Thanks for letting me know about the issue with the first chapter! It should be fixed now! I swear, 's document manager has only gotten worse over time, especially when my stupid curiosity got me clicking on the AI editor. It set half the document to italics, locked me out of making formatting changes to more than one paragraph, and made amazing suggestions such as "replace this word with the exact same word." Yay. The future of writing.

CHAPTER TWO

After Belladonna had left, Rogue sat with a beer at the kitchen table, and pushed around some microwaved pasta on a plate. Her fork left a smear of green pesto behind it, and Oliver watched it with interest, grey head cocked, deciding whether to play with it or eat it. The other woman's visit had killed off whatever little appetite she had left. Her night of Hallmark movies and a six pack of Canebrake had been replaced by Guild bullshit. Worse, Guild bullshit and her husband's ex.

In another life, she and Belladonna might have been friends. She hated to admit it, but they were more alike than different. Remy had a thing for strong, capable women who could take off his head. When Belle had first arrived at the mansion and Gambit had introduced her as his wife, she'd hated the woman, hated the man for whom she'd developed feelings that she'd insisted were just a dumb crush. She had always known what Gambit was, how he saw her as a challenge and a game, but it had hurt to be proven right. It had hurt even more to know that he was capable of loving someone that much, and that it would never be her. She had wanted to hurt him back.

She had flown down to New Orleans ahead of the team, leaving them to tail her in their commercial red eye. Belle had been waiting for her outside the assassin's home, a white plantation house surrounded by cypresses and magnolias near the banks of the Mississippi. The air had cooled with the nighttime, and smelled sweet and citrusy from the pink flowers that starred the trees around them. She had been dressed to work in silver body armor draped with teal silk, her cowl over her head. Belle's violet eyes had met Rogue's appraisingly, and Anna had almost decided to forget about getting back at Remy. Whatever was happening with Remy's family was more important than her petty jealousy over a dumb crush.

But then the other woman had given her the perfect opening. Belle had asked whether her husband had joined the circus - the bright costumes, the blue-furred Beast, the pie all over Rogue. Ever so innocently, Rogue had explained their picnic date gone wrong. The make-up date she had offered after Omega Red had ambushed them on their drive into Harry's, saying she didn't want to be in a swamprat's debt. The Cajun meal she had carefully prepared. The boysenberry pie that she had ended up wearing.

"And he told me, if he made a list of what to do with my own two hands, stirring gumbo wouldn't be on it," she had laughed," Did those terrible lines ever work on you, sugar?"

Belle had looked at her, smiling, weighing her up with her purple gaze, "So you the latest one, petite. Not being able to touch you is an interesting twist, I'll give him that."

"I ain't his latest anything," she had shrugged, pretending a casualness that she did not feel, "We're friends. We're having fun."

"I don't care what you are," Belle had said, "Boy was faithful to me from eight to eighteen. He would still be if we could be together. Figure he's earned his fun, though I don't know how much fun he be having with your virgin self. Remy likes more experienced women."

"Like you?"

"Where do you think he got the experience? I know every inch of that man's body as well as my own, down to the mole to the right of his bibitte. Especially that mole."

Rogue's communicator had sounded then, to her relief. She had been feeling guilty and stupid, like when she'd put on Dazzler's sparkly hot pants and taught Longshot to skate only to end up ass-over-head in Betsy's bedroom. She couldn't compete with Belle's long history with Remy, she with her handful of flirty comments and significant looks and disastrous maybe-dates and single, mind-controlled kiss on Muir Island. More than that, she had no right to be jealous. She had played along with Gambit, knowing it was all for fun, knowing that her powers meant it could never go anywhere real.

"The others'll have just landed. Better get that scouting done before they arrive," she had said, then added, "Hey, Belladonna. Whatever's happening, the X-Men'll fix it. You got my promise that I'll do whatever I can to make it right."

"For Remy?"

"And you. We'll get your family back to you."

Belle had looked surprised, and then held out her gloved hand for Rogue to shake, "Merci, chere. I know I said this was a family matter, but something tells me we're going to need all the help we can get."

Belle had died on the mission (or so it had seemed), and Remy had grieved her, and they had talked around his marriage without ever addressing it. Much later, in Valle Soleada, when they had finally learned how to be open with each other, he had explained that the marriage had been annulled as part of the exile treaty. They had never consummated it, he'd added with a wry smile, so the church had given its blessing. Officially, Belle was as pure and clean as the white dress she had worn. But he had never been good at letting go, had still loved Belle and thought he might be able to go home to her right up until the astonishing moment when he realized how hard he had fallen for Rogue. She had pulled him to her, and gently touched the livid red scar on his chest, and said that she got it, because she wasn't good at letting go either. And he had told her that she had promised him a lifetime and he intended on holding her to that.

Lucifer patted her leg with a paw, and she came back to the present. If she had known how good cats were at forcing you to focus on them and the moment, she would have gotten one years ago. It would have saved her a lot of grief with the psyches. The current situation was dangerous enough that she had to focus.

Candra of the Floating Spires was ruthless, a near immortal External who saw humans as pawns to be moved on the chessboard of history and sacrificed without thought or regret. (She and Gambit had also been lovers, which only proved Rogue's theory about his type.) However, her ancient age had brought rigidity, and she was obsessed with the New Orleans guilds that she had set in place many centuries ago. She had used the promise of life and power to keep them under her control, trading her gifts for any riches they earned. Both Gambit and Belladonna had made it clear they were done working with her, so now she was going around the respective king and queen of their guilds with another elixir and more poisoned promises. Rogue wondered when she would find another playbook. For the External of guile, she wasn't very creative.

That assumed Belle was telling her the truth, of course. With the other woman, there was always the possibility that it was a trap, that she would fly down to New Orleans and straight into a nest of assassins. She'd already tried to serve her up to Candra once, only to have the External turn it back around on her. Even if Belle was playing it straight with her, Rogue would have bet her last dollar that she would find a way to twist it to her advantage in the end.

She wished again that Remy was home. Growing up with Mystique and Destiny had been an education in playing dirty, but Guild politics were on a whole other level. She would always be an outsider to their game, barely figuring out how the pieces went on the board, while the others were already in the endgame. Remy would sweep in and right the situation, all charm and authority and kinetic explosions, while she … She would be lucky not to start another civil war.

"Better let your dad know about this, Oli," she said to the cat.

She picked up one of the cheap flip phones that Remy had brought her before leaving, and scrolled through the list of fake names to Gabriel Robert, the nom de guerre that Remy was using for his own burner phone. Most common French name, third most common surname, chere. He had told her he would be out of contact for long periods of time, but to call her if she needed him … or, with a smirk, if she needed him. Infuriating man. Even more infuriating that he had been right and she had burnt a phone already on dirty talk.

She pushed the call button and pressed the phone to her ear. It rang a few times, and then a woman's robotic voice said: "The person you have called is not available right now. Please leave a message at the beep."

"Hey, Gabe. Sorry. This ain't the dirty late night call you were hoping for, lover. Your ex came visiting this evening. There's a mess at your old home, and I need to help clean it up. Nothing I can't handle," she paused, wondering whether to say anything else. She bit her lip, continued, my "When you're done, can you join me there? I know our last trip went bad, and… I want to make it up to you. I love you. I miss you."

She quickly pressed the button to end the call, and then crushed the phone in her hand. Oliver and Lucifer scattered at the sound, claws clattering on the tiled floor, mrrping to each other. Tears rose hot in her eyes, and she wiped them away angrily. However bad a day she'd had, this fear and weakness wasn't her. She was Rogue. Anna Marie LeBeau. An X-Man and an Avenger. Queen of the Thieves Guild, even if she didn't want to be.

Queen of the Thieves Guild, she repeated to herself. She wasn't alone in this. She might not have Remy by her side for this, but she had his entire messed-up family. They brought their own share of drama, but they would have her back, especially against Candra or the assassins. It was practically the first rule of being a thief. (The actual first seemed to be to stab your king in his back every chance you got.) She picked up a new burner, and tapped out a quick message to her father-in-law.

"Meet you at Gabe's apartment. 7pm tomorrow. AML."

She sat back in her kitchen chair, took a long swallow of the beer in front of her. Belle had been right about one thing. When she'd married Remy, she'd married all of him, and now, in his absence, she was going to find out what that meant.

—-

Author Notes:

I am treating Marvel Voices: Pride as non-canonical, because I don't really know what to make of it. Gambit wouldn't erect a giant statue of Candra after he tried to sacrifice Rogue or be thrilled about the water of life when he saw what it did to Julien among others. So, meh, it's a cute story, but I am not seeing it as in continuity.

Rogue's first encounter with Belladonna and the subsequent mission was X-Men (1991) #8-9 and Ghost Rider #26-27.

Gambit got the scar thanks to Vargas and Rogue asks him for a lifetime after bringing him back from heaven in X-Treme X-Men #16-19. Technically, Beast heals the scar with nanobots, but I like the symbolism. So, sorry, Hank. I mean, sorry, if you weren't a genocidal maniac right now.

Candra's history with the guilds is Gambit (1993), Rogue (1994) and Mr and Mrs X. The other details are Immortal X-Men.

Rogue dressed up as Dazzler and flirted with Longshot in Uncanny X-Men #240.