A/N- See? Look at that, another update. On a roll ya'll!
So you guys will have to forgive me for this chapter. I'm not a spy. I'm not a thief. Breaking into places doesn't come naturally to me. Weird, I know.
Please review, help keep me on my roll. ;)
It was shortly after 11 when Remy and Kitty parked, leaving the car a few blocks from Stark Tower and walking the rest of the way. The night air was cool and damp, and Kitty rubbed her arms in an attempt to stay warm despite the fact that her choice of outfit was plenty warm. She was slightly taken aback when the weight of Remy's arm suddenly settled around her shoulders and she flinched, her eyes darting up to him with a grimace.
"What are you doing...?"
He smiled calmly as they kept up their casual pace, and glanced down at her through the corner of his eye, "Keepin' up appearances, petite. We're just two young lovers, out for a stroll."
She pretended to gag and rolled her eyes, but didn't protest against his reasoning even when he tugged her a little closer to him.
They continued their stroll down the wet New York sidewalk in silence for a few minutes, until Remy eventually looked down at her, his mouth pressed into a thin line.
"Did you really need to wear that?"
She dropped her gaze down to her attire and frowned, "Well what else was I gunna wear? A turtleneck and some leather pants?"
"It would have been more appropriate than your old X-men uniform." Remy replied with a shrug, looking back up to the path before them.
She stuck her lower lip out and frowned, "I covered up the X emblem with duct tape. Nobody will know. Also, should I have a face mask? We should have discussed this, you have your weird face sock thing, what if I-"
"You'll be fine. Stick to the plan, you won't be seen." Remy said simply. They stopped talking as they grew closer to the building, and Kitty chewed her lip with anxious anticipation as the target came closer.
"You ready?" He asked her quietly, and she gave him a single nod.
"Nervous?"
She nodded again.
"You never forget your first time." He grinned, "Don't worry, chere. I'll be gentle."
She rolled her eyes at his innuendo as he steered them off the sidewalk towards the grey concrete wall. She sucked in a breath and squeezed her eyes shut for good measure, and then they were in. Just like that.
She waited a beat, partially expecting to hear the piercing cry of an alarm the second they set foot inside, but there was nothing but silence.
"That was much easier than my normal method of breakin' in. I should bring you along more often." Remy whispered, and when Kitty opened her eyes she could see that they'd walked into a ground floor office. He stole to the other side of the room, glancing out the small doorway window, and wordlessly pointed to the security guard, strolling about the lobby, clearly in the midst of his nightly rounds as expected.
Kitty nodded in acknowledgment, and tiptoed her way across the room to hover next to Remy.
"We go out that wall there, into the hallway. Paul Blart over there is going to turn towards the East side of the building and walk the perimeter, before he gets over here, and we'll be in the camera's blind spot." Remy explained quietly as he pointed the directions. "The emergency stairway is the third door on the right. No cameras in there, just motion detectors. We need to make it up to the-"
"Wait, motion detectors?" Kitty interrupted with a frown. "You never said anything about motion detectors before."
"Yes I did." Remy frowned back at her.
"No, you totally didn't. How are we getting around those?"
"You can phase." He replied, as if the answer were incredibly obvious.
Kitty blinked at him in the darkness of the office, her eyes growing wide, "Yeah, I can phase through stuff, I'm not a ghost! I'll still get picked up by motion detectors!"
"Relax." Remy calmed her frayed nerves with one word, waving her concerns off, "Slight oversight on my part. No big deal. Plan B."
"We cut the power?" She asked cautiously, hoping she remembered plan B correctly.
He gave her a nod and pressed his lips together, "Generator's in the basement. Makes more leg work, and more chance of bein' seen on a camera, but once we cut the power we can head straight up. Of course it'll give us less time to get the job done." He clenched his jaw with a grim frown and Kitty nodded.
She took his hand and held her breath, and with a nod from Remy, they slipped through the floor. They made quick work of locating the generator room which was hot and loud and glowing an other-worldly blue colour looking very much like something out of a Star Wars movie. Which of course, Kitty did not hesitate to point out. Remy motioned for her to stay outside of the room as he stepped in to look around, he charged up a card and nestled it deep inside the whirring machine, before hurrying back outside and pulling the door shut.
The explosion caught both of them massively off guard. They'd managed to get a few quick strides away before the charged up card blew inside the Stark Generator, but they were shocked to a halt by the detonation. The whole building gave a little shake and Remy's eyes grew comically wide.
"Oops."
"Oops!?" Kitty hissed, "You were just supposed to fry the system not blow it to smithereens!"
"Guess it was more explosive than I thought." He took her wrist and tugged her quickly behind him, "Now we gotta hustle. Roll with the punches petite."
She hurried to keep up with Remy's long strides as they bounded their way up the darkened stairway.
"What if they show up!?" Kitty squeaked from behind him.
"The Avengers? They're in Africa or some shit, remember? It's okay." He puffed, shooting Kitty a grin over his shoulder, "Just keep an ear out for sirens."
Kitty's face blanched ever so slightly, but she managed to keep up with him.
It took them longer than she would have expected to make it all the way to the top floor, and she was relatively surprised the backup generators hadn't kicked in yet. Remy simply gave her a little smirk and shrugged off her concern, leading her to believe that he'd "taken care of it".
They phased their way through the door at the top, and Remy wasted no time getting to work. His eyes darted around the moonlit room, sizing up the place as he walked.
"Oh God." Kitty breathed, her wide eyes sweeping across the massive living room, "This is Iron Man's penthouse. We're in Iron Man's house."
Remy cast her a fleeting glance and gave his head a shake, "Don't touch anything."
She nodded, even though he'd already turned back to his work, and she let out a breath as she watched him walk past the kitchen, towards the hallway.
"Do you know where you're going?" She whispered, quietly falling in step behind him.
"I'll figure it out." He said, casting her a glance and noticing the anxiety on her face. "Sometimes houses, like a lot of people, have a space where there should be somethin', but it's missin'." He began, his voice low and warm, and she slid her eyes over to him. "It's easy to get distracted by people showin' off what they got, but what you really wanna look for, is where that emptiness is. Where's that hole they coverin' up? In houses, you find a safe, or some secret room by sizin' up where the walls come up a little too soon. You can hone in on a persons secrets the same way. Sometimes they coverin' up somethin' they didn't even know was there. I've always been real good at finding those spots..."
"Wow." Kitty snorted and rolled her eyes, "Seriously? Someone needs to lighten up on the Dr. Phil. Geeze... I didn't think you'd get all philosophical on me."
Remy pressed his lips into a frown, "Alright-"
"I didn't expect to hear your whole thesis on human psychology."
"I'm passionate about my work."
"I see that, you wrote a sonnet about it."
He rolled his eyes while she laughed at his expense and turned for the bedroom.
"Oh my God..." She gasped, her laughter dying down as she stepped into the room behind him, "This is Iron Man's bedroom."
"You gunna keep doin' that?" Remy asked, quirking a brow at the look of awe on her face, "Did you wanna swipe a pair of his underwear while we're here?"
She scrunched up her nose and he motioned for her to join him in the bathroom. He scooped up her hand and gestured towards the full length mirror next to the shower and Kitty knit her brow, looking over at him through the reflection.
"Yes, you're very pretty. Can we get back to work?"
"Thank you, but that's not what I was referring to. It's back there." He gestured towards the mirror again, and Kitty's mouth formed a small 'o' of understanding before furrowing her brow.
"Are you sure?"
He gave her a pointed look, wondering if he needed to recite the sonnet again, but she got the point and pulled him through the mirror with her, revealing a hidden workshop.
"This is Iron Man's workshop...!" She gasped, dropping Remy's had as they walked down the winding staircase, "This is effing Iron Man's... oh God... I'm hyperventilating..."
Remy shouldered past her on the staircase, "While I find your childlike wonder cute, in an obnoxious kinda way, we got a job to do, so try to keep it together." He said when he reached the bottom of the stairs, his eyes scanning the Iron Man suits lined up along the wall.
"This is- I can't even-" She stammered, reverently letting her fingertips hover over one of the back lit Iron Man suits. "Where's my phone, I need a selfie."
"What?! Jesus, Kitty. No. You can't take a picture in here." Remy snapped, "That's how people end up on Worlds Dumbest Criminals. And don't touch anything!"
She bit her lip and nodded, pulling her hand back and balling it into a fist, and Remy went back to work.
"This is the one." He said, pulling a canvas bag out of one of his coat pockets and fluffing it open, before holding it out for Kitty to take, "Hold it open."
She took the bag by the handles and did as she was told while Remy rubbed his hands together, standing in front of one of the newer looking Iron Man suits in the workshop, and Kitty gawked at him.
"What the hell?! You said- I thought we were here for like... files or something! What does Magneto want with an Iron Man suit?!"
"Not the whole suit. Just the helmet." Remy replied, a furrow on his brow as he focused on the task at hand.
"Why?! Does he have some kind of weird helmet... fetish or something?! No, don't answer that."
Thankfully for Kitty, Remy was no longer listening to her anyway. With his eyes trained on his work, he pressed his lips together in a smile and placed a hand on either side of the helmet. The second his gloved hands made contact with the suit, it blinked to life.
"What the f-"
"Remy..." Kitty's eyes swung around the room, watching in horror as all of the Iron Man suits in the vicinity were suddenly lighting up. Her head snapped back to him and she shook the canvas bag at him, "Hurry up!"
"I can't!" He snapped, staying remarkably calm under the given circumstances, "I can't get it off!"
"Oh no, oh no... no no no..." Kitty whimpered as the suit in front of Remy started to move. She snapped her head around to see that they were all moving, in some sort of hidden self defense mechanism. The janky looking suit behind her groaned slightly as it lifted its arm, and she heard the unmistakable sound of the repulsor beam whining to life. Without a second thought, she grabbed onto Remy and let the resulting blast phase straight through the both of them, exploding into the suit Remy had been frantically trying to free from the helmet.
They jumped out of the way as the damaged suit fell to the floor with a clank, causing the helmet to pop off and roll across the room.
"Well that works too." Remy mused before snatching a handful of nuts and bolts off the nearest work bench, charging them up, and then tossing them across the room in an attempt to confuse the heat seeking suits. He made a dive for the helmet as another chorus of beams sprang forth from the slew of sentient suits.
"We gotta go petite!" He shouted over the chaos, stuffing the helmet into the canvas bag, "Get us outta here!"
She darted across the room to him and slipped them through the floor without a second thought, sending them both sprawling on the carpet of the floor below.
"That's real great, Kitty. 'Nother 79 floors to go." Remy grumbled sarcastically as he pushed himself up off the floor and dusted himself off. "Get us the whole way out!"
"Are you insane!? You want to free fall 79 storeys, I've never done that before! I may not be able to slow us down enough! We could die!"
A loud blast from above caused her to flinch, and some of the ceiling sprinkled down on her. Remy grabbed her arm and gave her a level stare, "Do it."
She let out a nervous breath and pressed her lips in a thin line as she hugged onto him for dear life, "We're gunna die."
"Do it!"
She squeezed her eyes shut with the side of her face pressed against Remy's chest and whimpered, "We're totally gunna die..."
And then she sucked in a deep breath and let her mind go blank focusing on phasing, and nothing else. Her heart thumped wildly in her ears and she could sense the wind rushing by them as they picked up speed the further they went, dropping down from floor to floor, phasing through each storey. She turned her focus to slowing their descent down, gripping onto the slippery particles in the air as they phased, and was relatively shocked to sense that it was working. She was slowing them down.
They weren't going to die.
Kitty popped her eyes open and watched ground through the window as it grew closer and closer, and by the time they hit the ground floor, landing in a heap in the middle of the room, it had been as if they'd done nothing more than a mere jump.
They both sat there for a moment, in the middle of the moonlit office, Kitty's ragged breathing the only sound in the room until Remy spoke up.
"There." He said quietly, moving to push himself up off the floor and dust himself off as if he were completely unaffected, "That wasn't so hard."
She let out a strangled little laugh and rubbed a hand over her face as she struggled to her feet on wobbly legs, "I can't believe that worked..."
"I knew it would." He shrugged smugly. Kitty gave him an exasperated eye roll and he dragged her over to the window to peer outside. "Now let's just hope Paul Blart didn't call the cops on us yet."
"Yet?!"
"I'm sure he's made Stark aware of the explosion, so it won't be long before someone drops by to- uh oh." He clamped his mouth shut when he caught sight of a familiar looking shock of blue fur, glistening underneath the street lights.
"Oh shit." Kitty's eyes grew wide when they settled on Kurt, and she instinctively shrunk away from the window as if he'd be able to see her, "Oh shit!"
"Relax, he ain't in uniform." Remy observed as he continued to scan the area, "This is probably just a courtesy check... you know, among superhero... friends, or whatever. And we don't even know who's with him."
"Rogue did say something about tickets to see Hamilton..." Kitty trailed off chewing her lip with a frown, "They must have just... been in the area." She added in an attempt to reassure herself, "There's no way they know it's us. We'll just wait for them to leave-"
"Nope, we go now. The longer you hang around a crime scene, the more likely you'll get caught." He shook his head and worked the muscles in his jaw as he formulated a plan, "He may not see us from here, he's lookin' at the front of the building, we could probably just sneak past and make a run for it."
"Remy, if they catch me-"
"They won't."
"Yeah, but if they see me-"
"They won't." He repeated firmly before inclining his head, "Now let's go. We gotta get out of here."
She nodded reluctantly, taking his gloved hand in hers and waiting for him to give the all clear. When he gave her a nod she squared her jaw and sucked in a breath, phasing them through the wall and into the night air, and once they were outside, they made a beeline for the neighbouring building. She didn't stop to look back, she just dropped Remy's hand and speed walked as if her life depended on it. And really, it kind of did. Because if she got caught, she was as good as dead.
They ducked into the first alley they came across and finally stopped to look back before finally relaxing a little.
"Holy crap." Kitty panted, putting a hand over her racing heart, "That was so close. I can't believe they didn't see us."
"I told you they wouldn't." Remy shrugged smugly, somehow not even remotely short of breath in spite of it all, "You just need to- Oh hell."
"Well if it ain't Bonnie and Clyde."
Kitty whipped around with wide eyes, at the sound of the oh-so-familiar drawl to see a very pissed off Rogue, crossing her arms with enough attitude to make Beyonce proud.
"You guys come to help out, did ya?" She asked with mock enthusiasm. "What's in the bag?"
Remy's lips stretched into a grin and he took a step towards her, "You look real pretty tonight, Rogue."
"Oh shut the hell up, Gambit. What in God's name were you thinking?!" She cut her eyes over to Kitty with a frown, "And you?! You know better."
"Rogue, just let me explain." Kitty implored with her hands out in front of her.
"Are you insane or something?! Because that's the only explanation I can come up with, Kitty!"
Kitty clasped her hands together in a pleading motion with her eyebrows knit silently, and Rogue narrowed her eyes.
"Don't you bat those eyelashes at me, you are in so much trouble."
Kitty's lower lip pouted out and trembled slightly and Remy flicked a hand towards her, "C'mon Roguey, you can't say no to that face..."
Rogue pressed her lips into a thin line, her eyes darting past them to the road before she let out a breath, "Get the hell out of here before I decide to kill ya'll myself."
Remy smiled darkly, "I'll make it up to you." He said, giving her a wink, which only served to make her even angrier.
"Don't you give me that smirk. We will discuss this tomorrow!" She whisper yelled after them as they took off down the alley. "I'm madder than a bobcat caught in a piss fire, right now!"
Remy grinned at her over his shoulder and called back, "I love it when you talk Hillbilly to me, chere!" Before they disappeared around a corner.