DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of this I just play with it.
Yes, this is another update! AiRo25, Chefz, martshi3, LadyMageLuna, Chica, KHwhitelion, mah punkin' pie, Larkin my little sweetie, Fostersb and TitansRule, thank you all so much for being such lovely, supportive reviewers, and for letting me know just what I'm doing that keeps lightin' all your fires XD May they never go out!
Who Knew?
Part 9
The look on Wanda's face when her phone rang and she checked the display to see the caller ID was more than enough for Rogue to tell that it was the Scarlet Witch's very own Prince Alarming. If that hadn't been plenty evidence, her greeting set the thing in adamantium.
"John? Talk to me," she said softly, and then smiled and rolled her eyes.
"The same thing I was this morning. Anything else on your mind?" Rogue stifled a giggle. Even if it was a bit weird, you had to laugh when you knew that Pyro really was the kind of guy who called every now and again just to find out what his beloved witch was wearing.
"Oh... I understand... That's not good... Okay. I'll let her know. I'll give you time to evacuate the innocents," she said seriously, then adding after what must have been protestation on the other end,
"Just to be on the safe side. I love you." Hanging up, she turned to Rogue and put her hands on the Southern Gothic's shoulders.
"Honey, I have good news and I have... Well, no, actually, I really only have bad news..."
"Where are they?!" she yelled, kicking open the door and storming in with cold murder in her eyes and boots made for ball-busting. The entire mansion gave a little.
"Rogue, I think you should – " Amara began in what was a rather shaky version of a soothing tone, and the older girl rounded on her with one bare hand raised.
"What you think, an' what's actually a good ahdea is never the same thang, missy, so Ah suggest ya shut y' damn hole or tell me where in the hell they're all hidin' out!"
"Dr. McCoy's in the med bay with Gambit and Laura's disappeared!" the former princess squeaked, and Rogue narrowed her eyes.
"That's all I know, I swear!" The raised hand curled into a fist as if the Southerner was about to punch the hapless girl out, but instead she pointed a finger at her and hissed,
"That better not be lies, sweetie," before whirling around to pursue her prey. A colourless Amara swooned into Bobby's waiting arms and looked up at him gratefully.
"Someone pissed off The Rogue," he said with a low whistle, wincing as the sounds of Rogue's door-destroying rampage continued through the bowels of the mansion.
The two-inch steel side-door to the med-bay slammed open and into the wall, the reverberations making a hideous noise as it swung back to reveal a goodly-sized dent where it had made contact with the wall, and Rogue- heeding not the thought of what a replacement door would cost – put her hand on it and crashed it right back into the wall.
"What did y'all do?" she spat, eyes sparking with rage, and the mild-mannered blue giant sitting next to Remy's bed applying a wire to the Cajun's bare chest via the medium of a sticky green patch jumped half a mile in the air and backed into the wall away from the angry Gothic girl, who advanced on them.
"Rogue! Calm down my dear, nothing serious has – " he didn't get to finish his sentence as Rogue uttered a high-pitched cry and flung herself across the room to lean in over Remy and put her hands on his shoulders, looking at him with complete and total grief all over her beautiful face. Eyes choked with tears caught Hank's and she asked the question without saying a word.
"He's fine, child. He's going to be just fine. This was Torpid's work – it was for his own good. He was training with Laura and he accidentally charged her hand and panicked. Everything is just fine," Hank said soothingly, her mood-swing not so much a shock to him as he had thought it might be.
"Y' – you're sure? He's gonna be okay?" she asked in a small voice, and Hank nodded gently.
"Absolutely, dear, just fi – " The CRACK! that rang through the room did shock him. Only the sight of Rogue's outstretched arm and Remy's sudden state of wakefulness persuaded Hank that yes, she really had just –
"Mon Dieu! Merde! Y' slapped me!" Remy yelled, hand on his cheek, and Rogue replied by whipping her other arm out and cracking him good and proper across the other cheek, face whiter than snow and lips pressed together in complete rage.
"Rogue! What de hell – "
"What in the hell were y'all thinkin'? All of you! Ya wen' out alone – "
"Alone? Dat's what y' call bein' surrounded by a t'ousand teenagers?" he shouted back, incredulous, but she overrode him.
" – with mah sister an' she was enough of a damn fool ta take you outside an' let ya blow shit up f' no reason – "
"Hang on a minute dere, femme! Yo' sister was une ange f' settin' dat up f' moi, I haven' been up an' about f' real f' mont's!"
" – an' then ya somehow manage ta get all worked up an' lose control an' Ah wasn' aroun' ta handle it so Torpid had ta take you down? Why wasn' anybody watchin' you? At what point did the three of you decide that'd be a good ahdea?!"
"Hey now, I didn' even know about dat when I lef' de med bay – I jus' wan'ed t' get de hell outta here f' a while," Remy defended himself, and Rogue shrieked in anger.
"You can' jus' get up an' leave because y' wan' to! Ya coulda died - she coulda died – someone coulda gotten hurt, ya coulda collapsed somewhere an' then we'd never find yo' damn stupid Cajun ass! What would Ah've done if Ah got back an' ya had ta tell me ya'd blown off mah sister's arm, or they had ta tell meh ya jus' left in a goddamn bodybag? You tell me that, Remy Etienne LeBeau!"
"Aw, hell, chere – " Remy muttered, gripping her by the shoulders and pulling her towards him, mouth connecting with hers before she'd fully understood what he was even doing. When she realised that her eyes had fluttered closed and that his arms were now around her – even worse, that she was responding – she drew back with a yell. Hank McCoy had slipped from the room several seconds prior to this, having battled his instinct for self-preservation with his equally persistent instinct to see this play out, and having come up with the wisdom that being around the Rogue at present was a poor idea considering his part in the events that had caused her initial anger.
"What the – what are you – " she tried, not managing to string together the words she wanted to say properly, and he shrugged and reached out to brush back her errant bangs. She pulled away.
"You don' get t' do that – no one gets ta do that," she said with a slight sob, and he winced at the look on her face.
"Chere – Rogue... Don' look at me like dat... Rogue!" she was out the door before he had a chance to stop her, and he put his head in his hands as he cursed himself for being so completely stupid.
Having heard the shouting and the banging about but not wanting to brave her sister's wrath, it had seemed odd to Laura that she then heard the unmistakable sounds of Rogue's boots on the stairs and then the closing and locking of her sister's bedroom door. Both of them favoured to have rooms slightly apart from the corridors the others lived on. Laura because the noise and waking hours of the others sometimes disturbed her, and Rogue because she needed privacy to retain her sanity. Both of them also found that having rooms further away from the others' meant that there was less chance of bumping into anyone when they were feeling antisocial in the weekends, and that it made it easier to play loud music without getting complaints from the occupants of neighbouring rooms. But what surprised Laura the most were the barely audible – even to her heightened senses – sounds of muffled weeping she heard from her sister's room.
Leaving her own, she approached Rogue's door cautiously, and waited outside, ears pricked. There was no denying it; Rogue was crying. Stealthily, true, but still crying. She knocked on the door. The silence was ominous.
"Rogue? It's Laura," she called, trying again, and this time there was a muffled,
"Ah'm angry with all of you, go away..."
"You never cry when you are angry. Let me in or I will break the lock," Laura warned, feeling entitled to threats of door demolition when Rogue had just finished decimating half the doors in the mansion herself.
"No you won'," Rogue said in a weak voice, and Laura extended her claws with the well known ~snickt~ to prove her point.
"Don' break it, Ah'm comin'," Rogue said with a sniff from within, and Laura heard the lock being turned. The door opened a crack and she entered and locked it behind her again, respecting Rogue's wish to keep people out. The room was utterly dark but Laura could easily make out her sister, who had resumed the foetal position on her bed and was sobbing silently.
"Rogue..?" She approached the weeping Southern Belle cautiously, fearing a potential explosion of anger while Rogue was in such a fragile state.
"I am sorry... We did not think you would be so angry. Charles said that it would be good for Remy to get out and exercise a little apart from the others, where he could do no damage to anyone or anything. I did not mean for you to worry..." Laura didn't know what to do. Her strong, asserted sister who always knew what she wanted and how to get it, was crying bitterly. Had they done such a wrong thing? No one had been injured and he would be fine. She thought that she and Torpid had handled it well enough, so why would Rogue see fit to cry over something that had gone well despite the circumstances?
"Rogue... Please tell me why you are crying. We are sorry... I will not do it again. Even if he asks me to. I promise you," Laura said uneasily, sitting next to Rogue and stroking back her hair. Her sister's makeup was following her tears on their path down her cheeks, and her eyes were closed.
"Laura... honey jus' go away... Ya don' understand this an Ah don' wanna explain it raght now... Please leave..." she mumbled between hiccups, and Laura shook her head.
"I want to know. Tell me. You made me feel better when I was crying. I want to help," she said insistently, and Rogue opened her eyes and looked at her little sister.
"Ah'm in love with Remy," she said quietly, tears spilling over her lashes afresh, and Laura's eyes widened as she understood the implications of this.
"Always?" she asked, and Rogue nodded.
"But that's such a long time..." Laura marvelled, the concept of apparently unrequited 'long-distance' love foreign to her.
"It's pathetic is what it is," Rogue said bitterly, and Laura cocked her head to one side.
"Kitty says love is a beautiful thing," she offered hopefully, and Rogue laughed, mirthless and soft.
"Kitty ain' never been in love with a guy who used her t' get what he wan'ed an' then up an' left her for three years, honeypie. Kitty doesn' know anythin' about it." Laura thought hard on this for a moment. It was sound in principal. Kitty could not relate, therefore her opinion was void.
"Is love not beautiful then?" Rogue reached up and touched Laura's face with her gloved hand, smiling through her tears.
"Baby... Love is the most hurtful, evil, bloody lie in the whole world, an' that's why people work so hard to hold on to it. What humans love most of all is believin' that they can believe in thangs – includin' other people. Love lahke the love you feel for ya fam'ly, or the kinda love John and Wanda have, that's real, but you know as well as Ah do that it still hurts lahke hell sometahmes... The good jus' outweighs the bad when we look back on it..." Laura considered this, too. Again, it made perfect sense. It hurt, but it made things better, just like so much else in the world.
"Sometimes it has to be bad to feel good," she said decisively, and Rogue nodded, letting her hand fall with a sigh.
"An' sometahmes ya' feel bad an' don' ever get ta feel the good parts..."
Remy was flicking charged cigarette butts over the edge of the cliff from his position leaning against the rails of the gazebo, trench coat slung over a bare chest and pants, remorse and self-loathing preventing him from feeling the considerable cold of the evening air. The stars were out, the sky having darkened to night at four P.M, and Remy LeBeau didn't give a shit that he was in danger of catching pneumonia, as long as he could smoke and torture himself far, far away from the house where, somewhere within, his Rogue was so angry with him. The other mutant who manoeuvred himself onto the railing in a bizarrely uncomfortable-looking perching position with an easy, fluid movement very nearly became Remy's emotional catharsis through the medium of the old push-to-the-death until he heard what was the unmistakable sloshing of liquid in a bottle, and he decided to see where this led him instead of murdering his unwelcome companion.
"Fuck off," he said with a growl in his voice that was answered by an actual growl.
"Up yours," Kyle spat with an impressive exhalation of smoke as accompaniment. He proffered what Remy could now see was a fairly full bottle of whisky and the Cajun took it to the tune of Kyle's added remark of,
"Have a drink and shut up." It seemed like sound advice to an ailing heart. Remy took a long pull and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He looked sideways at the other mutant, who was apparently quite at ease balanced on the railing with what appeared to be three separate lit cigarettes between the fingers of his left hand, which were bound to the first joint with something shiny and black.
"Destructive personality much?" Remy asked with a snigger, and the fanged feral turned a distinctly unamused face to look at him.
"Whiny little bitch, much?" he asked tonelessly, and Remy shrugged.
"Not in de mood t' fight y' t'night, homme," he said matter-of-factly, and Kyle blew out a thin stream of smoke.
"Another time, then."
"Didn' mean t' nearly blow up de fille," Remy said, a hint of apology in his voice, and Kyle raised an eyebrow.
"Is this your take on bar therapy or are you actually talking to me?" Remy drew on his own cigarette as he watched with some fascination Kyle's version of smoking, which really did involve all three fags at once.
"T'ought y'd care dat I didn' mean t' almos' blow Laura's arm off," he said with put-on indifference.
"She wouldn't have, why should I?" Kyle asked, with some disbelief.
"Wouldn' care? Dat she'd lost an arm?" Remy snorted, and Kyle rolled his eyes.
"She'd just have reattached it. Healing factor plus amputation equals field surgery and complete recovery. Jesus." He flicked a spent butt over the edge, then added,
"However, I did mind carrying you about when the girls decided they didn't feel like leaving you in the cold so I wouldn't have to go for take-out." Remy gave him a flat look and said,
"Très drôle." Kyle grinned at him.
"Too easy, couldn't resist. I'm like that," he said, taking the whisky from the Cajun and drinking deeply.
"Y're sometin' alrigh'," Remy muttered darkly, the idea of becoming this freak's dinner somehow not appealing to him, and Kyle laughed.
"Takes one to know one."
"If y' really don' give a shit about de fille, den why de hell are y' givin' y'self grief like dis?" Remy asked irritably, and Kyle gave him a curious look.
"Are you asking because you're concerned for her emotional wellbeing, or mine? I didn't realise we'd bonded already, how lovely," he said with what might have been a giggle tacked on to the end if he had been less big and scary.
"Cut de crap, mon ami.Y' tellin' moi dat y' jus' happen t' hang aroun' de Institute f' kicks even t'ough y' Wolverine's leas' favourite person in de' worl' an de ot'er guys hate y' guts?" Remy said coldly, and Kyle just looked at him.
"Is what I do really any different to what you used to do? What if I told you I'm planning on kidnapping her – would that make it alright with you?" Remy glared at him, eyes glowing hotly.
"Don' talk about dat. Y' don' know de firs' ting abou' what wen' on back den," he warned, and Kyle smiled at him, the expression looking genuinely pleasant.
"I know enough to know that what you did wasn't just for some selfish rescue mission that needed her powers to work. No one as professional as you would go to such lengths to secure her like that when you couldn't know how long she would stay on your side. You could easily have done the job alone – it's what used to pay your way through life after all – so why go to the trouble of bringing the girl? There's only one answer to that one," he said, sounding almost friendly.
"Seriously, homme, no offence, but y' do know dat what y' doin' wit' Laura is sick an' wrong, an' dat y' need t' seek help?" Remy asked seriously. Kyle chuckled, a sexy, deep-throated sound.
"I know exactly what I'm doing with Laura, Gambit. And I don't need you telling me whether or not it's healthy."
"Usin' de fille f' sex an' pissin' off de Wolverine f' no real reason 'cept a deathwish an' t' pass de time?" Remy asked, eyes glowing briefly. Kyle shook his head with a sigh, grinning.
"You have no idea how amusing it is to hear you, all condemning, when you used to do exactly the same thing with countless women – to say nothing of your sudden high and mighty outlook on the whole stalking deal," he said with mock sadness, blowing a smokering.
"You're wrong, by the way, about Laur' and I," he added, passing the whisky to Remy who took a swig and raised an eyebrow at the other guy.
"I s'pose y' wan' Remy t' believe dat y' not sleepin' wit' de fille, an' dat y' didn' stalk her?" he asked flatly, and Kyle shrugged.
"I don't care about belief. If something's a matter of faith then it's not worth getting hung up over. But no, I didn't stalk her. I am sleeping with her though," he admitted, and Remy laughed.
"So followin' her an' spyin' on her an' her famille long before y' ever make y'self known t' dem isn' stalkin' after all? Damn, Remy gon' tell dat t' de Judge when his case comes up!"
"You go ahead and do that – not that anyone's ever going to turn you in," Kyle said lightly.
"So what, Remy's dyin' t' know. What de fuck were y' doin' if it wasn' stalkin'?"
"Tracking her." Remy laughed in spite of himself.
"Like an animal? Homme, y' got serious issues!" he chuckled, and Kyle rolled his eyes.
"We have so much in common," he sneered.
"Fine, fine, tell Remy what y' mean," Remy said, wiping his eyes and composing himself.
"I knew about Xavier's. I knew about Wolverine being around these parts. I just came up here to see if it was true," Kyle said, and Remy interrupted.
"How'd y' know all dat?" Kyle bared his fangs in a smile.
"Stole the information." Remy raised the patented LeBeau eyebrow of 'Continue'.
"I used to be a lab rat just like Laura," Kyle said unhelpfully, and Remy whistled.
"Jesus Chris'... Y' not a Sabretooth clone, are y'?" Kyle narrowed his eyes.
"Hell no! I'm nothing to do with that bastard! Fuck you – fuck all of you!" His raised voice echoed in the snowy stillness around them and Remy took a step back, raising his hands."Hey, don' take it de wrong way, mon ami, didn' mean it like dat. I used t' work wit' dat piece o' shit, I can' imagine what it's like t' be compared t' dat monster. Take it easy," he said calmly, and Kyle shook his head, laughing bitterly.
"You've got the eyes against you, I get that. That has to be a slap in the face. But your family took you in because of that - taught you a trade, kept you alive. My family kicked me out the second this shit started up," he gestured to himself with the hand not holding his two remaining cigarettes.
"It's kind of difficult to hide claws and fangs when you're twelve and half the time you're not even sure you're still a human being. Along comes some organisation telling you they're going to help you, make it go away, and the next thing you know you're living half your days in a cell in a laboratory being sliced and diced and poked with needles and the other half you're..." He shuddered, curling his claws inwards and looking away. Remy saw dark spots fall from his hands to the snow-swept floor of the gazebo.
"I wasn't the only one. There were others. Then there was an accident... Place got demolished. I got away. I was free for ten days. Ten days before some other fuckers got wind of where I was and tracked me down. They gave me a choice. I was either with their team and they'd train me, help me control whatever the hell it was the others had done to me, or I wasn't." Remy nodded. He knew deals like that.
"I was out of control. They screwed with my head and I didn't know what I was doing. They trained me. I did shit for them..." He took a deep breath and went on.
"Then they started fucking with me again. Told me they could make me stronger. Improve me. I didn't want that. I'd heard them talking about Wolverine, about all of that. I stole the files and got the hell out."
"Dey jus' let y' walk outta dere pas probleme?" Remy asked incredulously, and Kyle tilted his head to one side.
"I didn't walk. I fucking ran. And no, they didn't just let me." The undertone in his voice led Remy to deduce that questioning just how he got away would be a bad idea.
"So y' came up here t' see de professeur's dream o' mutant coexistence?" he asked encouragingly, and Kyle nodded.
"Took a while. But that's not relevant. Came up here, found the place, saw Laura – and the others... She wasn't in the file. She... I can't explain it. You wouldn't understand what it is." Kyle spread his hands helplessly, then added,
"But I don't need to tell you what seeing a girl kick arse can do to a guy." Remy chuckled.
"True dat. So y' saw de fille doin' her ting an' y' had t' see if she was like y'self?"
"Guess you get that part at least," Kyle grinned.
"You know, from what I've heard and what Laur' tells me, you and her sister are almost as alike as me and Laura." Remy shrugged.
"Ma chere'sdeep Sout', so am I. She likes de same music, she's had a tough childhood, we're bot' stubborn as hell... Guess y' could say we're alike."
"Laur' says Rogue still has your card..." Kyle said quietly, and Remy looked at him sharply.
"She only knows because when she first arrived she made a point of searching the entire place top to bottom to find out what kind of people she was going to be living with. She wanted to make sure there was nothing behind their facade. She found it hidden in a box or something. That was a long time before she understood what it was or what it meant." Remy's puzzled expression led him to continue.
"Laur' has trouble with emotions. She doesn't understand them very well. She was never allowed to be a child. At least I had a childhood before the mutation set in..."
"Oh, so y' choose t' be a cold bastard on purpose whereas de petite don' have a choice abou' who she is?" Remy scoffed, and Kyle smiled sadly.
"I choose not to care. You should know all about that..."
The second he walked in the door, Kitty had her finger firmly planted on his chest and her big blue eyes fixed on him with what he could only surmise was all her combined hatred for all the evils in the world deflected onto his person.
"What did you do?" she asked dangerously, and Remy noticed Lance behind her.
"Congratulations, homme," he said with a nod at Kitty's finger, and Lance grinned.
"Thanks." Kitty looked at him with disapproval.
"Don't, like, encourage him, Lance," she scolded.
"Sorry Kitten," Lance mumbled, grin vanishing like mist on a sunny morning.
"You did something to Rogue you big jerk, and now she's like, really upset. You better fix this!" Kitty said angrily, jabbing Remy with her pointy little finger.
"Owch! I can' fix dis, petite, Rogue won' come near Remy an' Remy can' go near Rogue as long as Laura's watchin' her door!" Kitty crossed her arms.
"How do you like, know that Laura's watching Rogue's door?" Remy froze.
"I – uh – "
"You were like, spying on her? Like, oh my God! How did you even know what room it was?" Once again, Remy's brain failed him. Pickling it in whisky and nicotine after such a long period of abstinence had perhaps been a poor plan. Kitty's eyes widened in sudden revelation.
"Someone told you," she deduced, and at Remy's frown she gasped loudly.
"He told you?" Remy winced.
"He was with you? This is like, a total nightmare! I told you, Lance, didn't I tell you that jerk was just like Remy? Oh my God! I am so telling Logan about this, this can so not be allowed to keep happening!" Kitty swung around with all manner of purpose in the way her bangs swished about her pretty face and prepared to stride to wherever Logan was with yet more purpose, but Remy caught her arm.
"Petite, no! Please, don' tell de Wolverine," he pleaded, and Kitty gave him a cold look.
"Why not? You both totally deserve to be kicked out on your – "
"Kitten, let him finish? Logan used to think I oughtta be kicked out on my ass," Lance said calmly, and Kitty regarded him suspiciously.
"I thought you hated that guy," she said slyly, and Lance shrugged.
"I think people deserve a shot at proving they're not as bad as they look," he said honestly, and Kitty's eyes softened.
"Oh, Lance..." her voice was about as gooey as Remy could stand without gagging but he held it in as she turned back to him and said,
"Fine. But Lance is going with you and you are going to talk to Rogue and make this right." Remy closed his eyes and mouthed a 'thank you' at the ceiling, and Kitty made an angry noise.
"But that other idiot is totally not allowed in the house and if you screw up with Rogue the two of you are so getting to feel Logan's wrath!" she warned.
"Petite, y' have a heart o' gold," Remy said charmingly, dodging past her and sprinting off up the stairs.
