AN/ Shout out to Indidgo! :D No, I don't say that to all my reviewers.

And to the other five of you that reviewed, thank you so much! I got six reviews witin 24 hours of posting. That just rocks my socks and pushes me to write more. So, here you are: a brand new chapter! On with the show!

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I cast a quick glance at Xandy in the rearview mirror. He was sleeping peacefully in his booster seat, clutching Greta Gator in his little hands.

It was four in the morning. Xandy and I had been driving for fourteen hours, and I was sore as hell. Not to mention tired. Six more hours of driving and we'd be there, so I decided to stop and get some sleep. I would be useless to protect Xandy if I got myself killed driving, after all.

XxXxXxXxX

Five hours of sleep and a Burger King stop later, we were back on the road. I was trying to figure out what we were going to do once we got into Bayville. I sure as hell wasn't going to go back to the Acolyte base with a five year old. I didn't think that the brotherhood would be a very good environment for Xandy, either.

Truth be told, I was probably better off asking Xavier for help, or Stormy at least. Once a thief, always a thief, right? Although, maybe Stormy wouldn't exactly welcome a blast from the past. She didn't part from us on bad terms, or anything, but… Her exact words had been 'I need to start a new life for myself. I thought I did that here, but following the same career here as I did before I was a goddess did not exactly separate me from my past. I need to live on the other side of the law, for a change.' And she hadn't even said hello when she found out I was in the neighborhood. Sure, I had been under the employment of her enemy, but…

Eh. I should just get an apartment. I guess that means dipping into the emergency fund. So happy I made that private bank account.

"Pere, what's dat?" Xandy asked hours later. There was something in the air. Too small to be a plane, too big to be a bird… Was it fluttering? No, the cape was fluttering. Oh, shit. That's Magneto. And there's someone in the air behind him. Stormy! I looked down under where they were in the air to see a raging wall of fire attacking… Magneto? What? But that looked like John's fire…

"Lord," I whispered. Magneto now had seven or eight cars circling him, their doors ripping off and reforming into spiked balls of metal. Xandy and I were now almost right under the action. Or, right in front of it, if you count the battle on the ground.

"Stay here," I ordered Xandy firmly. "Do not leave this car." I opened the door and jumped out, my jean clad legs scattering fast-food wrappers and potato-chip bags as I emerged from the SUV. "Damn," I hissed as I realized I was not wearing my trench. I only had one pack of cards on me, in the pocket of my polo shirt. I'll just have to make do. Because fact is, I was trained as a mutant superhero. Or supervillain, depending on who you ask.

But it looked like Magneto was in a rage. I have a trained eye for fighting, and I could definitely see that Pyro was on he X-Men's side, but it was also painfully obvious that he had no idea how to work with them as a team. Pyro could fight, and he was good as a team member with a little training, that much I knew. The conclusion I came to was that Magneto had found out about John defecting and went after him, only to have them all fight against him.

In spite of the numbers against him, and his obvious injuries, Magneto was utterly handing the X-Men's asses to them. It was a pretty small team, though, so…

OH MY GOD.

My gaze rested upon a deliciously-figured femme, fighting like hell with a stubborn set to her jaw. I noticed those two exotic white stripes in her hair, the only part of it that wasn't up in a ponytail. They were framing two fiery-spirited green eyes, squinting into the dust kicked up by the destruction all around.

Then, one of Magneto's spiky metal car-door balls started hurtling toward her unawares, from behind.

"DUCK, Chere!" I cried out without thinking as I threw six supercharged cards toward the spiky death sphere. It exploded harmlessly above her. She whipped around in wide-eyed surprise as she heard my voice. I saw her eyes spark with some unidentified emotion, but I didn't get a good look at her before a jet hovered right above us, just arriving on the scene. A now buffer, older, and taller version of Cyclops jumped out and landed between me and Rogue, just before he lifted his hand to his visor… and hit me so hard with a plasma blast that I flew back and slammed into the car. There was a fuzzy edge to everything as I fought off unconsciousness. I heard Rogue yell at Cyclops,

"You dumbass! He saved meh from one a Mag's godforsaken projectiles, and whatta ya do? Ya blast th' poor guy. Look at him!" At the same time she was saying all this, I heard Xandy call out from the car.

"PERE! No!"

I heard the back car door slam open as Xandy jumped out. He didn't run over to me as I would have expected. I opened my blurry eyes and was surprised to see his hands glowing blue. Funny, it looked the same as when I didn't have any thing to charge and I… Oh, god, Xandy!

"Xandy!" I yell as I wobbly get to my feet. But he seems to act on instinct as he lets out a little boy battle-cry and runs straight for Cyclops. Apparently he recognized what that blue glow was from watching me in action, as he picked up a piece of rubble that had once been a piece of street. The blue glow bled into the small piece of asphalt, and he launched it at Cyclops. The guy had the sense to duck, at least. It all seemed to happen in slow motion to me, watching my son manifest his mutation. It exploded on their jet, blasting a hole clean through the ramp.

This moment was supposed to come much later, when he would be a teenager. But I suppose seeing me, his father, the man he looks up to as being the strongest guy on the planet, get tossed around like that would be pretty traumatic.

As another one of the X-Men notices this attack on their leader, a projectile heads toward Xandy. Oh HELL no! That's my kid, you bastard!

"That's my kid, you bastard!" I'm not always the best at editing my thoughts, eh? Before the projectile can hit Xandy, I leap in front of him and it embeds itself into my left bicep. I look at it and realize that it's one of those spikes that the kid with the funky hair makes. I think his mutant name was Spyke… How fitting. I look over toward Magneto, and realize that he's retreating. Thank god. That means the fight is over. Or so I think.

Wolverine runs up and tackles me. I try to roll away from Xandy, Ignoring the pain in my arm. If that bastard lands on me while I'm on Xandy, he'll be crushed! The spike sticking out of my arm impedes my movement, though, and the air is knocked out of me as three hundred pounds of adamantium skeleton and feral mutant land on top of me and Xandy. My eyes fly wide open as I hear a yelp from beneath me.

He's getting hurt! This mofo sitting on top of me is yelling at me, demanding to know what I'm doing here. But my son is in danger and I disregard everything he's saying as I rip the spike from my arm in a panic and stab it into his thigh. He jerks back from me enough that I'm able to yank my legs and torso out from under him and grab up my kid.

I look at him in a panic as he cries. He sobs into my shoulder. Oh, god, I feel so guilty. I never should have stopped the car. The X-Men are more than resourceful and they could have handled Buckethead just fine without me. Now that I've stopped to think, I hate myself for exposing him to this much violence. I was bringing him up here to protect him, dammit! Not to show him what his daddy used to do for a living!

I ignore all the questions being fielded my way, and tilt my son's head up so I can meet his eyes.

"Is anything broken, Xandy?" I ask him. He shakes his head. Poor kid's gonna have a full body bruise tomorrow, though. Talk about sore. I carry him back to the care and set him gently back in it, handing him Greta, which he gratefully clasps onto for dear life.

I am now paying attention to the people behind me again. Namely, Wolverine. I walk briskly over to him and everyone quiets down. I pull my arm back, and slam a fist into his eye as hard as I can, ignoring the pain it causes me. I know he'll heal in a matter of seconds, but I get some kind of sick joy hearing him hiss in pain. Oh, it'll heal, but that don't mean that he won't feel it.

"Ya coulda suffocated my son, y' flamin' bastard!" I yell into his face. I feel a familiar tingling sensation in my fingertips, and I have to pull the accidental charge back in before my fingerless gloves explode right on my hands.

"So, the infamous ladies man finally got a little too careless, eh?" Wolverine questioned with a sick smirk.

I was sure my eyes were glowing with the kinetic charge and the fury I was holding in at that moment. My son is not just some bastard child borne of carelessness! This time, I don't hold in the charge as I slip off my glove and punch his eye again, leaving the glove to explode on his face when my hand withdraws. Logan practically roars as it goes off. I watch in grim pleasure as the threads of muscle on the left side of his face knit back together and his eyeball starts growing back in the socket.

"Enough of this!" an anal-retentive voice commanded. I looked over to see that Cyclops, Rogue, Wolverine, and Stormy were the only ones not in the jet. He opens his mouth to most likely order us all around again, but is interrupted by Xandy.

"Are y' dat Rogue fille dat Pere talks 'bout sometimes?" He asks up at Rogue from right next to me. Well, this is embarrassing, to say the least. What? So I talk about her. I talk about a lotta stuff!

"Well, Ah don' know sugah. What exactly does he say about this 'Rogue fille'?" she asks, crouching down to his height. He walks over to her, and my heart skips a beat at the beautiful sight. My son, whom I love more than anything else in the world, bonding with the most interesting girl I have ever met.

"Well, he says dat Rogue is de mos' gorgeous femme he ever laid eyes on. An he says dat she got a fiery spirit. But I don' know why y' would wan' one o' dose, I t'ink bein' on fire all de time would hurt." He scrunched up his face. "He says he hates dat he never got to see her again, an' den he starts goin' off in French too fast for me t' understand. And then he gets dis real weird look on his face, and talks about how her soul is as beautiful as she is. But Pere," he turns back to me. I am embarrassed to admit that I was blushing by the end of all this. Trust a five-year old to blab all the secrets that you've kept for years from your whole guild right back to your former enemies.

"How d' y' see a soul?" he asks. "An' how can y' tell dat it's beautiful?"

"You can see a person's soul in their eyes, child," Stormy answers for me. She's looking right at me as she says it, too. And I remember the day when I was maybe eight years old, when I had asked that same question. My mother had answered it then, with me and Ororo listening to her from the kitchen table. I suppose it was only fitting that Stormy be the one to answer it this time.

"Hey!" Xandy said as his eyes lighted upon her. "You're Stormy!" She made a face at the name. "I seen you in pictures in Grandpere's office, and in pictures dat have Grandmere!" at the mention of Alexandra, Stormy gets a sad look in her eyes. They had been close despite only knowing each other a few months before Maman died.

"Storm? Do you know those rotten thieves?" Wolverine asked gruffly.

"Yes, Logan. I used to be one of those rotten thieves." Rogue's smirk at this declaration only tells me that she already knew this from the information she had absorbed from Stormy. Or maybe even me. At that moment the teleporter popped in front of us. He was more muscular than I remembered, and his hair was shorter.

"Hey, Gambit. Ze professor radioed in, he wants to know if you'll be returning with us?"

"Er, our stuff is in de car," I motion to our SUV, the one I picked out specifically for safety rating. It really wasn't the kind of car I was used to driving. Quite frankly, it's ugly as hell.

"Ah'll go with him in their car," Rogue volunteered. "For directions." I fought back a grin. Directions. Right. I don't need directions, it used to be in my job description to stalk these people. She knows that. Teleporter guy nods at her and ducks back into the jet.

Cyclops looks disgruntled at the fact that I'm going to be in his home. But, seeing as it was an invitation from the professor, he doesn't say anything. Wolverine, on the other hand…

"What! What the hell is Chuck thinking? We can't let that Cajun slimebag anywhere near the mansion!"

"Oh, yeah, Wolvie," I start sarcastically. "Me an' Xandy here gonna rob y' blind. Dat is de exact reason I brought a five-year-old twenty hours o' drivin' from his home." Okay, so maybe I'm not being sarcastic so much as bitter. In any case, Wolverine gave me a sneer and walked onto the jet, followed by Cyclops and Stormy.

Xandy had already beaten us to the car. I went around and opened Rogue's door for her. Hey, I grew up with Tante Mattie. You better mind your manners if there's ever any tiny, slight, possible chance she might ever hear about it.

Settling myself back in the driver's side, I checked all my mirrors, made sure the back doors were locked, (If Xandy can open the damn door when we're stationary, he can sure as hell do it when we're moving) and checked to make sure Xandy was strapped in right. Once we were on the road, Xandy felt the need to introduce Rogue to Greta. She was talking back to Greta whenever Xandy would talk for her, and I didn't even try to hold back a grin.

"What're ya smilin' about, Swamp Rat?" she asked when she noticed me.

"Jus' dat a dignified X-Man femme is carryin' out a conversation wit' a stuffed alligator.

"Ah happen to like alligators, thank you very much." I just chuckled. The car fell into comfortable silence for a while.

It wasn't long until Xandy gave a gasp.

"Wow, Pere! Are we gonna live dere? I hope so! It's way prettier dan our mansion—An' look! It has a pool!"

"Don' know if we gonna live dere, p'tite. But we gonna find out, non?" By now Xandy is practically vibrating in is seat. Poor kid's been in the car for way too long.

As soon as I pull the car to a stop in front of the mansion's entrance, he jumped out of the car and hit the ground running. He did a lap around the car as I got out, and another one as I opened Rogue's door for her. As Rogue and I walked up to the door, he ran off to go look at something or other. I sighed.

"C'mon, Xandy! Y' should come in wit' us. 'M sure Stormy can show y' around later." I tried to get him to come with us.

"Non, Pere! Vous avez à me rattraper !" (No, Dad! You have to catch me!) I heaved another sigh and started running after him. Note that children, despite their short legs, are extremely fast little creatures and are hard to catch. This being the case, it was harder to catch him when it caused me pain to pump my left arm. You know, the whole 'getting hit by a bone spike' thing.

I do catch up to him after about ten minutes of hard running, though. I'm panting. When this kid was born, I thought it would be a piece of cake keeping up with him. I'm a master thief and former acolyte, I'm the goddamn Gambit!

Boy was I wrong.

Anyway, I grabbed him and carried him upside down to the mansion. He was still laughing and a bit red faced when I set him just inside the foyer door. Stormy walked up just then.

"Remy, the Professor would like to speak with you. Show him to the Professor's office, Rogue?" she asked.

"Sure, 'Ro. This way," she said to me and walked toward the stairs. I looked back to see Stormy talking to Xandy.

"Look after him, will y' Stormy?" I ask.

"Gambit, how many times have I told you not to call me that?" she asks with a long-suffering sigh.

"Too many. But yo' will?"

She nods and I start to follow Rogue. We go up the stairs, turn a right, go past a few doors, until we stop in front of the fifth one on the left.

"Have fun, sugah." She walks away, and I'm left in front of the formidable double-doors. I'm about to knock when a voice speaks in my mind, Please come in, Gambit.

Well, here goes nothin.'