his family, and his guild, he'd always been an outsider. He'd never completely fitted in anywhere.
After having thought about it long and hard so many times, during many arguments with the girl he loved – Marie D'Ancanto, a girl who liked to be known only as Rogue – he came to the conclusion that he'd joined the X-Men to atone for his role in the things that had happened to Rogue, however, he knew that somehow, he never really had.
Since joining the X-Men, he'd played a bigger role in Rogue's life, harassing her so she'd pay attention to him, until she fell for him and he for her, and then the troubles really started – something he was beginning to get used to, and had been used to since the age of fifteen. Whenever there was romance in Remy LeBeau's life, something was always sure to go wrong.
With Thieving, Remy was infallible, he could make everything work out to plan, just the way he intended it, but with love? With love, Remy had a flair for always saying the wrong thing, or doing the wrong thing, and after all the relationships – long or short lived – he'd still never quite learned how to make things work out correctly with a girl.
It had never really bothered him up until having met Rogue. Of course, up until he'd fallen in love with Rogue, any other girl he'd been with had been nothing more than a passing amusement at best.
It had been a self-rule of his to never date a girl he could easily fall in love with. He'd pick girls who were dull and vain, the ones who didn't interest him in the slightest – apart from sexually – and then when things didn't work out he didn't have to worry about the hurt later, because there was none…at least not for him.
When meeting Rogue, he'd seen her as nothing more than another one of those girls. She was cold, abrupt and she had issues that even she really didn't want to address. And she had hated him, with a passion.
That had been what had attracted Remy into flirting with her in the first place. There wasn't a girl or woman on earth he couldn't somehow make like him, and Rogue's hatred of him was so powerful that the challenge beckoned him. He also reminded himself that if he was to somehow atone for the guilt he felt over what he'd done – over his involvement with Carol Danvers and how Rogue came to absorb her powers – he'd have to get Rogue to like him first.
And Rogue, like the other girls, had been the kind of girl he picked, the kind of girl who didn't interest him, the kind of girl who was too high maintenance – one he was sure he'd never fall in love with.
Unfortunately it backfired, and he did.
As Remy picked up more garbage from the driveway, he thought back distantly to the moment he first realised that he loved her. The night he'd drowned and almost died – she'd saved his life, although he still felt undeserving of that. He'd gone to the recreation room, and Rogue was sleeping soundly on the couch, and when he'd seen her, he'd felt emotion welling up inside him so strong that he'd hated it, and as he'd watched the sun come up, with the light from the rising sun beaming through the windows, directly onto Rogue's ashen skin, he'd realised that for the first time he really was in love.
The very thing he'd been trying to avoid had happened to him, and taken over his life, and now there was no turning back on it either – and he didn't want to anymore, even though his life would have been much easier if he could.
He sighed and tied up the plastic bag of garbage he'd been hauling around, and headed to the back of the mansion, and tossed it into the dumpster. He was about to start picking up more garbage, when Professor Xavier's voice rang out in his head.
"Remy, could you please come and see me…right away," the voice spoke clearly.
Remy shoved the roll of black plastic garbage bags into his front left pocket, and headed inside, towards Professor Xavier's office.
He knocked, then opened the door and glanced around it, "something wrong? Did I forget to do something…I know I didn't rotate the tires on the van, I'm gonna get to that soon though," he began.
"No…its not that, please, come in, sit down," Professor Xavier gestured towards a chair in front of his desk.
"I'd rather stand, if its all the same," Remy stepped in, closing the door behind him, he waited in silence, hoping the Professor would speak first, and he did – eventually.
"Rogue mentioned – for valentines day – that you will be taking her out tomorrow night."
Remy suddenly remembered. With all the craziness of this past week – the arrival of his wife, who he was divorcing, Rogue's argument with him, and then the suicide, Remy had found it hard to keep up with everything going on in his life – one of the reasons he hadn't rotated the tires yet, he'd forgot, just like the date, "Yes…that's right," he finally nodded.
"I'd rather you not take her out at all, Remy. This past week has been difficult for her…" Professor Xavier explained.
"But she wants to…" Remy frowned a little, "in fact she asked me last night if we're still on for the date – and I assured her we were…what's the big deal?"
Professor Xavier sighed, "the big deal, Remy, is that only days ago Rogue tried to kill herself with painkillers, she is still in a rather tender condition…"
"She's physically fine."
"But mentally not," Professor Xavier remarked sharply.
"I disagree," Remy stated.
"Whether you like to admit it or not, the reason she did what she did was in response to you – and I'm thinking it might be wise to refrain any romantic relationship until at least she's had time to recover emotionally," Professor Xavier used a strange calm tone.
"Professor…me and Rogue 'refrained' for two months," Remy commented, "neither of us want to 'refrain' anymore."
"I do know this, but you must understand—"
"Understand what?!" Remy demanded, his voice raising, "that now you want to be another obstacle in what's keeping me and her from being together. First it was Miss Marvel, then her powers, and my lies, then my ex-fiancee, and recently my wife – who incidentally I'm divorcing – and now you?!"
"Calm down!"
"I will not calm down!" Remy hissed, "I know you run things in this school, professor, but one thing you do not – and will never – control is me and Rogue bein' together. If you wanna get between someone, get between Jean and Scott – after all they got things perfect, they deserve some kinda grief by now - but don't fuck with me and Rogue. You can fuck off with that idea," Remy spun around and headed for the door.
"You will not walk away from this conversation!" Professor Xavier said loudly and angrily.
"Watch me," Remy remarked, he left the room, slamming the door behind him.