Damaged Goods- Chapter Two
"Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing."
-Author unknown
Bobby Drake loved physics. He loved velocity, trajectory, and calculators. But most of all, he loved that a physics course was required at Professor Xavier's School For the Gifted. The fact that every student had to take it meant it was less likely that Bobby would get singled out. He did his homework alone in his room, so they couldn't hear him talking quietly to himself, so they couldn't see the grin that stretched from ear to ear when he got the right answer. He loved that there was a right answer, and a wrong answer, and nothing in between. He liked things to be black and white. But the truth that Bobby loved the work didn't necessarily mean he was a prodigy. Sometimes, no matter how hard he tried, he failed to arrive at the right answer again and again. It was times like that when he benefited greatly from having a fuzzy blue genious as a friend.
Hank could usually be found in the lower levels of the mansion, hard at work at one of the many projects he frequently took on. Bobby rode the elevator down to the bottom level, and as always when stepping off the mahogony panelled chamber and onto the reflective metal floor, he felt as if he had entered another world. The entirety of the lower level had been lined with highly polished stainless steel, though for what purpose Bobby didn't know. Every room off the long and winding hallway required a four digit passcode to enter; as a senior student with no intention of leaving anytime soon, Bobby had been given access to some, but there were many that remained a mystery. He followed the hallway to the left, clutching his physics binder tightly to his chest. Whenever down in this wing of the mansion, even though he had permission, Bobby half-expected someone to come out of a locked door and shout at him for being where he didn't belong. But as everytime before, no one stopped him as he entered his access code and slipped into the medlab.
Hank's most frequented area of the mansion was fourty two hundred square feet of the most advanced medical equipment in the world. Hank had regular access to diagnostic machines that most hospital's would kill for. Bobby didn't know the names of any of them, or how they worked, but he knew that he ever got seriously sick, he would make sure Hank was his doctor. As the door whooshed shut behind him, Bobby became aware that the doctor was not alone. When he was, classical music could be heard playing at such a level as to shatter glass. When he had company, or was seeing to a patient, the music was played at a much more appreciable level. Currently, Bobby recognized Beethoven's Nineth Symphony piping quietly over the speakers. He stepped further into the room, trying to locate his friend among the scads of equipment placed what appeared to be haphazardly around the room. He finally spotted Hank in the far corner of the room, although he hadn't noticed Bobby's presence yet. Hank was facing a man sitting on a biobed, with his back to Bobby. From the shock of intensely auburne hair, and lean back with broad shoulders, Bobby concluded it was Remy LeBeau.
Bobby, like most of the students, knew little about the man who called himself Gambit. In fact, Bobby could honestly say he knew more about Sasquatch. He knew Gambit was private to the point of being secluded, he knew he didn't enjoy the company of children, and he knew that he took great pride in his hair. But other than that, the man was a mystery. Bobby had never had a conversation with him, though the same could probably be said by every student in the mansion.
"How long has this been happening?"Hank asked, solemnly. Bobby slid behind the great bulky x-ray machine. He wasn't eavesdropping, as he had been accused of doing in the past; he was just waiting patiently for Hank to be done. If he happened to hear snippets of their conversation, well, then, it was really just a coincidence.
Gambit's response did not reflect a similar attitude to Hanks. "Well, mon amis, I been shaving since I was fifteen. Accidents happen. You do de mat'."
There was a short period of silence, during which Bobby assumed Hank was tending to the wound he had noticed on Gambit's wrist. How he could get an injury like that when all he appeared to do was sit in his room all day and night, Bobby didn't know.Theoretically, it wasn't any of his business. But that certainly never stopped him before.
"You understand I'll have to let the Professor know,"Hank said then. Gambit didn't respond. He probably knew just as well as Bobby did that Hank had an obligation to discuss all injuries occuring in the mansion with the Professor. If Gambit was anything like Bobby, he hated that particular clause. Some injuries were just too embarrassing, like the time Bobby slipped on some chocolate pudding in the cafeteria, and needed six stitches in his forehead. Hearing that Professor Xavier had to be told was like rubbing salt in the wound.
"Snowball, what in de hell are you doin'?"
The muscles in Bobby's arms suddenly went limp. His physics binder crashed to the floor, and papers flew everywhere. He dropped to his knees, partly to hide the embarrassed flush in his cheeks, and partly to give his hands something to do as he gathered his work. One very important fact he had forgotten when eavesdropping on Gambit was that the man could move without making a sound. Bobby was convinced he could sneak up on anyone while wearing tap shoes if he wanted.
He finished collecting his papers, and shoved them all into his binder. He rose slowly, and was suddenly eye to adam's apple with a very irate looking Cajun mutant. Gambit looked different than Bobby remembered, though. For starters, the hair everyone knew he thought was his best feature was now barely two inches long. It was choppy and uneven, as though he had cut it himself using a knife and a mirror. The reflective sunglasses covering his eyes weren't a surprise, but the paleness of his skin was. He was wearing a dark brown button-up shirt, with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, showing the bandage wound around one wrist. His jeans were dark blue, almost black, and baggy. He stank of cigarette smoke, and alcohol. Granted, it had been a long time since Bobby had seen the older man, but surely that didn't account for the incredible changes.
He cleared his throat uncomfortably. Even from behind sunglasses Gambit's stare was formidable. "Um, I was waiting for Hank. I was having some trouble with my physics homework, and he usually helps me out with problems I-"
"How much o' dat did you hear?"Gambit broke in, reaching out and grabbing onto Bobby's shoulder as if he thought the kid would make a break for it.
For a long moment, Bobby could only blink. Gambit's hand felt like talons, fingertips digging into muscle and pinching skin, freezing him to his spot and stealing the breath from his lungs. But then from over Gambit's shoulder he noticed Hank step closer, and he visibly relaxed. It was ridiculous to think Gambit would hurt him, but it was even more ridiculous to think he would do it with the doctor right there.
"Um, nothing. I wasn't listening in, I was just waiting."
Gambit frowned, a fierce expression deep enough to set coins in. He twisted around to regard Hank, then turned back to Bobby again. Reluctantly, it seemed, he let go and promptly shoved his hands deep in his pockets, as if afraid he might do something far worse than simply grabbing Bobby's shoulder. Hank moved forward then, grasping Gambit's upper arm in what appeared to be a friendly, reassuring gesture. The skin around Gambit's lips tightened, and he shrugged off Hank's hand, then brushed past Bobby on his way out of the medlab. Bobby watched the man leave, then turned back to frown at Hank.
"Is he alright?"
Hank shook his head slowly, and turned away from Bobby to begin cleaning up his supplies. "I don't know, my young friend. I really don't. He's having a rough time."
Bobby followed at his heels, and set his binder down on the biobed. "Is there anything I can do to help?"
Hank paused in his ministrations to give the young man a smile. "Nothing specific. Just be kind, Bobby. And try not to eavesdrop on his conversations. He has enough trouble trusting us without fearing being spied upon."
"But I wasn't eavesdro-" He closed his mouth with an audible snap. Judging from the frank look the doctor sent him, there was no way he would be able to explain his way out of this one. Instead, he merely sighed. "Okay, maybe I was. But can you blame me? Nobody knows anything about that guy. He just hides in his room all the time."
"He may be a little secluded, but he still deserves his privacy just as much as anyone else. I trust that I don't have to remind you that what you hear in this room stays in this room?"
Bobby rolled his eyes. "Geez, Hank, I'm not a first year newbie. Anyways, who besides you would I tell?"
Hank chuckled softly, then slipped the binder out from beneath Bobby's hands. "Touche, my friend. Now let's see what trouble is Professor Xavier giving you this week?"
Professor Xavier believed in second chances. He believed that people were inherently good, and it was the poor decisions they made that were bad, not the people themselves. He believed that once a person made a bad choice, they had the right to try to fix it by doing good for others. Regardless of what the rest of his team believed, that included Remy LeBeau. Charles Xavier trusted that Remy, codename Gambit, had made some comptemptible, ignorant decisions early in life, and that his joining of the X-Men was his act of retribution, to right the wrongs he had committed. He believed that Remy was a good man that had been caught in a bad situation. But despite all this, he couldn't help but feel stirrings of frustration directed at the younger man, when Hank arrived at his office to discuss the Cajun.
"I understand you have a great deal on your plate, Professor, with Parent Night coming up, but I don't think this can wait."
Charles Xavier sighed, scrubbed at his tired eyes with his knuckles, then clicked off his computers monitor. "Hank, I will always make time for my team. Though I have to ask what Remy could've possibly done now."
Hank's smile was sympathetic, and he almost didn't want to burden the Professor with this knowledge. Almost. "I realize that he has an aptitude for getting himself into trouble, but I'm afraid this instance is far more serious than previous ones."
Charles frowned. "Do tell." He clasped his hands in front of him on his mahogony desk, and leaned forward slightly.
"You recall giving him conditions upon his return to your mansion, mainly that he see me regularly for health checkups." The Professor nodded, and Hank continued. "Well, I waited for approximately an hour today for our scheduled session, but no Remy. I made the trip to his room on the third floor. Professor, not even from Logan have I ever seen a room in such dissaray. He stank of cigarette smoke and whiskey, I doubt he has showered in days. And he's lost weight. But the worst part is a shallow but long laceration I discovered on his wrist." He paused, taking a moment to collect his thoughts before going on. "Professor, I believe he is in far worse shape than we originally thought. I would've never considered the thought that he would take to hurting himself, but the wound lookly positively self-inflicted."
If at all possible, Charles' frowned deepened. It now rivalled the Grand Canyon for sheer depth. "Did you ask him about it?"
Hank's answer was deadpan. "He claimed it occured while he was shaving. But the wound was obviously fresh, and he clearly hadn't shaved in days. I want you to understand, Professor, that I am not doubting your ability to read people. But we've always known that Remy is exceptionally good at shielding his thoughts from others, and I believe that's what he has done in this case."
"I appreciate your confidence, Hank, but my power is far from absolute. The mind is fluid, always changing and evolving and expanding. It's certainly not beyond the realm of reason to put forth that I missed something. But knowing that is only one step. What do you suggest can be done about it?"
"I've been pondering this situation all afternoon, and came up with little in regards to a plan. But I do not believe Remy to be suicidal, maybe just wanting punishment for his mistakes. I believe that if we simply give him time, allow him to forgive himself for what has transpired, he will come out of it relatively unscathed."
Charles nodded slowly. "I will trust your judgement, Hank. You have no doubt spent more time with the man, and understand better than me the complexities of his mind. I will give you control of this situation, and ask only to be apprised of your progress."
"That will not be an issue, Professor. I feel better about the issue already, having discussed it with you. I will give you frequent reports on his well-being. I also think it would be a good idea to re-include him in training sessions. Giving him something to do might better persuade him to take care of himself."
"I have a meeting with Scott first thing in the morning,"the Professor offered. "I will broach the topic with him then."
Hank smiled, that was based in happiness, and a genuine sense of relief. Having a talk with Charles about problems in the mansion always had a similar effect on him. He stood slowly. "I realize you are a busy man, and I am thankful for your input."
The Professor returned his smile. "I have complete faith that you will put an end to this trouble, Hank, and if you require my assistance you need only to ask for it."
Hank left the grand office in better spirits than he had been in all day. Not even a visit from his young friend Bobby Drake had been able to pull him out of his introspective mood he had fell in after making the conclusion that Remy's wound was self-inflicted. If the young Cajun was indeed as bad off as Hank believed, then they both were in for some hard times in their future. If, however, Hank was wrong about Remy, then he would probably only succeed in distancing the man further from the team around him. It was a risk the doctor would just have to take; an X-Man's life was worth nothing less.