All characters owned by Marvel Comics
Author's notes: Hi, everybody! I'm trying to be a little more regular with my story updates (dang, I used to be so good about new chapters every Wednesday!) but my new schedule is a little screwy and makes it a bit tough. No worries, though, my stories are always finished (except for a little spit and polish) before I start posting them - I won't leave you hanging!
This chapter is all Remy as far as the narration goes, and we have moved into the 'present' of the story - no more flashbacks. I kind of struggled with how much time to spend in the 'past' on this one because I liked a lot of the stuff I came up with (Magnus and Moira should be a thing, I think - somebody make it happen), but ultimately I wanted Remy and Rogue to meet, so here you go.
Thanks for reading as always, and seriously Ishandahalf, stop reading my mind...haha
Remy
"Well, don't you look positively delicious?"
The blonde - wrapped in a skintight silver dress that left very little to even Remy's vivid imagination - stopped his steps across the crowded casino floor with one fine boned hand in the middle of his chest. His heart skipped a beat at her touch, but not for the reason one would expect. The woman who licked her lips and swirled a finger around the top button of his dress shirt was Andrea von Strucker, one of Amahl Farouk's nastiest servants, and his guts clenched.
What the hell was Andrea doing in Madripoor? The island nation was Viper's territory. The last thing Remy needed tonight was for someone to raise a red flag on his wheeling and dealings, and his mind raced to find a way to slip free from Andrea's grasp without raising her suspicion. Was her presence just a coincidence, or had someone been keeping tabs on him? Of all the nights for a chance encounter! This job had been months of careful planning, he had called in every favor he had to get his hands on the schematics for Viper's penthouse, but it looked like the pinch might be over before it even began.
Viper, a woman with considerable power in her own right, had built an empire out of nothing but her own grit and determination. Everyone knew Farouk's people weren't welcome here, it was part of the reason Remy had even considered it as a target. For his own protection, he usually kept a lower profile, but there were too many clamoring for what was rumored to be in Viper's private safe.
The crowd milling around them would normally provide adequate cover for a quick exit, problem was, Remy knew Andrea wasn't alone. The woman never did anything without her twin brother, Andreas, the pair were two twisted peas in a pod. Where she went, her twin followed, and Remy didn't know if he could slip away from them without causing a scene or drawing undue attention to himself.
He swore under his breath. He needed what was hidden in Viper's personal safe. The Elixir of Life was his last shot at getting back into the Thieves' good graces. The Elixir hadn't been seen since Candra's murder, and there would be many who would welcome even a traitor like him with open arms at the mere promise of a taste. He couldn't throw in the towel, not just yet, and gave Andrea his best sultry smirk. If he could charm his way out of this, all may not be lost.
Andrea tugged the sunglasses Remy was wearing down the bridge of his nose, revealing his red on black eyes, a very unique characteristic he often found difficult to disguise.
A sadistic smile exposed bleached white teeth behind thickly painted red lips. "I knew it was you, LeBeau. I never forget a…" the hand on his chest rambled down his shirt front to rest on his belt buckle. "…face."
Behind her, a man that was her taller, broader doppelganger appeared at her shoulder and scowled. "Sister," the man snapped. "Control yourself. This is hardly the time to collect strays." His scrutiny turned to Remy, and one blonde eyebrow arched in surprise. "My, my. I stand corrected. You never cease to amaze me, Andrea. I should know by now not to underestimate your penchant for finding the diamond in the rough."
Andreas placed his hands on his sister's slim shoulders, and his long pale fingers toyed with the silver spaghetti straps of her dress. "LeBeau. It has been a long time. Perhaps later," the man's smile, minus the lipstick, was identical to his sister's, "you'll join us?"
Remy took a small step back to shake Andrea's hold on the waistband of his slacks, and raised the glass half full of whiskey he had been dragging around the casino purely as a prop. "Merci, but non. I've already had plenty to drink tonight."
Andrea giggled and covered her mouth with her hand while Andreas rested his chin on his sister's shoulder. Remy squirmed uncomfortably when the man slid one of the straps down her pale skin.
"Joining us for a drink wasn't exactly what we had in mind."
Andreas's smile was crooked and Remy tried his best to play it cool as the blonde Bobsey twins undressed him with matching icy eyes.
A petite Vietnamese girl, her dark hair cut into the shining bob of a silent film star, rescued Remy from the awkward silence that followed.
"If you are ready," she addressed the von Struckers in clipped tones. "My mistress will see you now."
Remy said a silent prayer of thanks, and he swore the girl, barely in her teens by the look of her, had heard him. She cast a sideways glance at Remy, and he felt the familiar tingle of a thwarted telepathic probe at the edges of his subconscious. Telepaths were illegal in Farouk's world, the penalty for harboring one was death or worse. Viper played things a little too close to the edge, even for Remy's taste.
The twins followed the girl, and Andrea pouted as she waved goodbye, but her brother sneered.
"Until next time, thief." The hiss of Andreas's last word carried the hint of warning.
Deserving the huge swig he slugged back from the whiskey in his hand, Remy wove through the throngs of people buzzing around the flashing neon lights of the slot machines. His eyes stayed glued across the room to the two platinum blonde heads being escorted through a heavily guarded door that he knew led to the business wing of the skyscraper.
When the pair disappeared along with the girl and a huge beast of a bodyguard, Remy reached beneath the cuff of his tuxedo jacket to check his wristwatch. 'My mistress will see you', the girl had said. The von Struckers were meeting with Viper. If he was going to still salvage the heist, it was now or never. In a place like the Princess Bar, it was too easy to get distracted if he wasn't careful, and right now his thoughts were doing a fine job pulling him off track.
Were the twins - too bored, rich, and twisted for their own good - acting as emissaries for the Shadow King? If the pair had requested a private meeting with Viper on Farouk's behalf, such an alliance didn't bode well for the rest of the world, but it certainly helped with Remy's activities for the evening.
The Princess Bar, once a ramshackle dive on the wrong side of the bay, now served as the island nation's premier entertainment destination. A hundred story high-rise, The Princess was Viper's home and base of operations. Over the years, the stronghold had become one of the last holdouts to Amahl Farouk and his organization. But, if Remy had learned anything, it was that the Shadow King was always looking for weakness in those who opposed him, a way to turn any advantage to his favor. Meeting with Farouk's people was surely a risk, but the risk was Viper's, not his, and he couldn't let such a break go unexploited. With the Princess Bar's best security otherwise engaged, Remy had a clean shot at Viper's private vault and the Elixir of Life that supposedly resided there.
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, his fingers finding their way to the now familiar scar that ran along his scalp. Running a job out of Madripoor wasn't the worst thing he had done in the last few years, but trying to steal something right from under Viper's nose may be the stupidest. He should just scrap it, give up. That would be the smart play. Remy certainly didn't need the Elixir, never had, but he needed protection and a place to lay low for a while, and the Elixir was the currency that would buy his safety.
He had been spotted by Farouk's people and by one of Viper's own, a difficult job now bordering on impossible, but the blondes had provided a newfound diversion he couldn't pass up.
Pausing for another sip, Remy's eyes circled the massive room, taking note of the exits and marking the locations of security cameras, dealers, and guards, mostly mutants mixed among the thousands of well-dressed thrill seekers, comparing them to the blueprints he had memorized.
A band played onstage, and the blonde Barbie doll fronting it was familiar to Remy. What was her name? Belle had always liked her, and had played her album nonstop. Sparkler? Firecracker? He stepped closer. Dazzler! That was it - Alison Blaire. Not really his style, but she had a nice sound, and her honeyed voice drizzled pleasantly in his ear. The closer he stepped, the more Remy could see that the years had been hard on the songstress, there were scars that even the best makeup couldn't hide. It was really a shame. The Dazzler had been pretty hot shit back in the day, until she had lost her mutant powers in a very public fall from grace.
Madripoor was an escape from the world and from the reach of the Shadow King for many, as evidenced by the staff, didn't look like there was a human on the payroll. It would be a shame if Viper let that all slip away by joining forces with the King.
The song ended the set, and Dazzler blew a kiss just for Remy before a bodyguard with a strange pin head perched on top a grotesquely disproportioned body shuffled her offstage.
He turned back to the crowd, but someone shoved into him from behind, hard enough that he spilled the rest of his drink down the front of his expensive suit.
"Hey!" Remy turned to give whoever it was a piece of his mind, but the man - a quivering pile of sideburns and muscle that stood barely over five feet - glared murderously at him before shouldering him out of the way and continuing through the crowd.
"Mon dieu," Remy muttered and tried to shake off the icy whiskey. At least it had been expensive whiskey. He hated to smell cheap.
A gloved hand patted at his shirtfront with a cocktail napkin.
"Sorry 'bout that."
The hand was attached to a slender arm, and the woman's smile reached all the way to a pair of emerald eyes. Remy found himself grinning back despite his irritation.
"Nothin' personal, sugar, he's just pissed our appointment got bumped."
"Merci, chere." Remy took a good look while the woman dabbed at his lapels. Porcelain skin covered by a sinfully tight but modestly cut black dress, younger than he thought at first glance, but trying to look older with expertly done makeup. Her hair was auburn, with a curious white stripe winding its way through the front, and the thick locks were twisted into an elegant updo.
"Can I buy you another drink?" her voice held the hint of a Southern accent, and the sound tugged at the homesickness he thought he had buried long ago.
There was nothing Remy would have liked better - it was certainly the best offer he had all night - but even without looking at his watch he knew his time was winding down. If he was going to do it, it was time to shit or get off the proverbial pot. He needed to get out of the casino and upstairs into Viper's private quarters and vault before his distractions came looking for him again.
Taking her small hand in his, he brought it to his lips. "Unfortunately, I've got an appointment myself. Could I trouble you for a raincheck?"
Her cheeks flushed, but she smiled again and raised one eyebrow. "If yer lucky."
He tugged her closer. "You don't know this petite, seeing as how we just met, but Lucky be my middle name."
"You don't say?" She looked up at him from under those long lashes. "And what's your first name?"
"Remy." He held her hand between them and rested it flat on his damp chest, his heartrate accelerating beneath her touch, this time for all the right reasons.
"Pleased to meet you, Remy. I'm…"
"Rogue!" Sideburns had turned back and bellowed at her from across the floor. "Quit yer jawin' and move it!"
She grimaced. "Sorry. Duty calls."
His hand found its way to her narrow waist and the expensive silk covering it. "Then, 'til we meet again, cherie." He leaned forward and moved his lips towards her cheek, but she stiffened and stepped back, those green eyes wide.
Straightening her dress, she backed away from him in apology. "We'll always have Madripoor, right?"
Before he could stop her, she had vanished into the surging crowd. He almost gave chase, but maybe it was for the best. He had work to do, but Remy felt like something had changed. In the few minutes he had been preoccupied, the raucous atmosphere of the casino had shifted, and he could sense a strange tension emanating from the staff. Remy watched as the guard at the northwest entrance touched his ear and spoke to someone on the other end of his communicator. The conversation was short and heated, and when it ended, the guard stormed through the door, and he wasn't the only one - three more left their posts at various points in the room, leaving the nearest doorway to the interior of the skyscraper unattended.
Here we go, he thought. Avoiding the cameras, Remy walked through that door like he owned it, and slipped into an adjacent stairwell where he quickly stripped off his suit to reveal his working clothes beneath, a black bodysuit decorated with deep purple accents. The costume was a lightweight body armor - deceptively skintight but impact resistant, it'd stop a shotgun blast at point blank range. The belt he retrieved from his tuxedo pants contained rappelling wire and a small grappling hook, one could never be too prepared. Patting down the costume's hidden pockets, he felt for his trusty lock picks and mentally tallied the decks of playing cards he had on hand.
Gambit was the name he went by on a job. Candra had been right, his mutant powers - the ability to charge inanimate objects with explosive kinetic energy – had hit just before puberty. Playing cards were his weapon of choice. They were portable, easy to throw, and took a hell of a charge.
Usually Remy wore a trenchcoat when he was pulling a heist - more pockets meant more cards, and if he had to go out in public the jacket covered his costume - but there had been no way to smuggle one in under his tuxedo. It had been hard enough to find a pair of utility boots that looked dressy beneath slacks. Truthfully he felt a little naked without his jacket, but pushed the feeling aside and went to work.
He had hoped the von Strucker twins would provide a decent distraction, and if Viper's guards and the increasing shouts and sounds of gunfire echoing down the stairs were any indication, they had done that and more. Remy had his window of opportunity as long as he could steer clear of the chaos. Running through the building's schematics in his head as he went, he silently made his way to the top floor penthouse and Viper's personal quarters. Bypassing the security door was a joke, and he found the suite of rooms strangely deserted.
The hairs on the back of Remy's neck stood on end. Something wasn't right. Where were the guards? Had the twins kicked up so much fuss that Viper needed all hands on deck? He had certainly expected more of a challenge, but wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth.
In the near darkness, Remy spied the life-sized portrait of Viper on the back wall of her bedroom. The woman's image, rendered in oil paints, sneered at him as he stepped forwards. Reaching for the frame, he swung it free from the wall, but frowned at what lay beneath. Cracking this safe would be child's play, he had broken into worse by the time he was six years old. Was Viper that overconfident that no one could get to her inside her own building?
His guts were tying themselves at knots, and Remy had learned the hard way it was best to listen. He had a bad feeling about this. What was he missing? Was the safe booby-trapped?
Lord knows it wouldn't be his first close call with Farouk and his people since the little rebellion that had cost Jean-Luc his life, but something about Andrea and Andreas being in Madripoor didn't smell right. He wished he had trusted his first instincts on the casino floor and hightailed it, but since he had already come this far…
Nimble fingers cracked the combination in a manner of seconds, though those moments felt like an eternity as Remy expected poison darts to shoot from the safe or any other number of booby traps he could imagine. When it opened, his heart stopped at the sight that greeted him. Inside, two glass vials lay on their sides, uncorked and completely empty. What was left of the Elixir of Life dribbled onto the velvet lining the bottom of the safe.
Remy nearly threw up. Empty. Gone. Someone had beaten him here, all of this had been for nothing!
Remy closed the safe and the painting's door, swallowing the sour taste in his mouth. What the hell was he going to do? There was no way the Thieves would welcome him back now. If Essex caught him again, he was dead meat.
Backing away slowly, Remy nearly tripped on the body that lay immobile on the floor next to the bed. The beam of his flashlight froze on the lifeless form of Viper, the sneer on her bloodied face a mirror image to her painting.
"Fuck," Remy muttered and bent down to check for her pulse.
The Mistress of Madripoor was as dead as a doornail, but still warm. He had just missed being a witness to her murder or maybe another victim. A massive hole had been blown in her chest, and singed playing cards fanned out around her on the blood soaked carpet.
"Fuck me," he hissed.
Any crook worth the name knew Gambit's signature when they saw it, though Remy knew the blast that killed her could have just as easily been caused by the mutant powers of the Eurotrash wonder-twins, Andrea and Andreas von Strucker. Had he played right into their damned hands - Remy LeBeau, assassination scapegoat? Had they known he was coming, followed him and planned to use him from the start, or had they merely seized the opportunity? Either possibility was as disturbing as it was plausible. Farouk sent his dogs in to wipe out Viper, but would they have been smart enough to drink the Elixir themselves? Viper sure hadn't been.
Before he could rise from his knees, the door burst in, followed by a dozen guards, maybe more. Gambit threw himself behind a sofa to dodge an eruption of machine gun fire, but lucky for him they were suits for hire, not Viper's right hand ninjas. The room exploded around him in a hail of bullets and broken glass, the guards barking orders to sound the alarms.
Yep, Remy thought bitterly, Pawn. Farouk's people had probably seeded the rumors of what lay in that safe to catch any leftover thieves in their net. If Viper's people killed the thieves in retaliation, there would be nobody left alive that would shed any tears, but if Remy was captured instead, the Shadow King would get his slimy hands on a prize he had chased for years.
You'd think a man what called himself Gambit would have seen that checkmate coming, Remy thought bitterly. Shoving the nagging voice away, he sent a brace of charged cards towards the entrance. While the guards screamed and scattered, Remy sprinted for the sliding doors that led to the balcony. Another card took care of the glass and he leapt after it, throwing himself into the air to dodge another spray of bullets. Midair, he twisted and muttered a silent prayer, unleashing another volley back in the direction he had come from. Viper's quarters burst into flames.
He fell, but not far. The grappling hook of his costume hit home and caught the railing of another balcony a few stories down. It hurt like hell when the line jerked him to a stop and smashed him against the outside wall of the building, but a few bruises were better than splatting into the bay below. Hand over hand, he yanked himself up onto the balcony and leaned against the concrete to catch his breath. The smell of smoke reached his nostrils and fiery debris began to rain down from the sky. He needed to get out of there, but he was still too high for his wire to reach to the ground level, and the sounds of alarms inside meant escaping through the interior of the building had just become a terrible idea.
Steeling himself, he rappelled down several more times. He was pulling himself up and crawling onto another balcony when the glass doors to the inside exploded. Remy threw himself to the floor just in time to avoid the solid human missile that sailed over his head before arching out over the water.
Too late, he recognized it as the man from earlier, the hairy guy who had spilled his drink, and gravity called the man's heavy body into the water below.
"LOGAN!"
The girl with the white stripe screamed over the wailing alarms, and Remy turned in time to see Andreas von Strucker punch her in the stomach. Struggling to free himself from the grappling wire, an enraged Remy aimed a card for the man, hitting him square in the chest and sending him flying backwards.
"How are you still alive, thief?" Andrea shrieked. Blood poured down the woman's face from what appeared to be a well-deserved broken nose. Her twin was down and out and wasn't getting up anytime soon. The von Strucker's mutant powers only worked when they joined hands, which Remy always thought was pretty stupid, but what wasn't stupid was the gun a furious Andrea levelled at his head.
"Don't you know?" A brutal kick from behind dropped Andrea to her knees, and the shot she fired hit the ceiling instead of Remy. "Lucky's his middle name!" Rogue, her hair and dress a mess, punched the blonde in the face, knocking her on her ass. More guards poured through the interior doors in a cloud of thick black smoke and bullets.
"Idiots!" Andrea's scream was barely intelligible as she held her cracked and bloody jaw with her hand. "Farouk wants the girl alive!"
Dodging a hailstorm of bullets, Rogue barreled towards Remy at full speed, catching him around the waist and shoving them both off the balcony.
"You crazy…!" He screamed in her ear and they flew out over the water, but his voice was drowned by a deafening explosion that claimed the top floors of the building he had lit on fire after finding Viper. The pair dropped until Remy ran out of line, but he felt her small fingers find the catch on his belt and release it, and they fell the rest of the way to the ground instead of the water, crashing to the parking lot below with a sickening crunch. Remy felt the hot wet warmth of blood even through his insulated costume.
Oh, fuck. Shit, shit, shit. Oh, Fuck! He had tried to shield her body with his to let his armor absorb the worst of their impact, but at the last second she had twisted and took the brunt of both their bodies slamming into the concrete.
"Merde…" Ignoring the jarring pain of pretty much every inch of his body, Remy rolled off the girl, the sight that greeted him bringing a tightness to his chest and the sting of tears to his eyes. Bones were sticking out of her every which way and her pretty face was covered in blood. Brushing back a wayward white curl, he caressed her cheek. "Why did you go and do that, cherie? You didn't have to…" Though he knew it was hopeless, he forced himself to feel for her pulse, but when he touched her skin with his gloved hand, her eyes snapped open and she shoved him back.
"Just…give me a minute…" she snarled, hunched on all fours like a wounded animal. A horrified Remy watched her body knit itself back together, the bones popping back into place one by one.
Around them, debris rained from the sky, and a flaming piece of metal landed close enough to snap Remy back to reality. They had fallen out the bayside of the building, and were lying in the middle of the loading dock along the edge of the water. Throngs of panicky people poured out of the casino. The lights from the fire and the army of incoming emergency vehicles were growing brighter and would soon erase their cover. They were vulnerable, they needed to get the hell out of there before anyone found them.
Everything back where it was supposed to be, the girl tried to stand. "Logan," she mumbled. "I have to find Logan."
She was having such a lousy night, he hated to point out that Sideburns was probably fish food by now, but to Remy, finding this Logan seemed to be the least of her problems. Farouk wanted her, Andrea von Strucker had said. Even thinking what that could mean chilled Remy to the bone.
Before he could open his mouth, there was another explosion, powerful enough to shake the ground around them, and Remy moved to shield her from any more debris. Instead of the expected wave of fire and brimstone, there was a rush of cold air and the sound of thunder. When the clouds opened in a monsoon rain to douse the flames, Remy's insides did a backflip. Glancing skyward, he found the explosion under the control of another, someone he had hoped to never see again, the woman's mane of white hair visible against the night sky.
No, he thought, not her, not now! If Storm got ahold of them, they were as good as dead.
"Didn't you hear them?" he whispered desperately and grabbed Rogue's arm. "We gotta get out of here!"
Remy was on the verge of panicking as a memory – old, but still raw and angry - rolled over him. New Orleans, the steps of the cathedral. The cobblestones had run red the night of the Guild's last stand. He could still see his father on his knees with his hands tied behind his back. Sometimes when he closed his eyes, Remy could still feel the spray of his father's blood against his skin…the cost he paid for his own survival too high, the debt still unpaid…
Baring her teeth, Rogue ripped her arm from his grasp and raised her fists. Six bone claws, each a foot long, ripped through the backs of her hands in a horrifying squelch of flesh. "You don't understand!" she roared. "He's all I have! I have to find him!"
"But it's you the King wants!" Remy challenged.
She winced and he saw her swallow, fear touching her features for the briefest of moments. He could relate. Mon dieu, he thought, we gotta get out of here he had said. We - as in him and her - together. Though he had been thinking it, he couldn't believe he had said it out loud. They may have just met, but this girl was in trouble. The Shadow King wanted her. What could be so important about her? He couldn't just abandon her to Storm's tender mercies.
She retracted the bone claws and Remy watched the wounds they left behind heal and disappear, the heavy rain washing the blood and grime from her skin. They were out of time to look for her partner, and despite her tough façade, he couldn't just leave her on her own. Madripoor wasn't safe for her, and thanks to the von Struckers, it wasn't safe for him either. The wail of emergency vehicles nearly on top of them, Remy made his choice.
"C'mon, let's go." He tugged at her arm again, his voice equal parts plea and invitation. They needed to find somewhere safe to lay low until he could figure out what the hell was going on, but his bowels clenched.
If the King was truly hunting them, there was nowhere on Earth left for them to hide.