MAGNETIC ATTRACTION

Part 5

Sunday morning came with a very rude awakening for everyone in the warehouse. Rogue had set her cell phone alarm and had already been up at 4.45am when Remy LeBeau and Piotr Rasputin started banging loudly on doors ordering everyone to be up and dressed and on the main floor within fifteen minutes.

She had not taken her X-Men uniform with her when she'd left the institute...she'd felt it wouldn't be right to do so and had left it in a box under her bed. For now, a plain pair of black leggings, a tank top, and a black mesh blouse would have to suffice. It seemed like no one else had really bothered showing up in uniform either.

Tabitha had come in jeans and an insanely pink t-shirt, her black platform boots seemed quite impractical for any kind of field or training situation, but Rogue couldn't help wanting a pair of her own all the same.

"Didn't have a uniform either, huh?" Tabitha asked with amusement as she came to stand at Rogue's side.

"Ah left it under my bed. It's X-Men property really, so...it didn't feel right bringing it with me."

"Yeah, I know what you mean," Tabitha admitted, she was chewing gum idly, which seemed absurd for this time of the morning.

Wanda arrived in another one of her ridiculously skimpy red and black outfits, hair slightly flattened at one side, her make up obviously slept in. Pietro simply turned up in jogging pants and a tank top which he seemed to have slept in judging by his bare feet and messed up hair. Lance Alvers was no better, coming to the line up in a wrinkled shirt he'd worn to yet another date with Kitty Pryde the night before, and jeans that were slightly stained with purple soda.

Remy LeBeau stood watching each one of them arrive, his face getting darker and darker as he saw them arrive looking a mess, unwashed, hair mussed and that could care less. When finally all were there, he looked between them all. "I said dressed," he said, he stood in front of Pietro in particular, looking him up and down.

"You aren't the boss of me."

"Then there's the door," Remy gestured to the large metal doors behind him, "go ahead."

"You can't throw me out of my father's building," Pietro scoffed tiredly.

Remy grabbed a handful of Pietro's t-shirt and leaned in to push his nose to Pietro's, looking him right in the eyes, "want to bet?"

"Get your greasy hands off of me, red neck," Pietro smacked Remy's hands away, and then disappeared out of the room altogether, faster than the blink of an eye.

Remy rolled his eyes at this and looked at them all one by one, choosing for the moment not to address the issue of Pietro's bad behaviour any further, "when I said dressed, I meant uniforms," he stated to the rest of them.

"Uhm..." Tabitha put her hand up, her cheeks pink, her smile slightly flirtatious, "Rogue and I don't actually have uniforms."

Remy looked between them both, "Sure we can figure out something for you girls," he stated, "some leather cat suits or...somethin'..." he looked them both up and down, and Rogue had that uncomfortable impression that could see beneath her tanktop and right through her skin almost.

"So it's leather you're into, huh?" Tabitha flirted.

"Jesus christ," groaned Wanda, "can we just get this over with already? I didn't get out of bed at five am to listen to you make plans to fuck with a fifteen year old," she hissed at Remy.

Remy's face soured, Tabitha quickly re-iterated. "Actually, I'm almost seventeen, so shut the hell up, Elvira."

"Shut up, both of you," Remy stated. He moved to a table which had an old paint splattered sheet over it, and he yanked the sheet from the table to reveal large cans of paint sitting there, and an impressive array of decorating brushes. Beneath the table was a pile of cleaning products, rolls of garbage bags and against the wall were a few sweeping brushes.

"What is this?" Lance demanded.

"What's it look like? It's paint."

"You want us to...paint?" asked Rogue, blinking.

"I want you all to work as a team to clean this place top to bottom, paint every single wall, remove the boards from the windows and clean the windows thoroughly. Me and Colossus are gonna get some glass to replace the windows that are broke, and tiles to fix the broken walls in the bathrooms. You all think this place is a shithole, so you're all gonna clean it up together and turn it into somethin' remotely liveable."

Rogue wondered how this was going to work, and exactly what the point to cleaning and decorating the place was if all these guys would do is just wreck it again anyway.

From above, they heard Pietro's voice yell, "And my father actually approved this crap?"

"Oh, it was his idea," said Remy with a smirk. "And he'll be calling later to make sure you did your part, by the way. I've to take pictures with this cell phone here," he took his phone from his pocket and held it up, "and to send them to him. So you better pick up a brush and get started."

They all stood, looking between each other, Piotr stood behind Remy, arms folded, as if he were a bodyguard waiting for further trouble to brew.

"Are you all waiting for something?" Remy asked of them.

"Yeah...the fuckin' punchline," Lance complained.

Rogue volunteered herself up to be the first to move to pick up a sweeping brush, which seemed to surprise Remy quite a bit. "Where do you want me to start?" she asked.

"How about stickin' that brush up his ass," Remy pointed his eyes up towards Pietro who was leaning over the rail from the upstairs living area.

"I heard that," Pietro muttered.

"That queer would probably like it too much," commented Wanda under her breath.

"Excuse me?" called Pietro from above, having somehow still heard.

"Well, since you're acting like such a punk ass bitch, I can only assume you must want to have a brush pole driven up your ass," Wanda folded her arms.

"Seriously," Rogue put one hand on her hip. "Are we just going to fight for the rest of the day?"

"Start with the kitchen and the mess hall," Remy instructed gently. Rogue wondered if he was doing her a favour, as both were the least messy and least of in need of cleaning and decorating than the rest of the place. Still, she wasn't about to complain, and so she went to do the task at hand.

As it turned out, the idea of having everyone pitch in to fix the place up hadn't been as absurd as it had first sounded. By the afternoon, although everyone was tired and still slightly grumpy, already things were shaping up. Old leftover boxes from when the place was a working warehouse long ago were destroyed and disposed of in a pile outside. Remy and Piotr worked hard at trying to fix windows while Lance and Pietro worked at painting the walls, Pietro's powers had come in handy and managed to get the entire large main hall of the warehouse mostly painted by two pm. The plain red grotty brickwork was now painted a warmer beige colour that made the place seem cleaner, almost liveable.

Rogue took frequent breaks just to be able to come to the main area and see what everyone else was doing, and was impressed by how much progress was being made, and how, somehow, everyone seemed to be working together despite being unhappy with Remy's commands.

It was funny, Rogue thought, how just having the task of cleaning and of fixing up the place had been able to take her mind off of everything that was wrong with her life. It'd seemed that for the entire day, her mind had gone blank of thoughts and feelings, and she'd been in a strange state of bliss as she worked at doing her part, humming along to the music from her MP3 player and forgetting every problem she had for the time being.

The day flew by quickly, and Rogue failed to notice how much time had passed until Tabitha came into the mess hall, covered in various paint splatters and smears, her hair held back in a bandana, her expression revealing how exhausted she was. "It's time to finish up for the night," Tabitha said, looking around to admire Rogue's handiwork.

Rogue had only managed to finish painting three of the four walls in the mess hall (although she had finished painting the kitchen). The pillars were still to paint of course, but Rogue had left them for the moment, thinking that perhaps it would look better if they weren't the same cream colour that she'd painted the rest of the walls in.

"What time is it?" Rogue asked, she stifled a yawn on the back of her wrist, holding onto the back of the chair she was standing upon with one hand and her paint brush with the other.

"It's nearly eight thirty," Tabitha admitted.

"Wow...already? I thought it was maybe four or five," Rogue hopped down from the chair and put her paintbrush down, "I need to clean the brushes."

"Gambit said just leave the brushes, that he'd do it. He wants everyone to just down tools and go upstairs to the living area. He wants to 'debrief' everyone or something," Tabitha explained.

"Debrief," Rogue repeated, raising an eyebrow as she put her brush down on the upturned lid of her paint can.

"He can debrief me any time," Tabitha giggled with a glint in her eye.

Rogue wiped her hands off on an old rag she'd found in one of the kitchen cabinets as she walked beside Tabitha. Upstairs, everyone was gathered looking exhausted, some more paint smeared than others (by the looks of it, Pietro and Lance had been fighting with the paint, and ultimately Pietro had won). Remy was standing, arms folded, he too was paint splattered and dirty just like everyone else.

At least he got involved, Rogue thought as she sat on the arm of the couch making sure there was a dust sheet before doing so.

"Is everyone here?" Remy asked glancing at everyone and silently counting heads.

"Colossus isn't," Lance uttered.

"Yeah, I know where he is," Remy said, "I guess we can start without him," he said. He gestured to the place, "place looks...well...different, doesn't it. Look at the place. Already looks cleaner, brighter."

"Yeah, it should. We just about killed ourselves trying to get it looking like this," Pietro muttered unhappily.

"And now that it took so much work to make it look like this, do you really wanna go ruinin' it like it was?" Remy pointed out.

Rogue laughed inwardly. So that was the tactic. Make the place look like this so that they could take pride in the place? So that it would give incentive to not destroy it? That was clever. Definitely sounded like something Magneto would come up with.

"I didn't think you'd all pull it off..." Remy admitted, "You got most of it done. Not all of it, but hell, it's a big place. We still have tomorrow to finish up, so rest up tonight. There's still a lot to do."

"What's still to do?" demanded Pietro. "All the walls are done, the place is spotlessly clean..."

"Mess hall is still unfinished, Ah did my best but there's a lot of wall in there..." Rogue spoke up.

"That's fine. Didn't expect you to finish it all alone," Remy assured. "I know you have college tomorrow, and Tabitha has school, so either me or Piotr will finish it off."

Rogue nodded.

Remy moved over to the rail and glanced over, a slight smirk playing across his face. "And to answer the question of what else is still to do around here, that big area down there that we cleared all the boxes out of is going to be turned into a training area. The big area at the back that we moved all mess of steel cable and tubing from is going to be made into a compact gym."

"Seriously?" blinked Lance, "for real?"

"Yeah. On Magneto's instructions. He wants you all to have access to everything you need to train and better yourselves, but he's not just going to hand it to you. He wants it all worked for. We have to build those walls ourselves, we have to put together all that equipment ourselves."

Rogue's eyes caught a dark shadow coming up the stairs; Piotr had arrived. In his metal form, he was carrying a ridiculously large flat box beneath one arm, and a stack of smaller boxes in the other.

"I believe dinner has arrived," Remy stated as he went to take the Pizza Hut boxes from the larger boy. "And the surprise," he added.

"The surprise?" asked Wanda, looking already bored.

Piotr put the large box down on the floor, turning it to face them so that they could see it was a 56 inch flat screen 3D television. There were cheers, and Piotr and Lance had rushed up to already tear into the box, much to Rogue's amusement.

Remy picked up one of the pizza boxes and opened it, and moved straight to Rogue, offering her the first slice of pepperoni.

"You've made them happy," Rogue admitted as she accepted a slice. "No small accomplishment."

"It's a tactic," he said in a low voice, glancing over his shoulder as the others were trying to get the flat screen, "it won't make them like me, or even want to listen to me, but at least maybe they'll associate the feeling of hard work actually amounting to something in the end. At least, that was what Magneto said. I just follow his orders is all."

Rogue yawned, "Ah think it's time for me to hit the hay, actually," she admitted. She bit into her pizza.

"Take a couple of slices with you before you go. You must be starving, I don't think you've eaten anything since you came here last night."

"Thanks," Rogue grabbed two more slices and headed off in the direction of the basement.

Chewing as she walked, she felt the aches and pains of having been on her feet all day, the strain in her right shoulder from having been moving her arm up and down to paint. She knew in the morning, she would really be feeling it. It had been a surprising day that, despite the excessive hard work, had left her feeling satisfied and calm, and almost happy. Something she hadn't expected.

When she reached the door to her room, she found a large padlock on the outside. "What the hell?" she demanded loudly to no one in particular as she pushed the handle repeatedly and found that it wouldn't budge. Some one was trying to be a jerk, it seemed. Probably Wanda...that girl seemed to have some kind of issue, although Rogue wasn't sure exactly what it was.

Annoyed, Rogue stomped her way up stairs, still holding on to her two extra slices of pizza. Just as she got to the main floor, she found Remy there talking to Piotr, gesturing to where the gymnasium was planned to be placed.

"So the walls are gonna be starting from here..." Remy gestured, he'd used chalk to make an outline.

"What about this pipe?" asked Piotr, gesturing to what seemed to be some kind of old rusting pipe that was in the way of where the walls would begin.

"That's a heating pipe...it's going to be replaced and moved much further away. The heating system in the basement needs to be replaced before we can even do that. But we can start on the other wall, and leave the second wall until then. We have to wait until the boss comes back to start on that..." Remy was explaining; he too, was chewing on a slice of pizza.

Rogue moved up behind them both, "my room is locked..."

"It is?" asked Remy, raising an eyebrow at her.

"Yeah. There's a big ass padlock on it," she sighed.

"Who would do that?" asked Piotr, a slight smirk on his face. Was this perhaps a joke of his? He didn't quite seem the type to play a practical joke like that.

"Is this some kind of joke?" she asked, "because...it's not funny. Ah'm really not in the mood for this right now," she admitted. The good feeling she'd had for the last few hours was starting to already melt away with the strain of thinking of who was trying to get on her nerves.

"Look, it's a little late to start chasing up people to see who did it tonight, and everything is settled down up there, I'm not gonna start any drama with them tonight," rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand, "I'll figure out who did it tomorrow, okay?"

"What am Ah meant to do in the mean time?" she demanded, "Ah don't have anywhere to sleep!"

Remy paused, "use my room. I'll just crash on the couch for tonight."

"Ah still need my stuff..."

"I'll pick the lock in the morning and get your stuff. Just go to my room. You know where it is, right?"

"Top of the stairs on the third floor," she responded.

"Yeah. Oh, and my sheets are clean, I swear."

Rogue highly doubted it, but she supposed she could always just sleep on the top of them. "Okay," she sighed, too tired to argue about this right now. All she wanted to do was lay down and rest her weary bones.

It was strange, she thought, how different the place looked now that all the brickwork had been painted. Although the beige colour wasn't too many shades brighter than the old brickwork, it looked so much brighter and cleaner than it had before. Rogue realised at once as she reached the top of the stairs and could see the door to Remy's room that the padlock to his room was missing. Whomever had pulled this prank on her had stolen the lock from his door. She thought about going back downstairs to tell him, but she was too tired now to even bother.

With a sigh, she walked along the small catwalk, and pushed the door open, unsure about what she would find in there.

The smell of paint was the first thing that hit her, and then it was the deep purple walls, the black satin throw with the tiny silver sequins, and the fact that her tote bag was laying upon what looked to be a very brand new double bed with a black leather frame. A small modern lamp was sitting on a brand new glossy dresser, and her phone was sitting next to it, along with the jewellery that she'd unpacked only yesterday. There was even a small flat screen television, with a built in DVD player already in it.

Confused, she quickly turned intent to go downstairs and demand what was going on, and found herself face to face with Remy LeBeau. She nearly bumped into him, and had to leap back a little in reflex.

"Jesus, are you tryin' to get yourself killed?" she demanded, putting a hand to her chest, "I could have..."

"Sorry," he laughed. "You like it?"

"You switched rooms with me?" she asked, glancing in again, hardly able to believe he would actually do this for her.

"I told you I'd make it up to you," he said, he put his hands on her shoulders and guided her in. "I had Pete help me do all this while you were in the mess hall painting. It's the reason I had you closed off on your own...I wanted it to be a surprise," he explained. "Judgin' by the look on your face...it is," he said smugly.

"You did all this...for me..." she said in complete awe, she opened the dresser, finding the few clothes she had already in there. It alarmed her slightly that he must have rifled through her underwear to do this. "You weren't...sniffing my panties or anything gross, were you?"

"'Course not," he replied. "Anyway, it was Pete who put all that stuff away. Any thing that happened to them is all him...but trust me, that guy ain't a panty sniffer."

Rogue's face went red as she thought of the large Russian putting her delicates away in the drawer. Somehow, she felt he was the type to probably close his eyes while doing so. She moved to the wall next to the door, noticing for the first time there was a matching bookcase to the dresser, and the few books she owned were already sitting upon it, making it look ever so slightly bare. "This stuff is real nice..." she admitted.

"Yeah...had to build it all up, took longer to build that dresser than it did to paint the room."

Rogue examined the plain black rug beneath her feet. A nice little detail that made the plain cement floor look slightly warmer and more homely. She dug her toe into the thick pile with a slight smile playing about her lips.

"So..." Remy said after a moment.

"So?"

"So...do you accept my apology now?" he asked, he sat upon her new bed and looked up at her hopefully.

She moved to the window – there was an actual window here. It was tall, and frosted, but it was able to open and close. She could get actual fresh air, unlike her room in the basement.

"Well?" he asked.

Rogue looked over her shoulder at him, "maybe," she teased.

"Hey, I deserve more than a maybe," he replied, "you know how much I spent getting this stuff? I didn't steal it, you know...and Magneto didn't pay for it. That Ikea place ain't as cheap as they like to make out, you know."

"Okay," she agreed, "you're off the hook," she bit into one of the slices of pizza she had almost forgotten she was still carrying.

"Great," he stood up, "listen, I have some stuff to finish up but..." he gestured around the room, "have fun settling in. I probably don't need to tell you that the walls are still wet, but then, coming from that room in the basement, you're probably already used to that."

"Yeah," she walked him to the door, still glancing around her in complete shock. Not much work had gone into making the room nice, but the thought that had gone into it was still much more important than she'd have expected. The bed looked so much more inviting than the cot she'd slept in the last two nights, and the newly painted purple walls were so much nicer than the dirty damp bricks of the basement.

Remy hovered at the door for a moment, he seemed to be almost on the verge of saying something, but withheld whatever it was.

Rogue watched him momentarily, wondering what it was that was going on through his head. Wondering how it could be that someone who'd proven himself to be an underhanded user before could suddenly somehow turn out to be almost genuine and kind. It didn't seem to fit. She wasn't sure she completely trusted it.

"Good night, Rogue," he said to her after seeming to contemplate how he would leave her for the night.

"Night," she said, and reached to close the door behind him. She stopped, as he was just about to descend down the winding stairwell, she called him out. "Remy...?"

He stopped and turned to look at her, his hand loosely gripping onto the metal rail.

"Thanks...for this..." she chewed the inside of her cheek. "It...it was hard leaving home and all...leaving the comfort...and the friends, the people I cared about..." she sighed.

"I know," he nodded.

"You've made it a lot easier for me. And I know you didn't have to...I'm sure Magneto didn't ask you to go to these kind of lengths...so...thank you."

He smiled, it was an almost warm smile, and not his usual smug knowing grins. "You're welcome."

End of Part Five