(Seventeen)
"You want Gambit to do what?!"
Henry backed up a bit, surprised by the heat of Remy's reaction. The thief was outraged, barely in control of his temper. His red eyes blazed and his hands clenched and unclenched in fury. Beast and Logan, along with Valentin, had approached the fiery eyed mutant with their proposal on how to destroy the Dognan base. Henry had figured Gambit would be all over it, enjoying any kind of challenge, and was not prepared for this little snag in their plans.
"All ya gotta do is sneak in, plant the charges and get out," Wolverine repeated, not understanding what the big deal was.
"Gambit, he a t'ief. He ain't no killer, not no more. Dat place'll be loaded with dose cat guys!"
"Sometime's there's a killin' that needs to be done."
"Bullshit! Dat's a load of fuckin' crap an' you know it!"
"If you won't do it, all you have to do is bring someone in who will," Valentin said evenly. He was exasperated at how sensitive alphas could be. They never seemed to understand war and how these things must be done. Sacrifices had to be made.
Gambit's face turned colors Henry had never seen before. Valentin had made a serious error.
"Disparassent la baise vous-meme, vous encule de mere!" Gambit bellowed in his fury and then the room exploded in red flame and dust. They barely had time to duck under the heavy table. Remy had charged over a dozen cards and flung them at them. The had cards exploded loudly, causing chunks of rock and debris to go flying from the walls and ceiling. By the time the had dust settled, Remy was gone.
"Well, that went smoothly," Wolverine quipped, dusting himself off. He had to hide the sly smile that was threatening to leak out. It had been in ragged French, but there had been a certain satisfaction in hearing Gambit tell Valentin to go fuck himself.
It was true Valentin didn't get it, though Remy's anger was easy enough to read. He complained in exasperation, "What's going on? I thought you said he would help us!"
Henry sighed and gave Valentin a brief run down of Gambit's history, the Morlock Massacre in particular. Valentin's brow creased with frustration.
"This isn't the same thing!"
"To him it is."
"I'll go talk to him," Logan offered and left.
He followed Remy's trail easily, all he had to do was follow the smell of frustration and anger, Remy was really pissed. Logan sighed with impatience. They should have guessed that Remy would have a problem with this scenario, it just hadn't occurred to them until it was too late. Remy had gone quite far before he finally ran out of steam and slowed down. He had traveled as far as the outer hanger bays, sneaking past the guards. Logan found him on the edge of a carved, stone ventilation shaft for the hanger, his legs dangling and his head down.
Wolverine sat next to his teammate without saying anything. He knew Remy would speak when he was ready.
Gambit sniffed and took a deep breath. His eyes were shiny with angry tears that he didn't bother to hide. "You done kicked me out for bein' a killer! You left Gambit behind to die for doin' dis very t'ing! How dare you ask dis of me!?"
"I wouldnt've left ya behind fer that," Wolverine said quietly. He hadn't been there when the shit went down and couldn't honestly answer what he ultimately would have done. The bad decision had been made in the heat of anger with poor Remy paying the price.
"Non. Non. You would 'ave killed me instead!" Remy snapped.
Logan put his head down and sighed. "I don' kill fer no stupid reasons, kid."
Gambit snorted. "Neither do I."
"You gonna tell me why you let Sinister talk ya into doin' what ya did? You ain't never said."
Gambit slowly shook his head. "It wasn't for nuthin' stupid. Wasn't for money or nuthin' like dat. 'Sides, I didn' know nobody was gonna get killed or I never would've done it."
"Then why?"
Gambit didn't reply.
Logan sighed again. "Look, kid. Doin' this thing isn't like what you did before. This is war. Out here, only the strongest survive. If you don't do this for us, we'll have to go in full throttle and a lotta folks're gonna die. You can do this quiet. You can do this sneaky." Logan waited but Gambit still said nothing. He was listening, though. "Think of this. We don't owe those Dognan creeps nuthin'. How many of our own people did they kill when we were stuck in that holdin' cell, huh? What about the pens? What about all them slaves they keep makin'? We gotta take these sleazebags out. If we don't, they're just going to keep comin'."
"I can't."
"Then take a team in like Valentin said. Just one or two guys, that's all."
Gambit looked up, his face strained from trying to keep those traitorous tears from falling. "Gambit's got a bill too big already to ever pay back. He can't make up for dis one too."
"You don't have to. Lives saved fer the lives lost."
Remy shivered as he heard Wolverine speak those words. Logan must have heard him muttering those words to himself many times out on the road.
"Do this, Remy. It's the right thing ta do. Remember, there ain't honor in a killin' if ya do it fer hate or cuz ya wanna hurt somebody. This isn't about that. This is about survival. It ain't bad if ya don't love it." Logan rubbed his hands together slowly. "I know you don't believe this, but you've more than made up for what you've done. Three hundred Morlocks dead but six million people saved during that Genosha thing we did five months ago. You're square, Remy. You been square fer a long time now."
"I didn't do Genosha alone. De whole team was in on it."
"Doesn't matter, but if it does to you, than do this. Do this and be square."
Remy put his head down and slowly nodded. Logan patted him on the shoulder and left him, figuring Remy would want to be alone.
Gambit sat on the stoop and looked out over the grey sky of Cerise. He was strong in his heart and in his will, and it had done him some good to hear Wolverine speak so well of him. He was lonely, he was tired and very, very homesick, but he would do what was asked of him.
Jus' gotta get t'rough dis one t'ing, he whispered to his heart, Jus' dis one t'ing, an' it just a little, little t'ing like all de other little t'ings you done. We do dis, den we go 'ome. It's gotta be, it jus' gotta be, 'cause I don' t'ink I'm gonna make it 'ere on m' own.
Remy looked out at the sky once more, shuddered from a chill felt more on the inside than out, and rose to follow his friend.
To be continued in Endgame.