Curiosity
Chapter 9: It Killed the Kat
Disclaimer: Don't own any pieces of the DC universe any more than I own the Marvel-verse. So sad.
Author's Note: Last time, in this rambling cobbled-together tale, Rogue hatches a plan. Gambit is finding himself in more trouble than he is ready to deal with. (I think) I'm taking liberties with Gambit's character here. I know I've read somewhere that he's a fan of Star Trek, so I'm assuming that in the same vein he'd be a Joss Whedon fan. Not so far-fetched, especially with the whole Firefly/Serenity thing, where they're all professional thieves, more or less.
"I just know he's up to something!"
"Um, Ms. Munroe?" Kitty asked nervously, eying the darkening clouds outside the study.
"Forgive me, my child, but I am sure that he's keeping something from me."
Kitty sighed. She could see exactly where this was going. The weather witch was hardly the type to seek out a hear-to-heart with one of her students. No, the goddess was after information – information she knew only Kitty could supply.
"I need your help, my dear. Your reputation with that computer is legendary," she said, eyeing Kitty's laptop distrustfully out of the corner of her eye.
"What exactly would I be looking for that the Professor hasn't already found?"
Ororo Munro cleared her throat hastily. "The Professor respects Remy's privacy. He does not make a habit of delving into the minds of the unwilling."
Kitty smiled, sensing her advantage. "You want to keep this from the Professor."
"Professor Xavier has much on his mind."
"I want that T-1 line."
"I hardly think this calls for blackmail."
"I hardly think I can gather the information I need on a shared DSL connection – not with the boys spending all their time on YouTube and file sharing sites."
"They're not supposed to download anything illegal," the Goddess muttered, pressing a hand to her temple.
"They're teenage boys," Kitty said wryly, fairly buzzing with the prospect of all that bandwidth.
"Heaven help us. Alright, you will get your T-1, child, if you find what I'm looking for."
"You have something specific in mind?"
"Remy is being hunted – I want you to find out who's trying to kill him."
"I just know she's up to something!"
Jubilee smirked, shooting Kitty an amused look. "Oh, I'm pretty sure we both know exactly what she's up to … and he's tall, dark and handsome, with brooding red eyes."
Kitty rolled her eyes. "You don't know her like I do, there's more to it than meets the eye."
"Enlighten me," Jubilee sighed dramatically, flopping down on the sofa and reaching for the remote.
"Hey, I think Smallville's almost on!"
"Ohmigod, I love that show. They left it on such a cliffhanger last season."
"Totally," Kitty agreed, settling down beside Jubilee.
"Hey, where is everyone? Shouldn't we be, like, engaged in an epic struggle for the remote with like, half the other students?"
"Yeah, it is suspiciously quiet."
"Speaking of suspicious, what's the deal with Rogue? I mean, you know her a lot better than I do."
"Well, she's really . . ." Kitty searched for a word that would describe her roommate – neurotic, crazed, and antisocial sprang to mind, but she settled on something a little more tactful. "Complex."
Jubilee snorted with laughter. Tactful wasn't really her style.
Kitty forged on, ignoring Jubilee. "Seriously, though – Rogue keeps a lot bottled up. Like, when she went off to get the Cure, it was like everything was normal one day, and then – bam – she was gone, and she'd done it. No warning, nothing."
"I heard Bobby was cheating on her with you, and that's why she ran away and got the Cure." OK, so Jubilee didn't even know the meaning of the word tact.
"That's not true," Kitty said slowly. "I would never do that to her. Bobby and I are friends, and we were all going through a difficult time, what with the Professor . . ." Kitty sighed. "He tried to talk her out of it. She didn't take the Cure for him."
"Why in god's name would any boy try to talk Rogue out of taking the Cure? I mean, she's like drop-dead gorgeous – or she would be if she didn't dress like a reject from an Anne Rice novel – he'd have to be insane to not want to touch her!"
"Bobby cared about her. He wanted her to be happy, but he didn't want her to try to erase what she was just so she could have a physical relationship. It's, like, totally romantic if you think about it."
"Yeah, if you think Romeo and Juliet is romantic."
"Um . . ." Kitty frowned, wondering where Jubilee was going with this. That was one of her favorite plays, one of the greatest love stories of all times.
"Oh please, they both kill themselves – what is so romantic about that? I mean, if he'd just sucked it up and dealt with it, everything would have turned out fine, Juliet would have woken up, and they would have lived happily ever after. Until they got married, that is."
"You are such a cynic. Were you always like this, or is Logan really rubbing off on you that much?"
"Oh, shut up and watch the show."
Kitty chose to ignore that, concentrating instead on the television. She smiled as she savored the irony that the X-Men had their very own man of steel, the smile melting away as her thoughts strayed back to reality. She supposed they were lucky it was still on the air, what with the current mutant protests. Superman wasn't a mutant, but he was the next best thing, and nowadays the protesters leapt at even the smallest affiliations with mutants.
And they both had the dreamiest deep blue eyes.
"Man of Steel or not, Clark has got nothing on Piotr," Jubilee said slyly, watching out of the corner of her eye as Kitty slowly turned bright red. "But then again, that Prince of Thieves is seriously hot too, and he does have the whole 'Bad Boy' thing going for him. . ."
"Speaking of forbidden love, does Logan know you drool over other men?" Kitty asked lightly, trying desperately to put Jubilee on the defensive.
"I'm not drooling. Besides, a girl is allowed to look."
"You're keeping something from me, sister."
"Relax, Julien, you worry too much."
"You risk too much, sister. If our father was alive to see this –"
"But he isn't. Let's not waste our time pretending we miss him and his stupid reliance on archaic traditions."
"Those traditions keep us strong!"
He was beginning to become agitated. Julien was a first-class Assassin, but he lacked . . . ambition, clarity of purpose. The ability to deal with change. The world had changed around the Guild, and her father had chosen to ignore those changes, keeping the Guild anchored firmly in the seventeenth century.
Which, in the end, had been his undoing. He should have seen it coming – would have seen it coming if he'd realized what he'd created in his daughter. He'd trained her as he trained Julien, steeping her in the Assassin's art from an early age. But he'd never intended her to take over his empire. That was the job of the firstborn male. No, for his daughter he'd had something more . . . traditional . . . in mind.
Julien was obviously unfit to take over the empire; Marius had at least recognized his own son's shortcomings. He'd even come up with a most ingenious solution to the problem – marry Belladonna off to the Prince of the Thieves' Guild, cementing an alliance between the two warring Guilds, crafting a treaty of peace between them as well as doubling the territory and influence of both, and securing a male to take over the reins of the dual empire – Jean-Luc's adopted son.
It wasn't that Belladonna had disapproved of the merger – Remy was a most agreeable match, or he would be once she'd trained him properly – or the power that would come with it. It was her place in the deal that angered her. The empire that should have been hers going to an outsider, with nothing she could say to change it. She would be powerless, a trophy wife expected to produce an heir and keep her mouth shut.
Belladonna was not the type to accept her fate quietly. That was Julien's nature. "Those traditions made us weak. We've been warring with the Thieves' Guild too long – it has depleted both our ranks."
Now Julien looked confused. Serves her right for trying to explain herself to him. "You know we did what we had to. Father would have signed me away to that Thief, ceded control over the Guild to an outsider."
"You were the one that killed Father! Not me! And you wanted Remy, everyone knows it! If they didn't before, your blatant obsession with him would give it away!"
"I held the knife that killed him, but you stood by while I made my plans. Your weakness killed him, Julien, which is why you would never have inherited the throne." She ignored the angry glare and pressed on. "And I do want Remy – father was right about one thing: this union is critical. We must unite the Guilds under one rule, end this senseless infighting."
"But you said –"
"I said I could never have the Assassin's bow to a thief! If I marry Remy, I have just as much right to the Thieves' Guild as he as to the Assassin's Guild. And I intend to exercise that right!"
"That is not your place!"
"Julien, my dear brother, whatever would make you say that?"
"You're a woman!"
"And this woman has accomplished more than you've ever dreamed, brother mine."
"You killed Father!"
"Only because you didn't have the balls to do it yourself. Marius was soft in his old age – he let his guard down. He should have been expecting it."
"He raised us!"
"As his father raised him, and that didn't stop him from taking out his old man."
"Father would never have –"
"Julien, have you read our Chronicles? I have . . . you should really read of our traditions before you presume to understand them. Marius murdered his father, as his father murdered his when it was time to take the throne."
"That's barbaric!"
"We're Assassins, darling, not florists."
Julien bit his lower lip. He really was a sensitive boy . . . how that had ever happened was a mystery to Belladonna.
"Now listen to me. I am going to take this Guild into the twenty-first century. All I need is one stupid Thief and I'll have my alliance – and with it, we'll have control of both the Guilds."
"You think LeBeau is just going to let you take over his Guild?"
"Leave Remy to me."
"I still don't think this is right, it's distasteful."
"What is it exactly about searching for someone that turns your stomach? We do it everyday."
"And then we kill them. We only hunt paid targets. We aren't kidnappers!"
"Julien, my boy, I have no intention of kidnapping him." Actually, she did, but he didn't need to know about that particular Warrant. "I just need to find him. Once I remind him of his responsibility to his Guild, everything else will fall into place." Belladonna smiled, a chilling twist of her lips that never reached her eyes. She doubted Remy would go easily into matrimony, but she was not without her own means of persuasion. Besides, if he was half as stubborn as she remembered, it would almost be fun to break him.
Julien frowned uncertainly at her declaration of innocence. He was always so trusting.
"I'm just going to look for him – a girl is allowed to look, right?"
Hook line and sinker. And when she got her hands on Remy, she wouldn't need her sniveling brother anymore.
Rogue swallowed nervously, tugging uselessly at her outfit – if you could call it that. It was the kind of outfit that usually came with its own theme song – something with a strong beat and a suggestive guitar riff. The kind of outfit she'd never dared to wear before – not since she'd acquired her mutation. Short shorts and a too-tight tank top had been her first choice, but she'd bowed to the growing chill in the air and settled for something a little more seasonal. She'd twisted her hair up off her neck into a loose braided bun, baring a considerable expanse of skin that wasn't wrapped in a dark green skinny scarf that draped loosely over her shoulders, cascading over a pure white tank top that fell just short of her hips. She'd squeezed herself into a scandalously tiny jean skirt, held up with a thick belt that matched the high-heeled boots she was strutting around the mansion in.
She'd managed to keep her cool during breakfast, ignoring the startled looks from the other stragglers that dragged themselves down to breakfast at the ungodly hour of eleven in the morning. She took her coffee black, as usual, gulping it down and heading instinctively for a quiet spot to brood. She was halfway through the garden maze when she remembered she had a plan.
A bad plan. Who was she kidding? She was no seductress . . . she was nervous baring a little skin, there was no way she could chase after the Thief convincingly enough to get him to leave her alone. Still, it had been quite a rush, an evil thrill when she'd turned the tables on him last night. Had it only been last night? She could still feel his fingerprints on her wrist, as though they'd been burned into her skin by the intensity of his touch.
Damn it, she'd faced down the Juggernaut, and she was letting some Cajun Casanova get her all hot and bothered. She was as nervous as a schoolgirl – which, to be strictly accurate, she still was, but that was hardly the point.
If she ever wanted some peace and quiet, she needed to scare that infernal thief off her trail. She knew exactly what he was after, knew his type from the many psyches crowding her out of her own head. This one was after one thing – a notch on his belt. Bragging rights – he wanted to boast that he'd touched the untouchable. The girl that no one else dared to touch. Take that away, and he'd surely lose interest in her.
Rogue steeled herself, turning and heading back to the mansion. She'd made a full round of the house before it occurred to her that he'd always found her – she had no idea where he spent his time when he wasn't tailing her like a lost puppy.
Well, didn't that just burn the biscuit? Here she was, all dressed up with no one to stalk.
Remy was a creature of the night, his eyes well-adapted to the inky shadows of a moonless night, his temperament well-suited to the darker pleasures the night had to offer. He'd never been one for Church, despite his adoptive father's devout nature. Something about being denounced as a demon by the clergy had soured his enthusiasm for religion.
He had his own devotions. Wine, women and song. These were his sacrament, the bars and clubs his temple. And he was devout in his worship.
The High Priest of debauchery.
The mansion's other inhabitants had grown accustomed to his odd hours, never suspecting that when he dragged himself out of bed and shuffled down to the kitchen each afternoon, bleary-eyed and stumbling, that he hadn't been out drinking and carousing. He had a reputation to uphold.
Still, he couldn't miss the pointed looks she shot him when he made his afternoon beeline for the coffee pot, the smoke from his morning cigarette still wafting around his trench coat. He'd studied her habits, mapping out her routes and timing his activities around them.
So, where the hell was she today? He'd missed her at breakfast (OK, it was a late lunch of coffee and burnt toast), and she wasn't in any of the place she could normally be found. He'd checked the garden mazes twice.
She'd been acting strangely - even for her. Yesterday's incident with the bikini was only the icing on the cake. There was something going on with her, he could feel it every time she was near. That delicious tangle that was uniquely her, threatened to overwhelm him now with its intensity.
And when he touched her last night . . . it was like being drunk, a dizzying sensation that mingled his own jumbled emotions with hers, like he was sensing himself from the outside as she wrapped herself around him. Was that what being absorbed felt like? He'd been warned of her power, but the mansion gossip said she'd taken The Cure. If you listened to Kitty - and he did, given that the girl seemed to have her ear to every door in the house (or maybe *in* every door in the house); hers was a most useful mutation, indeed. If you listened to Kitty, Rogue had taken The Cure, but she still hadn't trusted herself to touch. And now, like with so many other mutants, that cursed Cure was wearing off. According to Kitty, Xavier thought she could take advantage of the temporary cessation of her power to gain some measure of control. He wanted her to practice absorbing, practice turning it on and off.
Only, she was avoiding her practice sessions with the Wolverine, and she was withdrawing even more from her friends. She was afraid - he felt it every time she was near, the kind of crippling fear that paralyzes the senses, shutting out everything but the fear itself.
She was afraid of hurting someone. He knew that one from close, personal experience. His fingers traced idly over a series of scars, nearly faded, tracing across his forearms. That one had been bad; a marble statue had blown up in his face. He'd barely had time to shield his face . . . his hands had been scarred for years, legacy of not know when to let go. He'd worn gloves to cover the unsightly scars as well as to protect against further injury, open-fingered for dexterity. When the scars decorating his palms finally healed, he was too used to the gloves to take them off.
He supposed that's why she still dressed to cover every inch of skin. It was a safety blanket, a comforting habit. Even after she'd shed the gloves as a concession to the Professor, she still tugged at their imaginary hem.
Which made last night all the more worrisome.
A chirpy giggle distracted him from his musings. Kitty and Jubilee had taken over one of the entertainment rooms; from the sound of it, they were doing what they did best: gossiping. And he'd bet a dollar to a bent dime he could guess the subject of their speculations.
"Mind if I join y'?" Remy paused at the doorway as thought awaiting their response, slouching elegantly against the doorframe as he took in the scene. Jubilee fairly radiated smug assurance, while Kitty refused to make eye contact with the other teen, her cheeks colored faintly pink. And if he wasn't mistaken, he detected a note of something that could almost be . . . guilt.
Jubilee smirked. "Come on in. We're watching Smallville, but it's almost over."
Remy waltzed in, draping himself over the loveseat adjacent the two girls. "Heard they're re-running Firefly . . . know anythin' 'bout that?"
Jubilee wrinkled her brow in confusion, but Kitty's face lit up like Christmas. "They've been running it super-late, like three in the morning on the Space Western channel, but I've been recording the episodes on the DVR, so we can watch them if you want?"
Jubilee appeared more than slightly alarmed at Kitty's enthusiasm.
Remy smiled. "Sounds good, cherie." Rogue was bound to show up sooner or later, she usually wound up watching TV with these two. He'd carefully chosen a seat which wasn't easily visible from the door. When she showed up, he would be waiting. Like taking candy from a baby.
He'd failed to factor in Kitty's incessant chatter. About Firefly, mostly, peppered with a few sly half-questions about his background, or his relationship with Storm, or - more pointedly - his pursuit of Rogue.
A faint tingle – unmistakable, and growing nearer by the second – distracted him from Kitty's monologue. The authoritative click-click of booted heels on the solid hardwood floors of the hallway heralded her arrival long before he could see her.
Not Rogue – Storm. He heard her footsteps falter briefly, slowing as she passed the doorway. He caught her eye as she glanced his way.
Or, at least, he thought he did. The Goddess hurried past without a second glance, seemingly too preoccupied with her own thoughts to notice when, with a wink and a salute to Kitty, he slipped out of the room to follow her. His own boots made barely a whisper as he stalked his prey.
He'd bet his boots she'd been looking for someone – and avoiding him. That alone was enough to spark his curiosity, enough to take his mind off that infuriation untouchable southern beauty.
That was truly something worth pursuing.
"Whatcha watchin?"
Rogue dug deep, mustering every speck of dignity she had as she strutted toward the empty chair. She wasn't used to strutting around the mansion in these damn FMB's, and – strutting being the only gait possible in the torturous boots – her feet were killing her. She must've lapped the grounds three times, with no sign of the damn Cajun thief.
It was taking all of her concentration to ignore the pointed stares she was getting. Jubilee looked like she was choking, and Kitty was gaping at her openly.
"Um, new outfit?"
Kitty, of course, was the first one to speak.
"Umm, yeah." Rogue was never one to miss an opportunity for sarcasm.
"Those boots are seriously cute – you have to let me borrow them, they'd go great with my new corduroys, the ones I bought to go with those cute little sweaters I found!"
"Kitty, you couldn't walk in these without breakin' your neck even if your feet weren't three sizes smaller than mine! Ah can't even walk in these damn things!"
She threw herself down in the chair, sprawling across the arm in a most unladylike fashion. It was still warm.
Damn the man, she must have just missed him. It had to be him – the smell of his aftershave still lingered faintly. How creepy was it that she noticed that?
"You just need a little practice," Kitty chirped, suppressing her first instinct to snap back at the cantankerous Southerner.
"Yeah, I'm sure you'll get the hang of those boots, Rogue. Hey, and I really love that skirt – it really brings the 'dirty' into that whole 'dirty South' look you've got going."
Kitty shot Jubilee an evil look. There was no way she'd get anything out of Rogue if Jubilee kept antagonizing her. Besides, that was just rude – even for Jubilee. Even though the skirt was a little slutty.
OK, a lot slutty. But whatever.
She noticed Rogue stroking the arm of the chair absently, glancing in the direction of the door even as she took a deep breath. Kitty knew what was coming – one of Rogue's infamous tirades.
Kitty had neither the time nor the energy to deal with Rogue's yelling. "If you're looking for Gambit," and she paused significantly, giving Rogue's outfit an all-too-obvious once-over, "he's just left. He said he was looking for you."
She had the full and complete attention of both Rogue and Jubilee. "I don't know what you're playing at, Rogue, but I don't want to see you hurt. You can talk to me."
It was a little blunt, but desperate times called for desperate measures. Rogue had been moping around the mansion like a ghost of her former self ever since she'd gotten the Cure. Her powers were coming back – Kitty was still not quite sure if Rogue was relieved or terrified at that prospect. It had seemed, at first, like the Cajun would draw her out of her shell, but she'd only withdrawn further.
This game she was playing – and Kitty was sure it was only a game – was tearing Rogue apart.
"Talk to you? Like ah could get a word in edgewise! And even if ah could, ah wouldn't go blabbin' mah innermost feelins ta th' sparkle princess here. The both o'ya are the biggest gossips in tha mansion!"
Her accent was always thicker when she was upset. But at least she wasn't running away. Yet.
She gambled. "This isn't a game of tag – you *do* know what happens when he lets you catch him, right?"
Author's Note: OK, sorry about the long delay (cringe). I'd actually had this mostly written, but life's been kind of crazy. Anyways, please review, it always gives me the warm fuzzies!