Remy's phone went off on the pillow next to his head, alerting him that he had received a text message. He groped blindly for the phone, and then held it up to his face so that he could see who had sent it.
Jean-Luc.
Shit.
There was only one reason that his father would have contacted him directly. The Patriarch wanted to issue an order that he knew couldn't be ignored. Remy opened the message. It was a summons.
It wasn't unexpected—Remy had known that he'd have to explain his actions—but it did ruin his plan to return to Meridian that evening. His father owned a perfectly nice house on the outskirts of New Orleans. But no, he wanted to meet at the Compound, which meant that Remy would have to drive two hours down the bayou in the direction opposite of where he wanted to go.
At best, he wouldn't be able to head back until tomorrow morning. At worst...it could be a whole lot longer if Jean-Luc wanted to send him out on a job. He wouldn't let it come to that though. He had promised Marie that he would be back for the funeral, and he was going to do whatever was in his power to make good on that. Consequences be damned.
Remy hauled himself out of bed, took care of urgent matters in the bathroom, and then made his way to the kitchen. He grabbed a bottle of Gatorade from the fridge because his mouth felt like he had been chewing on cotton all night, and chugged half of it down. As he was finishing the second half, his phone went off with another message. This time it was from Marie.
She had sent him a picture of a deck of cards, arranged in ordered rows by suit. Two of the rows were shorter than the others. Underneath the picture, it read: I always knew you were a few cards short of a full deck.
He chuckled. The ace of spades was always the first card out of the box that he threw, and the two of hearts was the one he gave away to the ladies when he did card tricks at the bar to charm the tourists. It always earned him extra tips.
The picture was lit by the little battery-powered lantern, which was not a good sign. The house had a tendency to lose power in bad weather. He'd always meant to buy a generator.
Thunderstorm? He texted back as he walked into the living room.
Yes, and I wanted to play solitaire. Another picture accompanied her message, this one showing two cards that she had altered the face of with a permanent marker.
He sat down on the couch and called her. "You're that bored, huh?"
"How could you tell?"
"I bet Thieves' Monopoly is sounding real good about now."
"Too bad you left before I could kick your ass at it."
"Can't beat a thief at his own game," he said.
"Is that a challenge?"
He grinned. "Mm, it depends. Do you want it to be one?"
Wisely, she changed the subject. "How's the bar?"
"Still standing. Otherwise, I might've had to fire Thierry."
"For messing up some paperwork?"
Remy pulled his laptop off the coffee table and powered it on. "He's used to it. I threaten to fire him at least once a month."
"If he's that bad, why do you keep him around? Why not just run the bar yourself?"
He sighed as he logged onto his laptop, and confessed one of his deep-dark secrets. "Because he's not really as bad as I pretend to believe." Truth was, without Thierry, he wouldn't be able to take so many side jobs. "And when I'm at the bar, I'm usually out front."
"Ahh," she said in understanding. "You play a character."
"I just give the people what they want to see when they step into a bar on Bourbon Street."
"And what exactly is that?"
"Mais cher, I'm everybody's favorite Cajun, me."
Marie snickered. "I suppose you do the card tricks and everything too?"
"Of course!" He even had a purple silk shirt, which he put on for special occasions, but he wasn't going to tell her that. He'd never hear the end of it.
"Always the showman, aren't you, sug?"
He got an irrationally happy little thrill at hearing her call him that again. Even though he was aware that it meant nothing. He could even see her in his mind's eye, shaking her head a little, like she thought he was ridiculous, when they both knew that she enjoyed his antics.
"It comes with the territory," he replied. Distract the mark with one hand, while you pick their pocket with the other. Although, he tried not to pick his customers' pockets as a rule. He didn't want the bar to gain a bad reputation.
Remy opened a browser and typed in a web address. Sometimes a thunderstorm was just that. Other times, it was a precursor to even worse weather.
"I want to see a picture of this bar that you claim to own sometime," she said.
"I'll take one for you before I leave." He scanned the weather forecast online. "You'll be happy to hear that there are no tornadoes expected for Meridian."
"Oh good. I won't have to take refuge with the spiders then."
"But if you hear the—"
"Sirens, then yes, I will make a beeline for the shelter. Just because I moved up north doesn't mean I forgot how tornadoes work."
"Good." That was the whole reason he had bought a house with a storm shelter in the backyard. Despite her calling it 'creepy', he had seen the gratitude on her face. Her parents' house didn't have a shelter, and once, when they were young, she told him that her family had taken cover in the bathtub with a mattress over them during a bad storm.
Remy remembered being appalled, even then. As much as he didn't see eye-to-eye with his father on most things, Jean-Luc would have never let the family live in a house that didn't have at least two reinforced rooms. One for them to take shelter in, and one to keep the valuables safe. Hell, the Guild compound had been built to withstand a hurricane.
Which reminded him. "Is the roof holding up?"
"Are we expecting it not to?" she asked warily.
"I've had to have a couple of leaks fixed over the years. Mostly around the chimney after some shingles blew off."
"Hang on."
While he waited, Remy typed in another address and began the process of copying files from his laptop to one of his secure online accounts. Only a fool would walk into a meeting with the Patriarch without having at least one bargaining chip handy. Remy didn't know what specifically he might need, but he wanted to be prepared for any situation. He had been holding on to a few pieces of intel that he knew his father would be interested in having. And, if it became necessary to use the nuclear option, he also had information that his father would be very interested in not having shared with the rest of the Guild.
After a minute or so, Marie announced, "The roof appears to still be holding, but if you come back and find that the whole dang thing has collapsed in on top of me, don't be surprised. It's just been that kind of day."
"Things went that badly this morning?"
"It wasn't so much the morning as it's just been a crappy day in general," she said. "It didn't help that I had a phone call earlier that didn't go like I expected. And then I may have complained too much about it to Logan and made him want to commit a murder for me."
Remy hated thinking of her turning to another man for support—hated thinking that another man felt the same as he did when he held her as she cried. But he found some solace in knowing that at least she was with someone who was willing to kill for her.
"Ah, so Ring-boy has a name," he teased, so that she wouldn't think he was jealous.
"No. Well, he does, but Logan's not- He's just my friend. You know how I used to talk about going to Alaska?"
"I remember." At one point he was even considering buying an RV so that they could take a family road trip up there.
"Well, I made it as far as Alberta. I met Logan in a bar there, saw that he was a mutant too, and then hitched a ride in his trailer...without telling him."
"Leaving the man no room to negotiate. That's just like you," Remy said. He closed the laptop and put it back on the coffee table as he got up, then headed for the bedroom so that he could pack his things.
"Yeah, but I wasn't being as clever as I thought. He found me pretty quickly."
"And didn't kick you out?"
She laughed. "He did! And then he drove off! I'm pretty sure I made him regret stopping again though, because once he got me talking, I didn't stop until I'd told him everything."
Her tone was light, but Remy knew how emotional she would have been, and was grateful that Marie had hitched a ride with someone who was a good listener. It would have been just as easy to cross paths with someone who wanted to hurt her or take advantage of her. He would have blamed himself if something like that had happened. Lord knew he'd imagined a hundred terrible scenarios over the years.
"Anyway, Logan's the only one in New York that knows the truth. Everyone else at the mansion just thinks I left Mississippi because my parents kicked me out. Which is kinda true, in a way."
That was interesting for two reasons. One, it would imply that she hadn't even told her fiancé about her past, and two, "You didn't tell me that you're living in a mansion."
"It's a school," she said. "For gifted—for mutants. They helped me, and Logan too. And then we both stayed on to teach."
Remy walked over to the bedroom closet. He had heard of places like that. Schools and other organizations willing to help mutants. She was lucky to have ended up at one of them.
"You know, I looked for you," he blurted out, and then silently banged his head against the closet door. He didn't know why he'd told her that. He quickly clarified, "I just wanted to make sure that you were okay. You didn't take much with you when you left, and after everything that happened... I was worried."
For him and his vast network of resources not to have been able to find her, that was saying something. But there hadn't even been a trace. No credit cards or bank accounts in her name, nothing. She had just vanished.
"I stopped using my real name," she said. "Not—I wasn't trying to hide from you exactly, I just...didn't want to be me anymore. So, I became Rogue."
"Your mutant name," he guessed, and slid open the closet door. "It suits you."
"I thought so. I do have an actual, normal alias though. The Professor set it all up when I got to New York so that I could get a driver's license and everything, but no one ever calls me by it."
Wait a second. Several pieces of information clicked into place and formed a full picture. New York, a school for the 'gifted', the Professor. "Are you living at Xavier's school? Are you with the X-men?" Of all the places he'd thought to look for her, that wasn't one of them, and he was kicking himself for it.
"You've heard of us?" She seemed surprised.
Hadn't everyone in certain circles heard about them? Then, he remembered a job he'd done a couple years ago. "Son of a bitch."
"What?"
He laughed nervously and scratched the back of his neck. "Uh, nothing."
"Remy..."
"Marie."
"Swamp Rat, I know that tone of yours means trouble."
He sighed. "So...I might have done a Guild job in New Jersey where I was asked to acquire something, and there may have been some of Xavier's people there."
"You stole from the X-men?"
"Nooo, but let's say that, hypothetically, we were after the same item. A fight might have broken out as a result." A long, bruising fight, in which he'd fought off three opponents. Though thankfully not all at once.
For some reason, this caused Marie to panic. "Oh my god, that was you?! Ohmygod, ohmygod."
"It wasn't that bad. Nobody died." He'd purposely reigned in his powers and aimed to incapacitate instead of kill. The X-men weren't his enemies, and they weren't bad guys, they were just competition.
"Nononono, you don't understand. You fought Wolverine."
He racked his brain and did a mental inventory of the mutants he'd tussled with. Wings, metal body... Only one of them sounded like a wolverine. "Metal claws, kinda angry looking?"
"Yes. I heard the story, but he didn't tell us all the details. All I knew was that some mutant who liked to 'blow shit up' got the jump on him. Which never happens."
Remy didn't understand what the big deal was, but his interest was piqued. "There was a story?"
"He didn't come back with the hard drive, of course there was a story!"
"Look at that, I'm a legend!"
Marie groaned, which delighted Remy to no end. What an amusing afternoon it had turned out to be. He'd probably best keep that thought to himself though. She sounded kind of annoyed.
While she continued to grumble at him about how bad 'this' was and how unbelievable he was, Remy surveyed the contents of his closet. He had a wide variety of options—everything from cheap, mass-produced suits to bespoke suits that had cost thousands. Most of them he had only ever worn for jobs that had required blending in to specific situations.
The question was, which one to take. Would an expensive suit be sending the wrong signal? Or, would it be better for Marie to be seen on the arm of a man who looked like he had no trouble affording the finer things in life?
"You got any opinions on suits?" he asked, interrupting her tirade.
"Um..."
He rephrased the question. "What are you wearing to the funeral? I want to dress to match."
"It's not the prom. It's okay if we aren't color-coordinated. I have a black dress anyway, so whatever you pick will be fine."
"But what kind of statement are we making? Are we going as humble countryfolk? Or a big-city power couple?"
"You're putting too much thought into this," she said. "I just want you there for moral support, you don't need to make all of the ladies swoon."
He didn't need to, but he bet that she wouldn't mind if he did. The funeral was going to be their exit from Meridian society, and since the last one hadn't gone so well, it was better to leave a good impression this time. Or at least a memorable one.
"So, are you telling me not to ride my motorcycle up there?" He pulled a black suit, hand sewn by a tailor on Savile Row, out of his closet. It was from the lower end of the high-cost range of his collection, so it said 'money', but in a subtle way. Never let it be said that Remy LeBeau was gauche. Now, memorable on the other hand, that was something he excelled at. "I thought we could peel out of there, leave everyone at the church in our dust, stunned faces all around."
"No."
"C'mon, can you imagine how cool we'd look? I could pop a wheelie. You'd be the envy of the town."
"Now I know you're not serious."
"On second thought, I'm not sure the suit would travel too well on the back of the bike. And you know how much I hate to iron." A white shirt and black tie with a dark purple pattern rounded out the look, and he laid them on the bed with the suit.
"Also, it'll probably still be raining."
"That too." He dug his garment bag out and then sat on the edge of the bed. "Listen, I know I said I'd be back tonight, but I have to go smooth things over with Jean-Luc before I can leave."
"Dare I ask?"
"I missed a Guild meeting."
"So you're being punished because of me," she said. "Again."
Jean-Luc had always liked Marie well enough while they were dating, but when he found out that she was pregnant, he was furious with Remy for thinking with his dick instead of his head. He'd actually suggested that they try and pay Marie off, and when Remy told him about his plans to marry her instead, Jean-Luc had lost his shit. He didn't go so far as to throw him out of the Guild or disown him, but he made it perfectly clear that he thought Remy was making a huge mistake.
He had never let him forget it either, especially since Remy refused to ask Marie to sign a pre-nup. Although, Jean-Luc had softened somewhat after they had lost the baby and it turned out that Marie wasn't the gold-digger that he had accused her of being. He still regularly took the opportunity, however, to remind Remy that he was an idiot for throwing his life away on someone who offered no strategic advantage for the Guild, and who he would be stuck married to forever.
If Remy mentioned reuniting with his wife, Jean-Luc might be inclined to be slightly more lenient, but he wasn't about to bring Marie into this, and he hoped that Henri had kept his own mouth shut.
"No, I'm being punished because I didn't call, and then I turned off my phone so that I could ignore the tidal wave of texts and phone calls that I knew I would get. This is all on me. I think they actually thought I was dead." Which was an insult, really.
"Oh. Well, good luck with that then."
"Yeah, so you're going to be without my charming company for another night."
She made an unimpressed noise. "I've got this deck of cards now, so..."
"I'm a little hurt that that's all it takes to replace me." He went to his dresser and sorted through his cufflinks, looking for something understated that would match the suit. "You gonna be okay if the power doesn't come back on for a bit?"
It was always a crapshoot how long it would stay out. It could be hours, it could be a day or two. He was pretty sure that he'd left the house well stocked on water and batteries.
"I'll manage. I'm going to start sorting through my stuff. Decide what to keep and what to give away. I just figured..."
"That we should sell the house."
"It's time, don't you think?" she asked tentatively.
It was good that they were on the same page, but it was also sad. While he still owned the house, he could almost convince himself that he would be able to have his old life back one day.
But Henri was right. He'd kept it for all the wrong reasons.
"Yeah. It does no good to either of us to hang on to it."
"Right, that's what I was thinking. And when you get back, we can talk about what to do with the rest of the stuff."
He hated feeling like everything was ending. That there was an expiration date on their time together. "Sure thing."
"Good."
"Yep."
"Anyway... See you soon?"
"Hopefully."
"Bye."
"Bye."
Remy looked down at the box on the dresser. One half held his cufflinks, and the other half held his rings. Among the signet rings, fake wedding rings, and class rings from a dozen schools scattered across the country, was a simple gold band. He picked it up and held it wistfully in his fingers. It had been a long time since he'd worn it, but he'd never been able to bring himself to get rid of it.
Maybe after the house was sold, he'd feel differently.