DISCLAIMER: No, none of this is mine, but I don't really care because in my opinion the original creators royally screwed stuff up and this is my attempt to make things right.
Yes, this is an update. AiRo25, Twylyte,martshi3, Chellerbelle, LadyMageLuna, ColorCoated, V. Arsonist, Ashy!!!!, Larky!!!!, Fostersb and TitansRule, y'all are peaches and I am eternally grateful to all of you for choosing to take the time to review and let me know what you think of my writing efforts so far. To those of you whom I have not heard from before, I truly hope you'll stay on board and continue to enjoy things, to those who have been with me all along I actually hope the same with hugs on top, and to those of you who continue to lurk, it's your choice in the end, but really – don't you want to tell me if you're just reading this because you think it sucks so hard it's the next best thing to a comedy special on the box? Anyhow, we continue our scheduled program – enjoy!
Who Knew?
Part 8.
Absconding from the med bay turned out to be more of a challenge than he had originally thought. However ill he might still be, he had at least reckoned on it being easy enough to avoid students and the like in the corridors with some of the old patented thief magic, but they seemed to be absolutely everywhere. After half an hour of sneaking, he finally made it into the kitchen without incident, turned around after shutting the door quietly behind him, and was discovered by the hooded and gloved mutant sat at the table.
"Morning," he said amiably, and Remy had to take a moment to compose himself. Was there no end to the masses of mutants in this damn place? Couldn't a guy even sneak into the bloody kitchen and have five minutes to himself? Jesus!
"Bonjour," he said, a little stiffly, his pride as master thief a little injured, and the – grey? – mutant laughed a little.
"Jubecita tells me you're big on stealth – there ain' no such thing in this place," he said sympathetically, and Remy found himself warming to this baggy-skinned, grey-toned fellow immediately.
"Remy can live wit' dat," Remy said with a grin at his companion, adding,
"If dere's coffee in dis place."
"So, y' an' de petite are t'gether?" he asked, sipping his coffee, and the grey-skinned mutant whom he now knew to be Jubilee's Angelo - or Angie, as Rogue referred to him - looked down, embarrassed.
"I don' even know how that one happened – I mean, she came with Storm and Nightcrawler to get me and then before I knew it she announced that we were dating, and..." Remy smiled.
"Wolverine blow a fuse?" he asked slyly, and Angelo lit up in a grin that made him really rather attractive in an odd, grey sort of way.
"I think he had to accept it when I asked what the hell was going on and Jubes basically told me what was goin' down an' that I had no choice," he said with a look on his face that spoke of fond remembrance, and Remy laughed out loud.
"Y' know, homme – Remy can totally see dat!"
"Think she knew I didn't have the balls t' make it happen if she didn' give me that kick t' get there," Angelo said honestly, and Remy nodded, thoughtful.
"De petites, mon ami, dey know dese tings... We ain' got half de sense dose filles are born wit'," he said seriously, and Angelo grinned again.
"Hell if that ain' true, hombre," he laughed.
"Remy LeBeau. Where is my sister?" Laura suddenly demanded from the doorway where she had been skulking for a few minutes, listening in on this conversation about the inner workings of the dafter sex.
"Laura! Ça va?" he asked, and she gave him a tentative smile and said,
"Ça va bien, Remy, comment ça va?" in an easy accent.
"Je vais bien, petite," he answered, smiling kindly to put her at ease, and she seemed to respond well to it, eyes sparkling a little.
"I am glad that you are well this morning. Have you seen my sister?"
"Rogue? I don' know where ma chere is, petite, I jus' got up an hour ago," he explained, spreading his hands, and she wrinkled her nose.
"She did not go out this morning, Kitty said that she did not see her when she got up for breakfast," Laura said, with apparent lack of approval in her tone that her sister was AWOL.
"Maybe ma chere is asleep? I tink she wen' t' bed early las' nigh', after I did. She said she was tired," he suggested, and Laura beamed at him, uttered a quick,
"Merci, Remy!" and ran from the room. Angelo shook his head and drank the rest of his coffee, getting up to put away the mug, and Remy did the same.
"That little chica's got some serious problems," Angelo said, again sympathetic without being pitying, and Remy nodded agreement.
"Je sais, mon ami. But she's a good girl an' she's got all o' y' t' take care of her. She'll be okay," he said encouragingly, and Angelo smiled.
"That's one thing I know – when y' come here, even if you got nothin', no family, nobody – the second you walk through those gates, you've got one, an' you don' even have to apply for it," he said, eyes serious although his mouth still curved upwards.
"I know dat too, homme," Remy said quietly.
It hadn't been his plan originally to wander around the mansion aimlessly, but somehow that was exactly what he ended up doing. Since his revelation, he had thought of nothing but Rogue – although he had tried not to let on - and now that he was unexpectedly free from her company, he wanted to see if his new-found energy was something he was up to handling.
After parting ways with Angelo, who apparently had something to do, he busied himself with mapping out the mansion's ground floor in his head in a thief's favourite pastime, and was interrupted in his admiring of some fine paintings in the hall when there was a tugging on his hand and he looked down at the little girl with the gardening gloves, who was smiling up at him with large, mild brown eyes.
"Bonjour, petite," he said kindly, and she flushed a little, releasing his hand and making a waving motion with her own gloved appendage. He wondered if she was deaf or mute or both, and if she could hear or understand him at all, but she seemed to have grasped the greeting, and her hand made a 'come with me' gesture.
"Follow y'?" he asked to clarify, and the little girl nodded, smiling at his understanding. Remy had to smile back. She was such a pretty little thing, and she so reminded him of his Rogue with those gloves and the obvious fact that she clearly had a violent mutation or at the least a disability that prevented normal communication.
"Okay, Remy trusts y'..." he said, and she clapped her hands and then grabbed hold of his again and began to lead him away outside through the door. He could feel her fingers, and realised that the gloves weren't just large and heavy looking; her hands filled them out perfectly. Her hands were simply overlarge for her overall size. Again, he felt a strange bond with this girl. Like him and his eyes, she would never truly be able to hide her mutation. She was leading him across the lawn to the right of the mansion where there were several secluded, tree-enclosed areas that he knew of, and he looked down at her questioningly.
"In dere, petite?" She nodded, smile enthusiastic, and tugged harder at his hand, leading him through a small copse to a wide, open area of snow-covered lawn, where Laura stood in what he assumed were her training leathers, smiling and with arms crossed.
"Tor'! Over here!" she called, and the little girl released Remy's hand and ran to Laura, who picked her up as easily as if she had been a doll and swung her around, despite not being that much taller herself. Remy approached them as Laura sat the brunette down and looked up at him.
"Rogue has taken a day to herself, so Charles and Hank suggested I help you test your new abilities out here where there can be no accidents," she explained, and Remy looked around them, eyes acknowledging the sense of it.
"D'accord. No more accidents f' moi," he said firmly, and she smiled down at the smaller girl who was still looking at them observantly, and said,
"I asked Torpid to collect you from the mansion – she does not go to school. She and I are at home together most days." The little girl – Torpid – beamed at Remy and made some complicated hand signs to Laura, who laughed.
"She says that she likes your eyes, Remy LeBeau," she informed him, and Remy grinned widely.
"Merci, petite belle," he said charmingly, and the little brunette looked down at her snow-covered boots, blushing furiously, and then up at Laura, who nodded.
"She can stay, can't she?" Laura asked, and Remy shrugged, uncomfortable.
"She heal like y' do?"
"No. She has other powers. But she wants to stay. She will be bored if she goes back inside." Remy sighed. Truthfully, while he was itching to try his new powers and get some exercise at the same time after so long an illness, he really did not want innocents without accelerated healing capabilities to be present while he did so. If another incident like Kurt occurred, he didn't know if his welcome at the Institute would last much longer.
"Remy isn' sure 'bout dis... If Rogue finds out I let 'er stay an' she got hurt..." he trailed off, and Torpid made some more signs at Laura, who nodded thoughtfully.
"She promises to stand well back, Remy. I will not allow her to come to any harm. She is my responsibility today, not yours. Don't worry," Laura assured him, and he gave up. It was no use arguing with womenfolk, and miniature womenfolk who were subject to the influences of the likes of Wanda and his chere... well. Nothing with anything less than bona fide girl balls stood a chance. Added to that, the little girl was looking at him so intently that he felt almost as if he'd be insulting her by asking her to leave. Or rather, asking Laura to make her leave. Easiest to give in.
"Alrigh'. But I haven' tried out dese new powers yet – I don' know what'll happen," he cautioned her, and she just nodded calmly.
"That is why I am here, Remy."
Torpid's eyes were round as she watched Remy and Laura 'experiment'. The little girl watched with awe as the two fighters tested each others' mettle, and she clapped and jumped when they performed a particularly clever stunt or when one got the edge over the other. Remy had lost none of his agility, he even thought he felt a slight rise in his usual levels of flexibility. Of course, Laura was more than a fair match for him, and she certainly put him through his paces - he even reckoned she was holding back so as not to completely emasculate him. He had to admit, he loved it. After so long on bedrest and walking around holding Rogue's hand like a child, it felt unbelievably good to be the man he had been before this highly inconvenient power surge. He felt every bit as powerful as he had been before, the energy under his skin finally let out in a way other than into his chere, and while he had no problem with being essentially chained to her hand for the rest of his life in principal, practically it was so much more rewarding to let it loose destructively, just as he had used to do when he had had his first surge as a child.
"Well done," Laura said appraisingly, as she moved towards him, sheathing her claws and smiling. He reached out and clasped her hand, his own smile fading as he saw her hand glow pink where they were touching.
"Merde!" he spat, fighting to control the impulses, and she looked him squarely in the eye.
"Remy. Listen to me," she tried, but he shook his head violently, fingers tightening around hers as he panicked.
"If I let go, y' blow up, I can' do dat, I can' take it back – " he said with a terrified look at Laura whose deep hazel eyes softened as she placed her other hand on top of his and called softly,
"Torpid..." Remy thanked the Gods that the older girl was sending away the child – she shouldn't have to see this, there was no way he could hold back his powers at this point, he didn't have that level of control back yet, he should never have touched her –
The little girl advanced on him, huge eyes suddenly full of tears, and she removed her right glove to reveal what Remy had rightly suspected was a freakishly large hand. She looked up at him with a sad, sweet smile, as if trying to reassure him, and he balked. Twisting to try and get away from her, he shouted at the clawed mutant who was holding his hand on hers with an iron grip that he just could not break.
"Non, Laura, please – y' can' let 'er – " The little girl reached out and touched him, and he went blank. Not the old, pulling sensation he knew so well from Rogue, but just instant, utter blankness.
Laura carefully extracted her now-glowless hands from Remy's, shifting a finger out of joint to release the right one, and looked down at Torpid, who was shaking her head to clear her eyes of tears and trying to put her glove back on.
"It's alright, Tor'," she said quietly, pushing her finger back into place with an unpleasant cracking noise, and the younger girl looked up at her and signed,
'I didn't like that, I was afraid. I don't know when he'll wake up again'.
"It's going to be all right, Tor'," Laura reassured her, looking around her and sniffing the air. Torpid tugged on her arm, clearly distressed.
'You can't carry him back home. We can't leave him here!' she signed quickly, her inflections and body language signalling that she was definitely agitated, and Laura smiled at her, bending to smooth tears from her cheeks as Rogue sometimes did for Laura when she cried.
"I promise, it will be okay." Standing, she looked to her right, narrowed her eyes and called sharply,
"Stop hiding and come and help us!" Torpid jumped and clung to Laura's arm, trembling a little, as the older girl's unwelcome feral friend came slinking out of the cover of the trees and approached them. Surprisingly, he did not have his usual sarcastic grin on his face, and he looked at Laura with something that could almost have been concern if it hadn't been for the fangs and the unnatural colouring of his eyes. He reached out to touch her, almost hesitantly, but she drew back, her hand on Torpid's shoulder pulling the child along, and said,
"Carry him back for me." It was more a demand than a question, but after running his eyes over her with the air of someone taking inventory, he nodded once and picked up the paralysed Cajun, face impassive as he allowed Laura to lead the way back to the mansion, Torpid's arm firmly in her grip.
They were met at the doors by Hank, who took one look at the sombre party and murmured a miserable,
"Oh my stars and garters... Rogue will have all our heads..." before ushering them inside with shooing motions of his large, blue hands.
"Whatever happened, child? Is he injured?" he inquired of Laura, taking Remy from Kyle in a way that suggested he really had very little desire to actually touch the black-clad bearer of paralysed thieves. Kyle either did not notice, or chose not to make an issue of it, and Laura stroked Torpid's hair absentmindedly as she replied.
"No, he lost control and Tor' stopped him so that he would not injure me." The little girl flinched as the stonefaced feral beside Laura bared his fangs at the remark, but he schooled his features to indifference again just as quickly as the anger had shown, and she looked to Dr. McCoy for reassurance.
"That was good thinking on both your parts, well done dear," the blue-furred doctor said benevolently, and Torpid looked over at Remy.
"Torpid says she does not know when he will wake up. She was upset when she froze him," Laura explained, and Hank sighed.
"More time in the med bay then. Oh well. Which one of you is going to call Rogue and let her know she might have to come home early?" The raised eyebrow of Kyle as well as the helpless gesture of Torpid towards her mouth hit home, and Laura sighed.
"I will do it. She will be unhappy..." she said with some apprehension, and Hank looked at her over his glasses.
"God speed, my child," he said gravely, adding,
"Now, I think it would be best if I got this fellow back to his bed. Torpid, would you see Mr. Gibney out, please?" The look that the blue mutant shot the feral-and-fanged blonde was more a warning that he comply with mansion policy and give the little girl no crap than anything else, and the blonde inclined his head and turned to leave as Hank hoisted Remy up and walked off with him. Laura was not so quick to go.
"Thank you for helping us," she said stiffly, and Kyle stopped and turned to look at her.
"You're welcome," he replied, none of the insolence he usually employed present in his tone. She left, and Torpid peered curiously at the somehow lost-looking Sabretooth-a-like. She moved to try and see him better without the hindrance of his hair and he seemed to suddenly notice her presence again.
"I'm leaving, I'm leaving," he said quietly, sounding most of all tired and moody – the requisite tone of voice for any teenager after pretty much anything emotionally distressing happening to them. She didn't know if he was a teenager though. She also didn't know how to respond.
'Thank you for helping Laura,' she signed, not really expecting him to understand what she was getting at at all, but needing to make some sort of gesture to prevent awkwardness. To her surprise and slight discomfort, he bared his fangs at her in what must be a smile and shrugged wearily.
"She's angry with me, little girl. Helping once doesn't make everything else okay again. I thought the adults here were around to teach you children these things," he said with a sort of put-on sarcasm that she suspected he didn't really have the emotional energy left to really feel. Rogue sometimes sounded like that when she was too tired to be really angry with people like Bobby. At least he apparently understood what she had 'said'.
'Everyone knows that. And she is only angry because you were mean,' she signed, with a disapproving flick of her finger, and he crossed his arms and gave her a look that reminded her of Jean when people called her on her tolerance issues.
"That's outrageous!" he huffed, and she crossed her own arms and gave him a look of her own. Sometimes she had to look at Jamie like that when he was trying to get her to take off her gloves. The actually rather big, scary blonde pouted like a child her own age and tossed his hair – also rather like Jean when she was forced to concede to her shortcomings.
"Fine! I was being mean. Bloody hell! No wonder Laura likes you," he said with an exaggerated eye roll, and Torpid had to giggle at the fact that however imposing and frankly creepy this guy was, he was every bit as self-defending as most of the teens living at the Institute, and more than twice as childish. He suddenly relaxed his I'ma-stamp-my-foot pose and gave her a sad sort of look.
"You know, some of us don't just know, little girl... And some of us can't be told, either," he said quietly, and she pointed at him with her index finger in an accusatory manner before signing,
'I'm telling you. You have to be nice or she will be angry. Jamie says you like her. If you like her then why are you mean to her?' She looked at him with eyebrows raised, awaiting the customary persecuted teen response and she was hardly disappointed.
"Well aren't you the little Madam! For your information nothing that happens between me and Laura is any of your concern, and quite frankly, that Jamie of yours is talking out of his – "
"Oi!" The tartly delivered tirade was halted by the thickly accented Australian tones that cut through the tension in the entrance hall and led Torpid to snap her head round to where St. John Allerdyce was coming out of the Professor's office. She beamed at him and ran to greet the pyrokinetic, thrilled when he picked her up and gave her a warm hug before settling her on his hip as though she weighed about as much as a feather.
"Hello there little sheila," he said warmly, before turning his attention to Kyle who was looking decidedly sulky.
"What's all this 'ere?" John asked pleasantly, vibrant blue eyes clashing with the cool hues of those of the other mutant.
"Absolutely nothing," Kyle said indifferently, and Torpid signed a quick,
'We were arguing because he was being mean to Laura earlier.'
"Was he now? Well... In all fairness, that's not our business, luvvy," he said seriously, then adding in a much less serious tone,
"You can' go around gettin' mixed up in what we all do. We're too old to know any better." He set her down and ruffled her hair a little.
"You go an' tell the Prof. what's goin' on, we're jus' gonna have a quick word," he said, and she nodded and ran off towards the door he had just exited. The pyromaniac straightened and fixed Kyle with a hard look.
"Look mate, from one ex-member of the Commonwealth to another; you watch yourself when you're round 'ere. I know damn well ya like Laura an' I ain't got a problem with that, but Laura an' 'er fam'ly come as a package deal an' you've gotta get sorted with that. She's not gonna go runnin' from all this for you," he said with the barest hint of shared experience peeking through. Kyle sized him up.
"I'm not an ex-member. And you have no idea what I like," he said gruffly, and John shrugged.
"I know you've got just as many issues an' skeletons as me an' Rems, ta mention two resident serial screw-ups. An' I know how ya feel about Laura. Now you need to sort that out, or one of these days my Wanda will be pinnin' ya to the lawn like a bug on a felt board while Wolverine carves you up like a Sunday roast an' Rogue holds back 'er little sister so she can' make a fuss – an' that's if she even cares by that time. Don' go pissin' this away, mate." Kyle looked steadily at the Aussie, a curious look in his eyes.
"You're the one Laura mentioned. She said you were unstable," he said evenly, and John grinned.
"Jus' a nicer way of sayin' I'm a headcase." Kyle nodded, apparently makin some internal decision or other, and turned to leave.
"Give it a think," John called after him, and he looked over his shoulder at the pyromaniac with the uncanny deductive ability.
"Hasn't worked so far," he replied, sarcasm warring with honesty in his voice, and John shrugged.
"Then give it time." Kyle didn't reply, but took off out of the door at a run, easily matching Sabretooth for speed and running in the same odd lope the other feral sometimes used when he needed to get somewhere quickly. Or away from something.
"Sometimes I wish you had stayed with us," the light remark of the Professor reached the Aussie, and he turned to look at the older man with a smile playing about his lips.
"Yeah, well... If Wanda's somewhere else, then I've gotta be wherever that is," he said with an apologetic grin of his own, and Charles laughed.
"I believe you're not the only one who will soon be forced to admit that there is a certain somewhere they should be, too," he said enigmatically, and John laughed quietly.
"I suppose when there's that much goin' on in ya head ya gotta get things out there before it gets too much," he mused, clearly referring to himself, and Charles nodded, a touch grimly.
"Yes, it would seem so... Perhaps, then, it is time for someone else to set things in motion..."
