Cherry Blossom Girl
In an uncharacteristic display of lack of grace, Remy stumbled over the armchair placed directly in the middle of his path across the room. To add insult to injury, sharp spikes of pain radiated out from his already twisted ankle. Cursing up a blue streak in every langue he knew at least the rudimentary profanities, he attempted to keep his tirade from assaulting the hearing of small ears. When no curious footsteps pattered down the hall to greet him, Remy doggedly continued further into their home in search of his wife and child.
This had been the mission from hell and he wasn't going to allow a trip and a fall keep him from sweeping his wife up into his arms and keeping her in bed for the next week and a half. That, and making up for lost time with his daughter. They change so fast at this age. Even if the team managed to refrain from interrupting their family time for that long, it wouldn't even start to make up for the month of insanity his team had endured on what was supposed to be an overnight mission.
The next time he saw a Spider… Well, he wouldn't outright crush the two legged variety, but maybe he'd flee in the opposite direction from which they were swinging. It sounded like a safer—and probably saner—way to proceed.
"Remy!"
He opened his arms in time to catch the armful of Southern sass and spirit barreling down the hallway. Just like he'd been dreaming about since they'd last embraced, Remy pulled his Roguey into a hungry kiss full of passion and longing. He'd been dreaming about this moment from the time his mission went awry.
Returning the kiss with equal fervor, Rogue leaned into his touch. She Wrapping her arms around him, she held him in a slightly too tight embrace. Her bare fingers brushed over the exposed skin at the nape of his neck and tangled in his hair. She met the dull ember-glow in his eyes, with the amorous green spark in her.
He leaned into her touch, luxuriating in the longed for familiarity. His body responded to her every curve and swell. He wanted nothing more than to reacquaint himself with every inch of her body and allow her to do the same with his. But, before they indulged, he needed to be certain. "Good day, chère?"
"'Course, swamp rat. You're home." Her powers lightly lapped at his psyche where her bare skin brushed against his. They drew no more than a taste—a connoisseur savoring their favorite vintage.
"Roguey." He caught her hands in his and the pull intensified at the contact, though it remained well within the realm of control. "Your powers—is it a good day?"
A flicker of concern ran through her body as she freed her hands form his hold and cupped his face with her bare hands. Her thumbs ran against the sharp prickle of his scruff. "Rems, I've not had a flare up for a bit now. I know my limits."
"Right, right," he murmured as he pulled her back into an encompassing embrace. His head throbbed in a dull ache. Every time he closed his eyes, his memories were inundated by the tangled web of possibilities. With more energy than he possessed, he fought to remain in the here and now. He needed her. His her.
Whenever he was gone on a mission, he missed her like he would miss breathing if he ever stopped. Her familiar presence in his arms was a soothing balm to his soul, rounding off the rough corners and jagged edges from his time away. Every time he held her it was like coming home. And, after this last absence, he clearly needed to re-acclimate himself to being home.
That's right. All he needed was a good nights sleep with his wife in his arms and he would be right as rain.
Closing his eyes, he rested his cheek against the top of her head. In an automatic response to his embrace, she nuzzled her head against the rasp of his five o'clock shadow. He took a moment to simply breathe in her presence, to luxuriate in her sweet scent of…. He blinked in surprise intermingled with confusion.
He inhaled sharply, taking in the discordant scent of…
"Sug? What's wrong?" Rogue made no move to escape from his hold. Instead she pressed closer.
His muscles tensed at the intimate familiarity of the gesture. Though he tried to play it cool and collected, his head jerked away from where it rested against the wild array of cinnamon and white curls. The sudden motion was enough to garner a response from Rogue. She turned her face up to study his. Her full lips twisted into a concerned frown. "Rems, what's gotten into you?"
The movement sent another wave of the foreign scent to fill his senses. Instead of her homey scent of honey and magnolias, he breathed in the scent of…of….
…Cherries?
Dropping his hold on her, Remy backed away a few steps. His hands fell to his sides, then pressed back along the wall as he grasped for the nearest doorknob.
Before the…the…imposter could stop him, Remy slipped into the room—their room—and slammed the door behind him. Quicker than a wink, he locked the door. The simple door lock would do nothing to keep out a Thief, but Rogue had never been a thief. At least, not his kind of thief.
He scurried past the bed with the steel blue duvet—it was supposed to be a deep maroon—to the far side of the room and curled into the corner. Burying his head against his knees, he wrapped his arms around his legs. In order to dispel the burgeoning panic, he forced himself to take deep breaths. His mind whirred with contradictory thoughts. Each threatened to send his heartbeat into a runaway gallop. He needed to think. To focus. To figure out what went wrong.
They were suppose to be home. But…
The living room chair in the wrong place.
The wrong bedspread covered the bed.
The confusion about a 'good day.'
The scent of cherries where magnolias should be.
No Immy to greet him at the door.
And the most damning evidence of all—Rogue had not been nearly upset enough about his unexpected, prolonged absence.
All the small differences added up into one inevitable conclusion. They had returned to the wrong Multiverse.
His stomach roiled in queasy protest. He would never cheat on his wife, the love of his life. Long ago he had promised her that she was the only one for him. That he would never stray nor wander from their vows. Not even when the psyches in her head took over her body. Not even when she was Rogue, but not his Rogue. Yet, he had kissed her with all the passion, heat, and longing he would only bestow on his wife. If not for the scent of cherries, he would have taken her to bed and made love to her. The reminder of the near infidelity turned his already sour stomach.
Remy fingered the button of his X-communicator. If he tried calling his team, would he get the ones he knew? Or, would the ersatz X-Men pick up his signal? He needed to leave. To escape. To find his way home.
Time slipped by in a rush of seconds which dragged through a slow, torturous eternity. He needed to go home. His real home.
A dampened 'shave-and-a-haircut' rapped against the door, followed by an exaggerated stage whisper. "Remy, let me it. I can explain."
No. He shook his head against his knees. The pain in his head ricocheted against his skull.
The door knob rattled futilely against the lock. She blew out a loud, exasperated breath. "C'mon swamp rat, I don't wanna wake Immy."
Immy. The tightness in his chest eased a little. His sweet little girl. The apple of his eye. His daughter. He'd met myriads of Immys on his travels. Immys and Bekahs and Olis. There were Maximes and Manons, grey twins with haunted pasts. But, Immy had been the one he left at home with his Rogue. In the world where he had left his wife with hopes and promises of trying for more.
Once again the door rattled, but this time not with the twist and turn of the knob, instead with the small, precise movements of a professional thief. The well of hope sunk in his chest, his Rogue wasn't a thief. Or, was she?
He'd met Rogues who were thieves. Who embraced their role as Queen of Thieves with the same fervor his Rogue had taken to being an X-Men. Had he forgotten the truth of his reality? Had his subconscious mixed the myriad versions of Rogues until she became an amalgam in his memory?
Raising his head from his knees, Remy observed as Rogue returned the picks to their case and slipped into their room. She didn't stop or hesitate until she crossed the room and sat on the floor in front of him. Her bare toes brushed his sock clad toes, but otherwise she did not touch him. She wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her chin on her knees. After a moment of warily studying each other, she spoke in a soft, soothing voice. "Remy, I called the Mansion. I know what's wrong."
He responded with a noncommittal grunt. His heart longed to trust her, but his mind was wary.
"Laura told me what happened. Ya got pulled into some multi-versal Spider-shenanigans." She paused, waiting for him to respond, but when he remained silent she continued, "Apparently time between Multiverses doesn't always run concurrently with ours. According to the time here, y'all were gone a week. Yeah, that's longer than expected, but not the months you thought you lost. It wasn't until you left the Mansion that they realized about the time discrepancy."
Remy inhaled a short, sharp breath. He'd only been gone for a week? That would explain Rogue's relative calm. But, what about the rest?
"How do I know I'm home?" He asked in a strained whisper. Laura had been with him, she wouldn't lie to him about this. If they were still lost in the vast expanse of webs between dimensions, she wouldn't have left a message to be relayed to him.
"Ask me anything?" Rogue prodded. If he could trust his eyes, trust his senses, her body language practically bled sincerity and honesty. Oh, how he wanted to trust her.
The Rogue of this world held out a glove covered hand. Tentatively, he slipped his hand into hers. Her smaller hand perfectly fit in his like it always belonged there. Curling her fingers, she squeezed his hand with the strength which had once been pilfered from Ms. Marvel and now belonged wholly to his Rogue.
"The gloves?"
She pulled a tight grimace. "You seemed uncertain 'bout touching me, so I put them on to help ya feel more at ease. It's been a while since we needed the verbal confirmation. Guess I just kinda forgot about it in the face of our reunion." The leather gloves pulled taut over her knuckles as she flexed the hand not holding his. "My control still requires a bit of concentration, though less so than before Immy was born. And, intense emotions aren't as likely to trigger an incident, so we've gotten more free with touch."
Remy nodded. As she spoke, his true memories crystallized in the forefront of his brain, banishing the variants of the Multiverse to the dark recesses of his mind. Everything she said concurred with the way things unfolded in his world. "What about the differences around the house? The chair?" He nodded in the direction of the living room. "The comforter?"
A snort of laughter escaped from Rogue's lips before she shook her head in an impression of fond exasperation. "Both those changed can be blamed more or less on Immy. She's been up to her tricks again. Climbing up anything taller than an anthill. I had to move the chair away from the shelf before she attempted to bury my in a pile of my own books—again."
This time Remy joined in the chuckle. He remembered that incident. Rogue had glared daggers at him for a week, blaming him for their daughter's natural propensity for climbing up the walls.
"As for the comforter, sug, suppose that ain't as much of a laughing matter. Immy picked up a bit of a bug and got sick all over our bed. So, I pulled out the old comforter while the other was getting washed."
At the mention of his little girl being sick, Remy forgot for a moment about the possibility of being strangled in the wrong corner of the Multiverse. With a wince, he rolled to his feet, ready to spring into action. "Why didn't you lead with that?"
"She's gonna be okay, swamp rat. I finally got her to sleep 'bout a half hour before ya got home. Why do you think I wanted to keep this on the down low?" Rogue guided him over to the bed and curled up beside him. "Don't fret. I took her to see Hank. It's just normal kid stuff. Plenty of rest and fluids and all that jazz. She'll be right as rain in a couple of days."
The closeness of Rogue's presence reminded him of what had triggered the near panic attack in the first place. Rogue smelled all wrong. His Roguey was all sugar and spice and this one, while her scent was sweet, didn't possess the particular southern scent which reminded him of home.
With a not-so-subtle sniff of her hair, he wrinkled his nose. "Don't take this wrong chère, mais, you don't smell right."
Lifting the end of a wayward curl to her nose, Rogue smelled the lock. In less than two shakes of a lamb's tail, she was one her feet and headed for the master bath. "Is that all swamp rat? Wait here."
Returning as quickly as she had left, she handed him a bottle of viscous, pink liquid. "Here."
The confusion passed rapidly as he took the proffered shampoo bottle. Under the delicate floral design, the scent was inscribed in a flowing pseudo-cursive—Cherry Blossom.
"I ran out of shampoo while you were gone," Rogue explained as she resumed her seat beside him and rested her head against his shoulder. "The store was out of my preferred brand, so I thought I'd try something new. From your expression, I'm taking it that you don't like it?"
Feeling steadier than he had since entering their home, Remy pulled his Rogue onto his lap and nuzzled along her neck. Rogue practically purred at his administrations. His body relaxed into hers. "It's fine, mon coeur, though I like the other stuff better."
"Me too." She turned on his lap so she was straddling his legs. "Now, how are you feeling? Are ya convinced you're in the right dimension?"
He managed to eek out the strangled response as she peppered his jawline with nips and kisses. "Oui."
"Good."
With a groan for all his aching muscles, he allowed his Roguey to push him back onto the bed and show him just how much she had missed him. As the last of the confusion melted away, he eagerly returned her amorous embrace. They moved in tandem, matching kiss for kiss, touch for touch. While the scent of home was not what he expected, he was more than content to be in the arms of his cherry blossom girl.