Chapter Text
Rogue and Gambit headed out to the old boathouse where Gambit now resided on the Xavier estate. As they walked around to the door, Rogue's eyes looked over the broken down jetty.
"I'm falling for you, Rogue."
Rogue stared at him and barely noticed the warm, tingling sensation in her right hand.
"You're… you're what?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
He smiled faintly. "And this is why…" he trailed off and looked down at their joined hands. "Merde."
Rogue looked down as well. Her hand was glowing with a magenta light that continued to crawl up her bare arm.
"But, you can't charge living matter," Rogue said, confused.
She watched as the charge continued up her arm and over her elbow, not even really registering Gambit's swearing as he tried to remove the charge. She shook herself and saw the strain in his face, the sweat on his brow, and the tears in his eyes. She knew in that moment that he was not going to be able to remove the charge.
Rogue moved out of the doorway and backed towards the jetty. Gambit followed, not even seeming to notice. Then, once Rogue felt they were far enough away, she lifted up her arm away from her body.
"Wha—" Gambit began.
"Let go," Rogue said softly.
"What?" He gaped at her.
"Let go," Rogue said. "Please."
She would've jerked her hand free, but thanks to the nerve damage from the fight with the Reavers, she didn't have the strength in her arm to do it.
With tears streaming down his face, Gambit released his left hand, "I'm sorry," and then his right.
Rogue's arm exploded.
Rogue shuddered. It was as if that whole event was engraved on her mind.
Gambit must have noticed her reaction, but he said nothing about it as he led her through that fateful doorway. She preferred it that way. Still, once the door was shut, Rogue wrapped her arm around him and pulled him close. He held her for quietly for a time.
"How can you stand staying here?" she asked.
"Here I remember blowing you up your arm, over there I remember almost blowing you up several times and hitting you with debris," Gambit replied softly. "I may as well stay here, at least until my powers are officially under control."
Rogue grunted. That could be awhile. They weren't sure when the Cure variant he'd taken would wear off, and even then there was no guarantee that Gambit would've learnt sufficient emotional control to get power control straight away. Though, if the 24 hour poker face he'd been working on was any indication of progress, Rogue had no doubts of his success when the time came.
"We don't have to come here if—" he began.
"No. It's fine," Rogue cut in tersely. "It's not like I can forget that I don't have a right arm any more. Why does it matter if I'm confronted with the memory of how I lost it every time I come here? It's not going to change the fact that I'm still on painkillers or have to relearn how to do simple tasks."
"Chère, if you're not comfortable—"
"I'm always uncomfortable. Hence the painkillers!" Rogue snapped at him, and poked him in the chest with her sole remaining index finger. "You had better be planning on making some damn fantastic memories with me here or I promise you—"
"But of course, ma chère," Gambit said as he took her hand in his. "That's the other reason for me to stay here: privacy. I know exactly how thin the walls are at the mansion." He kissed her hand gently. "We can make all the noise we want here."
Rogue moved in so her lips were a mere inch away from his. "Just how much noise do you think we're going to make?"
"Well, I don't know about you," he replied with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, "but I plan on blowing raspberries on your stomach."
"Isn't that a bit childish?"
"Not at all, ma chère. I have only ever seen adults blow raspberries on other people's stomachs."
Rogue cracked a smile. Gambit kissed her, and she kissed back eagerly.
Sometime later Rogue was relaxing on Gambit's bed with her head on his chest. His hands gently stroked her skin.
Music played softly in the background, just loud enough to keep Rogue's tinnitus at bay, which had been plaguing her almost non-stop ever since she lost her arm. There were times Rogue felt sure that she would have a better handle on her stress levels right now if it weren't for the news they'd gotten about the Cure wearing off.
She sighed. "Aunt Carrie is coming over tomorrow."
"Hmm, that came up fast, didn't it?"
"Too fast. Ugh, I can't believe she's going to be with us for a whole year." Rogue huffed. "I don't want to live with her again. It was bad enough the first time."
"Were you actually living with her the first time or—"
"Semantics! May as well have been living with me and Mama!" Even as she mentioned her mother, Rogue regretted it. There was a package from her sitting unopened at the bottom of Rogue's wardrobe. If her mother thought she could buy back her love with presents…
"Well, there's a lot more people here this time," Gambit replied, which irked Rogue just a little, purely because he was being reasonable. "She'll get spread around a bit."
"But I'm her niece. She'll always come back to me. It's already happened once." Rogue lifted her head off Gambit's chest and laid back on the pillow beside him instead. "Thought I'd never see her again after Owen and Mama kicked me out, and next thing I know she's ringing me up wanting to reunite. Ugh."
Gambit's only response was to cuddle into her.
"And just because we're getting along better does not mean I want her moving in," Rogue went on. "Small doses! Small ones!"
Gambit began kissing the back of her neck.
"It's only happening because I lost my arm." Rogue glared at the bedside table, which had the audacity to be the first thing in her line of sight. "None of this, 'we think it would be good to have an occupation therapist on staff' nonsense. It only got arranged after my arm was blown up."
Gambit paused in his kissing and lifted his head to look at her. "Didn't Carrie and Dr Ashton only know each other a few weeks before—"
"Shut up."
"Ah." Gambit looked at Rogue a moment longer, gave a half shrug, and went back to kissing her neck.
Rogue laid in sullen silence as Gambit's hand slid up along her hip.
"I suppose you think I'm being ungrateful. I should be happy I have a family member who's completely okay with my mutant status, whatever the hell that's going to end up being. Not only that, but wants to be supportive and learn more about mutation so she can be more professionally inclusive. I should be glad. Honoured. Pleased. Happy. Thrilled to pieces. Very few people are ever as lucky as I am." Rogue snorted. "Lucky my ass." She turned her head to glare up at Gambit. "And if you make one remark about my ass being lucky—"
"Oh, I'm the lucky one tonight, ma chère."
There was something in the way he spoke, the tone of voice, the look in his brown and white eyes, that calmed the flames of her growing anger.
"I'm sorry. We've been having a wonderful evening and I'm spoiling it," she said softly.
Gambit kissed her lips gently.
"It's okay," he said. "You've had a lot on your mind."
"I always have a lot on my mind these days. I wish it would shut up. I wish this stupid tinnitus would go away. I wish… I wish I could hear silence again. I'm so tired of having to have the radio on all the time." She sighed. "And I'm sure you're tired of hearing me rant all the time." Her eyes narrowed at him. "Don't you dare tell me you deserve it."
She knew Gambit felt guilty about blowing up her arm and blamed himself. She blamed herself for not respecting his wishes and staying away from him when she knew that's what he wanted, to avoid exactly what ended up happening.
"Ma chère, you are my girlfriend, and my best friend, and that means I'm always here for you, through thick and thin," Gambit replied, gently but firmly. "And if you need me to listen while you rant and rave, then I will listen."
"Can't be nice listening."
He gave a half shrug. "There's nothing nice about what's been happening."
"Except my aunt is coming over to be supportive and help and wants to do all the things we wish more baseline humans would do, and I'm just being an ungrateful brat who wants nothing to do with her."
Gambit cracked a smile. "Aw, chère, nothing wrong about being apprehensive about her staying with us. 'Specially when she's stayed with you before and it made you miserable."
Rogue sighed and cuddled into him. "Thanks for being so understanding."
"Anytime, ma chère, anytime."
Rogue watched as her Aunt Carrie drove down the driveway of the Xavier estate to the garage. Behind Carrie's small, modest blue car was a bike trailer carrying her motorcycle. As Carrie approached, Rogue moved to direct her to one of the few spaces they had left. One of these days they were either going to have to expand the garage or start making people park outside.
"Rogue, it's wonderful to see you," Carrie said as she got out of the car.
"It's good to see you too," Rogue replied, a smile plastered on her face. "May I help you with your luggage?"
"Yes, please." Carrie opened up the back door of her car and pulled out a large suitcase with wheels. She extended the handle and gave it to Rogue, then she headed around to the other side of the car to take out a second, identical suitcase, and her handbag from the front seat. "Okay, that's everything."
"Alright," Rogue said as Carrie locked the car. "I'll show you to your room."
She led the way out of the garage and down the hall towards the elevator. As they walked, Rogue noticed Carrie looking around. Of course, anyone who was new always did, but Rogue couldn't help but wonder if her aunt was looking for things to criticise.
"May I ask how your arm has been or are you sick of being asked that?" Carrie asked as they walked.
Rogue glanced at the two inches of arm below her shoulder that was all that remained of her right arm. It was lightly bandaged.
"I am sick of being asked that, but that's also partly because it's hard to think of anything else but." Rogue sighed. "I'm functioning right now, which is the main thing. I'm still on painkillers, but the good news is that the ones I'm on at the moment actually help with the phantom pains as well."
"Have the phantom pains been bad?"
"Bad enough to keep me up at night. You wouldn't think that a limb that isn't there could hurt so much. It's stupid," Rogue said disgustedly. "Feels like it's burning all over again."
Carrie nodded as they stopped in front of the elevator. Rogue let go of her aunt's suitcase to press the button.
"Well, then," Carrie said. "I won't make you relive that by telling me about anymore now. Have you decided on a new lastname yet?"
Rogue blinked in surprise as the elevator doors opened. She laughed softly as they stepped inside. "My plan to change my name is currently on hold. I'd like to be able to fill out the paperwork and sign my name."
"Ah, good point. Well, this gives you more time to think about it." Carrie gestured to the elevator buttons. "Which floor are we going to?"
"Two. Staff are on the same floor as the male students," Rogue replied and Carrie pressed in the button for the second floor. "Female students are on the third floor. The third floor isn't as big as the first and second."
"I see."
"The ground floor is part garage, part storage," Rogue went on as the elevator rose. "The first floor is where the classrooms, kitchens, dining hall, all that jazz is. The fourth floor is storage and Storm's bedroom. And the fifth floor is just a stairwell that goes to the roof." She thought about that for a moment. "I think that's the only place that isn't wheelchair accessible. I guess Professor Xavier didn't think it was worth the effort."
Carrie nodded as the elevator doors opened. "What about the medlab? First floor?"
"Ah, no. That's in the subbasement," Rogue replied as they stepped into the hallway. "I'm sure Storm will want to give you a tour of the subbasement herself."
"Hmm. Yes, speaking of Storm, she did ask me to meet with her when I arrived."
"At this hour she's probably in the greenhouse. I'll show you the way after we get to your room."
"That would be appreciated, thank you."
Rogue led the way through the hallways. "That way is basically all boys rooms." "You can see the stairs over there." "This is the boys rec room."
"And here's the staff area," Rogue went on. "That's my room and this…" she walked down several doors further, "is yours. Just like parking spaces, we're running out of bedrooms too."
Carrie opened up the door that Rogue had indicated and looked around. It was bare, but for the furniture: bed, bedside table, dresser, wardrobe, desk and chair. "This will do nicely. Thank you."
"You're welcome," Rogue said as she set the suitcase beside the wall. "Did you want to see Storm now, or after you've had a chance to freshen up?"
"I think now would be best," Carrie said as she placed her handbag on the desk.
"Alright." Rogue started to head to the door, then stopped and looked back at her aunt. "Um, Aunt Carrie?"
"Yes?" Carrie asked expectantly.
"I need to tell you about how I lost my arm," Rogue said and her body tensed for the fight she expected to have over this. "Everyone here knows, so sooner or later you're going to hear the details. but I think it's better if you get them straight from me."
Carrie cocked her head curiously. "Well, I have to admit I was curious by your statement that you lost it through an accident involving mutant powers, but I quite understand why you wouldn't want to go around telling everyone even that much. Is the rest of the story that important? In my experience working with amputees, how they lost their limb or limbs is far less important than how they live without them."
"Like I said, sooner or later you're going to hear the details, there's no way to avoid it in a place like this," Rogue replied, both irritated at having to press the point and happy her aunt gave her an out. "There are certain… I just don't want you passing judgement based on hearsay."
"I see." Carrie looked like she wanted to comment further, but rather than arguing the point as Rogue half-expected, she simply said: "Proceed."
"The mutant who blew up my arm was Remy. He and I met while we were in the line to get the Cure. He used to be able to control his powers, but then he went through this really stressful event, and that caused his powers to flare up."
Gambit had told her the specifics about that stressful event a couple of months ago. She was the only one at the school who knew about his almost marriage and the attempt on his life, and no one was going to hear about it from her.
"Any time he felt intense emotion he would charge something up with kinetic energy, If it was a really small charge, it would explode right away. Fortunately with the bigger ones he was often able to remove the charge before it exploded," Rogue went on. "And well, basically, he and i got really close. We pretty much clicked instantly. We had this whole flirtation thing going. It got to the point where we would've started dating if it weren't for his mutation."
Carrie said nothing. Rogue hated that she couldn't tell what her aunt was thinking.
"And Remy knew he was getting too emotionally close to me, so he tried to break things off." Rogue still felt irritated about that, for multiple reasons. "He moved to the old boathouse on the estate. And I knew why he left. I'd known for months that was why he was restoring the place and I…" Rogue took a deep breath. "I was stupid and I chased after him, and I… I… I took his hand. And he did something that he'd never done before and charged up living matter."
Rogue's next words came out in a rush:
"And he tried to remove the charge, but he was so stressed and anxious and afraid that he couldn't, so I took my arm away before he could charge any more of my body up and let it explode. And he really didn't mean to do it. Honestly! I know how it sounds to say that my boyfriend blew up my arm because he loves me. I know exactly how that sounds, but it really was an accident and he really did try to prevent it from happening. And he hasn't been gaslighting me when I say that it was my fault for being stupid and chasing after him when I knew he was trying to break things off, and you can ask him for yourself 'cause the way he tells it, it's all his fault for not being more clear when he left because he just took off without saying anything."
"Okay, Rogue," Carrie said softly when her niece finally stopped to take a breath. "Thank you for letting me know. I can see why you would think I may be concerned about you dating the one who blew up your arm."
"There's lots of evidence that—"
Carrie held up her hand. "I promise that I will give your boyfriend, this Remy, the benefit of the doubt. When do I get to meet him?"
Rogue stared hard at her aunt. This conversation was not going the way she expected and now she was dreading Aunt Carrie and Remy meeting even more than she was before. "He's on kitchen duty for dinner tonight, so if we don't see him before, you'll definitely get to meet him then. Well, after he joins us at the table."
"Alright. I look forward to it." Carrie eyed her niece for a moment, then a faint smile appeared on her face. "Did you happen to get your mama's package?"
Rogue scowled. "Yes. I got it. It's buried in the bottom of my wardrobe. Unopened."
"Ah. Well, at least you received it, and it didn't get lost in the mail." Carrie gestured to the door. "Shall we go see Storm now?"
"Sure." Rogue turned hard on her heel. "She's got a lot of nerve, sending me stuff. Just because I helped get that stupid DNA test sorted does not mean she can just send me whatever."
Carrie placidly followed her niece as she stalked down the hallway.
"And I don't care if she does regret kicking me out now that she knows Owen was sleeping around with other women. Doesn't change what happened!" Rogue continued to rant as they headed back to the elevator. "Kicked me out like trash. I ought to put her stupid package in the trash."
Rogue slammed her hand down on the elevator button. It promptly opened. Carrie followed her inside.
"And why haven't you?" Carrie asked mildly as Rogue pressed the 'G' button.
Rogue didn't reply. She didn't have an answer. She'd thought about throwing out the parcel on several occasions, but hadn't yet been able to follow through on it. She had no idea why.
"I just haven't," Rogue said finally, then frowned as a thought occurred to her. "Oh, I get it, you want me to give Mama a second chance. That's why you brought up the package after I just asked you to give Remy a chance."
Carrie raised her eyebrows. "Don't be absurd. The two situations are not comparable. Remy and I have not even met. Everything I know about him is second hand. He hasn't had the opportunity to get a first chance from me. You and Priscilla have an existing relationship of long standing, during which there was a gross betrayal of trust."
Rogue fell silent as the elevator opened its doors to the ground floor.
"Now, don't get me wrong," Carrie continued as Rogue led the way through the ground floor to the back door, "I would love for you and Priscilla to reconcile. But that isn't up to me."
"She doesn't deserve forgiveness," Rogue muttered. She still felt a little suspicious, though not as much as she was when the idea of emotional blackmail first popped into her head.
"Of course not. No one does. If we deserved forgiveness, we wouldn't have done the wrong thing in the first place and there'd be no need for it," Carrie said. "Forgiveness is a tremendous gift which should never be taken for granted."
Rogue didn't know what to say to that, so she just continued walking down the garden path towards the green house.
"The gardens are lovely," Carrie said when the silence had dragged out.
"Yeah, they are," Rogue replied a bit more sharply than she intended. "Storm puts a lot of work into them. I mean, she has a lot of help, obviously. They're a bit too extensive for one person."
"Of course."
They finally arrived at the green house and Rogue let them in. As expected, Storm was inside, and she looked up from her plant inspection as they came in.
"Ah, Rogue," Storm said as she walked over to them, and her gaze turned to Carrie. "And you must be Carrie Ward. It's a pleasure to finally meet you in person."
"Yes, and you must be Ororo Monore?" Carrie replied, and at Storm's slight nod added: "It's a pleasure to finally meet you too."
"Just let me finish up here, and we can sort out the paperwork," Storm said, and headed back to her plants. "I won't be long. How was your trip here?"
"Fortunately uneventful."
The dining hall was mostly empty, as was expected for the summer. The occupied tables were more spread out as the kids decided to sit wherever they wanted. Only one of the two tables the staff usually used were occupied.
Rogue walked up to the buffet and grabbed a plate, which she slid on the counter when she got there. She sniffed appreciatively at the dishes laid out on the buffet.
"Hey, chère," Gambit greeted her from the other side of the buffet.
Rogue smiled up at him. As usual he was wearing dark sunglasses. Gambit hated seeing his own reflection since taking Dr Ashton's Cure variant had changed the colour of his eyes to brown and white. Sometimes Rogue was happy for him, that he knew for sure that his true eye colour would come back and that he could avoid looking at the wrong eyes in the meantime. Other times Rogue got angry and jealous about it. She still hated seeing her own reflection and avoided looking at mirrors.
"I see you've been experimenting with new recipes again," she said as she scooped some salad onto her plate.
"Always," Gambit replied with a grin. "How's things go with your aunt? Or is now not the time to ask?"
"Heh." Rogue eyed the ingredients on Gambit's homemade salad dressing before pouring a little on her salad. "It was okay. I told her about you blowing up my arm. She agreed to give you the benefit of the doubt."
Gambit nodded as Rogue side-stepped down the buffet to the next offering and slid her plate along with her. "Good to know."
It was hard to tell, because Gambit was working on a 24-hour poker face as part of his efforts to get his emotions (and subsequently his powers) under control, but Rogue had the impression that Gambit didn't really care what Carrie thought of him. Rogue didn't think she cared either, except that she did, and she had no idea why it was important to her. The only explanation she could come up with was that she didn't want to deal with Aunt Carrie's disapproval. She got quite enough of that as a kid.
Rogue finished filling up her plate, then added a fork and one of the school's latest additions to the cutlery, a rocker knife. She had bought herself one early on so she could cut her own food, and then Storm made the decision to acquire more and keep them with the rest of the cutlery. This had the benefit of helping any future residents who might temporarily (or permanently) lose the use of a hand, and also meant that Rogue wouldn't have to carry her own rocker knife through the mansion to every meal.
She headed to the staff table and took a seat. As the others joined her, the seat to the right of her was kept empty. Her aunt sat two places down next to Dr Ashton and Logan. Morph was across from her. Kurt took the seat furtherest away from Carrie, and Rogue was momentarily envious. The only way she could've deliberately taken that seat was if it was the only one left, or if she managed to convince everyone that she was just giving her aunt a chance to get to know other people.
Morph, Jubilee, Bobby, Pyro, Spyke, and Storm soon joined them. Rogue caught Pyro eyeing Carrie the same way he eyed all the baseline human staff at the school. There was a lot more of them these days.
There was no doubt that, being new, Carrie was the popular one at the table. Just about everyone wanted to chat with her.
"Rogue introduced us to Bagh-Chal," Logan said to her. "Maybe we can play some time?"
"Oh, certainly," Carrie replied, looking pleased, and smiled at Rogue. "We should actually play some time. We never did get to."
"Sure, that would be great," Rogue replied, then nodded her head at Logan. "He's really good at it though. Way better than the rest of us."
Logan shrugged that off. When the subject of the Nepalese game that Carrie had given Rogue at the beginning of the year had been temporarily exhausted, the conversation moved on to the webseries they had going.
"We got our own studio," Morph said excitedly, having morphed into a rosy-cheeked boy. "Okay, well, actually it's a factory bay we've converted into a studio, but details. We just finished fitting it out. It is awesome and I can't wait to start filming!" He bounced lightly on his seat.
"Well, congratulations," Carrie said, eyeing Morph with faint amusement.
"Better yet," Bobby said. "We got a sponsor: Forge Industries. Okay, well, technically, it's a subdivision, DM Electronics, that's sponsoring us."
"That's DM as in Distinguishable Magic," Morph said as he transformed into Gandulf, "not Dungeon Master," pictures of 20-sided dice appeared over his robes, "which is what I really hoped it would be." He turned back into himself with a grin.
"Yeah, I never got that," Jubilee said. "I mean, why would you call your company 'Distinguishable Magic Electronics'? Irony?"
"'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic'," said Storm. "It is a quote by… I forget…"
"Arthur C Clarke," said Dr Ashton.
"Ah, thank you." Storm gave Dr Ashton a nod and looked back at Jubilee. "It is a reference to that quote."
"Shouldn't it be 'indistinguishable' then?" Jubilee asked. "Isn't Forge underselling himself by calling it 'DM' rather than 'IM'?"
"I don't think so," said Bobby. "DM Electronics does home appliances and computers and TV and phones and all that stuff that heaps of other companies do too. I think he's just being honest and admitting that nothing that DM Electronics produces is going to seem like magic to anyone."
"Hmm." Jubilee pondered for a moment. "I can accept this explanation."
At that moment, Gambit arrived and he took the last seat, the one on Rogue's right hand side.
"Remy!" Jubilee said and pointed her fork at him. "This lasagna is awesome. Do not change the recipe."
Gambit's eyebrows appeared from under his sunglasses. "Not going to change the recipe. Try another one maybe…"
"No need! This is the perfect lasagna!"
"It is pretty good," Rogue said with a nod, and murmurs of agreement from several others followed her.
"Okay, I'll put it in the favourites list," Gambit said, sounding amused, then looked towards Carrie. "Hi, I'm Remy."
A strained silence broke out at the table.
"Nice to meet you, Remy, I'm Carrie," she replied. "I understand you're responsible for most dinners here?"
"That's right. For…" Gambit considered for a moment, "actually it would have to be a year now. I do the special occasions too."
"Do you enjoy cooking?"
"Yeah."
Carrie nodded. "I do too."
Rogue froze in the middle of cutting up her last piece of lasagna. She'd completely forgotten that.
"Oh cool," Jubilee said excitedly. "Two people making awesome food. You are going to be going on the kitchen duty roster, right?"
Carrie looked faintly amused. "Yes, and the household chores as well."
Rogue's hand slowly began resuming rocking her knife back and forth across that one bit of pasta that had been at the edge of the pan and wouldn't break easily. Visions of a passive aggressive kitchen duty cooking competition played out across her mind.
The conversation segued into a brief discussion of the various chore rosters: kitchen duty, the lesser-discussed dining and kitchen clean up duty (everyone loved it when Gambit was on cooking, except those who were rostered to clean up after), general clean up duty, and grounds duty. Not all the staff did everything: Storm was always rostered onto grounds and never did general clean up.
"Hey, Storm," Bobby said as he sat back in his chair, his empty plate on the table in front of him, "did you end up talking to Emma Frost today?"
"I did, yes," Storm replied.
"We still going to do those interschool competitions?"
"Yes, that is still going ahead," Storm said with a nod.
"How are the repairs going, did she say?" Jubilee asked.
"She said they were 'on schedule' and I did not feel the need to enquire further." Storm looked towards Carrie. "Emma Frost runs the Massachusetts Academy. It's a private school that has some mutant students, and was one of the schools that the Reavers decided to bomb last month."
Carrie raised her eyebrows. "I see."
Rogue shook her head. The Reavers had gotten together and spent a day bombing one school in every US state. Bombs were set in stairwells, science labs that weren't accessible to wheelchair users, doorways that were too narrow, heavy doors, and in any other place that the Reavers had decided were unacceptable. They'd followed up with a video where they claimed credit and put schools on notice with a remark that the schools that had been bombed "have no excuse not to make their campus accessible now."
Bayville High, the school closest to Xaviers, was the New York State school to get bombed. As far as Rogue knew, repairs hadn't even started yet.
There were times where Rogue wondered if they would ever be rid of the Reavers.