Author's Note: Avengers was awesome, seen it twice already! Definitely recommend it! And now I want to write an Avengers/Romy crossover fic… darn that muse! Question: If Rogue absorbed Thor, would she be able to use Mjolnir? Only 'he who is worthy' can pick up the hammer, but if she absorbed Thor, would she gain his 'worthiness' or do you think she'd be worthy anyway? I'm asking for… no reason… erm… hehehehehehehe
Once again, thanks every so much for all the wonderful reviews, you guys rock! :D
Oh, and here is an interesting fact about me: Every story I write has that one chapter which writes itself, totally ignoring me as the writer. It just runs away and does whatever it damn well pleases. This was that chapter… I hope you like!
Chapter Twenty-Two
Shipyards
Julien stared down at his would-be brother-in-law and couldn't help the chill that ran up his spin at the man's words. It wasn't so much what he said but how he said it. Of course LeBeau was predictable, he was here, wasn't he?
"Come on, Julien," LeBeau was smirking now, "you really think it would have taken me three weeks to plan a break-in of da Catherine Vault?"
"I'm surprised you hadn't broken in before," he answered dryly.
"Actually, I have, twice, but I don't brag, otherwise da Vault Keepers will add even more security and dat's not good for moi," the thief was looking entirely too at ease and confident as he stood surrounded by men ready to kill him at a moment's notice. "So, you might ask, what was I doing all dat time?"
"I'm sure you'll tell me," Julien pursed his lips together in thought, "if I don't decide to kill you first."
"Henri figured out most of what you were up to," LeBeau continued talking, ignoring Julien's comment. "Course, he didn't know it was you in particular, but he had his suspicions dat da Assassin's Guild was somehow involved but not directly behind it. He brought all dat information with him to London."
Remy slipped his brother's hotel key off his body before he went after the assassin…
In Henri's hotel room, Remy went through every hiding space he could think of. Eventually he pulled up the bottom of the cabinet under the sink, a large packet hidden with the grungy pipes…
Bottle of whisky in hand, Remy read through each page slowly, methodically, fingers tracing his brother's notes in the corners…
"I covered my tracks fairly well," Julien was sure of it, "had Henri gotten too close, I would have known."
"Which is why he needed moi, of course," the thief addressed the guards, as if he was telling a story to a group of kids, "but I figured I had to be being watched now so I asked a buddy of mine to do some discrete investigating."
A man went flying across the room, smacking the wall and landing on a juke box. Another found himself laid out on the pool table.
"And you call yourselves assassin's," the intimidating figure of Wolverine stood amongst the bodies of twenty plus men, all unconscious.
Glancing around and realizing he was going to have to wait, the mutant walked over to the bar and sat on a stool. Gesturing to the barkeep, he laid a Canadian twenty dollar on the bar. "Beer, Molson will do."
The elderly man hesitated but grabbed one of the beers from the coolers and popped the cap off before sliding it over. "You said you were only looking for information."
"I was," Logan grunted, taking a swig of the beer, "they started the fight. Now I gotta wait for one of these jokers to wake up."
"Just what kind of information you looking for?" the barkeep asked, pouring himself a scotch.
Logan eyed the man, giving a sniff, "Why, you know something worth telling?"
"Used to be in the trade myself before injury laid me out, why do you think the Vancouver Assassin's Guild hangs out here?" he downed a glass of the amber liquid. "Your inquires have anything to do with the rumors of a hostile takeover of the Guild?"
"Might do," Logan took another sip of his beer, "why don't you share with me what you know and I'll pay for the damage these yokels did to your bar."
"Sounds reasonable…" the barkeep poured another round. "The Guild is family, and no one messes with family."
"Know what you mean, bub."
"Now, I use the term 'buddy' loosely," LeBeau chuckled, "and it cost me my bike, but I figure I'll be getting dat back soon enough."
"First I've heard of this," Julien found the man's story skeptical.
"Like da Canadians are gonna admit to da Cajuns dey got in an ass-kicking contest with one man and lost?" the thief rolled his eyes, smirking at some of the guards who seemed to also be unable to control their snickering. "Still, dis only helped to lay out what da grand plan was, not who was behind it. Figured it was someone in da Guild, maybe even Marius, but I had to know for sure before I came back. All I needed to do was trace Henri's murder to da one who hired da Russian, so first stop, da Vault."
Gambit laid down a four pair of Jacks, grinning as he won the hand and took the pot, a couple of chips and a Three of Hearts with a code written on it.
"Won't do you any good, LeBeau," the loser said distastefully, "you'll never be able to get close enough to that section of the vault to use it."
"It's da thought dat counts, mon ami," he winked, slipping it into his breast pocket, "and with dat, Remy will be taking his leave. Bonsoir, gentlemen."
Gambit excused himself and headed towards the exit, only to be distracted by the sight of Dominikos at one of the other tables in the room. Now, why would the Greek Avalanche be in St. Petersburg on his own?
"Mind if I take dis seat," Gambit said cheerfully as he slipped into one of the vacant chairs at the table.
"Gambit," Avalanche practically growled, "give me one good reason why I shouldn't bring the building down on top of you right now?"
"And ruin da beautiful architecture?" Gambit tsked, "I'm just here to play, mon ami," he pulled out a wad of Rubles and passed them over to the dealer in exchange for chips.
"I'm not your friend," the man said and did the ground shift just a little?
"Oui, I am your adversary," the thief replied conspiratorially, "here to win all your Rubles from you."
"You're a cheating bastard, Gambit," Avalanche wasn't amused.
"Non," he corrected, "I simply make use of everything that is available to me. It'll be a clean game, I promise."
"I tell you, da Brotherhood, when dey get dere act together, dey are a force to be reckoned with," LeBeau said appreciatively with a bit of a chuckle, Julien was beginning to utterly despise the sound.
"Sir," Philip said beside him, "why is he still talking?"
"Because," the thief answered first, "your boss wants to know just how far I got, isn't dat so Julien?"
"Mild curiosity," Julien said drolly. "You knew dis was a suicide run, LeBeau, so it stands to reason you were gonna make it worth it."
"You know me so well, Julien," there was both sarcasm and spite in the words, "including getting my friend Jacob to send the contract to Tokyo, guaranteeing I would trace everything back to N'Orlean, straight to your doorstep."
"Was I wrong?" it was the assassin's turn to smirk.
"Non, I suppose not," LeBeau frowned, but then shrugged, "of course, once I got here, I went straight to work on da problem."
Gambit followed Claude down to the training levels after leaving Rogue and Mercy.
"Remy," Emil said, taking the man's hand and clasping his shoulder, "you shouldn't have come back, but it's good to see you."
"And you, Emil," Gambit smiled at his old friend, "I hear you've become a regular Houdini."
"Well, I try," the red-headed man laughed.
"He's very trying," Claude rolled his eyes. "Now, Emil, we're wondering if you came across any local bagmen, close cropped blonde hair, cracked tooth, very non-descript."
"Nothing pops to mind," Emil shook his head.
"Dat's okay," Gambit pulled a sheet of paper from his trench, "I have something else I need you to look into for me instead."
He passed over the paper and the two thieves took a moment to read it before Claude said, "You want us to break into all dese places?"
"Before da end of da night if you would," Gambit said nonchalantly. "Da Journeyman thieves could pull dis off, in fact, use dem, hide da break-ins among deir usual training exercises."
Emil rubbed his chin, "We'd have to run dis by Mercy."
"Non," Gambit quickly said, "leave her out of dis for now, plausible deniability."
The two thieves looked at each other for a moment before nodding in agreement.
"Chase," Emil called over to one of the boys, a seventeen year old with short black hair, "how'd you like to break into the state police headquarters during lunch-time?"
"Again?" he asked warily.
"You see, Julien," LeBeau was smiling, "while you were busy watching for me, I had thieves all over da city pulling what seemed like useless information, but instead, I was figuring out who all da pawns were. Who was bankrolling you, who would support your cause. And I managed to stumble across something very interesting…"
Gambit was attempting to get his cufflink on when Emil and Chase came into the outer suite. "Remy, you won't believe what we found."
"I'll believe it after you tell me," he managed to clasp the cufflink and started working on the other. He really hated tuxedos but damn did he fill one out handsomely, not that he wasn't being modest, of course.
"We found dis in one of da files we copied from da mole in da state police," Emil passed over a file.
Gambit quickly scanned it, Claude peeking over his shoulder in his chauffer garb. At first LeBeau betrayed no emotion, then he got a little twinkle in his eyes. "Easily taken care of."
Pulling his phone out of his pocket he dialed a number and hoped it was still active.
"Gambit!" a voice came over the line, "How the bloody hell are ya?"
"I'm good, Wade, thanks for asking," Gambit tried to hide a grin. "Listen, I hear you got put on a standby job to take out some high-ups in the NSA and FBI."
"Did ya now? Hhhmmm… sounds like something I'd do. Wait a second," there was the sound of a sword being sheathed and then two gun shots rang out.
Gambit frowned, "Do I want to know what dat was about?"
"Yes, wait, probably not… eh, it's a toss up." Wade seemed to fumble with his phone, "Let me check my diary here… yep, down payment has been made. Three targets. Soon as I get the word, they gonna be deader than a yankee noodle dandy on Wednesday. Yay me!"
"Dat doesn't make any sense-nevermind," Gambit shook his head. "I have it on good authority dat dose guys are enemies of my enemy—"
"Which makes them your friend!" Wade said cheerfully, "I like this game. Give me another one."
"I was hoping dat I could pay you off," the thief said dryly. "Fifteen percent over da full contract price."
"Dunno, Gambit," the man seemed to consider it for a second, "that's the same price I give you to pay me off when someone hires me to kill you. And I don't even know these others guys. How do I know if I even like them? I mean, they could real squares, into things like opera and doing taxes. They might even drive Five-Star Safety-Rating Mini-Vans!"
"Thirty percent," Gambit offered.
"Deal."
"Wait," Phillip's jaw dropped, "you paid off DEADPOOL?"
"Oui," the thief shrugged as if it was no big deal. "Every now and again someone has da idea to get revenge on me by sending da world's best assassin after me, non-guilded I might add. I have a Swiss bank account dedicated to paying him off when dat happens."
"I bet it happens quite a bit," Julien said dryly.
"About as often as I expect," LeBeau shrugged again.
"Doesn't matter anyway," the assassin waved him off, "once you're dead you can't pay him off again, or maybe I'll just send some proper Assassin's to do da work, ones who actually live by a code."
"Oh, Wade lives by a code," the man chuckled, "but hell if anyone else can figure out his twisted logic."
Julien shook his head, "Anything else I should know about, LeBeau?"
"Now dat you mention it," the thief smiled, "All dat information I had gathered yesterday will be shortly finding its way into da hands of those who can do something about it, reporters, non-corrupt cops, etc."
"Scandal can be worked around," the assassin wasn't going to be perturbed.
"Oh," the mutant said as if he had just remembered something, "and I wouldn't be expecting to rely on dat Senator to help you cover up all dat military funding you've been siphoning off, as well as dat stolen military equipment."
"Is dat so?" Julien said coldly.
"Oui," LeBeau grinned, "you could say a friend of a friend is taking care of it as we speak."
Senator Johnston walked into his office at the Capitol building with his aid at his side. He noticed his secretary wasn't in the outer office as usual but figured she was probably on a coffee break.
"Call Senator Perkins," Johnston said as he opened the door into his main office, "tell him we'll have to move lunch to next week."
"Maybe later than that, mate," a voice said and the two men looked up to see his secretary sitting stiffly in one of the chairs, a red haired man behind his desk at the computer, and a white haired one leaning up against the bookcase reading a large, bound volume.
"Who are you?" Johnston immediately shouted, "What are you doing here?"
"Uh, hacking into your computer," the red head shook his head as if it had been a dumb question. "Name's Pyro by the way, and this here's QuickSilver."
The assistant had been slowly pulling out his phone to dial 911 but the one named QuickSilver literally circled them in a flash, snatching away all their electronic devices and shutting the door behind them with a click of a the lock before returning to where he was standing, book and all.
"Like I told the sheila here," Pyro continued to tap at the keys, "we're not interested in hurting anyone, physically anyway, just need to upload all this stuff and we'll be off."
"Upload?" Johnston trembled, he had heard of mutants due to his position in the Military Oversight Committee, but not seen one up close.
"See, it's like this," the Australian didn't even look at the screen as he worked, fingers busily tapping away, "there's this friend of mine, more of a sister really, and she's been hanging around with this guy who totally doesn't deserve her, I mean, she's way out of his league."
"Agreed," QuickSilver added.
"But she's all 'I want to help him' and 'you owe me for saving your life', blah, blah, so what can you do?" Pyro shrugged and glanced over at his friend. "QuickSilver just came along because he likes to rifle through politician's offices."
"You find the most interesting reading material," he gestured with the volume in his hand, "take this fiscal policy here. And they call us the terrorists. Seriously?"
"And that should do it," Pyro said with a final tap on the keyboard.
"Do what?" Johnston asked, "What did you upload onto my computer?"
"It's not what I uploaded onto your computer," the red head grinned, "but what I downloaded from your computer and uploaded onto three major newspapers and CNN's main servers."
Johnston's face went pale. "You didn't…"
"I think I just said I did, didn't I, QuickSilver?"
"Pretty sure you did…" the mutant nodded.
"Yeah," Pyro almost sounded sympathetic, "all those double dealings, blackmailing, illegal transportations past customs, affair with your last assistant, it's all happily sitting there, waiting for the first reporter to notice it. Shouldn't take long."
"Of course, there is the fact checking delay," the other man said, "they'll want to confirm some details before they publish anything, so that does give the Senator here some lead time."
"Should be enough to get to a non-extraditing country," the red head agreed with a nod then addressed Johnston. "I'd get packing now if I were you, mate."
A petrified Johnston ran to the door, fumbling with the lock before rushing out. The aid and the secretary continued to be stunned at the strange turn of events.
"Now," Pyro got up and came around the desk, "what were we talking about before we were interrupted?"
"Oh yeah," QuickSilver tossed the volume on the side table and started to walk out with his friend, "I was telling you, setting everything on fire is not a contingency plan."
LeBeau chuckled, again, the sound defiantly grating on Julien's ears, "To be honest, I wasn't gonna deal with dat loose end until later, but I like da idea of everything being taken care of in a nice, neat package all in one go."
"Figures you'd be partial to going out with a bang, LeBeau," Julien finally had enough of this. "Doesn't matter, none of it matters. Though you might delay the rest of my plans, you'll still be dead, your precious Guild will be gone in a matter of days. You haven't stopped me one bit."
"You sure about dat, Julien?" LeBeau asked in all seriousness.
"Very sure, LeBeau," the assassin said coldly. "Why, do you have one more 'ace up your sleeve', some other plan to take me out even while you lay dead?"
"Maybe," the thief smirked as if he was thinking of an inside joke before turning thoughtful. "You know, Julien, seeing you last night, dat threw me, I admit it. Da great Remy LeBeau was at a loss. Knowing dat you were da one who killed Henri and Bella, dat made it all da worse. I wanted nothing more dan to strangle you with my bare hands."
Julien grinned at his victory, "Doesn't look like you'll be getting dat chance, LeBeau."
"No, no I won't," he sighed, lowering his head for a second then looking back up him, a small upturn on his lips, "cause I had a contingency plan."
Rogue stumbled against the wall and caught herself, driving back the voices that had emerged after telling Gambit her story. Straightening up she took two more steps towards her room when the thief's door flew open behind her.
"Rogue," he called out to her.
"Gambit?" she asked, turning towards him.
"You said when you absorbed me," he walked up to her, barely a hand width between them, "you didn't get all my memories."
"Yeah, I wasn't looking for anything in particular," she shrugged, "so it was a grab bag, mostly of Henri's death and the King of Hearts."
"Then you don't know what I was planning," he said quietly.
"No," she furrowed her brow, "what were you planning?"
A grin appeared on his lips, "You're gonna love dis."
"What are you going on about, LeBeau?" Julien glanced around warily. "What contingency plan?"
"Something I improvised," the thief was grinning ear to ear like a Cheshire Cat. "Haven't you figured it out yet Julien?"
"Figured out what?" he almost shouted.
If possible, LeBeau's grin became broader, even a tad bit evil, "I'm da distraction."
Just as the words registered to the assassin, everything blew up and all hell broke loose…