Notes: FenellaG - Hi! Yes, I'm having a blast kind of riding that fine line between love and hate, tension and desire. It's a new kind of dynamic for me to explore between them, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it! As to what's going on in the background... yeah, I'll keep that under wraps for now! But I'm so glad you're continuing to approve of it! :)
Enjoy! x
CITY OF LIGHTS
Chapter 12
"So you trust her?"
Remy and Millicent were up on the roof of 2 Square la Bruyère, pigeons cooing soothingly in their cote beside them.
"What even makes you think I might?" Remy asked, busily attaching Carver's message to one of the birds.
"You tell me," Millicent responded. "You were speaking of this supposed consignment next Wednesday as if you believed it was going to happen."
"And you think she's lyin'?"
"Don't you?"
Remy was silent a moment, glad to be busy with his task. When the message was finally affixed, he deigned to answer.
"I'll tell ya what I really think."
"Please do."
He let go of the pigeon and watched it fly away with a pounding of wings, and only when it was a speck on the horizon did he turn back to Millicent.
"I think we need to forget about the trains for now. What say I head into that compound?"
Millicent gave a shrewd smile.
"What are you proposing?"
"Nothin' in particular for a first go round – just a bit o' recon. See what's really goin' on up there. If I take Jeanne wit' me —"
"No," Millicent cut in quickly. "Better not to take her with you."
"Why not? She's quiet, and she's fast. I can cover more ground wit' her."
"No," Millicent was firm. "Right now, she's a liability. She needs time to recover from what she saw on the trains with you that day."
Remy stared at her, puzzled. He hadn't seen or heard from Jeanne almost since that night – but then he had been busy focusing his attentions elsewhere, and he had no idea what Millicent was talking about.
"She all right?" he asked.
"She'll be fine," Millicent replied flippantly. "But she is young, and sensitive. Hearing the people on those trains were mutants upset her. It's better to keep her away from Operation X for the moment. She'll get over it soon enough. She's a resilient girl."
Remy shrugged, unconcerned. All in all, he preferred to work solo, much as he would've appreciated Jeanne's ability to go places fast.
"A'right. I go in there m'self."
"When were you thinking?"
"Tonight."
She was surprised.
"Tonight?"
"Why not? Always better t' strike while de iron's hot, as they say. If Fraulein Darkholme is lyin' t' me, she won't expect me anywhere near there tonight."
The expression she gave him was half-vexed, half-amused.
"I am slowly starting to appreciate that you like working on the fly."
"You disapprove?"
"On the contrary. It tells me rather a lot about your character." She grinned, not elaborating. "All right – you see what you can find, and report back."
"Yes, ma'am," he replied, with a lackadaisical mock salute.
-oOo-
The Verrière Forest was quiet, the train tracks empty – only the sounds of wildlife permeated the wintery night air.
Remy walked the lonely embankment alongside the tracks, trying not to think of Millicent's insinuation of trust.
So you trust her? she'd asked.
No, he'd thought. But also yes. He'd felt stupid about the danger implicit in that.
"I don't trust her," he murmured to himself.
Almost as soon as the words had passed from his lips, the leaves of the trees began to rustle violently above him, and he stopped, looked up… just in time to see a human-sized figure streaking across the inky patch of sky up towards the compound, the trees quaking in its wake.
Rogue.
He grimaced.
"I definitely don't trust her," he muttered, before sprinting up the slope after her.
-oOo-
It was dark inside the compound, cold, cavernous corridors echoing her footsteps back at her.
With one hand Rogue gripped a flashlight, the other tugging her bomber jacket tighter around her. If the silence, the darkness, had not already told her, the chill in the air would have. The compound was empty. Rows of cells, hurriedly abandoned. A spilled bottle of medicine in one; a child's threadbare doll in another.
Rogue pursed her lips tight and moved on. She was already too late. Far too late.
"That bastard Cajun," she muttered to herself.
It was all his fault, of course – coming in, stealing those papers in such outrageous fashion, arousing the general's suspicions…
She grit her teeth, not wanting to acknowledge the part she'd had to play in exposing his activities to her benefactor. It was even worse that she was shielding him, not merely from said benefactor, but also from the police.
"The things I do for that good-fer-nuthin' swamp rat," she groused.
She turned a corner, her flashlight falling on the side office whose location she had committed to memory from the general's now-missing papers.
Rogue pushed open the door, surprised that it was unlocked, but thankful that she didn't have to pick the lock. In every mission there was a blessing to be had, and this was one of them.
She slipped inside the room, finding the lights and snapping the door softly shut behind her.
Once inside she paused.
There was a scent in the room, as if someone had been here not long ago…
She scoured every nook and cranny intently. The room was meagrely furnished, spare. There were barely any hiding places, and nothing to suggest there was anyone in here. Still. It couldn't hurt to be cautious…
She looked in the only place a person could conceivably be hiding – under the desk – but the small space was empty. When she looked back towards the door, there was nowhere to hide there either.
Relaxing a little, Rogue turned to the filing cabinet and went for the bottom drawer. It was only half full, and she skipped her way to 'W' and rifled through the files there, her fingers working quickly, efficiently. It didn't take long to find him. 'WAGNER, KURT', the tab read.
She went to pull out the file and—
"Well, well, well," a familiar voice said somewhere above and behind her, making her start. "She tells me she's supposed to be lookin' after her general tonight, yet here she is, pokin' in places she ain't meant t'be. Ya ever get bored of lyin', cherie?"
Rogue whirled round to find Remy dangling upside down from an opened grate in the ceiling, openly grinning at having caught her out.
The air ducts. Of course.
Rogue huffed out an irritated little breath, annoyed as much at herself as at him. She watched on as he lowered himself to the ground with a cat-like grace that had always pleased her and now thoroughly exasperated her.
"What are you doing here?" she shot at him acerbically.
"Same as you, I imagine," he replied insouciantly, rounding the desk and leaning his backside on it casually. "Stealin' from your employer." He eyed her critically, his gaze falling on her hand, still poised to take the file from the drawer. "Go on," he prompted her, that infuriating little smile still on his lips. "Take it. I ain't gonna stop you."
She shot a glare at him that she wished would turn him to dust, before turning her back on him and slipping out the file.
"Although," he continued conversationally behind her, "I would love to know what your general would think about what you're doin' here goin' through Nazi property when you're supposed to be makin' sure someone ain't gonna put a bullet between his eyes while he sleeps."
Rogue violently pushed the drawer shut, furious that he was still poking and prodding her like this. Whirling round on him, she marched the few short steps over to where he was leaning against the desk, getting right in his face and seething:
"Y'know, it's only out of some idiotic respect for ya that I don't drain you dry of every last mem'ry you have of ever seein' me in here, Cajun."
He didn't break eye contact with her, didn't even blink.
"Respect? Is that what you call conveniently forgettin' t'tell me you'd murdered my lover before you took her place in my bed?"
It was a signal to back off; but this time she refused to. She was tired – so tired of effacing herself for a sin she could never hope to repent for, for the mistake of falling in-love with him despite it.
"How many times do I haveta tell ya?" she fought not to shout at him. "I'm sorry! I never wanted to hurt ya!"
"And how many times do I haveta tell ya," he replied, completely unmoved, "that ya already did?"
She opened her mouth, shut it, a tailspin of emotions slapping in over her consciousness, rage one moment, want the next. She was so close to him she could make good on her threat and press her lips to his, kiss him as fiercely as she longed to, and absorb every single last memory out of him, leave him nothing but a husk, but… …
"You ain't worth it," she muttered through grit teeth. "I don't want you in my head again, torturin' me forever."
His eyes darkened.
"Whaddaya mean by that?"
"I mean I absorbed ya!" she yelled at him. "Don't ya remember? You brought down the whole of fuckin' Clan Akkaba's stronghold on us, and like the idiot you are you touched me t'check my pulse!"
He stared, then blinked, realisation flickering in his eyes. It made her all the angrier to know that he'd done it and hadn't even comprehended what he had done. It made her even angrier when she saw dread and repulsion cross his face at the thought that he was inside of her.
"Don't worry," she shot bitterly at him. "He's gone now. I had to bury him under – I couldn't stand him screaming at me, tellin' me how much he loved me, how much he hated me, how much he wanted to kill me."
A look of dark satisfaction filled his face then, at the knowledge that he'd made her head a living hell for as long as he could. It hurt. It hurt. She was done with this confrontation. She made to step away; but before she could, he'd grabbed at the file in her hand, twisting it round roughly to see the name on it. A snap second before he could though, she'd snatched it back and away from him.
"Leave me alone, Remy," she all but growled at him. "Before I change my mind and kick your sorry ass into the middle of next week!"
He wasn't even halfway threatened, and, as she made her way past him towards the door, he felt bold enough to make another play for the file.
Yet again she was too fast for him, catching his hand in her grip and squeezing it tight. So tight, in fact, he felt the joints of his fingers begin to crack under her strength.
"I told ya, Remy," she hissed, getting into his face, her green eyes flashing with anger. "I will fight ya if I haveta. Don't test me."
He grinned at her through set teeth, a feint to hide the pain she was currently inflicting on him.
"Oh, chere," he lilted. "Ya think I can make trouble inside your lovely li'l head, it ain't nothin' compared t' the mess I could make o'dat sweet body of yours."
They were so close, within a breath of one another, close enough to kiss… And maybe she would have, if she hadn't suddenly realised what he was doing.
Charging the glove on her hand, the hand that still had his own in a death grip.
"I'm invulnerable," she scoffed at him; but the smile on his face didn't even flicker.
"You wanna put that to the test, chere? How invulnerable would ya be if I was t'turn every single item of your clothin' into an explosive?" His gaze flickered to the file in her hand, then back to hers again, even as the charge began to creep up her sleeve and towards her shoulder. "More t'the point… d'ya really want me to incinerate dat file you got there t' a crisp, b'fore ya get t' read it?"
She growled at him, knowing that he would do it.
The charge crept across her collarbone and down her other sleeve, and only when it had just about reached the file in her hand, she released her grasp on him, the pink glow of his energy signature fizzling out.
"Like I said," she muttered. "You ain't worth it."
She whipped away, storming around the desk and over to the door.
"Deny all you want, chere," he told her with cold humour, "but you and I both know if I could touch your skin right now, I'd bend you over dis desk and fuck the livin' daylights outta you. And you'd love it."
She made an explosive noise, both outraged and titillated by the idea of it.
"What the hell makes ya think I'd even let ya touch me?"
"I dunno." He leered at her. "Maybe b'cause I'm the first man who ever gave ya any pleasure, chere. Maybe 'cos I'm the only man who's ever given ya any pleasure."
She sneered at him with disgust.
"Don't flatter yourself, swamp rat. I'd rather make love to a snake."
She'd reached the door when he threw at her almost casually:
"So… I'll be seein' you t'morrow evenin' then, neh?"
She stared at the door in disbelief. Disbelief at his impertinence, at his arrogance. At his utter confidence that it was impossible for her to deny him and say 'no'.
She didn't dare speak.
Instead, she threw open the door and slammed it violently shut behind her.
As soon as her footsteps had disappeared, Remy pushed himself off the desk with a cold little smirk. Getting under Rogue's skin was proving to be an entertaining diversion – until he could get into it, that was. Was he still angry with her? Undoubtedly. Did he still want her? Absolutely. The revelation that she'd absorbed him hadn't quite quelled that particular hunger, even though he didn't at all like the idea of her knowing his more intimate secrets. Particularly the one about him once having loved her.
Still. It sounded like he'd raised one hell of a ruckus in that beautiful little head of hers. He was pleased about that.
He pulled open the drawer she'd closed not long before, rifled through the files to the one empty space. There was no name there, of course, but when he looked at the following file, he saw the name WERNER, MAX. When he flipped back to the previous one, he saw WAGNER, HEINRICH.
He paused.
Wagner.
Hmm.
-oOo-