This chapter was written by aiRo25. Neither she, nor any of the other writers in the group own the X-men or X-men the movie series. Please check aiRo25's profile for more of her awesome works.
Rogue swung into action without a second thought. Her leg came up in a vicious kick as she spun away from the stranger's grasp. While the maneuver generally gave her breathing room in an attack, she was startled at the easy evasion of the dark figure. He lashed out with an answering kick that swept into one of her legs, knocked her off balance, then he spun her into the brick wall and pinned her there under his arms. She stared, gasping for breath.
"What the—"
"Now, chérie." She found herself staring into Remy's cocky smirk. "Is that any way to treat your benefactor?"
He held her down easily, only grinning more broadly. Rogue stopped struggling and huffed at him. An errant lock of white hair fell into her eyes and she wanted to brush it away, but no, she couldn't because this arrogant, irritating, self-centered Cajun was holding her down as if they weren't on the same team and looking at her with indecent appreciation. Of course, they wouldn't be on the same team for long, but he didn't know that. Yet.
"I'm pretty sure I'm the benefactor, swamp rat," she reminded him with exaggerated patience. "We're using my place."
Remy tilted his head, as if considering, then slid his hands down her arms, loosening his grip. The friction sent unwelcome shivers of heat into her body, and unsure of how to react, she glared at him again.
"Well, it was your idea to get involved," he said reasonably.
"I can just as easily get uninvolved!"
He clucked disapprovingly. "You can't. I need you." Somehow, he managed to infuse those words with far too much suggestion.
She opted for a barbed retort. "I highly doubt that."
"You wound me, chère!" He clutched his heart with one hand in mock pain.
Rogue snorted. "And this fits in with your whole arrogant, what-I-do-is-not-your-concern attitude?"
A smirk edged up his face again. "You made it your concern, and I can't imagine a reason worth letting such a belle femme as yourself slip away from moi now." One finger caressed the side of her face. Too warm. Too close.
Rogue slapped his hands away, glaring again. "You're nothing but a thieving, conniving, manipulative, underhanded Cajun!" she fumed. "You—"
Both eyebrows came up. "As I recall, chère, you were the one manipulating and suggesting your way into things."
"I did not," she declared hotly.
Remy gave her a skeptical once-over. "Oui, chère. You did."
"That's beside the point now." Trust him to get her off topic and flustered and distracted. Rogue pulled herself back onto topic, throwing out her big ultimatum. "I didn't learn a single useful thing in there except for what a big mistake it was to get involved with you and—"
He just rolled his eyes. "Already told you that."
She continued as if he hadn't spoken—interrupted her really. She shot him a glare. "—so you can just take your things and be gone from my place at your earliest convenience." Then she crossed her arms at him and lifted her chin.
"A change of heart?" he asked lightly, though his burning red eyes glowed with clear amusement.
Rogue eyed him warily, but threw him back his own retort. "What was your first clue?" she asked dryly, archly even.
Remy chuckled. "Désolè, ma chérie, but no."
He startled her with that. "Whuh—what?" She stared at him, reduced to inelegant sputtering.
"Non," he repeated as matter-of-factly as he had said it the first time.
The role reversal had her reeling. "Isn't that exactly what you wanted?" she demanded.
"Oh, you'd like to think you know what I want." He leaned in close, his breath painting her face with the innuendo.
"I would not." And she shoved him back again.
Nothing daunted, Remy flashed her that cocky smirk that implied far too much and looked her over again. "Aw, chère. We know the truth." And how he made that sound!
"Shut up!" Rogue crossed her arms and glared at him.
He grinned.
"I can walk away any time I want." She poked her finger against his chest for emphasis.
He covered the offending hand with his, and Rogue instantly tried to yank it back, but he held on. It galled her that the warmth was not unpleasant.
"Chère," he said, eyes suddenly very serious. "You're in too deep."
"Hardly! I've walked into one bar," she ranted. She had not compromised him or Etienne nor been compromised by a single thing she had said or done. She had barely done anything. "It's not like anybody knows anything they shouldn't."
"Like what you look like in the ladies room?" He let the words slip out so innocently, so unobtrusively that she was already opening her mouth to continue on her own point before she caught his.
She turned a deep shade of red. "You, you, swamp rat!" How did he figure that out? Oh, Etienne was going to be in more trouble than he'd ever been in his entire life from anyone he'd ever been in trouble with before.
Remy chuckled. "Thought I heard that correctly."
The look she leveled at him went beyond any he had received previously. "How dare you bring that up?" she spat.
"Because you're the cutest thing when you're ticked." He was smirking!
Unable to slap him with her captured hand, she settled for leveling him her deadliest glare. "I haven't done anything inappropriate."
He shook his head, that irritating smirk still gracing his lips. "You have."
"I have?" Rogue arched an eyebrow in pure disbelief.
But he started ticking things off with his words with an ease that spoke of much forethought. "You got involved. You aided and abetted. It's your place. There ain't no way that the right word leaked to the wrong people won't get you looked at sideways, perhaps worse."
He had to be talking about police. And framing. And...
Her eyes widened.
"You wouldn't." He would. She could see it in his eyes. "Oh! They were so right about you. Using anyone for anything to get what you want. I can't believe you!"
"Chère." He sighed. "It ain't like that."
"Don't you 'chère' me! Just get your hands off!" With a mighty heave, Rogue finally wrenched herself out of Remy's grip and shoved him back. "This is my home now and I have a right to live in peace!"
She wasn't just talking about the house. This was the only city she could just transplant herself to, start over, start a new life away from the X-Men and the Cure and everything that had happened to her since she ended up in New York. She wrapped her arms around herself and looked anywhere but Remy.
"You're the one that wanted to get involved," he said softly. At least, he wasn't leering anymore. At least...
There was no at least. He was blackmailing her. Pure and simple.
"Oh, shut up!" She was near tears, but she had no intention of letting Remy see it or of letting herself break down like she had over the last few years. She had indulged her own weaknesses and look what it got her: a boyfriend who left her as much for her nagging bitterness as her dangerous powers and a situation in which she was clearly in over her head.
Rogue stared at Remy for a long moment, his calm, serious patience. She would not give him or anyone else the satisfaction of seeing her bested by life—again. She would just have to pull herself together and find some way to twist this new situation to her advantage like she had before. Patience, Logan had taught her. Sometimes you just had to wait for the right opportunity to roll back around.
"Fine." She bit out the word.
Remy raised a disbelieving brow. "Fine?"
"You heard me. I said, 'Fine.'"
His look turned suspicious, but Rogue was already halfway out of the alleyway and onto the street. She could hear his loud sigh behind her, then he was beside her fast enough to startle, one warm arm sliding around her waist.
She would bide her time all right, and when the moment was right, she was going to find some way to help Etienne out of this mess and exact her revenge on Remy LeBeau, Guildmaster of Thieves.
Bandit looked over the edge of the roof again to be certain he had positively identified both parties. He had been expecting Remy to show up at the bar next door and waited, knowing that following the young Guildmaster would be nearly impossible without tipping his hand. So he had waited and his patience had borne fruit.
He pondered what he had heard. It seemed like Belladonna's old beau had got himself a new girl and was being a bit...clingy. He wanted this girl. The girl was beautiful, distinctive. He could pick those white lovelocks out of any crowd. And she was angry at LeBeau. If he didn't mistake that clipped tone, those sparking green eyes, that heavy drawl that thickened with every line the Thief dropped, she was as mad as a cornered cat.
Belladonna would probably want to know right away. His girlfriend had always been jealous and still managed to pull the wounded wildcat every time her ex got himself a new woman for any amount of time. For that reason alone, Bandit thought he should hold on to this news for himself. Belladonna may see it as more reason to kill the Thief, but Bandit saw it as ammunition.
There had to be some way he could turn this new tool to his advantage.
She was a spitfire. Angry at the Guildmaster.
He grinned broadly.
Perhaps he had found his way in at last.
Jean-Luc LeBeau was getting bored. Very bored. He was only too glad to be rid of the mountains of paperwork being Guildmaster entailed: the careful cover-ups, the police reports to analyze, the investments and legitimate holdings besides all the day to day administration that piled up week after week on his old desk. Yes, he was only too glad to be free of it and allow his once unruly sons—still fairly unruly, come to think of it—deal with the gruntwork while he got to play again.
But it had been quiet in the LeBeau mansion since Etienne left for his Tilling. Too quiet. Jean-Luc hadn't even had the pleasure of listening to Remy gripe about the woeful flood upon his desk. He hadn't heard Henri berating Remy for not having listened well enough as an apprentice to not know this or not know that. In fact, he hadn't heard Remy!
Upon this realization, the venerable Patriarch betook himself out of his quiet study and went to find his younger son. The ball and chain of Remy's new title should've effectively shackled him to the mansion, at least until he got everything fairly well under control, but a quick walk-through of all of Remy's favorite haunts turned up nothing but a fussy grandchild (Henri and Mercy's first) and Tante Mattie shooing off the young folks, wielding grim determination and a hefty rolling pin.
But no Remy.
Jean-Luc frowned, but had to consider the possibility that Etienne's Tilling was simply taking more time than originally expected. A pinch in the very heart of Assassins' territory required a delicate touch and the careful, watchful eye of a good Registrar. He scowled at the thought.
Here, Remy was supposed to be tied to a desk and he was out in the field, enjoying himself! That simply would not do. What was the point in slaving years away, raising sons, raising a Guild, and then not getting to enjoy his retirement?
"Mercy?" he asked politely, returning to the scene of his fussy granddaughter testing her new teeth against a rubber ducky.
"Oui, Père?" She didn't look up from her work of attempting to extricate the small toy. "Something bothering you?"
"Where's Henri? I'd like to talk to him."
Remy wasn't too pleased with the turn of events or the way Rogue glared at him darkly as they rode on his bike back to her place. Unfortunately, he couldn't really afford to concentrate on her second thoughts as he had already had to shake three tails, one Assassin for certain, one definitely a Thief (one of the Council's assigned bodyguards, if he wasn't mistaken), and an overzealous cop intent on enforcing the speed limit Remy was flagrantly playing with.
He sighed and slowed to a stop at a light. He flexed his fingers in agitation. He wanted to talk to Rogue, help her understand that he was tied as much to Guild law as she was tied to whatever morals her upbringing had grounded in her. She knew enough to hang Etienne and possibly Remy as well. That was enough to force him into quite a unique set of rules. If she had just butted out when he told her to, maybe he could have smoothed things out without getting her any more tied up than she was.
But no. She had to help them. She just had to have her own way. And then regret it.
The light turned green. Remy roared through the intersection. Only the feel of her arms tightening around him cooled the slight rise in his temper.
What was it about damsels in distress that he simply couldn't resist?
"Almost there," he called over his shoulder, even knowing she couldn't hear it.
Rogue huffed into his back.
He would just have to see what he could do about protecting her—with or without her cooperation.