Tumblr - galaxyclutterDOTtumblrDOTcom

I is for Injury

Gambit and Rogue had a protocol for when one of them was injured. It was the result of over ten months of trial and error, which is a mild way to describe their frantic and frenzied behavior whenever they thought the other was hurt. After semi-regular panic attacks concerning each other, they finally figured out a way to deal with the horrible, sinking feeling of the other being harmed. Kind of.

The first time Gambit saw Rogue injured, it wasn't even in a battle. She was assisting Logan with his advanced auto shop class when a kid let a pneumatic rivet gun get away from him. A rivet didn't end up in her leg, but it did take a huge chunk out of her thigh. Logan had dismissed the class with a glare at the ashen-faced boy, and carried Rogue to Hank in the medlab. Thanks to the mansion's unwritten gossip-is-wildfire policy, Gambit knew within ten minutes what had happened. He'd burst into the infirmary, a small miracle in itself, to see Rogue's right leg gushing blood onto the floor. Hank was trying to clean the wound as much as he could with Logan standing by the side, ready to give his healing factor at a second's notice.

Gambit took in the scene, Rogue gritting her teeth while Hank worked on her thigh. "Rogue!" Gambit yelled and tried to fling himself over Logan to get to her. Logan yanked him back and had to hold him in a bear hug to keep the younger man from jumping her. Rogue smiled faintly at him, and then shuddered as Hank worked. "What are you doing? Why aren't you helping her?" he demanded, struggling against the man's unyielding grip.

"I'm going to," Logan grunted, trying to keep the Cajun from squirming away. "Hank wanted to clean up the wound first."

"Why?" Gambit was more panicked than he could remember being in years. Rogue was bleeding all over the floor, they weren't stopping it. What if something went wrong? What if she couldn't turn her mutation on? What if she passed out, it was passive in her sleep since she gained control. His heart was beating hard enough that he was sure Logan could hear it, probably even feel it.

"Just in case," Hank said calmly, "when Logan's healing factor wears off, she develops an infection. We don't know if he affects her immune system against staph or-"

"I get it," Gambit said. He took a deep breath and stopped fighting, willing himself to not interfere. He shrugged out of Logan's grip when it became obvious he wasn't going to launch himself at Rogue. His eyes never left Rogue's face. Her lips were in a tight line, jaw clamped tight to keep herself from making any noise. When Hank pulled the gauze pad off of her leg, Gambit saw why she was struggling. There was a chunk the size of a child's fist missing from her thigh. The blood wasn't pouring out of her anymore, but there was a substantial pool on the ground. "Marie…" he breathed. She met his eyes and tried to smile, but it turned quickly into a grimace when her leg twitched.

"That's as good as it'll get," Hank said. "Logan," he said, gesturing, "whenever you are ready."

Logan stepped around the pool of blood, his nostrils flaring, and offered his hand to Rogue. It was a mark of how much pain she was in that she grasped his hand right away instead of slowly, with forethought. She let out a shuddering gasp and sighed in relief as the hole in her leg started to re-knit itself. She took her hand back and slumped against Logan in relief. She reached out a hand to Gambit who immediately was there, clutching it to his chest.

"Mon chèrie," he whispered, nuzzling her ear.

"I'm okay," she said. "I'm fine." Gambit said nothing, knowing she needed a few minutes to reorient herself after absorbing someone. At the moment, she was digging through Logan's feral instincts and senses. His inner that someone dared hurt her, someone he considered to be under his protection. The animal instinct to protect. His worry, and fear. The Remy in her head wasn't helping; he was busy freaking out, spurred on by Logan's reaction.

"You okay, darlin'?" Logan asked after he had recovered.

She nodded. "Thanks Logan. I think I'm just gonna take a nap. That took it out of me," she said. Logan nodded and stood up. "Don't go too hard on the kid, it was an accident. I'm fine."

"If it wasn't you, we'd have a seriously injured person down here," Logan said seriously. "Not everyone has access to a healing factor. He needs to learn to be conscious of safety."

"Don't skewer him."

"I'll try."

Gambit helped her off the table, putting an arm around her waist to steady her. She flat out refused to be carried, so he slowly helped her through the school to her room. "It doesn't hurt," she promised as he helped her into bed. "Good as new. It just took it out of me, you know?"

"I know," he said. "Maybe I just wanted to hold you, hm?"

Rogue grinned and pulled him down next to her. "I'm okay with that."

Rogue hadn't reacted much better when Gambit ended up with a concussion after a particularly nasty mission. It didn't help that Emma, courtesy of Gambit's static shield, couldn't get a read on his mind. "What if he doesn't wake up?" she demanded.

"He will," Emma said indulgently. "Hank already said he was just knocked unconscious."

"But concussions can be dangerous if you're unconscious, right?"

"Medical opinions vary," Emma said vaguely.

"It depends on the severity of the trauma," Hank interrupted, attaching Gambit to all sorts of monitors. "In this case, I'm sure he is fine."

"But what if-"

"Rogue," Emma interrupted, rubbing her temples. "When you project, you project loud enough for all the psyches in your head to be heard. Can you keep it down, please?"

"I'm so sorry if I'm inconveniencing you," she snapped. "You're the super telepath, block me out then."

Emma rolled her eyes at Rogue, who she'd always gotten along with reasonably well, and left. She, of course, knew Rogue was just worried, but Emma had an image to maintain. And that involved not being too sappy.

Rogue paced back and forth in the very small space beside Gambit's bed until Hank offered her a bed. She just gave him a look before resuming her vigil. Eventually she resorted to extreme measures. When Hank wasn't looking, she dipped her fingers in water and flicked the droplets onto his face, hoping to wake him up. When that failed, she tried tickling his feet, something he claimed didn't affect him but she knew he hated. Desperate, she started whispering the dirtiest, most perverted things she could think of into his ear. Nothing. Eventually, she just rested her elbows on the bed, chin in her hands, and stared at his face for any movement. She nodded off a few times, smacking her face into his leg whenever she did. After twelve hours, Hank was seriously considering sedating her, when Gambit stirred.

"Remy!" She was immediately up and grasping his hand.

Remy moaned. "What hit me?" he muttered.

"About half a building," Rogue answered, stroking his hand.

"Feels like it," he mumbled. He peeped and eye open and saw he was in the infirmary. He groaned and closed his eyes harder. Hank quickly gave him the once over and, when Gambit made it very clear he would blow up everything around him, whatever it took to get to his own room, Hank relented and let him go. Rogue helped him to her room, insisting that she wasn't letting him out of her sight until he was feeling better.

"Remy LeBeau if you ever do that to me again, I swear I'll rip your nuts right off," she threatened, crawling in next to him. She hated whenever he was hurt beyond the obvious reasons; it served as a jolt to remind her how much she loved him and how easily he could be snatched away. She held him tighter that night.

They figured that they needed a new system when he and Rogue were both injured in a rally turned riot and they both kept pulling stitches and needing bones reset when they tried to see if the other was okay. Rogue made Gambit a care package to distract him while she was down for the count. It had mad libs, a bottle of candy labeled 'chill pills', and instructions on how to give her a manicure should she be unconscious, among other items. Gambit left a box with a series of frustrating locks that she needed to open to get the 'special treat' inside, his logic being that she could tune up her lock picking skills and be so frustrated she might be worried less. His special treat inside was a picture of him posed shirtless on a bearskin rug, a rose between his teeth. She didn't get the box open until Gambit was thrown across a street and into a telephone pole by a mutant that reacted like someone on PCP when she got angry. She snorted out a laugh, not sure if she was more amused, irritated with the box, or terrified for him. Which was all the point, after all.

They still weren't always great at the whole sticking to the protocol thing, though. Logan spent more than a few hours sitting next to her in silence by Gambit's bed, her borrowing his senses so she could learn the smell of Gambit and hear the changes in his body. Soon, she knew exactly how his breathing changed when he dreamed and the noises he made when he was about to wake. Gambit and Hank spent their fair share of time playing chess in the infirmary next to Rogue. After a few missions, Gambit was actually getting pretty good. The downside was whenever someone mentioned chess outside of the medlab, he was hit for a split second by a burst of pointless anxiety.

"We have to stop doing this," Rogue said, cuddled into Gambit's side after a long, vicious night. Neither of them had any serious injuries, mostly cuts and bruises all over their bodies. They could both tell when they woke up the next morning, their bodies would be stiff. It didn't matter how minor, they both hated seeing the other hurt. Rogue noticed every wince in Gambit's body when she shifted against him. She stilled against his side, settling in to the memorized beat of his heart. As soon as she was asleep, Gambit ran his hands lightly over her, cataloging every scrape and bump on her body. He sighed. She was right. Every time he saw her limping or sporting a black eye, his heart broke a little. And he knew she felt the same, he'd seen the looks as much as she tried to hide it. He couldn't even imagine what he would do if he lost her. Or if something happened that caused permanent damage to the woman who'd crawled into his heart. For the first time since he'd arrived and became an X-Man, he started seriously wondering how long they could do this. At what point they'd need a change of scenery.

Thanks to reviewers, Suze Nora, Booklover9477, AnnaWalker.92, Gidgeygirl, HermioneSakuraGardner07, and everyone who added this to their favorites and alerts. It makes my day. And a few asked what letters I need; I'm open to all suggestions, I only have a handful that I definitely know that I'm going to use, the rest are just ideas. The next open slots I have are L, M, and N.