Rogue clutched her side and was only vaguely aware as Remy mumbled something in her ear before standing up and facing the man that had attacked her. She ran her fingers gently down her sides and found some lovely little fractures. Her gaze wandered up the wall to where a projectile of some sort had narrowly avoided decapitating her.

Remy had protected her. For the second time. That day.

"Well, lookey here." The man smirked, the deep insanity in his eyes directed at Remy. "It's the little Cajun that could."

Rogue looked up sharply, still tucked away in the shadow she had fallen in. The closest illumination was the glow from the charged card in Remy's hand.

"And the little Riptide that shouldn't." Remy shot back.

They knew each other?

If this 'Riptide' fool touches Remy in any harmful way, I'm gonna snap his spine in half like a toothpick. She swore vehemently, trying to collect herself enough to sit up.

"And who's the little chickey in the corner?" 'Riptide' smirked, cold eyes scanning the shadows. He made no move to get into a fighting stance, just stood there, hands on hips, legs spread in a wide, solid standing position. "I'd like to get to know here a little better."

"I'd advise against that if you favor your life." Remy snarled, unleashing half a dozen charged cards on to the man.

Riptide stealthily ducked under the ones aimed for his head and did a flying roll through the smoke caused by the ones aimed for his legs. He landed solidly in front of Remy.

"Do you ever think about it?" Riptide asked coolly, as if they were having a normal conversation. "Does it ever wake you up at night? Does it ever make you do something stupid?"

It? What 'it'?

Rogue struggled to stand, only to collapse again when she couldn't get enough air into her lungs to justify movement.

"Enough!" Remy finally lost his cool, hauling out his staff he charged it until the power crackled through out the air and slamming it into Riptide's chest.

The staff stuck where it struck, and started to swirl away with the weird new currents Riptide's body was taking.

"I don't." He smirked, as if unaware of the manifestation of his mutant power. His body started to swirl faster. "I've never lost a minute of sleep. The memories of those screams are like a little lullaby..." His cackle echoed across the caverns of the empty alley.

Rogue curled herself into a little ball, trying to make herself as small of a target as possible when more of the objects that had nearly killed her earlier rolled off Riptide's body, loudly cutting through objects in every direction. She wanted to scream, but the intake of oxygen required to do so crashed against her ribs painfully.

Remy crouched down low, reminding her of a cougar about to pounce. Riptide laughed manically, shooting off the sharp objects in no particular pattern. Remy's shoulders rolled apprehensively under the contours of his coat as he waited for an opening.

Get. Up.She scorned herself for being so useless. Get up, and take that bastard down.

Rogue groaned, hoisting herself into a semi-upright position, avoiding projectiles as she crawled forward towards Remy, feeling the need to be close to him. Whether if it was so that she could protect him, or be protected, she couldn't tell.

She screamed out of shock when one of the spikes almost took off her fingers and drew back quickly. She rolled out of the way as three more punctured the ground where she had just been.

"Time to put an end to this shit!" Remy growled, planting his hands firmly on the closest wall.

BOOM

Logan looked around wildly.

What the hell was that?

One of the outer walls on the building next to the one he was watching carefully started to collapse down into the alleyway between the two. The smell of debris and blood immediately became apparent on the air.

He cursed and was immediately on his communicator while simultaneously running to the wreckage.

"Angel, I need you down here. There was an explosion of some sort. I smell injuries. Shadowcat, I'll need your help to get anyone caught in the rubble out. Colossus, I'd tell you to stay, but I know you won't, so you can come too. Rogue-."

No response.

"Goddammit." Logan cursed under his breath and didn't even bother to page the Cajun. He already knew that if Rogue was in any trouble, he had either caused it or was trying to get her out of it… probably both.

Rooting frantically through the medium sized bits of once-was wall, he called out for signs of life, sniffing out the blood.

"Dammit!" Someone yelled from not far off. Logan perked up at the recognition of his southern belle's voice. "Boy, you are ten kinds of stupid." It continued.

There was a light chuckling and Logan turned to find Rogue stalking out of the rubble tucked under the arm of one Cajun. No- not tucked- supporting him by hauling his arm over her shoulder. He limped along by her side, smudged with dirt and blood, but still grinning like a fool, so Logan took that as a sign that he was fine and still a jackass.

"Well, chere," He smirked at her, trying to walk on his own, but collapsing back into her grip. "That's what people tell me."

"What happened?" Angel asked as he touched down next to the two of them. Kitty and Pete materialized by his side not long after that.

"We ran into the guy. What was his name? Riptide?" Rogue said turning her head to Gambit.

"Yeah." Gambit's mood darkened visibly. "Riptide."

"Did you know him?" Rogue looked at the man with a little gleam in her eye that Logan had seen there once before. That little gleam led that girl to a year of running. That little gleam needed to be stamped out as soon as possible.

"Once upon a time, when Remy was a bad, bad man." Gambit answered Rogue, wrapping a stray lock of white hair around his fingers, completely unaware that Logan was debating the pros and cons of stabbing him again.

"Stop it." Rogue smacked his hand out of her hair and he yelped with pain dramatically.

"You can't be mean to me right now," Remy scolded her. "I just blew up half a building to save your life. In fact, I think I deserve a kiss." He smirked at her suggestively.

Rogue rolled her eyes. "Yeah, sure," She said sarcastically. "Then we can add coma to the list of things that you should go to the hospital for."

"I ain't goin' to a hospital, woman." Gambit growled.

"Sorry to interrupt," Warren smirked at the two and then at the mountain of destruction. "But do we know if this Riptide guy is still alive or not?"

"Well," Gambit sighed heavily. "If he's alive he's gone already. And if he's dead someone's going to clone his sorry ass, or he's going to crawl out of his grave, or get hit with radioactive waves reflecting off the surface of Mars and not only comes back from the dead but has fun new exciting powers to kill people with, because something like that always happens."

Everyone surrounding him nodded, knowing exactly what he was talking about. It was silently agreed that there was really nothing more they could do there, and they should pack it up before authorities showed up.

"You guys sure know how to throw a party." Gambit mused as he leaned back in his chair aboard the X-jet. "I knew it was a good idea to stick around here." He winked at Rogue, casually tossing his arm over her shoulders, careful not to put too much pressure on her side.

The rest of the ride lapsed into a smear of silence and brooding for Remy as he contemplated what this particular venture was going to mean for him in the long run.

He had lost sleep over it.Uncountable hours he had spent staring into darkness, wishing to take it back. He had done stupid things because of it.He'd tried to force karma's hand into exterminating him.

Instead, karma saw fit for a different type of punishment entirely. And that punishment was beautiful, sassy, vulnerable, strong, and completely untouchable.

Karma's a bit of a bitch.