Disclaimer: I do not own the X-Men or the related characters and places. Marvel does.
"Hey, Gambit," Rogue shouted waving from her blanket under one of the larger willow trees that rung the lake near the Institute grounds.
Catching sight of Rogue in a tight grey t-shirt emblazoned with a giant gothic cross, and matching gloves that reached her forearm Gambit charged directions abruptly to meet her. Rogue waited for him to make up the distance, busying herself re-adjusting every little thing in her admittedly amateur picnic. So peanut butter and jelly wasn't gourmet, Remy would understand.
"Hey chere," Gambit drawled with a sloppy grin, falling easily onto the blue and white plaid blanket. "What's all dis?"
"I figured if we wanted any time away from the rest of the gang we'd have to get a head start on it," she grinned rocking back on her heels.
"Sounds good, chere," Remy replied stretching out on his side so he faced her kneeling visage, his plain formerly-white long sleeve shirt bunching around his waist.
"Tired already?" Rogue kidded taking in his slouched form. "Musta been a long night."
"Y' have no idea," he agreed unwrapping the sandwich she handed him. He took a generous bite, tendons in his jaw bunching as he chewed. Rogue settled herself and grabbed a baggie full of chips, glad to see any woodland insects that might be attracted to the outdoor meal had been sufficiently deterred by the monthly bug bombs Xavier had set up for the Institute.
Popping the top of her Dr. Pepper a generous spray soaked the right hand of her glove and she shook off the wet glove gingerly, giving it a toss to the corner of her blanket to dry. The absence of mocking laughter had Rogue scoping out her entirely too quiet boyfriend.
Remy, his sandwich abandoned to the blanket, was trying and failing to get up. His brown eyes looked dazed and his upper body swayed, his arms refusing to lock to give him the leverage he needed.
"Ya alright?" Rogue asked worriedly as the Acolyte paled considerably under his mop of auburn hair.
"Oui, I'm…I'm…" he tried blinking slowly like a broken marionette. "I ain't feelin' so good all 'a de sudden."
Rogue tried to steady him as he rose on shaky legs, so unlike the athletic guy she knew. He clung to her left side as he tried to straighten, and a panicky look stole over his face.
"Everyt'ing spinnin'," he said dizzily as he lost his grip on her gloved arm and stumbled a few steps before pitching face first onto the ground.
"Gambit? Gambit!" Rogue shouted scrambling across the grass. She slid to a stop, her jeans acquiring vicious green stains, her hands fluttering spastically above his chest. He breathing didn't sound right, and his eyes weren't open.
"Gambit, please! Wake up!" she shouted hoping to revive him. Rogue hovered, mentally chastising herself in her panic. She'd lapsed into the same sense of complacency that she'd berated the other X-Men for months ago. Gambit never seemed to worry, especially about his own health. Everyone followed his lead naturally. And, after awhile, it was almost easy to ignore his partially swallowed echoes of pain when she leaned up against a fresh injury.
She'd stopped asking questions. Especially after Storm, everything had piled on at once, and somehow his physical well-being had fallen to the bottom of the list. She didn't want to rock the boat any further. Rogue remembered her self-righteous attitude towards the others, and now she was paying the price for her inattention. He was paying the price.
The insanely loud roar of a Logan's jeep pulling into the mansion's drive filled the air and Rogue's head snapped up. "Logan! Logan, help!" she screamed.
One look at the frightened Rogue had Logan vaulting out of his jeep and sprinting towards their position.
"What happened?" Logan barked, not even out of breath.
"I don't…I don't know. He said he was feeling dizzy, and he just passed out!"
"Did you touch him?" Logan asked taking in Rogue's missing glove as he kneeled opposite Rogue with the Cajun between them, Logan's hand already at the teen's throat to take his pulse.
"No! Of course not," Rogue recoiled looking shocked that he would even ask.
"No time to be coy, Rogue," Logan said rapidly searching for any injuries, feeling limbs and pushing aside Gambit's shirt. He came across a smattering of bruises surrounding Gambit's wrists an odd mark on the back of his head. A few odd sutures rounded out the mess, but none seemed serious enough to make the wily Cajun drop to the ground.
"I'm not—I didn't," Rogue protested looking on anxiously.
"He allergic to anything? Quick Rogue, come on," Logan urged her.
"I don't, I don't think so," she said.
"So what, he just fainted?" Logan asked skeptically.
"I, I guess."
"Well I only know one way to fix that," Logan said before hauling off and smacking the Cajun a sharp one across his right cheek. The first one didn't have an affect, but the second one across his left certainly did.
Gambit came to quickly, his eyes snapping open, his body lurched as he tried instinctively to roll out of danger but finding two bodies blocking his way. Rationality blossomed.
"Wolverine?" Gambit asked confusedly. "Rogue? What de hell?" he said nursing his cheek which had pinked slightly.
"That's just what I was gonna ask you. Rogue said ya went out like a light," Logan said keeping a wary eye on the Cajun.
"Well t'anks for de rescue," Gambit said sourly as he eased onto his hindquarters. He took a moment or two to compose himself before he rose listing slightly.
"What happened to you?" Rogue asked, her face a map of concern.
"Nothin' to worry 'bout, I be fine," Gambit said with a weak smile.
"Bullshit, Gambit, yer so messed up, yer eyes are still crossed," Wolverine interrupted. "I want an explanation or yer gonna get that check up Xavier was rattlin' on about right here and right now."
"I tol' y' I'm fine," Gambit insisted looking marginally steadier as Rogue walked over to his side.
"He does look better," Rogue offered uncertainly.
"Ain't cuttin' it. I didn't run my keister all the way over here for ya to stonewall me again. Ya don't want Rogue to hear, fine. But yer going," Logan ordered grabbing an arm from the not entirely recovered Gambit and marching him across the lawn back into the house.
"Let him go, Logan," Rogue said trailing after wanting a moment or two with Gambit herself.
"Stay out of it, Stripes," Logan growled not relenting.
"Listen to de femme, would y' let go?" Remy said.
Logan barely even glanced back at their antics, Gambit's inability to extract himself proof enough that his concerns were valid.
A double set of sliding glass doors whipped open and shut before Rogue could slip in behind them. Wolverine dragged Remy through the mansion, small sets of eyes from the next generations of X-Men peering from the staircase. Too curious to leave, but not near stupid enough to try and interfere.
Tromping through the halls towing Gambit in his wake the height-challenged Canuck shoved his temporary ward into a too familiar room, the bright light of the afternoon diminished greatly as Logan locked the door and pulled the thick maroon curtains shut.
Gambit was finally free of the older mutant's grasp and walked a few steps stiffening his back and his pride, taking in the room with its wall of books, fireplace and expensive furnishings – his return to Xavier's study.
"What happened to the check-up?" Gambit asked sarcastically.
"I figured it would do ya good to get yer head examined first," Logan returned sneering towards the seated Xavier.
"Not again," the Acolyte said staking out a position next to the fireplace before relenting and burning off some nervous energy by pacing to and fro in the back of the study, his shoulders brushing against the curtains.
The professor's eyebrows raised briefly in consternation. "Remy, Logan briefed me on your episode out on the lawn. I simply want to ensure your well-being is not being threatened."
"Dat's great o' y', but really I'm bien, so stop nosin' into my business," Gambit snarled, stalking forward suddenly and leaning his weight against the smooth front edge of Xavier's desk.
Wolverine's heavy hand fell on his shoulder, and Gambit didn't need a demonstration to remind him how fast those claws could rip free.
A somewhat subdued, but sullen Gambit redirected his gaze to stare blankly ahead, his reserves eaten up the incident on the lawn and his later posturing.
"What now?" Gambit asked, voice dull, feeling more exhausted than he had in weeks.
"The truth would be much appreciated," Charles Xavier stated serenely.
"Fresh outta dat," he responded reflexively.
"How about I give ya jump start Cajun? I know what shackle marks look like, and ya have a pretty set on your wrists," Logan said crossing his arms over his worn blue and blue flannel shirt.
Gambit was silent for a few minutes as the two X-Men waited.
"It ain't like y' think," he said finally. "I'm getting…treatments from a doctor. Sometimes dey make me off my game for a few days."
"What are the treatments for?" Xavier asked.
"It's personal," Gambit said, eyes flinty.
"And the bruises around yer wrist, how do ya wanta explain those? I don't know that many doctors who are into S&M," Wolverine said.
Remy glared, "My body don' process anesthesia right, an' I can' stay still for it. Sometimes I get strapped down."
"Do you really think that's wise?" asked Xavier with a knowing look.
"Idiot," Logan said at the same time, his own experiences too close to the surface.
Charles tried to shield his growing concern, Remy rarely sat still and despised being forced to do so. No matter what the discomfort, Charles simply couldn't see Gambit allowing himself to be restrained in that manner.
"Look, I didn' have to tell y' anyt'ing, Xavier. I did as a courtesy. Y' don' need to know any more, an' Rogue don' need to know a'tall. Vous comprehendes?"
The professor sighed with a tired glaze on his blue eyes, "Very well…but do know—"
"Yeah, yeah. Y' be dere for me. I remember dat speech. Can I go now, or is Wolverine gonna frog-march me around for another hour?"
"Watch your mouth Cajun," Logan snapped.
Receiving a slight nod from the X-Men's visionary, Gambit left swiftly all traces of his earlier indisposition gone.
"Well?" Xavier asked after the door clicked, signaling the young mutant's departure.
"He ain't telling the whole truth," Logan said his enhanced senses always a handy lie-detector, "but he's telling enough of it mixed in to keep me guessing."
Xavier frowned with his chin in his hand. "I do wonder who this doctor is – if he really exists – and what he is using as a treatment. I heard rumors of a scientist who was trying to devolve homo-superior to homo-sapiens—"
"I wouldn't worry there Chuck. Gambit's so proud of being a mutant he could spit. If anything came up along those lines, I'd be more worried about Stripes. 'Course since she's been hanging out with Gumbo she's dealt with being a mutant a lot better."
"One of the reasons I encouraged his presence here," Professor Xavier admitted. "But the alternative, that Magneto would do such things to one of his charges…I wish I was able to read Gambit, maybe then…"
"Ah, yer kidding yourself Chuck. If you could crack his skull he'd never step foot in the place."
A/N: Brown eyes. I would have sworn I mentioned it in an earlier chapter, but maybe I lost that fact in an edit. As far as I know, Gambit had brown eyes in Evo, so I'm sticking with that for now.
Thank you for reviewing, it's certainly appreciated: Aethena, Anamarie Chambers, BlkDiamond, BJ2, Chica De Los Ojos Cafe, Clownfood, coldqueen, Dark Elf 3, Elmothecajunpuppet, Gambit's Belle Rogue, gryphenvoid, Ima Super Mute Ant, ishandahalf, IvyZoe, justine174, Kagii, Kitsu Lebeau, le Diable Blanc, lelann37, Lumberjane, N.M.C.L, Nettlez, Puppybaddog, Samson28, sareh, Streetwise Girl, sheisbeautiful-sheisnotme, Shifting1, tinuviel-telcontar, Wildcard186, and X-Storm.
