"No way."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes—Rogue, just go."

"I don't do air vents."

"Stop bein' a baby and get it after me."

"Why? So I could have my head stuck up your rear?"

"Not possible. You already have your head stuck up your—"

"If you want to live, I'd advise you to stop talking now." Rogue pushed him back a little. "I'll go in first. You follow." Right before she climbed into the narrow vent, she looked behind her shoulder at him. "And no funny stuff." It wasn't until she climbed in when he knew what she was talking about.

"Damn."

_____


"Are you sure you know where we're supposed to be going?"

"Rem, sugah, don't argue with a girl who can shove her foot down your throat." He tried to keep his head down to keep him from staring at her ass.

"I love it when you talk dirty." He mumbled sarcastically. "How do you know where to go, anyway?"

"Lets just say a little guardie told me."

"In other words, I don't want to know?"

"Bingo."

"Does it have to do with your power?"

She was hesitant. "Perhaps."

Now, he was hesitant. "Are you a telepath?"

"No."

"Then--"

"Remy!" She snapped, coming to a stop. "The storage room is below the vent."

"How do we get down there?"

"I was hoping you'd know. C'mon, you're Remy LeBeau." She grunted as she looked behind her shoulder at him. "You're a master thief. You can figure this out."

"What about you?"

She laughed. "Rem, I've only been trained for fighting skills. I ain't much of a thief. Your pops wants me to get into it."

"Now you tell me."

"We don't have much time—"


"I'll charge up a card."

"You're goin' to blow us up?"

"No. I won't make that mistake twice." He shot at her. "I'll only use a little energy and throw it down a few feet."

"That doesn't sound like a great idea."

"It's our only option, unless you want to head back."

She rolled her eyes. "Fine. As long as you're in front of me."

"To protect you?" He asked, suddenly smirking.

"Yeah. So you get the most force."

His smirk dropped. "I feel the love." He mumbled sarcastically. He then struggled to take out a card, and right as he was about to charge it, they both went through the ground.

_____


"My god." Gambit mumbled with a cough. "That hurt." He groaned as he sat up. "A lot." It wasn't too long of a drop. The two southerners just didn't know their way around. Well, Rogue knew more than Remy, but who really cares. Shut up, no you don't. "Rogue..?" He glanced over to see herr sitting several feet away from him, looking a bit paler than usual.

"Don't pretend you're worried, Remy. I'm all right." The little color her face had, returned. He smirked; indeed she was all right. He got to his feet, and gave her a hand, which she hesitantly took. He second she stood up, she let out a short cry of pain and fell forward into him. Okay, maybe she wasn't one hundred percent 'all right.' "I think I landed on my ankle wrong."


"Think?" He wrapped an arm around her waist to support her.

"All right, I know." She pulled out from his embrace and limped over to a crate and sat on it. "The jewel is in crate number 0069666."

He grunted. "Great numbers." He looked around the room, at the scattered crates. "This is going to take a while."

____


"It's not  here."


"Yes, it is." Rogue was still sitting on the crate but now her boot was off and she was rubbing her swollen ankle, which wasn't helping. At all. She winced as she put her boot back on. "It has to be. I know the man put it inside the crate because they're bein' sent to some auction house next month."

"And you would know that.. how?"

"I'll explain when we get back home."

When she said home, it just reminded him of why he disliked her so much. He just pushed off the anger he still felt from it and stared over at her. "But we checked every.." It suddenly dawned on him. "What crate number are you sittin' on?"

Rogue scooted over to the side of the box and read the number she had been sitting on. She glanced over at him, her cheeks slightly flushed. "Opps."

_____

"Well, this is cute." The black jewel with a green crystal placed in the middle was placed in the palm of Rogue's hand.

"Yeah, we went all this way for cute jewelry. We've been here way too long. We have to run."

"You more than me." Rogue pointed out. "I could hop out on one foot."

As funny as the mental image was, he wasn't going to let her do that. "Get on my back."

"What?" She blinked, leaning forward to drop the jewel into his pocket.

"Get on my back." This time he said it slower.

Rogue looked hesitant to do so. "Aren't we humble?"

"Just do it."

"You sure?" She asked in a small, serious tone. He just nodded, barely noticing the difference in the tone of her voice.


"Yeah."

_____


"You two went on an easy mission yet one of you still managed getting injured." Jean-Luc shook his head as he put the stolen jewel in a safe.

"Hey, at least I didn't cause it." Short pause. "Our weight did."

"You two gettin' along any better now?"

"Do you want me to tell the truth or tell me what you want to hear?"

Jean-Luc rubbed his chin. "Lie to me."

"We're engaged."

"Not that much."

"We're in love."

"A little less."

"We're friends."

"That's good to hear." He patted his son's shoulder. "I'm goin' to go seek more missions for you two."

Remy sighed. "So soon?"

"This is your life, boy."        

"More like your life. Why don't you ever do it?"

"Because I ain't the one with mutant powers. You're lucky I got Rogue or you'd be doin' this alone since—"

"Don't even say it." Remy said coldly. "Don't even bother."

"Am I interruptin' anything?" Mattie asked, walking into the room with the first aid kit in her arms. "Rogue has a sprain. She'll have to keep off it for a few days."

Jean-Luc sighed heavily. "That's wastin' too much time."

"Stop bein' a dick." Remy snapped at his father before leaving the room.

Mattie glanced over at Jean-Luc. "I see you two are gettin' along as good as before. Even better than before." She said, her words dripping in sarcasm.

_____


Rogue sat on her bed, an ice bandage was wrapped around her foot and ankle. She stared down at it with a weird look on her face.

"Rogue?" Remy walked into her room, once again shutting and locking the door behind him. "We need to talk."

She just raised a brow. "Need? Mister LeBeau, you must have a lot on your mind."

_____


In school, I wrote out the subplots for this chapter and ended up using maybe two out of the whole page written for this chapter.


dreamschemer Remy and Rogue won't get along until they understand each other. They really need to communicate, ne? In the next chapter, they'll actually have a decent conversation. Not banter. Maybe.
Lady Farevay ^_^ That was in deed intended to be a pun.
ishandahalf Actually, there's a reason Rogue doesn't care much about being used by Jean-Luc.
Nightcrawler03 I have no idea if it'll end up a ROMY. Since I'm a romy lover, you can only take a guess..


Not too many people even asked something and ff.n is being a bitch and won't let me see any reviews because of traffic or something. Oh well.


I'll try to update tomorrow night but since I have Nighttime Tutors tomorrow, I'm sure if I can. =( I'll probably skip it if I can. I'd rather write than teach a little kid numbers 1-20 four million times..